“At a time when our military’s readiness is strained to the breaking point from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the armed forces continue to discharge vital service members under the outdated, outmoded ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy,” said Moran. “Our allies have overcome this issue, facing no adverse consequences from lifting bans focused on soldiers’ sexual orientation. Polls show the American people overwhelmingly support repealing this policy. Yet, how many more good soldiers are we willing to lose due to a bad policy that makes us less safe and secure? I’m going to keep releasing this information each month until DADT is repealed.”

In January 2009, the Army fired eleven soldiers for homosexuality including one human intelligence collector, one military police officer, four infantry personnel, a health care specialist, motor transport operator and water treatment specialist under the military's “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” law and policy. Today’s release is a first in a series of monthly releases Rep. Moran plans to highlight until DADT is repealed.

Photos by Jeanine Boubli

Pearl Albino, Xenobia Bailey and Katharine Umsted

This on-line collection includes full text of her memoirs as well as several of her poems and vignettes that were published in various newspapers during her lifetime.

Toni Morrison, née Chloe Anthony Wofford, was born on Feb. 18, 1931, the second of four children. Her parents, George and Ramah Wofford, moved to Ohio after growing up in Georgia. Her father was raised in a sharecropping family, but wanted to shield his own family from the segregation that prevailed in the south.

Morrison was raised in a house full of art and culture where fairy tales, ghost stories, myth and music prevailed. Storytelling was a Wofford family tradition among the adults and children. The importance of listening and narration helped form Morrison’s understanding of the world and inspired her love of reading.

She graduated from high school with honors and attended Howard University in Washington, D.C. While in college, Morrison changed her name from Chloe to Toni (after her middle name), to make it easier to pronounce. While in college, Morrison was part of the Howard Repertory Theatre, which allowed her to travel throughout the South and witness black America firsthand.

In 1953, Morrison graduated from Howard and enrolled in a graduate program at Cornell University. She graduated with a Master of Arts two years later, having submitted a thesis on Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner.

DAVIS: Actually we've had a black bourgeoisie or the makings of a black bourgeoisie for many more decades.... if we look at one of our great leaders, W.E.B. Du Bois, he was associated with a very minuscule black bourgeoisie in the 19th century so this is not something that is substantively new although the numbers of black people who now count themselves among the black bourgeoisie certainly does make an enormous difference.

In a sense the quest for the emancipation of black people in the US has always been a quest for economic liberation which means to a certain extent that the rise of black middle class would be inevitable. What I think is different today is the lack of political connection between the black middle class and the increasing numbers of black people who are more impoverished than ever before.

Abraham Lincoln with friend and fellow abolitionist Sojourner Truth

It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery's final destruction, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom.

National Geographic Feature February 10, 2009

A nationally recognized commemorative day, NBHAAD will include special events such as press conferences, community forums, church services, community marches and rallies, and free HIV/AIDS testing, counseling and referrals which will be held throughout the nation for African Americans to get educated, get tested, get treated and get involved.

In addition, NBHAAD has obtained the support of numerous noted celebrities to join in the delivery of the message to serve as national spokespersons.

• having unprotected sex with another man who is HIV+
• sharing injection drug works (like needles or syringes) with someone who is HIV+
• having unprotected sex with a woman who is HIV+

NBHAAD is currently directed, planned and organized by a group known as the Strategic Leadership Council who partners with the CDC to mobilize communities and address specific issues in regards to local epidemics and best practices that are science based and will influence the course of HIV in Black communities across the country.

For more information on National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, including the complete listings of events in the local communities, visit BlackHIV/AIDS Day.

A calendar poster featuring the 2009 Celebrity spokespersons is available upon request. To request a copy, visit the local NBHAAD partner office, or contact Sonshine Communications at (305) 948-8063.

"Organizing for America will continue the work of the largest grassroots movement in history. Volunteers, grassroots leaders, and ordinary citizens will drive this organization and help bring about the changes we proposed during the presidential campaign." President Barrack Obama

Performers from several African countries, such as Nigeria, Burundi, Senegal and Tanzania, will participate in this year's festivities, adding extra spice and excitement.

This vibrant annual event will start at 2pm on Wednesday, 31 December at Berea Park, in Berea, and at Pieter Roos Park, in Parktown. The two groups will meet on Kotze Street, in Hillbrow, and proceed in a single procession to Newtown.

The carnival, which is themed Nyakaza-Joburg unplugged, will travel along Empire Road, Claim Street, Catherine Avenue, O'Reilly Road Joubert Street, De Korte Street, Bertha Street, Nelson Mandela Bridge, Jeppe Street and Miriam Makeba Street.

About 20 000 participants, including various carnival troupes, choirs, bands, clowns, stilt walkers and drummers, are expected to take part.

Communities from all over the city have taken part in carnival camps in the run-up to the main event, during which budding artists were trained in various carnival-related arts, equipping them with skills that could eventually earn them a living.

According to Steven Sack, the city's director of arts, culture and heritage services, the carnival will give people in the inner city an opportunity to engage in a free, safe and constructive activity on New Year's Eve.

"The carnival atmosphere captures Joburg's unique urban flavour. It is always a joyous and uplifting experience that symbolises the melting pot of cultures making this edgy, world-class African city," Mr Sack said.

Once at Mary Fitzgerald Square, in Newtown, there will be a concert from 6pm to 2am, featuring acts such Freshlyground, KB, Wonderboom and MXO.

"No alcohol, weapons or fireworks will be allowed, and the police and emergency services will be on hand to ensure that the evening's festivities run smoothly," he said.

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Sixty other countries of the UN's 192 member states, including a number of Arab and African states, rejected the non-binding declaration.

They said laws on homosexuality should be left to individual countries.

Gay men, lesbians and transsexuals worldwide face daily violations of their human rights.

Homosexuality is a criminal offence in more than 80 countries, while in at least seven nations, including Saudi Arabia, sex between men can be punished with the death penalty.

Sucuzhanay, a 31-year-old real estate agent, was attacked by a group of men who kicked and beat him with an aluminum baseball bat, shouting anti-Latino and anti-gay slurs as he walked arm in arm with his brother near his Brooklyn home on Dec. 7. He died after five days in a coma.

New York City police are still searching for three suspects, and the NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident.

"My heart is broken and so is that of all my family," his brother German said during a funeral Mass in the cathedral of the southern town of Cuenca. Sucuzhanay's coffin was scattered with roses and covered with the Ecuadorean flag.

"The brutal killing of my brother Oswaldo is the result of xenophobia, of homophobia and racism that our compatriots are experiencing in these times," he said, calling on Ecuador's government to demand that U.S. authorities solve the crime.

Many people in southern Ecuador have relatives in the United States and the attack caused a wave of fear.

Carmen Guaman, 37, said her husband works in construction in New York.

"I tell him to be careful, that he doesn't go out much in the streets because the same thing could happen to him," she said.

U.S. lawmakers and Hispanic groups have denounced Sucuzhanay's death, saying recent slayings of Latino immigrants lend new urgency to calls to pass a new hate crimes law.

Sucuzhanay's killing follows the deaths of Luis Ramirez, 25, a Mexican immigrant who was beaten to death July 14 in eastern Pennsylvania, and Marcelo Lucero, 37, an Ecuadorean immigrant who was fatally stabbed Nov. 8 by a group of teenagers on Long Island, New York.

"First it was my brother, then another compatriot," said Lucero's sister Isabel, who attended Sucuzhanay's funeral. "Who will be next?"

Prosecutors said seven teenagers charged in Lucero's assault had set out to attack a Hispanic person, while three teenagers linked to Ramirez's death also face charges of ethnic intimidation.

There were 830 Hispanic victims of hate crimes last year in the United States, up from 819 in 2006 and 595 in 2003, according to FBI statistics.

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These include "Black Search," which brings up results tailored to what its backers assume are African-American interests; "Black News Ticker," which does more of the same; and "Blackbird TV," which is "the best of Black video on the Web."

"We believe that the Blackbird application can make it easier to find African American related content on the Internet and to interact with other members of the African American community online by sharing stories, news, comments and videos via Blackbird," reads a press release posted by 40A, the somewhat mysterious firm behind the browser, on the CrunchBase Web site.

Reaction from black bloggers, tech writers and commenters has been, shall we say, a bit mixed.

"Wait, why do I need a special Web browser?" asked Gizmodo writer Adrian Covert. "Last time I checked, I don't physically browse the Internet any different than anyone else."

"The way this browser is marketed, the language, and the very idea that Black people somehow need a different piece of software to deal with the Internet all rubs me the wrong way," wrote K.T. Bradford of Laptop magazine.

The BlackWeb 2.0 blog was more supportive.

"There is a Black culture and a Black Experience, and this naturally translates online and into any other medium since we are all a part of the human race," regular poster "Markus" wrote. "In 2008 it is not wrong to want to identify with your culture regardless of what that culture may be or how you choose to identify with it."

But the angriest reaction came from a commenter on Gizmodo who calls himself "Cordfucious the Ubuntu Walker."

"I am offended at this," he posted. "As a Black man in this country I don't need a browser to help my kids find culturally relevant material... it's the damn WORLD WIDE WEB... not the Black Web, or White Web or Yellow Web. ... It's s--- like this that burns me up. I need to tell my wife (who is Hispanic) that the[y] need the BlackBean browser for the Hispanic community."

http://www.blackbirdhome.com/

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"At a time when the country is excited about the election of the first African American president in U.S. history," said Benjamin Todd Jealous, who was appointed in May to head the civil rights organization, "it is unthinkable that minorities would be so grossly underrepresented on broadcast television."

The statement came shortly after the organization's Hollywood bureau released a 40-page report called "Out of Focus, Out of Sync -- Take 4" that found blacks and other minorities continue to be underrepresented in "nearly every aspect of the television and film businesses."

Though he declined to be specific, Jealous said the organization "could bring the hammer down," including "shaming the industry," if it does not improve diversity.

The report marks some of the most pointed criticism of the industry by the civil rights organization and signals a return to the issue for the group, which has been inconsistent in recent years in keeping tabs on networks' efforts to embrace multiculturalism. Then-NAACP President Kweisi Mfume first lashed out at the networks in 1999, pointing out that none of the 26 new comedies and pilots that season featured a minority lead.

Today, only three network series -- CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "The Unit" and ABC's "Ugly Betty" -- have minorities in leading roles.

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The adage that when America sneezes, Black America catches a cold has held true, making it almost inevitable that African Americans would bear the brunt of the country’s financial woes, economists say.

“Whenever there is an economic downturn, African Americans are the most negatively affected,” said Jon Schmitt, senior economist at the Center for Economic Policy Research.

The disparity can be explained by a persistent gap in wealth between Blacks and Whites among other things, he added.

“The unique challenge for African-American middle class is they tend to have much less financial wealth (like stocks and bonds) and wealth in general so they have much less of a margin to get through tough times,” the economist said.

It was just a decade ago that journalist Ellis Cose declared that “it’s the best time ever to be black in America.” A tight labor market saw marked increases in employment, higher wages and homeownership and declines in joblessness and poverty that promised a robust growth of the community’s wealth base.

Inauguration Order of Program

Musical Selections

The United States Marine Band

Musical Selections

The San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus

Call To Order And Welcoming Remarks

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Invocation

Pastor Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, Calif.

Musical Selection

Aretha Franklin

Oath Of Office Administered To Joe Biden

John Paul Stevens, associate justice of the Supreme Court

Musical Selection

John Williams, composer/arranger

Itzhak Perlman, violin

Yo-Yo Ma, cello

Gabriela Montero, piano

Anthony McGill, clarinet

Oath Of Office Administered To Barack Obama

John G. Roberts, chief justice of the Supreme Court

Inaugural Address

President Obama

Poem

Elizabeth Alexander

Benediction

The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery

The National Anthem

The United States Navy Band "Sea Chanters"