Yeay Me!! Kind Of! Not Really. (Just Buy My Book Already)

Woo Hoo! The documentary in which I was the functional equivalent of "Waiter #2" was named one of The New York Times' Top 10 tv programs for 2011.

By the way, my credentials for that documentary are this. In paperback. Or your various Kindle-y, Nook-y (heh, nookie) things.

Freedom Riders, Emmys, and IMDB (Self Indulgence Alert)

Well, I've made the big time. As a result of my role in Freedom Riders, I now have an IMDB page. A barren, consequenceless IMDB page, but an IMDB page nonetheless.

But I've buried the lede. Freedom Riders has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards, including "Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking," "Writing for Nonfiction Programming," and "Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programming."

And a reminder that Freedom's Main Line is available in paperback.

Freedom's Main Line in Paperback! (Self Indulgence Alert!)

Freedom's Main Line is now available in paperback (or will be very, very soon). Order your copy today!

Brushes With Quasi-Fame (Self Indulgence Alert)

My Miller Center lecture is now available for viewing (or listening to) here.

The Newshour with Jim Lehrer also featured Freedom Riders on Monday (you can access the video and transcript through that link), and the clip they featured the other day included one of my appearances in the film (I'm in the documentary a dozen or so times total.)

UPDATED!! "Freedom Riders" Tonight

Don't Forget, you can see me on The American Experience: Freedom Riders on PBS tonight. It's on at 9 Eastern, 8 central in most markets. As they say, check your local listings for the original broadcast and re-showings.

Freedom's Main Line is out in paperback soon. Order your copy now!

Update: You should also check out this feature in The New York Times on the film's director, Stanley Nelson (not only a world-class documentarian, but a great man as well) and this piece on CNN exploring how the Freedom Riders might have influenced the new generation of Arab protest leaders.

The reviews have been pouring in as well. Yours truly gets mentioned in the San Antonio Express News and Popmatters.

[Crossposted]

I Was on Oprah Today (Kind Of)

Well, I would imagine most of you did not see it (I am out of town and so I didn't see it) but this morning Oprah's show featured the Freedom Riders. One of the clips she showed from Stanley Nelson's Freedom Riders documentary apparently featured yours truly.

Thanks to all of you who emailed and texted and Facebooked and Tweeted to let me know.

Hallelujah, I'm a Travelin'

I've been loading up on content this evening in part because I'll be heading out of town for about ten days tomorrow.

First I head to Chicago where on Friday (April 29) I'll be chairing a panel, sitting on another, and participating in an author's event for the Freedom Riders 50th Anniversary event this weekend. All events are at the Hyatt McCormick Place.

From there I fly to DC Saturday and will be heading to Charlottesville soon after. On Monday (May 2) I'll be giving a talk at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at UVA as part of their forum series. My talk is "Freedom's Main Line: The Freedom Rides at 50." My talk is at 11:00. I hope to see you at both events.

There is talk of another event in Washington next week, so I'll be sticking around until the weekend. If you are in Chicago or Charlottesville please come by.

And of course if you have not yet gotten your copy of Freedom's Main Line in hardcover, supplies actually are running low in the lead up to the release of the paperback.

[Crossposted]

Freedom Rides; Radiohead

I'm off to give a talk at Tarrant County College's Northeast Campus in Hurst, Texas (Dallas area) tomorrow from 12:30 to 1:30. If you're in the area, I'll be presenting "The Freedom Rides at 50."

In the meantime, you might have heard that Radiohead shocked even its most in-the-know fans by releasing their new album, King of Limbs, for early download last week. If you care about music even one tiny bit go get it now. It is freaking awesome.

Freedom Riders Documentary Odessa Premiere (Self Indulgence Alert)

UTPB will be hosting a West Texas premiere for Freedom Riders on Thursday, February 10 at 7:00 pm. The Odessa American had a nice little feature on the documentary and my role in it as did the Midland Reporter Telegram (though for the record both my wife and I are associate professors) for an event at Midland College on February 5.

Off to NYE Shenanigans

Over at the Foreign Policy Association's Africa Blog I have posted my annual "Year in Review."

I am traveling to New England today for eleven days of the Boston-New Hampshire access punctuated by New Year's shenanigans in Boston, a few days in the old hometown, and the American Historical Association annual meeting in Boston, where I am on a panel on the Freedom Rides that will take place before a showing of Freedom Riders. If you're in the Boston area, do swing on by. I'll even sign this if you have a copy. (Prediction: My shamelessness will extend into 2011!)

Happy New Year, everyone!

FML in "A Merry Claremont Christmas" (Self Indulgence Alert)

I was touched to discover recently that my former Ph.D. advisor and my friend Alonzo Hamby recently included Freedom's Main Line in his contribution to the Claremont Review of Books' annual "A Merry Claremont Christmas" holiday book recommendations.

Christmas Books (Self Indulgence Alert!)

The newest issue of the Claremont Review of Books has just been published. Scroll down and notice that heavy-hitter Michael Barone has reviewed Tom Bruscino's A Nation Forged In War. The review rightfully raves. It is hidden behind the subscriber firewall, hopefully just for the time being, but if there is one conservative publication you should be reading it's the Claremont Review. Its claptrap-to-seriousness rating passes muster and as far as I am concerned, the more places that take books seriously, the better.

Tom's book would make an excellent Christmas gift. And while we're at it, since 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides I hope you'll consider giving Freedom's Main Line as a gift (or buying it for yourself if you have not yet done so.) It's even available on Kindle.

Paperback Row (Self Indulgence Alert)

I got some good news recently. Yep -- paperback.

Freedom Riders -- Dallas Screening

Freedom Riders, the Stanley Nelson-directed documentary that yours truly appears in as a talking head, will be making its Texas debut (and, I believe, lone scheduled performance) at the Angelika Theater in Dallas tomorrow, September 23, at 8:00 as part of the Dallas Videofest. I'll be there, so if you are or can be in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, please do try to find me.

And of course if you don't already own it, Freedom's Main Line is available in hardcover and as a Kindle download.

Freedom Riders Documentary Theatrical Debut

Just got this in my in-box today -- if you're going to be in LA or New York, check it out -- you might be able to see my ugly mug on the big screen. And of course I hope you have already read this . . .
FREEDOM RIDERS

OPENS FRIDAY!

NEW YORK CITY & LA!

IN PERSON!

PRODUCER LAURENS GRANT!

DIRECTOR STANLEY NELSON!

For Tickets & more info:

http://www.documentary.org/docuweeks2010

Follow Laurens on Twitter @LG789

Help spread the word & pack all 28 screenings!

Freedom Riders is accepted into DocuWeeks!

DocuWeeks is a theatrical showcase that helps documentaries qualify for the Oscars!

"Freedom Riders" is a superb

piece of filmic journalism

- Variety

view the trailer:

http://freedomridersfilm.com/

SHOW TIMES - AUG. 13 TO AUG. 19, 2010:

Producer Laurens Grant & Director Stanley Nelson In Person!

NEW YORK CITY

IFC Theater

323 Avenue of the Americas @ West 4th

NY, NY 10014

SHOW TIMES

Fri. Aug. 13: 12PM & 5:30PM

Sat. Aug. 14: 1:45PM & 7:30PM - Q&A w/ Director Stanley Nelson after 7:30pm show!

Sun. Aug. 15: 3:30PM & 9:35PM - Q&A w/ Director Stanley Nelson after 9:35pm show!

Mon. Aug. 16: 12PM & 5:30PM

Tues. Aug. 17: 1:45PM & 7:30PM - Q&A w/ Producer Laurens Grant after 7:30pm show!

Wed. Aug. 18: 3:30PM & 9:35PM - Q&A w/ Producer Laurens Grant after 9:35pm show!

Thu. Aug. 19: 12PM & 5:30PM

LOS ANGELES

ArcLight Hollywood

6360 W Sunset Blvd @ Vine Street

LA, CA 90028

SHOW TIMES

Fri. Aug. 13: 3:40PM & 9:45PM - Q&A with Producer Laurens Grant after 9:45pm show!

Sat. Aug. 14: 1:40PM & 7:35PM - Q&A with Producer Laurens Grant after 7:35pm show!

With two special guests from the film, including a Freedom Rider!

Sun. Aug. 15: 5:20PM & 9:50PM - Q&A w/ Producer Laurens Grant after 9:50pm show!

Mon. Aug. 16: 1:40PM & 7:35PM

Tues. Aug. 17: 5:20PM & 9:50PM

Wed. Aug. 18: 1:40PM & 7:35PM

Thu. Aug. 19: 5:20PM & 9:50PM

* * * * * *

FREEDOM RIDERS screens as part of the International Documentary Association [IDA]'s 14th annual DocuWeeks™, a documentary theatrical showcase designed to qualify films for consideration for the Academy Awards. This year's selected films is a strong lineup of 17 features and 5 shorts to screen in New York City and Los Angeles.

* * * * * *

FREEDOM RIDERS is scheduled to air on PBS' acclaimed American Experience series in May 2011 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1961 freedom rides.

* * * * * *

FREEDOM RIDERS is the first feature-length documentary to tell the story of a courageous band of civil rights activists who risked death by daring to defy the laws of Jim Crow in the Deep South in 1961. They were America's first inter-racial and inter-religious mass movement to challenge segregation in bus and train facilities. Because of their efforts, the signs "whites only" and "colored only" were taken down forever.

My Old Kentucky Home

Better late to the infield party than never. Yesterday Deadspin pointed us to "Stories That Don't Suck" about the Kentucky Derby, including Hunter S. Thompson's classic "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved." And in honor of the great Commonwealth of Kentucky, why not buy this? (Shameless? Perhaps.)

Links Deluge

As often happens, I see a bunch of stories that interest me and want to write about them, and the next thing I know I have ten tabs open and they just sit there because it all seems too much. So it's time to clear out some of those tabs:

Jane Mayer's absolute hammering of the insufferable Mark Thiessen's new book is a thing to behold. The review is all the more damning because The New Yorker tends not to traffic in withering reviews.

A couple of weeks back the New York Times Book Review had an essay on the venerable presidential election campaign book, which seems to have made a comeback just a few years after having been left for dead. I may as well use this time to point you all to the University Press of Kansas' fantastic new series on presidential elections. There are a dozen or so books already out. I have used the ones on the 1980 and 1912 campaigns in classes with a great deal of success. This is one of the rare series (including the one that Freedom's Main Line is in) for which I plan to own every single book, and I hope they eventually cover every presidential election in US history.

Recent events (and the tone of some political discussion) should remind us of the long strand of anti-government (generally) right-wing violence that too many people conveniently elide in discussions about terrorism.

Ezra Klein reminds us that the recent health care legislation is not especially left-wing and uses that to pivot to the point that the current Republican stance has been politically driven, not policy driven. The Republicans have decided that being the party of no is their path back to power. I suppose we'll see if that works. It might be the path to power. It is definitely the path of irresponsible governance.

Defying Parody

I love the headline of this Matthew Yglesias post, drawn from this Ben Demiero Media Matters Post:

"Glenn Beck Denounces Civil Rights Activist John Lewis For Comparing Himself to Civil Rights Activist John Lewis"

Given my profound admiration for John Lewis, my sincere hope is that Glenn Beck's fifteen minutes of fame for being the Mayor of Crazytown are nearly up.

The Greensboro 4 at 50

Monday marked the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Greensboro sit-ins. The actions of those four students -- Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond and Joe McNeil -- set in motion a new wave of civil rights activism.

Indeed, when I talk about the Civil Rights Movement I often try to hold two wholly contradictory ideas in my head at once, knowing they cannot both possibly be true. On the one hand, I embrace the idea of the Long Civil Rights Movement. In Freedom's Main Line I trace the story of the fight to desegregate interstate transportation back in considerable depth to the 1940s and recognize movements well before that decade (Plessy v. Ferguson, after all, involved transportation and not education.) In one of my current book projects I am looking at bus boycotts in the US and South Africa in the period between about 1940 and 1960.

On the other hand, there are times when I think that what began with the sit-ins really represents a new stage in civil rights, and that we might be as well served thinking of the period from February 1960 as almost sui generis in its new approach to direct-action protest. In that view, the Long Civil Rights Movement still holds, but that we then begin to think of the movement in terms of phases. This might help both to revive looking at Brown v. Board as a starting point (something that has been passe with the Long Civil Rights Movement's recent sway) for a phase of the movement while still recognizing that Brown really was not the start or beginning of anything when it comes to the movement as a whole.

I think the emphasis on the 1940s in particular has been essential. But I do not think we should let that swallow up the significant shift that the Greensboro 4 helped usher in and that the Freedom Rides helped connect. In the next few years prepare for a lot of 50th anniversary celebrations and commemorations and reflections of the lightning storm of events of the period from 1960 to 1965 or so.

FML Review (Self Indulgence Alert!)

They like me! They really like me!