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Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Joins U.S. Ambassador Malac to Dedicate New 25-Bed Field Hospital for Healthcare Workers

By goodblacknews on November 5, 2014
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President Sirleaf, U.S. Ambassador Malac and a U.S army commander chat following a tour of the 25-bed field hospital for health workers. (Photo:  Adama B. Thompson / Executive Mansion)

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf joined U.S. Ambassador Deborah Malac to dedicate a newly constructed 25-bed field hospital to be used solely for the treatment of healthcare workers who may become infected by the Ebola virus disease.

The construction of the field hospital was financed by the U.S. government and implemented jointly by the U.S. military and the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL).
The dedication of the facility took place in Charlesville, Liberia, near the Roberts International Airport in Margibi County today.
Speaking during the ceremony, President Sirleaf described the United States as a partner which recognizes and responds to the needs of the Liberian people and that the fruit of the partnership reaches out to the people it is meant to benefit.
The Liberian leader praised healthcare workers for their sacrificial services to the country and its people by confronting a disease they knew very little about and expressed happiness that those of them who may be infected can now receive quality care and treatment with a high hope of survival.

Election Day: Have You Voted? #AllVotesMatter #BlackVotesMatter

By goodblacknews on November 4, 2014

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Just a quick reminder if you haven’t found a moment to make it to the polls yet today, there’s still time!  GBN Lifestyle/Sports Editor Lesa Lakin and I have taken the #blackwomenvote initiative seriously and hit the polls already – fortunately we had good weather – we hope you can find time to do the same if you haven’t already.  Voting is important… as our history and the poster below remind us:

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If you don’t like your local, state or federal laws or officials, get out there and help foster change by making your voice heard.  If you’re not sure where your polling place is, click here to enter your address and find out!

Onward and upward, together!
Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)

UCLA Faculty Approves Diversity Class Requirement for Incoming Students in 2015

By goodblacknews on November 3, 2014

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The faculty of UCLA’s largest academic unit voted by a narrow margin to require future undergraduates to take a course on ethnic, cultural, religious or gender diversity. The move came after three previous efforts had failed.
Officials announced Friday that the faculty of the UCLA College of Letters and Science voted 332 to 303, with 24 blank ballots, to start the requirement for incoming freshmen in fall 2015 and new transfer students in 2017.
Two other faculty and administrative review panels still must approve the requirement before it can go into effect, but the recent college-wide vote was considered the most important step in a much-debated matter on the Westwood campus.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block was a strong proponent of such diversity classes, saying they would help prepare students to live and work in a multi-cultural society. Most other UC campuses and the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture already require such courses. The College of Letters and Science enrolls about 85% of UCLA’s undergraduates.
Opponents said students were overburdened with other requirements, particularly in the sciences, and said the budget-strapped university could not afford extra classes. Additional questions were raised about whether these classes improve ethnic relations and whether they typically skew left politically.
Similar proposals were rejected by the faculty three times in the last two decades. In 2012, the measure lost 224-175 in a vote that attracted only about 30% of potential ballots. More than 46% of the college faculty cast the online ballots in the current weeklong vote after much lobbying and student activism, officials said.
In a statement released Friday, Block said he was pleased by the faculty approval.
“A diversity-related course requirement for UCLA College undergraduates is an important component of our commitment to expose students to beliefs and backgrounds other than their own,” he said.
The courses are expected to  be offered by many academic departments, ranging from sociology to statistics, and students will be required to choose one for an academic quarter.
M. Belinda Tucker, UCLA psychiatry and biobehavioral professor who was a co-chair of the diversity initiative, said the requirement will be more broadly defined than at some other campuses because it will include courses on international topics, not just U.S. issues.
She noted that the courses will not make it harder to graduate since students can devote one of their electives to it and fulfill it with courses that also meet other requirements for their major or degree.
“I think it’s going to benefit the students and benefit the campus as a whole,” Tucker said.
article by Larry Gordon via latimes.com

Slave Quarters to be Rebuilt at James Madison’s Virginia Home to Give Truer Version of History

By goodblacknews on November 1, 2014

FILE - In this May 17, 2000 file photo, President James Madison’s Montpelier estate in Virginia. Madison’s Montpelier estate in Virginia is planning a major refurbishment and a rebuilding of its slave quarters with a $10 million pledge from a leading Washington philanthropist and history buff. On Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014 businessman David Rubenstein will announce the gift to restore the home where Madison drafted ideas that became the US Constitution and Bill of Rights before he became the nation’s fourth president. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
FILE – In this May 17, 2000 file photo, President James Madison’s Montpelier estate in Virginia. Madison’s Montpelier estate in Virginia is planning a major refurbishment and a rebuilding of its slave quarters with a $10 million pledge from a leading Washington philanthropist and history buff. On Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014 businessman David Rubenstein will announce the gift to restore the home where Madison drafted ideas that became the US Constitution and Bill of Rights before he became the nation’s fourth president. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homes of slaves who served President James Madison at his Montpelier estate in Virginia will be rebuilt for the first time over the next five years, along with other refurbishments to the home of one of the nation’s Founding Fathers, thanks to a $10 million gift announced Saturday.
David Rubenstein, a leading Washington philanthropist and history buff, pledged the $3.5 million needed to rebuild the slave quarters next to the mansion in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Another $6.5 million will be devoted to refurnishing parts of the home where Madison drafted ideas that would become the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
After widow Dolley Madison sold the estate in 1844, many family belongings were dispersed or sold, leaving some rooms mostly empty of period furnishings after the estate opened to visitors in 1987. Now, curators hope to recover or borrow artifacts from the fourth president’s family life to bring the estate back to life, said Montpelier Foundation President and CEO Kat Imhoff.
Rubenstein told The Associated Press he wanted to help make the estate more authentic. Montpelier could draw more visitors to learn about history, he said, if the house is fully restored and its slave quarters built out. It currently draws about 125,000 visitors a year. Last year, Rubenstein gave funds to recreate slave quarters on Thomas Jefferson’s plantation.
“It’s this dichotomy. You have people who were extraordinarily intelligent, well-informed, educated; they created this incredible country — Jefferson, Washington, Madison — yet they lived with this system of slavery. Jefferson, Washington and Madison all abhorred slavery, but they didn’t do, they couldn’t do much about it,” he said. “We shouldn’t deify our Founding Fathers without recognizing that they did participate in a system that had its terrible flaws.”
The donation marks a trifecta of gifts totaling $30 million to projects at Virginia’s oldest presidential sites. Last year Rubenstein gave $10 million gifts to both Jefferson’s Monticello estate and George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon.
Recreating Montpelier’s South Yard, where domestic slaves lived, as well as the basement areas of the mansion where they worked, will help tell a fuller version of history, Imhoff said.
“For folks that have been coming to any of these presidential sites, the fact that we’re bringing this complete American story back into the landscape I think is very important,” she said. “It is challenging, but I also think it’s that wonderful tension that we as Americans are embracing, that this is our history, that making the invisible visible is very important to us as a nation, and it will make a stronger American story.”
The slave quarters at Montpelier were cleared away 165 years ago and planted over with grass, but the site has not been disturbed since. Archaeologists plan to excavate the South Yard in public view to recover remnants of slave life to help illustrate new stories.
One of the slaves who lived in a cramped dwelling was Paul Jennings. He was born at Montpelier in 1799, and at the age of 10 moved with the Madisons to serve in the White House. He later wrote a book about his experience, which is considered the first White House memoir. Jennings recalled helping Dolley Madison save curtains, silver, documents and a famous portrait of George Washington when the British burned the White House in 1814.

James Brown Finally Gets Harlem Street Named After Him on November 22

By goodblacknews on October 31, 2014
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It’s been eight years since the “Godfather of Soul,” James Brown (pictured) passed away at age 73.  Now after an uphill six-year effort by historian Jacob Morris, along with the National Black Theatre, a street behind the famed Harlem Apollo Theatre is finally being renamed James Brown Way to honor the musical icon, according to the New York Daily News.
The street that will bear the name of the legendary performer is located on 126th between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Frederick Douglass Blvds.  According to Morris, he was also looking to have some fanfare attached to the renaming of the street, a ceremony of sorts that would truly pay homage to the caliber of performer Brown was, the archivist tells the New York Daily News, “I didn’t want to put the sign up until we could do a ceremony that’s of James Brown stature.”
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The guest list of luminaries who will reportedly attend the November 22 street renaming will be none other than the Rev. Al Sharpton, who will be a keynote speaker and who also considered Brown a mentor and father figure.  A few of Brown’s relatives will also be present for the eventful honor, including his daughter Deanna Brown Thomas.
Brown had a long history of playing at the Apollo, the venue where he made his explosive debut and honed his reputation for high energy, dynamic concerts.  Two days after Brown’s passing from congestive heart failure on Christmas day in 2006, his body was transported in a gold coffin to the legendary theater and put on view, so that the public could visit and pay their respects to the soul showman.  Brown Thomas told the New York Daily News, “It [the Apollo] is where the eyes of the world came to watch my father.  If he was here he’d be thanking God for people loving him enough to put his name on that street.”
The ceremony will commence at 1 p.m. and will be followed by a 2 p.m. screening of “James Brown: The Man, The Music & The Message” at the National Black Theatre.
article by Ruth Manuel-Logan via newsone.com

Lupita Nyong'o Helps Fight for Preservation Of Virginia Slave-Trade History

By goodblacknews on October 26, 2014

Protesters interrupt the mayor during a news conference Monday, while he announces a plan to move the Richmond Flying Squirrels to Shockoe Bottom. Critics say the ballpark will desecrate ground where hundreds of thousands of slave were once sold and imprisoned. (Scott Elmquist)
Protesters interrupt the mayor during a news conference Monday, while he announces a plan to move the Richmond Flying Squirrels to Shockoe Bottom. Critics say the ballpark will desecrate ground where hundreds of thousands of slave were once sold and imprisoned. (Scott Elmquist)

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — “Twelve Years a Slave” actress Lupita Nyong’o is lending her star power to the opposition to a minor league baseball stadium in what was once the center of Richmond’s thriving slave-trading center.
Nyong’o has been posting anti-stadium opinions on social media to her millions of followers, and has personally appealed to Mayor Dwight C. Jones to withdraw support of the stadium that is the centerpiece of an economic development project.
“Evidence of America’s slave history simply must be preserved, as the legacy of slavery affects all American people,” she wrote in a letter dated Oct. 19 to Jones.
In response, Jones invited Nyong’o to visit the former capital of the Confederacy to see Shockoe Bottom and plans to preserve its slave-trading past.
“Our plans show where we want to invest in that history and lift that history up for future generations to learn from,” Jones wrote.
The stadium-centered project is proposed for Shockoe Bottom, the city’s oldest neighborhood and once the bustling center of the slave-trade. By some estimates, more 300,000 men, women and children were jailed, bought and sold in the Bottom and shipped throughout the Southern states in the decades leading to the Civil War.
The stadium proposal has unleashed pent-up frustration among those who believe the city has literally buried that shameful chapter of its history. The area is now home to nightclubs, restaurants, former tobacco warehouses transformed into townhouses and parking lots.
Nyong’o has a “12 Years a Slave” connection to the neighborhood. The celebrated film depicts the life of Solomon Northrup, who is kidnapped and sold into slavery. He is initially held in a Shockoe Bottom jail where slaves were chained before they were sold to growers in the Deep South.

Dallas Cowboy DeMarco Murray Sets Rushing Record by Running at Least 100 Yards in Seven Straight Games

By goodblacknews on October 24, 2014

635493464113730006-2014-10-19-Demarco-Murray2ARLINGTON, Texas —DeMarco Murray may have eclipsed former Cleveland Browns icon Jim Brown as the first back in league history to start a season by running for at least 100 yards in seven straight games.
But the fourth-year Dallas Cowboys workhorse knows he has a long way to go to reach the Hall of Famer’s elite level after his 128-yard, one-touchdown performance keyed a 31-21 defeat of the New York Giants Sunday.
“He’s probably one of the greatest running backs to ever play, and I have a lot of respect for what he’s done,” Murray said. “In no way am I trying to say I’m on his level by any means. He’s a great guy, a great activist in the community, a great player and a great person. And I’m not even in that category.
“I’m blessed to be mentioned.”
Murray, who leads the league in rushing with 913 yards and seven touchdowns, made history with his 1-yard run on the first carry of the fourth quarter, shaking off a gimpy right ankle that buckled on him late in the second quarter. He gave credit to his offensive linemen who kept prying open lanes against a Giants defense that stacked defenders in the box.

“What an accomplishment,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. “Anybody who knows how he got them, knows he got good help from his teammates. But I don’t know how you could have in this game of football, any more of a personal accomplishment to the will that it takes to get that won.

“That kid has had ‘professional’ written all over him since the day he walked in. He stepped back in there after wrenching his ankle and competed.”
And he’s the engine who makes these 6-1 Cowboys go.

Los Angeles Police Department Fires Detective Over Racially-Charged Recordings

By goodblacknews on October 23, 2014

California Prisons Agree to End Race-Based Lockdowns

By goodblacknews on October 23, 2014

In settling a federal civil rights suit, California prisons agreed Wednesday to no longer base lockdowns on inmates’ race or ethnicity.

The suit, filed in 2008 on behalf of male prisoners, alleged that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation violates inmates’ constitutional rights by imposing excessively long modified programs and lockdowns.
Corrections officials have said in the past that segregation units are needed in maximum-security lockups to control prison gangs responsible for violence and crime.

Under the settlement, “lockdowns or modified programs may be (1) imposed on all inmates, and lifted from all inmates in the affected area, or (2) imposed and lifted from inmates in the affected area based on individualized threat assessments.”
Furthermore, if a modified program or lockdown lasts more than 14 days, the warden is required under the settlement to start giving outdoor activity to the affected inmates.
“We see this as a tremendous result,” said Rebekah Evenson, one of the attorneys representing inmates.
article by Lauren Raab and Paige St. John via latimes.com

Justus Uwayesu, Who Lived in a Rwandan Dump after Being Orphaned by Genocide, Earns Full Scholarship at Harvard

By goodblacknews on October 22, 2014
Justus Uwayesu, rescued at 9 from the streets of Rwanda, is enrolled as a freshman at Harvard. (IAN THOMAS JANSEN-LONNQUIST FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

BOSTON — Nine years old and orphaned by ethnic genocide, he was living in a burned-out car in a Rwandan garbage dump where he scavenged for food and clothes. Daytimes, he was a street beggar. He had not bathed in more than a year.When an American charity worker, Clare Effiong, visited the dump one Sunday, other children scattered. Filthy and hungry, Justus Uwayesu stayed put, and she asked him why.
“I want to go to school,” he replied.
Well, he got his wish.
This autumn, Mr. Uwayesu enrolled as a freshman at Harvard University on a full-scholarship, studying math, economics and human rights, and aiming for an advanced science degree. Now about 22 — his birthday is unknown — he could be, in jeans, a sweater and sneakers, just another of the 1,667 first-year students here.