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Posts published in July 2015

Cicely Tyson and Rita Moreno Among 2015 Kennedy Center Honorees

By goodblacknews on July 15, 2015
George Lucas Cicely Tyson Rita Moreno
George Lucas, Cicely Tyson, Rita Moreno (GETTY IMAGES)

Cicely Tyson, Rita Moreno, George Lucas, singer-songwriter Carole King, conductor Seiji Ozawa and the Eagles have been selected to receive this year’s Kennedy Center Honors, the center said Wednesday.
The artists will be celebrated Dec. 6 at a gala to be broadcast Dec. 29 on CBS.  President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are expected to attend along with other notables from the worlds of showbiz, politics and business.
The Honors gala, now in its 38th year, will again cap a weekend of celebrations to include a private dinner at the U.S. State Department the preceding evening hosted by Secretary of State John Kerry. Honorees receive their colorful medallions at that event. In addition, the Obamas will host honorees and others at the White House prior to the gala performance.
Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein saluted this year’s selections, which were chosen based on the recommendation of the Center’s Special Honors Advisory Committee. Other input is offered by the center’s board of trustees, its artists committee and the public.
Rubenstein praised Tyson for her range of strong female roles on stage and screen that “have broken boundaries for women of color,” and said Moreno’s “iconic spitfire roles” are embedded in the heart of American culture, while Ozawa’s artistic leadership as a conductor has “set a new standard for orchestras around the world.” He
Rubenstein said the music of the Eagles “has endured as the quintessential American rock and roll sound for generations.” The core band members to be feted are Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit and Joe Walsh.
King, another pop hitmaker, has a canon of “heartfelt lyrics and tunes (that) are woven throughout the tapestry of American music.” Films from Lucas have “enriched our world with stories of epic adventure,” said the KenCen chieftain.
Kennedy Center president Deborah Rutter said the latest slate of honorees shares a powerful common theme — artists as history-makers and artists who defy both convention and category. “Each honoree and their career-spanning achievements exemplify a rare quality of artistic bravery,” she said. “They have pushed the limits of their gifts as musicians, actors, and storytellers to inspire generations of Americans and those around the world.”
article by Paul Harris via Variety.com

Chiké Okonkwo Joins Ensemble Cast Of "The Birth Of A Nation"

By goodblacknews on July 15, 2015

Chiké_OkonkwoChiké Okonkwo (Banshee, BBC’s Paradox) has been cast in Nate Parker’s The Birth of A Nation. He joins an ensemble that includes Jackie Earle Haley, Armie Hammer, Colman Domingo, Penelope Ann Miller and Mark Boone Junior in the historical drama based on the true story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner.

Okonkwo plays a brutalized slave who becomes a freedom fighter and ally to Turner (Parker) during the rebellion. Prompted by religious visions, Turner and a band of about 70 slaves killed between 55 and 65 people in Virginia. The rebellion was stopped after two days, but Turner survived in hiding for more than two months.
Parker is producing and directing from his own script. The film is a Bron Studios, Phantom Four, Mandalay Pictures and Tiny Giant Productions picture, in association with Follow Through Productions, Infinity Entertainment, and Creative Wealth Media Finance. Producers are Bron’s Aaron L. Gilbert, Kevin Turen, Jason Michael Berman, and Preston Holmes. Filming is underway in Savannah, GA.
article by Jeremy Gerard via deadline.com

Obama Permanently Protects More Than One Million Acres of Public Lands

By goodblacknews on July 15, 2015
CREDIT: TYLER ROEMER

President Barack Obama announced last week that he will designate three new national monuments, permanently protecting more than one million acres of public lands. He designated pristine wilderness landscapes in Nevada as Basin and Range National Monument, scenic mountains in California as Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, and a fossil-rich site in Texas as Waco Mammoth National Monument.
With these designations, President Obama is adding to the 16 national monuments he has already created with his authority under the Antiquities Act, setting aside “more public lands and waters than any administration in history.” Both Democratic and Republican presidents have used their authority under the law to designate national monuments, many of which have later become some of the country’s most iconic national parks such as the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, and Arches National Park.
A diverse array of groups praised the announcement, emphasizing that the new monuments were a response to years of local support and advocacy to permanently protect these sites.
“By creating these three new national monuments, President Obama is continuing his commitment to preserving America’s treasured places and cementing his well-deserved place in conservation history,” Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters told the Hill. “The president acted in response to the overwhelming support expressed by local communities and stakeholders across the country for protecting these places of extraordinary environmental, historic, and scientific value.”

Amazon Studios Acquiring Spike Lee Film "Chi-Raq" as Its 1st Release

By goodblacknews on July 15, 2015
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon Studios says it has acquired Spike Lee‘s new film as its first Amazon Original Movie.
The film, with the working title “Chi-Raq,” features a cast including Nick Cannon, Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Hudson and Teyonah Parris, as well as D.B. Sweeney, Harry Lennix, Steve Harris and Angela Bassett, plus John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson.
“Chi-Raq” was shot entirely in Chicago and wrapped last week. Directed by Lee, it was co-written by Lee and Kevin Willmott. It focuses on violence in inner-city Chicago.
Amazon Studios’ Ted Hope said, “It would be impossible to find a better filmmaker” than Lee to launch the studio with.
Amazon Original Movies, announced in January, was formed to produce and acquire original movies for theatrical release as well as distribution to its Amazon Prime members.
article via blackamericaweb.com

"Southside With You": 1st Look at Parker Sawyers & Tika Sumpter as a Young Barack & Michelle Obama

By goodblacknews on July 14, 2015
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Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers as Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama in “Southside With You” (photo via deadline.com)

Here is one of the first images from Southside With You, a film inspired by the first date of future First Couple Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.

Written by Richard Tanne, who also is making his directorial debut, the feature takes place in summer 1989 in Chicago, where the young associate Obama (Parker Sawyers) woos his colleague Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) in a romantic dramedy about the couple’s early romantic encounters. The eventful day took them from the Chicago Art Institute to a screening of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing to the eventual first kiss, which occurred outside of an ice cream parlor.

Sawyers recently wrapped the Oliver Stone-directed Snowden opposite Joseph Gordon Levitt and will appear in The Autopsy Of Jane Doe along with Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch. Sumpter stars on OWN’s The Haves And The Have Nots and will appear in Universal’s Ride Along 2 with Kevin Hart and Ice Cube.
IM Global and State Street Pictures are producing the film, with Tanne and Sumpter as producers alongside Glendon Palmer and Robert Teitel. Tracey Bing is executive producing.
article by Amanda N’Duka via deadline.com

New York City Agrees to Pay Family of Eric Garner $5.9 Million

By goodblacknews on July 13, 2015
Mr. Garner and his wife, Esaw, during a family vacation in 2011. (Photo via nytimes.com)

New York City reached a settlement with the family of Eric Garner on Monday, agreeing to pay $5.9 million to resolve a wrongful death claim over his killing by the police on Staten Island last July, the city comptroller and a lawyer for the family said.

The agreement, reached a few days before the anniversary of Mr. Garner’s death, headed off one legal battle even as a federal inquiry into the killing and several others at the state and local level remain open and could provide a further accounting of how he died.

Still, the settlement was a pivotal moment in a case that has engulfed the city since the afternoon of July 17, 2014, when two officers approached Mr. Garner as he stood unarmed on a sidewalk, and accused him of selling untaxed cigarettes. One of the officers used a chokehold — prohibited by the Police Department — to subdue him, and that was cited by the medical examiner as a cause of Mr. Garner’s death.

The killing of Mr. Garner, 43, followed by the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in August, set off a national debate about policing actions in minority communities and racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.

Mr. Garner’s final words — “I can’t breathe” — repeated 11 times, became a national rallying cry. A Staten Island grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer who used the chokehold, Daniel Pantaleo, fueled weeks of demonstrations. The protests eased after two police officers in Brooklyn were fatally shot in December by a man who said he acted to avenge Mr. Garner’s death.

The killings of the officers shook the city anew, deepening tensions between the police and Mayor Bill de Blasio and slowing a push to enact a host of criminal justice reforms. Last year, Mr. Garner’s relatives, including his widow, Esaw Garner, and his mother, Gwen Carr, filed a notice of claim— a procedural step that must precede a lawsuit — against the city. In the notice, they said were seeking $75 million in damages. Since then, the family has been in talks with the comptroller’s office.

“Mr. Garner’s death is a touchstone in our city’s history and in the history of the entire nation,” the comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, said in a telephone interview late on Monday. “Financial compensation is certainly not everything, and it can’t bring Mr. Garner back. But it is our way of creating balance and giving a family a certain closure.”

Pizza Shop Employee Courtney Best Helps Save Kidnapped Child While on "Smoke Break"

By goodblacknews on July 13, 2015
Local Hero Courtney Best (photo via )
Local Hero Courtney Best (photo via KRIStv.com )

A young pizza shop employee in Texas used an alert she received on her phone to help authorities catch a kidnapper and save a young boy.
Courtney Best was on a smoke break from her job at Papa Murphy’s pizza in Corpus Christi, Texas when she checked an Amber alert on her cell phone. According to KRIS-TV, that alert helped her identify the kidnapper when he parked in the same shopping plaza.
“I stepped outside, I was standing by the trash can and I seen a white car pull up and I just happen to take my phone with me cause we don’t look at our phones at work, and I looked down and I saw ‘white Dodge Avenger amber alert’, and I was like, nah, that’s not him,” Best told KRIS-TV. “The man was walking across the parking lot looking at me … cause I was the only person out here, with the little boy and the little boy looked scared and I was like ‘no, that’s not him.’”
But she felt uneasy, so she checked the license plates. Sure enough, it was a match. When she realized that the car was, in fact, the right car, she knew she had to act.
“And I’m on the phone with 911 and I tell her, look, the plates match up, he’s turning left on Staples but I’m gonna follow him.”
The police came to their aid moments later, and the boy, 7-year old Nicholas Gomez, is now safe.
“That’s why I’m freakin’ out,” said Best. “Cause, what are the odds? What are the odds of me looking at my phone? And I usually don’t even look at amber alerts, as bad as that sounds, I look at them and I don’t really pay attention. And I was like, he couldn’t get from Alice in that little bit of time. Sure enough it was him.”
article via thegrio.com

President Obama Commutes Sentences of 46 Non-Violent Drug Offenders

By goodblacknews on July 13, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-07-13 at 2.40.39 PM
(Photo via YouTube)

A week after the White House announced the president would commute sentences for dozens of non-violent drug offenders this summer, Barack Obama made good on the promise, freeing 46 non-violent drug offenders Monday afternoon.
The move is a historic one; the president commuted more sentences at one time than any president has since Lyndon B. Johnson, the Washington Post points out.
In a video posted to Facebook, which you can see if you click here, Obama expounded on the effort to correct the tough and unfair sentencing that disproportionately affects minority men and, in turn, destroys communities.

“These men and women were not hardened criminals. But the overwhelming majority had to be sentenced to at least 20 years,” he said, noting that in his letters to them he made sure they needed to make different choices now that they were free.”But I believe that at its heart, America’s a nation of second chances. And I believe these folks deserve their second chance.”
“These men and women were not hardened criminals. But the overwhelming majority had to be sentenced to at least 20 years,” he said, noting that in his letters to them he made sure they needed to make different choices now that they were free.”But I believe that at its heart, America’s a nation of second chances. And I believe these folks deserve their second chance.”

During his presidency, Obama has commuted sentences for 89 people. Since agreeing to rectify the unfair sentencing that is a large pillar of prison reform, about 35,000 inmates have applied to be considered for early release.
Surprisingly, prison reform has become a bipartisan issue, garnering support from Democrats, Republicans, and those in between. Obama’s latest effort comes just days before he’s set to make history as the first sitting president to visit a federal prison.
On Thursday, Obama will meet with law enforcement officials and inmates at El Reno Federal Correctional Institution outside Oklahoma City.  According to a White House press release, the president will also be conducting an interview for a “Vice” documentary focused on the criminal justice system in this nation.
article by Christina Coleman via theurbandaily.com

"Think Like A Man" Producer Will Packer Renews Overall Deal with Universal TV Through 2017

By goodblacknews on July 13, 2015
Will Packer Universal TV
COURTESY OF WILL PACKER PRODUCTIONS (via Variety.com)
Will Packer has renewed his overall deal with Universal Television. The two-year extension pact takes Packer’s Will Packer Productions banner through 2017 at the studio.
“The Wedding Ringer” and “Think Like a Man” producer is taking a major step into TV this fall, executive producing NBC comedy “People Are Talking,” and sitcom “Uncle Buck,” which debuts midseason on ABC. He’s also set to executive produce the “Roots” revival, which will air next year on History, A&E and Lifetime.
“Talking” stars Tone Bell, Mark Paul-Gosselaar, Vanessa Lachey and Bresha Webb as two different couples who are neighbors and best friends. Packer executive produces alongside writer D.J. Nash with director Pam Fryman. “Buck,” a take on John Hughes’ 1989 film, stars comedian Mike Epps as the title character.
“Will Packer is energetic, passionate, creative and wants to win,” Universal Television president Bela Bajaria commented. “He is a collaborative partner, a hands-on producer and is absolutely the best dressed!”
NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke added, “Will Packer has become such a fantastic addition to our Universal family. We are lucky to have such an enthusiastic and prolific producer so engaged in network television. Will, Korin [Huggins], and their team truly have their fingers on the pulse of entertaining and fun.”
Packer’s other film credits include “Think Like a Man Too,” “Stomp the Yard,” “Ride Along” and its upcoming sequel, which will hit theaters in January. He’s repped by UTA.
article by Elizabeth Wagmeister via Variety.com

Laila Ali and Antonio Brown Honored by Variety Magazine as Sports Personalities of the Year

By goodblacknews on July 13, 2015
Variety Names Laila Ali and Antonio
COURTESY OF LAILA ALI AND ANTONIO BROWN (via Variety.com)

Variety has named retired boxer Laila Ali and NFL player Antonio Brown the Sports Personalities of the Year as part of its inaugural Sports Entertainment Breakfast Presented by Mercedes-Benz.
The breakfast, which will be held July 14 at Vibiana in downtown Los Angeles, celebrates the accomplishments of athletes in their respective sports and will include discussions with other prominent players including Chris Bosh, Willie McGinest and Matt Barnes about the next New All-Star Athlete.
Ali, who went undefeated in the ring, is being feted as the first female sports personality of the year. The award recognizes not only her accomplishments as a boxer but also as a TV host, CEO, mom, wife, advocate for children and author.
Brown, who plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers, will receive the male sports personality of the year. He’s the first player in NFL history to record at least 1,000 receiving yards and at least 1,000 return yards in the same season. Brown made his acting debut in HBO’s new series “Ballers.”
The breakfast includes a panel on what athletes must do to become 2015’s the New All-Star Athlete. Ten-time NBA All-Star Bosh (Miami Heat), Hall of Famer McGinest (New England Patriots) and NBA star Barnes (Memphis Grizzlies) will discuss the changing role of athletes. From reality show competitions to social-media followings, athletes are taking a larger role in pop culture, and the New All-Star Athelete is meant to measure that.
The panel also includes sports executives Justin Castillo (CAA), Mark Ciardi (producer), Jon Weinbach (Mandalay Sports Media) and Eric Weinberger (NFL Network).
article by Reece Ristau via Variety.com