Wilma Mankiller, 64, the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation in modern times, whose leadership on social and financial issues made her tribe a national role model, died April 6 at her home in Adair County, Okla. She had metastatic pancreatic cancer.
“Wilma exemplified a Native woman’s leadership, both in her manner and in her consistent and unfailing devotion to her family, her people, the land, and the ways in which we are connected to past and future generations.”
-Rebecca Tsosie, an Indian law professor at Arizona State University
Odetta, the singer whose deep voice wove together the strongest songs of American folk music and the civil rights movement, died on Tuesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She was 77.
Suggested music to inspire you while you wait in line….Might as well party while you cast your historic vote!!
Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)
Stevie Wonder - Frontlines
Sly & the Family Stone - Every Day People
Donny Hathaway - Young, Gifted and Black
Kool and the Gang - Celebration
James Brown - Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud
Bob Marley - Get Up, Stand Up
Frankie Beverly and Maze - Happy Feelin’s
Stevie Wonder - Higher Ground
Isley Brothers - Fight the Power
Earth, Wind & Fire - Shining Star
Funkadelic - One Nation Under a Groove
Curtis Mayfield - Move on Up
Otis Redding - A Change Is Gonna Come
…you have to continue to prepare yourself, continue to build yourself, continue to elevate yourself and be a benefit, be a blessing rather than a curse, and things will get better. And they have, so when I think of Dr. King and Malcolm, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, I also think of Chief Albert Luthuli, one of the first Africans to earn the Nobel Prize.I mean that after Chief Luthuli, apartheid was so rigid, unbreakable that men had to carry their IDs on plastic cards that were too large for any suit, so they flapped, reminding them constantly who they were. It was my blessing to meet Nelson Mandela before he went into prison and I’ve seen him many times since. He knew this day would come, and to be able to stay in prison for 27 years, knowing that the day would come.
DETROIT – Four Tops frontman Levi Stubbs, whose dynamic and emotive voice drove such Motown classics as “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” and “Baby I Need Your Loving,” died Friday at 72.
October 10, 2008 at 10:38 am
· Filed under Culture
The hotel that once was the pride of the Black community and resting spot for jazz greats is now in decay as it houses low-income tenants. Its future is riddled with uncertainty.
BERNIE MAC’S FINAL MOMENTS: Sister-in-law says family was at bedside; funeral scheduled for Friday, friends release statements.
*A sister-in-law to late comedian Bernie Mac has opened up to People magazine about the entertainer’s final moments at the hospital with his wife, Rhonda, and their 30-year-old daughter, Je’Niece.
Community activist Najee Ali says a candlelight vigil for Mac, as well as Isaac Hayes, will be held at 6 p.m. tonight in Los Angeles at 5th Street Dicks coffeehouse in Leimert Park (4305 Degnan Blvd.)
With its riveting orchestration, definitive guitar play and signature sensual baritone vocals, Isaac Hayes’ theme song for the 1971 movie “Shaft” not only became one of pop music’s iconic songs, but also the defining work of Hayes’ career.
Yet the “Theme from Shaft,” which would earn both Grammys and an Oscar, was just a snippet of the groundbreaking music for which Hayes — who died Sunday at age 65 — was responsible.
