Black

CHICAGO – One of the open secrets of Chicago is its horrible racist past, which remains like an echo. Playwright Joshua Allen has been exploring this theme in his Grand Boulevard Trilogy – the last chapter talking place during the infamous 1919 race riots – in Raven Theatre’s “The Prodigal Daughter.” For tickets and info, click TPD.

CHICAGO – Reflective and observational films … as if the audience is inside looking out along with the the characters … are very rare and takes a quality creator to pull off. One such film is “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” and it is written and directed by a quality creator, the poet-turned-filmmaker Raven Jackson.

CHICAGO – The City of Chicago, like a number of American cities, has gone through incredible transformations in the last 25 years. Whole neighborhoods left for dead during the white flight of the 1950s-70s have been gentrified and re-settled with luxury housing … often to the detriment of those who remained there throughout many difficult years.

CHICAGO – She was a pioneer in a broadcasting business at a time when it was mostly white and male. The incomparable Merri Dee was a fixture in Chicago media beginning in the 1960s, breaking barriers as a black woman TV personality and newscaster. She passed away in Chicago on March 16th, 2022, at age 85.

CHICAGO – On November 18th, 2020, the streaming service HBO Max premiered “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Reunion.” 30 years after the popular sitcom debuted, the primary cast got together to talk about the joys and foibles of developing family ties while creating and performing their characters in the show.

CHICAGO – The 2018-19 mayoral campaign in Chicago was a historic moment for the city, as the first woman of color (Lori Lightfoot) was elected. Director Steve James, of the legendary “Hoop Dreams,” takes on the events leading up to this history and beyond, in “City So Real.”

CHICAGO – One of the most influential documentary makers in film history is Chicagoan Steve James of Kartemquin Films. His lens has commented upon not only the seminal “Hoop Dreams” (1994), but “Stevie” (2002), “The Interrupters” (2011), the Roger Ebert bio doc “Life Itself” (2014) and the recent “America to Me.”

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on WBGR-FM (Monroe, Wisconsin) on June 11th, 2020, discussing new VOD releases “The King of Staten Island” and “Working Man.”

CHICAGO – How can we understand the day-to-day factors of men and women who continued to be judged by their skin color, economic circumstances, difficult jobs or gender fluidity, if we are not any of those categories? Our art can help us, as given a great example in the new film “Blindspotting.”

CHICAGO – If there are themes emerging in the 2018 film year, a couple of them are incorporated in Oakland, California, and African American identity. Like the recent “Black Panther” and “Sorry to Bother You,” the new film “Blindspotting” – written by and featuring Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal – involve those themes.