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August Wilson’s ‘Radio Golf’ a heartfelt journey
Michael Kuchwara
NEW YORK — “Radio Golf,” the final chapter in August Wilson’s monumental, decade-by-decade look at the black experience in 20th century America, is a play forged by illness, reworked in a furious burst of creativity during the last months of the playwright’s life.
Its two-year trek to Broadway, where it opened Tuesday, is the stuff of heartfelt emotion, involving Wilson and Todd Kreidler, his boyish collaborator. Yet its author was missing for much of the journey. Full story
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Sharpton: Clean up lyrics in Brown’s honor
Samantha Gross
NEW YORK — Invoking the memory of soul legend James Brown, the Rev. Al Sharpton and members of Brown’s family gathered on what would have been the singer’s 74th birthday to press the music industry to stop using three terms they called racist and sexist.
Sharpton and some of Brown’s children marched last Thursday to the Manhattan offices of major music labels. Later that day, some of Brown’s friends and family members questioned the direction of the music industry while remembering him at the Apollo Theater. Full story
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 ‘Morehouse Man’ ends his tenure as school president
Errin Haines
ATLANTA — Walter Massey was a shy, black boy from Hattiesburg, Miss., unsure of his place in the world, when he arrived as a 16-year-old freshman at Morehouse College. Full story
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Former Ray Charles clarinetist passes on
NEW ORLEANS — Alvin Batiste, the clarinetist who toured with Ray Charles, recorded with Branford Marsalis and taught pianist Henry Butler, has died. He was in his 70s.
Batiste died Sunday of an apparent heart attack, only hours before he was to perform with Harry Connick Jr. and Marsalis at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, festival officials said. While his exact age was not immediately known, festival officials said he was born in New Orleans in 1932. Full story
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Pepsi ad man dead at 92
LOS ANGELES — Edward F. Boyd, a former Pepsi ad man who broke color barriers with one of the first corporate marketing campaigns to portray blacks in a positive light, has died. He was 92.
Boyd died April 30 in Los Angeles, PepsiCo Inc. spokesman Dave DeCecco said. There were no other details. The Los Angeles Times cited complications of a stroke he suffered in March as the cause of death.
Boyd was working at the National Urban League in New York City in 1947 when what was then the Pepsi-Cola Co. hired him and a team of black salesmen to help the company drive sales among blacks.
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