Library of Congress, Smithsonian buy newly discovered photo of Harriet Tubman

An old photo album containing a rare portrait of the legendary underground railroad conductor Harriet Tubman has been jointly acquired by the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the institutions said Friday.

The new image depicts Tubman as a much younger woman than she appears in other known pictures. It is among 44 rare images in the album, including the only known photograph of John Willis Menard, the first African American man elected to the U.S. Congress.

“We are so thrilled,” Gayle Osterberg, a Library of Congress spokeswoman, said Friday in an email.

“The institutions have agreed to joint ownership and will digitize the photographs as soon as possible,” she wrote. “The intention is to make them as widely available as possible through online images everyone can use.”

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Must Read: My Life, My Love, My Legacy by Coretta Scott King & Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds

The life story of Coretta Scott King―wife of Martin Luther King Jr., founder of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (The King Center), and singular twentieth-century American civil and human rights activist―as told fully for the first time, toward the end of her life, to Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds.

Born in 1927 to daringly enterprising parents in the Deep South, Coretta Scott had always felt called to a special purpose. While enrolled as one of the first black scholarship students recruited to Antioch College, she became politically and socially active and committed to the peace movement. As a graduate student at the New England Conservatory of Music, determined to pursue her own career as a concert singer, she met Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister insistent that his wife stay home with the children. But in love and devoted to shared Christian beliefs as well as shared racial and economic justice goals, she married Dr. King, and events promptly thrust her into a maelstrom of history throughout which she was a strategic partner, a standard bearer, and so much more.

As a widow and single mother of four, she worked tirelessly to found and develop The King Center as a citadel for world peace, lobbied for fifteen years for the US national holiday in honor of her husband, championed for women's, workers’ and gay rights and was a powerful international voice for nonviolence, freedom and human dignity.

Coretta’s is a love story, a family saga, and the memoir of an extraordinary black woman in twentieth-century America, a brave leader who, in the face of terrorism and violent hatred, stood committed, proud, forgiving, nonviolent, and hopeful every day of her life.

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What every intelligent person should say when discussing Rachel Dolezal

With the release of a new book Rachel Dolezal has gotten another 15 minutes of infamy. With the many issues in the black community I don't believe that we should be paying a fraud like Rachel Dolezal any attention, but if you must here's what you should say.

Omarosa Manigault is in Trump’s White House, but what does she do there?

In Omarosa Manigault’s brief tenure as assistant to the president, as she has worked to bridge a divide between black America and the man she has long supported. Many including black republicans would say that she has been ineffective in that role.

Manigault, 43, is fiercely loyal to Donald Trump, whose decision to cast her as an alpha-female villain in the first season of “The Apprentice” more than a decade ago made her a reality television celebrity. Manigault also appears to have Trump’s ear, and some black political observers see her as an important ally in a White House that is overwhelmingly white and male.

But if her devotion explains how Manigault wound up in Trump’s White House as the highest-ranking African American in the West Wing, it is far less easy to explain exactly what she’s doing there. Some African American political insiders already have concluded that she is ineffective, and she is routinely derided on social media as simply providing cover for a president deeply unpopular with African Americans. Some black Republicans were particularly critical of the Trump administration’s handling of the HBCU initiative, which included a White House meeting with the school officials that some viewed as little more than a photo op for the president.

Read more: Omarosa Manigault is in Trump’s White House because of her loyalty. But what is she doing there?

Meet CW's latest superhero ‘Black Lightning'

The CW has had great success with its superhero shows which include Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow. the network is now adding a new African American hero to its lineup and he's called Black Lighting!

The CW has released the first photo of Cress Williams in costume as the titular hero in “Black Lightning,” the DC comic book drama pilot.

Based on the comics of the same name, the series will follow Jefferson Pierce (Williams), who hung up the suit and his secret identity years ago. But with a daughter hell-bent on justice and a star student being recruited by a local gang, he’ll be pulled back into the fight as the wanted vigilante and DC legend — Black Lightning.

The superhero’s suit is designed by Laura Jean Shannon.

The husband-and-wife team of Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil wrote the pilot, which comes from Warner Bros. TV and will be executive produced by the Akils along with Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter.

“I knew way too much about the world as a young boy growing up in Richmond, California,” Salim Akil said in a statement. “I was no stranger to violence, death, hopelessness or the feeling that no one cared about what was happening in my life. Comics were a great way for me to escape. I was about 13 when ‘Black Lightning’ was created, and finally there was a Black Super Hero that gave a damn about our neighborhood and our lives. Resurrecting him at a time in our society when a sense of hope is lacking… ‘Black Lightning’ will be that hope. And in updating the suit, it will signal to a new generation that it’s time to harness and release our power, and become our own Super Heroes.”

Created by writer Tony Isabella and artist Trevor Von Eeden, Jefferson Pierce is one of the first major African American superheroes to appear in DC Comics. The character debuted in 1977 in a self-titled series that ran for 11 issues.

Four other DC comic book adaptation series already exist on The CW, “Arrow,” “The Flash,” “Legends of Tomorrow” and “Supergirl,” all executive produced by Berlanti as well, though it’s unclear at this point if “Black Lightning” would join the so-called “Arrowverse” or exist in its own world.

[SOURCE: SF GATE]