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LOCAL HERO: Eliot Middleton Gifts over 60 Repaired Cars to People in Rural South Carolina Without Wheels

LOCAL HERO: Eliot Middleton Gifts over 60 Repaired Cars to People in Rural South Carolina Without Wheels

By goodblacknews on December 29, 2021

This past summer, CBS News ran a story on Eliot Middleton, a barbecue restaurant owner and a trained mechanic in rural South Carolina who was fixing older cars and donating them to people in need.

“There’s no public transportation,” Middleton told CBS News in June. “There’s no Ubers, there’s no taxis or nothing like that.”

To quote from cbsnews.com:

Some of the recipients of the fixed cars are single moms, jobs seekers and older folks with doctors’ appointments. Last Christmas, he gave a 2004 Suzuki to single mom Jessica Litchfield — who described his work as “a lifesaver.”

“Some folks don’t believe it,” Middleton said. “It’s like, ‘No, that’s not my car.'”

After the story ran, by July he’d received offers of over 800 donations of cars in addition to more than $100,000 in cash donations to support Middleton’s charitable efforts.

According to a recent report from wltx.com, Middleton has given away over 60 cars since he started helping others in this fashion, giving away 12 of them during the 12 days of Christmas.

Middleton and his non-profit Middleton’s Village to Village Foundation can be followed or contacted here.

[Photo: Eliot Middleton, Savonnie Eadie, Doretha Simmons (l to r) via Facebook]

MUSIC MONDAY: Listeners’ Choice: Help Marlon Make His First Playlist for 2022!

MUSIC MONDAY: Listeners’ Choice: Help Marlon Make His First Playlist for 2022!

By goodblacknews on December 27, 2021

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

Happy Last Monday of 2021! Hope you all have had a safe and pleasant holiday season, so far. This Covid era ain’t going away easy. So I was planning on my first GBN playlist of 2022 to be a collection songs that I found sustaining in the last nearly two years. Though I thought it would be nice to hear from some of you.

What songs have you played during ‘20 and ‘21 that helped keep your chin up? Were they tracks from back in the day that have always been your go to? It there a cut that that gained new meaning and poignance during lockdown? Have you discovered new music that has brightened these taxing times?

Let me/us know about ‘em in the comments. Help a brotha create a communal playlist of hope and tenacity.

Thanks, you all. And Happy New Year!

[Photo: Courtesy of Marlon West]

Good Black News Wishes You and Yours a Safe and Merry Christmas

Good Black News Wishes You and Yours a Safe and Merry Christmas

By goodblacknews on December 25, 2021

On a day when so many family members, friends and loved ones may or may not have been able to come together to celebrate, GBN wishes you a Merry and safe Christmas, a blessed and bountiful Kwanzaa and Hopeful Holidays all around.

As we give to each other, let us always strive to remember what a gift we have in life, and to cherish and respect that spirit always for ourselves as well as others all year long.

Love and Peace,

The Good Black News Team

[Photo courtesy of Marlon West]

Former Minnesota Police Officer Kim Potter Found Guilty of Manslaughter in Death of Duante Wright

Former Minnesota Police Officer Kim Potter Found Guilty of Manslaughter in Death of Duante Wright

By goodblacknews on December 23, 2021

Kim Potter, the former Minnesota police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright when she drew her handgun instead of her Taser during a traffic stop in April, has been found guilty on two counts of manslaughter.

Jurors deliberated since Monday before coming to a unanimous verdict. Potter, who had served as an officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota for 26 years, will be sentenced at a later date.

To quote npr.com:

Prosecutors did not dispute that the shooting was an accident. But they said that in her 26 years on the force, Potter had undergone extensive firearm and Taser training, including how to avoid confusing the two. They turned to use-of-force experts and the police department’s policy handbook to argue that the use of a Taser was inappropriate to begin with.

“She drew a deadly weapon, she aimed it, she pointed it at Daunte Wright’s chest and she fired,” Assistant Attorney General Erin Eldridge said during the state’s closing argument on Monday.

“This was no little oopsie. This was not putting the wrong date on a check. This was not entering the wrong password somewhere. This was a colossal screw-up, a blunder of epic proportions,” Eldridge said. “It was precisely the thing she had been warned about for years, and she had been trained to prevent it.”

Minnesota’s  sentencing guidelines recommend approximately seven years for the first-degree charge and four years for the second-degree charge, though prosecutors are likely to advocate for a longer sentence.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2021/12/23/1066012247/kim-potter-trial-daunte-wright

Senate Confirms Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson as National Endowment for the Arts Chair, 1st African American and Mexican American to Lead the NEA

Senate Confirms Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson as National Endowment for the Arts Chair, 1st African American and Mexican American to Lead the NEA

By goodblacknews on December 21, 2021

Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson was confirmed by the U.S Senate on Saturday as Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts.  Jackson is the first African American and Mexican American to lead the organization.

To quote The Washington Post:

Jackson, 56, earned a doctorate in urban planning from the University of California at Los Angeles, and she’s a professor at Arizona State University and a sought-after speaker on how to embed arts, culture and design into community life. Jackson previously worked at the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington.

In 2013, President Barack Obama appointed her to the National Council on the Arts, the panel that advises the endowment. She has served on many boards of arts organizations, including the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the Music Center in Los Angeles, where she lives.

President Biden made the historic nomination in October, during National Arts and Humanities Month. At the same time, he nominated Shelly Lowe to be the first Native American to lead the National Endowment for the Humanities. Lowe’s nomination has not been confirmed.

In a statement released by the NEA, Jackson thanked President Biden for the opportunity and said she plans to lead the institution with “dedication to inclusivity, collaboration, and with the recognition that art, culture, and creativity are core to us reaching our full potential as a nation.”

“The NEA plays a crucial role in helping to provide funds and other resources needed for the sector to recover, retool, and reopen,” Jackson also stated. “The agency also has the opportunity and responsibility to deepen and expand its already purposeful efforts to reach communities who have been traditionally underserved.”

MUSIC MONDAY: An Afroclectic Christmas Playlist for 2021 (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: An Afroclectic Christmas Playlist for 2021 (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on December 20, 2021

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

Happy Holiday Season, you all! I am thrilled to offer this “afroclectic” of music to round out 2021’s Christmastime. With more that a little help from my friends I’ve assembled another freewheeling collection.

There are tracks from fellow contributor, Jeff Meier’s ULTIMATE SOUL OF THE SEASON SOUNDTRACK, and our fearless leader, Lori Lakin Hutcherson’s A MERRY MOTOWN playlist, plus dozens of favorites and recent discoveries of my own.

Of course, Donny Hathaway, Sharon Jones, Nat King Cole, Marvin Gaye and other Christmas standard-bearers are present. Though there are 2021 holiday releases by Bill Will, Nao, Mandisa, José James, Shaggy and others as well. Here’s over thirteen hours of soul, jazz, reggae, gospel, hip hop, and more to for a Christmas musical journey.

Whether you are staying put, or travel far, please do have a wonderful, peaceful, and safe holiday season. It has been a pleasure and honor share music with you all here on Good Black News for another year.

Stay safe, sane, and kind. And I’ll see ya back here in the ‘22!

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)
U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe Receives Medal of Honor 16 Years After Saving Troops from Burning Vehicle in Iraq

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe Receives Medal of Honor 16 Years After Saving Troops from Burning Vehicle in Iraq

By goodblacknews on December 17, 2021

 President Joe Biden awarded three soldiers the Medal of Honor yesterday, including Sgt. First Class Alwyn Cashe, the first Black soldier to receive the award since the Vietnam War, ABC News reported.

Other Black soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan have received high-ranking valor awards, but never the Medal of Honor.

Sgt. Cashe was 35 when he died after rescuing six fellow soldiers and one Iraqi interpreter while under enemy fire after a roadside bomb detonated under the Bradley Fighting Vehicle he was commanding in October 2005, igniting its fuel tank.

After he and another soldier extinguished the flames that had engulfed their driver and pulled him to safety, Cashe’s uniform, which was drenched in gasoline, caught fire.

With second and third-degree burns covering nearly 75% of his body, Sgt. Cashe died from his injuries about three weeks after the attack.

“No soldier is going to be left behind on his watch,” President Biden said at the White House ceremony honoring Cashe and two other troops who saved lives. “A soldier’s soldier, a warrior who literally walked through fire for his troops.”

“We remember the strength and the sacrifices of these military families, caregivers, and survivors,” added the President. “And we remember and renew our sacred obligation to those who served this nation in uniform.”

R.I.P. bell hooks, 69, Acclaimed Author, Activist and Poet

R.I.P. bell hooks, 69, Acclaimed Author, Activist and Poet

By goodblacknews on December 15, 2021

[bell hooks at The New School. Photo: Spencer Kohn, 2013]

Professor, author, and activist bell hooks, who explored and dissected social, political, gender and interpersonal issues in addition to intersectionality in works such as All About Love, Bone Black,  Ain’t I a Woman, The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity & Love,  Feminist Theory and Communion: The Female Search for Love, died today at 69.

She passed at home in Berea, Kentucky after an extended illness, according to a family statement from William Morrow Publishers and Berea College in Kentucky, which houses the bell hooks Institute.

Named Gloria Jean Watkins at birth, hooks was internationally known by her lowercase pen name ever since she published her 1978 collection of poems, And There We Wept. hooks took the name to honor her great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. (She was told often as a child that her quick thinking and outspokenness was like that of “Granny Bell.”)

To quote from Los Angeles Times:

She attended segregated schools in Kentucky’s Christian County, then went to Stanford University. She later earned a master’s degree in English at the University of Wisconsin and a doctorate in literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

She also founded the bell hooks Institute at Berea College, which “celebrates, honors, and documents the life and work” of its namesake. hooks also served as a distinguished professor in residence in Appalachian studies there.

In 2017, she dedicated her papers to Berea College so that future generations would know her work and the impact she had on the intersections of race, gender, place, class and sexuality, the school said. The following year, she was inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.

Read more:

HBCU Talladega College Receives Anonymous $2.5 Million Donation to Support Student Scholarships

HBCU Talladega College Receives Anonymous $2.5 Million Donation to Support Student Scholarships

By goodblacknews on December 12, 2021

Talladega College in Alabama recently received an anonymous and historic donation of $2.5 million in support of student scholarships.

With these funds, the HBCU plans to expand its ‘Angel Award’ scholarship program which will tremendously impact the lives of current and incoming students.

“These funds will enable us to continue our path of success and our unwavering journey to remain an institution of excellence,” said Dr. Lisa Long, acting president of Talladega College. “Our mission is to equip our graduates for the global community through academic excellence, moral values, community service, and professional development.”

Earlier this year in August, the College received an anonymous donation of $250,000, which was used to create the ‘Angel Award.’ This scholarship has provided financial assistance to nearly 100 students who were facing economic struggles.

According to Long, she is not certain about the identity of the College’s ‘angel in disguise,’ but she is exceedingly grateful for their generosity.

“Our College’s most important asset is our people,” said Long. “This donation is yet another validation that we’re on the right track with facilitating the needs of our students.”

The College also recently cleared $925,666 in debt for students with balances for the terms of Spring 2020 through Summer 2021, and was recently ranked in the top 100 most affordable public administration colleges.

Talladega College is Alabama’s first private historically black liberal arts college, and has been known for academic excellence for over 150 years.

ABOUT TALLADEGA COLLEGE
The mission of Talladega College is to equip its graduates for the global community through academic excellence, moral values, community service, and professional development. The campus is on a plateau about 700 feet above sea level in the heart of a fertile valley in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It is a quiet place – away from the distractions and fast pace of urban living, yet conveniently close to neighboring cities that offer extensive cultural and entertainment outlets as well as shopping, restaurants, and theaters. The college is just 25 miles south of the city of Anniston, Alabama, 50 miles east of Birmingham, Alabama, 85 miles north of Montgomery, Alabama, and 100 miles west of Atlanta, Georgia. The College has an aggressive tradition of bringing the world to Talladega via workshops, forums, and lectures presented by acclaimed artists, scientists, and political, business, and civic leaders. 

[Photo: Courtesy of Talladega College]

“America ReFramed” Doc Series Launches Tenth Season with “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America” on WORLD Channel and PBS in February 2022

“America ReFramed” Doc Series Launches Tenth Season with “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America” on WORLD Channel and PBS in February 2022

By goodblacknews on December 8, 2021

The award-winning documentary series America ReFramed, a co-production of WORLD Channel and American Documentary, Inc., launches its landmark tenth season with the world premiere of Fannie Lou Hamer’s America, a portrait of the fearless Mississippi sharecropper-turned-human-rights-activist.

The season begins with a special presentation on PBS on Tuesday, February 22, 9:00 to 10:30 p.m. ET, followed by its broadcast on WORLD Channel on Thursday, February 24.

Fannie Lou Hamer’s America focuses on the incredible life of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s greatest grassroots leaders, Fannie Lou Hamer, and the injustices that made her work essential.

Airing during Black History Month, the film is produced by Hamer’s great-niece Monica Land and Selena Lauterer and directed by Joy Davenport. This special is a copresentation with PBS and Black Public Media.

“Fannie Lou Hamer’s America is a powerful film, one that illustrates the challenges and sacrifices so many faced in fighting for the right to vote,” said Sylvia Bugg, Chief Programming Executive & General Manager at PBS. “We are excited to work with WORLD Channel to bring this exceptional America ReFramed documentary, that highlights contributions of women of color both on screen and behind the camera, to audiences.”

This marks the weekly series’ move to its new Thursday time slot, with many titles available to stream beginning February 22 on worldchannel.org, WORLD Channel’s YouTube Channel and on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS Video app, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO.