MIDDLETOWN
The MAC (Middletown Art Center of EcoArts of Lake County) receives its first grant award from California Humanities
California Humanities has announced the recent round of Humanities For All Quick Grant awards. The Middletown Art Center (The MAC), a project of EcoArts of Lake County, has been awarded $5,000 its project, “Sounds of Liberation: Race and Music in Lake County.”
The Humanities For All Quick Grant is a competitive grant program of California Humanities that supports locally-initiated public humanities projects that respond to the needs and interests of Californians, encourage greater public participation in humanities programming, particularly by new and/or underserved audiences, and promotes understanding and empathy among all our state’s peoples in order to cultivate a thriving democracy.
Sounds of Liberation is a series of intimate conversations and performances with Black musicians living in rural Northern California about their responses to sweeping social events throughout their careers. Sounds of Liberation uplifts a hopeful vision of racial harmony and social change. Host and co-organizer Clovice Lewis, an African-American composer living in Upper Lake, says, “We invite all our neighbors to join us on a journey to raise awareness and understanding.”
Lewis connected with The MAC’s director, Lisa Kaplan, at a gathering of the “Community Call to Action: A loving response to systemic racism in America,” a self-organized local action group formed by the Unitarian Universalist Community of Lake County, and Sounds of Liberation was conceived a few weeks later, now set to launch in mid-June.
“These projects will bring the complexity and diversity of California to light in new ways that will engage Californians from every part of our state, and, will help us all understand each other better,” said Julie Fry, President & CEO of California Humanities. “We congratulate the grantees whose projects will promote understanding and provide insight into a wide range of topics, issues, and experiences.”
Learn about Sounds of Liberation at www.middletownartcenter.org/sounds-of-liberation.html
For a complete list of all Humanities For All Quick Grants, check out the calhum.org.
California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment of the Humanities, promotes the humanities – focused on ideas, conversation and learning – as relevant, meaningful ways to understand the human condition and connect us to each other in order to help strengthen California. California Humanities has provided grants and programs across the state since 1975. To learn more visit calhum.org, or follow California Humanities on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
—Submitted
SACRAMENTO
Death penalty faces critical test: Will California high court raise bar?
The death penalty in California could be on the precipice of a dramatic change.
Today, the California Supreme Court begins hearings in a case challenging the state’s application of the death penalty. The state’s highest court will consider whether to raise the bar for when a jury can sentence a defendant to capital punishment, a decision that could affect pending cases and potentially reverse death sentences for the 704 inmates already on California’s Death Row. It’s a move supported by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who in October took the unprecedented step of filing a brief urging the state Supreme Court to change how California applies the death penalty, arguing the current process is “infected by racism.”
The landmark hearing follows Newsom’s Friday executive order mandating an independent investigation into the case of Death Row inmate Kevin Cooper, who was convicted in 1985 of a quadruple murder but continues to maintain his innocence. Also Friday, Newsom granted 14 pardons, 13 commutations and eight medical reprieves, including pardons for two inmate firefighters who were facing deportation.
California’s reexamination of the death penalty comes amid a fraught debate over public safety in the wake of a string of mass shootings and a surge in gun violence. A lot of political futures — including Newsom’s — could be on the line. The governor angered some Californians by ordering a halt to the death penalty in 2019, just three years after voters rejected an attempt to end capital punishment. Recall organizers cite the order as a key reason to vote him out of office.
Capital punishment could also play a pivotal role in next year’s state attorney general race, with Newsom appointee Rob Bonta opposed to the death penalty and his main challenger so far, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, in favor of it.
A recent poll from UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found that although 44% of California voters support repealing the death penalty, a sizable 21% remain undecided.
—CALMatters
—Compiled by Ariel Carmona Jr.
