HRISTIAN C L E N A R D E PIKES PEAK SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE E H

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“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” MLK NOVEMBER 2019 | VOLUME ONE, ISSUE ELEVEN

IBRAM X. KENDI IBRAM X. KENDI is one of America’s foremost historians and leading antiracist voices. He is a New York Times bestselling author and the Founding Director of The Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University in Washington, DC. A professor of history and international relations, Kendi is an ideas columnist at The Atlantic. He is the author of THE BLACK CAMPUS MOVEMENT, which won the W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize, and STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING: THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF RACIST IDEAS IN AMERICA, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. At 34 years old, Kendi was the youngest ever winner of the NBA for Nonfiction. He grew up dreaming about playing in the NBA (National Basketball Association), and ironically he ended up joining the other NBA.

Kendi has published fourteen academic essays in books and academic journals, including The Journal of African American History, Journal of Social History, Journal of Black Studies, Journal of African American Studies, and The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture. He has published op-eds in numerous periodicals, including The New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, London Review, Time, Salon, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, Paris Review, Black Perspectives, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He commented on a series of international, national, and local media outlets, such as CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Al Jazeerah, PBS, BBC, Democracy Now, and Sirius XM. A sought after public speaker, Kendi has delivered hundreds of addresses over years at colleges and universities, bookstores, festivals, conferences, libraries, churches, and other institutions in the United States and abroad.

Kendi strives to be a hardcore antiracist and softcore vegan. He enjoys joking it up with friends and family, partaking in African American culture, weight-lifting, reading provocative books, discussing the issues of the day with open-minded people, and hoping and pressing for the day the New York Knicks will win an NBA championship and for the day this nation and world will be ruled by the best of humanity.

PIKES PEAK SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE TELEPHONE: (719) 368-6423 603 S. El Paso St., Suite B, COLORADO SPRINGS, CO 80903 [email protected]

MISSION: In the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is renewing its commitment to bring about the promise of “one nation, under God, indivisible” together with the commitment to activate the “strength to love” within the community of humankind.

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In 2013, he changed his middle name from Henry to Xolani (meaning "Peace" in Zulu) and surname from Rogers to Kendi when he wed Sadiqa Kendi, a pediatric emergency physician from Albany, Georgia. They chose their new name together and unveiled “Kendi,” meaning "loved one" in Meru, to their family and friends at their wedding. Their wedding photos, including Sadiqa's beautiful gold dress, were featured in Essence Magazine.

Kendi was born in 1982 to parents who came of age during the Black power movement in New York City. They were student activists and Christians inspired by Black liberation theology. While Kendi was in high school, his family moved from Jamaica, Queens, to Manassas, Virginia. He traveled further south and attended Florida A&M University, where he majored in journalism. He initially aspired for a career in sports journalism, freelancing for several Florida newspapers, and interning at USA Today Sports Weekly, as well as in the sports sections of the Mobile Register and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. By the end of his tenure at FAMU, he had become alienated from sports journalism and increasingly interested in engaging in racial justice work. He picked up a second major in African American Studies and graduated in 2004.

After working for a time as a journalist at The Virginian Pilot, Kendi pursued his graduate studies. At 27 years old, he earned his doctoral degree in African American Studies from Temple University in 2010. The year before, Kendi began his career as an assistant professor of African American history at SUNY Oneonta in upstate New York, before moving down the road to SUNY Albany, and then to the University of Florida, and now AU. In 2017, he became a full professor, the highest professorial rank, at 34 years old.

Kendi has been visiting professor at Brown University, a 2013 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow, and postdoctoral fellow at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. He has also resided at The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress as the American Historical Association’s 2010-2011 J. Franklin Jameson Fellow in American History. In the summer of 2011, he lived in Chicago as a short-term fellow in African American Studies through the Black Metropolis Research Consortium. He has received research fellowships, grants, and visiting appointments from a variety of other universities, foundations, professional associations, and libraries, including the Lyndon B. Johnson Library & Museum, University of Chicago, Wayne State University, Emory University, Duke University, Princeton University, UCLA, Washington University, Wake Forest University, and the historical societies of Kentucky and Southern California. In 2017, The Root 100 listed him as the 29th most influential African American between the ages of 25 and 45 and the second most influential college professor. In 2019, Kendi was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.

His third book, HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST, was published on August 13, 2019 by One World, an imprint of Random House.

“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”

James Baldwin

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UPCOMING EVENTS

PIKES PEAK SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE relationships with Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers. His account of the political movement is explored, as Citizenship Education Program well as his more personal reminiscences of American history. Fascinating archive footage is used throughout – to unsettling effect – capturing images from major historical events, often juxtaposed with disturbing scenes of contemporary American society. As well as this, the film dissects old film clips demonstrating the representation of African Americans in cinema, in provocative, unsettling ways. A challenging, but hugely rewarding documentary.

NOVEMBER 23, 2019

11:00am to 1:00pm

James Baldwin was an American novelist, essayist and critic, regarded as one of the most important voices of I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO the Civil Rights movement. In this searing documentary, he recounts his Film Screening Each Month experiences in 20th century America Pikes Peak SCLC through the voice of Samuel L. 603 S. El Paso St., #B, Jackson, particularly focusing on his Colorado Springs, CO 8090

November 23, 2019 from 1:00 – 3:00 pm PIKES PEAK SCLC MEMBERSHIP MEETING WITH THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

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A VERY SPECIAL EVENT IS COMING TO COLORADO SPRINGS

This workshop asks Colorado Springs to talk about the causes and consequences of systemic inequity. Designed for dialogue, the film, Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity, works to disentangle internal beliefs, attitudes and pre-judgments within, and it builds skills to address the structural drivers of social and economic inequities. The participants will work together to shift the framing of racial disparities. Current conversations are not only shallow, but actually harmful. They continue to primarily focus on individuals, when institutional and structural inequities are the bigger problem.

The workshop contains three sections that correspond to World Trust’s framing of the self-perpetuating system of racial inequity: 1-Social Determinants: History, Identity & Culture, 2-Internal Components: Bias, Privilege, Internalized Racism and 3-External Relationships: Interpersonal, Institutional, Structural

Our Special Guest and World Trust Facilitator

AMIKAEYLA GASTON Amikaeyla Gaston is a force for change. She creates environments that support people in exploring themselves and uses creativity and strategic questioning to support people in addressing their fears, developing a place where everyone has an equal voice. She has led corporations, universities, government and nonprofit organizations through cultural competency & racial equity training.

“What drew me to diversity work,” she says, “is the deep desire to be part of change, to be part of the solution-making process, the conversation-making process. I’ve always been an activist, and I’ve always been outspoken. My nickname in high school

was ‘the bridge’ because I was comfortable with everyone. It was a mosh pit at my house. Everybody was there, and everyone was going to share what they were feeling. It was just the thing.”

In 1992, Amikaeyla survived a hate crime that killed her, and luckily she came back to life. She was targeted and intentionally run over by a truck while walking through a field of flowers and spent a year and a half in the ICU and burn ward healing herself and alleviating her pain by discovering the power of music. She brings this experience of personal restoration to her work as a World Trust facilitator.

DATE, TIME AND VENUE TO BE World Trust Educational Services is a non-profit social justice organization that provides deep learning, tools and resources for ANNOUNCED people interested in tackling unconscious bias and systemic racial inequity in their workplace, community and in their lives.

“Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated.”

Kofi Annan

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BOOK REVIEW

Jesmyn Ward

MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS AGO, James Baldwin wrote, in The Fire Next Time, that “the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon”; now, responding to both Baldwin’s words and the new tragedies of our day, eighteen influential thinkers wrestle with the past, present, and future of American race relations and the Black experience. This is an essential collection of essays and poems on race in America for anyone who wishes to confront the truth of our nation. Jesmyn Ward is the author of the memoir Men We Reaped and the novels Where the Line Bleeds and Salvage the Bones, which won the 2011 National Book Award. She is currently an associate professor of creative writing at Tulane University and has received a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renée Grisham writers residency, and the Strauss Living Award. She lives in Mississippi.

Jesmyn Ward says in the introduction to this groundbreaking New York Times bestseller,

“I read Baldwin’s essay Notes of a Native Son while I was in my mid-twenties, and it was a revelation. I’d never read creative nonfiction like Baldwin’s, never encountered this kind of work, work that seemed to me, to know I needed it. I read it voraciously, desperate for the words on the page. I needed to know that someone else saw the myriad injustices of living while black in this country, that someone so sharp and gifted and human could acknowledge it all, and speak on it again and again. Baldwin was so brutally honest. His prose was frank and elegant in turn, and I returned to him annually after that first impression-forming read. Around a year after Trayvon Martin’s death, a year in which black person after black person died and no one was held accountable, I picked up The Fire Next Time, and I read: ‘You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger. I tell you this because I love you, and please don’t you ever forget it.’ It was as if I sat on my porch steps with a wise father, a kind, present uncle, who said this to me. Told me I was worthy of love. Told me I was worth something in the world. Told me I was a human being. I saw Trayvon’s face, and all the words blurred on the page.”

Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward knows that Baldwin’s words ring as true as ever today. In response, she has gathered short essays, memoir, and a few essential poems to engage the question of race in the United States. And she has turned to some of her generation’s most original thinkers and writers to give voice to their concerns.

The Fire This Time is divided into three parts that shine a light on the darkest corners of our history, wrestle with our current predicament, and envision a better future. Of the eighteen pieces, ten were written specifically for this volume.

In the fifty-odd years since Baldwin’s essay was published, entire generations have dared everything and made significant progress. But the idea that we are living in the post-Civil Rights era, that we are a “post racial” society, is an inaccurate and harmful reflection of a truth the country must confront. Baldwin’s “fire next time” is now upon us, and it needs to be talked about. Read The Guardian’s interview with Jesmyn Ward at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/11/jesmyn-ward-home-mississippi-living-with-addiction-poverty-racism 5

H E R S T O R Y & H I S T O R Y

Huey P. Newton, Ph.D. (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) Huey P. Newton was an African-American activist best known for founding the militant Black Panther Party with Bobby Seale in 1966. Background and Early Life Social activist Huey Percy Newton was born on February 17, 1942, in Monroe, Louisiana. Newton helped establish the African-American political organization the Black Panther Party, and became a leading figure in the Black Power movement of the 1960s. The youngest of seven siblings, he and his family moved to Oakland, California when Newton was a toddler. Though later stating he was close to his family, the youngster had a difficult time early in life, which was reflected in highly erratic behavior at school and on the streets. Despite having multiple suspensions and run-ins with the law as a teen, Newton began to take his education seriously, finding inspiration when his older brother Melvin earned a masters in social work. Although Newton graduated high school in 1959, he was considered barely literate. He nonetheless became his own teacher, learning to read by himself. Creation of Black Panthers In the mid-1960s, Newton decided to pursue his education at Merritt College, during which time he received a months-long prison term for a knife assault, and later attended the University of San Francisco School of Law . It was at Merritt where he met Bobby Seale. The two were briefly involved with political groups at the school before they set out to create one of their own. Founded in 1966, they called their group the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Unlike many of the other social and political organizers of the time, they took a more militant stance to the plight of black communities in America. A famous photograph shows Newton—the group's minister of defense—holding a gun in one hand and a spear in the other. The group set forth its political goals in a document entitled the Ten-Point Program, which called for better housing, jobs and education for African Americans. It also called for an end to economic exploitation of black communities, along with military exemption. The Black Panthers sponsored a free breakfast program for children, sickle-cell anemia tests, free food and shoes, and a school. The organization itself was not afraid to punctuate its message with dramatic appearances. For example, to protest a gun bill in 1967, members of the Panthers entered the California Legislature armed. (Newton actually wasn't present at the demonstration.) The action was a shocking one that made news across the country, and Newton emerged as a leading figure in the black militant movement. Arrest and Conviction The Black Panthers wanted to improve life in black communities and took a stance against police brutality in urban neighborhoods by mostly white cops. Members of the group would go to arrests in progress and watch for abuse. Panther members ultimately clashed with police several times. The party's treasurer, Bobby Hutton, was killed while still a teenager during one of these conflicts in 1968.

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Newton himself was arrested the previous year for allegedly killing an Oakland police officer during a traffic stop. He was later convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to two to 15 years in prison. But public pressure—"Free Huey" became a popular slogan of the day— helped Newton's cause. He was freed in 1970 after an appeals process deemed that incorrect deliberation procedures had been implemented during the trial. In the 1970s, Newton aimed to take the Panthers in a new direction that emphasized democratic socialism, community interconnectedness and services for the poor, including items like free lunch programs and urban clinics. But the Panthers began to fall apart due to factionalism, with later allegations surfacing that the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, was clandestinely involved in the organization's unraveling. Key members left while Newton and Eldridge Cleaver, the party's minister of information, split ways. By mid-decade, Newton faced more criminal charges when he was accused of murdering a 17-year-old sex worker and assaulting a tailor. To avoid prosecution, he fled to Cuba in 1974, but returned to the U.S. three years later. The murder case was eventually dismissed after two trials ended with deadlocked juries, while the tailor refused to testify in court in relation to assault charges. Later Years and Death Even with his legal troubles, Newton returned to school, earning a Ph.D. in social philosophy from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1980. In his final years, however, he suffered from major drug/alcohol problems and faced more prison time for weapons possession, financial misappropriations and parole violations. The once popular revolutionary died on August 22, 1989, in Oakland, California, after being shot on the street. Citation Information Author: Biography.com Editors Website Name: The Biography.com website URL: https://www.biography.com/activist/huey-p-newton Original Published Date: April 1, 2014 Last Updated: June 30, 2019

DR. TONY CAMPOLO (February 17, 1942 –)

Tony Campolo is professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University and a former faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. For 40 years, he led the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, an organization which he founded to create and support programs serving needy communities. More recently, Dr. Campolo has provided leadership for the progressive Christian movement, Red Letter Christians as well as for the Campolo Center for Ministry, a program which provides support to those the church has called to full-time ministry. He has written more than 35 books and can be found blogging regularly on tonycampolo.org and redletterchristians.org. Tony and his wife Peggy live near Philadelphia and have two children and four grandchildren. In November 2012, Tony Campolo received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Youth Worker’s Convention. The wording on the award is: “Award of Lifetime Achievement is proudly presented to Tony Campolo who has defined and courageously pioneered what is means to encourage, care and lead students, possessing the qualities that inspire us and provoke us to continue the journey into the future with boldness and confidence. As a result of Tony’s life of ministry and leadership he has left a legacy of encouragement and hope to youth workers and students everywhere.”

(The essay on page 10 by Dr. Campolo is provided to generate thought and discussion about the current state of America.)

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Can America Be Great Again? By Dr. Tony Campolo

After surveying America, the brilliant French journalist, Alexis de Tocqueville declared: “America is great because America is good; and if America ever ceases to be good, it will cease to be great!” Now the question must be asked, “Is America good?” Having just returned from a speaking tour in Europe, I got the impression from most of the people I met over there that America is not generally viewed as being good, and I wondered if that means we have been losing our greatness. In the nations that I visited, no one questioned that we are the wealthiest of nations or that we have the strongest military on the planet, but nowhere did I find that we were viewed as an especially good nation. I don’t want to disparage my country, because there are many good things about us. Statistics will prove that we are the most charitable people in the world. Whenever there is a need anywhere in the world, the American people can be counted on to give generously to meet that need. Whether it’s responding to the suffering of an earthquake in Haiti or the catastrophic effects of a tsunami in Indonesia, we Americans are on the scene with volunteer help and financial aid. When it comes to charitable work we’re number one, and when it comes to missionary service, agricultural programs, or health care and job creation in developing countries, we again come out on top. Our problem of image, it seems, stems from the policies of our government. I am not singling out particular policies of the Trump Administration, although of late it has contributed much to our negative image overseas. Our problem of image goes back over several decades and administrations. The lack of moral justification for our involvement in the Vietnam War lingers on in the minds of many. There seems to be a consensus abroad that millions of people suffered and untold hundreds died unnecessarily in a futile effort by some of our leaders to avoid the embarrassment of having to admit that we were in a war that America could not win. We watched with tears in our eyes as body bags carrying the bodies of brave soldiers were brought home for burial, and dealt with feelings in the pits of our stomachs that they may have died in vain. It didn’t help when there was bipartisan support for an Iraq War that created millions of refugees with untold hardships and devastation for millions of others. Today, we continue to ignore the pain of Palestinian people on the West Bank who have had their land taken from them illegally to make room to build Israeli settlements when our government could have stopped it. As of late, America’s treatment of refugees — especially the separation of children from their parents who illegally crossed our southern borders — has appeared inhumane to many people around the world. The words of Ezra Lazarus inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty now mocks our onetime good intentions as a safe haven for immigrants as it reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Moving to the domestic scene, we now have a government that appears ready to take away health and education benefits from the poor while giving huge tax benefits to the upper five percent of our citizens, and then there’s the dismantling of regulations that had been established to protect the environment. People in Europe, where I recently visited, are aware of these policies. Also, there’s the exposure of the latent racism that we Americans tried to pretend was part of the past. The events at Charlottesville in which neo- Nazis conducted a torchlight march through the campus of the University of Virginia and a president who failed to categorically condemn them, further marred our identity. The Black Lives Matter movement dispelled any remaining illusion that we had moved into a post-racist era. We once were noted around the world for being a champion for human rights. This, in spite of our willingness to tolerate slavery for so many years, and our denial of the social and political rights for women. Our oppression of Native Americans has been another blot on our human rights record. Yet, in spite of these many shortcomings, there have been people everywhere who once regarded Americans as a shining light for human rights advocacy. Now we are facing a test of the validity of America’s human rights claims. When Jamal Khashoggi, the American-based journalist who once contributed articles to the Washington Post, recently disappeared and was probably murdered after entering the Saudi Arabia consulate in Turkey, our president was reluctant to declare any significant outrage. What was worse is that a leading evangelical leader, Pat Robertson, host of the Christian 700 Club television show, commented that we shouldn’t make a fuss over this matter since, according to President Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia is about to spend 100 billion dollars buying U.S. arms. Such statements do not bode well for the reputation of a nation and its evangelical citizens that claims high moral values, especially on human rights. All of this leads me to wonder what Alexis de Tocqueville would have to say about America’s goodness and greatness these days. If he was writing his famous book, Democracy in America today, I wonder what he would say. The Bible declares that it is “righteousness that exalts a nation” (Proverbs 14:34). If our president really wants to lift up our nation in the eyes of the world, I wonder if he considers this when he chants, “Let’s make America Great again!” Among those who would make America great again, there needs to be soul searching. 8

Nina Simone February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) Legendary performer sang a mix of , and folk music in the 1950s and '60s, later enjoying a career resurgence in the '80s. A staunch Civil Rights activist, she was known for tunes like "," "Young, Gifted and Black" and "Four Women." Background and Early Life Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on February 21, 1933, in Tryon, North Carolina, Nina Simone took to music at an early age, learning to play piano at the age of 3 and singing in her church's choir. Simone's musical training over the years emphasized classical repertory along the lines of Beethoven and Brahms, with Simone later expressing the desire to have been recognized as the first major African-American concert pianist. Her music teacher helped establish a special fund to pay for Simone's education and, after finishing high school, the same fund was used to send the pianist to New York City's famed Juilliard School of Music to train. Simone taught piano and worked as an accompanist for other performers while at Juilliard, but she eventually had to leave school after she ran out of funds. Moving to Philadelphia, Simone lived with her family there in order to save money and go to a more affordable music program. Her career took an unexpected turn, however, when she was rejected from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; she later claimed the school denied her admittance because she was African-American. Turning away from classical music, she started playing American standards, jazz and blues in Atlantic City clubs in the 1950s. Before long, she started singing along with her music at the behest of a bar owner. She took the stage name Nina Simone—"Nina," derived from the Spanish word "niña," came from a nickname used by her then boyfriend, while "Simone" was inspired by French actress Simone Signoret. The performer eventually won over such fans as writers Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry and James Baldwin. Innovative Fusion of Styles Simone began recording her music in the late 1950s under the Bethlehem label, releasing her first full in 1957, which featured "Plain Gold Ring" and the title track, "Little Girl Blue." It also included her lone Top 20 pop hit with her version of "I Loves You Porgy," from the George and Ira Gershwin musical Porgy and Bess. Under different labels, Simone released a bevy of from the late '50s throughout the '60s and early '70s, including records like The Amazing Nina Simone (1959), Nina Simone Sings Ellington! (1962), Wild Is the Wind (1966) and Silk and Soul (1967). She also made cover songs of popular music, eventually putting her own spin on such songs as Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and the Beatles' "." And she showed her sensual side with tracks like "Take Care of Business" on 1965's and "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl" on 1967's Nina Simone Sings the Blues. In many ways, Simone's music defied standard definitions. Her classical training showed through, no matter what genre of song she played, and she drew from a well of sources that included gospel, pop and folk. She was often called the "High Priestess of Soul," but she hated that nickname. She didn't like the label of "jazz singer," either. "If I had to be called something, it should have been a folk singer because there was more folk and blues than jazz in my playing," she later wrote in her autobiography. Prominent Civil Rights Singer By the mid-1960s, Simone became known as the voice of the Civil Rights Movement. She wrote "Mississippi Goddam" in response to the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers and the Birmingham church bombing that killed four young African-American girls. She also penned "Four Women," chronicling the complex histories of a quartet of African-American female figures, and "Young, Gifted and Black," borrowing the title of a play by Hansberry, which became a popular anthem. After the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Simone's bassist Greg Taylor penned "Why (The King of Love Is Dead)," which was performed by the singer and her band at the Westbury Music Festival. During the '60s, Simone had prominent hits in England as well with "I Put a Spell on You," "Ain't Got No-I Got Life/Do What You Gotta Do" and "To Love Somebody," with the latter penned by Barry and Robin Gibb and originally performed by their group the Bee Gees.

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Struggles and Career Renaissance As the 1960s drew to a close, Simone tired of the American music scene and the country's deeply divided racial politics. Having been neighbors with Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz in Mount Vernon, New York, she later lived in several different countries, including Liberia, Switzerland, England and Barbados before eventually settling down in the South of France. For years, Simone also struggled with severe mental health issues and her finances, and clashed with managers, record labels and the Internal Revenue Service. Simone, who had taken a break from recording in the mid-70s, returned in 1978 with the album Baltimore, with the title track a cover version of a Randy Newman tune. Critics gave the album a warm reception, but it did not fare well commercially. Simone went through a career renaissance in the 1980s when her song "My Baby Just Cares For Me" was used in a Chanel No. 5 perfume commercial in the United Kingdom. The song thus became a Top 10 hit in Britain in 1985. She also penned her autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, which was published in 1991. Her next recording, , came out in 1993. Touring periodically, Simone maintained a strong fan base that filled concert halls whenever she performed. In 1998, she appeared in the New York tri-state area, her first trip there in five years, specifically playing at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. The New York Times critic Jon Pareles reviewed the concert, noting that "there is still power in her voice" and that the show featured "a beloved sound, a celebrated personality, and a repertory that magnifies them both." That same year, Simone attended South African leader Nelson Mandela's 80th birthday celebration. Death and Legacy In 1999, Simone performed at the Guinness Blues Festival in Dublin, Ireland. She was joined on stage by her daughter Lisa Simone Kelly for a few songs. Lisa, from Simone's second marriage to manager Andrew Stroud, followed in her mother's footsteps. Among an array of performance accomplishments, she has appeared on Broadway in Aida, using the stage name "Simone." In her final years, reports indicated that Nina Simone was battling breast cancer. She died at the age of 70 on April 21, 2003, at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, France. While she may be gone, Simone left a lasting impression on the world of music, art and activism. She sang to share her truth, and her work still resonates with great emotion and power. Simone has inspired an array of performers, including Aretha Franklin, Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Lauryn Hill and Meshell Ndegeocello. Her deep, distinctive voice continues to be a popular choice for television and film soundtracks. Two documentaries on the musician's life were released in 2015: The Amazing Nina Simone, directed by Jeff L. Lieberman, and What Happened, Miss Simone?, from Netflix. The latter project was directed by Liz Garbus and offered commentary from daughter Lisa and ex-husband Stroud, among others. In addition to glorious musicianship, the project detailed troubling aspects of Simone's life, including the abuse she endured from her ex-husband and in turn the abuse daughter Lisa endured from her mother. What Happened, Miss Simone? later received an Oscar nomination for best documentary. In a turn of controversial casting, Simone was also depicted by actress Zoe Saldana in the 2016 biopic Nina. In 2016, with Simone's childhood home in Tryon on the market, four African-American artists teamed up to purchase the structure, fearing it would be demolished. Two years later, the National Trust for Historic Preservation designated the house a "national treasure," thereby protecting it from demolition, with the organization reportedly intent on finding ways to restore it for use by future artists. Citation Information Author: Biography.com Editors Website Name: The Biography.com website URL: https://www.biography.com/musician/nina-simone Original Published Date: April 2, 2014 Last Updated: July 17, 2019

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POLICE OVERSIGHT HEARING (Shared from Black Lives Matter) https://blacklivesmatter.com/policeoversighthearing-today-at-1000am-et-watch-listen-and-demand-accountability/

September 19, 2019 We watched and listened and encourage you to do the On September 16th of this year, Eric Garner should same. We need your voice to demand accountability and have celebrated turning 49 surrounded by his loved action. ones. Watch the hearing at: Instead, millions of people across the country honored https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v= his birthday with the hashtags #ICantBreathe, w5lvoY5XIdA #JusticeForEricGarner, and #BlackLivesMatter to remember his life and what his friends and family were Amplify your voice on social media using the hashtags robbed of by the New York City Police Department. We #policeoversighthearing, #blacklivesmatter, and fought hard for five long years in order to see justice for #whatmatters2020. Eric Garner after he was murdered by Daniel Pantaleo of the NYPD on July 17, 2014. His death represents the Police killings are now a leading cause of death among thousands of unarmed Black women and men killed by Black men. The epidemic of police violence is an urgent the police. public health concern.

On September 19, the House Judiciary Committee held a One in a thousand Black men will die from police violence historic oversight hearing on our country’s current over the course of their lives and are 2.5 times more policing practices. Federal law prohibits any likely to be killed by police than white people. Further, it governmental authority from engaging in a “pattern of is far more likely that an unarmed Black man or woman practice” of conduct that deprives persons of their will be killed by the police. constitutional rights. While this law has not been adhered to by law enforcement when it comes to Black Ahead of the 2020 election, racism and police brutality lives, we will take this moment to, again, demand have been buzzwords on the debate stage. While some accountability and highlight those who are victims of candidates might seem to recognize some of the impacts police violence. of structural racism, we are still waiting for many to provide concrete, adequate policy proposals to address The hearing focused on the federal government’s role in these issues. addressing our concerns about the unconstitutional police practices that continues to take our lives, and This is one of the reasons we will generate attention included testimony from Reverend Al Sharpton, Mrs. around this hearing and make sure that we are all Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, and other allies. watching and listening.

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