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Posts published in “Anniversaries”

70 Years Ago Today: Etta Moten Barnett Becomes 1st African-American to Sing at the White House

By goodblacknews on January 31, 2013
Etta Moten Barnett (Photo: Chicago Library)

Broadway star and film actress Etta Moten Barnett sang at the birthday party for President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Jan. 31, 1943, becoming the first African-American to perform at the White House.
She performed “Remember My Forgotten Man,” which she also sang in the movie Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), although she was not listed in the credits. A conaltro vocalist, she was best known for her starring role in the 1942 revival of Porgy and Bess on Broadway. 
Barnett was born November 5, 1901, in Weimar, Texas. She married Claude Barnett, founder of the Associated Negro Press, in 1934. In her later years, Barnett was active in many community organizations including the National Council of Negro Women, the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the African American Institute. She passed away from pancreatic cancer on January 5, 2004, at age 102.
article by Britt Middleton via bet.com

Obama Makes National Black History Month Proclamation

By goodblacknews on January 31, 2013
 
 “In America, we share a dream that lies at the heart of our founding: that no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter how modest your beginnings or the circumstances of your birth, you can make it if you try. Yet, for many and for much of our Nation’s history, that dream has gone unfilled. For African-Americans, it was a dream denied until 150 years ago, when a great emancipator called for the end of slavery. It was a dream deferred less than 50 years ago, when a preacher spoke of justice and brotherhood from Lincoln’s memorial. This dream of equality and fairness has never come easily — but it has always been sustained by the belief that in America, change is possible. 
Today, because of that hope, coupled with the hard and painstaking labor of Americans sung and unsung, we live in a moment when the dream of equal opportunity is within reach for people of every color and creed. National African American History Month is a time to tell those stories of freedom won and honor the individuals who wrote them. We look back to the men and women who helped raise the pillars of democracy, even when the halls they built were not theirs to occupy. We trace generations of African-Americans, free and slave, who risked everything to realize their God-given rights. We listen to the echoes of speeches and struggle that made our Nation stronger, and we hear again the thousands who sat in, stood up, and called out for equal treatment under the law. And we see yesterday’s visionaries in tomorrow’s leaders, reminding us that while we have yet to reach the mountaintop, we cannot stop climbing. 
Today, Dr. King, President Lincoln, and other shapers of our American story proudly watch over our National Mall. But as we memorialize their extraordinary acts in statues and stone, let us not lose sight of the enduring truth that they were citizens first. They spoke and marched and toiled and bled shoulder-to-shoulder with ordinary people who burned with the same hope for a brighter day. That legacy is shared; that spirit is American. And just as it guided us forward 150 years ago and 50 years ago, it guides us forward today. So let us honor those who came before by striving toward their example, and let us follow in their footsteps toward the better future that is ours to claim. 
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim February 2013 as National African American History Month. I call upon public officials, educators, librarians, and all the people of the United States to observe this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.  IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.”

article via bet.com

50 Years Later: Remembering Female Civil Rights Activist Pauli Murray

By goodblacknews on January 30, 2013

Attorney Pauli Murray

Harvard Law School professor Kenneth W. Mack writes at the Huffington Post that it’s an African-American woman, attorney Pauli Murray, who deserves credit for expanding the language of civil rights in 1963 to include women’s rights — and even LGBT rights.

“President Obama’s unprecedented endorsement of gay rights in his inauguration address last week — delivered on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday — marks the beginning of a year when Americans will celebrate the 50th anniversary of so many groundbreaking events of 1963: children defying dogs and firehoses in Birmingham, President Kennedy’s endorsement of civil rights as a moral cause, the church bombing that claimed the lives of four little girls in Alabama, and the March on Washington. As the nation remembers these important milestones, it is important not to forget the work of a long-forgotten activist who emerged publicly that year to link civil rights to women’s rights, and ultimately to her own closeted sexual identity. In doing so, an African American woman lawyer named Pauli Murray strongly criticized the leadership of the civil rights movement for excluding women as it was planning for the march that would bring 250,000 protesters to Washington that fall. More than any other individual, it is Murray who deserves credit for expanding the language of civil rights beyond the African American struggle for equality to women’s rights, and ultimately to what she later called “human rights” — and for paving the way for a President of the United States to claim that it included gays and lesbians as well. 
In 1963, Pauli Murray was working hard to make Americans aware of an idea she had come up with two decades earlier — one that influenced people as different from one another as Eleanor Roosevelt and Marian Wright Edelman — and which would help change the meaning of equality. She called it Jane Crow. Alongside the system of Jim Crow race segregation, Murray argued, there was an equally wrong system of sex segregation. Sex discrimination should be against the law for the same reasons as race discrimination. This was a radical idea at the time …”

Read Kenneth W. Mack’s entire piece at the Huffington Post.
article via theroot.com

Eight Fascinating Facts About Martin Luther King Jr.

By goodblacknews on January 21, 2013

The Martin Luther King Memorial is seen
At this time of year there are many different posts about Martin Luther King Jr.  Here are eight facts that are not commonly discussed:
Fact 1:  He was born Michael Luther King, Jr. January 15, 1929 in  Atlanta, Georgia.
Fact 2:  His father, Michael King, Sr., changed their names to Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr. when Martin Jr. was about five.
Fact 3: King was the youngest person, at the time, to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Fact 4:  King authored six books published from 1958 through 1968, works on American race relations and collections of his sermons and lectures.
Fact 5: King stood behind President Lyndon B. Johnson as Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.
Fact 6: Senate investigations revealed that the FBI illegally bugged King’s hotel rooms and home phone from 1962-1968.
Fact 7:  An ongoing controversy over the inscription on the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial which says “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”, is taken from a 1968 King sermon, “If you want to say I was a drum major, say I was a drum major for justice, say I was a drum major for peace, I was a drum major for righteousness and all the other shallow things will not matter.”, at issue is also the cost to repair, change or delete the inscription.
Fact 8:  King met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, and Lester Grange on problems affecting black Americans. Making it an  interesting  fact that he actually met with two presidents about Civil Rights at different times.
article by Oretha Winston via theurbandaily.com

Google Honors Martin Luther King With Today's Search Page

By goodblacknews on January 21, 2013

Google MLK Day Seach Window
Search engine giant Google honors MLK Day with Martin Luther King Jr.’s image on its default page. To remember his life, contributions and the future he envisions, Google has a yearly Google Doodle for the day. Today, the Doodle is in shades of blue, green and yellow. With Dr. King’s face as one of the “O”s in the Google logo.
Google has had a Martin Luther King, Jr. logo since 2003, skipping some years but being consistent with the logo since 2006. To see all the past Google Doodles for Martin Luther King Day, see The Google Doodle directory.
article written by Barry Schwartz via searchengineland.com 
(article contributed by Lesa Lakin)

Florida Youth in Manatee County Work to Keep Martin Luther King Legacy Alive

By goodblacknews on January 12, 2013

Bre’Yahna Thompson, 15, of Bradenton, foreground, calls herself a “positive rapper,” and is very tuned in to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Behind Bre’Yahna is her father, Rodney Thompson. RICHARD DYMOND/Bradenton Herald
PALMETTO — Like other communities getting set to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Jan. 21, Manatee County’s religious leaders wonder if Dr. King’s message of brotherhood, nonviolence and persistence is getting through to the younger generation.  One way that is working, say local pastors, is the recently completed Dr. Martin Luther King Speech and Essay Contest in Manatee County, which involved more than 300 young people writing essays and researching King’s life and work.
Another way is through church, where pastors say a moment of silence and some discussion will be the hallmark of services on Jan. 20 and where a local Jewish temple is holding an interfaith Shabbat service honoring the civil rights leader.
But one talented young local African-American woman is trying another way to share King’s ideals.  She wants to use music to reach her generation.  Bre’Yahna Thompson, 15, a Bradenton home-schooler who writes poetry, plays the violin and cello, and calls herself a “positive rapper,” is working on a rap song about King that she calls, “The Story of a Leader.”

US Postal Service Commemorates 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation with New Stamp

By goodblacknews on January 2, 2013
Emancipation Proclamation Stamp dedication

Emancipation Proclamation Stamp dedication at The National Archives by (left to right) Danny Davis, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ronald Stroman, David Ferriero, A’Leila Bundles, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon. (Photo: U.S. Postal Service)

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, creating what Deputy Postmaster General Ronald A. Stroman called, “a powerful symbol of President Lincoln’s determination to end the war, to end slavery, and to reconstruct the economy of the country without slave labor.

President Obama Recognizes 150 Anniversary Of Emancipation Proclamation

By goodblacknews on January 1, 2013

President Barack Obama views the Emancipation Proclamation with a small group of African American seniors, their grandchildren and some children from the Washington DC area, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

January 1st, 1863, is the day that the 16th President of the United States of America, President Abraham Lincoln, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, proclaiming that all slaves in the Confederacy were “forever free” because these Southern states refused to rejoin the Union and were in “rebellion” against the United States of America.

Ironically, the Union states were allowed to maintain their slaves because President Lincoln did not want to risk friction among them. Subsequently, freedmen fled to the North to join the Union Army, and slavery became the pivotal focus of the Civil War. The initial conflict began over various other reasons regarding states’ individual rights, such as taxation, the South demanding control over their own political and socio-economic infrastructure, as well as states’ resources.

GBN Wishes You A Happy New Year!

By goodblacknews on January 1, 2013

happynewyear2013
 
Good Black News would like to thank all of our fans and followers, old and new, for making 2012 a fantastic, expansive year for us.  Please continue to read, share and spread the word as we will do our best to bring you more positive news in 2013 and beyond.  Happy New Year!
Lori Lakin Hutcherson, GBN Founder and Editor-In-Chief

Obama Honors Military on Veterans Day

By goodblacknews on November 12, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Obama paid tribute at a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington Memorial Cemetery to “the heroes over the generations who have served this country of ours with distinction.”  He said the wreath he laid earlier at Tomb of the Unknowns was intended to “remember every service member who has ever worn our nation’s uniform.”

In a speech at the Memorial Amphitheater, he said America will never forget the sacrifice made by its veterans and their families.  “No ceremony or parade, no hug or handshake is enough to truly honor that service,” the president said, adding that the country must commit every day “to serving you as well as you’ve served us.”