While the U.S. Senate hasn’t agreed on much of anything for several years, this week it unanimously passed legislation granting the Congressional Gold Medal to Willie O’Ree, the first Black player to compete in the National Hockey League.
The legislation now moves to the U.S. House of Representatives for approval so O’Ree, 85, and known as the “Jackie Robinson of hockey,” can receive this much deserved honor.
O’Ree broke the NHL’s color barrier in 1958 by playing as a winger for the Boston Bruins, one of six teams at the time. O’Ree, who is Canadian, played professional hockey in his home country before joining the NHL and retiring from the sport in 1979. He has spent the past two decades as the NHL’s diversity ambassador with his Hockey is for Everyoneyouth program.
In every game he played in, O’Ree… heard name calling from opposing players and from fans in the stands. “Besides being Black and being blind in my right eye, I was faced with four other things: racism, prejudice, bigotry and ignorance,” he said.
The legislation would award O’Ree the nation’s highest civilian award that Congress can bestow “in recognition of his extraordinary contributions and commitment to hockey, inclusion, and recreational opportunity.”
O’Ree was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2018 for his off-ice contributions to the sport. The Bruins retired O’Ree’s No. 22 jersey in February of this year.
New York’s worthless studios, a not-for-profit space for artists, organized The Plywood Protection Project last summer in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, with the intention of making public art that paid tribute to the racial justice movement.
Tanda Francis, one of the five artists who worked on the project with worthless, used repurposed plywood from boarded-up storefronts to create a sculpture now on display in Queens called “RockIt Black.”
“Rockit Black” sculpture in Queens by Tanda Francis (photo via tandafrancis.com)
“To transform this plywood that was on the streets during the Black Lives Matter actual uprising is… amazing,” Francis told Reuters. “In my work, I actually use the color black and actually try to elevate it, kind of contrast to how it’s been sort of stigmatized in our culture.”
Behin Ha Design Studio erected their contribution called “Be Heard” in Thomas Paine Park in Lower Manhattan.
“Be Heard” by Behin Ha Design Studio in Thomas Paine Park, Manhattan (photo via worthless studios.org)
“New York City was covered in this plywood during COVID shutdowns and, you know, the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests,” said Neil Hamamoto, founder of worthless studios. “To me, it felt important to recycle the material because of its power and rhetoric.”
KaNSiteCurators and Caroline Mardok created “In Honor of Black Lives Matter,” which currently stand in Poe Park in The Bronx.
According to Variety.com, author Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of El-Hajj Malik El- Shabazz (aka Malcolm X), will executive produce a series at Sony Pictures Television’s Tristar on her father’s life.
The series will be based on the novels X: A Novel and The Awakening of Malcolm X, which were co-written by Shabazz. X: A Novel was co-written by Kekla Magoon while The Awakening of Malcolm X was co-written by Tiffany D. Jackson.
X: A Novel follows Malcolm’s life from his childhood — including his father being lynched and his mother being institutionalized against her will — up to his imprisonment at age twenty.
The Awakening of Malcolm X picks up during his time in prison when he decided to join the Nation of Islam, ultimately emerging from incarceration as Malcolm X.
State Street Pictures’ Bob Teitel and George Tillman will executive produce with Shabazz, as well as 3 Arts Entertainment’s Jermaine Johnson and Molly Madden.
Shabazz is also the co-chair of The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center located at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, the site of her father’s assassination in 1965.
Black Girl 44, the scholarship established by Deesha Dyer, founder & CEO of social impact firm Hook & Fasten and former social secretary for the Obama White House, recently announced its recipients for 2021.
Through contributions from more than 55 Black women who worked in the Obama White House, Dyer established the scholarship as part of an initiative to expose Black women to policy, community engagement, community service, advocacy, global relations and politics.
“When you hear the word politics, people get turned off,” Dyer explained. “So they’re like ‘politics is the Hill and the White House and the president.’ That’s how I thought for years, that I didn’t belong in politics and I don’t belong there. But that’s not necessarily all that it is. There’s a whole realm of politics and public service that we don’t talk about, that really is broad.”
This summer, 10 young women from across the country will participate in the Black Girl 44 scholarship. Due to the pandemic, some scholars may be in a position to experience the public service field remotely. The ultimate goal is that the experience entices the women to pursue careers in these fields.
Through the Black Girl 44 Scholarship, Deesha hopes to redefine the “face of what politics looks like” and reimagine “what it means.”
To see a full list of the scholars and their interests, click here.
Today President Joe Biden signed into law that June 19, best known as “Juneteenth” will now be a U.S. federal holiday, effective immediately.
“Juneteeth” is the term that has been used across centuries to commemorate June 19, 1865, the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, first learned from Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger that the Civil War was over, and they were free by order of the president (Lincoln, who had issued the Emancipation 2 1/2 years earlier). Celebrations occurred every year in Texas on Juneteenth, and later spread across the South as the idea caught on.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which is the human resources office for the federal government, tweeted today that most federal employees will observe the new holiday — Juneteenth National Independence Day — on Friday since June 19 falls on a Saturday this year.
Today @POTUS will sign the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, establishing June 19th as a federal holiday. As the 19th falls on a Saturday, most federal employees will observe the holiday tomorrow, June 18th.
— U.S. Office of Personnel Management (@USOPM) June 17, 2021
Biden said signing the legislation into law is one of the greatest honors he will have as president. Vice President Kamala Harris also signed the legislation in her capacity as President of the Senate.
By making Juneteenth a federal holiday, “all Americans can feel the power of this day, and learn from our history, and celebrate progress and grapple with the distance we’ve come but the distance we have to travel,” Biden said.
Activist Opal Lee (via marketwatch.com)
Biden also praised the efforts of Opal Lee, 94, an activist who at the age of 89 walked from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., to get Juneteenth named a national holiday. Biden referred to her as “a grandmother of the movement to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.”
After an almost year-long campaign and debates led by grassroots racial justice organizations (like the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville), the Duval County School Board in Jacksonville, Florida has voted to change the names of six schools currently named after figures prominent in the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War.
Come August 3, Kirby-Smith Middle School will become Springfield Middle School, Joseph Finegan Elementary School will become Anchor Academy, Stonewall Jackson Elementary School will become Hidden Oaks Elementary, Jefferson Davis Middle School will become Charger Academy, J.E.B. Stuart Middle School will become Westside Middle School and Robert E. Lee High School will renamed Riverside High.
According to theSouthern Poverty Law Center, there are 103 public schools named for Confederate leaders in the U.S. The SPLC also points out that the years Jim Crow laws emerged and the Civil Rights movement took place were the years with the greatest increase in the dedication of Confederate monuments and symbols.
Whose Heritage map via SPLC.org
“At this point in time it’s important to start thinking about who we want to be,” said Duval County public schools board chair Elizabeth Andersen. “As a board, we were listening to our community members and wanting to move forward so that every student that walks in our building understands that they are respected, that they are capable of achieving their highest potential, and that all of their lives matter.”
Michelle and Barack Obama announced yesterday that they have executive produced and Netflix will stream We the People, a 10-episode television series aimed at educating children on United States civics lessons, starting on July 4 of this year.
Across all three-minute music videos, the Obamas have enlisted artists such as Grammy and Academy Award winner H.E.R., Andra Day, Janelle Monáe, rapper Cordae, rock singer Adam Lambert, Frozenand Frozen 2composers Robert and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Hamilton‘s Daveed Diggs, Brittany Howard, In the Heights and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, Brandi Carlile, KYLE, Bebe Rexha, , and Biden inaugural poet Amanda Gorman to perform original songs and compositions that will soundtrack each narrative.
Episodes were directed by Peter Ramsey, Trisha Gum, Victoria Vincent, Benjy Brooke, Mabel Ye, Tim Rauch, Jorge R. Gutierrez, Daron Nefcy, Everett Downing, and Kendra Ryan. Each episode will offer lessons on basics of U.S. citizenship and rights, evoking the beloved Schoolhouse Rock series that originally aired on ABC in the 1970s.
Other producers on the project include Black-ishcreator Kenya Barris and Doc McStuffins creator Chris Nee.
Ahead of We the People‘s July 4 premiere date on Netflix, the show will premiere at a free screening in the DOCS Talks section of the American Film Institute‘s DOCS film festival on Thursday, June 24.
Many may know Lorraine Hansberry as the award-winning playwright of the now-classic 1959 Broadway play A Raisin in The Sun, adapted into a 1961 movie starring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee in 1961, and remade for television in 2008 starring Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan and Sean Combs.
Some may know of her family’s fight to end restrictive housing covenants in Chicago that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (Hansberry v. Lee), or of her civil rights activism and advocacy for universal healthcare, women’s rights, and for the demise of colonialism and imperialism.
A few may even know of her embrace of her queer identity and desire to fight for gay rights at the end of her life.
I know all of these things because my personal connection to Lorraine Hansberry started when she became the first (and only) Black woman writer I got to read as a part of English curriculum in either middle school or high school in the 1980s.
We read Raisin In The Sun as a class in 11th grade AP English. So when my teacher Dr. Victor had his students spend our spring semester studying one author in depth of our own choosing, I chose Lorraine.
The fact that some of the best political and cultural commentary in the U.S. is coming out of from late-evening comedy shows (e.g. The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, The Amber Ruffin Show) instead of news or current affairs programs is a reality we’ll attempt to unpack another time.
Today, please take seven and a half minutes to watch Amber Ruffin brilliantly (and amusingly) break down in her “How Culture Wars and White Supremacy Go Together Like ‘Green Eggs and Ham'” segment why “culture wars” serve as a smokescreen for many politicians to avoid real issues and create policies to empower the few over the many in our Video of the Week:
Oh, and in case you missed it, John Oliver and his team pretty much hit it out of the park on the history of discrimination towards Black hair and hairstyles in the U.S:
Today being her birthday would have been reason enough to honor the life and career of the one and only Janet Jackson.
But in 2021, it’s also turned out to be once-in-a-lifetime event — the weekend Ms. Jackson has decided to sell over 1,000 personal and professional items viaJulien’s Auctions to fans and collectors alike — and donate a portion of the proceeds to children’s charity Compassion International.
(Sunday, May 16 is the last day to watch and/or bid during the auction. You can do so here.)
As a personal fan who lives in Los Angeles, I was able to go to the public display prior to the auction. Seeing her iconic outfits and costumes along with personal items from her childhood and homes was, in a word, mesmerizing.
If you’ve grown up with her like I and a lot of GenX has, it’s easy to take Janet’s legacy and prowess for granted. But when you look at the history, the music, the videos, her eras across the decades and the impact of them all represented in one place, you fully realize what a uniquely innovative, influential artist she has been, is, and always will be.
With producing partners Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Jackson has crafted some of the most insightful and inspirational — and hey, let’s say it, danceable — issue-oriented songs ever.
Today, we celebrate her contributions to elevating our consciousness and calling for action on topics such as discrimination, poverty, racism, illiteracy, domestic violence, depression, sexism and homophobia with the playlist “The Knowledge” – Janet Jackson Social Justice Music:
“Rhythm Nation” is not only represented on this list by its titular track, but also by “The Knowledge,” “State of the World,” “Livin’ In A World (They Didn’t Make)” and its connective tissue interludes, but also by “The Skin Game,” a track about racial discrimination from that didn’t make the album but was a B-side to its “Come Back To Me” single.
“Like so many Black people, I have my own stories of being profiled — of being stopped, searched and frisked twice in the same month by cops skeptical about a Black woman driving a fancy car. And you have to think, if the cops stop me, how much worse must it be for others?” she wrote. “Yet we go on.”
Janet recently revived “Skin Game” during at her State of the WorldTour, at the 2018 Essence Festival and during her Global Citizens performance in 2018. Check out the kick-ass opening sequence below:
On her 1993 Janet. album, Jackson offered “New Agenda” with Public Enemy’s Chuck D, “This Time” about domestic violence with opera singer Kathleen Battle.
On 1997’s The Velvet Rope, Janet tackled self-esteem and self-worth on “You,” the unhealthy reliance on connections made through the internet on “Empty,” feelings of depression and worthlessness “Special,” homophobia on “Free Xone” and overcoming racial and gender discrimination on the hidden track “Can’t Be Stopped.”
The depth and breadth of this album’s themes are discussed deftly by Ayanna Dozier in her book on The Velvet Rope from the acclaimed 33 1/3 series about music’s most impactful albums.
“Got Til It’s Gone” (seen below) and “Together Again” are also included because visually, this pair of Afrocentric videos were all about self-possession, expression and finding joy in the most difficult of circumstances — in South Africa during apartheid in “Got Til It’s Gone,” and healing oneself through the acknowledgement of the importance of lives of those who passed from AIDS and need to celebrate not stigmatize their lives in “Together Again.”
“What About” mixes the softness of her sweetest love songs with a hard rock edge reminiscent of “Black Cat” as she delivers a tour de force on domestic violence.
Jackson’s performance at the 1998 VH1 Fashion Awards was poignant, powerful and unforgettable:
Rounding out the playlist are the songs “Black Eagle” and “Shoulda Known Better” from her number-one album from 2015, Unbreakable, which acknowledge the work that still needs to be done, how difficult it is to overcome the complex issues of racism and abject poverty and how heart-breaking they are, but why it’s still worth trying.
Though not released as a single or official video, “Shoulda Known Better” was used by a fan to make a video tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting in 2016, and Janet Jackson shares it as part of her official YouTube channel:
I hope I get to add new songs to this list later this year, if Janet resumes the Black Diamond Tour and releases the Black Diamondalbum, both postponed from 2020 due to the global pandemic.
Or even if she records an entirely new project, I have no doubt that in some form, Ms. Jackson’s outspoken caring and compassion for the world will come through once again.
