Just Mercy has $10 million plus opening weekend

By George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com

The Michael B. Jordan produced movie, Just Mercy opened wide this weekend with $10,435,000.

The movie stars Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, and Brie Larson.

The film stars Jordan as Bryan Stevenson as a lawyer who left behind a potentially lucrative career to help overturn wrongful convictions. In the film, he takes on the case of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), a black man wrongfully accused of killing a white woman in Alabama.

While $10 million may not seem like a lot in this day of mega-blockbusters but the movie has a few things going in its favor as it looks toward a long and hopefully profitable run.

Just Mercy film has received great reviews and is the first film of 2020 to receive A+ Cinema Score. Jordan and Fox have also received accolades for their performances which should hopefully lead to Oscar nominations for both of them. (Don't hold your breath on either of them winning though). That and word of mouth should increase audience turnout.

My prediction is that the film eclipses Harriet's 43 million dollars gross and comes in near the $49.3 million that Blackkklansman made.

January 2020 poll shows Joe Biden still top pick among Black voters

A recent poll shows former Vice President Joe Biden (D) is the favored candidate among black voters by a wide margin.

According to the latest Washington Post/Ipsos national poll, 48 percent of Black voters who are likely to vote for a Democrat picked Biden as their top candidate.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are a distant second and third, with 20 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

"It's hardly a surprise that Vice President Biden has such a large lead," Clifford Young, president of Ipsos Public Affairs, said.

"Our polling found that more than six in 10 African Americans believe the next president should continue to build on President Obama's policies, and Biden's campaign has promised to do exactly that," he explained.

The online poll was conducted Jan. 2-8 and surveyed a random national sample of 1,088 non-Hispanic Black adults over the age of 18. Overall, the poll has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.5 percentage points, and a four-point margin of error for the sample of 769 Democratic-leaning voters.

[SOURCE: THE HILL]

Jay-Z, Yo Gotti threaten to sue Mississippi over inhumane prisons

Rap mogul Jay-Z and hip-hop artist Yo Gotti wrote a letter to two top Mississippi officials Thursday, protesting the conditions of Mississippi prisons and demanding change.

The letter contained a threat — Jay-Z and Yo Gotti are ready to sue the state if prison conditions aren't improved.

An outbreak of deadly gang violence that left five dead in Mississippi prisons has brought the system's long-running problems into sharp relief and under national scrutiny.

The letter, addressed to Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant and Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Pelicia Hall, mentions frequent prison lockdowns, violence, a staffing shortage and inmates who "are forced to live in squalor, with rats that crawl over them as they sleep on the floor, having been denied even a mattress for a cot."

A spokesperson for the governor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Alex Spiro, a New York lawyer representing Roc Nation, Yo Gotti and Jay-Z's company, signed the letter on behalf of Team Roc. He said he wrote the letter in collaboration with the celebrities.

Spiro told the Clarion Ledger Yo Gotti and Jay-Z have been involved with other social justice and civil rights cases in the past.

They have been in touch with "folks on the ground and people within the prison system," Spiro said.

"We are exploring a variety of civil rights claims and constitutional claims that the prison system and the government is violating the Eighth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act," he said.

Spiro said Jay-Z and Yo Gotti do not want to "remain idle spectators with something this inhumane."

"As the prison system continues to incarcerate more and more people, predominantly African American people down in Mississippi, the prison system becomes more crowded, more underfunded and more inhumane and you know what you see now is a system at its breaking point," the attorney said.

[SOURCE:USA TODAY]

Air Force Names New Jet the T-7A Red Hawk in Honor of Tuskegee Airmen

The U.S. Air Force will call its new trainer the T-7A "Red Hawk."

Acting Air Force Secretary Matt Donovan announced the name of the jet, known previously as the T-X, on Monday, alongside retired Col. Charles McGee, who was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen.

"The name, Red Hawk, honors the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen, and pays homage to their signature red-tailed aircraft from World War II," Donovan said here during the annual Air, Space and Cyber conference.

"The name is also a tribute to the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, an American fighter aircraft that first flew in 1938 and was flown by the 99th Fighter Squadron -- the U.S. Army Air Forces' first African-American fighter squadron," Donovan said.

According to a video shown at the conference, the T-7 will have red vertical canted tails, mimicking those of the Red Tail Squadron's P-51C aircraft.

The Tuskegee Airmen defied the odds by becoming the first African-American pilots, navigators and support personnel to serve during World War II, often escorting and protecting bombers.

[SOURCE: MILITARY TIMES]

Domeneque Taylor is missing!

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Police are asking for help from the public to find a missing woman.

Domeneque Taylor, 32, is around 5’1″ and around 195 pounds.

If you have any information you are asked to call 501-404-3042 or 501-371-4829.