As a young lawyer, Dr. Morris Dees was once known as the second most hated man in Alabama. Now 48 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the 80 year old Dees, the co-founder of The Southern Poverty Law Center, is the latest recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize. It is the highest award given by The King Center.
Category: Maynard Eaton
Posted inColumns
The memory of Madam C.J. Walker lives on in an Atlanta museum and new hair product line
Ricci de Forest is a Madam C.J. Walker devotee and curator of a small Atlanta museum that honors her legacy. That’s why he so pleased that the name and history of the woman who “is credited with being the grand dame of the Black beauty industry” is being revived with the launch of a new line of hair products in her honor.
Posted inLatest News
Ralph Abernathy III’s Exit Interview: The curse of cancer and civil rights celebrity
Ralph David Abernathy III had been suffering severely for more than year, battling Stage 4 colon cancer while also valiantly fighting to honor and refresh his late father’s legacy. Yesterday, the son of civil rights icon and Martin King Jr’s best friend, Ralph Abernathy Jr., was eulogized and buried. Abernathy III died two days short of his 57th birthday.
Posted inColumns
Hillary Clinton stumps for campaign cash in Atlanta; blasts Donald Trump as a “political arsonist.”
For Rita Williams this was the American dream come true. The Decatur attorney, who grew up on the West Side of Atlanta and was the first in her family to attend college, was rubbing shoulders with some 250 doctors, lawyers, business executives and politicians who had shelled out up to $2,700 each to meet, hear and be photographed with Hillary Rodham Clinton at a private fundraiser recently.
Posted inColumns
Morehouse College alumni to choose their president at critical moment in time
Joseph Arrington has never been a politician, although his brother Marvin Arrington is a former Atlanta City Council president and mayoral candidate, and his nephew, Marvin Jr., is a current Fulton County commissioner. Now, however, at age 78, Joe Arrington is in a hotly contested campaign to be elected president of the Morehouse College National Alumni Association.
Posted inColumns, Latest News, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
The “Furious Five”: A sizzling Atlanta urban Republican dialogue. Where is Black Atlanta in the “All of It”?
I now call them the “Furious Five” – an eclectic crew of friends and political knowers – who were invited to participate in the first of a month long series of “unbridled” conversations about the political issues of the day. And, they put on a dazzling, dynamic show; their debate was robust, riveting and revealing.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
The Bloody Sunday Blues
Bloody Sunday is surreal. It was an uncanny experience even for this seasoned journalist to encounter civil rights icon, Atlanta Congressman John Lewis, holding court and counseling youngsters at the apex of the Edmund Pettis Bridge on Sunday March 6th about the significance and substance of this memorable day in Black history.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
Okeeba Jubalo: Artist and Art Entrepreneur
Okeeba Jubalo had no interest in being your typical “starving artist” before finding financial success, so he flipped the script. For the past 19 years Jubalo, whose paintings are considered “real edgy and real raw” has been perfecting a new and somewhat controversial business model for artists. Now the 40 year old art entrepreneur is considered an industry game changer.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
Osogbo: Art and Heritage and Controversy
Robin Ligon-Williams fashions herself as the modern day reincarnation of Susanne Wenger, the late creator of the Osogbo School of Art. But Williams’ passion for the African art form, coupled with a January exhibition of her collection and her practice of the IFA religion may be why she was recently fired from her Fulton County job.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
Hank Thomas: ‘I’m a Freedom Rider and Buffalo Soldier’
Hank Thomas is a legendary civil rights activist and a pioneer Black fast food franchisee multi-millionaire, but few people know he is also among Black America’s foremost African American art collectors. The 74 year-old Thomas is the only surviving Freedom Rider aboard the infamous Greyhound bus that was set on fire on Mother’s Day in 1961, and he may be the only Atlanta art aficionado who owns so many Black art paintings he can’t count them all.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
Steve R. Allen: Is he arguably Atlanta’s best African American artist?
On September 24th President Barack Obama will cut the ribbon to open the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture. Joining him that historic day will be Atlanta artist Steve R. Allen because four of his paintings have been acquired as part of the museum’s Founding and Permanent Collection.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
Double Consciousness: A black history month exhibit titled “Unhealed Wounds” at the ZuCot Gallery
For Aaron Henderson, along with his sons Omari and Onaje, African American fine art is the family business. He has been painting and “just trying to tell our story” since he was an 11-year-old Birmingham boy, while his sons support him and the Black aesthetic by owning and operating Atlanta’s ZuCot Gallery in the Castleberry Hill community neighboring the new Mercedes Benz Stadium.
Posted inMain Slider, Maynard Eaton
The end of an era: Civil Rights veterans dying off
The celebrated civil rights movement and its cadre of fearless pioneers that marched and protested throughout the South to transform America is fading fast. Most of those who worked for and with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr are either elderly or in their graves.
Posted inMain Slider, Maynard Eaton
Former Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan honored by the SCLC
Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is an engaging and enigmatic African leader. In 2010 he became President of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and prosperous nation, without ever having been elected to a major political office previously.
“There has not been any rise that’s been so meteoric in Nigeria,” analyst Charles Dokubo said in 2010.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
Stephon Ferguson: Mimicking MLK ‘is my calling’
During this 33rd annual celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday Observance and February’s Black History Month, one of the nation’s most sought after speakers is Stephon Ferguson, whose compelling and captivating impersonation of MLK is said to be one of the best ever heard or performed. He nails Dr. King’s tone of voice, cadence, charisma and character.
Posted inMain Slider, Maynard Eaton
Stephon Ferguson: mimicking MLK “is my calling.”
During this 33rd annual observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday Observance and February’s Black History Month one of the nation’s most sought after speakers is Stephon Ferguson, whose compelling and captivating impersonation of MLK is said to be one of the best ever heard or performed. He nails Dr. King’s tone of voice, cadence, character and charisma.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
Ozell Sutton: “The Good Double Agent” Civil Rights Activist
Ozell Sutton was a unique and largely unknown civil rights leader whose work in The Movement was mostly as an undercover operative. The 90-year old Little Rock, Arkansas native died recently following a rich and robust life of pioneering activism.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
Janice Mathis leaving Rainbow/PUSH to lead National Council of Negro Women
She’s been Atlanta’s premier female civil rights activist since the late Jondelle Johnson, the fervent and forceful former executive director of Atlanta’s NAACP who was known as “Mrs. NAACP” for her leadership in the 1970’s and 1960’s. Now attorney Janice Mathis, the vibrant Vice President of Rainbow/PUSH has been named Executive Director of the National Council of Negro Women [NCNW], a powerful 80-year old civil rights organization focused on women and families.
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
The Nation of Islam drops “anchor” in The Bluff
Atlanta’s English Avenue community, commonly called “The Bluff”, has been known for decades as an area riddled with poverty, crime, drug activity and despair. Now it will also be known as The 10,000 Fearless Men & Women Headquarters of the South for The Nation of Islam
Posted inColumns, Main Slider, Maynard Eaton
HUD Secretary Julian Castro: The young gun Democrat
He is the new darling and delight of the Democratic Party. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro is a 40 year young President Obama appointee and former San Antonio, Texas Mayor who is considered one of the Democratic Party’s best and brightest rising political stars.
