Shows
Into America‘Absolute Equality’ in the Home of JuneteenthIn Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger announced General Order No. 3: “the people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” The day became known as Juneteenth, commemorating the actual end of slavery in the United States. Yet more than a century and a half later, Black people in Galveston are still fighting for the “absolute equality” promised to them in that order.The biggest threat today is gentrification, which began after Hurricane Ike in 2008 destroyed the city’s overwhelmingly Black public...2023-06-1531 minInto AmericaWriters Strike BlackThe entertainment industry and its TV and film writers can’t get on the same page. For the first time in over a decade, the Writers Guild of America is on strike. Shows like Saturday Night Live have already stopped production, with more to come as the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers try to reach a labor agreement.As networks and film studios continue make record-high profits, writers are fighting for livable wages and fair compensation in the streaming era. And for the Black writers and the community at large, there’s much...2023-05-1836 minInto AmericaHow Basquiat Earned His Crown (2022)Jean-Michel Basquiat was an iconic American artist who rose to fame in the downtown New York City cultural scene of the late 1970s and early 80s. Today, Basquiat’s legacy looms over us, larger than ever. His images and symbols grace Uniqlo t-shirts and Tiffany & Co jewelry campaigns. In 2017, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s powerful 1982 painting of a skull was purchased for $110.5 million, becoming the sixth most expensive work ever sold at auction.But has Basquiat’s pop cultural significance eclipsed the artist’s place in art history? For Into America, Trymaine Lee spoke with Basquiat’s former band...2023-03-0940 minInto AmericaStreet Disciples: Broken Glass EverywhereBy the 1980s, hip-hop artists were beginning to expand the party culture of hip-hop's early years and think about what they wanted to say with their music. Faced with a city wrecked by economic abandonment and neglect, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released “The Message” in 1982, calling out the conditions head-on: “rats in the front room, roaches in the back, junkies in the alley with a baseball bat.” And to take control of this environment of neglect, young artists began shaping their environment through dance, fashion, and graffiti. But with the growth in the culture ca...2023-02-0954 minInto AmericaStreet Disciples: The Concrete JungleHip-hop is a rose that grew from concrete. And there’s no other place it could have grown than the fertile soil of the South Bronx. At the beginning of the 20th Century, urban planning destroyed neighborhoods and led to white flight, and tall high-density towers re-arranged the landscape of the borough. Around the same time, a massive wave of Caribbean immigrants and Black Southerners were migrating to the South Bronx, leading to a convergence of cultures that would light a spark for the birth of hip-hop in the summer of 1973.Hip-hop is turning 50 this year. So, fo...2023-02-0251 minInto AmericaHarlem On My Mind: Abram HillIn the final installment of Harlem on My Mind, Trymaine Lee learns about the legacy of playwright Abram Hill, who used his work to center Black characters, Black audiences, and Black communities unapologetically.Abram Hill co-founded the American Negro Theater in 1940, operating a small 150-seat theater from the basement of Harlem’s Schomburg Center. The American Negro Theater, also known as the ANT, would become a launch pad for stars like Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, even as Hill’s name was largely lost to history.Trymaine tours the Schomburg Center with chief of staff Kevi...2021-02-2543 min