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Posts tagged as “Wisconsin”

ART: “Woody De Othello:Hope Omens” Exhibition of Ceramics at John Michael Kohler Arts Center in WI Opens 9/26

SHEBOYGAN, WI —An exhibition of ceramics by the artist Woody De Othello will be on view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center from September 26, 2021 through September 25, 2022.

Woody De Othello: Hope Omens presents a series of nearly 20 large anthropomorphic vessels based on African spiritual objects that, among other things, address the tumultuous nature of the last year.

Woody De Othello is best known for his large-scale sculptures of familiar domestic objects, which are often imbued with a kind of human personage. For Hope Omens, he presents an entirely new body of work.

Woody De Othello, Closed Reflection, 2021; ceramic and glaze. Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco. (Photo: John Wilson White)

Many of the sculptures were produced using molds that Othello created during his Arts/Industry Pottery residency at the Kohler Co. factory in early 2020. While he was in residence, the world outside the factory began to shift with the beginning of the pandemic. The residency was cut short by several weeks and forced Othello to bring home some of the molds to continue his work.

“Woody De Othello’s work has always been prescient in its combination of humor, history, and composition. But the saliency of this newest body of work speaks poignantly and pointedly about the time we are living in, reaffirming the role that artists can play in articulating a kinder and more just world for us all. The Arts Center is thrilled to be showing these works for the first time,” said Laura Bickford, curator, John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Woody De Othello. (Photo: Josh Gruetzmacher)

Othello draws on African nkisi, or objects that are believed to be invested with spiritual energy. Breath and breathing are ideas often expressed in Othello’s vessel-like forms covered in mouths. Many of his new works feature hands and arms, evoking embrace and consolation, or ears and mouths, offering meditations on listening, hearing, and being present.

SCLC to Lead Campaign to Help Jacob Blake Secure Support for Long-Term Recovery and Care

[Jacob Blake III’s father Jacob Blake Jr, left and Dr. Charles Steele, Jr., right; photo courtesy SCLC]

Dr. Charles Steele, Jr., president and CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the organization co-founded and first led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., announced today that the Atlanta-based civil rights organization will lead a campaign to help the family of Jacob Blake secure support for his long term recovery and care.   

Dr. Steele made the announcement after a meeting with Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Jr., and other family members at a location in Wauwatosa, a city just west of Milwaukee, where the younger Blake is in a hospital receiving treatment.

Family members have traveled to the Milwaukee area from other regions of the country after receiving news last Sunday of Jacob Blake III being shot in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, a city of approximately 100,000 residents about one hour south of Milwaukee.

Blake, 29, is African American and the unjustified shooting has left him paralyzed. The officer has been placed on leave from the department. The shooting has led to numerous protests around the nation. Blake’s father said the family is receiving overwhelming support from Americans to get them from day to day, but now the family is concerned about his son’s long-term recovery after his release from the hospital.

“As the president and CEO of the SCLC, and in the spirit of our founder, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I am here with Mr. Blake to let him and his family know that the SCLC will lead a campaign to secure support for your son’s long term care,” said Dr. Steele during the Saturday afternoon meeting with the father and family.

After a telephone conversation earlier in the week, Dr. Steele said he traveled to the Milwaukee area to personally meet with the father to determine the son’s needs.

College Student Kalan Haywood Jr., 19, Becomes Youngest State Legislator in History of Wisconsin

Kalan Haywood, 19,  in front of Fiserv Forum, in downtown Milwaukee.
(Photo: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

by Ricky Riley via blavity.com

At only 19 years old, Kalan Haywood Jr. will be the youngest state legislator in Wisconsin. He may also be the youngest legislator in the nation, according to political experts.

Haywood will represent Milwaukee’s 16th District after a hard-fought primary against five Democratic challengers, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. That battle would be his last. There was no Republican challenger.

“Being young is going to play well with some people, but there will also be people who doubt me because of my age, which is fair — it’s new,” Haywood told the Journal Sentinel. “My age is my biggest asset,” Haywood added.

While he won’t be sworn in until January of 2019, he is likely the youngest person to serve in any state legislature in the nation. The Cardinal Stritch University student has been involved in politics since he was very young. When he was 13, he worked on Democratic Representative David Bowen‘s campaigns learning the tricks of the trade.

Then, Haywood served on the Milwaukee Youth Council at 14 and ultimately was elected president of the council. He spent the majority of his teenage years working and building a political career.

As a newly elected state representative, he wants to improve voting rights and the conditions of people’s lives in his city.  “Adding the requirement of registering to vote is very important, especially in my district where we get a very low [voter] turnout compared to a total population,” Haywood said.

His father, real estate developer Kalan Haywood Sr., believes, along with his son, that the state legislature needs young people to generate new ideas. “The state legislature as a whole — they are missing a young person’s perspective,” he said. “I want to make sure MPS (Milwaukee Public Schools) gets proper funding — I am a proud MPS graduate.”

Source: https://blavity.com/this-19-year-old-will-make-history-as-the-youngest-state-legislator-in-wisconsin

ACLU Sues City of Milwaukee for Racially Biased Stop-and-Frisk Policy

(image via colorlines.com; Courtesy of ACLU of Wisconsin, via Twitter @ACLUofWisconsin)

article by Kenrya Rankin via colorlines.com
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Wisconsin just filed a law suit against the city of Milwaukee alleging that the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) routinely and purposely stops and frisks Black and Latinx people with no cause.
Collins v. City of Milwaukee was filed in the Milwaukee Division of the U.S. District Court’s Eastern District of Wisconsin. It names six Black and Latinx residents who were stopped by police without reasonable suspicion as the plaintiffs. But as a class action suit, it seeks redress for every person who has been, or will be, stopped by the MPD since January 7, 2008, plus a subclass that includes all Black and Latinx members of that class.
The suit names the city, Chief of Police Edward Flynn and the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission as defendants. Filed yesterday (February 22), the suit alleges that at Flynn’s direction, the department violates the protections that should be afforded citizens of color via the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And the ACLU says those violations are increasing: the number of traffic and pedestrian stops tripled in the years after Flynn became the top cop, jumping from 66,657 in 2007 to 196,434 in 2015.
To read more, go to: ACLU Sues City of Milwaukee for Racist Stop and Frisk Policy | Colorlines

R.I.P. Clyde Stubblefield, 73, James Brown's Legendary ‘Funky Drummer’ 

Clyde Stubblefield (photo via nytimes.com)

article by  via nytimes.com

It took only 20 seconds for Clyde Stubblefield to drum his way to immortality. They came near the end of James Brown’s “Funky Drummer,” recorded in a Cincinnati studio in late 1969. Brown counts him in — “1, 2, 3, 4. Hit it!” — and Mr. Stubblefield eases into a cool pattern, part bendy funk and part hard march. It’s calm, slick and precise, and atop it, Brown asks over and over, “Ain’t it funky?”

It was. That brief snippet of percussion excellence became the platonic ideal of a breakbeat, the foundation of hip-hop’s sampling era and a direct through line from the ferocious soul music of the civil rights era to the golden age of history-minded hip-hop of the 1980s and 1990s.

Though Mr. Stubblefield wasn’t enamored of the song — “I didn’t like the song. I still don’t really get off on it,” he told Paste magazine in 2014— its mark became indelible. Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out,” Boogie Down Productions’ “South Bronx,” Sinead O’Connor’s “I Am Stretched on Your Grave,” George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” and Kenny G’s “G-Bop”: Mr. Stubblefield’s “Funky Drummer” break appeared as a sample in all of those songs, and over a thousand more, from the 1980s to the present day. It made Mr. Stubblefield, who died on Saturday in Madison, Wis., at 73, perhaps the most sampled drummer in history.

The cause was kidney failure, said his manager, Kathie Williams.

Mr. Stubblefield was born on April 18, 1943, and grew up in Chattanooga, Tenn., where he was drawn to the rhythms of local industrial sounds, from factories to trains. “There was a factory there that puffed out air — pop-BOOM, pop-BOOM — hit the mountains and came back as an echo,” he told Isthmus in 2015. “And train tracks — click-clack, click-clack. I listened to all that for six years, playing my drums against it.”

By his late teenage years, he was already playing drums professionally, and he moved to Macon, Ga., after playing with Otis Redding, who hailed from there. There, he performed with local soul acts, and was introduced to Brown by a club owner. Soon, he was flying to join Brown on the road, and became a permanent band member.

He performed with him on and off for about six years, one of two key drummers — the other was John Starks, who was also known as Jabo — playing on the essential James Brown albums of the civil rights era: “Cold Sweat,” “I Got the Feelin’,” “It’s a Mother,” “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” and “Sex Machine.” He performed at some of Brown’s most important concerts, including at the Boston Garden after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and for United States service members in Vietnam.

His sharp funk provided the anchor on anthems like “Cold Sweat,” “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud,” and “I Got The Feelin’.” Always, his playing was complex but collected — his flourishes between beats were as essential as the beat itself. Brown demanded a lot of his band, and Mr. Stubblefield, with playing that had punch, nimbleness and wet texture, never appeared to be breaking a sweat.

To read full article, go to: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/18/arts/music/clyde-stubblefield-dead.htmlrref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=9&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

Milwaukee Bus Driver Sharon Chambers Helps 15-Year-Old Girl Escape Man Following Her

Local hero Sharon Chambers (photo via TMJ4)

article by Breanna Edwards via theroot.com
Heroes don’t always wear capes. Sometimes they’re in bus driver uniforms. A Milwaukee County Transit System bus driver is being recognized after she helped a 15-year-old girl escape a man who was harassing and following her and even tried to pull her into his car, TMJ4 reports.
Sharon Chambers was driving her route earlier this week and was about to pull away from a stop when she noticed a girl flagging her down, MCTS told the station.“I thought she was just running to catch the bus, but as she walked in front of the bus I noticed she was crying,” Chambers said. “I told her to get on the bus and let her know no one was going to mess with her on my bus.”
After the girl relayed what was happening to Chambers, the bus driver took precautionary actions, calling MCTS dispatch, which then called the police. They waited at another location for the police. Chambers even called the girl’s grandmother to tell her what happened.“Don’t worry about it. You are safe. I will fight for you; no one is going to hurt you,” Chambers could be heard telling the girl on bus surveillance footage.“The world today is just terrible,”Chambers told the news station. “There’s a lot happening, and for it to be right in my face like that, it was scary. But I wanted her to know that I was there for her.”
Now the bus driver is being praised for her good work.“Sharon Chambers is a wonderful example of how even small acts of kindness and compassion can have a large impact. Sharon, and all the other hardworking employees at MCTS and Milwaukee County, make me proud to live in Milwaukee and serve as county executive. Thank you, Sharon,” County Executive Chris Abele told TMJ4.
Source: Milwaukee Bus Driver Helps 15-Year-Old Girl Escape Man Following Her

Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade Funds Literacy Program at Marquette University

Marquette alumnus and NBA superstar Dwyane Wade
Marquette alumnus and NBA superstar Dwyane Wade

Dwyane Wade, a star player for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association and an alumnus of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has pledged to donate $195,000 over three years through his Wade’s World Foundation to support a program to reduce the racial literacy gap among inner-city children.
The funds will be used to launch the Live to Dream summer reading program for second and third graders in Milwaukee public schools. Tutors from the university’s Ralph C. Hartman Literacy and Learning Center will help the children overcome any reading problems. Children will receive free transportation to the center for tutoring sessions. A book drive was held at a recent men’s basketball game at Marquette where attendees were asked to donate a book appropriate for young readers that will given to children in the summer reading program.
“Marquette has always been a champion of literacy, and this significant gift from Dwyane Wade and his foundation will give more children at risk of reading failure a much greater chance at a high quality of life,” said Dr. William Henk, dean of the College of Education. “To ensure their success in today’s world, we need to help them become skilled and confident in terms of their ability to read, write and listen.”
article via jbhe.com

Larry Drew Hired as New Head Coach of Milwaukee Bucks

Milwaukee Bucks NBA basketball team new head coach Larry Drew speaks at a news conference Monday, June 3, 2013, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Milwaukee Bucks NBA basketball team new head coach Larry Drew speaks at a news conference Monday, June 3, 2013, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Larry Drew could have sulked during his last season in Atlanta, complained to anyone who would listen about being a lame duck despite a winning record and three straight playoff appearances. He never did. “When you stay in this game as long as I have, the most important thing is you don’t take a negative situation and keep it negative,” Drew said. “I thought I would get something positive of it.”
That came Monday, as Drew was introduced as the new coach of the Milwaukee Bucks six days after his awkward tenure with the Atlanta Hawks ended with the hiring of his replacement. Drew has a three-year deal with the Bucks, and the team has an option for a fourth season.
“I am very, very excited about being here, I really am,” Drew said. “I’m going to do everything in my power to put this group together as fast as possible, to making us competitive, to making sure these guys are in tune with each other. If I do that, chances are we’re going to be a pretty good basketball team.”
If not, he’ll have to answer to his uncle. Drew’s uncle, Norman Johnson, has lived in Milwaukee for 49 years, and he joined the coach, his wife and the couple’s two younger sons for Monday’s news conference. “I’ve been a Bucks fan ever since the Bucks have been here,” Johnson said. “I’m very proud of him,” Johnson added. “I hope he continues his good work. I think he will.”

Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore Recognizes LGBT Pride Month

Despite the fact the homosexuality is often a taboo topic in the black community, Moore has chosen to embrace members of the LGBT community and their accomplishments during this month.
“LGBT Pride Month is a time to celebrate the progress we have made towards achieving equality for all Americans regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity,” said Moore in her statement.
Moore has shown her support by participating in the NOH8 marriage and gender equality campaign, a charitable organization that advocates for the LGBT community and their rights, in addition to efforts to include LGBT members in her Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
Also, in her statement Moore encouraged others to recognize the work that needs to be done to improve the opportunities for members of the LGBT community as well as appreciate the diversity that they offer our nation.
Moore takes pride in her LGBT friends and allies in politics stating, “I am also proud to celebrate my Wisconsin friends and LGBT Members of Congress – Senator Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay United States Senator and Representative Mark Pocan, whose husband became the first LGBT partner to receive a Congressional spousal ID.”
article by Adrienne Green via thegrio.com