PBS Convenes Nat’l Dialogue on Arab Americans... & Shadid Remembered at Book Awards

Shadid Remembered at Book Awards You are invited to honor the life and work of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Shadid (1968-2012) on Saturday, Sept. 29 at the AANM, as Nada Bakri (right) accepts a Lifetime Achievement Award on her husband’s behalf during the 2012 Arab American Book Award Ceremony. This event celebrates the year’s best books by and about Arab Americans; it features a sumptuous strolling buffet, open bar, live music, and following the award ceremony, a book signing with authors including Diana Abu-Jaber (above left). Tickets, just $20/$15 Museum Members/students, are available online only HERE. Click HERE to listen to a recent Democracy Now interview with Bakri, a respected journalist in her own right; as was her husband, Bakri is a correspondent for The New York Times. Shadid died while reporting from Syria earlier this year, just prior to the publication of his book, House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family and a Lost Middle East.

PBS Convenes Nat’l Dialogue on Arab Americans Public libraries in major U.S. cities including Los Angeles, Houston, Boston and Detroit are being asked to host events, forums and dialogues in connection with the new PBS series Arab American Stories, currently airing on stations across the country. The Battle Creek, Mich.-based W.K. Kellogg Foundation has granted series originator Detroit Public Television (DPTV) $250,000 to bring the television content to life through community conversations, beginning next month, that are designed to engage non-Arab Americans as well as Arab Americans. A website will compile and convene content, and host virtual community discussions featuring topical experts. DPTV will also write a curriculum for middle and high school students that will meet national core standards. Read more and see a list of participating libraries HERE.

The Arab American National Museum celebrates Helen Thomas with a warm reception & a statue

Ibtisam Barakat ابتسام بركات From the Arab American National Muesum: on Flikr -- All the photos from the book awards ceremony and honoring Helen Thomas in Washington, DC on Monday, October 4, 2010.

Arab American National Museum's Photostream

The Arab American National Museum raised the $10,000 it was seeking to finance a statue of Helen Thomas to be placed in its Dearborn building across from City Hall. The sculpture is by former White House photographer and Virginia-based artist Susan Tinsley McElhinney

Sam Donaldson and Ralph Nader and the award winning Palestinian American poet Ibtisam Barakat, author of Tasting the Sky, were some of the notable people who attended the ceremony honoring Helen Thomas at the Arab American National Museum.

Helen Thomas, the recently retired “Dean of the White House Press Corps,” is a legendary journalist and Arab American. Thomas was born in Kentucky to Lebanese immigrant parents but raised primarily in Detroit, where she graduated from Wayne State University.

Thomas covered presidential administrations from Eisenhower through Obama, working more than five decades for United Press International (UPI) and later for Hearst Newspapers. She marked her 90th birthday in August.

Thomas is considered a pioneer for women in journalism. Unfortunately Thomas was forced to resign from Hearst Newspapers in June after telling a rabbi on camera that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to "Poland, Germany and America, and everywhere else." Thomas later apologized for her comments (which had very much been taken out of context)

Helen Thomas has received numerous awards through out the years and more than 30 honorary degrees. In 1976, Thomas was named one of the World Almanac's 25 Most Influential Women in America. The White House Correspondent's Association honored her in 1998 by establishing the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2000, her alma mater, Wayne State University, established an award for journalists in her honor, the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity award. In 2007, Thomas received a Foremother Award from the National Research Center for Women & Families.