All results / Stories / Free Press wire reports
Paisley Park opens as museum Oct. 28
Paisley Park, the estate and studio of the late musician Prince, will operate permanently as a museum after a rezoning request was approved by the Chanhassen City Council on Monday night. The 65,000 square-foot estate where Prince died on April 21 of an accidental, self-administered overdose at the age of 57 is located in the Minneapolis suburb and will be open to the public on Friday, Oct. 28.
Hip-hop classic Biz Markie succumbs at 57
Biz Markie, a hip-hop staple known for his beatboxing prowess, turntable mastery and the 1989 classic “Just a Friend,” died Friday, July 16, 2021, with his wife by his side.
Golf club apologizes for calling cops on black women members
A golf club in Pennsylvania has apologized for calling police on a group of black women after the co-owner and his father said they were playing too slowly and refused requests to leave the course.
Meghan and Harry expecting
Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex are expecting. The news set Twitter alight Monday as Kensington Palace confirmed speculation that had been rampant in recent British tabloids and announced that the royal couple will welcome their first child next spring, around a year after their glittering wedding injected Hollywood glamour and African-American style into the British royal family.
Prayers go out to ‘Queen of Soul’
Icon Aretha Franklin reportedly is in hospice at her Detroit home; family at her bedside
Prayers from across the nation and the around the globe are pouring in for legendary singer Aretha Franklin, who has fallen gravely ill. Ms. Franklin, 76, a legendary gospel and R&B singer whose reign as the “Queen of Soul” spans more than 50 years, is under hospice care at her home in Detroit’s Riverfront Towers, according to publicist Gwendolyn Quinn.
Chadwick Boseman in ‘Marshall’ is bulletproof
Thurgood Marshall, a titan of 20th century law and a civil rights pioneer, has until now largely eluded Hollywood’s notice. Despite its title, “Marshall,’’ too, is wary of taking on the Supreme Court justice in full, sticking to a minor case from Mr. Marshall’s early career as counsel for the NAACP. That makes, for better and worse, a sometimes slight, sometimes serious courtroom drama, shot through with bright certainty in the coming triumphs for Mr. Marshall and the civil rights movement. It’s a superhero-style origin story: Thurgood, pre- “Brown v. Board of Education,’’ pre-black robe.
Charlottesville removes Confederate statues that sparked bloodshed
Cheers erupted last Saturday as a Confederate statue that towered for nearly a century over downtown Charlottesville was carted away by truck from the place where it had become a flashpoint for racist protests and deadly violence.
Bubba Wallace claims victory, history as first Black to win NASCAR Cup Series since 1963
The hard part wasn’t dodging his way around a crash and then driving to the front of the field at Talladega Superspeedway. That was just instinct for Bubba Wallace.
Phil Freelon, architect of the African-American history museum in D.C., dies at 66
Architect Phil Freelon, who designed buildings ranging from local libraries to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, died Tuesday, July 9, 2019, in Durham, N.C.
‘Songbird of Togo’ reappears at WWI commemoration
Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Angelique Kidjo of Benin reprised a hypnotic work of ethereal beauty by a youthful West African singer at a gathering of world leaders in the French capital of Paris.
’Who We Are’ offers a searing view of racism in U.S.
“If you’ve ever owned a slave, please raise your hand,” Jeffery Robinson asks a live audience at the beginning of “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America,” a searing documentary based on a lecture he has spent a decade perfecting.
Inside Met Gala, where there’s always someone more famous
U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe had just gotten her beverage at the bar at the edge of the room. She looked back at the throbbing crowd of celebrities packed into the center of the airy Petrie Court, where the Met Gala was holding its cocktail reception.
Comedian, activist Dick Gregory dies at 84
Comedian, civil rights activist and healthy living advocate Dick Gregory, who used his humor to spread messages of social justice and good nutrition, died late Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017, in Washington.He was 84.
Art Neville, one of the legendary musical Neville Brothers, dies at 81
Art Neville, a member of a storied New Orleans musical family who performed with his siblings in The Neville Brothers band and founded the groundbreaking funk group The Meters, died Monday, July 22, 2019, at his home
French honor for Josephine Baker stirs conflict over racism
On the surface, it’s a powerful message against racism: A Black woman will, for the first time, join other luminaries interred in France’s Pantheon. But by choosing a U.S.-born figure/entertainer Josephine Baker—critics say France is continuing a long tradition of decrying racism abroad while obscuring it at home.
Va. native Floyd Carter Sr., one of the last of the Tuskegee Airmen, dies at 95
Floyd Carter Sr., one of the last of the Tuskegee Airmen, died Thursday, March 8, in New York, where he served with the New York Police Department for 27 years. He was 95.
bell hooks, writer and groundbreaking feminist thinker, dies at 69
NEW YORK bell hooks, the ground- breaking author, educator and activist whose explorations of how race, gender, economics and politics intertwined helped shape academic and popular debates over the past 40 years, died Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021.
U.S. greets pope
Pope Francis urged the United States to help tackle climate change and touched on other divisive U.S. political issues such as immigration and economic inequality on his first visit to the world’s richest nation. In a speech Wednesday on the White House South Lawn, the Argentine pontiff — known as “The People’s Pope” — lauded President Obama’s efforts to reduce air pollution, months after Pope Francis made the environment one of his top issues by issuing a landmark encyclical letter to the church.
Federal appeals court hears arguments in Richmond on Trump’s Muslim ban
The challenge to President Trump’s revised travel ban moved to Richmond on Monday, where nearly 200 protesters opposed to the U.S. ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority nations held signs, chanted and listened to an array of religious leaders outside the federal courthouse in Downtown as legal arguments started inside.
‘Cosby Show’ actor dies at 91
Earle Hyman, a veteran actor of stage and screen who was widely known for playing the father of Bill Cosby’s character on “The Cosby Show,” has died.
