Diana Ross

Terri Schichenmeyer  |   OW Contributor
Feb 16 2012

By Joseph Vogel, foreword by Anthony DeCurtis

There was no way you were sitting down.

As soon as you heard those four notes—just four beats—your feet were itching to move. You were up and on the dance floor quick, not caring that you didn’t have a partner. With songs like that, you’d dance alone, but not for long: other people’s feet were itching, too, and you knew you wouldn’t be by yourself but for a minute.

Oct 27 2011

Julia’s Hair Weev relaunches itself

Many women in Los Angeles know Julia Jones as the undisputed “hair-weave queen” because she founded Julia’s Hair Weev Salon in Los Angeles, California “with a penny and a prayer,” and developed a unique style of hair care more than 40 years ago.

Juliana D. Norwood  |   OW Staff Writer
Aug 25 2011

Motown and the music world pause

South Carolina native Nick Ashford, of the legendary Motown songwriting duo Ashford & Simpson died of throat cancer at a hospital in New York City on Monday He was 70.

Aug 18 2011

10 years gone, but not forgotten

I remember the very day that Hip Hop Soul died.

It was Aug. 25, 2001. I was sitting with my legs crossed picking popcorn seeds from my teeth, watching 106th & Park with A.J. and Free. The screen went black. Suddenly a message that Aaliyah died in a Bahamas airplane crash scrolled across the television.

I didn’t believe it at first, but the weeks that followed and the years without her made reality sink in. We had lost our brightest star.

Stanley O. Williford  |   OW Editor
Jun 23 2011

Full of laughs, wit, double-entendres

L. Frank Baum would probably twirl in his grave laughing if he could see what director Margaret Wassner and her mad cast of thespians are doing to his classic story in the Lancaster High School Theater, where “The Wiz” has been playing.

Even in this twist on the “The Wizard of Oz,” one does not expect Dorothy to lose her phantom dog, Toto, or see a dancing Yellow Brick Road.

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.