Midday

The actor Michael K. Williams passed away two weeks ago of an apparent drug overdose. Williams starred in Boardwalk Empire and Lovecraft Country, but he came to fame playing the role of Omar in The Wire, the award-winning HBO series produced by David Simon.

When his death was announced on September 6, tributes poured in. On Sunday night, the Baltimore Ravens honored him at their game against the Kansas City Chiefs. That same night, the actress Kerry Washington paid tribute to his gifts at the Emmy Awards ceremony. "Michael was a brilliantly talented actor and a generous human being," she said, "who has left us far too soon...”

Tom's next guest is Dominic Dupont, a nephew of Michael K. Williams. He served 20 years of a 25-years-to-life prison sentence for a murder conviction when he was 19. Pardoned in 2017 by then-NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, today he is the program director of “Making Kids Win,” the foundation his uncle set up to reduce gun violence and encourage kids in the arts.

Dominic Dupont joins us on Zoom, from New York, to remember Michael K. Williams as an actor, a justice activist, and a loving and supportive uncle.

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This has been a summer that President Joe Biden may just as soon forget. It’s been a rough ride for his 8-month-old presidency.

He was ahead of the FDA on a decision to offer coronavirus booster shots to everybody. When those shots are offered, it will only be to older Americans and those with compromised immune systems.

The Pentagon admitted it had made a mistake when it sent a drone to kill Isis-K militiamen. It killed children and aid workers instead.

France has withdrawn its ambassador to the United States, an amazing action given that the alliance between our countries dates to the American Revolution.

And on the Texas border, thousands of migrants from Haiti are amassed in squalid conditions, as the administration continues to struggle with its immigration policy.

It was in this context that the President addressed the UN General Assembly in New York yesterday. Citing the challenges of Coronavirus, climate change, and China, which remained un-named in his speech but clearly front of mind, the President said that the world’s problems require a unified global response. He pledged that the United States would lead that response. Here is how he put it:

"Simply put, we stand, in my view, at an inflection point in history. And I’m here today to share with you how the United States intends to work with partners and allies to answer these questions and the commitment of my new administration to help lead the world toward a more peaceful, prosperous future for all people..."

Joining Tom today with analysis and perspective on President Biden's foreign policy challenges is Ishaan Tharoor, a columnist for The Washington Post who covers foreign affairs, geo-politics and history.

He joins us on our digital line from New York.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's next guest is the author, Dawne Allette. She lives here in Baltimore. She’s a native of Grenada, in the West Indies. She has written seven children’s books, biographies of Barack and Michele Obama, a memoir, and a textbook about Henrietta Lacks.

Her latest book is a novel called Mango Samba, first published in 2019. She’ll be talking about and reading from the book on the beautiful back patio at the Ivy Bookshop in North Baltimore tonight (Tues 9/21) at 6:00, in conversation with Judy Plymer. To register for the event, click here.

Dawne Allette now joins Tom on Zoom, to talk about it as well.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

We have spoken many times on this show about incivility in the public square; the coarseness and vulgarity of much of what passes for public discourse; the dire need for basic politeness in an era of extreme political polarity; the ad hominem attacks that many employ as a substitute for reason and rational argument.

As the insurrection on January 6th demonstrated, that incivility and willingness to stipulate to counter-factual ideas can have deadly consequences. And whether it’s a local school board or a town council, the examples we’ve all seen of people acting out, and acting violently, are a sad reminder that our differences don’t just surround issues like whether we should wear a mask or get a vaccine. They also speak to what we consider appropriate public behavior.

These issues take on particularly difficult dimensions when that behavior takes place while people are sharing an airline cabin. Today on Midday, a conversation about the disturbing rise in violent behavior by airline passengers.

The Federal Aviation Administration has issued more than $1 million in fines this year to passengers who violate federal law by interfering with the duties of flight crews. As of last week, there have already been more than 4,200 reports of unruly people on planes this year.

Tom's guests today represent the folks who have to deal with those unruly passengers.

Sara Nelson is the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, a position she has held since 2014. She represents more than 50,000 flight attendants who fly for 17 different airlines. Ms. Nelson joins us on Zoom from Washington, DC.

Captain Dennis Tajer is an Air Force veteran, a pilot for American Airlines, and the spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, the collective bargaining union that represents 15,000 American Airlines pilots. Captain Tajer joins us on our digital line from Chicago.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today on Midday, a conversation about the violence that persists on our city’s streets, and what can be done about it.

Last week, four children were injured when gun fire erupted in a largely blighted block of North Milton Avenue in the Broadway East neighborhood. One girl was 17, two girls were 14 year old twins. The other victim was a 12 year old boy. They were among the more than 500 people who have been injured in shootings in our city so far this year. Two hundred forty-five people have been killed in our city.

Over the summer, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott published his Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan, the product of community meetings and an multi agency approach that treats violence as a public health issue, and seeks to engage the community in addressing it. As I mentioned at the top of the show, the Mayor is convening his Group Violence Reduction Strategy partners for the first time this afternoon.At the heart of these efforts is a push for prevention. Programs that employ Violence Interrupters — groups like Safe Streets and Roca — will be expanded. Other, similar community based programs will be developed. Funding will be increased.

What do we know about the efficacy of these programs? When a Safe Streets outreach worker intervenes in a dispute and turns people who are arguing about something away from violent resolution of the conflict, is that something that can be tracked and quantified easily? It’s hard to collect data on events that haven’t happened.

Today on Midday, a discussion about the effectiveness of violence interruption programs. Tom is joined by three people who collect data about this and study the issue from different perspectives.

Dr. Jeffrey Butts is a Research Professor and the Director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He joins us on Zoom…

Amos Gelb is the director of the Washington Media Institute, and the publisher of Baltimore Witness and DC Witness, organizations that track those accused of violent crimes through the judicial system. He joins us on Zoom as well…

And LaTrina Antoine. She is the editor-in-chief of Baltimore Witness and DC Witness, and focuses on data and the reporting that her staff does about violence and the court system. She also joins us on Zoom…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins Tom this week with her review of Baltimore Center Stage's live production of The Swindlers: A True-ish Tall Tale.

Playwright Noah Diaz, the author of last season’s critically acclaimed Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally, based this new, Center Stage-commissioned play "loosely" on the real-life exploits of his mother and grandfather. His so-called "true-ish tall tale" is a raucous comedy about liars, fools and surviving one's family ties.

Will Davis directs the Center Stage cast, which features Rachel Crowl as FOOL 1, Derek Garza as FOOL 2, Christopher Ryan Grant as GEORGE, Jon Hudson Odom as CONTEXT and Carmen Zilles as MARIE.

The Swindlers continues live at Baltimore's Center Stage through September 26. The show will also be streaming live for ticketed patrons from September 21-26. Click the production's link for more information.

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There has never been anyone like Muhammad Ali. The uniquely charismatic boxer from Louisville, Kentucky, who died in 2016 at the age of 74, was known for many things. One was the clownish bragging he did before all his bouts, like his memorable rant at a September 1974 press conference before the “Rumble in the Jungle,” one of his famous fights with George Foreman, which earned him the heavyweight title — a title he held three times in a long and unparalleled career.

Ali was revered by millions, reviled, at times, by many. He was more than an extraordinary athlete. He was also a generous philanthropist, a principled, committed and unshakable civil rights activist, and above all, a family man. And in a new, four-part documentary that will air on successive evenings on PBS beginning on Sunday (September 19), the story of his extraordinary life is told by the extraordinary filmmaking team of Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon.

Tom spoke yesterday with Sarah Burns and David McMahon. They joined him on Zoom from their home in New York.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today, it’s Midday with the Mayor, and Mayor Colin Byrd joins us. He’s a progressive Democrat who was elected in 2019 -- at the age of 27 -- as the youngest mayor ever elected to lead the city of Greenbelt, Maryland, his native city.

One of the mayor’s initiatives concerns reparations for African Americans and Indigenous people who, for decades after the town's creation as a planned community in 1937, were discriminated against in a racially segregated Greenbelt.

In a couple of months, voters in the historic Maryland city will have a chance to weigh in on the issue. The reparations referendum that Mayor Byrd proposed last spring will appear on the November 2nd ballot.

Mayor Byrd joins Tom on Zoom from Greenbelt.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's next guest is the internationally acclaimed jazz singer, Dee Dee Bridgewater. She’s won three Grammy Awards, and a Tony Award. She hosted a show called JazzSet for 23 years on NPR. She is a UN Goodwill Ambassador, and in 2017 was named an NEA Jazz Master. She's just released a new CD called Memphis: Yes, I'm Ready.

And she’s appearing now in Baltimore at Todd Barkan's Keystone Korner jazz club in Harbor East, with the legendary jazz pianist Bill Charlap. You can catch them at 7:30 and 10:00 tonight, tomorrow night and Saturday night, live at the club or streaming online. For more info and tickets, follow the Keystone link.

Dee Dee Bridgewater joins Tom on the line from Baltimore.

In the open and close today, we hear a bit of Ms. Bridgewater singing, respectively, Lullaby of Birdland, and Hound Dog, from the new Memphis, Yes I'm Ready CD.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's guest today is Dr. Jelani Cobb, one of the most important public intellectuals of our time, a scholar and commentator who has offered invaluable insights in the study of racial equality in America in several books, and as a staff writer at the New Yorker. Dr. Cobb, a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Commentary, teaches journalism at Columbia University and is a frequent commentator on MSNBC.

Dr. Cobb has just published a new book, co-edited with historian Matthew Guariglia, that reintroduces us to the Kerner Commission Report, the landmark 1968 study of racism, inequity and police violence. The report, formally known as the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, and chaired by then-Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, Jr., was released just one month before the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The commission was established by President Lyndon Johnson in the wake of nearly two dozen riots that had taken place in cities across America over the preceding three years.

In his televised address to the nation on the evening he announced the commission in July 1967, President Johnson said:

"The only genuine, long-range solution for what has happened lies in an attack— mounted at every level—upon the conditions that breed despair and violence. All of us know what those conditions are: ignorance, discrimination, slums, poverty, disease, not enough jobs. We should attack these conditions—not because we are frightened by conflict, but because we are fired by conscience. We should attack them because there is simply no other way to achieve a decent and orderly society in America."

Jelani Cobb makes a compelling case for the Kerner Commission’s relevance today. In his trenchant and enlightening introduction to the report, he demonstrates that, quote, “Kerner establishes that it is possible for us to be entirely cognizant of history and repeat it anyway.”

The racial injustice and inequity that the Kerner Report described more than 50 years ago still create barriers to advancement for people of color. Much of the analysis of the racial dynamic in America that the report offers rings as true today as it did in its day.T

he book is The Essential Kerner Commission Report, published by W.W. Norton.

Dr. Jelani Cobb joins us on our digital line from his office at Columbia University in New York.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.