Virginia Union professor publishes new book on gospel interpretation
Virginia Union University professor Dr. Yung Suk Kim recently released a book aimed at providing a comprehensive approach to studying the Gospels.
We’re No. 1!
A CNN report this week ranked our little ol’ River City as the top of their list of “America’s Best Towns to Visit 2024.”
Celtics are team for the ages
Along with being crowned the 2024 NBA champions, the Boston Celtics are now the all-time NBA kingpins.
Spirituals, freedom songs echo across generations, by Hazel Trice Edney
Every Sunday, millions of African Americans across the nation make their way to church anticipating relief from lives of financial woes, pressures at work, health concerns, family matters, race discrimination and inequities among other stressful issues of everyday life.
Kenyans can sprint, too
Track fans have grown accustomed to Kenyans excelling globally as long-distance runners, primarily 800 meters and up. Ferdinand Omanyala, 28, threatens to break that stereotype at the upcoming Paris Summer Games.
Rams add big man to roster
VCU basketball Coach Ryan Odom went searching for another big man and found what he was looking for in Arizona.
Former Pirate headed to Paris
Hampton University has celebrated Olympic medalists before and may again.
Injuries continue to plague WNBA teams; Sparks, Dream winless with key players sidelined
The injury bug has bitten several WNBA teams this season with both Los Angeles and Atlanta losing key players last week.
New exhibition explores race and community in Richmond
A new exhibition titled “Race in Richmond: Healing in Richmond” is on display at The Gallery in Main Street Station until June 30. The exhibit features two installations: “I See You – A Portrait Experience” and “I Hear You: A Speaking Experience.”
Richard hopes to ‘flip’ the script
African American women have made a huge impact on Olympic gymnastics, with Gabby Douglas, Jordan Chiles and Simone Biles as shining examples of their dazzling skill sets. Now it’s Frederick “Fred” Richard’s turn to try and draw more attention to the men’s competition.
Nine anti-war protesters due in court Friday for I-95 blockade
Nine protesters will go to trial Friday, June 21, at the John Marshall Courts building for blockading Interstate 95 in March as part of an anti-war protest against the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip.
Rickwood Field, 104 years old, to host MLB game honoring Black heritage
Birmingham’s Rickwood Field, now 104 years old, is back in the news.
Free community testing for COVID-19 continues
The Richmond and Henrico County health districts are offering testing at the following locations:
Gospel group releases first new music in nearly 50 years
She made a single gospel soul record in the 1970s with her brothers, when they were all teenagers. Then Annie Brown Caldwell moved on with her life. Decades later, she was running a clothing store in a tiny Mississippi town and singing on weekends with her husband and children when she got a call from a label founded by David Byrne. They wanted to add a single from her first band, the Staples Jr. Singers, to a compilation record. That 2019 call led to more — the Luaka Bop label reissued the band’s 1975 record “When Do We Get Paid,” drawing rave reviews in 2022 for its raw sound and mix of blues, funk and soul. And soon the Brown siblings, now in their 60s, found themselves on a course that would make any rising pop star jealous. In the past four years, they flew for the first time, toured Europe four times and played hipster clubs like Brooklyn’s Baby’s All Right. And, finally last year, they saw a performance by Mavis Staples, whose group The Staple Singers inspired their own early sound with genre-busting, socially conscious Stax Records hits. Also a band of siblings, they covered several of their songs. “It’s been a dream come true,” said Brown Caldwell, who was 11 when she and R.C. and Edward, who were 12 and 13, co-founded The Staples Jr. Singers in 1967. They started playing in the church where their mother was a preacher and father a deacon, and toured by van around the South. And on Friday, the Browns are releasing “Searching,” their first batch of new songs in nearly 50 years, and gearing up for a tour in July to the Roskilde festival in Denmark as well as the Netherlands, Slovakia and Germany. “It’s a blessing,” Brown Caldwell said. “It feels good. We are getting older and it seems the Lord just now is blessing our youth like it’s brand new again.” Their resurgence began with a record collector who stumbled on their first single in a Midwest thrift store and bought it for $1. Greg Belson, whose gospel collection fills three rooms in Los Angeles, was intrigued that the band’s name was so similar to The Staple Singers. He put “We Got a Race to Run” on a portable turntable he often brings with him, and was struck by their sound: “It sat completely in the wheelhouse of what I look for, which is specifically gospel with a soulful tinge, rather than what I would say more classical church-based gospel,” Belson said. Yale Evelev, the president of Luaka Bop, heard Belson’s radio show and pulled from his collection for a compilation of 1970s gospel soul songs called “The Time For Peace Is Now.” He wanted to include the Staples Jr. Singers single, but first he had to find the band. He figured out that Annie Brown was now Annie Caldwell, and called all seven listed in Mississippi. Like Belson, Evelev was attracted to a gospel sound that isn’t heard much on the radio these days. “These are soul records really,” he said. “Soul records with a message. That message imbues the performance with a certain underlying intensity and honesty.” He reached Brown Caldwell on the last call. “I never believed that this record would come up again,” Brown Caldwell said. “Forreal though. Is this for real?” She agreed to put the single out but her brothers were initially resistant, and they balked at reissuing “When Do We Get Paid.” Only a few hundred original copies of the record exist, one of which Belson bought off a Milwaukee collector for $600. “There was a lot of family drama that was happening that had existed for a long time,” Evelev said. “We kind of ended up in the middle of it, and it was a lot of back and forth and a
Talks of mandated national service, by Clarence Page
Don’t get nervous, young folks, but talk about a national service mandate has been bubbling up again in Washington.
40 acres and a Lie
40 Acres and a Lie tells the history of an often-misunderstood government program that gave formerly enslaved people land titles after the Civil War. A year and a half later, almost all the land had been taken back.
Longtime Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler, who was accused of sexual abuse, dies at 94
Paul Pressler, a leading figure of the Southern Baptist Convention who was accused of sexually abusing boys and young men and later settled a lawsuit over the allegations, has died. He was 94.
Giants’ Willie Mays, ‘Say Hey Kid,’ dies at 93
Willie Mays, the electrifying “Say Hey Kid” whose singular combination of talent, drive and exuberance made him one of baseball’s greatest and most beloved players, has died. He was 93.
Bishop Barber readies for D.C. march
At St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on June 9, Bishop William Barber II, co-chair of The Poor People’s Campaign, rallied the congregation during a sermon as part of his national preaching tour.
Personality: Cheryl Lewis Burke
Spotlight on honorary chair of 13th Annual Jazz Inside Out
With education as the family business for three generations, Cheryl Lewis Burke’s career path may have been etched from an early age. Both her parents and all of her aunts were educators, but it was her experience growing up in a segregated Powhatan County that shaped her calling to the field of education.
