Tag Archives: civil rights
National Minority Health Month
Every April, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) observes National Minority Health Month to highlight the importance of improving the health of racial and ethnic minority and American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities and reducing health disparities.
OMH is proud to announce the theme for National Minority Health Month 2023: Better Health Through Better Understanding.
This year’s theme focuses on improving health outcomes for racial and ethnic minorities and AI/AN communities by providing them with culturally and linguistically competent healthcare services, information, and resources. When patients are provided with culturally and linguistically appropriate information, they are empowered to create healthier outcomes for themselves and their communities.
minorityhealth.hhs.gov
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Freedom’s Sisters – Black History –
Additional Information (PDFs):
Freedom’s Sisters is an exhibition created by Cincinnati Museum Center, organized for travel by Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services, and made possible by a grant from the Ford Motor Company Fund.
Presented locally by Macy’s.
Freedom’s Sisters is the first and most comprehensive traveling exhibit on women in the Civil Rights movement, focusing on the lives and contributions of 20 African American women – from key 19th century historical figures to contemporary leaders – who have fought for equality for people of color. Visitors of all ages and backgrounds will be moved and inspired by the stories of the women celebrated in this interactive exhibit. Created by Cincinnati Museum Center, in collaboration with The Ford Motor Company Fund, and Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), Freedom’s Sisters made its world premiere at Museum Center, and has now embarked on a three-year, nationwide tour. To see the full itinerary, click here.
Programming and Events
As Museum Center worked with Ford and SITES to develop the exhibit, a primary goal was to help encourage the next generation of leaders through dialogue on the civil rights struggle, past, present and future. Reaching young people was a crucial component of the exhibit’s mission. With Macy’s as the local presenting sponsor, 1,000 under served school children from the community joined the thousands of others who were able to see and benefit from this groundbreaking experience.
When Freedom’s Sisters opened on March 15, 2008, Museum Center was delighted to host all five of the “living legends” highlighted in the exhibit including: Myrlie-Evers Williams, Sonia Sanchez, Charlayne-Hunter Gault, Dr. Dorothy Height and Kathleen Cleaver. Several of these remarkable women returned to Cincinnati in July for the national N.A.A.C.P. convention. Myrlie-Evers Williams, in her address to conventioneers said that Freedom’s Sisters at Museum Center “was not to be missed!”
In association with Freedom’s Sisters, Museum Center hosted a poetry slam during National Poetry Month in April. An incredibly enthusiastic and diverse crowd turned out for the event—many of whom were brave even enough to get on the mic! In May, Museum Center presented a lecture by Darlene Clark Hine, Ph.D. Hine, who is considered a pioneer of African American women’s studies scholarship, was named Museum Center’s Distinguished Historian for 2008.
To provide a local tie, the Cincinnati History Museum developed a Cincinnati’s Freedom Sisters floor program, designed to educate children about the Civil Rights movement in Cincinnati. Through interactive smartboard activities students were able to access primary source material, and oral history interviews.
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Terry McMillan excerpted in Essence 2008 … Black History is American History
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Hillel Italie, Ap National Writer – Tue May 18, 6:29 am ET
NEW YORK – In honor of its 40th anniversary, Essence magazine is bringing back an old friend: Terry McMillan.
A few pages of excerpts from McMillan’s “Getting to Happy,” a sequel to her million-selling “Waiting to Exhale,” will appear in the next four issues of Essence, starting with the June edition, which came out this week. It’s a familiar place for McMillan, whose ties to the magazine date back to the 1970s, when she was in college and won an Essence writing contest.
“They’re like family,” McMillan, whose book comes out this fall, says of Essence, “and Essence readers have been a large part of my audience.”
Essence senior editor Patrik Henry Bass noted the magazine’s long support for black women writers, including Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor. When Essence started, Morrison’s debut novel, “The Bluest Eye,” had just been released. Walker was years away from writing “The Color Purple” and Toni Cade Bambara had yet to publish her first book.
“Nobody in the mainstream media was paying attention to these women,” Bass says.
“We wanted to do something special for the anniversary and when I heard that Terry was writing `Getting to Happy,’ I said, `Terry, what do you have so far? Could you do something original for us?’ And she said, `Well, I just finished the sequel and we thought, “Why not do excerpts?”‘ She couldn’t believe it, because so few people do excerpts anymore.”
McMillan’s “Waiting to Exhale,” published in 1992, tells of the personal and professional conflicts of four women living in Phoenix. The novel sold more than 1 million copies and is still cited as a landmark for convincing publishers of the large audience size for black fiction.
McMillan, whose other books include “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” and “The Interruption of Everything,” said she had no intention of writing a sequel to “Exhale” until she spoke at a church in Oakland, Calif., around a year ago. A resident of the Bay area, the author was still getting over her vicious, public feud with ex-husband Jonathan Plummer and read a poem about her experience.
“So these women responded big time to this poem, and there was this aura, women crying and all kinds of stuff. When it was time to sign books, there were women I had gone to college with, women who had been ex-professors, financial aid counselors. I spoke to them and realized how many of them had never been married, how many were divorced, how many never had children,” she says.
“I wanted to be able to dramatize that in some way. I didn’t want to tell just one woman’s story. And that’s when it dawned on me that I had four women I might be able to turn to. I got the paperback off the shelf and looked over it and said, `You know, they were the perfect candidates.'”
McMillan, 58, is a native of Port Huron, Mich., who, in 1987, self-published her first novel, “Mama.” She became a major best seller with “Disappearing Acts” and a superstar after “Waiting to Exhale.” Her appeal has long been her rough take on relationships, a knack that Essence seems to have appreciated long ago. The topic for the magazine’s writing contest: Are black men and women closer than they used to be, or further apart?
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Rashad Robinson, ColorOfChange.org :::::: He broke his own neck?
In memory… Freddie Gray
It looks like Baltimore police are trying to blame Freddie Gray for his own death.
Police and prosecutors are refusing to officially release information about the investigation into Freddie Gray’s death. But at the same time, someone just leaked a police document that quotes a prisoner who rode in the same van as Gray, saying that Gray “was intentionally trying to injure himself.”1This anonymous leak almost certainly came from someone in the Baltimore police department.
It’s despicable. And it’s exactly the same type of victim-blaming we saw years ago when Baltimore police gave another Baltimore resident a “rough ride,” paralyzing him and eventually killing him in a hauntingly similar case.2
We’ve seen time and time again what happens when police are given the authority and political cover to police themselves. No transparency. No accountability. No prosecution. Unless Governor Hogan brings independent oversight to this case, we can expect the same familiar miscarriage of justice.3,4
The prisoner quoted in this leak was separated from Gray by a metal barrier, so he couldn’t have seen Gray. According to the leaked document, he claims he heard Gray banging on the walls, and that he thinks Gray was trying to hurt himself. But if Gray was banging on the walls, it could be because he was desperately trying to get help.5We already know that he had been requesting medical attention, and those requests were ignored.
And Gray might not have been banging on the walls at all. According to other versions of the story, Gray was unresponsive by the time the second person was loaded into the van.6Whatever happened, what’s clear is that this leak is an attempt to shape the story in a way that absolves police of responsibility — at a time when law enforcement is refusing to release other information about the case.
Nearly 40,000 ColorOfChange members are urging Governor Hogan to send Attorney General Frosh to support the investigation and prosecution of Freddie Gray’s death. This leak makes it clear that the current investigation cannot be trusted. Baltimore police and State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby are heading down the same path of denied justice that has allowed Baltimore’s crisis of discriminatory police violence to flourish for years.
In 2014, 100% of people killed by Baltimore Police were Black. And almost none of those officers have ever been held accountable.7 Over the past 5 years, Baltimore police have paid millions to people injured and paralyzed by police “rough rides.”8 Freddie Gray was killed. And his family, Baltimore, and America have the right to an independent investigation that gets to the bottom of what happened and ensures the greatest measure of justice.
Thanks and peace,
— Rashad, Matt, Arisha, Lyla, Shani, and the rest of the ColorOfChange team
April 30th, 2015
References
1. “Prisoner in van said Freddie Gray was ‘trying to injure himself,’ document says,” Washington Post 4-29-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4783?t=5&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6
2. “Freddie Gray not the first to come out of Baltimore police van with serious injuries,” The Baltimore Sun Post 04-23-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4784?t=7&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6
3. “Police Kill Black Women All The Time, Too — We Just Don’t Hear About It,” Bustle 12-08-2014
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4785?t=9&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6
4. “Why I Don’t Trust Baltimore Prosecutors with Freddie Gray Case,” Legal Speaks 4-22-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4769?t=11&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6
5. “Prisoner Was Wrong: Freddie Gray Didn’t Kill Himself,” Daily Beast, 4-30-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4789?t=13&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6
6. “Baltimore Cop’s Relative Claims Freddie Gray Was Injured Before He Got In Van,” Daily Beast, 4-30-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4790?t=15&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6
7. BaltimoreUprising.org
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4788?t=17&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6
8. “Baltimore’s “rough rides”: the city has paid out millions to people injured in police vans,” Vox, 04-28-2015
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4786?t=19&akid=4326.1174326.ll2mw6
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