Visitors to the United Nations headquarters in New York will get a powerful reminder of the brutality of the transatlantic slave trade and its enormous impact on world history through a visually stunning new memorial that was unveiled last week in a solemn ceremony.
There were speeches intended to touch the emotionality of a system that operated for hundreds of years, killing an estimated 15 million African men, women and children and sending millions more into the jaws of a vicious system of plantation slavery in the Americas.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called slavery “a stain on human history.”
U.N. General Assembly President Sam Kutesa said slavery remained one of the “darkest and most abhorrent chapters” in world history.
It was only fitting that the ceremony take place at a site surrounded by the looming skyscrapers of New York. Slavery was the economic engine upon which American capitalism was built, providing the seed money for United States businesses to create the most vibrant economic system in the world. The enslaved Black person (whose gender is purposely vague to represent men, women and children) lying inside the dramatically shaped marble memorial, which is called The Ark of Return, is a symbol of the millions whose deaths led to the building of those skyscrapers, the visual emblems of American capitalism’s enormous financial windfall for the white beneficiaries of slavery and their descendants.
During his speech unveiling the memorial, Ban Ki-moon spoke directly to Black people in the Americas and the Caribbean who are descended from the enslaved Black people who were sacrificed.
Good Black News
When I saw this morning via Twitter that President Barack Obama had recorded a video message wishing all Americans a happy holiday weekend (Easter, Passover, or whatever you choose to celebrate), I was excited about posting it. When I started watching it however, I was concerned about the lack of separation of church and state in the President’s speech.
While I support his right to acknowledge his personal affiliation with Christianity, I was hoping for a more universal message from this very diverse nation’s leader. Fortunately that finally came about 1:30 into the video, so I am quoting that as the message we here at GBN want to promote and amplify this Easter as it is inclusive of everyone:
Easter is a day of hope. A season of hope. It’s a re-affirmaton of our beliefs… as Americans that better days are always ahead of us. Whether we’re Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu or Buddhist, whether faith and God shapes our daily lives completely or not at all, we believe with common effort and shared sacrifice, a brighter future is just around the bend. And we embrace our obligation to do something meaningful, something lasting, with the precious time we’ve been alloted on this Earth.
To see Obama’s message in its entirety, play it below.
Happy Easter!
Lori Lakin Hutcherson, GBN Founder and Editor-in-Chief
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsOLd_2OitQ&w=560&h=315]
Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Thursday said that the Rev. Leah D. Daughtry will serve as chief executive officer of the Democratic National Convention Committee in 2016.
Daughtry, 52, who splits time between Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, New York, served in the position in 2008 in Denver, Colorado, when Barack Obama was elected the first African-American president of the United States.
“We are thrilled to have Leah Daughtry return to lead our convention team. She will bring so much expertise and enthusiasm to this important event,” Wasserman Schultz said in a prepared statement.
Daughter of activist and pastor the Rev. Herbert Daughtry of the House of the Lord Church, Daughtry works as a minister herself in Washington.
She also has strong roots in the Democratic Party, holding various senior posts at the United States Department of Labor during the Clinton administration, including senior advisor to the secretary, chief of staff, and lastly, acting assistant secretary for Administration and Management, with oversight for the development of the Department’s management programs and policies, including responsibility for the Department’s $35 billion budget, according to a bio at Harvard University Institute of Politics, where she served as a fellow in 2009.
A knee injury and the end of her boycott at Indian Wells drew headlines when Serena Williams returned to the BNP Paribas Open weeks ago. After knee inflammation forced her to withdraw from Indian Wells, Williams returned and dominated Carla Suarez Navarro 6-2, 6-0 in the final of the Miami Open. The victory not only marked Williams’ eighth Key Biscayne title, but it maintains her undefeated streak in 2015.
The eight victories in Key Biscayne makes Serena Williams only the fourth woman to win a WTA event eight times. With a record of 18-0, Williams has claimed her 19th Grand Slam championship and her twelfth consecutive final.
Saturday afternoon’s victory also improves Williams’ record against Carla Suarez Navarro to 5-0, and Serena has a lifetime record of 73-7 at Key Biscayne.
article by Omar Burgess via theurbandaily.com
Anthony Ray Hinton walked out of prison a free man Friday after nearly 30 years on Alabama’s death row. He stepped into the sunshine, praised God and thanked his lawyers, according to CNN.
Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Laura Petro on Thursday dismissed the case against the 58-year-old man. One day earlier, prosecutors told the judge that they couldn’t link the bullets from the crime scene to Hinton, who always asserted his innocence in the 1985 murders of two men.
“All they had to do was to test the gun,” Hinton exclaimed to reporters, “but when you think you’re high and mighty and you’re above the law, you don’t have to answer to nobody.”
Hinton’s attorneys had long said that their client was another wrongfully convicted black man who faced a death sentence.
“Race, poverty, inadequate legal assistance and prosecutorial indifference to innocence conspired to create a textbook example of injustice,” said Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Rights Initiative and Hinton’s lead attorney, according to CNN. “I can’t think of a case that more urgently dramatizes the need for reform than what has happened to Anthony Ray Hinton.”
Prosecutors won a conviction even though there were no eyewitnesses, fingerprints or other physical evidence linking Hinton to the murder of two restaurant workers during a robbery.
Bullets at the crime scene had questionable links to a gun found in Hinton’s home. But tests raised doubts about whether the bullets were fired from that gun and, in fact, whether they were all fired from the same weapon.
Queen Latifah stars as legendary blues singer Bessie Smith in the HBO Films drama “Bessie,” which is directed by Dee Rees, from a screenplay written by Rees, Christopher Cleveland & Bettina Gilois.
With a story by Rees and Horton Foote, the film focuses on Smith’s transformation from a struggling young singer into “The Empress of the Blues,” one of the most successful recording artists of the 1920s.
HBO has announced its movie will debut on Saturday, May 16 at 8PM.
The cast includes Michael Kenneth Williams as Bessie’s husband, Jack; Khandi Alexander as Bessie’s older sister, Viola; Mike Epps as Richard, a bootlegger and romantic interest; Tika Sumpter as Lucille, a performer and romantic interest; Tory Kittles as Bessie’s older brother, Clarence; Oliver Platt as famed photographer and writer Carl Van Vechten; Bryan Greenberg as renowned record producer and music critic John Hammond; with Charles S. Dutton as Ma Rainey’s husband, William “Pa” Rainey; and Mo’Nique as blues legend Ma Rainey.
The film will offer an intimate look at the determined woman whose immense talent and love for music took her from anonymity in the rough-and-tumble world of vaudeville to the 1920s blues scene and international fame, capturing her professional highs and personal lows, and ultimate legend.
Described by HBO as a labor of love for the filmmakers, “Bessie” has been 22 years in the making. The first draft was written by playwright Horton Foote. Queen Latifah was approached by producers Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck to take on the role of Bessie when she was just launching her acting career. She eventually came on board as an executive producer, along with producing partner Shakim Compere.
Director Dee Rees caught HBO’s attention with the buzz around her award-winning film, “Pariah.”
Says Latifah, “I have been excited about this project since the very beginning. When HBO got involved, we were thrilled and we worked together to make something that would capture Bessie’s life honestly and respectfully.”
Watch the telepic’s first full-length trailer below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FhmzwXfgz8&w=560&h=315]
original article by Tambay A. Obenson via blogs.indiewire.com
Deval L. Patrick, who recently concluded two terms as the 71st governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, will be the principal speaker at the Afternoon Exercises of Harvard’s 364th Commencement on May 28.
“Deval Patrick is an extraordinarily distinguished alumnus, a deeply dedicated public servant, and an inspiring embodiment of the American dream,” said Harvard University President Drew Faust. “We greatly look forward to welcoming him home to Harvard on Commencement Day.”
Raised on Chicago’s South Side, Patrick came to Massachusetts at age 14, having won a scholarship to Milton Academy through the Boston-based organization A Better Chance. He earned admission to Harvard College, as the first in his family to attend college, and spent a year in Africa after graduation on a Rockefeller Fellowship before studying for his law degree at Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.
Early in his career, he served as a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Los Angeles, as a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund working on voting rights and death-penalty cases, and then as a partner at the Boston law firm Hill & Barlow.
In 1994, President Bill Clinton named him assistant attorney general for civil rights, the nation’s top civil rights post. In that role, he led the Justice Department’s efforts in such areas as prosecuting hate crimes and enforcing laws on employment discrimination, fair lending, and rights for the disabled.
The African American and Diaspora Studies Program at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, recently renamed its research arm the Callie House Research Center for the Study of Black Cultures and Politics. The center was founded in 2012 and sponsors lectures, conferences, working groups, professional development and academic seminars.
Callie House was born a slave in Rutherford County, Tennessee, in 1861. After she was freed, she worked as a seamstress and washerwoman in Nashville. She became interested in social justice and politics and led the first mass slave reparations movement in the United States. In 1898, she helped found the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association.
Mary Frances Berry, the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, gave the keynote address at the renaming ceremony. Professor Berry is the author of My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).
article via jbhe.com
According to theroot.com, it’s been over 10 years since the last De La Soul album was released, but thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, the trio famous for songs such as “Potholes In My Lawn,” “Me, Myself and I” and “Saturdays” will begin recording its eighth album, And the Anonymous Nobody. The group’s goal of $110,000 was met within 48 hours and has since been surpassed by $178,262 for a current grand total of $288,262.
“And the Anonymous Nobody really plays on two ideas,” the group told Rolling Stone.”No egos, no seniority, no bosses, just a group of equal ‘nobodies’ working towards one goal: making music. Second, there’s always a silent champion or brave individual—a ‘nobody’—that steps in saves the day. The person that steps in and stands for something. Something bigger than him … and makes a change. ‘Nobody can save the day!’ Well he sure can! We are those nobodies … stepping in, standing for something and hopefully making a change.”
The new album will also include guests such as David Byrne, 2 Chainz and Little Dragon. Those who helped fund the album will receive rewards ranging from exclusive album tracks to a shopping excursion with De La Soul.
There are still 30 days and several prizes left in the campaign, so if you’d like to donate, click here.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
There are still 30 days and several prizes left in the campaign, so if you’d like to donate, click here.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
Claudia Rankine, the Henry G. Lee Professor of English at Pomona College in Claremont, California, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry for her book Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press, 2014).
Rankine’s poetry recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Citizen is her fifth published poetry collection.
Earlier this year, Professor Rankine made literary history when she was the first author to have a work nominated as a finalist in two categories in the 39-year history of the National Book Critics Circle Awards.
Professor Rankine is a native of Jamaica. She is a graduate of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and holds a master of fine arts degree in poetry from Columbia University.
article via jbhe.com