JULY 20, 2021 BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA WEEKLY DISPATCH By Leslie Fields-Cruz Artwork from Grab My Hand, a short film by Camrus Johnson, which is competing in this year’s PBS Short Film Festival. Don’t Miss Your Opportunity to Be a Winner For a decade, the PBS Short Film Festival has given public media audiences a …
JULY 13, 2021 BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA WEEKLY DISPATCH By Leslie Fields-Cruz The Hollywood Remake, for Better or Worse Am I the only one who is troubled by Hollywood’s tiresome penchant for blackfacing their old movies and TV shows (e.g., First Wives Club, Wonder Years)? I know summer is primetime for blockbuster movie releases, and …
July 6, 2021 BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA WEEKLY DISPATCH By Leslie Fields-Cruz Mission Possible: Support Independent Filmmakers this Summer One of the programs I look forward to each summer is the PBS Short Film Festival. Now in its 10th year, the festival is a great way to discover new independent BIPOC filmmakers, to view new stories from around …
JUNE 29, 2021 BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA WEEKLY DISPATCH By Leslie Fields-Cruz I Stand With Truth-Telling In Our Schools — Who’s With Me? In recent weeks, the national discourse over whether Critical Race Theory and The 1619 Project should be taught in public schools has come to a boil. The whole bruhaha feels like deja …
June 22, 2021 BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA WEEKLY DISPATCH By Leslie Fields-Cruz BPM team members, (l-r) Kat Walsh, Cheryl D. Fields, Leslie Fields-Cruz, and Diane Carr Joseph, at the Un(re)solved installation in Manhattan’s Battery Park. (Photo credit: Indira K. Langhum) Welcome to the Summer of Rebirth Ordinarily, spring is the season of rebirth. But …
June 15, 2021 BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA WEEKLY DISPATCH By Leslie Fields-Cruz Black Storytelling 155 Years After the Original Juneteenth In mid-June 1866, Black people in Texas were officially informed that former President Abraham Lincoln (by then deceased) had signed the Emancipation Proclamation two-and-a-half years earlier. For years after that, our people were forbidden to …
June 8, 2021 BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA WEEKLY DISPATCH By Leslie Fields-Cruz Feeling Hopeful About This Summer I want to start this week’s post by extending a warm thank you to all who showed up for last week’s BPM-NOVA workshop. When we began meeting with the NOVA team a few months ago, we were excited …
June 3, 2021 BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA WEEKLY DISPATCH SPECIAL EDITION By Leslie Fields-Cruz BPM Salutes the Life of Lewis Erskine Lewis Erskine (1957-2021) “[Lewis] was a master storyteller who edited with his whole heart.” — Denise Greene, director of programs, Black Public Media Black Public Media has learned that beloved editor …
June 1, 2021 BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA WEEKLY DISPATCH By Leslie Fields-Cruz There’s a Lot to Celebrate this Pride Month Last year this time, my team and I were struggling to re-engineer a summit we’d long planned to be an in-person affair into something that could be presented and attended virtually. Like BPM, NYC Pride, which for …
May 25, 2021 BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA WEEKLY DISPATCH By Leslie Fields-Cruz 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, U.S. Library of Congress/ Public Domain Commemorating What Some Would Have Us Forget For most of the past 100 years, the history of what happened on May 31-June 1, 1921 in Tulsa, Okla., has remained relatively unknown outside the …