MEMPHIS, TN – (WMC-TV) – You’re never too old to graduate high school and 92-year-old Memphis native Dorothy Owens is proving that.
Owens’ father died and because of a leg injury, she was forced to drop out of high school. She started working to help support her family. However, Owens has always encouraged her children and grandchildren to pursue education. Her granddaughter made it her goal to grant the one wish her grandma has ever requested. Owens’ granddaughters wrote a letter to her high school, Booker T. Washington, asking for an honorary diploma.
This February, on her 92nd birthday, she received an honorary diploma from Booker T. Washington High School. Owens was overjoyed with the Certificate of Attendance. To watch video of this story, click here. Copyright 2014 WMC-TV. All rights reserved.
“The air in the strange environment of this city is dense with story, and it draws me into thinking of life as stories,” Cole’s unnamed narrator says halfway through the novel, as he becomes more deeply immersed in the disorder, the striving, the corruption and the inventiveness of Lagos and its people. “The narratives fly at me from all directions … And that literary texture of lives full of unpredictable narrative, is what appeals.”
Cole earned a large following in the United States for his PEN Faulkner Award-winning Open City, published in 2011. That novel told the story of a Nigerian immigrant and his wanderings in New York City and other places. The U.S.-born Cole was raised and educated in Nigeria. Before he wrote Open City, he had written Every Day Is for the Thief, his first book, published in Nigeria in 2007, and which Random House is now issuing in the United States for the first time.
If you’re totally overwhelmed by trying to figure out scholarships and paying for college, look no further than the second annual Scholarship Marathon! It’s free, it’s online and it’s taking place today, Saturday, March 22. College Greenlight, which helps low-income and underrepresented students go to college, and Cappex, which has helped five million students decide on colleges, are the two groups behind this.
Today you’ll have access to chatrooms with scholarship experts (to answer all your Q’s) and webinars that explain financial aid and scholarships. Webinars like “The Science Behind the Ultimate Scholarship Essay” and “Winning Big Money Scholarships.” They’re also there to help you search for more scholarships you don’t even know about.
To top it off, they’re going to have hourly raffles for Amazon gift cards (because everybody loves a good raffle) and they have two $1,000 scholarships ready to be given to participants! This is going on from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. CDT, but you can drop in whenever you want.
If you want to take part, you just need to sign up at the site. Remember, it’s free, so you def ought to check it out if college is your jam! And if you want to spread the good word on this, you can tweet the hashtag #scholarshipmarathon. Hopefully the second annual Scholarship Marathon will be even bigger and better than the first one! article by Danica Davidson via act.mtv.com
Michelle Obama delivered remarks at Peking University in Beijing. (Credit: Wang Zhao/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)
BEIJING — On a visit that was supposed to be nonpolitical, first lady Michelle Obama delivered an unmistakable message to the Chinese on Saturday, saying in a speech here that freedom of speech, particularly on the Internet and in the news media, provided the foundation for a vibrant society.
On the second day of a weeklong trip to China with her two daughters and her mother, Mrs. Obama spoke to an audience of Americans and Chinese at Peking University, and in the middle of an appeal for more American students to study abroad, she also talked of the value for people of hearing “all sides of every argument.” “Time and again, we have seen that countries are stronger and more prosperous when the voices and opinions of all their citizens can be heard,” she said. The United States, she said, respected the “uniqueness” of other cultures and societies. “But when it comes to expressing yourself freely,” she said, “and worshiping as you choose, and having open access to information — we believe those are universal rights that are the birthright of every person on this planet.”
The forthright exposition of the American belief in freedom of speech came against a backdrop of broad censorship of the Internet by the Chinese government. The government polices the Internet to prevent the nation’s 500 million users from seeing antigovernment sentiment, and blocks a variety of foreign websites, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The authorities compel domestic Internet sites to censor themselves.
Longtime music executive Sylvia Rhone has officially been named the president of Epic Records. Rhone headed Elektra Entertainment Group, then Universal Motown for nearly two decades. Her new appointment comes just a year after she launched Vested in Culture (VIC), her joint venture with Epic. VIC will remain an imprint of the label. Rhone served as president of Universal Motown Records before joining Epic in 2013.
“I’m honored to have the opportunity to expand my relationship with the talented team and amazing artists at Epic,” Rhone said in a statement. “What makes this opportunity different from any other is my partnership with renowned music executive L.A. Reid. I’m looking forward to what I think will be the finest chapter in my career.” article by Erika Benton-Martin via thesource.com
“Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” is among the animated series highlighted in a new traveling exhibition at the Schomburg Center for Black Culture. CreditCollection of Museum of UnCut Funk
Growing up in the 1970s at opposite ends of New York State, two girls were immersed in all things cool, black and funky.
Saturday morning cartoons won their hearts. Loreen Williamson, in Rochester, and Pamela Thomas, in the Bronx, would park themselves in front of the The Jackson 5ive, featuring a tiny Michael sporting a big Afro, and Josie and the Pussycats, with the black tambourine-playing Valerie Brown performing in a hip girl band.
Eventually, the two met and bonded over their mutual interests. Not content to leave the funk (or their pasts) behind, Ms. Williamson, now 49, and Ms. Thomas, 51, have amassed more than 300 pieces of black animation art from the 1960s and ’70s, a collection that they believe is one of the world’s most extensive in that field. In 2007, they created the Museum of UnCut Funk, an online showcase for original animation cels, posters, storyboards and other objects celebrating black culture of the 1970s and its standard-bearers. Now, the two collectors have hit the road with a traveling museum exhibition, Funky Turns 40: Black Character Revolution, which represents 24 animated productions, including Saturday morning and after-school cartoons and animated feature films.
Pamela Thomas, left, and Loreen Williamson, who created the exhibition, have have amassed more than 300 pieces of black animation art from the 1960s and ’70s. (Photo Credit: Christopher Gregory for The New York Times)
The revolution that it documents is from stereotype to superhero: Funky, which is currently at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem and will travel to museums in Chicago, Seattle and West Reading, Pa.honors the cartoons’ image-affirming black characters, including those of The Harlem Globetrotters, Kid Power, Schoolhouse Rock and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
The programs are more than entertaining nostalgia, the two curators and some cultural historians say. They represent the fruits of a struggle for a say in the representation of blacks in television images, among other rights, and the newfound ability of popular black entertainers to get such programming on the air, based on their own appeal to a wide audience.
The shows offered a striking counterpoint to the previous stereotypical portrayals of blacks as buffoons in mainstream films, books, theater, advertising and cartoons. “It shows a time in American history when art and diversity and civil rights aspirations all came together,” said Christopher P. Lehman, a professor of ethnic studies at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and the author of The Colored Cartoon: Black Representation in American Animated Short Films, 1907-1954 (University of Massachusetts Press). “Before 1970, African-Americans were not much on television at all, except as the domestic servants of Jack Benny and Danny Thomas or as guests on variety series.”
It was no accident that Hey, Hey, Hey, It’s Fat Albert, described by curators as the first “positive” black-cast cartoon on TV (and the basis of the later series), was an NBC prime-time special in 1969, or, in the same vein, The Jackson 5ive, the first Saturday morning cartoon series featuring black musicians, made its debut in 1971. Both were created by two entertainment powerhouses, Bill Cosby (Fat Albert and the gang were part of his stand-up comedy routine) and Berry Gordy Jr., the founder of Motown Records, who marketed the family music act to appeal to the broadest possible audience.
Recalling her generation’s response, Ms. Williamson, who works as an independent consultant for marketing and business, said, “We got to see Martin Luther King’s dream, at least in cartoon form.”
“There was a lot of cross-pollination with what was going on in black culture,” she said. “You could watch the cartoons, go to the concerts, see the stars on variety shows. And our white friends were watching, too.” Ms. Thomas, a preschool teacher, said: “It made me feel like, wow, I see myself on TV. I started feeling good about myself.”
Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions have acquired all U.S. and Canadian rights to Dear White People, which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Written and directed by Justin Simien, Dear White People follows the stories of four black students at Winchester University, where a riot breaks out over a popular ‘African American’ themed party thrown by a white fraternity.
The comedy, Co-starring Tyler James Williams (Everybody Hates Chris) and Tessa Thompson (Veronica Mars), won the Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at Sundance. “Justin Simien is a funny, fresh and current voice with his finger on the Millennials’ pulse,” said Roadside’s co-president Howard Cohen. article via Variety.com
President Barack Obama presents the Medal of Honor to U.S. Army Staff Sgt. (Ret.) Melvin Morris, a Vietnam War veteran, during a ceremony in the White House. (JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES)
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama awarded 24 minority U.S. soldiers, who collectively served in three of the nation’s wars and were never rewarded for their courage, with the Medal of Honor, reports the Associated Press. Only three of the 24 were alive for President Barack Obama to drape the medals and ribbons around their necks; the others were awarded the honor posthumously.
“Today we have the chance to set the record straight,” Obama said. “No nation is perfect, but here in America we confront our imperfections and face a sometimes painful past, including the truth that some of these soldiers fought and died for a country that did not always see them as equal.”
The three surviving recipients—Vietnam veterans Jose Rodela, Melvin Morris and Santiago Erevia—received a prolonged standing ovation as the stood by the president’s side.
According to AP, Tuesday’s ceremony is the largest since World War II, and issued by Congress in the 2002 National Defense Authorization Act issue and conducted under Army review. The law required the Army to go through all of the records of each Jewish-American and Hispanic-American veteran who received a Distinguished Service Cross during or after World War II to determine if they could be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. From this review some the Army found 6,505 recipients and narrowed that field to an eligible pool of 600 soldiers who may have been Jewish or Hispanic, AP reports. Of the two-dozen men honored, 18 are Latinos.
At the end of the ceremony, after a brief biography of each recipient had been recited and each medal accepted of behalf of those who had passed away, the president thanked their families for their service. “We are so grateful to them. We are so grateful to their families. It makes us proud and it makes us inspired,” he said.
GOOD BLACK NEWS proudly celebrates its fourth anniversary today, with 6,397 Facebook followers, 3,988 Twitter followers, 1,932 Tumblr followers, 653 via Pinterest, and hundreds more via Instagram, Google+, YouTube, WordPress, our RSS feed, and LinkedIn. Although initially launched on March 18, 2010 as a Facebook page (read the detailed story behind GBN’s creation here), in September 2012, GBN created this dedicated website, goodblacknews.org, which has allowed us to expand our presence on the internet and provide archives and search functions to you, our loyal readers.
In the past year, we were greatly honored to receive the 2013 Black Weblog Award for Best Political or News Blog, largely due to the support of our dedicated followers. The outpour of appreciation you’ve shown us via likes, comments, shares, reflags and e-mails means the world to us, and only inspires GBN to keep getting bigger and better. In the coming months, we aim to refresh and revise the look of goodblacknews.org once again to improve mobile access, provide more original content, and (if you sign up for it) a downloadable e-newsletter (this goal got away from us in 2013, but it’s going to be for real this time) with features such as historical spotlights, interviews, film release dates, television listings, and more.
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GBN remains a labor of love, and our Founder/Editor-In-Chief (Lori Lakin Hutcherson), Lifestyle/Fashion Editor (Lesa Lakin) and this year’s contributors (Ashanti Hutcherson, Monika Jones, Richard Mar, Jeff Meier, Gabriel Ryder, Minsun Park, Terry Samwick, power stringer Becky Schonbrun, Arro Verse, tech consultant/web genius Andrew Lin) are all unpaid volunteers. We believe in bringing you positive news, reviews and stories of interest about black people all over the world, and greatly value your participation in continuing to build our shared vision.
Thank you again for your support, and we look forward to providing you with more Good Black News in the coming year, and beyond!
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The Good Black News Team Lori Lakin Hutcherson, GBN Founder/Editor-In-Chief Lesa Lakin, GBN Lifestyle/Fashion Editor
Just in time for Easter, the Lifetime Channel will air the small screen adaptation of Terry McMillan‘s bestseller A Day Late and a Dollar Short. The film stars Whoopi Goldberg (who also executive produced) and Ving Rhames as an estranged couple, with Anika Noni Rose, Kimberly Elise, Tichina Arnold, and Mekhi Phifer playing their adult children.
The synopsis:
In A Day Late and a Dollar Short, when irascible matriarch Viola Price (Goldberg) learns that her next asthma attack will likely kill her, she is determined to fix her fractured family before she leaves this world, from her relationship with her husband (Rhames), to the lives of her four children and grandchildren. While on this quest, she must contend with sibling rivalry, teen pregnancy and prescription drug addiction – and that is only one child. Additionally, her jailbird son (Phifer) needs to learn how to be a better father, her granddaughter is in bigger trouble than her daughter is willing to admit and her estranged husband needs saving from his scheming younger girlfriend. It’s the kind of meddling that the Price family hasn’t experienced from Viola in decades, and she won’t have an easy time bending her loved ones to her will.
The film was adapted for television from McMillan’s novel by Shernold Edwards and directed by Stephen Tolkin. It will premiere on April 19 at 8/7C.
Watch a clip from the movie below:
http://youtu.be/jjCKQuR4FxM article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson
Longtime music executive Sylvia Rhone has officially been named the president of Epic Records. Rhone headed Elektra Entertainment Group, then Universal Motown for nearly two decades. Her new appointment comes just a year after she launched Vested in Culture (VIC), her joint venture with Epic. VIC will remain an imprint of the label. Rhone served as president of Universal Motown Records before joining Epic in 2013.
GOOD BLACK NEWS proudly celebrates its fourth anniversary today, with 6,397 
