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Loving - The Movie. A beautiful portrayal of a forgotten civil rights story

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Ruth Negga (2 nd from right) stars as Mildred and Joel Edgerton (right) stars as Richard in Jeff Nichols LOVING, a Focus Features release. Credit : Ben Rothstein / Focus Features   Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving grew up in the rural unincorporated town of Central Point, Virginia. They met in high school, spent time together, and eventually, when Mildred became pregnant, decided to marry. But this was the 1950’s and Mildred was African American and Richard was white. Virginia had anti-miscegenation laws which made their marriage illegal. How did these two young people get beyond Jim Crow and fall in love? Well that had a lot to with Central Point VA. Central Point was and is still a very rural area. At a distance of about 90 miles south east from Washington DC it was community with a history of poor farmers, black and white, ignoring the rules of segregation, living together. According to a 2012 article in the Washington Post , Central Point and Caroline Count...

Eat, Drink, Walk Food Tour in Lisbon, Portugal

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Canned Fish at Sol e Pesca   Visiting a new city can be exciting. It can also be nerve wracking to figure out what to do. I have found that taking a food tour is a great introduction to a new place. In Lisbon I had a chance to take a great one. Eat, Drink, Walk is a family run tour company that offers several options for exploring the food scene in Lisbon and its surrounding area. I met up with my friend and fellow travel writer Paul, and his granddaughter Katie, to enjoy the Chiado tour and be introduced to some amazing food. Mercado de Ribeira Filomena, our guide for the day, met us at the Time Out Market, which occupies the oldest public market in Lisbon. The Mercado da Ribeira opened in 1892 on the riverfront, along Av. 24 de Julho. For most of its history is served as the city’s main food market. Today, half of the building still serves that role, with stalls selling fruit, vegetables, meat, and fish.       Bouquets of basil leaves Ananas, a relative of the pi...

The Poster House - Exhibits Exploring African American Arts and AIDS

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    Warning - The artwork and topics discussed in this piece are of a sexual and/or racial nature. They reflect views that many might find offensive or abhorrent, but they are a part of American history and their existence was socially and historically important. One of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon is visiting small museums, because they usually have a specific focus. That often allows them to produce excellent exhibits that might be overlooked by larger institutions. The Poster House, in New York City, is one of my favorite places to visit. The Poster House opened in 2019 as the first museum in the United States dedicated exclusively to the art and history of commercially produced graphic posters. It owns a collection of over 7000 posters from around the world, and covering eras from the early 1800’s to the present. Right now they are hosting two excellent shows - one that offers a glimpse into a historic medical and political crisis; the other exploring the history...