Nelson Mandela – a worldwide hero

Thank you, Madiba

Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s rights activist, dies
Source: The Associated Press
Katharine Lackey, USA TODAY
William M. Welch, USA TODAY 4:54 p.m. EST December 5, 2013

Nelson Mandela, whose successful struggle against South Africa’s apartheid system of racial segregation and discrimination made him a global symbol for the cause of human rights and earned him the Nobel Prize, died Thursday. He was 95.

Mandela spent 27 years in South African prisons before his release in 1990. He negotiated with the nation’s white leaders toward establishing democracy and was elected South Africa’s first black president in 1994, serving one term.

“He probably will be remembered both inside and outside South Africa as a political saint,” said Michael Parks, the former editor of the Los Angeles Times who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for his coverage of Mandela and South Africa’s struggles.

“He had flaws that he had to overcome. He had a temper he had to deal with. He had to deal with what was going to be life imprisonment. Not all his decisions were great decisions, but what political leader’s are,” Parks said.

As a young man, Mandela worked as a lawyer and political activist to dismantle white minority rule under which blacks were denied political rights and basic freedoms. He began by emulating the non-violent methods of India’s Mahatma Gandhi. But a turn to violence as the leader of the armed wing of the African National Congress that included a bombing campaign against government targets led to his imprisonment for over a quarter-century.

A worldwide campaign against apartheid pressured the regime into releasing Mandela in 1990 at age 71. He vowed to seek peace and reconciliation with South Africa’s whites — but only if blacks received full rights as citizens.

“He probably will be remembered both inside and outside South Africa as a political saint.”
— Michael Parks, the former editor of the Los Angeles Times
Amid tense negotiations with the government and the threat of violence on all sides, Mandela emerged as a leader who guided South Africa to a new democratic government guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens. Four years later, Mandela became his nation’s first black president.

Mandela’s charisma, stoic optimism and conciliation toward adversaries and oppressors established him as one of the world’s most recognizable statesmen of the 20th century and a hero of South African democracy.

“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy,” Mandela once said. “Then he becomes your partner.”

Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 along with South Africa’s president at the time, Frederik Willem de Klerk, for working together to dismantle apartheid.

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Nelson Mandela’s Life Story

Nelson Mandela giving a speech in Court in 1964 stating that he is prepared to die as he was being sentenced to death.

BBC News Nelson Mandela released from prison

Nelson Mandela speech delivered at the Nelson Mandela: An International tribute to Free South Africa concert on 16/4/1990,at Wembley stadium, two months after his release from prison on 11/2/1990

Nelson Mandela Congressional Gold Medal Speech

Nelson Mandela elected President of South Africa (Millennium Minutes)

Nelson Mandela Speech after being elected President

Nelson Mndela and his third wife Graca Machel

Nelson Mandela’s Prison Cell

Nelson Mandela – on OPRAH WINFREY

Nelson Mandela – on OPRAH WINFREY

Nelson Mandela at the United Nations

Nelson Mandela with first wife Evelyn

Nelson Mandela meets with the family of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Highlights of Mayor De Blasio taking the oath of office. CONGRATULATIONS, MAYOR DE BLASIO!

Live events

Former President Bill Clinton and Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrive for New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s Inauguration ceremony on the steps of City Hall Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2014, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) (AP Photo/ Frank Franklin II)

Absolutely loved Bill De Blasio’s victory speech

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio waves after taking the oath of office in on the steps of City Hall Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2014, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) (AP Photo/ Frank Franklin II)

The East St. Louis Gospelettes featuring Francis Moore

Join 3 Chics Politico for live-blogging of the 2014 Presidential State of the Union Addresss, tonight at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT. Watch it here.  

Who’s  sitting with First Lady Michelle Obama?

Please feel free to add any videos or articles pertaining to tonight’s SOTU address. Thank you.

We’ll post the full video of President Obama’s State of the Union address when it’s available.

AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

It all started with this Duracell commercial:

Derrick Coleman Makes Fans Dreams Come True

Riley Kovalcik (r.), 9, who is hearing imparied, wrote a touching letter to Seattle Seahawks Derrick Coleman, who is legally deaf. She’s pictured here next to her identical twin sister, Erin, who also uses hearing aids.

THE LETTERS:

Good Morning!

Lifting up Jordan Davis’ family along with Kendrick Johnson, Trayvon Martin & the Kelly Thomas families in prayer.  3ChicsPolitico stand in solidarity with them as they seek justice for their children. Please feel free to drop your words of inspiration, encouragement, music, poems and prayers for them.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Happy Days are HERE again, with SCIENCE! 3 Chics will be following the Cosmos series with  Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist.  Watch the first episode here.   and here.

**The second episode of “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” called “Some of the Things Molecules Do,” will air at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on Fox on Sunday, March 16., and the National Geographic Channel at 7 pm. EDT tonight and it will re-air on Monday, March 17, on the National Geographic Channel at 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT.

Wiki:  Neil deGrasse Tyson (/ˈniːəl dəˈɡræs ˈtaɪsən/; born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. He is currently the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Spaceand a research associate in the department of astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. From 2006 to 2011, he hosted the educational science television show NOVA ScienceNow on PBS and has been a frequent guest on The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Jeopardy!. Tyson is the host of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a sequel to Carl Sagan‘s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage television series starting March 2014.^[2]

Trailer of Cosmos

Tyson was born as the second of three children in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, and was raised in the Bronx. His mother, Sunchita Marie (Feliciano) Tyson, was a gerontologist, and his father, Cyril deGrasse Tyson, was a sociologist, human resource commissioner for the New York City mayor John Lindsay, and the first Director of Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited.

From kindergarten through high school Tyson attended public schools in New York City, all in The Bronx, which included PS 36, PS 81, Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy (MS 141), and the Bronx High School of Science (1972–76)[5] where he was captain of the wrestling team, and editor-in-chief of the school’s Physical Science Journal.

Tyson had an abiding interest in astronomy since he was nine years old, following his visit to Pennsylvania and seeing the stars, saying “it looks like the Hayden Planetarium”. He obsessively studied astronomy in his teens, and eventually even gained some fame in the astronomy community by giving lectures on the subject at the age of fifteen. Tyson recalls that “so strong was that imprint [of the night sky] that I’m certain that I had no choice in the matter, that in fact, the universe called me.”
Astronomer Carl Sagan, who was a faculty member at Cornell University, tried to recruit Tyson to Cornell for undergraduate studies. In an interview with writer Daniel Simone.

Tyson said:
Interestingly, when I applied to Cornell, my application dripped of my passion for the study and research of the Universe. Somehow the admissions office brought my application to the attention of the late Dr. Sagan, and he actually took the initiative and care to contact me. He was very inspirational and a most powerful influence. Dr. Sagan was as great as the universe, an effective mentor.

In Ronald K. Brown’s Four Corners, 11 dancers depict spiritual seekers amid four angels standing on the corners of the earth, holding the four winds. In creating his fifth commission for the Ailey company since 1999, the celebrated choreographer turned to the song “Lamentations” by his friend, recording artist Carl Hancock Rux. Drawing from West African and modern dance influences, Brown uses grounded, earthy movements to portray figures who are burdened by grief but ultimately find peace, solace, and freedom with the aid of “the angels in their corners” mentioned in Rux’s text.

While Four Corners is not a literal interpretation of Rux’s lyrics, Brown drew inspiration from the text to manifest storytelling through choreography. Brown expressed his love for poems, stating: “There’s something about the rhythm, and something about the richness of the spoken word that goes right into my heart. When I’m dreaming about movement or seeing movement, poetry comes out.” Though the friendship between Brown and Rux began decades ago, Four Corners provided the first opportunity for choreographer and composer to create a dance work together.

Let it be know that Kwasi Enin APPLIED to and was ACCEPTED into *ALL* EIGHT (8) Ivy League UNIVERSITIES. He’s a high school senior, IVY LEAGUE COLLEGES or UNIVERSITIES, NOT schools. Got it?

Kwasi Enin has made HISTORY, beacuse he is the FIRST student to achieve this phenomenal feat.

CONGRATULATIONS, KWASI!

Long Island high school student is accepted at all eight Ivy League schools

Excerpt here:

Kwasi Enin, a senior at William Floyd High School in Mastic, applied at each of the eight Ivy League schools and got accepted into all of them. The acceptance rate for upcoming freshmen at these elite schools ranges from 5.9% at Harvard to 14% at Cornell.

“I think my preference is Yale,” he said. “They seem to embody all the kind of things I want in college. The family, the wonderful education, the amazing diverse students and financial aid, as well. I think Yale has all that for me right now. It’s tough to compare all these wonderful schools,” he ended.  

Kwasi Enin and family- LOL Ya’ll know Kwasi’s sister is a NERD.

The Women in the World Summit is a 4 day Summit featuring the most powerful women in the world and celebrating their stories.

Watch it live here.  Nene Sy’s interview airing RIGHT NOW!

Harlem student Nene Sy interviews the First Lady.

http://www.youtube.com/user/womenintheworld

We’ll post more videos as available.

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton’s State of the State Address, fresh off the heels of hip surgery in February. I’m posting this address, because Governor Dayton’s support of Minnesota’s education for it’s children is extraordinary, and especially our PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

I strongly believe the reason why Minnesota’s citizens vote Predominately for Democratic Politicians, is because its citizens are well-educated.

Transcript Excerpt

Education

Improving education is closely connected with good jobs and economic growth. It is also closely connected with our citizens’ health and well-being. I am very pleased to report that we have made significant new investments in education, all the way from early childhood through post-secondary, and improved results are beginning to show.

We started in 2011, when, despite facing a projected $6 Billion deficit, we increased K-12 education funding by $223 million, reversing a decade of declining state support for our public schools.

The 2011 legislature also passed an Alternative Pathway for Teacher Licensure and a “Read Well by Third Grade” literacy initiative. It enacted comprehensive teacher and principal evaluations. Principal evaluations began last fall, and teacher evaluations will start state-wide this September.

Last year, the 2013 legislature made $485 million of new investments in education. It increased the per-pupil aid formula as well as support for Special Education.

State funding for early childhood education scholarships was increased to $46 million last year, and the Senate wants to raise that amount this year. Early childhood education is real education reform.

The legislature also passed one of my consistent priorities; and state-funded, all-day kindergarten will begin this fall. Studies show that both early childhood and all-day kindergarten can make crucial differences in boosting students’ performances and closing achievement gaps. So do nutritious hot school lunches. No child should be shamed because parents can’t afford lunch. Hopefully, that funding will soon be enacted.

And, very significantly, during the past two-and-a-half years, we have repaid ALL of the $2.8 Billion previously borrowed from our schools. Now, school districts can put their money into classrooms, not bank loans. Let us vow that no more will we balance state budgets by creating deficits in school budgets.

Just weeks ago, the legislature passed strong anti-bullying legislation. That is also important education reform. Children don’t learn at school, if they are scared. Or made to feel bad about themselves.

Once, Minnesota students competed successfully not only with students around the country, but also with kids around the world. We are on our way to doing that again.

Testing by the Trends in International Math and Science Study ranks Minnesota #9 among world educational systems in Science and 6th in Mathematics.

Back home, in the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress testing, Minnesota’s 4th graders tested #1 in the nation in math. They ranked 10th best in reading, which was a big improvement from 22nd the year before. Very important was that the state’s reading gap for African-American and Latino 4th graders closed by 10 points from 2009 to 2013.

Our 8th graders ranked 11th best in the nation in reading and 5th best in math.

We have had the highest ACT scores among seniors for 8 years running, and our graduation rate, nearly 80%, is the highest in a decade.

Regarding higher education, we have started to make progress, but we have quite a ways to go. In fiscal 2012, state support for higher education, in real, after-inflation dollars, fell to its lowest level since 1981. Last year’s legislature began to reverse that trend, and increased state funding for higher education by a record $248.5 million.

One result from that declining state funding had been the increased reliance on tuition revenues to fund our public colleges and universities. According to the College Board, in this school year Minnesota has the 4th highest in-state tuition and fees for two-year public colleges and the 12th highest for four-year colleges and universities. Last year’s legislature wisely imposed two-year freezes on tuitions at the University of Minnesota and the MnSCU colleges and universities.

In addition, the State Grant Program was expanded. As a result, over Minnesota 100,000 students have received increased state financial aid this year.

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Invest in Better Education

We have to invest in better education. Education that teaches people what they will need to succeed in the world of the future, not the world of the past. We need to invest in their new ideas, in their new ways to solve problems. We need to invest in their better health. We need to invest in a cleaner environment to keep them healthier for longer. And we need to invest in the infrastructure they need to live productive lives: efficient transportation, reliable sewer and water systems, and high-speed world-communications.

We have begun that process by recognizing the critical importance of our investments in education, and reversing their decline. Increasing our commitment to early childhood education will be one key to closing the achievement gap and enabling all of our children to become successful adults. Let us all commit that by 2018, all three and four year olds in Minnesota will have access to quality, affordable early childhood education.

Then, from the beginning of their elementary school educations, we must teach our children how to think creatively. To learn how to learn. To learn to love to learn. Creative people develop new ideas, which start new enterprises, which provide new jobs. Creative people figure out how to do their work more efficiently and productively.

The excessive amounts of time and rote learning required by today’s excessive school testing are counter-productive. They stifle teachers’ abilities to not only impart information, but also to show kids how to use it. How to apply their knowledge to solve new problems in new areas. And to enjoy doing so.

This approach does not require abandoning testing, as a measure of each student’s progress. It does require more efficient, more effective testing. A growing number of elementary schools in Minnesota are applying “one-minute, read-out-loud” tests, which can determine reading levels in just that one minute. Such tests can be repeated throughout the school year, as often as necessary, to measure students’ progress and adjust learning strategies accordingly.

Compare that approach to the high-stakes, anxiety-provoking testing, which is now imposed on children in third grade – or even younger. Many children come to school terrified on test days; then go home demoralized. What purpose does it serve to send a third-grader home believing she has failed life, because she may have performed poorly on a test?

Last year, I’m very sorry to say, our state went backwards. More tests were mandated in the upper grade levels. I’m told some tests are required by state statute. Others are necessary to satisfy federal requirements. Still others are added by local school districts. They may make sense individually; but added all together, they do not.

I am asking our Department of Education to prepare for the 2015 legislative session an analysis all of the tests now required at each grade level. And to recommend which ones could be streamlined, combined, or eliminated. I urge next year’s legislators to work with state and national experts to reduce the amount of school testing and allow dedicated teachers to spend their time teaching students what they will need for their future success.

Minnesota offers one of the fewest school days per school year in the country. The amount of time students spend in classrooms each day has also declined. Next year’s legislature needs to re-evaluate those practices. The rigors of the school day and the school year are important ways to prepare young people for the far more competitive world they will enter.

We also need to consider what environments we offer young people, when they’re not in school. It pains me to drive by a school in the early afternoon and see it closed, with its playground locked up. I always wonder, “Where are the kids, who are locked out of their schools? Where do they go, when they have nowhere to go?”

We need our schools to open earlier to offer their students nutritious breakfasts, and we need them to stay open later to provide safety, mentoring, tutoring, exercise, and new learning opportunities. These additional responsibilities would not be placed upon schools’ regular teachers. Instead, a new group of adults would take over after regular hours.

Minnesota has the third highest labor force participation rate in the country: over 70 %. Too many of their sons and daughters have too little to do after school and no one watching them do it.

Afternoon and evening programs at schools and recreational centers should be community responsibilities. Ask local businesses to help pay for them. Ask major corporations to sponsor them. Ask adults to volunteer one day a week or a month to run them. Get everyone involved in the lives of our children.

Starting in Junior High School, our education system needs to make students aware of the real world opportunities and pitfalls in the world they will be entering. First and foremost, they need to hear again and again and again that continuing their educations will be absolutely essential to achieving the lives they want. Our schools need more guidance counselors, who are specially trained in career guidance, to help junior high and high school students better understand what their opportunities are and how to prepare for them.

Then we must better align our high school and college curricula with the world of the future, not the world of the past. This means we have to provide leading-edge instruction; in world-class schools, colleges, and universities; with state-of-the-art equipment and technology — all aligned with the good jobs that will be available for their graduates.

The need for this alignment is well-understood by our state’s secondary and post-secondary education leaders. However, they need the resources to carry it out.

The State’s current bonding levels do not adequately support the improvements that both MnSCU and the U of M must make in their existing physical plants, in new buildings, and in state-of-the-art equipment and technologies — to continue to attract the best students and give them the best possible educations.

Higher education is by no means alone in suffering from inadequate capital investments. We need to find new revenues to finance.

I have given special emphasis to education, both because I believe it holds the key to our continued growth. I am convinced that whoever retools their education systems to align most effectively with the world their students will live in, and gives them the tools they will need to succeed in it, will prosper. Whoever doesn’t, will lag behind.

You can read the Full transcript here. 

LET’S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!

Please join us in wishing 3 Chics’ SouthernGirl2 Happy Birthday!

SouthernGirl, don’t you know…You’ve got a HEART AS BIG AS TEXAS. And it’s clearly evident how much your Heart and Soul have been passed on to your children and grandchildren. Your bring, heart, joy, empathy, and truth to not only your community, but also to 3 Chics and the virtual world Everyday and in EVERY WAY.

LOVE YOU TONS, LADY!—Happy Birthday!

Got you a new pair of boots for your Birthday, SG2, hope you enjoy them.

You can’t keep a good woman down.

rikyrah here:

I just wanted to wish SG2 a Happy Birthday!

I want to thank her for all the social justice that she brings to 3CHICS!

I want to thank her for dedication in keeping us informed and up to date on those issues that are political, social, and deal with the law.

But, I also want to thank her for sharing her family with us. Our families and the love and support that we do everyday and have always done, are invisible to the outside world. SG2′s stories about her children and grandchildren and sharing them with the rest of us need to be told. Our humanity must always be told and respected. The bigness of SG2′s heart and soul is on display completely with the stories about her family. All of us can see the roots and the foundation that she’s help to plant for future generations.

SG2 – you are Good People.
You are a good Soul.
You remind me of the Black Female Anchors that helped be my ‘village’ when I was growing up.

Happy Birthday.

Hat tip Yahtc, THANK YOU.

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This week’s featured movie is…

“Separate But Equal” (Parts 1 and 2)

True MORAL COMPASS

Song for Palestine

Happy Sunday, everyone.

I am so heartbroken this morning. I want to wail at seeing the suffering, destruction and loss of life of the Palestinian people. They have a human right to live, survive and thrive. Pray for them!

‘We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.’

–Nelson Mandela

Remarks by the First Lady at the Summit of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders-- Full Transcript

I don’t believe any black girl can graduate to womanhood without knowing about, seeing, and understanding Ms. Ntozake Shange’s Choreopoem “For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf.”

Ntozake Sahnge- Poet, author, and playwright Paulette Williams was born in Trenton, New Jersey on October 18, 1948. Her parents, Paul and Eloise Williams, and their four children , the eldest being Paulette, were an upper-middle class family. Paul Williams was an Air Force surgeon and his wife worked as an educator and a psychiatric social worker. As an artistic and cultured family, the Williams’ enjoyed visits from friends such as Chuck Berry, Miles Davis, Josephine Baker, and W. E. B. Dubois.

Although the family maintained a richly intellectual home environment, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision created a racially segregated school system for the children. When she moved to St. Louis with her family in 1956, Paulette Williams, eight years old, attended a German-American school where, despite the integrated school system, she encountered racism.

For five years, she lived in St. Louis and absorbed the city’s diverse art, music, dance, literature, and opera. She returned to New Jersey in 1961 to complete high school. A year after entering Barnard College at age eighteen, Williams survived a trail of personal battles after separating from her husband, a law student. Her depression affected her so deeply that many attempts at suicide followed the relationship’s failure. Despite her drinking chemicals, slashed wrists, Valium overdose, and, ultimately, driving her Volvo into the Pacific Ocean, Williams graduated cum laude with a B.A. in American Studies from Barnard in 1970 and in 1971, took a name to reflect her power to achieve. Translated into English from Xhosa, the Zulu language, Ntozake Shange means “she who comes with her own things and walks like a lion.”

She received her master’s degree from the University of Southern California in 1973. While living in California, Shange studied Afrikan- American Dance and performed with the following dance companies: Third World Collective, Raymond Sawyer’s Afrikan- American Dance Company, Sounds in Motion, and West Coast Dance Works. Shange also had her own company named For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide.

She taught humanities, women’s studies, and Afro- American studies in California at Sonoma State College, Mills College in Oakland, and the University of California Extension. Shange’s interaction with other artists and teachers in the San Francisco area led to her collaboration with Paula Moss on for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf. The play’s success in its early stages enabled Shange and Moss to perform “for colored girls…” in New York and on television. “for colored girls…” was nominated for Tony, Emmy, and Grammy awards in 1977.

For Colored Girls “Dark Phrases” [Pt. 1 of 19]

I found God in myself: The 40th Anniversary of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls

On September 19, 2014, the Schomburg Library will begin an exhibition celebrating the 4oth anniversary of “For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.”  The exhibit will run through January 3, 2015

Ntozake Shange’s Choreopoem: Reinventing a Heritage of Poetry and Dance   

Jonathan Butler (born October 10, 1961, Athlone, Cape Town, South Africa) is a singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music is often classified as R&B, jazz fusion or worship music.

Born and raised in Cape Town during Apartheid, Butler started singing and playing acoustic guitar as a child. Racial segregation and poverty during Apartheid has been the subject of many of his records.[1] His first single was the first by a black artist played by white radio stations in the racially segregated South Africa and earned a Sarie Award, South Africa’s equivalent to the Grammy Awards.