"I don't know who Keke is but I want her to vote next November because this @WhiteHouse has me and many other Americans "in my feelings". #KekeMustVote #InMyFeelingsChallenge," Beatty wrote in a post accompanying the video. Watch the video below:
I don't know who Keke is but I want her to vote next November because this @WhiteHouse has me and many other Americans "in my feelings". #KekeMustVote #InMyFeelingsChallenge pic.twitter.com/YQUPbNJ7ha
— Joyce Beatty (@RepBeatty) July 13, 2018
Renaming schools and removing statues can be expensive, so donors are quietly stepping up to help communities pay.
Three elementary schools in Virginia formally dropped their Confederate affiliated names this week after the largely African American city of Petersburg received a $20,000 donation from an anonymous donor to cover the costs of changing the schools’ signs and other places where the names appeared. The schools previously stood as symbols of institutionalized racism, honoring various Confederate generals and war heroes. After the makeover, however, A.P Hill is now Cool Springs, Robert E. Lee is called Lakemont, and J.E.B. Stuart is Pleasants Lane.
The donation is emblematic of a new trend of anonymous giving which has funded the removal of historically bigoted statues or the renaming of buildings and institutions. In September 2015, an anonymous donor agreed to cover the costs of removing three Confederate statues and a monument in New Orleans. (The erroneously honored were Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard, Jefferson Davis, and the Battle of Liberty Place.) The process was coordinated through the Foundation for Louisiana, which accepted the donation and, in turn, worked with the city to cover costs.
In August 2016, Vanderbilt University completed the complicated process of removing the term “Confederate” from its previously named Confederate Memorial Hall. The university had been trying to do so for at least 15 years, but ran into legal trouble because that original name was part of a charitable gift received in 1933 from the United Daughters of the Confederacy. In 2005, a Tennessee court ruled that the school could only delete the name if it repaid the $50,000 gift, whose value had ballooned to $1.2 million current value. A pool of anonymous donors subsequently raised the cash. Efforts like this have steadily gained steam since a white nationalist rally of known hate groups turned deadly in Charlottesville in August 2017.
Read more: Anonymous donors are dismantling Confederate statues
John Legend has won 10 Grammy Awards. In 2015 he also won an Oscar for Best Original Song "Glory" from the movie Selma. In 2017 he won a Tony award for best revival of a play for the play Jitney.
He is now just one award away from achieving an EGOT. That is short for wining an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.
The singer has been nominated for his executive production and starring role in the new NBC program, Jesus Christ Superstar Live In Concert.
If he wins he will join a select group that includes only 18 others including entertainment Greats like Audrey Hepburn, Whoopi Goldberg, and Mel Brooks. Others like James Earl Jones and Harry Belafonte have also achieved this feat but their Oscar wins were honorary.
The Emmy Awards take place on September 17, 2018.
Hoping to replicate the stunning success of fellow Justice Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez primary campaign, St. Louis native, Cori Bush is running to bring transformative change to Missouri’s 1st Congressional District.
Cori Bush is a former early childhood educator, a community-based mental health registered nurse, and an ordained pastor.
Cori has felt the burden of being uninsured and the pain of homelessness. She has endured racism and sexism. She is a survivor of sexual assault and domestic violence. Cori experienced the challenges of raising children on her own, living paycheck to paycheck, making just above minimum wage, taking on student loans to continue her education.
And Cori Bush stands tall, using her experiences as fuel to fight for the disadvanged, the disenfranchised, and the voiceless.
Cori is a tireless advocate for creating dramatic change. Now is not the time for baby steps. Incremental change is no change at all when her patients can’t afford medication, and families are struggling to put food on the table and find justice in the streets.
Learn more about Cori Bush here: https://www.votecoribush.com/
Mitchell has a background in campaigns and community organizing, and he becomes the first African-American to hold the post of running the state party’s day-to-day operations. He has been a member of the legislature since 2013 and lives in Bronzeville.
He fills the vacancy created when House Speaker Michael Madigan in early June dropped Mapes, who served as his chief of staff since 1992 and executive director of the state Democratic Party since 1998. Mapes’ departure came after House staffer Sherri Garrett accused him of harassment and bullying.
Mitchell was selected by a panel made up of the party’s 18 state committeewomen and chaired by state Rep. Juliana Stratton, the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor on the ticket with governor candidate J.B. Pritzker.
Mitchell previously served as Midwest director of paid media and polling for President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, a senior adviser for Tammy Duckworth’s U.S. Senate campaign, former campaign aide to Attorney General Lisa Madigan and former Ald. Will Burns, director of external affairs for Cook County government under Board President Toni Preckwinkle and a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago.
“I look forward to doing the work necessary to assure Democratic victories up and down the ticket and charting a new and inclusive path forward for our party,” Mitchell said in a statement. “Together, I know we can build a party that represents the diversity of our state, listens to our young people and relentlessly fights for the values that make Illinois strong.”
