Saturday, September 25, 2021

National Cathedral Names Artist, Kerry James Marshall To Replace Confederate Windows With Racial Justice Imagery

Washington National Cathedral announced that it will replace its former stained-glass windows featuring Confederate iconography, removed in 2017, with racial-justice themed windows created by world-renowned artist Kerry James Marshall, described by The New Yorker as “a virtuoso of landscape, portraiture, still-life, history painting, and other genres of the Western canon.”

The Cathedral’s commission represents Marshall’s first time working with stained-glass as a medium, and the windows are expected to be his first permanent public exhibition anywhere in the country.

The Cathedral removed windows featuring Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson – which were located along the southern face of its nave, or its main worship space – in September 2017, following the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. In the summer of 2020, amid the historic movement for racial justice following the police killing of George Floyd, the Cathedral began collaborating with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to plan the public exhibition of the Robert E. Lee window.

“For nearly 70 years, these windows and their Confederate imagery told an incomplete story; they celebrated two generals, but they did nothing to address the reality and painful legacy of America’s original sin of slavery and racism. They represented a false narrative of what America once was and left out the painful truth of our history,” said The Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral. “We’re excited to share a new and more complete story, to tell the truth about our past and to lift up who we aspire to be as a nation.”

Hollerith continues, “We are thrilled that Kerry James Marshall has agreed to lend his immense talents and creative vision to this important project. He is one of the greatest artists of our time, and we are honored to add his artistic legacy to the iconography of this Cathedral. To complement Mr. Marshall’s work, we welcome the words of Dr. Elizabeth Alexander, one of America’s great poets and a native Washingtonian, whose incredible ability to capture the pain of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow will be felt in our house of prayer through her inscribed words.”

Marshall—the artist and professor whose paintings depicting Black life in America have been sold, viewed, and showcased across the world for decades—will design the stained-glass windows that will replace the Lee/Jackson windows. His new windows will reflect the Cathedral’s stated desire for new windows that “capture both darkness and light, both the pain of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow, as well as the quiet and exemplary dignity of the African American struggle for justice and equality and the indelible and progressive impact it has had on American society.” Marshall has taught painting at the University of Illinois at Chicago and has been named to TIME’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

“This project is not just a job – I don’t need the work – or only a piece of art. It’s kind of a calling, and a real honor to be asked,” said artist Kerry James Marshall. “The themes that the Cathedral committee articulated set a great challenge for me as an artist and as a Black American man. The goal is to make truly meaningful additions to an already rich and magnificent institution, to make the changes they have embraced truly worth the effort.”

Friday, September 24, 2021

Six Black Woman Who Have Gone Missing Since The Disappearance of Gabby Petito

By George L. Cook III, AfricanAmericanReports.Com

First let me send my condolences to the family of Gabby Petito. No family should ever to have to go through what they are going through.

But at the same time one can feel horrible about what happened to Gabby Petito and be infuriated by the lack of coverage for missing Black women. These missing Black women deserve just as much attention as missing white women.

The six women listed below have all gone missing with little to no media attention while the tragic case of Gabby Petito, a missing white woman grabbed all the headlines.

Zhaavier Reeves is Missing

DOUGLAS COUNTY, Ga. - Deputies need your help finding a Douglas County woman who has been missing for days.

Officials say Zhaavier Reeves was last seen by her family on Sept. 6 in Douglas County.

Reeves is described as being 5-feet-4-inches tall with a weight of around 130 lbs. She has brown eyes and red dreadlocks.

The missing woman was last seen wearing a white shirt and black pants.

If you have any information that could help find Reeves, please call the Douglas County Sheriffs Office at 678-486-1307.

Deidre Annette Ried is Missing!

PAGELAND, S.C.- Officers are asking the public’s help in finding a woman missing from Pageland, S.C.

Deidre Annette Reid was last seen off East Turner Street in Pageland on Sept. 3. Reid is a 41-year-old Black woman last seen wearing gray sweatpants, a light pink and white shirt, white Air Force One shoes, and she had her hair in a ponytail.

Her family last heard from her Sept. 3 and she was headed to the Greyhound station in Charlotte, N.C.

Reid was driving a gray, 2004 Chevy Tahoe with the South Carolina license plate number FXU718. The car had a New York Giants tag on the front.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Pageland Police Department at 843-672-6437.

Diamond Brown is Missing!

ABERDEEN, MD—The Aberdeen Police Department is asking for the public’s help in finding 25-year-old Diamond Brown.

Brown’s family told police they had not seen her since last year, the department said on Facebook.

Brown may be either in the Baltimore or Philadelphia areas.

She is about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs about 135 pounds.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Sgt. Shannon Persuhn at 410-272-2121, ext. 177 or spersuhn@aberdeenmd.gov.

Patricia G. Foxx-Hawkins is Missing!

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Police are looking for a 56-year-old woman who went missing from north Columbus last week.

Patricia G. Foxx-Hawkins was last seen on Aug. 24 leaving her home on Clinton Street and Dresden Street.

Hawkins is described as a black female with black hair, brown eyes, standing 5 foot 2 inches tall, weighing 145 pounds.

She was last seen wearing a long sundress with blue, yellow, and pink vertical stripes with flip flops. She may also have small black dog with her.

If you know her whereabouts, please call Columbus Police at 614-645-4545.

Kendra Mesteth is Missing!

Columbus GA-The Columbus Police Department is searching for a missing woman. Police are asking for the public’s helping in locating Kendra Mesteth, age 44.

According to police, Mesteth was last seen on Sept. 3, 2021, in the area of the 4000 block of Connor Road.

When Mesteth was last seen , she was wearing a Blue T-Shirt and Blue Jeans. She also has black, shoulder length hair.

Anyone with information about Kendra Mesteth should contact 911 or the Columbus Police Department Special Unit at 706-225-4343 or 653-3400.

Ameka Thompson is Missing!


CINCINNATI-Police are searching for a missing woman who was last seen on Sunday, Sept. 19 in Over-the-Rhine.

Police said Ameka Thompson, 42, left to go smoke a cigarette outside of her apartment on Logan Street around 10:30 p.m. and has not been seen since.

They said her mental health may not be good, but she is in good physical health.

She is described as 5′5″, 130 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes.

If you see her you’re asked to contact Det. Nikki Oliver at 513-352-4567.

Ameka Thompson is missing!

CINCINNATI-Police are searching for a missing woman who was last seen on Sunday, Sept. 19 in Over-the-Rhine.

Police said Ameka Thompson, 42, left to go smoke a cigarette outside of her apartment on Logan Street around 10:30 p.m. and has not been seen since.

They said her mental health may not be good, but she is in good physical health.

She is described as 5′5″, 130 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes.

If you see her you’re asked to contact Det. Nikki Oliver at 513-352-4567.

Thursday, September 23, 2021

10 Black Women Officers Sue DC Police, Claim Racial and Sexual Harassment

A group of 10 Black women filed a class action lawsuit against the Metropolitan Police Department Wednesday claiming they experienced racial discrimination and sexual harassment while working for the department and the division in charge of stopping or punishing those behaviors instead enabled a "culture of intimidation" and colluded with management to discredit the women.

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Influential Filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles Dead at 89

Melvin Van Peebles, an actor, writer, director, producer and icon of Black cinema whose films include Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and Watermelon Man, died Tuesday night at his home. He was 89.

His death was confirmed by his son, Mario Van Peebles, who said in a statement: “Dad knew that Black images matter. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what was a movie worth? We want to be the success we see, thus we need to see ourselves being free. True liberation did not mean imitating the colonizer’s mentality. It meant appreciating the power, beauty and interconnectivity of all people.”

Van Peebles probably is best known for writing, directing, producing and starring in Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, the landmark 1971 blaxploitation pic that was selected for the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry last year.

[SOURCE: DEADLINE]