Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

What we don't know can hurt us and others -- and unconscious bias along with racial anxiety can unwittingly affect our responses and behavior. The examples revealed in provocative new research may surprise you: embedded stereotypes, it concludes, are experienced by people of color and whites alike. Understanding these biases is critical, especially for people in positions of power where critical decisions are made -- in the classroom, in the court room, and in the doctor's office.Rachel Godsil, Director of Research at the American Values Institute, and Alan Jenkins, Executive Director of The Opportunity Agenda, will present some of the most recent research and reports on this topic. This event is part of the "Talking About Race" series sponsored by Open Society Institute-Baltimore and the Pratt Library. Recorded On: Thursday, September 13, 2012

Millions of people got their introduction to Baltimore by watching "The Wire." The show examined some very difficult urban problems. For example, did Omar Little die of lead poisoning? Can children like Wallace and Dukie be saved? Tapping Into "The Wire" uses the television series as a road map for exploring connections between inner-city poverty and drug-related violence. Dr. Peter Beilenson and Patrick McGuire have written a compelling, highly-readable examination of urban policy and public health issues impacting cities across the nation. Each chapter recounts scenes from "The Wire," placing the characters' challenges into the broader context of public policy.Dr. Peter Beilenson is Howard County's health officer. From 1992 to 2005 he served as Baltimore City's health commissioner. Patrick McGuire is a journalist with more than 20 years' experience, fourteen of which were at the Baltimore Sun. Recorded On: Tuesday, September 11, 2012

The 2012 Mencken Memorial Lecture - "The Scopes Trial: How the Letter Kills," presented by Richard J. Schrader, professor emeritus of English, Boston College. Dr. Schrader taught at Princeton University and at Boston College from 1975 to 2009. His publications include H. L. Mencken: A Descriptive Bibliography (1998) and H. L. Mencken: A Documentary Volume (2000).This lecture was part of the Mencken Society annual meeting. Recorded On: Saturday, September 8, 2012

The poets will perform and join with the audience in a discussion of the differences and commonalities between poems made for the page and poems performed on the stage.Performance poet, writer, percussionist, and amateur photographer, Linda Joy Burke is a 2002 Distinguished Black Marylander Award recipient for Art from Towson University’s Office of Diversity; a 2004 Poetry for the People Baltimore Legacy Award recipient; and a 2007 Columbia Festival of the Arts Poetry Slam winner. She is currently a consulting editor to Little Patuxent Review and a Maryland State Arts Council coordinator for the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Competition. Burke’s poetry has appeared in numerous publications including Little Patuxent Review, Obsidian II, Beltway, Passager, Thy Mother’s Glass, Gargoyle 54, and When Divas Laugh. In 2011, she released the first in a series of chapbooks – Moods, Minds and Multitudes - Somewhere Between There and Here, a collection of photographs and poetry.Michelle Antoinette Nelson, also kno

Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy, the brash cop from Tana French's Faithful Place, is the Dublin murder squad's top detective -- and that's what puts the biggest case of the year into his hands. On one of the half-built, half-abandoned "luxury" developments that litter Ireland, Patrick Spain and his two young children are dead. His wife, Jenny, is in intensive care. At first, Scorcher and his rookie partner, Richie, think it's going to be an easy solve. But too many small things can't be explained. With her signature blend of police procedural and psychological thriller, Tana French's new novel, Broken Harbor, goes full throttle with a heinous crime.Tana French is the author of three bestselling novels, including the award-winning In the Woods. She has won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards for Best First Novel and the IVCA Clarion Award for Best Fiction. She trained as a professional actress at Trinity College, Dublin, and has worked in theatre, film and voiceover.  Recorded On: Thursday, August 2, 2012

More than five million young adults in the U.S. have only a high school education and are facing an "opportunity divide" that strands motivated workers outside the economic mainstream. In 2000, Gerald Chertavian, a visionary businessman, former Wall Street investment banker, and longtime mentor with the Big Brother program, created Year Up to address these challenges and help close the "opportunity divide."Year Up makes available extensive, job-focused education to underserved and marginalized urban young adults, ages 18-24, equipping them with the skills needed to enter a market starving for entry level talent. This intensive program, with a unique combination of technical and professional skills, provides training, mentorship, internships, and college credits, resulting in real jobs that corporations need to fill. Today, Year Up serves more than 1400 students annually in nine cities, including Baltimore. Recorded On: Saturday, July 28, 2012

In American Tapestry, Rachel Swarns unearths the hidden story of First Lady Michelle Obama's multiracial ancestors, a history that she herself did not know. It traces the black, white and multiracial forebears of the nation's first African American first lady back to the 19th century and reveals, for the first time, the identity of Mrs. Obama's white great-great-great grandfather, a man who remained hidden for more than a century in her family tree.Rachel L. Swarns has been a reporter for the New York Times since 1995. She has written about domestic policy and national politics, reporting on immigration, the presidential campaigns of 2004 and 2008, and First Lady Michelle Obama. She has also worked overseas for the Times, reporting from Russia, Cuba and southern Africa where she served as the Johannesburg bureau chief.  Recorded On: Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The Harcourts of Chevy Chase, Maryland, are a respectable middle class, middle-aged, mixed-race couple with four marriageable daughters. One of the daughters, Elizabeth (Bliss) moves back home in the aftermath of a messy divorce and begins working on her Ph.D. When her younger sister Diana becomes the star of a local Bachelorette-style reality television show, "The Virgin," Bliss gets drawn into the romantic drama that ensues.Susan Fales-Hill is the author of One Flight Up and the memoir, Always Wear Joy. A contributing editor at Essence, her writing has also appeared in Vogue, Town & Country, and Travel & Leisure.www.susanfales-hill.com Recorded On: Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Rachel Hennick tells the story of her father, Bill Hennick, a firefighter and paramedic in Baltimore, a city with the busiest fire stations in the U.S. As a child, Bill survives a terrible fire and later joins the still-segregated Baltimore City Fire Department at the height of the civil rights movement. He witnesses the race riots of 1968 and the ensuing infernos. After whites begin fleeing to the suburbs, Bill develops empathy for those left behind and tries to make a difference by becoming a paramedic. a service then in its infancy. He embarks on a spiritual journey as he risks his own life in caring for the poorest of the poor in Baltimore City. Recorded On: Wednesday, July 11, 2012

On January 1, 2009, Maggie and John Anderson, two African American professionals living in the Chicago suburbs, embarked on a year-long public pledge to "buy black." They thought that by taking a stand, the black community would be mobilized to exert its economic might. They thought that by exposing the issues, Americans of all races would see that economically empowering black neighborhoods benefits society as a whole. Instead, blacks refused to support their own, and others condemned their experiment. Drawing on economic research and social history, as well as her personal story, Maggie Anderson shows why the black economy continues to suffer and issues a call to action to all of us to do our part to reverse this trend.As CEO and cofounder of The Empowerment Experiment Foundation, Maggie Anderson has become the leader of a self-help economics movement that supports quality black businesses and urges consumers to proactively and publicly support them. Anderson received her JD and MBA from the University of C

When Barack Obama took office, he brought with him a new group of foreign policy advisers intent on carving out a new global role for America in the wake of the Bush administration's war in Iraq. James Mann, the author of Rise of the Vulcans, offers a definitive, even-handed account of the messier realities they've faced in implementing their policies.In The Obamians, Mann takes readers inside the back rooms of the White House, Pentagon, State Department and CIA to reveal the interplay of events, ideas, personalities and conflicts that drive America's foreign policy at the highest levels. At the heart of the struggle to enact a coherent and effective set of policies are the generational conflicts between the Democratic establishment (Robert Gates, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden) and Obama and his inner circle of largely unknown, remarkably youthful advisers who came of age after the Cold War had ended.A former newspaper reporter, foreign correspondent, and columnist, James Mann is now an author-in-residence at Jo

Tom Wilber has spent years interviewing key players and local residents on all sides of the Marcellus Shale issue. Running from southern West Virginia through eastern Ohio, across central and northeast Pennsylvania and into New York, the Marcellus Shale formation underlies a sparsely populated region that features striking landscapes, critical watersheds, and a struggling economic base. It also contains one of the world's largest supplies of natural gas, a resource that has been dismissed as inaccessible until recently. Technological developments that combine horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing -- "fracking" -- have removed physical and economic barriers to extracting gas from bedrock deep below the Appalachian basin. Under the Surface is the first book-length journalistic overview of shale gas development and the controversies surrounding it.Tom Wilber has been in the newspaper business for more than 20 years and has written for the Central New York Business Journal and the Watertown Daily Times. F

Syndicated columnist and political cartoonist Ted Rall revisits the rapid rise and dizzying fall of Barack Obama, and the emergence of the Tea Party and Occupy movements, and draws a startling conclusion: We the People weren't lied to. We lied to ourselves, both about Obama and the two-party system. We voted when we ought to have revolted. Ted Rall is the winner of numerous awards and honors, including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for Outstanding Coverage of the Problems of the Disadvantaged (twice) and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of 16 books, including Revenge of the Latchkey Kids, The Anti-American Manifesto, and To Afghanistan and Back. Outspoken and often controversial, Ted Rall is a frequent guest on Fox News, Al Jazeera, and Russia Today TV. Recorded On: Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Nikki Giovanni and Afaa Michael Weaver head a star-studded lineup of poets and writers reading and remembering Lucille Clifton on the 75th anniversary of her birth; readers include Melvin Brown, Sarah Browning, Linda Joy Burke, Hayes Davis, Teri Cross Davis, Joanne Gabbin, Reginald Harris, Bruce Jacobs and Jadi Omowale. Michael Glaser, Maryland Poet Laureate 2004-2009, will serve as emcee.Program Notes:WelcomeDr. Carla HaydenCEO, Enoch Pratt Free Library RemarksDr. Joanne GabbinExecutive DirectorFurious Flower Poetry CenterJames Madison UniversityReadingLynda KoolishPhotographer, Won't You Celebrate With Me?HostMichael GlaserReadingsSarah BrowningMelvin BrownTeri Cross DavisBruce JacobsLinda Joy BurkeMusicJohn Milton WesleyReadingsHayes DavisJadi OmowaleReginald HarrisAfaa Michael WeaverNikki Giovanni Recorded On: Thursday, June 14, 2012

Kendra Kopelke and Mary Azrael are co-editors of Passager journal, now in its 22nd year, and Passager Books, a press dedicated to older writers. They have published books by individual authors and co-edited two anthologies, most recently Burning Bright: Passager Celebrates 21 Years. Kendra Kopelke is author of four books of poems, including Hopper's Women, based on the paintings of Edward Hopper. She directs the MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts at the University of Baltimore. Mary Azrael is the author of three books of poems and an opera libretto, Lost Childhood, inspired by the life of Holocaust survivor Yehuda Nir. She teaches poetry in the Odyssey program at Johns Hopkins University, Homewood Campus. Read poems by Kendra Kopelke. Read a poem by Mary Azrael.Learn more about Passager. Recorded On: Wednesday, June 13, 2012

As a prelude to the Star-Spangled Sailabration, an international parade of ships sailing into Baltimore's Inner Harbor June 13 - 19, David Taylor talks about the U.S. Navy's official commemorative book of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. Taylor and coauthor Mark Collins Jenkins present historical recollections, personal reminiscences of the war, and detailed histories through vibrant images and intimate stories. The book features photographs, period illustrations, historic documents, maps, letters, ephemera, and artifacts, including fascinating finds from the Navy's most recent underwater excavation of the war's lost ships.David Taylor is the author of the award-winning books Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America; Ginseng, the Divine Root; and Success: Stories, a fiction collection. He has written and co-produced documentary films for PBS, the National Geographic Society, Discovery Channel, and the Smithsonian Channel, including "Soul of a People," which was nominated

Better Than Alright, an innovative collaboration with Essence and Ledisi in her writing debut, is a collection of Ledisi's personal photos, quotes, lyrics and richly detailed stories. Beginning with her performance at Essence's first Black Women in Hollywood luncheon in 2008, Ledisi charts her journey to acceptance of her beauty, talent and power, showing how she endured and ultimately triumphed in the music business, on her own terms.  Recorded On: Sunday, June 10, 2012

When Sargent "Sarge" Shriver, founder of the Peace Corps and architect of President Johnson's War on Poverty , died in 2011, thousands of tributes poured in from friends and strangers around the world. These tributes, which extolled the daily kindness and humanity of "a good man," moved Shriver's son Mark more than those lauding Sarge for his big-stage, headline-making accomplishments. After a lifetime searching for the path to his father's success in the public arena, Mark instead turns to a search for the secret of his father's joy, his devotion to others, and his sense of purpose. In A Good Man, he writes about his relationship with his father and his quest to understand the principles by which his father lived his extraordinary life.Mark Shriver is the senior vice president of U.S. Programs at Save the Children in Washington, D.C., and a former Maryland state legislator. He also started the Choice Program and served on the coalition to create the National Commission on Children and Disasters following the

The first of three volumnes of The Graphic Canon is a collection of the world's great literature interpreted by artists and illustrators including R. Crumb, Will Eisner, Molly Crabapple, and Gareth Hinds. Volume One: From The Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons covers the earliest iterature through the end of the 1700s. Russ Kick has edited the bestselling anthologies You Are Being Lied To and Everyone You Know is Wrong.The New York Times has dubbed Kick "an information archaeologist" and Utne Reader named him one of its "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World." Recorded On: Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Armed with only early boyhood memories, Lawrence P. Jackson begins his quest by setting out from his home in Baltimore for Pittsylvania County, Virginia, to try to find his late grandfather's old home by the railroad tracks in Blairs. My Father's Name tells the tale of the ensuing journey, at once a detective story and a moving historical memoir, uncovering the mixture of anguish and fulfillment that accompanies a venture into the ancestral past, specifically one tied to the history of slavery.Jackson's dogged research in libraries, census records, and courthouse registries enables him to trace his family to his grandfather's grandfather, a man who was born or sold into slavery but who, when Federal troops abandoned the South in 1877, was able to buy forty acres of land. Jackson reconstructs moments in the lives of his father's grandfather, Edward Jackson, and great-grandfather, Granville Hundley, and gives life to revealing narratives of Pittsylvania County, recalling both the horror of slavery and the later