James McBride, Song Yet Sung Friday, February 8, 2008 7:00 p.m. St. James Episcopal Church 1991 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140 Sponsored by Porter Square Books In an interview with Time magazine following her 1988 Pulitzer Prize win, Toni Morrison described thinking of Beloved as "the least read of all the books I'd written because it is about something that the characters don't want to remember, I don't want to remember, black people don't want......

While chants of "Fired up! Ready to go!" echoed through the World Trade Center, Massachusetts political heavy-weights rallied behind the historic presidential bid of Senator Barack Obama. Senator Kerry's introduction spoke of experience that comes from "wisdom, instinct, gut, and courage - not age" and he stated that "history gives us moments and we must decide what to do with them." When Senator Obama finally took the stage he quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.......

blue socks reminds us that Martin Luther King Jr. Day is about remembering the spirit of a great man, not just enjoying a day off from work.......

--Yet another explanation for why you should have a sinking feeling in your tummy any time you go over a bridge in Massachusetts. [Boston Herald] --Another storm is expected for Friday, but it's not prompting the mass freakout that the last storm did. [WBZ] --The city of Boston will build a statue that honors Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife, Coretta Scott King. [AP/Boston Globe] --The Committee on Children, Families, and Individuals With......

While on Meet the Press, when Tim Russert wasn't waving flip-flops in his face, Mitt Romney got teary when recalling the time in 1978 when he learned the Mormon church would accept black people. Some news outlets focused on the crying, such as the Boston Herald and Boston Daily. (At least one black Mormon wasn't impressed with the show because Romney didn't apologize for the church's discrimination.) Bostonist shrugged and figured all politicians have......

--Police have arrested a teenager who was only 14 years old when he killed 41-year-old Michael Hansbury on Monson Street in June of this year. The DA's Office writes, "Officers spoke with witnesses who stated that they observed an individual step up to the victim and assault him. Witnesses further stated the victim subsequently fell to the ground, hitting his head on the sidewalk." Hansbury died of the head injury. When the incident happened, the......

The intended hunger strike was announced at the end of the year last year, and executed in the early days of this month. It's over now. On February 16, 2007, professor James Sherley ended his hunger strike and protest outside of the offices of the MIT president and provost. According to the statement he issued I am ending this part of my struggle. Starting today, I will in fact break my fast, in celebration of......

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. Londonist HQ—that is to say, the city of London—was battered by heavy winds, making it a bad time to be a twelve-meter (nearly forty-foot) tall snowman. Still, not everyone decided to keep warmly covered. Meanwhile, back indoors, the Big Brother racism is now causing all kinds of headaches for international diplomats, and Londonist got into......

Bruins 3, Buffalo 2 - Apparently whatever Coach Lewis told the Bruins in the parking lot worked. After three shootouts, they finally won when Marco Sturm broke through. Celtics 96, Atlanta 100 - Ouch. At least it was close, but it was a loss to another team lurking around the lower reaches of the Eastern Conference. To play the Celtics Glad Game, the Herald had a nice piece about Doc Rivers' relationship with the family......

Today most of the MBTA system will be running on a Saturday schedule anticipating lighter rider-ship on the Martin Luther King holiday. Of course there's to "advisory" posted on the website, it's just a press release. The Saturday Schedule might be better for a T rider looking to get to Jamaica Plain than, say, a Friday Schedule. A tip to the blog Charlie on the MBTA indicates that the T’s Trip Planning website is having......

Music legend James Brown died quietly on Christmas, which is a shock. His unbelievable energy and larger-than-life persona suggested that he would leave the earth with as much dramatic flair as he brought to the stage. In fact, it's easier to imagine a factotum slinging a cape over Brown's shoulders and escorting him to the backstage in the sky than thinking of him taking his last breaths in a hospital, just like an ordinary guy.......

Valentine's Day is in the air! How does Bostonist know? Well, aside from the wall-to-wall red that quickly took over our local drugstore's seasonal aisle on January 2 (can someone please figure out a way to market Martin Luther King Day so we can forestall this shit?), we've been noticing all the tell-tale signs: Giddy sidelong glaces among our single coworkers, dreamy, far-off looks in the eyes of our lovelorn friends, marked increases in alcohol......

Just as you're coming down from the high of celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., along comes the birth date of another great American, and this time it's one of Boston's own. Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706 - 300 years ago! - on what is now Milk Street, right here in the Hub (although the man who would give Boston that nickname wouldn't be born for another 103 years). Philly......

While Monday is the holiday, Sunday is the actual birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Bostonist realizes we don't really need a Boston connection to talk about him, what with the effect he had on the national stage (including the Commonwealth, of course), but it always bears mentioning that he did a Ph.D. at Boston University, which is cool (as is the memorial statue dedicated to him at BU, shown at right - it has......

Out for a leisurely stroll today with Toddler Bostonist, we couldn't help but notice an unusual preponderance around town of cars bedecked in the flags and colors of various Carribbean nations. We saw two Haitis, one Jamaica, one Panama, and one Trinidad and Tobago, all highly polished and looking ready for a party. For a while, we kept asking ourselves, what's up with these cars? Then we walked by City Hall Plaza, where a......

JFKennedy that is. Kerry spoke about voter irregularities this morning at the MLK breakfast slamming the Republicans for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in Iraq to bring democracy there but left minority voters in the US waiting in line in the cold and rain because of uneven voting machine distribution. In a release from the JFK Library in honor of Martin Luther King’s birthday Kennedy expressed his distress about the state of civil......