Love is definitely in need of love today, and one of its most staunch and steadfast purveyors, legendary and visionary artist Stevie Wonder, is going on the road once again to offer just that.
Wonder announced today he will be playing select dates in October across 10 cities in a call for “joy over anger, kindness over recrimination, peace over war” during this most contentious election season in the United States.
As a special thank you to those in communities who are already working tirelessly to fix our nation’s broken heart, Wonder will be offering a designated amount of complimentary tickets to them.
This mini-tour, titled “Sing Your Song! As We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart,” is produced by Wonder Productions and promoted by AEG Presents in partnership with Free Lunch.
The tour kicks off Tuesday, October 8 at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, PA, with stops in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Greensboro, Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis before concluding Wednesday, October 30 at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, MI.
Today, GBN celebrates Brad Lomax, the Black Panther Party member and disability activist who helped lead the “504 Sit In” to demand the federal government provide accessibility in a federal buildings and institutions.
To read about Lomax, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, April 28th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
As a young adult, Black Panther Party member Brad Lomax was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. When he started using a wheelchair every day, Lomax began to notice an often unseen “ism” — ableism.
Public buildings and transit without ramps. Inaccessible schools, housing, and workplaces. Lomax joined the Center for Independent Living, the Bay Area group which successfully lobbied for curb cuts on street corners.
In 1977, Lomax helped lead a protest that became known as the “504 Sit-In” in the San Francisco Federal Building, where disabled activists took the federal government to task for not implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which required accessibility in all federal programs and institutions.
The protest lasted longer than any other sit in in United States history. The protestors were assisted by Lomax’s fellow Black Panthers, who delivered provisions to the activists daily.
After a month, the government finally began to implement Section 504 in all federal programs and institutions and this action helped pave the way for the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.
Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episodes full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
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Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is a bonus episode about U.S Supreme Court JusticeKetanji Brown Jackson, whose historic appointment this week can’t be celebrated enough.
To read about her, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Saturday, April 9th, 2022, based on the format of the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Just two short days ago, history that was a long time in coming was finally made when Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was officially confirmed by a Senate vote of 53 to 47 to become the 116th Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and first African American woman ever to serve on the highest judicial body of the nation.
In a bit of poetry, the vote was called for and presided over by Vice President Kamala Harris, who herself is quite familiar with making U.S. history as a Black woman.
Nominated by President Joe Biden in February, Justice Jackson faced over a month of scrutiny in the Senate confirmation hearings as well as in the media, but navigated it all with intelligence, grace and candor.
We celebrate grassroots organizer, civil rights and voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer in today’s Daily Drop podcast. Our salute to Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party founder Hamer is based on the Thursday, March 24 entry in “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, March 24th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
“Sick and tired of being sick and tired,” in the 1960s, Mississippi plantation worker Fannie Lou Hamer was fired, threatened by white supremacists, and beaten in police custody when she tried to vote and register others to do the same.
But Hamer would not be silenced. She formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and demanded to represent her state at the 1964 Democratic Convention. Hamer fought for voting rights, education rights, and economic rights and even ran for Senate.
Although she wasn’t rich, traditionally educated or well-connected, Hamer was a grassroots leader who got involved – and stayed involved — because she believed to her core “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
Hamer passed in 1977 after years of dealing with serious health issues, but her legacy as an outspoken and effective activist, organizer and champion for equal rights will never be forgotten.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Tuesday, March 8 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 that features a quote from formidable journalist, anti-lynching and women’s rights activist Ida B. Wells Barnett:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, March 8th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
“Virtue knows no color line, and the chivalry which depends upon complexion of skin and texture of hair can command no honest respect.”
In 2020, Wells received a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for journalism, and her face honored the centennial of the U.S. Suffragist Movement in a mosaic art installation in Washington D.C.’s Union Station. And in 2022, Mattel added a tribute doll of Wells to their Barbie Inspiring Women Series.
In her hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi, the Ida B.Wells-Barnett Museum acts as a cultural center of African American history. Awards have been established in Wells’s name by the National Association of Black Journalists, the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and the New York County Lawyers Assn., among others.
Wells is a helluva historical figure who, even with recent documentaries and accolades, is still not known well enough. Her whole life is fascinating, and worth learning about extensively, and I shortly will point you to several resources. But if you don’t have time for it now, here is a great quote summing up Wells’ importance in the fight for equality and justice from the New York Times review of the 1999 biography on Wells. And here’s the quote:
“Linda O. McMurry‘s important new biography, To Keep the Waters Troubled, tells the story of an extraordinary American who would have been at the very summit of our national pantheon except for two things: her sex and her race. But then again, being born into a society that promised individual freedom and personal power — just not to blacks, not to women and above all not to black women — was the source of Ida B. Wells’s remarkable story.”
To learn more about Wells, read her pamphlet published in 1892 titled Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, 1895’s The Red Record, which covered Black people’s struggles in the South since the Civil War and explored the alarmingly high rates of lynchings in the U.S.
Links to these and other sources are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing. Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. Additional music included and permitted under Public Domain license was “Gladiolus Rag” cmposed by Scott Joplin.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or
go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
It’s about an enslaved couple, Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott, who sued for their freedom in federal court, which lead to the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous and atrocious 1857 Dred Scott decision:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of GoodBlackNews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, March 6th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
So, I had a few different ideas for this bonus episode, like doing a drop about innovative jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, the “supreme” Mary Wilson, NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal or “King of Comedy” D.L. Hughley, who all claim March 6th as their birthday. And shout outs to them.
They may all get drops in the future, but when I learned March 6 is also the day that the infamous U.S. Supreme Court Dred Scott decision was made 165 years ago and considered to be one of the worst Supreme Court rulings in history, I wanted to drop in on that.
On March 6, 1857, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney oversaw a 7-2 vote against the enslaved spouses Dred Scott and Harriet Scott, who were petitioning for their freedom based on the fact that they had worked and lived in free states with or for their owners.
But as agreed to in the Missouri Compromise, this gave the Scotts the right to be free. However, in the majority opinion, Chief Justice Taney stated that all people of African descent, free or enslaved, weren’t U.S. citizens and therefore did not have the right to sue in federal court, on top of arguing that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, as well as the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Wednesday, March 2 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about Sojourner Truth, the formerly enslaved protestor and advocate for women’s rights, prison reform and the abolition of slavery:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
In 1827, while slavery was still legal in New York, Isabella Baumfree escaped to freedom with her baby daughter. She went to court to recover her son and two years later she became the first Black woman to win such a case against a white man.
In 1843 Baumfree renamed herself Sojourner Truth and began advocating for the abolition of slavery, women’s voting rights, prison reform and the end of capital punishment across the entire United States.
Truth was also very recently honored when New York governor Kathy Hochul announced a new state park in Ulster that will be named the Sojourner Truth State Park, and it will open later this year.To learn more about Sojourner Truth, read her autobiography The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, the biography Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter, and for children, there’s My Name is Truth: The Life of Sojourner Truth written by Ann Turner and illustrated by James Ransome.
Also, do yourself a favor and check out the Sojourner Truth Projectonline where they compare the original transcription by Marcus Robinson of Truth’s speech in 1851 with the version that became popularized 12 years later. Other sources are also provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
1851 Sojourner Truth Speech – excerpt read by ST:
“May I say a few words? I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now.
As for intellect, all I can say is, if women have a pint and man a quart – why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold. The poor men seem to be all in confusion…”
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
It’s in our Black Lexicon category called “Lemme Break It Down” and explains the term “Intersectionality”:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, March 1st, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
It’s in the category we call “Lemme Break It Down,” where we explore the origins and meanings of words and phrases rooted in the Black Lexicon and Black culture. Today’s phrase to kick off Women’s History Month? “Intersectionality.”
“Intersectionality” is the term coined by Columbia University Law School Professor and Black feminist scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989 to describe how race and gender create a unique form of oppression for African American women.
The term gave name to a key perspective which of course had been discussed long before. 18th and 19th century writings by Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells and Sojourner Truth’s famous “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech address the same concept.
Twenty-first-century usage has expanded to include class, sexuality, ability, religion or nationality as identities that can intersect to shape discrimination as well as privilege.
To learn more about intersectionality, check out the paper Kimberlé Crenshaw published in the University of Chicago Legal Forum where she first publicly explained her theory, entitled “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex”, listen to Crenshaw’s current podcast on the subject, Intersectionality Matters, and check out other sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like our Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodb,lacknews anywhere on social.
Sources:
https://amzn.to/3srgyp8 (Kimberle Crenshaw book On Intersectionality – on pre-order for December 2022)
Hello on this MLK Day Monday! Hope this missive finds you all well. I put together this collection of tracks to celebrate this day. I’ve included songs that speak directly to the struggle for Civil Rights.
Some of these tracks were favorite songs of Dr. King’s and other leaders of the movement. While other tracks both classic and new are inspired by their efforts and sacrifice.
I have also included a few excerpts for the great man’s speeches as well. Mahalia Jackson, Sam Cooke, Gil Scott-Heron, and Nina Simone are all present. Though so are Common, Steel Pulse, Killer Mike, and others that came in their wake.
Hope you enjoy the collection of soul, jazz, gospel, reggae, and hip-hop track to celebrate the King Holiday.
As always, stay safe sane, and kind. “See” ya soon!
Judge Timothy R. Walmsley sentenced father and son Gregory McMichael and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan Jr. to life in prison for their felony murder of Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick, GA in February 2020.
Bryan will be eligible for parole in 30 years; the McMichaels have no possibility for parole. As he sentenced the murderers, Judge Walmsley had the courtroom sit in silence for one minute to have everyone present get a feel for at least a fraction of the five minutes Arbery was chased and terrorized by his now-convicted killers.
(l to r) Travis McMichael, William “Roddie” Bryan, Jr. and Gregory McMichael
“When I thought about this, I thought from a lot of different angles,” Walmsley said, “and I kept coming back to the terror that must have been in the mind of the young man running through Satilla Shores.”
These thoughts were likely never far from Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, his father Marcus Arbery, or the rest of his family.
“The man who killed my son has sat in this courtroom every single day next to his father. I’ll never get that chance to sit next to my son ever again. Not at a general table. Not at a holiday. And not at a wedding,” Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery, said before the sentence was announced.
“His killers should spend the rest of their lives thinking about what they did and what they took from us and they should do it behind bars because me and my family have to do it for the rest of their life.”
Attorneys for all three of Arbery’s murderers have said they intend to appeal the convictions.
You can also watch 
