theblackbottom

From NPR

Donna Summer, the queen of disco whose career spanned four decades and earned her multiple number one hits and five Grammy awards, has died after a long battle with cancer, TMZ and E-online and the AP are reporting. The AP confirmed the death with the singer’s family.

She was 63.

Her first hit came in 1975 with Love to Love You Baby and continued with Last Dance, Heaven Knows, On The Radio — all songs that were the signature of the excess and glamor of the disco era. Throughout the years, she earned five Grammys, her latest came in 1997, when she took the prize for best dance recording for her single Carry On.

Summer was born LaDonna Andre Gaines in 1948. She grew up in Boston and sang her first song in her church’s gospel choir, according to her All Music biography.

In 2003, she released a biography titled Ordinary Girl. It went against the image of Donna Summer as the perfect disco diva, as the original “Bad Girl.”

“The disco songs were the singles, which they promoted,” she told The New York Times in an interview. “That’s how we got people to buy the albums.”

In that same interview, she was realistic and sober about the post-war era that her songs with their lyrical choruses and those powerful, acrobatic vocal runs helped punctuate:

“Music just evolves, people just get tired of it, and they move on to something else,” she told the paper. “In that period people were in a dance mood. They wanted to be lifted up, they wanted to have fun, they didn’t want to think.

“You were coming out of the Vietnam war, the 60’s , the protest era, and I was coming out of it as well. I think people were just in a different mind set. When dance music came out, with that beat and that movement, it was a switch,” she said.

In an interview with Tavis Smiley in 2003, she embraced the Queen of Disco title and she said she would continue performing Last Dance until the end. READ&WATCH MORE

M

From The Washington Post

Seven in 10 American adults online are using video sharing sites such as YouTube, with minority users leading the way, according to a report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

And much of the video streaming is being done on mobile devices, according to a separate study, which reported that YouTube was the most popular mobile Internet service. YouTube accounted for 22 percent of mobile data bandwidth usage and 52 percent of total video streaming in the first half of the year, according to broadband consulting firm Allot Communications.

The findings raise fresh questions about how video-hungry consumers will be affected by data caps and how carriers will be able to handle the explosion of traffic on their networks. We wrote Monday about Netflix’s concerns about data caps, or metered billing, which are being introduced by a growing number of fixed-wire and wireless Internet service providers.

Americans are creating, sharing and viewing video online more than ever, Pew reported in a study released Tuesday.

Click here for the rest of the story

DAVID W. BLIGHT and ALLISON SCHARFSTEIN

Source: New York Times

ON May 17, 1962, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered an extraordinary manifesto to the White House. Constructed as both a moral appeal and a legal brief, the 64-page document called on President John F. Kennedy to issue a “second Emancipation Proclamation,” an executive order outlawing segregation — just as President Abraham Lincoln had done with slavery a century earlier.

The civil rights era, like the Civil War, produced a wealth of great writing. But unlike King’s “I Have a Dream” speech or his “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” which we remember for their visionary rhetoric, this extraordinary document has been virtually forgotten.

And yet the manifesto is a wonderful example of King’s close reading of American politics, as well as his understanding of the role that moral leadership, in this case through an executive order, could have on the American public. It’s a lesson we should take to heart today, when a deadlocked Congress stands in contrast to a president willing to take a bold stand on same-sex marriage. Americans have rarely explicitly voted for equality; history, through institutions and a few courageous leaders, has enacted it.

During the 1960 presidential debates, Kennedy had suggested that he would address equality of opportunity by the “stroke of the president’s pen.” Yet when civil rights activists pressed him on this promise, his political ties to white Southern Democrats proved to be a formidable obstacle. Indeed, it was the hold of Southern segregationists on Congressional committee chairmanships that prompted civil rights leaders to put their hope in an executive order rather than legislation.

King infused his executive-order campaign with the gravitas of the centennial of the Civil War and emancipation. “What we need to do,” he told Clarence B. Jones, his trusted legal adviser, “is to get Kennedy to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation on the anniversary of the first one.” READ MORE

Source: Inside Africa-CNN

London (CNN) — The concept of converting “swords to plowshares” — turning from war towards constructive, peaceful endeavors — is as old as the Bible.

Today, in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, the principle is being put into practice in a strikingly modern way, as the demobilization of weapons from two brutal wars fuels an international arts success story.

Goncalo Mabunda is an acclaimed sculptor who creates objects of beauty from instruments of death.

From his workshop in Maputo, he fashions his artworks — masks, thrones and figures — from decommissioned weapons and military equipment.

AK-47s, land mines, rocket launchers, soldiers’ boots and helmets, even sections of tank: all are warped and melded to create vivid sculptures sought by galleries and collectors around the world.

The work, says Mabunda, is “trying to represent each [person] who died with this same material.” At the same time, the creation of each piece has a very practical consequence. READ MORE

Makalani (or “mak”) Bandele is a Louisville, KY native. He is an ordained Baptist minister and pastored churches in North Carolina before becoming a writer, musician, and freelance instructor of Literature and Creative Writing. He holds degrees from the University of Notre Dame and Shaw University-Divinity School. A member of the Affrilachian Poets since 2008, Makalani is the recipient of an Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize, a Literary LEO 1st Prize in Poetry, and a fellowship from Cave Canem Foundation. His poetry has been anthologized in My Brothers’ Keeper and Storytellers, and can be read in the pages of Mythium Literary Magazine, Tidal Basin Review, Pluck! the Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture, Black Arts Quarterly, Platte Valley Review and Sou’wester. Makalani has a self-published chapbook called the Cadence of Echoes, and Hellfightin’, published by Willow Books, is his first full-length volume of poetry.

Source: Cave Canem

A Black History Lesson (February 2010)

he pants and wags frenziedly,
an old lingue of a dog looking out of his only eye
at me, his last hope for a song.

i shall call him “cave canem,” as it is written.

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read~Mary McCleod Bethune

Once you learn how to read, you will be forever free!~Frederick Douglass

REVIEW Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is the author of numerous books, including Colored People, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, In Search of Our Roots, and the American Book Award-winning The Signifying Monkey. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

REVIEW
Leonard Pitts, Jr. was born and raised in Southern California and now lives in suburban Washington, DC, with his wife and children. He is a columnist for the Miami Herald and won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, in addition to many other awards. He is also the author of the novel Before I Forget (Agate Bolden, 2009); the collection Forward From this Moment: Selected Columns, 1994-2009, Daily Triumphs, Tragedies, and Curiosities (Agate Bolden, 2009); and Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood (Agate Bolden, 2006).

Gustave Blache III is a New York based artist from New Orleans, LA. While in elementary school, Blache was allowed to study twice a week at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Drawing from plaster casts and painting copies of Old Master afforded him early understanding of the Old Masters that created the basis for his current work.

He then attended the New Orleans Center of Creative Art, a selective college preparatory high school. Blache then attended the School of Visual Arts Savannah, a satellite campus of the School of Visual Arts in New York from 1994 – 98. During this period, he began to gain recognition for his life-size figurative paintings, which led to several commissions, reviews, and a book cover for the book, I Made My Boy Out of Poetry by Aberjhani. Unsatisfied with the success in Savannah, he went to New York to attend the School of Visual Arts where he earned an MFA in Illustration in May, 2000.

One year after earning his MFA, he had his first one-man exhibition at the Island Weiss Gallery of New York. Known for its 19th-century collection, the gallery also included Blache’s paintings in group shows that included the works of Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt and other major 19th century artists. He was also in the Woodward Gallery’s “Paper 5” exhibition that included work by Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Jean Michel Basquiat and other major artists. In 2003, he had a one-man exhibition entitled “The Curtain Cleaners” at the Cole Pratt Gallery in New Orleans. The exhibition was included in Gambits “Hot Seven” issue of things to do that November in New Orleans. Critic, Doug McCash who compared Blache’s work to Edgar Degas, reviewed the exhibition in the Times Picayune. The exhibition introduced Blache’s interest in visual journalism that developed while attending The School of Visual Arts in New York.

In 2007, he was featured in the documentary film, “Colored Frames” which recounts the last 50 years of African American artists’ influences, inspirations and experiences in the art world. “Colored Frames” featured Benny Andrews, June Kelly, Mary Schmidt Campbell, and Danny Simmons. Blache’s painting “Between the Head and the Hand” was used as the cover of the DVD.

Gustave Blache III resides in New York.

Back in the late 80s, the National Conference of Artists, the country’s oldest organization devoted to African American art and artists, held their national convention in New Orleans. I am a member of the Detroit chapter and traveled to the Big Easy to connect with the many artists from around the country. We deemed the 1990s as the “Golden Age of Black Art”, because a new awareness was being born along with new galleries, services and media coverage. The week long conference culminated with an evening at the New Orleans Museum of Art which displayed their vast collection of African and African American art. The reception was held in the world famous Dooky Chase restaurant and Leah Chase was our gracious host. Her restaurant was a museum itself. This was pre-Katrina before all of the expansion and renovations to the classic eatery. Artists in our large contingent were eager to exchange artwork for the best food in town while becoming permanent fixtures in her restaurant. Leah Chase recited the 70 year history of Dooky Chase and her passion for cooking and art. This set of portraits by Gustave Blache is a great honor for Leah and well deserved. By the way, the Fried Chicken, Seafood Platter and Peach Cobbler are rated the best in the world by food critics and by me.

George A Bayard III

Editors note: Randal Maurice Jelks was introduced as a child growing up in NOLA to fine dining in Dooky Chase’s Restaurant.

Source: NOLA.com
It’s unusual for the New Orleans Museum of Art to schedule a gala on a Monday night, but that’s the way chef Leah Chase wanted it. After all, most of her restaurant-world colleagues are off on Mondays, so they more easily could attend the party celebrating her 90th year (she was born Jan. 6, 1923) and the debut of “Leah Chase: Paintings by Gustave Blache III, “ a series of 20 intimate portraits of the legendary lady behind Dooky Chase restaurant. The 71-year-old Orleans Avenue landmark is known for its historic role as a meeting place during the civil rights era, the extensive collection of African-American art that lines the walls of the dining rooms, not to mention the authentic Creole cuisine still prepared by Chase.

It also is unusual for the guest of honor at a gala to provide the food, but Chase insisted. “It’s the least I can do, ” she said. “They’re working so hard. I would feel guilty not doing anything.” In the days before the gala, Chase said she was composing a party menu that included chicken pasta, smoked salmon, caviar pies and “maybe a daube glace.” The evening’s entertainment also is a Chase family affair, with music provided by Leah’s daughter, well-known jazz singer Leah Chase-Kamata.

Chase said her relationship with the museum goes back to 1973 when businesswoman Celestine Cook nominated her for a seat on NOMA’s board of trustees. Chase, who had scant experience in the art world, was reluctant. “I said, ‘I don’t know anything about this, ‘ ” she recalled. Cook advised that serving on the board was “going to be good for your business, ” Chase said. To her surprise, she was elected to the board for a three-year term, and, at the end of that period, she was invited to be a trustee for life. Chase said that Cook not only introduced her to museum board membership, she introduced her to the works of African-American artists, including Bill Hutson, Jacob Lawrence and John Biggers. Biggers, Chase said, once traded her artwork for gumbo. With the advice of other New Orleans art lovers, Chase eventually lined the restaurant’s walls with what may be the city’s best-known collection of African-American art.

“I’ve been the luckiest person in the world, ” she said. “People who crossed my path were people who helped me grow.”

The museum celebrated Chase’s 75th birthday with a purposeful party at the City Park institution. Sale of tickets to that event went to the purchase of a painting by African-American artist Barbara Chase-Riboud. Chase said she provided the food for that party, too. “I’ll do it for my 100th, too; how about that?” she said. Monday’s event also is a focused fund-raiser. Part of the $75 admission price will be used to establish the Leah Chase Art Purchase Fund to acquire African-American artworks for the museum. One of the evening’s biggest treats will be in a second-floor gallery, where guests will be given an artistic glimpse of Chase in her domain, the busy kitchen of her restaurant. Gustave Blache III, a New Orleans-born artist who now lives in Brooklyn, spent two years visiting Chase’s kitchen to soak up the vibe, then poured his inspiration into a suite of 20 dinner plate-sized oil paintings that capture the unseen labor that underlies Dooky Chase’s seven decades of success.

Blache imbued the paintings with an intimate feel, but they are far from sentimental. The cool light, spare compositions and Chase’s candid poses lend a sense of unglamorous reality to the small genre scenes. Blache said that part of the challenge was capturing Chase as she worked, without interfering with the action. “The kitchen is a bit cramped, ” he said in a February interview. “I was very aware of not trying to impede her. You do not want to be the person in her way”

At the close of 2011, one of Blache’s paintings, titled “Cutting Squash, ” was accepted by the prestigious National Portrait Gallery, part of the Smithsonian Institution. In the quietly powerful piece, the iconic chef, wearing a pale violet baseball cap, concentrates on slicing vegetables, as steam rises from pots in the background. In a February interview, Chase coyly commented on the authenticity of Blache’s renderings. “I told him, ‘You could have made me look like Halle Berry or Lena Horne, ‘ ” she said, –”but you made it look like me.’ ”

Blache, who attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, said the Chase series reconnected him with his Crescent City roots, since his maternal grandparents’ first date took place at Dooky’s.

“I still cannot believe it’s happening to me, ” Chase said, reflecting on her humble working-class beginnings and the gala and art exhibit being held in her honor. “If you work hard, you can get what you are going after.

I was trying to imagine a commencement address I would give. Here’s what I came up with me with students and friends.

Graduates thank you for allowing me to distract your celebration for a very short, short, moment. I am so happy for you and your parents and loved ones. If your parents, grandparent, brothers or sisters or neighbors or caring soul supported you in earning your degree let’s all give them applause. Also turn to your classmates and give them loud applause too for surviving the academic hazing these past years.  This is a joyous moment for everyone. And you should revel in this joy because tomorrow you will have to leave this mountaintop and go back into the valley where you will begin your journey anew.

A world full of challenges will await you and your life will be measured by how well you face and deal with the obstacles that accompany human existence. What you and you classmate will begin to do is set the legacy of your collective generation.  Let me assure you this will not be easy.

You are already dealing with a tenuous moment in global economics.  However, you are not alone, and you are not the only generation to graduate and find the economy not as genial or friendly as you hoped it to be. If any of you can recall any American history today, you will remember that there was once what was called the Long Depression in the 1890s, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the  years of “stagflation” in the 1970s, and the de-industrializing recession of the early 1980s. In the world of global capitalism these are the ebbs and flows of our fortunes.

Vicious economic cycles come and go, but how well your ethical compass guide you during these trying times is what matters most. Did you go out to create a more equitable share of wealth through sound public policies and laws? In founding a business did you put in systems that paid your laborers fairly so that they can rear children? Will you put the breaks on your own individual avarice and take some of your profits and help to build your cities and towns through philanthropy, the arts, and other charitable endeavors?

You will be measured by how well you attempted to give back to those immediately around you and those who are afar. Did you try to educate children and give them your very best everyday? Did you go to a hearing at city hall to make sure a sustainable way of removing waste was planned and implemented? Did you make sure law enforcement worked in cooperation with all types of people and not simply racially profiling them? Did you organize and democratically protest to end political corruption and oppression both at home and abroad?

Your generation will be measured by how well it moves across boundaries and deals with conflicting interest globally. It is not enough to make hollow declarations of American democracy without attempting to understand the realities of our friends and foes alike. How will we work with the national aspirations of countries we know little about, but need to learn about for our well-being—Congo, Nigeria, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Zambia? How will we discuss exigencies of climate change and global warming so that each country can have economic growth to sustain its citizens?  The conversation can only begin by shaking off ignorance and through the discipline of mind that learning has instilled in us to appreciate cultures and histories of others around our globe.

I hope the point of your education is not solely about your individual aspiration, but a beginning in gaining wisdom.

Confucius, according to record, says there are “three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. “

I hope your education has given you the power to reflect, which Confucius says is the noblest way to learn wisdom. I hope your reflections and reflective powers that you have learned in school helps you to empathize and see more clearly a world that is in need of all your creative attributes to make it better and more humane.

Enjoy this day you have reached a pinnacle. Enjoy the view on high. Party down with your friends and love ones. And when the party is over go out and make your name; make your generation’s name, and make the generations to come proud you existed on this earth.

Source: Roosevelt Campus Network

Deon Jones was born in Biloxi, Mississippi and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Educated in Fulton County public schools, he graduated from Creekside High School with honors. He received the Atlanta Journal Constitution “Best All Around Senior” Cup at his graduation.

In high school, Deon established a strong record of leadership and excellence. He served in the Student Government Association for four years and was elected President in 2009. He also was president of Men of Destiny, a non-profit organization that provided resources to ensure the educational success of inner city students.

Locally, on Nov. 2, 2010, Deon was elected to the DC Advisory Neighborhood Commission making him, at age 19, one of the youngest elected officials in the country and the youngest in Washington, DC. The DC Advisory Neighborhood Commissions are bodies that advise the District government on issues affecting their local areas.

Deon has been a speaker at the 55th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, the College Democrats of America National Conference, the College Democrats Black Caucus, American University Admission Receptions, and the American University Research Symposium. Deon was also invited to the White House by President Obama in June 2011 to a reception honoring young elected officials across the country.

American University Student is One of the Nation’s Youngest Elected Officials: MyFoxDC.com

Forget Niagara. When you stand on the banks of the mighty Zambezi just before it thunders over the cliffs and into the ravine below, you tremble at the vast and pitiless power of nature.

I first came to this place 10 years ago, retracing my boyhood hero Livingstone’s footsteps. On this visit, however, I was more concerned with Africa’s future than with its past.