Tony Brown’s Journal program #2702 is my essay on Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s a story of reality, truth, vision, courage and transformation on the one hand and racism, betrayal and conspiracy on the other. Ultimately, it explains the transition of a great man to a better place. I will also share with you in…
It’s 1983 and Sammy Davis reflects on his television interview with me in 1971. Sammy Davis responded, “I’ve survived where other cats would have been down the tubes. A lot of people don’t like themselves. I’ve stopped trying to adjust because its uncomfortable, let me be the best me I can be.” — TBJ #1402…
TBJ #503 – Malcolm and Elijah: Decades before Hollywood discovered this Academy Award winner, his 1982 performance on Tony Brown’s Journal as Malcolm X (the physical resemblance is stunning) marked the striving-actor young Denzel Washington’s place in history. It was his first performance before a national audience, thanks to stage producer Woodie King, Jr. The…
Circumstances surrounding the trial, the assassination itself, accounts in the Press and subsequent official actions were peculiar, that to this day, the question of who killed Malcolm is still with us. In 1981, in an intimate talk I interviewed Talmadge Hayer from his prision cell. Hayer explained in 1981 what his and his co-conspirators’ motivations…
I was born Black and not into the middle class, but I was never taught that I was poor; I never lived with my father, but I was never taught that that fact made me any less of a man. I went to all-Black schools in a segregated system, but I never learned that we…
Burnt Cork … Blackface caricatures, popularized in 19th century minstrel shows, recently have attracted renewed attention in the United States after old photographs recently emerged of White politicians in Virginia wearing blackface, thus condoning this European racist colonial tradition of insulting African people. THE PERSISTENCE OF BLACKFACE … As recent as 2019, the odious practice was…
The music of the Black religious experience is the primary root of all music born in the United States. The Revered Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, aide to MLK and university scholar, musically demonstrates with a 100-member choir, on Tony Brown’s Journal show #827 & 829 (The Roots of Music and The Music Tree), how Black…
Several weeks ago, I posted a blog in which I shared my Favorite 100 Tony Brown’s Journal programs (TonyBrownsJournal.com/blog/Tony-Browns-Favorite100). This week I am asking my friends, “Which Tony Brown’s Journal Programs Are Your Favorites? Was it my interview with the renowned Dr. Chancellor Williams where he discussed his book “The Destruction of Black Civilization” or…
You can’t understand the American experience unless you also know the African-American experience. A nation’s path out of the dark desperation it suffers must start with a knowledge of past universal truths if it is to lift all parts of the nation. A knowledge of the past achievements of a people is the ultimate index…
How to build anabolic communities that heal themselves with aspirational core values that eliminate racism and sexism. Our communities and our nation were once focused on core values in all areas of life as a means of preparing the youth for service to others and a better future for themselves. Today, that same defining American trait…
