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SBA deputy said to go ‘beyond the call of duty’ for Black businesses
April 5, 2013
When the leaders of the National Bankers Association, an organization of 37 mostly Black-owned banks, began pondering prospective recipients of their annual “Beyond the Call of Duty Award,” its president says they did not have to look very far. No question, it was Marie Johns, deputy administrator of the U. S. Small Business Administration, he said.
Black president, preachers, politicians and people MIA on Black issues?
September 30, 2012
The Black community is in a world of trouble. And President Obama alone cannot fix it. This is where real leadership is needed: real, un-bought, unbiased leadership. Black America’s biggest challenge, truth be told, is itself. And Black pastors are at the center of the issue. If we can get our leaders to the table – political, business, academic and community – we could create our own salvation.
Wanda’s Picks for August 2012
August 8, 2012
There are many great programs for youth in the San Francisco Bay Area – among them, AileyCamp at Cal Performances, Destiny Arts, Oaktown Jazz Workshop, Dimensions Extensions and Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, founded by Angela Wellman.
‘The Scottsboro Boys,’ a review
July 13, 2012
The parody currently on stage at American Conservatory Theater, “The Scottsboro Boys,” staged by director-choreographer Susan Stroman (“The Producers”), through July 22, 2012, takes a historic tragedy in American history and recasts it as buffoonery. Black America should not be surprised. Classic guilt is always re-envisioned in this paradigm. The boogeyman is always Black and male.
Wanda’s Picks for April 2012
April 4, 2012
The Oakland International Film Festival is Friday-Sunday, April 6-8, at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Street, Oakland. Visit http://www.oiff.org/2012schedule.pdf. This year’s headliner is one of the most controversial independent films ever made, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door.” Watch it again here.
Jailhouse snitch used against Aiyana’s dad
January 23, 2012
Mertilla Jones, grandmother of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, the 7-year-old killed by Detroit police last year in a SWAT-style assault on her home, held Aiyana’s mother Dominika Stanley tightly in her arms as both wept uncontrollably in an elevator at 36th District Court in downtown Detroit.
Carl Ray’s HBCU tours motivate students to succeed
December 28, 2011
Arriving at Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport from cities throughout America, aspiring college students were excited. The tour would visit Spelman College, Morehouse College and Clark-Atlanta University in Atlanta, also Alabama State University and Tuskegee University in Alabama.
Rev. Pinkney is coming to town with ‘Lessons from the Battle of Benton Harbor’
September 27, 2011
Rev. and Dorothy Pinkney have been leaders in the fight against the corporate (Whirlpool) and state government’s direct takeover of the poor, largely African-American Rust Belt town of Benton Harbor, Michigan, the first American city to be placed under Michigan’s draconian new Emergency Financial Manager law. Join them on their Justice Tour in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Fresno Sept. 27-Oct. 1.
The road from Attica
September 9, 2011
Sept. 9 marks 40 years since the uprising at Attica State Prison in upstate New York and the deadly and sadistic retaking of the prison – and mass torture of hundreds of prisoners all the rest of the day and night and beyond – by state police and prison guards on the morning of Sept. 13, 1971. Attica and its aftermath exposed the powder kegs ready to explode inside the U.S. prisons.
Kenneth Harding police murder aftermath: Victory for Kilo G
September 3, 2011
Kilo G. Perry is an Afrikan man and a man of his word. He is such a trusted man of his word that he has been dubbed “the voice of Bayview Hunters Point” by poor Black and Brown people of San Francisco. Comrade Kilo G is the producer of Cameras Not Guns, a youth educator and peacemaker, and a single father of a 3-year-old baby boy.
Rep. Waters to Black voters: ‘Unleash us’ on Obama
August 27, 2011
Sparks flew Tuesday during the Congressional Black Caucus “For the People” jobs tour that took place in the town hall in Detroit, Mich., as Black caucus members told the mostly Black audience to “unleash” them in confronting President Barack Obama on the issue of jobs.
La Hitz Sports: Fun and fundraising in Lake Tahoe
July 29, 2011
Renowned artists and athletes meet once a year in Lake Tahoe to play golf and raise money for charities. Michael Jordan, John Elway, Kevin Nealon, Aaron Rodgers, Dennis Haysbert, Jerome Bettis, Jim Harbaugh, A.J. Hawk, Jim McMahon and many other entertainers and sports figures participated in this fun-in-the-sun annual event.
‘Yes Her Do’: an interview wit’ Frisco rapper Madam T
July 11, 2011
I came into contact with Madam T’s music first through Facebook, although we both live in Oakland. I was impressed with her business sense off of the mic: sound, production, lyricism, marketing and her street hardened demeanor in her music. I brought her on the Block Report Music Show – every Friday midnight-2 a.m. on KPFA 94.1FM in Northern Cali – and the callers loved her.
Rethinking Malcolm: What was Marable thinking?
July 8, 2011
The new book by Manning Marable, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” will help us to get a deeper understanding of Malcolm X and the times we’re living in now. This will not be a direct result of what Marable has done, but rather of what needs to happen now because of what he has done.
Racial imprisonment
May 16, 2011
“We must call for, agitate for and, if all else fails, create a new popular movement that struggles to break this caste system once and for all.” Mumia Abu-Jamal addresses the “Imprisonment of a Race” Conference at Princeton University.
Wanda’s Picks for May 2011
May 4, 2011
Happy Mother’s Day to Yuri Kochiyama! I’d like to also wish the women who haven’t seen their children in a long time, some since birth, a special Happy Mother’s Day. Our prayers are with you even if you feel alone at a time when in America prisons systematically separate mothers from their children, often permanently.
Wanda’s Picks for April 2011
April 10, 2011
When Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis, he was about to join the sanitation workers in their protest for a union and more decent wages. The movement for civil rights was taking hold in the North and America didn’t like it – so off with King’s head.
What we need is our 40 acres and a mule!
March 2, 2011
In 1910 there were over 1 million African-American farmers, and today there are fewer than 17,000. Now, an emerging movement is sweeping across urban areas to reclaim abandoned lots, under-serviced public parks and vacant lots to grow fresh food for the people.
Prisoners’ hunger strike enters second week
January 14, 2011
“So much energy is coming from all over. I’m just trying to hang on and ride the wave,” wrote political prisoner Bomani Shakur Jan. 6, the third day of his hunger strike at Ohio State Penitentiary.
Georgia prisoners’ strike: What would Dr. King say or do?
December 24, 2010
Eight days after the start of Georgia’s historic prisoners’ strike, advocates met with state corrections officials and visited a prison. “The prisoners have done all they can do now. It’s up to us to build a movement out here that can make the changes which have to be made,” said Rev. Kenny Glasgow of The Ordinary Peoples Society (TOPS).