Madam C.J. Walker: She had a dream — Local playwright Kami Shalom brings the first self-made female millionaire’s story to life.

Featured at Creative Loafing

Despite conventional wisdom, Madam C.J. Walker did not invent the straightening comb. The woman who started life as Sarah Breedlove of Louisiana — the first child in her family born into freedom, in 1867 — earned fame and fortune through ingenuity, innovation and hard work. Despite hard times and loss, Walker is regarded as America’s first female self-made millionaire after she developed products to help grow healthy hair, and when she died in 1919, left two-thirds of her fortune to black charities.

Kami Shalom hopes to correct the record with a transformation of her own. The Charlotte performer, writer and teacher will play 20 characters of all races, ages and genders to tell Walker’s story. Call Me Madam: The Making of an American Millionaire, presented by On Q Performing Arts and written and performed by Shalom, will take the Duke Energy Theater stage Jan. 29 through Feb. 1. Walker’s inspiring life translated into a local play is just one example in Charlotte of the strength and accomplishments of African-American women being reclaimed, on and off the stage.

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Jan292014 TAGS: ,

Yes, Greensboro Four pioneer Franklin McCain, you did plenty

Featured at The Washington Post

CHARLOTTE — Franklin McCain never thought he was doing enough.

An icon of the civil rights movement, McCain was one of the Greensboro Four, college students who changed the world by sitting down at a whites-only lunch counter at F.W. Woolworth. Their simple request for service denied inspired many others in Greensboro, N.C., and across the country, where the “sit-in” spread.

But when I interviewed him 50 years after that Feb. 1, 1960, event, and asked the man who continued his activism throughout his life to grade himself, McCain thought for a bit before he said, “C-plus.” He continued: “I look at the all the situations I’ve been in and all the efforts I’ve been a part of, and I ask the questions, ‘Could I have done more? Could I have done it in less time? Could I have impacted more people?’ Each time I ask those questions, the answer is ‘yes, yes, yes.’ ”

McCain also gave advice to those who felt a little self satisfied: “Look around you. Do you see things that are not just? Do something about it.”

Franklin McCain died Thursday in Greensboro, his family has announced. While the world lost a civil rights champion, I lost someone who inspired me – not from a history book – but close up.

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Jan102014 TAGS: , , , ,

Holder Determined to Challenge Voter-Suppression Laws

Featured at The Root

North Carolina went from being the model of a voter-friendly state to the poster child for voting restrictions, in one session of a Republican-dominated state legislature.

 Now, the battle over sweeping new laws passed this year is in the courts, with challenges from the Justice Department and civil rights groups, with crucial midterm elections on the line and the country watching.
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Dec222013 TAGS: , , ,

After ‘Selfie’ at Mandela Service, More Stereotyping of First Lady

Featured at Maynard Institute

Media coverage of the memorial service for Nelson Mandela was inclusive — up to a point. That this one South African had changed minds and changed the world was clear during scenes from the service broadcast around the world.

But when that big story was overwhelmed, then reduced to President Obama’s handshake with Cuban President Raul Castro and first lady Michelle Obama’s reaction to the president’s picture-taking with two other heads of state, it was business as usual.

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Dec192013 TAGS: , ,

First in family values? How a White House image could change perceptions

Featured at The Washington Post

The holiday season, when family relationships, good and bad, move to the forefront, might be just the time to consider how the image of the Obamas in the White House — mother, father, two daughters, grandmother — has affected ideas about the American family in general, and the African American family in particular.

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Dec022013 TAGS: , , , ,

Could a movie cure politicians of their slavery-metaphor addiction?

Featured at The Washington Post

The film “12 Years a Slave” is one of great beauty about a great horror. Director Steve McQueen’s account of the American slave business – and it was an American economic institution that trafficked in flesh, blood and human suffering – is not particularly easy viewing, though you can’t look away. I saw it a few days ago, and once was plenty. But I would gladly see it again if politicians who can’t quit their slavery metaphors agreed to a movie date.

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Nov132013 TAGS: , , , , , , , , ,

A question of race is raised

Featured at The Washington Post

When a reporter asked the question, it was startling because everyone is so used to the interpretive dance around the “r-word,” race, particularly when it comes to describing opposition to any move by the administration of President Barack Obama. After Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a vote on the nomination of Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, press secretary Jay Carney was asked if the White House saw a racial motive. Carney said, “I think it is about politics, and I think we’ve seen this kind of obstruction far too often. For individual motivations, you need to ask the individuals.” The answer was as cagey as ever.

In Watt’s case there were other reasons given for the rejection: political philosophy, or the belief by conservatives that the congressman would favor more federal involvement in the home mortgage industry; competence, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) questioning Watt’s “technical expertise and experience,” and, of course, the brick wall of senators, such as Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has said he wants more information on last year’s attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, before he will approve much of anything.

It is also true that Republicans chose the nomination of Watt — a black Democrat from North Carolina — for the rare though not unprecedented move of filibustering a sitting member of Congress in a sub-Cabinet but still important post. (Republican Sen. Richard Burr of Watt’s home state, with Rob Portman of Ohio, did split with the GOP to support Watt.)

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Nov042013 TAGS: , , , , , ,

GOP launches minority outreach in N.C., defends voter law in court

Featured at The Washington Post

CHARLOTTE — Republicans were busy in North Carolina and Washington on Monday. Did the activity in the courts and on a conservative stage have the effect of muddying the welcome mat the GOP rolled out for minority voters in the state?

Earlier in the day, Republican state officials filed to urge a federal court to dismiss two lawsuits challenging changes in North Carolina’s voting laws, changes opponents contend disproportionately harm African American voters. A third challenge by the U.S. Department of Justice is waiting in the wings.

Monday evening in Charlotte, at the opening of the Republican National Committee’s African American engagement office in North Carolina, Earl Philip, North Carolina African American state director, said he believed in the message he has been taking to churches, schools and community groups.

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Oct222013 TAGS: , , , , , , , , ,

In N.C. skirmish in national voting-rights wars, student once thrown off ballot wins race

Featured at The Washington Post

Being thrown off the ballot was the best thing that ever happened to Montravias King. The national coverage that rained down on the Elizabeth City State University student when a local elections board in North Carolina rejected his initial City Council bid surely helped him break out from the field of candidates. He got the chance to plead his case, and his views, before millions, reaching many more people than a meager campaign budget could ever allow. This week, according to preliminary results, the university senior was the top vote-getter and will get to represent the ward where his school is located.

Was turnout affected by the actions of the board in an increasingly partisan state atmosphere where restrictive voting laws have drawn legal action from many groups, including the U.S. Justice Department? King, who never stopped thinking local, didn’t take any chances, knocking on 365 doors for votes, he said in the News & Record. He said that in addition to his fellow students, he had gotten a “great and amazing” reception from older voters. That he had also discussed the issue of voter suppression with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who went to North Carolina for the story, was an unexpected extra.

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Oct102013 TAGS: , , , , ,

Familiar lines drawn as Justice sues N.C. over voting law

Featured at The Washington Post

You really could see this one coming. When Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday announced that the Justice Department would sue North Carolina over a controversial new voting law Holder says discriminates on the basis of race, no one was surprised. Those on both sides were ready – some cheering and others defensive — as North Carolina continues to be a puzzle for those who tagged it as that moderate Southern state that voted for Barack Obama in 2008. It’s now making headlines for conservative legislation and the resulting vehement pushback from groups inside – and now outside – its borders.

Read the rest atThe Washington Post
Oct012013 TAGS: , , , , , , ,
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