Lura’s Kitchen, Inc., a multi-generational California benefit corporation founded on the principle of “doing business while doing good,” just introduced Madear’s Purple Teacake.
Again, we rightfully set aside time and space to celebrate the sacred initiative and narrative we name and know as Black History. It was first set aside as Black History Week by Dr. Carter G. Woodson (May the good he did and the legacy he left last forever).
Jackie Lacey this past Sunday, February 17 for their 35th Annual Black History Month program. The same DA Lacey who has been charged with prosecuting crimes in the County of Los Angeles since January 2012, over which time more than 450 killings of community members by police have occurred and only one prosecution of an officer has been filed. It is imperative that we remember that each of these 450 “cases” are real people: sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and community members. When people are murdered by police, it leaves unimaginable pain for the hearts of their loved ones…especially their mothers. On Sunday evening, a cadre of five mothers, family members and supporters refused to allow Lacey to smile, wave, invoke God, and dishonor the Spirits of their slain children. They confronted her in, what may be, the most appropriate of all places, church.
Clearly, in this important month and historical moment of celebrating Black History thru reflective remembrance and recommitment to ever-deeper study and emancipatory practice, our minds easily turn to the writings and life work of the father of Black History Month, Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950). For it is Dr. Woodson who framed and laid the foundation for our celebration of Black History Month, having given his life to writing, teaching and advocating history as an indispensable core of any real, useful and emancipatory education. And it is he who founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (1915), the Journal of Negro History(1916), and Negro History Week (1926). These were later renamed to reflect the constant rethinking needed to meet the challenges and changes of our time: the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the Journal of African American History and Black History Month, respectively.