She had always been the one her family turned to when they needed help, and she didn’t hesitate to give it. She helped pay for weddings and rent. She made room for her nephew when her brother died of AIDS. And even now in her 50s, she took in a baby that wasn’t her own. Read more at washingtonpost.com.
Breaking News
Black Unemployment Rate Drops To 13.6
February 3, 2012 - In the most impressive surge for the job market since the middle of last decade, the United States added 243,000 jobs in January, far more than economists expected. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent, the lowest in three years. Read more at newsone.com.
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FAMU now suspends band camp and other recruitment
February 2, 2012 - Last week, four more members of FAMU's marching 100 band were arrested on hazing-related charges that were not related to Robert Champion's death. Since then, CNN has reported that the University's president has decided to suspend all summer band camps and recruitment for other organizations. FAMU's president of its Student Government Organization says, "This issue of hazing has had a far-reaching impact on the university and I believe that we need to pause for a moment to make sure that all of our students are ready to seriously move in a direction which will result in a complete culture change." Read more at thegrio.com.
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Oakland Names 1st Black Woman To Lead Big City Fire Dept.
February 6, 2012 - Beginning in March, a black woman will be at the helm of a major fire department for the first time in U.S. history. Theresa Deloach-Reed, 52, was named chief of the Oakland city fire department. Reed has been fighting fires for nearly 30 years, has seen many changes on the job and calls her appointment "exciting."
Reed is leaving her position as assistant fire chief of San Jose, California. She said that her career as a firefighter began when her brother asked her to pass an application along to another brother. In 1986, Reed was working a job for a telephone company that involved her climbing poles to install new lines. Afraid of layoffs and with climbing experience, she decided to fill out the application herself. Read more at thegrio.com.
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Beyoncé shows off her curvy post-baby body
February 7, 2012 - Hiding a post-pregnancy body beneath your husband's clothes is not an option for celebrity mothers.
And Beyoncé has surrendered the comfort of Jay-Z's baggy T-shirts for a simply striking red dress to showcase her enviable figure without a hint of an unwanted lump or bump.
The Crazy In Love star, who gave birth to the couple's first child Blue Ivy Carter exactly a month ago on January 7, embraced her voluptuous silhouette and smiled proudly as she paraded her curves. Read more at dailymail.co.uk.
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Obama leads Romney nationally in new Washington Post/ABC poll
February 6, 2012 - According to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll, President Obama is beginning to open up a lead nationally in general election polls against his most likely Republican rival. Obama now leads Romney 51 to 45 percent, and he also beats Gingrich 54 to 43 percent. The Washington Post reports:
Boosted by improved public confidence in his economic stewardship, President Obama for the first time holds a clear edge over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in a hypothetical general-election matchup, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Read more at washingtonpost.com.
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Mitt Romney: Susan G. Komen Was Right to Cut Planned Parenthood
February 7, 2012 - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney thrust himself into the the Susan G. Komen controversy on Monday when he said in a radio interview that he agreed with Komen's decision to cut Planned Parenthood funding.
When Minnesota radio host Scott Hennen asked Romney whether Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the leading U.S. anti-breast cancer charity, should continue to give Planned Parenthood grants for cancer screenings and mammogram referrals, Romney said, "I don't think so." Read more at huffingtonpost.com.
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Bow Wow ordered to be arrested on sight by Georgia judge
February 6, 2012 - A Georgia judge has ordered that hip-hop star Bow Wow be arrested on sight and held in custody until he can produce documents in connection to a civil lawsuit. TMZ reports that the 24-year-old was ordered to pay almost $100,000 to a tour bus company for not paying his bill. Bow Wow has not yet been taken into custody. Read more at thegrio.com.
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Obama’s Grandma Injured In Car Accident In Kenya
February 6, 2012 - President Barack Obama’s 91-year-old step-grandmother suffered bruises and shock after a car she was traveling in rolled over, a relative and a hospital official said Monday.
The relative said Sarah Obama was traveling to her home in the village of Kogelo, in western Kenya, when the accident happened Saturday night. Read more at newsone.com.
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‘King’ Eddie Long Apologizes To Jewish Community
February 5, 2012 - In the wake of a loud outcry throughout the Jewish community, Bishop Eddie Long has apologized to the Anti-Defamation League for last Sunday’s service at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church during which Rabbi Ralph Messer crowned him a king, reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
“The ceremony was not my suggestion, nor was it my intent, to participate in any ritual that is offensive in any manner to the Jewish community,” Long wrote in a letter sent to Bill Nigut, Southeast Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League. Read more at newsone.com.
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Lost Malcolm X Speech Discovered At Brown University
February 5, 2012 - The recording was forgotten, and so, too, was the odd twist of history that brought together Malcolm X and a bespectacled Ivy Leaguer fated to become one of America’s top diplomats.
The audiotape of Malcolm X’s 1961 address in Providence might never have surfaced at all if 22-year-old Brown University student Malcolm Burnley hadn’t stumbled across a reference to it in an old student newspaper. He found the recording of the little-remembered visit gathering dust in the university archives. Read more at newsone.com.
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Black men a 'distinct minority' at HBCUs
February 6, 2012 - One look at the make-up of any university campus and you'll notice one thing: black men are scarce. Although this is almost to be expected at predominately white institutions, apparently black men are equally hard to come by at our nation's HBCUs.
According to the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, black women outnumber black men 3-to-2 at HBCUs. Moreover, at the 100 accredited black colleges and universities, 61.5 percent of the attendees are women. Read more at thegrio.com.
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The GOP's Racist Attacks Against the First Lady
February 3, 2012 - When we think of a First Lady, any First Lady, we often reflect on how distinct, prestigious or significant her role is. As the virtual Ambassador for the President, the First Lady usually provides a more human side for the highest office in the land. She is an extension of the Commander-in-Chief, while still carving out her own vital role whether it be in politics, education, nutrition, health care or any other realm. Read more at newsone.com.
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Black CEOs comprise just 1% of leaders of largest companies in US
February 4, 2012 - African -American CEOs account for a mere one percent of the chiefs of the 500 largest companies in the US, a new study has revealed.
The study published in the current issue of the Academy of Management Journal suggested that stereotypes about blacks' leadership failings and biases shape perceptions about the community. Read more at newstrackindia.com.
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Some blacks insist: ‘I’m not African-American’
February 4, 2012 - The labels used to describe Americans of African descent mark the movement of a people from the slave house to the White House. Today, many are resisting this progression by holding on to a name from the past: “black.”
For this group — some descended from U.S. slaves, some immigrants with a separate history — “African-American” is not the sign of progress hailed when the term was popularized in the late 1980s. Instead, it’s a misleading connection to a distant culture. Read more at blackpoliticsontheweb.com.
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Black Americans Given Longer Sentences than White Americans for Same Crimes
February 4, 2012 - A new academic study of 58,000 federal criminal cases has found significant disparities in sentencing for blacks and whites arrested for the same crimes. The research led to the conclusion that African-Americans’ jail time was almost 60% longer than white sentences.
According to M. Marit Rehavi of the University of British Columbia and Sonja B. Starr, who teaches criminal law at the University of Michigan Law School, the racial disparities can be explained “in a single prosecutorial decision: whether to file a charge carrying a mandatory minimum sentence. Read more at allgov.com.
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For some black women, economy and willingness to aid family strains finances
February 5, 2012 - The Great Recession carried special pain for black women like Jane Ladson.
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Group seeks to grow state's black tourism
February 5, 2012 - More than 60 people converged in a reconstructed, one-room schoolhouse in Berkeley County on Saturday to strategize and network on developing the African-American tourism niche in the Lowcountry.
The first-ever "Raising the Curtain: African-American Niche of the Tourism Industry" conference was hosted by Wando Huger Community Development Corp. and featured sessions on developing business, public grants for nonprofits and growing the niche. Read more at postandcourier.com.
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Media Portrayal of Race in Sports Reveals Biases in Corporate World
February 5, 2012 - The U.S. may have its first black president and the Fortune 500 its first black female chief executive, but African-American CEOs account for a mere 1 percent of the chiefs of those 500 largest companies.
Andrew Carton, assistant professor of management and organization at Penn State Smeal College of Business, and Ashleigh Shelby Rosette of Duke University, suggest in the current issue of the Academy of Management Journal that what steers people’s perceptions of African-Americans are stereotypes about blacks’ leadership failings, biases that may not even be conscious. Read more at gantdaily.com.
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How the GOP Is Resegregating the South
North Carolina State Senator Eric Mansfield was born in 1964, a year before the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed the right to vote for African-Americans. He grew up in Columbus, Georgia, and moved to North Carolina when he was stationed at Fort Bragg. He became an Army doctor, opening a practice in Fayetteville after leaving the service. Mansfield says he was always “very cynical about politics” but decided to run for office in 2010 after being inspired by Barack Obama’s presidential run. Read more at thenation.com.
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Rick Tyler, Former Gingrich Aide, To Al Sharpton: Democrats Abort Black Babies (VIDEO)
February 1, 2012 - Al Sharpton and Rachel Maddow had an explosively caustic argument with former Newt Gingrich spokesman (and current Gingrich Super PAC adviser) Rick Tyler about the candidate's approach to race on Tuesday night, in which Tyler himself used some very dicey rhetoric about African Americans.
Both MSNBC hosts had previously excoriated Gingrich for calling President Obama the "Entertainer In Chief" and telling him to "stop singing" during his speech just after his loss in the Florida primary, saying that he was attempting to tap into racial animosity from white conservatives. Maddow took that concern directly to Tyler, who batted it away. Read more at huffingtonpost.com.
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