HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.

Actor Joe Manganiello got some big surprises when researchers for the PBS show “Finding Your Roots” went digging through his family history.

Author, playwright and longtime champion of multiculturalism Ishmael Reed is receiving a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to literature.

The founder of Audible Inc., a leading force in the booming audiobook industry, will be honored in May at PEN America’s annual gala.

Rarely have past and present mingled in a documentary the way they do in “Descendant,” a nonfiction account of the last known ship to bring African captives to the American South for enslavement.

PEN America held one of New York’s first major indoor literary gatherings since the pandemic began last year, as hundreds met Tuesday night for the organization’s annual gala to honor writers, community servants, political dissidents and such prominent public figures as Walt Disney executive chair Robert A.

Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka will be attending this fall’s PEN America literary gala.

A new wave of public health advocacy that is multilingual, culturally sensitive, entertaining and personal is rapidly replacing mundane public service announcements in the battle to stamp out the disinformation around COVID-19 vaccines in communities of color.

This year's winners of the Anisfield-Wolf awards include novelist James McBride, former U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey and science fiction great Samuel R.

This image released by NBC shows, from left, Dani Lane as Aubrey, Kenan Thompson as Kenan, and Dannah Lane as Birdie in a scene from the comedy series, "Kenan," premiering on Feb. 16. (Casey Durkin/NBC via AP)Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week. The album has 13 tracks including “Tigress & Tweed,” an original Day wrote with veteran singer-producer Raphael Saadiq. Ad— “Saturday Night Live” cast member Kenan Thompson, who two decades ago co-starred in “Kenan and Kel,” is headlining his own sitcom. It details the African American church’s history, from enslavement to emancipation, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights movement to today.

FILE - Norah O'Donnell attends Variety's third annual "Salute to Service" celebration on Nov. 6, 2019, in New York. From the ongoing COVID global pandemic and George Floyd protests around the world to the contested 2020 presidential and last week's storming of the U.S. capitol by armed insurgents, O'Donnell concluded that "journalism is more important than ever." And we certainly saw since the beginning of the global pandemic, people were hungry for news about what is COVID-19, how is the coronavirus spread? ... We went to Houston for his funeral in Houston because this was a seminal moment in American history not to be eclipsed by a global pandemic, that this movement for racial justice in America should not be eclipsed even by a global pandemic. AP: What are your thoughts on the connection some are drawing to the Capitol insurgency and the Floyd protests?

FILE - In this June 1, 2020, file photo President Donald Trump arrives to speak in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. Trump has remained largely silent on that, except to argue that a strong economy is the best antidote. Sometimes youll see some horrible things like we witnessed recently," he said, referring to Floyd's death at a White House meeting Monday with law enforcement officials. Before his 2016 run, Trump spent years pushing the false claim that President Barack Obama, the nations only black president, was not born in the United States. The fact is the mainstream media wont give the president the credit he deserves for improving lives in the black community, Scott said.

Trump has remained largely silent on that, except to argue that a strong economy is the best antidote. But those who flooded the streets after Floyds death want to know what he plans to address the systemic racism they believe is at fault and what Trump himself believes. Sometimes youll see some horrible things like we witnessed recently," he said, referring to Floyd's death at a White House meeting Monday with law enforcement officials. Before his 2016 run, Trump spent years pushing the false claim that President Barack Obama, the nations only black president, was not born in the United States. The fact is the mainstream media wont give the president the credit he deserves for improving lives in the black community, Scott said.