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GBN Giveaway: “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day® Calendar 2022 – Congratulations to the 1st Winner!

GBN Giveaway: “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day® Calendar 2022 – Congratulations to the 1st Winner!

By goodblacknews on October 12, 2021

In celebration of today’s official release of our “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day® Calendar for 2022 in stores and online, as promised GBN has selected the first winner of a free copy.

Congratulations to Daphne Gervais! We will be contacting you shortly via email to arrange delivery of your free calendar.

Thank you to all who have entered so far – and you are still in the running as we will continue to announce one winner a month until January 2022. To those who have yet to enter – it’s not too late!

For a chance to win, send your name and email address with the subject heading “A Year of Good Black News Giveaway” to goodblacknewsgiveaways@yahoo.com from now until December 31.  One entry per email, and we will continue to choose at random one winner per month and announce their names here.

Already the #1 new release in Multicultural Calendars on Amazon, A Year of Good Black News is filled with facts, history, bios, quotes, jokes and trivia in easy-to-read entries delivered on the daily.

If you want to buy copies for gifts to family, friends, teachers or loved ones, you can order using code: GOODBLACKNEWS at Workman.com from now until December 31 and receive 20% off.

Or, if you prefer, you can also order from the retailers below:

Bookshop: https://www.bookshop.org/a/368/9781523514298

IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781523514298?aff=workmanpub

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/9781523514298

Books-A-Million: http://www.booksamillion.com/p/9781523514298

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1523514299?tag=workmanweb-20

Onward and upward… and good luck!

(paid links)

Maya Angelou to Appear on U.S. Quarter as Part of the 2022 American Women Series

Maya Angelou to Appear on U.S. Quarter as Part of the 2022 American Women Series

By goodblacknews on October 11, 2021

The Maya Angelou Quarter will be the first coin to be issued from in the American Women Quarters™ Program in 2022.

Other women being honored in the series include Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, Nina Otero-Warren, a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools, Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood and Dr. Sally Ride, physicist, astronaut, educator, and the first American woman in space.

Each woman will appear on the reverse (tails) side of the quarter, with George Washington’s image remaining on the obverse (heads) side of the coin.

A celebrated writer, performer, and social activist, Maya Angelou rose to international prominence  after the publication of her groundbreaking 1969 autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Angelou’s published works of verse, non-fiction, and fiction include more than 30 bestselling titles.

Angelou’s remarkable career encompasses dance, theater, journalism, and social activism. She appeared in Broadway and off-Broadway plays, including Cabaret for Freedom, which she wrote with Godfrey Cambridge.

At the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Angelou served as northern coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.Angelou read “On the Pulse of Morning” at the 1992 inauguration of President Clinton. Angelou’s reading marked the first time an African American woman wrote and presented a poem at a presidential inauguration.

Angelou received more than 30 honorary degrees and was inducted into the Wake Forest University Hall of Fame for Writers. In 2010, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

She was also the 2013 recipient of the Literarian Award, an honorary National Book Award for contributions to the literary community.

(paid amazon links)

MUSIC MONDAY: “Mind Playing Tricks” – a Soulful Halloween Collection for 2021 (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: “Mind Playing Tricks” – a Soulful Halloween Collection for 2021 (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on October 11, 2021

by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

“I walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire / I got a cobra snake for a necktie / A brand new house on the roadside / and it’s a-made out of rattlesnake hide / Got a brand new chimney put on top / and it’s a-made outta human skull / I’ve got a tombstone hand and a graveyard mind / I’m just twenty-two and I don’t mind dying.”

Just a few lyrics from Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love” that go a long way towards illustrating the nature of the Halloween collection. Of course, there’s Screamin Jay Hawkins and Lambert, Hendricks and Ross vocalizing overt spooky tales.

Though there are many tracks in this collection that simply reference dark imagery to warn of the perils of romantic love, and make social commentary.

Geto Boys, Brittany Howard, Funkadelic, and others all are here to tell of real-world horrors. While Alice Smith is present with an umpteenth version of “I Put A Spell On You,”  and sista manages to transform it into a statement all her own.

There are several versions of  St. Louis true folktale “Stagger Lee.” You can bet there are songs aplenty of about vampires, ghosts, and zombies too. More chills to come next week.

Until such time, stay safe, sane, and kind.

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)
East African Novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah Wins 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature

East African Novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah Wins 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature

By goodblacknews on October 8, 2021

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2021 was awarded to novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents,” according to the Swedish Academy.

He is the first Black writer to win in the Literature category since Toni Morrison in 1993.Gurnah was born in 1948 and grew up on the island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean but arrived in England as a refugee in the end of the 1960s.

He has published ten novels, including Gravel Heart (2017), 1994’s Paradise, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and a number of short stories. The theme of the refugee’s disruption runs throughout his work.

The award comes with more than $1 million in prize money.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/07/1043436576/nobel-prize-literature-2021

GBN Giveaway: Enter For Chance to Win Free “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day® Calendar for 2022!

GBN Giveaway: Enter For Chance to Win Free “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day® Calendar for 2022!

By goodblacknews on October 5, 2021

Good Black News, in collaboration with Workman Publishing, is getting into the holiday spirit early — by giving away copies of our “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day® Calendar for 2022!

A Year of Good Black News is filled with facts, history, bios, quotes, jokes and trivia in easy-to-read entries delivered on the daily, and GBN will be announcing one winner a month until January 2022.

To enter for a chance to win, send your name and email address with the subject heading “A Year of Good Black News Giveaway” to goodblacknewsgiveaways@yahoo.com from now until December 31.  One entry per email, and we will choose at random one winner per month and announce their names here.

As the calendar’s official drop date is next Tuesday, October 12, that’s when we will announce the first winner.

In case you can’t wait to see if you’re the lucky winner or want to buy copies for gifts to family, friends or loved ones, you can order at Workman.com using code: GOODBLACKNEWS from now until December 31, you will receive 20% off.

Onward and upward… and good luck!

MUSIC MONDAY: “Strange Things” – a Halloween Collection of Reggae (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: “Strange Things” – a Halloween Collection of Reggae (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on October 4, 2021

by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

Happy first Monday of October! It’s your friend and selector, Marlon, back with another GBN offering.

‘Tis the season again. Halloween season, that is. Here’s the first of four October offerings. “Strange Things” is a collection of reggae, ska, and calypso hand-picked for this time of year.

This ain’t the collection to scare kids off your porch with. Though it is almost certain to make you (and them) move. Here’s a casket of new and classic reggae trucking in duppies, ghosts, vampires, zombies, and other undead creatures.

It’s scary, just how many reggae tunes there are that fall into this ghoulish category once you start, wait for it… digging.

Dad jokes aside, this playlist gathers tracks dealing with monsters and devils from the earliest ‘60s rocksteady to today’s reggaeton. More Halloween season tunes to follow next week.

Until then, stay safe, sane, and kind.

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)
Ibram X. Kendi, Jordan Casteel, Desmond Meade Among 2021 MacArthur “Genius” Fellows Awarded $625K Grant

Ibram X. Kendi, Jordan Casteel, Desmond Meade Among 2021 MacArthur “Genius” Fellows Awarded $625K Grant

By goodblacknews on October 2, 2021

Every year, the MacArthur Fellows Program awards its recipients a $625,000 “no strings attached” grant, an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential so they may continue to “exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society.”

In 2021, 12 of the 25 “geniuses” that have been selected and were announced this week identify as Black.

Among them are historian Ibram X. Kendi, who founded and directs the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University as well as wrote the best-selling books How to Be an Anti-Racist (2019) and Stamped From The Beginning (2016), and civil rights activist Desmond Meade who helped strike down restrictive voting laws for formerly incarcerated citizens in Florida.

Artist Jordan Casteel, internet studies and digital media scholar Safiya Noble, biological physicist Ibrahim Cissé, art historian and curator Nicole Fleetwood, film scholar, archivist and curator Jacqueline Stewart, and choreographer and dance entrepreneur Jawole Willa Jo Zollar are among the other 2021 MacArthur Fellows.

A full list (in alphabetical order) of the Black fellows and summaries of their work follow below:

Hanif Abdurraqib is a music critic, essayist, and poet using the lens of popular music to examine the broader culture that produces and consumes it. Many of the essays in Abdurraqib’s first collection, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us (2017), grew out of reviews and articles he wrote while a journalist; taken together, they form a deeply personal consideration of self-identity and the continued suffering inflicted on Black bodies at the hands of police and others. For example, he writes about attending a Bruce Springsteen concert days after visiting a memorial for Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, and struggling to reconcile his technical appreciation of the music with the racialized and gendered stories told by the lyrics.In his book Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest (2019), Abdurraqib traces the three-decade history of the pioneering hip-hop group and its impact within the larger hip-hop movement. He writes with clear affection for the group, and his assessment of the social and political atmosphere in which it operated includes reflections on how those same forces shaped his childhood and his experience of the music.

Abdurraqib delves more deeply into historical research for his most recent book, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance (2021). His thought-provoking observations on key artists and cultural moments in music, film, dance, and comedy—ranging from William Henry Lane, a nineteenth-century minstrel dancer who performed for White audiences in blackface, to Beyoncé’s 2016 Super Bowl appearance and the dance and music television show Soul Train—form a focused analysis of Blackness and a celebration of Black identity.

New York City Public School District to Implement Black Studies Program for All Students in Grades K-12

New York City Public School District to Implement Black Studies Program for All Students in Grades K-12

By goodblacknews on September 30, 2021

The New York city school district announced a groundbreaking curriculum change yesterday to teach all children in grades K-12 in all five boroughs about the history and contributions of Black Americans, according to abc7ny.com.

The initiative will teach children about the early African civilizations, the Black experience in America and the contributions and accomplishments and contributions of the African diaspora.

To quote abc7ny.com:

“It was not until I stepped foot onto the campus of Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, a historically black all women’s college, that I gained that deeper knowledge — not just the beginning of slavery in America,” said  City Council Member Adrienne Adams, co-chair of the Black Latino and Asian Caucus.

The BLAC secured $10 million in next year’s budget for the program. That money will go to a handful of organizations including the Black Education Research Collective at Columbia University and the Eagle Academy Foundation who will help craft the curriculum.

“In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the ensuing social unrest, and the calls for racial justice that followed the need for a systemic approach to cultivate a better a deeper appreciation of the contributions of black people within New York City Schools was more pressing than ever,” said Jawana Johnson with the Eagle Academy Foundation.

“I am so proud to be a chancellor who ushered our children back into school, but what I know is in ushering them back, they have to see and experience themselves every single day in the curriculum,” said Chancellor Meisha Porter.

The program is expected to be implemented next year.

Read more: https://abc7ny.com/amp/nyc-public-schools-black-studies-americans-african/11061658/

[Photo via video screen capture at abc7ny.com]

MUSIC MONDAY: “Nightbird, Fly” – a Sarah Dash Tribute Playlist (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: “Nightbird, Fly” – a Sarah Dash Tribute Playlist (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on September 27, 2021

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

On this week’s Music Monday playlist, “Sarah Dash: Nightbird, Fly,” we take a closer look at the musical career of the late Sarah Dash, most known as one third of the pioneering rock/soul trio LaBelle.  Sarah passed away early last week at the age of 76.

Six decades ago, at a time when young musical acts still formed from local friends getting together instead of backstage at the Disney Channel, Sarah and Nona Hendryx were two members of the Trenton, NJ-based Del-Capris.  They soon paired up with Patricia Holte and Cindy Birdsong from across the river, who were part of the Philly-based Ordettes. And Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles were soon born.

This traditional 1960s girl group survived the decade touring the chitlin circuit, becoming favorite live performers (nicknamed The Sweethearts of the Apollo) even if their string of mid-60s Atlantic Records singles was commercially unremarkable amid competition backed by powerhouses like Motown, Stax, and Phil Spector.

When Birdsong left the group to take Florence Ballard’s spot in The Supremes, and as Aretha Franklin took up residence as Atlantic’s reigning diva, it’s a wonder the group survived.

But the remaining trio’s inescapable singing talents were recognized in the United Kingdom – where the British rock music community often championed the Black artists and sounds that had provided rock’s roots. They connected with British music manager Vicki Wickham (known for her work with Dusty Springfield), and were soon re-invented as LaBelle.

As if to symbolically transition from their ‘60s sound to their new world, among their first projects was a 1971 collaboration with legendary folk rock singer/songwriter Laura Nyro on the album Gonna Take A Miracle. On it they offered prominent backing vocals for Nyro’s tribute to the hits of ‘60s soul, kissing goodbye the sounds of their past.

Way ahead of their time, Labelle were by the early ‘70s three Black women performing funk-infused rock music, trading their matching dresses and wigs first for jeans and afros, but later for futuristic space outfits of silver and feathers. (Costume designer Larry Legaspi later went on to design the costumes for the group KISS.)

They were no longer playing the chitlin’ circuit – now they were opening for The Who (The Who’s manager Kit Lambert actually produced Labelle’s first album as a trio). They even became the first Black female group on the cover of Rolling Stone. They were Afro-punk – decades before that phrase existed.

Artist Kerry James Marshall to Create Racial Justice-Themed Stained Glass Art for Washington National Cathedral to Replace Confederate Iconography

Artist Kerry James Marshall to Create Racial Justice-Themed Stained Glass Art for Washington National Cathedral to Replace Confederate Iconography

By goodblacknews on September 25, 2021

Washington National Cathedral recently announced it will replace its stained-glass windows that formerly featured Confederate iconography (removed in 2017) with racial-justice themed windows created by world-renowned artist Kerry James Marshall.

The Cathedral’s commission represents Marshall’s first time working with stained-glass as a medium, and the windows are expected to be his first permanent public exhibition anywhere in the country. 

In addition, celebrated poet, author, and scholar Dr. Elizabeth Alexander has agreed to create a new poem that will be inscribed in stone tablets alongside Marshall’s window installation, overlaying the previous stone tablets which venerated the lives of Confederate soldiers.

Completion of both Marshall’s new windows and the stone tablets featuring Dr. Alexander’s new poem is expected in 2023, at which time they will be permanently installed at the Cathedral.  

Dr. Elizabeth Alexander (photo via elizabethalexander.net)

The Cathedral removed windows featuring Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson – which were located along the southern face of its nave, or its main worship space – in September 2017, following the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In the summer of 2020, amid the historic movement for racial justice following the police killing of George Floyd, the Cathedral began collaborating with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to plan the public exhibition of the Robert E. Lee window. 

“For nearly 70 years, these windows and their Confederate imagery told an incomplete story; they celebrated two generals, but they did nothing to address the reality and painful legacy of America’s original sin of slavery and racism. They represented a false narrative of what America once was and left out the painful truth of our history,” said The Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral.

“We’re excited to share a new and more complete story, to tell the truth about our past and to lift up who we aspire to be as a nation.”   

Marshall—the artist and professor whose paintings depicting Black life in America have been sold, viewed, and showcased across the world for decades—will design the stained-glass windows that will replace the Lee/Jackson windows.