The 411 Lena Horne On Race Lena Horne The pioneering singer, actor and civil rights activist Lena Horne has died at the age of 92. Here are excerpts from a rare 1966 interview with Lena Horne from the Pacifica Radio Archives. Also, listen the full interview and her music. May 13, 2010, 11:10

Diaspora Ticking Time Bombs While corporate media types mock the tea parties, they miss the deeper flood of fear -- driven by economic experiences -- that pervades the land, feeding rivers and tributaries of racism, xenophobia, paranoia and hatred. By Mumia Abu-Jamal May 13, 2010, 12:16

Diaspora Venezuela Is Not Greece President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela Contrary to popular media spin, the idea that Venezuela is facing an "economic crisis" is simply wrong. By Mark Weisbrot May 7, 2010, 11:18

The 411 The SeeingBlack.com 411 President Obama speaks to reporters after reviewing BP oil spill damage. BP: Spill could be 10 times current estimate. Halliburton’s role in oil rig explosion probed. U.S.: suspect admits to failed Times Square bombing. N.Y. officials push for expanded surveillance. 28 die in storms in Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky. Bolivia nationalizes four power companies. Phoenix Suns to protest Arizona anti-immigrant law. Plant overlooked contaminated materials in children’s medicines. And more... May 5, 2010, 10:44

Music Mary J Blige-American Voice Mary J. Blige’s recent willingness to tackle Led Zepplin's “Stairway to Heaven" bolsters a long articulated claim that she—and by extension Black women vocalists—be read as a quintessential American Voice. By Mark Anthony Neal Apr 26, 2010, 17:16

The 411 The SeeingBlack.com 411 President Obama eulogizes Dorothy Height at her funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. President Obama eulogizes Dorothy Height. BP oil spill hits Louisiana coastline. Thousands gather for march on Wall St. Goldman Sachs faces criminal probe. Protests, lawsuits challenge Arizona immigration law. House approves Puerto Rico referendum. Check the news! Apr 30, 2010, 13:00

Visual Arts EVENT--A Visual Arts Debut Rather than write about art, Esther Iverem is debuting her own art, quilts and other fiber arts, at the Zimstone Gallery, 4814 Rhode Island Ave. in Hyattsville, Md. Show extended to May 22, 2010 Apr 16, 2010, 12:25

The 411 The SeeingBlack.com 411 image: presstv.ir Protests erupt over Arizona immigrant crackdown bill. Justice Dept. reviewing Arizona immigration law. Malcolm X assassin released on parole. Appeals court suspends ruling blocking ACORN funding. Goldman execs grilled at Senate hearing. Senate Republicans block financial reform bill for consecutive day. U.S. Coast Guard mulls “controlled burn” of Gulf oil slick. US extradites Noriega to France. Appeals court upholds Wal-Mart discrimination suit. “Avatar” director James Cameron follows box office success with advocacy for indigenous struggles. US to withdraw troops from Haiti. And More! Check here for all the news! Apr 28, 2010, 10:36

Movies/TV Keeping Up With The Joneses The subject of "The Joneses" is our drive toward materialism and the competition to have something more than, better than, bigger than, more expensive than the folks next door. By Esther Iverem Apr 16, 2010, 11:53

The 411 The SeeingBlack.com 411 Dorothy Height, Collection of Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library. Dorothy Height and Benjamin Hooks join the ancestors. Hundreds mark 15th anniversary of Oklahoma City bombing. Pro-gun rallies held in DC, Virginia. Video captures Md. police beating of unarmed student. Gates criticizes WikiLeaks for releasing video of US Attack. Arizona bill gives officers right to stop those suspected of being an illegal immigrant. Goldman Sachs accused of civil fraud in sale of mortgage securities. ACORN staffer reported prostitution claims to police. Virginia Gov. apologizes for excluding slavery from Confederate History Month proclamation. US foreclosures break monthly record. Is the CIA assassination order of a US citizen legal? Air travel resumes in Europe amidst new ash warning. And MUCH more...Click to check all the news! Apr 21, 2010, 12:43

Literature Scholars on the Mic In Born to Use Mics, editors Michael Eric Dyson and Sohail Daulatzai assemble top hip-hop scholars to dissect Nas's Illmatic into its cultural, political, literary and global components. By Sidik Fofana Apr 8, 2010, 12:58

Diaspora When Empires End Powerful empires can fall with amazing rapidity, often in the space of a lifetime - or even less. By Mumia Abu-Jamal Apr 16, 2010, 11:24

Family/Youth The Myth of Black Male Privilege? The Black family cast of the 70's television show "Good Times"           Gender privilege is no myth and despite the structural crisis that Black men face in American society, they often function with significantly more advantages than Black women. By Mark Anthony Neal Mar 31, 2010, 12:00

The 411 The SeeingBlack.com 411 A leaked Pentagon video shows U.S. helicopter mowing down Iraqi journalists and civilians. “We made a devil’s bargain”: Fmr. President Clinton apologizes for trade policies that destroyed Haitian rice farming. Haitian earthquake survivors freed from immigration jails. Some schools reopen in Haiti. Study: homeowner program favors White borrowers. New Orleans police officer indicted in shooting cover-up. California probe clears ACORN of unlawful activity. South African White supremacist murdered. Report: Africa lost $1.8T to illegal outflows. Leaked video shows US killing Reuters staff in Iraq. US forces admit killing two pregnant Afghan women and teenager. And MUCH more! Click link for all the REAL NEWS... Apr 6, 2010, 15:54

More Headlines

Dazed & Confused on ‘new South African culture’

May 13, 2010 · 2 Comments

The June issue of culture magazine, Dazed & Confused, will a 32-page section on “new South African youth culture” (I want to see what’s in it, although as a I note below, I may be disappointed).  The artist Zwelethu Mthethwa (he has a new monograph published by Aperture) contributes the issue’s “Last Shot.” Dazed Digital went to film Mthethwa in his studio. (Interestingly, Mthethwa’s work is talked about in the context of the past. Apparently economic Apartheid is over. Thanks for telling me.)

Mo’ fire to Mthethwa.

P.S. Predictably the issue also include a spread of performance artists Die Antwoord who took the reporter to the coloured ghetto of Mitchell’s Plain. Higgovale was too dangerous?

– Sean Jacobs

Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar visited a wildlife treatment center in Louisiana on Saturday.

By JUSTIN GILLIS

Published: May 15, 2010

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

Gulf Spill: Readers' Reports

 

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Related

• Officials Ask BP to Assure It Will Cover Spill Claims (May 16, 2010)

• Times Topic: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill (2010)

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. “If you keep those kinds of rates up, you could draw the oxygen down to very low levels that are dangerous to animals in a couple of months,” she said Saturday. “That is alarming.”

The plumes were discovered by scientists from several universities working aboard the research vessel Pelican, which sailed from Cocodrie, La., on May 3 and has gathered extensive samples and information about the disaster in the gulf.

Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.

BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.

“The answer is no to that,” a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. “We’re not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It’s not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort.”

The undersea plumes may go a long way toward explaining the discrepancy between the flow estimates, suggesting that much of the oil emerging from the well could be lingering far below the sea surface.

The scientists on the Pelican mission, which is backed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that monitors the health of the oceans, are not certain why that would be. They say they suspect the heavy use of chemical dispersants, which BP has injected into the stream of oil emerging from the well, may have broken the oil up into droplets too small to rise rapidly.

BP said Saturday at a briefing in Robert, La., that it had resumed undersea application of dispersants, after winning Environmental Protection Agency approval the day before.

“It appears that the application of the subsea dispersant is actually working,” Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said Saturday. “The oil in the immediate vicinity of the well and the ships and rigs working in the area is diminished from previous observations.”

Many scientists had hoped the dispersants would cause oil droplets to spread so widely that they would be less of a problem in any one place. If it turns out that is not happening, the strategy could come under greater scrutiny. Dispersants have never been used in an oil leak of this size a mile under the ocean, and their effects at such depth are largely unknown.

Much about the situation below the water is unclear, and the scientists stressed that their results were preliminary. After the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, they altered a previously scheduled research mission to focus on the effects of the leak.

Interviewed on Saturday by satellite phone, one researcher aboard the Pelican, Vernon Asper of the University of Southern Mississippi, said the shallowest oil plume the group had detected was at about 2,300 feet, while the deepest was near the seafloor at about 4,200 feet.

“We’re trying to map them, but it’s a tedious process,” Dr. Asper said. “Right now it looks like the oil is moving southwest, not all that rapidly.”

He said they had taken water samples from areas that oil had not yet reached, and would compare those with later samples to judge the impact on the chemistry and biology of the ocean.

While they have detected the plumes and their effects with several types of instruments, the researchers are still not sure about their density, nor do they have a very good fix on the dimensions.

Given their size, the plumes cannot possibly be made of pure oil, but more likely consist of fine droplets of oil suspended in a far greater quantity of water, Dr. Joye said. She added that in places, at least, the plumes might be the consistency of a thin salad dressing.

Dr. Joye is serving as a coordinator of the mission from her laboratory in Athens, Ga. Researchers from the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi are aboard the boat taking samples and running instruments.

Dr. Joye said the findings about declining oxygen levels were especially worrisome, since oxygen is so slow to move from the surface of the ocean to the bottom. She suspects that oil-eating bacteria are consuming the oxygen at a feverish clip as they work to break down the plumes.

While the oxygen depletion so far is not enough to kill off sea life, the possibility looms that oxygen levels could fall so low as to create large dead zones, especially at the seafloor. “That’s the big worry,” said Ray Highsmith, head of the Mississippi center that sponsored the mission, known as the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology.

The Pelican mission is due to end Sunday, but the scientists are seeking federal support to resume it soon.

“This is a new type of event, and it’s critically important that we really understand it, because of the incredible number of oil platforms not only in the Gulf of Mexico but all over the world now,” Dr. Highsmith said. “We need to know what these events are like, and what their outcomes can be, and what can be done to deal with the next one.”

 

Shaila Dewan contributed reporting from Robert, La.

Laura Parker

 

(May 12) -- As you read this, the sweet crude from the gulf oil spill that is engulfing the Chandeleur Islands, the crescent chain of mangroves and sand providing the last flimsy barrier protecting southeast Louisiana from the sea, will be moving relentlessly beyond them toward the mainland. 

The slick is expected to get there later this week, according to federal forecasters. Should those projections hold, the world will then get an answer to a grim question: Just how severe will the damage be? 

NOAA

This map shows the projected path of the massive oil slick if winds, as forecast, blow from the southeast throughout the week.

Scientists have been predicting calamity for the Gulf Coast ever since theDeepwater Horizon oil rig blew up on April 20. But until the oil arrived at Louisiana's front door, the true potential of the disaster-in-the-making was difficult to gauge. Now, the possible outcomes for the area's delicate estuaries -- nursery to one of the most abundant fish, bird and animal populations in the world -- are coming into sharper focus. Even the best-case scenario is far from good. 

Ron Kendall, who heads the Department of Environmental Toxicology at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, calls what is about to occur "the biggest ecological toxicology experiment in the country's history." 

Here are three ways it could play out. 

The Bad-But-Less-Than-Doomsday Scenario 

If there's a glimmer of hope for coastal Louisiana, it comes from test results on oil samples taken from the spill. 

"The good news is that the oil appears to be relatively nontoxic," Irving Mendelssohn, a Louisiana State University professor who specializes in wetlands plants, told AOL News. 

"So if this was a one-time event, if the oil went into the marsh once, I wouldn't expect much of an effect on the vegetation. The leaves and shoots will die, and new leaves and shoots will grow back," he said.

Denise Reed, interim director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, also sees some cause for optimism. "The wetlands have a remarkable ability to survive," she said. 

But minimizing the marshes' exposure depends on BP quickly finding a way to stanch the flow of oil,which of course is far from certain. And even if that were to happen, neither the fish, bivalves and wildlife that call the waters home, nor the men and women of Louisiana's $2-billion-a-year commercial fishing industry, will be similarly spared. 

The slick is hitting at the worst possible time of year. It's nesting season for birds and animals and spawning season for fish. 

What's more, while mildly oil-soaked plants can rebound, seafood has no such margin for error, as oysterman George Barisich knows all too well. 

When Hurricane Katrina roared through in 2005, Barisich, 54, lost three of his boats and all but 40 of the nearly 400 acres leased from the state in St. Bernard Parish. He measures his financial loss in the past five years at $750,000. By this spring, he'd rebuilt 160 acres for farming oysters. Now his beds are in the path of oil, and he figures he's on the edge of going out of business again.

"The quantity, concentration and duration of the oil will determine the mortality," Barisich told AOL News. "But basically, we're screwed." 

The Even-Scarier Scenario 

The risks to the Louisiana shoreline are compounded by the shape they were in before the Deepwater disaster. The state has 40 percent of the coastal wetlands in the continental U.S., according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, but they are disappearing at a rate of 25 square miles a year. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita alone took out 200 square miles in 2005, notes Reed. Tiny marsh islands in Terrebonne Bay and Barataria Bay have vanished so recently that they still appear on navigation charts. Barisich said islands that he used to anchor on he now catches oysters on. They're five feet underwater.

NOAA forecasters had hoped the oil would keep to the east of the Mississippi River, held back by the strong river current emptying into the gulf. Instead, the oil is creeping steadily into areas that have suffered nearly 60 percent of the coastal land loss. 

Full Oil Spill Coverage

Liz Condo, Pool / AP

Oil Plume Is 10 Miles Long
BP Captures Some Oil
Obama Slams Firms Involved in Spill
Oil Plume Found Below Gulf Surface
Poll: Half Still Back Drilling
NASA Plane Assesses Oil Spill
When the Oil Hits Land
Impact of Early Hurricane Season
The Worst Spills Ever
Politics Daily: More Coverage

"If a marsh is healthy, it will bounce back," Reed said. "But where some marshes are already stressed, this could be the last straw that pushes it over the edge. Once you lose the vegetation, it's gone. Gone to open water." 

The longer it takes BP to shut off the oil, the more marshland subjected to that fate. 

"If this oil spill keeps going, you could get multiple coatings of shoots and leaves. If this happens two or three times, then the total plant will die, and there will be no regeneration," said Mendelssohn. And when marsh grass dies, there's nothing left to hold the soil together. 

"We've never had this kind of event that I'm aware of, where we've had 21 days of oil release like this. This creates a whole new playing field," he said.

The So-Bad-It-Will-Be-Felt-for-Generations Scenario 

In less than three weeks, a new, unpredictable and potentially ruinous variable will be added to that field when hurricane season officially begins June 1. 

Texas Tech's Kendall puts it plainly: "If a hurricane rolls up the gulf, we'll be sweeping oil out of downtown New Orleans."

Southeast of the city, Barisich thinks, it could take even less to swamp low-lying St. Bernard Parish with tar balls. "I pray to God we can stop it. But if we get a storm surge -- it doesn't have to be a hurricane -- this oil is going to go over the marsh and go way inland. Once it gets up into Shell Beach on Lake Borgne, we're done."

As of this afternoon, the oil was still a long way from that tiny fishing community, but plenty close enough to inspire dread. 

At Breton Sound Marina, which overlooks Bayou la Lourtre near Hopedale, owner Glenn Sanchez keeps a before-and-after map at his desk showing what the area suffered at the hands of Katrina. "Whenever I go through my little spiel, people just can't believe what we've lost," he said. He thinks the damage from the oil spill will be even worse. 

"Depending on how bad it comes in, it could be from five to 20 years. This will destroy a whole culture," he said. "I might be out of business. I'm 55 years old. I don't have any idea where I'd go to try and find a job."

Louis Molero Jr., 47, a third-generation fisherman, lives in the 100-year-old cypress house his grandfather bought in 1916. Until last month, he was a shrimper. Now he lays boom for BP and waits.

"My son told me the other day, This could go into duck hunting season. I'm not thinking that far ahead. What I'm thinking now is: How am I gonna pay my bills?

"I'm used to dealing with hurricanes," Molero added. "They come. They're gone. This is a totally different thing. What is the long-term effect? Is it going to kill the fish and the oysters and the shrimp? Are we out for years?"

Travis Holeman, a fishing guide and charter captain, thinks that may be what will happen. "Fishing stocks take a long time to recover," he said. He has already started scouting out new places to guide his clients -- in Argentina. 

"You'll have third-, fourth- and fifth-generation fishermen who will have been thrust into poverty for the rest of their lives," he said. "Most of the people in their 50s will never see this in its heyday again. They've already had their prime fishing time. It's over."

Shafiq Husayn

Shafiq En A-Free-Ka by Shafiq Husayn was one of the strongest albums of last year. Here is a beautiful video clip of a song from that album. The video is featuring the great Bilal.

Here is also the first part of an interesting documentary about Shafiq Husayn (you can find the rest of the documentary on Youtube).

CLICK HERE TO VIEW EXHIBIT

Guidelines

Moving Walls Exhibition

Application Guidelines

The Open Society Institute invites photographers to submit a body of work for consideration in the Moving Walls 18 group exhibition.

Moving Walls is an exhibition series that features in-depth and nuanced explorations of human rights and social issues.  Thematically linked to OSI's mission, Moving Walls is exhibited at OSI’s offices in New York and Washington, DC and includes seven discrete bodies of work.

Moving Walls recognizes the brave and difficult work that photographers undertake globally in their documentation of complex social and political issues.  Their images provide the world with human rights evidence, put faces onto a conflict, document the struggles and defiance of marginalized people, reframe how issues are discussed publicly, and provide opportunities for reflection and discussion.  Through Moving Walls, OSI honors this work while visually highlighting the mission of our foundation to staff and visitors.

For participating photographers, a key benefit of the program is to gain exposure for both the social justice or human rights issues they photograph, and for themselves as photographers.  When the tour ends, photographers may keep their professionally-produced exhibition to use however they wish.

View images from current and previous Moving Walls exhibitions.

Areas of Interest

Since its inception in 1998, Moving Walls has featured over 100 photographers whose work addresses a variety of social justice and human rights issues that coincide with OSI’s mission. 

Each Moving Walls exhibit includes seven distinct bodies of work that address issues or geographic regions where OSI is active.  Priority is given to work whose subject has not been recently addressed in Moving Walls.

Listed below are some topics that are focus areas for OSI and about which we are interested in receiving submissions.  Please note that photographers are welcome to submit their work for Moving Walls even if their subject area is not included on this list.  All work submitted will be considered for exhibition. In addition to the focus areas listed below, please visit our website (www.soros.org) for a complete listing of OSI priorities and programs.

• Migration-related issues
• International LGBTQI issues
• Muslim communities in Europe
• Women in post-conflict countries
• Pre-trial detention (international)
• Public health issues in Africa, including access to essential medicines, access to health care, palliative care
• Climate change
• Economic downturn in the United States, including the foreclosure crisis
• Images that reframe mainstream media representations of African American men and boys
• Transgender individuals in the United States
• Detention of immigrants in the United States
• Youth movements, especially political participation

Who Can Apply

Any emerging or veteran photographer who has completed a body of work on a human rights or social justice issue may apply for Moving Walls. Work in progress may be submitted as long as a substantial portion of the work has been completed. We will accept any genre of photography that is documentary in nature and is not staged or manipulated. In addition, priority will be given to work that addresses issues and geographic regions of concern to OSI.

Seven portfolios will be selected based on the quality of the images, the project’s relevance to OSI, and the photographer’s ability to portray a social justice or human rights issue in a visually compelling, unique, and respectful way.      

Moreover, Moving Walls values work by photographers who have a long-term investment in a community or issue. Photographers working in their home countries, women, emerging artists, and people of color are also encouraged to apply.

OSI does not discriminate based on any status that may be protected by applicable law.

Emerging Photographer Travel Grant 

To support the professional advancement of photographers who have not received much exposure, an additional travel grant will be provided to select Moving Walls photographers to attend the opening in New York and meet with local photo editors and relevant NGO staff. 

Recipients must apply for the travel grant after being chosen for inclusion in the Moving Walls exhibition. The grant is subject to the applicant obtaining the necessary visa to the travel to the U.S.

Recipients will be determined based on, among other things, prior international travel experience, prior attendance at workshops and seminars outside their home communities, publication and exhibition history, awards, and potential impact on their professional development.

Application Process

The Moving Walls application has switched this year to an online application system.  Please go to http://apply.movingwalls.org to access it.  You will be asked to submit the following materials:

1. application cover page
2. a project statement* (600 words maximum) describing the project you would like to exhibit at OSI;
3. a short narrative bio (250 words maximum) summarizing your previous work and experience;
4. your curriculum vitae;
5. 15-20 jpg images

Optional materials:

Multimedia:  Moving Walls has the capacity to exhibit multimedia in addition to (but not in place of) the print exhibition. A multimedia sample should be submitted only if it complements or enhances, rather than duplicates, the other submitted materials. The sample will be judged on its ability to present complex issues through compelling multimedia storytelling, and will not negatively impact the print submission. If you are submitting a multimedia piece for consideration, please post the piece on a free public site such as youtube and include a link. If the piece is longer than five minutes, let us know what start time to begin watching at.

NOTE: The one-page statement is intended to give the Selection Committee a better understanding of the project. Non-native English speakers should describe their projects as accurately as possible, but do need not be concerned with the quality of their English.

Deadline

Completed online applications must be received at OSI-NY by 5pm (Eastern Standard Time) on Friday, June 11, 2010.

Review and Selection Process

Phase 1:  Applications will be reviewed and selections made by a committee of foundation staff and the exhibit curators, Susan Meiselas and Stuart Alexander. In evaluating the work, the committee considers the quality of the photographs and their relevance to OSI’s overall mission and activities. In addition, the committee aims to select a diversity of issues and geographic areas in order to avoid repetition of topics shown in recent exhibitions. View images from our recent exhibitions at www.movingwalls.org.

We tend to receive between 150-200 submissions each round.  For Moving Walls 18, we plan to select seven bodies of work.

Phase 2:  The selected photographers will be designated wall space and encouraged to visit OSI’s offices in New York in order to meet with our curators and prepare installation plans. Please note that travel to OSI is not part of Moving Walls payment and is not a requirement. Photographers who are unable to travel to OSI may correspond with our curators by e-mail or fax and submit their installation plans electronically.

While curators work closely with photographers to determine an installation plan, final curatorial decisions are at the discretion of the Moving Walls curators and selection committee.

During this time, the selected photographers will be invited to apply for the Emerging Photographer Travel Grant.

Time Frame

Applications are due by 5pm E.S.T. on Friday, June 11, 2010. To participate, you must be available to follow the exhibition schedule detailed below. Moving Walls 18 is scheduled to open in March 2011. The approximate duration of the exhibition in New York is nine months. After the New York exhibition closes, OSI will select (at its discretion) a portion of the exhibition to travel to its Washington, D.C. office for an additional nine months.

Please note that, in connection with prior Moving Walls exhibitions, certain photographers have been asked to participate in subsequent exhibitions in Baltimore, Maryland (in conjunction with the OSI office located there) and in New York City (at the Columbia University School of Social Work and John Jay College of Criminal Justice). Should you be selected, the decision to participate would be entirely yours and a separate agreement would be executed.

Exhibition Schedule

Participating photographers must be able to commit to the following exhibition schedule:

June 11, 2010: Deadline for submissions.

July 2010: Notification of participants begins.

Summer 2010: Selected photographers meet with curators to plan their shows. Selected photographers invited to apply for the Emerging Photographer Travel Grant.

September 2010: Deadline for selected photographers to submit detailed budgets and installation plans.

December 2010: Deadline for submission of the following:

• artist’s statement, bio, captions, and other wall texts
• High resolution jpeg files of each exhibition image for use in exhibition-related printed materials and for inclusion on our website.

Recipients of the Emerging Photographer Travel Grants notified.

January 2011: Deadline for photographers to have their completed prints delivered to the framer. Photographers are responsible for making these arrangements.

March 2011: Opening reception

Payment

Upon selection, photographers must submit a budget application for printing, drymounting, and other production costs. Once the budget is approved, participants will be responsible for working within this budget and must use OSI-approved labs. OSI will then pay for standard framing and window matting or back-mounting. In addition, selected photographers will receive a $2,000 royalty payment. When the exhibition tour is completed, photographers will receive the framed and matted work. OSI will cover the costs of returning work up to $750 for photographers based in the United States and $1250 internationally. Any shipping costs that exceed these amounts will be the responsibility of the photographer. 

OSI will offer travel grants to emerging Moving Walls photographers to attend the opening in New York and meet with local photo editors and NGOs.  Applying for this grant is optional.  Recipients will be determined at OSI’s discretion. 

Licensing

By participating in the exhibit, you grant OSI a nonexclusive, irrevocable, fully paid-up, royalty-free, and worldwide license in perpetuity to reproduce, distribute, publish, make derivative works from, and publicly display the work for purposes relating to the OSI Documentary Photography Project, including, but not limited to, the following formats:

• exhibition invitation
• exhibition wall texts
• exhibition catalog
• educational or promotional material for the exhibition
• OSI’s website or any successor or comparable medium of display

In addition, you grant to OSI a nonexclusive, irrevocable, fully paid-up, royalty-free, and worldwide license in perpetuity to reproduce and publicly display the work on OSI’s website, or any successor or comparable medium of display, solely for OSI’s non-commercial advocacy or educational purposes.  In any and all uses, OSI shall provide a photographer’s credit and identify it as related to Moving Walls 18.

Contact

If you have any questions, please contact Quito Ziegler at 1-212-547-6909 or qziegler@sorosny.org.

Need help downloading a file or playing a clip? Click here.

Application Guidelines PDF Document - 52K Download the complete application guidelines.

 

 

Related Information Moving Walls Online Exhibition  VIDEO    SLIDESHOW   Sponsored by the Open Society Institute, the Moving Walls photography exhibition documents the transitional condition of open societies and the promotion and maintenance of democratic values.

 

Guidelines for Crab Creek Review's 2010 Poetry Contest
Entry Dates: Feb. 1, 2010 - May 31, 2010

• Submit up to 5 previously unpublished poems
• Entry fee: $10, check payable to Crab Creek Review
• Please include name, address, phone number, email, and a short bio in your cover letter
• Simultaneous submissions acceptable when noted in cover letter, as long as we are notified immediately if the work is accepted elsewhere
• Include a SASE for notification of results
• Name and contact info should not appear on poems
• No electronic submissions
• Deadline for all submissions: May 31, 2010
• The winning poet will receive $200 and publication in CCR 2010 Vol. II
• All entries will be considered for publication
• Please mail all submissions to: Crab Creek Review Poetry Contest, c/o 7315 34th Ave NW, Seattle, WA 98117
• The winner will be determined by our guest judge, Nancy Pagh
  (we ask that friends, associates, and students of the judge not submit to this contest)

Nancy Pagh is the author of No Sweeter Fat (Autumn House Press, 2007) and After (Floating Bridge Press, 2008), and her poems appear in many publications, including Crab Creek Review, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, Fourth River, The Bellingham Review, O magazine, and When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poems by American Women.  She received an Artist Trust fellowship in 2007 and was the 2008 D. H. Lawrence Fellow at the Taos Summer Writers Conference.  An enthusiastic performer, she was a featured poet at the Skagit River Poetry Festival and a headliner in the Gist Street Masters Series in Pittsburgh.  She has taught workshops at the Whidbey Island Writers Association conference and with the Field’s End program on Bainbridge Island.  She currently teaches at Western Washington University. http://www.autumnhouse.org/catalog/no-sweeter-fat-by-nancy-pagh/

Please send submissions to:

Crab Creek Review Poetry Contest
c/o 7315 34th Ave NW
Seattle, WA 98117

 

Room Magazine's Annual Fiction, Poetry, and Creative Non-fiction Contest – 2010 It's that time of year again—sharpen your pencils or fire up your laptop and send us your fiction, poetry, or creative non-fiction contest entries. Deadline: Entries must be postmarked no later than June 15, 2010. Entry Fee: $27 per entry (includes a complimentary one-year subscription to Room). Payment by cheque or money order made out to Room. Non-Canadian entries: $39 Canadian dollars Prizes: 1st prize in each category – $500, 2nd prize – $250. Winners will be published in a 2011 issue of Room. Other manuscripts may be published. Judges: Fiction: June Hutton Poetry: Jennica Harper Creative Non-Fiction: Lynn Van Luven Rules & Details: Send entries to: Room Contest 2010 P.O. Box 46160, Station D Vancouver, BC  V6J 5G5 Canada More than one entry will be accepted as long as fee is paid for each entry. No manuscripts will be returned. Only winners will be notified. Poetry: max. 3 poems or 150 lines | Fiction: max. 3,500 words There will be blind judging, therefore, do not put your name or address on entry submission, but enclose a cover sheet with your name, address, phone number and title(s) of entry. Entries must be typed on 8.5 X 11 white paper. Prose must be double-spaced. Each entry must be original, unpublished, not submitted or accepted elsewhere for publication and not entered simultaneously in any other contest or competition. Download the PDF here.

Sunday, May 16th, 3:00pm-5:00pm~Report Back from the 50 Year Anniversary of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC) Conference to commemorate the April, 1960 founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at Shaw University, Raleigh, N.C. The conference was held on April 15-18, 2010 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Our local activists/organizers who attended the conference will provide their insights, expections and hopes inspired by the SNCC 50th Anniversary. Sister Dorie Ladner, Brother Lawerence Guyot, Sister Gail Dixon, Brother Acie Byrd, Lois Wiley, Kamau Benjamin, and many others will give a full report to our community. Location: SSB

Saturdays, May 21st-June 26th, 3:30pm-5:00pm~A Women’s Support Group – Are you a woman of color looking for a safe and supportive environment in which to share and grow? Do you wish you had opportunities to discuss issues of concern with other women? Are you tired of going it alone? If the answer is yes, you are invited to join us for an interactive, enjoyable, and transformative experience. Location: 276 Carroll Street, N.W. (Seeker’s Church), near the Takoma Metro. Parking is available in the rear of the building.Cost: $250.00 for six sessions. Led by: Dr. Theresa Ford, a skilled and sensitive psychotherapist with over 30 years of experience in conducting individual, group, and family therapy. For more information, please contact Theresa Ford at 240-354-3854.

Two African American Washington DC Native Writers: Shantella Sherman and Melanie Marshall Saturday, May 22nd, 5:00pm-7:00pm Fester: Lilies that fester stink worse than weeds by Shantella Sherman. An affair built on an un-kept promise… A marriage that defines one sister, while diminishing the other… A remedy of inconvenient convenience…A sisterly loyalty that both festers and thrives in guilt. Sisters, Lillian and Lindersyl Gottlieb are fifty-something-year-old Black women with everything: Prestige, wealth, men and a family legacy held globally in high esteem. The “stuff” that makes for Essence and Time magazine articles about beautiful, powerful women, the “Gottlieb girls” are perfect – provided they are kept as far from one another as possible. But when an innocent business trip brings Lindersyl back to her family estate after a forced 17-year exodus, secrets, lies, and not so neatly packaged family ties begin to unravel. With her niece Grier in tow, Lindersyl treads back to Gottlieb Grove to face Lillian and her brother-in-law Johnathan Holland, whose mal-union of thirty-four years ignites in animosity at the mere mention of her name. As the Gottlieb-Holland offspring (Grier, Eisendorff, and Chasen) attempt to marry their family’s surreptitious past with the dissonant melodrama playing out before them, their lives spin out of control. Will blood prove thicker than water? Or will the besotted love of a once-forbidden union blindly push the sisters to a breaking point? Shantella Sherman is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The Washington Informer newspaper and The Philadelphia Tribune and NAACP’s Crisis magazines. Ms. Sherman is a native of Washington, D.C. and is currently working on her doctoral degree in African-American History and Popular Culture. Lady Bug: Spectacular Stories by Melanie Marshall. If you love fantastic stories, and don’t mind a bit of squirming, Melanie Marshall has them for you right here. Find out what it’s like to fly in the Himalayas and have a bee as a pet. When’s the last time you hunted termites or came face-to-face with mad dogs? Ever get caught with your hand in the till and have to take some bitter medicine? (Don’t do it.) Read about it instead. Meet a mouse that negotiates a truce between enemies! These are just a few of the stories that will steamroller you into disbelief. Pick any story. Be glad it never happened to you. Or, wish it had. Laugh and cringe in the same sentence. Go ahead, don’t believe a single one. So what if they are true? Journey from Kathmandu, Nepal to Kensington, Maryland; Bobo Dioulasso Burkina Faso to the Swiss Alps and then; to the ancient town of Carthage in Tunisia. Ladybug’s perspective may be different, but the sentiment, faith and lessons from the school of hard knocks are not only touching, they are hard earned and remembered. And, best of all, hilarious. Melanie Marshall was born in Washington, D.C. The youngest of five, at three months of age she moved with her family to Kathmandu, Nepal, and lived there for seven years. After returning to the United States for a year of home leave, she moved with her family to Upper Volta, now known as Burkina Faso, where her father, a career foreign service officer, had been newly assigned. While in West Africa, Ms. Marshall traveled extensively throughout the region with her parents in Bertha, the family’s trusted Ford station wagon. Soon, boarding school in Switzerland intervened and the family subsequently moved to Chad. Their next post was Tunisia where she went to school and lived for several years. Although raised primarily overseas, Ms. Marshall now lives in Washington, D.C., and considers herself a faithful Washingtonian. She would be the first to say that writing about her experiences has taken her by surprise and she hopes you enjoy these stories. As they are all true, please be mindful when reading them to children, and caution them not to attempt to replicate these outstanding adventures. Location: SSB

HTML clipboard Shireen Mitchell: Digital Sisters, Founder Saturday, May 22nd, 11:00am-1:00pm~ Discussion on Social Media Location: SSB As a teenager growing up in the New York City Projects in the 1980s, Shireen Mitchell ventured where no young black girl had ventured before: the local video arcade. “The store owners tried to kick me out because I could beat anyone there with a quarter, so they weren’t making any money,” Mitchell says. “I couldn’t imagine anyone who didn’t like tech — that was my world. But in 1984, I was the only female there.” Today the company Mitchell keeps outside the arcade is not that different. A social-media consultant, diversity advocate, and tech nonprofit founder, she still often finds herself the only African-American female on IT teams and at conferences. Only about a fifth of science and engineering managers are female, and even fewer make it to the board level of prominent high-tech firms. “Even if the door is wide open and unlocked,” she says, “if someone walks past the room and peeks in and sees a bunch of white men, they’ll wonder if they’re welcome. Until everyone understands what it’s like to walk through a door when the people inside don’t look like you and wonder why you’re there, we still have work to do.” For Mitchell, this work comes in the form of Digital Sisters, an organization she founded to provide young girls early exposure to technology and, even more important, an environment that encourages their passion. Mitchell remembers her own youth: “In high school I had all the tech savvy, but I had counselors that would try to gear me toward something other than tech.” Without creating silos, she says we need to close the gap between the support women and men receive when interested in technology. “We encourage boys more in these spaces because we anticipate their success, even if we don’t see it yet. Whereas with girls, we wait to see their success before we believe it.” Today, plenty of people have become believers in Mitchell and are starting to practice what she’s preaching. Jon Pincus, former general manager of strategy development in online services at Microsoft, has recruited Mitchell to work closely with him on his new Seattle-based startup, Qworky. “Most software is written by guys for people like themselves. Even if it’s unconscious, it seeps into everything,” Pincus says. For this reason, he’s tapping Mitchell to help him design Qworky’s technology, culture, and Internet presence to be more inviting to a diversity of users from the get-go. “One of her real strengths is that she balances the tech aspect, the social aspect, and the political aspect. You can usually find someone who can do two of those,” Pincus says. “It’s very rare to find someone who can balance all three.” As Mitchell looks out over the technology horizon, she sees more and more opportunities for women, particularly in social media. They take as a starting point the way people organize information and think socially, and design technology around those interactions — which Mitchell thinks is perfect for drumming up greater female involvement. “It will not only attract more girls,” she says, “but it will speak more to the things they’re good at.” Among those things, according to Mitchell, are patience, meticulousness, and an instinct to make sure something works perfectly before handing it off — traits, she points out, that were part of the reason why many of the early programmers in the 1940s and 1950s were female. “When it comes to tech, especially design, I can tell you without question that girls are better at it,” Mitchell says. “We wouldn’t have a version 6 with bugs still in it. Women wouldn’t allow that.” –Lillian Cunningham Digital Sisters 1701 K. Street N.W. Suite 400 Washington, DC 20036 info@digital-sistas.org www.digital-sistas.org Voice: 202-722-6881 Fax: 202-722-8604 National Society of Black Engineers SEEK CAMP The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) has opened registration for The Summer Engineering Experience for Kids (SEEK) camp. SEEK is a free three-week program targeting students in grades 3-8.  This program will introduce students to the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.  The program is facilitated primarily by collegiate members of NSBE. Teams of SEEK students will work with NSBE mentors in classroom settings to research and design hands-on activities that they will use to compete on a weekly basis during the camp.  The curriculum is provided mainly by the Society of Automotive Engineers.   Registrations will be received until April 30, 2010 or until all classes are filled to capacity. The camp runs from July 12 to July 30 at the following locations: Grades 3-5: Friendship Public Charter School ,Woodridge Campus 2959 Carlton Avenue, N.E. Grades 6-8: Friendship Public Charter School, Blow Pierce Campus 725 19th Street, N.E. To register online visit the SEEK website, or call 703-549-2207

Alice Walker

airdate May 6, 2010

A leading voice in American literature, Alice Walker has a varied body of work, including poetry, short stories and best-selling novels. Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages, and she's won countless honors, including becoming the first African American woman writer to receive a Pulitzer for fiction—for her classic novel The Color Purple, which was made into a successful film and Broadway play. Walker was a civil rights activist in her native Georgia and has been a social worker, teacher and an editor at Ms. magazine.

 

WATCH THE INTERVIEW
Full Interview (14:35)

 

 

Alice Walker

 

Tavis: Pleased to welcome Alice Walker back to this program. The Pulitzer Prize winning writer is out now with two projects - she's been busy. "Overcoming Speechlessness," and it's not what you think it's about, but we'll get into that book in just a second, and a second text called "The World Has Changed," which is a collection of conversations spanning a 35-year period. Alice Walker, always an honor to have you on this stage.

Alice Walker: Thank you very much for inviting me.

Tavis: We're glad to have you. I want to get into both of these texts, but I asked you when you walked on the stage if you did me a favor, and you were so kind to oblige. This book is called "The World Has Changed," and before we get into the conversation about the book there is a wonderful poem that you wrote back in 2008, December 7th, to be exact, that's called "The World Has Changed." And I wonder, since it's so beautiful, if you might not commence our conversation by reading that piece?

Walker: I'd love to read it.

Tavis: Please.

Walker: (Reciting poem) "The world has changed. Wake up and smell the possibility. The world has changed. It did not change without your prayers, without your faith, without your determination to believe in liberation and kindness, without your dancing through the years that had no beat. The world has changed. It did not change without your numbers, your fierce love of self and cosmos. It did not change without your strength.

"The world has changed - wake up. Give yourself the gift of a new day. The world has changed. This does not mean you were never hurt. The world has changed - rise, yes, and shine. Resist the siren call of disbelief. The world has changed. Don't let yourself remain asleep to it."

Tavis: I could spend a whole show, Alice Walker, talking and dissecting and deconstructing this poem, but let me just ask how it is that we go about resisting the siren call of disbelief? How do we do that?

Walker: Well, we just notice that everything changes, that the world is always changing. It has always done that, it always will, and we should enjoy it. We should learn to accept that change is truly the only thing that's going on always, and learn to ride with it and enjoy it.

Tavis: This book, as I said, the first one, "The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker," is a collection of conversations over a 35-year period. Let me ask a simple question. For you, what is the value of conversation, of good conversation?

I ask that because we live in a world where people seem to condemn conversation. You know that chattering class that says all we do I talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, as if there's no value to good conversation anymore these days. What's the value of a good conversation?

Walker: The good conversation, the value there is the listening, and that is what's missing, often, because people do talk a lot and they don't listen and they don't hear, and until we listen and hear each other we will always have, for instance, war. Because people feel that if they can't be heard they have to be louder and louder and louder, and what is the loudest thing? Well, it's a big bomb on your house.

Tavis: I've been asked many times what I think makes for a good interviewer, a good talk show host, and my answer is pretty simple: You have to learn how to be a generous listener. You have to learn how to listen very generously. The more generously you listen the better you can be sitting in a chair like this.

It's clear from your conversations over the years and the books you've written you've become a very good listener over these years. Talk to me about how you became such a good listener.

Walker: I'm entirely interested in people, and also other creatures and beings, but especially in people, and I tend to read them by emotional field more than anything. So I have a special interest in what they're thinking and who they are and who's hiding behind those eyes and how did he get there, and what's the story, really?

Tavis: Just a very curious person.

Walker: Mm-hmm.

Tavis: You've always been that way?

Walker: Curious, but truly interested. Interested in the sense of wanting to share something with the person that transforms both of us, and that is what happens in good conversation. We transform each other.

Tavis: You've had, I suspect, many - I've been subject to a few of them on this program and on my radio show, so I know what it's like to be engaged in good, high quality conversation with you.

Since you've been engaged in so many of those, I suspect, over the course of your life, how do you choose the good conversations that make the cut for this book?

Walker: Well, I asked someone else to do it, my friend, Rudolph Byrd.

Tavis: You took the easy way out. (Laughter)

Walker: I did, I took the easy way out, yes. I gave my archive to Emory University because there's a really dear friend who teaches there, Rudolph Byrd, and he's the editor. So he made the choices and I just said I want it to be solid, I want it to be not frou-frou. I don't want any light stuff, I don't want any stuff that's just about publicity for books.

I want it to be about life-and-death issues and I want people to be able to really feel sustained by what they encounter in it. So with that he went about choosing the pieces.

Tavis: I assume there have been occasions in your life where you've taken something away from a conversation, maybe, even, to your earlier word, been transformed by the conversation, even though it might not have been on balance a good conversation. Does that make sense?

Walker: It does. Well, yes, because some things are very disturbing. I remember sitting in Africa when I was working on female genital mutilation and going to the house of one of the women who did this practice and actually waiting for her to come out and talk to me about why she did it, and her telling me that she didn't hear the children scream as she was cutting them. That was one of those conversations that was so difficult, so challenging, gave me such a bad headache.

Yet it strengthened my determination to bring this subject to the light and also to embrace this old woman because this was all she was able to do, given her preparation and her society, which had not prepared her to do anything but something that was injurious to the whole culture.

Tavis: As you speak now of female mutilation, bodily mutilation, it's a nice segue to the second of these books that you have out now, "Overcoming Speechlessness." As I said at the top of the show, this title, "Overcoming Speechlessness," is not about overcoming stuttering or shyness. (Laughter) The subtitle tells the full story: "A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel."

So what you want us to wrestle with, courtesy of this text, is to talk about those things that re so difficult to address. Why is this such a passion for you?

Walker: Well, because I realized in my own life that some subjects I have encountered were so horrible I couldn't believe people could actually do these things, and I was silenced, for years. It may not seem like that to many people because there have been complaints about my not being silent. (Laughter)

Tavis: I haven't heard those.

Walker: Yeah, well, but actually, the truth is that especially in the last century or so, there have been such horrific acts done by humans to other humans that really we as a people, and I mean humanity, we've been silenced.

We didn't know what to call them, we couldn't put them anywhere, we didn't recognize them often, and they're just heinous. And so we have been self-silencing, and that means that all the children who need us and all the women, often, who need us don't hear from us for, like, 10 and 20 years because we are reeling, we're still, "Why is this happening?'

Tavis: How do you get folk to talk, Alice Walker, if you can't even get them to agree on language? For example, if you have leaders who are afraid to say the word "genocide," then how do you talk about genocide?

Walker: Well, you just do. There's a definition for genocide, what it means. If it applies, then you just use that word and you take the definition into any conversation that you have. Then they cannot evade it.

Tavis: How do you get traction - I started reading this last night, the "Overcoming Speechlessness" text. It's a small book so you can read it relatively quickly. It's a quick read, pardon my English, but it ain't a easy read.

Walker: Right.

Tavis: It's a quick read but it ain't an easy read.

Walker: I know.

Tavis: Because the stuff you want us to talk about is hard for me to even read, some of the stories you tell in this book about the things that you saw -

Walker: I'm sorry.

Tavis: - about man's inhumanity to man or humanity's inhumanity to humanity, if it's hard to read, how do you talk about it?

Walker: Well, that's why I'm a writer. I discovered early on that that's one of the reasons people do write - they encounter horrible stuff and they understand that, well, I can't say this, but if I learn, if I go to school and I teach myself how to express this, I can express it in writing and then I can show it, I can share it.

And it gives a space to the reader. So for instance I'm sorry you read this at night. Nobody should read it at night. But at least when you read it you can give yourself some distance and you will know the information but you don't feel that you have to immediately do something.

It's much better to contemplate, meditate, think about what is your role now, having this information. For example, about things in the Congo, the Congo is now considered the most awful place on the face of the Earth to be a woman, and there are reasons for that.

Find out what they are and then see what can you do to make, like, one woman feel safer in her home and one child feel safe in the yard. That, we can do.

Tavis: To your point about not reading at night, thanks for the advice. A little too late, but thank you for the advice to not read this at night. (Laughter) But one of the things that it did do for me last night, looking at it, was it underscored something for me that I had not really thought of, shame on me, perhaps, and I could be wrong about this.

But something hit me last night that had never hit me before, as much as I've read your work, seen your work, talked to you in conversation over the years. Your work seems to express - this is my words, not yours - your work seems to express - your work seems to suggest to me that there is a burden that you bear in your soul for humanity, a burden for women.

I don't want to describe what it is, but again, all these years of having access to you I finally, looking at your work holistically, see that there's a burden that you have borne throughout the balance of your life that winds up on paper. Am I making sense?

Walker: You know what the burden - yes, you are, and you know what it is is love. I love us so incredibly, insanely deeply; it's almost unbearable to see what we do to ourselves. It's almost unbearable just to see how we have sunk over the last - even the last - in my lifetime, the things that people do to each other, the things they say to each other, the way people behave.

It's almost unbearable, because I see us with such love; I just see that we're wonderful. People are wonderful, just like everything else on this planet, but look at what we do. So this is the burden - it's the burden of love.

Tavis: Since you are burdened by this and obviously wrestle with this, have you figured out why our civilization has become so uncivil?

Walker: Well, capitalism is a big problem, because with capitalism you're just going to keep buying and selling things until there's nothing else to buy and sell, which means gobbling up the planet. So on one level it's that.

The central thing seems to be greed. It seems to be people feeling empty, they don't have anything inside, they think. They haven't looked. They do have something inside, I feel, but they're afraid to look. They don't want to take the time to sit and find out anything.

So there they are, trying to get more and more of everything, just taking it more and more in, and we will gradually just be people who are empty and exploding.

Tavis: Lastly, I love the photo on the cover of this book. What do you know or remember about this photo?

Walker: Well, I was pregnant and I was carrying my daughter, who's my only child, and I had made that dress myself.

Tavis: Oh.

Walker: My mother had bought a sewing machine for me. When I went away to college she gave me a sewing machine, a typewriter and a suitcase, and my mother made $17 a week working as a maid 12 hours a day, and she did that for me. She and my father put me on the Greyhound bus and they sent me off.

So many years later, after I had gone through college and all kinds of adventures, I took that sewing machine and I bought some African fabric and I was pregnant in Mississippi, where I was interracially married illegally, and I sewed a dress for me and my daughter, she's in my tummy, to wear. I loved the dress and my sister has it still.

Tavis: Wow. (Laughter) That dress ought to be in a museum somewhere.

Walker: I'll try to get it back from her. (Laughter)

Tavis: It's a gorgeous dress, it's a gorgeous photo, and for all those parents watching right now who are later this year going to be sending kids off to college, if you give them a typewriter, a sewing machine and a suitcase, who knows? They might turn out to be an iconic and prolific author like Alice Walker, with two new books out now.

Again, "The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker," and "Overcoming Speechlessness." Alice Walker, always an honor to have you on the program.

Walker: Thank you.

Tavis: Thank you.