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Couple donates $10 million, Keeps Head Start Open During Government Shutdown

By goodblacknews on October 8, 2013

Children from the Head Start program at the Edward C. Mazique Parent Child Center join supporters and members of Congress to call for an end to the partial federal government shut down and fund the comprehensive education, health and nutrition service for low-income children and their families outside the U.S. Capitol October 2, 2013 in Washington, DC. The federal government is in the second day of a partial shutdown after House Republicans and Senate Democrats refused to agree on a budget. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Children from the Head Start program at the Edward C. Mazique Parent Child Center join supporters and members of Congress to call for an end to the partial federal government shut down and fund the comprehensive education, health and nutrition service for low-income children and their families outside the U.S. Capitol October 2, 2013 in Washington, DC. The federal government is in the second day of a partial shutdown after House Republicans and Senate Democrats refused to agree on a budget. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Philanthropists Laura and John Arnold have offered up to $10 million in emergency funding to the National Head Start Association in an effort to keep them open during the government shutdown.  The personal donation will help keep Head Start and Early Head Start programs, who were forced to close or are facing closure, open. The programs service more than 1 million low-income children each year, providing them with meals and health care and getting them ready for elementary school.
On October 1st, 23 programs in 11 states, servicing over 19,000 children were to be funded and are expected to lose that money.  “For nearly fifty years, Head Start has been the window of opportunity for more than 27 million of our nation’s poorest children as they embark on their journey to achieve the American Dream,” said Yasmina Vinci, Executive Director of the National Head Start Association. “The Arnolds’ most generous act epitomizes what it means to be an angel investor; they have selflessly stepped up for Head Start children to ensure their path toward kindergarten readiness is not interrupted by the inability of government to get the nation’s fiscal house in order.”
According to an NHSA press release, the Arnolds offered assistance after learning about the government shutdown’s paralyzing impact on Head Start programs. Following the government shutdown, if Head Start programs receive funding for a 52-week period, Head Start programs will begin to repay the funds from NHSA at no interest through the Arnolds.

The Afro Makes a Comeback as a Natural Expression of Self

By goodblacknews on October 6, 2013
From left: Dante de Blasio and his family on primary election night in September; Eldridge Cleaver at the trial of Huey Newton in 1968; Magazine covers featuring Oprah Winfrey, right, and Prince; Angela Davis at a news conference in 1972. (Mario Tama/Getty Images; Jeffrey Scales, 1968; Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Dante de Blasio’s towering Afro, a supporting player in his father’s mayoral campaign, riveted attention once more last week when it caught the eye of President Obama. Introducing Bill de Blasio at a Democratic fund-raiser in Midtown, Mr. Obama digressed to point out, “Dante has the same hairdo as I had in 1978. Although I have to confess my Afro was never that good.”

Nor was it as voluminous, or as apparently devoid of a political charge. As 16-year-old Dante implied in an interview with DNAInfo.com, an online local news source, hair is just hair. “Some people want to take photos and I’m really just happy,” he said. Others want to reach out and touch it, and some did at last week’s fund-raiser, their enthusiastic petting prompting the elder de Blasio to joke that he might have to call security.

The mayoral candidate was doubtless aware that Dante’s outsize hair placed him in a league with a current generation that has adopted what once was a badge of revolt as an emblem of style’s cutting edge. Resurgent in films and television and the streets, inspired by a galaxy of pop culture idols, the Afro today seems friendly enough, even downright disarming — a kinder, gentler “natural” pretty much shorn of its militancy.

Images like those of Halle Berry’s tightly coiled halo or Nicki Minaj’s poodly pink Glamfro on the cover of Allure last year have played a part in resurrecting the hallmark style. Hoping to stand apart from her more famous sister, Solange Knowles last year chopped her chemically processed hair to reveal the wedge-shaped Afro that has since become her signature. And the actress Viola Davis showed off her natural curls at the Oscar ceremonies a year ago after walking most of the red carpet season in a wig; Prince poses regally in his Afro on the August issue of V magazine.

Even the customarily conventional Oprah Winfrey stepped out to front the September issue of O, the Oprah magazine, in a 3.5-pound wig that spanned its cover nearly edge to edge above the cover line: “Let’s talk about HAIR!”

The style’s current iteration bears little kinship to the anti-gravity hair flaunted in the late 1960s by Angela Davis, Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver and other icons of the Black Power movement. “In the ’60s the Afro was looked upon as ‘Wow, you’re stepping out there, you’re really going against the grain,’ ” said Andre Walker, the man who fluffed Ms. Winfrey’s wig into its umbrella-size proportions. In contrast, “When I talk to a lot of the kids from this generation,” he said, “the whole civil rights movement, it’s very vague to them.

“I don’t think they really know the meaning of how radical an Afro was in the day,” Mr. Walker added. “It’s a different time now.”

Though his father wore an Afro in the 1970s and ’80s, 16-year-old Noah Negron, a high school senior in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, was not bowing to family tradition or the politics of a bygone era when he decided to grow out his hair. “I’m an environmentalist,” he said. “That’s where the locks come in. It’s like all natural.”

Reluctant to treat her hair with potentially damaging lye, another Brooklyn resident who identified herself only as Tamar A., declared: “This is just how my hair grows out of my head. I’m not trying to make a statement. I’m just more comfortable being who I am.”

Morgan State University Launches Global School of Journalism and Communication School

By goodblacknews on October 4, 2013

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZgfZkrnPKE&w=560&h=315]
Morgan State University LogoMorgan State University is launching the Global School of Journalism and Communication School to better prepare students entering the competitive field.
The Historically Black University explains their mission on the site:
Today, the mission of Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism and Communication is to give voice to a broader group of people – people who struggle to contribute to the public discourse that shapes this nation and the world. We serve this cause with innovative teaching, cutting edge research, and exemplary service to Maryland, our nation, and the world.
Our goal is add to the diversity of thoughts, opinions and beliefs by offering students from a wide range of backgrounds the liberal arts education and skills training they need to effectively communicate ideas – to plead their own causes, or to accurately tell the stories of others.
In our global school, students travel the world in their classes and assignments, without leaving the campus. They also see the world through their interactions with our partner programs at universities in distant lands – and they are offered opportunities to travel abroad in our Worldwide Learning Lab program.
The great advances in technology have turned the world into a global village. The goal of our school is to make our graduates effective communicators in every way – and every corner of this village.
The school officially launches this fall and it will be commenced with a special ceremony on August 27, 2014.
article via blackamericaweb.com

Natural Girls United! Customizes Dolls With Natural Hair Styles

By goodblacknews on October 4, 2013

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Who needs a Barbie when you can get a customized doll with your favorite natural hair style? Karen Byrd started the The Natural Girls United! project to showcase the positive view of ethnic beauty.

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From Karen Byrd’s bio:

There have been quite a few studies done that show that African-American boys and girls often think of black dolls as bad and white dolls as good.  Of course, this is not something that the parent is teaching their child. So why are they getting these mixed messages about good and bad skin color, or good and bad hair?  It all has to do with the images they see as they grow up. If a child is constantly looking at images, dolls, television, books and magazines – and only seeing beauty as something or someone with non-ethnic features and long, straight hair – then they are going to assume that this is what beauty is. It is something that has hurt our young people for centuries.  

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The Natural Girls United! come in a variety of styles. There’s dolls in dreadlocks, kinky twists, as well as short-cropped afros. Not to be left out, there’s even a male doll with dreadlocks. The prices range from $45.00-$140.00. For more information on the dolls, check out the site www.naturalgirlsunited.com or follow Natural Girls United on Twitter and Natural Girls United on Facebook.

article by Yesha Callahan via clutchmagonline.com

 

NBA Star Demarcus Cousins Pledges $1 Million to Help Sacramento Families

By goodblacknews on October 3, 2013

Demarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings
Demarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings

This week, Sacramento Kings center Demarcus Cousins pledged $1 million to help Sacramento families in need.
Cousins made a quick mention of his generous gift at the end of his press conferencing announcing his contract extension with the Kings. The 23-year-old averaged career-highs of 17 points and nearly 10 rebounds per game last season.
The team rewarded him with a 4-year, $62 million contract.  There aren’t too many details available on where specifically Cousins’ money will go. He said some of the money will go to Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson’s foundation.
article by Todd Johnson via thegrio.com

What the Affordable Care Act Provides for Breast Cancer Treatment

By goodblacknews on October 3, 2013
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Women won’t pay higher health bills simply for being women, and they will be able to get the medical care they need, particularly for breast cancer, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), a leading women’s advocate says.  “The Affordable Care Act will help us realize the promise of access for all,” said Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, president and CEO of the Black Women’s Health Imperative in Washington, D.C., which was founded 30 years ago as the National Black Women’s Health Project.
Open enrollment began this week under the ACA. Uninsured and underinsured Americans will gain greater access to a medical home with preventive care that can reduce the risk of a host of conditions including breast cancer, the second leading cause of death among women.  “We know that prevention works, and mammogram screening is an essential health-care benefit,” said Hoytt, adding that Congressional efforts to stall or kill the ACA as part of a federal shutdown are “unconscionable.”
Black women are number two behind white women for developing breast cancer, but the gap is narrowing, according to a new study released this week for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. They are the only group of women to show increases in breast cancer — up 0.2 percent each year between 2006 and 2010 — and they also have the highest death rate. The American Cancer Society published the study, “Breast Cancer Statistics, 2013,” in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians and in aconsumer version.
Under the new healthcare law, women who are 40 and older are entitled to coverage for mammograms. Those who have a family history of breast cancer or ovarian cancer can also receive free counseling and testing for mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Women with mutations are five times more likely to develop breast cancer — a fact highlighted by actress Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy earlier this year.
Women facing genetic tests ranging up to $4,000 and other costs associated with breast cancer won’t have to worry about annual or lifetime spending limits, beginning in 2014.  “You can now be insured with pre-existing conditions,” Hoytt notes. “You do not have to be afraid of being dropped from your insurance.”

Russell Simmons Donates $10K to New York Anti-Violence Program Life Camp

By goodblacknews on October 3, 2013
Russell Simmons attends 2013 ADWEEK Brand Genius Awards at Capitale on September 25, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Ben Gabbe/Getty Images)
Russell Simmons attends 2013 ADWEEK Brand Genius Awards at Capitale on September 25, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Ben Gabbe/Getty Images)
Russell Simmons has amassed close to three million follows on Twitter and the strong presence he holds on the social media site had a powerful impact Wednesday night.  Simmons sent Tweets to help raise money for a New-York-based anti-violence program that has launched a campaign on the fundraising site Crowdtilt.
The program, called Life Camp, is a non-profit violence prevention program that is hoping to raise $100,000 to help end gun violence and provide positive alternatives to kids and young adults.  “During the prior eighteen months, before our full program was implemented, 17 people had been shot in our community,” wrote Erica Ford, the executive director of Life Camp. “Once our program was fully operational, we had 340 days of NO SHOOTINGS in our target area in South Jamaica, Queens.”
According to the Crowdtilt page, a government grant was delayed, which ultimately led to the closing of the community center.  Since most of the program’s resources have been exhausted, the program’s founders turned to the crowd funding site to raise money.  Simmons announced on Twitter that he has donated $10,000 to the campaign and asked followers to give money to the cause by promising retweets to those who said they pledged.
“Who can give $5, $10, $20 to save program that has saved lives of so many young people?? NO MORE BULLETS IN THE HOOD! http://tilt.tc/snyD,” he wrote. This followed his earlier tweet which said, “first ten people to donate $10 or more to keep one of the most critical anti-violence programs open, gets a RT.”
He kept his word – soon, followers responded to the call and Simmons thanked them for their kindness via Twitter.  By the end of the night, Simmons reported that more than $775 was raised.  There are still 27 days left in the fundraising campaign and the program has not yet reached half of their target goal. The money will be used towards initiatives like keeping the community center open and to restart the program’s “I Love My Life” campaign tours in local churches and schools.
To learn more about “Give Life to LIFE Camp! No More Bullets In The Hood” campaign, click here.
article by Lilly Workneh via thegrio.com

Maya Angelou To Receive Norman Mailer Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Writing

By goodblacknews on September 30, 2013

mailer prize

NEW YORK — Maya Angelou is receiving another honorary prize for writing.  The Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony announced Thursday that Angelou will be given a lifetime achievement award at a benefit gala Oct. 17. Earlier this month, the National Book Foundation announced that the 85-year-old Angelou would be given an honorary National Book Award, her first major literary prize.
The Mailer Center will also give a distinguished writing prize to Junot Diaz and an award for the best emerging journalist to the late Michael Hastings. Hastings was killed in an auto accident in June at age 33. He’s best known for a Rolling Stone article that led to the resignation of the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
article via huffingtonpost.com

Mother And Son Graduate Together With PhDs

By goodblacknews on September 29, 2013

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Vickie McBride gave birth to her son at the tender age of 13, but that did not deter her from earning her PhD–or his, for that matter.  Last August, Vickie and her son, Maurice, walked across the stage at a graduate ceremony in Minneapolis, Minnesota and were handed their doctorate degrees from Capella University, WRDW-TV Augusta 12 reports.
Given their journey, Maurice said he could not have ever imagined the day he would earn such a high academic honor. “Never in a thousand, million, trillion years [did I expect to get my PhD],” Maurice said. “The thought of becoming a doctor anyone was far fetched.”  Maurice’s awe at his own success was only outdone by his mother’s achievement.
“I never thought I would get chance to see my mother walk across the stage and then she turned around and saw me walk across the stage,” he said.  Growing up in the small town of Waynesboro, Ga., Vickie said  being a teenage parent was taboo. She remembers some of the older people in the community ”whispering” about her, but that did not stop her from continuing her education. Vickie’s mother, a retired teacher, took care of Maurice while she attended school.
“As a teenager I continued my education, Vickie said. ”(Dropping out) was never an option.”  She eventually went to college and even earned a graduate degree all while raising Maurice and three other children.  “I had to figure out how to work and how to parent and how to manage school all at the same time.” she said.

'Invisible Man' Ban Rescinded by North Carolina School Board After Community Backlash

By goodblacknews on September 26, 2013

"Invisible Man" author Ralph Ellison and his wife, Fanny, at their home in New York in 1972, 20 years after the novel's publication. (Nancy Crampton / Knopf)
“Invisible Man” author Ralph Ellison and his wife, Fanny, at their home in New York in 1972, 20 years after the novel’s publication. (Nancy Crampton / Knopf)

ASHEBORO, N.C. — High school students in Randolph County once again can get “Invisible Man,” Ralph Ellison’s classic 1952 novel of alienation and racial discrimination, at school libraries.  Nine days after the county school board banned the book, it reversed itself at a hastily called special meeting Wednesday night, voting 6 to 1 to return the novel to school bookshelves. Several board members apologized for the ban and said they had been chastened by an outpouring of angry objections from county residents.

The backlash caught board members by surprise. Several said they had been inundated with emails begging them to reconsider. Others conceded that they had acted rashly and should have consulted with the superintendent and rank-and-file teachers in the 16,000-student district, about 85 miles northeast of Charlotte.  Several said the public reaction had opened their eyes to viewpoints they had not considered and broadened their outlook on the importance of all types of literature.
“We may have been hammered on this and we may have made a mistake, but at least we’re big enough to admit it,’’ said board member Gary Cook, who had voted for the ban but reversed himself Wednesday.  The meeting, in a packed boardroom, lasted only 45 minutes. The vote to rescind the ban took a few seconds, with only board member Gary Mason dissenting. He called the book “not appropriate for young teenagers.”
The board’s abrupt reversal came in the middle of the annual Banned Books Week sponsored nationally by the American Library Assn., which celebrates the freedom to read. The association and the Kids’ Right to Read Project wrote the school board condemning the ban and asking that it be reversed.