Theme: Black History – African American History
Recorded: 2nd March 2019
Presenter: Haider Hameed
Time: 31min 42seconds
Programme Overview:
The theme for this programme is on Black History, and during this show we shall be looking in particular at African American freedom, and we shall be hearing some poems that will inspire you and help to paint the struggles of African American history.
We will be hearing:
Two poems from James Mercer Langston Hughes, who was an American poet from Joplin, Missouri, and who was best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. At the time, Hughes was much more famous than Martin Luther King.
The famous and poetical speech by Martin Luther King, who was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his assassination in 1968.
A unique and an often unheard poem by the famous boxer Mohammad Ali, who is widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century, and as one of the greatest boxers of all time, being the first three time heavy weight champion of the world. And finally, a poem by the poet Elizabeth Alexander, who was a professor for 15 years at Yale University, where she taught poetry and chaired the African American Studies department. She also composed and read a poem at Barack Obama’s first presidential inauguration in January 2009.
