California
A star-studded celebration in Los Angeles last month kicked off the effort to raise money to create a documentary on the history of R&B music, headed by recording artist and producer Kashif. “The History of R&B Music and Its Influence on World Cultures” will be a feature-length documentary put together from interviews and data from an 18-city worldwide tour that Kashif has put together. He and friends held the free concert-like event to help raise awareness of a campaign on IndieGoGo (a public money raising system) to raise money for completion of the documentary. To make a donation to the campaign, go to www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-history-of-r-b-music/x/5169837
In its second year, the Miller Lite Tap the Future Live Pitch Event hit Los Angeles last Monday with “Shark Tank” regular and entrepreneur Daymond John. As with the television series, teams of business partners delivered their best pitches for an opportunity to win money for their businesses. The best team received $20,000 and will now advance to the national finals to compete for a grand prize of $200,000. Chris Moriarity and John Bowers won with an all-natural blend of ingredients that protect tattoos.
“Entrepreneurship is a tough road that takes a lot of heart, dedication and discipline,” John said. “Miller Lite Tap the Future as a program gives these young businesses a great platform to learn and put in practice some of the most important elements in business, like pitching, networking and putting together a business plan. Most importantly, it gives them a chance to win grant money, which can really help a small business get a head start.”
Other judges included Crystal Mitchel, co-director of Recycling Black Dollars. Kenny Burns hosted the event.
Illinois
Last year, 50 Chicago schools were closed and thousands of educational professionals were terminated from their jobs. Most of these schools were in predominantly African American communities and most of the terminated educational professionals were Black. This week, another 1,150 educational professionals were terminated from the Chicago Public Schools system. The image of creating “educational deserts” in poor, Black communities is a disaster waiting to happen for Chicago, says teacher union leaders. Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Karen Lewis expressed the union’s outrage over the latest cuts, slamming in particular Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Lewis called the move “yet another brutal attack on public education in Chicago.” The cutbacks are a result of the city’s per-pupil funding model, which connects a school’s budget to how many students it has enrolled. A lot of the areas that are predominantly Black have seen decreases in enrollment and thus received the deepest cuts.
Louisiana
The New Orleans South African Connection will be among several Black groups and students set to participate in the YesWeCode Hackathon. The event brings together about 200 of the tech industry’s brightest developers, designers and influential business professionals working alongside 50 high-potential youth. The ultimate goal is to work toward transforming their neighborhoods into thriving communities, where everyone experiences success regardless of race, gender, abilities or other factors. The hackathon is designed so that its participants work together to build great apps centered on education, environmental sustainability, restorative justice, music/entertainment and health/wellness issues. The event will be held during the Essence Music Festival this weekend in New Orleans. Qeyno Labs sponsors the hackathon in partnership with YesWeCode.
Maryland
The National Association of Black Storytellers is looking for stories about community heroes for its Second Annual National Storytelling Contest. The Baltimore-based organization believes stories are transformative, and that when people share their courageous victories, they pass on lessons of faith, determination and endurance. The contest has adult and youth categories. Winners in each category receive cash prizes, as well as the opportunity to tell their story at the 32nd Annual Storytelling Festival and Conference in Chicago Nov. 12-16. The deadline to enter is Sept. 21. For more information, go to www.NABSinc.org
International accounting firm KPMG and the National Association of Black Accountants Inc. (NABA) have announced that the University of Maryland has won the 2014 KPMG/NABA Case Study Competition. The two-day event, which focused on critical thinking and presentation skills, was held during the annual NABA, Inc. Conference & Expo in Washington, D.C. last month. The 12 teams identified and analyzed issues associated with an MBA-level case study. Students then presented recommendations that incorporated their knowledge of the current global marketplace, giving consideration to the cultural, economic and political factors that would impact a successful implementation.
KPMG Chair Kenneth E. Cooke said KPMG is committed to diversity and inclusion. “The KPMG/NABA Case Study Competition gives our NABA chapter students a chance to take what they’ve learned on campus and apply it in a real-world, professional scenario—it’s gratifying to see how they rise to the challenge.”
Missouri
“Ice” McDonald
will be the first African American magician inaugurated as president of the Society of American Magicians (SAM) today at the SAM Convention at the Renaissance St. Louis Grand Hotel in St. Louis. McDonald is an internationally known master magician and an award-winning entertainer that has thrilled audiences for some 25 years.
“It is an honor to be elected as national president and a privilege to take this step into history,” McDonald says. “My passion for and the belief in the magical arts is so strong, that if you were to cut me, I would bleed magic; it’s in my DNA. But the belief in myself to reach this monumental position is greater. I will serve as president with integrity and hard work, which are two pillars of my foundation.” SAM is the world’s oldest and most prestigious magic organization. Famous magic man Harry Houdini was a member and also served as its president from 1917 until he died in 1926.
Hundreds of mostly African American students will be sent back to failing schools in St. Louis this fall. According to MSNBC, some smart high school students and their parents used an obscure Missouri law to transfer to better schools from schools that lacked accreditation and were failing. The move meant that the failing school districts had to cover the expenses of the transfers, including busing and tuition resulting in less academically challenging school districts nearly going broke, having to pay as much as $10.4 million to their mostly White counterparts. Instead of finding a way to resolve the problem and establish a way to improve the failing school districts, the board of education redistricted and renamed some of the school districts in a way that allowed the better off schools to refuse transfers. “Was this decision made to effectively segregate the students in both school districts?” wrote former school superintendent Stanton Lawrence in a blog about the situation. “In essence, what has occurred is indeed a disturbing political precedent.”
New York
The state’s highest court ruled this week that communities have the right to keep fracking from occurring within their borders. Fracking is the process of extracting oil from shale or rock areas. Recent studies have indicated that these oils can contain dangerous gas fumes. The opposition to fracking also centers around the intimidation that gas and oil companies have employed to access these areas.
“This decision by the Court of Appeals has settled the matter once and for all across New York State and has sent a firm message to the oil and gas industry,” said Deborah Goldberg, EarthJustice managing attorney, who represented the town of Dryden. “For too long the oil and gas industry has intimidated and abused people, expecting to get away with it. That behavior is finally coming back to haunt them, as communities across the country stand up and say no more.”
South Carolina
African Americans continue to struggle with the risk of stroke much more than Whites, according to a new study conducted in the state. The number of middle-aged Blacks hospitalized for stroke rose by about 20 percent over a decade; however, there was no increase at all among Whites, the new study found. Researchers analyzed the records of more than 84,000 stroke survivors discharged from hospitals in South Carolina between 2001 and 2010. Blacks also appeared more vulnerable to stroke at younger ages. “Excessive strokes among Blacks, as well as the lingering racial disparity in the younger groups, represent a serious public health issue,” wrote lead author Dr. Wayne Feng, a stroke neurologist at the Medical University of South Carolina Stroke Center in Charleston in a news release.
The greater stroke risk among Blacks younger than 65 may be due to the fact that they’re more likely to have such stroke risk factors as high blood pressure, diabetes, and to smoke, the researchers said.
Virginia
The United States Navy promoted Michelle Janine Howard
to the rank of four-star admiral effective July 1 during a ceremony at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
Adm. Howard bec0mes the first female four-star in the 238-year history of the United States Navy. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus presided over the ceremony and administered the oath of office.
Howard, the Deputy Chief Naval Operations for Operations, Plans, and Strategy, and a 32-year Naval veteran, will relieve Adm. Mark Ferguson III as the 38th Vice Chief of Naval Operations (VCNO).
A 1978 graduate of Gateway High School in Aurora, Colo., Howard graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1982 and from the Army’s Command and General Staff College in 1998, with a Masters in Military Arts and Sciences.
Among her career honors are receiving the secretary of the Navy/Navy League Captain Winifred Collins award in May 1987; this award is given to one woman officer a year for outstanding leadership; and becoming the first African American woman to command a ship in the U.S. Navy—USS Rushmore (LSD 47) on March 12, 1999. She was also the first African American woman to achieve three star rank in the U.S. Armed Forces as well as being first female and African American woman to achieve the rank of admiral in the Navy. In 2006, she was selected for the rank of rear admiral (lower half), making her the first admiral selected from the U.S. Naval Academy class of 1982 and the first female graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy selected for flag rank. She is the first African American and the first female Vice Chief for Naval Operations.
Washington, D.C.
The Library of Congress received a donation of a video archive of thousands of hours of interviews from the History Makers. The collection captures African American life, history and culture, as well as the struggles and achievements of the Black experience. The collection includes 9,000 hours of content via 14,000 analog tapes, DVDs, digital files and documents in addition to more than 30,000 digital photographs. The History Makers collection is housed in the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation, a state-of-the-art facility located in Culpeper, Va. “The collection is one of the most well-documented and organized audiovisual collections that the Library of Congress has every acquired,” said Mike Mashon, head of the Library’s Moving Image Section. “It is also one of the first born-digital collections accepted into our nation’s repository.”
The oldest person interviewed was Louisiana Hines, who passed away in 2013 at 114. Others in the collection include Arthur Burton, Sr.-one of the last surviving Pullman Porters; Amazon Brooks, who voted in her first election in 1920, the first year that women were granted the right to vote; Junius Gaten, who knew Al Capone, Marcus Garvey and Carter G. Woodson; and Alonzo Pettie, the oldest living Black cowboy. The collection is rich with notables, such as President Barack Obama, General Colin Powell, Harry Belafonte, Angela Davis, Maya Angelou, publisher Earl Graves, Isaac Hayes, B.B. King, Nikki Giovanni, and Diahann Carroll, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.
Rev. Jesse Jackson
will be a featured speaker at the USBC (U.S. Black Chambers) management conference in Washington, D.C. July 8-11. Jackson, who founded the Rainbow Coalition and is a recognized Civil Rights activist, will focus on motivating business and community leaders. The Black Chambers of Commerce conference will be held at the Marriott Marquis on Massachusetts Avenue. Topics of the conference include leveraging political power on a local level, public sector contracting, state of the Black economy and a new way to engage corporate partnerships for your local chamber, Black buying power, Black business opportunity in the digital age, among others.
International Bermuda
The 40th annual Conference of Black Mayors will be held November 12-16 in Hamilton at the Fairmont Southampton Hotel. The gathering will include more than 2,000 mayors and officials from all over the world, including the U.S., Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and even Asia and China.
The CBM represents one of the most influential political and financial groups in the U.S. and in many other countries around the world. “They represent a powerful voting block in the U.S. and beyond and preside over millions of dollars of municipal funds and new development,” said the mayor of Hamilton, Graeme Outerbridge. “As such, they represent enormous opportunities for our international business sector to pursue.” This year’s theme is “40 Forward” with the meeting involving panels on immigration, education, healthcare, global trade and urban growth.
Compiled by Carol Ozemhoya
