The Annual OUR COMMON GROUND Black History Games >> March 1st LIVE

The Annual OUR COMMON GROUND
Black History Games
March 1, 2014 10 pm ET LIVE

Challenge Your Black History Intelligence

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20 Questions – 10 Points Each
Call In to pick up Bonus Questions
Call In WITH a BONUS QUESTION
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African Americans, as a distinct ethnic variation in the African diaspora, were created by slavery. Millions of Africans wound up in America only because they were kidnapped to fill the needs of a slave economy. This process forged a new people, who became American by necessity, and included 12 generations of chattel slavery. For nearly 250 years, American culture dehumanized those it enslaved and, more insidiously, socialized generations of African Americans for enslavement. The nation’s economic reliance on slavery mandated a rigid and pitiless racial hierarchy.

THE HISTORY of BLACK HISTORY MONTH

As a Harvard-trained historian, Carter G. Woodson, like W. E. B. Du Bois before him, believed that truth could not be denied and that reason would prevail over prejudice. His hopes to raise awareness of African American’s contributions to civilization was realized when he and the organization he founded, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), conceived and announced Negro History Week in 1925.
Seeing the need to spread the news about Black history to the general public as well as scholars, Dr. Woodson and the ASNLH pioneered the celebration of “Negro History Week” in 1926, which has since been extended to the entire month of February.
By the time of Woodson’s death in 1950, Negro History Week had become a central part of African American life and substantial progress had been made in bringing more Americans to appreciate the celebration. At mid–century, mayors of cities nationwide issued proclamations noting Negro History Week. The Black Awakening of the 1960s dramatically expanded the consciousness of African Americans about the importance of black history, and the Civil Rights movement focused Americans of all color on the subject of the contributions of African Americans to our history and culture.
The celebration was expanded to a month in 1976, the nation’s bicentennial. President Gerald R. Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” That year, fifty years after the first celebration, the association held the first African American History Month. By this time, the entire nation had come to recognize the importance of Black history in the drama of the American story. Since then each American president has issued African American History Month proclamations. And the association—now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)—continues to promote the study of Black history all year

03-1 black historyIn honor of this bold act for empowerment of our people, OUR COMMON GROUND celebrates Black History Month with the nation throughout the month. Each year, we use our broadcast to host, the Annual OCG Black History Games. Testing and challenging your Black History intelligence.

About The Games
1. We select and structure 20 questions covering significant facts about events, people and accomplishments in Black History from Reconstruction through 2014. For each question, listeners can assign 10 points for each correct answer. Five (5) of the questions will feature a (5 point bonus) question. Listeners listen for the questions, answer and call in with the answers once all the questions are posed.
2. For bonus points, callers who call in with their scores can ask for an additional listener only question to bolster their overall score.
3. We encourage teams made of family, friends and regular listeners who want partners.

 

#HISTORY MATTERS
#TALKTHATMATTERS

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“Speaking Truth to Power and Ourselves” 

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OCG This Week: The Gullah Geechee Nation with Queen Quet Marquetta L. Goodwine Head-of-State for the Gullah/Geechee Nation

           OUR COMMON GROUND with Janice Graham 
                    2014 Black History Month 

                        02-1-14 Quet2

The Gullah Geechee Nation
OUR GUEST: Queen Quet Marquetta L. Goodwine 
Head-of-State for the Gullah/Geechee Nation

LISTEN LIVE

Saturday, February 1, 2014
10 pm ET  LIVE

ABOUT the GULLAH/GEECHEE NATION
queenquet10queenquet12queenquet5The Gullah/Geechee Nation exist from Jacksonville, NC to Jacksonville, FL. It encompasses all of the Sea Islands and thirty to thirty-five miles inland to the St. John’s River. On these islands, people from numerous African ethnic groups linked with indigenous Americans and created the unique Gullah language and traditions from which later came “Geechee.” The Gullah/Geechee people have been considered “a nation within a nation” from the time of chattel enslavement in the United States until they officially became an internationally recognized nation on July 2, 2000. At the time of their declaration as a nation, they confirmed the election of their first “head pun de boddee”-head of state and official spokesperson and queen mother. They elected Queen Quet, Chieftess and Head-of-State for the Gullah/Geechee Gullah Nation.

ABOUT QUEEN QUET MARQUETTA L. GOODWINE

queenquet9Queen Quet Marquetta L. Goodwine is a published author, computer scientist, lecturer, mathematician, historian, columnist, preservationist, environmental justice advocate, environmentalist, film consultant, and “The Art-ivist.” She is the founder of the premiere advocacy organization for the continuation of Gullah/Geechee culture, the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition. Queen Quet has not only provided “histo-musical presentations” throughout the world, but was also the first Gullah/Geechee person to speak on behalf of her people before the United Nations in Genevé, Switzerland.

Queen Quet was one of the first of seven inductees to the Gullah/Geechee Nation Hall of Fame. She received the “Anointed Spirit Award” for her leadership and for being a visionary. In 2008, she was recorded at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France at a United Nations Conference in order to have the human rights story of the Gullah/Geechee people archived for the United Nations. In 2009, she was invited by the Office of the High Commissioner of the United Nations to come and present before the newly founded “Minority Forum” as a representative of the Gullah/Geechee Nation and the International Human Rights Association for American Minorities (IHRAAM) which is an NGO in consultative status with the United Nations. Queen Quet is a directorate member for IHRAAM and for the International Commission on Human Rights. She represented these bodies and the Gullah/Geechee Nation at the “United Nations Forum on Minority Rights.”

Due to Queen Quet advancing the idea of keeping the Gullah/Geechee culture alive, the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition under the leadership of Queen Quet, worked with Congressman James Clyburn to insure that the United States Congress would work to assist the Gullah/Geechees. Queen Quet then acted as the community leader to work with the United States National Park Service to conduct several meetings throughout the Gullah/Geechee Nation for the “Special Resource Study of Lowcountry Gullah Culture.” Due to the fact that Gullah/Geechees worked to become recognized as one people, Queen Quet wanted to insure that the future congressional act would reflect this in its name and form. As a result in 2006 the “Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Act” was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by the president.

Queen Quet is vetted with the United States White House as an Expert Commissioner in the Department of the Interior. She is also the Chair of the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor General Management Plan which is being completed by a commission created by the act for there to be a “Gullah/Geechee National Heritage Corridor.” Queen Quet is also a member of the “National Park Relevancy Committee” and proudly continues to work to protect the environment and to insure that diverse groups of people engage in the outdoors and the policies governing them. Queen Quet has engaged in several White House conferences on this issue.

queenquet7The Mission of the Gullah Geechee Nation 

To preserve, protect, and promote our history, culture, language, and homeland and to institute and demand official recognition of the governance (minority) rights necessary to accomplish our mission to take care of our community through collective efforts which will provide a healthy environment, care for the well beings of each person, and economic empowerment.

 

 

2014 season   BROADCASTING BOLD BRAVE BLACK 

OUR COMMON GROUND with Janice Graham

“Speaking Truth to Power and Ourselves”

email: OCGinfo@ourcommonground.com

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Call In – Listen Line: 347-838-9852

Community Forum
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OUR COMMON GROUND “In Conversation with George Curry”

OUR COMMON GROUND with Janice Graham

“Transforming Truth to Power, One Broadcast At a Time”

“In Conversation with George Curry”

October 26, 2013 
10 pm ET                                     LIVE and Call -IN

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About our Guest George Curry

George E. Curry is the editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service. The former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, Curry also writes a weekly syndicated column for NNPA, a federation of more than 200 African American newspapers.

Curry, who served as editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service from 2001 until 2007, returned to lead the news service for a second time on April 2, 2012. His work at the NNPA has ranged from being inside the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases to traveling to Doha, Qatar, to report on America’s war with Iraq.
As editor-in-chief of Emerge, Curry led the magazine to win more than 40 national journalism awards. He is most proud of his four-year campaign to win the release of Kemba Smith, a 22-year-old woman who was given a mandatory sentence of 24 1/2 years in prison for her minor role in a drug ring. In May 1996, Emerge published a cover story titled “Kemba’s Nightmare.” President Clinton pardoned Smith in December 2000, marking the end of her nightmare.

Curry is the author of Jake Gaither: America’s Most Famous Black Coach and editor of The Affirmative Action Debate and The Best of Emerge Magazine. He was editor of the National Urban League’s 2006 State of Black America report.

His work in journalism has taken him to Egypt, England, France, Italy, China, Germany, Malaysia, Thailand, Cuba, Brazil, Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Mexico, Canada, and Austria. In August 2012, he was part of the official US delegation and a presenter at the US-Brazil seminar on educational equity in Brasilia, Brazil.
George Curry is a member of the National Speakers Association and the International Federation for Professional Speakers. His speeches have been televised on C-SPAN and reprinted in Vital Speeches of the Day magazine. In his presentations, he addresses such topics as diversity, current events, education, and the media.

Ikard comingBROADCASTING 
BOLD BRAVE BLACK

OUR COMMON GROUND with Janice Graham

“Speaking Truth to Power and Ourselves” 

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Lessons From Acclaimed Writer Octavia Butler on Change, Persistence, War, Racism, and Rage

Lessons From Acclaimed Writer Octavia Butler on Change, Persistence, War, Racism, and Rage

October 16, 2013 

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by Yvette Carnell

Editor, Your Black World and BreakingBrown.com

The science fiction writer isn’t just a writer, certainly not in the traditional sense. She’s also a futurist because the genre demands it. Perhaps because she seamlessly blended race with precise portrayals of the tribulations of mankind, Octavia Butler became a world renowned science fiction writer. Butler said to the Los Angeles Times before her passing, “I’m black, I’m solitary, I’ve always been an outsider.” And the gritty choices Butler’s characters have thrust upon them continually highlight an ever present theme in the writer’s work–change.According to Butler, so much of life depends on how you manage and adapt to a wildly alive world.

Her novels included such works “Parable of the Sower” (1993); “Parable of the Talents” (1998) “Fledgling”, and Wildseed. Unlike most science-fiction novels, the main protagonist in Butler’s novels are often black women,  who Butler infuses with strong will, and humanizes in ways not oftenOctavia Butler_1998_Parable Of The Talents seen in any genre, let alone science-fiction. Butler brought what it meant to be African-American–gritty resolve and persistence-to science fiction. It is for that brilliance which she will be remembered. Below are some of Butler’s most poignant life lessons.

On persistence:

“Without persistence, what remains is an enthusiasm of the moment. Without adaptability, what remains may be channeled into destructive fanaticism. Without positive obsession, there is nothing at all. (Parable of the Talents)”

On realizing you’re all alone in the universe:

“Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you’re hurt, you’re really on your own. You’re alone, and there’s no one to help you.”

On passion:

“If you want a thing–truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it. Why not? It has you. There is no escape. What a cruel and terrible thing escape would be if escape were possible” (Parable of the Talents)

On quiet racism, and quiet versus open rebellion:

“‘Don’t argue with white folks,’ [Luke] had said. ‘Don’t tell them ‘no.’ Don’t let them see you mad. Just say ‘yes, sir.’ Then go ’head and do what you want to do. Might have to take a whippin’ for it later on, but if you want it bad enough, the whippin’ won’t matter much.” (Kindred)

On managing your anger:

“When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing” – (Fledgling) 

On the inevitability of change:

“Change is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universe. To us, that makes it the most octavia_butlerpowerful reality, and just another word for God.”

Earthseed: The Books of the Living

On the importance of good habits:

“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.”

On selecting your leaders:

“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.” (Parable of the Talents)

On craven self-interest:

“Beware At war Or at peace, More people die Of unenlightened self-interest Than of any other disease” (Parable of the Talents)

yvette carnell

 

 

Yvette Carnell writes mostly about politics, social, and cultural issues for my personal blog, BreakingBrown.com as well as BreakingBrown.tv and Breakingbrown.me. She is also an editor for YourBlackWorld and a managing contributor on KuluteKritic.

BreakingBrown.com is a social media hub which aggregates the freshest and most insightful content from brown bloggers, podcasters and videocasters on the internet. We aggregate, distribute, critique and and explore black and brown people in the unending universe which is social media. Now there’s no longer a need for you to stalk cyberspace in search of an honest black or brown perspective.