Category: Black Excellence

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/15/g-s1-8939/dont-think-heat-pumps-are-sexy-this-slow-jam-could-change-your-mind

Don’t think heat pumps are sexy? This slow jam could change your mind

https://www.brownstonecowboysmagazine.com/bsc-10/brooke-williams

Who: Brooke Williams

‍What: Activist/writer/founding member Resistance Revival Chorus and also Editor at Large for Brownstone Cowboy (!!)

‍Where: @thisisauthentic

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‍We thought you’d also like to know that Brooke lives is Brooklyn, NY with her husband and daughter, was a National Organizer for the 2017 Women’s March, and co-wrote and sang with Beastie Boys on Hello Nasty.  You can check out Brooke’s BSC Conversation with cultural organizer Sarah Sophie Flicker, and listen to them both singing with theResistance Revival Chorus on their album This Joy.‍

https://www.volleyhall.org/rita-crockett.html

Considered as one of the best all-round volleyball players ever in the world, Rita Crockett has been a trailblazer in the sport of volleyball for parts of five decades and continues to be active in the sport today.

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/17/1213897036/bernice-johnson-reagon-sweet-honey-in-the-rock-obituary

Bernice Johnson Reagon, a civil rights activist who co-founded The Freedom Singers and later started the African American vocal ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, died Tuesday at the age of 81.

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/18/nx-s1-5042174/wildfire-california-firefighters-prison-program

“I didn’t really know, like, you know, what a wildland firefighter was. But once I got there, as time went on, I actually embraced it and I fell in love with it. It’s definitely a dangerous job, right? But that kind of thing kind of, you know, thrilled me,” says Royal Ramey, the co-founder and CEO of the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, a nonprofit based in California that helps formerly incarcerated firefighters find employment.

https://vocallygrown.com/bio

Born in State College, Pennsylvania and raised in North Carolina, Eric Ian Farmer has returned to his birthplace sharing his songs about relationships, social awareness, and finding one’s path in life while keeping alive classics by artists like Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, and Bob Marley. Eric learned how to become one with a song from Bonnie Carter and David Williams, singers in the church of his childhood just across the North Carolina state line in Danville, Virginia. Eric also draws inspiration as a singer from popular artists like Bobby McFerrin, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye. And his guitar playing is inspired by the percussive stylings of rock legend Bo Diddley.

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/15/nx-s1-5039826/kenya-mangroves-hidden-beehives-combat-logging

To protect mangroves, some Kenyans combat logging with hidden beehives

https://city.milwaukee.gov/mayor/About

Mayor Cavalier Johnson took office as Acting Mayor of the City of Milwaukee in late 2021 and set out immediately to build a safer city. He has prioritized violence reduction, economic development, and roadway safety. Before taking on his role as Acting Mayor, Johnson served as Common Council President while representing the city’s 2nd Aldermanic District.

In April of 2022, Mayor Johnson was elected as the forty-fifth chief executive of the City of Milwaukee, winning with more than seventy percent of the vote. He is the first Black Mayor elected in the city and only the fourth elected mayor in the past sixty-two years.

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/11/627681339/mumu-fresh-feat-black-thought-dj-dummy-tiny-desk-concert

Mumu Fresh sings that the teacher arrives when the student is ready. During a recent trip to the Tiny Desk, she came bearing life lessons from the depths of her soul.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/man-buys-cheap-house-italy-life-expectancy/index.html

He bought a cheap house in Italy to improve his life expectancy

Most people buying cheap houses in Italy are simply attracted by the idea of paying a bargain price for the opportunity to escape to somewhere warmer that has better food.

But what if it could also help you live longer?

That was the thinking for Bingwa Thomas, 72, originally from Kansas City, who purchased an old dwelling in Latronico, deep in Italy’s southern Basilicata region, hoping that the change in lifestyle would push him well beyond the life expectancy of his demographic in the United States. Of course, price was also a factor.