Five-day “Freedom Festival” honoring Juneteenth kicks off June 15
By Jan Worth-Nelson A five-day long Juneteenth “Freedom Festival” in north Flint starting Friday aims to honor the June 19, 1865 freeing of the slaves in Texas. But that’s not all. Organizer April Cook-Hawkins says after a bruising four years of the water crisis, it’s time to have some fun. That means parades, cookouts, rallies, concerts and more. The “Freedom Festival” extravaganza will start at...
Commentary: Beyond the water crisis, another Flint crisis looms
By Paul Rozycki In its own clumsy way the Flint water crisis seems to be slowly drifting to some sort of resolution. Most scientific reports are showing a significant reduction in the lead levels in our water. As a result the state has ended its distribution of free water at its water points of distribution (PODs) in the city, over much protest and anger. Several private groups and churches have stepped forward to provide bottled...
Review: “JFK: The Last Speech” juxtaposes power, the arts, and eloquence with a local angle
By Ed Bradley The reflective new documentary JFK: The Last Speech recalls a time when not only could it be assumed that the American president knew how to spell the word “poetry,” but also that he could recite verse at an important event without an eyebrow being raised or a pundit shouting. Still, John F. Kennedy’s last major public address, less than a month before his assassination, was no typical oration. Speaking at Amherst...
Review: Politics, misused power, poverty all play a role in Anna Clark’s riveting “The Poisoned City”
By Robert R. Thomas A current Flint kerfuffle is the Hurley Medical Center controversy about whether we Flintstones were “lead-poisoned” or “lead-exposed.” Anna Clark’s riveting reply to that question and many more is The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy. The book will be officially out in July, but will be launched in Flint at Tenacity Brewing on Saturday, June 23. Key elements in Clark’s examination of...
Activists’ letter aims grievances at Marc Edwards; he calls it “science anarchy”
By Jan Worth-Nelson Note: This piece was updated Saturday evening, June 2, to add several paragraphs from flintwaterstudy.com’s response to the flintcomplaints.com letter, received after the article was originally written. A Virginia Polytechnic Institute professor who emerged in 2015 as one of the heroes of the Flint Water Crisis, Marc Edwards, is now being bitterly called to account by a Who’s Who of activists in the...
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