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NEW EBOOK: Let's Talk Honestly: One Black Man's Thoughts. JUST $1.50
An eBook collection of poems and essays by George L. Cook III. These writings are inspired by Mr. Cook's experience's as a soldier, community activist, time in politics, coach, husband, and father. And yes they are inpsired by his experiences as a black man living in the United States.
The Jena Six case, which once prompted a massive civil rights demonstration and drew international attention, saw the final chapter played out quietly.
Five neatly dressed young men answered "Yes Sir," on Friday as state District Judge Tom Yeager asked them if they accepted the terms of a deal that included pleading no contest to misdemeanor simple battery.
The plea deal gave the defendants seven days probation, a $500 fine and court costs. Mychal Bell, the sixth defendant, had previously pleaded guilty to a second-degree battery charge and received an 18-month sentence.
Remembering Micheal Jackson ( His Live Performances )
Check out a few songs from Thriller here.
Hi this is George Cook owner of www.letstalkhonestly.com. There is alot that will be said about Micheal Jackson in the upcoming days. Some bad and some good but the concert videos featured below including his performance of Billie Jean at Motown 25 is how I will remember Micheal Jackson.
Black Women Seeking Their Ideal Black Man - Their 'Barack'
Monica Weeks has met many men, but at age 51 she says she still hasn't found her "Barack."
ng Weeks and her friends, President Barack Obama's name has become shorthand for a black man with integrity, character and spirituality, one who loves and values his wife and makes his family a priority - in other words, the kind of man that many black women had despaired of finding.
Weeks said probably every single woman she knows is looking for her "Barack." Read the entire article by clicking the link below:
Austrian police beat innocent African American man
I'm sure is I were a comedian I could come up with a joke about a black man ain't even safe from the police overseas but this is not funny.
Micheal Brennan an African American man was beat by Austrian police while in the city of Vienna. Police mistook him for a drug dealer and attcaked him. When they realized their mistake just left him there with no apology. The two officers involved have yet to be punished. Read the entire story by using the link below:
As the father of two young girls who have shown such poise, humor, and patience in the unconventional life into which they have been thrust, I mark this Father’s Day—our first in the White House—with a deep sense of gratitude. One of the greatest benefits of being President is that I now live right above the office. I see my girls off to school nearly every morning and have dinner with them nearly every night. It is a welcome change after so many years out on the campaign trail and commuting between Chicago and Capitol Hill.
But I observe this Father’s Day not just as a father grateful to be present in my daughters’ lives but also as a son who grew up without a father in my own life. My father left my family when I was 2 years old, and I knew him mainly from the letters he wrote and the stories my family told. And while I was lucky to have two wonderful grandparents who poured everything they had into helping my mother raise my sister and me, I still felt the weight of his absence throughout my childhood.
As an adult, working as a community organizer and later as a legislator, I would often walk through the streets of Chicago’s South Side and see boys marked by that same absence—boys without supervision or direction or anyone to help them as they struggled to grow into men. I identified with their frustration and disengagement—with their sense of having been let down.
In many ways, I came to understand the importance of fatherhood through its absence—both in my life and in the lives of others. I came to understand that the hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility to his children is one that no government can fill. We can do everything possible to provide good jobs and good schools and safe streets for our kids, but it will never be enough to fully make up the difference.
That is why we need fathers to step up, to realize that their job does not end at conception; that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one.
As fathers, we need to be involved in our children’s lives not just when it’s convenient or easy, and not just when they’re doing well—but when it’s difficult and thankless, and they’re struggling. That is when they need us most.
And it’s not enough to just be physically present. Too often, especially during tough economic times like these, we are emotionally absent: distracted, consumed by what’s happening in our own lives, worried about keeping our jobs and paying our bills, unsure if we’ll be able to give our kids the same opportunities we had.
Our children can tell. They know when we’re not fully there. And that disengagement sends a clear message—whether we mean it or not—about where among our priorities they fall.
So we need to step out of our own heads and tune in. We need to turn off the television and start talking with our kids, and listening to them, and understanding what’s going on in their lives.
We need to set limits and expectations. We need to replace that video game with a book and make sure that homework gets done. We need to say to our daughters, Don’t ever let images on TV tell you what you are worth, because I expect you to dream without limit and reach for your goals. We need to tell our sons, Those songs on the radio may glorify violence, but in our house, we find glory in achievement, self-respect, and hard work.,/p>
We need to realize that we are our children’s first and best teachers. When we are selfish or inconsiderate, when we mistreat our wives or girlfriends, when we cut corners or fail to control our tempers, our children learn from that—and it’s no surprise when we see those behaviors in our schools or on our streets.
But it also works the other way around. When we work hard, treat others with respect, spend within our means, and contribute to our communities, those are the lessons our children learn. And that is what so many fathers are doing every day—coaching soccer and Little League, going to those school assemblies and parent-teacher conferences, scrimping and saving and working that extra shift so their kids can go to college. They are fulfilling their most fundamental duty as fathers: to show their children, by example, the kind of people they want them to become.
It is rarely easy. There are plenty of days of struggle and heartache when, despite our best efforts, we fail to live up to our responsibilities. I know I have been an imperfect father. I know I have made mistakes. I have lost count of all the times, over the years, when the demands of work have taken me from the duties of fatherhood. There were many days out on the campaign trail when I felt like my family was a million miles away, and I knew I was missing moments of my daughters’ lives that I’d never get back. It is a loss I will never fully accept.
But on this Father’s Day, I think back to the day I drove Michelle and a newborn Malia home from the hospital nearly 11 years ago—crawling along, miles under the speed limit, feeling the weight of my daughter’s future resting in my hands. I think about the pledge I made to her that day: that I would give her what I never had—that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father. I knew that day that my own life wouldn’t count for much unless she had every opportunity in hers. And I knew I had an obligation, as we all do, to help create those opportunities and leave a better world for her and all our children.
On this Father’s Day, I am recommitting myself to that work, to those duties that all parents share: to build a foundation for our children’s dreams, to give them the love and support they need to fulfill them, and to stick with them the whole way through, no matter what doubts we may feel or difficulties we may face. That is my prayer for all of us on this Father’s Day, and that is my hope for this nation in the months and years ahead.
Read the US Senate Resolution apologizing for slavery
The Senate has unanimously passed a resolution apologizing for slavery and racial segregation in the U.S. and sent the measure to the House.
For Latinos and blacks, a call for unity, not hate
Hector Tobar
...."There's certain parts of Watts and Compton where blacks can't go," a young black man told us, rising up from his seat to describe Latino gang members' slurs and threats.
A high school teacher rose to his feet, too, to talk about his Latino students' ignorance of African American history and the intolerance he often hears from the Spanish-speaking immigrants around him.
It hurts me deeply to hear of these things. I suppose, like a lot of people, I've been in a sort of denial about what's happening in my hometown.
Read Mr. Tobar's entire essay by clicking the link below:
A 9-year-old black child is recovering Monday from severe burns after being set on fire. Doctors say Joshua Judkins will undergo surgery and could spend much of the year in rehabilitation.
"This is not nothing that just happened by chance," his father, Elijah Judkins, said. "This was a hate crime."
The third-grader's parents say he was visiting his mother in Hammond, Ind., when three older boys he'd just met the day before threw alcohol on his back and lit his shirt on fire. He is recovering from second- and third-degree burns. Read the entire story by clicking the link below:
GOP activist DePass apologizes after joking on Facebook that gorilla is related to Michelle Obama
A prominent South Carolina Republican killed his Facebook page Sunday after being caught likening the First Lady to an escaped gorilla.
Commenting on a report posted to Facebook about a gorilla escape at a zoo in Columbia, S.C., Friday, longtime GOP activist Rusty DePass wrote, "I'm sure it's just one of Michelle's ancestors - probably harmless."
Asleep, a fantasy story about African American teen superheroes, is a newly released Young Adult novel vying for attention in the swell of interest around black titles. This increased demand, for a broader range of relatable African American material, is fueled by parents as well as teens and young adults. Their interests goes beyond the familiar poetry, biographies, and street lit narratives that have been popular for some time now and is expanding to include more genres like fantasy.
Asleep is book one in a trilogy that chronicles the adventures of Adisa Summers’ introduction to the world of super beings but the book works as a stand-alone title as well. The author, Wendy Raven McNair, was inspired to write the novel for very personal reasons.
“My teenage daughter enjoys this type of story but I couldn’t find any that were age appropriate with characters who reflect what she looks like in the starring roles. There aren’t very many fantasy books with African American female leads and I saw this as an opportunity to create characters that resembled her and other girls like her."
The author notes, "As the new leader of this nation, President Obama has proven that boundaries are merely a state of mind. If a black man can become President of the United States, then African American teens can be superheroes. Anything is possible."
Product Description:
Adisa Summers doesn't know her boyfriend, Micah Alexander, can fly. Micah's odd emotionless behavior, rigid posture, and vacant eyes are a mystery sending mixed messages to Adisa. When a flash of lightning sends a tree crashing down on her, Adisa is shocked to see Micah actually flying to her rescue! In an instant, Adisa is in his arms, looking up at the sky over his shoulder as they fly parallel to the ground. Micah shifts, shielding her completely with his body. As the tree explodes against Micah's back, Adisa feels him shudder with the impact and the air fills with wood chips and sawdust. Miraculously, they aren't smashed into the ground. They safely continue flying. Micah finally begins to open up to Adisa about his secret life as a superbeing and she discovers another shocking secret. Micah burns for her--literally as well as figuratively. ASLEEP is a superhero teen love story set in modern day Atlanta that's filled with thrills, romance, and suspense.
Asleep is available at amazon.com. For more information on the author, her novel Asleep, black superheroes, and more call 972-768-8684 or visit: wendyravenmcnair.com.
Jasmina Anema gets bone marrow transplant
Great news. Many of you may know the story of Jasmina Anema who is suffering from a svere form of leukemia. After thousands of New Yorkers turned out to help little Jasmina Anema a match was found for a much needed bone marrow transplant. Doctors found an almost perfect match and Jasmina has gotten her bone marrow transplant. Read this heart warming story by clicking the link below:
Hi this is www.letstalkhonestly.com owner George Cook and I felt a great need to write this. There seems to be no shortage of news stories focusing on white supremacist and murderer James W. von Brunn but not many about his victim.
Stephen Tyrone Jones is the name of the man killed. At the time of his death he was being courteous by opening the door for the very piece of human garbage that killed him. Read more about Stephen Johns below:
Holocaust Museum guard Stephen Tyrone Johns shot just after opening door for shooter James von Brunn
BY Richard Sisk In Washington and Rich Schapiro In New York
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Holocaust Museum guard Stephen Tyrone Johns, 39, was shot and killed by James von Brunn (below) moments after opening the door to the museum for him.
Stephen Tyrone Johns, 39, was gunned down moments after he helped James von Brunn, 88, inside the museum.
"Johns was kind enough to open the door to allow him to enter," said Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier.
"As he entered, he raised the rifle, opened fire, striking Special Police Officer Johns."
Johns took a bullet in his torso and died a short while later. Two guards returned fire, critically wounding von Brunn, 88.
The Holocaust-denying, white supremacist will be charged with murder and using a firearm on federal property - capital crimes that could lead to von Brunn receiving the death penalty, officials said.
Johns' former colleagues remembered the slain guard Thursday as a gentle giant who went out of his way to be kind to museum visitors.
"He was a big guy with a big heart," said Milton Talley, 44, a former colleague of Johns. "He'd do anything for the visitors that came to the museum."
Johns, a diehard Redskins fan, lived in Temple Hills in Maryland. He graduated in 1988 from the Crossland High School in Temple Hills.
On Monday mornings in the fall, Johns often led spirited debates among his co-workers about the NFL, former colleagues said.
"He and the other guards would be talking smack back and forth about the Redskins and the Cowboys," Burcky said.
Johns' former colleagues said that he had remarried about a year ago, and had at least one child.
"If you had to pick someone who exuded caring and seeing the best in people, that was him," said Bill Parsons, chief of staff at the museum. "He was terrific at it."
"He was this big guy with a big smile. If we ever had a football team, he would have been one of our linebackers."
Rushmore Drive to shut down
IAC to shutter Web site aimed at black community
By RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writer - Wed Jun 10, 2009 5:03PM EDT
NEW YORK - IAC/InterActiveCorp will shut down the year-old RushmoreDrive, a search engine geared toward the black community.
Spokeswoman Stacy Simpson said Wednesday that the Barry Diller-led Internet services company will close the site Friday after an unsuccessful effort to sell it. She also said that Johnny Taylor, the site's chief executive, has resigned.
IAC rolled out RushmoreDrive with much fanfare in April 2008, calling it a "first-of-its-kind" search engine. It mixes search, news and job results with links to sites targeted specifically at the black community and user-generated content.
The site was the first under IAC's Black Web Enterprises Inc., of which Taylor was also the head. Simpson said Black Web Enterprises will also close.
Simpson said the closure was part of IAC's ongoing effort to streamline its emerging businesses unit, which includes a mix of Web properties like retail site Shoebuy and news site The Daily Beast.
RushmoreDrive is the latest Web property that IAC is shedding this year. It sold comedy site 23/6 and campground reservation site ReserveAmerica in January.
IAC's peers, including Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL LLC, also have been dropping some of their least popular services.
The shutdown will affect 17 employees, most of whom will be laid off. Simpson says the company notified RushmoreDrive employees on Monday of the impending closure.
Black Harvard Students Split over Chanequa Campbell Situation
Chanequa Campbell is a African-American honors student at Harvard, but was not allowed to graduate with her class last week after she was forced off campus by the university. Campbell's dismissal follows the recent campus killing of a suspected drug dealer, with whom Campbell is said to be associated. Campbell says she's innocent and has been unfairly targeted because of her race. Listen to reporter Ashton Lattimore explain more on this situation by clicking the link below:
Ronnie Holloway an African American man was standing out a Passiac NJ bar when sudenly a police cruiser pulls up. He is told to do something by one cop and then complies with the officers instructions. Seconds later he is vicously beaten by the cops partner. A beating so sudden and vicous the female partner of the attacking cop can't stop it until backup arrives.
Alysa Stanton, first black female rabbi in the US
CINCINNATI – Describing herself as the "new face of Judaism," Alysa Stanton became the first black female rabbi in the country during an ordination in Cincinnati.
"This is an exciting next step in my journey," says Stanton, who feels both blessed and burdened by her "first-ever" status. "I'm honored and awed by this achievement," she continues. "But I am foremost a rabbi who happens to be African-American, not The African-American Rabbi."
Charges dropped in Brandon McCelland dragging death
Murder charges were dismissed Thursday against two men jailed eight months in the death of Brandon McClelland on a rural Lamar County road.
District Judge Scott McDowell granted special prosecutor Toby Shook’s request to drop all charges against Shanon Finley and Charles Ryan Crostley after it was revealed earlier McClelland apparently had been struck by a gravel hauler shortly after 4 a.m. Sept. 16, 2008. Read the entire story by clicking the link below:
VIDEO: President Obama's speech to the Muslim World
President Obama and Rev Sharpton are all buddy buddy now.
After an election campaign in which now President Obama treated Al Sharpton like he had the Swine Flu or had extreme BO there seems to be some signs of outreach to Sharpton. This could be because Sharpton has taken a bath ( that's a joke. ), becuse he has not threatened to tear off the president's testicles, or maybe because he has some good ideas on education. PSSST it's the last one. Read the entire article by clicking the link below:
By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer Jesse Washington,
It's an old lie, claiming that The Black Man Did It.
But it was trotted out again last week when a white mother from suburban Philadelphia said two black men snatched her and her 9-year-old daughter from their SUV and abducted them in the trunk of a black Cadillac.
Blacks across the country were outraged after Bonnie Sweeten was found in a luxury hotel at Disney World. Authorities quickly unraveled the hoax, but not before an Amber Alert, frantic searches and national news coverage that played into images of marauding black men.
Racial boundaries are slowly dissolving in America, with President Barack Obama the most obvious example. Yet Sweeten's story, plus the killing of a black New York City cop by a white officer days later, was a reminder that old ideas remain burned into many minds both black and white.
Sweeten's story has provoked an outpouring of discussion among blacks, everywhere from doctor's offices to blogs. Syndicated radio host Warren Ballentine said his listeners are "furious, and they're disgusted. ... On a scale of one to 10, it's a 15."
"Their hope was that by Obama becoming president, the rest of America would take a look at black Americans and look at us for who we are and not what a stereotype is," he said.
The Black Man Did It lie last made news as recently as October, when a John McCain volunteer claimed a 6-foot-4 black man carved a B into her cheek (For Barack, evidently). Charles Stuart told it in 1989 after he killed his wife in Boston. Susan Smith told it when she drowned her sons in 1994 in South Carolina. Unknown numbers of black men were hanged for it back when lynching was a common practice.
And those are the ones we heard about. Law professor Katheryn Russell-Brown documents 67 racial hoaxes in the period between 1987 and 1996 in her book "The Color of Crime."
So after Sweeten and her daughter were found in Florida, with local newspapers reporting an investigation of whether the 38-year-old woman embezzled large sums of money, many blacks felt not only angry, but resigned and frustrated.
"Here we go again," thought Add Seymour, an Atlanta resident who works in public relations for Morehouse College.
"Not only are people going to use us as the stereotypical crime problem of America, but the problem is people believe it so easily," he said. "It's a lynch mob mentality out there. ... The first thing you think of when it comes to crime is a black man. It's crazy, and it's unfair."
It's also rooted in a confusing mixture of psychology, statistics and sociology, amplified by the media's tendency to focus on crimes against white women.
Seymour's blood starts to boil whenever people lock their car doors as he walks by — yet even blacks sometimes hit that button when black men are in the vicinity. "It's not just white people who act that way," Seymour said.
Raqiyah Mays, a radio host on Kiss FM in New York City, drew a parallel between the Sweeten hoax and the killing of a black cop last week who was shot by a white policeman. The black officer was running after a suspect, his gun drawn.
"How many times have you seen a black man running down the street and thought something negative? As opposed to seeing a white guy running down the street and you think he's running late?" said Mays, who is black. "A lot of us are guilty of it because that's the way society has been set up."
One easy explanation is that black men are convicted of crimes at much higher rates than any other group. So was falling for Sweeten's lie racism, or common sense? And does Sweeten's blond hair have anything to do with the amount of media coverage her story received?
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert recently wrote about the difference in coverage between the killing of a white female college student in Connecticut and the approximately three dozen Chicago public school students, mostly black, who have been killed this school year. He recalled an incident from early in his career, at another newspaper, when he heard an editor pondering the story of a dead child ask, "What color is that baby?"
"Editors may not be asking, `What color is that victim?' But, on some level, they're still thinking it," Herbert wrote.
Even without race, Sweeten's story was both sensational and nonsensical. It began when she called police, allegedly from a trunk, and said men had rear-ended her Yukon Denali at a busy suburban intersection, then abducted her and her daughter in broad daylight.
No one had seen it happen, and Sweeten somehow still had her cell phone. Black men also are scarce in Bucks County, which is 92 percent white and 4 percent black.
Authorities discovered that Sweeten had made the call from miles away, in downtown Philadelphia. Their attention turned to the airport, and Sweeten was soon found. She is free on $1 million bail, facing misdemeanor charges of identity theft and false reporting.
During a news conference after the hoax was exposed, Bucks County District Attorney Michelle Henry explained the charge of filing a false police report.
"It's a terrifying thing," she said, "for a community to hear that two black men in a black Cadillac grabbed a woman and her daughter."
Gay Activists, Black Ministers Seek Common Ground
by Liz Halloran
NPR.org, May 31, 2009 · When the District of Columbia city council voted 12-1 recently to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, a raucous protest led by African-American ministers erupted in the hallway outside council chambers.
Security officers quelled the pandemonium, but not before video and cell phone cameras captured images of the confrontation — with councilman Marion Barry, who cast the lone dissenting vote, predicting "civil war" over the issue in the D.C. black community.
Watching the commotion was the Rev. Robert Hardies, who happened to be in City Hall on another matter when the ministers stormed the corridor.
"I was heartbroken," says Hardies, a gay man who is senior minister at the city's historic All Souls Church, Unitarian.
"I had vowed to myself that after what happened in California, when the gay marriage issue came to Washington, D.C., we would do it differently and prevent the racial divide," he said.
Lessons From California
What happened in California was Proposition 8, the successful 2008 effort in which voters amended the state constitution to bar same-sex marriages, and, in doing so, deeply divided the state.The state Supreme Court earlier this week upheld the ban, but also ruled that the 18,000 or so same-sex couples who had married in the brief period during which gay marriage was legal remain joined in the eyes of the state. It was the same court that in May 2008 had ruled that gay couples could marry.
Among the most vocal proponents of the effort to roll back gay marriage in California were Catholic organizations; members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which poured millions into the battle; and leaders of many black churches — some of whom had been active in the civil rights movement.
A CNN exit poll estimated that 70 percent of African-Americans who voted in the state-wide referendum supported Proposition 8.
Though California has been one setback in a string of gains for gay marriage advocates — Maine recently became the fifth state to legalize such unions — the issue remains a divisive and emotional one in the black community.
Wake-Up Call
The tumultuous protest outside D.C. City Hall chambers, Hardies says, was a clarion call. It provided a potent glimpse at the barriers faced by gay marriage activists among some in the African-American religious community.
In a scathing column written just days after the protest, author and syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald demanded that blacks confront their homophobia — and singled out for criticism D.C. councilman Barry, the city's former mayor and a longtime supporter of gay rights.
Barry said he opposed the council's measure because almost all of the people who live in the city ward he represents are black, and "we don't have but a handful of openly gay residents."
"There's something to be said for representing one's constituencies," Pitts wrote. "But there is more to be said for leading them."
"Barry's failure to understand the difference is galling in light of the fact that he was once a leader in the civil rights movement," Pitts said.
Silver Lining
Despite the disconnect noted by Pitts, who is African-American, gay leaders say they see a silver lining in D.C.
The council's overwhelming vote to recognize gay marriages, they say, signaled progress that is possible in black-majority communities like Washington, where the Census Bureau estimates that nearly 56 percent of the city's 591,833 residents are African-American.
"We are in a way better situation now than we ever were as far as outreach in the African-American community," says Donna Payne, associate director of diversity for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights organization.
The anti-gay clerics "just do not have the power that they had in 2004, when the Federal Marriage Amendment was brought to Congress," she says.
Changing Minds, Changing Tenor
The measure, which failed, would have changed the U.S. Constitution to limit marriage to between one man and one woman. Leaders of some of the nation's largest black Christian denominations joined the evangelical right to urge passage of the amendment.
Payne insists that times have changed. Her organization and others, she says, including the African American Ministers Leadership Council and the National Black Justice Coalition, a civil right group devoted to gay rights, have all been reaching out to black churches.
The ministers' organization recently held a panel, "Homophobia in the Black Church," at Howard University School of Divinity, a traditionally black institution.
"Ten years ago," Payne says, "Howard divinity school didn't even want to discuss the issue. That was huge progress."
Both Payne and Hardies say that they don't measure progress by just the minds they might change, but by how successful they are in changing the tenor of the dialogue.
"We're trying to get the message across about gay marriage being about love, and the benefits that come from that," she says.
Assuring ministers that supporting or being agnostic on the issue of same-sex marriage doesn't mean they have to perform such ceremonies in their churches has also helped, they say.
"One thing that really troubles us is that Marion Barry said this would be a civil war," Hardies said. "War is not the right way to talk about an issue that involves love."
Battle Intensifies in D.C
While the battle over gay marriage plays out nationwide, the debate in the nation's capital has also intensified.
A coalition of ministers and others opposed to gay marriage, and led by an African-American bishop from Maryland, plans to force a referendum in D.C. that, if successful, would block the council's decision to recognize same-sex unions.
They need to collect 21,000 signatures to force the vote.
On Capitol Hill, conservative House lawmakers from places including Ohio and Oklahoma have filed legislation that would overturn the D.C. decision. None of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus have signed on.
And next week Hardies, who is white, and a diverse group of D.C. ministers and advocates will announce their own coalition to "give voice to people of faith who support full marriage equality."
"We want to demonstrate that the way the media and opponents of marriage equality portray this as a racial-cultural divide is not the case," he said. "There is much more diversity of opinion than the polarized image that opponents and the media have been using as their frame."
Hardies may be on to something.
Barry has declined to comment on his vote. But a short time later, members of the Democratic organization in the ward he represents voted 21-11 in favor of the council's decision to recognize gay marriages. The Rev. Dennis Wiley of the Covenant Baptist Church spoke in favor of the resolution to support the council. He opened his remarks by paraphrasing a famous quote about conscience by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"I have arrived at my position on same sex marriage," Wiley said, "not because I think it is safe or popular, but because I believe it is right."
African-American romance writers come into their own
BY Patrick Huguenin DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Brenda Jackson is the first African-American romance author to make the New York Times bestseller list.
Another beach-read season is upon us, but this summer's book list reflects changes in the publishing industry. Over the past year, new efforts have been made to identify and promote the most popular - and steamiest - page-turners by African-American authors.
Until recently, mass-market books with romantic or sexual content by black writers have been lumped together under the label "African-American romance." A look at the titles under that heading on Amazon.com reveals everything from suspense to erotica to family drama.
*He won admission to the US Naval Academy where he was voted president of his graduating class of 1968.
*As a Marine Corps fighter pilot, he flew combat missions over North and South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War.
*He graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland in 1979 and the following year was selected as an astronaut by NASA.
*His first space flight was as a pilot on board the space shuttle Columbia.
*Bolden piloted the Discovery shuttle that deployed the Hubble space telescope in 1990, and commanded two further shuttle missions, including a historic first joint US-Russian mission on Discovery in 1994.
*That same year, he left NASA to return to active duty in the Marines, rising to the rank of major general and deputy commander of US forces in Japan before his retirement in 2003.
Here is the top 10 HBCUs as judged by the US News College Report. The usual suspects are there, Spelman, Howard, Morehouse. Is your college in the top 10. Read the list below and click the link below that to see the entire top 25.
1. Spelman College
2. Howard College
3. Morehouse College
4. Hampton University
5. Fisk University
6. Tuskegee University
7. Clafin University
7.Dillard University
9. Xavier University of Louisiana
10. Johnson C. Smith University
