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After a vociferous public outcry over the death of Freddie Gray,who suffered a fatal spinal cord injury in police custody this spring, Baltimore officials announced plans Wednesday to equip transport vans with video recording cameras, according to Reuters.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said the change comes in the wake of protests after the death of 25-year-old Gray, who was fatally injured while being transported to lockup in a police van in April on an unspecified charge. Gray’s death sparked days of fiery protests over police brutality in the Black community. From Reuters:
We’re working through a process that will place cameras with recording capabilities in the backs of all our police vans, to ensure that we have a more complete record of what occurs there,” Rawlings-Blake told reporters.
The van in which Gray was transported had a non-recording camera that the driver could use to monitor the passengers, but it was not working at the time.
Rawlings-Blake also announced plans to review riot gear used by police during the unrest, as some of it failed to work, the report says. She said the city needs working equipment so that police can respond if trouble breaks out following trial verdicts in the Gray case. article by Lynette Holloway via newsone.com
The American economy, this month entering its seventh year of recovery from the Great Recession, still has some legs: Employers in June added a solid 223,000 jobs across a broad spectrum of service industries.
But Thursday’s Labor Department report, released a day earlier than usual because of the Fourth of July holiday, showed that those legs are a bit wobbly. Workers’ earnings, after a promising increase in May, were flat last month.
In fact, many experts had been looking for an uptick in the labor force — those who are working or looking for work — as the unemployment rate has dropped and private-sector employers have added a decent batch of new jobs month after month. But instead, the so-called labor participation rate fell sharply last month to the lowest level since October 1977.
That drop, along with stagnant average wages, points to softness in the economy — and is likely to give Federal Reserve officials pause in raising interest rates this September, as many analysts had forecast.
“The 223,000 payroll numbers were nice, but outside of that, it was pretty flat,” said Harry Holzer, professor of public policy at Georgetown University. “Labor markets remain too weak to put consistent pressure on wages.”
The overall job growth in June was in line with analysts’ expectations and provided a reassuring sign that hiring had bounced back from the winter slowdown and remained steady at a time of rising global turmoil. The eurozone is in the throes of the Greek debt crisis, and China and other emerging economies are weakening.
Encouragingly, the hiring in June was broad-based. It was led by business and professional services, a group that includes high-paying engineers and computer designers as well as lower-wage temporary-help workers.
Retail, healthcare and finance businesses also added a healthy batch of jobs. But the energy industry continued to downsize; employment in manufacturing slowed, and construction and government were flat.
Prima Ballerina Misty Copeland (Photo via livetalksla.org)
One of today’s most famous ballerinas just made history by becoming the first African-American woman to hold the position of principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater. Misty Copeland was promoted Tuesday after more than 14 years with the company, the New York Times reports. She spent eight of those years as a soloist, the Times points out.
Copeland, known for being vocal about the lack of representation and diversity in the company and in the realm of dancing in general, made the cover of TIME magazine just this year. She is also the subject of a documentary screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Times writes. In addition to being known for a popular Under Armour ad, she has a base of followers on social media larger than some of Hollywood’s finest.
But it’s Copeland’s precision and elegant fluidity while she dances that compound her popularity. That and her tendency to make history — her new post as principal dancer isn’t the first time her name will be written in books. Just this month, Copeland became the first African-American woman to star in “Swan Lake” with the Ballet Theater, a performance so well-attended that cheers from the crowd reportedly stopped parts of the show. From the NYT:
Ms. Copeland, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was unusually outspoken about her ambition of becoming the first black woman named a principal dancer by Ballet Theater, one of the nation’s most prestigious companies, which is known for its international roster of stars and for staging full-length classical story ballets.
“My fears are that it could be another two decades before another black woman is in the position that I hold with an elite ballet company,” she wrote in her memoir, “Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina,” published last year. “That if I don’t rise to principal, people will feel I have failed them.”
This put an unusual public spotlight on Ballet Theater as it weighed the kind of personnel decision that, in the rarified world of ballet, is rarely discussed openly. If the company had not promoted Ms. Copeland, it risked being seen as perpetuating the inequalities that have left African-American dancers, particularly women, woefully underrepresented at top ballet companies.
Stella Abrera, Alban Lendorf, and Maria Kochetkova were all named principal dancers along with Copeland. article by Christina Coleman via newsone.com
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama this week will propose a plan to extend overtime pay to 5 million American workers who are currently excluded under federal law, according to sources.
The president will recommend updating overtime rules so that salaried workers who earn less than roughly $50,400 per year would be guaranteed time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. Under the current rules implemented by former President George W. Bush, salaried workers must earn less than $23,660 per year in order to be automatically eligible for overtime pay.
The president announced his intention to make overtime reforms last year, but the details of the plan have been kept secret until this week. The president is expected to discuss the proposal later this week during a visit to Wisconsin. Details of the proposal were first reported by Bloomberg.
In a blog post on The Huffington Post Monday night, Obama said that “too many Americans are working long days for less pay than they deserve,” and that his proposal would help assure that “hard work is rewarded.”
“That’s how America should do business,” the president wrote. “In this country, a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. That’s at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America.”
Cynthia Hurd, one of the nine churchgoers killed last week in the mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church, looks over a reproduction of the original of the Charleston Messenger found inside the John L. Dart Library in 2002. (Photo via postandcourier.com)
Renaming the Charleston library she served for 30 years is a fitting tribute to Cynthia Hurd, one of the nine churchgoers killed during the Emanuel AME Church shooting last week.
The Charleston County Council unanimously voted on Thursday to rename the St. Andrews Regional Library the Cynthia Graham Hurd St. Andrews Regional Library, The Post & Courierreports.Hurd worked in the city’s library system from 1990 to 2011, before being given the managerial title at the St. Andrews Regional Library. Her husband Arthur called the commemorative title fitting for the woman who dedicated her life to books and helping others.
“People will look up and see her name and remember her every day,” Arthur Hurd said. “There have been nothing but good things said about her because that’s how she lived her life.”
Hurd was the longest-serving part-time librarian in the county. In a 2003 interview, she said the best thing about being a librarian was the chance to serve others. “I like helping people find answers,” she said. “Your whole reason for being there is to help people.”
Shortly after suspected gunman Dylann Roof took the lives of Hurd and eight others in Mother AME Emanuel Church last week, friends and former classmates from her alma mater,Clark Atlanta University, paid their respects with a candlelight vigil.
The College of Charleston also showed their gratitude to Hurd by renaming their academic scholarship the Cynthia Graham Hurd Memorial Scholarship. Formally known as the Colonial Scholarship, 12 full academic scholarships are handed out every year to in-state students.
The county also has set up a fund in her honor to continue her work. Those donations may be sent to Charleston County Public Library, c/o Cynthia Graham Hurd Memorial Fund, 68 Calhoun St., Charleston, SC 29401.
Bishop Michael Curry of North Carolina, smiles after being elected the Episcopal Church’s first African-American presiding bishop on Saturday, June 27, 2015. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
The Episcopal Church elected its first African-American presiding bishop, choosing Bishop Michael Curry of North Carolina during the denomination’s national assembly Saturday.
Curry was elected in a vote by bishops at the Episcopal General Convention, the top legislative body of the church. Curry won among the bishops in a landslide, earning 121 votes. The other three candidates had 21 votes or less. The decision was affirmed on a vote of 800-12 by the House of Deputies, the voting body of clergy and lay participants at the meeting.
Curry will succeed Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who will complete her nine-year term on Nov. 1. She was the first female presiding bishop and the first woman to lead an Anglican national church. The New York-based Episcopal Church is the U.S. body of the Anglican Communion, an 80-million member worldwide fellowship of churches with roots in the Church of England.
“We’ve got a society where there are challenges before us. We know that. And there are crises all around us. And the church has challenges before us,” Curry said in brief comments as he was introduced to the assembly as presiding bishop-elect. “We are part of the Jesus movement, and nothing can stop the movement of God’s love in this world.”
President Barack Obama gives eulogy for state Senator and Reverend Clementa Pinkney in Charleston (photo via YouTube) President Barack Obama continues to lead this country with class and heart, delivering a touching and emotional eulogy for state Senator and Reverend Clementa Pinckney, an unfortunate victim in the tragic shootings at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston last week. Obama spoke eloquently of the good works and commitment to community Pinckney had, and solemnly acknowledged by name each of the church members who lost their lives with Pinckney. He then proceeded to talk about the history of the black church and the power of grace.
To the families of the fallen, the nation shares in your grief. Our pain cuts that much deeper because it happened in a church. The church is and always has been the center of African American life… a place to call our own in a too-often hostile world, a sanctuary from so many hardships.
Over the course of centuries, black churches served as hush harbors, where slaves could worship in safety, praise houses, where their free descendants could gather and shout “Hallelujah…” … rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad, bunkers for the foot soldiers of the civil-rights movement.
They have been and continue to community centers, where we organize for jobs and justice, places of scholarship and network, places where children are loved and fed and kept out of harms way and told that they are beautiful and smart and taught that they matter. That’s what happens in church. That’s what the black church means — our beating heart, the place where our dignity as a people in inviolate.
There’s no better example of this tradition than Mother Emanuel, a church… built by blacks seeking liberty, burned to the ground because its founders sought to end slavery only to rise up again, a phoenix from these ashes.
Obama goes on to address the Confederate flag as a symbol of systemic oppression and racial subjugation, and calls getting rid of it as “one step in an honest accounting of America’s history. A modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds.” To read a transcript of his incredible eulogy, which also forcefully addresses mass incarceration, police brutality, voting rights, gun violence and systemic racial bias, click here. To see it in full, watch below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9IGyidtfGI&w=560&h=315] article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
AMPAS President Cheryl Boone Isaacs
According to Variety.com, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has made a concrete push for diversity, sending membership invitations to 322 individuals, including a healthy number of people who, if they accept, can help change the organization’s primarily white male demographics.
Among the invitees are “Selma” actor David Oyelowo, “Belle” and “Beyond the Lights” actor Gugu Mbatha-Raw, actor Kevin Hart, “Set It Off” and “Italian Job” director F. Gary Gray, “Best Man” director Malcolm D. Lee, “Amazing Grace” and “Beat Street” director Stan Lathan, “Selma”casting director Aisha Coley, Dreamworks executive Mellody Hobson, and “Frozen” animator Marlon West. The Academy has been reaching out to women, foreign-born artists and people of various races, ethnic backgrounds and ages.
Accusations of Academy bigotry surfaced yet again in January when the list of Oscar nominees included Caucasians in all 20 acting categories, and few women or racial minorities among the other categories. Director Ava DuVernay and actor Oyelowo of “Selma” had seemed like strong contenders, giving many people hopes of breakthroughs. After initial anger at the Academy, activists began to shift their protests to industry hiring practices.
The Academy last year sent 271 invitations, with 276 in 2013. For the years between 2004 and 2012, the average was 133. There is no guarantee that all will join, but it’s rare for people to decline. The Academy board voted on the list Tuesday, after recommendations from its membership committee.
CEO Dawn Hudson and Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs have been pushing to broaden the organization’s makeup. Last year, Boone Isaacs told Variety that the 2014 new-member list “is a continuation of an initiative to bring in new voices. … The membership is becoming more and more a reflection of the world at large.”
Hudson and Boone Isaacs always stress that the outreach does not means a change in standards. Each branch has strict requirements on eligibility based on industry tenure and credits. As of the most recent tally for 2014 voting, the Academy had 6,124 voting members. The “new voices” clearly constitute a tiny fraction of the group. But AMPAS officials are hoping that it can help can make a difference.
And as June 24-July 2 balloting is under way for board members, exactly one-third of the board are women: 17 out of 42. But it could get closer to 50-50 parity with the new crop, which includes a number of racial minorities and women among this year’s board contenders.
For a full list of invitees, click here. original article by Tim Gray; additions by Lori Lakin Hutcherson
(Photo via Washington Post)
This morning, the United States Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that same-sex marriage must be allowed in all 50 states, as gay people must be afforded equal rights and protections under federal law. President Barack Obama hailed the decision, saying “Our nation was founded on a bedrock principle that we are all created equal,” Obama said. “The project of each generation is to bridge the meaning of those founding words with the realities of changing times. Progress on this journey often comes in small increments, sometimes two steps forward, one step back, propelled by the persistent effort of dedicated citizens,” he said. “And then sometimes, there are days like this when that slow, steady effort is rewarded with justice that arrives like a thunderbolt.”
To watch his entire statement, click below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3uMTPsa_Dg&w=560&h=315] article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakan (photo via Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said Wednesday he plans to hold a Millions for Justice March in the nation’s capital this fall, 20 years after the Million Man March.
During a speech at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Washington, Farrakhan said he intends to hold the rally Oct. 10 on the National Mall, scene of the 1995 march.
“This is the time our people must see our unity,” Farrakhan said. “Let’s make 10/10/15 a meeting place for those who want justice, for those who know what justice is.”
Organizers said they aim to stage a more diverse and inclusive event than the one in 1995, which was billed as a men-only event.
Former NAACP executive director Benjamin Chavis, who helped organize the original Million Man March, said he is optimistic that this year’s turnout will be “in excess of a million.” He said the event’s success would be measured more by the political and socioeconomical impact it has on communities.
“What ultimately will be a success is seeing improvements in the communities where these people are going to come from,” Chavis said. “We want to make sure our public policy demands are aligned with those challenges.”
Farrakhan said the rally is intended to galvanize a more strategic movement for equality as supporters unite under the social media hashtag #JusticeOrElse.
“Walk with the young people, the warriors of God, as we say to America, ‘You owe us,'” Farrakhan said.
The Million Man March was held in Washington on Oct. 16, 1995. Its goal, organizers said, was to encourage black men to make firmer commitments to family values and community uplift. It is among the largest political gatherings in American history, although there were disputes over the size of the heavily black and male crowd it drew. Crowd estimates ranged from 400,000 to nearly 1.1 million.
Farrakhan, 82, also used the march announcement to call for fair treatment and an end to injustice in the wake of the massacre of nine people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, last week. “Yes, all lives matter, but the only reason you’re here is because black lives are being slaughtered,” Farrakhan said.
As for efforts to remove the Confederate flag in the wake of that tragedy, Farrakhan said the gesture does little to remove the stain of injustice.
“The media is (still) twisting the narrative of murderers,” Farrakhan added, referring to perceptions that the media tends to portray white perpetrators more humanely than those of other races or ethnicities. article by Glynn A. Hill via bigstory.ap.org
