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Sixteen Year-Old Rock Climbing Champion Kai Lightner is Shattering Stereotypes

By goodblacknews on November 21, 2015

Rock Climbing Champion Kai Lightner (photo: MYLES WASHINGTON)

Sixteen-year-old rock climbing champion Kai Lightner is reaching new heights with his athletic skills as one of a few professional black rock climbers.  Lightner told The Huffington Post that he can’t remember a time when he wasn’t finding ways to get his two feet off the ground and that he started climbing when he was six years old.

Eventually, he said, someone at his mom’s job recognized his talent and suggested that she take him to the local rock-climbing gym where he soon discovered his passion for the activity. He’s won several championships for his incredible ability, but he said his experiences as a black climber has been somewhat of a challenge.
“When I would tell [black] people that my sport was rock-climbing they would look at me funny, and ask ‘What is that?’ ‘We don’t do that,'” Lightner said.
(PHOTO: MYLES WASHINGTON)
In 2013, the Smithsonian reported that 78 percent of Americans who took part in outdoor activities, which included rock climbing, were white. Rock climber and journalist James Mills explained the misperception of black people in outdoor sports and the lack of representation of people of color.
“It’s not a question of whether or nor African-Americans can climb mountains. What matters is as [a] group we tend not to,” Mills wrote. “And for a variety of different social and cultural reasons the world of mountaineering has been relegated almost exclusively to white men.”
There are structural influences that have barred black people from participating in outdoor sports such as rock climbing, which has kept the majority of participants white. Lightner said he has felt accepted by other climbers, but that he has gotten a lot of grief from other people of color for his participation in the sport.

District of Columbia Agrees to $16.65M Settlement with Donald Gates, Wrongly Imprisoned for 27 Years

By goodblacknews on November 20, 2015

Donald Gates (Photo Source: nnomcenceprorject.org)
Donald Gates (Photo Source: innocenceprorject.org)

The District of Columbia agreed Thursday to pay $16.65 million to a man who spent 27 years in prison for a rape and murder he didn’t commit.
The amount is about $617,000 for every year Donald Eugene Gates spent in prison. Gates was freed in 2009 after DNA evidence cleared him in the 1981 rape and murder of 21-year-old Georgetown University student Catherine Schilling. A federal jury on Wednesday found that two city police officers fabricated and withheld evidence in the case, and city officials agreed to a settlement Thursday as the jury was getting ready to decide damages in the case.
According to court records, former homicide detectives Ronald S. Taylor and Norman Brooks, both now retired, fed information to an unreliable informant. The informant claimed Gates confessed to him while in jail and that he was tied to DNA evidence. This led to a D.C. Superior court finding Gates guilty and he was sentenced to life in prison. During this time, Gates maintained his innocence and suffered until 2009. It was then that he was cleared based on DNA evidence and the real culprit was identified. Because of the conduct of the officers and his wrongful imprisonment, Gates was earlier awarded $1.4 million under a law that gives $50K per year of imprisonment of innocent people who waive their rights to sue the US government.
In response to the jury verdict, Gates is quoted as saying, “It feels like the God of the King James Bible is real, and he answered my prayers.” Gates, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., added as he left the courtroom, “Justice is on the way to being fulfilled. . . . It’s one of the happiest days of my life.”
article via fox5dc.com and rollingout.com

Alicia Keys, John Legend, Pharrell and Others Perform at "Shining A Light: Concert For Progress on Race in America" Airing Tonight on A+E Networks & Several Others

By goodblacknews on November 20, 2015
John Legend at "Shining A Light" Concert
John Legend at “Shining A Light” Concert

A+E Networks and iHeartMedia are simultaneously airing “Shining a Light: A Concert for Progress on Race in America” on Friday, November 20 at 8PM ET/PT.  The sold-out concert was recorded at The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, CA on Wednesday, November 18th, and the two-hour special event will air across the entire A+E Networks portfolio in more than 130 territories globally, including A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime, H2, LMN and FYI, as well as on more than 130 iHeartMedia broadcast radio stations nationwide and the iHeartRadio digital platform.  Additionally, AOL has joined in the simulcast making the historic special event available to anyone with internet access across the globe on AOL.com.

Artists Aloe Blacc, Andra Day, Nick Jonas, Tom Morello, Smokey Robinson and Big Sean join the previously announced performers including Zac Brown Band, Eric Church, Jamie Foxx, Rhiannon Giddens, Tori Kelly, John Legend, Miguel, Pink, Jill Scott, Ed Sheeran, Sia, Bruce Springsteen, Sting and Pharrell Williams.  LL Cool J, Marshall Faulk, Morgan Freeman, George Lopez, Mario Lopez, Nicki Minaj, Kurt Warner and Nick Young are among the presenters joining the telecast.

Alicia Keys has joined John Legend and Pharrell on extraordinary journeys to Baltimore, Ferguson and Charleston, where they met with a diverse group of residents in communities at the center of the national conversation on racial inequality and violence.  Joined by NPR’s Michele Norris with John Legend in Ferguson, award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien with Pharrell Williams in Charleston and ABC News’ Byron Pitts in Baltimore, these visits included intimate discussions and special private performances by each for those most effected.  These incredibly moving, heart wrenching and eye-opening moments will be featured throughout the two-hour concert, as well as in the one-hour special, “Shining a Light: Conversations on Race in America,” airing immediately following the concert on A&E Network and AOL.com at 10pm ET/PT.

To see Alicia Keys perform Donny Hathaway’s “Someday We Will All Be Free”, watch below:
https://youtu.be/vqt2OHsAFiU
The concert will kick off A+E Networks’ campaign to confront issues of race, and promote unity and progress on racial equity, inspired by the response of the Mother Emanuel family members in Charleston and others working for reconciliation and change around the country.
The concert and the ancillary programming will help raise money for the Fund for Progress on Race in America powered by United Way Worldwide (ShiningALightConcert.com).  The fund will provide grant funding to individuals and organizations fostering understanding, eliminating bias, as well as provide support to Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church and the broader A.M.E. denomination. The fund will support efforts to address racism and bias through public policy change, individual innovation, and community mobilization.
Tickets for the concert on November 18 sold out within 3 hours of the on-sale date raising more than $150,000 to benefit the Fund for Progress on Race in America powered by The United Way Worldwide.
To see a clip of John Legend’s performance of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” from the event, watch below:
https://youtu.be/F4PLzIrzI6k

article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)

Ta-Nehisi Coates Receives National Book Award For Nonfiction; Robin Coste Lewis for Poetry

By goodblacknews on November 19, 2015
Ta-Nehisi Coates marked another professional triumph Wednesday night by winning the National Book Award for nonfiction for “Between the World and Me,” his timely, bestselling meditation on race in America.
In an acceptance speech that prompted a standing ovation from the black tie-clad crowd at Cipriani Wall Street in New York, Coates dedicated the award to Prince Jones, a Howard University classmate who was killed while unarmed by a police officer and who figures prominently in the memoir, written as a letter to Coates’ teenage son.
As Coates explained, the officer responsible for Jones’ death was never disciplined for the killing.
“I’m a black man in America. I can’t punish that officer. ‘Between the World and Me’ comes out of that place,” said Coates, a national correspondent for the Atlantic who was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in September.
National Book Award Poetry Winner Robin Coste Lewis (photo via poetry project.org)
National Book Award Poetry Winner Robin Coste Lewis (photo via poetryproject.org)

“We are in this moment where folks are recording everything on their phones. Every day you turn on the TV and you see some sort of violence being directed at black people,” Coates said, alluding to controversial incidents caught on tape, including the death of Eric Garner, the arrest of Sandra Bland and the killing of Walter Scott, an unarmed man shot and killed in South Carolina this year.
“I have waited 15 years for this moment, because when Prince Jones died, there were no cameras, there was nobody looking.”
Robin Coste Lewis was also named a winner last night – she took the poetry prize for her debut collection, “Voyage of the Sable Venus,” a reflection on the black female form throughout history.
article by Meredith Blake via latimes.com

Michelle Obama Awards 13 Youth Arts Programs at White House

By goodblacknews on November 18, 2015
WASHINGTON (AP) — Calling a group of artistic youth the “next generation of fabulous,” Michelle Obama presented national arts and humanities awards to 12 after-school programs from across the country and one international program from Honduras.
Honorees included a musical theater program co-created by comedian Rosie O’Donnell that serves low-income students in New York City.
The first lady presented the awards Tuesday to recognize the nation’s best youth programs that use arts and humanities to develop skills and increase academic achievement. She honored programs that teach ceramics, dance, music, writing, science and more. Each of the U.S. programs will receive $10,000.
The annual White House ceremony included a live performance from winning program, A Commitment to Excellence, or ACTE II. The New York group performed a song and dance medley including “I Got Rhythm,” ”Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” and “Empire State of Mind.”
“Wow…that wasn’t singing, that was ‘sanging,’” Mrs. Obama quipped, referring to the group which she predicted is destined for Broadway.
Mrs. Obama urged continued funding and support for arts and humanities programs, which she said also teach students problem-solving, teamwork and discipline.
“There are millions of kids like these with talent all over the place, and it’s hidden and it’s untapped and that’s why these programs are so important,” Mrs. Obama said. “We wouldn’t know that all this existed without any of these programs and that would be a shame.”
The 2015 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards are hosted by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in partnership with three national cultural agencies.
The 13 programs recognized with a National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award during the White House ceremony are:
— A Commitment to Excellence (ACTE II), New York.
—Action Arts and Science Program, Sioux Falls, S.D.
—Art High, Pasadena, Calif.
—CityDance DREAM Program, Washington.
—Spy Hop Productions, Salt Lake City.
—Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee.
—Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Inc., New Orleans.
—VSA Indiana, Inc. , Indianapolis.
—The Center for Urban Pedagogy, Inc., Brooklyn, N.Y.
—Deep Center, Inc., Savannah, Ga.
—The Telling Room, Portland, Maine.
—Caldera, Portland, Oregon.
—Organization for Youth Empowerment (OYE), El Progreso, Honduras.
article by Stacy A. Anderson, AP via blackamericaweb.com

Mathematician Katherine G. Johnson, Slugger Willie Mays and the Late Shirley Chisholm to Receive Presidential Medals Of Freedom

By goodblacknews on November 17, 2015

Shirley Chisholm, Willie Mays and Katherine G. Johnson (photo via GBN)
2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom Honorees Shirley Chisholm, Willie Mays and Katherine G. Johnson (photo via GBN)

Ninety-seven-year-old Katherine G. Johnson was a pioneer in American space history.  A NASA mathematician, Johnson’s computations have influenced every major space program from Mercury through the Shuttle program.
Willie Mays, 84, who ended his esteemed baseball career with 660 home runs, became the fifth all-time record-holder in the sport.
Shirley Chisholm made history in 1968 by becoming the first African-American woman elected to Congress. She helped found the Congressional Black Caucus, ran for president in 1972, and served seven terms in the House of Representatives.
Now, they are among 17 Americans who will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the U.S., to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.
President Barack Obama will present the awards on November 24 during a ceremony at the White House.

“I look forward to presenting these 17 distinguished Americans with our nation’s highest civilian honor,” the statement reads. “From public servants who helped us meet defining challenges of our time to artists who expanded our imaginations, from leaders who have made our union more perfect to athletes who have inspired millions of fans, these men and women have enriched our lives and helped define our shared experience as Americans.”

Chisholm’s medal will be presented posthumously.
Click here to read the complete list of award-winners.
article by Lynette Hollowayvia newsone.com; additions by Lori Lakin Hutcherson 

MUST SEE: Trailer for "True Conviction", a Documentary on Black-Owned Detective Agency Run by Exonerated Men Who Fight to Free Others

By goodblacknews on November 16, 2015
"True Conviction"
John Lindsey, Christopher Scott and Steven Phillips work to exhonerate wrongfully convicted men just like they were in documentary “True Conviction” (photo via trueconvictionfilm.com)

As I combed my RSS Feed for stories to share on GBN today, I was particularly taken by an article posted by the indefatigable Tambay A. Obenson of Shadow And Act, (the most comprehensive site on black cinema, past and present, that I have ever come across).  It was an update on a documentary project now called “True Conviction” that Obenson has been tracking on his blog for about 2 years, starting with its Kickstarter fundraising campaign in early 2013. Today, he posted the link to a seven-minute preview of the film directed by Jamie Meltzer.
I opened it to watch and was immediately riveted by the story – how three men, each convicted, imprisoned and eventually exonerated for crimes they didn’t commit – banded together to form an agency to help countless other innocent people who are still unjustly serving time.  When one of the detectives, Christopher Scott, confronts Alonso Hardy, who confessed to having committed the crime for which Scott was imprisoned, it is a moment to which every person in America should bear witness, and hopefully begin to understand and help change our devastatingly faulty and racist criminal justice system.
Even though robbed of a large chunk of their adulthoods, Scott and his partners Johnnie Lindsey and Steven Phillips dedicate their lives to helping others, because, as Scott states so poignantly at the end of the trailer:

As much as I paid for his weakness, he didn’t do this to me. It was men much more powerful than Alonso. Cops, prosecutors, D.A.s, judges… The justice system wronged me so much, you know, I had to come out and try to make a change. My whole mission is to free as many people as I can before I leave this world.

I’d embed the video if I could, but it won’t allow me.  So I am posting the link to the trailer right here:  https://vimeo.com/145864128. Additionally, if you want to sign up to receive newsletters about the film, events related to it and upcoming screenings, you can do so at trueconvictionfilm.com. 
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson, GBN Founder and Editor-in-Chief (follow @lakinhutcherson)
 

Black-Owned Female Empowerment Business, Girls Auto Clinic, Wins $50,000 Investment

By goodblacknews on November 16, 2015

Patrice Banks (Image: Banks)
Patrice Banks of Girls Auto Clinic (Image: Banks)

With access to capital hard to come by for small black business owners, Patrice Banks is the proud recipient of a $50,000 prize from Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic (K4-MA). The cornerstone of the Keiretsu Forum angel investment network recently announced the winners of its third annual Angel Capital Expo.
Girls Auto Clinic is a female-empowerment business, owned and operated by Banks, who is an engineer and technician. The big winner of the coveted $100,000 investment from K4-MA was Tassl, a college-centric social network application for smartphones.
Of the $50,000 investment, $25,000 is an investment from the founders of K4-MA, with $25,000 of which being services in kind from Keiretsu Forum sponsors Drucker & Scaccetti and BakerHostetler. Keiretsu Forum is a global angel investor network with more than 1500 accredited investor members throughout 39 chapters on three continents (accredited investors are individuals who earn at least $200,000 annually and have $1 million net worth). Keiretsu Forum Mid-Atlantic consists of four chapters that function as a single entity – Philadelphia,  Washington, D.C. Metro, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New York.
Girls Auto Clinic is an organization dedicated to changing the perception of women in the automotive industry through both education and niche marketing. Roughly less than 2% of mechanics and auto technicians are women. Through Banks’ entrepreneurial efforts, Girls Auto Clinic has been able to support the role of women in the automotive environment through trust, education and, ultimately, inclusion by changing the way men look at their female counterparts; both for the better and for all time.
Banks was tired of being a victim of sexist discrimination with auto repairs. She took that frustration and turned it into a business venture. After seeing the glaring neglect of women working in the automotive industry, she made it her personal mission to empower and educate other women car owners with her knowledge. In 2012, she decided to enroll herself in classes to become a certified mechanic. She did so while still juggling her full-time job as an engineer for a year and a half.
For more information about the Girls Auto Clinic, click here.
article by Carolyn M. Brown via blackenterprise.com

America's 1st Slavery Museum Shifts the Focus from Masters to Slaves

By goodblacknews on November 16, 2015

Dr. Ibrahima Seck points toward a marble Wall of Honor, where the names of 350 enslaved people at Whitney Plantation have been engraved. (All photos by Michael Patrick Welch via Vice.com)

When you arrive at Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana, you’re given an enslaved person’s image and story to wear for the day. Mine was Ann Hawthorne, who was 85 years old when the Library of Congress’s Federal Writer’s Project recorded her personal story of growing up enslaved on the Whitney Plantation, one of many plantations along the Mississippi’s winding River Road. Each story is printed on a laminated card that you wear around your neck—a physical manifestation of the history of slavery; a reminder that real people lived here, died here.
Billed as America’s first-ever museum dedicated exclusively to American slavery, Whitney Plantation sits amid acres of sugar cane that, on the late afternoon of my visit, swayed in a wild wind from a passing tropical depression. The plantation’s swampy land lay heavy with ankle-deep water and hummed with voracious mosquitos. A long row of black and white umbrellas leaned against the visitors’ center and gift shop so that those who had paid $22 a head to tour the grounds were not made uncomfortable by the day’s fine, cool mist of rain.
As I waited for my tour guide, a black woman with long braids led a tour group past a white church, where statues of a young Ann Hawthorne and a dozen other enslaved children seemed to stare directly at—or, really, into—the visitors, who watched a video featuring their testimony.


The entire museum is similar: You walk the same pathways that victims of chattel slavery walked, you listen to their stories in their own words, you see and hear the pieces of history that aren’t printed in textbooks or told on other plantation tours. You won’t find much information on the wealthy slaveowners on this plantation. Instead, Whitney presents slavery through the stories of those who experienced it.
The museum’s creation is owed in part to Dr. Ibrahima Seck, a tall, dark man with a florid African accent, who built the museum along with Whitney’s owner, white New Orleans attorney John Cummings. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Antebellum South, and it’s clear that everyone working at Whitney regards him as a living exhibit.
“According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Database, 60 percent of the people in Louisiana came from Senegambia, my area of Africa,” Dr. Seck told me. “So there are very strong ties here from my home.”
Seck had agreed to give me a private tour, so we climbed into his golf cart and drove past a small, rusty jail. Through its cage bars, we could see the slave masters’ 220-year-old “Big House” in the distance.
“This jail wasn’t on this plantation,” said Dr. Seck, driving faster now so the mosquitos wouldn’t catch up. “It was found in Gonzales, Louisiana, buried in the mud. At the slave markets in New Orleans, this is where the slaves were locked up before being sold.”

There is no fiction here. There is nothing you can deny here. — Dr. Ibrahima Seck

Past seven small cypress wood cabins, which at one time slept dozens of slaves apiece, Seck stopped the cart at the marble Wall of Honor, which displays the names of over 350 people who were once enslaved at Whitney, plus how much each sold for and why. Seck, who originally gleaned all this information from documents found on the property, pointed out enslaved people who were deemed less valuable: a one-armed driver, a mentally-disabled woman, an old man with a hernia. Their prices were lower, but their fate was the same.
“Mentally-disabled or old slaves might be assigned to watch the master’s toddlers or something,” Dr. Seck said. “They sold for less, but were never retired. You worked till you died.”

30 HBCU Students Receive Scholarships from Apple in $40 Million Diversity Effort

By goodblacknews on November 16, 2015

(Image: Denise Smith Young - fortune.com)
Apple VP Denise Young-Smith (photo via fortune.com)

Apple made a $40 million dollar multi-year commitment, the largest and most comprehensive corporate investment ever given exclusively for students and faculty of four-year HBCUs.  Apple awarded 30 HBCU students a one-year college scholarship and a summer internship program at Apple’s headquarters at the Leadership Institute in Washington D.C., last weekend.
Hosted by the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) the students were chosen from across 47 HBCUs. The 30 Apple scholars were announced by Denise Young-Smith, vice president for worldwide human resources, Apple. Young-Smith is herself a graduate of an HBCU; Grambling State University.
“The people at Apple don’t just create products—they create the kind of wonder that’s revolutionized entire industries,” remarked Young-Smith at the ceremony. “And it’s the diversity of those people and their ideas that inspires the innovation that runs through everything we do, from amazing technology to industry-leading environmental efforts,” she said.
The Apple HBCU Scholars Program is part of the new Apple and TMCF Diversity Initiative between Cupertino and TMCF. As part of the partnership, Apple made a $40 million dollar multi-year commitment, the largest and most comprehensive corporate investment ever given exclusively for students and faculty of four-year HBCUs.
“There are ‘scholarships’ and then there are ‘scholarship programs,’” said TMCF President & CEO Johnny C. Taylor Jr. “Apple has made an historic investment in a scholarship program that will transform the lives of HBCU star students by not only removing the financial barriers to college attendance, but by providing them additional non-financial program elements like Apple mentors and summer internships. These Apple HBCU Scholars will be the future tech industry leaders.”
The scholarship includes up to $25,000 for their senior year; a summer internship in Cupertino, California; participation in a year-round program to prepare for post-graduation careers; pairing with an Apple mentor during their senior year; the opportunity to serve as Ambassadors on their campuses to build awareness about the Apple and TMCF Diversity Initiative; an invitation to attend TMCF’s Annual Leadership Institute; and participation in the Apple HBCU Immersion Experience in Cupertino.
“This program is about exposing gifted students from HBCUs to a career in technology. We’re big believers that innovation will be strongest when talented people from diverse backgrounds are part of the creative process,” said Young-Smith. “That’s why we’re so proud to be partnering with TMCF to help us find the next generation of innovators.”
One of the Apple HBCU scholars, Lauren Patterson, previously interned at Apple. She introduced Young-Smith at the event.
“I learned a lot at Apple last summer. It was a great experience working with people from all backgrounds,” said Patterson. “I love to code,” she said. Patterson wants to do anything “code-related” for a career, including being a software engineer.
Here is the full list of the Apple HBCU Scholars and their schools:
Angelica Willis, North Carolina A&T
Bethlehem Zergaw, Alabama A&M
Bushra-Sultan Yagboyaju, Fisk
Chukwuemelie Onwubuya, Allen University
Dakari Franklin, Morehouse
Darnel Williams, Grambling State University
David Nesbeth, Howard University
Deshaun Crawford, Delaware State University
Ebenezer Nkrumah, Fisk University
Grant Pope, Morehouse
Khaliq Satchell, Elizabeth City State University
Lauren Patterson, Hampton University
Malik Jones, Hampton
Maurita Ament, Spelman
Mya Havard, Spelman
Nathaniel Spindler, Fayetteville State University
Naya Coard, Spelman
Nhan Mai, Alabama A&M
Nia Farmer, Howard University
Paris Griffin, Chicago State
Richard Igbiriki, Lincoln U (PA)
Ropafadzo Ropa Denga, Spelman
Sakshyam Dahal, Claflin
Taha Merghani, Jackson State University
Tatyana Matthews, Elizabeth City State University
Timothy Baba, Huston-Tillotson/Prairie View A& M (3-2)
Todd Boone II, Prairie View A & M
Xavier Crutcher, Alabama A&M
Zanetta Tyler, North Carolina A & T
Gaston Seneza, Philander Smith
Paul Hammond, North Carolina A&T
article by Samara Lynn via blackenterprise.com