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NCPB Press Kit
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Media Usage Policy
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PRESS CONTACTS
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Contacts for journalists and reporters only. For information about contacting KQED, please visit the Contact Us page. Please send press releases or news story ideas directly to KQED Radio Programs contacts.
Scott Walton, Executive Director of Communications
415.553.2145
swalton@ncpb.com
Yoon Lee, Director of Media Relations & Promotions
415.553.3338
ylee@kqed.org
Meredith Gandy, Associate Publicist
415.553.2116
mgandy@kqed.org
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| KQED Public Broadcasting Celebrates
Black History Month in February |
More than 60 African American-related Programs to Air on
KQED Public Television
Six Local Heroes to Receive Accolades in Tenth Annual Awards Ceremony on February 2 Sponsored by Union Bank of California in association with Kaiser Permanente
San Francisco, California, January 20, 2005 -- This February, KQED Public Broadcasting proudly celebrates the culture, heritage, and history of the Black experience in the United States. This month-long commemoration includes special programming and an event honoring a group of six local leaders for their outstanding accomplishments and unswerving service within their communities.
For the past decade, KQED Public Broadcasting and Union Bank of California have partnered each February to celebrate the history of the Black experience through the Local Hero awards program. The special evening of recognition, hosted by KQED and Union Bank with support from Kaiser Permanente, will take place on Wednesday, February 2 at the Regency Center in San Francisco. During the ten-year partnership, the Local Hero awards program has recognized more than 50 community leaders, including Julia Middleton, the Honorable Thelton E. Henderson, Enola D. Maxwell and jazz musician E.W. Wainwright. The six new honorees have been chosen based upon their outstanding contributions to their local communities and the Bay Area community at large.
The 2005 Black History month honorees are:
- SALLY JOAN BAKER, Executive Producer and Host, WEE POETS, Berkeley, CA
For the past 20 years, Sally Joan Baker has been helping young, at-risk children and teens through the use of poetry. During her weekly cable television program, WEE POETS, children ages 7 to 13 in the Alameda and Contra Costa County school systems recite original poems on camera and learn from members of the community about different career opportunities. Many of these children come from single parent families, have behavior problems, physical disabilities, or speak English as a second language. WEE POETS provides them with the opportunity to improve their reading, writing, public speaking and self-esteem. WEE POETS also provides free television technician internships to unskilled, at-risk teens, who produce the program. To date, WEE POETS has reached over 27,000 children and trained more than 370 interns, 95 percent of who subsequently major in broadcasting.
- VERONICA HUNNICUTT, ED.D., Dean, City College of San Francisco -- Southeast Campus, San Francisco, CA
Dr. Veronica Hunnicutt is an educator and community leader who, throughout her 35-year career, has sought to expand educational and job-training opportunities for residents of Bayview Hunters Point. She has worked for City College of San Francisco since 1972 and currently serves as dean of its Southeast Campus. In a crime-ridden neighborhood where motivation is low, Dr. Hunnicutt has expanded the school's curriculum and instituted innovative new programs to help students succeed. Among these, she launched the Partnership to Achieve Academic Success, a mentor program that helps students achieve academic goals. Dr. Hunnicutt also serves on the board for Communities in School, an after school program at Martin Luther King middle school that has exposed hundreds of children to academic enrichment activities that support their high school graduation. More recently, she has become involved with the Hekima Project, an intervention program to redirect youth from the penal system to college.
- TERRANCE KELLY, Artistic Director, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Oakland, CA
Since 1986, Terrance Kelly has directed the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. He serves as artistic director for both the adult and youth choirs. He is also minister of magnification at Oakland's Imani Community Church, director of the Foothill Community College Gospel Choir and gospel choir director for Rhythmic Concepts' annual Jazz Camp West. Kelly has musical expertise in both gospel and jazz music, and his operatic range and joyous emotional feel for the music make him a popular soloist as well as an accomplished director, composer and arranger. His credits include choral arrangements on albums by Linda Ronstadt and the Kronos Quartet, and gospel arrangements of popular music for television and video soundtracks. In addition, he wrote or arranged most of the music for each of the choir's four albums. Kelly received an Emmy Award in 1995 for his choral arrangement of Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir's KGO-TV public service announcement.
- DR. J. ALFRED SMITH, SR., Senior Pastor, Allen Temple Baptist Church, Oakland, CA
Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr. is the senior pastor of the Allen Temple Baptist Church. He also serves as professor of Christian Ministry and Preaching at the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley, California. For two years, Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr. has been one of Ebony Magazine's "100 Most Influential Black Americans" and was among Ebony's "Top 15 Greatest Black Preachers of 1993." In 2001, Dr. Smith received the Greenlining Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award and the East Bay Agency for Children's Humanitarian of the Year Award. Dr. Smith is the author of 16 books. His most recent book was released in May 2004: On the Jericho Road, a story of his life in ministry. Among Dr. Smith's other publications are Giving to a Giving God, Basic Bible Sermons, and Lamentations in the City. Dr. Smith is a past president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention and of American Baptist Churches of the West.
- MIKAEL WAGNER, Founder and President, Promotions West, San Francisco, CA
Mikael Wagner is a small business owner, a public health advocate and a community activist who has dedicated his life to empowering disenfranchised populations in the Bay Area and beyond. He is founder and president of Promotions West, a public relations firm that specializes in grassroots communication and helps local and national organizations design and implement community outreach strategies. Wagner's focus has always been to raise awareness of critical social issues facing minority groups, particularly public health and economic rights. On behalf of the California Department of Health Services, for example, he co-developed the first successful regional program targeting tobacco use in African American communities. Wagner has also been instrumental in HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaigns through his work with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and other area organizations. Recently, he established a financial literacy training program called "MoneyWi$e" that has educated thousands of people about basic banking and money management.
- ANDRE WHITE, Artist, Oakland, CA
Andre White is a nationally recognized portrait painter who has been painting since 1961.. He attended the Cleveland Institute of Art for three years, but has been a self-taught artist ever since, painting in the Realist tradition. In 1996, a jury of 16 unanimously selected White from 65 artists competing for a commission to paint Congressman Ronald V. Dellums' portrait. In 1998, he was commissioned to paint an oil portrait of U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore and, in 2003, his portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was selected by Oakland to be the dominant visual during its celebration of King's 75th birthday anniversary. White's works hang in private collections and public venues across the country. Actor Danny Glover's collection features a portrait of John Coltrane and the San Francisco Art Commission purchased two works for a permanent collection at the San Francisco Skilled Mental Health Nursing Facility.
Also in honor of Black History Month, KQED Public Television will offer over 60 programs that focus on African American themes and culture. Some of the month's highlights include:
- Slavery and the Making of America chronicles the institution of American slavery from its origins through the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the adoption of the 13th Amendment and Reconstruction. Entirely new perspectives on slavery challenge long-held notions and highlight the contradictions of a country that was founded on the principile of "liberty and justice for all" but that embraced slavery.
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Airs Wednesdays, February 9 and 16, at 9:00pm on KQED Public Television 9, simulcast on KQED HD. Repeats on Saturdays, February 12 and 19 at 3:00am on Channel 9. Also airs on KQED HD and KQED World; visit www.kqed.org/dtv for details.
- Race: The Power of an Illusion is a three-part documentary series about race in society, science, and history. The first part, The Difference Between Us, illustrates why humans cannot be subdivided into races. The Story We Tell traces the origins of the idea of race to the European conquest of the Americas and to the American slave system, the first ever where all the slaves shared a physical trait: dark skin. The House We Live In looks at how institutions-U.S. laws, courts, customs and, perhaps most pertinent, segregated neighborhoods -- create unequal opportunities.
- Airs Wednesdays, February 2, 9, and 16, at 11:00pm on KQED Public Television 9. Also airs on KQED Encore and KQED World; visit www.kqed.org/dtv for details.
- In Marvin Gaye: Greatest Hits-Live In '76, the legendary soul singer is captured at his best, performing in Amsterdam before a sold-out audience.
- Airs Saturday, February 5 at 11:15pm on KQED Public Television 9.
- P.O.V. Chisholm '72 -- Unbought and Unbossed explores a watershed event in American politics. Chisholm, the African-American congresswoman from New York, ran for president, engendering strong and sometimes bigoted opposition and setting off currents that affect American politics to this day.
- Airs Sunday, February 13 at 10:30pm on KQED Public Television 9. Also airs on KQED Encore and KQED World; visit www.kqed.org/dtv for details.
- Then I'll Be Free to Travel Home: The Legacy of the New York African Burial Ground is a series chronicling the experience of the original Africans who founded the New York African Burial Ground. Documenting the contributions that they and their descendants made to challenging slavery and building New York and the nation, it also traces a recent struggle to preserve and honor the site where those original Africans are buried.
- Airs Wednesdays at 8:00pm and again at 11:00pm on KQED Public Radio 88.5 FM and KQEI 89.3 FM in Sacramento.
Program listings and descriptions for February can be found in the KQED Black History Month Guide, online at www.kqed.org/heritage.
Based in San Francisco, UnionBanCal Corporation is a bank holding company with assets of $48.1 billion at December 31, 2004. Its primary subsidiary, Union Bank of California, N.A., had 315 banking offices in California, Oregon and Washington, and 21 international facilities, at December 31, 2004. The company's Web site is located at www.uboc.com.
KQED Public Broadcasting operates KQED Public Television 9, one of the nation's most-watched public television stations during prime-time, and KQED's digital television channels, which include KQED HD, KQED Encore, KQED World, KQED Life and KQED Kids; KQED Public Radio, the most-listened-to public radio station in the nation with an award-winning news and public affairs program service (88.5 FM in San Francisco and 89.3 FM in Sacramento); KQED.org, one of the most visited station sites in Public Broadcasting; and KQED Education Network, which brings the impact of KQED to thousands of teachers, students, parents and media professionals through workshops, seminars and resources.
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