PowerPoint - Best of Series: Blacks in Space, Nina Simone

1999-08-08 (Creation date: 1999-08-08)

Hicks & Associates

PowerPoint was the first and only live program to focus attention on issues and information of concern to African American listeners using the popular interactive, call-in format. The show, based in Atlanta, aired weekly on Sunday evenings, from 9-11 p.m. It was on the air for seven years in 50 markets on NPR and on Sirius satellite radio (now SiriusXM). Reggie F. Hicks served as Executive Producer.

In the first hour, Kenneth Walker talks with NASA astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour and, in particular, Major Mike P. Anderson, on his first flight. (Anderson was later killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003.) Walker also interviews Curtis M. Graves, a NASA administrator, and Khephra Burns, author of "Black Stars in Orbit: NASA's African American Astronauts" (1995). News report by Verna Avery-Brown.

In the second hour, Kenneth Walker interviews singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist Nina Simone. Simone was ill then and unhappy to be back in America, so it's a short and awkward telephone conversation. Not long after this interview, during a performance in Newark, NJ, Simone announced, "If you're going to come see me again, you've got to come to France, because I am not coming back." News report by Verna Avery-Brown.

Straight Street Media

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Special Collections and University Archives

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