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Posts published in “Books”

“Living Single” Actress Erika Alexander Co-Writes Graphic with Black Heroine

By goodblacknews on July 14, 2012

Best known for her memorable role as Maxine Shaw on the sitcom “Living Single” Erika Alexander’s latest endeavor isn’t a TV or film role, but instead a graphic novel series. Developed with her screenwriter husband, Tony Puryear, and her brother Robert Alexander, Concrete Park is set in the a dangerous near-future where gangs threaten to destroy humanity. The main characters are women of color: Luca, a gang leader, and Lena, her lesbian lover. The novels feature a multicultural cast of characters struggling to survive in an increasingly depraved world.

Alexander and her husband recently appeared at San Diego Comic-Con, the popular gaming and pop culture conference, to promote Concrete Park. The pair also recently appeared on the comedy podcast  Straight Riffin’.  Alexander is just one Hollywood actress of color to venture in the comic book world. Rosario Dawson developed a four-issue series called O.C.T.: Occult Crimes Task Force, which is currently being developed for television. Rashida Jones developed her own graphic novel series called  Frenemy of the State in 2009, which was optioned for the big screen by Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment.

article by Stacia L. Brown via Clutch

Toni Morrison Among Lates Medal Of Freedom Honorees

By goodblacknews on April 30, 2012
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The first female secretary of state, a former astronaut, and a musical pioneer are among this year’s recipients of the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
President Barack Obama will award the medals at the White House later this spring.
Among this year’s recipients are former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the first woman to hold the nation’s top diplomatic post; John Glenn, the third American in space and the first American to orbit the Earth; and legendary musician Bob Dylan.
In a statement, Obama said of the honorees: “They’ve challenged us, they’ve inspired us and they’ve made the world a better place.”
Among the other honorees:
— John Doar, civil rights attorney.
— William Foege, physician who led the campaign to eradicate smallpox.
— Gordon Hirabayashi, openly defied the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
— Dolores Huerta, civil rights workers and women’s advocate.
— Jan Karski, officer in the Polish Underground during World War II and one of the first people to provide accounts of the Holocaust to the world.
— Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts.
— Toni Morrison, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist.
— Shimon Peres, Israeli president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
— John Paul Stevens, former Supreme Court Justice.
— Pat Summitt, former women’s basketball coach at the University of Tennessee.

First Black Female Cartoonist Celebrated In New Book

By goodblacknews on April 26, 2012


by R. Asmerom
The cartoon industry is a rare industry for anyone to be in, but especially a black woman in the 1930s. A new book by Nancy Goldstein called “Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist” paints a profile of the first black woman cartoonist, who used her art to work in journalism and engage in politics from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Ormes started as a proofreader for the weekly African-American paper the Pittsburgh Courier. She launched a strip there called Torchy Browin In Dixie To Harlem about a Southern teen who was a success in the Cotton Club.
She later moved to Chicago to work for the popular Black newspaper Chicago Defender. There she started Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger, a cartoon that ran for 11 years. Her political voice was consistently heard during her tenure. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

During the McCarthy era, she repeatedly took playful jabs in her cartoons at the House Un-American Activities Committee. Delivered with much humor and gusto, the barbs were often spoken by an adorable little girl named Patty-Jo, who always had a way of summing up all that her older, more fashionable sister, Ginger, remained silent about while expressing a look of utter shock that her little sister could say such a thing as:
“It would be interestin’ to discover WHICH committee decided it was un-American to be COLORED!”

Ornes didn’t escape the watchful eye of the vigilant FBI during that time, reportedly being closely watched by the agency for ten years because of some attendance at meetings for American communist groups. She admitted to attending meetings but denied being part of the Communist movement.
According to the book, Ornes used her cartoons to lobby for The March of Dimes and to protest segregation and American foreign policy.  Besides her sophisticated political voice, Ornes was known for her elegant depictions.

She often used her own quite charming and beautiful form as the model for her main characters such as Ginger and Torchy Brown, who are downright glamorous — in such a manner not before seen in graphic art depictions of African-American women.

Ormes died at the age of 74 in 1985. She was well ahead of her time. As the New York Times noted, the first daily strip to be produced by a Black woman emerged in 1989 by Barbara Brandon-Croft – obviously decades later after Ormes made her mark.

Maya Angelou and John Lewis Named 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom Honorees

By goodblacknews on November 19, 2010
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Poet Maya Angelou and civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga, are among the 2010 winners of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.  President Barack Obama will present the awards to them and the other thirteen honorees early next year, the White House announced Wednesday.  Other winners include President H.W. Bush, investor Warren Buffett, plus St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famer Stan “The Man” Musial, Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma.  Obama’s bipartisan gesture in picking the first President Bush for the honor is not unprecedented. Former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, awarded a Medal of Freedom to former Republican President Gerald Ford.
“These outstanding honorees come from a broad range of backgrounds and they’ve excelled in a broad range of fields, but all of them have lived extraordinary lives that have inspired us, enriched our culture, and made our country and our world a better place,” Obama said. “I look forward to awarding them this honor.”  The medal is presented to people who have made notable contributions to U.S. interests, from cultural achievements to security matters.  The full list of winners:
–George H.W. Bush was America’s 41st president, and previously vice president and CIA director. He also worked with Clinton to raise money for victims Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.
–Merkel is the first woman and first East German to serve as chancellor of a unified Germany.
–Musial is a Hall of Fame first baseman who played 22 seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals.
–Russell is the former captain of the Boston Celtics and first black man to become an NBA head coach.
–Yo-Yo Ma is a world renowned cellist who has won 16 Grammy awards and is known for his interpretations of Bach and Beethoven. He played at Obama’s inauguration.
–Lewis served as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and helped organize the first lunch-counter sit-in. In 1965 he led the Selma-to-Montgomery, Ala., march for voting rights and was brutally beaten along with others in what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
–Buffett, chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, is a famed investor known as the “Oracle of Omaha” for his prescient business sense. He is also a generous philanthropist.
–Angelou is a prominent poet, educator, filmmaker, producer and civil rights activist.
— Jasper Johns, an American artist whose work has dealt with themes of perception and identity. He is considered a major influence on pop, minimal and conceptual art.
–Gerda Weissmann Klein, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who founded Citizenship Counts, an organization that teaches students to cherish the value of their American citizenship.
–Dr. Tom Little, an optometrist murdered last August by the Taliban in Afghanistan as he and nine others returned from a mission to provide eye care in the Parun valley of Nuristan. The award is being given posthumously to Little.
–Sylvia Mendez, a civil rights activist of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent.
–Jean Kennedy Smith, a Kennedy family member who served as U.S. ambassador to Ireland and is the founder of VSA, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that promotes the artistic talents of children and adults with disabilities.
–John Sweeney, AFL-CIO president from 1995-2009.
–John H. Adams, who in 1970 co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council, a prominent environmental advocacy group.
article content via Associated Press and businessweek.com

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historian Annette Gordon-Reed Earns 2010 MacArthur "Genius" Grant!

By goodblacknews on September 28, 2010
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Harvard Professor and author Annette Gordon-Reed, 51, whose book “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family” (W. W. Norton) won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in History and the 2008 National Book Award for nonfiction, is among the 23 recipients of the $500,000 “genius awards” to be announced on Tuesday by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  Ms. Gordon-Reed investigated the story of the slave family that included Sally Hemings, a slave owned by Jefferson who scholars widely believe bore his children. A New Yorker, Ms. Gordon-Reed teaches law and history at Harvard. Some of her grant will go toward travel expenses as she researches another book on the Hemings, she said.
Twelve men and 11 women, ranging in age from 30 to 72, were named MacArthur fellows this year. All will receive $100,000 a year for five years, no strings attached.  Since the inception of the program in 1981 and including this year’s fellows, 828 people, ranging in age from 18 to 82 at the time of their selection, have been named.
article information via nytimes.com

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historian Annette Gordon-Reed Earns 2010 MacArthur “Genius” Grant!

By goodblacknews on September 28, 2010
Macarthur4-popup

Harvard Professor and author Annette Gordon-Reed, 51, whose book “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family” (W. W. Norton) won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in History and the 2008 National Book Award for nonfiction, is among the 23 recipients of the $500,000 “genius awards” to be announced on Tuesday by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  Ms. Gordon-Reed investigated the story of the slave family that included Sally Hemings, a slave owned by Jefferson who scholars widely believe bore his children. A New Yorker, Ms. Gordon-Reed teaches law and history at Harvard. Some of her grant will go toward travel expenses as she researches another book on the Hemings, she said.

Twelve men and 11 women, ranging in age from 30 to 72, were named MacArthur fellows this year. All will receive $100,000 a year for five years, no strings attached.  Since the inception of the program in 1981 and including this year’s fellows, 828 people, ranging in age from 18 to 82 at the time of their selection, have been named.

article information via nytimes.com

President Barack Obama To Publish Children's Book

By goodblacknews on September 15, 2010
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via google.com
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, a publishing phenomenon even before he won the White House, has a new book about to hit the shelves — profiling inspirational historic Americans for children.

“Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters” is a 40-page picture book and will have an initial print run of half a million copies when it is released on November 16 — not coincidentally two weeks after congressional elections.
Obama penned the book before he was elected and proceeds from its sale will go to a scholarship fund for the children of US soldiers killed or disabled in wars abroad. The president’s publisher, Random House, praised the work as an “inspiring marriage of words and images, history and story.” “‘Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters’ celebrates the characteristics that unite all Americans — the potential to pursue our dreams and forge our own paths,” the company said in a press release.
The book celebrates figures including the first president George Washington, and Jackie Robinson, who broke down barriers by becoming the first African American baseball player in the major leagues. The title is taken from the lyrics of “My Country, ‘Tis of thee” an early American patriotic song. Obama’s previous books, the autobiographical “Dreams from My Father” published in 1995, and the political manifesto “The Audacity of Hope” which came out in 2006, have been huge international bestsellers. They have also secured Obama’s financial future. The president and his wife Michelle declared a joint gross income of 5.5 million dollars for 2009 alone — almost all of it based on royalties from his books.
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

President Barack Obama To Publish Children’s Book

By goodblacknews on September 15, 2010
Media_httpwwwgoogleco_iijpj
via google.com
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, a publishing phenomenon even before he won the White House, has a new book about to hit the shelves — profiling inspirational historic Americans for children.

“Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to my Daughters” is a 40-page picture book and will have an initial print run of half a million copies when it is released on November 16 — not coincidentally two weeks after congressional elections.
Obama penned the book before he was elected and proceeds from its sale will go to a scholarship fund for the children of US soldiers killed or disabled in wars abroad. The president’s publisher, Random House, praised the work as an “inspiring marriage of words and images, history and story.” “‘Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters’ celebrates the characteristics that unite all Americans — the potential to pursue our dreams and forge our own paths,” the company said in a press release.

The book celebrates figures including the first president George Washington, and Jackie Robinson, who broke down barriers by becoming the first African American baseball player in the major leagues. The title is taken from the lyrics of “My Country, ‘Tis of thee” an early American patriotic song. Obama’s previous books, the autobiographical “Dreams from My Father” published in 1995, and the political manifesto “The Audacity of Hope” which came out in 2006, have been huge international bestsellers. They have also secured Obama’s financial future. The president and his wife Michelle declared a joint gross income of 5.5 million dollars for 2009 alone — almost all of it based on royalties from his books.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

5 Webcomics Created by African Americans

By goodblacknews on September 15, 2010

5 Webcomics Created by African Americans

by anjuan

July 29, 2010

5 Webcomics Created by African AmericansThe opening of the massive Comic-con convention last week provided days of comic book related news coverage.  However, few of the images from that event were of African Americans.  The dearth of African American perspectives in mainstream comic books inspired many black artists to create webcomics.  Webcomics are online sites that present a story in comic book form.  The success of Boondocks and the current global recession were motivators for many of these artists to try their hand at starting an online webcomic business.  These five webcomics present a sample of African American entrepreneurs who are presenting a different perspective on the web.
A Pug Named Fender
The LessonCreated by Houston based artist Fave, A Pug Named Fender chronicles the adventures of a pug as he enjoys the thrills of barbecue, music, technology, and other essentials that make life worth living.  This recently launched webcomic has already featured guest appearances by soul music artists like Questlove.  New episodes of A Pug Named Fender are posted every Tuesday and Thursday.
JOE!
#87. – Facebook Saga (Part 3)
Michelle Billingsly created JOE! to capture the life the title character, a rambunctious 10 year old.  This webcomic doesn’t just focus on Joe and has created a cast with well developed characters.  There is no regular update schedule, but new strips come out about twice a month.
Addanac City
AC Classic~ We’re Gonna Have To Let You Go
George Ford publishes Addanac City which depicts the shenanigans of Hank Addanac. It’s an interesting mix of Calvin and Hobbes and Phineas and Ferb.  Ford keeps a rigorous schedule of publishing seven comics a week that goes back to August 2008.  The cast is very diverse and both the writing and art show a high degree of quality.
Redux Deluxe
Introductions
Charles Arrington’s Redux Deluxe covers the adventures of three boys named CJ, Chris, and Rob as they try to retrieve a lost basketball from a neighborhood girl named Angela.  Containing many references to comic book and video game culture, new episodes of Redux Deluxe come out twice a week.
Company Man
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Phoenix artist Frank Jordan publishes a new Company Man strip five days a week.  I offers a humorous look at the lives of a diverse cast of characters.  The content of the humor make it a webcomic for mature readers.  The artists behind these five webcomics are using new media to present the diverse perspectives of African Americans through the comic art form.  Both the comic book and webcomic industries tend to be representative of white culture, and these webcomics offer a refreshing dose of color commentary.
via blackweb20.com