Jennifer King: NFL’s first full-time black female coach

Ron Rivera has hired Jennifer King to join his staff in Washington as a full-time assistant, a historic move for the newly Redskins head coach, according to The Athletic’s Rhiannon Walker.

King will become the first African American woman to coach full-time in NFL history, and just the fourth full-time woman assistant. She joins Buccaneers assistant defensive line coach Lori Locust, Buccaneers assistant strength and conditioning coach Maral Javadifar and 49ers offensive assistant Katie Sowers as the only full-time women in the league.

King served as an intern under Rivera with the Carolina Panthers for four months before the 2017 season. She joined the Dartmouth College staff as an offensive assistant in September following a brief stint as an assistant wide receivers coach in the Alliance of American Football, which has since shut down. She was the third female assistant in the AAF and the only offensive one, too.

It’s not clear what role King will have on Rivera’s staff, though she is expected to work on the offensive side of the ball.

[YAHOO.COM]

Kweisi Mfume wins Democratic nomination to replace the late Elijah Cummings

Kweisi Mfume took a major step toward reclaiming the Baltimore-area U.S. House seat he held for 10 years, capturing the Democratic nomination to succeed his longtime friend, the powerful Elijah Cummings.

The former NAACP leader, 71, topped a field of 24 Democrats Tuesday to advance to an April 28 special general election to fill the remainder of Cummings’ 7th Congressional District term.

Mfume represented the district, which includes parts of Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Howard County, until stepping down in 1996 to lead the NAACP.

“I want to thank all the many people of the 7th Congressional District. I accept your nomination,” Mfume told an audience of a few hundred cheering supporters at The Forum, a banquet hall in northwest Baltimore. A half-dozen American flags were positioned on the stage where he spoke.

Mfume enjoyed high name recognition, particularly among older voters who remembered him as a congressman and, earlier, a member of Baltimore City Council. That helped him in an 11-week campaign in which most other candidates struggled to get attention.

Mfume was able to raise money for the race — he had more than $200,000 on hand as of Jan. 15 — and he spent much less than his competitors.

He told voters his congressional priorities would include lowering the cost of prescription drugs, improving the Affordable Care Act health care system, and reinstating a federal assault weapons ban.

[SOURCE: Baltimore Sun

Dominique Dawes: First African American Olympic gymnastics medalist

Before Simone Biles and Gabby Douglass there was Dominique Dawes.

Born on November 20, 1976, in Silver Spring, Maryland, Dominique Dawes began taking gymnastics lessons at age 6. She participated in the Olympic Games as part of the U.S. women's gymnastics team in 1992, 1996 and 2000, winning a team medal each time. In 1996, Dawes's team won Olympic gold and Dawes won an individual bronze medal—becoming the first African American to win an individual Olympic medal in women's gymnastics. She retired from gymnastics after the 2000 Games.

North Carolina A&T to leave MEAC

HBCU football powerhouse North Carolina A&T announced Friday it will move to the Big South Conference in 2021, a major blow to the shrinking Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.

The Greensboro university, which announced the move during an on-campus news conference, will join the Big South on July 1, 2021 as the conference's 12th full-time member. It will have the largest enrollment in the conference and return football to eight teams (Presbyterian is departing this year), including three associate members.

N.C. A&T teams will be immediately eligible for Big South titles upon entry to the conference.

"We have been looking carefully at our opportunities in athletics for five years and more intensively over the past year," North Carolina A&T chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr. said in a statement. "We're pleased to have brought that process to fruition and excited to be ushering in a new alliance with the Big South. This move makes great sense for our student-athletes, for our fans and for our bottom line. We will always have a place in our hearts for the MEAC, and we look forward to what the new conference will make possible for the Aggies."

The most significant ramifications are in football. N.C. A&T has developed into the leading power among HBCU football programs (historically black colleges and universities). It has won at least a share of three straight and five of the past six MEAC titles and four of the first five Celebration Bowls, which match the MEAC and Southwestern Athletic Conference champs, and generally decide the Division I black college football national title. The Aggies have gone 72-21 over eight straight winning seasons, including a 12-0 record in 2017.

[SOURCE: ESPN]

NAACP CONDEMNS SENATE VOTE ON DONALD TRUMP IMPEACHMENT

Today, the NAACP condemned the Senate’s votes on the impeachment of Donald Trump. Derrick Johnson, President and CEO, made the following statement:

“Today’s votes to cover up Donald Trump’s crimes against our democracy will be a permanent stain on our nation’s history. This is the same democracy for which many of us have sacrificed in order to participate fully and equally.

The Senate votes constitute a dereliction of duty of the highest order. Our Constitution was designed to address precisely this crisis. Donald Trump abused the powers of the presidency by sacrificing his own country for personal political gain and then obstructed the investigation by Congress. Yet a majority of Senators defied their oaths to the Constitution by refusing to protect the integrity and security of our elections and to remove Donald Trump from office.

Donald Trump is not acquitted. Donald Trump is not exonerated. The Senate refused to hold the type of trial required by the Constitution. Therefore, there can be no verdict. Donald Trump will be remembered by history as an impeached president who believed he was above the law. Of course, no one is above the law, not even the president.

For months, the NAACP has been on record in support of impeaching and convicting Donald Trump. He represents a clear and present danger to the nation for a host of reasons. From his reversals of civil rights policies and positions, to telling congresswomen of color to go back to their countries, to separating families and caging immigrant children without food or water, to his attempts to not count everyone in the Census, to his failure to enforce the Voting Rights Act, to his installing the most ideologically extreme and least diverse federal judges, this president has led the most racist and xenophobic administration since the Jim Crow era. We will continue to hold Donald Trump accountable for all of his offenses and encourage everyone to do the same.

Elections are the core of our democracy, and they are still under threat. To reclaim our democracy, we must work harder than ever to protect the integrity and legitimacy of our elections and to ensure that everyone can cast a vote and have that vote count. It’s on us now. And we are up to the task. We have no choice.