Former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice said she would “certainly said yes” if former Vice President Joe Biden asked her to be his running mate.
“I’m humbled and honored to be among the extremely accomplished women who are reportedly being considered in that regard,” Rice said in an interview with PBS.
The former official said that if this was the role in which Biden felt she could best serve, she would not say no.
[SOURCE: THE HILL]
American Masters and Philip Gittelman Productions, in association with Black Public Media, have begun production on a new documentary on contralto Marian Anderson (1897-1993) for PBS. Directed by Emmy- and Peabody Award-winner Rita Coburn, American Masters – Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands (w.t.) will explore the life, career, art and legacy of the singer of classical music and spirituals. Best known for her performance at the legendary Freedom Concert on April 9, 1939, Anderson, in a bold protest against racial intolerance, sang before a diverse crowd on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., after being denied use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution. In that moment, Anderson — despite being a fiercely private person — transformed into a symbol for the nascent civil rights movement, even inspiring a 10-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr., who listened on the radio.
With unprecedented access to the Marian Anderson Estate, the documentary will draw on rare archival footage and audio recordings and Anderson’s extensive personal correspondence to family and friends, including Martin Luther King, Jr., W.E.B. DuBois, Duke Ellington, Shirley Chisholm and Langston Hughes, to reveal the woman behind the icon. Anchored by key performances in her career, American Masters – Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands (w.t.) will show how her quiet genius and breathtaking voice set the stage for black performers in classical music, and a louder voice for civil rights.
“When producing films about people who experienced racism and the Civil Rights movement, having a filmmaker who understands the lens of the subject is a crucial part of telling the story successfully,” said Michael Kantor, executive producer of American Masters. “Rita co-directed our award-winning documentary Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, and we’re thrilled to have her at the helm of this project.” “As an African American female director, I am honored to continue Marian Anderson’s legacy at a time when our culture needs to hear the tonality of resilience, power, beauty, voice and courage,” said director Rita Coburn. “When American Masters approached me with this opportunity, their support in curating a team of strength and talent from the black community was important to create a work that is empowered, inclusive and entrenched in the rigors of authentic storytelling. I look forward to working closely with director of photography Henry Adebonojo (Independent Lens: I Am Not Your Negro), composer Kathyrn Bostic (Clemency, American Masters – Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am), and executive producer Brenda Robinson (United Skates, A Crime on the Bayou).”
The film, a recipient of a production grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, will feature new interviews with Anderson’s friends, contemporaries and those she influenced, including fellow black opera singers, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves and tenor George Shirley, who also serves on the film’s team of humanities advisers. Additional advisers with deep knowledge of Anderson, black history and music include Naomi André, Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, at the University of Michigan; Raymond Arsenault, author of “The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America;” Christopher A. Brooks, Professor of Anthropology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia; Lucy Caplan, lecturer of History and Literature at Harvard University; and Allan Keiler, author “Marian Anderson: A Singer’s Journey.”
Affectionately known to audiences as “The Lady from Philadelphia” and “The People’s Princess,” Anderson’s career was propelled by her talent, but also steered by the limits imposed by racism and segregation. This gifted pioneer, whose strength was rooted in family and community, overcame humiliation, prejudice and financial hardship to become a voice for justice, an internationally renowned master of her craft and the first African American to sing a leading role at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955. Balancing her public triumph with her personal struggles and resilience, American Masters – Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands (w.t.) will chart the impact of one of the world’s greatest singers, whose career provides a window into a time of seismic cultural change
American Masters – Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands (w.t.) is a co-production of American Masters Pictures and Philip Gittelman Productions. Produced in association with Artemis Rising Foundation. Directed by Rita Coburn. Produced by Philip Gittelman. Executive Producers: Regina K. Scully, Michael Kantor and Brenda Robinson.
During an appearance on MSNBC Sen. Kamala Harris called for the Dept. of Justice to investigate Breonna Taylor's death at the hands of Louisville police officers.
Taylor was a woman who was shot and killed in her Louisville, Kentucky home by police executing a "botched" search warrant who forced their way in, surprising the woman and her boyfriend who thought the officers were burglars. To make matters worse police were at the wrong address. Records show that the police investigation was centered around a "trap house" more than 10 miles from Taylor's apartment.
I'm calling for the Department of Justice to investigate #BreonnaTaylor's death. Her family deserves answers.pic.twitter.com/f0Dkov5D5R
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 13, 2020
Lamont Repollet, Ed.D., the New Jersey Commissioner of Education and a Kean alumnus, will become the 18th leader of Kean University.
The Board of Trustees announced the appointment on Monday, May 11, following a unanimous vote in support of the thoughtful and charismatic educator.
“Dr. Repollet will step into the presidency with confidence and experience, and with the strength needed to lead Kean forward on its path of access and excellence,” said Board Chair Ada Morell ’97. “At such a critical time in the University and the state’s history, he brings both stability and ingenuity. He knows our mission. He lives our mission, and he is committed to ensuring that Kean provides the world-class education and experiences that students demand.”
Repollet, who currently oversees the top-ranked public school system in the nation, this summer will succeed President Dawood Farahi, Ph.D., who steps down from the position at the end of June after 17 years of transformative leadership.
“I am both humbled and energized by this appointment, and by the faith the Board of Trustees is placing in me to continue Kean University’s progress as one of the best institutions of higher education in New Jersey,” Repollet said after the vote. “I have important work to finish with the state, but I am grateful Governor Murphy supports this next step in my career, and I look forward to working with him in this new role.”
Repollet says he supports Gov. Murphy’s student-centered vision for higher education with the goal of making New Jersey the hub for American innovation and economic opportunity. Included in the vision is a Student Bill of Rights to encourage students to pursue higher education through college preparatory programs, reduce college costs, support a timely path to graduation, create a welcoming learning environment, and cultivate research, innovation and talent.
Repollet has served as the state’s education commissioner since 2018. During his time as commissioner, New Jersey was ranked best in the nation in the Education Week Quality Counts 2019 report. He and his team have worked to expand early childhood education; promote a school culture that embraces social and emotional learning; and strengthen STEM opportunities for students. He has made outreach to stakeholders across the state’s public education system a key component of his leadership style. Most recently, he has worked closely with Gov. Murphy as New Jersey’s public school children shifted to remote education amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
From 2014 to 2018, Repollet served as superintendent of the Asbury Park School District, where he implemented a number of programs that helped increase the graduation rate by 30 percent. Earlier in his career, he served as a high school principal and teacher.
Repollet graduated from Kean with a master’s degree in educational administration in 2000 and served on the Kean Board of Trustees from 2011 to 2018 before assuming his role as commissioner.
President Farahi announced his plans to step down from the presidency at the start of the academic year. The University worked with the search firm of Storbeck Search & Associates to conduct the national search along with a search committee that included faculty, students, alumni and members of the Board of Trustees.
Steve Fastook H’06, a member of the Board of Trustees who chaired the committee, noted the group considered more than 80 candidates during the months of the search, and Repollet kept making his way to the top.
“Lamont really impressed the search committee from day one,” Fastook said. “Some of us knew him from his days on the Board, some did not, but all of us were impressed with his depth of knowledge of the academic and economic challenges ahead. He has a strategic vision for moving students past the K-12 pipeline into a K-Bachelors pipeline that will define our future.”
Claire Mulry, OTD, a faculty member who served on the search committee, said each member of the committee brought a unique perspective to the selection process and worked collaboratively to find the candidate best suited to handle multiple initiatives and objectives.
“From an academic standpoint, it was really important to me that we select a candidate who respects the faculty role in the curricular process while keeping innovation of academic programs as a priority,” Mulry said. “As a faculty member, I’m really excited to work with Dr. Repollet.”
Repollet will take the helm of a University with more than 16,000 students in Union, Toms River, Manahawkin, and Jefferson, New Jersey as well as online and at Wenzhou-Kean University in Wenzhou, China.
“Being on the Presidential Search Committee, I saw how Kean puts students first in all decisions,” said De'shawn Reed, a Kean football player from Jersey City who is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in physical education/exercise science this year. “That’s why Dr. Repollet is the best choice. I know that Kean’s students are in good hands with him as president.”
In addition to his Kean master's degree, Repollet received his Bachelor of Arts in communication from The College of New Jersey and a Doctorate in Education from Nova Southeastern University.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Sunday called the shooting death of an unarmed African American jogger a "lynching" and said arrests of two accused men would not have been made if there was not video of the incident.
"It's heartbreaking that it's 2020 and this was a lynching of an African American man," Bottoms said of Ahmaud Arbery's death on CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."
Arbery, 25, was shot and killed on February 23 while jogging in southern Georgia. Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, were arrested Thursday -- three months following the fatal shooting -- after a 36-second video that appears to show the incident went viral.
Bottoms said she believes the arrests would not have been made had video of the shooting not surfaced. CNN has not verified who recorded the video -- taken by someone in a vehicle that pulls up behind a pickup truck stopped in the road -- but it captured events that match numerous accounts of the shooting.
"I think that's absolutely the reason that they were charged. I think had we not seen that video, I don't believe that they would be charged," Bottoms said. The Democrat also said Arbery's death is a bigger issue that extends beyond the state of Georgia.
"With the rhetoric we hear coming out of the White House in so many ways, I think that many who are prone to being racist are given permission to do it in an overt way that we otherwise would not see in 2020," she said. "In cities across this country, even if local leadership fails, there was always the backstop of our Justice Department to step in and make sure people are appropriately prosecuted. But we don't have that leadership at the top right now. It's disheartening."
She continued, "I think it speaks to the need to have leadership at the top that cares for all of our communities and not just in words but in deeds as well."
Former President Obama during a private call on Friday night with his former aides tore into the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis, calling it an “absolute chaotic disaster.”
The blistering assessment, confirmed to CNN by three former Obama administration officials, came on a call intended to encourage members of the Obama Alumni Association to engage with former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
"This election that's coming up — on every level — is so important because what we're going to be battling is not just a particular individual or a political party," Obama said, according to CNN. "What we're fighting against is these long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided and seeing others as an enemy — that has become a stronger impulse in American life."
Obama continued to tear into the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, partly blaming the White House’s "what’s in it for me" mindset.
"It's part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty," Obama said. "It would have been bad even with the best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset of 'what's in it for me' and 'to heck with everybody else' ... is operationalized in our government."
Andre Harrell, a veteran music executive best known as the founder of Uptown Records and who later went on to head Motown Records, has died. He was 59. The cause of death is as yet unclear.
A native of New York, Harrell started his career in music as an artist, one-half of the early rap duo Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, whose single “Genius Rap” was a minor hit in 1981. In 1983 Harrell teamed with Russell Simmons, the founder of Def Jam Records, and had one of his early experiences in the business working as a vice president and later GM of the label.
He left to start his own record company, Uptown Records, in 1986. Stylish, sophisticated and fashion-forward, the label played a key role in the development of the New Jack Swing style of R&B, courtesy of acts like Guy (featuring the hugely influential producer-performer Teddy Riley), Al B. Sure and Jodeci, as well as crossover hip-hop via Heavy D and the Boyz and Father MC. Harrell also signed Mary J. Blige in the late ’80s.
Harrell would later find a home for Uptown at MCA where he simultaneously developed multiple projects in film and television in the 1990s, including the movie and soundtrack “Strictly Business.” In 1995, he went on to run Motown Records as president and CEO for a brief period not long after the label’s acquisition by PolyGram.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation on Thursday night announced the arrests of Gregory and Travis McMichael in the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery following a storm of public outcry after video of Arbery's death was made public.
The father and son were both charged with murder and aggravated assault, GBI said in a statement. They will be booked into the Glynn County Jail, according to the bureau. GBI earlier Thursday asked for patience in its investigation, which began Wednesday.
Before GBI began its investigation into Arbery's death, the Glynn County Police Department contacted the bureau to “investigate allegations of threats against GCPD and individuals involved in the active investigation,” the bureau said in Thursday’s statement.
GBI added the investigation into Arbery’s death remains “active and ongoing.” The case is being investigated with District Attorney Tom Durden, who on Tuesday formally asked the bureau to investigate the death of Arbery.
Joe Biden, the apparent Democratic presidential nominee, on Thursday addressed the brutal attack of Ahmaud Arbery, black man in Georgia, who was chased and gunned down by two white men, saying the incident amounted to a lynching “before our very eyes” and demanding a “transparent investigation.”
Biden, in his first public comments about the shooting of Arbery, called the attack a “grave injustice that claimed a life” and “that resonates in so many ways across threads of our history into the present day.”
“By now many of us have seen that harrowing footage of Ahmaud Arbery out on a jog on a beautiful day in February in Florida, in Georgia, shot down in cold blood, essentially lynched before our very eyes, 2020 style,” Biden said during a virtual roundtable in Jacksonville, Fla., with local African-American lawmakers.
“This family and the country deserves justice and they deserve it now. They deserve a transparent investigation of this brutal murder. But our nation deserves it as well. We need to reckon with this, this goes on. These vicious acts call to mind the darkest chapters of our history,” Biden said.
Biden said the attack was part of a “rising pandemic of hate” and said he’d “work tirelessly” as president to put in place measures that would allow the U.S. be a nation in which “African American mothers and fathers should feel confident that their children are safe walking on the streets.”
Lakers superstar, Lebron James who has not been shy about discussing social issues that affect the Black community took to Twitter on Wednesday to respond to the killing of an Ahmaud Arbery by two white men in Georgia.
We’re literally hunted EVERYDAY/EVERYTIME we step foot outside the comfort of our homes! Can’t even go for a damn jog man! Like WTF man are you kidding me?!?!?!?!?!? No man fr ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!! I’m sorry Ahmaud(Rest In Paradise) and my prayers and blessings sent to the..... pic.twitter.com/r1PNxs8Vgn
— LeBron James (@KingJames) May 6, 2020
NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson took to Twitter to call for the resignation of Jackie Johnson, the district attorney for his handling the Ahmaud Arbery case.
Derrick Johnson Tweeted:
"We call for the immediate resignation of the district attorneys in this case. We intend to put the full weight of our power behind this case to ensure we reach justice"
Former President Obama will deliver a message for HBCU students at a virtual event in May.
"Show Me Your Walk, HBCU Edition" will be a 2-hour virtual HBCU commencement program presented by Chase in partnership with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the United Negro College Fund, the National Association for Equal Opportunity, the National Basketball Association, Paul Quinn College, Howard University and JPMorgan Chase's Advancing Black Pathways Initiative, according to the former president's office. It will be livestreamed on May 16 at 2 p.m. ET.
Former President Barack Obama will deliver a televised prime-time commencement address for the high school Class of 2020 during an hour-long event that will also feature LeBron James, Malala Yousafzai and Ben Platt, among others.
ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC will simultaneously air the special May 16 at 8 p.m. EDT along with more than 20 other broadcast and digital streaming partners, according to the announcement Tuesday from organizers.
high school students from Chicago public schools and the Obama Youth Jobs Corps will join, as will the Jonas Brothers, Yara Shahidi, Bad Bunny, Lena Waithe, Pharrell Williams, Megan Rapinoe and H.E.R.
The event is titled “Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020.” It’s hosted by the education advocacy group XQ Institute, The LeBron James Family Foundation and The Entertainment Industry Foundation.
Ida B. Wells, the investigative journalist, civil rights crusader and legendary Chicagoan, received a Pulitzer Prize citation as part of this year’s annual awards.
She received the citation for her outstanding and courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching.
The citation comes with a bequest by the Pulitzer Prize board of at least $50,000 in support of her mission. Recipients will be announced at a later date.
Nikole Hannah-Jones was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for The 1619 Project, The New York Times Magazine’s groundbreaking exploration of the legacy of Black Americans starting with the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in 1619.
The 1619 Project is an ongoing project developed by The New York Times Magazine in 2019 with the goal of re-examining the legacy of slavery in the United States and timed for the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans in Virginia. It is an interactive project by Nikole Hannah-Jones, a reporter for The New York Times, with contributions by the paper's writers, including essays on the history of different aspects of contemporary American life which the authors believe have "roots in slavery and its aftermath." It also includes poems, short fiction, and a photo essay. Originally conceived of as a special issue for August 20, 2019, it was soon turned into a full-fledged project, including a special broadsheet section in the newspaper, live events, and a multi-episode podcast series.
After the announcement that she has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, Hannah-Jones told the Times’ staff it was “the most important work of my life.”
The Pulitzer Center congratulates Hannah-Jones on her historic win and looks forward to continuing to collaborate with her and the team at The New York Times Magazine on this important work.
