Press Release - Year To Go (http://www.yeartogo.com)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact Jared Loftus

at 601-520-7177 or jared@yeartogo.com

Media Advisory

Baton Rouge Team Creates Goal-Setting Startup on the StartupBus

BATON ROUGE, LA (March 9, 2011) –

Four Baton Rouge entrepreneurs participating in the StartupBus competition - Dr. James Davis, co-founder of Peoplenetz; Brian Jackson, Creative Design Director at Nerjyzed Entertainment; Logan Leger, an LSU SEI Fellow and owner of NewAperio; and Jared Loftus, owner of Tiger District and Taco de Paco - have developed a socially-integrated goal visioning site that helps users map out goals, stay accountable to those goals, and get their friends involved in the process. YearToGo.com is a collaborative networking application that allows goal-setters to increase the likelihood of accomplishing their goals by sharing them. By connecting to Facebook and Twitter, the site will seamlessly facilitate peer encouragement and searching of others with similar goals. A mobile app will send reminders of deadlines and use gaming practices to encourage continued utilization of the site.

Terry Jones of the Regional Innovation Organization said “The national StartupBus competition is an excellent opportunity to showcase our region’s entrepreneurial talent and the great support and vibe of our entrepreneurial community to the rest of the nation.  The Baton Rouge team is working hard around the clock to win the competition and is looking good.” RIO and the Baton Rouge team invite everyone to come out hang with some really cool technology entrepreneurs from around the country for free food and drink at 6:30 at Embassy Suites located at 4914 Constitution Avenue.  The StartupBus is an entrepreneurial adventure that places twenty-five strangers traveling together on a bus over forty-eight hours from different destinations to Austin, Texas for the annual South by Southwest® festival. The Participants form teams and build business plans based on ideas presented when they first get on the bus. They complete the business plans during the trip and once at the festival, the top teams present their ideas to venture capitalists in an attempt to receive funding. The team from Baton Rouge is traveling on the bus originating in Miami. They will be stopping in Baton Rouge tonight as they join the StartupBus that started their journey in New York City. 

Barron H. Harvey, Ph.D., CPA, Dean and Frank Ross/KPMG Endowed Professor, School of Business Howard University stated, “This is a very special opportunity and I am very happy to have an HUSB alum (Brian Jackson) holding up the banner.”  Chris Washington, Vice President of Membership for the Howard University Alumni Association added, “I have known Brian for some 20+ years.  I am really excited to have a fellow Bison as part of this event.”

You can help their chances in being selected as one of the top teams by going to http://www.startupbus.com/ref/24 and playing the stock market game that allows you to use virtual funds to invest in their company found here: http://startupbus.com/game/startup_game_profiles/46

###

 

Support Brian Jackson aka @MrBCFX in the 2011 Startup Bus Challenge

Greetings from Brian Jackson and the 2011 Startup Bus Challenge team from Baton Rouge. 

As some of you are already aware, I was selected along with 4 other people from Baton Rouge to take part in the 2011 Startup Bus Challenge.  Basically 30 strangers get on a bus in Miami, come up with 6 ideas, develop them, and enter a challenge to pitch these ideas in Austin at SxSW.  We just boarded the bus and are about to start pitching ideas.  Feel free to follow me on facebook and twitter (@MrBCFX) as I embark on this incredible 48 hour journey.  

So here is the fun part!  This is a big portion of the Startup Bus competition. There is a stock market game that is associated with all of the buses. Anyone can play (It's FREE). Please pass it along to anyone you think would be willing to help.

To do so - go to this link:

http://www.startupbus.com/ref/24

You need to register on the site (you can do it through Facebook)

Once you register, go to http://startupbus.com/game

Click on "Startups" in the top right of the page.

Scroll down and find "Year to Go"

That's my company. Please buy as many shares as possible in the stock with the money you were given when you registered (probably $100). If you want to really play the game, click on your name in the top right and it will bring you to your profile. If you click on the link at Firm Experience or Badges, it will tell you what you can do to get more money and advance in the game.


Here's more in-depth information from the founder of Startup Bus:

There are two reasons why we have developed this game: 

1) we get you as buspreneurs focussed on certain activities that matter and 

2) to get an audience involved in this experience as, well -- why not.

You can read the game rules here: http://startupbus.com/game/rules

Basic concepts you need to understand

- Your startups share price grows at 1% an hour, but if you achieve milestones, it grows faster. Your share valuation is based on your share price and the *number of shares people hold in your startup*. So it's like a very simplified version of demand and supply (maybe too simple) and it's probably better regarded as a confidence metric in your startup by the audience. Meaning, the more people that buy stock in your startup, the more impressive you are.

- As a team, you want to ensure all the milestones are met. For example, here is an example list of milestones for one of the teams: http://startupbus.com/game/startup_game_profiles/39. Note that these milestones may change and more be added

- As a player, people will try to raise money by completing badges (listed on your user profile -- here's mine http://startupbus.com/game/user_game_profiles/58). However the goal of the game is to make as much money as possible, so simply generating cash won't do that: you need to invest it. That's why players need to smartly invest so they can maximise their investment. Some startups may grow faster than others (like how NYC has as they were setup earlier) and some may experience some bad luck through an Act of God (which results in a drop in share price - TBD).

We've put a lot of thought into the game mechanics, so we hope this game will be fun for people not on the bus. But I won't go into that as I don't want to encourage you: the entire point of the game for you as a buspreneur is to meet the milestones. And for what other better reason then to make you grow more to make your shareholders happy.

How to meet your milestones

- do what it states. Don't get it from reading the rules? Email team@staetupbus.com and we'll explain it. For example, you need to create a Twitter account so emailing us the alias means we can register it in the database.

- email team@statupbus.com with the evidence or the details. This goes out to me and all the conductors and we'll action it as soon as possible.

- if necessary, we may need to get your conductor to physically verify.

One last thing. As I've already told you, we have a sponsorship commitment tied to the game. So you could all *please* log into the game with your accounts, and request the cash linked to a Hollrback account creation as seen in the header of the game https://skitch.com/liako/ruag1/mail-1012x420 (previously was at the footer as a firm upgrade).

  And please, tweet about the service and encourage people to sign up to it via (http://hollrback.com/startupbus/). Note: if you want the cash as a player, you need to log into the same email as the one used on StartupBus.com

Good luck.

Elias Bizannes
http://eliasbizannes.com

Coming to a freeway near you: http://startupbus.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 15, 2010
 

CONTACT:
Dan Hewitt 202.223.2400 dhewitt@theESA.com

COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAME PLAY WIDESPREAD
AND MORE SOCIAL THAN EVER

New Report Shows 67 Percent of U.S. Households Play Computer and
Video Games and 62 Percent of Gamers Play with Others

June 15, 2010 – Washington, DC – Computer and video game use is widespread with 67 percent of American households playing, according to new research from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). The study also reveals the social nature of today's game play with 62 percent of American gamers reporting they play with other gamers in person at least one hour a week and 48 percent of parents reporting they play with their children at least once a week. The association today released these findings as part of its annual Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry report. 

"Computer and video games are now available to consumers on every screen from smart phones to computers to flat screen televisions. This enables millions of Americans enjoy the immersive storytelling, incredible graphics, and compelling plot lines," said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the ESA, the trade association representing U.S. computer and video game publishers. "These works of art are a fun and engaging way to bring people together, especially families who are playing video games together now more than ever."

Other findings of the survey include:

• The average game player is 34 years old and the average game buyer is 40 years old;
• Forty percent of game players are female;
• Forty-eight percent of all games sold are rated ‘E' for Everyone by the Entertainment Software Rating Board;
• Sixty-four percent of parents believe games are a positive part of their children's lives;
• Two thirds of parents (76 percent) believe that the parental controls available in all new video game consoles are useful; and
• Forty-two percent of Americans play games on wireless devices such as cell phones or PDAs.

The report also found that parents continue to have a high level of involvement in their children's video game play. Parents who have children under 18 with a gaming console in the home said they are present when games are purchased or rented 93 percent of the time, and children receive their parents' permission before purchasing or renting a game 86 percent of the time. These parents also report always or sometimes monitoring the games their children play 97 percent of the time.

The research for Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry 2010 was conducted by Ipsos MediaCT and is the most in-depth and targeted survey of its kind, gathering data from almost 1,200 nationally representative households that have been identified as owning either or both a video game console or a personal computer used to run entertainment software.

The Entertainment Software Association is the U.S. association dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies publishing interactive games for video game consoles, handheld devices, personal computers, and the Internet. The ESA offers services to interactive entertainment software publishers including a global anti-piracy program, owning the E3 Expo, business and consumer research, federal and state government relations, First Amendment and intellectual property protection efforts. For more information, please visit www.theESA.com.

La’Shanda Holmes becomes the 1st Black Female Helicopter Pilot in Coast Guard History

Post written by Jay Cope, NAS Whiting Field Public Affairs

Perseverance, dedication, grit, a desire to excel – these are all traits desired in a student aviator. Training in the aviation program for the maritime services is intentionally difficult to stress and push the students beyond their comfort zones so they can meet the hardships their service will entail. However, when that prospective pilot is slated to become a barrier breaker as well, those traits are not just desired, but necessary.
That Lt. j.g. La’Shanda Holmes had those traits was never in doubt. The humble, soft-spoken young woman had faced trials growing up in North Carolina that tested and tempered her desire to excel. When she walked across the stage April 9th to receive her wings as the first African-American female helicopter pilot in the U.S. Coast Guard, it was simply the next chapter of a proud story.

All Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard initial helicopter pilot training is performed at Naval Air Station Whiting Field through one of six squadrons attached to Training Air Wing FIVE. Holmes was attached to Helicopter Training Squadron EIGHTEEN for the final portion of her nearly two-year aviation training pipeline. She knew at the outset that she was the first black female to begin the training. While she admits to some periodic concerns about completing the program, there were really never any doubts harbored by the squadron commanding officer, Commander Mark Murray.
“I knew she would be successful. She had already overcome far greater challenges than flight school. I had the opportunity to do a familiarization flight with her, and where most folks might get a little frustrated, she drank it all in. She was eager to improve and I had no doubts she would do well,” he said.

Given her childhood, that might not normally be a safe assumption, but for Holmes, the hurdles she faced growing up drove her to try all that much harder.

“I was used to people telling me what I couldn’t do. We moved around a lot, and I think it fueled my ambition to live better and work harder. It just gave me more motivation to succeed,” she said.
Her trials started young. Holmes was just two when her mother committed suicide. She was adopted a short time later, but after her adoptive mother remarried, she states that she and her younger brother were placed in foster care due to abuse and were separated. She went through several homes until she landed with Linda and Edward Brown at 17. She still calls them her parents and they provided some necessary stability for her life.
Her hard work paid off even then graduating magna cum laude from high school and earning admission to Spelman College. Two years into her education there, she was assisting with a community service booth during a career day. Directly across from her was a Coast Guard recruiting booth. She wandered over after the event to speak with him conversation with Senior Chief Dexter Lindsey who inspired her to think about serving.

She applied for and was accepted into the College Student Pre-commissioning Initiative which financially enabled her to finish school. Prior to attending Officer Candidate School, she served on a Coast Guard cutter as an officer candidate and while near the bridge stuck up a conversation with the operations officer who advised her to consider aviation. It was then that she learned the Coast Guard had only one other black, female pilot, Lt. Jeanine Menze.

“It sounded challenging, but something I was up for,” Holmes said.

At that time, Menze was stationed at Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater flying the C-130 Hercules. Holmes was granted an opportunity to be temporarily stationed at Clearwater to learn about the aviation program, but it wasn’t until she was in the back seat of an SH-60 helicopter being flown by George Menze, Lt. Menze’s husband, that her future intentions kicked into place.

“We did hovering and flying low over the water. I was like a little kid. It was like nothing I had ever done or seen before. It was awesome,” she said. “Everyone in the aviation community was so close. There was a real sense of camaraderie that I wanted to be a part of. ”

That camaraderie certainly extends to the friendship between Menze and Holmes. They both share the same exuberant joy in flying and a similar appreciation for service in the Coast Guard. Menze called joining the Coast Guard the best decision she ever made, and sees a kindred spirit in Holmes.

“She’s so motivated to do well,” she said. “You put a thought into her head and she just runs with it. You tell her to work hard and study hard, and she goes and does it….I really expect big things from her.”
Menze is still a mentor to Holmes. She encouraged her through the process, gave her pep talks and let her know what to expect through flight training. The relationship is so close that Holmes asked Menze to present her pin during the winging ceremony.

She agreed and even presented Holmes with the first set of wings she received in 2005, following the ceremony. Menze thought of it as a memento to let her see that “dreams do come true.”

The winging ceremony was the culmination of nearly two years of hard work, and a lifetime of overcoming obstacles. For Holmes, having Menze there to share the occasion meant a great deal.

“It was a really emotional experience. Both of our eyes were watering and she asked me ‘Are you ready for this?’ I can’t think of a more awesome moment in my life.”

Holmes says things haven’t really hit home with her yet. For that day, she was just one of 18 new aviators. At her next duty station, she wants to be just another rookie pilot. She knows she is breaking a barrier, but doesn’t seem to think it really says anything special about her. She is transferring to Coast Guard Air Station Los Angeles and wants the same things any young officer wants.

“I know I’m the first, but nothing has sunk in yet. People may have expectations, but for me, mainly, it is about taking on responsibility and knowing I have something to prove [as a pilot]. I just want to keep flying well and working hard to make my community, family and sisters proud of me.”
This story was reprinted with permission from Whiting Tower, the newsletter of Naval Air Station Whiting Field. Click here for the the latest issue of Whiting Tower including LTjg Holmes’ story.

Howard University celebrates legendary surgeon LaSalle Leffall’s 80th birthday

Hamil R. Harris, Washington Post

Shortly after 6 a.m. Monday, LaSalle Leffall Jr. began making his rounds at Howard University Hospital. He stopped to grab his lab coat. He visited with two patients, made several quick consultations and then it was off to surgical grand rounds, where students talk about the most interesting cases of the week.

Getting up before sunrise and walking the corridors of Howard is a routine that Leffall has followed for six decades, first as a young medical resident and now as the Charles R. Drew professor of surgery at the university’s College of Medicine. And it is that dedication to the hospital and his patients that led several hundred of Leffall’s colleagues to throw a surprise celebration for the doctor, who turned 80 on Saturday.

Instead of looking at slides and listening to a lecture, Leffall found himself surrounded by the medical school’s choir, in crisp lab coats, singing “Happy Birthday.” In response, the silver-haired surgeon displayed a big smile, raised his arms in the air and came down the aisle of a lecture hall shaking hands all the way.

Side Note:  Dr. Leffall is a proud brother of Alpha Phi Alpha.  He was made at the Beta Nu Chapter, Florida A&M

Teacher in trouble for allowing students to wear KKK robes

A Dahlonega history teacher faces punishment after administrators say she let four students wear Ku Klux Klan-like robes for a historical reenactment.

Lumpkin County Schools superintendent Dewey Moye says Catherine Ariemma, a five-year veteran with the school system, has been placed on administrative leave and could face anything from suspension to termination.
Administrators say students in her advanced placement history and film class were working on a final project that traced the history of racism in the United States and donned white robes for one scene. Moye says students saw them as they walked through a hallway Thursday on the way to an outdoor shoot. The parents of a black student complained.

Reached by The Associated Press Monday, Ariemma said she didn’t regret the project, but that “It was poor judgment on my part in allowing them to film at school.”

Today in Black History 04/28/2010

*                   Today in Black History - April 28          *

1910 - Martin Morua Delgado joins the ancestors in Havana, Cuba.
    He had been a labor and political activist, statesman,
    journalist and author. He had been a leading opponent of
    slavery in Cuba and after emancipation, a leading proponent
    for racial equality. He also was active in the struggle for
    Cuban independence from Spain. Cuba will celebrate the
    centennial of his birth in 1956.

1911 - Mario Bauza is born in Havana, Cuba.  He will become a
    professional trumpet player, bandleader and arranger. He
    will be a leading player in the creation of Afro-Cuban
    jazz. While in Cuba, he will be primarily a classical
    musician, playing for the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra. 
    He will leave Cuba for New York City in 1930 and find
    himself working in mostly jazz venues.  He will play with
    Noble Sissle, Chick Webb (musical director), Don Redman,
    and Cab Calloway.  While working with Chick Webb, he will
    convince Webb to hire the young Ella Fitzgerald as a
    vocalist for the band. While collaborating with these
    talents, he will integrate Afro-Latin influence into the
    music whenever possible. He will be active in the jazz
    musical scene until the last year of his life.  He will
    join the ancestors on July 11, 1993.

1924 - Kenneth Kuanda is born in Lubwe, Northern Rhodesia (Northern
    Rhodesia will eventually become the country of Zambia). He
    will become president of Zambia from its day of
    independence until 1991. He will begin his political career
    with the Northern Rhodesia African Congress, which will
    become the African National Congress. Like most African
    politicians who called for independence from colonial rule,
    he will be imprisoned multiple times.  After his release
    from prison in 1960, he will continue to be active and will
    promote many activities of civil disobedience.  Under his
    leadership, the colonial administration will relent and the
    British will grant Zambia its independence on October 24,
    1964.

1934 - Charles Patton joins the ancestors in Indianola, Mississippi.
    He was a bluesman who is considered to be the creator of the
    Delta variation of the blues.  His recordings between 1929
    and 1934 will contribute to the national influence of the
    Mississippi Delta style on the blues.

1935 - Akin Euba is born in Lagos, Nigeria.  He will become a
    classical composer whose work will integrate European and
    Yoruba influences into his compositions.  His music will be
    introduced to the world at the 1972 Olympics in Munich,
    Germany. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1974, he will become
    a music educator and continue to create his unique African
    musical art form.  He will eventually become a professor of
    African music at the University of Pittsburgh.

1941 - In a famous Jim Crow railroad case brought by congressman
    Arthur W. Mitchell, the Supreme Court rules that separate
    facilities must be substantially equal.

1950 - Willie Colon in born in the Bronx in New York City.  He will
    begin his musical career, while a teenager, creating
    recordings that will emphasize his Afro-Puerto Rican
    heritage in the form of salsa music. His music will
    integrate the influence of Puerto Rican life in New York
    City with the African influence on the Puerto Rican
    experience.  He will create and produce over thirty
    recordings and be nominated for at least five Grammy awards
    in Latin music.

1957 - W. Robert Ming, a Chicago lawyer, is elected chairman of the
    American Veterans Committee.  He is the first African
    American to head a major national veterans organization.

1967 - Muhammad Ali refuses induction into the U.S. Army and is
    stripped of his boxing titles by the World Boxing
    Association and the New York Athletic Association.

1983 - Two African American women, Alice Walker and Gloria Naylor,
    win prestigious American Book Awards for fiction.  Alice
    Walker's novel "The Color Purple" will be dramatized as a
    theatrical movie starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover,
    and Oprah Winfrey. Naylor's first novel, "The Women of
    Brewster Place," will be made into a made-for-television
    movie and series starring Oprah Winfrey, Jackee', and
    Paula Kelly.

1990 - Clifton Reginald Wharton, Sr. joins the ancestors in
    Phoenix, Arizona. He was an attorney and was the first
    African American to enter the U.S. Foreign Service and the
    first African American to become a United States Ambassador
    to a European country (Norway-1961).

1991 - Former CORE director and North Carolina judge Floyd Bixley
    McKissick joins the ancestors in North Carolina at the age
    of 69. He led CORE from 1963 to 1966 during its
    transformation to a more militant civil rights organization.

1997 - Ann Lane Petry joins the ancestors in Old Saybrook,
    Connecticut. She was a leading African American novelist
    and was known for her works, "The Street," "Country Place,"
    "The Narrows," "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the
    Underground Railroad," "Tituba of Salem Village," "The
    Drugstore Cat," and "Legends of the Saints."

______________________________________________________________
           Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene' A. Perry
              "The TRUTH shall make you free"

   E-mail:  
   Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html
             http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm
   _____________________________________________________________
   To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to:
   In the E-mail body place:  Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name
   ______________________________________________________________
   Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. Copyright 1997 - 2007,
   All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with
   The Black Agenda.

Today in Black History 04/27/2010

*               Today in Black History - April 27               *

1883 - Hubert Henry Harrison, is born in St. Croix, Virgin Islands.
    He will become, by the 1920s, one of the nation's most
    prominent atheists.  Harrison will recognize the connection
    between racism and religion, and point this out quite
    bluntly.  The Bible was a slave master's book in Harrison's
    eyes, which not only sanctioned the keeping of slaves, but
    even gave advice on their handling.  He will state that
    any African American person who accepts Christianity was
    either ignorant or crazy.  He also will address Islam by
    stating that the slave masters may have been largely
    Christian, but many of the slave traders were Muslims,
    apparently not deterred by their faith.

1903 - The publication of W.E.B. DuBois's "The Souls of Black Folk"
    crystallizes opposition to Booker T. Washington's program
    of social and political subordination.

1903 - Maggie L. Walker is named president of Richmond's St. Luke
    Penny Bank and Trust Company and becomes the first woman to
    head a bank.

1903 - The U.S. Supreme Court upholds clauses in the Alabama state
    constitution which disfranchises African Americans.

1927 - Coretta Scott is born in Marion, Alabama. She will marry
    Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1953 and be an integral part of
    his civil rights activities. After his assassination in
    1968, she will continue her civil rights activities,
    founding the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent
    Change in Atlanta, Georgia.  She will join the ancestors on
    January 31, 2006 after succumbing to complications of a
    stroke and heart attack.

1944 - Rhythm-and-blues singer Cuba Gooding is born.

1949 - Rhythm-and-blues singer Herbie Murrell (The Stylistics) is
    born.

1960 - Togo achieves its independence from France.  Sylvanus
    Olymplo serves as its first prime minister.

1961 - Sierra Leone obtains its independence from Great Britain
    with Dr. Milton Margai as its first prime minister.

1961 - Kwame Nkrumah, African statesman and the first president of
    Ghana, joins the ancestors in exile, in Conarky, Guinea at
    the age of 62.

1977 - Artist Charles Alston joins the ancestors in New York City.
    After studying at Columbia University and Pratt Institute,
    he had traveled to Europe and the Caribbean before
    executing murals for Harlem Hospital and Golden State
    Mutual Life Insurance Company in Los Angeles.  A recipient
    of the National Academy of Design Award, he also received
    the first-place award of the Atlanta University
    Collection's 1942 show for his gouache "Farm Boy."  His
    best known works are "Family" and "Walking." Among his
    other notable works are "School Girl," "Frederick Douglass,"
    and "Nobody Knows."

1994 - The first "Freedom Day" takes place in South Africa.

______________________________________________________________
           Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene' A. Perry
              "The TRUTH shall make you free"

   E-mail:  
   Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html
             http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm
   _____________________________________________________________
   To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to:
   In the E-mail body place:  Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name
   ______________________________________________________________
   Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. Copyright 1997 - 2007,
   All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with
   The Black Agenda.

Today in Black History 04/26/2010

*               Today in Black History - April 26               *

1785 - John James Audubon is born in Les Cayes, Saint Dominique
    (later Haiti), to an African Caribbean mother and a French
    father.  He will display an early affinity for bird
    specimens and drawing in France, later emigrating to the
    United States, where he will marry a plantation owner's
    daughter and paint the ground-breaking collection "The
    Birds of America."

1798 - James Pierson Beckwourth is born in Fredericksburg,
    Virginia. He will become a legendary American Western
    mountain man, trapper, warrior, Indian chief, and
    trailblazer.  He will maintain a lifelong friendship with
    the Crow Indian nation.  He will work as an Army scout
    during the third Seminole War and will be a rider for the
    Pony Express. In 1850, he will discover a pass through the
    Sierra Nevada mountains that will enable settlers to more
    easily reach California. The Beckwourth Pass is still in
    use today by the Union Pacific Railroad and the U.S.
    Interstate Highway System. He will join the ancestors in
    1866.

1886 - William Levi Dawson is born in Albany, Georgia.  A graduate
    of Fisk University, he will move to Chicago, serve in the
    365th Infantry in World War I, become an attorney and
    initially be involved in Republican politics upon his
    return to the city after the war.  Elected to his first
    term in the United States Congress in 1942, he will serve
    27 years in the House, where he will become the first
    African American representative to chair a committee of
    Congress, the Committee on Expenditures in Executive
    Departments, in 1949.

1886 - Gertrude Pritchett is born in Columbus, Georgia.  She will
    become a blues singer and vaudeville performer.  She will
    marry William "Pa" Rainey and will become the "Ma" half of
    "Rainey and Rainey: The Assassinators of the Blues."
    Between 1923 and 1928, she will record 93 songs, many of
    which were her own compositions.  She will perform
    nationwide and will have a loyal fan base, even after her
    recording contract with Paramount is terminated.  She will
    have a great impact on performers who will follow her and
    will be immortalized by being included in August Wilson's
    play, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," and the poem of Sterling
    Brown, "Ma Rainey."  She will join the ancestors on
    December 22, 1939 and will be inducted into the Rock and
    Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

1964 - The African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form
    Tanzania. The name is derived from the first syllable of
    each country's name.

1968 - Students seize the administration building at Ohio State.

1984 - Jazz musician great William "Count" Basie, joins the
    ancestors in Hollywood, Florida at the age of 77. NOTE: 
    Many sources will have 1904 for Count Basie's birth year. 
    Our source for his birth and death is the Kennedy Center
    Archives documenting "The Honors" bestowed on him in 1981.

1991 - Maryann Bishop Coffey is named the first woman and the first
    African American co-chair of the National Conference of
    Christians and Jews.

1992 - "Jelly's Last Jam" opens at Virginia theater on Broadway. 
    Gregory Hines will portray the great jazz composer Jelly
    Roll Morton and will receive a Tony award as best actor in
    a musical in that role.

1994 - Voting begins in South Africa's first all-race elections.

______________________________________________________________
           Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene' A. Perry
              "The TRUTH shall make you free"

   E-mail:  
   Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html
             http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm
   _____________________________________________________________
   To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to:
   In the E-mail body place:  Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name
   ______________________________________________________________
   Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. Copyright 1997 - 2007,
   All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with
   The Black Agenda.

Today in Black History 04/25/2010

*               Today in Black History - April 25               *

1905 - Doxey Alphonso Wilkerson is born in Excelsior Springs, Missouri.
    He will become an educator at Howard University in Washington, DC
    and Yeshiva University in New York City. In 1944, he will publish
    an essay in the anthology, "What The Negro Wants," which will
    illustrate comparisons between the Allied struggle in Europe
    during World War II and the civil rights struggle of African
    Americans in the United States. As a member of the American
    Communist Party, he will work as a civil rights activist.  This
    affiliation will cause him to be repeatedly investigated by
    the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities.  After
    resigning from the Communist Party in 1957, he will continue to
    be active in civil right activities and educational pursuits
    until his retirement in 1984.  He will join the ancestors on
    June 17, 1993 in Norwalk, Connecticut.

1916 - Madeline M. Turner receives a patent for the fruit press.

1918 - Ella Fitzgerald is born in Newport News, Virginia.  Discovered
    at an amateur contest at the Apollo Theatre in 1934, she will
    be a leading jazz vocalist of the swing era.  Known for her
    renditions of such songs as "A Tisket, A Tasket" (her first
    million-seller), her unique scat styling and series of recordings
    of great American songwriters will make her an enduring favorite
    of jazz lovers. She will join the ancestors on June 15, 1996 in
    Beverly Hills, California.

1942 - Ruby Doris Smith Robinson is born in Atlanta, Georgia. She will
    become a civil rights activist and a founding member of The
    Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).  She will be
    one of the original "Freedom Riders," and will assist in creating
    the policy of "jail, no bail," employed by activists to fill
    southern jails and bring national attention to the civil rights
    struggle. After becoming SNCC's first and only female executive
    secretary, she will become ill with leukemia and joins the
    ancestors on October 7, 1967 in Atlanta, Georgia.

1944 - The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) is founded by Dr. Frederick
    Douglass Patterson, then president of Tuskegee Institute, with 27
    charter colleges and universities and a combined enrollment of
    14,000 students.

1944 - George Herriman joins the ancestors in Los Angeles, California
    at the age of 63. He had been a successful cartoonist who was
    the author of the comic strip "Krazy Kat."  The comic strip ran
    successfully from 1913 until Herriman's death.

1945 - The United Nations is founded at a San Francisco meeting
    attended by African American consultants, most notably W.E.B.
    Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Ralph J. Bunche and Walter White.

1950 - At the NBA's annual players draft, the Boston Celtics select
    Charles "Chuck" Cooper.  He is the first African American ever
    drafted by an NBA team.

1960 - A consent judgment in a Memphis federal court ended restrictions
    barring voters in Fayette County, Tennessee.  This was the first
    voting rights case under the Civil Rights Act.

1972 - Major General Frederick E. Davidson becomes the first African
    American to lead an Army division when he is assigned command of
    the 8th Infantry Division in Europe.

1979 - Olodum, an internationally recognized Afro-Brazilian Carnival
    association, is founded in Bahia, Brazil.  The music of this
    group celebrates Black history and protests racial discrimination.
    The name Olodum is derived from the name of the supreme Yoruba
    deity, Olodumare'.

1990 - Tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon joins the ancestors in
    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the age of 67. A leading influence
    in the bop movement along with Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie,
    Gordon played in London in the early 1960's and stayed until the
    mid-1970's.  Elected to the Jazz Hall of Fame in 1980, his role in
    the 1986 movie "'Round Midnight" will revive interest in his music
    and earn him an Academy Award nomination for best actor.

______________________________________________________________
           Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene' A. Perry
              "The TRUTH shall make you free"

   E-mail:  
   Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html
             http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm
   _____________________________________________________________
   To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to:
   In the E-mail body place:  Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name
   ______________________________________________________________
   Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. Copyright 1997 - 2007,
   All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with
   The Black Agenda.

Today in Black History 04/24/2010

*               Today in Black History - April 24               *

1867 - The first national meeting of the Ku Klux Klan is held at
    the "Maxwell House" in Nashville, Tennessee.

1867 - African American demonstrators stage ride-ins on Richmond,
    Virginia streetcars.  Troops were mobilized to restore
    order.

1884 - The Medico-Chirurgical Society of the District of Columbia
    is founded.  It is the first African American medical
    society.

1886 - Augustine Tolton is ordained as a Catholic priest after
    studying at the College of the Propagation of the Faith in
    Rome for five years.  Tolton will distinguish himself as a
    speaker and a pastor at Catholic churches in New Jersey,
    New York City, Chicago, and Quincy, Illinois.

1895 - The National Association of Colored Physicians, Dentists and
    Pharmacists is organized at the First Congregational Church
    in Atlanta, Georgia.  It will change its name to the
    National Medical Association in 1903.

1937 - Joseph "Joe" Henderson is born in Lima, Ohio. He will make
    his initial reputation in what might be called Blue Note
    Records' second classic phase in the early 1960s, when a
    new generation of young musicians began to extend the basic
    hard bop framework of the label's seminal 1950s output in
    more experimental directions. He will be one of the players
    at the core of that development, both as a leader and in
    recordings as a sideman with artists like Kenny Dorham, Lee
    Morgan, Andrew Hill, McCoy Tyner, Larry Young and Horace
    Silver, among others. His firm grasp of the root idiom
    combined with his experimental nature made him an ideal
    exponent of the new style, which did not abandon jazz
    structures in as radical a fashion as the free jazz
    movement. He will join the ancestors on June 30, 2001 in
    San Francisco.

1943 - Speaking on race relations and racial equality at Wayne
    State University, Langston Hughes says, "I am for the
    Christianity that fights poll tax, race discrimination,
    lynching, injustice and inequality of the masses. I don't
    feel that religion should be used to beat down Jews [and]
    Negroes, and to persecute other minority groups.

1944 - In Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court rules that a
    "white primary" law that excludes African Americans from
    voting is a violation of the 15th Amendment and thus
    unconstitutional.

1948 - James Melvin Washington is born in Knoxville, Tennessee. 
    He will become a leading theologian whose emphasis was the
    African American religious experience.  He will be a
    professor at the Union Theological Seminary in New York
    from 1975 until he joins the ancestors in 1997. His
    published works will include "Frustrated Fellowship: The
    Black Baptist Quest for Social Power" (1986), "A Testament
    of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr."
    (1986), and "Conversations with God: Two Centuries of
    Prayers by African Americans" (1994).

1954 - Wesley Cook is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He will
    become an activist during his teenage years and will be
    arrested and beaten for demonstrating against presidential
    candidate governor George Wallace of Alabama. He will be a
    founding member of the Philadelphia chapter of the Black
    Panther Party in 1968 and will be known as Mumia Abu-Jamal.
    After spending the summer months in 1970 working on the BPP
    newspaper in California, he will return to Philadelphia to
    work as a radio journalist with the Corporation for Public
    Broadcasting and will have his own talk show on station
    WUHY. He will lose his position as a radio journalist after
    his continual criticism of mayor Frank Rizzo and
    specifically his coverage of the police treatment of the
    militant organization MOVE. While working as a taxicab
    driver, he will be accused of killing a Philadelphia
    policeman, Daniel Faulkner in 1981.  Faulkner is killed in
    an altercation with Mumia's brother, after wounding Mumia.
    Mumia is presumed to be the shooter and will be convicted
    of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.  This
    verdict is handed down ignoring testimony of witnesses who
    saw the killer flee and irregularities during the trial. 
    On death row since the trial, Mumia will have numerous
    appeals turned down. His case will attract worldwide
    attention as a racist miscarriage of justice.

1965 - An armed revolt against the dictatorship in the Dominican
    Republic is ended with an invasion by United States troops. 
    Participating in the revolt is Maximiliano Gomez Horatio,
    the leader of the Dominican Popular Movement.

1972 - James M. Rodger, Jr., of Durham, North Carolina, is honored
    in a White House ceremony as National Teacher of the Year. 
    He is the first African American to receive the honor.

1972 - Robert Wedgeworth is named director of the American Library
    Association. He is the first African American to head the
    organization.

1993 - Oliver Tambo joins the ancestors in Johannesburg, South
    Africa at the age of 75.  He was the former president of
    the African National Congress (ANC), law partner of Nelson
    Mandela and an important anti-apartheid leader.

______________________________________________________________
           Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene' A. Perry
              "The TRUTH shall make you free"

   E-mail:  
   Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html
             http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm
   _____________________________________________________________
   To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to:
   In the E-mail body place:  Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name
   ______________________________________________________________
   Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. Copyright 1997 - 2007,
   All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with
   The Black Agenda.

Today in Black History 04/23/2010

*               Today in Black History - April 23               *

1856 - Granville T. Woods, who will become an inventor of steam
    boilers, furnaces, incubators and auto air brakes and
    holder of over 50 patents, is born in Columbus, Ohio.

1872 - Charlotte E. Ray becomes the first African American woman
    lawyer in ceremonies held in Washington, DC admitting her
    to practice before the bar. She had received her law degree
    from Howard University on February 27.

1894 - Jimmy Noone is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He will
    become a jazz clarinetist and a major influence on the
    swing music of the 1930's and 1940's. He will be a band
    leader and be best known as the leader of "Jimmy Noone's
    Apex Club Orchestra."  Two of the people most influenced by
    Jimmy Noone's style will be Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey. 
    He will join the ancestors after suffering a fatal heart
    attack, while performing with "Kid" Ory on April 19, 1944.

1895 - Jorge Mateus Vicente Lima is born in Alagoas, Brazil.  He
    will become a poet, novelist, essayist, painter, doctor,
    and politician.  He will become best known as a writer,
    manipulating Brazilian subjects, at the same time analyzing
    Afro-Brazilian culture and heritage. He will become a
    fixture in the Brazilian experience during the 1920's. Even
    though he became a physician, he will exhibit his talents
    as a writer in writings from his youth. His most famous
    writing will be a poem,    "Essa Nega Fulo" (That Black Girl
    Fulo), written in 1928.  The poem will explore the dynamics
    between a slave master, the slave and her mistress. He
    will join the ancestors in 1953 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

1898 - Alfredo da Rocha Viana Jr. is born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
    He will become a composer and bandleader best known as
    "Pixinguinha." By the time he was a teenager, he will be
    respected for his talent as a flutist. After traveling with
    his first band to France in 1922, he will open the door of
    Brazilian music to the world. He will be credited with
    assisting to invent the "samba." He is generally referred
    to as the King of Samba and the Father of Musica Popular
    Brasileira. He will join the ancestors on February 17, 1973
    in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

1913 - The National Urban League is incorporated in New York City.
    The organization is founded in 1910 when the Committee on
    Urban Conditions Among Negroes met in New York to discuss
    means to assist rural African Americans in the transition
    to urban life.  Founders include Mrs. Ruth Standish Baldwin
    and Dr. George Edmund Haynes, who becomes the league's
    first executive director.

1941 - New Yorkers are treated to a performance of Cafi Society at
    Carnegie Hall by a group of jazz artists that includes
    Albert "Jug" Ammons, Hazel Scott, and Art Tatum.  It also
    marks the first performance of Helena (later Lena) Horne,
    who sings "Summertime," among other songs.

1944 - The NAACP Youth Council and Committee for Unity in Motion
    Pictures selects its first Motion Picture Award recipients.
    Given to honor actors whose roles advance the image of
    African Americans in motion pictures, awards go to Rex
    Ingram for "Sahara," Lena Horne for "As Thousands Cheer,"
    Leigh Whipper for "The Oxbow Incident" and "Mission to
    Moscow," Hazel Scott for her debut in "Something to Shout
    About" and Dooley Wilson for his role as Sam in
    "Casablanca," among others. The awards will be the fore-
    runner to the NAACP's Image Awards.

1948 - Charles Richard Johnson in born in Evanston, Illinois.  He
    will become an novelist, essayist and screenwriter.  He
    will begin his career after graduating from the State
    University of New York at Stonybrook with a Ph.D. in
    philosophy.  He will be mentored by W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph
    Ellison, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright and John Gardner. He
    will be known for his works, "Middle Passage," "Oxherding
    Tale," "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," and "Being and Race:
    Black Writing Since 1970." He will win the 1990 National
    Book Award for "Middle Passage."

1954 - Hammerin' Hank Aaron, of the Milwaukee Braves, hits the
    first of what will be 755 career home runs, in a game
    against the St. Louis Cardinals. The score will be 7-5 in
    favor of the Braves.

1955 - U.S. Supreme Court refuses to review a lower court decision
    which would ban segregation in intrastate bus travel.

1964 - James Baldwin's play, "Blues for Mr. Charlie" opens on
    Broadway.  Starring Al Freeman, Jr., Diana Sands, and
    others, the play reveals the plight of African Americans in
    the South.

1971 - Columbia University operations are virtually ended for the
    year by African American and white students who seize five
    buildings on campus.

1971 - William Tubman, president of Liberia, joins the ancestors at
    the age of 76.  He had been president of Liberia since
    1944.

1998 - James Earl Ray, who confessed to assassinating the Rev.
    Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and then insisted he was
    framed, dies at a Nashville hospital at age 70.

______________________________________________________________
           Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene' A. Perry
              "The TRUTH shall make you free"

   E-mail:  
   Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html
             http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm
   _____________________________________________________________
   To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to:
   In the E-mail body place:  Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name
   ______________________________________________________________
   Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. Copyright 1997 - 2007,
   All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with
   The Black Agenda.

Today in Black History 04/22/2010

*               Today in Black History - April 22               *

1526 - The first recorded slave revolt occurs in a settlement of
    some five hundred Spaniards and one hundred slaves, located
    on the Pedee River in what is now South Carolina.

1882 - Benjamin Griffith Brawley is born in Columbia, South
    Carolina. He will become a prolific author and educator,
    serving as a professor of English at Morehouse, Howard,
    and Shaw universities. He will also serve as dean of
    Morehouse.  His books, among them "A Short History of the
    American Negro" and "A New Survey of English Literature,"
    will be landmark texts recommended at several colleges. He
    will join the ancestors in 1939.

1922 - Charles Mingus is born in Nogales, Arizona.  Raised in Watts,
    California, he will play double bass with Charlie Parker,
    Duke Ellington, and Bud Powell before becoming a bandleader
    and composer in his own right.  Although not as popular as
    Miles Davis or Ellington, Mingus, who also will play piano,
    will be considered one of the principal forces in modern
    jazz. He will join the ancestors in 1979 succumbing to Lou
    Gehrig's disease.

1950 - Charles Hamilton Houston, architect of the NAACP legal
    campaign, joins the ancestors in Washington, DC at the age
    of 54.

1964 - A Trinity College student occupies the school administration
    building to protest campus bias.

1964 - New York police arrest 294 civil rights demonstrators at the
    opening of the World Fair.

1970 - Yale University students protest in support of the Black
    Panthers.

1981 - The Joint Center for Political Studies reports that 2991
    African Americans held elective offices in 45 states and
    the District of Columbia, compared with 2621 in April, 1973,
    and 1185 in 1969.   The Center reports 108 African American
    mayors. Michigan had the largest number of African American
    elected officials (194), followed by Mississippi (191).

1981 - Brailsford Reese Brazeal, economist and former dean of
    Morehouse College, joins the ancestors in Atlanta, Georgia,
    at the age of 76.

1989 - Huey Newton, black activist and co-founder of the Black
    Panther Party, joins the ancestors, after being killed at
    age 47.

2000 - The Rev. R.F. Jenkins, a pastor active in civil-rights
    organizations, who led his church for 25 years, joins the
    ancestors in Omaha, Nebraska, after suffering a heart attack
    at the age of 87. He was the first African American Lutheran
    Church Missouri Synod minister in the Nebraska district. He
    and his wife, Beatrice, had come to Omaha in 1954 after
    serving pastorates in Alabama and North Carolina. He had
    also previously served eight years as a faculty member at
    Alabama Lutheran College. He had returned to his hometown of
    Selma, Alabama, to take part in a civil-rights march in
    1965. He served on the Omaha School District board from 1970
    to 1976, and retired from the pulpit in 1979.

______________________________________________________________
           Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene' A. Perry
              "The TRUTH shall make you free"

   E-mail:  
   Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html
             http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm
   _____________________________________________________________
   To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to:
   In the E-mail body place:  Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name
   ______________________________________________________________
   Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. Copyright 1997 - 2007,
   All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with
   The Black Agenda.

Today in Black History 04/21/2010

*               Today in Black History - April 21               *

1878 - The ship Azor leaves Charleston, South Carolina, on its
    first trip, carrying 209 African Americans bound for
    Liberia.

1892 - African American Longshoremen strike for higher wages in St.
    Louis, Missouri.

1900 - Dumarsais Estime' is born in Verrettes, Artibonite, Haiti.
    He will become president of Haiti in 1946 and will be
    regarded as a progressive leader and statesman.  He will
    join the ancestors in New York City in 1953.

1938 - The Harlem Suitcase Theatre opens with Langston Hughes's
    play "Don't You Want to be Free?" The play's star is a
    young Robert Earl Jones, father of James Earl Jones.

1940 - Souleymane Cisse' is born in Bamako, Mali.  He will become
    a filmmaker, graduating from the State Institute of Cinema
    in Moscow in 1969.  He will become one of the most popular
    filmmakers in Africa.

1966 - Milton Olive, Jr. becomes the first African American to win
    the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery during the
    Vietnam War. He will be honored for saving the lives of his
    fellow soldiers by falling on a live grenade while
    participating in a search-and-destroy mission near Phu
    Coung.

1965 - Pedro Albizu Campos joins the ancestors at the age of 71 in
    San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Campos was a Puerto Rican of
    African descent    who advocated Puerto Rico's independence
    and condemned United States imperialism and the 1898
    invasion and occupation of Puerto Rico.  Some Puerto Ricans
    refer to him as "Don Pedro," and one of the fathers of
    Puerto Rican national identity.

1966 - His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie visits Kingston,
    Jamaica.

1971 - Francois Duvalier, known as "Papa Doc," joins the ancestors
    in Port-au-Prince, Haiti at the age of 64.  He had been
    president-for-life of Haiti from 1957 to 1971. He will be
    succeeded in power by his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier.

1974 - By winning the Monsanto Open in Pensacola, Florida, Lee
    Elder becomes the first African American professional golfer
    to qualify for the Masters Tournament. It will be one of
    four PGA tour victories for the Dallas, Texas, native,
    including the Houston Open in 1976 and the Greater Milwaukee
    Open and Westchester Classic in 1978. Elder's career
    earnings of $2 million will place him among the top three
    African American golfers, along with Calvin Peete ($2.3
    million and 12 PGA tournament victories) and Charlie Sifford
    ($1 million).

2003 - Nina Simone, "High Priestess of Soul", joins the ancestors in
    Carry-le-Rouet (South of France) at the age of 70.  As she
    wished, her ashes will be spread in different African
    countries. She gained fame in the 1960s for her civil rights
    songs.

______________________________________________________________
           Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene' A. Perry
              "The TRUTH shall make you free"

   E-mail:  
   Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html
             http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm
   _____________________________________________________________
   To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to:
   In the E-mail body place:  Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name
   ______________________________________________________________
   Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. Copyright 1997 - 2007,
   All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with
   The Black Agenda.