died

Feb 18 2013

Loses battle with cancer

LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss, who helped transform the franchise into the most successful and glamorous team in North American professional sports, died today, the team and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center confirm. He was 80.

Buss died at 5:55 a.m., according to Cedars-Sinai spokeswoman Sally Stewart.

Buss had spent time in the intensive care unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with an undisclosed form of cancer, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Jan 24 2013

Lillian Miles Lewis was 73

Services were held recently for Lillian Miles Lewis, wife of Rep. John Lewis, who died on New Years Eve. She was 73.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it was after taking a job as a librarian at Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University) that she met her husband at a 1967 New Year’s Eve party at the home of television personality and civil rights activist Xernona Clayton.

The two were married less than a year later and had a partnership that spanned 44 years.

Jan 17 2013

Actor played adopted father of Gary Coleman, Todd Bridges

Conrad Bain, who played Phillip Drummond on the ’80s hit “Diff’rent Strokes,” has died at 89.
The Canadian-born actor died at his Livermore, Calif., home on Monday of natural causes, according to reports.

Jan 10 2013

Longtime television host leaves ‘California's Gold’

Longtime Southern California television host Huell Howser, who used his folksy interviewing style to introduce viewers to little-known Golden State locales and the state’s unique residents, died Tuesday at age 67.

Howser, a native Tennessean with twang to match, died in Palm Springs at 2:35 a.m. of natural causes, according to the Riverside County Coroner’s Office. Howser’s spokesman, Ryan Morris, told City News Service that Howser died at his home following a long illness.

Oct 11 2012

Dymally received the Living Legend Award

From left, Assembly members Sandre Swanson, Holly Mitchell, and Wilmer Amina Carter; former Lt. Gov. Mervyn M. Dymally, Senator Curren Price and Assemblyman Steven Bradford at the California Legislative Black Caucus 2012 Civil Rights Leadership Award Breakfast honoring the life of Martin Luther King Jr. in January in Sacramento. Dymally received the Living Legend Award.

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.