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Tennis Greats Venus and Serena Williams Both Advance to Wimbledon Semifinals

By goodblacknews on July 5, 2016

Venus Williams
Venus Williams after beating Yaroslava Shvedova to advance at Wimbledon (July 5, 2016)

article via eurweb.com
Venus Williams was all smiles, and even giggled a little as she defied expectations and earned a spot in the Wimbledon semifinals in London today, beating unseeded 28-year-old Yaroslava Shvedova 7-6 (5), 6-2.

Immediately after her match on Court No. 1, her sister Serena Williams ran through Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in straight-sets 6-4, 6-4 to book her 10th Wimbledon semifinal.
As the announcers have mentioned at every turn, Venus is the eldest player in the tournament at age 36. Advancing to the Wimbledon semis at this age and with her health history is an accomplishment she also acknowledges as special.
“You can’t always have this big moment. If you’re Serena Williams, then I guess that happens a lot, but as Venus Williams this is an awesome day,” Venus said in her post-match interview.
Venus’s next opponent will be No. 4 Angelique Kerber, also a straight-sets winner today over No. 5 Simona Halep 7-5, 7-6 (2).

Serena Williams
Serena Williams (photo via eurweb.com)

Before Venus could take her victory walk off the court, mom Oracene and the family were hustling over to Centre Court to catch the beginning of Serena’s match.  It stayed fairly even through the first eight games, with no break points earned. Then Williams broke Pavlyuchenkova at 4-4 in the 2nd, and served out the match with ease.
“It’s good, I’m excited to get through. It felt really good,” she said after the match. Asked when she learned during warmups that Venus had won, Serena said: “I knew Venus was up, and then they showed the [final] score, and I was like: yay!”
On possibly facing Venus in the finals, Serena says they’re not even discussing that scenario. “We’re actually playing doubles today, and regardless, we’re just happy to play in the semi-finals. Obviously I want her to win so bad. I desperately want her to win if I’m not there [in the final].”
Serena moves one step closer to step closer to tying Steffi Graf’s open era record of 22 grand slam titles. Her next opponent will be Russia’s Elena Vesnin.
Read more at http://www.eurweb.com/2016/07/venus-serena-williams-advance-wimbledon-semifinals/#xCCkWiwM3jcEDGRU.99

Beverly Bond, Founder of Black Girls Rock!, to Write Book Celebrating Black Women

By goodblacknews on July 2, 2016
article by Isabella Biedenharn ( via ew.com
Beverly Bond, founder of the annual Black Girls Rock! awards show, which airs each year on BET, will publish a book with Atria Publishing Group imprint 37 INK, EW can announce exclusively. The book is slated for a Fall 2017 publication.
Black Girls Rock!: Celebrating the Power, Beauty and Brilliance of Black Women will, according to a release, “combine powerful photography with inspirational advice, original poetry, and affirmations to showcase the complexity, dynamism, achievements and diverse cultural traditions of Black women from around the world.”
Says Bond in a statement, “This book will affirm, elevate, and celebrate the unique narratives and rich experiences of Black women and girls around the world for generations to come.”
“Beverly is a real visionary who has created not just an award show, not just a brand but an inspirational and aspirational mantra that holistically celebrates Black Girl Magic,” says 37 INK publisher Dawn Davis. “From millennials to baby boomers and beyond, her book is going to help our communities affirm and heal. I think of it as an I Dream a World for our time.”
The most recent Black Girls Rock! award show celebrated its 10th anniversary when it aired on BET April 5, hosted by Tracee Ellis Ross of Black-ish. 

Black Girls Code Gets New $2.8M Space Inside Google’s New York Headquarters

By goodblacknews on July 1, 2016

(Photo via blackgirlscode.com)
(Photo via blackgirlscode.com)

article by Tanisia Kenney via atlantablackstar.com
Black women in the tech industry are few and far between. It’s an even more daunting task to get young girls of color interested in STEM, let alone present them with the opportunity to learn skills like coding and computing.
Earlier this year, the National Association for Women & Information Technology reported that Black women comprised a measly 3 percent of the technology workforce in 2015. An even smaller percentage — .04 to be exact — of tech startups were led by African-American women, according to #ProjectDiane.
In an effort to bridge this longstanding race gap and foster diversity in the tech industry, search giant Google is providing space at its New York headquarters to house a blooming non-profit dedicated to teaching young girls of color how to code.
Google and Black Girls Code have teamed up to launch a sprawling 3,000-square-foot work space at the company’s Manhattan office, CNet reports. The tech giant purchased the building in 2010, which will now serve as the new home of Black Girls Code.
Valued at nearly $2.8 million, the new space will be used to introduce students of color to the world of technology, inspiring them to possibly pursue a career in tech. The non-profit also hopes to tap into Google’s mentorship and internship opportunities.
With Black Girls Code housed at its headquarters, the space also gives Google access to fresh talent.
“We need a tech sector that looks like the society it serves, and groups like Black Girls Code are ensuring that we can cultivate and access talent in communities of color,” said William Floyd, Google’s head of external affairs.
According to Kimberly Bryant, founder and CEO of Black Girls Code, Google has hosted a number of student workshops at its New York office in the past. Their new partnership will allow the non-profit to have a permanent work space at the company, CNet reports.
“They’re able to influence these girls that Google is a company they might want to come work for once they graduate,” Bryant said.
Being a computer programmer herself, Bryant launched Black Girls Code in 2011 with the hope of providing young and adolescent girls of color the opportunity to learn technology and computer programming skills.
“That, really, is the Black Girls Code mission: to introduce programming and technology to a new generation of coders, coders who will become builders of technological innovation and of their own futures,” the company’s website states.
Serving as the non-profit’s first New York office, the space will double as a classroom and an outpost for its East Coast programs, according to Fortune.
The great thing about the Google/Black Girls Code partnership is that it’s mutually beneficial: the non-profit will have access to Google’s resources, while the tech giant will have the opportunity to foster talent from a group of young Black women.
To read more, go to: http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/06/29/non-profit-black-girls-code-gets-new-home-googles-new-york-office/
 

Idris Elba, Vivica A. Fox, Ice Cube Among 683 Invited to Join Movie Academy — the Largest, Most Diverse Class Ever

By goodblacknews on July 1, 2016
One of the most exclusive clubs in the world just got a whole lot bigger.
In the latest and most dramatic step by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to diversify the overwhelmingly white and male institution, 683 industry professionals were invited Wednesday to join the nearly 90-year-old organization.
The group of invitees, which included Idris Elba, Brie Larson, John Boyega, America Ferrera, Michael B. Jordan and Chadwick Boseman, was touted as the academy’s largest and most diverse new class ever, more than double the 322 members invited last year.
The academy’s expansion is part of a diversity push that took on heightened urgency this year in the #OscarsSoWhite uproar, which reached a fever pitch in the run-up to this year’s awards telecast.
In January, facing blistering criticism over the lack of nominations for any actors of color for the second year in a row, academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced sweeping changes aimed at doubling the number of women and minorities — then about 1,500 and 535, respectively — in the academy’s ranks by 2020. “The academy is going to lead and not wait for the industry to catch up,” Boone Isaacs said in a statement announcing the new initiative.
In an interview following Wednesday’s announcement, Boone Isaacs said that the large and diverse class is the result a concerted campaign to show that the academy is opening its arms to groups that have been underrepresented.
“What we found is that, as much we tried to get the information out there, it wasn’t penetrating in a way that we wanted it to,” Boone Isaacs said. “So we’ve asked all our members to be the ambassadors and pay attention to men and women who have particular skill levels in their area of expertise and get them encouraged and tell us their names so that we can make sure and reach out and connect.”
According to the academy’s figures, the new class is 46% female, bringing the representation of women in the organization from 25% to 27%. Forty-one percent of the invitees are people of color, bringing minorities’ share of total academy membership from 8% to 11%.
Other  names on the list include actors Emma Watson, Tina Fey, Oscar Isaac, Tom Hiddleston and Ice Cube and directors Ryan Coogler, Julie Dash, Adam McKay and Patty Jenkins.
To read more, go to: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-et-mn-new-academy-members-20160629-snap-story.html

14 Year-Old Tayloni Mazyck, Paralyzed in Brooklyn Gang Shooting, Inspires at her Middle School Graduation

By goodblacknews on June 30, 2016
Tayloni Mazyck getting her diploma at her graduation from New Design Middle School .She was paralyzed in 2013 when hit by a bullet during a gang war shoot out in Brooklyn.
Tayloni Mazyck getting her diploma at her graduation from New Design Middle School .She was paralyzed in 2013 when hit by a bullet during a gang war shoot out in Brooklyn. (MICHAEL SCHWARTZ/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

FEATURE: Atop the Gymnastics World, National Champion Simone Biles Can’t Suppress Her Grin

By goodblacknews on June 28, 2016

Simone Biles smiled nearly the whole way through her floor exercise on both days of the United States women’s gymnastics championships in St. Louis. (Credit: Jeff Roberson/Associated Press)

article by Juliet Macur via nytimes.com

ST. LOUIS — At the end of the United States women’s gymnastics championships here on Sunday night, so many gold medals hung around Simone Biles’s neck that when she walked, they clinked so loudly it made her giggle. A few times, she grabbed her medals to silence them and laughed yet again.

“I always have so much fun,” Biles said later, after she had won her fourth straight national title in the all-around event and gold medals in three of the four individual events. The last time a woman had won a fourth consecutive national title in the all-around was 42 years ago.

“People think you have to be serious to do a good job,” she said. “But I think if you’re having fun, you can do better. You can look back someday and say, wow, I had a good time instead of being so stressed out.”

That’s easier said than done in elite gymnastics, a sport that can be a dangerous endeavor. One slip could break bones or tear ligaments, or possibly something worse. But this happy-go-lucky attitude in a grueling, often solemn sport works for Biles, the three-time defending world champion in the all-around. And it makes perfect sense that it works.

After all, it’s fun to compete when you win and win and when the word around the sport is that you’re the best gymnast ever. Mary Lou Retton, the Olympic gold medalist in the all-around in 1984, has called Biles the top gymnast in history. Nastia Liukin, the Olympic gold medalist in 2008, has said that Biles is a lock for the gold medal at the Rio Games in August and that the real competition is for second place.

During the two-day national championships here, which were a warm-up for next month’s Olympic trials in San Jose, Calif., Martha Karolyi, the women’s national team coordinator, watched Biles’s routines closely — often with eyes opened extra wide.

After several of Biles’s big performances — and nearly all of them were big performances — Karolyi said, “Wow!” It was a substantial reaction from a woman who is the opposite of effusive: She gave two slow claps to Gabrielle Douglas’s floor exercise on Sunday, and Douglas is the reigning Olympic champion in the all-around.

Samuel L. Jackson to Receive Britannia Awards Honor this Fall

By goodblacknews on June 28, 2016
'The Legend of Tarzan' film premiere, Los Angeles, USA - 27 Jun 2016
Samuel L. Jackson (Rex/Shutterstock)

article by Erik Pedersen via deadline.com

BAFTA Los Angeles said today that Samuel L. Jackson will receive its Albert R. Broccoli Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Entertainment at the British Academy Britannia Awards in the fall.

Jackson has appeared in more than 100 films, scoring a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for 1994’s Pulp Fiction. He has been a regular in Quentin Tarantino films, including Jackie Brown,  Kill Bill Vol. 2 and more recently The Hateful Eight and Django Unchained.
Jackson’s credits also range from Spike Lee’s School Daze and Do the Right Thing to such blockbusters as Jurassic Park, the second Star Wars trilogy and the Avengers franchise. He next appears in The Legend of Tarzan and has roles in several upcoming pics including The Hitman’s Bodyguard, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage and Kong: Skull Island.

Filmmaker Nate Parker to Receive Sundance Institute’s Vanguard Award For ‘Birth Of A Nation'

By goodblacknews on June 28, 2016

The Birth of a Nation
Filmmaker Nate Parker as Nat Turner in upcoming film “The Birth of a Nation” (photo via deadline.com)

article by Erik Pedersen via deadline.com

The Birth of a Nation was the talk of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and now the nonprofit behind the annual Park City event is celebrating the pic’s director-star. The Sundance Institute said today that Nate Parker will receive its Vanguard Award.
Parker, who also wrote the screenplay, will be honored August 11 at Night Before Next, a summer celebration benefiting the Institute and its artists on the eve of Sundance Next Fest at the Theatre at Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

The Birth of a Nation, which Fox Searchlight acquired for a festival-record $17.5M at Sundance, centers on Nat Turner (Parker), a literate, enslaved man and preacher whose financially strapped owner (Armie Hammer) accepts an offer to use Nat’s preaching to subdue unruly slaves.  As he witnesses countless atrocities — against himself and his fellow slaves — Turner orchestrates an uprising in the hope of leading his people to freedom. The film also stars Jackie Earle Haley, Gabrielle Union, Penelope Ann Miller, Aunjanue Ellis, Mark Boone Junior and Aja Naomi King.
Fox Searchlight opens the films in the awards-season sweet spot of October 7.

Professors Estella Atekwana and Nikki Giovanni Honored With Major Awards

By goodblacknews on June 27, 2016

Estella_Atekwana
Estella Atekwana (photo via africanaokstate.edu)

article via jbhe.com
Estella Atekwana, Regents Professor and director of the Boone Pickens School of Geology at Oklahoma State University, received the Outstanding Educator Award from the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. Professor Atekwana joined the faculty at Oklahoma State in 2008.
Dr. Atekwana holds bachelor’s and master’s degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C. She earned a Ph.D. at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Nikki Giovanni (photo via kholioli.org)
Nikki Giovanni (photo via kholioli.com)

 
Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor of English in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech, has been selected to receive the 2016 Literary Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia.
She is the author of many collections of poetry, children’s books, and works of nonfiction. Professor Giovanni will be honored at ceremonies in Richmond in October. Past winners of this award include Edgar Allan Poe, Tom Wolfe, Booker T. Washington, and John Grisham.
Professor Giovanni has been teaching at Virginia Tech since 1987.  She is a graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.

No Charges? UNACCEPTABLE: Texas Family to Sue After No Indictment of Police Officer in Pool Attack On Teens

By goodblacknews on June 27, 2016


article via newsone.com
The family of 15-year-old Dajerria Becton plans to pursue a civil lawsuit against former McKinney, Texas police officer Eric Casebolt for slamming her to the ground during a pool party.
A grand jury decided last week not to indict Casebolt, saying there was not enough evidence of criminal wrongdoing, despite the video showing the former officer slamming and sitting on the young woman and even drawing his gun on two other teenagers who attempted to help her.
Casebolt resigned from his position in the McKinney Police Department four days after the altercation took place at a pool party in 2015.
mckinney-texas
On Monday’s edition of NewsOne Now, Becton family attorney Kim Cole spoke with guest host Avis Jones-DeWeeverabout the lawsuit against Casebolt and the McKinney Police Department, and addressed Becton’s condition since she was brutally assaulted by the former cop.
The charges filed include assault, battery, unlawful detention, and infliction of emotional distress.
Cole considers their chances of receiving justice through a civil suit greater than criminal litigation, “because the standard of proof is lower than of a criminal case.” She also emphasized the effect of the jury pool’s impact on receiving justice in cases involving police misconduct and said, “I think that is problematic in a lot of cases across the U.S. as well…The jury pools are rarely diverse.” 
Cole said the McKinney case is “indicative of a much larger problem in this country.”
When asked how Becton is doing, Cole said, “Physically, she has healed,” and then added, “she is struggling emotionally … with all of this being back in the media again it’s difficult, it’s tough for her.”
Cole concluded, “This is something that will follow her for the rest of her life.”
Source: Texas Family To Sue After No Indictment In Pool Attack On Teens | News One