Revisiting the Black Arts Movement; Healthy Living in Communities of Color; Cassandra Wilson Celebrates Billie Holiday

On this week's podcast:

The Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and ‘70s featured many of America’s most influential writers, including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou. Their seminal works have been compiled in a comprehensive volume titled “S.O.S. – Calling All Black People: A Black Arts Movement Reader.” The co-editors of the anthology – poet Sonia Sanchez, and Professors John H. Bracey and James Smethurst of the Afro-American Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst – discuss the impact of the movement.

Healthy living can be a difficult challenge in communities of color – access to fresh and nutritious food is often lacking, and better education on making healthy choices is sorely needed. Certified nutritionist Robert Ferguson, C.E.O. of the health outreach company Diet Free Life, discusses some of the solutions.

Billie Holiday, the iconic singer known as Lady Day, would have turned 100 this year. Holiday inspired another vocalist who has become an icon in her own right – Grammy winner Cassandra Wilson. She shares her new album celebrating Holiday’s centennial year, “Coming Forth By Day: A Tribute To Billie Holiday.”