Dhonielle Clayton is not just a bestselling author of young adult fiction. She’s an organizer, a former teacher and a founder of the grassroots publishing movement We Need Diverse Books. She’s also the kind of friend who can convince five of her well-known peers to collaborate on a single novel, and then come back for another.
This past season, sophomore Payton Walk helped the Crenshaw girls’ basketball team become City Section contenders. Although this was her first year playing varsity, she was co-captain of the team.
“It’s colder than a pimp’s heart” — Russell Hornsby “The Hate U Give”— now available on Digital, 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD “It’s colder than a pimp’s heart out there,” bellowed actor Russell Hornsby, as he entered the private dining room of New York’s chic restaurant, Ocean Prime to chop it up with a very small, select group of journalists to share light on his role, as Maverick ‘May’ Carter in director George Tillman Jr’s, “The Hate U Give” which also stars Amandla Stenberg, now available on Digital, 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD. It was an enchanting evening … The
Essence has named four actresses as its annual Black Women in Hollywood honorees. They are Regina Hall and Amandla Stenberg, who both starred in “The Hate U Give,” KiKi Layne of “If Beale Street Could Talk” and Jenifer Lewis of “black-ish.” The awards luncheon will be held Feb. 21 in Beverly Hills, California. In a statement, Essence salutes “the marvelous work and stunning achievements” of the four. Chief creative and content officer MoAna Luu also notes that they represent “the dynamic intersection of art and activism that is influencing how we shape our own destiny.” Hall was also in “Support the Girls,” and became the first
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg) straddles two different worlds which never intersect, one, black and poor, the other, white and privileged. That’s because she lives in the ghetto in Garden Heights, but her parents (Regina Hall and Russell Hornsby) have sent her to Williamson, an exclusive prep school located on the other side of the tracks. They know that Williamson gives her a better chance of making it out of the ‘hood than the local public high school which is only good for girls who want to get “high, pregnant or killed.” Consequently, Starr uses slang when hanging out with her
Some are touting ‘The Hate U Give,’ as “the first Black Lives Matter movie.” Red flags should have gone up the moment we learned that Fox, recently acquired by Disney, was behind the film with a massive public relations budget, footing the bill for hundreds of advance screenings with celebrity guests, marketing swag, and heavy media saturation – especially in Black markets. We might also wonder about the choice to have Audrey Wells, a White screenwriter whose credits include “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “The Truth About Cats and Dogs,” adapt an urban Black novel for the screen.
For movies opening October 5, 2018.