Tag: icons

Posted on

Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek Star & Hollywood Trailblazer, Dies At 89

Star Trek star Nichelle Nichols (photo: screen capture/Gage Skidmore – CC License)
Nichelle Nichols, the trailblazing icon for Black women in Hollywood who starred in the 1960s sci-fi series Star Trek as communications officer Lt. Uhura, has died at the age of 89. Continue reading “Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek Star & Hollywood Trailblazer, Dies At 89”

Posted on

Dolly Parton Praises Lil Nas X’s “Jolene,” Lil Nas Loses It

Lil Nas X lost it when country music queen Dolly Parton praised his cover of her iconic "Jolene"

After Grammy Award winner Lil Nas X rocked the internet last week with his cover of the Dolly Parton hit, “Jolene,” Miss Dolly herself rocked Nas’s world by praising his performance on Twitter. Continue reading “Dolly Parton Praises Lil Nas X’s “Jolene,” Lil Nas Loses It”

Posted on

Congressman John Lewis, Civil Rights Icon, Dead At 80

Rep. John Lewis (D-GA)
Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), an icon in the fight for civil rights for decades, has died at the age of 80 after his battle with pancreatic cancer. I’m careful not to write “passed away,” because Lewis never merely “passed” anything in his storied life. The youngest of the Big Six civil rights activists, Lewis garnered national headlines after leading hundreds of protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. Knocked to the ground and beaten by Alabama state troopers, Lewis’s skull was fractured and images of the infamous moment were spread across the country, crystallizing the civil rights movement to such a degree the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed shortly thereafter. The civil rights lion was elected to Congress over 20 years later representing his district in Atlanta, Georgia.

And from the New York Times:

Mr. Lewis led demonstrations against racially segregated restrooms, hotels, restaurants, public parks and swimming pools, and he rose up against other indignities of second-class citizenship. At nearly every turn he was beaten, spat upon or burned with cigarettes. He was tormented by white mobs and absorbed body blows from law enforcement.

Mr. Lewis was arrested 40 times from 1960 to 1966. He was repeatedly beaten senseless by Southern policemen and freelance hoodlums. During the Freedom Rides in 1961, he was left unconscious in a pool of his own blood outside the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Montgomery, Ala., after he and others were attacked by hundreds of white people. He spent countless days and nights in county jails and 31 days in Mississippi’s notoriously brutal Parchman Penitentiary.

Lewis didn’t restrict his battles to civil rights for Black Americans. He was also an early ally of the LGBTQ movement. In 2003, he penned an op-ed for the Boston Globe arguing in favor of same-sex marriage long before others would come to embrace that call.

We are now at such a crossroads over same-sex couples’ freedom to marry. It is time to say forthrightly that the government’s exclusion of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters from civil marriage officially degrades them and their families. It denies them the basic human right to marry the person they love. It denies them numerous legal protections for their families.

This discrimination is wrong. We cannot keep turning our backs on gay and lesbian Americans. I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I’ve heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred, and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry.

In the 1990s, he voted against the heinous ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ which defined marriage as only between a man and a woman, and he stood with the pro-LGBTQ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign. He also voiced his opposition to Georgia’s prohibition on adoption by LGBTQ people. One of my favorite tributes was from Lewis’s friend and former UN ambassador, Andrew Young: “He didn’t convince you by his arguments. He convinced you by his life.” People much more eloquent than I offered their tributes to Lewis. Rest in power, John Lewis.

Posted on

Grammy Museum to unveil new exhibition “Donna Summer: Four Seasons of Love”

Fans of classic 70s and 80s pop/rock/dance music – mark your calendars!

On July 2, 2014, The GRAMMY Museum will unveil its latest temporary exhibition Donna Summer: Four Seasons of Love.

Located on the Museum’s fourth floor, the exhibition will offer visitors a behind-the-scenes look at the iconic career of 5-time Grammy Award-winner Donna Summer. This will be the first exhibition highlighting the career of the legendary “Queen of Disco.”

“Donna Summer galvanized a diverse group of music fans and she was able to give credibility to a genre of music that had many skeptics,” said GRAMMY Museum executive director Bob Santelli. “We are honored to tell her story and help demonstrate why Donna Summer is not only the undisputed ‘Queen of Disco,’” but also one of the most successful female artists of all time.”

On display through Spring 2015, the exhibit, (produced by client relations rep Brian Edwards and Summer’s son-in-law Rick Dohler) will feature gowns, costumes, set design sketches, handwritten lyrics and notes, rare and never-before-seen photos, hand-painted pieces from Summer’s Fine Arts Collection and much more from the Donna Summer estate.

With a career that spanned decades and musical genres, Donna Summer holds the record for most consecutive double albums to hit #1 on the Billboard charts (3) and first female to have four #1 singles in a 12 month period; three as a solo artist and one as a duo with Barbra Streisand.

Donna Summer was the first artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (1979, “Hot Stuff”) as well as the first-ever recipient of the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording (1997, “Carry On”).

In 2004, she became one of the first inductees, as both an Artist Inductee and a Record Inductee into the Dance Music Hall of Fame in New York City.

Most recently, Summer was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame on April 18, 2013, less than a year after her death on May 17, 2012.

The GRAMMY Museum features 30,000 square feet of interactive and multimedia exhibits located within L.A. LIVE, the downtown Los Angeles sports, entertainment and residential district.

(via press release)

Posted on

Let’s hear it for the amazing Barbara Eden

The ageless Barbara Eden headlined Europe’s largest AIDS fundraiser yesterday, appearing in her Jeannie costume and looking as fab as ever.

The event, Life Ball, is organized by the nonprofit organization AIDS LIFE, which was founded in 1992.

AIDS LIFE supports aid organizations devoted to helping people who are HIV-positive or have AIDS. The team entrusted with the allocation of funds thoroughly examines each petition. Moreover, it is an explicit goal of AIDS LIFE to raise public awareness.

Take a look at what 78 can look like, kids. Bravo Barbara!

(Via Boy Culture)

Posted on

The fabulous Nichelle Nichols from “Star Trek”

My Facebook friend Aaron Baldwin shares some facts about the fabulous Lt. Uhura from the original Star Trek:

“Uhura” comes from the Swahili word UHURU meaning “freedom”. Uhura was pretty much the first ever black main character on American television who was not either a maid or a domestic servant.

In 1966, TV network NBC refused to let Nichelle Nichols be a regular, claiming Deep South affiliates would be angered, so Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry hired her as a “day worker,” but still included her in almost every episode. She actually made more money than any of the other actors through this workaround, and it was kept secret from the other actors, but it was still a humiliating second-class status. The network people made life hard for Nichols, constantly trying to pare down her screen time, purposefully dropping racist comments in her presence and even withholding her fan mail from her.

This deplorable state of affairs led Nichols to make the decision to quit after the 1st season, but then she happened to meet with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who pleaded with her to stick with the show because as a black woman she was portraying the first non-stereotypical role on television.

Star Trek is still winning in the public arena with the huge success of it’s latest movie sequel “Star Trek Into Darkness.”