Lena Horne Passes Late Sunday Night

 
Singer, dancer and actress Lena Horne died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday night, a hospital spokeswoman said. Horne was 92.

She was one of the first African-Americans to sign a long-term movie contract with a major Hollywood studio when she joined MGM in 1942.
Horne’s expressive voice made her a singing star after Hollywood failed to give her roles that might have made her a big screen starlet.
Horne complained she was used as “window dressing” in white films, mostly limited to singing performances that could be easily edited out for play in southern theaters.

The light-complected Horne refused to go along with studio plans to promote her as a Latin American.
She later said she did not want to be “an imitation of a white woman.”
Her childhood was nomadic as she traveled with her actress mother, but much of her time growing up was spent in Brooklyn, New York, where she was born in 1917.

Horne was 16 when she began her show business career as a dancer at Harlem’s Cotton Club. She later became a singer there, playing to packed houses of white patrons, with band leaders Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington.

She toured as a featured singer with a white band in 1940, a first for an African-American, according to her official biography.
Her first film role came in 1938 in “The Duke is Tops,” but her next movie didn’t come along for another four years.

She was given a screen test by MGM and signed to a movie contract after a studio scout saw her performing in a New York club.
“I think the black boy that cleaned the shoes and me were the only two black people except the maids who were there working for the stars,” Horne said in a CNN interview. “And it was very lonely, and I wasn’t very happy.”

Still, Horne said she was grateful that her World War II-era films — including “Cabin in the Sky” and “Stormy Weather” — were seen by black and white soldiers.
“But after I realized I would only go so far, I went on the stage,” Horne said.
With only subservient roles available for a black actress in Hollywood in the 1940s, Horne turned to recording top-selling songs.
Horne said performing for live audiences was what she loved most.
“I’m always happy when I’m surrounded by people to react and feel and touch,” she said.

She has a son and daughter from a first marriage that ended in 1944.
Horne married again in 1947 to Lennie Hayton, who was then MGM’s music director.

She was an active supporter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights movement. Horne was there when King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on the Lincoln Memorial steps in 1963.

(From: NOLA.Tv – New Orleans innovative web based News, Entertainment and Local television broadcasting.)

 

LENA HORNE, SINGER, ACTRESS AND CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, DIES AT 92
 
HORNE WAS AWARDED NAACP’S SPINGARN MEDAL FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN ACHIEVEMENT IN 1983, NAACP IMAGE AWARD IN 1999
 
WASHINGTON DC – The NAACP is saddened by the loss of singer, actress and civil rights activist Lena Horne.  Horne died on May 9 at the age of 92.
 
“We mourn the passing of Lena Horne, an outstanding, groundbreaking entertainer and a staunch civil rights activist who stood on the side of justice and equality,” said NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous. “Lena Horne won the hearts of millions of Americans of all backgrounds as a glamorous and graceful actress and singer. She courageously broke many color barriers and fought valiantly to bring down the institutionalized racism that plagues our society and prevents all Americans from an equal opportunity to pursue the American dream.”
 
An accomplished singer and actress, Horne became the first black performer to sign a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio, signing with MGM in 1943, but became disenchanted with Hollywood by the mid-1950s. She increased her focus on her singing career, solidifying herself as a premiere nightclub performer and starring in several musicals. Horne later returned to acting, appearing on several television shows such as Kraft Music Hall, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dean Martin Show and The Bell Telephone Hour. She later co-starred with prominent actors Harry Belafonte and Tony Bennett in Harry and Lena and Tony and Lena, and starred in the classic African American musical The Wiz. The singer also performed on dozens of albums featuring the likes of Belafonte, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joe Williams, and Gábor Szabó, and received an NAACP Image Award in 1999 for Outstanding Jazz Artist.
 
In addition to her legacy as an entertainer, Horne was also known for her advocacy and contributions to social justice. At an early age, Horne displayed a passion for civil rights, and she first became a member of the NAACP as a student at Atlanta’s Washington High School. Later, while singing for troops during World War II, she refused to perform “for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of African American servicemen.” She was in attendance at an NAACP rally with Field Secretary Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi on the weekend before Evers was assassinated, and spoke and performed at the March on Washington on behalf of the NAACP, SNCC and the National Council of Negro Women.
 
“Lena Horne’s spirit and willingness to stand for what is just transcended her accomplishments in the arts, and we are extremely grateful for her commitment to civil rights and the mission of the NAACP,” said NAACP Chairman Roslyn M. Brock. “Her long-standing relationship with the NAACP dates back to high school, while her service to the Association as a member and public advocate was invaluable. Lena Horne was an excellent example of someone who used her platform as an entertainer to advocate for equal rights for African Americans and give a voice to the voiceless, and she will be missed” added Brock.
 
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest civil

 

View From Here: Why William Thompson for Mayor

Bill Thompson grew up on Putnam Avenue between Stuyvesant and Malcolm X Blvd.   The journey from those streets to being elected City Comptroller in 2001, managing a staff of more than 700 with a budget of $68 million and being overwhelmingly reelected in 2005,  is a long one with middle-class struggles, and successes achieved by hard work.  It is a journey that has attuned Comptroller Thompson to the problems that the middle class and middle class aspirants feel every day.  It has also given him the confidence to use the strategy necessary for this mayoral battle.  “The only way to compete with the richest man in New York City is to build from the ground up.  If you’re going to get into a dollar battle, you’re going to lose very quickly.” 

Thompson was speaking at a fund-raiser in the UN Plaza home of Edward Bergman and his family, high above the East River and about as far from Putnam Avenue as you can get. Here, Bill Thompson was speaking about education  and the need to go in a different direction.  “Our young people are being taught to take standardized tests,” he said.  “Our children are not taught critical thinking.  They’re not taught comprehension.  Not taught the skills they will need in the future.  We’re being given a false sense of accomplishment and all it is leading to is that our children are not being taught to compete.” 

Bill Thompson has an empathy with ordinary people that Mayor Bloomberg feels can be achieved by riding the subway four or five times a week.  But the Brooklyn Papers reported that in their interview with the Mayor, they asked about community benefit agreements, such as that signed by Bruce Ratner for the Atlantic Yards Project.  “I’m violently opposed to community benefits agreements,” the mayor replied.   “A small group of people, to feather their own nests, extort money from the developer? That’s just not good government.”    This statement alone disqualifies him as a choice for Mayor of New York City.  Here he is the richest man in New York, oblivious to the irony of his being “violently opposed” to small groups of unemployed Black men, many living pressed in by the explosion of construction in downtown Brooklyn, feathering their public housing nests, by demanding the opportunity to do hard work. 

He accuses them of extortion for insisting that developers of the gilded city rising only blocks away, put aside a portion of contracts and work for local people and companies.  He has $16 billion dollars, but helping someone bring home a paycheck for rent, food and clothing is “not good government.”  His concept of good government would have met with a vigorous nod of approval from Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France who, the apocryphal story goes, when told the starving masses had no bread, thought she’d be cute and said, “Let them eat cake.”  True or not, it was 1793 during the French Revolution and the people objected to the haughty attitude and the lady lost her head.  

The mayor’s team seems to have lost their collective heads as well or they must have read something in the polls saying it won’t be a double-digit win, to risk bringing in Rudy Giuliani, the biggest loser in the Republican presidential primaries, and someone anathema to the African-American community, to campaign with the mayor. Giuliani knows as much now as when he snickered at the Republican Convention at the thought of a “community organizer” becoming president.

Rudy’s connecting an election of William Thompson with a probable rise in crime and Bloomberg, frankly dishearteningly, going further, saying that New York can go the way of Detroit if Thompson were elected, was certainly the most offensive local politicking we’ve seen in some time.  Why does a billionaire have to resort to running a morally bankrupt campaign? Maybe it is as former mayor David Dinkins said at the Manhattan fundraiser, they have forgotten the great Negro Baseball League player Satchel Paige’s admonition, “Don’t look back, they may be gaining on you.” 

I don’t know what the calculus is here, perhaps the old tactic of tricking poor whites that they and the plantation owners share a bond, but it is certainly dismissive of the Black vote and those who would rather have the men of the neighborhood going to and from work rather than standing around chronically unemployed.   The mayor’s office has to become centered on the problems of regular working people and those who want to be working, and the city budget has to be used to not only deliver services but to circulate in the communities that need them most, lifting the quality of life for all New Yorkers.  It’s time for the Bloomberg era to come to a close.   Polls open 6am, November 3rd.  Every vote counts.

THE BEST MAN

Bill Thompson was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of hard-working parents, an educator and a judge.

 

He’s lived almost all of his life in Central Brooklyn.

He grew up in Bedford Stuyvesant on Putnam Avenue between Stuyvesant and Marcus Garvey Blvd. (then Reid Avenue) in the house his grandparents William and Louise Thompson succeeded in purchasing 70 years ago.  They were the second Black family on the block.  They later took pride in their grandson being an acolyte at St. Phillips Episcopal Church on Decatur Street.

Mr. Thompson’s mother, Elaine Thompson, who taught at various public schools, including P.S. 262, was a member of a team of compassionate educators — Almira Coursey, Elaine DeGrasse Perkins, Virginia Pope, June Fleary and others — who privately pushed young strivers to reach their potential.  And they never took public credit for it.

Over the years, Mr. Thompson has lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, Prospect Heights and other areas, before finally returning to his boyhood home where he resided until last year; he now lives in Harlem.

And while the years have been good to him, he has not forgotten where he came from or where most hard working New Yorkers are coming from.

“My parents taught me to work as hard as you can, do the best job you can, and know that no one is going to give you anything; you have to go out and earn it.”

And Mr. Thompson has earned it.

In fact, the best man for the job of Mayor of New York City — it’s being decided by admirers from the tony penthouse apartments on the Upper East Side to the brownstones of the Comptroller’s old neighborhood — is Mr. Thompson.  Plus, they say, he is asking for your vote based on his ability to lead and to talk eye to eye.  He’s not paying for it. 

In 2001, Mr. Bloomberg spent $74 million to run in the mayoral race. He said then that his spending was “obscene” and that he would not spend that much on a campaign ever again.

In 2005, he spent $85 million for his re-election bid in 2005.

This year, his spending is estimated upwards from 100 million dollars, pointing out not so much how powerful he is as much as how fearful he may be of Thompson’s power.

In some respects Mr. Bloomberg’s wealth is not the central issue; after all, it is his money.  “No matter how much money is spent, our votes can’t be bought, that’s the message,” Thompson has said, and adds in a reference to Mr. Bloomberg’s successful push in reversing term-limits rulings. “Eight is enough.”

This Tuesday, November 3^rd Central Brooklyn will have an opportunity to vote for new leadership. If this does not happen, apathy will win the election, not Mr. Bloomberg.

- Bernice Elizabeth Green

HEALTH CARE REFORM:America’s Pre-Existing Condition or …

 … How Do You Mend a Broken System,

Broken Promises, Broken Hearts?

(Part 5 of Five Parts)

Kimberlee Currans-Leto

UPSTATE ROUNDTABLE

 

 (Troy, New York) There’s something rotten in America.  While other countries provide for their citizens, ours continue to struggle at every turn. 

 

In today’s economy, families are faced with impossible pressures and decisions that carry great impact upon their futures.  Many do not have savings and do not have retirement because they chose to provide for their children.

 

President Obama is taking a great gamble that policymakers will finally see the light.  The numbers do not lie.  This year over 47,000 people in America will die due to lack of health insurance coverage.  This reality many experts attribute to lack of affordable options for families who do not have coverage through their employment or do not qualify for state-funded programs. Today in America over 46,000,000 people lack health insurance coverage. Many of these people agree if there were an affordable option, they would be insured.

 

Who pays for this lack of coverage for the uninsured should they fall ill or become hurt in an accident?  One answer: we all do. 

 

It does not matter which side of the reform one stands for, this issue hurts us all with the rising costs of premiums, co-pays, prescription allotments and limitations on existing coverage. As a result, many struggle to keep coverage.  Insurance companies continue to make money off of everyone while limiting those who can participate by including the pre-existing condition clause. 

 

In many states the insurance company excludes pre-existing conditions up to one year.  This concept, creatively designed by the industry as a loophole of exclusion, symbolizes what is rotten at the core of the industry and it makes health care reform all the more complicated.  How do you remedy a broken system with not just broken promises but a sick way of determining who gets coverage?  The ironic twist is that many families would give up their life savings, the deed to their homes, if it meant they could have affordable, adequate health care coverage for pre-existing conditions like diabetes and asthma.

 

Many families have some form of pre-existing condition that’s not covered.  Many are excluded altogether and have been given no choice but to alter their lifestyles drastically in order to qualify for state-funded programs.  How is this right or moral – to make hardworking people quit their jobs, divorce their spouses so that they can have health insurance?  This shows just how broken the current system has become, representing the blatant manipulation of insurance companies who not only profit but benefit because so many laws allow them to get away with such actions. 

 

The uninsured argument: Many things contribute to Americans taking the risk of living without health insurance and this happens more than people think about.  While many Americans fall into this category without harm to themselves or their families, I believe many do not even fathom the risk they are taking with their lives.  Many people create a gap without knowing otherwise when they discontinue coverage before starting a new policy.  Just that brief period of time can create an inconceivable nightmare, one that can follow a family for years and jeopardize every aspect of their well-being. 

 

For young children like Sheldon Wagner and others like him who fall through the cracks of broken public systems, an overall system defined by hierarchy and wealth; there must be a better way to provide health care for every American equally and fairly.  Part of the issue many conservatives cannot empathize with is the notion of covering pre-existing conditions; they believe it overburdens quality health care by allowing those who are sicker to receive treatments at the same price as those not sick at all.  Furthermore, it is felt from the conservative side that some should suffer as a consequence of their actions.  It seems unfair the only crime is being poor while others have no choice but to lower their standard of living in order to save their families.  It just brings to light how divided this country remains when instead, all Americans should be working together to solve this issue. 

 

What many do not or cannot see is how much this reform will impact other reforms and set into action the foundation needed for America’s rebirth. What the conservatives do not understand from an economic standpoint, someone will be paying for the uninsured and those labelled by pre-existing illness. This may explain the outrageousness of some hospital bills or why a ten-minute consultation costs $250.  Why aren’t people outraged, disgusted at the state of health care in this country?  Why hasn’t a mob scene incurred on Capitol Hill?

 

What we know in our hearts: President Obama is on the path to doing what’s right.  While so many seem trapped by the status quo of thinking: “There is nothing that can be done” to change something so rotten and immoral, he has this country participating in change, in finding our voices.

 

We no longer can ignore that everyday people are suffering while so many of us just blend into the background unable or unwilling to take a stand, not knowing how far our voices will carry an impact.  I will take that stand for people who have not been heard.