Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “History”

R.I.P. Mary Wilson, 76, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Motown Legend and Co-Founder of the Supremes (VIDEO)

R.I.P. Mary Wilson, 76, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Motown Legend and Co-Founder of the Supremes (VIDEO)

By goodblacknews on February 9, 2021

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

It certainly was unwelcome news to wake up to this morning – the news that singing legend Mary Wilson had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at her home in Las Vegas at 76, news that has been confirmed by her manager.

As an original member of the Supremes, Wilson, along with Florence Ballard and Diana Ross, made history as pop and R&B chart toppers with classic songs like “Where Did Our Love Go?” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” and “Someday We’ll Be Together.”

Although the Supremes line-up changed multiple times over the years, Mary Wilson remained its one steadfast member and continued to perform with the group over the decades, even as she offered music as a solo singer.

Above is an incredible clip of Wilson taking lead vocals on  the Supremes cover of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” at the Hollywood Palace in 1969.

In 1986, Wilson wrote the New York Times bestseller Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme and in 2019 offered Supreme Glamour, a retrospective on the group and their iconic costumes and ensembles, its forward written by Whoopi Goldberg.

Recently Wilson was a celebrity contestant on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars and was planning to release a new album later this year.

To learn more about Mary Wilson’s life, career and music, click below:

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965713448/mary-wilson-founding-member-of-the-supremes-dies-at-76

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2021-02-09/diana-ross-reacts-to-death-of-mary-wilson-supremes

Good Black News hopes to offer a tribute playlist to Wilson later in the week.

(paid links)

MUSIC MONDAY: Black History Month 2021 Tribute to African American Music Through the Centuries (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: Black History Month 2021 Tribute to African American Music Through the Centuries (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 8, 2021

by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

Last week our fearless leader here at GBN, Lori Lakin Hutcherson, suggested a playlist celebrating Black History Month. I joked that every Music Monday at Good Black News is celebrating Black history.

Though a free-wheeling offer celebrating a century of Black music is definitely the thing to do. Here is a collection of African American music ranging from Mamie Smith to Marvin Gaye to J. Cole – from gospel, to hip hop, to jazz, to blues – and all points in between.

[spotifyplaybutton play=”spotify:playlist:2xqxo8mnM7zRee2yqinbCF”]

As is our wont here on Mondays, this playlist is hours long and will take you on a journey of classics and deep cuts. I hope you all enjoy it.

Next week we’ll celebrate the 76th anniversary of Bob Marley‘s birth with a heaping serving of roots reggae. Until such time, have a great week.

And as always stay safe, sane, and kind.

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)
BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Daisy Bates, Civil Rights Activist, Newspaper Publisher, Little Rock Nine Organizer

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Daisy Bates, Civil Rights Activist, Newspaper Publisher, Little Rock Nine Organizer

By goodblacknews on February 5, 2021

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

This is Daisy Bates.

President of the NAACP Arkansas chapter during the civil rights movement and co-publisher of The Arkansas State Press, a newspaper dedicated to advocacy journalism for African-Americans.

Bates is best known for organizing and shepherding the Little Rock Nine as they desegregated Central High in 1957 in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Ed. U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Bates regularly drove the students to and from school, hosted them in her home after school and worked tirelessly to ensure they were protected from violent crowds.

One of her most successful protection strategies was to get local ministers to escort the students to school, daring the white Christians protesting and hurling threats to attack men of the cloth. Bates’ plan worked, but she started to receive threats herself.

Rocks were thrown into her home, crosses were burned on her property, and bullet shells were sent to her in the mail. White advertisers boycotted her newspaper and eventually she had to shut it down.

Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine (Credit: Everett Collection Historical / Alamy Stock Photo)
Bates received support from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who assured her, “World opinion is with you. The moral conscience of millions of white Americans is with you.” Bates was also elected to the executive committee of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
In 1960, Bates moved to New York City and wrote her memoir The Long Shadow of Little Rock, then later moved to Washington D.C., and worked for the Democratic National Committee.

Bates was also the only woman who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington during the official program, pledging that women would fight just as hard and long as the men until all Black people were free and had the vote.

Bates later served in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson and worked on anti-poverty programs. In 1968 she moved to the rural black community of Mitchellville, Arkansas and worked there to improve the lives of her neighbors by establishing a self-help program which was responsible for new sewer systems, paved streets, a water system, and community center.

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Barbara Jordan – Groundbreaking Congressmember, Lawyer, Professor and Orator

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Barbara Jordan – Groundbreaking Congressmember, Lawyer, Professor and Orator

By goodblacknews on February 2, 2021

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Barbara Jordan was born in 1936 in Houston, Texas to a teacher mother and Baptist preacher father. Jordan grew up to become the first African-American woman voted into the Texas Senate (1966-1972) and the first Black woman from the South elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1972-1979).

Jordan is best known for her superlative oratory skills, in particular the U.S. Judiciary Committee speech she gave in Congress almost 46 years ago to the day supporting the impeachment of Richard Nixon, as well as the Keynote address she gave at the 1976 Democratic National Convention (the first Black woman to do so in the Convention’s 144-year history).

Jordan also was the first and (so far) only Black woman to serve as Governor (albeit for one day on June 10, 1972) of any state in America. While in Congress, Jordan supported the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, legislation that required banks to lend and make services available to underserved poor and minority communities.

She also supported the renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and expansion of it to cover “language minorities”; this expansion offered protection to Spanish-speaking Latinos in her home state of Texas even when opposed by the Texas Governor and Secretary of State. Jordan also authored an act that ended federal authorization of price fixing by manufacturers.

After retiring from politics in 1979, Jordan worked as a professor of Ethics at the University of Texas at Austin. Around this time, Jordan was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and eventually had to get around via wheelchair, but that did not stop her from being an active scholar and public servant.

From 1994 until her death in 1996, Jordan chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, which recommended limits on immigration while also acknowledging how immigration had strengthened and continued to strengthen America.

President Bill Clinton wanted to nominate Jordan to the U.S. Supreme Court, but her health issues (which soon also included leukemia) prevented him from nominating her.

I started reading up on Barbara Jordan a few years ago because I’d always heard about her “firsts” but didn’t really didn’t have a sense of who she was or what made her formidable.

Then I listened to and watched her speeches. My. Heavens. If you haven’t heard it before, you MUST HEAR HER VOICE.

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Carter G. Woodson, “The Father of Black History”

BHM: Good Black News Celebrates Carter G. Woodson, “The Father of Black History”

By goodblacknews on February 1, 2021

Happy Black History Month 2021! The team at Good Black News is excited as ever to celebrate and explore the events, movements and people who have contributed indelibly to African American life and culture throughout the centuries.

Today we start by honoring Carter G. Woodson, the man responsible for creating and advancing the concept of having a specific time every year nationally to recognize the achievements of Black people in the U.S.

Known as “The Father of Black History,” author and historian Carter G. Woodson was born in 1875 to formerly enslaved parents who were never taught to read and write.

To make ends meet, Woodson often had to forgo school for farm or mining work, but he was encouraged to learn independently and eventually earned advanced degrees from the University of Chicago and Harvard University.

In 1915 he helped found the Journal of Negro History, (see issues of the Journal here) and starting in 1926 he developed and promoted the second week of February as Negro History Week.

In 1933, Woodson published The Mis-Education of the Negro, a book where he argues that African Americans were being indoctrinated instead of taught in American schools, and being led to view themselves as inferior. Woodson encourages his readers to become autodidacts and to “do for themselves”, regardless of what they learn in the educational system.

February officially became Black History Month across the nation in 1976.

(paid links)

“New Direction for Democracy”: Dena Crowder’s 6-Minute Power Shot on the Importance of Listening to Black Voices (WATCH)

“New Direction for Democracy”: Dena Crowder’s 6-Minute Power Shot on the Importance of Listening to Black Voices (WATCH)

By goodblacknews on January 22, 2021

In today’s “Power Shot,” TEDx speaker, Power Lab performance coach, and GBN’s “This Way Forward” contributor Dena Crowder breaks down how white supremacy is the ideology behind the biggest threat to democracy in the United States.

Crowder clearly and concisely explains how Black people have been and continue to be essential to preserving and re-defining democracy, why Black voices must be listened to, and gives deeper context for why #BlackLivesMatter. Check it out:

Check out Dena’s other Power Shots below:

R.I.P. Henry “Hank” Aaron, 86, Baseball Legend and All-Time Home Run Record Holder for 33 Years (VIDEO)

R.I.P. Henry “Hank” Aaron, 86, Baseball Legend and All-Time Home Run Record Holder for 33 Years (VIDEO)

By goodblacknews on January 22, 2021

There is no dearth of tributes, short or long, circulating about Henry Louis Aaron (aka “Hank”, “The Hammer” or “Hammerin’ Hank”) in honor of his life and legacy, which is as it should be.  Below are some links to some of them, as well as some information on his career highlights.

If you only have time to watch one thing today, GBN encourages you take four minutes and check out the moment when Aaron, while playing for the Atlanta Braves, broke Babe Ruth‘s all-time home run record on April 8, 1974. As Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Vin Scully says:

What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the deep south for breaking the record of an all-time baseball idol and it is a great moment for all of us and particularly for Henry Aaron.

Regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of all time, Aaron’s 755 career home runs stood as the Major League Baseball record for 33 years, and he still holds many MLB offensive records to this day.

Over the course of his 23 seasons in the MLB, Aaron hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973, andis one of only two players to hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times.  In 1982, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

To read more about Aaron:

It’s Official! Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are the Vice President and President of the United States of America (WATCH)

It’s Official! Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are the Vice President and President of the United States of America (WATCH)

By goodblacknews on January 20, 2021

It’s official! Former U.S. Senator Kamala Devi Harris and former Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. now occupy the offices of Vice President and President of the United States of America.

This peaceful transfer of power occurred on the same steps of the U.S. Capitol that were only two weeks ago swarming with a mob of domestic insurgents seeking to overthrow the process that led to today.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor swore in Vice President Harris and Chief Justice John Roberts swore in Biden.

Lady Gaga sang the National Anthem with a dramatic gold dove pin affixed to her breast, Jennifer Lopez put forth a medley of “This Land is Your Land” and “America the Beautiful” with a small nod to her own “Let’s Get Loud” mixed in with some words in Spanish, and Garth Brooks offered an a cappella take on “Amazing Grace.”

The most unexpected performance highlight came from inaugural poet Amanda Gorman, 22, who stirred the audience with her spirited recitation of “The Hill We Climb.”

President Biden’s first official speech is below:

Amanda Gorman, 22, Set to Become Youngest Known Inaugural Poet in U.S. History

Amanda Gorman, 22, Set to Become Youngest Known Inaugural Poet in U.S. History

By goodblacknews on January 19, 2021

Amanda Gorman, 22, is set to become the youngest inaugural poet in memory when she recites her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at President-elect Joe Biden‘s inauguration tomorrow, according to thehill.com.

In 2014, Harvard University graduate Gorman became the the first Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles. Three years later she was named the country’s first National Youth Poet Laureate. She will carry on the tradition for Democratic presidents of having celebrated poets read an original piece at inauguration ceremonies.

According to The Associated Press, Gorman said she had been recommended to Biden’s inaugural committee by incoming first lady Dr. Jill Biden. 

Gorman’s poem will follow in the line of noteworthy works by celebrated poets such as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou. Angelou’s “On the Pulse of Morning,” written for the 1993’s inauguration of President Clinton, sold more than 1 million copies when published in book form.

To read more: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/534419-biden-chooses-black-female-activist-as-youngest-known-inaugural

Confederate General Robert E. Lee Statue Removed From U.S. Capitol Building

Confederate General Robert E. Lee Statue Removed From U.S. Capitol Building

By goodblacknews on December 22, 2020

[Photo: Workers removing a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington. | Jack Mayer/Office of Governor of Virginia]

According to huffpost.com, the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was removed from the U.S. Capitol early Monday morning.

The statue has been one of two representing Virginia (every state gets two; Virginia’s second is of George Washington) in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall since 1909.

There is already a movement to replace Lee’s statue with one of Black civil rights activist Barbara Johns, who led an all-Black student walkout to protest school segregation in 1951.

To quote from the huffpost.com article:

In July, the Commission for Historical Statues in the United States Capitol ― an eight-member commission tasked with deciding whether to recommend the removal of Lee’s statue from the Capitol ― unanimously voted to have the monument removed.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D), who had testified before the commission in favor of the removal, called the moment an “important step forward for our Commonwealth and our country” in a statement on Monday.

“The Confederacy is a symbol of Virginia’s racist and divisive history, and it is past time we tell our story with images of perseverance, diversity, and inclusion,” he said.

Earlier in December, the eight-member commission voted to replace Lee’s statue with one of Johns, whose organizing and ultimate court case later became one of the five cases reviewed in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The statue of Johns must be approved by the state’s General Assembly, according to Gov. Northam’s office.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robert-e-lee-statue-us-capitol-removed_n_5fe0af61c5b6e5158fa8f910