Janet Jackson (l) receives Ultimate Icon Award; Kendrick Lamar (r) opens the 2015 BET Awards (Photos: Getty Images)
Last night, Black Entertainment Television held its 15th annual BET Awards celebration, honoring musical legends Janet Jackson and Smokey Robinson, as well as radio and television personality Tom Joyner with special tributes and awards. Jason Derulo, Ciara and Tinashe did a tribute in dance to Jackson before she received her Ultimate Icon Award from longtime producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.
Jidenna and Janelle Monae arrive at BET Awards (Photo: Jerome Dorn)
Performances by Alicia Keys,Janelle Monae, Jidenna, Kendrick Lamar, Tyga and Chris Brown, to name a few, also energized the event, and it was no surprise when Best Acting awards went to deserving “Empire” darlings Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson. To see the full list of winners, read below:
Best New Artist Sam Smith
Dej Loaf
Fetty Wap
Rae Sremmurd
Tinashe Best Male Hip-Hop Artist Kendrick Lamar
J. Cole
Drake
Common Big Sean
Wale “Empire” Actor Jussie Smollet (Photo: Jerome Dorn) Best Female Hip-Hop Artist Nicki Minaj
Azealia Banks
Tink
Iggy Azalea
Trina
Dej Loaf Best Actor Terrence Howard
Anthony Anderson
Idris Elba
Jussie Smollett
Kevin Hart Best Female R&B/Pop Artist Beyoncé
Janelle Monáe
Jhené Aiko
Ciara
Rihanna
K. Michelle
SEE ALSO: Janelle Monae and Jidenna Perform ‘Yoga’ and ‘Classic Man’ at 2015 BET Awards Chris Brown at 2015 BET Awards (Photo: Jerome Dorn) Best Male R&B/Pop Artist
The Weeknd
John Legend
Trey Songz
Usher
August Alsina Chris Brown Best Group
A$AP Mob
Migos Rae Sremmurd
Rich Gang
Young Money
Jodeci
Cynthia Hurd, one of the nine churchgoers killed last week in the mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church, looks over a reproduction of the original of the Charleston Messenger found inside the John L. Dart Library in 2002. (Photo via postandcourier.com)
Renaming the Charleston library she served for 30 years is a fitting tribute to Cynthia Hurd, one of the nine churchgoers killed during the Emanuel AME Church shooting last week.
The Charleston County Council unanimously voted on Thursday to rename the St. Andrews Regional Library the Cynthia Graham Hurd St. Andrews Regional Library, The Post & Courierreports.Hurd worked in the city’s library system from 1990 to 2011, before being given the managerial title at the St. Andrews Regional Library. Her husband Arthur called the commemorative title fitting for the woman who dedicated her life to books and helping others.
“People will look up and see her name and remember her every day,” Arthur Hurd said. “There have been nothing but good things said about her because that’s how she lived her life.”
Hurd was the longest-serving part-time librarian in the county. In a 2003 interview, she said the best thing about being a librarian was the chance to serve others. “I like helping people find answers,” she said. “Your whole reason for being there is to help people.”
Shortly after suspected gunman Dylann Roof took the lives of Hurd and eight others in Mother AME Emanuel Church last week, friends and former classmates from her alma mater,Clark Atlanta University, paid their respects with a candlelight vigil.
The College of Charleston also showed their gratitude to Hurd by renaming their academic scholarship the Cynthia Graham Hurd Memorial Scholarship. Formally known as the Colonial Scholarship, 12 full academic scholarships are handed out every year to in-state students.
The county also has set up a fund in her honor to continue her work. Those donations may be sent to Charleston County Public Library, c/o Cynthia Graham Hurd Memorial Fund, 68 Calhoun St., Charleston, SC 29401.
Bishop Michael Curry of North Carolina, smiles after being elected the Episcopal Church’s first African-American presiding bishop on Saturday, June 27, 2015. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
The Episcopal Church elected its first African-American presiding bishop, choosing Bishop Michael Curry of North Carolina during the denomination’s national assembly Saturday.
Curry was elected in a vote by bishops at the Episcopal General Convention, the top legislative body of the church. Curry won among the bishops in a landslide, earning 121 votes. The other three candidates had 21 votes or less. The decision was affirmed on a vote of 800-12 by the House of Deputies, the voting body of clergy and lay participants at the meeting.
Curry will succeed Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who will complete her nine-year term on Nov. 1. She was the first female presiding bishop and the first woman to lead an Anglican national church. The New York-based Episcopal Church is the U.S. body of the Anglican Communion, an 80-million member worldwide fellowship of churches with roots in the Church of England.
“We’ve got a society where there are challenges before us. We know that. And there are crises all around us. And the church has challenges before us,” Curry said in brief comments as he was introduced to the assembly as presiding bishop-elect. “We are part of the Jesus movement, and nothing can stop the movement of God’s love in this world.”
(Washington, DC) – This month, forty-three black fathers, nonprofit leaders and businessmen in Akron, Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh will receive $400,000 in grants to help them strengthen their communities. The grants are presented by BMe Community, a growing national network of 12,000 black men and others of all races and genders who are committed to building better communities across the U.S.
According to BMe Community, the 43 men, called “BMe Leaders”, were nominated by local residents and chosen because they were already consistently helping thousands of their neighbors. Each of the men has also agreed to stand up for important values in America’s evolving dialogue on race, community and our nation’s future.
Specifically, BMe Community believes that the most prosperous way forward for America is to value all its people, recognize black men as assets, reject stories that denigrate people, and work together for our common interests in caring and prosperous communities. The BMe Leaders embody those values. Their personal stories and leadership inspires others to reach for those values as well. Participants in BMe Community use the hashtag #ReachWithUs to share, inspire, and empower each other with words of congratulation, useful information, images, and event invites.
BMe started honoring these 43 “Community Fathers” in local ceremonies that began June 18 and end tomorrow in Detroit on June 27th. The events and BMe Community are backed by private donations, leading foundations and corporations including the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Open Society Foundations, The Heinz Endowments, JP Morgan Chase, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Since 2012, BMe has named 143 BMe Leaders in five cities, sponsored over 100 community events and produced countless stories of solutions and the inspiring people behind them.
One of the first to ever be named a BMe Leader is Shaka Senghor, an author, speaker and leader in criminal justice reform who was named a BMe Leader in 2012 for his efforts in Detroit to increase literacy and decrease violence. The honor came less than two years after he was released from serving 19 years in prison for a crime he committed as a teenager. In the three years since BMe recognized him, Shaka has rattled off an impressive list of accomplishments including being named an MIT Media Lab Fellow, a Kellogg Foundation Community Fellow, being featured in BMe’s bestselling book “REACH: 40 Black Men Speak on Living, Leading and Succeeding” and producing a popular TED Talk titled “Why Your Worst Deeds Shouldn’t Define You.” He currently serves as BMe’s National Outreach Representative. To see his Ted Talk, watch below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtXyGFMBWBs&w=560&h=315]
BMe encourages anyone who shares its values to register for the events or become a participant in the network. www.bmecommunity.org.
BMe Leaders come from all walks of life, ranging in age from 21 to over 80. They are black men who are often unheralded yet lead by example on matters ranging from creating businesses to educating children to protecting human rights. The BMe Leaders work with men and women of all races who also want cities that are prosperous, safe, and provide hope and opportunity to future generations.
“America is at another one of those historic moments where we can choose chaos or community” says Shorters, “These men have always been here. We just admit their existence and invite people of all races and genders to reach with us to build assets, build community and give our children a better story of America’s future.”
The next Induction Ceremony is open to the public tomorrow in Detroit at the University of Michigan Detroit Center, Michigan Room at 1:00 p.m. RSVP: www.bmecommunity.org/detroit2015 article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
President Barack Obama gives eulogy for state Senator and Reverend Clementa Pinkney in Charleston (photo via YouTube) President Barack Obama continues to lead this country with class and heart, delivering a touching and emotional eulogy for state Senator and Reverend Clementa Pinckney, an unfortunate victim in the tragic shootings at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston last week. Obama spoke eloquently of the good works and commitment to community Pinckney had, and solemnly acknowledged by name each of the church members who lost their lives with Pinckney. He then proceeded to talk about the history of the black church and the power of grace.
To the families of the fallen, the nation shares in your grief. Our pain cuts that much deeper because it happened in a church. The church is and always has been the center of African American life… a place to call our own in a too-often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships.
Over the course of centuries, black churches served as hush harbors, where slaves could worship in safety, praise houses, where their free descendants could gather and shout “Hallelujah…” … rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad, bunkers for the foot soldiers of the civil-rights movement.
They have been and continue to community centers, where we organize for jobs and justice, places of scholarship and network, places where children are loved and fed and kept out of harms way and told that they are beautiful and smart and taught that they matter. That’s what happens in church. That’s what the black church means — our beating heart, the place where our dignity as a people in inviolate.
There’s no better example of this tradition than Mother Emanuel, a church… built by blacks seeking liberty, burned to the ground because its founders sought to end slavery only to rise up again, a phoenix from these ashes.
Obama goes on to address the Confederate flag as a symbol of systemic oppression and racial subjugation, and calls getting rid of it as “one step in an honest accounting of America’s history. A modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds.” To read a transcript of his incredible eulogy, which also forcefully addresses mass incarceration, police brutality, voting rights, gun violence and systemic racial bias, click here. To see it in full, watch below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9IGyidtfGI&w=560&h=315] article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
J. Cole and fan Cierra Bosarge at her graduation (Photo via Instagram)
Rapper J. Cole took a break from his national tour in order to attend a fan’s high school graduation and follow up on a promise he made a full two years ago. Teen fan Cierra Bosarge says she reached out to J. Cole in 2013, writing him a letter (which she later summed up in a tweet) about how he had inspired her to persevere in school, despite having a hard time academically.
Cierra’s note prompted the hip hop artist to send her a direct message on Twitter and then follow up by phone. J. Cole agreed to attend the high schooler’s graduation to watch her accept her diploma, but only if she got admitted to a four-year school.
Two years later, they both followed through on the commitments they made — Cierra kept her grades up (sending updates via Twitter), and J. Cole’s manager sent Cierra a message confirming that the star would be there to watch her graduate. According to her Twitter account, when J. Cole showed up to the ceremony this week, he not only gave Cierra some of his “favorite books” as a grad gift, but also offered to help pay for her tuition. article by Carly Steyer via huffingtonpost.com
Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakan (photo via Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said Wednesday he plans to hold a Millions for Justice March in the nation’s capital this fall, 20 years after the Million Man March.
During a speech at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Washington, Farrakhan said he intends to hold the rally Oct. 10 on the National Mall, scene of the 1995 march.
“This is the time our people must see our unity,” Farrakhan said. “Let’s make 10/10/15 a meeting place for those who want justice, for those who know what justice is.”
Organizers said they aim to stage a more diverse and inclusive event than the one in 1995, which was billed as a men-only event.
Former NAACP executive director Benjamin Chavis, who helped organize the original Million Man March, said he is optimistic that this year’s turnout will be “in excess of a million.” He said the event’s success would be measured more by the political and socioeconomical impact it has on communities.
“What ultimately will be a success is seeing improvements in the communities where these people are going to come from,” Chavis said. “We want to make sure our public policy demands are aligned with those challenges.”
Farrakhan said the rally is intended to galvanize a more strategic movement for equality as supporters unite under the social media hashtag #JusticeOrElse.
“Walk with the young people, the warriors of God, as we say to America, ‘You owe us,'” Farrakhan said.
The Million Man March was held in Washington on Oct. 16, 1995. Its goal, organizers said, was to encourage black men to make firmer commitments to family values and community uplift. It is among the largest political gatherings in American history, although there were disputes over the size of the heavily black and male crowd it drew. Crowd estimates ranged from 400,000 to nearly 1.1 million.
Farrakhan, 82, also used the march announcement to call for fair treatment and an end to injustice in the wake of the massacre of nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, last week. “Yes, all lives matter, but the only reason you’re here is because black lives are being slaughtered,” Farrakhan said.
As for efforts to remove the Confederate flag in the wake of that tragedy, Farrakhan said the gesture does little to remove the stain of injustice.
“The media is (still) twisting the narrative of murderers,” Farrakhan added, referring to perceptions that the media tends to portray white perpetrators more humanely than those of other races or ethnicities. article by Glynn A. Hill via bigstory.ap.org
Deborah Ale Flint, new Executive Director of Los Angeles World Airports. (CITY OF LOS ANGELES)
The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday confirmed Oakland airport executive Deborah Ale Flint as the new Executive Director of Los Angeles World Airports.
Flint served as the director of aviation for the Port of Oakland.
In her new role, she will lead the city authority that oversees the Los Angeles International, Ontario International and Van Nuys airports.
In comments at the council meeting, Ale Flint talked about the “love story” of L.A.’s airports.
Ale Flint said her vision is “to make sure that we’re the most innovative, that we have the best passenger experiences, that we’re protectors and creators of great environment around the airport, that we have a world-class airport, and that we’re first-class neighbors.”
LAX is currently undergoing a multibillion-dollar overhaul.
“It’s an important economic development engine for the city and we know that ,with your leadership there, we will continue to grow and expand,” Councilman Curren Price Jr. said to Ale Flint.
The final vote was 13-0. article by KPPC staff; contributions by Brian Frank via scpr.org
Iman is just about to celebrate her 60th birthday and the supermodel couldn’t look any more stunning. It only makes us want to rush and buy her entire cosmetics line if it’ll give us the hope of looking this good when we’re her age. Iman is ringing in the big milestone with a cover shoot for Vanity Fair Italia’s latest issue, where she poses in some glamorous styles. Between the super short ‘do, the hair accessories, fierce makeup and the fact that Iman can make anything look amazing, we’re just loving everything about this fashion spread.
The fashion spread was shot by Markus & Koala and the model was thrilled to share her images with her Instagram followers. Iman not only shared the Vanity Fair Italia cover, but also takes from her shoot with the hashtag #ImanAgelessChic. She truly is.
So how does she stay looking so young through the decades? Turns out it’s not rocket science and you won’t find it in a plastic surgeon’s office.
“I go to the gym, I am attentive to the diet. And I’m not complaining of the extra pounds, at least a couple, because they act as a natural botox,” she said. “When women get older, the first place you see it is the face that becomes too thin, worn out, tired. And then they go to get botox, but for me the best remedy is a bit ‘overweight.’”
If you want a glimpse of her cover story and can speak Italian, click here. article by Dorkys Ramos via bet.com
In this June 20, 2010 photo released by the New York City Ballet, Albert Evans appears during his farewell.
NEW YORK (AP) — Albert Evans, a former New York City Ballet principal dancer and one of the most prominent African-Americans in classical dance, has died at age 46.
Evans died at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital on Monday night “following a short illness,” said Rob Daniels, a spokesman for the ballet company. He did not have further details.
Evans was one of only two African-American principal dancers in New York City Ballet’s 67-year history. The first was Arthur Mitchell, who is now 81.
As a principal, Evans danced a huge variety of roles in the City Ballet repertoire, from classical to modern, from George Balanchine to Jerome Robbins to Christopher Wheeldon. He joined the company in 1988 and quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a soloist in 1991 and a principal in 1995. Evans retired during the spring 2010 season with an emotional farewell performance, and had been serving since then as a ballet master at the company.
“The entire New York City Ballet family is heartbroken by the loss of our beloved friend and colleague Albert Evans,” said Peter Martins, the company’s ballet master in chief, in a statement. “Kind, warm, generous, and always a joy to be with, Albert is quite simply irreplaceable.”
Evans was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and trained there as a youngster. In 1986, he was awarded a full scholarship to the School of American Ballet, NYCB’s official school.
His more prominent roles in Balanchine ballets included the Cavalier in “The Nutcracker” and Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” among many others. He had featured roles in Wheeldon’s “Polyphonia” and “Liturgy.” And he originated roles in a number of works by Martins, including his 1991 “Sleeping Beauty,” in which Evans danced Puss in Boots, and “Romeo + Juliet,” in which he played a commanding Prince of Verona.
Friends and colleagues in the dance world took to social media on Tuesday to praise Evans. “Goodbye dear Albert, a beautiful soul,” wrote choreographer Alexei Ratmansky on Facebook.
“He gave us all the strength, beauty, joy, laughter, smiles, passion, and inspiration to keep going, to keep pushing onward, to be the best we could be,” wrote principal dancer Sara Mearns on Instagram.
Dancer and rising choreographer Justin Peck, also on Instagram, called Evans “such an incredible, luminous person. Albert always brought warmth, hospitality, enthusiasm, humor to any situation.”
In addition to his dance roles, Evans choreographed several works, including “Haiku,” to music by John Cage, for New York City Ballet’s 2002 Diamond Project, as well as a solo for NYCB principal Peter Boal in 2003, performed at the Joyce Theater.
Evans also appeared in the 2002 “Live From Lincoln Center” broadcast of “New York City Ballet’s Diamond Project: Ten Years of New Choreography.”
