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No cause of death has been confirmed John R. “Johnny” Nelson, Prince’s eldest half-brother and family heir has died, his sister Sharon L. Nelson announced on Friday. “It is with great sadness, we announce that our beloved brother Johnny R. Nelson received his Heavenly wings tonight at 7:47PM,” […]
The post Prince’s older brother John R. “Johnny” Nelson has died, family says appeared first on The New York Beacon.
Announcement of the death of former President Rawlings pic.twitter.com/7ext0fp4sd
— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) November 12, 2020
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[allAfrica] Cape Town -- Another sad day for Mzansi as veteran actor Mutodi Neshehe has died.
When James Brown passed away on December 25, 2006 at the age of 73 from congestive heart failure resulting from complications of pneumonia, elaborate public memorial services were held at The Apollo Theater in New York City and the James Brown Arena in Augusta, Georgia. They were officiated by his long time friend and associate, the Rev. Al Sharpton. Michael Jackson, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Lenny Kravitz, Lil Wayne, LL Cool J, Ice Cube, Ice-T, Little Richard, Ludacris, and Dr. Dre were among the celebrities paying tribute to The Hardest Working Man in Show Business.
Browns illustrious career spanned six decades. He recorded 71 studio albums, 14 live albums, and an incredible 144 singles. Mr. Dynamite had 16 number one R&B hits and defined the genre of funk music. He was a dazzling performer and shrewd businessman who was one of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Born May 3, 1933 in Barnwell, South Carolina, Brown began his career as a gospel singer in Georgia. As the leader of The Famous Flames, he released his first million selling hit, Please, Please, Please, in 1956. His many accolades include being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Kennedy Center Honors, Grammy and BET Lifetime Achievement Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In addition to being a consummate performer, The Godfather had a strong social conscious. He encouraged children to stay in school with his Dont Be A Dropout campaign that was endorsed by Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Brown also performed for troops in Vietnam at the invitation of President Lyndon Johnson, and his song Say It Loud, Im Black and Im Proud became a theme for the civil rights movement. He also calmed an angry crowd on April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., by performing a free televised concert in Boston, MA.
James Brown was a major influence on Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, and Jagger produced a theatrical film, and a
UK Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson is fighting for her life after she was shot in the head over the weekend. The Taking the Initiative party
The collaboration of diligent black people and concerned white philanthropists from the North was the impetus behind the formation of what is now Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas. Chartered in 1877 and opened in 1881 under the name of Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute by the American Missionary Association in Austin, Texas, Huston-Tillotson University was among the earliest all-black private colleges established in the Lone Star State. Today Huston-Tillotson University is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ.
In the 1870s George Jeffrey Tillotson, a Congregational minister from Connecticut, traveled to the Southwest in search of land to establish a school for African Americans. After finding several acres of land in Austin, Tillotson succeeded in raising $16,000.00 for an educational enterprise. While Tillotson was busy garnering funds for the project that bore his name, Samuel Huston, a wealthy landowner from Marengo, Iowa, contributed $9,000.00 to establish a co-educational school for African Americans in the same city. Originally known as the West Texas Conference School, the schools name was changed to Samuel Huston College 1890 and opened its doors in 1900.
Methodist Churches sponsored both Tillotson College and Samuel Huston College in the capital city of Texas. Like most all-black colleges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Huston-Tillotson College struggled between the opposing educational philosophies of Tuskegee Institute founder Booker T. Washington who supported industrial and vocational education for African Americans and Harvard-educated W.E.B. DuBois who believed college educated blacks would be best served by a liberal arts education. The two Texas colleges seemingly embraced sections of both philosophies. In 1935, Tillotson College became an all-womens institution. Eventually, the two schools merged in 1952, becoming Huston-Tillotson College.
In 2005, Huston-Tillotson College became Huston-Tillotson
Prairie View A&M University, the first state-supported college in Texas for African Americans, was founded as part of the post-Civil War effort to restructure education in the state of Texas. It is the second oldest state-funded institution of higher education in Texas.
In 1876 the Texas legislature mandated separate higher education opportunities for African Americans. Two years later the Alta Vista Agricultural & Mechanical College for Colored Youths opened its doors. The school’s original curriculum was the training of teachers, but in 1887 it expanded to include agriculture, nursing, arts and sciences, and mechanical arts. The school became a land grant school in 1890 and in 1919 began offering baccalaureate degrees. In 1932, the college initiated graduate programs in agricultural economics, rural education, agricultural education, school administration and supervision, and rural sociology.
After World War II, the Texas legislature changed the name of the school to Prairie View A&M College of Texas and required that all courses available at the University of Texas at Austin be available at Prairie View as well. In 1972, the legislature changed the name again to Prairie View A&M University and strengthened the bond with the University of Texas, making it an independent unit of the Texas A&M University System. Several more legislative measures, including a state constitutional amendment in 1984, strengthened the University’s standing as a part of the state sponsored higher education system by including it as a beneficiary of the Permanent University Fund, the main source of state funding for all University of Texas schools. The legislature also recognized the special role of Prairie View A&M as a Historically Black College and University that served “students of diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.”
Prairie View A&M University today is a successful research institution. The school currently offers over 50 undergraduate majors, 37 master’s degree programs and four doctoral degree programs in
Patricia Eva “Bonnie” Pointer, member of the Grammy award winning 80's hit group, The Pointer Sisters, has passed away.
According to Variety, her sister Anita Pointer said in a statement, “It is with great sadness that I have to announce to the fans of the Pointer Sisters that my sister Bonnie died this morning.
On behalf of my siblings and I and the entire Pointer family, we ask for your prayers at this time.”
Bonnie Pointer was 69 years old.
RELATED: Destiny’s Child Is Reportedly Planning A 2020 World Tour
Born in Oakland, California, Bonnie was an original member of the group but left by the mid 1970s to pursue a solo career.
The 27-year-old is reportedly in critical condition.
Get ready, New Edition fans! According to recent reports from their agency, the R&B group has big plans for 2022,... View Article
The post New Edition to launch 2022 tour with all six members, agency reveals appeared first on TheGrio.
Bonny Pointer, born Patricia Eva Porter, of the Pointer Sisters has passed away. She was 69.
by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest) Happy Music Monday from your friend and selector, Marlon. Hope this playlist and missive finds you safe and…
A custom guitar played by Prince at the height of his stardom in the 1980s and 1990s has sold for a staggering $563,500 at auction.
The “Blue Angel” Cloud 2 electric guitar skyrocketed beyond the estimate of $100,000 to $200,000 it was expected to fetch at the Music Icons sale run by Julien’s Auctions on Friday and Saturday in Beverly Hills.
Prince played the blindingly blue guitar with the artist’s “love” symbol on its neck beginning on the 1984 Purple Rain Tour, on the classic albums “Lovesexy” and “Sign O’ The Times.”
Archivists going through Prince’s possessions at his Paisley Park home and musical headquarters in Minnesota recently found the guitar that was thought to be lost during the four years since his death from an overdose at age 57.
A similar Prince guitar sold for $700,000 in 2016.
British social media influencer and YouTube star, Nicole Thea, has died. The 24-year-old was expecting her first child and was... View Article
The post Pregnant YouTuber and influencer Nicole Thea dead at 24 appeared first on TheGrio.
Thea was only 24-years-old.
Little Richard, a founding father of rock and roll whose fervent shrieks, flamboyant garb, and joyful, gender-bending persona embodied the spirit and sound of that new art form, died Saturday.
Starting with “Tutti Frutti” in 1956, Little Richard cut a series of unstoppable hits – “Long Tall Sally” and “Rip It Up” that same year, “Lucille” in 1957, and “Good Golly Miss Molly” in 1958 – driven by his simple, pumping piano, gospel-influenced vocal exclamations and sexually charged (often gibberish) lyrics.
The Beatles recorded several of his songs, including “Long Tall Sally,” and Paul McCartney’s singing on those tracks – and the Beatles’ own “I’m Down” – paid tribute to Little Richard’s shredded-throat style.
From “Long Tall Sally” to “Slippin’ and Slidin,’” Little Richard’s hits – a glorious mix of boogie, gospel, and jump blues, produced by Robert “Bumps” Blackwell — sounded like he never stood still.
Although none of the albums and singles he cut over the next decade for a variety of labels sold well, he was welcomed back by a new generation of rockers like the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan (who used to play Little Richard songs on the piano when he was a kid).
Freedmen’s Town is a nationally registered historical site. The site was originally a community located in the fourth ward of Houston, Texas that began in 1865 as the destination for former enslaved people from surrounding plantations in Texas and Louisiana after the Civil War.
Freedmen’s Town is located southwest of downtown. After emancipation was proclaimed in Texas on June 19, 1865, former slaves began migrating to Austin, Dallas, Galveston, and other cities but the largest migration was to Houston. Many of these newcomers traveled along San Felipe Road into the city from Brazos River Plantations south and southwest of Houston. Once there they paved many of the streets in brick. These new residents established a community where they were able to live mostly without the daily onslaught of racism and discrimination.
Freedmen’s Town quickly developed as a cultural center with the establishment of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church (1866) followed by other churches and social and cultural institutions, The community and the larger fourth ward black community that grew around it, was prosperous well into the early 20th Century. By 1930, Fourth Ward held approximately one third of Houston’s 36,000 African Americans and was famous for its many businesses that included restaurants and jazz night clubs which attracted even white Houstonians to the area.
Despite this apparent social and economic prosperity, black Houstonians and especially Freedmen’s Town residents were limited by a segregated environment which denied access to most city services and formal rules and informal practices that prevented them from gaining better jobs. In 1929, the Houston City Planning Commission proposed a permanent geographical and racial segregation of Houston that limited black residence to the Second, Fourth, and Fifth Wards. While the Houston City Council refused to adopt such a plan (partly because it was illegal), blacks in Freedman’s Town and the Fourth Ward faced restrictive covenants and redlining practices that prevented
Sasha Johnson, a Black Lives Matter leader, was hospitalized after being shot in the head in the Peckham neighborhood of southeast London. Here's everything we know about the shooting.
Little Richard’s music was covered by several artists thereafter and his influence included The Beatles, who opened for Little Richard as he toured Europe in 1962.
Little Richard influenced Otis Redding, James Brown, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, John Lennon and Cliff Richard and those influences frequently showed up in their music.
Bob Dylan performed covers of Little Richard’s songs on piano during a high school talent show with his rock and roll group, the Golden Chords.
Many Rock critics noted the similarities between Prince’s androgynous look and vocal style to Little Richard.
On tours that included groups of music stars, Little Richard and other artists such as Fats Domino and Chuck Berry would allow audiences Black and white to enter buildings via the same door but sit in separate places — but everyone would such as the North Alabama White Citizens Council warned that rock and roll “brings the races together.”
Raven-Symoné Christina Pearman, better known as “Raven-Symoné,” is an American actress and recording artist. Her entertainment career began when she starred in advertisements for well-known brands such as Jell-O and Cool Whip and as a young model for the Ford Modeling Company.
Pearman was born to Christopher B. and Lydia (Gaulden) Pearman on December 10, 1985 in Atlanta, Georgia. In the late 1990s, the family moved to New York City, New York in order to improve her chances at becoming an entertainer. At the age of four she auditioned for a role in the 1990 film Ghost Dad, but was turned down because of her young age. She so impressed comedian and actor Bill Cosby, however, that he later cast her in his television series The Cosby Show as Olivia Kendall, the adopted daughter of the Cosby’s oldest daughter. She was an instant hit with audiences.
In 1993, Pearman took on the role of Nicole Lee in ABC’s Hangin With Mr. Cooper. The following year, she played Stymie’s girlfriend in her first big screen role in the film The Little Rascals; she was nine years old at the time. The actress followed up these roles in Eddie Murphy vehicles Dr. Dolittle (1998) and its 2001 sequel, playing the title character’s daughter Charrise Dolittle.
Raven-Symoné graduated from Atlanta’s North Springs High School in 2003. She continued her acting career in television shows and feature films, including Disney’s That’s So Raven and The Cheetah Girls.
In 2006, she took on her first dramatic role as Briana McCallister in For One Night, a Lifetime movie inspired by the true story of a black teen who championed for change in her small Georgia town by integrating the prom after three decades of racially segregated proms.
A woman of many talents, Pearman’s recording career began in 1993 at the age of eight when she released Heres To New Dreams, becoming the youngest solo vocalist ever signed to the MCA label. Since that time, she has recorded several studio albums, including This is My Time in 2004 and The Cheetah Girls 2 soundtrack
By 1921 the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was well on its way to becoming the largest predominately black organization in the world. Marcus Garvey, the UNIAs founder, however, already recognized W.E.B. Du Bois and the NAACP as its chief rival. In his closing night speech to the second UNIA convention in New York, Garvey lays out his vision of globally emancipated Africans. Garveys speech appears below.
May it please your Highness the Potentate, Right Honorable Members of the Executive Council, Deputies and Delegates to the Second International Convention of Negroes of the World, Ladies and Gentlemen: - We are assembled here tonight to bring to a close our great convention of thirty-one days and thirty-one nights. Before we separate ourselves and take our departure to the different parts of the world from which we came, I desire to give you a message; one that you will, I hope, take home and propagate among the scattered millions of Africa’s sons and daughters.
MARCUS GARVEY SPEAKS
We have been here, sent here by the good will of the 4000,000,000 Negroes of the world to legislate in their interests, and in the time allotted to us we did our best to enact laws and to frame laws that in our judgment, we hope, will help solve the great problem that confronts us universally. The Universal Negro Improvement Association seeks to emancipate the Negro everywhere, industrially, educationally, politically and religiously. It also seeks a free and redeemed Africa. It has a great struggle ahead; it has a gigantic task to face. Nevertheless, as representatives of the Negro people of the world we have undertaken the task of freeing the 4000,000,000 of our race, and of freeing our bleeding Motherland, Africa. We counseled with each other during the thirty-one days....and out of all we did, and out of all we said, we have come to the one conclusion – that speedily Africa must be redeemed! We have come to the conclusion that speedily there must be an emancipated Negro race everywhere; and on going
Nobody anticipated it would lead to a staff revolt and become a national story, part of an extraordinary week where the news media’s sluggishness in building diverse newsrooms became part of the national conversation.
Editors lost jobs at The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Bon Appetit magazine and the Refinery29 website.
“Our communities are changing and our demographics are changing and we as a news industry have done a poor job of recognizing it,” said Katrice Hardy, Indianapolis Star executive editor and head of the diversity committee for the News Leaders Association.
“Whenever I’m in a gathering of the leaders of media I’m struck by the lack of diversity,” Dean Baquet, the first black executive editor of The New York Times, told Prince in 2015.
At the Inquirer last week, black reporters led a sickout following use of an insensitive headline, “Buildings Matter, Too,” on a story about about architecture damaged when protests turned violent.
Johnson has endured death threats in the past and details are still in development regarding the incident as she recovers.
There are more questions than answers this morning after a Chicago man reportedly killed three different people and wounded four... View Article
The post Chicago man kills 3, wounds 4 in random shooting spree appeared first on TheGrio.
Jaden Smith’s younger sister, Willow Smith (born 2000), is a pop singer and actress. He also has a half-brother, Trey Smith, from his father’s earlier marriage to Sheree Zampino.
(Jamaica Gleaner) Hotelier Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart has died.
Stewart was founder of Sandals Resorts, Beaches Resorts, and their parent company Sandals Resorts International, as well as The ATL Group and The Jamaica Observer.
The article Jamaican hotel mogul 'Butch' Stewart is dead at 79 appeared first on Stabroek News.
Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE Prince was more than rock royalty. He was an activist for artist rights. So, if the Prince that we knew for decades was around now,…
The post Prince Siblings Slice Up His Estate After Deal With Major Music Firm appeared first on The Black Chronicle.
