What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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T2 WHATS UP! February 20 - 26, 2022 TV FEATURE BY SARAH PASSINGHAM TV Media S o many lost or forgotten chapters of history tell the stories behind the ev- eryday functions of soci- ety. One such lesser-told chroni- cle is that of the world's first Black-led union, the Brother- hood of Sleeping Car Porters, founded in 1925. A new, joint CBC/BET+ drama series begins exploring the foundation of that union when "The Porter" pre- mieres Monday, Feb. 21, on BET+. For those who may need a quick history lesson on the sub- ject of "The Porter," the series details the lives of Pullman por- ters in the 1920s. Porters were Canadian and American railway attendants hired to work on sleeper cars. George Pullman, the founder of the Pullman Company, only hired Black men as porters, and their duties in- cluded delivering food and drinks to passengers, shining shoes and keeping the cars clean. Women, meanwhile, were hired as maids to wait on female passengers' needs, such as mani- cures, washing, mending clothes and child care. Porters and maids were re- sponsible for giving middle- class passengers the experience of being waited on like the wealthy. As a tough job with tre- mendously long hours and very little pay, porters were also sub- jected to discrimination on the job from passengers and their employers. A demeaning prac- tice across many Pullman cars was calling porters "George," re- gardless of their actual names, effectively referring to them as an extension of George Pullman himself. After the founding of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, wages and working con- ditions slowly improved until the Pullman Company folded in 1969. Ronnie Rowe Jr. ("Star Trek: Discovery") and Aml Ameen ("I May Destroy You") star as sol- diers-turned-porters Zeke Gar- rett and Junior Massey, men striving to organize their fellow railway attendants. Mouna Traoré ("Murdoch Mysteries") is Marlene Massey, Junior's wife and a singer in Montreal's Little Burgundy jazz scene, while Lo- ren Lott ("The Young and the Restless") plays Lucy Conrad, an aspiring singer trying to break into Marlene's scene despite fac- ing racism and colorism every step of the way. Rounding out the cast are Stephanie Sy ("Nobody" 2021), Adrian Walters ("In the Dark") and "Crooklyn's" (1994) legend- ary actress, Alfre Woodard, as brothel owner Fay. Pulling dou- ble duty as series creators and stars of "The Porter" are Arnold Pinnock ("The Listener") and Bruce Ramsay ("19-2"). Set mostly between Montre- al's St. Antoine neighborhood (known at the time as "The Har- lem of the North"), Chicago and Detroit, "The Porter" brings to- gether stories from both sides of the border, each of which con- tributed to the formation of the union. A series description from CBC's website boasts that the characters of "The Porter" are, "young, gifted and Black, from Canada, the Caribbean, and the U.S. via the Underground Rail- Bentonville Acupuncture 5 x 5 continued on page T10 Ronnie Rowe Jr, Arnold Pinnock, Adrian Walters and Aml Ameen with additional cast of "The Porter" United front Not a subscriber? No problem, subscribe today and receive an iPad with your subscription*. *iPad must be returned within 30 days of termination of account. now available on the digital replica! NEW INTERACTIVE PUZZLE PAGES Get the new puzzle pages on the digital replica, featuring puzzles daily! CROSSWORDS KIDS' GAMES SUDOKU WORD GAMES STRATEGY & MEMORY NUMBERS Call 479-684-5509 or visit nwaonline.com/nwaipad