theblackbottom

The troublesome economy is worrisome to all of us, but especially for young people! The data, no matter who is reporting it, is abysmal. The Great Recession as pundits have called this economic era is doubly difficult on Black communities; especially our young people who are just now trying to enter the workforce. This recession [...]

Austin Black’s love of Detroit goes deep.
“Detroit created my love affair with cities and urban planning,” says Black, a Cornell grad who grew up in and around the city. “I see what as I do now as giving back to a place that really influenced who I am today. Detroit is not dead. There are [...]

Two weeks ago while in the hood shooting his latest street anthem Jizzle. Young Jeezy over heard some of the parents in the community talking about how the kids were getting ready to go back to school yet still lacked supplies. Atl’s kids going without weighed heavy on Jeezy’s mind over the weeks while on [...]

I do not remember much about August 28, 1963 because I was just shy of my seventh birthday. In my young forming mind I was not thinking about Martin Luther King, Jr. or the protest that had been waged in Birmingham, Alabama that spring. The thing that most concerned me that August was my baseball [...]

In 1990, Activist and Legendary actors, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis visited Fort Wayne, IN to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of Gingerbread House Preschool center. A portion of their Panel Discussion appeared on a talks show entitled “A New Generation”.
Via www.SoulVisionTV.com

Green the Block is a campaign led by the Green For All and Hip Hop Caucus, and a coalition of over seventy organizations. This is a national campaign and coalition aimed at helping low-income communities of color become driving forces of the clean-energy economy. On August 4th, 2009 we publically announced Green the Block at [...]

When Charles Pugh was campaigning for city council, he held a workshop at his home with a handful of his team to prepare for what he calls the “gay question.” They spent the night working through 25 different scenarios that might come up during the race about his sexual orientation.
“We over prepared,” he says. “None [...]

New constitution means major changes for Kenya
Friday, 13 August 2010
In a referendum held during the first week of August, voters in Kenya overwhelmingly approved a new constitution, replacing one that was drafted during the country’s colonial era. Among other things, the document sets out a Bill of Rights, creates a [...]

Antiviolence Ritual From a Faraway Land
By RACHEL CROMIDAS
August 12, 2010
After years of frustration, Cheryl Graves was ready to consider a different solution to Chicago’s problem of youth violence.
Ms. Graves, a community organizer, had spent more than 10 years training representatives of the intervention group CeaseFire and administrators of violence-ridden Fenger High School in conflict-resolution techniques [...]

Let me say I did not wish to be a part of this blog. I thought that I was too busy trying to further my career as an academician and public intellectual, but thank God for my children who thought otherwise. One of the co-founders of this blog, Jonathan Jelks, pursued me relentlessly for over [...]