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Students With Disabilities Have Right To Play School Sports, Obama Administration Tells Schools

By goodblacknews on January 24, 2013
Kareem Dale, Special Assistant to President Obama for Disability Policy (left), with Learning Ally member Henry “Hoby” Wedler (right)
When Kareem Dale, now a special advisor to President Barack Obama, was in high school, all he wanted to do was wrestle. But as a student who was partially blind, that wasn’t easy.
Dale’s school made it possible for him to participate in the sport by creating a rule that wrestlers always needed to be touching their opponent. “It allowed me to wrestle throughout public high school,” Dale said. “That experience of wrestling gave me confidence, it made me healthier, it was really an extraordinary experience.”
But hundreds of other students with disabilities may not have had an opportunity in school sports, a 2010 Government Accountability Office report suggested. The U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights on Friday is sending school districts a 13-page guidance document that spells out the rights of students with disabilities to participate in school athletics.

Ugandan Teen Phiona Mutesi Overcomes Homelessness To Become International Chess Star

By goodblacknews on January 24, 2013

Phiona Mutesi relishes her first victory at the 2010 Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia

Phiona Mutesi relishes her first victory at the 2010 Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia

(CNN) — She grew up in one of the poorest spots on earth. She couldn’t read or write. As a child, she scrounged for food each day for herself, her mother, and her brother.  But a chance encounter with a chess coach turned her into a rising international chess star, the subject of a book — and the protagonist in a future Disney movie.
Ugandan teenager Phiona Mutesi is “the ultimate underdog,” her biographer says.  Those who work with her believe she’s 16. But since her birthday is unclear, she might still only be 15, they say.  Her father died from AIDS when Mutesi was around 3.  “I thought the life I was living, that everyone was living that life,” the teenager told CNN, describing her childhood in Katwe, a slum in the Ugandan capital of Kampala.
“I was living a hard life, where I was sleeping on the streets, and you couldn’t have anything to eat at the streets. So that’s when I decided for my brother to get a cup of porridge.”

Robert Katende, a missionary and refugee of Uganda’s civil war, had started a chess program in Katwe. He offered a bowl of porridge to any child who would show up and learn.

'African Americans in World War II' Exhibit opens at Museum in Michigan

By goodblacknews on January 24, 2013

WWII African american exhib.jpg
Howard Lynch and Zack Skiles look at photographs at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum’s exhibit “African Americans in World War II”Nicholas Grenke | MLive

KALAMAZOO, MI – A mentor for Big Brothers Big Sisters  of Greater Kalamazoo pointed to a black and white photograph of U.S. Army General George S. Patton pinning a Silver Star Medal on an African American soldier during World War II.
“Thank God you’ll never have to see a war like that,” Howard Lynch said to the Little Brother he mentors, Zack Skiles.
The “African Americans in World War II” exhibit at theKalamazoo Valley Museum opened on January 12, displaying 40 photographs of how life was for men and women during the most widespread war in human history.
“It’s interesting we’re finally starting to feature African Americans in military history,” Lynch said. “It’s nice to see them get their day in the sun.”
The exhibit on the first floor gallery is on loan from The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. On the walls are photographs of famous soldiers such as heavyweight boxer Joe Louis and Benjamin O. Davis, the first African American General Officer in military history, and also unknown privates engaging in everyday military life.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker Helps Create The Caliber Collection, Bracelets Made From Seized Guns

By goodblacknews on January 23, 2013

Newark Mayor Cory Booker has teamed up with jewelry designer Jessica Mindich to repurpose some of the guns and bullet casings to create bracelets that raise awareness about gun violence.</p><br /> <p>

Newark Mayor Cory Booker has teamed up with jewelry designer Jessica Mindich to repurpose some of the guns and bullet casings to create bracelets that raise awareness about gun violence.
Newark has figured out a way to turn bullets into bling.  Newark Mayor Cory Booker has teamed up with jewelry designer Jessica Mindich to repurpose some of the guns and bullet casings confiscated by the Newark Police Department. They’re using the metal to create bracelets that raise awareness about gun violence.
The bracelets are part of the Caliber Collection and range from $150 for a simple cuff to $375 for a bangle with an embedded diamond. The steel jewelry collection is melted down from confiscated guns that were used as evidence in Newark trials, according to Mindich.  The brass bracelets are made from shell casings found at crime scenes. Twenty percent of each sale will go toward Newark’s gun buyback program.

Ellen and Lana Ector prove ‘Black Girls Workout Too’ with New Mother-Daughter Workout DVD

By goodblacknews on January 23, 2013
Ellen and Lana Ector

Mother and daughter fitness duo Ellen and Lana Ector. (Image: YouTube screen capture)

From Clutch Magazine: Two spunky women are seeking to break the myth about how black women interact with fitness.
Ellen and Lana Ector have transformed their popular group exercise classes into a workout tape that women can use at home. The Atlanta-based mother-and-daughter fitness duo have put together “Black Girls Workout Too”, an exercise program that pushes females to rigorously increase their heart rate while toning their entire body.
The Ectors are mission-driven with their new fitness project:
“Curves are good..in the right places! Statistics show that 4 out of 5. African-American women are overweight or obese and we have to change that!” a message on their fitness video’s website reads.
Read the rest of this story on Clutch Magazine.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PerORsDLIJg&w=560&h=315]

Gordon Parks Photos: New York Museum To Mark Photographer's 100th Birthday With New Exhibit

By goodblacknews on January 23, 2013
Gordon Parks Photos
The State Museum in Albany, NY is marking the 100th birthday of photographer Gordon Parks with an exhibit of his works.  The show opens on Jan. 26  and will showcase six decades of Parks’ photographs.  It will include his most famous photo, “American Gothic, Washington, D.C.,” which shows a black cleaning woman standing in front of an American flag with a broom and a mop.
State Education Commissioner John King says Parks’ work helped drive the Civil Rights movement by exposing the stark realities of life faced by many African Americans.
The State Museum display is organized by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The exhibit includes images from the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information collections at the Library of Congress.
article by Associated Press via huffingtonpost.com

Rosa Parks Statue to be Added to Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill

By goodblacknews on January 23, 2013
Rosa Parks Statue Will Be Added to Capitol Later This Year

Civil Rights Activist Rosa Parks (Photo: CBS/Landov)

The late Rosa Parks continues to make history. Her likeness will be depicted in a statue later this year at Capitol Hill’s Statuary Hall, making her the first African-American woman to achieve the mark.

Each of the 50 states donates two statues of their most prominent citizens to Statuary Hall. Rosa Parks will be representative of the state of Alabama where she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus and became the “mother of the civil rights movement.”  Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced the statue would be revealed in late 2013. As chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, he is also in charge of artwork in the Capitol.
Congress passed an order to place the statue in the hall in 2005. In 2008, the National Endowment for the Arts announced a design competition calling artists to submit designs for the statue.  The U.S. Postal Service is also commemorating the life of Rosa Parks. On Feb. 4, the postal service is issuing a special “Historic Forever” stamp in honor of Parks’ 100th birthday.
Detroit will be the first city to sell the Rosa Parks stamp.
 article by Natelege Whaley via bet.com

Brooklyn-based Artist Jennie C. Jones Wins $50,000 Wein Prize

By goodblacknews on January 22, 2013

Artist Jennie C. Jones
Artist Jennie C. Jones

Studio Museum in Harlem is awarding its Wein Prize, one of the most lucrative in contemporary art, to Jennie C. Jones, a 44-year-old Brooklyn-based painter and sculptor whose work – which she describes as “listening as a conceptual practice” – centers on music.

The prize, with a $50,000 award, has been given every year since 2006 to established or emerging African-American artists. It was started by George Wein, a founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, in honor of his wife, Joyce Alexander Wein, a longtime trustee of the museum who died in 2005.
l1060599The prize, whose announcement was delayed by Hurricane Sandy, will be given at a museum gala on Feb. 4. Thelma Golden, the museum’s director and chief curator, said in an interview that Ms. Jones was chosen “not only to celebrate the rigor and strength of her practice, but also because of the thinking about what this amazingly generous prize could do for her at this point in her career.”
Ms. Jones, who will have a solo exhibition in May at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, has been featured in several shows over the last decade at the Studio Museum and in Chelsea. Her work often uses the language of Minimalism to explore, and sometimes  appropriate, avant-garde jazz and other modern music.
“I kept seeing these amazing parallels in ideologies for both disciplines, especially in jazz and abstraction,” Ms. Jones has said. “Conceptualism allows these different media to occupy the same space.”
article by Randy Kennedy via nytimes.com

Essence to Honor Oprah at ‘Black Women in Hollywood’ Luncheon

By goodblacknews on January 22, 2013

oprah (whiteshirt)
Essence is honoring some powerful black women who have done some extraordinary work in the film and television industry at the 6th annual Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon.  The prestigious event will take place at the Beverly Hills Hotel on February 21.  This year’s honorees include Oprah Winfrey, Alfre Woodard, Gabrielle Union, Mara Brock-Akil, Naomie Harris, and breakthrough performer, Quvenzhané Wallis.
“The ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon recognizes the ‘Power of our Presence’, by spotlighting the stellar accomplishments of African-American female performers and creators in film and television,” says Essence editor-in-chief, Constance C.R. White. ”More importantly, the annual luncheon serves as a source of support and inspiration for the incredibly talented community of Black women who are often overlooked in Hollywood.”
Over the years, others like Viola Davis, Zoe Saldana, Angela Bassett and Pam Grier have been honored for their phenomenal contributions.
article by Brittney M. Walker via eurweb.com

Seattle QB Russell Wilson Added to Pro Bowl Roster

By goodblacknews on January 21, 2013
Russell Wilson #3 of the Seattle Seahawks is interviewed after their 24 to 14 win over the Washington Redskins during the NFC Wild Card Playoff Game at FedExField on January 6, 2013 in Landover, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)

Russell Wilson #3 of the Seattle Seahawks is interviewed after their 24 to 14 win over the Washington Redskins during the NFC Wild Card Playoff Game at FedExField on January 6, 2013 in Landover, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)

RENTON, Wash. (AP) — Seattle Seahawks rookie quarterback Russell Wilson has been added to the NFC roster for the Pro Bowl after Atlanta’s Matt Ryan withdrew due to an injury.  Wilson was added to the team on Monday. He will be the sixth Seahawks player in the game, joining offensive linemen Max Unger and Russell Okung, running back Marshawn Lynch, safety Earl Thomas and kick returner Leon Washington.
Wilson threw for 3,118 yards and tied the NFL rookie record with 26 passing touchdowns in the regular season. His finest performance of the year came in Seattle’s NFC playoff loss at Atlanta where Wilson threw for 385 yards and two touchdowns in the 30-28 loss.  Wilson was originally voted a third alternate for the NFC.  Ryan was injured in Sunday’s NFC championship game loss to San Francisco.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press via thegrio.com