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Posts tagged as “Alabama”

Tuskegee University Receives Four Paintings by Benny Andrews

By goodblacknews on November 1, 2015

Artist Benny Andrews
Artist Benny Andrews

Tuskegee University in Alabama received a donation of four paintings by the late artist Benny Andrews from the United Negro College Fund. The paintings have a value of more than $100,000.
Andrews is known as an abstract expressionist. Many of his works are images from his childhood in Georgia. Andrews died in 2001.
Grandmother's-Favorite3Brian L. Johnson, president of Tuskegee University, stated that the university “thanks both the UNCF and the Berry Andrews Foundation for this wonderful gift that will further enhance the university’s aesthetic, artistic, and cultural appeal to both students and visitors worldwide. I was Benny Andrews’ wish to share his artworks and legacy to inspire African American artists, art enthusiasts, and students around the country.”
Nene Humphrey, the artist’s widow and president of the Andrews Humphrey Family Foundation said “the placement of these artworks will enhance Benny Andrews’ legacy and provide an opportunity to educate new audiences about this work.”
article via jbhe.com

NAACP Begins 860-Mile Justice March From Selma to Washington D.C.

By goodblacknews on August 2, 2015
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On November 29, 2014 in Ferguson, Mo., members of the NAACP and their supporters began the first day of Journey for Justice, seven-day 120-mile march from the Canfield Green apartments where Michael Brown was killed to the Governor’s mansion in Jefferson City, Mo. (SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES)
NAACP leaders on Saturday kicked off a 40-day “Journey for Justice” march across the South, beginning with a rally in Selma, Ala., a city that played a pivotal role in the the 1960s civil rights movement, according to The Associated Press.
The goal of the march is to “call attention to the issue of racial injustice in modern America,” the report says. The trek will span across eastern seaboard states before ending in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15.
The event began on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where peaceful marchers were attacked by police in 1965 spurring the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which was signed into law 50 years ago this week. In November, the group led a march from Ferguson, Mo., to Jefferson City, Mo., in protest after Darren Wilson, a white police officer, was not indicted in the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen.
“We know we can do the distance because our lives, our votes, our jobs and our schools matter,” said Cornell William Brooks, president and chief executive of the NAACP, reports Reuters.
“Let us march on, let us march on, let us march on till victory is won,” said Brooks, as he led about 200 marchers across the bride on the first leg of the journey, Reuters writes.
article by Lynette Holloway via theroot.com

Evelyn F. Crayton Becomes 1st African American President of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

By goodblacknews on July 21, 2015

Evelyn Crayton (Photo via eatrightpro.org)
Evelyn Crayton (Photo via eatrightpro.org)

Evelyn F. Crayton, professor emerita at Auburn University in Alabama, is the new president of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The academy is the world’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. The academy was founded in 1917 and has 76,000 members. Dr. Crayton is the organization’s 90th leader and the first African American to hold the post.
A native of Jones, Louisiana, Dr. Crayton is a graduate of Grambling State University. She earned a master’s degree at Saint Louis University and a doctorate from Auburn University.
When she was granted emerita status at Auburn University, Dr. Crayton was a professor of nutrition dietetics, and hospitality management and assistant director of extension family and consumer sciences. She is a past president of the Alabama Dietetic Association.
article via jbhe.com

"The Prancing Elites Project" Gets Green Light for 2nd Season on Oxygen

By goodblacknews on July 10, 2015
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The cast of Oxygen’s “The Prancing Elites Project” reality show  (Photo: OXYGEN.COM)

Get ready to see more sparkly leotards and the fiercest J-setting dance moves because Oxygen just greenlit a second season of The Prancing Elites Project.
The docuseries explores the world of competitive dancing through the lives of an all-male dance troupe based in Mobile, Alabama. All five members are African American, and a majority of them are gay.
Variety explains how the Prancing Elites were a godsend for the network after it rebranded itself in 2014; the program had the highest-rated series premiere after the rebranding.
That the show has generated such a strong following is also important because gay men are an underrepresented group. This platform gives them an opportunity to tell their own stories instead of being the sidekicks and the “gay” voice of reasoning for hetereosexuals in other reality-TV shows.
Plus, black gay culture has been one of the most appropriated cultures in recent years, with the advent of the Housewives franchise and other reality shows featuring straight women lobbing slang words at one another—words that were created or, at the very least, popularized by African-American gay men.
Season 2 will premiere in 2016; Oxygen is broadening the original 30-minute format to one hour.
article by Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele via theroot.com

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley Orders Removal of All Four Confederate Flags from State Capitol Grounds

By goodblacknews on June 24, 2015
Workers remove the Confederate flags from outside the
Workers remove the Confederate flags from outside the State Capitol building on Wednesday, June 24, 2015. (Photo: Shannon Heupel/Advertiser)

MERY, Ala. — With no fanfare, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley ordered the removal of four Confederate flags from a memorial at the Alabama State Capitol on Wednesday amid a growing controversy over their official display in the wake of the killing of African Americans at a South Carolina church.
The first to be taken down was the so-called battle flag, followed by the First National Confederate flag, known as the “Stars and Bars,” the Second National Confederate Flag and the Third National Confederate Flag. All four had been removed by 10 a.m.
“The governor does not want the flag to be a distraction,” said Jennifer Ardis, a spokeswoman for Bentley. “There are a lot of other things we are focused on. We have a tremendous budget issue.”
Five workers, including two wearing yellow “landscape operations” tee-shirts, unceremoniously removed the flags by first lowering separate flag poles, then unsnapping and folding up the individual banners. As a handful of photographers recorded the scene, the men worked quickly, without comment, then left the enclosed area around the monument, locking the gate to the small fence behind them.
The flags were hung at the Alabama Confederate Memorial in 1994, a year after then-Gov. Jim Folsom Jr., ordered the removal of a battle flag that had flown over the state Capitol since 1963.
Meanwhile, Sen. Thad Cochran, Mississippi’s Republican senator, said Wednesday that it is his “personal hope” that the state would consider changing its flag, which depicts the Confederate battle flag in its upper left corner.
“The recent debate on the symbolism of our flag, which belongs to all of us, presents the people of our state a opportunity to consider a new banner that represents Mississippi,” he said in a statement. He added that he agrees with his fellow senator from Mississippi, Roger Wicker, also a Republican, that “we should look for unity and not divisiveness in the symbols of our state.

Alabama Attorney Freddie Stokes Gets Local Barbershops to Stock Books for Boys

By goodblacknews on June 7, 2015
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Royal Touch Barbershop owner Reggie Ross gives a touch-up to a young customer while he reads in Palm Beach County, Fla. (WPTV SCREENSHOT)

An article published in The Root last year about a Florida barbershop that promotes literacy sparked a movement miles away in the cities of Prichard and Mobile, Ala.

Freddie Stokes launched Books for Boys about three weeks ago. He initially intended to establish small libraries, of about 75 books each, in two or three barbershops, but the response to his initiative was so overwhelming that Stokes says he’s now able to establish libraries in at least six barbershops. The first one will open in mid-June.
“We don’t want to stop until all the barbershops in this community have libraries,” he says, with an air of reserved confidence that it will be done.
Stokes is supplying books with which black boys can identify. “When our boys say they don’t like to read, a lot of that is coming from not being interested in reading about characters that don’t look like them,” he explains. His growing stockpile includes biographies, such as Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to Become Malcolm X, 12 Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali and Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope.
In addition to promoting literacy, Books for Boys aims to raise self-esteem. Stokes grew up in public housing and struggled early in school, having to repeat the third grade. A teacher inspired him to read books, including those about successful African Americans, which allowed him to dream big and ultimately achieve his goals.
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Books for Boys’ Freddie Stokes (photo: Rodney R. Clifton) 
Stokes worked in classrooms for two years through Teach for America, an organization that places recent college graduates and professionals in underserved classrooms. He introduced his students to books with positive black characters and watched their self-esteem grow.
“When I went from the classroom to the courtroom, I was able to connect the violence to a lack of reading and self-esteem,” says Stokes, who is also a criminal defense attorney in private practice.
“After reading the article in The Root, I asked myself, why isn’t this [barbershop libraries] in every community?” he recalls. “Then one day I got an epiphany: Just get up and do the work. We can’t wait on the government to do it for us.”
Stokes admits that he didn’t expect the overwhelming response that he received. Barbershop owners said that they are expecting scores of boys to come in over the summer and would gladly offer them books. Parents, sometimes groups of them, are donating with a request that Stokes open a library where they take their sons. And local professionals are opening their wallets to sponsor barbershops, sometimes with a request that Stokes purchase books that emphasize math and science.
In a few short weeks, Stokes’ grassroots effort raised more than $1,500 on GoFundMe. Folks in the community have also given about $800 in cash donations toward the purchase of books. Stokes hopes that this small effort ignites a larger movement that reaches well beyond the Mobile area.
article by Nigel Roberts via theroot.com

Wrongfully Imprisoned Man Anthony Ray Hinton Released from Alabama's Death Row After 30 Years

By goodblacknews on April 3, 2015
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Anthony Ray Hinton wipes away tears as he stands outside the Jefferson County Jail in Alabama April 3, 2015, after serving 30 years on death row. (NBC News) 
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.
On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hinton’s favor, and he was granted a new trial. But the prosecutors struggled to put evidence together to win a conviction in the retrial. Consequently, they filed a motion to drop the charges.
Read more at CNN.
article by Nigel Roberts via theroot.com

Obama Heads To Selma For 50th Anniversary Of Voting Rights March on Saturday

By goodblacknews on March 5, 2015

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Fifty years ago, several hundred peaceful protesters marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery to underscore the need for Black voting rights.
Demonstrators were brutalized and beaten by White police officers in what has become known as “Bloody Sunday.” This weekend, scores of civil rights leaders, clergy, elected officials, and peaceful demonstrators will converge on Selma to mark the 50th anniversary of the march that helped spark a movement.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) will be there just as he was on March 7, 1965, when he was hit on the head, left bloody and unconscious. He will be accompanied Saturday by President Barack Obama. A second march, organized by local leaders, is scheduled for Sunday.
The event comes at a time when voting rights are once again under attack in the U.S., especially after the Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. It also comes at a time when protesters have launched an online petition to change the name of the historic bridge, which was named for Edmund Winston Pettus, a Confederate general and U.S. senator who lived in Selma after the Civil War.

“Fifty years ago this week, brave activists embarked upon the Selma to Montgomery March to bring attention to the fight for voting rights,” NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks said.
“The Selma to Montgomery Jubilee is more than a commemorative occasion—ever present in our minds is that voting rights continue to be impinged,” Brooks continued. “And this new assault on voting rights is being ignored by the same lawmakers who are coming to Selma to celebrate the jubilee. Selma is now—and the NAACP will not rest until every American has unfettered access to the ballot box. I stand with NAACP state leadership in demanding that our most vulnerable voters be protected by the law—in every state.”

Lewis said in an interview last month with USA Today that he and U.S. Reps. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) and Martha Roby (R-Ala) have assembled what will be the largest congressional delegation participating in the pilgrimage to Selma in its 17-year history. The delegation will participate in a series of civil rights-related events in Birmingham on March 6, Selma and Marion on March 7, and Montgomery on March 8, the report says.
“When President (Bill) Clinton came (in 2000) we had more than 20,000 people,” Lewis said, according to USA Today. “With President Obama, it could be many more. It’s going to be wonderful.”
article by Lynette Holloway via newsone.com

Obama To Visit Selma in March for 50th Anniversary of Voting Rights Marches

By goodblacknews on January 21, 2015
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President Barack Obama, Jan. 20, 2015 (Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo-Pool/Getty Images)
President Barack Obama will visit Selma, Ala., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of historic marches led by civil activists fighting against segregation and seeking to secure African Americans’ right to vote, according to Reuters.
A White House official said Tuesday that the president will make the visit on March 7 as part of his administration’s efforts to highlight the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the report says. Also according to Reuters:

The law, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson 50 years ago this August, banned literacy tests and other tactics used in the U.S. South to block racial minorities from voting. The White House official said more details of Obama’s trip would be announced later.
The 1965 marches from Selma to Alabama’s capital of Montgomery were organized by civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr. to draw national attention to the disenfranchisement of Black voters.
Alabama state troopers tried to stop the protests by attacking the marchers with tear gas and clubs. The violent media images from the marches shocked the nation and eventually spurred the Congress to pass the voting rights legislation.

The marches in 1965 are receiving renewed attention this year after the recent release of the movie, “Selma,” which highlights the campaign leading up to the historic march. On Friday, President Obama hosted a screening of the movie at the White House. Among others, Oprah Winfrey, who produced and had a role in the film, was invited.
article via newsone.com

"Selma" Cast Marches in Alabama; Free Screenings in 25 Cities Planned

By goodblacknews on January 19, 2015
“Selma” director Ava DuVernay and producer Oprah Winfrey joined their cast and crew to march alongside local residents of Selma, Ala., on Sunday in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“Selma” dramatizes the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (played by David Oyelowo) in 1965 as he organizes and leads a march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., and on Sunday cast members taking to the streets included Oyelowo and Winfrey, who tweeted, “Happy Super Soul Sunday every 1. We’re in Selma celebrating @SelmaMovie. How cool is that!”
Singer-songwriter John Legend, who won the Golden Globe for original song with Common for the “Selma” song “Glory,” also took to social media to promote the march. The artists performed the song with the Tuskegee University Gospel Choir on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
“In Selma, Alabama. Meet at City Hall at 4pm and March with us #Glory #MarchOn,” he posted with a photo of the bridge on Instagram.
Paramount Pictures, the film’s distributor, will host two free screenings of the film Monday for the general public at at the Selma Walton Theater.

“We are proud to be a part of this extraordinary effort to bring this poignant and timeless American story to the diverse students of Los Angeles,” said Debra Martin Chase, chief executive of Martin Chase Productions, and T. Warren Jackson, senior vice president and associate general counsel and chief ethics officer of DirecTV, which organized the efforts in Los Angeles.
The film, which cost about $20 million to make, has pulled in about $26 million since its limited release on Christmas Day. It earned an A-plus on CinemaScore and wide praise from critics.
“It’s a really incredible movie, because it’s playing so well in so many diverse places and has all of these organic grass-roots energy around it,” Megan Colligan, president of domestic marketing and distribution, told The Times last week. “It’s big cities, it’s small cities — it’s touching people all over.”
Colligan said one passionate fan in Louisiana reached out to Paramount asking if she could screen “Selma” at the local gym because there was no theater within 50 miles of town.
“The historical drama is a tough nut to crack to make it entertaining and inspiring, and I think Ava DuVernay figured out how to do that,” Colligan said.
article by Saba Hamedy via latimes.com