Black Excellence: Kevin Young

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Young_(poet)

Kevin Young (born November 8, 1970)[1][2] is an American poet and the director of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture since 2021. Author of 11 books and editor of eight others,[3] Young previously served as Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. A winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as a finalist for the National Book Award for his 2003 collection Jelly Roll: A Blues, Young was Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University and curator of Emory’s Raymond Danowski Poetry Library. In March 2017, Young was named poetry editor of The New Yorker.

Black Excellence: Jamila Norman

https://www.patchworkcityfarms.com

Jamila Norman, a.k.a (Farmer J) is a first generation daughter to Caribbean parents whose history is rooted in agriculture. She is an internationally recognized urban farmer, food activist and mother based in Atlanta, GA. She is a University of Georgia graduate with a degree in Environmental Engineering. After 10 years in her professional career, Jamila has now committed fully to operating her independent, organic urban farm, Patchwork City Farms, which she founded 2010.

Black Excellence: Lydia Polgreen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Polgreen

Lydia Frances Polgreen (born 1975) is an American journalist. She was editorial director of NYT Global at The New York Times, and the West Africa bureau chief for the same publication, based in Dakar, Senegal, from 2005 to 2009. She also reported from India.[1][2] She spent much of her early career in Johannesburg, South Africa where she was The New York Times South African Bureau Chief as well. She was editor-in-chief of HuffPost from 2016 to 2020,[3] after which she spent about one year between 2021 and 2022 as the head of content for Gimlet Media.[4] In 2022, after leaving Gimlet, she returned to The New York Times as an opinion columnist.[5]

Black Excellence: Major Handy

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/26/1240892110/acadiana-music-showcase-major-handy

Louisiana’s Cajun Country is one of the most unique areas of the United States. It’s officially called Acadiana, after the French-speaking Acadians — or Cajuns — who settled there after being exiled from Canada by the British in the 18th century.

Our monthly series, Acadiana Music Showcase, is produced by our friends at Lafayette, La., affiliate station KRVS, and it explores this vibrant cultural melting pot through music.

Today, on a new installment of the Acadiana Music Showcase, you’ll hear a performance from a fixture in the Louisiana blues and zydeco scene: Major Handy.

http://archive.musicmaker.org/artists/major-handy/

Major Handy is a Zydeco musician and blues accordion player who was born in 1947 in Lafayette, Louisiana. Surrounded by Creole music while growing up, he has since fine-tuned his skills on the guitar, bass, piano and accordion, along with becoming a vocalist. His past gigs include playing guitar with Rockin’ Dopsie’s band for 12 years and with Buckwheat Zydeco’s original lineup for about a year. Over the years, he has held various jobs including acting as deputy sheriff in the late 1970s, holding a regular gig in Canada that include doing a cooking show before his set and running his own auto business.