The Africa-America Institute is launching a yearlong Speaker Series to provide a platform for domestic and global thought leaders to bring perspectives and expertise on issues relevant to U.S. policy toward Africa and African domestic policies.
This series, which will run from January through November 2014 in New York City and Washington, D.C., will be “a forum for innovative and visionary thought leaders to engage in dialogue on important issues of mutual concern to the African continent and United States to help inform and shape public policy and foster socio-economic development in Africa,” said Amini Kajunju, president and CEO of The Africa-America Institute.
The first event will kick off Jan. 30 with a panel discussion exploring the challenges and economic potential of President Barack Obama’s “Power Africa” Initiative. Kamran Khan, vice president of the Department of Compact Operations, Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) will moderate, and will be joined by participants Shari Berenbach, president & CEO, The U.S. African Development Foundation; Tony von der Muhll of Shift Into Green Energy ECUA; Ambassador Tuvako Manongi, permanent representative of Tanzania to the United Nations; and George Monyemangene, consul general of South Africa.
For more information, visit AAIOnline.org.
article by Janell Hazelwood via blackenterprise.com
Louis B. Lynn’s family tree is rooted in entrepreneurship. His grandfather owned a grocery store and his father ran a butcher shop. “My father was businessman of the year back in the ’60s. Last year, we won the Ronald H. Brown Leadership Award,” says the president and chief horticulturalist of ENVIRO AgScience Inc. (No. 84 on the be industrial/service companies list with $28 million in revenues).
LOS ANGELES — The seven-day festival of Kwanzaa will begin December 26. It is a time when African Americans highlight their heritage.
Nearly 35% of black fathers who lived with their young children said they read to them daily, compared with 30% of white dads and 22% of Latino dads. The report was based on a federal survey that included more than 3,900 fathers between 2006 and 2010 — a trove of data seen as the gold standard for studying fatherhood in the United States. In many cases, the differences between black fathers and those of other races were not statistically significant, researchers said.
The findings echo earlier studies that counter simple stereotypes characterizing black fathers as missing in action. When it comes to fathers who live with their kids, “blacks look a lot like everyone else,” said Gretchen Livingston, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center who has previously studied the topic. And in light of the negative stereotypes about black fathers, “that is a story in itself.”
In Watts, Bryan August-Jones battles the stereotype daily. Every weekday, he wakes his three sons before sunrise, gets them dressed, then ferries them to the baby sitter and to school. On weekends, he takes them bicycling or to Red Lobster, which his youngest son — “a little fancy guy” — prefers over McDonalds. His Latina mother-in-law and her family think black men cannot be good fathers, but “I prove them wrong all the time,” August-Jones said.
Darnell Barton, a bus driver in Buffalo, New York, was driving across a Buffalo highway express with 20 high school students in his bus when he spotted a woman who had crossed the guard rail and was leaning over the passing traffic below. Against his training as a bus driver, Barton stopped the bus and quickly phoned dispatch to send someone to help, then got out of the bus and approached the woman. The woman turned her head, then looked back down at the traffic below the bridge. Barton then quickly put her in a bear hug and asked her if she would like to come over the guard rail. The woman, who had up until this point been silent, said yes.