Black History 365: A Swimming Cap Made for Black Hair Gets Official Approval After Previous Olympic Ban

November 22, 2022

A swimming cap made specifically for natural Black hair has received official approval from the worldwide governing body for competitive swimming.

Soul Cap is a covering made especially to protect hair that’s thick, curly, braided or otherwise textured — which is often difficult to fit into smaller swim caps.

FINA initially rejected the cap’s use at the Olympics last year, claiming that athletes competing at the world stage have “never used, neither require to use, caps of such size and configuration,” according to The Associated Press.

The report said that the organization also determined that the cap does not “[follow] the natural form of the head,” a rule that is outlined in FINA’s requirements for approved swimwear.

This ban sparked global conversations about inclusivity and existing barriers within the world of competitive swimming.

Danielle Obe, chair of the Black Swimming Association, told Sky Sports last year that, “by and large, hair is a significant barrier to aquatics for many women especially and many people of color from our communities. So [the Soul Cap] should be considered as a product that overcomes this barrier.”

FINA walked back last year’s rejection this week after “a period of “review and discussion on cap design,” along with Soul Cap creators, Brent Nowicki, executive director at FINA told the U.K.’s Metro.

“Promoting diversity and inclusivity is at the heart of FINA’s work, and it is very important that all aquatic athletes have access to the appropriate swimwear,” he told the outlet.

The British Olympic swimmer (and Soul Cap ambassador) Alice Dearing said the news was exciting, in a statement to NPR. Dearing became the first Black swimmer who represented Great Britain at an Olympic level last year. She also co-founded the Black Swimming Association in 2020.

“I know that a lot of people value the option this cap brings them when going swimming. Knowing that it is acceptable to compete in this cap at the highest level of sport sends a message that hair should not be a barrier which stops people from participating,” Dearing said.

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/02/1120761124/swimming-cap-black-hair-fina-approval

Black History 365: David Sanford

November 22, 2022

David Sanford Big Band will be playing at the Bombyx Center for Arts and Equity in Florence, MA on September 11, 2022. https://laudable.productions/events/david-sanford-big-band/

Born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1963, David Sanford received degrees in music theory and composition from the University of Northern Colorado, New England Conservatory, and Princeton University where he received the PhD in music composition and completed his dissertation, “’Prelude (Part 1)’ from Agharta: Modernism and Primitivism in the Fusion Works of Miles Davis”. During these years, he studied composition and theory with Richard Bourassa, Robert Ehle, Arthur Berger, Pozzi Escot, Jim Randall, Claudio Spies and Steve Mackey. He is the founder and director of the David Sanford Big Band (formerly the Pittsburgh Collective), a twenty-piece contemporary big band.

Sanford’s honors include the Rome Prize, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute, an Arts and Letters Award, an Ives Scholarship and a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, awards from BMI, ASCAP, and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and a Composer Portrait concert at Miller Theater. He was composer-in-residence at Concert Artists Guild and at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music (through BMI), guest composer at the Wellesley Composers Conference, and a chosen participant in the African American Composers Forum with the Detroit Symphony. He has received commissions from the Fromm Foundation for the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Chamber Music America for the Meridian Arts Ensemble, the Zéphyros Winds, and the Festival of New Trumpet Music, from the Koussevitzky Foundation for the Meridian Arts Ensemble and for cellist Matt Haimovitz and the Pittsburgh Collective, the Barlow Endowment for pianist Lara Downes, the Mary Flagler Cary Trust for Speculum Musicae, and from Castle of our Skins and Winsor Music, Astral Artists, the New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Princeton University Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble, the Empyrean Ensemble at UC Davis, and the Mana Saxophone Quartet. In addition, his works have received performances by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagano, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra under Marin Alsop, the Detroit Symphony under Leslie Dunner, the Peabody Modern Orchestra under Cliff Colnot, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Chicago Symphony Chamber Players, and the U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own” at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, among many others.

Sanford’s works have been recorded by artists including Speculum Musicae, Matt Haimovitz, the Meridian Arts Ensemble, pianist Lara Downes and New York Philharmonic cellist Eric Bartlett. The title track of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s recording of the composer’s works, Black Noise, was named one of “The 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2019” by the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/arts/music/best-classical-music.html); the Pittsburgh Collective’s CD Live at the Knitting Factory, featuring his compositions and arrangements was named one of the albums of the year in Jazziz magazine; and Haimovitz’s disc Meeting of the Spirits with his cello ensemble UCCELLO, which featured seven jazz arrangements and one composition by Sanford, received a four-star review from downbeat magazine, and was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Sanford has taught at the University of Chicago and Amherst College, and is currently Elizabeth T. Kennan Professor of Music at Mount Holyoke College teaching theory, composition, music and film, and jazz history. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with his wife, architect Mary Yun, and their two children.

https://www.davidsanford.org/david-sanford-full-bio

Black History 365: Netta Sherrell

November 22, 2022

Janetta Sherrell Goines

Netta Sherrell, is a Multi-instrumentalist, Educator & Mentor, born and raised on the south side of Chicago. She has extensive knowledge in venue operations and event management and has worked for companies such as Disney, Broadway in Chicago and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. While building a foundation in arts and entertainment management, she has also continued to pursue her dreams of becoming a full time musician. Netta currently tours with the Tony Nominated Broadway Musical, ”SIX” as the bassist and strives to use her resources and experience to educate youth and young adults on the importance of marketing, networking, music production and music performance. 

Netta has been seen on the hit tv series, EMPIRE, recorded for the Netflix film “Wendell & Wild” directed by Jordan Peele, appeared on WGN’s Daytime Chicago, and recorded several records for multiple artists across the country. You can also catch her playing with her band “Free Your Dreams”, “Attack the Sound”, “The Txlips Band” and her home church New Promise Land. Netta Sherrell is an endorsed artist with Lakland Basses and Mono. 

Janetta Sherrell Goines

Black History 365: Ronald McNair

November 22, 2022

Ronald Erwin McNair (October 21, 1950 – January 28, 1986) was an American NASA astronaut and physicist. He died during the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L, in which he was serving as one of three mission specialists in a crew of seven.

Prior to the Challenger disaster, he flew as a mission specialist on STS-41-B aboard Challenger from February 3 to 11, 1984, becoming the second African American and the first Baháʼí to fly in space.

Background

McNair was born October 21, 1950, in Lake City, South Carolina, to Pearl M. and Carl C. McNair. He had two brothers, Carl and Eric A. McNair. In the summer of 1959, he refused to leave the segregated Lake City Public Library without being allowed to check out his books. After the police and his mother were called, he was allowed to borrow books from the library; the building that housed the library at the time is now named after him.[1] A children’s book, Ron’s Big Mission, offers a fictionalized account of this event. His brother Carl wrote Ronald’s official biography, In the Spirit of Ronald E. McNair—Astronaut: An American Hero.

McNair graduated as valedictorian of Carver High School in 1967.[2]

In 1971, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering physics, magna cum laude, from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina.[3] At North Carolina A&T, he studied under professor Donald Edwards, who had established the physics curriculum at the university.[4]

In 1976, he received a Ph.D. degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the guidance of Michael Feld, becoming nationally recognised for his work in the field of laser physics. Also in 1976, he won the AAU Karate gold medal. He would subsequently win five regional championships and earn a 5th degree black belt in karate.[5]

McNair received four honorary doctorates, as well as a score of fellowships and commendations). He became a staff physicist at the Hughes Research Lab in Malibu, California.

McNair was a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity[3] and a member of the Bahá’í Faith.[6][7]

Astronaut career

In 1978, McNair was selected as one of thirty-five applicants from a pool of ten thousand for the NASA astronaut program. He was one of several astronauts recruited by Nichelle Nichols as part of a NASA effort to increase the number of minority and female astronauts.[8] He flew as a mission specialist on STS-41-B aboard Challenger from February 3 to 11, 1984, becoming the second African American to fly in space.

Astronaut candidates Ron McNair, Guy Bluford, and Fred Gregory wearing Apollo spacesuits, May 1978

Challenger disaster

Main article: Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

Following the STS-41-B mission, McNair was selected for STS-51-L as one of three mission specialists in a crew of seven. The mission launched on January 28, 1986. He was killed when Challenger disintegrated nine miles above the Atlantic Ocean 73 seconds after liftoff. The disintegration also killed six other crew members.[9]

He was initially buried at Rest Lawn Memorial Park in Lake City, South Carolina. His remains were disinterred in 2004 and moved to Ronald E. McNair Memorial Park, located elsewhere in Lake City.[10]

Music in space

Main article: Music in space

McNair was an accomplished saxophonist.

Before his last fateful space mission, he had worked with the composer Jean-Michel Jarre on a piece of music for Jarre’s then-upcoming album Rendez-Vous. It was intended that he would record his saxophone solo onboard the Challenger, which would have made McNair’s solo the first original piece of music to have been recorded in space[11] (although the song “Jingle Bells” had been played on a harmonica during an earlier Gemini 6 spaceflight). However, the recording was never made, as the flight ended in the disaster and the deaths of its entire crew. The final track on Rendez-Vous, “Last Rendez-Vous,” has the subtitle “Ron’s Piece,” and the liner notes include a dedication from Jarre: “Ron was so excited about the piece that he rehearsed it continuously until the last moment. May the memory of my friend the astronaut and the artist Ron McNair live on through this piece.”[12] Ron McNair was supposed to have taken part in Jarre’s Rendez-vous Houston concert through a live feed from the orbiting Shuttlecraft.

Public honors

McNair was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 2004, along with all crew members lost in the Challenger and Columbia disasters.

Dr. Ronald E. McNair memorial in his hometown, Lake City, South Carolina

Dr. Ronald E. McNair tomb in his hometown, Lake City, South Carolina

Ronald McNair Park in Brooklyn, New York City

Ronald E. McNair South Central Police Station of the Houston Police Department in Houston, Texas

A variety of public places, people and programs have been renamed in honor of McNair.

Ronald E. McNair Hall, On the campus of North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina The Engineering building at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, is named in his honor. The university holds a McNair Day celebration annually.[27] McNair was portrayed by Joe Morton in the 1990 TV movie Challenger. The song “A Drop Of Water,” recorded by Japanese jazz artist Keiko Matsui, with vocals by the late Carl Anderson, was written in tribute to McNair. The Jean Michel Jarre track “Last Rendez-Vous” was re-titled “Ron’s Piece” in his honor. McNair was originally due to record the track in space aboard Challenger, and then perform it via a live link up in Jarre’s Rendez-vous Houston concert. The federally-funded McNair Scholars/Achievement Programs award research money and internships to juniors and seniors who are first-generation and low-income, or members of groups that are underrepresented, in preparation for graduate study. 187 institutions participate (as of 2020).[28][29] Michigan State University, Washington State University, and Syracuse University are three examples of these programs and both offer Summer Research Opportunity Program as additional program components.[30]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_McNair

Black History 365: Gloria Majiga-Kamoto

November 22, 2022

In June 2021, NPR profiled Gloria Majiga-Kamoto of Malawi, who saw goats dying after eating plastic bags and decided to take on her nation’s plastic industry. Cheap, single-use plastic is such a problem in Malawi that in 2015 the government instituted a thin plastic ban. But before the ban could go into effect, the country’s powerful plastic industry filed an injunction. That’s until Majiga-Kamoto, who works for a local environmental organization, came along, organizing protest rallies and marches. In 2019 the nation’s High Court finally ruled in favor of the ban. In 2021 she won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her work. So what’s happened to her in the last year?

Gloria Majiga-Kamoto says in the past year she’s become – in her words – “the plastic girl.” We reached her in Blantyre, the financial capital of Malawi, to get an update on the thin plastic ban, and hear about her new tactics for fighting plastic pollution around the world. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What does being ‘the plastic girl’ mean?

Being ‘the plastic girl’ is being that one person that everybody sends pictures to if they see plastic pollution anywhere. [Laughs] Or they’re tagging me in everything. So it’s a bit mortifying because it also sort of reminds you how little progress you’re actually making. The thing with policy is, when it’s in place, you almost think everything is just going to magically work out, right? But it’s very slow progress and sometimes, to be sort of stuck in the moment, the slow motion, it’s a bit frustrating. You want to wake up today and know that things are so different. That’s been a bit overwhelming for me personally. I think it’s given me more of a sense of responsibility to say, ‘What more can I do?’

The point of the law was to ban the manufacturing of thin plastic in Malawi. But it seems there are still thin plastic producers operating in the country. What’s going on with you and your supporters?

We’ve now gone back to the courts. There’s been a judicial review application by one of the [plastic] companies with the commercial courts, which is crazy because this issue was resolved in the Supreme Court.

What [the plastic companies] are contesting is the list of the plastics that have been banned. So because that list is [being] reviewed [the government] cannot target the companies. Right now the government can only target the distributors and the users of plastic, which is a very difficult thing to do because these are just local Malawians.

We’ve been calling for the president to take action because we can’t keep on using the courts. [Earlier this month] we had the national cleanup day for civil society organizations. We took a stand and said, ‘We’re not participating in the cleanup because we cannot keep cleaning up somebody else’s mess.” The whole point of the ban, the whole point of setting up the cleanup initiative, was to say that once the ban is in place, we come together as a country and clean up.

But if we continue to produce plastics and then we still say people should come out and clean up, it’s not fair because we are cleaning up somebody else’s mess and [the manufacturers are] making a profit off of it!

So you’re now not participating in government-sponsored cleanups and demonstrations as a symbol of your frustration with the government.

Yes. As of now we’ve actually refused to take part in the national cleanup campaigns, from this month until the president makes a very clear statement on the need for the judiciary to address this issue once and for all. We need him to make a directive on the implementation of the ban.

You don’t want the government greenwashing, basically.

No. [Laughs] You know, we’re done.

I feel like, if you’re ‘the plastic girl’, people around the world look to you for guidance on how to combat plastic pollution in their countries. So I’m wondering, can you give people some ideas about what you’ve learned?

We organized a cleanup with support from the Goldman Prize funds. And what we did was when we gathered all the plastics, we took them straight to a plastic company, because we said, ‘We don’t know what to do with this waste. So you tell us what to do with it. You continue producing it, so take it back!’

We’ll do that for every single cleanup. We’re taking it back to the plastic manufacturers because we don’t want it. And we don’t know what to do with it. Don’t give us the task of writing proposals to come up with projects that are going to recycle, because we can’t. You have to do something about it. And I think that [taking plastic waste back to the plastic companies] showed them that we’re watching and we’re waiting to see what’s going to happen.

I know globally, there’s been a campaign to break free from plastic. We’re not the only country facing this challenge. This is a very huge sector. It’s got huge profits. They’ve got money, they’ve got more than we will ever have. But we have got the power and I think that’s the most important lesson of all.

So when you gave them back the plastic, did they take it?

They were so reluctant, but we went there with media and then they had to take it back. We don’t know what they did with it, but it was such a strong statement.

I think their fear was that if they take it, then everybody starts taking all of their plastic to them on the cleanups. And that’s exactly what we want! [Laughs.]

So we’ve been trying to tell people that if you’re doing a cleanup, you need to have a plan for your plastics because you can’t throw it at the landfill. That kind of pressure is showing [the thin plastic manufacturers] that we’re not backing down.

It’s kind of showing the hypocrisy, how you really can’t recycle a lot of plastic.

Exactly.

What is your next target?

We still have work to do in plastics. I mean, even [if] the ban comes back into full effect, there will still be a lot of work trying to get people to change. We are working on a program for TV called Waste Talk, it should go live on air next month. It’s just 10 minutes every day, a conversation on the types of waste that you experience. Get people to understand what waste is, how they can manage it better, who they can actually take it to, and the incredible people that are managing our waste on our behalf.

So you’re focusing on human behavior in addition to targeting manufacturers.

I feel like one of the challenges we have is a disconnection — once you throw [plastic] in the bin you get disconnected from it.

So I always ask people, if we’re in a meeting and they have a plastic bottle, I say, “After you use that bottle, can you imagine ever meeting that bottle again? Like if you had your name on that and you met it inside an animal or, you know, in the most awkward place, in a fish, in a beautiful lake when you’re swimming with your family and then you see your bottle just wash up on the shore toward you. How would you feel?” So getting people to be aware that waste has a life-cycle and we are part of that life cycle to the end of it.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/08/29/1119941550/whatever-happened-to-the-malawian-anti-plastic-activist-inspired-by-goats

Black History 365: Endea Owens

November 22, 2022

Lincoln Center’s Emerging Artist of 2019 and Detroit native Endea Owens, is a vibrant up and coming bassist. She has been mentored by the likes of Marcus Belgrave, Rodney Whitaker, and Ron Carter. She has toured and performed with Jennifer Holliday, Rhonda and Diana Ross, Jazzmeia Horn, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Steve Turre, and Lea DeLaria from the Netflix Original Series “Orange is The New Black.’   Endea has done music exchange programs in Cuba and Trinidad and Tobago and has performed in London, India, Australia, Ukraine, South Korea, and many other countries. 

Endea is the bassist Jon Batiste’s Stay Human and the house bassist for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She has been featured on ABC7 News (New York) with Sandy Kenyon, as well as ABC7 “Here and Now”. These episodes aired in over 6,500 taxis in the New York area. She has also been featured on “The Indie Beat” with the Manhattan Neighborhood Network. This year Endea graced the cover of Japan’s “The Walker’s” Magazine and was featured in The Wallstreet Journal and Billboard Magazine.  Endea is a recent graduate of the Juilliard School.

https://www.endeaowens.com/about

Check out Endea Owens and The Cookout’s Tiny Desk Concert:

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/29/1116920106/endea-owens-and-the-cookout-tiny-desk-concert

Black History 365: Gene Chandler

November 22, 2022

Gene Chandler (born Eugene Drake Dixon; July 6, 1937) is an American singer, songwriter, music producer, and record-label executive. Chandler is nicknamed “the Duke of Earl” or, simply, “the Duke.” He is best known for his most successful songs, “Duke of Earl” and “Groovy Situation“, and his association with the Dukays, the Impressions, and Curtis Mayfield.

Chandler is a Grammy Hall of Fame inductee and a recipient of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation‘s Pioneer Award.[1] He is one of the few singers to achieve chart success spanning the doo-wop, rhythm and blues, soul and disco musical eras, with some top-40 pop and R&B chart hits between 1961 and 1986. Chandler was inducted as a performer into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame on August 24, 2014. In 2016, he became a double inductee in the R&B Music Hall of Fame with his induction as an R&B music pioneer.

Early years

Chandler was born Eugene Drake Dixon in Chicago on July 6, 1937.[2][3] He attended Englewood High School on the city’s South Side.[1] Chandler began performing during the early 1950s with the Gaytones. He joined the Dukays with James Lowe, Shirley Jones, Earl Edwards and Ben Broyles in 1957, soon becoming their lead singer. After being drafted into the U.S. Army, Chandler returned to Chicago in 1960 and rejoined the Dukays.[1]

Career

The Dukays were offered a recording contract by Nat Records and recorded “The Girl Is a Devil” (1961), a single, with producers Carl Davis and Bill “Bunky” Sheppard. This was followed by a session in August 1961 which resulted in four songs, including “Nite Owl” and “Duke of Earl”. Nat Records released “Nite Owl”, and it became an R&B success by the end of the year. Davis and Sheppard shopped “Duke of Earl” to Vee-Jay Records, which released it in 1962 by Dixon (known as Gene Chandler).

“Duke of Earl” sold one million copies in a little over a month,[4] and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA.[5] After the song spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard charts, Chandler purchased a cape, monocle, cane and top hat and advertised himself as the Duke of Earl. He appeared in costume singing “Duke of Earl” in Don’t Knock the Twist, a 1962 film featuring Chubby Checker.[6] Chandler’s concerts became popular, and he performed encores – usually “Rainbow“, a Curtis Mayfield song.

Chandler left Vee-Jay in the autumn of 1963 and recorded for Constellation Records, another Chicago company. After Constellation went bankrupt in 1966, he was contracted to Chess and then to Brunswick Records; for a time, Chess and Brunswick alternated in releasing Chandler’s recordings. He had Top-20 hits with Constellation with “Just Be True” (1964) and “Nothing Can Stop Me” (1965), both written by Curtis Mayfield and produced by Carl Davis.

Other successes included “What Now,” “Rainbow,” “I Fooled You This Time,” “Think Nothing About It,” “A Man’s Temptation,” “To Be a Lover,” “Rainbow ’65” (recorded live at Chicago’s Regal Theater), “Bless Our Love” and “You Can’t Hurt Me No More.”[7] Chandler was also successful with his cover version of James Brown‘s “There Was a Time” and “You Threw a Lucky Punch”, released as an answer song to Mary Wells‘ Motown hit “You Beat Me to the Punch.”

After several years performing concerts, Chandler decided to become more involved with music production. He formed a production company and two record labels: Bamboo and Mister Chand. Chandler produced a hit with “Groovy Situation”, released on Mercury Records in 1970, which reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number eight on the Billboard R&B charts: his second-greatest success, after “Duke of Earl”. “Groovy Situation” sold over a million copies and was certified gold by the RIAA in November of that year.[8]

Chandler had produced “Backfield In Motion” in 1969 for Mel and Tim on Bamboo Records, which reached number three on the R&B chart and the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. He followed this in 1970 with “Good Guys Only Win in the Movies” for the duo; the song reached number 17 on the R&B chart and number 45 on the pop-music chart.

Later that year, Chandler recorded the album Gene and Jerry: One on One with fellow Chicago artist Jerry Butler. He also sang with the Impressions and Curtis Mayfield on the live album, Curtis in Chicago (1973). Chandler sang on Arthur Louis‘s album, Knocking on Heaven’s Door (1974), with Eric Clapton. A period with Curtom Records, a label co-founded by Mayfield, resulted in four self-produced singles; none charted.

Chandler was again successful with disco-style music during the late 1970s, creating hits with his former producer Carl Davis which included “Get Down” (1978), “When You’re #1” and “Does She Have a Friend?” Appointed executive vice-president of Davis’ Chi-Sound Records, he worked with reggae singer Johnny Nash. A late-1970 interest in older musicians inspired disc jockey Wolfman Jack to organize a tour, including vintage acts such as Chandler.

“Duke of Earl” was sampled by Cypress Hill on “Hand on the Pump” from their album, Cypress Hill (1991), and Chandler’s song “Hallelujah, I Love Her So” was sampled on their album Black Sunday (1993). In 1997, he received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.

In 1988, “Duke of Earl” was included on the soundtrack of Hairspray; “Groovy Situation” appeared on Anchorman: Music from the Motion Picture (2004).[9] In 2002, “Duke of Earl” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[10] “Duke of Earl” was selected by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of its “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll”.[11] In 2016, Chandler was honored in his hometown of Chicago by having a street named after him for his industry accomplishments, hit records, and his civic and philanthropic efforts for the city and its people.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Chandler

Black History 365: Baratunde Thurston

November 22, 2022

Baratunde Thurston holds space for hard and complex conversations with his blend of humor, wisdom, and compassion. Baratunde is an Emmy-nominated host who has worked for The Onion, produced for The Daily Show, advised the Obama White House, and wrote the New York Times bestseller How To Be Black. He’s the executive producer and host of How To Citizen with Baratunde which Apple named one of its favorite podcasts of 2020. Baratunde also received the Social Impact Award at the 2021 iHeartRadio Podcast Awards on behalf of How to Citizen withBaratunde. In 2019, he delivered what MSNBC’s Brian Williams called “one of the greatest TED talks of all time.” Baratunde is unique in his ability to integrate and synthesize themes of race, culture, politics, and technology to explain where our nation is and where we can take it.

With an ancestry that includes a great-grandfather who taught himself to read, a grandmother who was the first black employee at the U.S. Supreme Court building, a computer-programming mother who took over radio stations in the name of the black liberation struggle, and an older sister who teaches yoga at her donation-based studio in Lansing, Michigan , Baratunde has long been taught to question authority and forge his own path. It helps that he was raised in Washington, D.C. under crackhead Mayor Marion Barry.

Baratunde’s mind, forged by his mother’s lessons and polished by a philosophy degree from Harvard, has found expression in the pages of Fast Company and the New York Times, the screens of HBO, Comedy Central, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, the sound waves of NPR and podcasts such as Pivot, WTF, and Hello, Monday.

He has hosted shows and stories on NatGeo and Discovery’s Science Channel and earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for hosting the Spotify/Mic series, Clarify. Baratunde is also an in-demand public speaker and live events host for organizations ranging from Google to criminal justice reform non-profits such as JustLeadershipUSA. 

Far from simply appearing in media, Baratunde has also helped define its future. In 2006 he co-founded Jack & Jill Politics, a black political blog whose coverage of the 2008 Democratic National Convention has been archived by the Library of Congress. From 2007 to 2012, he helped bring one of America’s finest journalistic institutions into the future, serving as Director of Digital for The Onion then did something similar as Supervising Producer for digital expansion at The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. He has served as an advisor to the Data & Society Research Institute and a director’s fellow at the MIT Media Lab. 

Baratunde is a rare leader who sits at the intersection of race, technology, and democracy and seamlessly integrates past, present and future. 

Baratunde serves on the boards of BUILD and the Brooklyn Public Library and lives in Los Angeles, California. 

https://www.baratunde.com/presskit

Black History 365: Michelle Samuel-Foo

November 22, 2022

Michelle Susan Samuel-Foo is an American biologist and Assistant Professor of Biology at Alabama State University. She serves as President of the Southeastern Entomological Society of America. In 2020 Samuel-Foo became the first African-American person to win a major award for entomology when she was awarded the Entomological Society of America Founders’ Memorial Recognition.[1]

Early life and education

Samuel-Foo is from Sangre Grande, Trinidad and Tobago.[2][3] Her parents were cash crop growers, and she helped them to sell vegetables in markets.[2] Samuel-Foo started college determined to study biology, but became fascinated by the world of entomology.[2] She earned her undergraduate degree at Brewton–Parker College, where she was awarded a scholarship.[2] She decided to stay in academic research after a conversation with the school’s head of science, David McMillin, who encouraged her to look for graduate schools.[2] She was a graduate student at the University of Georgia, where she studied the resistance of Triticum aestivatum (common wheat) to Mayetiola destructor (hessian fly).[4] At the time, she was one of only two minority students in the department.[2] Her dissertation committee was chaired by H. Roger Boerma, who was well known for the Soybean Improvement Programme. After graduating, Samuel-Foo joined the programme, which is where she first experienced DNA sequencing and molecular breeding.[2]

Research and career

In 2009 Samuel-Foo joined the faculty at the University of Florida. Here she worked to support the registration of speciality crops in the Southern States and Puerto Rico.[5][3] She was made regional field coordinator of the United States Department of Agriculture Interregional Research Project No. 4 (IR-4) Project.[2] From 2015 to 2017 Samuel-Foo served as President of the International Association of Black Entomologists and on the Board of Directors of the Caribbean Food Crops Society.[6][7]

Samuel-Foo joined the faculty of Alabama State University in 2018, where she leads the programme on industrial hemp research.[1] When she arrived at Alabama State University she established an urban teaching garden[8] that looks to introduce students to sustainable agriculture.[9][10]

In 2020 Samuel-Foo was named President-Elect of the Southeastern Entomological Society of America.[9][11] She provided expert guidance to the United States congress on the Murder Hornet Eradication Act, which looks to eliminate the Asian giant hornet (so-called murder hornet), an invasive species that is predatory to honey bees.[12][13] In her testimony, Samuel-Foo spoke about the devastating impact of the murder hornets on the United States honey bee population, as well as their potential threat to critical agriculture.[14][15] In May 2020 Samuel-Foo was awarded the Entomological Society of America Founders’ Memorial prize, and dedicated her award lecture to the research of Ernest J. Harris.[5] Harris was the first Black entomologist to the be subject of the Founders’ lecture.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Samuel-Foo

Black History 365: Alice Marie Johnson

November 22, 2022

Alice Marie Johnson (born May 30, 1955)[2] is an American criminal justice reform advocate and former federal prisoner. She was convicted in 1996 for her involvement in a Memphis cocaine trafficking organization and sentenced to life imprisonment. In June 2018, after serving 21 years in prison, she was released from the Federal Correctional Institution, Aliceville, after the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, exercised executive powers to grant clemency, thereby commuting her sentence, effective immediately.[3][4]

Early life, crime, and sentence

Johnson was born in Mississippi, and her memoirs recount growing up as one of nine children of sharecroppers, becoming pregnant as a sophomore in high school, and later working as a secretary.[5] At the time of her arrest, she was a single mother of five children.[6]

Johnson told Mic in 2017 that she had become involved in the drug trade after she had lost her job at FedEx, where she had worked for ten years, due to a gambling addiction; this was followed by a divorce and the loss of her youngest son in a motorcycle accident.[7] She filed for bankruptcy in 1991, and foreclosure of her house followed.[8]

Johnson was arrested in 1993 and convicted in 1996 of eight federal criminal counts relating to her involvement in a Memphis, Tennessee-based cocaine trafficking organization.[6] In addition to drug conspiracy counts, she was convicted of money laundering and structuring, the latter crime because of her purchase of a house with a down payment structured to avoid hitting a $10,000 reporting threshold.[6] The Memphis operation involved over a dozen individuals.[9] The indictment, which named 16 defendants,[10] described her as a leader in a multi-million dollar cocaine ring, and detailed dozens of drug transactions and deliveries.[11] Evidence presented at trial showed that the Memphis operation was connected to Colombian drug dealers based in Texas.[12] She was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in 1997. At the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Julia Gibbons said that Johnson was “the quintessential entrepreneur” in an operation that dealt in 2,000 to 3,000 kilograms of cocaine, with a “very significant” impact on the community.[12] Co-defendants Curtis McDonald and Jerlean McNeil were sentenced to life and 19 years in federal prison, respectively.[12] A number of other co-defendants who testified against Johnson received sentences between probation and 10 years.[6] Following her conviction, Johnson acknowledged that she was an intermediary in the drug trafficking organization, but said she did not actually make deals or sell drugs.[13]

Imprisonment

Johnson became a grandmother and great-grandmother while imprisoned.[6] She exhibited good behavior in prison.[14] In a memoir written after her release, she wrote that she served time at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, the federal prison hospital in Texas, where she became a certified hospice worker, and was subsequently transferred to FCI Aliceville to be closer to family.[15] In letters supporting her bid for clemency, staff members at FCI Aliceville wrote that Johnson did not commit any disciplinary infractions during her incarceration at FCI Aliceville.[16] Johnson participated in a pilot program, introduced in 2016 by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, that provided videoconferencing access to certain female federal prisoners.[17] The program allowed the online publication Mic to record a video interview with her that went viral and brought her case to public attention.[17] She also used Skype while imprisoned to speak at Hunter College, Yale, and other audiences.[18] During her time in prison, she became an ordained minister, and credited her grant of clemency to divine intervention.[19]

Commutation and pardon

A campaign in support of her release was launched by the American Civil Liberties Union and the website Mic; activists who supported her release argued that the punishment was excessive and an example of disproportionate impacts on African Americans.[6] A number of individuals and organizations supported Johnson’s bid for clemency, including U.S. Representatives Steve Cohen, Bennie Thompson, and Marc Veasey, law professors Marc Morjé Howard and Shon Hopwood, and Orange is the New Black author Piper Kerman.[20] According to her lawyer Shawn Holley, the warden supported her release.[13]

Johnson’s was one of the 16,776 petitions filed in the Obama administration‘s 2014 clemency project.[14] In 2016, she wrote an op-ed for CNN asking for forgiveness and a second chance.[21] Her application was denied just before Obama left office. In 2018, Kim Kardashian and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner sought to persuade Trump to grant clemency to Johnson.[14] In late May 2018, Kardashian met with the President in the Oval Office to urge him to pardon Johnson.[22] On June 6, 2018, following Kardashian’s appeal, Trump commuted Johnson’s sentence,[6] and Johnson was released.[11] The commutation was one of a series of acts of clemency made by Trump in a “few high-profile cases brought to him by associates and allies.”[6] The Washington Post‘s Wonkblog described the pardon as somewhat surprising given Trump’s past statements in favor of executing drug dealers.[23]

When Trump delivered his State of the Union address on February 5, 2019, Johnson was a guest of the president. Trump asked her to stand up to be recognized, and she received a standing ovation from members of Congress.[24] On August 28, 2020—one day after Johnson spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention—Trump granted her a full pardon.[4][3]

Memoir and activism

Since her release, Johnson has become an advocate for criminal justice reform in the United States, often invoking her personal experience. The month after her release, in July 2018, she called for an end to mandatory sentencing.[25] In September 2019, she met with Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee to promote greater access to expungement and prisoner education and reduction in barriers to reentry, and to express concerns about the cash bail system.[26]

Johnson also advocates for the inclusion of female voices in the conversation around criminal justice reform.[27] Ahead of International Women’s Day 2019, UN Women featured her story as part of its “Courage to Question” series.[28]

In May 2019, memoirs written by Johnson with Nancy French, entitled After Life: My Journey From Incarceration To Freedom, were published by HarperCollins, with a foreword written by Kim Kardashian.[5][15] A Kirkus review of the autobiography described the work as “A moving, inspirational story that makes a powerful argument for sentencing reform.”[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Marie_Johnson