#makedecisionsforyou

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No. 80 ☆ Ivan Gladstone Van Sertima (26 January 1935 – 25 May 2009) was a Guyanese-born associate professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University in the United States. He was best known for his Olmec alternative origin speculations, a brand of pre-Columbian contact theory, which he proposed in his book THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS: THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN ANCIENT AMERICA, which was published by Random House in 1977. He was also asked by Congress to appear before a Congressional Committee on July 7, 1987 to challenge the Columbus myth. ☆ While a professor of African Studies at Rutgers University, Dr. Van Sertima was also Visiting Professor at Princeton University. He was the Editor of the Journal of African Civilizations, which he founded in 1979 and has published several major anthologies which influenced the development of multicultural curriculum in the United States. ☆ Dr. Van Sertima lectured at more than 100 universities in the United States and in Canada, the Caribbean, South America and Europe. In 1991 Dr. Van Sertima defended his highly controversial thesis on the African presence in pre-Columbian America before the Smithsonian. In 1994 the Smithsonian published his address in Race, Discourse and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View of 1492. ☆ As a literary critic, he authored CARIBBEAN WRITERS, a collection of critical essays on the Caribbean novel. He also authored several major literary reviews published in Denmark, India, Britain and the United States. He was honored for his work in this field by being asked by the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy to nominate candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature from 1976-1980. He was also honored as an historian of world repute by being asked to join UNESCO's International Commission for Rewriting the Scientific and Cultural History of Mankind. ☆ _______ #IvanVanSertima #BlackMen #BecomeALegend #Legend #BecomeYourDestiny #TameTheBeast #BecomeUnstoppable #GoForIt #LiveYourLifeToday #MakeItHappen #DontStop #DoTheDamnThing #LiveWithPurpose #PurposefulLife #LiveInTheHereAndNow #WhatRoadBlock #WhosGonnaStopMe #Success #MakeDecisionsForYou #SelfMotivation #SelfEnergizing #SelfReflection

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No. 78 ☆ Born Frederick August Kittel, Jr in Pittsburgh in 1945, as the fourth of seven children. August dropped out of school at 16 and focussed on working menial jobs while fostering his burgeoning love of the written word with trips to the Carnegie Library. Reading the works of Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison embedded his desire to become a writer, though his mother wanted him to pursue a career in law. ☆ In 1965, Frederick Kittel Jr became August Wilson, a decision made to honour his mother. The late sixties saw Wilson become heavily influenced by Malcolm X and the Blues and he converted to Islam to ensure the survival of his marriage to Brenda Burton (1969). A year earlier Wilson set up the Black Horizon Theater with Rob Penny where his first plays, Recycling and Jitney, were performed. ☆ Wilson’s first marriage was divorced in 1972 and in 1976 Sizwe Banzi is Dead – his first professional play – was performed at the Pittsburgh Public Theater. Two years later the budding playwright moved to St Paul, Minnesota where worked writing educational scripts for Science Museum of Minnesota. The Playwrights’ Center in Minnesota awarded him a fellowship in 1980 and he left his job a year later. ☆ In Minnesota Wilson built a strong relationship with the Penumbra Theatre Company which produced many of his plays in the eighties and in 1987 the city named May 25th August Wilson day after his Pulitzer Prize award in the same year. Wilson left St Paul for Seattle in 1990, following the divorce of his second marriage to Judy Oliver, and while there the Seattle Repertory Theatre performed a number of his plays. ☆ In 1995 Wilson received one his many honorary degrees from the University of Pittsburgh where he became a Doctor of Humanities and was a member of the Board of Trustees. He married again in 1994 to Constanza Romero. ☆ _______ #AugustWilson #BlackMen #BecomeALegend #Legend #BecomeYourDestiny #TameTheBeast #BecomeUnstoppable #GoForIt #LiveYourLifeToday #MakeItHappen #DontStop #DoTheDamnThing #LiveWithPurpose #PurposefulLife #LiveInTheHereAndNow #WhatRoadBlock #WhosGonnaStopMe #Success #MakeDecisionsForYou #SelfMotivation #SelfEnergizing #SelfReflection

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No. 77 ☆ Octavia Estelle Butler, often referred to as the “grand dame of science fiction,” was born in Pasadena, California on June 22, 1947. She received an Associate of Arts degree in 1968 from Pasadena Community College, and also attended California State University in Los Angeles and the University of California, Los Angeles. During 1969 and 1970, she studied at the Screenwriter’s Guild Open Door Program and the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop, where she took a class with science fiction master Harlan Ellison (who later became her mentor), and which led to Butler selling her first science fiction stories. ☆ Butler’s first story, CROSSOVER, was published in the 1971 Clarion anthology. PATTERNMASTER, her first novel and the first title of her five-volume Patternist series, was published in 1976, followed by MIND OF MY MIND in 1977. Others in the series include SURVIVOR (1978), WILD SEED (1980), which won the James Tiptree Award, and CLAY'S ARK (1984). ☆ With the publication of KINDRED in 1979, Butler was able to support herself writing full time. She won the Hugo Award in 1984 for her short story, SPEECH SOUND, and in 1985, Butler’s novelette BLOODCHILD won a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and an award for best novelette from Science Fiction Chronicle. ☆ Other books by Octavia E. Butler include the Xenogenesis trilogy: DAWN (1987), ADULTHOOD RITES (1988) and IMAGO (1989), and a short story collection, BLOODCHILD and Other Stories (1995). PARABLE OF THE SOWER (1993), the first of her Earthseed series, was a finalist for the Nebula Award as well as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. The book’s sequel, PARABLE OF THE TALENTS (1998), won a Nebula Award. ☆ In 1995 Butler was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Foundation fellowship. ☆ _______ #OctaviaButler #BlackWomen #SciFi #Kindred #BecomeALegend #Legend #BecomeYourDestiny #TameTheBeast #BecomeUnstoppable #GoForIt #LiveYourLifeToday #MakeItHappen #DontStop #DoTheDamnThing #LiveWithPurpose #PurposefulLife #LiveInTheHereAndNow #WhatRoadBlock #WhosGonnaStopMe #Success #MakeDecisionsForYou #SelfMotivation #SelfEnergizing #SelfReflection

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No. 76 ☆ Countee Porter Cullen was born on May 30, 1903. His exact place of birth is unknown, though some sources state that he may have been born in Louisville, Kentucky, or Baltimore or New York City. Having lost his parents and brother, it is believed he was raised by his paternal grandmother until her death during his teen years. He was then taken in by Carolyn Belle and Reverend Frederick A. Cullen, a conservative minister at the renowned Salem Methodist Episcopal Church in Harlem. ☆ Culllen was recognized as an award-winning poet by his high school years. He published his acclaimed debut volume of poetry, Color, in 1925, which would be followed by Copper Sun and The Ballad of the Brown Girl. Also a noted novelist, playwright and children's author, Cullen later worked as a high school teacher. He died on January 9, 1946. ☆ Cullen attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where he edited the school newspaper and literary magazine and won a city-wide poetry competition. He went on to attend New York University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1925 and won the Witter Bynner Poetry Prize. That same year, Cullen released his lauded debut volume of poetry, Color. ☆ He graduated with a master's from Harvard University in 1926 and subsequently joined the editorial staff of Opportunity magazine, penning the column "Dark Tower," which was a review of works from the African-American literati. ☆ Cullen's poetic output diminished as the 1930s began, and in 1934 he took on a position teaching French at Frederick Douglass Junior High School. He also worked in a variety of literary forms, having penned the satirical novel One Way to Heaven (1932). And in 1935, he became the first African-American writer in the 20th century to translate and publish Euripides' classical work Medea. ☆ _______ #CounteePorterCullen #BlackMen #BecomeALegend #Legend #BecomeYourDestiny #TameTheBeast #BecomeUnstoppable #GoForIt #LiveYourLifeToday #MakeItHappen #DontStop #DoTheDamnThing #LiveWithPurpose #PurposefulLife #LiveInTheHereAndNow #WhatRoadBlock #WhosGonnaStopMe #Success #MakeDecisionsForYou #SelfMotivation #SelfEnergizing #SelfReflection

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No. 75 ☆ Belva Davis (born Belvagene Melton; October 13, 1932) is an African-American television and radio journalist. She is the first African-American woman to become a television reporter on the U.S. West Coast and has won eight Emmy Awards and been recognized by the American Women in Radio and Television and National Association of Black Journalists. ☆ She attended Berkeley High in California, graduating in 1951 and San Francisco State University. Her first paid writing job was as a freelance writer for Jet magazine. She soon found work with several weekly black newspapers, including the Bay Area Independent and the San Francisco Sun-Reporter. Davis's career in broadcasting began at radio station KSAN, where she read newspaper clips on the air, becoming the first black female at KSAN. Davis left KSAN to work for another radio station, KDIA. ☆ In 1966, Davis was hired to replace television news anchor Nancy Reynolds on KPIX-TV, San Francisco's CBS affiliate. This made Davis the first female African American television reporter on the west coast. Davis also hosted and helped to create All Together Now, one of the country's first prime-time public affairs programs to focus on ethnic communities. In 1977, left KPIX to work at the PBS affiliate in San Francisco, KQED. She anchored A Closer Look and then Evening Edition from 1977 to 1981. She next took a job as anchor and urban affairs specialist for KRON-4, where she worked until 1999, when she became a special projects reporter for the television station. ☆ Davis also writes about her life as a volunteer supporting organizations focused on helping people improve and change their lives. She is member of Links Inc. and an Honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. ☆ _______ #BelvaDavis #BlackWomen #BecomeALegend #Legend #BecomeYourDestiny #TameTheBeast #BecomeUnstoppable #GoForIt #LiveYourLifeToday #MakeItHappen #DontStop #DoTheDamnThing #LiveWithPurpose #PurposefulLife #LiveInTheHereAndNow #WhatRoadBlock #WhosGonnaStopMe #Success #MakeDecisionsForYou #SelfMotivation #SelfEnergizing #SelfReflection

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No. 74 ☆ Stanley Lawrence Crouch was born in LA and as a child was a voracious reader, having read the complete works of Hemingway, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald and many other American literature classics, by the time he finished high school. He attended junior colleges and became active in the civil rights movement via Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In 1968 he became poet-in-residence at Pitzer College and taught theatre and literature at Pomona College until 1975. ☆ Crouch befriended Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray who influenced his thinking in a direction less centered on race. As a writer for the Voice from 1980 - 1988, he became a friend and intellectual mentor to Wynton Marsalis, and an advocate of the neotraditionalist movement, reviving the core values of jazz. In 1987 he became an artistic consultant for the Jazz at Lincoln Center program, joined by Marsalis, who later became artistic director, in 1991. ☆ Crouch published Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews in 1979-1989 and was selected by The Encyclopedia Britannica Yearbook as the best book of essays published in 1990. That was followed by receipt of a Whiting Award in 1991, and a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant and Jean Stein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1993. ☆ Crouch is a columnist for the New York Daily News and syndicated columnist. In 2005, he was selected as one of the inaugural fellows by the Fletcher Foundation, which awards annual fellowships to people working on issues of race and civil rights. He is the current President of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and since 2009 a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. ☆ _______ #StanleyCrouch #BlackMen #BecomeALegend #Legend #BecomeYourDestiny #TameTheBeast #BecomeUnstoppable #GoForIt #LiveYourLifeToday #MakeItHappen #DontStop #DoTheDamnThing #LiveWithPurpose #PurposefulLife #LiveInTheHereAndNow #WhatRoadBlock #WhosGonnaStopMe #Success #MakeDecisionsForYou #SelfMotivation #SelfEnergizing #SelfReflection

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No. 73 ☆ Nikki Grimes does not consider herself a bona fide storyteller, but, as she told an audience at the Library of Congress, she is happy to own the title Poet. Born and raised in New York City, Nikki began composing verse at the age of six and has been writing ever since that time. ☆ A bestselling author and a prolific artist, Nikki has written many award-winning books for children and young adults including the Coretta Scott King Award winner Bronx Masquerade; the Coretta Scott King Author Honor books Jazmin's Notebook, Talkin' About Bessie, Dark Sons, The Road to Paris, and Words with Wings; Horn Book Fanfare for Talkin' About Bessie; ALA Notable books What is Goodbye? and Words with Wings; the popular Dyamonde Daniel chapter book series, and numerous picture books and novels including The New York Times bestseller Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope and, most recently, Voices of Christmas and Planet Middle School. ☆ An accomplished and widely anthologized poet of both children's and adult verse, Grimes has conducted poetry readings and lectures at international schools in Russia, China, Sweden and Tanzania, while short-term mission projects have taken her to such trouble spots as Haiti. ☆ During the 1970s, Nikki coproduced and hosted The Kid's Show on WBAI FM in New York. Later, during a six-year stint in Sweden, she hosted their radio program for immigrants, Grunslöst, and another for Swedish Educational Radio. ☆ In 2005, Ms.Grimes was awarded the Golden Dolphin Award by the Southern California Children's Book Association, recognizing her body of work. Nikki has been honored with the NCTE Award for Poetry and the 2016 Virginia Hamilton Literary Award from Kent State University. ☆ _______ #NikkiGrimes #BlackWomen #BecomeALegend #Legend #BecomeYourDestiny #TameTheBeast #BecomeUnstoppable #GoForIt #LiveYourLifeToday #MakeItHappen #DontStop #DoTheDamnThing #LiveWithPurpose #PurposefulLife #LiveInTheHereAndNow #WhatRoadBlock #WhosGonnaStopMe #Success #MakeDecisionsForYou #SelfMotivation #SelfEnergizing #SelfReflection

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No. 72 ☆ Amiri Baraka (born Everett LeRoi Jones; October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014), formerly known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at a number of universities, including the State University of New York at Buffalo and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He received the PEN Open Book Award, formerly known as the Beyond Margins Award, in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone. ☆ Baraka's career spanned nearly 50 years, and his themes range from black liberation to white racism. Some poems that are always associated with his name are "The Music: Reflection on Jazz and Blues", "The Book of Monk", and "New Music, New Poetry", works that draw on topics from the worlds of society, music, and literature. Baraka's poetry and writing have attracted both extreme praise and condemnation. Within the African-American community, some compare Baraka to James Baldwin and recognize him as one of the most respected and most widely published black writers of his generation. Others have said his work is an expression of violence, misogyny, homophobia and racism.[8] Regardless of viewpoint, Baraka's plays, poetry, and essays have been defining texts for African-American culture. ☆ Baraka's brief tenure as Poet Laureate of New Jersey (2002–03) involved controversy over a public reading of his poem "Somebody Blew Up America?", accusations of anti-semitism, and some negative attention from critics, and politicians ☆ _______ #AmiriBaraka #BlackMen #BecomeALegend #Legend #BecomeYourDestiny #TameTheBeast #BecomeUnstoppable #GoForIt #LiveYourLifeToday #MakeItHappen #DontStop #DoTheDamnThing #LiveWithPurpose #PurposefulLife #LiveInTheHereAndNow #WhatRoadBlock #WhosGonnaStopMe #Success #MakeDecisionsForYou #SelfMotivation #SelfEnergizing #SelfReflection