“I did my best and God did the rest.”
–Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American actor to win an Academy Award
Good Black News
Every year, the Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) Program selects 1,000 talented minority students to receive a good-through-graduation scholarship to use at any college or university of their choice. The program provides scholars with personal and professional development through our leadership programs along with academic support throughout their college career.
GBN Quote Of The Day: “When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from his “I Have A Dream” speech
“I have a lifetime appointment and I intend to serve it. I expect to die at 110, shot by a jealous husband.”
–Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice and the NAACP’s chief counsel on Brown vs. Board Of Education
In this Saturday, Aug. 25, 2012 photo, female opposition leader Isabelle Ameganvi calls on Togo’s women to observe a one-week sex strike beginning Monday, in Lome, Togo. The female wing of a civil rights group is urging women in Togo to stage a week-long sex strike to demand the resignation of the country’s president.(AP Photo/ Erick Kaglan)
LOME, Togo (AP) — The female wing of a civil rights group is urging women in Togo to stage a week-long sex strike to demand the resignation of the country’s president.
Women are being asked to start withholding sex from their husbands or partners as of Monday, said Isabelle Ameganvi, leader of the women’s wing of the group Let’s Save Togo. She said the strike will put pressure on Togo’s men to take action against President Faure Gnassingbe.
From Madame Noire Business: For years, microloans have provided a gateway to self-sufficiency for the poor around the world. Now increasing numbers of entrepreneurs here in the U.S. are taking advantage of these small loans to finance their businesses.
Azealia Banks is cementing her place as an “It Girl” in the fashion and beauty realm at lightning speed. In fact, some feel the rapper is now more well-known for her fashion and beauty cred than her music. In the past year, she attended the 2012 MET Gala, appeared in the campaign for T by Alexander Wang and as previously reported, is slated to perform at Fashion’s Night Out at MAC Cosmetics Soho.
“I’m inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.”
—President Barack Obama
GBN Quote Of The Day: “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.”
— Jackie “Moms” Mabley, actress and comedian
Far off from the public eye, the Brooklyn Navy Yard looms over the Brooklyn waterfront, quiet and unassuming as a warehouse. From its outside, you’d never guess this industrial landmass serves as a safe haven for businesspeople, photographers, media, and artists alike.
On a cool August morning, someone from the latter category stands right before the entrance. Clad in a green worksuit with blue and white splotches, Charlotta Janssen looks more like a hired house painter than a creative one. That perception changes once you enter her studio on the 8thfloor and give your head the 360 degree treatment. To your immediate left hangs pictures of a naked couple presumably after sexual intercourse, to the right, a man with a half-smile, half-scowl on his face.
The main part of the room, however, is where your eyes stay focused: A picture of young Black children at a 1920s Harlem pool lines the upper right (in tribute to Harlem Renaissance man James Van Der Zee). A side painting of Trinidadian activist Stokely Carmichael lies mere feet away. Civil rights staples Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks sit nearby with stern looks at the camera.
These three paintings make up part of Jennsen’s “Freedom Riders” exhibit. Currently on display at Philadelphia’s African-American Museum through September 30th, the collection of oil canvas mugshots of those who participated in the 20th century Freedom Bus Rides for integrated public transit is juxtaposed with ID cards, secretly handwritten notes, and any other written documents Janssen could find.