Source: Shutterstock

I don’t believe I recognized that there was such a drastic difference between the way that other cultures hold funeral services for deceased loved ones in comparison to traditional African-American services until I was about 18 years old. My grandmother passed away and my mom’s co-workers, who happen to be a very diverse bunch, came out in droves to show support and pay their respects. I remember glancing back at them several times during the service. They looked on in sheer amazement as they watched our pentecostal congregation charismatically celebrate my grandmother’s life through funny stories, up-tempo choir selections and most of all, the saints who made it their business to “shout the church down” in an effort to praise God and celebrate my granny’s “homegoing.”

“That was the liveliest funeral I’ve ever been to. What did the preacher call it? A homegoing celebration,” one of my mother’s caucasian colleagues asked after the service.

I believe that’s when it hit me just how unique these services actually are. We’ve recently learned that PBS is gearing up to shed light on these traditional services in a new documentary titled, Homegoings.

The doc will follow 62-year-old Harlem funeral home owner, Isaiah “Fix Em” Owens, who is widely known for his superb ability to makeover dead bodies. A description of the doc found on the PBS website reads:

“Through the eyes of funeral director Isaiah Owens, the beauty and grace of African-American funerals are brought to life. Filmed at Owens Funeral Home in New York City’s historic Harlem neighborhood, Homegoings takes an up-close look at the rarely seen world of undertaking in the black community, where funeral rites draw on a rich palette of tradition, history and celebration. Combining cinéma vérité with intimate interviews and archival photographs, the film paints a portrait of the dearly departed, their grieving families and a man who sends loved ones ‘home.’”

In a recent interview with the NY Daily News, the famed undertaker said that he hopes the film will expose the world to traditional African-American undertaking practices.

“We’re bringing death out of the closet. Everybody knows it’s there, but nobody wants to talk about it.”

Homegoings is scheduled to air June 24th at 10 p.m. EST. The series is a little morbid for my taste, but what do you think? Could you stomach watching a documentary on death and funerals?

Turn the page to check out Homegoings’ official trailer. 

AP Photo

Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, the first black woman to run a major US company, will be featured in the 19th installment of An Evening With…, the PBS interview and fundraiser program. The show will be hosted by PBS journalist Gwen Ifill on April 13 at The Times Center in New York City. The show is presented by The HistoryMakers, which has raised $1 million in sponsorships from this year’s event and $17 million total over its 13 years, according to a press release about the upcoming event. This event launches the series in New York City.

The HistoryMakers preserves the oral history of African Americans in order to create a more inclusive historical record of the United States. HistoryMakers founder Julieanna Richardson said in a statement, “[H]er story allows us to shine a light on  STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) since she is an engineer by training and we are ending a four year period where we have interviewed 180 of the nation’s top scientists.” She’s also the first “female corporate leader” that the event has featured. The resulting 1 1/2 hour interview will air nationwide on PBS.

Burns became CEO of Xerox in 2009 and, shortly after, made the largest acquisition in the history of the company — the $6.4 billion purchase of Affiliated Computer Services. She started as an intern with the company in 1980.

via The HistoryMakers website

Image: AP Photo/Eric Gay

Much of the discussion during this presidential campaign season has been squarely focused on the economy and the divergent paths that President Obama and Mitt Romney have proposed for getting it back on track.

The general consensus (here in the Madame Noire office and elsewhere) is that the President missed opportunities to be more aggressive with Romney, not highlighting Romney’s “47 percent” comment that has now become infamous, and letting him get away with claims about Medicare and other policies that weren’t quite true or weren’t explained with any specificity.

But generally speaking, the debate was all about the middle class; both saying that their policies wouldn’t burden them with extra taxes, promising to lower the unemployment rate and generally restore security through overall economic growth. We’ve got links to recaps here, here, here and here.

President Obama will continue to talk about the economy during stops in Colorado and the University of Wisconsin before heading back to Washington.

What did you think of the debate last night? Was there anything that you heard that will impact your vote?

Total aside, Twitter was lit up last night over the #debate, becoming the most tweeted event in political history. Some of the things that got Twitter attention: people’s defense of Big Bird after Romney said he would make funding cuts to PBS and moderator Jim Lehrer’s “let’s not” response to Romney’s attempts to move the debate on to another topic (Lehrer has been given an “F” for his performance last night).

http://www.africanancestry.com

As AfricanAncestry.com celebrates its 10 year anniversary, it recognizes a decade of helping African Americans trace their lineage and its positive impact in the media. In its time, it has played a large role on shows such as NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?,” CNN’s “Black of America series,” and most recently PBS’ new show “Finding Your Roots” with Henry Louis Gates.

“The rise of reality shows has been great in many ways,” the site’s president, Gina Paige, said in a statement. “The work we’ve done with shows like Finding Your Roots is positively changing the way people see themselves and the way they interact with their families. This is the REALITY I want to see in my people and our communities.”

The black-owned site was founded by Paige as well as scientist Dr. Rick Kittles. Together the two created a DNA-based method for African people to trace their roots around the world. It was the first site to establish a market for African American consumers in the early 2000s. Although the heritage tracing industry has grown over the years, AfricanAncesty.com still boasts the largest collection of indigenous African DNA with Dr. Kittles leading the DNA matching analysis. Today it is still the most accurate and reliable site.

For Dr. Kittles, who has spent years researching African genetic variation, it’s an accomplishment he never thought would be possible.

“I never imagined that my passion for African history and the movements of its people throughout the world would have one day manifested in a much-needed consumer product among African Americans,” he said.

More on Madame Noire Business!

• The Career Freshman: Five Benefits of Being in an Entry-Level Position
• 5 Ways To Get Excited About Saving Money
• Crisis Management Lessons: Handle Scandal Like Your Name Is Kerry Washington
• Behind the Music: Top Black Women Music Industry Executives
• Entrepreneur Spotlight: A Sister-Run Business Brings High-End Tea Stateside

Source: Daze News

We all know slavery has considerably limited African Americans’ ability to trace their roots so whenever someone is able to uncover details of their ancestry as far back as Wanda Sykes has, it’s pretty exciting.

As part of a new PBS series, Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Harvard professor, along with historian Ira Berlin, a professor at the University of Maryland, were able to trace Wanda’s roots back to her paternal ninth great-grandmother, Elizabeth Banks. Elizabeth was an indentured servant who, on June 20, 1683, was given 39 lashes on her bare back and an extension of her servitude as punishment for “fornication & Bastardy with a negroe slave,” according to a York County, VA, court document.

“This is an extraordinary case and the only such case that I know of in which it is possible to trace a black family rooted in freedom from the late 17th century to the present,”professor Berlin told the New York Times.

Mary Banks, Elizabeth’s biracial child, was born around 1683 and inherited her mother’s free status, although she was also indentured. She appeared to have four children and the family continued to grow as the Banks’ descendants married other free people of color. Several generations of Sykes’ have remained in the Virginia area since Elizabeth arrived, most likely from Scotland, and professor Berlin says her story changes the images we typically have of the lives of the first Africans in the New World from popular depictions of plantation life to real communities. According to Paul Heinegg, a respected genealogist and historian, more than 1,000 mixed-race children were born to white women in colonial Virginia and Maryland, but their existence has been erased from oral and written history, since they lack marriage records, wills, and property.

Regardless, professor Gates says, “The bottom line is that Wanda Sykes has the longest continuously documented family tree of any African-American we have ever researched.”

Wanda’s pretty excited about that too, although she said discoveries that some of her ancestors owned slaves and that she couldn’t trace some of her other familial roots back as far were disappointing.

“I’m just grateful I do have a history,” she said. “It’s bittersweet. I was not able to trace the other three grandparents, and that’s huge.

“It shows that we’re still paying for the history of this country, basically. It’s just incredible to go back and see that you did not matter.”

Wanda’s family segment will appear on the new PBS series in May, but the show will debut this coming Sunday. Other figures whose roots will be uncovered include Barbara Walters, Harry Connick Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Margaret Cho, Kevin Bacon, Georgia Representative John Lewis, Branford Marsalis, Robert Downey Jr. and Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

More on Madame Noire!

• What Did You Do To My Hair!? 6 Signs You’re Dealing With a Ratchet Stylist
• Trayvon Martin, His Witness and What We Should Be Teaching Our Children About Racism
• Where Are They Now? The Cast of “A Different World”
• I Thought You Were Black? Teacher Tells Student to Read ‘Blacker’ in Class
• 6 Times You’ll Have To Accept No Sex For A While
• Teeny Weeny Afros & More: Celebrity Women Who Have Done the Big Chop
• Oh, The Ratchetness! Lewd Songs Women Can’t Deny They Love
• Monica and Brandy Open Up About Their Physical Altercation Back in 1998

Source:Calgaryherald.com

President Obama is a true soul man. We already found out he could carry a tune when he sang a line of “Let’s Stay Together” at the Apollo last month, and last night Mick Jagger B.B. King, and and a blues ensemble made the president prove his soul by singing during a concert at the White House.

Music legend Buddy Guy egged the president onstage during the blues event, telling him during the finale, “We were trying to get you to help us sing that because I heard you singing Al Green. So you’ve started something. You’ve got to keep it up.”

Although he was hesitant at first, the president took the mic and belted out a few lines to “Sweet Home Chicago” and he did not disappoint with his line, “Come on… Baby don’t you want to go.”

The Black History Month special is set to air on PBS soon but for now check out President Obama’s singing in this segment below. He definitely needs to make this a part of his campaign.

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

More on Madame Noire!

• ’90s One-(Or Two) Hit Wonders Whose Jams Make Us Want a Comeback
• Should We Boycott Nicki Minaj?
• True Life: I Knew He Wasn’t Into Me When…
• Saying One Thing and Doin Another: Celebs Who Lack Consistency
• Does the Academy of Motion Pictures Need Affirmative Action?
• Friends & Lovers: What To Avoid When Introducing Your Guy To Your Girls
• Bey and Jay Show Their Love At Knicks-Nets Game
• Dear Evelyn, It Ain’t That Serious

PBS’s “Independent Lens” is gearing up for Black History Month by premiering a series of new documentaries shedding an interesting light on African American History.

The film first in the series, debuting Feb. 2, is “Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock,. The documentary tells the story of filmmaker Sharon La Cruise’s seven-year journey to get to know civil rights activist Daisy Bates. Bates became a household name in 1957 when she fought for the right of nine black students to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, AK, but she became mostly forgotten after that.

The following week, “Independent Lens” will show “The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975.” The film features contrasting interviews with Black Power leaders of the time like  Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, and Eldridge Cleaver with contemporary audio interviews from leading African American artists, activists, musicians, and scholars. Chronicling the Black Power movement’s evolution, the footage includes shots from the streets of Harlem, Brooklyn, and Oakland.

During the final week, the network will show “More than a Month,” the story of Shukree Hassan Tilghman’s cross-country campaign to end Black History Month

Check out the trailers for the Black Power Mixtape and the Story of Daisy Bates below. Will you tune in?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

More on Madame Noire!

• It’s Bad Boy For Life? Artists Whose Talents Are/Were Wasted Under Bad Boy Records
• Should I Confess My Affair?
• Can D’Angelo Make A Comeback Without Bringing Swexy Back?
• Ask a Very Smart Brotha: Freshmen Woes & Possessive Types
• S*** Black Girls Say vs. S*** White Girls Say to Black Girls
• Six Fashion Trends Sistas Need to Change. Now.

(New York Times) — It might just be the most worrisome letter to the editor any news organization can receive.  PBS fought on Monday and Tuesday to restore the Web sites for two news programs on public television, “Frontline” and “PBS NewsHour,” which were crippled by hackers who said they were angered by coverage of WikiLeaks.  The incidents were the latest examples of what security experts call “reputational attacks” on media companies that publish material that the hackers disagree with. Such companies are particularly vulnerable to such attacks because many of them depend on online advertising and subscription revenue from Web sites that can be upended by the clicks of a hacker’s keyboard — and because unlike other targets, like government entities and defense contractors, they are less likely to have state-of-the-art security to thwart attacks.  The PBS attack was said to be motivated by a “Frontline” film about WikiLeaks that was broadcast and published online on May 24. Some supporters of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and Bradley Manning, a soldier who is suspected of having shared hundreds of thousands of government files with WikiLeaks, criticized the film and claimed that it portrayed the two men in a negative light.

Read More…

By B. Hutson

For all those conspiracy theorists that swear Tupac Shakur is alive and hiding in Cuba, brace yourself.  According to PBS, Tupac was recently sighted in a small resort in New Zealand—or was he?

At 11:30 p.m. Sunday, an article appeared on the PBS NewsHour news blog, “The Rundown,” claiming that not only had Tupac been found alive and well in a small town that could not be named due to security risks, but he allegedly has been living with Biggie Smalls. Despite the suspicious nature of the story, it didn’t stop at least 3,000 readers from ‘liking’ the story on Facebook and many more on Twitter who speculated on whether the story was true or not, reports Forbes.

Unfortunately, for those who had an ounce of hope, the story was declared a hoax that was written by hackers from a group calling itself LulzSec. PBS became aware of the intrusion shortly the story was posted. They counteracted by posting statements acknowledging the hack and that the story was a fake. According to Forbes, not only did the hackers break into PBS’ content management system and pen a “sufficiently-newsy sounding article with a photo and byline,” but they also posted a list of usernames and passwords for PBS’ IT admins and users, along with login details for local PBS television stations.

The reason for all of this? Well, LulzSec said in a pastebin statement that it was “less than impressed” by the “WikiSecrets” documentary that recently aired as a segment of PBS’ Frontline news program and its portrayal of Bradley Manning. Oh, and because they could.

Apparently, LulzSec has an interest in hacking media companies: it targeted Fox News recently, publishing login details for employees and user information of hundreds of people who applied to be updated on X-Factor auditions. It also attacked Sony websites and hinted it will hit Sony again soon.

But for those who still have an urge to play, ‘where in the world is Tupac?’ you can check out the hoax story here.

(New York Times) — The broadcaster Tavis Smiley is changing the co-producer of his weeknight PBS talk show to WNET.org, from the Los Angeles station KCET-TV.  The half-hour interview program, which is called “Tavis Smiley” and begins its eighth season in January, will continue to be taped largely at its rented studios at KCET-TV, which had been Mr. Smiley’s production partner. But with KCET’s decision to end its affiliation with PBS effective Jan. 1, the show needed to find a new partner within the PBS family.  Mr. Smiley plans to formally announce the move on Tuesday.

Read More…