The United Nations’ Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro at the microphone as General-Secretary Ban Ki Moon looks on. (photo courtesy of the United Nations)

Although it was mostly disregarded by mainstream media throughout 2011, the United Nations’ observance of the International Year for People of African Descent launched on Human Rights Day, December 10, 2010, just over a week before the event that would spark the Arab Spring occurred and months before the Occupy Movement got underway. It proceeded in different countries with a variety of programs, initiatives, and publications to commemorate the occasion over the months that followed, and has now been winding down to an official close since December 6, 2011.

The year was one, as stated in U.N. Resolution 64/169, dedicated to the following:

“…Strengthening national actions and regional and international cooperation for the benefit of people of African descent in relation to their full enjoyment of economic, cultural, social, civil and political rights, their participation and integration in all political, economic, social and cultural aspects of society, and the promotion of a greater knowledge of and respect for their diverse heritage and culture…”

For the full article by Aberjhani please click the link:
Countdown of 10 amazing moments from 2011: No. 3 Afro-descendants worldwide – National African-American Art | Examiner.com.

Human and civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X (Malik El-Shabazz) have become so indelibly symbolic of 1960s African America that students of the era sometimes forget that not all of the important leaders from the period died when they were assassinated. One such still-surviving leader is Harry Belafonte. The release of his biographical documentary, Sing Your Song, along with accompanying book  titled My Song in 2011 reminded the world just how far African America has come since the 1960s and how much work apparently remains to be done.  

Please click the following link to continue reading:

Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011: No. 9 Harry Belafonte Sings Your Song | Aberjhani | Blog Post | Red Room.

State of Black America annual publication by National Urban League.

Just as the previous two annual countdowns from the National African American Art Examiner contained people and events some found debatable, this one for the year 2011 is likely to do the same. The point, however, remains unchanged: to highlight known as well as largely ignored moments that have added significantly to contemporary ongoing African-American culture and history, and thereby adding the same to current American and world history in general.

 For more please click the link:

Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011 Begins this Week | Aberjhani | Blog Post | Red Room.

The author James Baldwin remains an iconoclastic force in American literature and culture. To discover some of the reasons why, please click the following link:

Events in 2011 and Forthcoming Book Strengthen Author James Baldwin’s Legacy | Aberjhani | Blog Post | Red Room.

(Author-poet Aberjhani art graphic by Don Dean from original photo by Kathleen Thomas.)

So many new apps, websites, and other technology innovations pop up daily on the Internet that one can sometimes cluster the significant with the not-so-much-so and erroneously dismiss both.  The first time I noticed Google + was––like Facebook before them–– allowing the creation of individual pages, I smiled with total cluelessness and clicked the mouse to continue with my research. Then my re-think alarm went off in the form of a loud inner voice yelling, “Wrong move genius! For you this can be a good thing!”

“Really?” (Like many imaginative types, I have such dialogues occasionally with myself.)

“Yes, really!  The world’s population just hit seven billion and as shocking as this may sound, the majority of them do not subscribe to your blog. ”

“Well that’s true. So, um, what…?”

 For more and for the links to the directory pages please click the following:

10 Great Pages in My Very Own Google Plus Directory | Aberjhani | Blog Post | Red Room.

Display of paintings by Luther E. Vann with a bio and profile of the artist in the center. (courtesy of Luther E. Vann)

The “Songs of My People” art exhibition, featuring fifteen new works by Savannah and New York artist Luther E. Vann, celebrated co-creator of the landmark art and poetry book ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love  opened November 11 at Penn Center’s York W. Bailey Museum on St. Helena Island, South Carolina.

“Songs of My People,” which will remain on exhibition until January 7, 2012, is Vann’s first major art exhibit since his triumphant ELEMENTAL show at the Telfair Museum’s Jepson Center for the Arts in Savannah, Georgia, in 2008. 

For more please click the link:
New “Songs of My People” Art Exhibition Opens at Penn Center | Aberjhani | Blog Post | Red Room.

Photographer Ludovico Maria Gilberti in front of panel from “Women in Africa” exhibition.

With revolutions in the Middle East and the United States’ current Occupy Wall Street movement dominating media reports throughout  2011, the International Year for People of African Descent  as declared by the United Nations has received little attention but that didn’t stop the traveling photo exhibition “WoMen in Africa – No Color One Color,” from launching November 2 at the Italian Institute of Culture in Nairobi, Kenya.

The show marked the second major exhibition within two weeks to launch in honor of the International Year for People of African Descent. A multimedia display of works by different artists and photographers, “The African Continuum: Celebrating Diversity, Recognizing Contributions of People of African Descent”, opened at the U.N. Headquarters in New York City on October 19. For that occasion, Time Magazine photographer Chester Higgins Jr. addressed attendees on behalf of the participating artists.

In addition, the venerable Maya Angelou recorded her poem, “A Brave and Startling Truth,” for the occasion. The following is an excerpt:

“When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear…”
–– Maya Angelou

 
Cultural Diversity and Biodiversity

“WoMen in Africa – No Color One Color” (the capital “M” in WoMen is correct) features the work of Ludovico Maria Gilberti, an Italian photographer who has adopted Kenya as his second home. Gilberti’s approach to his subject is particularly interesting in light of the current social, financial, and political upheavals rocking various continents.

To continue reading the full article by Aberjhani please click the link:
Report on 2011 International Year Part 7: Photography of the African Continuum – National African-American Art | Examiner.com.

For the whole story please click the following link:

iTunes Adds Three Books and Podcast by Aberjhani to its iBookstore | Aberjhani | Press Release/Interview/Press Coverage | Red Room.

 Poet Adonis. (photo courtesy of Mideast Post)

Considering that Sweden has hosted the Nobel Prize Awards for more than a century and until Thursday had not presented one of its own authors with the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1974 (to Eyvind Johnson), the world can hardly blame the awards committee for presenting this year’s prize to poet Tomas Transtromer.

Along with the Syrian poet Adonis, Transtromer was among the top ten authors favored by Britain’s Ladbrokes betting agency as a likely win. Transtromer, according to the agency, was an 8-1 favorite while Adonis was favored 4-1. The poets are also close in age, with the Swede born 1931 and the Syrian in 1930. However, Transtromer became the 104th recipient of the award by virtue of what the prize committee recognized as the following: “through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality.”

Transtromer has published volumes of acclaimed works in both his native tongue and in translations, among them: The Sorrow Gondola (Green Integer, 2010); New Collected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2011); and The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems (New Directions, 2003). As an author who has already received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the Swedish Award from the International Poetry Forum, few would argue that he deserves the Nobel prize as well. Yet even as the crowd of onlookers cheered and applauded the announcement of his win, many others were stunned (as people tend to be when their cultural heroes do not triumph) that the name called out was not that of Adonis.

To continue reading this article by Aberjhani please click this link:
Syrian Poet Adonis: Snapshot of a distinguished Nobel contender.

Rev. Raphael Warnock talks with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now during livestream broadcast.

After many people had made their peace with the idea of Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis’ life ending at 7 p.m. on September 21, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Courts just after 7 p.m. issued a call for a “temporary delay” of his death, but then again at 10:20 said it would not block the execution.  Officials then announced that Davis was executed at 11:08 p.m. 

The planned execution of Davis for the 1989 murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail  topped news broadcasts on every major American television station Wednesday. Protests against the execution were staged globally in cities from Oslo and Paris to New York and Atlanta. The online television and radio program Democracy Now had scheduled a live stream broadcast from outside the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison at Jackson, where Davis was executed, to last from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The broadcast instead, with host Amy Goodman, lasted for four hours beyond that scheduled time.

For more please click this link:
Savannah Talks Troy Anthony Davis No. 16: Davis Executed | Aberjhani | Blog Post | Red Room.