Listen to the interview with Ashwin Ravikumar.
The one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by a former Minneapolis police officer will be marked today with an event in Northampton.
The local activist group Northampton Abolition Now is hosting a standout from 4pm-5pm in front of Northampton City Hall.
It will feature speeches and conclude with nine minutes and 29 seconds of silence – the amount of time that former police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck.
After the standout, the group plans to set up equipment to let people testify at the Northampton City Council’s budget hearing.
Listen to the interview with Brian Foote.
Live entertainment, arts and cultural events are returning to western Massachusetts. But artists are hurting financially after more than a year of lost income.
The Massachusetts Arts Council’s COVID-19 impact survey found that in western Massachusetts alone 558 artists reported lost income of almost $5 million since March 2020.
To help artists and arts producers, the Northampton Arts Council recently announced a second round of relief grants.
WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with executive director Brian Foote.
The application for a grant is due on May 15th. The organization is also accepting donations to support the grant program.