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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Out of Touch with History Highlights

USA teens are out of touch with not just African American history, but with history and traditional culture in general.

Common Core, an advocacy group pushing for the teaching of more liberal arts in schools, released the shocking report today as reported in USA Today.

Out of 1,200 17 year-olds surveyed, only 43% knew that the Civil War was fought between 1850 - 1900.

30% did not know that President John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

It’s troubling that real history is taking a back seat to the more seedy elements of today’s popular culture.  Most teens and adults are experts in the gossipy news of today.

As Black History Month comes to a close, it’s time to renew our commitment to real knowledge that matters, across cultural and ethnic divides.

A trivia question as a final thought.  In 1976, U.S. representative Barbara Jordan became the first African American to give the keynote address to a national party convention.  Who gave the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in 2004?

Leave your answer in a comment!

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Posted by Hugh Smith on 02/27 at 07:00 AM
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Stevie Wonder & Aretha Franklin to Headline the Martin Luther King Jr. Dream Concert

With another $20 million needed to finish the Martin Luther King Jr. Washington, DC National Memorial, the race is on to capture more support for the project.

Radio City Music Hall in New York City will host the Dream Concert on Tuesday, September 18, 2007, to benefit the DC King memorial.

Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Carlos Santana, Jessye Norman, Bebe & Cece Winans, and Robin Thicke will perform.

Garth Brooks, Queen Latifah, Joss Stone, and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds will also share the stage.

Whoopi Goldberg will be a guest presenter for the evening.

Tickets go on sale Monday, July 30th, at 9am.

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Posted by Hugh Smith on 07/24 at 07:00 AM
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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

NYC Dream Concert to Benefit MLK JR DC Memorial

Quincy Jones, Russell Simmons, David Stern, Joel Horowitz, Edgar Bronfman Jr., and Tommy Hilfiger have come together to create The Dream Concert, a one-night benefit for The Martin Luther King Jr. Washington DC National Memorial.

Stern is the Commissioner of the National Basketball Association, Bronfman the Chairman of the Warner Music Group, and Horowitz is the CEO of Tommy Hilfiger.

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis will be the artistic directors of The Dream Concert.  Jam and Lewis have produced Grammy Award winning albums for many artists, including Janet Jackson.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Washington DC National Memorial project is running out of time to secure the rest of the money needed to finish construction.

Groundbreaking took place on November 13, 2006.  $21 million is still needed to complete the $100 million project.

Muhammad Ali, Angela Bassett, Jamie Foxx, Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr., Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Kerry Washington, and former New York City Mayor David Dinkins are on the host committee for the Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Dream Concert at Radio City Music Hall in the Big Apple.

You can go to mlkmemorial.org and click on “Programs and Events,” and “The Dream Concert” for further information about when tickets will go on sale this Summer.

The King Memorial is scheduled to be completed in 2008.

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Posted by Hugh Smith on 05/23 at 08:30 AM
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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

100 Screen Icons of Black History

100 Black Screen Icons is a new website that spotlights 100 of the most significant black personalities in film and television.

You can vote on your favorites in four different categories through June 29, 2007.

The new site is sponsored by the United Kingdom Film Council and the BBC.

Personalities in the poll are not just the usual suspects...

  • Denzel Washington
  • Halle Berry
  • Ousmane Sembene
  • Oscar Michieux
  • (British actors) Ashley Walters, Sophie Okenodo, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Adrian Lester

Amanda Nevill, Director of BFI, a co-sponsor of the site, says: “We believe the 100 Black Screen Icons website will not only promote the cultural and creative importance of black professionals in film and television, but will also inspire young people globally in the future to pursue a career in film and television."

"It is our hope that the website will become a definitive guide to black film, as well as an educational learning resource and entertaining medium which can reach a huge range of audiences all over the world."

The nominations have been compiled with the help of experts including directors, actors, writers and technical innovators.

Nominees come from the U.K., Europe, North America, Africa and the Caribbean.

Put 100 Black Screen Icons to the history test and vote for your favorites.

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Posted by Hugh Smith on 04/11 at 07:00 PM
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Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Black History Tuskegee Airmen Honored with Congressional Gold

The Tuskegee Airmen received the Congressional Gold Medal from President George W. Bush on March 29, 2007.

The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian honor given by the U.S. Congress.

Tuskegee airman Dr. Roscoe Brown, a former commander of the 100th Fighter Squadron, 332nd Fighter Group, thanked President Bush, the House, and the Senate for “voting unanimously to award this medal collectively to the pilots, bombardiers, the navigators, the mechanics, the ground officers, the enlisted men and women who served with the Tuskegee Airmen."

Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Jefferson, a pilot with the 332nd Fighter Group also addressed the crowd gathered at the U.S. Capitol.

The Tuskegee Airmen were an elite group of African American pilots in the 1940s. They were black history pioneers in equality and integration of the U.S. Armed Forces.

According to U.S. Army Airman Brian Butkus, 375th Airlift Wing, “Tuskegee Airmen” refers to anyone involved in the Army Air Corps program to train African Americans to fly and maintain combat aircraft.

Butkus confirms that The Tuskegee Airmen included:

  • Pilots
  • Navigators
  • Bombardiers
  • Maintenance and support staff
  • Instructors
  • All personnel who kept the planes in the air.

Most service-member flight training took place at the Division of Aeronautics of Tuskegee Institute.

Air Corps officials built a separate facility at Tuskegee Army Air Field to train the pilots. The Tuskegee Airmen not only battled enemies during wartime but also fought against racism and segregation.

Racism was common during World War II.  Many people did not want blacks to become pilots.

By the end of World War II, 992 men had graduated from pilot training at Tuskegee; 450 were sent overseas for combat assignment, and about 150 lost their lives while in training or on combat flights.

On November 6, 1998, President Bill Clinton approved Public Law 105-355, which established the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, to commemorate and interpret the heroic actions of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II.

* special thanks to the U.S. Army for providing some of the official background information.

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Posted by Hugh Smith on 04/04 at 08:30 AM
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Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Muhammad Ali Lands Living Legend Honor from Africa

Muhammad Ali has been honored as a “Living Legend” by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Ghanaian based African Communications Agency (ACA).

"The Greatest” is a 2007 inductee into the ECOWAS Hall of Fame.

Ali’s African connection dates back to 1974, when he faced George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire for the “Rumble in the Jungle."

Mr. Ali accepted his award by telephone from the United States during an elegant awards banquet held at the Nicon Hilton Hotel in Abuja, Nigeria.

Dr. Erieka Bennett, Vice Chairman of the ACA and founder of the Diaspora African Forum proclaimed “we are honored to celebrate the life of Muhammad Ali."

Accepting the award, a grateful Ali declared “this tribute is especially meaningful to me as we celebrate Black History Month here in America."

Past ECOWAS Living Legend Award recipients include:

  • Nelson Mandela (former South African President)
  • Kofi Anan (former United Nations Secretary General)
  • Dudley Thompson (former Jamaican Ambassador to Nigeria)
  • Ruth Sando Perry, (former President of Liberia)
  • Professor Wole Soyinka, (Nigeria)
  • Dr. Babacar Ndiaye (former President, African Development Bank)
  • Dr Bamanga Tukur (former Nigerian Minister of Industry)

Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Clay on January 17, 1942, won an Olympic gold medal in Rome as a light heavy weight in 1960.

He defeated Sonny Liston in 1964 to win the heavy weight championship for the first time.  Ali won the crown again in 1974 by beating George Foreman.

"The Greatest” became the first person in boxing history to win the heavy weight title three times when he took out Leon Spinks in 1978.

Ali refused to be drafted into the U.S. Army (he was a conscientious objector on religious and moral grounds).  He was stripped of his first title in 1967.

The official Muhammad Ali website has much more for you to enjoy!

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Posted by Hugh Smith on 03/28 at 09:15 AM
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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

How New Museums are Preserving Black Culture

Museums that focus on the critical role of African Americans in U.S. history and culture are more popular than ever, and several cities are planning new or expanded facilities to attract tourists and scholars.

Birmingham, Alabama has a civil rights district that includes the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, the site of a 1963 bombing that killed four young girls.  Another exhibit features the door to the jail cell where Martin Luther King Jr. sat in 1963 and wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

There are approximately 200 U.S. museums that focus on the African American experience.  Several new projects are on the drawing board.  Here are a few:

  • A museum in Atlanta to exhibit the papers of Martin Luther King Jr.
  • United States National Slavery Museum in Fredericksburg, Virginia
  • National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.

The old F.W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina, is being converted into a museum that will display the “whites only” lunch counter where, in 1960, four black college students launched the sit-in movement to protest segregation.

One of the newest museums is the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, which opened in 2004. It tells the stories of the estimated 100,000 slaves who escaped via the “underground railroad,” a loose network of clandestine routes and safe havens provided by abolitionists, freed slaves and other sympathizers.

Not all African American museums focus primarily on slavery or civil rights.

Museums in Dallas and New Orleans, among others, are dedicated to African American art and culture.

Kansas City, Missouri, has the American Jazz Museum.

There’s the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce, Ohio, which created an exhibit that traced African dance over 400 years.

In New York, the Museum for African Art is being expanded and moved to a new home where it will be “a cultural gateway to Harlem,” according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The new museum in Washington, DC, which will take several years to develop, is going to cover the breadth of experience from African origins down to the present.

These museums are not just aimed at an African American audience, they are for everyone.  They create the opportunity to really understand the history of black people in the USA.

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Louise Fenner contributed to the research and wrote portions of this article.

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Check out the Association of African American Museums for more details and links to black museums across the USA.

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Posted by Hugh Smith on 03/07 at 01:02 AM
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Friday, March 02, 2007

MLK DC Memorial Fund gets closer to Goal

February 2007 was the best fundraising month yet for the Martin Luther King Jr. Washington, DC National Memorial.

Harry Johnson, President and Chief Executive of the memorial’s foundation is asking everyone, including school kids, to get involved in the effort to raise the $100 million dollars needed to build and maintain the memorial on the national mall.

On February 27th, the National Association of Realtors announced a $1 million donation, bringing the total value of gifts raised from all sources to $78 million dollars.

Last week, I donated copies of the Empower Encyclopedia Salute to Black History DVD to a silent auction, sponsored by a major media organization, with all proceeds going to the King Memorial fund.

You can claim your copy of the Empower Encyclopedia Salute to Black History DVD and take advantage of a special incentive that ends today for readers of our blog.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is scheduled to open in 2008, facing the Jefferson Memorial, on the banks of the Tidal Basin.

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Posted by Hugh Smith on 03/02 at 08:49 AM
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Monday, February 26, 2007

Journalist Frederick Douglass Honored

On Monday, February 26, a plaque was unveiled in the U.S. House of Representatives Press Gallery in Washington, DC honoring civil rights activist Frederick Douglass (1817-1895).

Best known for his support of the Abolitionist (anti-slavery) movement, Douglass spent most of his career as a journalist.  He founded the North Star, an African American newspaper, in 1847.

He was the first black reporter allowed into the Capitol press galleries.

Journalists watch laws being created on the floors of the House and Senate from the press galleries.

Douglass was instrumental in urging President Abraham Lincoln to use black troops in the Civil War.

During Reconstruction after the war, Frederick Douglass kept the African American community informed about what was really happening in Congress.

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Posted by Hugh Smith on 02/26 at 06:27 PM
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Thursday, February 15, 2007

Black History People Visionaries and Pioneers

  • "What did Barbara Jordan do for us?”
  • "I need a report on Diana Ross”
  • “Something on Frederick Douglass”
  • “Do you have information on Malcolm X?”

These are four actual questions from among the many we received in the past week!  Yes, it is hard to find reliable information about African American visionaries and pioneers.

Here are 26 twentieth century personalities responsible for moving the American Dream forward you need to know about (in random order):

  1. Langston Hughes
  2. Marian Anderson
  3. Thomas Bradley
  4. Dr. Ralph J. Bunche
  5. Coretta Scott King
  6. Frederick Douglass
  7. Dr. Charles Drew
  8. Sammy Davis Jr.
  9. Shirley Chisholm
  10. Jesse Owens
  11. James Meredith
  12. Ella Fitzgerald
  13. William H. Hastie
  14. Richard Wright
  15. Malcolm X
  16. Diana Ross
  17. Charles H. Houston
  18. A. Philip Randolph
  19. Andrew Young
  20. Barbara Jordan
  21. Ronald Dellums
  22. Bo Diddley
  23. Rosa Parks
  24. Duke Ellington
  25. Lena Horne
  26. Joe Louis

    If you’d like to learn more about these achievers, (and you’ve signed up for our free black history biographies via email...and have confirmed your subscription), then you’ll be among the first to be able to benefit from an exciting new project profiling these African American legends coming soon.

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    Posted by Hugh Smith on 02/15 at 08:45 AM
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    Tuesday, January 30, 2007

    Diversity Data Explores USA Melting Pot

    We often think of black history in terms of past achievements by exceptional individuals.

    If you wanted a broad general snapshot of most African American people today, the trends in their neighborhoods, and the factors that will influence the emerging black leaders of tomorrow, where would you turn?

    A new website has created an extremely easy way to discover information about racial and ethnic groups in the USA by using census data gathered by the U.S. government.

    According to the creators, “Diversity Data is an online tool for exploring quality of life data across different metropolitan areas, for people of different racial/ethnic groups in the United States.”

    Diversity Data “provides values and rankings for the largest U.S. metropolitan areas on different indicators in 8 areas of life (domains), including demographics, education, economic opportunity, housing, neighborhoods, and health."

    Just pick a state, select a metropolitan area, then instantly observe what the trends reveal.

    By using an option called “customize profile,” you can dissect and analyze the information in more ways than you could ever imagine.

    Each state can be searched by selecting from the largest counties.

    The brainchild of this fantastic free tool is the Harvard School of Public Health.

    I highly recommend Diversity Data for:

    • Population Demographics and Diversity
    • Health
    • Housing Opportunities
    • Economic Opportunities
    • Education
    • Residential Integration and Neighborhood Characteristics
    • Crime
    • Physical Environment

    Where are the rural or urban centers in the USA where different racial and ethnic groups are striding ahead?  You’ll discover the answer to this question and a lot more by digging into Diversity Data online.

    The trends reflect possible history in the making.  If you spot differences in your state that are surprising, let the information challenge you to think about some ways you might influence your community’s destiny.

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    Posted by Hugh Smith on 01/30 at 01:05 AM
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    Wednesday, January 24, 2007

    Oprah's Roots Traces Family Tree

    Genealogy research and DNA analysis have been the rage the last few years.

    More African American families are using these technologies to discover African ancestral connections.

    The PBS television series African American Lives, hosted by Henry “Skip” Louis Gates Jr., (shown above with Oprah Winfrey), debuted in February during Black History Month, 2006.

    African American Lives is fascinating.  Famous black history people in the USA trace their lineage to Africa with Gates guiding the series along.  I was very glad I watched several episodes last year.

    It’s Oprah’s chance this week, with a new, updated episode.  One good thing about PBS, the programs are always repeated, so you’ll eventually get a second chance to watch Oprah’s Roots: An African American Lives Special.

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    Posted by Hugh Smith on 01/24 at 07:09 AM
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    Wednesday, January 17, 2007

    Ella Fitzgerald gets a Stamp of Approval

    Ella Fitzgerald, (1917 - 1996), a jazz great, was one of the first African American singers to appeal to both black and white audiences.

    Poverty could not suppress the raw talent that was to lead to her eventual success.

    She was born in Newport News, Virginia.  Her family chose to make New York City their adopted home.

    As a teenager in the 1930’s, Fitzgerald began six decades of performance encompassing 250 recordings and 13 Grammy Awards.

    She popularized the jazz style called scat singing.  Her 1938 hit, “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” derived from nursery rhymes, became her trademark song.

    She sang the songs of the best songwriters, and performed with most of the greats, including Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie.  Diabetes eventually claimed her life at the age of 79.

    On January 10, 2007, Ella Fitzgerald, became the 30th honoree in the popular Black History Heritage commemorative stamp series issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

    The stamp image is a portrait based on a photograph taken around 1956.  As you can see, this likeness captures the joy and excitement that Fitzgerald brought to music.

    Fitzgerald won the National Medal of Arts, presented to her in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan. She was one of five artists awarded Kennedy Center Honors in 1979.

    In 1989, the Society of Singers created an award for lifetime achievement, called it the “Ella,” and made her its first recipient.

    In 2005, Jazz at Lincoln Center inducted Fitzgerald into its Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame.

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    Posted by Hugh Smith on 01/17 at 08:30 PM
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    Thursday, November 02, 2006

    Singer Bob Marley Scores Black History Honor

    Bob Marley’s former north London home was recently honored with a heritage plaque to celebrate the reggae legend’s residence in the United Kingdom.

    The plaque describes Marley as a “singer, lyricist and Rastafarian icon."

    Robert Nesta Marley was born in St. Ann, Jamaica, February 6, 1945.  He spread the message and spiritual passion of reggae music throughout the world for three decades.

    On May 11, 1981, 36 year old Marley passed away from cancer in Miami, Florida.  By 1990, a national holiday was created in Jamaica to commemorate his birth.

    The reggae icon sold 9 million copies of his album Legend.  In 1996, Legend was certified as the best-selling reggae album of all time.

    Marley’s house in Kingston, Jamaica, now known as the Bob Marley Museum, is a big tourist attraction for black history scholars as well as vacationers to the Caribbean island.

    The Marley legacy continues today.  Bob’s youngest son, Damian, became the first reggae artist in 2006 to win a Grammy Award outside of the reggae category for his best Urban/Alternative performance: “Welcome to Jamrock” single.

    Damian Marley also lead the pack with six honors at this year’s 2006 International Reggae and World Music Awards held in New York City.

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    Posted by Hugh Smith on 11/02 at 08:30 PM
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    Thursday, October 12, 2006

    Nigeria Grabs October Black History Month Spotlight in the UK

    an edited version of an article by Chris Ochayi from the Nigerian news site Vanguardngr.com

    Nigeria’s rich cultural heritage will again take center stage in the United Kingdom during the month-long Black History Month Festival this October.

    The UK event, under the auspices of Back To My Roots, will showcase the best of African culture, arts, and business.

    Supported by the British Council and UNESCO, Back To My Roots is expected to attract over 5 million people.

    Black History Month is celebrated every October by the British government saluting black contributions to European development.

    Events will take place in four cities: London, Bristol, Birmingham and Glasgow in Scotland.

    Learn more about Black History Month in the UK by visiting Black-History-Month.co.uk.

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    Posted by Hugh Smith on 10/12 at 07:18 PM
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