March 17, 2026
This Christmas, unlike any other in our lifetime, is a time to forgive, be thankful, grateful, generous, kind and compassionate.
Good Black News thanks you all for your support and goodwill over the years and especially in 2020 when we have collectively experienced so much challenge.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas, a blessed and bountiful Kwanzaa and what we all hope will be a healing new year.
Love and Peace,
The Good Black News Team
by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
Whether you are among those celebrating the Christmas holiday with loved ones (via Zoom or in the same room) or doing it solo, you may want some mellow-yet-festive holiday music playing as you spend the day.
Earlier this month, Good Black News offered the comprehensive, 465-song Ultimate Soul of the Season Christmas Soundtrack on Spotify as well as Silver Bells: An Afroclectic Christmastime Playlist for 2020. Today, on Christmas Eve we offer Cool Yule: A Jazzy Christmas Collection.
From Take 6 to Duke Ellington to Geri Allen to Oscar Peterson, this playlist includes vocal and instrumental jazz renditions of traditional and modern Christmas and end-of-year classics for all to enjoy.
[spotifyplaybutton play=”spotify:playlist:2rCXw95SjIgNZllitaQ8Fb”]
Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne, Betty Carter, Dianne Reeves, Etta James, Dinah Washington, Esperanza Spalding and Billie Holiday are among the female jazz vocalists represented on “Cool Yule,” with Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, Leslie Odom, Jr. and Louis Armstrong lending their deeper pipes to the playlist.
Also represented are jazz titans Miles Davis, John Coltrane, the Count Basie Orchestra, Benny Carter, Kenny Burrell, Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, the McCoy Tyner Trio, Jimmy Smith, the Elvin Jones Quintet and the Ramsey Lewis Trio.
Wishing you all the best tomorrow and in the coming new year. Enjoy!
[Photo: Meek Mill via facebook.com]
Yesterday hip hop artist and activist Meek Mill along with his Dream Chasers record label delivered toys, clothes, and new Xbox consoles to 35 families in Philadelphia impacted by the criminal justice system.
In partnership with the REFORM Alliance, Puma, GoPuff, and DocuVault, the rapper helped arrange the deliveries, and saw the families receive everything from MacBook Air laptops or iPads, to baby clothes and Xbox Series X consoles.
To quote from complex.com:
“It’s been a tough year for all of us, but through all the ups and downs, I’ll always do my part to support and give back to the Philly community that raised me,” said Meek. “I remember not having much growing up, so it’s important to use my platform to give back, especially to the families trying to provide for their kids while also dealing with the criminal justice system.” Among the recipients was Anthony Morse, who fosters five kids as well as raising his own children.
Conducted with social distancing protocols, Meek personally FaceTimed some of the families to hear their stories as the deliveres were conducted. He also announced that he has donated $30,000 to the Philadelphia chapter of volunteer organization Twelve Days of Christmas, which aims to help families make it through the holiday season. His contribution will go towards 30 families across North Philadelphia, include those who went to his old school, James G. Blaine Elementary School.
Robert Rihmeek Williams aka Meek Mill was born and raised in Philadelphia and was executive producer and subject of the 2019 Free Meek documentary on Prime Video detailing his own personal battles with the criminal justice system.
[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
[Photo: Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett via commons.wikipedia.org]
The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) recently reported the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett has been instrumental in developing is highly effective, and will likely ship for national distribution to millions of Americans this weekend.
According to abcnews.go.com, when Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a leader during the coronavirus pandemic, was asked a blunt question during a forum hosted last week by the National Urban League about the input of African American scientists in the vaccine process, Dr. Fauci did not hesitate when giving his answer.
“The very vaccine that’s one of the two that has absolutely exquisite levels — 94 to 95% efficacy against clinical disease and almost 100% efficacy against serious disease that are shown to be clearly safe — that vaccine was actually developed in my institute’s vaccine research center by a team of scientists led by Dr. Barney Graham and his close colleague, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, or Kizzy Corbett,” Fauci told the forum. “Kizzy is an African American scientist who is right at the forefront of the development of the vaccine.”
To quote the abcnews.go.com article:
Corbett is an expert on the front lines of the global race for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, and someone who will go down in history as one of the key players in developing the science that could end the pandemic.
She is one of the National Institutes of Health‘s leading scientists behind the government’s search for a vaccine. Corbett is part of a team at NIH that worked with Moderna, the pharmaceutical company that developed one of the two mRNA vaccines that has shown to be more than 90% effective.
Even before Corbett took on one of the most challenging tasks of her professional career, she was a force to be reckoned with. As a student,she was selected to participate in Project SEED, a program for gifted minority students that allowed her to study chemistry in labs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and eventually landed a full ride to the University of Maryland Baltimore County, according to The Washington Post.
After graduating, Corbett enrolled in a doctorate program at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she worked as a research assistant studying virus infections and eventually received a PhD in microbiology and immunology, according to her LinkedIn page.
Her work with such pathogens began when she joined the NIH’s Vaccine Research Center as a postdoctoral fellow in 2014.
To read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/kizzmekia-corbett-african-american-woman-praised-key-scientist/story?id=74679965
[Photo: Dionne Warwick via commons.wikipedia.org]
by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
One of my most indelible musical memories as a child is riding in the back of my mom’s silver Cadillac Seville, listening her harmonize with a singular, sophisticated voice asking and answering the compelling question: “What do you get when you fall in love? A guy with a pen to burst your bubble – that’s what you get for all your trouble.”
When Mom (and Dionne) sang these words with biting, philosophical wit and charm I’d learn in my teens was more succinctly known as irony, I was instantly intrigued and couldn’t wait to hear them again and again. Especially on that “get enough germs to catch pneumonia” line. That was the best.
When Ms. Warwick and Ms. Lakin told me to take a “Message to Michael” to “Walk on By” or would ask me “Do You Know The Way to San Jose?” — I was riveted by the evocative, worldly wisdom washing over me.
Nobody on the radio sang like this. Told stories like this. Skillfully navigated between grit and grandiosity, poise and pressure, emoted the expansive sound of je ne sais quois like this. I have been a Dionne Warwick fan ever since.
[spotifyplaybutton play=”spotify:playlist:6NLmSJmZoDlaN27wkFfsoF”]
What I didn’t know then but learned later is most songs sung by that mesmerizing voice were singles from the 1960s and early ’70s written by legendary songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David, two men who grasped the women’s perspective on the pain and futility of many a romance.
George Clinton, along with James Brown and Sly Stone, is one of the foremost innovators of funk music. And the originator of P-Funk, “uncut funk, the bomb!”
The Parliament-Funkadelic collective he lead championed an influential and eclectic form of funk music drawing on science fiction, outlandish fashion, psychedelia, and surreal humor. This work, Clinton’s solo career, and artists he’s championed have impacted, been sampled, and covered by funk, rock, and hip-hop artists.
[spotifyplaybutton play=”spotify:playlist:2yGmtPLCmANIVOTdw7B7LL”/]
George Clinton officially retired from touring in 2019 and has shown up on recordings in 2020. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, with 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic. In 2019, he and Parliament-Funkadelic were given Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards.
Starting in the 1960s as a staff songwriter for Motown, Clinton eventually developed a sound once called “The Temptations on acid.” Just listen to Funkadelic’s “I”ll Bet You” and that comparison will be clear.
George Clinton has produced a diverse discography, with over 40 R&B hit singles (including three number ones) and three platinum albums.
Here are Clinton’s best songs and those of many of his protégés. I’ve also included covers of his tunes, tracks that sample his work, and tracks he has produced for other artists. Please enjoy.
Next week I’ll offer my Afroclectic Christmas collection. Until then, stay safe, sane and kind.
According to colorlines.com, data-driven, activist-led organization Campaign Zero recently launched their ‘End All No-Knocks’ campaign with the goal of transforming the way police search warrants are executed across the nation.
To quote colorlines.com:
Police raids disproportionately impact Black communities, according to research conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). No-knock warrants allow officers to legally force their way into private residences without announcing themselves or their purpose. “These raids, often carried out for low-level drug offenses, are executed at night by forcible entry, which commonly involves breaking through doors with battering rams, military-grade weapons and flash-bang explosives,” Campaign Zero said in its statement. Such practices endanger the community and can severely traumatize (or kill) children in the process—and in the case of Breonna Taylor, these warrants can also tragically lead to death.
“Simply banning No-Knock warrants isn’t going to make us safer and hold police accountable,” stressed Katie Ryan of Campaign Zero in an emailed statement. “In practice, knock-and-announce warrants can be executed like a No-Knock warrant so we must couple banning No-Knock warrants with heavy restrictions on the issuance and execution of all search warrants.”
DeRay McKesson, co-founder of Campaign Zero, said in a statement, “The trauma, injuries, and many deaths of innocent people make the practice of military-style warrant executions unsafe and barbaric.”
To read more: https://www.colorlines.com/articles/activists-launch-national-campaign-ban-no-knock-police-raids
According to nytimes.com, American athlete Rafer Johnson, who carried the United States flag into Rome’s Olympic Stadium in August 1960 as the first Black captain of a U.S. Olympic team and went on to win gold in the decathlon bringing him acclaim as the world’s greatest all-around athlete, died today at his home in Los Angeles, CA. He was 86.
To quote from The New York Times:
Johnson never competed after that decathlon triumph. He became a good-will ambassador for the United States and a close associate of the Kennedy family, taking a leadership role in the Special Olympics, which were championed by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and joining Robert F. Kennedy’s entourage during Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1968. He was remembered especially for helping to wrestle the senator’s assassin to the ground in Los Angeles in 1968.
Johnson’s national profile was largely molded at the 1960 Olympics, one of the most celebrated in the history of the Games, a moment when a host of African-American athletes burst triumphantly onto the world stage.
Muhammad Ali, known then as Cassius Clay, captured boxing gold in the light-heavyweight division. Wilma Rudolph swept to victory in the women’s 100- and 200-meter dashes and combined with her Tennessee State teammates for gold in the 4 x 100 relay. Oscar Robertson helped take the United States basketball team to a gold medal.
Johnson is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Thorsen, brother Jimmy Johnson, a former San Francisco 49er and Pro Football Hall of Famer; two children, Jennifer Johnson Jordan, who was a member of the U.S. women’s beach volleyball team at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and is now a volleyball coach at U.C.L.A., and Josh Johnson; and four grandchildren.
To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/sports/olympics/rafer-johnson-dead.html
by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)
Happy Monday, you all. Hope you had a good and safe Thanksgiving. Time will tell though.
While most of these offerings are genre and theme-based, I do like to feature a favorite, and often underrated, artist from time to time. This week, it’s Bobby Womack.
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While never a household name, Womack had a long and impactful career. He, like so many in his generation, started in a family gospel group with his brothers.
Womack became the protégé of gospel and R&B/pop star Sam Cooke, a session musician, a successful solo artist with decades of hits, a writer of his own and others’ songs, and along with Mos Def, and surviving members of The Clash, was a core member of Gorillaz.
Quincy Jones arguably stands alone in having a longer and more wide-ranging career. 10-year-old Bobby started touring with his brothers on the midwest gospel circuit as The Womack Brothers.
