Author: admin

Coffee, culture and cocktails are what you will find at Mama Koko’s inside the historic James E. Hooper House. The Black-owned business is a coffee shop by day and cocktail lounge by night.Drawing inspiration from his mother’s kitchen, co-owner and general manager Angola M. Selassie named the cafe after his mother, Dr. Kokahvah Zauditu-Selassie, who is affectionately known as Mama Koko.”She’s this force of a personality, and one day, I was chilling in her kitchen and I just kind of took a glance and I was like, ‘OIh man, all these little inspirations that are right here,” Selassie said. “I…

Read More

Another major resort was Idlewild in Lake County, Michigan. Founded in 1912, it was popular spot for prominent black Americans like Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, founder of Chicago’s Provident Hospital; attorney Violette Neatley Anderson, the first black woman admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; and millionaire Madam C.J. Walker, a businesswoman in the beauty industry. Families rode horses, roller-skated and swam in lakes during the day, and at night listened to musical acts like Louis Armstrong, Aretha Franklin and future Touched by an Angel star Della Reese.W.E.B. Du Bois was also a fan of Idlewild. In 1921, he…

Read More

Ransom remembered as friend, business leader, local giant Published 8:34 pm Tuesday, January 7, 2020 NATCHEZ — Friends and family members remember Francis James Ransom Sr., who died Jan. 1 at the age of 91, as an accomplished businessman who had a dry sense of humor and who loved his tractor that he affectionately called “Alice.” For Ransom’s granddaughter, Tracie Ransom who is an attorney who runs a consulting business in Kansas City, Missouri, Francis Ransom was a giant. “To be an African American in Natchez, Mississippi, in 1961, and start a business in this city that survived and was…

Read More

Timothy Wilson Credit: Photo by Ashley Lauren Local record shop shines bright in the community Upon entering the quaint Urban Lights Music (ULM) record store on a bright and sunny day, an uplifting gospel track titled “Better Days” by Le’Andria Johnson played in the background. An aroma of fresh incense lingered throughout the atmosphere. Local entrepreneur Timothy Wilson is the owner of the store, located in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood along University Avenue in St. Paul. The business is known as the only Black-owned record store in the Twin Cities. Wilson and his friends put their money together to acquire the…

Read More

What were lynchings?Historians broadly agree that lynchings were a method of social and racial control meant to terrorize black Americans into submission, and into an inferior racial caste position. They became widely practiced in the US south from roughly 1877, the end of post-civil war reconstruction, through 1950.A typical lynching would involve criminal accusations, often dubious, against a black American, an arrest, and the assembly of a “lynch mob” intent on subverting the normal constitutional judicial process.embedVictims would be seized and subjected to every imaginable manner of physical torment, with the torture usually ending with being hung from a tree…

Read More

> NEW YORK CITY IS GROWING BIGGER AND BIGGER BY THE YEAR, BUT AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE PACKING UP AND MOVING OUT IN STAGGERING NUMBERS. AFTER THE CITY’S NONHISPANIC BLACK POPULATION DROPPED BY OVER 120,000 PEOPLE, WHAT’S DRIVING THIS EXODUS, AND HOW COULD IT SHAPE NEW YORK’S FUTURE? ‘METROFOCUS’ STARTS RIGHT NOW. ♪♪ > THIS IS ‘METROFOCUS,’ WITH RAFAEL PI ROMAN, JACK FORD, AND JENNA FLANAGAN. > ‘METROFOCUS’ IS MADE POSSIBLE BY — SUE AND EDGAR WACHENHEIM III, FILOMEN M. D’AGOSTINO FOUNDATION, THE PETER G. PETERSON AND JOAN GANZ COONEY FUND, BERNARD AND DENISE SCHWARTZ, BARBARA HOPE ZUCKERBERG, AND BY —…

Read More

Dr. Katina Blue BENSON – The Town of Benson and the Benson Museum of Local History are excited to announce this year’s Black History Month Celebration honoring past and present Black business owners within the Town of Benson. In past years, the Museum has chosen an individual to highlight for their accomplishments within the community. This year, it was decided to shift focus to Benson’s Black community at large with a particular lens on business owners past and present. “We had a lot of input from community members and they have helped guide this new direction,” explained Benson Cultural Arts…

Read More

In North Omaha, the legacy of The Omaha Star lives on, steadfast through decades of change and challenge. Since 1938, Nebraska’s only Black-owned newspaper has been a voice for the community, and now, under the leadership of Terri Sanders, it’s poised to become a national cultural landmark. “Paper’s been going 87 years. We have never missed a publication day. So, we can’t start with me,” Sanders said in a telephone conversation with NNPA Newswire. The mother of former vice-presidential advisor and MSNBC News journalist Symone D. Sanders-Townsend, Sanders said she remains committed to preserving Omaha’s beacon of Black journalism. Dr…

Read More

Intermountain Healthcare and the Raiders today announced their Naming Rights Partnership for the Raiders’ Performance Center and Corporate Headquarters, which will house Silver and Black football and business operations. Intermountain Healthcare also becomes the Official Healthcare Partner of the Raiders and a Founding Partner of Allegiant Stadium. The Intermountain Healthcare Performance Center is currently under construction in Henderson, Nevada and set to open in the Summer of 2020. The Raiders and Intermountain Healthcare will focus their efforts and new initiatives by working towards better health outcomes and overall well-being for individuals, families, and communities in the west. “We are thrilled…

Read More