Black History : 390 Years of "Yes We Can "

publisher — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:36:00 GMT

Much like Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama is a man for all people. He is humble yet confident; he is gracious yet firm; and he is a peacemaker in every situation. People from every continent love him. He has been called a cultural icon, bringing hope where there is none. His election to the highest office in the world is an historic achievement that many of us thought would never happen. Thousands of martyrs have sacrificed, marched, protested, fought and died for equal rights in America, paving the way for Obama or anyone else daring to push the limits of success. It is on the shoulders of those giants that Barack Obama stands.

The journey has been long for Barack, and even longer for BlackAmericans as a whole. What began on a hot day on the West Coast of Africa some four centuries ago in packed-to-capacity slave ships, will culminate on a cold morning on the East Coast of America in our nation’s capitol.

First Slaves 1619

The first record of African slavery in Colonial America occurred in 1619. A Dutch ship, the White Lion, had captured 20 enslaved Africans in a battle with a Spanish ship bound for Mexico. The Dutch ship had been damaged first by the battle and then more severely in a great storm during the late summer when it came ashore at Old Point Comfort, site of present day Fort Monroe in Virginia. Though the colony was in the middle of a period later known as "The Great Migration" (1618-1623), during which its population grew from 450 to 4,000 residents, extremely high mortality rates from disease, malnutrition, and war with Native Americans kept the population of able-bodied laborers low . With the Dutch ship being in severe need of repairs and supplies and the colonists being in need of able-bodied workers, the human cargo was traded for food and services.

Frederick Douglas

Frederick Douglass was one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement, which fought to end slavery within the United States in the decades prior to the Civil War.

A brilliant speaker, Douglass was asked by the American Anti-Slavery Society to engage in a tour of lectures, and so became recognized as one of America's first great black speakers. He won world fame when his autobiography was publicized in 1845. Two years later he bagan publishing an antislavery paper called the North Star.

Douglass served as an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and fought for the adoption of constitutional amendments that guaranteed voting rights and other civil liberties for blacks. Douglass provided a powerful voice for human rights during this period of American history and is still revered today for his contributions against racial injustice.

The Underground Railroad

Quakers were one of many groups who had come to believe that it was wrong to hold people in bondage, whatever their ethnicity. Early concerned Quakers gave eloquent testimony on the anti-slavery issue and were instrumental in action taken by various Yearly Meetings, which urged from 1758 that members free their slaves. In 1776 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting disowned members who persisted in owning slaves. As early as 1786, some Quakers joined the movement to help runaway slaves reach freedom. This was the real beginning of the Underground Railroad, the secret organization that helped escaping slaves before the Civil War. It was a railroad that ran without tracks, cars, or written records. The abolitionists, for the most part anti-slavery Northerners, were aided by some Southerners who were sympathetic to the cause of freedom. These abolitionists were called "conductors." Their homes were the "stations."

William Lloyd Garrison

In the very first issue of his anti-slavery newspaper, the Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison stated, "I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. . . . I am in earnest -- I will not equivocate -- I will not excuse -- I will not retreat a single inch -- AND I WILL BE HEARD." And Garrison was heard. For more than three decades, from the first issue of his weekly paper in 1831, until after the end of the Civil War in 1865 when the last issue was published, Garrison spoke out eloquently and passionately against slavery and for the rights of America's black inhabitants.

Soujourner Truth

Sojourner Truth (c. 1797–November 26, 1883) was the self-given name, from 1843, of Isabella Baumfree, an American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York. Her best-known speech, which became known as Ain't I a Woman?, was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.

#####################################################################

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's "conductors." During a ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."

##########################################################################

DRED SCOTT DECISION

Dred Scott

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permiting slavery in all of the country's territories.

The case before the court was that of Dred Scott v. Sanford. Dred Scott, a slave who had lived in the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin before moving back to the slave state of Missouri, had appealed to the Supreme Court in hopes of being granted his freedom.

Taney -- a staunch supporter of slavery and intent on protecting southerners from northern aggression -- wrote in the Court's majority opinion that, because Scott was black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue. The framers of the Constitution, he wrote, believed that blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it."

Referring to the language in the Declaration of Independence that includes the phrase, "all men are created equal," Taney reasoned that "it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration. . . ."

Abolitionists were incensed. Although disappointed, Frederick Douglass, found a bright side to the decision and announced, "my hopes were never brighter than now." For Douglass, the decision would bring slavery to the attention of the nation and was a step toward slavery's ultimate destruction.

(On March 6, 1857 Chief Justice Roger B. Taney made his famous declaration that '"beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." )

#######################################################################

John Brown, Abolitionist

John Brown was a man of action -- a man who would not be deterred from his mission of abolishing slavery. On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Within 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had been killed or captured. He was later hanged.

######################################################################

Civil War black soldiers were eager to enlist in the Union Army. They were anxious to join the fight against slavery and they believed that military service would allow them to prove their right to equality.

########################################################################

Robert Smalls

Robert Smalls (1839-1916) was a black American statesman who was born a slave and made a daring escape at the beginning of the Civil War. After the war he served five terms in Congress as the representative from South Carolina.

Robert Smalls was born a slave, to Robert and Lydia Smalls at Beaufort, S.C., on April 5, 1839. He was taken to Charleston as a youth and worked there at a variety of jobs. He soon mastered the seafaring art and became the de facto pilot of a Confederate transport steamer, the Planter. Smalls never accepted his enslaved condition and was determined to free himself. He taught himself to read and write, mastered the tricky currents and channels of Charleston Harbor, and bided his time. Sooner or later his chance would come: he would be free. He had to be free.

The Civil War brought his chance. On the morning of May 13, 1862, long before the sun was up and while the ship's white officers still slept in Charleston, Smalls smuggled his wife and three children aboard the Planter and took command. With his crew of 12 slaves, Smalls hoisted the Confederate flag and with great daring sailed the Planter past the other Confederate ships and out to sea. Once beyond the range of the Confederate guns, he hoisted a flag of truce and delivered the Planter to the commanding officer of the Union fleet. Smalls explained that he intended the Planter as a contribution by black Americans to the cause of freedom. The ship was received as contraband, and Smalls and his black crew were welcomed as heroes. Later, President Lincoln received Smalls in Washington and rewarded him and his crew for their valor. He was given official command of the Planter and made a captain in the U.S. Navy; in this position he served throughout the war.

##########################################################################

Booker T. Washington

Born a slave and deprived of any early education, Booker Taliaferro Washington nonetheless became America's foremost black educator of the early 20th century. He was the first teacher and principal of the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama, a school for African-Americans where he championed vocational training as a means for black self-reliance. A well-known orator, Washington also wrote a best-selling autobiography (Up From Slavery, 1901) and advised Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft on race relations. His rather flaccid nickname of "The Great Accommodator" provides a clue as to why he was later criticized by W. E. B. Du Bois and the N.A.A.C.P. Washington was principal of Tuskegee Institute from 1881 until his death in 1915; it was originally called the Normal School for Colored Teachers and is now known as Tuskegee University.

W. E. B. Du Bois

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.
Du Bois

Du Bois was born and raised in Massachusetts, and graduated in 1888 from Fisk University, a black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. During the summer, he taught in a rural school and later wrote about his experiences in his book THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK.

In 1895, Du Bois became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in the subject of history from Harvard University. He then studied in Germany but ran out of funds before he could earn a post-doctoral degree. With the publication of THE PHILADELPHIA NEGRO: A SOCIAL STUDY in 1899, the first case study of a black community in the United States, as well as papers on black farmers, businessmen, and black life in Southern communities, Du Bois established himself as the first great scholar of black life in America.

He taught sociology at Atlanta University between 1898 and 1910. Du Bois had hoped that social science could help eliminate segregation, but he eventually came to the conclusion that the only effective strategy against racism was agitation. He challenged the dominant ideology of black accommodation as preached and practiced by Booker T. Washington, then the most influential black man in America. Washington urged blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and elevate themselves through hard work and economic gain to win the respect of whites.

In 1903, in his famous book THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK, Du Bois charged that Washington's strategy kept the black man down rather than freed him. This attack crystallized the opposition to Booker T. Washington among many black intellectuals, polarizing the leaders of the black community into two wings -- the "conservative" supporters of Washington and his "radical" critics. In 1905, Du Bois took the lead in founding the short-lived Niagara Movement, intended to be an organization advocating civil rights for blacks. Although the Niagara Movement faltered, it was the forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which was founded in 1909. Du Bois played a prominent role in the organization's creation and became its director of research and the editor of its magazine, THE CRISIS.

For many young African Americans in the period from 1910 through the 1930s, Du Bois was the voice of the black community. He attacked Woodrow Wilson when the president allowed his cabinet members to segregate the federal government. He continued to fight against the demand by many whites that black education be primarily industrial and that black students in the South learn to accept white supremacy. Du Bois emphasized the necessity for higher education in order to develop the leadership capacity among the most able 10 percent of black Americans, whom he dubbed "The Talented Tenth."

Sharecropper educates her children at home; discrimination, poverty, and the waxing and waning of the planting season often kept southern African-American children from attending school.

######################################################################

Miltary Leaders

Henry Ossian Flipper (21 March 1856–3 May 1940) was an American soldier and the first black American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point (1877).

########################################################################

During World War II, civil rights groups and black professional organizations pressed the government to provide training for black pilots on an equal basis with whites. Their efforts were partially successful. African American fighter pilots were trained as a part of the Army Air Force, but only at a segregated base in Tuskegee, Ala. Hundreds of airmen were trained and many saw action.

In March 1945, Toni Frissell took more than 280 photographs of the "Tuskegee Airmen," the elite, all-African American 332nd Fighter Group at Ramitelli, Italy. The group was commanded by Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr, who later became the first three-star general in the Air Corps. They earned more than 744 Air Medals and Clusters, more than 100 Flying Crosses, 14 Bronze Stars, eight Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Legion of Merit. Frissell was the first professional photographer permitted to capture the Tuskegee Airmen in a combat situation. She traveled to their air base in southern Italy, from where the "Tuskegee Airmen" flew sorties into southern Europe and north Africa.

Brig. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Sr. watches a Signal Corps crew erecting poles, somewhere in France. August 8, 1944

###############################################################################

Civil rights leaders

A. Phillip Randolph

Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was a prominent twentieth century African-American civil rights leader and founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which was a huge victory for labor and especially for African-American labor organizing.

Randolph had some experience in labor organization, having organized a union of elevator operators in New York City in 1917. In 1925, Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This was the first serious effort to form a labor union for the employees of the Pullman Company, which was a major employer of African-Americans. With amendments to the Railway Labor Act in 1934, porters were granted rights under federal law, and membership in the Brotherhood jumped to more than 7,000. After years of bitter struggle, the Pullman Company finally began to negotiate with the Brotherhood in 1935, and agreed to a contract with them in 1937, winning $2,000,000 in pay increases for employees, a shorter workweek, and overtime pay. ^[2] The Brotherhood was associated with the American Federation of Labor.

Randolph emerged as one of the most visible spokespersons for African-American civil rights. In 1941, he, Bayard Rustin, and A. J. Muste proposed a march on Washington to protest racial discrimination in war industries. The marchwas canceled after President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the Fair Employment Act. Some militants felt betrayed by the cancellation because Roosevelt's pronouncement only pertained to defense industries and not the armed forces themselves. In 1947, Randolph formed the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service, later renamed the League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience. President Harry S. Truman abolished racial segregation in the armed forces through Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948.

Randolph was also notable in his support for restrictions on immigration.

In 1950, along with Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, and Arnold Aronson, a leader of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, Randolph founded the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). LCCR has since become the nation's premier civil rights coalition, and has coordinated the national legislative campaign on behalf of every major civil rights law since 1957.

Randolph also helped Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr. to organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. As the U.S. civil rights movement gained momentum in the early 1960s and came to the forefront of the nation's consciousness, his rich baritone voice was often heard on television news programs addressing the nation on behalf of African-Americans engaged in the struggle for voting rights and an end to discrimination in public accommodations.

###########################################################################

Young non-violent warriors under arrest.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders of a municipal bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, riding an integrated bus, December 1956.

#########################################################################

Remembering

Martin Luther King, Jr.

By Coretta Scott King

We celebrate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. who brought hope and healing to America. We commemorate as well the timeless values he taught us through his example -- the values of courage, truth, justice, compassion, dignity, humility and service that so radiantly defined Dr. King’s character and empowered his leadership. On this holiday, we commemorate the universal, unconditional love, forgiveness and nonviolence that empowered his revolutionary spirit.

We commemorate Dr. King’s inspiring words, because his voice and his vision filled a great void in our nation, and answered our collective longing to become a country that truly lived by its noblest principles. Yet, Dr. King knew that it wasn’t enough just to talk the talk, that he had to walk the walk for his words to be credible. And so we commemorate on this holiday the man of action, who put his life on the line for freedom and justice every day, the man who braved threats and jail and beatings and who ultimately paid the highest price to make democracy a reality for all Americans.

The King Holiday honors the life and contributions of America’s greatest champion of racial justice and equality, the leader who not only dreamed of a color-blind society, but who also lead a movement that achieved historic reforms to help make it a reality.

On this day we commemorate Dr. King’s great dream of a vibrant, multiracial nation united in justice, peace and reconciliation; a nation that has a place at the table for children of every race and room at the inn for every needy child. We are called on this holiday, not merely to honor, but to celebrate the values of equality, tolerance and interracial sister and brotherhood he so compellingly expressed in his great dream for America.

It is a day of interracial and intercultural cooperation and sharing. No other day of the year brings so many peoples from different cultural backgrounds together in such a vibrant spirit of brother and sisterhood. Whether you are African-American, Hispanic or Native American, whether you are Caucasian or Asian-American, you are part of the great dream Martin Luther King, Jr. had for America. This is not a black holiday; it is a peoples' holiday. And it is the young people of all races and religions who hold the keys to the fulfillment of his dream.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is not only for celebration and remembrance, education and tribute, but above all a day of service. All across America on the Holiday, his followers perform service in hospitals and shelters and prisons and wherever people need some help. It is a day of volunteering to feed the hungry, rehabilitate housing, tutoring those who can't read, mentoring at-risk youngsters, consoling the broken-hearted and a thousand other projects for building the beloved community of his dream.

Dr. King once said that we all have to decide whether we "will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. Life's most persistent and nagging question, he said, is `what are you doing for others?'" he would quote Mark 9:35, the scripture in which Jesus of Nazareth tells James and John "...whosoever will be great among you shall be your servant; and whosoever among you will be the first shall be the servant of all." And when Martin talked about the end of his mortal life in one of his last sermons, on February 4, 1968 in the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church, even then he lifted up the value of service as the hallmark of a full life. "I'd like somebody to mention on that day Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others," he said. "I want you to say on that day, that I did try in my life...to love and serve humanity.

We call you to commemorate this Holiday by making your personal commitment to serve humanity with the vibrant spirit of unconditional love that was his greatest strength, and which empowered all of the great victories of his leadership. And with our hearts open to this spirit of unconditional love, we can indeed achieve the Beloved Community of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream.
May we who follow Martin now pledge to serve humanity, promote his teachings and carry forward his legacy into the 21st Century.

#######################################################################

Rosa Parks

########################################################################

A flag, frequently hung from the NAACP headquarters in New York, announces the death of a lynching victim.

#######################################################################

Seattle Washington

########################################################################

Thurgood Marshall

########################################################################

Frank Batten Sr.

Frank Batten Sr.fought against Massive Resistance and helped to establish a scholarship fund for inner city youth.

Virginia had struggled with school desegregation for years when, in September 1958, Gov. J. Lindsay Almond Jr. ordered six Norfolk secondary schools shut down to block the court-ordered admission of black students. The deed capped the state's officially mandated "Massive Resistance" to integration, a stand that made Virginia an international synonym for intolerance.

The Ledger supported the Massive Resistance doctrine. The Virginian-Pilot, alone among major Virginia papers, opposed it; its editor, Lenoir Chambers, showed up the policy as incoherent in an unflinching series of editorials.

"Those were pretty rough days," Batten recalled in a 1987 interview. "We got a lot of bitter letters. We would have racist things spray-painted on the building rather frequently and occasionally had bomb threats."

Gene Roberts, a Virginian-Pilot reporter who went on to become a dean of American journalism in Philadelphia and New York, recalled that Batten initially "seemed to take pride that the two papers could go their different ways.

"But ultimately," he said, "he felt that the Ledger's position was reinforcing the closing of the schools." When the Ledger's editorial staff proved unable to effectively change the paper's position, Batten did it himself.

"I would never ask an editor to write something he didn't believe in, but also, if I thought the paper was being irresponsible, I was going to either write it myself or get someone else to write it," Batten said. "I think it's the only time I've ever had to... make a radical reversal on the editorial page."

He also helped organize a full-page advertisement, signed by dozens of Norfolk's social leaders, calling for the schools to reopen.

######################################################################

Escorting her daughter and two other children, Mrs. Robert Wicks walks up the steps of Venable Elementary School on the morning of Sept. 8, 1959, the day Charlottesville,
Virginia's public schools first integrated.

########################################################################

Oklahoma

##############################################################

Malcolm X

Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz,was an African American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. His detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been described as one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.

^{#####################################################################################}

########################################################################

In The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality, Basic Books, 2006, Nick Bryant concludes that JFK was too cautious and hesitant on civil rights. 1 He forcefully disagrees with historians and biographers who have accepted what he calls Kennedy’s “rationalizations” about the power of the congressional southern bloc and provides substantial evidence that JFK’s caution grew out of his temperament and conviction that these powerful southerners “should be charmed and, on occasion, gently cajoled, but never confronted directly.” (pp. 193–4) Bryant nonetheless applauds the moral commitment of Robert Kennedy, JFK’s attorney general—“a man of much firmer conviction and sterner resolve than his brother. He was far less plagued by ambivalence and prepared to make braver judgments.” (p. 428) However, RFK’s loyalty to the president was iron clad and he never publicly questioned his brother’s civil rights stance.

This theme runs consistently through Bryant’s thorough and exhaustive analysis of the civil rights struggles of 1961-1963. It is especially clear in his account of the September 1962 violence in Oxford, Mississippi sparked by the Kennedy administration’s attempt to enforce a court order to register James Meredith—a black U.S. Air Force veteran—at Ole Miss.

Bryant is correct in asserting that the Kennedy brothers were determined, especially with the mid-term congressional elections just over a month away, to prevent the Meredith crisis “from escalating into another Little Rock and were desperate to avoid the insertion of federal troops.” (p. 332) In the end, of course, JFK was forced to send troops and federal marshals to Oxford to suppress a riot in which two people died and many were injured.

In the aftermath, Bryant notes, JFK’s approval, especially by black voters in the North, skyrocketed. However, civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. were privately disappointed “that the president had skirted the issue of civil rights in his handling of the crisis and emphasized the integrity of federal law in such a way as to avoid altogether the issue of race.” (p. 353) However, a week after the Oxford riot, Robert Kennedy spoke in Milwaukee and praised Meredith: “there is so much that a single person can do with faith and courage…. James Meredith…lent his name to another chapter in the mightiest internal struggle of our time.” (p. 353)

Bryant concludes that although the president had delivered “a dry and legalistic speech” stressing constitutional issues, RFK “had been much more expansive, impassioned, and personalized. For him, upholding the integrity of the courts was secondary. Laws were less important than the ideals that James Meredith had sought to uphold.” (p. 353) This episode, Bryant argues,

highlighted growing differences in their approaches to civil rights. … In the week before the riot, Robert Kennedy spoke to Meredith directly; at no point during or after the riot did the president contact him. In the week after the riot, Robert Kennedy publicly commended Meredith. Again, the president remained silent. RFK was too loyal to his brother to be critical of him, publicly or even privately.

Bryant, however, misses a central point about the political and personal relationship between the Kennedy brothers. He notes that at a crucial point in the Mississippi crisis “there is no record that Robert Kennedy had discussed the crisis in any great detail with the president.” (p. 338) Nonetheless, the extremely close relationship between JFK and RFK was unlike anything before or since in the history of the American presidency. For example, when I first listened to recorded telephone conversations between the Kennedy brothers, it was often difficult to even understand what they were talking about:

Typically, as soon as the phone was picked up, the brothers, without exchanging any personal greetings whatsoever, would burst into a staccato exchange of barely coherent sentence fragments and exclamations before abruptly concluding with ‘OK,’ ‘good,’ or ‘right’ and hanging up. Their intuitive capacity to communicate transcended the limits of conventional discourse. They always understood each other. 2

A month after the Meredith episode, at the most crucial moment in the Cuban missile crisis, JFK chose RFK to negotiate a secret deal with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin—despite the attorney general’s strong opposition to the president’s determination to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey. The president was entirely confident that RFK would suppress his personal doubts and faithfully carry out his brother’s decision.

RFK also willingly endorsed the more risky “moral” position on civil rights (which he clearly believed) at least in part in order to draw political heat away from the president. Robert Kennedy did not act independently and always consulted with his brother on key public statements and policies relating to civil rights or any other major issue. This “dual track” strategy allowed the Kennedy administration, in a shrewd political balancing act, to have it both ways on civil rights before the 1962 mid-term elections and what was expected to be JFK’s difficult 1964 reelection campaign (especially in the South).

########################################################################

#####################################################################

######################################################################

####################################################################

School desegregation in Clinton, Tennessee, December 4, 1956.

##############################################################################################

George Wallace attempting to stop the integration of the University of Alabama, June 11, 1963. He was confronted by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach.

##########################################################################

Parrish Kelley
August 5, 2004

At the age of 18, Parrish Kelley (center) became a foot-soldier in a pivotal event of the civil rights movement--Freedom Summer of 1964. He will speak about his Quaker forebears, growing up in Buffalo, New York, and Dallas, Texas, and registering African Americans to vote in Ruleville, Mississippi, where he worked with Fannie Lou Hamer, one of the legendary figures of the movement. His recollection will focus on the dangers of fighting segregation on the frontlines, the friendships forged in such trying circumstances, and the stigma of being white as civil rights organizations began ousting nonblacks. His presentation will conclude with remarks on how the movement changed his life and others.

#########################################################################

Morris Dees

Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), cited his grade school teacher’s straightforward interpretation of the last line of the Pledge of Allegiance—one nation, with liberty and justice for all—as the earliest starting point in his battle against hatred, poverty and injustice.

Dees knew all too well that becoming a civil rights lawyer in Montgomery, Alabama wasn’t going to win him any popularity contests. He wrote in his autobiography, A Season for Justice, "All the things in my life that had brought me to this point, all the pulls and tugs of my conscience, found a singular peace. It did not matter what my neighbors would think, or the judges, the bankers, or even my relatives." Dees, the soft-spoken and gentle-natured white farmer’s son from Shorter, Alabama, faced the struggles placed before him, and in doing so demonstrated a resolve that is as tenacious about delivering justice as it is sophisticated and creative in its approach to legal theory.

Burt Neuborne, Inez Milholland Professor of Civil Liberties, introduced Dees when he visited the NYU School of Law on March 7, 2006, to deliver his candid lecture, “With Justice for All,” and to answer law students’ questions about pursuing a profession in civil rights advocacy.

Neuborne began the discussion by asking a question that he as a civil rights activist and former National Legal Director of the ACLU often asks himself: Are we relevant? Judging by Dees’ victories in stripping assets from hate merchants and defending the indigent working population, the answer is a resounding yes. “Morris Dees,” said Neuborne, “is Exhibit One that I put in front of me to keep me going.”

When approaching any case, Dees takes his cue from his personal hero Clarence Darrow who, in Dees’ opinion, was the master of framing legal arguments. Darrow, like Dees, often found himself up against seemingly insurmountable odds in the cases he chose. Dees recounted Darrow’s ostensibly pointless defense of an Appleton, Wisconsin union leader against an airtight felony conspiracy charge. In his closing arguments, Darrow simply and subtly painted a picture of the wealthy local factory owner as an unjust foe out to prevent his very workers from rising above their lower class status. Seeing the obvious need for unions to protect the rights of workers in Wisconsin, the jury acquitted the labor leader.

Some of the cases that Dees and the SPLC have undertaken over the past few months echo the injustices that Darrow confronted during his legal career. Dees and his dedicated staffers in Montgomery (three of whom are Law School students) are currently working to protect the rights of both documented and undocumented laborers. The SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Project is currently taking on rights violations in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. Migrant workers there claim that they have not been paid for the gruesome jobs they performed (removing debris that had been soaked by standing water and raw sewage) while working for corporations who secured government billion-dollar contracts to clean up and restore the Crescent City.

“The United States would have a hard time existing without these people,” Dees said of laborers who come to the U.S. from such far-off places as Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala to find low-wage work planting trees on pine farms and cleaning fowl at poultry plants. These immigrant workers are typically forced to earn far less than the $12-20 per hour that is dictated by federal employment laws, receive no health benefits and are fired if any complaint is lodged against the employer.

Dees concluded his personal journey through four-plus decades of civil rights advocacy with a quotation by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Don’t be satisfied, Dees said, “until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

#########################################################################

Althea Gibson

Althea Gibson (August 25, 1927 – September 28, 2003) was an American sportswoman who became the first African-American woman to be a competitor on the world tennis tour and the first to win a Grand Slam title in 1956. She is sometimes referred to as "the Jackie Robinson of tennis" for breaking the "color barrier." Gibson was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

########################################################################

Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was the first African-American Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Although not the first African-American professional baseball player in United States history, Robinson's 1947 Major League debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers ended approximately 60 years of baseball segregation, breaking the baseball color line, or color barrier. At that time in the United States, many white people believed that blacks and whites should be kept apart in many aspects of life, including sports. Despite this obstacle, Robinson went on to have an exceptional baseball career.

Wilma Glodean Rudolph (June 23, 1940 – November 12, 1994) was an American athlete, and in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field during a single Olympic Games, despite running on a sprained ankle. A track and field champion, she elevated women's track to a major presence in the United States.

The powerful sprinter emerged from the 1960 Rome Olympics as "The Tennessee Tornado," the fastest woman on earth.^[2] The Italians nicknamed her "La Gazzella Nera" (the Black Gazelle); to the French she was "La Perle Noire" (The Black Pearl).

Wilma Rudolph was born on June 23,1940, in St. Bethlehem, a part of Clarksville, Tennessee. She was the 20th of 22 children of Ed and Blanche Rudolph. At the age of 5, it was discovered that she had polio. In 1947, her mother took her to Nashville's Meharry Medical College, a hospital for blacks 50 miles from their home, twice a week. Because of the expense and difficulty of obtaining professional medical care, Wilma's mother usually treated her ailing child at home. Many nights her mother, tired after a long day's work, would sit on Wilma's bed and massage her daughter's leg well into the evening hours. Blanche Rudolph kept telling her polio-stricken daughter she would one day walk without braces.

Blanche trained her other children how to massage Wilma's legs so that the therapy could continue four times a day. She prayed daily and asked God to bring strength to her daughter's legs.

Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963) is a retired American professional basketball player and active businessman. His biography on the National Basketball Association (NBA) website states, "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time."^[1] Jordan was one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation and was instrumental in popularizing the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s.

Jordan's individual accolades and accomplishments include five MVP awards, ten All-NBA First Team designations, nine All-Defensive First Team honors, fourteen NBA All-Star Game appearances and three All-Star MVP, ten scoring titles, three steals titles, six NBA Finals MVP awards, and the 1988 NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. He holds the NBA record for highest career regular season scoring average with 30.12 points per game, as well as averaging a record 33.4 points per game in the playoffs. In 1999, he was named the greatest North American athlete of the 20th century by ESPN, and was second to Babe Ruth on the Associated Press's list of athletes of the century. He will be eligible for induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009.

########################################################################

Sir Sidney Poitier, (born February 20, 1927) is an Oscar-, Golden Globe-, BAFTA- and Grammy award-winning Bahamian-American actor, film director, author, and diplomat. He broke through as a star in acclaimed performances in American films and plays, which, by consciously defying racial stereotyping, gave a new dramatic credibility for black actors to mainstream film audiences in the Western world.

In 1963, Poitier became the first black man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor—for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of this achievement was later bolstered in 1967 when he starred in three very well received films—To Sir, With Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner—making him the top box office star of that year.

Senator Edward Brooke

Edward R. Brooke a Senator from Massachusetts; born in Washington, D.C., October 26, 1919; attended the public schools of Washington, D.C.; graduated from Howard University, Washington, D.C., in 1941; graduated, Boston University Law School 1948; captain, United States Army, infantry, with five years of active service in the European theater of operations; chairman of Finance Commission, city of Boston 1961-1962; elected attorney general of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1962; reelected in 1964; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1966; reelected in 1972 and served from January 3, 1967, to January 3, 1979; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1978; first African American elected to the Senate by popular vote; lawyer; awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on June 23, 2004; is a resident of Miami, Fla.

#####################################################################

Guion "Guy" Bluford became the first African-American in space when he joined the crew of the first space shuttle mission to launch and land at night.

Guion "Guy" Bluford exercises onboard STS-8. (NASA)

"We had to, as a crew, figure out the techniques that were required to launch the thing at night and as well as land the thing at night," Dr. Bluford told collectSPACE in 2002 on the anniversary of his 1983 STS-8 mission, which was dedicated to deploying a multipurpose India-built satellite and conducting medical measurements to understand the effects of space flight on the human body.

Bluford's first flight and the three that followed also blazed the path forward into space for African-Americans.

"I feel very proud of being a trailblazer with reference to space flight, particularly for African-Americans," he said. "I recognize I was one of several African-Americans that came into the program, and I think we have all made significant contributions to the program."

Bluford's other missions included the first of the German-directed Spacelab science flights (STS-61A in 1985) and two Department of Defense-dedicated missions (STS-39 in 1991 and STS-53 in 1992).

############################################################################

Stargazer turned astronaut credits the MLK dream

Dr. Mae Jemison, dancer and physician, was the first black woman to travel in space, as an astronaut on the space shuttle Endeavour in 1992,

According to Webster's Dictionary, a dream is a "series of thoughts, images or emotions occurring during sleep." Nowadays, when we speak of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of equality, it seems like one of those gauzy images that have little to do with our waking life.

But King's dream wasn't an illusive fantasy to Dr. Mae Jemison. It was a call to action.

"Too often people paint him like Santa -- smiley and inoffensive," said the African-American woman who broke the racial barrier on the space shuttle Endeavour in 1992.

"But when I think of Martin Luther King, I think of attitude and audacity."

Jemison said King's action on his dream made her life possible.

As a little girl growing up in Chicago, she'd gaze at the stars. "I could see myself in space when others couldn't," she said. "I had to learn not to limit myself because of others' limited imagination."

People were puzzled by her shared interest in the sciences, arts and community service. As a free and equal human being, she felt she shouldn't have to choose between them.

At 16, she entered Stanford and majored in both chemical engineering and African-American studies, all the while cultivating her talents in dance. After earning her medical degree at Cornell University, she became a doctor in Los Angeles, but also spent more than two years as a Peace Corps physician in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

She joined NASA in 1987, and became the first woman of color into space. But she never let that achievement overshadow the other dimensions of her personality. Among the things she carried into space were a poster from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and a Bundu statue from Sierra Leone.

"For me, they were symbols of human creativity," the Houston resident said recently during a standing-room only celebration of the slain civil rights leader sponsored by Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis. "The same kind of human creativity that launched the space shuttle."

Since she retired from the space program in 1993, Jemison's career has continued to defy categorization. She runs two medical technology companies dedicated to applying science to improve human life. She tirelessly promotes science literacy for children.

Her autobiography, "Find Where the Wind Goes," is aimed at young adults to inspire them to honor their God-given creativity.

I asked Jemison what she'd say to that little Chicago girl who once imagined herself floating in space. She answered: "I'm still trying to catch up with who she intended me to be."

That's what the civil rights struggle is all about: Breaking down the barriers to human potential. Too often these days, King's vision seems to be stuck in the realm of dreams. How do we make it reality?

Jemison's answer was simple: "The best way to make dreams come true is to wake up."

#######################################################################

Governor Douglas Wilder

Lawrence Douglas Wilder (born January 17, 1931) is an American politician and was the first African American to be elected as governor of a U.S. state, and the second to serve as governor.Wilder served as Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. His most recent office was Mayor of Richmond, Virginia, which he held from 2005 to 2009.

########################################################################

Secretary Of State Colin Powell

Colin Luther Powell, (born April 5, 1937) is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State (2001-2005), serving under President George W. Bush. He was the first African American appointed to that position. During his military career, Powell also served as National Security Advisor (1987–1989), as Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Army Forces Command (1989) and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993), holding the latter position during the Gulf War. He was the first, and so far the only, African American to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

######################################################################


                            John H. Johnson

John Harold Johnson (19 January 1918 – 8 August 2005) was an American businessman, publisher. He is the founder of the Johnson Publishing Company, and in 1982, the first African-American to appear on the Forbes 400.

Johnson Publishing would later become an international media and cosmetics enterprise and the largest African American owned media publishing company with Ebony, Jet magazines. Fashion Fair Cosmetics and EBONY Fashion Fair are also included among its portfolio.

########################################################################

                    Diana Ross And Berry Gordy

Berry Gordy, Jr.^] (born November 28, 1929, Detroit, Michigan) is an American record producer, and the founder of the Motown record label and its many subsidiaries.

#####################################################################

                 Ward Connerly

Ward Connerly, one of the nation’s foremost critics of race-based affirmative action, was awarded the Bradley Prize by the Bradley Foundation , which recognizes those who preserve and defend Americans ideals of equality, freedom, capitalism and the “the tradition of free representative government and private enterprise.”

                                                 Rapper Ludacris

Christopher Bridges (born September 11, 1977), better known by his stage name Ludacris, is a three-time Grammy Award-winning American rapper and actor. Along with his manager, Chaka Zulu, Ludacris is the co-founder of Disturbing tha Peace, an imprint distributed by Def Jam Recordings. Ludacris is the highest-selling Southern hip hop solo artist of all time with over 15 million units sold in the United States.

                                              Bill Cosby

William Henry Cosby Jr., Ed.D. (born July 12, 1937) is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer and activist.

In May 2004 after receiving an award at the celebration of the 50th Anniversary commemoration of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that outlawed school segregation, Cosby made public remarks critical of African Americans who put higher priorities on sports, fashion, and "acting hard" than on education, self-respect, and self-improvement. He has made a plea for African American families to educate their children on the many different aspects of American culture (Baker).

Condoleezza Rice (born November 14, 1954) is a professor, diplomat, author, and national security expert. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and the second in the administration of President George W. Bush to hold the office. Rice was the first African-American woman, second African American (after her predecessor Colin Powell, who served from 2001 to 2005), and the second woman (after Madeleine Albright, who served from 1997 to 2001 in the Clinton Administration) to serve as Secretary of State. Rice was President Bush's National Security Advisor during his first term.

Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is an American television presenter, media mogul and philanthropist. Her internationally-syndicated talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, has earned her multiple Emmy Awards and is the highest-rated talk show in the history of television.^] She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African American of all time, and was once the world's only black billionaire.

###########################################################################

#############################################

########################################################################

Hope and Dreams Can Be Powerful Things

Barack Hussein Obama II ( born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 United States presidential election.

Obama is the first African American to be nominated by a major political party for president. A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate in January 2003. After a primary victory in March 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He was elected to the Senate in November 2004 with 70 percent of the vote.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, he helped create legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. During the 110th Congress, he helped create legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for returned U.S. military personnel. Obama announced his presidential campaign in February 2007, and was formally nominated at the 2008 Democratic National Convention with Delaware senator Joe Biden as his running mate.

Barack Obama was born at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black Kenyan from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham, a white American from Wichita, Kansas.His parents met while attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student. They separated when he was two years old and later divorced.Obama's father returned to Kenya and saw his son only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982. After her divorce, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967, where Obama attended local schools in Jakarta until he was ten years old. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979.Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972 for several years and then back to Indonesia to complete fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation. She died of ovarian cancer in 1995. As an adult Obama admitted that during high school he used marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol, which he described at the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency as his greatest moral failure.

Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983, then worked for a year at the Business International Corporation and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.

After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side, and worked there for three years from June 1985 to May 1988. During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens. Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute. In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his Kenyan relatives for the first time.

Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. At the end of his first year, he was selected, based on his grades and a writing competition, as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. In February 1990, in his second year, he was elected president of the Law Review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the Law Review's staff of eighty editors. Obama's election as the first black president of the Law Review was widely reported and followed by several long, detailed profiles. During his summers, he returned to Chicago where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley & Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990. After graduating with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) magna *** laude from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.

The publicity from his election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations. In an effort to recruit him to their faculty, the University of Chicago Law School provided Obama with a fellowship and an office to work on his book. He originally planned to finish the book in one year, but it took much longer as the book evolved into a personal memoir. In order to work without interruptions, Obama and his wife, Michelle, traveled to Bali where he wrote for several months. The manuscript was finally published in mid-1995 as Dreams from My Father.

Obama directed Illinois' Project Vote from April to October 1992, a voter registration drive with a staff of ten and seven hundred volunteers; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African-Americans in the state, and led to Crain's Chicago Business naming Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.

Beginning in 1992, Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, being first classified as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and then as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004.

He also, in 1993, joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a twelve attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2002.

Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife, Michelle, became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago in early 1993. He served from 1993 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project, and also from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation. Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995–2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995–1999.He also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center.

State legislator, 1997–2004

Obama was elected to the Illinois Senat in 1996, succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from Illinois' 13th District, which then spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park-Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn. Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws. He sponsored a law increasing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare. In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan's payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures.

Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, and again in 2002.^[36] In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.

In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority. He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.During his 2004 general election campaign for U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms. Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the US Senate.

2004 U.S. Senate campaign

In mid-2002, Obama began considering a run for the U.S. Senate; he enlisted political strategist David Axelrod that fall and formally announced his candidacy in January 2003. Decisions by Republican incumbent Peter Fitzgerald and his Democratic predecessor Carol Moseley Braun not to contest the race launched wide-open Democratic and Republican primary contests involving fifteen candidates. Obama's candidacy was boosted by Axelrod's advertising campaign featuring images of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and an endorsement by the daughter of the late Paul Simon, former U.S. Senator for Illinois.He received over 52% of the vote in the March 2004 primary, emerging 29% ahead of his nearest Democratic rival.

Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004.

In July 2004, Obama wrote and delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts. After describing his maternal grandfather's experiences as a World War II veteran and a beneficiary of the New Deal's FHA and G.I. Bill programs, Obama spoke about changing the U.S. government's economic and social priorities. He questioned the Bush administration's management of the Iraq War and highlighted America's obligations to its soldiers. Drawing examples from U.S. history, he criticized heavily partisan views of the electorate and asked Americans to find unity in diversity, saying, "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America."Broadcasts of the speech by major news organizations launched Obama's status as a national political figure and boosted his campaign for U.S. Senate.

In August 2004, two months after Ryan's withdrawal and less than three months before Election Day, Alan Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination to replace Ryan. A long-time resident of Maryland, Keyes established legal residency in Illinois with the nomination. In the November 2004 general election, Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes's 27%, the largest victory margin for a statewide race in Illinois history.

U.S. Senator, from 2005

Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 4, 2005.^[ Obama was the fifth African American Senator in U.S. history, and the third to have been popularly elected. He is the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus. CQ Weekly, a nonpartisan publication, characterized him as a "loyal Democrat" based on analysis of all Senate votes in 2005–2007, and the National Journal ranked him as the "most liberal" senator based on an assessment of selected votes during 2007. In 2005 he was ranked sixteenth, and in 2006 he was ranked tenth. In 2008, he was ranked by Congress.org as the eleventh most powerful Senator.

Legislation

Senate bill sponsors Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Obama discussing the Coburn–Obama Transparency Act.

Obama voted in favor of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and cosponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act. In September 2006, Obama supported a related bill, the Secure Fence Act. Obama introduced two initiatives bearing his name: Lugar–Obama, which expanded the Nunn–Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons, and the Coburn–Obama Transparency Act, which authorized the establishment of USAspending.gov, a web search engine on federal spending. On June 3, 2008, Senator Obama, along with Senators Thomas R. Carper, Tom Coburn, and John McCain, introduced follow-up legislation: Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008.

Obama sponsored legislation requiring nuclear plant owners to notify state and local authorities of radioactive leaks. In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act, marking the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor.In January 2007, Obama and Senator Feingold introduced a corporate jet provision to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which was signed into law in September 2007. He introduced Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections. Obama also introduced the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007.

Obama and Richard Lugar visit a Russian mobile launch missile dismantling facility.

Later in 2007, Obama sponsored an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act adding safeguards for personality disorder military discharges.He sponsored the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran's oil and gas industry, and co-sponsored legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism. Obama also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children's Health Insurance Program providing one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries.

Committees

Obama held assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works and Veterans' Affairs through December 2006. In January 2007, he left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional assignments with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He also became Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs.^[As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama has made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. He met with Mahmoud Abbas before he became President of Palestine, and gave a speech at the University of Nairobi condemning corruption in the Kenyan government.

2008 presidential campaign

On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois. The choice of the announcement site was symbolic because it was also where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic "House Divided" speech in 1858. Throughout the campaign, Obama has emphasized the issues of ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care, at one point identifying these as his top three priorities.

Marc PoKempner

LESSONS LEARNED Barack Obama campaigning for the Illinois State Senate in 1996, a race he easily won.

Obama on stage with his wife and two daughters just before announcing his presidential campaign in Springfield, Illinois.

Obama's campaign raised $58 million during the first half of 2007, of which "small" donations of less than $200 accounted for $16.4 million. The $58 million set the record for fundraising by a presidential campaign in the first six months of the calendar year before the election. The magnitude of the small donation portion was outstanding from both the absolute and relative perspectives. In January 2008, his campaign set another fundraising record with $36.8 million, the most ever raised in one month by a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries.

Among the January 2008 DNC-sanctioned state contests, Obama tied with Hillary Clinton for delegates in the New Hampshire primary and won more delegates than Clinton in the Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina elections and caucuses. On Super Tuesday, he emerged with 20 more delegates than Clinton. He again broke fundraising records in the first two months of 2008, raising over $90 million for his primary to Clinton's $45 million. After Super Tuesday, Obama won the eleven remaining February primaries and caucuses. Obama and Clinton split delegates and states nearly equally in the March 4 contests of Vermont, Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island; Obama closed the month by winning Wyoming and Mississippi.

In March 2008, a controversy broke out concerning Obama's former pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah Wright. After ABC News broadcast clips of his racially and politically charged sermons. Initially, Obama responded by defending Wright's wider role in Chicago's African American community, but condemned his remarks and ended Wright's relationship with the campaign. Obama delivered a speech, during the controversy, entitled "A More Perfect Union" that addressed issues of race. Obama subsequently resigned from Trinity United Church "to avoid the impression that he endorsed the entire range of opinions expressed at that church."

General David Petraeus gives an aerial tour of Baghdad to Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel.

During April, May, and June, Obama won the North Carolina, Oregon, and Montana primaries and remained ahead in the count of pledged delegates, while Clinton won the Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Puerto Rico, and South Dakota primaries. During the period, Obama received endorsements from more superdelegates than did Clinton. On May 31, the Democratic National Committee agreed to seat all of the Michigan and Florida delegates at the national convention, each with a half-vote, narrowing Obama's delegate lead while increasing the delegate count needed to win. On June 3, with all states counted, Obama passed the threshold to become the presumptive nominee. On that day, he gave a victory speech in St. Paul, Minnesota. Clinton suspended her campaign and endorsed him on June 7. Since then, he has campaigned for the general election race against Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee.

On June 19, Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing in the general election since the system was created in 1976, reversing his earlier intention to accept it.

On August 23, 2008, Obama selected Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate. At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, Obama's former rival Hillary Clinton gave a speech in strong support of Obama's candidacy and later was the person that called for Obama to be nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate by acclamation. On August 28, Obama delivered a speech in front of 84,000 supporters in Denver and viewed by over 38 million on television. During the speech he accepted his party's nomination and presented details of his policy goals.

Political positions

The young contender and the liberal lion.... Barack Obama and Senator Kennedy talking.

Obama campaigning in Pennsylvania, October 2008.

Obama was an early opponent of the Bush administration's policies on Iraq. On October 2, 2002, the day President George W. Bush and Congress agreed on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War, Obama addressed the first high-profile Chicago anti-Iraq War rally in Federal Plaza, speaking out against the war. On March 16, 2003, the day President Bush issued his 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Obama addressed an anti-Iraq War rally and told the crowd that "it's not too late" to stop the war.

Obama stated that if elected he would enact budget cuts in the range of tens of billions of dollars, stop investing in "unproven" missile defense systems, not "weaponize" space, "slow development of Future Combat Systems," and work towards eliminating all nuclear weapons. Obama favors ending development of new nuclear weapons, reducing the current U.S. nuclear stockpile, enacting a global ban on production of fissile material, and seeking negotiations with Russia in order to take ICBMs off high alert status.

In November 2006, Obama called for a "phased redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq" and an opening of diplomatic dialogue with Syria and Iran. In a March 2007 speech to AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby, he said that the primary way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons is through talks and diplomacy, although not ruling out military action.^[1 Obama has indicated that he would engage in "direct presidential diplomacy" with Iran without preconditions. Detailing his strategy for fighting global terrorism in August 2007, Obama said "it was a terrible mistake to fail to act" against a 2005 meeting of al-Qaeda leaders that U.S. intelligence had confirmed to be taking place in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. He said that as president he would not miss a similar opportunity, even without the support of the Pakistani government.

In a December 2005, Washington Post opinion column, and at the Save Darfur rally in April 2006, Obama called for more assertive action to oppose genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. He has divested $180,000 in personal holdings of Sudan-related stock, and has urged divestment from companies doing business in Iran. In the July–August 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, Obama called for an outward looking post-Iraq War foreign policy and the renewal of American military, diplomatic, and moral leadership in the world. Saying "we can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission," he called on Americans to "lead the world, by deed and by example."

In economic affairs, in April 2005, he defended the New Deal social welfare policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and opposed Republican proposals to establish private accounts for Social Security. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Obama spoke out against government indifference to growing economic class divisions, calling on both political parties to take action to restore the social safety net for the poor. Shortly before announcing his presidential campaign, Obama said he supports universal healthcare in the United States. Obama proposes to reward teachers for performance from traditional merit pay systems, assuring unions that changes would be pursued through the collective bargaining process.

Obama speaking at a rally in Conway, South Carolina.

In September 2007, he blamed special interests for distorting the U.S. tax code. His plan would eliminate taxes for senior citizens with incomes of less than $50,000 a year, repeal income tax cuts for those making over $250,000 as well as the capital gains and dividends tax cut, close corporate tax loopholes, lift the income cap on Social Security taxes, restrict offshore tax havens, and simplify filing of income tax returns by pre-filling wage and bank information already collected by the IRS. Announcing his presidential campaign's energy plan in October 2007, Obama proposed a cap and trade auction system to restrict carbon emissions and a ten year program of investments in new energy sources to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil. Obama proposed that all pollution credits must be auctioned, with no grandfathering of credits for oil and gas companies, and the spending of the revenue obtained on energy development and economic transition costs.

Obama has encouraged Democrats to reach out to evangelicals and other religious groups. In December 2006, he joined Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) at the "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church" organized by church leaders Kay and Rick Warren.^[ Together with Warren and Brownback, Obama took an HIV test, as he had done in Kenya less than four months earlier.He encouraged "others in public life to do the same" and not be ashamed of it.Before the conference, eighteen anti-abortion groups published an open letter stating, in reference to Obama's support for legal abortion: "In the strongest possible terms, we oppose Rick Warren's decision to ignore Senator Obama's clear pro-death stance and invite him to Saddleback Church anyway." Addressing over 8,000 United Church of Christ members in June 2007, Obama challenged "so-called leaders of the Christian Right" for being "all too eager to exploit what divides us."

A method that political scientists use for gauging ideology is to compare the annual ratings by the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) with the ratings by the American Conservative Union (ACU). Based on his years in Congress, Obama has a lifetime average conservative rating of 7.67% from the ACU, and a lifetime average liberal rating of 90 percent from the ADA.

Family and personal life

Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama.

Obama met his wife, Michelle Robinson, in June 1989 when he was employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin. Assigned for three months as Obama's adviser at the firm, Robinson joined him at group social functions, but declined his initial offers to date. They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992. The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998, followed by a second daughter, Natasha ("Sasha"), in 2001.

Applying the proceeds of a book deal, the family moved in 2005 from a Hyde Park, Chicago condominium to their current $1.6 million house in neighboring Kenwood. The purchase of an adjacent lot and sale of part of it to Obama by the wife of developer and friend Tony Rezko attracted media attention because of Rezko's indictment and subsequent conviction on political corruption charges that were unrelated to Obama.

In December 2007, Money magazine estimated the Obama family's net worth at $1.3 million. Their 2007 tax return showed a household income of $4.2 million—up from about $1 million in 2006 and $1.6 million in 2005—mostly from sales of his books.

Obama playing basketball with U.S. military in Djibouti in 2006.

In a 2006 interview, Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family. "Michelle will tell you that when we get together for Christmas or Thanksgiving, it's like a little mini-United Nations," he said. "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher." Obama has seven half-siblings from his Kenyan father's family, six of them living, and a half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, the daughter of his mother and her Indonesian second husband.^[1 Obama's mother is survived by her Kansas-born mother, Madelyn Dunham. In Dreams from My Father, Obama ties his mother's family history to possible Native American ancestors and distant relatives of Jefferson Davis, president of the southern Confederacy during the American Civil War.

Obama plays basketball, a sport he participated in as a member of his high school's varsity team. Before announcing his presidential candidacy, he began a well-publicized effort to quit smoking.

Obama is a Christian whose religious views have evolved in his adult life. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes that he "was not raised in a religious household." He describes his mother, raised by non-religious parents (whom Obama has specified elsewhere as "non-practicing Methodists and Baptists") to be detached from religion, yet "in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known." He describes his Kenyan father as "raised a Muslim", but a "confirmed atheist" by the time his parents met, and his Indonesian stepfather as "a man who saw religion as not particularly useful." In the book, Obama explains how, through working with black churches as a community organizer while in his twenties, he came to understand "the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change."

Cultural and political image

With his Kenyan father and white American mother, his upbringing in Honolulu and Jakarta, and his Ivy League education, Obama's early life experiences differ markedly from those of African American politicians who launched their careers in the 1960s through participation in the civil rights movement. Expressing puzzlement over questions about whether he is "black enough," Obama told an August 2007 meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists that the debate is not about his physical appearance or his record on issues of concern to black voters. Obama said that "we're still locked in this notion that if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong."

Echoing the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy, Obama acknowledged his youthful image in an October 2007 campaign speech, saying: "I wouldn't be here if, time and again, the torch had not been passed to a new generation."

In March 2007, Global Language Monitor added "Obama" to its English lexicon based on the use of Obama- as a root for neologisms such as: obamamentum, obamaBot, obamacize, obamarama, obamaNation, obamanomics, obamican, obamafy, obamamania, and obamacam.

Many commentators mentioned Obama's international appeal as a defining factor for his public image. Not only did several polls show strong support for him in other countries,but Obama also established close relationships with prominent foreign politicians and elected officials even before his presidential candidacy, notably with former British Prime minister Tony Blair, whom he met in London in 2005, with Italy's Democratic Party leader Walter Veltroni, who visited Obama's Senate office in 2005, and with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who also visited him in Washington in 2006.

NEXT STEP:

Barack Obama Elected The 44th President Of The United States
On November 4, 2008

President Barack Obama 2009

Yes We Can !

President Barack Obama

No Time To Rest: Our Journey Continues

Eric Holder, First Black Attorney General Of The United States was sworn in on February 3, 2009

Jan. 30, 2009: Michael Steele, who is the first African American to lead the Republican Party, makes his acceptance speech as the newly elected RNC Chairman.

Disclaimer: BlackAmericans.com does not imply ownership of or creative rights for the artwork, illustrations and photography in the exhibit “Black History: 390 Years of Yes We Can.”

Thank You For Visiting
BlackAmericans.com

For More News
And Information : Click Here

Email this post to a friend

POST COMMENTS BELOW:

Wikipedia.org and Other Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_obama

Published Sunday, January 18, 2009 6:28 PM by publisher

Filed under: MICHELLE OBAMA, Black History, Black History Month, An Unfinished Journey, 390 Years of "Yes We Can", The Underground Railroad, Black Slaves, Frederick Douglas, Tuskegee Airmen, SPLC, General Benjamin O. Davis, Althea Gibson, William Lloyd Garrison, Malcolm X, Booker T. Washington, A. Phillip Randolph, Rosa Park, Sothern Poverty Law Center, Civil Rights Movement, Thurgood Marshall, Soujourner Truth, W.E.B. Du Bois, Coretta Scott King, Morris Dees, Oprah Winfrey, John H. Johnson, Sidney Poiter, Souther Poverty Law Center, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jackie Robinson, Motown Sound, Douglas Wilder, Berry Gordy, Senator Edward Brooke, Dr. Mae Jemison, Colin Powell, Bill Cosby, Wilma Rudolph, Barack Obama, Rapper Ludacris, Martin Luther King Jr.

Desiree Rogers : Dignity, Style, and Grace

publisher — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:12:00 GMT

Rogers works down the hall from Michelle Obama, her friend of nearly 20 years, in the East Wing.

Desiree Rogers was born on June 16, 1959 in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is the daughter of the late Roy Glapion and his wife Joyce. Her father was the former director of sports for the New Orleans Public Schools and a member of the New Orleans City Council. Her mother ran day-care centers. She has one brother, Roy A. Glapion, a businessman who is active in civic life in New Orleans. Her family is of Louisiana Creole heritage.

Rogers graduated from the Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans in 1977. She earned a Bachelor's degree in political science from Wellesley College in 1981.

Rogers earned a MBA from Harvard Business School.

She once made millionaires of a lucky few everyday people. Now she plans to give Americans dinner invitations to the White House.

Rogers, a svelte, stylish Chicago business executive and socialite—and a former Illinois lottery director—is turning again to Lady Luck in her new role as social secretary for a White House that hopes to balance glamor, history and an urban sensibility with plenty of populism.

"Something that we've talked about from early on is making it the people's house," said Rogers, sitting at a table in her East Wing office, a view of the Truman Balcony behind her. "How can we salute—encourage the American spirit? That means many different things to many different people."

Her vision includes inviting ordinary citizens chosen by lottery to join in a social life that reflects the eclectic interests of a sophisticated, young First Couple, Barack and Michelle Obama. Along with glittering state events and intimate dinners hosting artists and intellectuals, the calendar she plans includes edgy poetry slams and an egalitarian ball celebrating everyday American heroes.

You can already see changes. The R&B band Earth, Wind and Fire was the entertainment at the Obamas' first formal dinner, hosting the nation's governors, and soul legend Stevie Wonder was honored with a White House concert. The black-tie governors' dinner had a more casual, modern feel with mixed-china place settings.

Among the first events have been a Super Bowl party and a dinner for congressional committee chairmen and their Republican counterparts. It was the first time even many of the GOP members of Congress had been invited to dinner at the White House despite their party's control of the presidency for the past eight years. The Super Bowl party included a children's play area featuring Nintendo Wii.

The traditional White House Easter Egg Roll this year was planned to be the largest ever, with tens of thousands of visitors and tickets distributed to the public online for the first time. The idea was that an assured spot will make it easier for families to come from across the country to join the egg hunt on the South Lawn; in the past, tickets were distributed in Washington the previous Saturday, making it less likely people would travel a long distance.

For many, the Obamas evoke John and Jacqueline Kennedy and Camelot, a presidency surrounded by an enduring mystique and sense of possibility. That image was created in part by an elegant White House social life that included a storied dinner with Nobel Prize winners and a performance by classical cellist Pablo Casals marking his celebrated return to America. Even before the election, Vogue editor at large Andre Leon Talley dubbed the Obama era "Black Camelot."

Whatever epithet ultimately sticks to the Obama White House, Rogers will be its impresario. And she, for one, rejects comparisons with Camelot: "This is not necessarily a presidency that duplicates, or copies. The Obamas have their own style," she said in an interview.

That style is livelier than the Bushes, more hip than the Reagans, more multicultural than the Clintons and more accessible than the Kennedys.

In an office that derives its greatest power from the opportunity to forge a direct relationship with the American people, and amid a celebrity culture that elevates the details of personal life, style can be critical.

"To have a successful presidency, the social life of the White House has to match the times. That's when it becomes such an added benefit to the presidency. It happened in its greatest form with the Kennedys," said Kennedy biographer Laurence Leamer. "There's no book that tells you how to do this. You have to feel your way through what you want to do."

The woman who will be helping the Obamas feel their way is a poised 5-foot, 10-inch Wellesley graduate with fashionable, close-shorn hair and a flair for designer clothing. Long before Rogers was associated with the White House, she was profiled in the September 2004 issue of Vogue, which praised her as "proving that chic and executive can co-exist."

A native of New Orleans and two-time queen of the Zulu Mardi Gras krewe, the 49-year-old Rogers has been a prominent presence on the Chicago social scene since her marriage to (now ex-husband) John Rogers, an Obama confidant and founder of Ariel Investments.

"She's a wonderful person to have in a room. She's fun and witty and lovely to look at," said Linda Johnson Rice, chairwoman and CEO of Johnson Publishing, a longtime friend and frequent guest at Rogers' Art Deco duplex in Chicago's Gold Coast. "When you walk into her home, everything is perfect: the candles are the right scent, the flowers are perfect and she's very welcoming."

Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, the top-ranking Republican on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, who sat next to Rogers at a recent White House dinner, gushes, "She's someone who puts you at ease instantly. You feel like you've known her a long time."

Though Rogers now has an apartment in Washington, she still shuttles back and forth to Chicago, returning three weeks ago for a surprise party for interior designer and Table Fifty-Two co-owner Julie Latsko.

Not only is Rogers the first African-American to be White House social secretary but she is the first with a Harvard MBA. She's spent much of her career at the intersection of politics, business and marketing.

After working as state lottery director, Rogers was a communications executive at People's Energy Corp. and then president of its two regulated utilities, steering them through a political backlash against rapidly rising gas prices. Before coming to the White House, she worked in another highly regulated industry: insurance. At Allstate, she was in charge of creating a social network to connect with customers.

Rogers is bringing some corporate marketing techniques to her new job. As she looked for ways to incorporate more modern touches in the Easter Egg Roll, she plans to test ideas with a focus group of children, said Cynthia Torres, a business school roommate who remains a close friend.

"She's investigating and trying to think through each event," Torres said.

Though Rogers approaches planning events with an eye toward imagery that will reinforce Obama's vision of the presidency and help him build relationships with the capital's other political players, she said her job ultimately is about "creating environments where people can kind of relax a little bit and experience a tiny slice of what America has to offer."

Like the conga line at the governor's ball.

"In the course of the evening, I looked up and they were doing a conga line," said White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. "That's the perfect example of how comfortable people were able to get very quickly. And, you know, when you've done the conga line with somebody, it's very hard to have a heated dispute with them the next day."

POST COMMENTS BELOW:

CHICAGOTRIBUNE.COM

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-camelotmar15,0,2235527.story

Mr. and Mrs.C

publisher — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:25:00 GMT

Mariah Carey could really use a nap. After a few hours of restless sleep, she rose at 4:30 a.m. to prepare for a performance in Central Park to promote her new album, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel. In the past, this scenario would have been a source of anxiety for the singer, who has long struggled with insomnia and worried about its effect on her famously fluid, multi-octave-spanning voice.

But sitting in her hotel suite as evening approaches, Carey, 39, seems alert and unruffled. "I felt really good about myself today," she says. For starters, she got positive feedback on the morning gig, taped live for The Oprah Winfrey Show, from her backup singers. "They're really talented, and they don't give me compliments all the time."

Another factor contributing to Carey's contentment is sprawled on the bed behind her, sleeping soundly — or at least pretending to. "Nick, I know you're awake," she says teasingly, as actor/rapper/TV host Nick Cannon, to whom she has been married for 17 months, stirs and mumbles, "Uh-uh."

Before she met Cannon, 28, "I wasted my time with stuff that wasn't really real, in my personal life," Carey says. "I was always more focused on my career. But now I have this support system."

The tracks on Memoirs, out Tuesday, hardly present a unified portrait of a blissed-out newlywed. The album "was going to be about women's empowerment," Carey says. "There are songs on there that are just saying (to men), 'I don't need you.' " The first single, Obsessed, accuses a wannabe beau of "lyin' that you're sexin' me," chiding him, "Finally found a girl that you couldn't impress." The song, which has sold more than 1 million downloads, peaked at No. 7 on Billboard's Hot 100. It recently topped USA TODAY's rhythmic airplay chart and is at No. 12 and rising in top 40 airplay.

In the video, Carey appears both as herself and in a couple of male guises, one of them a goateed, hoodie-wearing chap bearing a suspicious resemblance to Eminem, who launched a media feud in 2003 by suggesting in his Superman single that Carey had unrequited designs on him.

Asked if the rapper inspired the tune, Carey says, a bit coyly, "I wouldn't ever call anyone an inspiration for that song. But I'm happy (that) all the people who have been stalked and abused now have an anthem."

Carey insists, though, that Obsessed was crafted with a generous dose of humor, as was much of the material on Memoirs. Even the angelic reference "is a wink and a nod" to previous album titles, among them Butterfly, Charmbracelet and Rainbow. "People were saying, 'Oh, she's going to call her next album Unicorn.' There are so many jokes on this album. It still makes me laugh thinking of them."

Co-produced by Carey and contemporary urban/pop wizards Christopher "Tricky" Stewart and Terius "The Dream" Nash, Memoirs was "a really fun project. We'd sit around quoting movies, having a really great time. Dream was literally rolling around the studio floor."

Mr. and Mrs. C

The process wasn't entirely lighthearted. Carey points to Languishing, a plaintive interlude preceding the album's closing number and second single: a gospel-flavored reading of the power ballad I Want to Know What Love Is, a hit for the rock band Foreigner 25 years ago. Cannon was instrumental in selecting the cover, which is positioned at No. 20 and No. 30 on the adult-contemporary and urban AC airplay charts, and climbing both.

"Nick and I talk about music a lot, and we were talking about that song. I knew that if I was going to do it, I would have to bring my own thing to it." Carey also credits the track's co-producer James "Big Jim" Wright, who honed his gospel chops with Sounds of Blackness, and American Idol judge Randy Jackson, a veteran musician and longtime Carey confidant who lent additional production. "I wanted more drums, and Randy got a drummer who works predominantly in church, which took it to a different level."

The label has furnished Memoirs with various bells and whistles, including a bonus enhanced disc with four remixes of Obsessed and two versions of the video. The CD booklet consists of 34 pages compiled with Elle magazine, featuring ads for Angel Champagne, Elizabeth Arden and the board of tourism for the Bahamas, where Carey has a home, and where she and Cannon wed after a whirlwind courtship.

Island Def Jam Music Group chairman Antonio "L.A." Reid, who served as co-executive producer of Memoirs, got the idea while reading "one of those niche magazines where they sell ad pages with luxury brands, then give the magazine away. I thought, 'We reach more people with our CDs than these (publications) do,' and we need more ideas for how to generate revenue. I'm having many conversations (about this) with other artists," among them Carey's labelmate Rihanna.

Carey, who approved all the merchandise, says, "I love Elle, and the products are all things that I like. I thought it would be good to incorporate these little bits of my life and share my happiness with fans that way."

Clearly, neither Carey nor Cannon, her second husband (she was married early in her career to Tommy Mottola, then chief of Sony Music, her record company at the time), is reluctant to advertise their domestic beatitude. In conversation, Carey pulls her shirt up ever so slightly to reveal a burnt-orange butterfly tattoo on her lower back, with "Mrs. Cannon" inked delicately down the stem. Cannon, in turn, has "Mariah" branded in sprawling black letters across his upper back.

The couple met in 2005 at the Teen Choice Awards, but started dating in March 2008, when Cannon directed and appeared in the video for Bye Bye, a single off her last studio album, E=MC2. "The first thing I said to him is, 'I'm going to call you Mr. C,' " Carey says. "And the first thing he said was, 'I'm going to call you Mrs. C.' And we just started doing that."

Later that month, it was Mariah's "anniversary." ("I don't call them birthdays," she says. "I refuse birthdays.")

"We were on this island, and my security didn't want people around me — I guess they were being protective — so they planned for him to be on another part of the island that night. But I snuck over to where he was and woke him up with a piece of pineapple, and we stayed up and talked all night. When he had to go in the morning, neither of us wanted to leave." They tied the knot just over a month later.

A precious opportunity

Carey's lucky breaks have not been limited to the romantic arena. Director Lee Daniels, who cast her in last year's Tennessee— one of several films in which she has quietly picked up good notices since 2001's aggressively maligned musical Glitter— thought of her again when he needed an actress to play a dowdy social worker in Precious, his adaptation of Push, Sapphire's acclaimed novel about an abused, underprivileged teenager trying to overcome her wretched circumstances.

Precious, which arrives in theaters Nov. 6, boasts Winfrey and Tyler Perry as executive producers and has already earned top prizes at the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals. Carey's role was originally intended for Helen Mirren, but the younger star, who had read and loved Push, happened to call the director shortly after he learned that Mirren was unavailable.

"A light bulb went off in my head," Daniels recalls. He offered Carey the part, "but I told her, 'The only way you can do this is if you lose your entourage and come to set without any makeup on, and be prepared for me to make you look even plainer.' I actually had somebody on standby, in case she wouldn't do what I wanted. But she gave her spirit to me, and became the Mariah I know: a girl who listens and is loving and nurturing."

Carey concedes that assuming the character's glammed-down appearance wasn't easy. "I was like, keep me away from every mirror! But Lee gave me several gifts. He gave me what I needed to get to the truth of this woman, and he gave me a certain lack of self-consciousness. Because you can't be self-conscious and look like that."

Looking ahead

Still, Carey's confidence has its limits. The negative press surrounding Glitter and her subsequent breakdown stung, despite her ability to defy critics by rebounding with 2005's best-selling album, the-six-times-platinum-plus The Emancipation of Mimi. She would consider doing another movie musical, "but it would have to be with an incredible director, someone who's really a genius, because I've been burned by that."

She's susceptible to stage nerves, as well. Singing I'll Be There at Michael Jackson's memorial service in July, she was still shaken by the pop icon's unexpected death "and didn't know I was going to go on first." She delivered an emotional but vocally tentative performance. "I wish I had done him more justice." (Memoirs is dedicated "to the King of Pop" and Carey's pastor.)

Former Spin and Vibe editor Alan Light says Carey "faces the challenge that all those at her altitude face now. Nobody sells records the way she used to, even as recently as Emancipation of Mimi. How do you scale expectations when that's the field you've played on?"

Light is particularly eager to see how Carey's career progresses as she enters her 40s. "She is so much a pop artist, and has so affiliated herself with urban musicians, and that's a young person's game. It would be good for her to get out and sing in front of people more, re-establish herself as a vocalist, because that's her strength."

Carey, who last toured in 2006, did two Las Vegas shows recently and has another pair scheduled for October, but she still isn't sure when she'll do a concert trek again. She has plainly thought about embracing more grown-up challenges. Having or adopting children is one consideration, "though I'd want to be in a position to handle that as well as possible." As Memoirs' title suggests, she's inclined to look back now and then — but not, these days, with anger or regret.

"There's a little bit of almost every album I've done on this new one," Carey says. "It's like I put everything in a blender and made drinks for my friends. They're festive drinks, though some are bittersweet. I'm at such a good place in my life, and that allows me to be honest. And to enjoy things."

Post Script: Nick was just named Chairman of TeenNick.
(Editor Of BlackAmericans.com)

POST COMMENTS BELOW:

USATODAY.COM

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2009-09-24-mariah-carey-cover_N.htm

Brian Mcknight...The Complete Package

publisher — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Brian McKnight (born June 5, 1969 in Buffalo, New York) is a Grammy-nominated American singer, songwriter, arranger, producer, pop and R&B musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist who can play nine instruments: piano, guitar, bass guitar, drums, percussions, trombone, tuba, French horn and trumpet^.

Biography

McKnight's musical career began with a musical childhood, in which he played a member of a Seventh-day Adventist Church choir. Encouraged by his older brother Claude's band, Take 6, getting a record deal, McKnight sent out demo tapes and, at the age of 19, signed his first recording deal with Mercury Records subsidiary Wing Records. However, he ended up recording his albums for Mercury, released his first album, Brian McKnight, in 1992. He went on to release three more albums for Mercury records before moving to Motown Records. His final album with Mercury Records, Anytime sold over two million copies and was nominated for a Grammy.

In 1999, McKnight released Back at One (his second release from Motown; after the Christmas album Bethlehem), which sold over three million copies. Throughout his career he has collaborated with a variety of musicians including Mase, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Mary J. Blige, Justin Timberlake, Nelly, Vanessa Williams, Ivete Sangalo, Kirk Franklin, For Real, Canibus, Quincy Jones, Boyz II Men, Christina Aguilera, Regine Velasquez, Shoshana Bean, Mariah Carey, Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, Rascal Flatts and Josh Groban (on his 2007 #1 Christmas album Noël).

McKnight in 2004, co-wrote with Australian Soul artist Guy Sebastian the song Wait which is a track off the Beautiful Life (album).

McKnight's vocal style draws from Stevie Wonder (particularly in his use of melisma), Michael Sembello, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, and his own brother, Take 6 co-founder Claude V. McKnight. Brian McKnight also has the uncanny ability to mimic the timbre and style of other singers such as Nat King Cole, Stevie Wonder, and Prince.

McKnight is divorced and has three sons (Brian Jr. 19 and Niko 17 and Evan 10 months) and currently lives in Los Angeles, California.

McKnight currently hosts a radio show, The Brian McKnight Morning Show with Pat Prescott on KTWV The Wave in Los Angeles, CA. The show was also simulcasted on KHJZ-FM, Smooth Jazz 95.7 The Wave in Houston, TX from 6am-9am CST, but this station has since changed its format. In October 2007, McKnight had his debut on Broadway in the show Chicago.

In 2009, he appeared in the second season of Celebrity Apprentice. Each celebrity played to raise money for the charity of their choice; McKnight elected to play for Youthville USA. On January 26, 2009, Brian McKnight hosted "The Brian McKnight show" from 7PM-Midnight on 98.7 KISS FM in New York City.

In the fall of 2009, McKnight will star in his own late night talk show which is scheduled for syndication. The show will be a combination talk show with variety acts. Guests will include musicians, athletic champions and Hollywood stars.

Religion

Brian McKnight is a Seventh-day Adventist. He grew up attending Emmanuel Temple Seventh-day Adventist Church in Buffalo, NY. He also attended Oakwood University, a Seventh-day Adventist university, in Huntsville, Alabama from 1987-1989. Brian McKnight explains, concerning his religion:

"I'm the fifth generation of Seventh Day Adventists and the youngest of four brothers. When I was still very small, we formed a gospel quartet. Our models were the great gospel groups, the Swan Silvertones and Mighty Clouds of Joy. The McKnight Brothers were serious singers. The reputation went out: these boys could shout. My big brothers -- Claude, Freddie and Michael -- man, they were my heroes. Each was a leader in his own right. Outside church, they listened to jazz. Church music thrilled me, but jazz stimulated my mind."

POST COMMENTS BELOW:

WIKIPEDIA.ORG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_mcknight

Clarence Otis, Jr.,CEO Darden Restaurants....On Success And Leadership

publisher — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:38:00 GMT

Clarence Otis Jr.

Q. What’s the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned?

A. It’s one that I learned early on, and it kept getting reinforced and cemented over time with a number of different leaders. It’s this notion that leaders really think about others first. They think about the people who are on the team, trying to help them get the job done. They think about the people who they’re trying to do a job for. Your thoughts are always there first, and you think about what’s the appropriate response for whatever that audience is, and you think last about “what does this mean for me?”

The guy who reinforced that most would have been my predecessor here at Darden, Joe Lee. I was C.F.O. at the time, but on Sept. 11, 2001, after it became clear what had happened, we had an all-employee meeting, and Joe started to talk. One of the first things he said was, “we are trying to understand where all our people are who are traveling.”

The second thing he said was: “We’ve got a lot of Muslim teammates, managers in our restaurants, employees in our restaurants, who are going to be under a lot of stress during this period. And so, we need to make sure we’re attentive to that.” And that was pretty powerful. Of all the things you could focus on that morning, he thought about the people who were on the road and then our Muslim colleagues.

Q. How would you say your leadership style has changed over time?

A. It’s less and less about getting the work done and more and more about building the team — getting the right people in place who have the talent and capability to get the work done and letting them do it.

Q. Anything in your background that, looking back, prepared you for the art of building a team?

A. The thing that prepared me the most — where the team was front and center — was theater, which I did a lot of growing up, in high school, during college, law school and even for a couple of years after law school. I would say that probably is the starkest lesson in how reliant you are on others, because you’re there in front of an audience. It’s all live, and everybody’s got to know their lines and know their cues and know their movement, and so you’re totally dependent on people doing that.

You could have your piece down, but if one person on the team doesn’t, you’re in trouble, and it’s embarrassing because people aren’t used to seeing errors in theater. Theater is seamless every night.

Q. How do you hire people?

A. The most important thing to me is, you want to see someone who has passion, who really gets excited about the world around them and has drive. I like people who are energized by what they’re working on. I’m comfortable with people who are passionate, comfortable with people who are ambitious for the organizations they work in, ambitious for the function that they are building a career in, and want to make a contribution.

Being comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty is a trait I look for, because those folks are pretty comfortable with diversity, and not knowing how people who have differences might react in a situation doesn’t unmoor them. They’re comfortable with it and may even like that. Those kinds of folks also, when they’re faced with ambiguity and uncertainty, they’ve got their wits about them, so they’re looking as much for the opportunity that’s inherent in that as they are for the risk.

Q. How do you find out if somebody is like that?

A. You ask them about the various experiences they have had, and you try to probe, “where were those circumstances where there wasn’t good direction, when it wasn’t clear how things would break?” How do they respond to those questions? What’s the narrative around how they thought and behaved in those environments?

Q. Are there things that, as a leader or manager, you’ve learned to do less of over time?

A. I’d say probably less word-smithing, less massaging of the work product, more thinking, more reflecting. And that’s hard, because I like to wordsmith. With my background in theater and the law, I like that kind of stuff, and I work on things past the point where it makes any difference.

Q. What are you word-smithing?

A. I’ll wordsmith press releases, wordsmith analyst reports, reports to the board. You can wordsmith internal employee memos and speeches. There are all kinds of things.

Q. Any thoughts on how language is used in the business world?

A. I think writing in the business world is more functional than elegant. I felt that way making the transition from law to business. Lawyers write much better. They spend a lot more time on it. In the business world, it’s less about how well you say it and more about how efficiently you say it.

I do think language is important in leadership, and it’s critically important in oral communication. It’s worth thinking about exactly how you’re going to say something. It’s important for focusing people. It’s important for inspiring them. It’s important for directing them. The more senior you are, the more important it is, because your voice is amplified.

I did think it was an interesting debate during the presidential Democratic primary, when they talked about Barack Obama and how being able to give a good speech was one thing, but getting things done was another. I think to get a lot of things done, you have to be able to give a good speech. So I thought that was a specious argument.

Q. Are there areas you’re trying to improve as a leader?

A. As I said, I really value the passion. As a senior leader, sometimes you’ve got to harness the passion. So, you’ve got to give other people the chance to speak, voice a point of view. Some people are passionate, but it manifests itself in a different way, and so they’re more reflective in conversation. And so, you’ve got to leave some space for them to fill.

Q. Do you find, looking back over the course of your career, there was a certain insight you had that put you on a different trajectory?

A. I went to Williams College. I went to Stanford Law School. And I loved them both. I was a strong student at Williams, which I needed to be to get into a school like Stanford. I got to Stanford, and it was clear that the level of brain power among my student peers had just stepped up several levels. It was clear to me pretty quickly that no matter how hard I worked, I was not going to do better than a lot of my peers, because things came quicker to them than they did to me. Even though that was not true at Williams, it was true at Stanford. But that was fine, and I was comfortable with that.

What I discovered when I started practicing law was that, even though others had more intellectual horsepower, people still listened to me. They cared about what I thought — my peers, and the people I worked for. And so, that was probably the insight that told me at some point I could have a leadership position, because people really seemed to care what I thought, and they listened to me.

Q. Was there a particularly good piece of advice somebody gave you about your career?

A. One of the guys I worked for very early on said: “As you think about career, it’s not about planning it. Things are too dynamic; there’s too much going on; there are too many things that’ll pop up, good and bad. It’s not about planning and career planning; it’s about preparation and building skills. And if you do that, then you’ll recover from the mishaps, and you’ll be able to take advantage of the opportunities.”

Q. What has surprised you the most about the top job?

A. I would say it’s how amplified everything that you say or do is. That was the case at every senior job. It’s even more true of this position. And so, you have to be very intentional about what you say and do. If you’re not, then something that was just thinking out loud, some thought you had, some “what if,” becomes a directive, even though 10 seconds later in your own mind you dismissed it.

Q. Let’s talk about time management. How do you do it?

A. I schedule and block the calendar to have downtime, because I do think that in senior leadership positions, one of your jobs is to reflect, and you have to schedule time to do that. I try to leave a few hours a week that are unscheduled.

Q. What would you like business schools to teach more of, or less of?

A. I didn’t go to business school; I went to law school. But my sense is the one thing law school does that business schools could do more of is provide you with social context, the broader context within which business operates. There are business-and-the-law kinds of courses, but sometimes they get pretty transactional.

I think it would be interesting for business school students to learn constitutional law and comparative law. I think the dialogue between the business community and the civic community is hampered by that gap. And it’s never been clearer in my mind than now, when you’ve got a constitutional law professor as president. There’s just a disconnect. People don’t get the worldview that he’s coming from. But I don’t think he gets the business side as much as he should, either. There is a framework he’s coming from, and it’s as much a foundation to how this country works as the free enterprise system is. You’ve got to reconcile the two.

Q. What’s your version of a two-minute commencement speech?

A. I would tell them that they’re privileged, given the status that they have, the fact that they’ve been able to get a higher education. And with privilege comes obligations. I think one of the most important obligations is for them to provide leadership in whatever area they choose to dedicate their life to.

Provide leadership — that’s the price of the privilege they’ve been granted. So it’s about more than them. Certainly, there are things they want to accomplish, but they’ve got to make sure that those things have some payoff for others.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/business/07corner.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2

ABOUT CLARENCE OTIS JR.

Early life

Otis was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on April 11, 1956 to Clarence Otis, a janitor and Calanthus Hall Otis, a homemaker. When he was young, he moved with his family to Los Angeles at the height of the civil unrest of the 1960s.

Education

He gained a scholarship into Williams College in Massachusetts, where he majored in Economics and Political Science. He graduated magna *** laude in 1977, receiving the school's Political Science writing prize and Phi Beta Kappa recognition in his senior year. Otis then moved on to Stanford University Law School in California, earning his Law degree in 1980.

Career

He worked in the field of corporate law, specializing in the fields of securities law and mergers and acquisitions. He started out with the firm Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine and moved on to Gordon, Hurwitz, Butowsky, Weitzen, Shalov & Wein. From the start he ran with a high-flying crowd; one of his clients was famed financier Carl Icahn. But, he later on remarked, "I thought the finance side was more exciting than the law, so I moved to an investment banking firm"—Kidder, Peabody & Company. The barely 30-year-old Otis became a vice president at First Boston Corporation in 1987. In this job he got his first exposure to Florida's booming economy as he worked on real estate deals there. He became interested in public and government finance, serving as managing director of Giebert Municipal Capital in 1990 and 1991, and as a vice president and later managing director in Chemical Bank's securities arm between 1991 and 1995. He played a key part in turning around the bank's struggling public finance division, shepherding funding of $2.6 billion for tax-exempt pollution-control projects and participating a $208 million New York City bond issue that was named deal of the year by Institutional Investor magazine.

In 1995, Otis was recruited by Darden Restaurants in Orlando for the post of treasurer, overseeing finance activities for the 1,200-restaurant chain. He correctly assessed Darden as a company on the rise as its "casual dining" market niche—high-volume sit-down restaurants a step above fast food in terms of quality—was growing rapidly. His biggest motivator, however seemed once again to be the opportunity to acquire a new skill set. Otis came to the company in the final stages of its spin-off from food giant General Mills.

Indeed, while Otis supervised a staff of six, his decisions had company wide ramifications as Darden acquired new sites and financed new buildings all over the country; the chain owns its restaurants rather than franchising them to independent entrepreneurs. He ascended the corporate ladder at Darden, becoming senior vice president of finance in 1997 and chief financial officer in 1999. As the chain shuttered its struggling China Coast restaurants and opened new ventures such as the casual sports-bar barbecue Smokey Bones and the Caribbean-themed Bahama Breeze, Otis impressed his bosses at Darden with his ability to master and apply new skills.

As longtime Darden CEO Joe L. Lee, who opened the first Red Lobster restaurant in Florida in 1967, approached retirement. Otis was widely regarded as a protégé of Lee, and after one of his top rivals left for a top position with Burger King, his way was clear. Otis was named Lee's successor as CEO in 2004.

Personal life

Otis and his wife Jacqueline Bradley (b. 1958) were married in 1983 and have raised three children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Otis,_Jr.

Paula Patton...Sorry Fellows, She's Taken !

publisher — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:23:00 GMT

Paula Patton

Even though bright-eyed actress Paula Patton began performing as a little girl, putting plays in her own back yard, the shy young woman didn't realize she wanted a career onscreen for many years to come. In high school, she became involved in a PBS series that took young, aspiring filmmakers on a trip across the country to work on their own documentaries, and when Patton graduated high school, she continued to pursue her interest in working behind the camera by enrolling the film school at the University of Southern California. After graduation, she worked as a production assistant, nurturing her goal of producing her own movie, but something felt missing. Finally, Patton realized that her passion was to be on the other side of the camera, so she enrolled in acting classes and strove toward her new goal in full force.

Within a few years, Patton had landed a small role in Will Smith's 2005 comedy Hitch. The next year, she auditioned for a strange and exciting project by music-video director and first time filmmaker Bryan Barber starring Andre 3000 from the hip-hop group OutKast. The movie was called Idlewild, and the super-stylized comedy/crime drama/musical was set in the Prohibition-era American South. Patton's fresh new face was exactly what the unique project needed, and she was cast in the role of Angel Davenport, the female lead. Though the film wasn't geared toward the mainstream, it was a cult success among audiences and critics who appreciated its quirky style.

Patton's star continued to rise as later that same year she was cast in another substantial role, this time in a much more high-profile movie. As the damsel Denzel Washington must travel through time to save in the Tony Scott action thriller Déjà Vu, Patton's sweet but solid force onscreen was lauded, even by critics who bashed the movie for being overly serious. For her next project, the actress signed on to star opposite Kiefer Sutherland in the horror movie Mirrors, slated for release in 2007.

Patton was married to R&B singer/songwriter Robin Thicke in 2005. She appears on the cover of his 2003 album A Beautiful World and in a number of his music videos.

POST COMMENTS BELOW:

STARPULSE.COM

http://www.starpulse.com/Actresses/Patton,_Paula/Biography/

Shaun Robinson: Walking Her Talk !

publisher — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:08:00 GMT

Shaun Robinson

Shaun Robinson is co-anchor and correspondent for the show Access Hollywood, the daily entertainment newsmagazine show. She was also the host of TV One Access, a show on the TV One network produced by Access that brings viewers behind the velvet rope for an inside look at who's who in "Black Hollywood".

Robinson, who was born in Detroit, Michigan, is a graduate of Detroit's famous Cass Technical High School. That school also produced Diana Ross, Lily Tomlin, Kenya Moore, Carole Gist and David Alan Grier. She then went south to Atlanta, GA were she attended and graduated from Spelman College.

Shaun Robinson's career began in Detroit at WGPR-TV62, the first African-American owned television station in the U.S. After that Robinson was a medical reporter and weekend anchor for WISN-TV in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where her series on women and cancer garnered her an Associated Press award. She also served as host of the daily talk show Milwaukee's Talking. Robinson later joined newly formed KEYE-TV in Austin, Texas in 1995, as a reporter and anchor where her series "Profiles in Power", focusing on women who made an impact in Central Texas, earned Robinson an American Women in Radio and Television award.

Before joining Access Hollywood, Robinson was a reporter and anchor for WSVN-TV in Miami, Florida. During her tenure there, Robinson anchored coverage of both the Clinton impeachment hearings and of Hurricane George, which devastated the Florida Keys. She also traveled to Oklahoma to profile survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Robinson has been featured in the fashion pages of In Style magazine, Us Weekly, Ebony, Essence and was named as one of Honey magazine's "Hot 100." Her television and film credits include cameo appearances in Bruce Almighty, Charmed, She Spies, The Parkers, The Proud Family, Half & Half and Any Day Now.

She also played a small part of the 'Pat O'Brien Voice Mail Scandal' in 2005, when some sexual voicemails from O'Brien were uncovered and posted on many websites. Some of those voice mails were reportedly sent to Robinson's phone. This led to O'Brien's immediate removal from Access Hollywood, and Robinson moved into a more prominent role on the show.

SHAUN'S LATEST BOOK

Celebrated Women Share Candid Advice with Today's Girls on What It Takes to Believe in Yourself (Ballantine Hardcover), Emmy Award-winning journalist, Shaun Robinson, shares both the honest comments she's heard from young women and the heartfelt and encouraging advice she's been in the rare position to glean from today's most notable women, namely, Jamie Lee Curtis, Celine Dion, Diane von Furstenberg, Janet Jackson, Patti LaBelle, Queen Latifah, Nicole Miller, Julianne Moore, Mandy Moore, Martina Navratilova, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Sawyer, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Gabrielle Union, Meredith Vieira, Vanessa Williams, Oprah Winfrey, and more. Young girls and famous women alike give their inspiring comments on self-esteem to this book, and the result is a collection of voices that will inspire girls to find their inner strength, grow confident, and believe in themselves. Thank You Shaun For such a great book?

Post Comments Below

Wikipedia.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_Robinson

Michelle Obama: A Transformative First Lady

publisher — Sun, 03 May 2009 09:50:00 GMT

Question: What do The New Yorker, bloggers, certain cable news pundits, and late night television hosts have in common?

Answer: They all got it wrong about Michelle Obama. Even before she became the first African-American first lady, an obsession with what the Obamas would do and be as the nation’s first family was brewing.

Thus began attempts to not only define the would-be-president, but to make his wife of 17 years into something they could understand. Having never imagined a black woman, especially one who is “black from a distance” (not ethnically ambiguous), in such a socially and culturally powerful position, they looked for clues in thread-bare stereotypes: “she’s a fist-bumping radical;” “she doesn’t love her country;” “she’s an elitist.”

Now, after just three months in the White House, another stampede is on. The blogosphere and pundits on cable news, among numerous others, debate whether Michelle is more Jacquelyn Kennedy than Eleanor Roosevelt, and bloggers both condemn and praise her fashion choices, sometimes in the same breath. The meaner ones add racist tinges to their criticisms.

While the recent foreign trip garnered headlines in Europe such as “Michelle takes Paris by storm,” some of the homebound media declared it a major faux pas that she touched the royal person, even though the royal person, Queen Elizabeth, touched her first, and seemed to invite it.

Meanwhile, David Letterman and Jay Leno, in a drought of presidential humor since the departure of George W. Bush, are pushing stale mother-in-law jokes. Marion Robinson’s move into the White House to help care for her grandchildren ignited the latter.

The bit of cultural misreading that their misfired jokes revealed could not have been more revealing about what we don’t know about each other. In many black families, the presence of the grandmother in the home is a long-held, honored tradition.

As with the Obamas, grandmothers bring added stability and grounding to the family unit. While there is usually some humor in such family situations, it is not the broad one-liners of the “take my mother-in-law, please,” variety that the television hosts coughed up.

Their miscues were friendly fire, meant only for a few yuks. Not so are the not-fit-to-(re)print comments that are casually popping up on mostly right-wing media sites. To them, the first lady ideal has been irreparably violated.

Truth be told, Michelle Obama is different. She is neither a Kennedy or Roosevelt wannabe, nor even a feminist icon like Hillary Clinton.

As first lady, she is charting her own path. She is an original — and the best argument we have that an American meritocracy, though tarnished by racism and classism, does exist.

Having grown up in a loving, working class family in southside Chicago, and through hard work, earned a first-class education, Michelle Obama is self-assured and confident. Not hoisted by economic advantage, political lineage or dynastic entitlement, as first lady, she is an American milestone. Her husband is, too, but that is another story.

Without Michelle at his side, in spite of all his many gifts, Barack Obama would not have been elected president of the United States. Within the black community, Michelle helped to ease doubts about his ancestry and his loyalty. Among some whites, she diminished stereotypes about black women (although some linger). But the deal maker for a lot of us, was the Obamas’ totally equal partnership.

Michelle is as smart as Barack, and as tall. She has no need to show how intelligent she is by taking on policy questions. She is a feminist with nothing to prove. (Hillary deserves some props for the bruises she took on the road here.)

Michelle is free to set her own style — to wear JCrew and couturier fashions. She is free to plant a vegetable garden, although her predecessors thought it “unbecoming” to the White House. She can visit inner city schools and bring, without a negative word, a spotlight to the unequal conditions that produce unequal results. She can lead an “A” list of caring celebrities into the ’hood to inspire economically disadvantaged girls.

Having partaken of the best that America has to offer, and having seen, up close, what it is like for those who have been denied a chance to achieve their American dream, Michelle Obama is transforming and energizing the first lady idea.

There is probably no way to win over those stuck in a time–warped dark tunnel, but for the majority of Americans who are ready for change, Michelle Obama is holding up the light.

This guest column was written by Audrey T. McCluskey, who is the director of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center and a faculty member in the Indiana University Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies. Her latest two books are “Richard Pryor: The Life and Legacy of a ‘Crazy’ Black Man,” and “The Devil You Dance With: Film Culture in the New South Africa.”

POST COMMENTS BELOW:

TMNews.com

http://www.tmnews.com/stories/2009/05/03/columns.nw-319709.tms

Laila Ali...Mother, Boxer, Dancer, News Correspondent And Anything Else She Wants To Be.

publisher — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:48:00 GMT

Laila Ali, an athlete and champion of health and fitness, is a perfect role model for today’s healthy, on-the-go woman. The youngest daughter of Veronica Porsche Anderson, and of the legendary Muhammad Ali, she is a strong, intelligent, woman, daughter, and wife. Equally as important, Laila possesses a unique blend of personality and celebrity status, yet retains an innate sense of being “every woman”, thus allowing her to connect strongly with the consumer.

While Laila has undoubtedly been the major draw in women’s boxing for years, she recently took on a new challenge, strutting her stuff in front of nearly 40 million people every week on ABC’s hit show, Dancing With The Stars. A glamorous and elegant Laila surprised everyone and charged into the finals. Not only did her grace and tremendous athletic ability translate well to the dance floor, but it gave the public a wonderful opportunity to view a side of Laila to which they had never been exposed. Viewers were able to get a sense of her humor, her feminism, her genuineness, and her beauty. Laila got dressed up one more time this summer, as she married former NFL star, Curtis Conway, on July 22nd.

Laila’s tremendous global popularity on the dance-floor and in the ring has led to numerous marketing opportunities for her. Most recently, she was featured in adidas’ “Impossible is Nothing” campaign alongside soccer phenom David Beckham, and in Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion’s “Skin is Amazing” campaign with the likes of Hillary Duff, Minnie Driver and Dave Navarro. Laila recently became the second person to ever appear in the famous MILK Mustache campaign three times. The MILK campaign featured a “high fashion” image for the masses, and a “sporty” photo for schools nationwide.

Fitness is another important component of Laila’s life. She recently completed a cardio workout DVD with boxing legend, Sugar Ray Leonard (available at WalMart, Kmart/Sears, Best Buy, etc.). Her attention to an overall healthy lifestyle has rendered her an expert in this field. Laila has appeared in numerous magazines, including TV Guide, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, People, Ebony, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Essence, JET, ESPN the Magazine, and Time. Laila can soon be seen as host of “The N’s Student Body,” a show that follows a group of teens as they attempt to change their own lives-from diet and exercise to volunteering and academics – as well as the lives of their friends and families.

In January 2008, Laila joined Hulk Hogan as co-host of NBC’s “American Gladiators.” The premiere of the show was the highest-rated new series premiere on any network among adults 18-49 for the 2007-08 season. Laila has also been named the new Health and Lifestyle Correspondent for CBS’ The Early Show.

Laila also authored a motivational book titled Reach! She wrote the book in an effort to help young women who may need to be inspired in life. Laila uses her own experiences and challenges as an example for her readers.

Laila, a multi-talented entrepreneur, owned and operated a nail salon in California before entering the boxing profession. She had earned her degree in Business Management at Santa Monica College, but after watching women’s boxing on television for the first time, she instantly wanted to step in the ring. About a year later, she sold her business and started training to become a professional boxer.

Laila made her professional boxing debut on October 8, 1999, and in a sign of things to come, she knocked out her opponent, April Fowler, 31 seconds into the 1st round. Laila is the current undefeated Super Middleweight Boxing Champion of the world with a 24-0 record, with 21 knock-outs. In her last fight, on February 3rd, 2007, Laila knocked out her opponent, Gwendolyn O’Neal, in just 56 seconds. The bout, held in Johannesburg, South Africa, was attended by Nelson Mandela, a long time family friend.

POST COMMENTS BELOW:

LAILAALI.COM

http://www.lailaali.com/index.cfm/pk/content/pid/400128

Dr. Susan Rice: Reporting For Duty !

publisher — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:25:00 GMT

Susan Elizabeth Rice (born November 17, 1964) is an American foreign policy advisor and United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Rice served on the staff of the National Security Council and as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during President Bill Clinton's second term. Rice is the United States' third woman ambassador to the UN, following Madeleine Albright and Jeane Kirkpatrick. She is also the first black woman to hold the position. Rice was confirmed by the United States Senate by unanimous consent on January 22, 2009.

Biography

Rice was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in the Shepherd Park area. Her father, Emmett J. Rice, is a Cornell University economics professor and former governor of the Federal Reserve System.Her mother is education policy scholar Lois Dickson Fitt. Rice was a three-sport athlete, student council president, and valedictorian at National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C., a private day girls' school.^[3] She played point guard in basketball and directed the offense, acquiring the nickname "Spo," short for "Sportin'."^[3]

Her father always told her to "never use race as an excuse or advantage". As a young girl she says she "dreamed of becoming the first U.S. Senator from the District of Columbia".^[2] She also held "lingering fears" that her accomplishments would be diminished by people who attributed them to affirmative action.

Rice attended Stanford University, where she received a Truman Scholarship, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1986. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.^[4] On graduation day, as she shook hands with University President Donald Kennedy, he said, "I know who you are."^[3] She and Condoleezza Rice, the former U.S. Secretary of State, are both female foreign policy experts of African American descent who have ties to Stanford University; however, they are not related.

Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, Rice attended New College, Oxford, where she earned a M.Phil. in 1988 and D.Phil. in 1990. The Chatham House-British International Studies Association honored her dissertation titled " Commonwealth Initiative in Zimbabwe , 1979-1980: Implication for International Peacekeeping" as the UK's most distinguished in international relations.

Rice's classmates and professors at Oxford included advocates of the role of the United Nations and international law (Sir Adam Roberts, Benedict Kingsbury), of global economic governance and international economic cooperation (Ngaire Woods, Donald Markwell), and of a firm stance against Russian authoritarianism (Michael McFaul). Sir Adam Roberts is also an expert on international humanitarian intervention, a topic in which Rice has taken a close interest.

Rice married Canadian-born ABC News producer Ian Officer Cameron (born in Victoria, British Columbia)in 1992; they met as students at Stanford. They reside in Washington, D.C. with their two children.

Career

Rice was a foreign policy aide to Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential election. She was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, the global management consulting firm, in the early 1990s.^[15] While at McKinsey, Rice was affiliated with the Firm's Toronto office.

Rice served in the Clinton administration in various capacities: at the National Security Council from 1993 to 1997; as Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping from 1993 to 1995; and as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs from 1995 to 1997.

Affiliations

Susan Rice serves on the boards of several organizations, including the National Democratic Institute, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, board of directors of the Atlantic Council, advisory board of Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University,^[25] the board of directors of Bureau of National Affairs, board of directors of Partnership for Public Service, the Beauvoir National Cathedral Elementary School, and past member of the Internews Network's board of directors.

She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group.

^{POST COMMENTS BELOW:}

^{WIKIPEDIA.ORG}

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Rice}

Dr. Ben Carson: " We do not have to be victims of circumstance."

publisher — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:38:00 GMT

President Bush presents The Lincoln Medal to Dr. Benjamin Carson

Benjamin Solomon Carson was born in 1951 in Detroit, Michigan. When he was 8, his father left the family and his parents were divorced. Carson, his older brother Curtis, and his mother Sonya moved to Boston to live with relatives for a year, before returning to Detroit's inner city, where Carson would spend most of his boyhood. Thrust into a world of poverty after her divorce, Sonya Carson, with only a third-grade education, worked as a domestic to provide for her boys. She turned for comfort and strength to the teachings of the Seventh Day Adventist church. It was there, while listening to a sermon, that Carson decided to pursue medicine, initially as a missionary, and discovered the safe haven and strength God and scriptures afforded.

Dr. Carso And His Mother

Drawing upon her faith in God, and the power of positive thinking and the intellect to solve problems, Sonya Carson set about laying the academic and moral groundwork that would transform Carson's life and help make his dreams for success a reality. When the family returned to Detroit in 1960, Carson found himself at the bottom of his class in the predominately white Higgens Elementary school. Years later the then famous surgeon Ben Carson, M.D., would describe himself as the fifth-grade "class dummy," a child who, taunted by classmates and ignored by teachers, was soon convinced of his own stupidity and that being black meant the world was stacked against him. Two events his fifth grade year changed his perception of the world and his ability.

A pair of prescription glasses enabled Carson for the first time to see the writing on the chalkboard and have a clear view of his lessons. Determined that he see and develop his intellectual potential, as well, his mother turned off the TV at home and required each of her sons to read at least two books a week and write a report on each for her to read. Years later, Carson would learn that his mother, with only a third-grade education, had been unable to read the reports. Her unrelenting insistence, and Carson's work in this regard, paid off with big rewards. By reading books, Carson began to acquire the knowledge that would send him to the head of his class, earn the respect of his classmates and teacher, and convince him of his self-worth and potential.

As he began to apply himself in school, and experience the heady triumph of knowledge, Carson was forced to control a temper that threatened his accomplishments and his future. In his books, and to rapt audiences, he tells the tale of his attempt to stab a classmate who tried to change a radio station in a dispute. His knife blade hit the boy's belt buckle, instead of his flesh. Shocked by the ease with which he'd justified and unleashed such anger - nearly taking another's life, and effectively ending his own - Carson locked himself for hours in the bathroom at home, reading the Bible, seeking the wisdom and self-restraint he would need to build a future. When he finally left the bathroom, he left behind his willingness ever to let another person control him, by responding in anger, realizing how self-destructive an emotion it was. Freed from the bondage of anger, empowered by the knowledge that education could open doors, and with a record of academic achievement at Southwestern High School, Carson won a scholarship to Yale.

The Road to Discovery - The Yale Years: Throughout his childhood, Ben Carson's mother would tell him that God would help him if he helped himself by giving his best. Carson earned high marks in high school, and entered Yale in 1969 on an academic scholarship. At Yale, Carson found he was no longer at the top in his class; in fact, he soon found himself floundering in an Ivy League institution that required strong study skills and good oral comprehension in a lecture setting. Used to delaying school work until the day before a test, without learning subjects in depth, Carson found himself unable to keep pace with his classmates and work load, which required more than sporadic bursts of attention to master.

As he tells the story, he was cramming late one night for the next day's chemistry exam. His future at Yale would be determined by the outcome. He needed a high score to remain at the Ivy League university. Exhausted and overwhelmed, he asked God for help. Soon thereafter, he closed the text book, in despair of ever becoming a doctor. That night, Carson dreamed the he was in an auditorium. A professor was working out chemistry problems on the chalk board. Carson woke up and worked on solving those problems. When he opened his chemistry exam booklet that morning, he felt a "chill" in the lecture hall, he would write later. The exam problems were identical to those in his dream. He knew the answers. He passed chemistry and subsequently remained at Yale.

In thanking God, he vowed to do what ever it took to enable him to succeed and create his childhood dream of becoming a doctor. In his first autobiographical book Gifted Hands, Dr. Carson chronicles the self reflection, acquired learning skills, and study strategies that enabled him to turn his academic performance around. He tells of meeting and falling in love with his future wife Candy Rustin, a talented musician pursuing a triple major at Yale.

He was graduated from Yale with a degree in psychology in 1973. That Fall, Candy began her junior year at Yale, and Carson began his first year of medical school at the university he told his Yale classmates, "my Father owns."

My Father's House - The Michigan Years: When Ben Carson told his Yale classmates "my Father owns" the University of Michigan School of Medicine, he was referring to God. But his well-heeled contemporaries, accustomed to high-achieving relatives, needed no further explanation, and Carson never gave it.

It was while operating a crane in a steel company, the summer before entering Michigan medical school, that Carson became convinced of his keen sense of hand and eye coordination. This, and the ability to understand physical relationships and to think in three dimensions, would ultimately lead to his decision to become a surgeon, a specialist who must be able to foresee the consequences of each stroke of his hand.

During his clinical year at Michigan medical school, traditionally the third year of four, he drew upon these abilities to solve three dimensional problems, and to develop a new technique enabling neurosurgeons to pinpoint the hole in the base of the skull. This technique saved precious time in conducting surgery on the brain.

As surprised as his professors and fellow students by his ability in the neurosurgery arena, Carson decided that he had at last found the niche in which he could excel. After graduation from Michigan in 1977, he remained at the school for his residency training in neurosurgery. A change in leadership there in 1980 prompted his decision to apply to another medical institution to continue his neurosurgery training: Johns Hopkins. Again, he faced an obstacle. Johns Hopkins accepted only two students a year for neurosurgery residency, and more than 125 individuals had applied.

Neurosurgery Prevails - Hopkins Years Begin: In his interview with George Udvarhelyi, M.D., then head of the neurosurgery residency program at Johns Hopkins, Ben Carson, M.D., was reminded that no knowledge is wasted. As a boy, he had been introduced to classical music by his older brother Curtis. Enamored by its soulful beauty, he set about learning all he could about its history and composers. He became a connoisseur of classical composition and technique. Years later, he would write that he believes his common affinity with Dr. Udvarhelyi for classical music, which they discussed extensively during their initial conversation, was a factor in his subsequent acceptance into the neurosurgery program at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. In years since, he has cited this beneficial exchange as a reminder of the power of an education.

After completing his neurosurgery training at Hopkins, Carson, with his wife Candy, whom he married in 1975, moved to Australia for an additional two years of intensive training in the specialty. In 1984, Carson would return to Hopkins, named the youngest-ever director of pediatric neurosurgery, at the age of 33.

PHILOSOPHY

With groups of all ages, Ben Carson, M.D., shares the philosophies that have enabled him to overcome obstacles in his personal, professional, and spiritual life. The lessons he has learned about himself and the world have enabled him to leave behind a life of poverty in America's inner cities for that of a successful and highly respected surgeon, businessman, and motivational speaker.

In boardrooms, school auditoriums, books, and churches, Dr. Carson tells his audiences that the keys to a life of satisfaction, accomplishment, and peace lie in one's ability to discover his or her potential for excellence; the acquisition of knowledge to develop it; and a willingness to help others. Education, he says, is liberation.

He introduces young people to the wealth of opportunities and lifestyles that exist in intellectual pursuits, far beyond the narrow worlds of sports and entertainment, so mistakenly glorified in today's celebrity culture of TV, movies, and popular music. He calls upon us all to strive for excellence and recognize our God-given abilities.

The Big Picture

In a modern world that idolizes the exploits of entertainment and sports figures, young people are at particular risk of missing life's "big picture" - the rich variety of outlooks, professions, and achievements available to all willing to broaden their horizons and perspectives. Dr. Ben Carson calls upon young people to study themselves, to identify their God-given talents, and then to seek out individuals, mentors, who can help them develop them.

Convinced of his own inability in childhood to excel in school or improve his circumstances, Dr. Carson has a particular affinity with children and adolescents who fear failure and have no vision of success. Attributing his own turn around to a mother who refused to let him surrender to all the excuses for failure, he is a man with a mission to show others the way to self-respect, self-confidence, and personal and professional success.

Students who excel academically, read extensively, says Carson. When he was a boy, his mother made reading a mandatory exercise in her sons' lives. At a young age Carson experienced the power of knowledge, acquired from reading books. With information at his command, he experienced academic success for the first time, to the astonishment of teachers and other students who had expected as little of him as he had expected of himself.

No. Excuses

Whatever one's handicaps or hardships in life, individuals can choose how to respond to difficulties, says Dr. Ben Carson. "We do not have to be victims of circumstances, however grim," he says.

In his books and before audiences, he draws upon his own experience of growing up impoverished and confronted by racism, and the life he brought forth. In his book Think Big, Dr. Carson writes: "Young folks need to know that the way to escape their often dismal situations is contained within themselves. They can't expect other people to do it for them. Perhaps I can't do much, but I can provide one living example of someone who made it and who came from, what we all call, a disadvantaged background."

To those who cite racism as the impediment to their success, Carson replies that obstacles of any kind are to be hurdled, and ignorance confronted where ever it's found. In childhood and in his medical career, he experienced the personal affronts and low expectations of those who judged him by the color of his skin. He refused, however, to allow them to become excuses for inaction, failure, or anger: "I've always remembered my mother telling us, even as children, that when it comes to prejudices, some people are just ignorant, and need to be educated."

POST COMMENTS BELOW:

Dr. Ben Carlson

http://drbencarson.com/philosophy.html

President Barack Obama: 390 Years Of "Yes We Can"

publisher — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:28:00 GMT

First Slaves 1619

Frederick Douglas

Frederick Douglass was one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement, which fought to end slavery within the United States in the decades prior to the Civil War.

The Underground Railroad

William Lloyd Garrison

Soujourner Truth

#####################################################################

Harriet Tubman

##########################################################################

DRED SCOTT DECISION

Dred Scott

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

#######################################################################

John Brown, Abolitionist

######################################################################

########################################################################

Robert Smalls

##########################################################################

Booker T. Washington

W. E. B. Du Bois

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.
Du Bois

Sharecropper educates her children at home; discrimination, poverty, and the waxing and waning of the planting season often kept southern African-American children from attending school.

######################################################################

Miltary Leaders

Henry Ossian Flipper (21 March 1856–3 May 1940) was an American soldier and the first black American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point (1877).

########################################################################

Brig. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Sr. watches a Signal Corps crew erecting poles, somewhere in France. August 8, 1944

###############################################################################

Civil rights leaders

A. Phillip Randolph

Young non-violent warriors under arrest.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders of a municipal bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, riding an integrated bus, December 1956.

#########################################################################

Remembering

Martin Luther King, Jr.

By Coretta Scott King