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Simone Biles Wins Her 2nd Consecutive All-Around Title at World Gymnastics Championships

By goodblacknews on October 10, 2014

Simone Biles
Gymnast Simone Biles became only the sixth woman, and first in 11 years, to win consecutive all-around titles at the World Gymnastics Championships in China today.  This is only her fourth season at the elite level and, with the Rio Olympics two years away, the 17-year-old from Spring, Texas, still has room to grow.
“It actually blows my mind,” Biles said of winning back-to-back world titles. “If I think about it right now, I’m just like, `Whaaaat?’ It’s just like, I don’t know. It’s just really weird, but it’s really cool.”
After Svetlana Khorkina repeated as the all-around champion at the 2003 worlds, 10 different women would win the world or Olympic title from 2004-13. Injuries played a part in that volatility — Russia’s Aliya Mustafina looked set for a long run after winning in 2010, only to blow out her knee six months later — as has the sport’s relatively short window for success.
It’s really tough to stay healthy and at the top of your game for an entire quadrennium, especially when every year brings a new crop of phenoms.
But if anyone was going to break that streak of, well, no streak, it was Biles.
No one can match her for power or explosiveness. She is already doing one of the world’s toughest vaults, the Amanar, and she gets so high off the table it’s not inconceivable to think she could add another half-twist to her somersault. Her tumbling passes on floor exercise are so massive she really ought to get FAA clearance.
There’s more to Biles than circus tricks, however. All of her skills are done with precision and polish, making them look deceptively easy. Ordinary folks have more trouble walking on flat ground than Biles does doing an aerial somersault on a balance beam that’s 4 inches wide and 4 feet off the floor.
Most appealing is her personality. While other gymnasts are so intense or stoic they look angry during meets, Biles is constantly smiling and giggling. Her enthusiasm is infectious, and it’s no surprise she’s a favorite with her competitors.
“I know there is competition between pretty much everyone, but we’re such good friends,” said fellow American Kyla Ross, who won the bronze medal after being runner-up to Biles last year. “I think we’re really there to push each other.”
article by Nancy Armour via usatoday.com

Jordan Anderson, Freed Slave who Penned Sarcastic Letter to Old Master After He Was Asked Back to Farm Pictured for 1st Time

By goodblacknews on October 7, 2014

Jordan Anderson
Scathing: Former slave Jordan Anderson wrote a satirical letter in 1865 to his old master after he was asked to return to work for him.

The photograph, scratched and undated, is captioned ‘Brother Jordan Anderson‘. He is a middle-aged black man with a long beard and a righteous stare, as if he were a preacher locking eyes with a sinner, or a judge about to dispatch a thief to the gallows.
Anderson was a former slave who was freed from a Tennessee plantation by Union troops in 1864 and spent his remaining 40 years in Ohio.  He lived quietly and probably would have been forgotten, if not for a remarkable letter to his former master published in a Cincinnati newspaper shortly after the Civil War.

Treasured as a social document, praised as a masterpiece of satire, Anderson’s letter has been anthologized and published all over the world. Historians teach it, and the letter turns up occasionally on a blog or on Facebook.  Humorist Andy Borowitz read the letter recently and called it, in an email to The Associated Press, “something Twain would have been proud to have written.”

Addressed to one Col. Patrick Henry Anderson, who apparently wanted Jordan to come back to the plantation east of Nashville, the letter begins cheerfully, with the former slave expressing relief that ‘you had not forgotten Jordon’ (there are various spellings of the name) and were ‘promising to do better for me than anybody else can’. But, he adds, ‘I have often felt uneasy about you’.
He informs the colonel that he’s now making a respectable wage in Dayton, Ohio, and that his children are going to school.
He tallies the monetary value of his services while on Anderson’s plantation – $11,608 – then adds, ‘we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you.’

Record Number of African-Americans Running For Congress in 2014

By goodblacknews on October 7, 2014

mqdefaultWASHINGTON — A record number of African Americans are running for federal office this year, but their advances in elected office have been met by increased racial polarization in politics, particularly in the Deep South.
According to an analysis by David Bositis, an expert on African-American politics, there are 82 black nominees in the two major parties running in 2014, surpassing the 2012 record of 72 candidates.
Of the 82 candidates running, 64 are Democrats and 18 are Republicans, and all but three are seeking election to the U.S. House.
Two black Democrats, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Joyce Dickerson of South Carolina, and one black Republican, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, are on the ballot for U.S. Senate seats.
Among the candidates are four African-American women who are likely to be new additions to the U.S. House: Democrats Brenda Lawrence of Michigan, Alma Adams of North Carolina, and Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, as well as Republican Mia Love of Utah, who would be the first black Republican woman elected to Congress.

Candidate Brenda Lawrence
Candidate Brenda Lawrence

Currently there are 44 African Americans serving in Congress, and their ranks are forecast to grow in November, which means next January will bring in a Congress with the highest number of blacks serving in U.S. history.
The growth of blacks in Congress has been most notable in the House Democratic Caucus. After the 2012 elections, House Democrats became the first congressional faction in history to be more than half women and minorities. The 2014 election slate suggests that trend will not reverse itself anytime soon.
White men continue to dominate the Republican Party, and white men make up the majority of Senate Democrats.
These milestones are not without downsides, Bositis notes. The nomination of black candidates, particularly in the Deep South, is driven in part by the massive exodus of whites from the Democratic Party ranks, which has fueled more racial polarization than harmony.
“I wish I could write with confidence that these increases in black major party nominees was a positive development, but the fact is that many of the increases are occurring in states (especially in the South) where most whites are withdrawing from Democratic party politics — leaving black candidates the nominations by default,” he wrote.
article by Susan Davis via usatoday.com

R.I.P. Tony-Award Winning Dancer, Actor and Artist Geoffrey Holder

By goodblacknews on October 6, 2014

Geoffrey Holder, the dancer, choreographer, actor, composer, designer and painter who used his manifold talents to infuse the arts with the flavor of his native West Indies and to put a singular stamp on the American cultural scene, not least with his outsize personality, died on Sunday in Manhattan. He was 84.

Charles M. Mirotznik, a spokesman for the family, said the cause was complications of pneumonia. Few cultural figures of the last half of the 20th century were as multifaceted as Mr. Holder, and few had a public presence as unmistakable as his, with his gleaming pate atop a 6-foot-6 frame, full-bodied laugh and bassoon of a voice laced with the lilting cadences of the Caribbean.

Mr. Holder directed a dance troupe from his native Trinidad and Tobago, danced on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera and won Tony Awards in 1975 for direction of a musical and costume design for “The Wiz,” a rollicking, all-black version of “The Wizard of Oz.”

His choreography was in the repertory of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Dance Theater of Harlem. He acted onstage and in films and was an accomplished painter, photographer and sculptor whose works have been shown in galleries and museums. He published a cookbook.

Mr. Holder acknowledged that he achieved his widest celebrity as the jolly, white-suited television pitchman for 7Up in the 1970s and ’80s, when in a run of commercials, always in tropical settings, he happily endorsed the soft-drink as an “absolutely maaarvelous” alternative to Coca-Cola — or “the Un-Cola,” as the ads put it.

Long afterward, white suit or no, he would stop pedestrian traffic and draw stares at restaurants. He even good-naturedly alluded to the TV spots in accepting his Tony for directing, using their signature line “Just try making something like that out of a cola nut.”

Minneapolis Barbershop Fades of Gray Donates Free Haircuts to School Kids

By goodblacknews on October 5, 2014

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l-r: Bilal Saleem, Anthony Clark, Monique Stevenson, Marquita Fox, Mikayla Fox, Julian Gray, Marcus Bennett, Mark Webster. Photos by Mike Madison – Unknown Prophets

Several businesses and education leaders came together to do something for disadvantaged youth.
This was the simple notion for action that came from a conversation during a haircut. The result was a daylong stream of happy and hopeful children, from many cultural backgrounds, with happy and thankful parents in tow.
Fades of Gray barbershop owner Julian Gray, together with his longtime client Kevin Bennett, principal of The F.A.I.R. School in Minneapolis, devised a simple event to give away free haircuts to youth headed back to school. In order to challenge his group of barbers, and have the greatest impact, Gray set a difficult goal of 100 haircuts during the one-day event.
Free backpacks donated by Ameriprise Financial, filled with wooden hair brushes, snacks and coupons were given to each child after their haircut. julian gray and malik harris 3334Fresh from their haircut, children glowed as they took their tickets to claim a free backpack with additional goods and gift cards donated by Fades of Gray, F.A.I.R. School – Downtown, Target, Osseo Public Schools director of Educational Equity, Tony Hudson and Will Walker of Walker Law Offices. Excitedly, some children immediately put on their backpack as they made their way back to mom, dad, or guardian, with new wooden brushes in hand.
“We all know how good it feels to get a haircut. For the kids it’s something simple to set them up so they can learn better. It’s just a way to support them and help them be successful,” said Gray.
Event sponsor Hudson commented on his appreciation taking part in the initiative, saying, “My kids go to F.A.I.R., so I’ve got a good relationship with Kevin. We’re two brothers that try to support each other with our work. And it’s powerful that everybody else here is like that too. Once you have that, it’s just about showing up. Sometimes you just have to keep it simple.”
“We want to let the kids know that we’re Black men who care about you and understand your experience. Just to give the kids a simple pat on the back and say thank you to them, for adding value to the community by showing up and doing their best in school,” said Bennett.
Reflecting, and pointing around the room, Bennett continued, “Most of us can say we grew up in the church and the barbershop. But a couple of boys who came in early this morning were getting their first haircut in a barbershop. It makes an impact on them just by bringing them in to take part in a positive male experience. And it allows us to pay it forward.”

Michael Brown Supporters Interrupt St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Performance with Song and Banners (VIDEO)

By goodblacknews on October 5, 2014

Protestors at a performance of the St. Louis Orchestra display a banner of officer shooting victim, Mike Brown. TheGrio.com
Protestors at a performance of the St. Louis Orchestra display a banner of officer shooting victim, Mike Brown. (YouTube)

Supporters of slain Missouri teen Michael Brown launched a peaceful protest during a St. Louis Symphony Orchestra performance at Powell Symphony Hall.
The October 4 performance was interrupted suddenly when protestors located in the upper balcony unveiled banners—three in total—with written messages and artwork drawn in remembrance of the Ferguson youth fatally shot by a St. Louis police officer. The protest, launched during a performance of “Requiem” by Brahms, caused a minor delay in the orchestra’s performance. Some members of the protest also stood up in the lower seating sections, singing a tribute—set to the original Brahms’ piece—called “A Requiem for Mike Brown,” according to the title of one YouTube video of the event.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDc4Z-ex8sQ&w=560&h=315]
“Justice for Mike Brown,” the protestors can be heard singing in the video taken by one of the audience members, as the video pans towards the balcony, revealing two of the banners. The first is shown saying “Racism Lives Here,” with an arrow pointing to what appears to be a sketch of a city skyline; the second is a sketch of Michael Brown’s face, with “Requiem for Mike Brown” written, along with the dates 1996 – 2014, the years of the 18-year old Brown’s birth and death. The refrain of the protestors’ song was “which side are you on?”
(AP Photo/St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Steve Giegerich)
The video later pans to the third banner, which also features a drawing of the young man’s face, as well as the dates.
A significant portion of the audience can be heard clapping, with some even cheering as the protestors sing the song for approximately a minute and a half. Some audience members however, can be seen with looks of shock and confusion at the sudden and surprising interruption.
After finishing their song, the protestors can be heard chanting “Black lives matter,” before many of them head towards the exits. No arrests were made in the protest, as the demonstrators left of their own accord in peaceful fashion.
The protest follows the continued national controversy surrounding the death of Michael Brown on August 9 in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri.
article via thegrio.com

Report: Black and Latino High School Dropout Rates Hit Record Low

By goodblacknews on October 4, 2014

new orleans graduates
wmr6cszqfjenlvhk7egajl45y0cqrfq6eo9zxedb7ry0ca5ep7dr7qlasq4fhschHere’s some good news you probably won’t read a lot about: Black and Latino students have cut their dropout rates by more than half over the past ten years. Black students have nearly closed the gap with white students with just 8% leaving high school last year.
According to a new Pew Research Center report, these declines have driven the lowest U.S. dropout rate ever recorded, with just 7% of 18- to 24-year-olds leaving school in the last year. Read more from Pew.

This good news raises a lot of interesting questions, namely, why is it so underreported and why does the media put so much attention on the failings of Black youth instead of investigating what interventions have driven the increase in high school graduation.

article by Donovan X. Ramsey via newsone.com

Voter Registration in Ferguson Surges After Brown Killing and Protests

By goodblacknews on October 2, 2014

Residents during the Ferguson city council meeting on September 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Residents during the Ferguson city council meeting on September 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

More than 3,000 people have registered to vote in Ferguson, Mo., since the death of Michael Brown — a surge in interest that may mean the city of 21,000 people is ready for a change.
Since a white police officer shot the unarmed black 18-year-old on Aug. 9, voter registration booths and cards have popped up alongside protests in the city and surrounding neighborhoods. The result: 4,839 people in St. Louis County have registered to vote since the shooting; 3,287 of them live in Ferguson.
The city’s population is two-thirds African American; five of its six city council members are white, as is its mayor. The St. Louis County Election Board does not record the races of eligible voters, but many believe the increase is a sign that Brown’s death has spurred renewed interest in politics and might mean more blacks will vote in the upcoming election.
“It’s a great move when people come out and register in mass like that,” said Anthony Bell, St. Louis 3rd Ward committeeman. “They are sending a signal that we want a change. It doesn’t give justice to the Michael Brown family, but it will in the future give justice to how the administration is run in a local municipality like Ferguson.”
The biggest issue on the ballot Nov. 4 will be the race for county executive of St. Louis County between Republican State Rep. Rick Stream and County Councilman Steve Stenger, a Democrat.
Bell began registering people two days after Brown was shot. He was at Canfield Green Apartments shortly after the teen was killed and watched as his body lay in the street for hours. The experience motivated him to lead a protest the next day and start registering people. He started with a clipboard and later set up a booth a few blocks from the shooting scene.
Rita Days, St. Louis County director of elections, said her office has been fielding calls from individuals and groups asking how to register people to vote. The NAACP, League of Women Voters, sororities and fraternities have taken classes. Others have picked up handfuls of registration cards to encourage people to mail in their registrations.
Registering more than 3,000 people in a month and a half is a significant accomplishment, Days said. She added that the real test will be how many people show up to the polls.
Jonathan Clarke, a writer and columnist for Politics in Color and a longtime St. Louis resident, agrees. “This represents a wake up call,” he said. “The problem so far, hasn’t been, as far as I understand, registration so much as it has been turnout.”
Days said her office, as well as interested organizations, have long stressed the importance of voting to community members. Despite many efforts though, there has been little interest in past elections. During local elections in April, just 1,484 of the 12,096 registered voters in Ferguson cast ballots.
“The apathy regarding voters is rampant in this county,” she said. “I mean if we get 10 or 15 (percent of registered voters to vote), that’s good.”
This time, demonstrators are vowing it will be different.
Community leaders plan to mobilize voters during the upcoming election and ensure that people make it to the polls, said Anthony Shahid, one of the most visible activists who has been protesting in Ferguson since Brown’s death. He hopes volunteers from other cities will help.
“We want to have a big rally,” Shahid said. “You have to get people excited to make people understand that this is history. And it is history — no different than when President Obama came into office.”
For Shahid, the election will test whether anger over Brown’s death will translate into long-term political change.
Keeping up the energy and momentum in driving people to vote is crucial, said David Kimball, a political science professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He expects groups to recruit candidates and to develop strategies to get people to the polls.
For Eric Davis, Brown’s cousin, the election could lead to needed change in local government.
“There is little to no representation of African Americans,” Davis said. “It’s basically a government that is Caucasian that is ruling over a class of African Americans. It’s almost as if it’s apartheid in some ways.”
To vote in the Nov. 4 election, a voter must be registered by Wednesday.
Anthony Gray, an attorney for Michael Brown’s family, said supporters of Michael Brown have the power to make Ferguson’s political leadership more diverse and to force officials to take into account the concerns of black residents.
“It could completely change the political landscape, the power structure, the decision making,” Gray said. “The service to the African American community would almost quadruple because they would be viewed as a credible and legitimate voting block.”
article by Yamiche Alcindor via usatoday.com

Attorney General Eric Holder Announces $124 Million Community Police Hiring Grant

By goodblacknews on September 30, 2014
Eric Holder police

Attorney General Eric Holder (pictured) announced on Monday a $124 million hiring grant in the latest of the Justice Department’s goal to improve the quality of police forces nationwide. Alongside Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Director Ron Davis, the pair enacted the grant in support of strengthening community policing.The grant will fund around 950 officers at 215 law enforcement agencies across the nation. The grant money is especially focused on three key areas: increasing community policing; bolstering crime reduction; and increasing public safety.
Both Holder and Davis issued statements regarding the grant, detailing the finer points and emphasizing its grand goal of supporting officers already in place in these communities as well as new hires by way of securing salary and crime reduction efforts.
From Attorney General Holder:

“These targeted investments will help to address acute needs – such as high rates of violent crime – funding 75 percent of the salary and benefits of every newly-hired or re-hired officer for three full years,” said Attorney General Holder. “The impact of this critical support will extend far beyond the creation and preservation of law enforcement jobs. It will strengthen relationships between these officers and the communities they serve, improve public safety and keep law enforcement officers on the beat.”

From Director Davis:

“The COPS Office is pleased to assist local law enforcement agencies throughout the country in addressing their most critical public safety issues,” said Director Davis. “Funding from this year’s program will allow many cities and counties to focus newly sworn personnel on issues related to violent crime, property crime and school safety.”

Referred to as the COPS Hiring Program, the grants will be awarded to state, local, and also tribal law enforcement agencies to hire or rehire from within the communities they serve. As explained by Holder, up to 75 percent of the entry-level salaries and basic benefits of full-time officers will be funded over a period of 36 months. The local agencies must match a minimum of 25 percent local funds with the federal maximum of funding capped at $125,000 per officer.
Grant award recipients for the 2014 portion of the program were selected for plans they submitted regarding strategies, exhibiting a financial need, and the rates of violent crimes in their communities.
COPS has provided funds to more than 125,000 officers serving 13,000 national agencies to date. It has also funded several organizations over the years with more than 700,000 people receiving training via its programs. Those individuals include government leaders, community organizers, and police officials among others. The COPS program is in its 20th year, providing more than $14 billion in hiring efforts among national agencies.
Learn more about the COPS Hiring Program here.
article by D.L. Chandler via newsone.com

R.I.P. American Book Award-Winning Writer J. California Cooper

By goodblacknews on September 28, 2014
J. California Cooper in 1987. (Credit: Ellen Banner)

J. California Cooper, an award-winning writer whose black female characters confront a world of indifference and betrayal, but find kinship there in unexpected places, died on September 20th in Seattle. She was 82.  A spokesman for Random House, her publisher, confirmed her death. She had had several heart attacks in recent years.

Ms. Cooper won an American Book Award in 1989 for the second of her six story collections, “Homemade Love.” Her short story “Funny Valentines,” about a woman in a troubled marriage who repairs an old rift with a cousin when she moves back home, was turned into a 1999 television movie starring Alfre Woodard and Loretta Devine.

Writing in a vernacular first-person style, Ms. Cooper set her stories in an indeterminate rural past permeated with violence and the ghost of slavery. The African-American women she depicts endure abandonment, betrayal, rape and social invisibility, but they survive.

“Some Soul to Keep” (1987), her third collection, includes over-the-back-fence tales. One story tells of two women who become close friends after one woman’s husband dies and the other’s leaves. They learn that long-lived rumors of their dislike for each other had been fabricated by their husbands. Another story is about a blind girl who is raped by her minister, gives birth to his son and raises him alone because, she explains, he makes her forget she is blind.

Ms. Cooper’s 1991 novel, “Family,” one of five she wrote, is narrated by the ghost of a slave woman who committed suicide before the Civil War and who follows the lives of her descendants as they mingle and procreate in a new interracial world, marveling at how “from one woman all these different colors and nationalities could come into being.”

Ms. Cooper was clear about the religious values that informed her stories. “I’m a Christian,” she told The Washington Post in 2000. “That’s all I am. If it came down to Christianity and writing, I’d let the writing go. God is bigger than a book.”

In an interview on NPR in 2006, she said, “What I’m basically trying to do is help somebody make some right choices.”