We enter the year with a political party defeated in the Presidential election, but saying the election was rigged

We have QAnon people elected to Congress

We enter laughing at people who said fears of Trump supporters were overblown 

We were told that we had Trump Derangement Syndrome

Then we saw January 6th

The battle that King fought goes on.

Thr rats and roaches are no longer hiding.

State legislators are trying to suppress democracy 

The battle is out in the open.

Forward we go.

President Joe Biden

This February, during Black History Month, I call on the American people to honor the history and achievements of Black Americans and to reflect on the centuries of struggle that have brought us to this time of reckoning, redemption, and hope.  

We have never fully lived up to the founding principles of this nation that all people are created equal and have the right to be treated equally throughout their lives.  We know that it is long past time to confront deep racial inequities and the systemic racism that continue to plague our nation.

A knee to the neck of justice opened the eyes of millions of Americans and launched a summer of protest and stirred the nation’s conscience.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/02/01/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-black-history-month/

From Netflix

Amend: The Fight for America is a six-part docuseries that explores the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution—which, in 1868, promised liberty and equal protection for all persons—as America’s most enduring hallmark of democracy. Amend deploys a groundbreaking narrative format featuring a number of luminaries (Mahershala Ali, Diane Lane, Samuel L. Jackson, Pedro Pascal, Yara Shahidi, and more) breathing life into speeches and writings by the Fourteenth Amendment’s most ardent advocates and foes (including Frederick Douglass, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Andrew Johnson) with insights from an inclusive array of contemporary thought leaders and experts. Executive produced and hosted by Oscar-nominated actor Will Smith and Emmy-winning writer Larry Wilmore, Amend is a powerful, multimedia journey through American history that encourages viewers to question what a “United States” really means.

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/netflix-and-will-smith-team-up-for-a-new-docuseries-am-1846172092

I am reminded that Dr. Kizzmekia Corman played a role in developing the Moderna vaccine I received.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizzmekia_Corbett

Time magazine is partnering with Ibram X Kendi o the Black Renaissance 

Amanda Gorman is on the cover

An interview of Gorman by Michelle Obama is included

https://time.com/5936020/black-renaissance-time-ibram-kendi-project/

Study suggests that black female high school students are less likely to be recommended for AP calculus courses by counselors despite equivalent grades

In this paper, we seek to understand minority and female underrepresentation in ad- vanced STEM courses in high school by investigating whether school counselors exhibit racial or gender bias during the course assignment process. Using an adapted audit study, we asked a sample of school counselors to evaluate student transcripts that were identi- cal except for the names on the transcripts, which were varied randomly to suggestively represent a chosen race and gender combination. Our results indicate that black female students were less likely to be recommended for AP Calculus and were rated as being the least prepared. Female students were penalized less for having borderline behavior while male students were penalized less for having borderline academics. Our results have policy implications for any program that asks individuals to make recommendations that may be subject to bias - whether conscious or unconscious

https://www.smith.edu/sites/default/files/media/Francis_Counselors_BEJEAP_0.pdf.

When blinded to indicators of race black females test results are rated higher than when race is known. Bias may be in operation in the lower recommendation rate for AP courses in STEM

Article about the small but rising numbers of Black atheists 

They are more vocal than Black atheists of the past

https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-its-like-to-be-black-and-atheist?ref=home

Today is the birthday of the late Rosa Parks.

https://www.pennlive.com/life/2021/02/tired-of-giving-in-civil-rights-activist-rosa-parks-born-on-this-day-in-1913.html

GOP states craft legislation against teaching the 1619 Project

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Complaining about what he called indoctrination in schools, former President Donald Trump created a commission that promoted “patriotic" education and played down America's role in slavery. But though he's out of the White House and the commission has disbanded, the cause hasn't died. Lawmakers in Republican states are now pressing for similar action.

Proposals in Arkansas, Iowa and Mississippi would prohibit schools from using a New York Times project that focused on slavery's legacy. Georgia colleges and universities have been quizzed about whether they're teaching about white privilege or oppression. And GOP governors are backing overhauls of civic education that mirror Trump's abandoned initiatives.

Republicans behind the latest moves say they're countering left-wing attempts in K-12 schools and higher education to indoctrinate rather than teach students. Teachers, civil rights leaders and policymakers are fighting back, saying students will suffer if states brush over crucial parts of the nation's history.

“The idea of simply saying you’re not going to use certain materials because you don’t like what they’re going to say without input from professionals makes no sense," said James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/gop-states-weigh-limits-race-slavery-taught-75667142?cid=clicksource_4380645_13_mobile_web_only_headlines_headlines_hed

Rosalind Brewer, new Walgreen's CEO gets a $1.5 million annual salary and a $25 million signing bonus

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-walgreens-ceo-salary-bonus-20210201-6vjmzj5mdneireu42pwk4yglhm-story.html?fbclid=IwAR2JxQIXvrN_N4Mzsz_UaCMw6RoSuTc0H7-Wco7EZo60MCdFnjcnRKt4M4o

Alice Coachman, first Black woman to win an Olympic Gold medal

.Rain was starting to come down as the closing women’s track and field event of the 1948 Summer Olympics was coming to an end. To that point, no American woman had taken the gold medal in any of the competitions.

Alice Coachman changed that by soaring an unprecedented 5 feet, 6 1/8 inches in the high jump at the London Games. She also jumped into the history books as the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal.

The Albany State (Georgia) College student surpassed the Olympic record of 5 feet, 4 3/4 inches held jointly by Americans Jean Shiley and Babe Didrikson since the 1932 Olympics.

Close to 82,000 spectators watched Coachman’s Aug. 7, 1948, victory that came in dramatic fashion as she competed against Dorothy Tyler of Great Britain. Both women jumped the same height, but the American was given the nod because Tyler had several misses at lower heights.

King George VI presented Coachman with her gold medal. When the Albany, Georgia, native returned home, a parade was thrown in honor of her historic achievement at the XIV Olympiad.

https://theundefeated.com/features/alice-coachman-became-the-first-black-woman-to-win-olympic-gold-1948-games-in-london/

Emlen Tunnell, Coast Guard hero and NFL Hall of Famer

Before he became the first Black player inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Emlen Tunnell served in the Coast Guard during and after World War II, where he was credited with saving the lives of two shipmates in separate incidents.

Now, a Coast Guard cutter and an athletic building on the Coast Guard Academy campus are being named in honor of the former NFL defensive back, who died in 1975, as the service aims to highlight his little-known story and its own efforts to do better when it comes to race  and celebrating diversity.

“I think it’s important, because you have a teachable moment with young people when you talk about a guy like Emlen Tunnell,” Coast Guard Academy football coach C.C. Grant said. “They need to understand what he did, what he went through and what kind of a person he was.”

https://afro.com/coast-guard-honors-black-veteran-nfl-great-emlen-tunnell/

Edit to change Melendez to Emlen

Spellcheck also wanted Emblem

He became the nation’s ninth vice president. She was his enslaved wife.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/02/07/julia-chinn-slave-wife-vice-president/

The erasure of the memory of Julia Chinn , the enslaved wife of the ninth Vice President of the United States, John Mentor Johnson.

National Museum of African American Music

If you want to trace the roots of American popular music, you have to start when Europeans brought enslaved Africans across the Middle Passage. After Emancipation, the sounds of Africa and field hollers and work hymns from the American South dispersed across the country and transformed into new forms: the blues in Mississippi, jazz in New Orleans and later house music in Chicago and hip-hop in the Bronx.

Historians, anthologies and exhibitions have traced this path before, but an entire museum hasn’t been devoted to demonstrating and celebrating how Black artists fundamentally shaped American music until now. Last Saturday, the National Museum of African American Music opened in Nashville, with six interactive sections covering 50 genres of music with a focus on gospel, blues, jazz, R&B and hip-hop.

The idea for the museum, which has been 22 years and $60 million in the making, originated with Francis Guess, a civil rights advocate and Nashville business leader, who shared it with T.B. Boyd III, then the president and chief executive of the R.H. Boyd Publishing Co. In the beginning, they gathered with local leaders for monthly meetings in their living rooms to raise enthusiasm and seed money.

The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce conducted a feasibility study for a museum encompassing African-American culture in 2002; and in 2011, its focus was narrowed to music. With the support of the city and many community members, 56,000 square feet of the Fifth & Broadway complex in downtown Nashville were carved out for the institution. (The museum is open on Saturdays and Sundays in February, and time-slotted tickets are required for a limited number of masked visitors.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/arts/music/national-museum-of-african-american-music.htm

Mary Wilson, Motown Legend and Co-Founder of the Supremes, Dies at 76

Ms. Wilson, with the original members Diana Ross and Florence Ballard, was part of one of the biggest musical acts of the 1960s.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/arts/music/mary-wilson-dead.html

Edit to add:

Diana Ross tribute to Mary Wilson

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mary-wilson-death-diana-ross-the-supremes_n_6022a12fc5b689330e32d704

Sam Greenlee move, "The Spook Who Sat By the Door" coming to Disney

The Spook Who Sat by the Door, the 1969 spy novel from Sam Greenlee, will be headed to a small screen near us soon, thanks to Lee Daniels.

Deadline reports that the Empire co-creator will executive produce the project, along with Lee Daniels Entertainment President Marc Velez. Raising Dion co-executive producer Leigh Dana Jackson will pen the script as well as serve as showrunner. Burning Sands and The First Purge director Gerard McMurray is also on board to direct. The series comes as a part of Daniels’ overall deal with Disney’s 20th Television.

“The Spook Who Sat by the Door was my dad’s favorite book,” said Daniels. “He’d be so proud that I’m doing this and even prouder that I’m doing this with Gerard and Dana—two bold and brilliant Black storytellers.”

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/lee-daniels-the-spook-who-sat-by-the-door-finds-a-home-1846229025

NYT tribute to Gordon Parks

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/fashion/gordon-parks-was-the-godfather-of-cool.html

Across the United States, the popularity of barbecue has exploded with regional specialties in every state—but are we honoring the foregoers of this culinary tradition? Often erased from American history, enslaved Africans wrote the narrative for the modern story of American barbecue.  

Across the United States, the popularity of barbecue has exploded with regional specialties in every state—but often erased from American history is the role of enslaved Africans in the telling of the modern story of American barbecue.  

Join rocket scientist and BBQ historian Howard Conyers, PhD and pitmasters Ed and Ryan Mitchell, for a virtual celebration in homage to the Black culinary heritage of American BBQ and a conversation led by culinary historian Adrian Miller, author of the upcoming book, Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue, that explores the preservation of African American foodways, Black perseverance, culinary innovation, and entrepreneurship.

We will also premiere the debut screening of MOFAD’s original virtual reality short film featuring Jones Bar-B-Q as part of our upcoming exhibition, African/American: Making the Nation's Table.

Immerse yourself in the fiery pit and busy kitchen of Debra “Shorty” and Mary “Little” Jones’s intergenerationally-owned restaurant in Kansas City, Kansas.

While not required for viewing, tickets purchased by January 25th include the option to purchase virtual reality headsets to experience the film in 3-D.

https://www.facebook.com/events/184855563390281

Wednesday, February 10, 2021 at 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM EST

Tomorrow

Online Event

https://www.mofad.org/events/2021/0210/blacksmoke

New PBS documentary on the politics of the late baseball great, Jackie Robinson

Now the subject of a two-part, four-hour documentary directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon on PBS, Robinson emerged as a critical voice in the civil rights movement, as candidates from both parties sought the retired player’s counsel and his endorsement.

“I’ve never identified myself with one party or another in politics,” the Hall of Famer said in his autobiography. “I admit freely that I think, live, and breathe black first and foremost.”

Robinson was not a if JFK fan, but:

“A Barry Goldwater victory,” he wrote in his autobiography, “would insure that the GOP would be completely the white man’s party.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/goldie-taylorthe-radical-political-independence-of-jackie-robinson?ref=home

Anna Deavere Smith on being a black female student at a white female college in the time around MLK's assassination

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/03/the-last-of-the-nice-negro-girls/617786/

Martha S. Jones, a historian at Johns Hopkins University, is most recently the author of “Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All.”

When I wrote a book about Black women’s long struggle for voting rights in the United States, I knew the story was partly about how racism has shaped our democracy. I never expected that a public library today would refuse to host a discussion featuring my book.

“Vanguard” recounts how many suffragists and lawmakers who sought to ratify the 19th Amendment accommodated and, in some cases, embraced anti-Black racism even as they worked to expand access to a fundamental democratic right. Jim Crow laws — poll taxes, literacy tests and more — prevented Black women from casting ballots for decades after the 19th Amendment became law in 1920.

Facing these ties between racism and democracy can be difficult. People forget that history is not merely a recounting of past events but also a battle over who writes it, from which perspective and what those stories teach about who we are as a nation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/09/i-wrote-book-black-womens-voting-history-louisiana-library-board-refuses-host-discussion-it/?arc404=true

A library in Louisiana refused to host discussion of the book despite receiving funding.

More humor

Austin Chenge, a Nigerian-American and Black Republican who is running for governor of Michigan against incumbent Gretchen Whitmer, who is up for re-election next year.

One big plan is to cancel the "offensive" Black History Month"

https://www.theroot.com/black-michigan-republican-thirsty-for-racist-support-pl-1846233322

It's 2021, members of the Southern Baptist Convention still can't help themselves 

Southern Baptist leaders called Kamala Harris a ‘Jezebel.’ That’s not just insulting, it’s dangerous, experts say.

The Biblical reference has a long history of being used to justify violence against Black women in the United States

https://www.thelily.com/southern-baptist-leaders-called-kamala-harris-a-jezebel-thats-not-just-insulting-its-dangerous-experts-say/

Supporting Black storytellers

For Black History Month, Instagram has been highlighting #ShareBlackStories as a call-to-action and show of support for those across the African diaspora. On Tuesday, it was announced that the social media app is joining forces with director Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim) and Howard University to support Black storytellers with the launch of Instagram x Share Black Stories ‘Future First’ Reels Challenge. This one is for y’all at HU!

Per a press release sent to The Root:

The program, launching today, will feature selected emerging student storytellers from the Howard University Department of Media, Journalism, and Film, each of whom will receive a $10,000 production stipend to support costs associated with the creation of their work. In addition to mentorship provided by Ms. Matsoukas and Howard University advisors and educators, the selected student storytellers will have the opportunity to have their content earmarked for sharing across @instagram and other channels on the platform, providing broad reach to the platform’s digital audience.

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/melina-matsoukas-howard-university-and-instagram-launc-1846230557

U.S. Representative Lauren Underwood addresses pregnancy related deaths in the Black community

‘We all know somebody’: Rep. Lauren Underwood on the fight to stop pregnancy-related deaths 

Underwood spoke with The 19th about her efforts to undo a crisis that disproportionately harms Black people.

https://19thnews.org/2021/02/rep-lauren-underwood-on-the-fight-to-stop-pregnancy-related-deaths/

Black pastors work to increase COVID vaccinations in their communities 

BOSTON—The block-lettered sign outside Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist deems it “the church where miracles happen!”

But inside, from his sun-splashed pulpit, the Rev. Miniard Culpepper makes clear it will take both faith and science to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This new strain, Lord have mercy,” he preached one recent Sunday to the small, socially distanced congregation and some 200 worshipers watching remotely. “Pray that even with this new strain, that as folks get vaccinated—and we pray that folks do get vaccinated—that we’ll see the numbers come down.”

Mr. Culpepper and other Black clergy have comforted their flocks during the pandemic, as Black and Latino people in the U.S. have died of the coronavirus at more than twice the rate of white residents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now, many of the pastors are emerging as local influencers in the country’s sprawling vaccination ground game. Their biggest hurdle is often building confidence in the vaccine in their communities.

One-third of Black adults say they plan to avoid the Covid-19 shots, compared with about one-fifth of Hispanic and white adults who don’t plan to get vaccinated, according to recent survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

“We christen their babies, we do their funerals, do their marriages, do prayer for them, and are at the hospital with them,” said Mr. Culpepper, a lawyer in his 60s who became pastor of the red-brick church in 1997. “I don’t think there is anything my church won’t come to me with.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-vaccine-efforts-get-a-boost-from-black-communities-pastors-11612953001?mod=hp_lead_pos12

History Channel special on the Tuskegee Airmen

Executive Producer is Robin Roberts of GMA.

Her father was a Tuskegee airmen

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/my-daddy-had-the-nerve-to-dream-robin-roberts-reflects-1846224531

Roberts is also EP for an upcoming film about Mahalia Jackson 

UNSUNG: Unheralded Narratives of American Slavery & Abolition, edited by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. (Penguin Classics, paper, $22.) This anthology highlights the overlooked role that enslaved people played in emancipation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/books/review/new-this-week.html

Black History Month in the time of the Proud Boys

Many of the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were driven by a belief that they were in acting in accord with the principles fashioned at the birth of this country, that their protest embodied America’s long history of patriotic rhetoric about freedom and citizenship. And in this, they are at least partly right: Such rhetoric has been used time and again by white supremacists — one of the latest iterations being the Proud Boys and their co-conspirators — to rationalize violence against racial and religious minorities in order to preserve a country white Americans did not want to share.

The insurrectionists seem to believe that their America is under assault. They are not alone. President Donald Trump’s 1776 Commission — established as a response to The New York Times’s 1619 Project, an examination of this nation’s history that took the Black past seriously — revolved around the belief that the ideological underpinnings of America were being threatened and that the nation needed to be reminded “that our Declaration is worth preserving, our Constitution worth defending, our fellow citizens worth loving, and our country worth fighting for.”

There’s nothing to argue against in this statement — except that it fundamentally ignores centuries of efforts to make sure that only certain people were protected by the nation’s laws, reflected in its glorious rhetoric and considered worthy of love. Others could be owned, beaten, separated from their families, denied their birthrights, receive substandard education, be relegated to substandard housing and have shorter life expectancies.

Every February, Americans are invited to think seriously about our nation’s history from the perspective of the African-American experience. Black history is profoundly illuminating: It produces a bright light by which we can make an honest assessment of how well our actions align with the ideals that have led us to proclaim that ours is a special nation. Black History Month is a time that dares us to think about the limitations of the Proud Boys’ white nationalism that excludes the diversity that is one of this country’s strengths. Similarly, it is a time that reminds us that the democratic ideals trumpeted by the 1776 Commission have not been applied equally.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/opinion/black-history-month.html

New Walgreen's CEO

Just when you thought Black women couldn’t take their career successes to newer heights, Rosalind Brewer was recently named CEO of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., the global drug store giant. This move makes her the only Black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company. If that’s not #BlackGirlMagic, we don’t know what is!

Brewer succeeds Stefano Pessina, who served as CEO for six years following the merger between Walgreens and Alliance Boots in 2014. Pessina will transition to executive chairman of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.’s board. Brewer, who resumes the role on March 15, will be charged with navigating the company through financial difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic, as Walgreens takes a leading role in administering the vaccine.

https://www.essence.com/articles/rosalind-brewer-first-black-woman-ceo-walgreens/

Paris Opera to Act on Racist Stereotypes in Ballet

The Paris Opera — one of the world’s most revered and traditional companies — has for years been seen as having much work to do on race. It has only a few Black dancers in the ranks of its ballet company and few people of color in its orchestra or chorus. As recently as 2015, audiences regularly saw dancers in blackface performing on its stages.

Fed up with an atmosphere of discrimination, five Black members of the ballet company circulated an open letter among the Paris Opera’s 1,800 employees last summer, calling for urgent change. “We wanted to bring the question of race out of the silence that surrounds it,” the letter said.

On Monday, the company responded, publishing a 66-page reporton diversity at the Paris Opera, focused on its ballet. At a news conference, its artistic director, Alexander Neef, said he would take action to deal with racist caricatures in classic ballet productions, some of which have been in the repertoire for decades.

“There will be no blackface, or yellowface,” Neef told reporters, but works like “La Bayadère” and “The Nutcracker” would remain, with possible further changes in choreography and costumes. Behind the scenes, there will be efforts to increase the number of dancers of color who enter the ballet’s ranks, he said. Neef, who took charge at the Paris Opera in September, moving from the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, was the driving force behind the report.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/08/arts/dance/paris-ballet-diversity.html

Kim Janey will become Boston’s first Black and woman mayor 

Janey is expected to join a small group of Black women who lead the nation’s largest cities.

Boston has never had a Black person or a woman serve as mayor. That is now set to change. 

Kim Janey, city council president, is slated to become mayor following President-elect Joe Biden’s nomination of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to his Cabinet this week.

The Boston city charter specifies that the city council president becomes acting mayor if the job becomes vacant. The distinction means she “may only perform urgent tasks” and cannot make permanent appointments. Janey was elected to the city council in 2017 and became city council president last year

https://19thnews.org/2021/01/kim-janey-will-become-bostons-first-black-and-woman-mayor/

Impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett, from the Virgin Islands, helped press the case for impeaching Trump for the second time.

One notable example Plaskett mentioned was how Trump praised MAGA fans on Twitter who allegedly tried to run off a campaign bus of his then-opponent Joe Biden on Oct. 30.

Perhaps the most powerful moment during Plaskett’s remarks was when Plaskett emotionally noted how the insurrectionist events at the Capitol reminded her of the time she served as a young staffer on 9/11.

“Almost everyday I remember that 44 Americans gave their lives to stop the plane that was headed to this Capitol building,” she said while reminding them that 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City.

“I thank them every day for saving my life and the life of so many others. Those Americans sacrificed their lives for love of country, honor, duty, all the things that America means. The Capitol stands because of people like that.”

But while sharing her compelling experience, the words weren’t just the only thing that caught our attention, but when Plaskett stared down every Republican in that room who would have dared to “other” her in that moment.

In other words, Plaskett came to slay and took no prisoners.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/impeachment-manager-stacey-plaskett-brings-some-truth?ref=home

Good outcome

For some reason, a woman used Gorilla glue to attach extensions to her hair

The result was a tangle that could not be removed

Fortunately, chemical adhesive could be removed after a four procedure by a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills

https://nypost.com/2021/02/11/tessica-brown-undergoes-surgery-to-remove-adhesive/

TMZ filmed the proedre, not sure if they helped cover costs

The other Black Wall Streets

Tulsa was not the only financially strong Black district

https://www.theroot.com/the-other-black-wall-streets-1823010812

Remembering the Wilmington Ten trial

https://afro.com/celebrating-black-history-the-wilmington-ten-fifty-years-later/

Meagan Good makes her director debut

When Tamara Bass wrote IF NOT NOW, WHEN? and presented it as a project that could mark Krazy Actress Productions’ first feature film, she and Megan Good knew that they were putting into the world, not only the type of movie that shaped us, but the type that represented the films they wanted to contribute to the community.

“Coming together, we discussed how we witnessed a void in the slice of life films that happen to showcase people of color. Particularly women of color. We knew that we were represented recently in the comedy genre and had played second fiddle to men for years. But, having our stories be front and center in a heartfelt drama, hadn’t been seen since WAITING TO EXHALE. And we were due. Women are consumers too! Hence the voyage of IF NOT NOW, WHEN? was born,” says Good.

For Good and Bass, this film represents more than just a chance for Black actresses to play lead roles, side by side; it represents a shift in storytelling. “If we can break through the barriers of only being seen in a particular light, we have the ability to change the way our stories are told. And while we understood this journey was filled with lofty ambitions, we knew that we possessed the skills, determination and drive to make that goal a reality. The end result is a film filled with a lot of love, heart and a love letter to our sisterhood,” says the duo.

IF NOT NOW, WHEN? is a project that truly depicts the heart and soul of a beautiful friendship journey and is definitely worth watching. Check it out now on demand

https://www.ebony.com/news/meagan-good-makes-directoral-debut-in-film-inspiried-by-her-inner-circle/

Classic film "Best Man" comes to Peacock as limited television series

Following the success of the classic film The Best Man, which hit theaters in 1999, and its equally-loved sequel The Best Man Holiday, which hit the big screen in 2013, a Best Man limited series is set to debut later this year on the NBC streaming service, Peacock.

The original cast, including Regina Hall, Taye Diggs, Terrence Howard, Sanaa Lathan, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, Melissa De Sousa, and Harold Perrineau have all reportedly signed on to star in the anticipated series, titled The Best Man: The Final Chapters. The only actress that will not be making a return would be Monica Calhoun, whose character died in the sequel. Creators of the series are reportedly eyeing a September start.

https://www.essence.com/articles/the-best-man-limited-series-peacock-announcement/

First Black Astronaut on International Space Station

Early Tuesday morning (Nov. 17), the 44-year-old NASA astronaut came aboard the International Space Station, becoming the first African American ever to begin a full six-month stint on the orbiting lab.   

Glover and three crewmates — fellow NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Shannon Walker and Japan's Soichi Noguchi — left Earth on Sunday evening (Nov. 15) aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule "Resilience." The launch kicked off Crew-1, SpaceX's first-ever contracted, fully operational astronaut mission to the space station for NASA.

https://www.space.com/victor-glover-first-black-crewmember-space-station

Horrific murder of a white seminarian, Johnathan Daniels, during Civil Rights era

Jonathan Daniels: The Forgotten Civil Rights Preacher Killed by a Cop in Alabama

In 1965 Alabama, Episcopal seminarian Jonathan Daniels was gunned down while trying to buy a Coke with two Black girls. The cop who shot him was acquitted.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jonathan-daniels-the-forgotten-civil-rights-preacher-killed-by-a-cop-in-alabama?ref=scroll

"Lovecraft Country" a horror miniseries is now coming out on BluRay and DVD

In an exclusive sneak-peek of a bonus featurette from the Blu-Ray/DVD obtained by The Root, Green talks about the time she truly learned just how devoid genre pieces were of representation of people of color and how she made an intentional decision to narrow that void.

“This was an opportunity in Lovecraft Country to really bring people of color to the forefront of genre [pieces],” Green says in the clip. “To say that we love everything down to Harry Potter, to aliens, to scary movies, too!”

“It was nice to be able to tell a story in that space and that story to reflect more of the world other than just one corner, which is whiteness,” she added.

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/exclusive-lovecraft-country-featurette-showrunner-ep-m-1846238955

Series like Lovecraft Country allow tales to be told from a different perspective 

More video of the child pepper-sprayed by Rochester police

The newly released footage shows several of the nine officers who ultimately responded to the scene repeatedly threatening the girl as they struggle to get her completely into the back of a police car. She is clearly in distress and yelling that she wants her father. 

“Listen to me — you’re going to get sprayed if you don’t get in,” one officer says.

“Get in the car,” comes another command. “I’m done telling you.”

“I’m going to pepper-spray you, and I don’t want to,” one officer says. “So sit back.”

“Please don’t,” the girl says.

“This is your last chance, or pepper spray is going into your eyeballs,” an officer says.

A female officer tries to persuade the girl to get all the way into the car.

Soon, one officer, and then a second, can be heard saying, “Just spray her.” Seconds later, one of them does and then shuts the door as the girl screams, “My eye is bleeding.”

In the aftermath, the female officer sits in front of the car and tells the girl, “You did it to yourself.”

“It’s burning my eyes,” the girl says.

“That’s the point of pepper spray,” the officer says.

Donald Thompson, a lawyer for the girl's family, said the new video was “far more disturbing” than the earlier footage.

“The lack of humanity is amazing,” he said.

The Democrat and Chronicle, a Rochester newspaper, estimated that it had taken an ambulance about 15 minutes to arrive after the girl was pepper-sprayed and that it was 23 minutes before one of the handcuffs she had been placed in was removed.

In the footage, after the ambulance arrives, one officer tries to comfort the girl.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/nyregion/rochester-police-pepper-spray.html

First interracial Pro tennis match

In the pantheon of great Black tennis players — Serena and Venus Williams, Arthur Ashe, Althea Gibson and so many others — Jimmie McDaniel undoubtedly has a place, having preceded the others in breaking the sport’s color barrier. Yet mention of his name would undoubtedly elicit blank stares from tennis cognoscenti worldwide — the curse of a man ignored in the history of a sport that was, during his time, overwhelmingly rich and white.

More than 80 years ago McDaniel played what is believed to have been the first interracial tennis match, against the world champion, Don Budge.

The match, on July 29, 1940, was referred to as “the most important sports and social event to hit Harlem in many years” by The Amsterdam News, the country’s leading Black newspaper at the time.

It was 10 years before Gibson first played at Forest Hills, seven years before Jackie Robinson became the first African-American player in modern major league baseball and 14 years before Brown v. Board of Education declared that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional.

On that day, McDaniel and Budge faced off before a crowd of more than 2,000 people who packed the stands, covering every inch of the court’s perimeter. Hundreds more cheered wildly from apartment windows, rooftops and fire escapes nearby.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/obituaries/jimmie-mcdaniel-overlooked.html

Retired Marine general, trailblazing Navy admiral among new picks who will scrutinize bases with Confederate names

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday that he has selected four people, including a former Marine Corps commandant and a retired four-star Navy admiral, to join a congressionally mandated commission that will consider how to rename U.S. military installations that recognize Confederate military officers.

Retired Marine Gen. Robert B. Neller, who led the Marine Corps from September 2015 to July 2019, will be joined by retired Adm. Michelle Howard, who became the first African American and woman to become the Navy’s vice chief of naval operations and recently served on the Biden transition team at the Pentagon.

The other two selections are Kori Schake, director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, a history professor emeritus at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., who has advocated for changing installation names.

“Each of these individuals possesses unique and relevant experience, in and out of government, that I know will inform this important effort,” Austin said in a statement. “I am enormously grateful for their willingness to serve the nation again, and I thank them in advance for the wise counsel I am confident they will provide.”

The Biden administration announced the selections after Austin blocked selections that the Trump administration had made for the positions. Acting defense secretary Chris Miller’s selections in January included Joshua Whitehouse, who had overseen the dismissal of numerous appointees to nonpartisan Pentagon advisory boards as the Trump administration sought to install loyalists instead.

The Trump administration’s other blocked selections include former White House officials Earl Matthews and Sean McLean and Ann Johnston, a Pentagon official in the Trump administration.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/02/12/retired-marine-general-trailblazing-navy-admiral-among-new-picks-who-will-scrutinize-bases-with-confederate-names/

A reality show caught up in Confederate nonsense in 2021

Apparently, a white contestant attended a Confederate pageant happened in 2018

Show host gives classic demonstration on how not to man'splain the situation 

Chris Harrison is the host of "The Bachelor"

Rachel Lindsay is a former contestant who is Black

Partial interview on "Extra"

“Well, Rachel, is it a good look in 2018?” Harrison said. “Or, is it not a good look in 2021? Because there’s a big difference.”

“It’s not a good look ever,” Lindsay said. “Because she’s celebrating the Old South. If I went to that party, what would I represent at that party?”

“You’re 100 percent right in 2021,” Harrison said. “That was not the case in 2018. And again, I’m not defending Rachael. I just know that, I don’t know, 50 million people did that in 2018. That was a type of party that a lot of people went to. And again, I’m not defending it. I didn’t go to it.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-bachelor-host-chris-harrison-is-sorry-for-defending-a-contestant-amid-racism-scandal?ref=scroll

The contestant involved in the controversy apologized 

After weeks of controversy, Bachelor contestant Rachael Kirkconnell has released a statement apologizing for images that have surfaced of her attending a plantation-themed party, donning insensitive Halloween costumes, and “liking” offensive social media posts—including one in which two people are posed in front of a Confederate flag. And in a surprising, unprecedented move, the season’s entire cast has posted a shared statement to their social media denouncing racism.

“While there have been rumors circulating, there have also been truths that have come to light that I need to address,” Kirkconnell wrote in a statement Thursday night. “At one point, I didn’t recognize how offensive and racist my actions were, but that doesn’t excuse them. My age or when it happened does not excuse anything. They are not acceptable or okay in any sense. I was ignorant, but my ignorance was racist.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bachelor-cast-releases-stunning-statement-after-rachael-kirkconnell-apologizes-for-past-racist-behavior?ref=home

Michael Jordan now supporting Bubba Wallace in NASCAR

Michael Jordan started receiving text messages from friends who had never before shown interest in NASCAR after Darrell Wallace Jr. made an impression this week in the run-up to Sunday’s Daytona 500. Wallace, who is known as Bubba, is making his debut with 23XI Racing, the team owned by Jordan and the driver Denny Hamlin.

“So, people are starting to be inquisitive about it, which, to me, is a start,” Jordan told The New York Times in a video conference call with Hamlin and Wallace. “And come Sunday, hopefully both do well. I told Denny what my ideal scenario would be. I won’t say it out loud, but both of them are doing well.”

Jordan, who is widely considered to be the greatest basketball player ever, has already propelled the popularity of one sport. Now, he hopes his venture into NASCAR extends and diversifies the number of drivers, sponsors, business opportunities and fans.

In joining Hamlin and forming 23XI, Jordan is supporting Wallace, the only Black full-time driver at NASCAR’s top level. Last summer, Wallace called for the Confederate flag to be banned at racetracks. He later found a noose in his garage at the Talladega racetrack, but the F.B.I. determined he had not been the target of a hate crime.

“We don’t know where this is going to go, but we know that we’re trying to make it better for all people,” Jordan said. “And not that it hasn’t been, but the thing is, the determination and the drive and the effort hadn’t really been the same.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/sports/autoracing/michael-jordan-bubba-hamlin-nascar.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Sports

9 films about Black love to focus on for Valentines Day

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/movies-embodying-the-diversity-of-black-love-across-dec-1846262849

New Fulton County DA to investigate suspected attempt to alter the vote in Georgia 

After six weeks as a district attorney, Fani T. Willis is taking on a former president.

And not just that. In an interview about her newly announced criminal investigation into election interference in Georgia, Ms. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, made it clear that the scope of her inquiry would encompass the pressure campaign on state officials by former President Donald J. Trump as well as the activities of his allies.

“An investigation is like an onion,” she said. “You never know. You pull something back, and then you find something else.”

She added, “Anything that is relevant to attempts to interfere with the Georgia election will be subject to review.”

Ms. Willis, whose jurisdiction encompasses much of Atlanta, has suddenly become a new player in the post-presidency of Mr. Trump. She will decide whether to bring criminal charges over Mr. Trump’s phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” votes to erase the former president’s loss there, and other efforts by Trump allies to overturn the election results. The severity of the legal threat to Mr. Trump is not yet clear, but Ms. Willis has started laying out some details about the inquiry.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/us/politics/fani-willis-trump.html

Two sanitation workers alert police to the location of a kidnapped girl

A 10-year-old Louisiana girl who was abducted over the weekend was found safe after two sanitation workers spotted the suspected kidnapper's vehicle.

The girl had gone missing on Sunday afternoon from a family member's home in New Iberia, about 20 miles southeast of Lafayette.

New Iberia police issued an Amber Alert for her and an arrest warrant for her alleged abductor, who police identified as Michael Sereal. Authorities said Sereal was last seen driving a silver Nissan Altima.

Dion Merrick and Brandon Antoine, who work for Pelican Waste & Debris, said they had just started their route on Monday morning when they noticed a silver Nissan parked in the middle of a field in St. Martin Parish.

Merrick said he immediately recognized the car from the Amber Alert.

"I told the guy who rides with me, that's the car. I pulled forward and backed up to block the entrance [to the field] and then called 911," he said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

Merrick said the driver of the vehicle opened the car door and Antoine recognized him as the suspect from the Amber Alert. They relayed the information to the 911 dispatcher. Police were at the scene in under a minute.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/2-sanitation-workers-save-10-year-old-girl-who-was-n1257321

Heather McGhee on the racial economic gap

Over a two-decade career in the white-collar think tank world, I’ve continually wondered: Why can’t we have nice things?

By “we,” I mean America at-large. As for “nice things,” I don’t picture self-driving cars, hovercraft backpacks or laundry that does itself. Instead, I mean the basic aspects of a high-functioning society: well-funded schools, reliable infrastructure, wages that keep workers out of poverty, or a comprehensive public health system equipped to handle pandemics — things that equally developed but less wealthy nations seem to have.

In 2010, eight years into my time as an economic policy wonk at Demos, a progressive policy research group, budget deficits were on the rise. The Great Recession had decimated tax revenue, requiring more public spending to restart the economy.

But both the Tea Party and many in President Barack Obama’s inner circle were calling for a “grand bargain” to shrink the size of government by capping future public outlays and slashing Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Despite the still-fragile recovery and evidence that corporations were already paring back retirement benefits and ratcheting down real wages, the idea gained steam.

On a call with a group of all-white economist colleagues, we discussed how to advise leaders in Washington against this disastrous retrenchment. I cleared my throat and asked: “So where should we make the point that all these programs were created without concern for their cost when the goal was to build a white middle class, and they paid for themselves in economic growth? Now these guys are trying to fundamentally renege on the deal for a future middle class that would be majority people of color?”

Nobody answered. I checked to see if I was muted.

Finally, one of the economists breached the awkward silence. “Well, sure, Heather. We know that — and you know that — but let’s not lead with our chin here,” he said. “We are trying to be persuasive.”

The sad truth is that he was probably right. Soon, the Tea Party movement, harnessing the language of fiscal responsibility and the subtext of white grievance, would shut down the federal government, win across-the-board cuts to public programs and essentially halt the legislative function of the federal government for the next six years. The result: A jobless recovery followed by a slow, unequal economic expansion that hurt Americans of all backgrounds.

The anti-government stinginess of traditional conservatism, along with the fear of losing social status held by many white people, now broadly associated with Trumpism, have long been connected. Both have sapped American society’s strength for generations, causing a majority of white Americans to rally behind the draining of public resources and investments. Those very investments would provide white Americans — the largest group of the impoverished and uninsured — greater security, too: A new Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study calculated that in 2019, the country’s output would have been $2.6 trillion greater if the gap between white men and everyone else were closed. And a 2020 report from analysts at Citigroup calculated that if America had adopted policies to close the Black-white economic gap 20 years ago, U.S. G.D.P would be an estimated $16 trillion higher

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/opinion/race-economy-inequality-civil-rights.html

Always room for the icons

Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize 1950

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Bunche

Shirley Chisholm 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Chisholm

Protecting Black girls

Vivian Anderson was living in Brooklyn, New York, in 2015 when a friend told her about video clips of a white police officer dragging a young Black girl from her desk and body-slamming her to the ground. Videos showed then-Spring Valley High School police officer Ben Fields in Columbia, South Carolina, flipping over the 16-year-old girl, identified as Shakara, toppling her desk and dragging her across the floor.

Like many Black women who have become overwhelmed by the traumatic experience of seeing videos of police violence against other Black women and girls, Anderson had braced herself to watch the videos.

But instead, she stumbled upon another video out of Spring Valley High. It was a clip featuring Shakara’s classmate: Niya Kenny, a high school senior at the time who was being released from jail. She had been arrested under a vague South Carolina “disturbing schools” law after encouraging her peers to take out their cellphones and film Fields, who was called to their math class after Shakara got into a verbal disagreement with their teacher about having her phone out. 

Anderson, who now resides in Columbia, still remembers how she felt when she watched interviews of Kenny being asked why she decided to speak up for her classmate. 

“She was like … ‘Because she had nobody else,’” Anderson said. “I get emotional every time I think about it. … I remember my heart just felt like somebody had punched it ... and all I felt was, ‘Here’s a girl calling folks to action.’” 

“This girl should not have to be carrying this weight alone,” Anderson said she remembered thinking at the time.

So in 2016, Anderson launched EveryBlackGirl, Inc., a national campaign and program that centers and supports Black girls. The disproportionate discipline used against Black boys often dominates mainstream conversations surrounding racial biases and school discipline. EveryBlackGirl emphasizes to Black girls that they are loved and supported by Black women everywhere.

“Our mission often is to create a world where every Black girl thrives and it’s our belief until the world around her thrives, she’s not going to be safe,” Anderson said.

That mission has continued to fuel the organization’s work over the years.

Most recently, Anderson traveled to Osceola County, Florida, to visit a Black teen who was body-slammed by a school resource officer at her high school. 

“The incident in Osceola, Florida, tells us that we cannot stop fighting against the overpolicing of Black girls because they are not stopping,” she said. “This is not new.”

Then, in Rochester, New York, police officers handcuffed and pepper-sprayed a 9-year-old girl during a call about a family disturbance. Anderson sees parallels to the 2015 incident in South Carolina.

“I think about the 9-year-old responding to the officer that said ‘stop acting like a child’ and she said, ‘I am a child.’ And it just reminds me of Niya when she said, ‘I stood up because I knew she had no one else,’” Anderson said. “Our girls keep standing, so we have to keep fighting so our voices are louder. Our girls need to hear and see us standing for them.”

And last year, EveryBlackGirl jumped into action after a 15-year-old Black high school student in Michigan, identified by her middle name, Grace, was jailed in May for not doing her online schoolwork during the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/everyblackgirl-black-girls-advocacy_n_60076ca0c5b6ffcab9687b18

Trailer for Regina King's "One Night in Miami"

https://blacknerdproblems.com/one-night-in-miami-review/

Writer NK Nesmin and artist Jamal Campbell helm a DC Comics series about a Black female Green Lantern

(I'm a Black Nerd Problems type nerd)

https://blacknerdproblems.com/tag/far-sector/

How the Black Church Embraces Tragic History and the Fervor of Faith

Henry Louis Gates examines the history of the Black church.

In a new book and related PBS documentary, the author explores how the Black church is the space where cultural ties to Africa come to life in mutated but still recognizable form.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-black-church-embraces-tragic-history-and-the-fervor-of-faith?ref=home

Classical music 2021

Modern Black classical music artists are reviving the words of largely forgotten Black classical artists like Julius Eastman, Samuel Colerage-Taylor and Florence Price.

Music can’t survive on its own. Composers not entrenched in the canon need support: from publishers, from foundations, from performers. Without these champions, it’s all too easy to slide into obscurity.

Three projects — by the Catalyst Quartet; the baritone Will Liverman; and the pianist Lara Downes — consider another avenue for maintaining a legacy: recordings. Gone are the days when classical albums could be relied on as moneymakers. But in the age of streaming, they are endlessly accessible, easy to disseminate and, in the case of these new releases, ideal for spreading the word about overlooked composers of color, whose music often exists in varying states of disrepair.

Recordings have helped propel the recent revivals of Julius Eastman and Florence Price, whose works are held up by scholars and critics today but languished for decades — neglected for a variety of reasons, including race.

When a friend of mine, the musicologist Jacques Dupuis, programmed Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Endymion’s Dream” a few years ago for the Boston ensemble Calliope, the only full score of it he could find was a rare holograph at the Library of Congress. So he traveled to Washington and spent dozens of hours transcribing it and creating a performing edition. A video of the resulting concert is the only available recording of the piece.

“I’m not sure that would be sustainable as a regular practice without robust institutional support,” he said, “which speaks to some of the hurdles in bringing equity and diversity to music programming.”

Similar labor went into the creation of these albums, made with the goal of highlighting music by Black composers and offering new possibilities for the classical canon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/arts/music/black-composers-classical-music-album.html

Black abstract artists finally get their due

In the 1960s, abstract painting was a controversial style for Black artists, overshadowed by social realist works. Now, it’s claimed its place as a vital form of expression.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/t-magazine/black-abstract-painters.html

15 Pioneering Black Architects Who Shaped America

https://www.veranda.com/home-decorators/g32791418/famous-black-architects/

Never forget 

On June 21, 1964, three young men disappeared near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Michael (Mickey) Schwerner and James Chaney worked for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in nearby Meridian; Andrew Goodman was one of the hundreds of college students from across the country who volunteered to work on voter registration, education, and Civil Rights as part of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project. The three men believed their work was necessary, but also dangerous: Ku Klux Klan membership in Mississippi was soaring in 1964 -- with membership reaching more than 10,000. The Klan was prepared to use violence to fight the Civil Rights movement; on April 24 the group offered a demonstration of its power, staging 61 simultaneous cross burnings throughout the state.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-murder/

The concept of death in the Yoruba region

Good death

Bad death

Ths need to personally avenge a bad death 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/opinion/Yoruba-religion-death.html

Ma Rainey Director George C. Wolfe Teams Up With the Obamas' Higher Ground for Upcoming Bayard Rustin Biopic

Fresh off the critically acclaimed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which is currently racking up hella award nominations, Netflix has announced a brand new project from its accomplished director George C. Wolfe.

According to a press release sent to The Root, the masterful playwright will direct Rustin, a biopic centering around gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin in tandem with the Obamas’ Higher Ground production company. Academy Award-winning screenwriter and LGBT activist Dustin Lance Black (Milk) will pen the script as well as produce alongside Priya Swaminathan and Tonia Davis from Higher Ground and Academy Award-winner Bruce Cohen (American Beauty). Rustin “tells the story of charismatic, gay, civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who overcame [an onslaught] of obstacles, and altered the course of American history by organizing the 1963 March on Washington.”

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/ma-rainey-director-george-c-wolfe-teams-up-with-the-ob-1846268736

This Black-Owned Breakfast Food Company Is Making ‘Cereal For The Culture’

On one particular night last summer, Nic King had trouble sleeping. There was a lot on his mind.

The 34-year-old had recently left his corporate job. The Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd had just begun to spread nationwide. 

It was out of this moment, one that he calls “divine inspiration,” that he came up with the idea for Proud Puffs, a chocolate-flavored, vegan cereal formed in the shape of a Black fist. 

“I woke out of my sleep. It was a random idea that was on my mind,” King told HuffPost. “I’m thinking, where is cereal coming from? Starting a cereal company is a super bizarre idea to think about at 3 a.m. but as a man of faith, I’ve always believed if you get a random idea, God gives you an idea and you look into it.” 

From there, King, who lives in Darien, Connecticut, spent the next several months conducting research on how to pursue his vision. He officially announced the launch of Legacy Cereal in December, which he says may be the only Black-owned business of its kind.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/proud-puffs-black-owned-cereal_n_6028a642c5b6d667582d5fb7?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation

I will give this a try with some coffee just to see.

Simone Biles on USA Gymnastics 

Simone Biles says she would not allow her daughter to be part of the USA Gymnastics set-up following the organizsation’s handling of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal.

Nassar, a former doctor for USA Gymnastics, was given an effective life sentence in 2018 for abusing dozens of athletes in his care, including Biles.

During an appearance on CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday, Biles was asked if she would let her daughter train with USA Gymnastics.

“No,” replied the four-times Olympic champion. “Because I don’t feel comfortable enough, because they haven’t taken accountability for their actions and what they’ve done.

“And they haven’t ensured us that it’s never going to happen again.”

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/15/simone-biles-usa-gymnastics-daughter-larry-nassar-abuse

Did CDC  and Deloitte steal parts of a vaccination tracking platform from a firm headed by a Black woman?

Deloitte's system failed

The other system is used in 27 states

WASHINGTON — Last spring, when coronavirus vaccines were just a glimmer of hope, the Trump administration awarded the first of two no-bid contracts worth up to $44 million to a national consulting firm to help patients register to be immunized and states collect detailed data on vaccine recipients.

The result was VAMS, a vaccine administration management system built by the firm, Deloitte, which has been spurned by most states and become an object of scorn. And now, an immunization expert who had offered the government her own mass vaccination tracker at a lower price than Deloitte’s is accusing the company and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of stealing her intellectual property.

The expert, Tiffany Tate, the executive director of the Maryland Partnership for Prevention, made the allegation in a cease-and-desist letter obtained by The New York Times, and later confirmed its authenticity in an interview with her lawyer on Friday. Ms. Tate, who has spent two decades running immunization clinics in underserved communities, said she previewed her platform in May for Deloitte officials who were identified by the C.D.C. as consultants.

The C.D.C. expressed interest in buying it, she said. But the centers instead asked Deloitte, without a competitive bidding process, to build its own system, dismissing warnings from state and local health officials and immunization managers that it was unwise to roll out an untested platform in the middle of a crisis.

The letter, dated Aug. 30, says the C.D.C.’s specifications “mirror” the system Ms. Tate created — including a “new feature” that “eventually found its way into VAMS.” Ms. Tate, who is African-American and whose work has focused on minority communities, said the rejection was especially painful in the thick of a pandemic that disproportionately affects people of color.

“I was in shock, and I really was heartbroken because I’ve worked with these people my entire career and I respected them and I trusted them,” Ms. Tate said in the interview. “It was very, very upsetting.”

Ultimately, the marketplace spoke. VAMS, which Mississippi’s state health officer, Dr. Thomas E. Dobbs, described this week as “suboptimal,” is being used in about 10 states. Ms. Tate offered to license her own system for $15 million — about a third of what the C.D.C. has committed to pay Deloitte — so the agency could give it free to states. When the C.D.C. rejected her, she said, she sold it to states herself.

Now, 27 states and jurisdictions are using it, including North Dakota, which as of Friday had administered the first shot of a two-dose coronavirus vaccine to a higher percentage of its population than all but four other states. Louisiana is expected to sign on, which would bring the number to 28, and Virginia has abandoned VAMS for the system, known as PrepMod, Ms. Tate said.

“She is a reputable person,” said Claire Hannan, the executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, who said that she, too, had assumed that the C.D.C. was buying Ms. Tate’s platform after hearing agency officials describe their coming system in conference calls last year. “This is a good system. It is built out of experience running these clinics. Does it do everything? No. Is it the perfect solution that everybody wants at the drop of a dime? No. But it’s working in many states.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/us/politics/coronavirus-vaccines.html

Can’t Travel? These Places Are Bringing Black History to You

Virtual travel to access Black history

Coming off a year when race dominated the national conversation, Black History Month is more relevant than ever. There’s a lot of soul searching going on and a quest for knowledge and understanding. While ordinarily a reckoning of this magnitude might have meant hitting the road to soak up history first-hand, many people aren’t traveling during pandemic. However, that doesn’t mean you have to skip your Black history education. Get comfy on your coach and let your computer take you on a journey through the past. There is a myriad of virtual Black History experiences for the youngest to the eldest.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cant-travel-these-places-are-bringing-black-history-to-you?ref=home

Information on the acrylic done by Alma Thomas displayed by the Obamas in the White House

THE INSTANTLY RECOGNIZABLE work of Alma W. Thomas (1891-1978) graces the Old Family Dining Room at the White House. In February, First Lady Michelle Obama revealed the newly refurbished space where Thomas’s “Resurrection” is displayed on the north wall. The painting is the first artwork by an African American woman to hang in the public spaces of the White House and enter the permanent collection. 

The renovation marked the debut of the Old Family Dining Room on the official White House tour, providing public access to see Thomas’s painting along with works by Josef Albers and Robert Rauschenberg that are also on display in the room. Adjacent to the State Dining Room, the relatively small Old Family Dining is used for official meals—intimate formal gatherings and working lunches with foreign leaders. The White House recently released a photo of a Passover Seder held in the room that drew renewed attention to the Thomas painting.

https://www.culturetype.com/2015/04/17/alma-thomas-is-given-pride-of-place-at-the-white-house/

Cicely Tyson comes back to her home church 

Honoring Cicely Tyson, Harlem’s ‘Trueborn Queen’

Cicely Tyson lay in repose at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where she had been a member for three decades.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/nyregion/cicely-tyson-memorial-harlem.html

Racism in the Calgary, Canada fire department 

When Chris Coy became Calgary’s first Black firefighter 25 years ago, his heroic vision of the profession was almost immediately upended.

First, he said, during training he was hazed more than his colleagues, strapped to a stretcher against his will and repeatedly doused with a fire hose. Then there were the co-workers who ostracized him at lunch. Throughout his career, he said, fellow firefighters used a racial slur directed at Black people.

For years, Mr. Coy said he suffered in silence as he feared speaking out would mean dismissal, or, worse, other firefighters not shielding him from danger in the field

But since retiring in December, Mr. Coy has begun speaking publicly about what he said was decades of racially motived physical and verbal abuse, joining a group of current and former firefighters who have been voicing similar grievances. The city’s mayor and fire chief have acknowledged the racism within the department and pledged to address it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/world/canada/calgary-firefighters-racism.html

On April 16, 1862, nine months before President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, the U.S. Congress passed the District of Columbia Emancipation Act, making the District of Columbia’s slaves the first freed in the nation.

The article focuses on the development of a Black Broadway-style entertainment industry in DC

Lillian Evanti was a star
 

https://afro.com/black-broadway-madame-lillian-evanti-and-washington-dcs-black-history/

Book publishers hard at work

1. "Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand by Connie Rice, civil rights attorney 

The "fierce" and "remarkable" memoir from one of the nation's most influential and celebrated civil rights attorneys--second cousin of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice--is "a rallying cry for social justice" ( More magazine). Connie Rice has taken on the bus system, the school system, the death penalty, gangs, and the LAPD--and won. Now, with an electrifying, inimitable voice, Rice illuminates the origins and inspiration for her life's work in this "genuinely compelling" ( Kirkus Reviews ) account. Part memoir, part call to action, Power Concedes Nothing is pas-sionate, provocative, and studded with dramatic stories of a life in the trenches of civil rights. Inspired by the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Connie Rice has written a "remarkable" ( Publishers Weekly ) blueprint for a new generation of justice seekers

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/power-concedes-nothing-one-womans-quest-for-social-justice-in-america-from-the-courtroom-to-the-kill-zones_connie-rice/565045/item/42165065/?mkwid=%7cdt&pcrid=450663950280&pkw=&pmt=&slid=&plc=&pgrid=104669221093&ptaid=pla-929394388930&gclid=Cj0KCQiA962BBhCzARIsAIpWEL1te8O1gXskT1EYe77yEYWewD1gqcvFCuMRRNZUiVwJvhWLS6PcGU4aAj5-EALw_wcB#isbn=1416544739&idiq=42165065

2. The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

One of today's most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone--not just for people of color. "This is the book I've been waiting for." --Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist Heather McGhee's specialty is the American economy--and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a common root problem: racism. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Mississippi to California to Maine, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm--the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country--from parks and pools to functioning schools--have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world's advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare. But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: gains that come when people come together across race, to accomplish what we simply can't do on our own. The Sum of Us is a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here: divided and self-destructing, materially rich but spiritually starved and vastly unequal. McGhee marshals economic and sociological research to paint an irrefutable story of racism's costs, but at the heart of the book are the humble stories of people yearning to be part of a better America, including white supremacy's collateral victims: white people themselves. With startling empathy, this heartfelt message from a Black woman to a multiracial America leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than zero-sum.

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-sum-of-us-what-racism-costs-everyone-and-how-we-can-prosper-together_heather-mcghee/26494728/?resultid=1524a010-2f9e-4f75-b022-9c09fa9d750b#edition=31984971&idiq=43789106

3. "Dear Kamala" by Peggy Brooks-Bertram

Women of all ages, races, and nations share their hopes, fears, desires, advice, and support with the new Vice President. 

As the first woman of color elected as the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris broke through many barriers and made history, energizing a host of women who have a lot to say. Seeing a model of themselves filling the second-most-powerful office in the Free World, women from Africa to California, Canada to Florida began writing to the new Vice President. 

Dear Kamala: Women Write to the New Vice President showcases a selection of these heartfelt and moving letters. Girl Scouts confide their fears for a future ravaged by climate change; a business owner in Harlem offers unflinching advice about the need for real investment in inner cities; civil rights activists share their stories, struggles, and successes over the decades. 

Filled with moving personal stories and heartbreaking tales of racial injustices suffered, Dear Kamala offers much more than kind words. They represent an offer of support and a call to action for all those who will be at Vice President Harris's side throughout the next four years.

https://books.google.com/books/about/Dear_Kamala.html?id=LaQWEAAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description

4. "The Black Church 'Tis is Our Story This is Our Song

"A powerful new history of the Black church in America as the Black community's abiding rock and its fortress"--

https://wordery.com/the-black-church-henry-louis-gates-9781984880338/US?currency=USD&gtrck=true&gclid=Cj0KCQiA962BBhCzARIsAIpWEL0L4mXNoLUdjPSgkumwj8uwdVu_aHvU2iBW7gRMja_0gubyap9h9IkaAt9dEALw_wcB

5. Calhoun American Heretic by Robert Elder

The first biography in a quarter century of the intellectual father of Southern secession
John C. Calhoun is among the most notorious and enigmatic figures in American political history. First elected to Congress in 1810, Calhoun went on to serve as secretary of war and vice president. But he is perhaps most known for arguing in favor of slavery as a "positive good" and for his famous doctrine of "state interposition," which laid the groundwork for the South to secede from the Union -- and arguably set the nation on course for civil war.
Calhoun has catapulted back into the public eye in recent years, as the strain of radical politics he developed has found expression once again in the tactics and extremism of the modern Far Right. In this revelatory biographical study, historian Robert Elder shows that Calhoun is crucial for understanding the political climate in which we find ourselves today. By excising him from the mainstream of American history, we have been left with a distorted understanding of our past and no way to explain our present

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52044030-calhoun

All out today

Dwayne Johnson and Keenan Thompson have new sitcoms on NBC
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dwayne-johnson-kenan-thompson-young-rock-kenan-nbc_n_602ac33dc5b6591becdac284

Amy Cooper, Who Falsely Accused Black Bird-Watcher, Has Charge Dismissed

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/nyregion/amy-cooper-charges-dismissed.html

Her five therapy sessions helped her

Christian Cooper, the falsely accused man, wrote a digital comic about the episode

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/09/09/christian-cooper-comic-central-park-birding/

Citing lack of education at school, 10-year old starts her own Black history class for kids

 

When COVID-19 forced the nationwide transition to online learning, schoolchildren found themselves at home trying to transition to the concept along with their parents. Ten-year-old Dakota Adeyemi was in a similar situation, but managed to keep herself busy by searching for Black history on the internet.

After taking an interest in Black pioneers and their contributions to society, Dakota decided she wanted to make better use of her time by teaching others about positive Black history.

She approached her mother, Georgia state Rep. Erica Thomas, with an idea that would combine her expanding interest in Black history with her love for teaching and learning. And thus, a new passion project was born: Dakota School.

“I love history and I love Black history,” said Dakota, who lives in Mableton, Georgia, with her mother, father and younger sister. “Every time I went to school I was excited to learn about Black history, but when history came around, there wasn’t any. I knew there was something wrong, so I decided to start Dakota’s School.”

Related StoryDakota School is an online show created to make learning about Black history fun for children. Using singing and dancing, interactive lessons and videos, Dakota and her team focused on stepping away from traditional classroom models. Instead, they focused on activities that would make children more receptive to school, not less.

“We just went off the things she likes,” Thomas said. “She likes crossword puzzles, word searches and coloring. So we just put all those things into the workbook. We do crosswords for each lesson so the kids can figure out some of the words they learned, and we did a word search for each one as well. We just did what ’Kota liked. If ’Kota likes it, it will probably work. She helps us come up with the lessons, and it works out. It’s pretty much Dakota’s school and if Dakota likes it, I think the other kids will, too.”

Dakota and her team film Dakota School on Wednesdays, because it is the one day of the week she doesn’t have classes. She says some Wednesdays are for filming and others are for learning and studying.

However, it’s clear that production days aren’t the only times Dakota is working. Thomas says Dakota is very hands-on with the program and does a lot of the work that goes into it.

https://theundefeated.com/features/teaching-black-history-is-10-year-old-dakota-adeyemis-passion/

Providing economic aid the Black farmers 

It’s pretty sad that in 2021, Congress making an effort to not discriminate against Black farmers is seen as “historic.” Yet, legislation introduced by Senate Democrats is just that, as it seeks to both provide relief for farmers as a result of the pandemic, as well as address long systemic racism within the agricultural department. 

According to the Hill, Democratic Sens. Raphael Warnock (Ga.), Cory Booker(N.J.), Ben Ray Luján (N.M.) and Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) introduced the Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act, a bill that would provide $4 billion in relief for non-white farmers, and put $1 billion towards addressing systemic racism within the Department of Agriculture. A second bill was also introduced by Booker, Warnock, and several other senators called the Justice for Black Farmers Act, that is intended to provide solutions to the numerous obstacles faced by Black farmers.

“When it comes to farming and agriculture, we know that there is a direct connection between discriminatory policies within the USDA and the enormous land loss we have seen among Black farmers over the past century,” Booker said in a statement. Booker and Warnock are the first Black senators to ever serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

https://www.theroot.com/senate-democrats-make-historic-move-towards-providing-1846282111

The Secretary of Defense 

Opinion: The U.S. can’t meet its responsibilities alone. That’s why we believe in NATO.

President Biden made it clear two weeks ago that diplomacy will be our primary means of engaging with the world, and it must be our first tool of choice. At the same time, the president also recognizes that all of our decisions and actions must be accomplished from a position of strength.

For the Defense Department, this means fielding a credible force, ready to back up the hard work of diplomacy. It also means working closely with our allies and partners to secure our common interests and promote our shared values abroad. Simply put, we cannot meet our responsibilities alone, nor should we try.

This is the message I will deliver Wednesday to my counterparts at the NATO defense ministers’ meeting. We must consult together, decide together and act together.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/lloyd-austin-nato-biden-administration/2021/02/16/813113d6-7083-11eb-b8a9-b9467510f0fe_story.html

History of abuse of Black people by the health care system

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/02/16/black-history-covid-vaccine-fears-medical-experiments/4358844001/

Racial bias at McDonald's?

Herb Washington, a former Oakland Athletics player who built the country’s largest Black-owned McDonald’s franchise operation, filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing the fast-food giant of systemic racial discrimination for its pattern of steering Black owners into restaurants in impoverished neighborhoods that yielded less profit, targeting them with unequal assessments that made it harder to renew their contracts, then pressuring them to sell to White owners.

Washington, 69, owned 27 McDonald’s restaurants in New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania during his four decades as a franchisee but alleged that the company began a campaign to drive him out in 2017 in retaliation for speaking about the “predatory, racially biased steering practices” against Black franchisees. Today he owns 14 McDonald’s restaurants, he said, having been forced to sell seven stores in the last three years alone to White owners.

“McDonald’s has targeted me for extinction," Washington said during a Zoom press conference from his home, appearing in a gray suit and black tie before a painting of Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston. “It took every ounce of me to succeed against the incredible and unfair odds that McDonald’s forced on me.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/16/mcdonalds-black-franchise-lawsuit/

#MuteRKelly

The ongoing need to support Black women experiencing sexual abuse

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/muterkelly-oronike-odeleye_n_60074a54c5b6ffcab9685e10

Singer-songwriter SZA tackles environmental racism

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sza-tazo-climate-justice_n_602c44c8c5b62767c0aa9dbc

MLK and Rabbi Heschel

On January 14, 1963, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel gave the speech “Religion and Race,” at a conference of the same name that assembled in Chicago, Illinois.  There he met Dr. Martin Luther King and the two became friends.  Rabbi Heschel marched with Dr. King at Selma, Alabama in 1965.  The speech Rabbi Heschel gave at the 1963 conference appears below.

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1963-rabbi-abraham-joshua-heschel-religion-and-race/

Blacks among the Time100 Next awardees 

Per usual, Time selected a diverse group of individuals to grace the cover. The 6 figures chosen this year include New York Times bestselling author Brit Bennett, fashion designer Telfar Clemens, professional English football player Marcus Rashford, rising actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, pop artist Dua Lipa, and Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin. Aside from National Youth Poet Laureate Gorman, other notable honorees who comprise the Time100 Next list include COVID-19 vaccine developer Kizzmekia Corbett, Lovecraft Country’s Misha Green, Bridgerton star Regé-Jean Page, CNN Senior Political correspondent Abby Phillip, rapper Lil Baby, comedian Amber Ruffin, actor LaKeith Stanfield, U.S Senator Raphael Warnock, Tenet star John David Washington, activist Jessica Byrd, ChloexHalle, and #EndSARS activists Feyikemi Abudu, Odunayo Eweniyi and Damilola Odufuwa.

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/time-reveals-time100-next-list-brit-bennett-telfar-cl-1846287141

Rashida Jones, Naomi Wadler and. Rep. Ayanna Pressley Kick Off Inaugural Black Girl Freedom Week

February is a month to celebrate Black History—and to make a push on advocacy for Black girls. The Black Girl Freedom Fund launched in September 2020 to do just that, with a mission to raise $1 billion to invest in Black girls and young women over the next 10 years.

Launched by Dr. Monique W. Morris, who wrote PUSHOUT: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (and created the documentary of the same name), along with #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, LaTosha Brown,Fatima Goss Graves, Joanne N. Smith, A Long Walk Home’s Salamishah andScheherazade Tillet, and Ms. Foundation President Teresa C. Younger, the initiative and organization were announce in September with an open letterfrom the co-founders inviting the public to fund $1 billion in Black girls and young women over the next decade, co-signed by Ciara, Valerie Jarrett, Rashida Jones, Gabrielle Union and many more.

https://theglowup.theroot.com/rashida-jones-naomi-wadler-and-rep-ayanna-pressley-k-1846278914

AP Government class in Florida

The Lee County School District in Florida is investigating an incident in which a high school teacher was recorded by a student giving a lecture in which he appears to be trying to convince impressionable young minds that slavery wasn’t all that cruel and that the n-word was never all that racist. Now, the unidentified “educator” never appears on camera and only his voice can be heard, so I can’t say for sure that he’s white—but he’s white. The caucasity levels on full display have white male mediocrity written all over them. Case in point: This teacher threatened to kick the Black student who recorded him out of class just for challenging his definitely white nonsense. This kind of behavior—during Black History Month, no less—will earn you your white card no matter your racial background, but I digress.

https://www.theroot.com/florida-teacher-under-investigation-for-teaching-that-s-1846287564

Tribute to Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was three weeks and four days past his 75th birthday when he died last month in a New York City hospital.

He had played his music in almost every part of the world except China and Siberia. He had dined with presidents and kings, had a Prince of Wales accompany him on drums, played piano duets with a U.S. president, performed his music on TV in Japan, Sweden, England and the U.S. He scored Broadway shows, did a ballet with Alvin Ailey, conducted symphonies in various countries, wrote for Toscanini and the Paris Symphony, scored films for Otto Preminger, and wrote special shows for TV.

His series of Sacred Concerts—among his most important works by his own estimation—was presented in cathedrals from Coventry and London and Barcelona to New York and San Francisco.

He composed approximately 3000 original works, many of them portraits of leading black artists, members of his own orchestra, friends and lovers and many others, and tonal histories of black people in America. His accomplishments defy cataloging and his honors are so impressively diverse and extensive that they are almost bizarre. He received honorary degrees from at least 15 colleges and universities including Yale, Columbia, Brown, Harvard and Wisconsin. Nixon awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom (highest civilian award of the U.S.), Lyndon Johnson gave him the President’s Gold Medal, President Pompidou awarded him the Legion of Honor, and the city of Paris honored him with a special medal. Musicians’ organizations around the world gave him special awards. He was made a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1964 the Poultry and Egg National Board elected him a member of the National Good Egg Club, and two countries, Chad and Togo, have issued stamps in his honor.

The list of prizes for him and his band (in magazine polls) comes to 77. Seven U.S. states gave him special recognition and he won nine separate awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-stacks-the-funky-genius-of-duke-ellington?ref=scroll

8 Stunning Images of Black People In Medieval Europe

https://www.thehumanityarchive.com/history/black-people-medieval-europe

Jesse Eugene Russell

The world of cellular and wireless technology is constantly evolving, as much of our daily activities rely on that infrastructure. Jesse Eugene Russell, born April 26, 1948 in Nashville, Tenn., is known as the “Father of Digital Cellular Technology.”

Russell was the first person hired from an HBCU by technology leader A&T Bell Laboratories, today known as Bell Labs. The Tennessee State University and Stanford University graduate earned both his undergraduate and master’s degrees in electrical engineering.

As its chief digital architect, Russell led the first team at Bell Labs to introduce digital cellular technology to the United States in 1988. This would be the early stages of wireless networks that cell phones and other mobile devices rely on today to communicate signals. The technology existed in some form prior in Japan, but Russell was able to bring it to fruition domestically.

Russell is also credited with creating the first digital cellular base station, which essentially changed the use of cell towers to transmit signals. Russell currently owns over 75 patents in digital cellular technologies, dual-mode digital cellular phones, and digital software radio.

https://blackamericaweb.com/2020/02/21/little-known-black-history-fact-jesse-eugene-russell/

Simone Manuel and Lia Neal

It is now official that due to the coronavirus, the 2020 Summer Olympics is postponed and will likely go on in 2021. That means some of our greatest competitors will have to wait to showcase their superior athleticism.

But we can return to the heroism of our best athletes in the last Olympics. History was made in July of 2016 at the Rio Olympics when Stanford University swimming teammates Simone Manuel (l) and Lia Neal(r) were named to the U.S. Women’s Olympic swim team. It was the first time two African-American women have represented Team USA in the swim competition for the Summer Games.

https://blackamericaweb.com/2020/03/25/little-known-black-history-fact-lia-neal-and-simone-manuel/

For Black Aides on Capitol Hill, Jan. 6 Brought Particular Trauma

Black congressional staff members said the attack brought back memories of how they had tried to avoid people they felt could be prone to racist violence — only to find them at their place of work.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/us/politics/black-staff-capitol-attack.html

Natalie Hinderas
 

The late Natalie Hinderas was one of the first Black classical musicians to establish themselves in that world.

Hinderas was born on June 15, 1927 in Oberlin, Ohio. Her father was a jazz pianist and her mother was a classical pianist and instructor. The Henderson family was well-known for their musical accomplishments, with Hinderas’ great-grandfather also teaching and playing music.

She began playing piano at the age of three and had her first recital at the age of eight. Hinderas was the youngest person to graduate from the Oberlin Conservatory’s Special Student’s School, and went on to New York to study at the Julliard School of Music. She completed her formal training at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music in 1953.

One of Hinderas’ chief aims was to expose audiences to classical music, especially Black audiences. In the ’60’s, she became an instructor at Temple University and toured historically Black colleges and universities lecturing about Black classical musicians and performing works from that group. Hinderas also toured around the world with the U.S. State Department as part of an ongoing musical diplomacy program, and made certain to center Black musicians in her presentations.

In 1971, Hinderas became the first Black woman to appear as an instrumental soloist in a regular series of a major U.S. symphony when she appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Hinderas worked as a lecturer and instructor beyond her playing days but still performed up until she died of cancer in 1987 at the age of 60.

In a 1977 interview with Contemporary Keyboard, Hinderas believed that Black music was narrowly confined to just R&B or the Blues. In her view, if a Black person composed the work and lived through their experience, it didn’t matter what the genre was.

https://blackamericaweb.com/2020/06/08/little-known-black-history-fact-natalie-hinderas/

How Omarosa screwed up Trump's first Black History Month celebration 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-omarosa-ruined-president-trumps-first-black-history-month-and-began-a-reign-of-terror?ref=home

The FBI attacks on Civil Rights leaders

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-fbis-war-on-civil-rights-leaders?ref=scroll

Sulwe coming to Netflix

On Thursday, Netflix announced a brand new project from Black Panther star Lupita Nyong’o based on her popular debut children’s book, Sulwe.

Per a press release sent to The Root, Nyong’o will produce an animated musical special based on the book in collaboration with Netflix, giving more audiences and children a chance to experience their favorite new character in a whole new way. Released in October of 2019, Sulwe became a number one New York Times bestseller and filled a void in helping little brown-skinned and dark-skinned girls around the world feel represented. For those unfamiliar, Sulwe tells the story of a little girl with “skin the color of midnight. She is darker than everyone she knows. All she wants is to be beautiful and bright. One night, Sulwe is visited by a shooting star sent by the Night, and embarks on a magical journey where she learns the eye-opening story of the sisters Night and Day. Sulwe is a story about colorism, self-esteem, and learning that true beauty comes from within,” says the release.

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/sulwe-netflix-and-lupita-nyong-o-team-up-for-new-anima-1846295876

Reading Toni Morrison 

February 18, 2021 would have been Toni Morrison’s 90th birthday. As we approach the anniversary of a global pandemic that has changed our lives in every way, it seems a fine time to dive back into the world of Toni Morrison. The questions she asked in a 2002 lecture seem wholly relevant now, almost 20 years later: “To what do we pay greatest allegiance? Family, language group, culture, country, gender? Religion, race? And if none of these matter, are we urbane, cosmopolitan, or simply lonely? In other words, how do we decide where we belong? What convinces us that we do?”

In everything Morrison wrote, she offered narratives that revealed the journeys of characters, specific but universal, flawed and imperfect, with a deeply American desire for freedom and adventure. One might say that because her characters were almost exclusively African-American, the quest to be free — in mind, body and spirit — was the consistent adventure. She was also a masterful crafter of windows; when you opened a book of hers, the worlds you entered were so rich with detail, you could feel the molecules around you change as if you’d just taken a long flight and were descending onto the tarmac in a town or city where you’d never been.

I’ll say this. Reading Morrison can be daunting. She won the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was, and will remain for lifetimes to come, one of the finest writers to craft narrative in the English language. As Dwight Garner wrote when she died in 2019, “Morrison had a superfluity of gifts and, like few other writers of her era, bent language to her will. Her prose could be lush, or raw and demotic, or carefree and eccentric, often on a single page. She filtered folklore, biblical rhythms, dreams, choral voices and a steep awareness of history into her work. In the best of her 11 novels … she transmuted the basic matter of existence into profound works of art.”

One of the greatest joys of Toni Morrison’s work is knowing that you will never get it all on the first read. In her Nobel Prize speech, she famously said, “We know you can never do it properly — once and for all. Passion is never enough, neither is skill. But try.”

She was talking, ostensibly, about writing and writers. But I think it also applies to readers, her readers in particular, the millions of people around the world who have read and re-read her books. To read Toni Morrison is to know that from her brilliant opening lines to the stunning last pages that leave you shook that you will likely never match her wit and wisdom, but what joy there is in trying!

As someone who had the privilege of interviewing her several times over the last decade of her life, I think I can say with confidence that she wanted all of us — intellectuals and romance readers, book club aficionados and those of us who binge TV more than books — to get in where we fit in. Creatively, Toni Morrison set a large and lavish table of literature. If you’re new to her work, or haven’t read her in a long while, here are some thoughts about where to start

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/books/best-toni-morrison-books.html

Recy Taylor

The story of Recy Taylor might not have known to many, but  her memory was honored emphatically after Oprah Winfrey‘s rousing Golden Globes speech Sunday night. Taylor was a victim of a horrific kidnapping and sexual assault by a group of six white men who escaped justice simply due to the color of the skin.

The incident occurred on September 3, 1944 in Abbeville, Alabama when Taylor and a friend were walking home from church. A group of white men, one of them in the military, drew a gun and forced Taylor into their car. They drove to a patch of woods as six of the seven men raped her while Taylor pleaded for her life.

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The kidnapping was reported by her friend and Taylor also came forth to detail the attack. Despite the driver of the car, Hugo Wilson, admitting he saw his six friends commit the assault,  he was only fined $250 and the men he named faced neither charges nor fines.

The NAACP got involved and sent their best investigator and anti-rape activist Rosa Parks to the town to examine the facts. Her efforts lead to a trial in the city of Montgomery with lawyer and activist E.D. Nixon on Taylor’s legal team. Because the men were never charged, the only witnesses present were Taylor and her family and the all-white, all-male jury dismissed the matter. Another trial ended in the same fashion despite even more evidence and even confessions.

After the trial, the Taylor family which included her husband and her child, faced violence, death threats, and a firebombing of their home. Reportedly, the town sheriff also terrorized Taylor and her family.  Benny Corbitt, a Taylor relative, commanded a post in a tree near her home at night armed with a shotgun to ward off would-be racist attackers.

https://blackamericaweb.com/2019/12/27/little-known-black-history-fact-recy-taylor/

Renee Powell was the second black woman to play on the LPGA tour behind Althea Gibson. Powell played on the tour from 1967 to 1980. The East Canton, Ohio native started playing golf at three years old. Her father, William Powell, is the only African American to design, build, own and operate a golf course in the U.S.- the Clearview Golf Club. Bill Powell wanted blacks to have a chance to golf without discrimination. He formed the first golf team at Wilberforce University in 1937 and is a life member of the PGA.

Being a professional black golfer in 1967, Powell was subjected to the racist attitudes of those in resistance of integration. She had to share rooms with the white players so that she would have lodging and travel with a number of people in order to be safe on tour.

In 2003, Powell won the First Lady of Golf Award from the PGA. She is the only Professional female Class A member of both the PGA and LPGA combined. After completing her LPGA tour, Powell served as a golf teacher in Africa and Europe. She has taught some of the world’s leaders to play golf and competed in over 250 tournaments.

https://blackamericaweb.com/2012/12/13/little-known-black-history-fact-renee-powell/

SEE HOW MULTI MILLIONAIRE VERTUS HARDIMAN, HORRIBLY DISFIGURED IN GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENT, TRIUMPHED DESPITE HIS CIRCUMSTANCES

https://blackthen.com/see-how-multi-millionaire-vertus-wellborn-hardiman-horribly-disfigured-in-government-radiation-experiment-triumphed-despite-his-circumstances-video/

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, a former Obama administration official, picked to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“The agency oversees government health insurance programs covering more than 1 out of 3 Americans and is a linchpin of the health care system,” the Associated Press reports. If confirmed, (I mean what could stop her from being confirmed? Just a bunch of racist white nationalist sympathizers who are hiding inside Congress, that’s who!) Brooks-LaSure would become the first Black woman to run CMS and she would like to be referred to as Queen Mother.

https://theglowup.theroot.com/biden-nominates-chiquita-brooks-lasure-to-head-medicare-1846299883

Using an Anti-Klan Law Against Trump’s Clan

On Tuesday the N.A.A.C.P., on behalf of Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, filed a federal lawsuit against Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani over their involvement with the Jan. 6 insurrection by a violent mob of Trump supporters at the United States Capitol.

The lawsuit alleges that by attempting to prevent the certificationof the election, Trump and Giuliani violated the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, one of several anti-Klan acts passed by Congress from 1870 to 1871.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/opinion/trump-giuliani-lawsuit-naacp.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Remembering the ending of "Die Hard"

The 'Redemption' of Reginald VelJohnson's Kid-Killing Cop in Die Hard

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/the-best-example-of-the-sneaky-evil-of-copaganda-the-r-1846288098

Naomi Osaka Beats Jennifer Brady To Win Second Australian Open

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/naomi-osaka-australian-open-2021-win_n_6030dfa8c5b66da5dba1a109

Lorraine O’Grady, Still Cutting Into the Culture

Had her life been more conventional, Lorraine O’Grady would have been, that Thursday in June 1980, at Wellesley College for her 25th class reunion.

Instead, she was donning a dress hand-stitched from 180 pairs of white gloves — accessorized with a tiara, sash and cat-o’-nine-tails — and heading to the gallery Just Above Midtown, to carry out a guerrilla-theater intervention.

O’Grady, a daughter of Jamaican immigrants in Boston, had a picaresque itinerary already. An economics graduate, she had worked for the Labor and State Departments, including as an intelligence analyst in the period leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis; attempted a novel in Europe; dropped out of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; run a translation agency in Chicago; been a New York rock critic. Two marriages, both brief, were over.

Now, at 45, she was taking her decisive turn — as an artist.

Just Above Midtown was a hub of the Black avant-garde. O’Grady had turned up a few months earlier, presenting herself as a writer, volunteering for office tasks. But now, in character as “Mlle Bourgeoise Noire,” she had a message.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/arts/design/lorraine-ogrady-brooklyn-museum-retrospective.html

Edit to add:

I did not realize that Biden/Harris used some of her concepts during the campaign
 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/arts/biden-unity-video-uses-artists-vision.html

How the ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ Tweets Changed a War in Nigeria

A well-meaning social-media campaign to free young women kidnapped by Boko Haram galvanized rescue efforts—and may have spurred the jihadist group to expand its use of gender violence

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-bring-back-our-girls-tweets-changed-a-war-in-nigeria-11613797261

Black History Month Is a Good Excuse for Delving Into Our Art

An African-American studies professor suggests ways to mark the month, from David Driskell’s paintings and Dance Theater of Harlem’s streamed performances to the rollicking return of “Queen Sugar.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/arts/design/black-history-month.html

Why Kehinde Wiley Listens to Audiobooks When He Paints

The renowned painter on how he enters a “muscle-memory place” to create his oversize portraits inspired by the Western canon

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kehinde-wiley-interview-audiobooks-paints-11613574926

A Black preacher, a White sheriff and the punch in the face that put Selma on the map

When C.T. Vivian was punched in the face by racist sheriff, Jim Clark

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/02/21/ct-vivian-selma-punch-sheriff/

[comment moved here as too historical for other thread's discussion on Critical Race Theory]

ProfessorErec Smith cites Frederick Douglass, and others.

https://www.newsweek.com/classical-liberalism-line-dividing-black-america-opinion-1569718

Frederick Douglass quotes.

1. ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROGRESS AND STRUGGLE

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

9. ON THE NEED FOR POWER

“It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

11. ON REBELLION

“The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.”

17. ON REMAINING TRUE TO ONESELF

“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.”

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/92216/20-powerful-quotes-frederick-douglass

Paul Robeson quote

The man who accepts Western values absolutely, finds his creative faculties becoming so warped and stunted that he is almost completely dependent on external satisfactions, and the moment he becomes frustrated in his search for these, he begins to develop neurotic symptoms, to feel that life is not worth living, and, in chronic cases, to take his own life.

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1124133

W.E.B. DuBois 

Du Bois Center Fellows Favorite Du Bois Quotes

“Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may inquire. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.” 

W. E. B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
Chosen by Jay Cephas, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at Northeastern University and 2019 Du Bois Center Post-Doctoral Fellow

http://duboiscenter.library.umass.edu/du-bois-quotes/

Professor Smith talks about learned helplessness, yet praised the role of Black people in electing two Senators in Georgia. A Black female Vice President was elected. The Woke are answering the call to action.

The Woke saw a political party that refused to certify a legal election. They saw an assault on the Capitol. Now they see state governments attempt voter suppression. You better be Woke, those like those in the past

Edit to add:

Erec Smith's book "A Critique of Anti-racism in Rhetoric and Composition: The Semblance of Empowerment" is selling for $85.50 on Kindle. Can't bring myself to click the button.

Edit to add 2:

I am reminded that the "Woke" NikoleHannah-Jones noted that the United States was not a democracy until Black people forced the issue.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html

The third episode of NBC's Trymaine Lee's podcast "Into America" is out now

Focuses on the Harlem Renaissance 

Abram Hill is among those featured 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2021/02/17/msnbcs-trymaine-lee-talks-into-america-podcast-black-american-history/6763020002/

Abram Hill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Hill

West Point football was all-White until 1966. So why does this 1920s photo show an all-Black squad?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/02/22/west-point-black-football-team/

Douglas Turner Ward, Pioneer in Black Theater, Dies at 90

A founder of the Negro Ensemble Company in New York in the 1960s, he was outspoken about limited opportunities for fellow Black actors and directors.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/22/theater/douglas-turner-ward-dead.html

They Were Black. Their Parents Were White. Growing Up Was Complicated.

RACELESS
In Search of Family, Identity, and the Truth About Where I Belong
By Georgina Lawton

SURVIVING THE WHITE GAZE
A Memoir
By Rebecca Carroll

For most of us, racial identity is a combination of inheritance (you are what your parents are) and influence (you’re a product of where and how you were raised). But what if you are raised by people who didn’t look like you, in communities where you were the only one, steeped in a culture whose power was amassed through your oppression?

In a pair of new memoirs — “Surviving the White Gaze,” by the American cultural critic Rebecca Carroll, and “Raceless: In Search of Family, Identity, and the Truth About Where I Belong,” by the British journalist Georgina Lawton — two women recount growing up as Black girls with white parents who loved them deeply but failed them miserably by not seeing and celebrating them for who they were.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/books/review/raceless-georgina-lawton-surviving-the-white-gaze-rebecca-carroll.html

Southern Poverty Law Center Estimates 160 Confederate Monuments Were Taken Down in 2020. We Need to Pump Those Numbers Up

https://www.theroot.com/southern-poverty-law-center-estimates-160-confederate-m-1846337212

Norman Lear still doing comedy

Norman Lear, the TV legend behind The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Sanford & Son, is back with a new project named Clean Slate starring Laverne Cox and comedian George Wallace.

Variety reports that the half-hour comedy follows “car wash owner ‘Henry,’ whose estranged child comes home to Alabama after 17 years. But he must do some soul searching as he comes to terms with the fact that his adult child is a trans woman, ‘Desiree.’” Wallace will take on the role of Henry and Cox, Desiree. Lear and his producing partner Brent Miller will executive produce under Lear’s Act III Productions company along with Cox and Dan Ewen, both of whom originally created the series in tandem with Wallace. Ewen has also been tapped as showrunner for the series and will also pen the pilot script. Up-and-coming streaming platform IMDb TV will house the series, which also comes as a part of Lear’s overall first-look deal with Sony Pictures TV.

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/clean-slate-laverne-cox-george-wallace-to-star-in-new-1846336707

The Noname book club

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/style/self-care/black-book-clubs.html

Slavery cost him his family. That’s when Henry ‘Box’ Brown mailed himself to freedom.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/12/28/slavery-cost-him-his-family-thats-when-henry-box-brown-mailed-himself-freedom/

John McWhorter release his new book on race as a serial on substack 

https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/the-elect-neoracists-posing-as-antiracists

With M.L.B.’s Help, Baseball Returns at an H.B.C.U.

In a sport with declining participation from Black Americans, Xavier University of Louisiana returned to the field on Tuesday for its first intercollegiate baseball game since 1960.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/sports/baseball/xavier-university-louisiana.html

The Devil Has a New Blue Dress to Wear—Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins Books Are Being Adapted for TV

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/the-devil-has-a-new-blue-dress-to-wear-walter-mosleys-e-1846346284

At William & Mary, a school for free and enslaved Black children is rediscovered

It has been more than a decade since academics and researchers began taking a closer look at a small, unremarkable old building on the campus of the College of William & Mary to see if maybe it had a more important story to tell.

Archives were scoured. Centuries-old letters and memoirs were pored over. Archaeological digs were made. Last year, a scientific analysis of the building’s original wood framing nailed down the year of its construction.

With the pieces of the puzzle in place, there was no longer doubt about the building’s identity. Underneath all the coats of paint and interior remodeling and exterior additions was the original Williamsburg Bray School, a school for enslaved and free Black children in Williamsburg that operated from 1760 to 1774. It is, according to William & Mary and Colonial Williamsburg Foundation officials, “likely the oldest extant building in the United States dedicated to the education of Black children.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/bray-school-william-mary/2021/02/24/d7888cc8-76c8-11eb-948d-19472e683521_story.html

Finally watched Season 3 of Star Trek Discovery on CBS All Access

Show stars Sonequa Martin-Green as Commander Captain Michael Burnham

Caught an interview with her on a fan site hosted by Will Weston who starred in Star Trek Discovery

The impact of a Black female in a lead role in a sci-fi television show is addressed 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xAdLGKE0l4

THE SECOND EPISODE OF THE OBAMA SPRINGSTEEN PODCAST

submitted by rmrd0000 1 day ago

In the second episode of “Renegades: Born in the USA,” released Monday, the 44th president said this psychology was institutionalized over time to justify dehumanizing others and taking advantage of them. Racism is also due to an inner fear that “I’m insignificant and not important. And this thing is the thing that’s going to give me some importance,” Obama added.

To demonstrate his point, he brought up an instance from his school days in Hawaii, when he came to blows with a friend who called him a “coon.” 

Read the article at https://www.huffpost.com/entry/barack-obama-racial-slurs-race-relations-reparations_n_60355136c5b6c0f82b48f324

Prayer and Science Led Me to the Vaccine

T.D. Jakes s a pastor of a Megachurch. His getting the vaccine may influence many in the Black community.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/prayer-and-science-led-me-to-the-vaccine-11614295606?mod=hp_opin_pos_3

Reverend Al Sharpton revealed that he recently received the first shot

A Teenager Was Bullied. His Ancestors Saved Him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/nyregion/black-genealogy-connecticut-merritt.html

An amazing tale of a young man searching for and finding photographic evidence of his family's history 

Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale: Illustrator-Author Tim Fielder Looks to the Future With a Modern Epic

https://www.theroot.com/infinitum-an-afrofuturist-tale-illustrator-author-tim-1846361434

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! Nah, It’s Ta-Nehisi Coates Writing the Script for the Next Superman Movie

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/it-s-a-bird-it-s-a-plane-nah-it-s-ta-nehisi-coates-w-1846365957