Civil Rights & Social Justice

Interview on public television WGBY’s “Connecting Point”

From Vice Tony King, will not be wrestling with philosophical questions when he walks out to the mound around noon on Sunday. All week he has been brushing aside the idea that this ceremonial first pitch was significant. “It doesn’t make any difference,” he insists. “It’s just the idea of it, anyway. You let the ball go, and you go down. It’s just something to get the game started.” Watch: The All-Ivy League Ex Marine Trying to Make it to the Majors For weeks, he has been tos

She was not quite 4 when her daddy died. Deep in the recesses of her memory, Jessica Waddell Lewinstein, now 30, can still hear his voice. It was a voice that held contrasts: deep but soft, considered but sprinkled with mischief, nuanced with sadness and lilting with joy. Tom Waddell was a star athlete at Springfield College. Courtesy Springfield College Archives She remembers only snippets of conversations. Like the time he sought her advice on the best color for a car he ho

The untold story of a government plot, a maverick college president, and the most important figure of the civil rights era Their one and only meeting lasted barely a minute. On March 26, 1964, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X came to Washington to observe the beginning of the Senate debate on the Civil Rights Act. They shook hands. They smiled for the cameras. As they parted, Malcolm said jokingly, “Now you’re going to get investigated.” That, of course, was well underway. Re

Presentation at LBJ Presidential Library Martin made a presentation at the Educator Workshop at the Civil Rights Summit in Austin, Texas. The Civil Rights Summit was probably the largest civil rights conference in our nation’s history with presentations by Presidents Barack Obama, three former Presidents (Carter, Clinton, and George W. Bush) as well as a host of civil rights luminaries (Andrew Young, John Lewis, etc.). He served as the lone moderator for the ensuing hour-plus

WGBY’s “Connecting Point”

Londell Francis, 8, who has sickle cell anemia, cuts the nets with his LIU-Brooklyn teammates. Courtesy of Long Island University-Brooklyn The Sports Grinch is beaming. And why not? The athletic landscape in early 2013 is a veritable carnival of cynicism. Beneath the pedestals are huge piles of rubble. Hope is dying. To the Sports Grinch, the bad times never seemed so good. Manti Te'o playing his heart out for a dying girlfriend -- but the "love of his life" doesn't even exis

You would have needed a well-sharpened knife to cut through this tension. The smoky air in the basketball arena in Lexington, Ky., was thick with anticipation. All eyes focused on the collision of cultures, the will-he-or-won't-he moment of truth. Celtics president and co-owner Walter Brown (left) welcomes Don Barksdale at the Fargo Building in Boston in November 1953 after Barksdale was acquired from the Baltimore Bullets. AP Photo Everyone looked at a single bottle of wate

From ESPN Hasenfus has done whatever has been asked of him in making the Springfield College JV team. Asked his 87-year-old father, "Do you think there's any chance you'll get called up to the varsity?" Ryan Matlack for ESPNBoston.com SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- The first week of the baseball season can be a time for veteran left-handers to work out the kinks. Last Monday, 48-year-old Barack Obama was high and outside with his presidential first pitch before the Washington Nationa