Riverbends Development, Inc.

09/02/2021

80 years ago today, John W. Work III and Alan Lomax made the first recordings of McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Water, at the Stovall Plantation in Coahoma Co., Mississippi. Lomax's misrendered his nickname, published the plural form in a 1942 album featuring Muddy's debut performances, and "Muddy Waters" stuck.

Photo/caption by JWW III. From the John Wesley Work III collection at the The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University, and under its administration.

09/01/2021

The program will have a soft launch in October and is aimed at improving literacy skills through "liberating instruction centered on Black American history."

02/23/2019

A new Smithsonian Channel film positions the guidebook for black travelers as a necessary response to white-supremacist violence—and as a community-building tool.

05/03/2018

06/16/2016

Jasiri X premieres his new, original score for the groundbreaking early African American film BODY AND SOUL tomorrow (Friday) at 8pm. Tix at https://www.showclix.com/event/body-and-soul.

WPTS Radio’s Kayla Greygor interviewed local rapper and social activist Jasiri X. The interview delves into the process Jasiri and 1Hood Media utilized to create a score for the 1925 silent film Body & Soul. Jasiri X will be performing the score live at the Hollywood Theater in Dormont for the film’...

04/08/2016

The Voices from the Days of Slavery Collection provides sound recordings of former slaves describing their lives. The former slaves discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, how slaves were coerced, their families, and freedom. Those interviewed spoke sixty or more years after the end of th…

03/20/2016

12/01/2015

WONDERFUL article about our Megginson Homestead Restoration Project (www.gofundme.com/MegginsonHomestead) in the 12/01/2015 Lynchburg News & Advance!!!!

From her front porch, Hanie Megginson could have seen the land holdings of her son, Albert, sweep up and down both sides of today’s Pleasant Valley Road.

11/10/2015

We've already raised over $4,000!!!!
Let's see how much more we can raise before the Megginson Homestead Open House this weekend!

Joseph J. Kennedy IV has posted a new update!

08/17/2015

Heartfelt thanks to the many people who have already contributed to this project, raising over 10% of our goal just within the last 24 hours!!!! It is extraordinarily encouraging that so many people - both within the Megginson family and beyond - can appreciate the significance of this historic site.

Please help to spread the word with a "Share" of this campaign and with a tax-deductible donation. We appreciate your support!

Joseph J. Kennedy IV has posted a new update!

07/22/2015

My cousin Ronnie was cleaning out some of the outbuildings on the property of the late Henry A. Hamler, and discovered these family portraits from the turn of the last century! We don’t know exactly who these people are, but they are almost certainly some of our African-American Hamler, Megginson, Cabell, Brown and/or Ferguson forebears and relatives from Lynchburg, Virginia.

Any assistance in identifying these portraits would be greatly appreciated!

06/28/2015

Living history, huh? Fine... as long as the folks rallying to the Dixie Sw****ka keep on losing. It might also be fun and educational to reenact Nat Turner's slave uprising. Anybody interested?

Veteran re-enactor John Spaziani said he understood how just the sight of the Confederate battle flag was offensive to many people. “To secede on behalf of slavery was wrong,” Mr. Spaziani said of the attempts by Southern states to seek to withdraw from the Union in 1861. Their efforts to divide the…

06/27/2015

Have her back!

05/30/2015

Here is the audio of my radio interview on Bev Smith's "Pittsburgh Voices" show. PLEASE "Like" it, and "Share" it on your page.

This video is about Joe Kennedy on Bev Smith's Pittsburgh Voices, May 29, 2015

05/27/2015

As this new article points out, Fix the Pittsburgh Promise is helping the board of directors of The Pittsburgh Promise to recognize and rectify what their policies are doing to black students:

It's less than one month before graduation, and Obama Academy student Donald Lewis can't wait to begin college at Robert Morris University in the fall....

05/21/2015

For those who can only understand something when it gets said by a white male... and also for all the rest of us:

Today in Ferguson 150 years after the Civil War we see "ghastly remnants of our great shame emerging still"/Lincoln warned of "national su***de" if we neglect to be a "nation of freemen"/Mark Twain'...

05/14/2015

Talk about nowhere to go but up! Out of 230 American cities, Pittsburgh ranks 227th in diversity. If we keep up the good work, we can eventually replace Erie as the LEAST diverse city in the whole country!!!! Alternatively, we could stop using the old South African Apartheid model of racial equity, and start providing real opportunities for the African-Americans who already live and work here. Which way, Pittsburgh?

Pittsburgh is one of the least diverse places in the U.S., according to a new study of 200-plus cities that considered factors such as the types of jobs and industries as well as race and ethnicity. The city ranked 227th out of 230 in the study released Wednesday by WalletHub, a Web-based firm in Wa…