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Posts published in “Commemorations”

Michael Jordan Makes Forbes' World's Top Billionaires List For 2nd Straight Year

By goodblacknews on March 3, 2016

Michael Jordan (photo via bet.com)
Michael Jordan (photo via bet.com)

article by Mark Lelinwalla via bet.com
For the second straight year, Michael Jordan was named to Forbes‘ World’s Billionaires list, with a net worth valued at $1.14 billion.
The value makes MJ the 1,577th richest person in the world and 486th richest in the United States. That’s up nearly 200 spots from the 1,741st worldwide ranking that Jordan had on last year’s list, which marked his debut on Forbes‘ World’s Billionaires list in 2015. What makes his place all the more special is Jordan is the lone current or former athlete on the prestigious list.
Jordan’s 90 percent ownership share of the Charlotte Hornets accounts for about $500 million of his assets, while his Air Jordan line with Nike continues to thrive in the sneaker market with 32 years in the game.
Carmelo Anthony, whose sneakers are designed by the Jordan Brand, couldn’t be prouder of his mentor.
“It makes me proud. Yeah, it does,” Melo told ESPN. “I remember getting there and seeing where the business was then. I remember sitting in the airport in 2006, coming from the world championship, and I remember when the brand had just hit a billion, and to see where it’s at right now — [nearly $3 billion in sales] — that’s a lot. That’s a lot of growth to be a part of.”
To read more, go to: http://www.bet.com/news/sports/2016/3/03/michael-jordan-makes-forbes–prestigious-list-again.html

Toni Morrison Receives $25,000 Honorary Award From PEN for American Fiction

By goodblacknews on March 2, 2016
Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison (photo via
article by Hillel Italie via blackamericaweb.com
NEW YORK (AP) — Nobel laureate Toni Morrison has received an honorary prize named for another Nobel winner, the late Saul Bellow.
PEN America, the literary and human rights organization, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Morrison has been given the $25,000 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American fiction. Morrison, 85, is known for such novels as “Beloved,” ”Song of Solomon” and “Jazz.”
“Revelatory, intelligent, bold, her fiction is invested in the black experience, in black lives, and in black consciousness, material from which she has forged a singular American aesthetic,” awards judge Louise Erdrich, herself a prize-winning novelist, said in a statement. “Toni Morrison not only opened doors to others when she began to publish, she has also stayed grounded in the issues of her time.”
PEN announced several other prizes on Tuesday.
Lisa Ko’s “The Leavers” won the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, a $25,000 award. John Schulian, a sports writer for numerous publications, received the $5,000 PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing. Ed Roberson was given the $5,000 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry.
Three playwrights received prizes: Lynn Nottage, whose works include the Pulitzer-winning “Ruined,” was named a Master American Dramatist; Young Jean Lee was cited as an American Playwright in Mid-Career and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins as an Emerging American Playwright.
To read more, go to: http://blackamericaweb.com/2016/03/01/toni-morrison-receives-25000-honorary-award-from-pen/
Legendary Jazz Singer Sarah Vaughan To Be Honored With U.S. Postage Stamp on March 29

Legendary Jazz Singer Sarah Vaughan To Be Honored With U.S. Postage Stamp on March 29

By goodblacknews on March 2, 2016
Screen Shot 2016-03-02 at 5.37.26 PM
Sarah Vaughan Forever stamp (UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE)

article by Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele via theroot.com
Grammy Award-winning jazz singer Sarah Vaughan is being honored with a Forever stamp by the U.S. Postal Service, the Amsterdam News reports.
The unveiling will take place March 29 in Newark, New Jersey—where Vaughan was born.  The image on the stamp is an oil painting of Vaughan’s face during a performance. It’s based on a photograph taken by Hugh Bell in 1955, according to the Amsterdam News.

Walden University Names Its School of Social Work in Honor of Dr. Barbara Solomon

By goodblacknews on March 1, 2016

Dr. Barbara Solomon (photo via news.usc.edu)
Dr. Barbara Solomon (photo via news.usc.edu)

article via jbhe.com
Walden University, headquartered in Minneapolis, enrolls more than 52,000 students in over 80 online degree programs. The university has renamed its School of Social Work and Human Services in honor of Barbara Solomon. The university has also named a scholarship program for Dr. Solomon. These scholarships are earmarked for students who have shown a commitment to helping underserved populations.
Dr. Solomon played a major role in the development of the social work program at Walden University. Earlier in her career, she was professor, vice provost, and dean of the Graduate School at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She served on the faculty at the University of Southern California from 1966 to 2004. Dr. Solomon was the first African American to serve as dean at USC. Professor Solomon is the author of Black Empowerment: Social Work in Oppressed Communities (Columbia University Press, 1977).
Professor Solomon is a magna cum laude graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C. She holds a master of social work degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in social work from the University of Southern California.
To read more, go to: https://www.jbhe.com/2016/02/walden-university-names-its-school-of-social-work-in-honor-of-barbara-solomon/

Idris Elba, Mya Taylor, Abraham Attah Win Big in Acting Categories at 2016 Spirit Awards

Idris Elba, Mya Taylor, Abraham Attah Win Big in Acting Categories at 2016 Spirit Awards

By goodblacknews on February 28, 2016

Idris Elba at Spirit Awards, Los Angeles, Feb 2016 (Photo by Andrew Walker/Variety/REX/Shutterstock)
Idris Elba at Spirit Awards, Los Angeles, Feb 2016 (Photo by Andrew Walker/Variety/REX/Shutterstock)

article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
According to Variety.com, last night at the 2016 Spirit Awards, which celebrate and honor independent films, “Beasts of No Nation” actors Idris Elba and Abraham Attah both won in their respective supporting and leading actor categories.
Mya Taylor at 2016 Spirit Awards (photo via vulture.com)
Mya Taylor at 2016 Spirit Awards (photo via vulture.com)

For the Ghanian Attah, playing the child soldier trained by Elba was his first acting role.  Elba, though not nominated for an Academy Award this year, won the Screen Actors Guild award for his part in “Beasts of No Nation” as well.
Additionally, “Tangerine”‘s Mya Taylor took home the supporting actress award for her performance as a transgender sex worker.  “I came from almost nothing,” a beaming Taylor said from the stage following a standing ovation. “My life did a total 360.”  “Tangerine” was shot entirely on an iPhone by director Sean Baker.
 
A full list of winners (in bold) and nominees follows below:
Best Feature
Anomalisa
Beasts of No Nation
Carol
Spotlight — WINNER
Tangerine

Puma Creates BHM Sneakers in Honor of Iconic Olympic Sprinter Tommie Smith

Puma Creates BHM Sneakers in Honor of Iconic Olympic Sprinter Tommie Smith

By goodblacknews on February 27, 2016
Image #: 13530908 American athletes Tommie Smith (middle, gold medal) and John Carlos (right, bronze medal) at the Award Ceremony for the 200m race at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, October 16, 1968. The Olympics Black Power salute was a notable black power protest and one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the modern Olympic Games. DPA/LANDOV
American athletes Tommie Smith (middle) and John Carlos (right) at the Award Ceremony for the 200m race at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, October 16, 1968. (Photo: DPA/LANDOV)

The image above is a powerful one. This black power salute is embedded in our history. In 1968 Olympics athletes Tommie Smith (gold) and John Carlos (bronze) made history during the Olympic games in Mexico City. With the world watching the sprinters stood on the medal podium and raised their black-gloved fists in the air in silent protest for human rights and for black Americans to stand in solidarity.
It’s that powerful image that was the inspiration for Puma’s capsule collection honoring Tommie Smith and Black History Month. What I didn’t realize is that gold medalist Tommie Smith removed his suede Pumas right before he stepped onto the podium shoeless in black socks, to represent poverty and slavery.  After that subtle statement, he then raised his fist.  With that unmistakable gesture, Tommie Smith altered the course of history and dedicated his life to change. Emblazoned with Tommie Smith’s silhouette, with fist raised, the Black History Month Pack honors a legacy on the track and off. I must applaud Puma for honoring this hero.
Yara Shalhidi and Tommie Smith at the Puma and Sheikh Shoes Launch Celebration at Mastro’s Beverly Hills
Yara Shalhidi and Tommie Smith at the Puma and Sheikh Shoes Launch Celebration at Mastro’s Beverly Hills (Photo credit: Charles Jim-George)

puma

Check out Puma’s Black History Month Collection here:
http://us.puma.com/en_US/men/featured/black-history-month
Sheikh Shoes:
http://www.shiekhshoes.com/m-9-puma.aspx
For more about the 1968 Olympic Black Power Salute:
http://time.com/3880999/black-power-salute-tommie-smith-and-john-carlos-at- the-1968-olympics/
Lesa Lakin GBN Lifestyle
Lesa Lakin, GBN Lifestyle

Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative Receives $1,000,000 Grant from Google

By goodblacknews on February 27, 2016
bryan_stevensongoogle
Bryan Stevenson at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Feb. 26, 2016. (photo via theroot.com)
article by Angela Bronner Helm via theroot.com
Tech giant Google announced on Friday that its philanthropic arm would be donating $1 million to Bryan Stevenson’s Alabama-based non-profit, Equal Justice Initiative.
The Harvard-educated Stevenson is a lawyer who has for decades fought the good fight—winning major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent prisoners on death row, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults in a deeply flawed American criminal justice system.
EJI has also created the nation’s first lynching memorial and fastidiously marked lynching sites throughout the South.
Justin Steele, a principal with Google.org and the Bay Area and racial justice giving lead told USA Today, “I think what’s exciting about what EJI is doing is that at a national level it is really trying to tell the untold history around race in this country and help people develop a deeper understanding for the narrative around race and how we have gotten to where we are.”
Google.org made the announcement during a Black History Month celebration at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters where Stevenson gave a speech on how the Google grant will help further his work.
USA Today reports that the racial justice grants were born out of a growing consensus inside Google that it must respond to the police slayings of African Americans and the fatal shooting of nine black citizens inside a Charleston, S.C., church last summer.
In November, Google.org made its first racial justice grants, giving $2.35 million to community organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. This week, Google.org made four more grants, totaling $3 million.
Keeping in line with the activist mantra of organizing locally and thinking globally, the Equal Justice Initiative grant was the only grant gifted to a national non-profit—all other money was given to local organizations in the Bay Area working to eliminate racial disparities in education.
To see video of Bryan Stevenson’s Google talk, click here.
Read more at USA Today.

Oprah Winfrey, Shonda Rhimes Join Essence to Celebrate Black Women in Hollywood, Honor Debbie Allen

By goodblacknews on February 26, 2016

Honoree Debbie Allen and family (photo via blackamericaweb.com)

article by Sandy Cohen, AP via blackamericaweb.com
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Oscar host Chris Rock, producer Reginald Hudlin and film academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs took an afternoon off from Academy Awards preparations to celebrate black women in Hollywood.
Rock, Hudlin and Boone Isaacs were among the guests at Essence magazine’s ninth annual awards luncheon Thursday at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Rock and Boone Isaacs didn’t speak publicly; Hudlin took the stage to present an award to legendary entertainer Debbie Allen.
The annual Essence event celebrates the achievements of black women in entertainment. Actress Tracee Ellis Ross, entertainment attorney Nina Shaw and filmmaker Thais Francis were also recognized.
Francis thanked the magazine “for creating a platform of visibility.”
“A lot of us in this audience know the importance of visibility, especially during a time, in a society, in a world, in an industry that’s telling us that we’re invisible,” she said.
Shonda Rhimes, who introduced Allen as the new producing director of “Grey’s Anatomy,” called the writer-director-choreographer-performer “a force of nature.”
Producer/writer Shonda Rhimes attends the Essence 9th Annual Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Invision/AP)
Shonda Rhimes (photo via blackamericaweb.com)

“Debbie blows through an environment and changes the landscape forever,” Rhimes said.
As Allen accepted the Legend Award, she said she felt like she was in church, preaching to her sisters.
“The only plate I’m going to pass is the plate of purpose,” she said, urging the women in the audience to make real connections with each other — not just to meet up for drinks, but to work on ways of changing the world.
Shaw gave similar advice as she accepted the Power Award. The attorney for such entertainers as Laurence Fishburne, Lupita Nyong’o and Ava DuVernay was introduced by Nick Cannon and Channing Dungey, who became the first African-American to head a broadcast network when she was named president of ABC Entertainment last week.
“If you are a woman who wants to be empowered, then empower other women,” Shaw said.
“Black-ish” star Ross, accompanied by her father and older sister, Rhonda, accepted the Fierce and Fearless award. Ross said she had been sick for the past week and worried she wouldn’t be able to attend the luncheon.
“I got dressed in the car,” she said. “I’m unclear if what I’m wearing is see-through. If it is, I’m sorry.”  She said the recognition from Essence “is truly one of the proudest moments I’ve experienced.”
Oprah Winfrey opened the program, which will air Saturday on OWN.
To read more, go to: http://blackamericaweb.com/2016/02/26/oprah-winfrey-shonda-rhimes-join-essence-to-celebrate-black-women-in-hollywood-honor-debbie-allen/

President Obama Nominates Dr. Carla D. Hayden for Librarian of Congress

By goodblacknews on February 25, 2016
Dr. Carla Hayden Librarian Congress
Dr. Carla Hayden (PHOTO CREDIT: YouTube)

article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

According to whitehouse.gov, President Barack Obama has nominated Dr. Carla D. Hayden as the 14th Librarian of Congress— which would make her the first woman and African-American to hold this prestigious position in the library’s 214-year history.

Among her many accomplishments, Dr. Hayden became the first African-American to receive Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year Award, and also holds an M.A. and a Ph.D from the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago.

Obama’s own praise for Dr. Hayden and an accompanying video follow:

Today, I’m nominating someone to be our new Librarian of Congress — the leader of one of our nation’s oldest federal institutions — and I want to introduce you to her.
Meet Dr. Carla Hayden.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnlZjccjNqE&w=560&h=315]
Michelle and I have known Dr. Hayden for a long time since her days working at the Chicago Public Library, and her dedication to learning and education is unparalleled.
More recently, she’s devoted her career to modernizing libraries so that everyone can participate in today’s digital culture. She’s been hard at work revitalizing Baltimore’s library system as the CEO of Enoch Pratt Free Library, updating its technology and raising money to fund essential improvements. Under her leadership, the Pratt library has become the largest provider of public-access computers in Maryland.
As Librarian of Congress, she’ll work in close partnership with Congress, support the copyright office that serves our nation’s creative communities, and explore new ways to share the information housed within  our library through innovative technologies.
And I know she’ll be a good steward for the important role that libraries play in our communities. Last year, during the unrest in Baltimore, Dr. Hayden and the library’s staff kept the doors of the Pratt open as a beacon for the community.
Finally, she’d be the first woman and the first African American to hold the position – both of which are long overdue.
So I hope you’ll take a couple minutes to watch this video and meet Carla for yourself. I have no doubt she’ll make a fantastic Librarian of Congress.
President Barack Obama

Selma “Foot Soldiers” from 1965 Civil Rights Marches Receive The Congressional Gold Medal

By goodblacknews on February 25, 2016

Aided by Father James Robinson, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., center, and John Lewis of the Voter Education Project, a crowd estimated by police at 5,000, march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma, Alabama Saturday, March 8, 1975. The march commemorated the decade since the violent struggle for voting rights began in 1965 with “Bloody Sunday” at the bridge as police tried to stop a march to Montgomery. (AP Photo)
Aided by Father James Robinson, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., center, and John Lewis of the Voter Education Project, a crowd estimated by police at 5,000, march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma, Alabama Saturday, March 8, 1965. The march commemorated the decade since the violent struggle for voting rights began in 1965 with “Bloody Sunday” at the bridge as police tried to stop a march to Montgomery. (AP Photo)

article via newsone.com
On Wednesday, Congressional leaders honored the “Foot Soldiers” of the Selma to Montgomery Marches in 1965 with the nation’s highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal.
Anecdotally, Paul Ryan – Speaker of the House of Representatives, who also spoke during the ceremony and praised the foot soldiers for their part in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – will not act on a bill to restore the Voting Rights Act that was essentially gutted by the Supreme Court nearly two years ago.
The ceremony, held in the U.S. Capitol’s Emancipation Hall, featured speeches by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), and Rev. Frederick D. Reese, the former president of the Dallas County Voters League.
Thursday morning, Congresswoman Terri Sewell (D-AL), who introduced the bill to honor the foot soldiers; Charles Mauldin, former president of the Student Movement; and Joyce O’Neal, a member of the Student Movement, joined Roland Martin on NewsOne Now to discuss the award.
Rep. Sewell told Martin, “Yesterday was about making sure this nation’s history is righting a wrong, they (the foot soldiers) should be given all of the credit [for] forcing this nation to live up to its ideals of equality and justice for all.”
Congresswoman Sewell continued, “I think it’s up to us, this generation and future generations, to continue the fight,”because there is so much more needed to be done to “strengthen the Voting Rights Act.”
In reflecting on yesterday’s ceremony, Mauldin thanked Congresswoman Sewell for introducing the bill and said, “This is probably the first time in about 51 years in my being involved in things that we’ve gotten recognition” from government officials.
He added, “We are certainly invited to the protests to demonstrate, but seldomly invited to the celebration. This is the first time that people like us have been invited to the celebration.”
To read more, go to: http://newsone.com/3359436/selma-foot-soldiers-receive-the-congressional-gold-medal/