Surveillance video captured a 1950’s-era military cargo plane plunging to the ground. The C-130 aircraft exploded into flames on a busy Georgia highway Wednesday, May 2, killing all nine crew members aboard.
The Puerto Rico National Guard plane took off from Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport shortly before 11:30 a.m. and was headed for retirement.
Memorial Honoring Lynching Victims Being Built In Alabama
“Architecture that’s built to heal”
The Memorial to Peace and Justice, informally known as the National Lynching Memorial, is a national memorial planned to commemorate the victims of lynching in America, and is expected to open in Montgomery, Alabama in April 2018. The memorial is to be built in the downtown area of the state capital by the Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit based in Montgomery. Also planned is a museum, From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, to be built near the Montgomery site where slaves were auctioned at market.
The monument “will consist of hundreds of floating concrete columns that will represent each county in the United States and contain the names of more than 4,000 lynching victims”.
It is designed by MASS Design Group from Boston, and will be built on six acres purchased by EJI. According to the EJI, there were over 4000 documented lynchings of black victims between 1877 and 1950; the purpose of the monument is to name and thereby honor them.
Outside of the structure in the surrounding field is another set of columns identical to the ones hanging in the Memorial. These columns, however, are not meant to stay at the Memorial. The outside pillars are intended to be temporary because The Equal Justice Initiative is asking each of the counties which these columns represent to come and claim their monument. They hope that with the claiming of the pillars, there will be a way to see which counties have representatives willing to confront the horrors of their past, and to strive to move forward, and which do not.
~Wikipedia~
~Memorial Honoring Lynching Victims Being Built In Alabama~
Equal Justice Initiative Lynching Museum, Montgomery Alabama Opens in 2018
NowThis Politics
This memorial honors the thousands of African Americans who were lynched between 1877 to 1950
Wes Johnson was about 18 years old when he was murdered in a cotton field in southern Alabama. It was 1937, and according to newspaper reports at the time, a mob of men had dragged him from his jail cell before he could stand trial for the charge against him: assaulting a white woman. Today, only one photograph is known to exist of Johnson, a single picture to preserve his image for posterity – his lifeless body hanging from a tree.
Bryan Stevenson wants to honor the legacy of Johnson, and thousands like him, with a new memorial for victims of lynching in America. Stevenson is a lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit organization that investigates the lynchings of African Americans. To commemorate the victims whose cases they’ve examined, the organization recently bought six acres of land in Montgomery, Alabama and constructed a memorial.
Last night, April 8, 2018, on 60 Minutes, Oprah Winfrey gets an early look at the memorial, which will open to the public on April 26. The memorial contains 805 steel markers, one for each county where lynchings occurred for more than 70 years following the Civil War.
The markers are suspended in air to evoke the horror of being hanged.
~~EJI Memorial~~
~~Published on Aug 15, 2016~~
The Equal Justice Initiative plans to build a national memorial to victims of lynching in Montgomery, Alabama, which is expected to open in 2018.
~Equal Justice Initiative~
To tell that story on 60 Minutes, Winfrey and a team of producers felt it was important to show historical photos of lynchings, images that are likely to disturb many viewers. In an interview with 60 Minutes Overtime, Denise Schrier Cetta, the producer of the story, and Jeff Fager, the executive producer of the broadcast, explain their decision to air such upsetting photographs.
Ever since Valentine’s Day 2018, the day the Parkland, Florida mass shooting happened, this phrase has become ingrained in my mind.
These teenagers are taking over this sad American reality.
Like Emma, there are plenty others. There are those we know already by name who have been thrust into adulthood too soon. They have taken their role as serious as the reality is.
They are claiming their future as they should.
Here’s one of the many examples seen on March 24, 2018 …
Emma González honored the Parkland shooting victims at the March for Our Lives with six minutes of silence, the amount of time it took for the shooter to kill 17 people.
WOULD NEVER …
~~Emma Gonzalez’s POWERFUL March For Our Lives Speech~~
~~Published on Mar 24, 201 ~~
Emma González’s powerful six minutes of silence speech at the Washington DC March For Our Lives rally
Former first lady Michelle Obama offered a passionate appeal for empathy during her first televised interview since leaving the White House a year ago.
Speaking to Ellen DeGeneres, who told the wife of President Barack Obama that she felt frightened after a year of political turmoil, Michelle Obama encouraged anxious Americans to tune out the noise.
And she offered a glimpse into her post-White House life, one she said is more normal than some people might expect.
“We have to be an open-hearted nation and that’s who we are. And that’s the truth of who we are. We can’t lose sight of that. So, let’s just keep living our lives like that every single day and forget what they’re saying in Washington,” the former first lady said in the interview, which airs this week.
“We know who we are and I know who this country is,” she said.
It was a familiar entreaty from one of the most popular national figures in the country. But it came after a period of relative quiet from both her and the former president. Both have been at work on memoirs and have spent the past year traveling and speaking to groups.
~Michelle Obama Talks with Birthday Girl Ellen About Post-White House Life ~
~~Published on Feb 1, 2018~~
In her first TV interview since leaving the White House, former First Lady Michelle Obama chatted with Ellen about her family’s “normal” life in Washington, D.C., the awkward gift she received from the Trumps at the Inauguration, and a special birthday present from Michelle and Ellen’s favorite store.
The Ellen Show
Ellen Asks Michelle Obama How Frustrated Americans Can Cope in the Current Political Climate
~~Published on Feb 1, 2018~~
In the midst of a polarizing political climate, former First Lady Michelle Obama reassured Ellen that we can continue to be proud of our country as long as we continue show empathy, do good, and care for each other.
Thank you Gilbert for giving our community one of our greatest gifts.
You are a trailblazer for #LGBTQ youth around the world.
You will be missed!
It Gets Better Project
Gilbert Baker (June 2, 1951 – March 31, 2017) was an openly gay American artist and civil rights activist who designed the rainbow flag in 1978. Baker’s flag became widely associated with LGBT rights causes, a symbol of pride that became ubiquitous in the decades since its debut.
The colors on the Rainbow Flag reflect the diversity of the LGBT community.
When Baker raised the first rainbow flags at San Francisco Pride (his group raised two flags at the Civic Center) on June 25, 1978, it had eight colors, each with a symbolic meaning:
Hot Pink: sexuality
Red: life
Orange: healing
Yellow: sunlight
Green: nature
Turquoise: magic/art
Blue: serenity/harmony
Violet: spirit
On June 12, 2016, a 29-year-old security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a terrorist attack/hate crime inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States.
~Wikipedia~
On a day like today, 9 months ago, I woke up to the news.
It came with a deep, gut-wrenching feeling!
49 people dead, many injured, in a gay club relatively near my house, on Latin night.
~Orlando City unveils seats honoring 49 Pulse nightclub shooting victims~
Orlando City president Phil Rawlins led a private ceremony unveiling 49 rainbow-colored seats honoring 49 Pulse Nightclub shooting victims.
The seats, which honor the people killed at a popular Orlando gay nightclub on June 12, are in section 12 of the Lions’ new stadium set to open in March at the start of the 2017 Major League Soccer season.
It’s with a heavy heart and a sorrowed soul that I want to inform all my friends and family know that Mama G passed away. My heart aches and my soul cannot understand why mom left me so soon.
I will miss you a lot Mama!
Go and meet Mamita, Alain, Papa Julio and all your friends that had passed before you!
~CHOCOLATITA~
In Memoriam a Ms. Georgina Duprey
‘Hay personas que pasan por la vida, haciendo el bien, sin mirar a quien. Siembran bondad, sabiduría, consuelo, alegria. Dedican su vida a ese servicio, escogiendo una profesión dedicada a guiar y ser solidario en el dolor, resolviendo y buscando soluciones a problemas sociales y burocráticos. Calladamente, ponen su granito de arena para hacer de este mundo uno mejor y menos oscuro.
Anoche nació a su nueva vida espiritual Ms. Georgina Duprey. Una nueva estrella en el firmamento, un nuevo Ser de Luz, una nueva fuerza positiva.
Hasta siempre, Madam Chocolat, gracias por los recuerdos, consejos, buenos momentos.
Vuela alto … fly high!!
~Jeannette P.~
~~GRAPHIC SOURCE~~
Friend’s Personal Photo
DISCLAIMER
I do not own these images.
No intention of taking credit.
If anyone knows the owner of any, please advise and it will be corrected immediately.
‘In the arms of an Angel far away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
In the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here … “
It Is What It Is 