Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

In The Invisible Line, Daniel Sharfstein follows three families, from the Revolutionary Era up to the Civil Rights movement, as they straddle the color line and change their racial identification from black to white. While previous stories of "passing" have focused on individuals' struggles to redefine themselves, Sharfstein's subjects managed to defy the legal definitions of race within their own communities. For members of the Gibson, Spencer, and Wall families, what mattered most was the ways that their neighbors treated them in spite of their racial differences.Daniel Sharfstein teaches at Vanderbilt University Law School, focusing on the legal history of race in the United States. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.Recorded On: Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Senator Mikulski, the longest-serving woman in the U.S. Senate, talks about "Women of the Senate: Making History, Changing History."Recorded On: Sunday, March 20, 2011

The Greater Baltimore Metropolitan Community celebrates the 100th anniversary of one of the nation's greatest public servants and fellow citizens, Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. As director of the NAACP Washington Bureau from 1950 to 1978, Mitchell led the struggle for passage of the civil rights laws.Professor Denton L. Watson, author of Lion in the Lobby: Clarence Mitchell, Jr.'s Struggle for the Passage of Civil Rights Laws, is the featured speaker. Professor Watson is a historical documentary editor and member of the American Studies faculty at SUNY College at Old Westbury on Long Island, New York. He is editing a seven-volume edition of The Papers of Clarence Mitchell Jr. and of the NAACP Washington Bureau. Recorded On: Monday, March 7, 2011

From street parades to nightclubs, from church houses to dance halls, music is key to New Orleans' uniqueness. Robert Cataliotti, producer of the new recording, Classic Sounds of New Orleans, talks about the music of New Orleans.Drawn from the Smithsonian Folkways repository of classic New Orleans sounds, this collection features groups such as the Eureka Brass Band, Lonnie Johnson, Snooks Eaglin, Champion Jack Dupree, Baby Dodds, and the Mardi Gras Indians. Dr. Cataliotti teaches in the Department of Humanities at Coppin State University.Recorded On: Sunday, February 27, 2011

Four great migrations defined the history of black people in America: the Middle Passage, the violent removal of Africans to the east coast of North America; the relocation of one million slaves to the interior of the antebellum South; the movement of more than six million blacks to the industrial cities of the north and west a century later; and since the late 1960s, the arrival of black immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and Europe. Ira Berlin's account of these passages evokes both the terrible price and the moving triumphs of a people forcibly and then willingly migrating to America.Ira Berlin is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maryland. His many books include Slaves Without Masters, Generation of Captivity, and Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.Recorded On: Wednesday, February 23, 2011

As part of Black History Month, Paul Coates and Natalie Stokes-Peters talk about the rich history of Black Classic Press and the future for black writers, readers and books.Recorded On: Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The Indignant Generation is the first narrative history of the neglected but essential period of African American literature between the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights era. Writers such as Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry, and James Baldwin rose to prominence during this period, but little attention has been paid to the political and artistic milieu in which they produced their greatest works.Looking at the tumultuous decades surrounding World War II, Jackson restores the "indignant" quality to a generation of African American writers shaped by Jim Crow segregation, the great Depression, the growth of American communism, and an international wave of decolonization. He also reveals how artistic collectives in New York, Chicago, and Washington fostered a sense of destiny and belonging among diverse and disenchanted peoples.Fully exploring the cadre of key African American writers who triumphed in spite of segregation, The Indignant Generation paints a vivid portrait o

No other question is more important to city-loving parents than where to send their child to school. For years, the prevailing wisdom was that you had to leave the city to get a good education for your children.Jacqueline Edelberg and a group of like-minded moms in the East Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago refused to accept that wisdom. Instead, they worked in partnership with the principal of their local public school to create community partnerships, facility improvements, curriculum enhancements, and marketing activities that turned their neighborhood public school into an asset that anchored families in the community.Jacqueline will share her experiences in Chicago and reflections on the progress Baltimore is making to ensure that all children have a great school to walk to.Recorded On: Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The infamous Reverend Curtis Black's sordid past is no secret. But when his long-time mistress and mother of his illegitimate two-year-old daughter dies, Black and his wife Charlotte have no choice but to raise the child together. Charlotte resents Curtina and takes her emotions out on the young girl. When confronted about her behavior, Charlotte starts spending time away from home, getting closer to her ex-boyfriend. Fans of faith-based series will love the sinful shenanigans that ensue.Kimberla Lawson Roby has published 14 novels, including Be Careful What You Pray For, A Deep Dark Secret, and The Best of Everything. Love, Honor, and Betray is the seventh in the Reverend Curtis Black series.www.kimroby.com/bookshelf.phpRecorded On: Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Rev. John Arthur Nunes, president and CEO of Lutheran World Relief, delivers the King Commemorative Lecture. Rev. Nunes speaks on "Justice, Dignity and Peace: How Martin Luther King's Legacy Informs International Development." He received an honorary doctorate from Concordia University, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is a Ph.D. candidate at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. Rev. Nunes is the author of Voices from the City: Issues and Image of Urban Preaching. Recorded On: Saturday, January 15, 2011

In The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson chronicles the decades-long migration of African Americans from the South to the North and West through the stories of three individuals and their families. Over a decade in the writing and research, and drawing on archival materials and more than 1,200 interviews, Wilkerson traces the lives of Ida Mae Gladney, George Starling, and Robert Foster, from their difficult beginnings in the South, to their critical decisions to leave and look for a better life in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.Isabel Wilkerson won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for her feature writing in The New York Times, making her the first African American woman to receive a journalism Pulitzer. She has also won a George S. Polk Award, a Guggenheim Fellowhip, and a Journalist of the Year award from the National Association of Black Journalists. She is Professor of Journalism and Director of Narrative Nonfiction at Boston University.Recorded On: Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Shiori was born in Tokyo, Japan, six years after the end of World War II. She describes herself as hapa, half-American, half-Japanese. In her first collection of poetry, she weaves memoir and historical record into a lyrical and moving portrait of post-war immigration to the United States.Shiori's work has appeared in Barrow Street, Cimarron Review, Frogpond, Hawai'i Review, and other publications. Her awards include the Washington Square Review, James Still and Thomas Merton poetry prizes. A contributing editor for the Baltimore Review, she teaches creative writing and journalism at Coppin State University.Recorded On: Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Glass House of Dreams celebrates Baltimore's landmark Victorian glass palace, the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in historic Druid Hill Park. An extensive collection of original lithographic postcards illustrate the history of this 1888 botanical conservatory, the second oldest glass house in America. Photographs by David Simpson capture the elegance of this architectural gem and the beauty of its individual plants and flowers.Margaret "Peggy" Stansbury is founder of the non-profit Baltimore Conservatory Association that worked with the City to bring this Victorian jewel back to life. The original Palm House featuring 175 glass windows, many of them curved, is once again packed with exotic flora from around the world.Recorded On: Sunday, December 12, 2010

This historic novel is a compelling story about the complex and courageous lives of three young African American women who leave behind the racism and oppression of the South for a new life in Harlem. They work long hours at dangerous jobs in war plants and encounter war time espionage, death and betrayal.Frances Beckles, editor, journalist, and retired college professor, grew up in Harlem. Hop the A Train is based on her family's vivid accounts of how their lives were indelibly changed by the events of World War II. Beckles is the author of Twenty Black Women: Profiles of African American Maryland Women.Recorded On: Tuesday, December 7, 2010

This annual Cave Canem poetry reading at the Pratt features Thomas Sayers Ellis reading from his new collection, Skin, Inc.: Identity Repair Poems. Ellis is known in the poetry community as a literary activist and innovator, one whose poems "resist limitations and rigorously embrace wholeness." His first full-length collection, The Maverick Room, won the John C. Zacharis First Book Award from Ploughshares. Ellis teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and in the Lesley University low-residency MFA program, and he is a faculty member of Cave Canem.Other Cave Canem poets who will be reading with Ellis:R. Dwayne Betts, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Bettina Judd, Kateema Lee, Robin Coste Lewis, Carlo Paul, Kamau Rucker, and Lamar Wilson.Hosted by Reginald Harris of Poets House. Recorded On: Sunday, December 5, 2010

Set against the backdrops of the Jim Crow South, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights era, Glorious blends fact and faction in telling the story of Easter Venetta Bartlett, a fictional Harlem Renaissance writer. Her tumultuous path to success, ruin, and ultimately revival offers a candid and true portrait of the American experience in all its beauty and cruelty.Bernice McFadden is the author of six novels, including Sugar and Nowhere is a Place, which was a Washington Post Best Fiction title for 2006. She is a two time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist for fiction, as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Recorded On: Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Susan Fales-Hill's new novel takes us on a comedic romp through the boardrooms, bedrooms and ballrooms of Manhattan and Paris. India, Abby, Esme, and Monique have been friends since their days at Manhattan's Sibley School for Girls. From the outside, these four women seem to be living ideal lives, yet each finds herself suddenly craving more.Susan Fales-Hill graduated from Harvard, wrote for The Cosby Show, and A Different World, and was co-creator and executive producer for the series Linc's. She is the author of the memoir, Always Wear Joy.Recorded On: Sunday, October 17, 2010

Jimmy Heath, an NEA Jazz Master, is widely recognized as one of the greats in jazz. A saxophonist, composer, arranger, and educator, Heath has known and played with many jazz giants  throughout his career: Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie, to name a few. In his autobiography, written with Joseph McLaren, Heath creates an extraordinary "dialogue" with musicians and family members, including his equally legendary brothers, Percy and Albert (Tootie). Heath directed the Jazz Studies master's degree program in performance at Queens College (CUNY).Recorded On: Thursday, November 18, 2010

In Under Their Thumb, Bill German discusses his ups and downs with the "world's greatest rock and roll band." He chronicles how he befriended the Stones (while just a teenager) and how he became the band's official historian for almost two decades.He traveled the world with them, stayed at their homes, and witnessed their concerts, recording sessions, and in-fights. German will share some of his humorous Stones anecdotes, as well as some never-before-seen photos.Bill German co-authored The Works with guitarist Ron Wood and wrote about the Stones for Rolling Stone and Spin.Recorded On: Tuesday, November 16, 2010

An annual seminar sponsored by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings.  For parents and teens: sessions include information on various financial assistance programs and scholarship opportunities, the college admissions process, and preparation for the SAT and other assessment tests.Recorded On: Monday, November 15, 2010