black community

Stanley O. Williford  |   OW Editor
Sep 29 2011

A lively crowd at fundraiser

A lone heckler didn’t stand a chance at a House of Blues fundraising event for President Barack Obama in West Hollywood. Shortly after Obama thanked actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson of the television series, “Modern Family,” who introduced him, and recognized the presence of Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and West Hollywood Mayor John Duran, the heckler shouted something about “The Christian God is the one and only true living God, the creator of heaven and the universe.”

Brittney M. Walker  |   OW Staff Writer
Sep 29 2011

Number of grandmother parents grows

She’s a praying woman who faithfully attends Sunday school and morning service every week, along with Tuesday night prayer and Bible study. She wakes up every morning and prays for the family and prepares breakfast for her household full of grandbabies. She struggles to make ends meet on her measly Social Security check and government funds. Not to mention her health isn’t the best.

She’s that grandmother who has paid her dues, raised her own children and is now raising her children’s children.

Anthony Asadullah Samad, Ph.D.  |   OW Contributing Columnist
Sep 29 2011

Between the Lines

This time last week, the world was in shock that the United States had put Troy Davis to death.

Although he was convicted of killing a Georgia cop in 1989, Davis maintained his innocence the entire 22 years he was on death row.

David L. Horne, Ph.D.  |   OW Contributing Columnist
Sep 29 2011

Practical Politics

Within most cultures, there are repeated patterns of behavior and character types that help to perpetuate those cultures. So it is with Black culture, which is at once a living crucible of the Black experience, in all of its finery, genius and foolishness. There is both exquisite beauty and profound ugliness in being Black in America and elsewhere, and that has been the case since our American origins.

Sep 23 2011

The search for treatment among African Americans

Say mental illness in the African American community, and most likely you will cause a pause in conversations as large as the white elephant in the room. Mental illness has a disturbing and persistently negative history in the Black community throughout the United States.

Fueled by mistrust of a system that often views Black people as nothing more than guinea pigs ripe for experimentation, accepting the label “mentally ill” comes with a huge stigma.

Across Black America

Here’s a look at African American people and issues making headlines throughout the country.
 

Alabama
Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will address the annual African American Business Council luncheon on June 28. Hrabowski, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Education Excellence for African Americans, has a national reputation for his work studying the performance of minority students in math and science. Hrabowski, named one of the 10 best college presidents in the country by Time magazine, was a child leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s.
 

Arkansas
The Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The groups seek to impose a permanent injunction before the Human Heartbeat Protection Act goes into effect July 18. Liberty Counsel also filed a brief opposing the ACLU’s request for an injunction. The “Heartbeat” bill states that when a woman seeks an abortion at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed and inform the pregnant mother that the child in her womb has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, and if a mother’s life is in danger. “As we promised when the legislation was introduced, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation for the people of Arkansas, born and pre-born,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “No right is more foundational than the right to life. Without life, all other rights are irrelevant,” concluded Staver.