Alvin Slaughter is an American gospel musician, worship leader, singer-songwriter.
Slaughter is based out of New York City, where he was a member of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir until the early 1990s,[1] when he was signed by Integrity Music and began his solo career.[2] He has been nominated for several Dove Awards and performed on the TBN television network. He is also the father of Christian rapper, Sean Slaughter.
https://twitter.com/SerenaWLOVE/status/572182349649203200/photo/1
https://twitter.com/fisahfierce/status/571669376723750913/photo/1
Watching Downton Abbey..
EEeeeeeeee!!!!!!!
So happy right now…
Go Mr. Carson!!
I know right. Ms. Hughes and Mr. Carson!!!!
Oldest black bookstore in the country is evicted from it’s location
By Chris Maina
The country’s oldest Black bookstore, Marcus Books, has been evicted. It has been central to the intellectual and cultural life of the Black community in San Francisco. But during the summer of 2014, the bookstore was no more .
It began as a bookstore, print shop and an organizing center on McAllister Street back in 1960. It was named after Marcus Garvey, an icon to the Pan-African Movement. The store was instrumental in teaching many about Black history and culture.
“The current property owner has changed the locks to the door of 1712 Fillmore St.,” Karen and Greg Johnson, the store’s co-owners, said in a statement. This was done on Tuesday after the store’s monthly rent payments were backed up.
This is a big blow to the dwindling Black community in San Francisco, as many blacks have left the city recently. Many African-Americans have stated that San Francisco is not welcoming to blacks.
There have been numerous speeches by Mayor Ed Lee saying that he is committed to correcting the wrongs done by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency that brought down thriving businesses that were owned by African-Americans in the Fillmore District.
Marcus Books thought that the city authorities would come to their rescue and take affirmative action on their behalf. Marcus Books was the only thriving business left since the redevelopment devastation where the once-thriving community was virtually destroyed. This happened at the end of the 1960s into the early 1970s.
There has been considerable effort by the store’s supporters and the Johnson family to keep America’s oldest Black bookstore up and running. For years, the store has fought numerous attempts at eviction. The owners applied for a historic landmark status and also held a fundraiser to buy back the Victorian building where it is located. The building, where it stands, was given a landmark status, but the fundraiser fell short of $750,000.
Mary Ratcliff, an editor with the Francisco Bayview newspaper, sees the closure as a sign of how the city has little value for Black culture. Many of the city’s residents have called for the repeal of public policies that suppresses the Black community.
http://financialjuneteenth.com/oldest-black-bookstore-in-the-country-is-evicted-from-its-location/
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.’S SON SELLING LAVISH $4.8 MILLION DOLLAR MANSION
As Dexter King and Martin Luther King III continue to fight it out in court with Bernice King over who owns the rights to their father’s legacy, Dexter King is putting his multimillion dollar mansion up for sale.
If you recall, Bernice King alleged in 2014 that her brothers were trying to sell their father’s Bible, along with other items, so that they could cash in.
In the letter, Dr. Bernice King wrote, “my brothers, Dexter Scott King and Martin Luther King, III, notified me that they want to sell to a private buyer our father’s most prized possessions, his Nobel Peace Prize Medal and his personal Bible which was used by President Barack Obama as he was sworn in for his second term in office and subsequently signed by him.”
Dr. Bernice King expressed her feeling that her father’s items are too important to be sold to the highest bidder.
http://financialjuneteenth.com/martin-luther-king-jr-s-son-selling-lavish-4-8-million-dollar-mansion/
A Supreme Court decision against Obamacare could cost states billions and billions of dollars
By Greg Sargent February 19
If you want a sense of just how far-reaching the impact of a Supreme Court decision gutting Obamacare subsidies could prove, new data on health care signups released this week provide a fresh way to game out such a ruling’s consequences.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced the other day that some 11.4 million people have signed up for health plans through federal marketplaces. The new HHS data also provides a breakdown of the number of sign-ups in each of the three dozen states on the federal exchange — precisely the states that would no longer get subsidies if the Court invalidates tax credits to people in all federal exchange states.
This provides a way of approximating just how much money in tax credits each state could lose if the Court rules that way. We’re talking about enormous amounts of money: Florida could lose nearly half a billion dollars per month in subsidies to its constituents. Texas could lose a quarter of a billion dollars per month. North Carolina and Georgia could each lose over one hundred million per month.
Here it is in chart form (a note on methodology is below), detailing the impact of such a ruling on the 14 states that stand to lose the most:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/02/19/a-scotus-decision-against-obamacare-could-cost-states-billions-and-billions-of-dollars/
https://twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/status/572216559751593984/photo/1
OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network Orders New Full Seasons (20+ Episodes Each) of All 4 Tyler Perry Series
Photo of Tambay A. Obenson
By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
February 27, 2015 at 5:27PM
Interesting times ahead for the OWN network, with 4 Tyler Perry-branded series, and an Ava DuVernay-developed (writer, director, exec producer) drama series based on the acclaimed novel “Queen Sugar,” by Natalie Baszile,
But before that period comes… OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network announced today that it is ordering additional episodes of its 4 Tyler Perry scripted series, including 23 one-hour episodes of the drama “The Haves and the Have Nots;” 22 one-hour episodes of the companion drama “If Loving You is Wrong;” 22 half-hour episodes of the comedy “Love Thy Neighbor;” and 20 half-hour episodes of the comedy “For Better or Worse.”
“Oprah Winfrey’s partnership with Tyler Perry has been a tremendous success, garnering millions of viewers for OWN and setting ratings records,” said Erik Logan, president, OWN. “Tyler’s original series have quickly become appointment viewing for a passionate audience and OWN is pleased to deliver 87 new episodes.”
Tyler Perry’s scripted series have bolstered OWN’s rise to a Top 25 cable network in primetime among women 25-54.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/own-oprah-winfrey-network-orders-new-full-seasons-20-episodes-each-of-all-4-tyler-perry-series-20150227
She won an Academy Award…..the $50,000 was more than enough. Mo’Nique isn’t sounding smart at all on this.
……………………………………………………..
Mo’Nique Said She Was Paid $50,000 for ‘Precious’ + Responds to Lee Daniels “Play the Game” Advice (Video)
Photo of Tambay A. Obenson
By Tambay A. Obenson | Shadow and Act
February 27, 2015 at 11:10AM
It all started last week, with a rather revealing interview Mo’Nique gave to The Hollywood Reporter, in which she dished on the criticism she faced for her role in “Precious,” what life after Oscar has been like, in terms of opportunities and income, and discovering that she’d been blacklisted! Why? The actress herself wasn’t entirely certain, but suggested potential reasons based on what others, including her “Precious” director, Lee Daniels, told her.
To wit: “What I understood was that when I won that Oscar, things would change in all the ways you’re saying: It should come with more respect, more choices and more money. It should, and it normally does […] I got a phone call from Lee Daniels maybe six or seven months ago. And he said to me, “Mo’Nique, you’ve been blackballed.” And I said, “I’ve been blackballed? Why have I been blackballed?” And he said, “Because you didn’t play the game.” And I said, “Well, what game is that?” And he gave me no response. The next thing he said to me was, “Your husband is outbidding you.” But he never asked me what [salary] we were asking for. You know, my husband and I had to change things so we wouldn’t have to depend on [others]. So we do it independently. We’re very proud of taking the independent route, and we have a movie coming out on April 24 called Blackbird.”
This week, both Mo’Nique and Lee Daniels appeared on Don Lemon’s program on CNN – each on a different day this week. And, of course, Lemon asked both of them about, let’s call it, “the situation;” first he talked to Daniels, who, essentially, reiterated what he’s said previously: “I think that there were demands that were made on the ‘Precious’ campaign that everyone knows hurt her. I told her that […] You’ve gotta play ball. This is not just show — it is show business.”
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/monique-said-she-was-paid-50-000-for-precious-responds-to-lee-daniels-play-the-game-advice-20150227
‘Cooley High’ Writer and Cast Reflect on the Film 40 Years Later
Shadow and Act
By Shadow And Act | Shadow and Act
February 26, 2015 at 7:38PM
In honor of Black History Month and the film’s 40th anniversary, the WGA Committee of Black Writers hosted an intimate screening of “Cooley High” last night in Los Angeles.
The classic story about a group of Chicago teens in the 1960s remained a fan favorite over the years for its heartfelt nostalgia and as Sergio pointed out, the movie recently came to Blu Ray.
Screening attendees got a rare chance to hear about the making of the film from “Cooley High” screenwriter Eric Monte and cast members Glynn Turman and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, who played Preach and Cochise, in a post-screening conversation moderated fittingly by “Hollywood Shuffle” director Robert Townsend.
Said Turman, “The film is authentic because it’s from Eric’s actual life, and somehow it was also my story, and the story of so many other young men.”
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/cooley-high-writer-and-cast-reflect-on-the-film-40-years-later-20150226
Israel said to seek additional $300 million from US for missile defense
Officials reportedly turn to Congress to make request, bypassing White House amid spat over PM’s upcoming speech
BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF February 28, 2015, 11:59 am
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-seek-additional-300-million-for-missile-defense/#ixzz3TBU7f61Y
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook
NO! HELL ….. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
https://twitter.com/ThatNeilGuy/status/572083474145918976/photo/1
My beans with ham hocks, ground beef and sausage. Mercy! Ham hocks off the chain, hear me?
LOL!
hee hee hee
………………..
Martin O’Malley, in Veiled Jab at Hillary Clinton, Derides Politics of ‘Triangulation’
By MAGGIE HABERMAN
FEB. 28, 2015
Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor who is likely to seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, took a veiled shot at a potential rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a speech in South Carolina on Saturday, criticizing the politics of “triangulation” that have historically been associated with the Clintons.
“The most fundamental power of our party and our country is the power of our moral principles,” Mr. O’Malley said, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by an aide.
In words that echoed those of Senator Barack Obama when he battled Mrs. Clinton in 2007 for the Democratic nomination, Mr. O’Malley added: “Triangulation is not a strategy that will move America forward. History celebrates profiles in courage, not profiles in convenience.”
Mr. O’Malley’s comments came at the Democratic Party’s John Spratt Issues Conference in Myrtle Beach, and South Carolina is a crucial early primary state that Mrs. Clinton lost to Mr. Obama. Mr. O’Malley has in the past declined to contrast himself with Mrs. Clinton.
Some Democrats hope Mrs. Clinton will face a strong primary challenge, worrying that without one she might be unresponsive to some progressives.
The remarks from Mr. O’Malley, who is viewed as facing an uphill battle, signaled a new phase both of his own efforts, after a year of saying he was not in “compare-contrast” mode with Mrs. Clinton, and of the early 2016 campaign.
The politics of triangulation is a phrase often used to describe former President Bill Clinton’s brand of centrism. It has also been used to criticize Mrs. Clinton as overly poll driven, and liberals have long used it as a cudgel. In a pivotal Democratic primary speech in November 2007 in Iowa, Mr. Obama deployed “triangulation” as an attack line against Mrs. Clinton.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton declined to comment on Mr. O’Malley’s remarks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/us/politics/martin-omalley-in-veiled-jab-at-hillary-clinton-derides-politics-of-triangulation.html?_r=0
Bring it , Governor O’Malley!
https://twitter.com/indoob/status/572149471984926720
No Respect For Hip-Hop’s O.G.s: Why Many Legendary MCs Still Need to Hustle
02.26.15
While forgettable white “classic rock” acts like Steely Dan and the Eagles pack stadiums, some of the biggest names in rap history are forced to slum it in clubs. What gives? Imagine Billy Joel, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and Led Zeppelin embarking on a 32-city tour together. Picture the legions of aging Baby Boomers who would throw heaps of cash at the chance to hold their lighters in the air and watch four legendary classic rock acts do their thing on the same damn stage. Imagine the monstrous shows around the country at mega-venues like the Staples Center and Madison Square Garden.
In 2013, hip-hop luminaries LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, and De La Soul hit the road together for the “Kings of the Mic” tour. One of hip-hop’s most consistent hitmakers with over 20 years of smash singles in his repertoire; the titans of political rap who have one of the best live shows in the genre; the gangsta rap godfather whose first three albums alone can fill up a set list; and the Native Tongues’ longest-running act. When these icons of classic hip-hop hit the road, they were booked into venues like the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan, The Fox Theater in Atlanta, and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. These are respectable amphitheaters, but a far cry from 20,000-seaters like The Garden.
Thirty-six years after “Rappers Delight,” hip-hop still has not been allowed to graduate to a cultural standing that mirrors what’s transpired for majority-white rock acts as that genre neared the four-decade mark. The artists who should be considered the legends of hip-hop’s most creatively fertile and culturally potent era—the “Classic hip-hop” period from 1987 to 1997—have not been elevated to the status of pop culture icons in the vein of a Dylan or Springsteen. There are no Scorsese-directed Rakim concert films released to theaters. No retrospective EPMD boxed sets. Nas has never graced the cover ofRolling Stone. VIBE and XXL are out of print. Without the sort of media onslaught that accompanied rock’s second generation as it moved into middle age, classic hip-hop’s biggest names have been reduced to just “old-school rappers” who used to be hot in the ancient times—that sepia-toned yesteryear before Jay Z was turning dope tales into dollars.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/26/no-respect-for-hip-hop-s-ogs-why-many-legendary-mcs-still-need-to-hustle.html?via=desktop&source=twitter
MAJOR FAIL And this simpleton was 2nd in the CPAC straw poll
WALLACE: All right. Let’s talk about leadership. You’re president of the United States right now.
Would you commit U.S. ground forces to combat ISIS in any way, shape or form?
WALKER: I believe we should not take any action off the table. I don’t want to run into the war. I’ve got a bunch of bracelets on my wrist, these Gold Star families, people who’ve given them to me at the funerals of their sons. And certainly I’m not eager to go do another one of those — those funerals in the future.
But by the same token, I don’t want any of these men or any other men and women like them to have died in vain. I think when we look at that and say there’s radical Islamic terrorism, it’s like a virus, we needed to be prepared to do what it takes to make sure it doesn’t spread.
WALLACE: You say you wouldn’t take anything off the table. That doesn’t quite answer my question.
WALKER: Yes.
WALLACE: You’re president today. You talk about leadership.
Would you commit U.S. ground forces, whether it’s a full-scale invasion, whether it’s Special Forces? Would you commit U.S. ground forces to a combat role?
WALKER: For me to do something like that would require a number of things.
Scott Walker Bombs On Fox News By Dodging Question About Combating ISIS
By: Jason Easleymore from Jason Easley
Sunday, March, 1st, 2015, 2:19 pm
Gov. Scott Walker demonstrated that he can’t even handle an interview on Fox News Sunday by dodging a question about whether or not he would send U.S. ground troops to combat ISIS
Fox News tried to make Scott Walker look good, but it is a nearly impossible task when he constantly dodged their questions. Instead of looking presidential, each of Walker’s national television interviews reveals how unpresidential he is. Gov. Walker is looking more and more like Mitt Romney. He has no clear vision for why he wants to president. His campaign is consisting of some tired platitudes that were worn out by the time Ronald Reagan left office.
Gov. Walker’s tactic of not answering questions should sound familiar to those who followed his gubernatorial campaigns in Wisconsin. Scott Walker is trying to win the Republican nomination by using a lot of buzzwords like leadership, but not answering questions with specifics about what he would do if elected. Walker is trying to hide his agenda, but there are clues in his non-answers. For example, Walker’s use of the line about listening to the chain of command is straight George W. Bush speak.
Scott Walker is beloved by conservatives because he knows how to appeal to them. What remains to be seen is how Walker’s bumbling and dodging will be viewed by the nation as a whole as the 2016 presidential campaign swings into gear. Gov. Walker is more reminiscent of the unholy love child of Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney than a candidate who has a real chance of ever being elected president.
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/03/01/scott-walker-bombs-fox-news-dodging-question-combating-isis.html
Go LUVVIE! Go drop her some love.for the WIN.
Lupita, Shonda and the 2015 ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon
http://www.awesomelyluvvie.com/2015/03/lupita-shonda-2015-essence-black-women-in-hollywood-luncheon.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Luvvie+%28Awesomely+Luvvie%29
How an attack on Obama led to Republican embarrassment over DHS funding
3/1/15 11:38 AM EST
In December, at a meeting of the raucous Republican Study Committee in the basement of the Capitol, Georgia Rep. Tom Price made a recommendation he hoped would help resolve an uprising in his party over President Barack Obama’s immigration orders.
Republicans, who had just seized control of both houses of Congress, had howled in fury when Obama decided to protect roughly 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation and allow them to work legally. Republicans were demanding an aggressive and immediate response.
That’s when Price — a trusted conservative and the next leader of the House Budget Committee — made a pitch that caught steam and ultimately made its way to Republican leaders: Hold hostage funding for immigration enforcement and force Obama to relent on his policies.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/obama-republicans-dhs-spending-115632.html#ixzz3TAYIU5Ho
John Boehner Bails On Reality: Blames Obama For All Republican Failures
By: Jason Easleymore from Jason Easley
Sunday, March, 1st, 2015, 12:41 pm
Speaker Boehner delivered an absurdly delusional appearance on CBS’s Face The Nation where he blamed President Obama for all of his own failures as a leader.
Speaker Boehner was immediately asked about his broken promise that there would be no more manufactured crisis if Republicans won control of Congress. He answered by blaming President Obama for everything.
Boehner said, “Well, because the president took actions with regard to immigration that were far beyond what the law allows him to do. You have to remember, John that the president said twenty-two times, twenty-two that he couldn’t do what he eventually did. I made it clear that we were going to do everything we could to block the president’s executive overreach, and that’s the basis of the problem that we’re trying to deal with, and uh, Senate refused, uh, to pass their own bill. Senator McConnell tried for almost a month to get the Senate to act, but four times the Senate Democrats blocked the ability to even debate the bill.”
Later, Boehner was asked if he could lead the House. He answered, “I think so. I think so Remember what caused this. We have a President Of The United States overreaching, and that’s not just on immigration. You know, thirty-eight times he made unilateral changes to Obamacare. Many of these, I believe far beyond his constitutional authority to do so. So the frustration in the country, represented through the frustration of our members has people scared to death that the president is running the country right off the cliff.”
Speaker Boehner’s position is to completely ignore reality by blaming President Obama for everything. It was John Boehner who came up with the plan to trying to use Homeland Security funding to force the president to overturn his own executive orders. It was Boehner who caved to the radicals in the House Republican caucus by moving forward with the plan even after he was told by Senate Republicans that it was a bad idea.
The best way to understand the depth of John Boehner’s troubles is to realize that he played the blame Obama card. Boehner didn’t try to confront the president. He didn’t announce any plan to win the Homeland Security funding dispute. The Speaker of the House put his tail between his legs and blamed the President Of The United States for the mess that he has gotten himself into.
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/03/01/john-boehner-bails-reality-blames-obama-republican-failures.html#.VPNbIZFdY2s.twitter
Cooking for my little girl..
Roast, potatoes & carrots, cabbage & she specially asked for Pinto beans. I said, that’s a lot of starch, little girl. She said….I want it. :)
So pinto beans it is with ham hocks, ground beef & sausage w/ cornbread. Dr Pepper.
YUMMY! If there’s any left over, send me a plate will ya.
@ Ametia…There will be plenty.
SG2,
this is eery.
Last night, before I went to bed, I put the roast, potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions into the crock pot.
I also put into a pot on the stove to soak….pinto beans..LOL
So, tell your daughter, I’m feeling her!
Oh! Oh!
Wow!
Rikyrah, that is something! Whoa!
Guess GiGi’s new project isn’t all that after all
…………………
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Sunday Long Read: Adventures In Journalimisim
Posted by Zandar
This week’s Sunday Long Read is Ken Silverstein’s amazing expose’ of Glenn Greenwald and the clowns at The Intercept, who got high on their own egos and hired a bunch of crack journalists…and nobody who actually knew how to run a investigative news website.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2015/03/sunday-long-read-adventures-in.html
Anyone watch the OWN Reality show about the Brothas with the wing business?
2 Fat 2 Fly
1/25/2015 @ 1:41PM 193,937 views
Bibi Netanyahu — aka ‘The Republican Senator From Israel’ — May Have Made A Fatal Political Mistake
Set aside, for the moment, the diplomatic row being sparked by Speaker of the House John Boehner as he seeks to create two conflicting foreign policies for the United States—one pursued by the President and the other pursued by the Congress.
Boehner’s hubris, in conjunction with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s desire to interfere with American policy while seeking to bolster his re-election campaign, may turn out to be the very political screw-up that will allow the joint ticket forged by the Labor-Hatnuah political parties to bring an end to Netanyahu’s long reign atop the Israeli government.
According to a Channel 10 poll out this past Thursday in Israel, the joint ticket offered by the Labor-Hatnuah coalition currently stands to grab 24 seats in the Israeli Knesset in the coming election—up one seat from the previous poll—while Netanyahu’s Likud Party is holding steady with just 20 seats.
The poll also projects that the party leaders atop the Labor-Hatnuah ticket, Issac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, have an increasingly good chance of forming the next Israeli government by assembling a coalition of between 61 and 68 seats in support of their government.
It turns out that there are no shortage of Israeli voters who don’t care for the idea of their Prime Minister jumping into the middle of America’s internal disagreements over foreign policy and further understand that, at the end of the day, Israel remains deeply dependent upon the United States for critical assistance in the never-ending battle to preserve and protect their nation.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2015/01/25/bibi-netanyahu-aka-the-republican-senator-from-israel-may-have-made-a-fatal-political-mistake/
His eyes are shifty and too close together.
there’s no way this can go wrong…right?
…………….
Private police carry guns and make arrests, and their ranks are swelling
By Justin Jouvenal February 28 at 7:48 PM
Michael Youlen stopped a driver in a Manassas apartment complex on a recent night and wrote the man a ticket for driving on a suspended license. With a badge on his chest and a gun on his hip, Youlen gave the driver a stern warning to stay off the road.
The stop was routine police work, except for one fact: Youlen is not a Manassas officer. The citation came courtesy of the private force he created that, until recently, he called the “Manassas Junction Police Department.”
He is its chief and sole officer.
He is a force of one.
And he is not alone. Like more and more Virginians, Youlen gained his police powers using a little-known provision of state law that allows private citizens to petition the courts for the authority to carry a gun, display a badge and make arrests. The number of “special conservators of the peace” — or SCOPs, as they are known — has doubled in Virginia over the past decade to roughly 750, according to state records.
The growth is mirrored nationally in the ranks of private police, who increasingly patrol corporate campuses, neighborhoods and museums as the demand for private security has increased and police services have been cut in some places
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/private-police-carry-guns-and-make-arrests-and-their-ranks-are-swelling/2015/02/28/29f6e02e-8f79-11e4-a900-9960214d4cd7_story.html
um HELL NAW!
https://twitter.com/YeahImFamous/status/571901563842772992/photo/1
https://twitter.com/vincentdonofrio/status/570725829493325824/photo/1
https://twitter.com/trutherbot/status/572067535861911555/photo/1
https://twitter.com/iH8TvvitterHoes/status/571923311602626560/photo/1
Published July 16, 2014 by Patrick Cumby
A blue-eyed Georgia boy and the secret of his odd family name
Every family tree has secrets, but sometimes it’s the family name that conceals the biggest secret of all.
As a kid I always thought Cumby was odd-sounding, a little embarrassing, and nothing like the Scotch-Irish names of the other white families in my small Southern town. MacDonald. Spencer. Kennedy. Those were regular names. Cumby sounded like a cartoon character. Its history was a mystery; if anyone knew its true origin, they had decided to keep it to themselves.
My hometown of Tallapoosa, Georgia is situated in the Appalachian foothills near the Alabama border. There, as in all tight-knit Southern communities, your family name establishes your bona-fides, and despite the unusual pronunciation, Cumby was a respected name. In fact, other than my great-uncle Eugene, who got mixed up with some shady characters and ended up stuffed piecemeal into the trunk of his Cadillac, the Cumbys were known to be big-hearted good-old-boys, prone to a little recklessness now and then, but never going so far astray as to affect the family reputation.
As a boy in the 1960s, I thought the Ku Klux Klan was just another charitable social club with a funny name, like the Rotarians and the Jaycees. I remember the Klan peacefully soliciting donations in buckets from cars at the town’s main stoplight, alongside the men from the volunteer fire department (some of whom may have volunteered for both groups). At that time, in the rural South, racism was a core cultural value, just as embedded into our psyches as patriotism and the love of family and God. For kids like me, it wasn’t until racial integration at school that we began to glimpse the ugly legacy of bigotry. It was a confusing time, trying to reconcile our fierce Southern pride with the dawning realization that racism might actually be a great evil.
Last year, inspired by a photograph of an ancestor in Confederate uniform, I set out to trace the family lineage, expecting it led across the Atlantic to Scotland, like so many other Appalachian surnames. I searched genealogy websites, exchanged emails with other Cumbys, and scoured old graveyards in Georgia and the Carolinas. After months my research hit a dead-end with an ancestor named Stephen Cumby, a Revolutionary War soldier born in North Carolina. It was as if Stephen had deliberately tried to hide his parentage.
Perhaps he had. I finally realized that Stephen had changed the spelling of the family surname, and that the name Cumby was a corruption of the original name of Cumbo. The discovery of this missing link enabled me to trace the family name all the way back across the Atlantic, not to Scotland as expected, but to the most unlikely place of all, the Kingdom of N’Dongo, in what is now Angola. To my great surprise, my original patrilineal ancestor, the one who brought the Cumby name across the Atlantic, had been an African slave.
His name was Emanuel Cumbo. In the 1600s, Angola was a Portuguese colony and the primary source of slaves for the cane-fields of Brazil, where Emanuel was bound until his slave ship was attacked by a Dutch privateer and rerouted to the new English colony at Jamestown. Slavery was not yet an institution in the British colonies, and he somehow managed to keep his African surname and ultimately earn his freedom. After three hundred years of intermixing with Europeans and Native Americans, his African name was bequeathed to me, a white blue-eyed Southern boy from Tallapoosa, Georgia.
I found myself looking in the mirror, wondering what Emanuel Cumbo had looked like and what he must have endured. I began researching and learning the true horrors of the transatlantic slave trade and the lesser-known horrors of Jamestown, where evidence of cannibalism was recently discovered. When I investigated his homeland of Angola, I located a little village in the north named Kumbo, a potential source of the family name. I wanted to visit the village, to see the place where Emanuel may have lived four hundred years ago. But going to war-torn Angola, home to a million unexploded land mines, wasn’t as simple as visiting an ancestral castle in Scotland.
I contacted one of the very few Angolan tour operators and discovered I wasn’t alone in my journey. The guide told me that another blue-eyed white American named Joe Mozingo had recently hired him to help discover the roots of his own odd-sounding name. I emailed Mozingo, who turned out to be a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and we shared notes of our remarkably similar tale. Joe’s ancestor, Edward Mozingo, was another African that landed in early Jamestown. It’s likely that Edward and Emanuel were neighbors, and that both had probably married white women during the brief period of time in colonial history when interracial marriage was legal.
Joe has chronicled the journey of the Mozingo family name in a memoir, “The Fiddler on Pantico Run: An African Warrior, His White Descendants, A Search for Family.” As I read about Joe’s discovery of his African ancestry and the humorous and gut-wrenching reactions of his kin, I saw reflected in his story my own family’s struggle to accept the truth of our heritage. Like Joe’s family, some of my relatives simply shook their heads and sprouted a wry off-color joke, while others denied it vehemently and may never speak to me again. Many of us though, Mozingos and Cumbys, now think a little bit differently about who we are.
Names are important, and people should know their roots. To me, Cumby is no longer an oddity, it is the proud name of an African man who had the strength to survive horrors that none of us could ever imagine, who earned his freedom in Jamestown, and who spawned a family that scattered across the New World and that now numbers in the tens of thousands. It includes people that call themselves black, white, even American-Indian. Emanuel Cumbo was one of the very first Americans, and over the past four centuries his family has helped shape the destiny of this country. I’m a living irony—a blue-eyed white Southerner with an African surname and ancestry. But maybe it’s not irony at all, just a simple, obvious truth. As our nation continually endures racial paroxysms, we should all take note of how intertwined the roots of America’s family trees are. Plenty of McDonalds and Spencers and Kennedys have Cumbos and Mozingos hidden in the attic. Maybe it’s time we let them out for some air.
http://patrickcumby.com/blue-eyed-white-man-deep-south-discovers-american-truth-hidden-odd-family-name/
I agree that there is more of this than we know.
Who Gets Food Stamps? White People, Mostly
Posted: 02/28/2015 7:30 am EST Updated: 5 hours ago
WASHINGTON — Gene Alday, a Republican member of the Mississippi state legislature, apologized last week for telling a reporter that all the African-Americans in his hometown of Walls, Mississippi, are unemployed and on food stamps.
“I come from a town where all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call ‘welfare crazy checks,'” Alday said to a reporter for The Clarion-Ledger, a Mississippi newspaper, earlier this month. “They don’t work.”
Nationally, most of the people who receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are white. According to 2013 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program, 40.2 percent of SNAP recipients are white, 25.7 percent are black, 10.3 percent are Hispanic, 2.1 percent are Asian and 1.2 percent are Native American.
http://linkis.com/huffingtonpost.com/9zDXs
Jewish groups line up to denounce Boteach ad on Susan Rice
March 1, 2015
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the New Jersey-based author and pro-Israel advocate, took out an ad in the NY Times attacking Susan Rice after she criticized Netanyahu.
“Susan Rice has a blind spot: Genocide,” said the ad appearing in Saturday’s New York Times, touting a talk on Iran this week in Washington hosted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the New Jersey-based author and pro-Israel advocate.
As soon as the Sabbath ended, Jewish groups rushed to condemn the ad. The American Jewish Committee called it “revolting,” the Anti-Defamation League called it “spurious and perverse”, the Jewish Federations of North America called it “outrageous” and Josh Block, the president of The Israel Project, said it was “entirely inappropriate.”
Marshall Wittmann, the spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which will host Rice on Monday at its annual conference, said, “Ad hominem attacks should have no place in our discourse.”
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Jewish-groups-line-up-to-denounce-Boteach-ad-on-Susan-Rice-392519
Minnie Minoso, Treasured White Sox Ballplayer, Is Dead
MARCH 1, 2015
Minnie Minoso, the hugely popular All-Star outfielder from Cuba who became the major league’s first black player out of Latin America and a treasured figure in the history of theChicago White Sox, died on Sunday in Chicago. His true age was never entirely clear, but by an account in his autobiography, he would have been 89 when he died.
His death was announced by the White Sox. The cause was a heart ailment, his son, Charlie Rice-Minoso, told The Chicago Tribune.
Minoso was often cited as the only modern major leaguer to play in five decades, the product of a stunt engineered by the White Sox’s showman-owner Bill Veeck, who brought him out of retirement for three games in 1976 and two at-bats in 1980.
But he was best remembered as one of the finest ballplayers of the 1950s and a seven-time All-Star who fell just short of the 2,000-hit milestone. He was a three-time Gold Glove winner playing left field and a fast man on the bases for the ball clubs known as the Go-Go Sox, and his verve endeared him to the fans at the White Sox’s original Comiskey Park and much of the baseball world beyond.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/sports/minnie-minoso-dies-treasured-white-sox-ballplayer.html?_r=1
One day when the Glory comes
It will be ours, it will be ours
OOh One day when the war is won
We will be sure,we will be here sure
OOh Glory
Enemy is lethal, a king became regal / Saw the face of Jim Crow under a bald eagle — John Legend
#Glory #Selma #BlackHistory #JimCrow
President Obama plans a speech Saturday from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f432adc96e2e4bc6aec5a84ff6941c93/obama-invoking-civil-rights-struggles-past-and-present
WASHINGTON (AP) — For President Barack Obama, it’s a week to invoke America’s civil rights struggles from past to present.
The nation’s first black president plans a speech Saturday from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the site of one of the movement’s stirring moments, and will refocus on last year’s fatal shooting by a white police officer of a black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri.
Recommendations were expected Monday from the president’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, appointed after Michael Brown’s death in August. Attorney General Eric Holder has said he expects to announce results of his department’s investigation of the case before he leaves office, and that word could come within days.
Obama’s actions are an important gesture toward the black community, which strongly backed him in his two White House races and will be critical for Democrats in the 2016 presidential campaign and their efforts to retake control of Congress.
Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, also plan to be at the Selma commemoration, and a large bipartisan congressional delegation planned to be a part of a three-day civil rights pilgrimage to the state.
Happy Sunday, Everyone! :-)
GM! Happy Sunday, everyone!
Good Morning, Everyone :)