theblackbottom

I AM the youngest of 10 children in my family, and the only one born in the United States. My father was a municipal judge who fled Haiti during the Duvalier regime. He and my mother settled in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, but could not initially afford to bring over my four brothers and [...]

Interview by ANDREW GOLDMAN
Published: September 21, 2012
You once wrote that Michael Jackson stopped working with you because he felt threatened by the credit you were getting for his music. Considering he was never able to repeat the success he had with “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad,” how much credit do you deserve?
Well, What [...]

NPR
When NPR Books invited audience members to nominate and vote for their favorite Young Adult novels, more than 75,000 responded. The extraordinary outpouring speaks of the passion connecting the books section and its followers.
But in that response also lie the seeds of a defect, for lack of a better term, in the poll. The resulting [...]

Michigan Radio
By KATE WELLS
They called it the “Black Eden.”
From the 1920’s to 60’s, tens of thousands of African Americans poured into the resort town of Idlewild, Michigan. They came to escape steaming summers in segregated cities, and to see some of the greatest musicians of the age.

As Idlewild’s centennial summer comes to a close, 90-year-old [...]

By : Alexandra Zawia
At the Locarno Film Festival to pick up the Golden Leopard Honor Award, the singer and actor also talks about his fears of a Fourth Reich and why Mitt Romney shouldn’t be president.
Harry Belafonte, at 85, is as active and activist as ever. At the Locarno Film Festival, despite walking with [...]

by PAM FESSLER

President Obama’s speech to the National Urban League conference in New Orleans on Wednesday night coincides with a debate over the role of government in helping small businesses succeed.
Some black Americans say they have an especially hard time when it comes to owning and operating their own businesses.
On the northern edge of New [...]

NPR
by Amy Standen
July 23, 2012 from KQED
If there is a founding ethos in the world of high-tech startups, it’s this: The idea is everything. Facebook’s initial public offering might have seemed like the perfect illustration. A simple concept, conceived by a college student, became a $100 billion empire in just 8 years.
But if you look [...]

Uptown Magazine
By Rakia Reynolds
As the economy continues on its turbulent path, CEO builder Kimberly S. Reed is readying a new crop of entrepreneurs for their turn as gamechangers. With almost 15 years experience in professional and executive development, the managing partner of the Reed Development Group, LLC (RDG) has worked with Fortune 500 companies and [...]

Reniqua Allen is a freelance journalist and a Bernard L. Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation. I am a freelance journalist with over ten years experience producing and writing for various outlets on issues of race, class, politics, and popular culture.  I am currently a Bernard L. Schwartz fellow at the New [...]

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Western Michigan has a new top federal prosecutor.
Patrick Miles Jr. took the oath of office today at the federal courthouse in Grand Rapids. He’s a 44-year-old Grand Rapids lawyer who was nominated by President Barack Obama and recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
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