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Posts published in “Crossovers”

R.I.P. Author and Los Angeles Black Panther Leader Wayne Pharr

By goodblacknews on September 27, 2014

Wayne PharrWayne Pharr, former Black Panther who fought the Los Angeles Police in a historic gun battle in 1969, passed away on September 6, 2014 at age 64.  After Pharr and his fellow Panthers defended themselves from the long violent attack by the newly formed LAPD SWAT unit, he became a political prisoner who was exonerated of attempted murder and all other serious offenses.  Pharr eventually became a successful realtor in Southern California, a subject of the documentary, “41st and Central”, and most recently authored the well received autobiography, Nine Lives of A Black Panther: A Story of Survival.
In the infamous battle on December 8, 1969, a handful of young members of the Southern California Chapter of the Black Panther Party held off the Los Angeles Police Department’s new Special Weapons and Tactics squad and hundreds of other officers in a five hour firefight.
Pharr was 19 years old at the time and played a pivotal role in the battle as one of the first to repel the invasion into the Panther office by shooting the heavily armored SWAT team members with a shotgun as they entered the Black Panther office at Central Avenue and 41st Street.  No one was killed or seriously injured in the battle during which thousands of rounds of ammunition were exchanged and bombs used by both sides.
Observed by hundreds of members of the community, the Black Panther Party and their supporters considered the defense of the office and the people inside a victory while the Los Angeles Police Department considered this very first use of SWAT a tactical failure.  Pharr and the other Panthers were tried for attempted murder and other charges but were acquitted of all of the most serious offenses after the longest jury trial in Los Angeles history up to that time.
The battle at the Panther Party Central Avenue office was significant for several reasons.  The attack came days after another police assault in Chicago left Illinois Panther leaders Fred Hampton shot dead while sleeping in his bed and Mark Clark killed at the front door attempting to fend off the attack.  These attacks occurred during a nationwide war against the Black Panther Party by local police agencies in cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation through the FBI’s illegal Counter Intelligence Program, also known as “Cointelpro”. This was also the debut of the paramilitary SWAT team concept which used military style training, weapons and tactics to crush Black resistance during a time of revolutionary fervor and anti-war activity by activists across the country. Historically, this battle can be seen as the birth of the movement to militarize law enforcement that has swept the country.
In the documentary, “41st & Central”, Pharr describes his feelings about the 1969 battle with the LAPD SWAT team:

“So for those five hours, I was in control of my destiny… I was my own power at that particular point and time. And I relished that, and I enjoyed that and I think about that constantly.  I was free! I was a free negro… yes sir!”

Recently, Pharr wrote the following reaction to the police response to community protests against the killing of unarmed 17 year old Black youth Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri:

“Are we Americans, or are we not? If we are, then the police need to stand down, like they did in 1968 with the SDS, Students for a Democratic Society–an activist group made up of white students. With that group, instead of coming in with guns blazing, they attempted to have a dialogue with the student-activists…  If we are not Americans, then we need to go to war. The continuing militarization of police forces is a reminder of my  encounter in 1969, the 5-hour battle we had with the newly-formed L.A. SWAT team at 41st and Central. It becomes a matter of principle, our right to self-defense.”

article by Good Black News staff

R.I.P. Composer, Pianist and Jazz Crusader Joe Sample

By goodblacknews on September 16, 2014
Joe Sample at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2011. His last solo album, “Children of the Sun,” is to be released this fall. (Credit: Jean-Christophe Bott/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Joe Sample, who became a jazz star in the 1960s as the pianist with the Jazz Crusaders and an even bigger star a decade later when he began playing electric keyboards and the group simplified its name to the Crusaders, died on Friday in Houston. He was 75.

The cause was mesothelioma, said his manager, Patrick Rains.

The Jazz Crusaders, who played the muscular, bluesy variation on bebop known as hard bop, had their roots in Houston, where Mr. Sample, the tenor saxophonist Wilton Felder and the drummer Nesbert Hooper (better known by the self-explanatory first name Stix) began performing together as the Swingsters while in high school.

Mr. Sample met the trombonist Wayne Henderson at Texas Southern University and added him, the bassist Henry Wilson and the flutist Hubert Laws — who would soon achieve considerable fame on his own — to the group, which changed its name to the Modern Jazz Sextet.

The band worked in the Houston area for several years but did not have much success until Mr. Sample, Mr. Felder, Mr. Hooper and Mr. Henderson moved to Los Angeles and changed their name to the Jazz Crusaders, a reference to the drummer Art Blakey’s seminal hard-bop ensemble, the Jazz Messengers. Their first album, “Freedom Sound,” released on the Pacific Jazz label in 1961, sold well, and they recorded prolifically for the rest of the decade, with all four members contributing compositions, while performing to enthusiastic audiences and critical praise.

In the early 1970s, as the audience for jazz declined, the band underwent yet another name change, this one signifying a change in musical direction. Augmenting their sound with electric guitar and electric bass, with Mr. Sample playing mostly electric keyboards, the Jazz Crusaders became the Crusaders. Their first album under that name, “Crusaders 1,” featuring four compositions by Mr. Sample, was released on the Blue Thumb label in 1972.

Respectful Mourning and Calls for Action at Funeral for Michael Brown

By goodblacknews on August 25, 2014
Lesley McSpadden, Michael Brown’s mother, at his funeral in St. Louis. (RICHARD PERRY / THE NEW YORK TIMES)

ST. LOUIS — They came by the thousands to pay their respects. Among them were the parents and extended family — some 500 strong — of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was shot and killed more than two weeks ago by a Ferguson police officer.

But the crowd of mourners also included the Rev. Jesse Jackson; film director Spike Lee; T. D. Jakes, the bishop of The Potter’s House, an African-American megachurch; several members of Congress; representatives from the White House; and two children of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
During a deeply religious service here on Monday at the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church, several speakers exhorted mourners to work for justice, not just for Mr. Brown but for others, long after the funeral was over.
“There is a cry being made from the ground, not just for Michael Brown, but for the Trayvon Martins, for those children in Sandy Hook Elementary School, for the Columbine massacre, for black-on-black crime,” the Rev. Charles Ewing, Mr. Brown’s uncle, said.
Speaking before the overflowing crowd, the Rev. Al Sharpton criticized the militarization of the police and their treatment of Mr. Brown, while calling on African-Americans to push for change instead of “sitting around having ghetto pity parties.”
On Sunday, relatives of Mr. Brown had asked for quiet during the funeral. The fatal shooting had set off weeks of protests and a severe police reaction in Ferguson. Several speakers echoed pleas from Mr. Brown’s family for people to refrain from protesting on Monday.
“Please don’t exacerbate the almost unbearable pain of this family,” said Bishop Edwin Bass of the Church of God in Christ. “It is imperative that we resist the temptation to react by rioting.”
Many mourners, most of whom were black, wore buttons showing Mr. Brown’s picture, and large photos of Mr. Brown stood at the front of the church. Rousing hymns by the Missouri Jurisdictional Choir repeatedly brought the entire crowd to their feet.
Among the family members who spoke, Cal Brown, Mr. Brown’s stepmother, said that just weeks before he was shot, Mr. Brown had described a dream in which he had seen bloody sheets hanging on a clothes line. “He pretty much prophesied his own death and he didn’t even realize it,” she said, calling him “an awesome man” who wanted to have a family and “be a good father.”
In addition to numerous readings from the Bible, there were readings from Dr. King and references to significant court cases in black history. Referring to the original determination in the Constitution that blacks were counted as three-fifths of a man for the purposes of voting, Benjamin Crump, the lawyer who is representing Mr. Brown’s family, said that the teenager “was not three-fifths of a citizen. He was an American citizen and we will not accept three-fifths justice.”

R.I.P. Walter Dean Myers, Prolific and Beloved Author of Award-Winning Children’s Books

By goodblacknews on July 4, 2014
Walter Dean Myers, beloved and deeply respected children’s book author, died on July 1, 2014, following a brief illness. He was 76 years old.
In a career spanning over 45 years, Walter Dean Myers wrote more than 100 books for children of all ages. His impressive body of work includes two Newbery Honor Books, three National Book Award Finalists, and six Coretta Scott King Award/Honor-winning books. He was the winner of the first-ever Michael L. Printz Award, the first recipient of the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.
In 2010, Walter was the United States nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, and in 2012 he was appointed the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, serving a two-year tenure in the position. Also in 2012, Walter was recognized as an inaugural NYC Literary Honoree, an honor given by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for his substantial lifetime accomplishments and contribution to children’s literature.
Myers at an appearance as National Ambassador
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of erudite and beloved author Walter Dean Myers. Walter’s many award-winning books do not shy away from the sometimes gritty truth of growing up. He wrote books for the reader he once was, books he wanted to read when he was a teen. He wrote with heart and he spoke to teens in a language they understood. For these reasons, and more, his work will live on for a long, long time,” said Susan Katz, President and Publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books.
Walter Dean Myers was born Walter Milton Myers on August 12, 1937, in Martinsburg,
In Walter’s memoir, Bad Boy, he wrote, “Harlem is the first place called ‘home’ that I can remember.” This sentiment is reflected in Walter’s writing, whether via a love letter to the neighborhood in the picture book Harlem; a story of a boy’s trial for a crime committed in Harlem, in the novel Monster; or the tale of two friends struggling to see a future beyond the community they know in the novel Darius & Twig. Walter spent much of his childhood playing basketball on the courts of Harlem and checking books out of the George Bruce Branch of the New York Public Library. Florence Dean taught Walter to read in their kitchen, and when he began attending Public School 125, he could read at a second-grade level. Though Walter struggled through school with a speech impediment and poor grades, and he had trouble with discipline throughout his school career, he remained an avid reader. His love of reading soon progressed to a love of writing.West Virginia. Walter’s birth mother, Mary Myers, died after the birth of his younger sister, Imogene. His father, George, sent Walter to live with his first wife, Florence Dean, and her husband, Herbert Dean, in Harlem, along with Florence and George’s two daughters. Walter would eventually adopt the middle name “Dean” to honor Florence and Herbert.
Walter wrote well in high school and one teacher, who recognized his talent but also knew he was going to drop out, told him to keep on writing, no matter what—“It’s what you do,” she said. Walter did drop out of Stuyvesant High School, though they now claim him as a graduate (which Walter always found funny). At the age of seventeen, he enlisted in the Army. Years later, after his safe return home and while working a construction job, Walter would remember this teacher’s advice. He started writing again…and he didn’t stop.
Walter’s body of work includes picture books, novels for teens, poetry, and non-fiction alike. In 1968, Walter’s first published book, Where Does the Day Go?, illustrated by Leo Carty, won an award from the Council on Interracial Books for Children. Walter and his son Christopher, an artist, collaborated on a number of picture books for young readers, including We Are America: A Tribute from the Heart and Harlem, which received a Caldecott Honor Award, as well as the teen novel and National Book Award Finalist Autobiography of My Dead Brother, which Christopher illustrated. Walter’s novel Scorpions won a Newbery Honor Medal and the Margaret A. Edwards Award, while gritty teen novels Lockdown andMonster were both National Book Award Finalists. Monster appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, won the first Michael L. Printz Award, and received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award. His stunning Coretta Scott King Award-winning novel, Fallen Angels (1988), about the Vietnam War, was named one of the top ten American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults of all time. Twenty years later, Myers wrote a riveting contemporary companion novel, Sunrise Over Fallujah, which was named a New York Times Notable Book in 2008.
In Invasion (2010), Myers once again explored the effects and horrors of war through young protagonists, this time set in World War II. His upcoming books include Juba!, (HarperCollins, April 2015) a novel for teens based on the life of a young African American dancer, and On a Clear Day (Crown/Random House Books for Young Readers, September 2014). A graphic novel adaptation of Monster (HarperCollins) is also forthcoming.
Walter often wrote books about the most difficult time in his own life—his teenage years—for the reader he once was; these were the books that he wished were available when he was that age. Throughout his life, Walter worked to make sure young adults had the tools necessary to become hungry readers, thirsty learners, and, therefore, successful adults. He frequently met with incarcerated teens in juvenile detention centers and received countless letters thanking him for his inspirational words. Walter also worked with and mentored teenage fan and writer Ross Workman, and they published the novel Kick together. As the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature from 2012-2013, Walter traveled around the United States promoting the slogan “Reading is not optional.” He strove to spread the message that a brighter future depends on reading proficiency and widespread literacy, not only during his two-year tenure as National Ambassador, but beyond. More than anything, Walter pushed for his stories to teach children and teenagers never to give up on life.
Walter lived in Jersey City, New Jersey, with his wife Constance. He is survived by Constance, as well as his two sons, Christopher and Michael Dean. He was predeceased by his daughter, Karen.  “Walter Dean Myers was a compassionate, wonderful, and brilliant man.  He wrote about children who needed a voice and their stories told.  His work will live on for generations to come.  It was an honor to work with him for so many years,” said Miriam Altshuler, Walter’s literary agent.
article via cbcbooks.org

 

R.I.P. Emmy-Nominated "Designing Women" Actor Meshach Taylor

By goodblacknews on June 29, 2014

meshach-taylor

Meshach Taylor, the actor best known for playing the only male character on the popular television show “Designing Women,” died on Saturday at his home outside Los Angeles. He was 67.  The cause was colorectal cancer, his agent, Dede Binder, said.

“It is with love and gratitude that we sorrowfully announce that our darling, amazingly brilliant and dynamic, Meshach, the incredible father, husband, son and friend has begun his grand transition,” the family said in a statement.

Mr. Taylor played Anthony Bouvier, an ex-convict who became a partner at a design firm in Atlanta with four women on the CBS sitcom that ran from 1986 to 1993. He was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1989 for his role on the show.

In a career that spanned more than three decades, he appeared in films and onstage, including his screen debut in the 1978 movie “Damien: Omen II,” roles in the 1987 film “Mannequin” and on the television shows “Dave’s World” and “Buffalo Bill.”  He has appeared regularly in television dramas since, including the series “In the Heat of the Night,” “Hannah Montana,” and “All of Us”.  He recently appeared in two episodes of the television drama “Criminal Minds.”

In 1998, Mr. Taylor played Lumiere in “Beauty and the Beast” on Broadway. Earlier, he performed at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, where in 1985 he played Jim, the runaway slave, in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

“The eldest of three children of two former college professors, Taylor, a precocious child, first learned acting technique as a survival skill. ‘The kids called me the Professor, and I got beat up a lot,’ he says. ‘So I dummied up until I got into the 11th grade,'” the profile read.

“Even when he didn’t have any money, he always had style. He was on the cutting edge of men’s colognes, and he was always buying yachting magazines and GQ,” actor Joe Mantegna told the magazine.

He is survived by his wife, Bianca Ferguson, four children and four grandchildren.

article via CNN and nytimes.com

R.I.P. Soul Music Legend and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bobby Womack

By goodblacknews on June 27, 2014

Bobby Womack
Bobby Womack, the multitalented singer-songwriter-guitarist who left an indelible mark on R&B and soul in the 1960s and ’70s, died Friday at 70, his record label XL Recordings confirmed. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer in 2012.
A gutsy singer and a superlative guitar player, Womack charted nearly 50 hits, the majority of them self-penned, during his career of more than 40 years. His No. 1 R&B entries were “Woman’s Gotta Have It” (1972) and “Lookin’ for a Love” (1974), a remake of a number he recorded with his family act the Valentinos for Sam Cooke’s SAR label.
Womack also notched a top 20 hit with “Across 110th Street,” the title number from the 1973 crime thriller starring Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto; Quentin Tarantino appropriated the song for use under the opening credits of his 1997 pic “Jackie Brown,” and it was also employed in the 2007 Denzel Washington starrer “American Gangster.”
Born in Cleveland to a musical and religious family, Womack began singing and playing guitar at an early age. He toured the gospel circuit with his brothers. Cooke – also a product of gospel music, and the former lead singer of the Soul Stirrers – took the act under his wing, and recorded for SAR with a new moniker. After scoring a No. 8 hit in 1962 with “Lookin’ for a Love,” the group reached No. 21 in 1964 with “It’s All Over Now,” which the Rolling Stones turned into a top 30 pop hit the same year.
After Cooke was shot and killed in an incident at a Los Angeles motel in 1964, the Valentinos disbanded. Womack married Cooke’s widow Barbara three months after the singer’s death.
Womack initially made an impression as a sideman, playing guitar on crucial sessions at FAME in Muscle Shoals and American Studios in Memphis behind Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett (who also cut several of Womack’s compositions for Atlantic).
He recorded some lesser R&B chart singles for New Orleans’ Minit Records before signing in 1971 with United Artists Records, where he found his greatest commercial success. His hits for the company – which combined his trademark grit with a softer, acoustic-based sound – included “That’s the Way I Feel About Cha’” ((No. 2, 1971), “Harry Hippie” (No. 8, 1972), “Nobody Wants You When You’re Down and Out” (No. 2, 1973), “You’re Welcome, Stop on By” (No. 5, 1974), “Check It Out” (No. 6, 1975) and “Daylight” (No. 5, 1976). He also crafted some outstanding albums for the company, including “Communication” (1971) and “Understanding” (1972).
Womack segued to Beverly Glen Records in the late ’70s; there he recorded the mellow, widely praised album “The Poet” (No. 29 in 1981) and its 1984 successor “The Poet II” (No. 60).
He wrestled with a serious cocaine addiction that scuttled his career in the ’80s. He recorded sporadically thereafter, and published an outrageous autobiography, “I’m a Midnight Mover,” in 2006. His later life was marred by tragedy, including the murder of one of his brothers, the death of two sons, and the jailing of a third.
However, after making an appearance on Gorillaz’s 2010 album “Plastic Beach,” he enjoyed a latter-day renaissance. Gorillaz’s Damon Albarn co-produced the 2012 XL set “The Bravest Man in the Universe,” which served to reinstate Womack’s reputation as one of the top do-everything talents in R&B. He played a show at L.A.’s Wilshire Theatre earlier this year, and had been scheduled to perform several tour dates in Europe this summer.
Womack was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009.  Watch him perform of one of his best, most well-known songs, “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” below:

article by Christopher Morris via Variety.com

R.I.P. MLB Star Tony Gwynn: Six Things He Did Better Than Anyone Else In Modern Baseball

By goodblacknews on June 17, 2014

tony gwynn parade pointing - tony gwynn parade pointing
After a multi-year battle with oral cancer, MLB First-Ballot Hall Of Famer Tony Gwynn passed away recently. He is mourned by everyone in San Diego from the mayor on down and by all of Major League Baseball.  No one will debate the talent that Tony Gwynn’s amazing career displayed. But what few people know is just how thoroughly superlative his aptitude for baseball was.
Back when relief pitching was more of an aberration than the norm and drug testing was non-existing, Gwynn’s numbers would have been impressive. But you add these factors in and it starts to paint the portrait of wonder that was Gwynn’s outstanding career.
So let me grab that paint brush and show you just how beautiful his genius for baseball was.

1. Most Batting Titles – 8

tony gwynn swinging bat - tony gwynn swinging bat
Tony Gwynn had the highest batting average of every player in the Major Leagues in eight out his twenty seasons of professional baseball. He tied for second all time in the number of batting titles he’d earned. The guy ahead of him is Ty Cobb whose career ended in 1928. He’s tied with Honus Wagner whose career ended in 1917. And he’s the only one to have had near as many whose career stretched into the 2000’s.

2. Highest Overall Career Batting Average

 
Tony Gwynn retired in 2001. At that time, his career batting average was .338. There are 30 men to have finished their careers at an average of .330 or higher. Tony Gwynn is the only one whose career ended after 1963. He’s also one of the few to have faced consistent, talented relief pitching.
I think you’re starting to understand how in this Modern Era of baseball, Tony Gwynn was a monster at the plate.

3. (Almost) Finished a season batting .400

tony gwynn's career stats - tony gwynn's career stats
A players strike ended the 1994 season while Tony Gwynn was batting .394 and charging towards .400. Hitting .400 over an entire season is the equivalent of hitting 65% of your 3-point in the NBA. The number is so insane there’s a reason no one has done it since Ted Williams in 1941.

4. Top 10 for highest Hall Of Fame induction rates ever

tony gwynn hall of fame - tony gwynn hall of fame
The MLB decides who goes into the Hall Of Fame by giving ballots to sportswriters and other affiliated media. When Gwynn’s name came up, he got in with 97.4% of the vote. He’s 7th overall with only Cal Ripken being the other post-90’s top-10 vote getter, ever.

5. Most All-Star Team Selections

tony gwynn drive - tony gwynn drive
At 15 All-Star selections, Tony Gwynn is tied, again, with Cal Ripken for having the most in a career that stretched into the 2000’s. Cal Ripken had 19, but that doesn’t take away from Gwynn’s accomplishment in the least. You know what did? The fact that his team sucked. As a matter of fact…

6. All twenty seasons in one city

tony gwynn statue - tony gwynn statue
Tony Gwynn was San Diego before LaDanian was even born. Impressive considering the fact that the San Diego Padres were a perennial loser. The closest they game to a championship were two National League Pennants, both earned while Gwynn was there. In fact, they struggled to finish above .500 for most of the Gwynn’s tenure there. Still yet, he stayed and flourished. If ever there was an MLB award for market loyalty, it should be named after Tony Gwynn.
article by Span via urbandaily.com

R.I.P. Grammy-Nominated Jazz Singer Jimmy Scott

By goodblacknews on June 14, 2014
Jimmy Scott performing at Lincoln Center’s Kaplan Penthouse in 2001. (Jack Vartoogian for The New York Times)
Jimmy Scott, a jazz singer whose distinctively plaintive delivery and unusually high-pitched voice earned him a loyal following and, late in life, a taste of bona fide stardom, died on Thursday at his home in Las Vegas. He was 88.

The cause was cardiac arrest, his wife, Jeanie Scott, said.

Mr. Scott’s career finished on a high note, with steady work from the early 1990s on, as well as a Grammy nomination, glowing reviews and praise from well-known fellow performers like Madonna, who called him “the only singer who makes me cry.” But the first four decades of his career were checkered, with long periods of inactivity and more lows than highs.

After enjoying sporadic success in the 1950s, he had almost none in the 1960s. Albums he recorded for major labels in 1962 and 1969, which might have jump-started his career, were quickly withdrawn from the market when another company claimed to have him under contract. He virtually stopped performing in the 1970s and made no records between 1975 and 1990.

Scott in a portrait from the early 1950s. (Credit: Little Jimmy Scott Collection)

But if Mr. Scott spent most of his career in relative obscurity, he always had a core of fiercely devoted fans — among them many prominent vocalists who cited him as an influence, including Marvin Gaye, Frankie Valli and Nancy Wilson.

The fact that both men and women considered themselves Mr. Scott’s disciples is not surprising: because of a rare genetic condition called Kallmann syndrome, which caused his body to stop maturing before he reached puberty, Mr. Scott’s voice never changed, and he remained an eerie, androgynous alto his whole life.
Standing 4-foot-11, with a hairless face to match his boyish voice, he was originally billed as Little Jimmy Scott, and he was presented to audiences as a child until well into his 20s. In his mid-30s he unexpectedly grew eight inches taller and, although he otherwise remained physically unchanged, doctors told him an operation might stimulate his hormonal development. He decided against it.
“I was afraid of entering uncharted territory,” Mr. Scott told David Ritz, the author of “Faith in Time: The Life of Jimmy Scott” (2002). “Besides, fooling with my hormones might mean changing my voice. Whatever the problems that came with the deficiency, my voice was the one thing I could count on.”

Mr. Scott’s condition left him incapable of reproduction.

James Victor Scott was born on July 17, 1925, in Cleveland. The third of 10 children, he lived in orphanages and foster homes after his mother was killed in a car accident when he was 13. After singing in local nightclubs for a few years, he went on the road in 1945 with a vaudeville-style show headed by Estella Young, a dancer and contortionist. He moved to New York City in 1947 and joined Lionel Hampton’s band a year later.

His 1950 recording of “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” with Hampton set the pattern for his later work. A mournful ballad of love gone wrong, the song was delivered with feverish intensity and idiosyncratic, behind-the-beat phrasing. The record was a hit, but because it was credited on the label simply to “Lionel Hampton, vocal with orchestra,” few people knew that Mr. Scott was the singer.

R.I.P. Oscar-Nominated Acting Legend and Civil Rights Activist Ruby Dee

By goodblacknews on June 12, 2014

Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee, best known for her role in 1961’s “A Raisin in the Sun” and latterly for her Oscar-nominated turn as Denzel Washington’s mother in 2007’s “American Gangster,” died Wednesday in New York. She was 91.
Dee’s Oscar nomination in 2008 for her performance as the feisty mother of a Harlem druglord played by Washington in Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster” was particularly impressive because the actress made an impression on the Motion Picture Academy with only 10 minutes of screen time. She won a SAG Award for the same performance.  Dee also won an Emmy in 1991 for her performance in the “Hallmark Hall of Fame” movie “Decoration Day.”
She and her husband, Ossie Davis, who often performed together, were among the first generation of African-American actors, led by Sidney Poitier, afforded the opportunity for significant, dignified dramatic roles in films, onstage and on television.

Rapper Common Writes Moving Tribute to Dr. Maya Angelou

By goodblacknews on June 3, 2014

Common and Maya Angelou
The rapper remembers the poet who inspired him to write—and later became his friend. 
Since I was 5 years old I have loved reading good writing. I would read anything that my mother or the teachers I loved gave me. In the 2nd grade I came across an author named Maya Angelou and her poem Still I Rise, this incredible piece of art that I somehow knew came from her soul and touched my soul. A piece of art that I somehow knew would change and improve my life. It was through this writer that I gained the inspiration to be somebody in life and to be heard.
I didn’t know that it would be through hip hop and the gift of rap that I would open myself up and become a writer and MC. Through writing I would get the opportunity to travel and see the world—London, Sydney, Johannesburg, Osaka—and it was writing that brought me one October evening to a charity event in New York where we were blessed to have as our luminary for the night, Dr. Maya Angelou. Having her as our guest was a fluke of Divine Order and a true example of Ask and You shall receive.
What had happened was the poet we booked to perform dropped out last minute so my mother said, “I’m gonna try to get in touch with Dr. Maya Angelou.” I said, “Ma, are you crazy? Maya Angelou? How do you think we’re gonna get one of the greatest beings that ever graced this earth last minute? She doesn’t know who Common is.”
Well, to this day I don’t know if she had ever heard of Common before the call was made but somehow through God’s thread she said she would like to meet with me before she decided if she would do the event. So here I am headed to Harlem to meet her at her apartment, just got my hair cut, heart beating, I walk into her beautiful space that smelled like integrity, art, generosity, love, hope, inspiration, honesty, and home. We would sit for two and a half hours talking about writing, my daughter, San Francisco, and Tupac. And oh yeah, Paul Robeson.
The next night she did her thing at the event and embraced me as a young writer-artist, an important voice in hip hop and even flirted with me. Now that really made me feel special. She and I would go on to build a bond that not only would have us spreading love at events in Harlem, Chicago, and D.C., but I would be blessed to go visit her at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C., and celebrate several birthdays with her where we had great times and I got to know her lovely family. It was always an honor to be in her presence and though she did feel like my mother, my grandma, and my friend. I would always Thank God for being there with her.
Every experience was unique, but every time I saw her I learned something about myself and about life, about humanity, about progress. And I was always reminded how we are true reflections of God, how much Light we do have, how great and dynamic Black Women are and how far Integrity, Self Love and Self Respect can take you. I don’t know if my words—or any words—can truly describe the experience of being in the atmosphere of Dr. Maya Angelou, someone you know is sent from the Creator to Give the World A Voice it has never heard, a brightness it has never witnessed, an energy that is Greatness, Divinity and Awakening all wrapped into one.

We would sit for two and a half hours talking about writing, my daughter, San Francisco, and Tupac. And oh yeah, Paul Robeson.

I awoke on May 28, 2014, ready for a powerful day of filming and to do some great work. I was stepping out of a van when I received the news that Dr. Angelou had made her transition and as I moved I felt like my soul was standing still. I hadn’t digested or processed it as I continued to go about the day. Of course I stopped and said a prayer but it wasn’t until the director of our film, Ava DuVernay, said, “We all know what has happened this morning and This Queen is one of the reasons why we can do this film and we will honor her and carry her with us as we proceed forward.” Right then I was able to let loose and cry and release some of the natural pain of losing someone you love and someone so great. And though I’m still in the process I also recognize that she will never be lost and how much we all have gained by having her touch this earth.
God gave us an Angel and we got to witness that Angel for a beautiful time of life. And though that Angel has returned to her maker, Her Work, Her Spirit, Her Words—aw man, Her Words—Her passion, Her heart, Her Love, Her Greatness, Her Royalty, Her Strength, Her Wisdom, Her Divinity, Her Angel will always be here with us. For my daughter’s daughters, your daughter’s daughters, and forever more. Love you, Dr. Maya Angelou.
Love, Common
article via thedailybeast.com