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The College Football Playoff released new information today about the Selection Committee's procedures, including the frequency of rankings, use of data, voting procedures, and recusal policy.
"The College Football Playoff marks a new era in which a group of college football experts will decide the best four teams which will compete for the national championship," said Bill Hancock, executive director of the College Football Playoff. "The members of the Selection Committee are an outstanding group of people with high integrity and excellent judgment, and ultimately the decision will be theirs. The information released today will help fans, the media, and others in the college football community better understand how the committee will conduct its deliberations. Our top priority is to make sure the new playoff is the best it can be, and that fans have every detail possible about how it will operate."
The committee's mission is to select the best teams, rank the top-25 teams for inclusion in the playoff and selected other bowl games, and then assigns the teams to sites.
Frequency of Rankings: The Selection Committee members will meet weekly, in person, on Mondays and Tuesdays to produce rankings. The committee will issue its first rankings Tuesday, October 28, after the completion of the ninth week of the regular season. The committee's rankings will be announced on ESPN each Tuesday evening beginning October 28 and continuing for the next five weeks. Following are the dates when the rankings will be released this season. (Details and timing of the release of the final rankings the weekend of December 7 will be announced at a later time).
- October 28
- November 4
- November 11
- November 18
- November 25
- December 2
Data: Selection Committee members will have a wealth of information including review of video, statistics and their own expertise to guide them in their deliberations. They will emphasize obvious factors like win-loss records, strength of schedule, conference championships won, head-to-head results and results against common opponents. The playoff group has retained SportSource Analytics to provide the data platform for the committee's use. While the details of the platform have not been finalized, it is anticipated that it will include countless pieces of statistical information for every Football Bowl Subdivision team. It will also include general information such as each team's opponents' record and opponents' opponents' records. The platform will allow the committee members to compare and contrast every team on every level possible.
It should be noted that the committee will not use a single data point such as the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) that is used for NCAA championships.
"People, not mathematical formulas, will pick the teams, and we want to make sure the committee members have all the information they want so they can make the best decisions," said Hancock.
Voting Procedures: The committee will rank the top 25 teams in the country and assign teams to the semifinals and to the Cotton, Fiesta and Peach Bowls in years when they are not hosting semifinal games. The full voting protocol is attached to this release, but in summary the committee will identify small groups of teams that will then be evaluated against each other in a detailed and deliberative manner. The committee will then vote the teams into the rankings in a combined selection-and-seeding process.
Recusal Policy: Committee members will be recused from participating in votes involving a school's team if they or an immediate family member receives compensation from the school or has a professional relationship with that school. The committee will have the option to add other recusals if special circumstances arise. A recused member shall not participate in any votes nor be present during deliberations involving the team's selection or seeding, but may answer factual questions about the institution from which the member is recused. The recusal policy is virtually identical to the NCAA men's basketball selection committee policy. The full recusal policy is attached to this release.
"This is a very exciting time as college football enters the new playoff era. I'm looking forward to the first kickoff of the new season," said Hancock.
College Football Playoff Selection Committee
Voting Protocol
1. Each committee member will create a list of the 25 teams he or she believes to be the best in the country, in no particular order. Teams listed by more than three members will remain under consideration.
2. Each member will list the best six teams, in no particular order. The six teams receiving the most votes will comprise the pool for the first seeding ballot.
3. In the first seeding ballot, each member will rank those six teams, one through six, with one being the best. The three teams receiving the fewest points will become the top three seeds. The three teams that were not seeded will be held over for the next seeding ballot.
4. Each member will list the six best remaining teams, in no particular order. The three teams receiving the most votes will be added to the three teams held over to comprise the next seeding ballot.
5. Steps No. 3 and 4 will be repeated until 25 teams have been seeded.
A. Any "recused" member can participate in Step No. 1, but cannot list the team for which he or she is recused. "Recused" teams (i.e., teams for whom a member has been recused) receiving at least three votes in Step No. 1 will remain under consideration.
B. A recused member can participate in Step No. 2, but cannot list the recused team. If a recused team is within one vote of advancing to the pool, that team will be pooled with the team (or teams) receiving the fewest votes. A "tie-breaker" ranking vote will be conducted among those teams to identify the team or teams that would be added to the pool.
C. A recused member cannot participate in Step No. 3 if the recused team is in the pool.
D. Between each step, the committee members will conduct a thorough evaluation of the teams before conducting the vote.
E. After the rankings are completed, any group of three or more teams can be reconsidered if more than three members vote to do so. Step No. 3 would be repeated to determine if adjustments should be made.
F. After the first nine teams are seeded, the number of teams for Steps No. 2, 3 and 4 will be increased to eight and four, respectively.
G. At any time in the process, the number of teams to be included in a pool may be increased or decreased with approval of more than eight members of the committee.
H. All votes will be by secret ballot.
College Football Playoff Selection Committee
Recusal Policy
– If a committee member or an immediate family member, e.g., spouse, sibling or child, (a) is compensated by a school, (b) provides professional services for a school, or (c) is on the coaching staff or administrative staff at a school or is a football student-athlete at a school, that member will be recused. Such compensation shall include not only direct employment, but also current paid consulting arrangements, deferred compensation (e.g., contract payments continuing after employment has ended) or other benefits.
– The committee will have the option to add other recusals if special circumstances arise.
– A recused member shall not participate in any votes involving the team from which the individual is recused.
– A recused member is permitted to answer only factual questions about the institution from which the member is recused, but shall not be present during any deliberations regarding that team's selection or seeding.
About the College Football Playoff
The College Football Playoff will begin with the 2014-15 season. The semifinals will match the No. 1 seed vs. No. 4, and No. 2 will face No. 3 in semifinal games that will rotate annually among the Peach Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl and Fiesta Bowl. The first semifinals will be January 1, 2015, at the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. The first national championship game will be January 12, 2015, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.


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Famous Black Freethinkers and Atheists
Famous Black Freethinkers
Posted on Thursday, February 15, 2007 @ 17:39:00 PST by infidelguy
We would like to thank the American Atheists for their large contribution to this page as well as other contributors.
Suggested Listening:
Black Freethought in the early 1900's to 1950's. - Mike Estes
Belief in the Black Community - Norm Allen Jr.
Hubert Henry Harrison - The Black Socrates
A. Philip Randolph - "We consider prayer as nothing more than a fervent wish; consequently the merit and worth of a prayer depend upon what the fervent wish is."
Bayard Rustin - Principal organizer of the March on Washington in 1963. He was openly gay, anti-communistic, a socialist, a civil rights activist and also a freethinker
J. A. Rogers - "The slogan of the Negro devotee is: Take the world but give me Jesus, and the white man strikes an eager bargain with him."
George S. Schuyler - "On the horizon loom a growing number of iconoclasts and Atheists, young black [sic] men and women who can read, think, and ask questions, and who impertinently demand to know why Negroes should revere a God who permits them to be lynched, jim-crowed and disfranchised."
John G. Jackson - The family minister once asked John G. Jackson when he was small, "Who made you?" After some thought he replied from his own realization, "I don't know."
John Henrik Clarke - "As a grade school child in Columbus, Georgia, Clarke recalled inventing notes from local white people to allow his access to library books in his quest for knowledge."
Yosef ben-Jochannan - "The churches can't help the people when the chips are down because their interest is with the power structure."
Bobby E. Wright - "Guess what you talk about when you go to church? Everything but what to do, you talk about some God that nobody ever did find."
John Ragland - Chauncey Bell Herbert Brown Ken Hamblin Walter E. Hawkins
James Forman - Civil Rights Activist
Lorraine Hansberry - Playwright known for her drama, "A Raisin in The Sun". FFRF Mention
Butterfly McQueen - Maid in MGM's 1939's Gone with The Wind."As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion." Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Oct. 8, 1989
Other Famous Black Freethinkers, Agnostics & Atheists
Help participate by submitting your short bio's about these other great freethinkers and also recommending names to the list.
Deborah Clark
James Baldwin
W. E. B. DuBois
Richard Wright
Gregory Gross
Zora Neale Hurston
Alice Walker - The Color Purple - Interview with Beliefnet. Calls God "Mama". :)
Frederick Douglas
Dr. Carter G. Woodson - Negro History Week was started by him.
Gwendolyn Brooks
Langston Hughes
John Ragland
I learned of the Ham story in the Bible outside of a classroom, unlike the other Black Atheists I am writing about. Therefore, I did not take this fairy tale — supposedly about the origin of Black folk — seriously. What really worries me is the number of scholarly, authoritative persons who did. Many of these, even after dropping their religious phantoms, proceeded to entrap themselves in the old mythical concepts. The Ham story is one of these; the term Hamitic (along with the term Semitic) has been bounced from an adjective referring to a family lineage to one referring to a nation to one referring to a linguistic group to one referring to an ethnic group. The bottom line to all this equivocation is the same political expediency Parson Weems had in mind when he fabricated the cherry tree tale for George Washington's biography. Ham and Canaan in the Bible tale were just too convenient, too familiar to avoid comparison with an ethnic group people wished to curse. Once again, history as a weapon dealt a blow to Black people.
Much of the oral and cultural history of Black folk remains neglected; consequently, the Atheist undercurrent within it is neglected. Probably the major source of Atheist attitudes for Black folk is the soapbox orator. Neighborhood speechmakers (frequently unlettered persons who often advocated unpopular political reforms) are the most consistent supporters of freedom from religion in the Black communities. Quite often, these speechmakers spoke to local concerns or short-term issues. Consequently, few of their lectures were actually transcribed or received wide circulation beyond the specific community involved. Among the most notable soapbox orators of the twentieth-century Black community are Atheists such as Hubert H. Harrison, Asa Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen, John G. Jackson, John Henrik Clarke, and Yosef ben-Jochannan. All these orators addressed controversial issues such as segregation, unionism, family planning, and political impotence. In taking an ardent stance on social reforms, the soapbox orators found self-righteous believers willing to make unethical charges against imagined competitors. From time to time, the facade of peace wore off, and religious hostilities would rise to heckle or violence.
When the ruling group in a society is not at ease to express its Atheism, it must be expected that the oppressed group in that society is proportionally less free to express its Atheism. With that in mind, I have applied the terms Atheist and Atheism in a very broad sense. For the benefit of white America, Black folk as a whole have played a minstrel show, whereby they hide the undercurrent of religious skepticism. This undercurrent was expressed in two major fashions: oral and written. Before Black people operated publishing houses or before they could patronize public libraries, the spoken word was the mode of voicing Atheism. Robert G. Ingersoll's extensive public speeches in the nineteenth century set the pace for many Atheists.
Hubert Henry Harrison
But if you were not a renowned white lawyer who could demand a huge salary for speechmaking, what did you do? Thanks to Joel A. Rogers, we know what one such Black educator, Hubert H. Harrison, did:
He spoke wherever an audience could be had on subjects embracing general literature, sociology, Negro history, and the leading events of the day. He wrote for such radical and antireligious periodicals as The Call, The Truth Seeker, and The Modern Quarterly, being perhaps the first Negro of ability to enter this field. . . . His views on religion and birth control were often opposed by Catholics and Protestants alike, and at his open-air meetings, he and his friends were obliged to defend themselves physically from mobs at times. But he fought back courageously, never hesitating to speak no matter how great the hostility of his opponents.
Born at what is today St. Croix of the Virgin Islands in 1883, Hubert H. Harrison traveled to New York City at age seventeen. There, he worked as a bellhop and an elevator operator. He attended night school also and scored 100 percent on his final examination. Four years of his early life were spent as a post office clerk. Yet, his thirst for education led him to study sociology, science, psychology, literature, and drama independently.
Entering the Socialist party, Harrison developed his skill as a soapbox orator. He held his street lectures in Harlem and Manhattan and even tied up lunchtime traffic on Wall Street with his audience. Harrison lectured for the City College of New York, New York University, and the Institute for Social Study. Likewise, he served as a staff lecturer for the New York City Board of Education and as a professor of comparative religion at the Modern School. June 1917 is noted not only as the month in which Harrison launched his Liberty League of Afro-Americans but also as the month in which he introduced Marcus Garvey to the United States. Harold Cruse's book Crisis of the Negro Intellectual cites an example of Harrison's labor organizing days as given by the October 6, 1926, Amsterdam News:
In Harlem, the AFL Motion Picture Operator's local, after accepting the Negro operators under pressure, put them into separate Harlem locals.
As the Layfayette Theater struggle in Harlem progressed, Hubert H. Harrison took up the cudgels for the Negro operators, but in a different way. He wanted to assist the operators in getting a fair and better deal with the Harlem theaters but he was against their joining an AFL local because of the union's long-standing anti-Negro bias. When he learned that the operators had been required to pay the two hundred dollar initiating fee, but had been barred from attending regular union meetings downtown, he backed off with the statement: "Unlike Abraham Lincoln, my prime objective was not to save the union but to free the slaves!"
As a writer, Harrison did book reviews for the New York Times and the New York World. He also edited the publications Masses and The Voice (organ of the Liberty League). Finding the Socialist party insincere on Black rights, he renewed his struggle among Harlemites by 1917. Internal division over ownership of The Voice split the Liberty League. Garveyites picked up the pieces, including Harrison who became editor of Negro World. His two major works are The Negro and the Nation (a 1917 collection of Negro World editorials) and When Africa Awakes (1920). Harrison found increasing diversity of thought among Black people during the Harlem Renaissance. Wilson J. Moses's book The Golden Age of Black Nationalism — 1850-1925 quotes this view taken from When Africa Awakes:
Twenty years ago all Negroes known to the white publicists of America could be classed as conservatives on all the great questions on which thinkers differ. In matters of industry, commerce, politics, religion, they could be trusted to take the backward view. Only on the question of the Negro's "rights" could a small handful be found bold enough to be tagged as "radicals," and they were howled down by both white and colored [sic] adherents of the conservative point of view. Today Negroes differ on all those great questions on which white thinkers differ, and there are Negro radicals of every imaginary stripe — agnostics, atheists, I.W.W.'s [sic], Socialists, Single Taxers and even Bolshevists.
Joel A. Rogers placed Harrison's importance in the heritage of Black Atheists in perspective:
One of the men who was very much influenced by Harrison was Marcus Garvey, later the most prominent of Negro agitators. Garvey's emphasis on racialism was due in no small measure to Harrison's lectures on Negro history and his utterances on racial pride, which animated and fortified Garvey's views. Harrison's slogan became "Race First," in opposition to his earlier socialistic one of "Class First."...
Harrison's views profoundly influenced the Messenger Group, headed by A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen, two leaders who did more than anyone else to focus the attention of the government and of thinking whites on the injustices suffered by Negroes during the war. While the old leaders capitulated and urged the members of the race to submit while the war was on, these two brilliant young men spoke out fearlessly.
Asa Phillip Randolph
The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s marked a recultivation of literary acclaim for Black writers. Journalism, in particular, was invigorated in various Black communities. Newspapers such as Negro World, Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, and The Messenger were vehicles for the literary talents of these Atheists. Soapbox orators still spoke before the public, but the mass media offered a broader exposure. Oral expression gave way to written expression.
Asa Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen offered a special contribution to Black journalism. Randolph was born in March 1889 at Crescent City, Florida. He attended Bethune-Cookman College and City College of New York. Randolph showed an interest in the theater but developed his tastes for political science, history, and economics in New York City. Labor strikes by the Industrial Workers of the World in 1912-13 became a focal point for politically minded students like Randolph, who joined the Socialist school of thought. Owen was born in April 1889 at Warrenton, North Carolina. He graduated from Virginia Union University and by 1913 studied sociology and political science at Columbia University. Jervis Anderson's biography, A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait, gives this observation on the pre-Messenger days for Owen and Randolph:
When not attending their classes at City College and Columbia, the two spent their spare time together — chiefly at Randolph's apartment and at the New York Public Library — studying "the theory and history of socialism and working-class politics" and "their application to the racial problem in America." In the evenings, whenever radicals like Eugene Debs, August Claessens, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Abraham Shiplacoff, or Morris Hillquit were appearing in Socialist and labor forums downtown, Randolph and Owen went to hear them. And whenever Hubert H. Harrison, black [sic] Harlem's own Socialist spellbinder, was speaking at the corner of Lenox Avenue and 135th Street, the young men would be there.
Randolph and Owen themselves served terms as soapbox orators, Owen taking a more sarcastic tone, Randolph taking a more diplomatic one. In 1917, William White, president of the Headwaiters and Sidewaiters Society of Greater New York, hired Owen and Randolph to edit Hotel Messenger, the periodical for Black hotel employees. As editors, Randolph and Owen printed an expose on internal kickbacks for waiters' uniforms. The two were swiftly relieved of their duties, whereupon they set out to organize their own union and magazine. This new magazine, Messenger, allowed the two to articulate some noble, yet unpopular, values from the Black press. During Messenger's first year, the November 1917 issue expressed the following Atheistic values:
"Our aim is to appeal to reason, to lift our pens above the cringing demagogy of the times, and above the cheap peanut politics of the old reactionary Negro leaders. Patriotism has no appeal to us; justice has. Party has no weight with us; principle has. Loyalty is meaningless; it depends on what one is loyal to. Prayer is not one of our remedies; it depends on what one is praying for. We consider prayer as nothing more than a fervent wish; consequently the merit and worth of a prayer depend upon what the fervent wish is."
An avowedly Socialist magazine. Messenger protested American intervention into World War I and hailed the Bolshevik Revolution in the Soviet Union. Clearly, bootlicking to government policy was not a priority to the Messenger staff. Referring to Randolph and Owen, Messenger contributor Theophilus Lewis reported that "Attorney General Palmer said that the most dangerous Negroes in the United States were these two guys." Palmer clearly intended the remark about Randolph and Owen as an insult. After considering the source, Black folk in certain circles arrived at the opposite conclusion. So, a whole school of Black writers developed around the Messenger. In addition to Randolph and Owen, experience with Messenger furthered the careers of journalists such as George S. Schuyier, Joel A. Rogers, Theophilus Lewis, and Walter Everette Hawkins.
Both Randolph and Owen mellowed with age. With rioting and lynching in the Northern states in 1919, the phrase Red Summer was a good description of current events. The two were imprisoned in the 1920s, allegedly for violating the Espionage Act, but really for their activism and high profile. George Schuyler commented in his autobiography that Owen suffered disillusionment over the white Socialist unions. Owen's brother, a skilled tailor, was refused entry to the white union at the wage corresponding to his expertise. Owen did break with the Socialist party and in the mid-1920s became managing editor of the Chicago Bee. Schuyler noted Owen especially for his iconoclasm, yet Owen remained active in mainstream politics. He campaigned and wrote speeches for candidates including Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. In 1925, Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which was later chartered by the AFL. Randolph himself served as vice president of the AFL-CIO. At America's entry into World War II, he led the "March on Washington" demonstration. This march protested the awarding of government contracts to industries practicing segregation. With an established reputation as a civil rights activist, he was a pivotal figure in the 1963 "March on Washington" protest for enactment of a civil rights bill.
Bayard Rustin
Bayard Rustin (March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an American civil rights activist, important largely behind the scenes in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and earlier, and principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He counseled Martin Luther King, Jr. on the techniques of nonviolent resistance. Rustin was openly gay [1] and advocated on behalf of gay and lesbian causes in the latter part of his career.
A year before his death in 1987, Rustin said: "The barometer of where one is on human rights questions is no longer the black community, it's the gay community. Because it is the community which is most easily mistreated."
Source: Wikipedia
Joel Augustus Rogers
One of the most prolific Atheists from the Messenger group was Joel Augustus Rogers. Biographers give different years for Rogers' date of birth, either 1880 or 1883, in Negril, Jamaica. He came to the U.S. in 1906. He worked as a train porter and studied art in Chicago. Coming to New York he wrote for the Amsterdam News and in the 1920s became contributing editor on the Messenger staff. He attended the coronation of Haile Selassie of Ethiopia in 1930 as correspondent for Amsterdam News. He had a long career writing for the Pittsburgh Courier, including an assignment as correspondent during the Ethiopian-Italian war in 1935 — the war in which Pope Pius XI placidly blessed Italian planes on mission to bomb Ethiopia. He contributed to magazines including Crisis, American Mercury, Survey Graphic, and Journal of Negro History. Among his book-length works are: From "Superman" to Man; Your History; Sex and Race; World's Great Men of Color; and Nature Knows No Color Line.
A typical expression of Rogers' Atheistic sentiments comes from his first book From "Superman" to Man. This short book follows a prolonged conversation on skin color prejudice between a white senator from the South and his widely traveled, well-read Black porter. Rogers himself worked as a Chicago porter and was largely self-educated. Toward the end of the book, Dixon, the porter, is asked if Christianity has not been a solace to mistreated Black people. Dixon echoes the feelings of his creator:
To enslave a man, then dope him to make him content! Do you call THAT a solace? . . . The honest fact is that the greatest hindrance to the progress of the Negro is that same dope that was shot into him during slavery. . . . The slogan of the Negro devotee is: Take the world but give me Jesus, and the white man strikes an eager bargain with him. . . . Another fact — there are far too many Negro preachers. Religion is the most fruitful medium for exploiting this already exploited group. As I said, the majority of the sharpers, who among the whites would go into other fields, go, in this case, to the ministry.
The 1975 volume of The Black Scholar reprinted an important biographical paper by W. Burghardt Turner entitled "J. A. Rogers: Portrait of an Afro-American Historian." Turner examines the two major trends in Rogers' works: the first, biographical research into historical figures of African ancestry, and the second, genealogical research into ethnic intermixture. While writing for the Messenger, George Schuyler encouraged Rogers to start a feature with biographical sketches of Black notables. Rogers later collected these to form a book and followed that with a series of illustrated biographies for the Pittsburgh Courier, which also were collected as the book Your History. Rogers made many visits to museums, galleries, libraries, and cathedrals throughout Europe and Africa to verify his studies. He made good use of his art training and reproduced rare and obscure prints, paintings, sculpture, and other artifacts in his books. He was also multilingual; he knew Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
During an era of segregation, Rogers fearlessly produced documented works on the dreaded practice of miscegenation. In fact, his master work in three volumes Sex and Race investigated exogamy "in the Old World, the New World and the future world." Sex and Race continuously returns the reader to the rhetorical question, "Who is a Negro?" His book Nature Knows No Color Line elaborated upon the ultimate blasphemy for white supremacists: "Research into the Negro ancestry in the white race." As may be guessed, the mainstream scholarly community neglected Rogers' works as well as their social and historical ramifications. Lacking formal college degrees and publishing his own books (out of necessity, that is), he found established historians (Black and white) disavowing his evidence out of hand. If strict historians could not find fault with his journalistic flavor, then they could challenge his right to investigate dubious genealogies. Actually, on occasion, Rogers did use a sensational, Ripley's-believe-it-or-not approach to this material. His books frequently contained folklore, superstitions, and rumors; this material he identified as such and often used it as commentary on human behavior. Ultimately, mainstream educators did not admit the existing void regarding African peoples and their history. It was not politically expedient to do so.
Rogers scorned both the scientists and the theists for using the Bible as a political football. In Sex and Race, vol. 3, he denounces this gamesmanship:
The fight both for and against slavery in the United States was waged first along scriptural lines. . . . There was also the theory of the descent from Ham which attained great vogue and still does in certain quarters. . . . With the superseding of religion by science the battle of inequality shifted from a scriptural wording to a scientific one. Now it was no longer what "God had said" but what color, hair, and skull showed. . . . In other words, the pro-slavery faction and the antislavery one had entered the stage in new costumes. Underneath were the same bodies.
Ignored by established scholars, Rogers, nevertheless, was acclaimed within certain circles. The Society of Anthropology in Paris elected him to membership in 1930. In the following year, he spoke before the International Congress of Anthropology. Although himself an artistic, cosmopolitan person, Rogers was highly critical of the pretended advances of Western civilization. He never lived to see the recognition due his research. After the Black culture revival in the 1960s, new publishers began to reprint his works. One of these, World's Great Men of Color, vols. I and 2, was updated and edited by John Henrik Clarke, a professor of history, in 1972. Before his demise, Rogers received the following tribute from William E. B. Du Bois in The World and Africa:
I have learned much from James [sic] A. Rogers. Rogers is an untrained American Negro writer who has done his work under great difficulty without funds and at much personal sacrifice. But no man living has revealed so many important facts about the Negro race as has Rogers. His mistakes are many and his background narrow, but he is a true historical student.
George S. Schuyler
Journalist George S. Schuyler, another Messenger graduate, is a unique personality among these Black Atheists. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1895, he spent his youth in Syracuse, New York. He enlisted with the U.S. Army in 1912 and worked his way to the rank of lieutenant. After World War I, he moved to New York City where he alternated between being an odd-job laborer and a Bowery hobo. By the spring of 1923, A. Philip Randolph hired Schuyler for the Messenger staff, where he attained the position of managing editor. The Pittsburgh Courier employed him, culminating in an associate editorship.
Becoming a contributor to many popular magazines, Schuyler found his journalistic skills opening new opportunities. He wrote articles and reviews for periodicals of broadly diverse interests during his career. Some of these include Opportunity, Crisis, Modern Quarterly, Birth Control Review, Nation, American Mercury, and American Opinion. Schuyler traveled the lecture circuit due to his American Mercury articles, visiting England, Columbia, Belgium, and Germany. On assignment for the Pittsburgh Courier, he took the Jim Crow tour of the southern states. Publisher George Putnam assigned him to investigate conditions in Liberia at the end of 1930, and his novel Slaves Today is the result.
Schuyler included white Atheist publishers Emanuel Haldeman-Julius and Henry L. Mencken among his important business contacts. In 1928, Haldeman-Julius published his article, "Racial Intermarriage in the United States" in American Parade and later reprinted it as a Little Blue Book of the same title. For the American Rationalist Annual of 1935 edited by Haldeman-Julius, he rewrote an earlier article under the title of "The Black Man's Burden — Religion." Having made a breakthrough to a mainstream literary audience, he summarized his relationship with American Mercury in his autobiography Black and Conservative: "Altogether my association with the American Mercury under its various owners and editors extended from 1927 to 1961, during which time I had a score of my articles printed."
Evaluating the undercurrent of religious skepticism in the Black community, Schuyler wrote "Black America Begins to Doubt" printed in the April 1932 issue of American Mercury. He found stagnant churches with declining memberships and prestige and increasing financial troubles. In his opinion the Black press was brave enough to expose the extortion, misappropriation, and adultery within Black churches. To corroborate this, the article quoted Black historian. Dr. Carter G. Woodson:
Practically all of the incompetents and undesirables who have been barred from other walks of life have rushed into the ministry for the exploitation of the people. . . . Almost anybody of the lowest type may go into the Negro ministry. The Methodists claim that they have strict regulations to prevent this, but their net draws proportionately as many skates as you find among the Baptists.
The writer himself concluded with this observation:
On the horizon loom a growing number of iconoclasts and Atheists, young black [sic] men and women who can read, think, and ask questions, and who impertinently demand to know why Negroes should revere a God who permits them to be lynched, jim-crowed and disfranchised. . . . There are hundreds of this sort in every community. Coupled with those who have left the church completely and the vast number who are on the rolls but never attend, they make a formidable and increasing majority.
Forever cynical, Schuyler took a dim view of the progressive cultural pride movements among Black folk. To his queer understanding, Black folk were committed to proving themselves white people "underneath." His first novel. Black No More, is a clear example of this, based on the quote by Dr. Kelly Miller, "The Negro must either get out, get white, or get along." Black No More is the story of Harlemite Max Disher who is given the ultimate chance to assimilate by paying for a new scientific treatment which will transform him into a Caucasian. True to form, Harlemites with cash in hand swarm the office building advertising Black No More treatments. Shunning his old gang, Disher heads South and there joins the Knights of Nordica. Confident that his new friends know nothing of his past, Disher adopts the bigotry of the white supremacists and feeds the new prejudice against whitened Black folk. Schuyler takes some swipes at the merchants, politicians, and clergy in the Black community who lose their following and financial support as Harlemites continue to assimilate. Rich in biting satire, Black No More reveals the Schuyler sense of humor.
In total contradiction to the malicious lie, "All Atheists are Communists," Schulyer was a dedicated anticommunist role model. Black and Conservative, his autobiography, records his long crusade against Communist and Socialist teachings Activities such as membership in the Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Red China to the United Nations and writings like the 1947 pamphlet The Communist Conspiracy against the Negroes illustrate his obsession quite clearly. He was book review editor for the staunchly conservative Manchester (N. H.) Union Leader newspaper. Likewise, he contributed to the Cold War years of American Mercury and to American Opinion, the redbaiting John Birch Society digest. As a Black man, he must have often been the odd man out among such prejudiced audiences.
John G. Jackson
Friend and contemporary of Joel A. Rogers, John G. Jackson also earned his acclaim as an African historian. Professor Jackson was born in Aiken, South Carolina, in 1907. By the age of fifteen, Jackson moved to New York City, where he completed high school and later continued his education at City College of New York. For many years a Harlemite, he studied African history under Dr. Willis N. Huggins and Arthur A. Schomburg. In the last two decades, Professor Jackson taught and lectured at Newark College Black Studies Department of Rutgers University, University of New York, the Center for Inner City Studies of Northeastern Illinois University, plus many related conferences and community forums. His standard lecture topic is "Restoring the Lost Pages of African History." His lecturing style is a folksy and unpretentious one, and Jackson fits the mold of the old African storyteller very well.
Professor Jackson has authored a series of works, most of which address African culture and history. Collaborating with Willis Huggins, he coauthored A Guide to the Study of African History (1934) and An Introduction to African Civilizations (1937). His pamphlets, largely self-published, include Christianity before Christ, Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization, and Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth. Resulting from the call for reference materials to Black-African Studies courses, a mainstream publisher printed Jackson's book-length works Introduction to African Civilizations and Man, God, and Civilization.
One example of Jackson's comparative mythology approach to religion is found in Maulana Karenga's book. Introduction to Block Studies:
Egypt's contribution to western [sic] religions is a persistent and widely argued contention. . . . John Jackson (1972) cites several legacies of Egypt to Christianity. First, he argues that the concept of Virgin and Child in Christianity is clearly based on the Virgin Isis and Child Horus of Egypt. . . . Secondly, Jackson contends that Horus, the Egyptian savior and light of the world is the model for Jesus who has similar qualities. . . . Also, Jackson notes how an ancient Egyptian passion play enacts the arrest, trial, death, burial and resurrection of Osiris, often used interchangeably with Horus, as Savior, providing more evidence of Christianity's borrowing of models from Egypt. Finally, Jackson points out that even the celebration of Christmas on December 25th has its roots in Egypt.
John Jackson has a long history of Atheist activism to his credit. From 1932 to 1972, he was a member of and contributor to the Rationalist Press Association of London. Over fifty years ago, he published two rationalistic reviews on Christian mythology. From 1930 to 1955, he lectured at the Ingersoll Forum of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism. He contributed articles to The Truth Seeker. The modern reprint of Gerald Massey's Lectures contains a forward by Jackson. As a guest speaker before the 1984 Convention of American Atheists, he gave a presentation on the "Black Atheists of the Harlem Renaissance." This speech was transcribed for the August 1984 issue of the American Atheist. His latest book, Christianity before Christ, was released in 1985 by the American Atheist Press.
Perhaps the best written insight into Jackson's personal expression of Atheism is found in Man, God, and Civilization, chapter 8. This chapter (entitled "Twilight of the Gods") concerns the various maneuvers used by the Christian church to regroup following the advances of scientific knowledge. Here, Jackson ridicules the corrupt "God/Devil" alliance and the underlying "Good Cop/Bad Cop" mentality Christians teach. Wit and irony characterize Jackson's writings as evidenced by his adopting the phrase, "Christianity before Christ." Especially when relating his own views, Jackson writes in a lighthearted vein. For example, his dedication to Introduction to African Civilizations mocks Afrophobes such as Huxley, Toynbee, Hitler, and Schockley: "The book is dedicated to everybody with an African ancestry — the whole human race!"
Writing for The Truth Seeker had a highly ironic aspect for John G. Jackson. The Truth Seeker editors during that period supported a bigoted and antiegalitarian policy. Jackson's Atheistic views did grace the pages of the magazine, yet the same magazine carried malicious slurs against his very ethnic group. Woolsey Teller's book, Essays Of An Atheist, illustrates this attitude precisely. Chapter 12, "Grading the Races," concerns Teller's reactions to Jackson's booklet, Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization. Jackson wrote his booklet to verify the contributions of African peoples to civilization. Rather than confront this matter, Teller responded by changing the subject to cranial capacity and brain weight among various humans. To the dismay of closed-minded pseudoscientists, cranial capacity and brain weight are not the determining factors to inventiveness, intelligence, or civilization. Biologist Stephen Jay Gould named such superstitions "The Mismeasure of Man." However, this dogma did serve as ammunition in The Truth Seeker's campaign to dehumanize Black people. Let Black folk be on guard against similar illusions of educated liberalism!
John Henrik Clarke
African historian, John Henrik Clarke, is another educator who has challenged Black people to question their religious indoctrination. Dr. Clarke was born at Union Springs, Alabama, in 1915. As a grade school child in Columbus, Georgia, Clarke recalled inventing notes from local white people to allow him access to library books in his quest for knowledge. This quest led him to New York City in 1933, and there he attended high school. Study on an independent basis plus exposure to notable historians such as Arthur A. Schomburg, Willis N. Huggins, and Joel A. Rogers served him well. Clarke also developed his creative writing skills and produced poetry and short stories. In 1941, he began his stint in the armed forces. Following this, he returned to Harlem and attended New York University. His teaching career includes Malverne People's College, Hunter College, and Cornell University. In 1972, he presented a paper before the American Historical Association. His long record of community work involved directing the Heritage Program of Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, the Headstart Training Program of New York University, the First African Heritage Exposition, plus addresses before many conferences and forums.
As a grade school child in Columbus, Georgia, Clarke recalled inventing notes from local white people to allow his access to library books in his quest for knowledge.
Dr. Clarke's literary credits are extensive. He wrote articles for the following periodicals: Crisis, Opportunity, Harlem Quarterly, Freedom, Freedomways, Pittsburgh Courier, Black Books Bulletin, First World, The Black Scholar, Transition, Afrocentric World Review, and Journal of African Civilizations. He held membership in the Harlem Writers Guild and the Black Academy of Arts and Letters. Among his books are Rebellion in Rhyme, American Negro Short Stories, Harlem U.S.A., Harlem: A Community in Transition, Malcolm X — The Man and His Times, and Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa. He wrote introductions to John Jackson's Introduction to African Civilizations, the reprint of Robert Williams's Negroes with Guns, and a reprint of Joel A. Rogers's World's Great Men of Color, vols. I and 2, which he edited as well.
An example of Clarke's political awareness is found in the Winter 1977 issue of Black Books Bulletin. His article "Israel and South Africa: The Unholy Alliance Against African People" gives a perceptive quote from the book Israel and South Africa: The Progression of a Relationship by Richard Stevens and Abdelwahab Elmessiri:
The most tragic aspect of the alliance between Israel and South Africa is that it is a perfectly logical alliance. By the rationale and intent of Western racism and colonialism the alliance makes sense.
Both Israel and white South Africa are artificial settler states, created by the political backwash of Europe. . . . This is the basis of the schizophrenia that prevails in Israel and in South Africa. These European settlers are involved in a perpetual contradiction. They are stubbornly trying to establish a nationality in nations that never belonged to them. They are doing this at the expense of the indigenous population in the countries where they have settled.
Although Dr. Clarke considers himself "religious," he has opposed religious authorities in his creative writings also. The September 1940 issue of Opportunity magazine carried his short story "The Boy Who Painted Christ Black." Little Aaron Crawford paints a gift for his teacher in the segregated Georgia public school — a picture of a Black Jesus. At the story's climax, the white school supervisor demands an explanation from the Black principal as to why Aaron's picture is on display. Aaron comes forward to defend his creation. Fully realizing his job is at stake, Principal Du Vaul defends Aaron's ethnic pride and freedom of expression. Clarke's short story "Revolt of the Angels" from Harlem — A Community in Transition pokes fun at the Father Divine cult in Harlem. Three Harlem movers shooting the breeze begin to debate the rehabilitation of a life-long drunkard. To prove his point, one mover relates the story of drunkard Luther Jackson. Jackson wanders Harlem streets during the Depression of the 1930s. In a drunken stupor, Jackson comes to a charity restaurant sponsored by the Father Divine cult, where he sits at the choicest table demanding liquor. The Black matron there gives him the stock church greeting and refuses to serve him at the table reserved for her god. Jackson insists upon remaining at his table until he receives liquor. The two become belligerent. The climax has the matron and more "angels" assaulting Jackson with cookware, preceded by constant invocations of "Peace!" As expected, following this experience, Jackson becomes a church deacon and never drinks liquor again.
I have not heard Dr. Clarke voice his personal sentiments on Atheism. He advocates African nationalism for African peoples as his major cause. Known for his Socialist politics, he acknowledges communal African religion over Western religions. From his irreverence, politics, and historical outlook, I infer Dr. Clarke's materialism and have included him among Black Atheists on that basis.
Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan
Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan, another skeptic on religion, is also a scholar of Black-African history. Biographical details of his birth and early years are not available; however, he was born in Ethiopia and reared in the Hebrew faith of the Falasha culture. He has studied at Cambridge University and the University of Barcelona. He has traveled South America and the Caribbean Islands and is multilingual. Originally a graduate in civil engineering, he developed skills in history, philosophy, law, and earned his doctorate degree in cultural anthropology. In 1945, he moved to the U.S. Many years a Harlemite, he has taught as adjunct professor of African History/Black Studies in Marymount College, Cornell University, and Malcolm-King College. Also, he worked in the Pan-African Studies Department of Temple University. His lecture specialty is the history and philosophy of ancient Nile Valley civilizations.
Karenga's book Introduction to Black Studies summarizes the points frequently emphasized in Dr. ben-Jochannan's presentations:
Ben-Jochannan (1970-1978) has argued at length, as the title of his book demonstrates, the African Origins of the Major Western Religions. . . . Ben-Jochannan (1978:xxxix) agrees with Jackson that Horus is the model for Jesus. . . . Secondly, ben-Jochannan (1970:164-65) calls attention to the "Plagiarism on Solomon's part" for borrowing so heavily from the Teachings of Amenemope (Amenophis) who lived 300 years (1405-1370 B.C.E.) before the reign of Solomon (976-936 B.C.E.). The clearest examples are found in Proverbs 22:17-29. ... Finally, ben-Jochannan argues that the Ten Commandments (700 B.C.E.) of Judeo-Christian religions are derived from the 147 [sic] Negative Confessions (4100 B.C.E.) found in the Egyptian Book of the Dead (Budge, 1969:572ff).
On the streets of Harlem, Dr. ben-Jochannan established himself as a truly dynamic soapbox orator. Being active in the Black community remains a high priority for him. He lectured before many community and university audiences, both formally and informally. A Catholic magazine, Ramparts, printed the report of Lez Edmond on the 1964 rioting in Harlem. Edmond, having attended a neighborhood rally, reported on ben-Jochannan's presentation:
I was brought up as a religious person. As a matter of fact my family wanted me to be a rabbi but after growing up and seeing the situation in all religions, I realized that the churches always support the state wherever they are. The churches can't help the people when the chips are down because their interest is with the power structure. . . .
I say the black [sic] man has called upon Jesus Christ for so many years here in America, and now he starts calling on Mohammed and there are many who are calling on Moses, and at no time within this period has the black [sic] man's situation changed, nor has the black [sic] man any freedom. It is obvious that someone didn't hear his call or isn't interested in that call — either Jesus, Moses, or Mohammed.
Even Jesus when he got hung upon the cross, he said in his own Book — he says. Father, why has Thou forsaken me? He was calling for help. Now if he couldn't help himself how is he going to help you?. . . Our position is not to ask dead people to come back and help us; our position is to find ways and means to help ourselves.
Often, in his lectures, he will discuss his Falasha background and his break from Judaism. Israel has for many years refused to acknowledge the Falasha culture as legitimately Jewish. Much has been written on the official sanction given to bigoted treatment of Falasha Jews in Israel. This prejudice is based largely on the premise that only a European Jew could claim the manifest destiny to Palestine related in the Bible. Dr. ben-Jochannan not only repudiates this false claim in his presentations, he also emphasizes that Jews do not have a common ethnic background, much less a common skin complexion. Another distinctive element to his lectures and books is a healthy respect for human sexuality. This topic always seems to generate the greatest audience response in his lectures. In an interview for the Winter 1977 Black Books Bulletin, ben-Jochannan responds to the question of excessive sexual commentary in his speeches:
The absence of sex in Western thought shows that bankruptcy of the West. . . . At the same time, in every society, the religious teachings of that society start with a sex story because sex is the basis of man's life. Without sex there is no human life. . . . My mother and father, were it not for sex, could not have produced me. Thus I am the biological creature of sex and the Gods that made me are my mother and father. . . . As far as I'm concerned, the chamber of God is the woman's body. I relate everything back to her because through her, my race is.
His literary contributions to Black culture are published by a division of Alkebu-lan Foundation, Inc., which he organized. Among his better known works are: Black Man of the Nile (1970), African Origins of the Major "Western Religions" (1970), A Chronology of the Bible: Challenge to the Standard Version (1973), Our "Black Seminarians" and "Black Clergy" Without A "Black Theology" (1978), and They All Look Alike! All of Them? (1980). Other writings include an essay in Albert Cleage's book Black Christian Nationalism and repeated contributions to Black Books Bulletin. Also, he was interviewed for the public television presentation "I Remember Harlem."
Much like John H. Clarke, ben-Jochannan's personal views regarding Atheism are obscure. Jackson, Clarke, and ben-Jochannan are all Atheists on the pragmatic level while they promote a "naturalistic" way of life through traditional African religion. All three are aware that Black churches refuse to take responsibility for their economic and political abuses, yet only Jackson has the self-confidence to identify himself as an Atheist. Two of the most significant influences upon ben-Jochannan's views are the nationalism of Marcus Garvey and the historical revisions of George G. M. James found in his book Stolen Legacy. Garveyite philosophy advocated cultural relativism in religion; therefore, Garveyites produced an African Orthodox Church with a Black Madonna and Child. The highly controversial book Stolen Legacy compiled evidence for the African origins of philosophical doctrines long credited to Greek thinkers. James, himself a Freemason, emphasized that the mystical doctrines underlying the Pre-Socratic thinkers, the Athenian academies, and the Freemasonic fraternity, had antecedents in the Egyptian mystery religion, thus, Dr. ben-Jochannan's preoccupation with research into philosophy. While lecturing at the Ninth Annual Conference of the Afrikan [sic] American Institute in 1983, he answered a question on reconciling Western religion with Pan-African sentiments. His candid response was:
Now I am ultrareligious, I'm a member of the religion of freethought — to think freely. So if you carry a label — because I know that some of us must carry a social label, religion is the social label for a lot of people who go to church and don't believe in anything being said there — in that sense, yes. . . . What is wrong with religion is when you make yourself a slave to it. . . . So, if you are poor, you'd be a fool to give 10 percent to the church in any name, and then have a hole in your shoe with snow coming through.
Bobby Wright
Dr. Bobby E. Wright, Black psychologist, affirmed freedom from religion among Black folk. While detailed biographical information was not available, I have assembled a brief sketch of Dr. Wright's achievements and projects. Black Books Bulletin reports his birthplace, Hobson City, Alabama, as about 1934. The Chicago Tribune of April 8, 1982, reports his early career as instructor and psychologist for the Chicago Public Schools. At the University of Chicago, he earned a doctorate degree in clinical psychology. He was a consultant for the Alcohol/Drug Abuse Mental Health Administration of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). A former president of the National Black Psychologists Association, he also held membership in the Association for Black Psychologists and the National Alliance for Black School Educators. Not the least of his achievements, he was director of Garfield Park Comprehensive Community Mental Health Center in Chicago.
Known for his organizational projects, Dr. Wright took his community involvement very seriously. He participated in the leadership of the area chapters of the National Black Independent Political Party and the National Black United Front. Recognized for his activism, he was a special guest on the Committee of Science and Technology at the Sixth Pan-African Congress held at Tanzania in 1974. As a social scientist, he sought an all-encompassing social theory for Black people and formulated the concept of mentacide. To paraphrase, he defined mentacide as "the planned and systematic destruction of a group's mentality aimed at the destruction of the group." Thus, Black folk alienated from their culture and history eventually lose their sense of purpose and direction, the symptoms of mentacide. Well aware of the implications of technical advances such as behavior modification and genetic engineering, he presented science as a tool serving greater ends (such as controlling the outcasts of white society), neither objective nor neutral. Being an uncompromising critic of Western society, he wrote the following on the relation of religion to prejudice from "The Psychopathic Racial Personality" in the Fall 1974 issue of Black Books Bulletin:
Because of their lack of ethical or moral development, there is no conflict between the white's religion and racial oppression. The white race had historically oppressed, exploited, and killed black [sic] people, all in the name of their god Jesus Christ and with the sanction of their churches. For example, it is generally overlooked that the Ku Klux Klan is primarily a religious organization. Also, blacks [sic] should never forget the Pope [Pius XI] blessing the Italian planes and pilots on their way to bombing Ethiopian men, women, and children who only had spears to defend themselves.
On the personal level, Bobby Wright was not afraid to defend his Atheism in public. Speaking at the Seventh Annual Afrikan American Institute in 1981, he reiterated his outlook. Fielding a question on organization among the Black community, he snapped back:
This shows you the nature of the beast, this shows you about Mentacide. This subject should be talked about in the churches. Guess what you talk about when you go to church? Everything but what to do, you talk about some God that nobody ever did find. Let me tell you something about God. . . . If there is a God I can say this: 1) He or She is mad at us, 2) He or She is not on our side, 3) He or She is indifferent, or 4) He or She is White.
Pressed by further questioning to defend his position, he elaborated on Einstein's remarks about achieving immortality by reaching the speed of light and thus stopping time:
He [Einstein] said, "The problem with this thought [immortality] is that people cannot conceptualize time stopping." In this same way, certain people cannot conceptualize a world without God, and a lot of other things I can talk about they cannot even conceptualize. You still can't go beyond your imagination. It just violates everything you believe and have been trained to believe. . . . But most certainly I will tell you this, nothing that operates in this world today can I attribute to God, can I attribute to a Supreme Being. Nothing.
Today, the Atheist undercurrent to Black society struggles along. Many of these twentieth-century figures are now deceased, and many others have not sought the relative fame of these men. It must be noted that these Black Atheists are recognized and respected for their education and skills rather than for their Atheistic outlook. All of them are haunted by the position of Black people in America, rather than by superstitious concepts. To the Black communities, they provide themselves as examples. These Black Atheists collectively tell their own to say, "No More Ham!"
James Forman
Forman, civil rights veteran of the '60s (he was Executive Secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee), wrote a whole chapter in his autobiography, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, about his atheism. In May 1969 he wound up on the front page of the New York Times after he took over the pew of a prominent (chi-chi) church in New York asking churches and synagogues for reparations to poor black people. In 1994 he was presented with the African American Humanist of the Year award in Orlando, Florida (at the Free Inquiry Convention).
Lorraine Hansberry
Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest child of Carl Augustus Hansberry (a prominent real estate broker) and Nannie Perry Hansberry.[Cheney,A. Lorraine Hansberry, Boston.Twayne] Her parents were Republicans who bequeathed their race pride to their daughter (prior to the 1932 presidential election, a majority of African-Americans voted Republican).
Hansberry attended a predominantly white public school while her parents fought against segregation. Hansberry's father engaged in a legal battle against a racially. Restrictive covenant that attempted to prohibit African-American families from buying homes in the area. The legal struggle over their move led to the landmark Supreme Court case of Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940). Though victors in the Supreme Court, Hansberry's family was subjected to what Hansberry would later describe as a "hellishly hostile white neighborhood."
Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin and worked on the staff of Freedom magazine. She married Robert Nemiroff, a literature student, in 1953. They separated in 1957 and divorced in 1964.
Her 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun made her the first black woman to win the New York Drama Critics' Circle's Best Play award. The play has become a classic.
She died of pancreatic cancer on January 12, 1965 at the age of 34.
The Sign in Sydney Brustein's Window ran for 101 performances on Broadway and closed the night she died. Her ex-husband Nemiroff became the literary executor for several of her unfinished works. Notably, he adapted many of her writings into the play, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which was the longest-running Off-Broadway play of the 1968-1969 season. It appeared in book form the following year under the title, To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words.
She left behind an unfinished novel and three unfinished plays.
Butterfly McQueen
Born Thelma McQueen in Tampa, Florida, she trained as a dancer and took her stage name from the "Butterfly Dance" after performing it in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. She performed with the dance troupes of Katherine Dunham and Janet Collins before making her professional debut in George Abbott's Brown Sugar.
McQueen made her first film in 1939 in what would become her most identifiable role—as Prissy, the young maid in Gone with the Wind, uttering the famous words: "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!" She also played an uncredited bit part as a sales assistant in The Women, filmed after Gone with the Wind but released before it. Around this time McQueen also modeled for the Mrs. Butterworth bottle. She also played Butterfly, Mary Livingstone's maid in the Jack Benny radio program, for a time during World War II. But by 1947 she had grown tired of the ethnic stereotypes she was required to play and ended her film career.
By 1950 she had played another racially-stereotyped role for two years on the television series Beulah, which reunited her with her Gone with the Wind co-star Hattie McDaniel.
Her acting roles after this were very few, and she devoted herself to other pursuits including study and received a bachelor's degree in political science in 1975. In 1979 McQueen won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as Aunt Thelma, a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool special, 'Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid'. She had one more role of some substance in the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast.
McQueen lived in New York in the summer months and lived in Augusta, Georgia in the winter months. She died in Augusta, Georgia as a result of burns received when a kerosene heater she was attempting to light malfunctioned and burst into flames. A lifelong atheist, she donated her body to medical science and remembered the Freedom From Religion Foundation in her will.
Source: Wikipedia


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For almost two weeks, more than 100,000 Brazilians have been in the streets of at least five cities in protests that have taken elected leaders by surprise. It's all about high living costs and inadequate public services while billions are being spent for the World Cup and the Olympics. Also, President Obama in Berlin. On Reporter's Notebook, facial recognition is the latest technology to raise questions about Americans' privacy rights. We hear about a biometric you just can't hide.
Banner image: Demonstrators march during one of the many protests around Brazil's major cities in Belem, Para State, June 17, 2013. [The signs read, "Rebel against the increase in transportation". (R) "Sao Paulo is not alone, we're together" (C)] Photo: Paulo Santos/Reuters


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This Assassin Only Kills If Its Victim Strikes First
By Matt Soniak
Letting your opponent land the first blow usually isn't a surefire strategy for winning a fight, but for one insect predator, it's the only way to come out on top.
As their name might suggest, assassin bugs are formidable killers. They've got a long proboscis that they use to stab prey, inject a tissue-liquefying toxic saliva and suck the pre-digested innards out for consumption. It's like a harpoon, syringe, and straw all in one.
When brute strength and poison aren't enough to make the kill or get out of trouble with their own predators, the bugs have a few other tricks. One species wears its victims' flesh as a disguise. When it's finished with its meals, the assassin tosses the drained carcasses onto its sticky back, building a cloak of corpses that disguises the bug and protects it from spiders.
Another species hunts spiders instead of hiding from them, and plucks the strands of their webs to mimic the vibrations of struggling prey. When the spider rushes over expecting a meal—Pow! Toxic proboscis sneak attack!—it becomes one instead.
Scientists have just discovered a different sort of tactic used by the species Ptilocnemus lemur, which hunts ants. It also deceives its quarry, but uses one of its own legs as a lure and lets an ant attack it before going in for the kill.
The assassin bug begins by waving one of its bristly hind legs around to attract nearby ants. Unlike all the other lurer hunters that the researchers know of, the assassin doesn't strike when an ant gets within range, or even when it touches or grasps the bait. It just waits.
Finally, when—and only when—the ant firmly grips the bug's leg and either attempts to sting it or drag it away, the assassin leaps into action. With the ant still hanging on to its leg, P. lemur lifts itself up and swivels 180 degrees on its "knee" joint. Now its body is above the ant, and perfectly positioned to attack a weak point in the prey's hardened exoskeleton—a soft membrane between the head and thorax.
Proboscis goes in. Nutritious goo comes out.
As the researchers, led by Australian ecologist Matthew Bulbert, watched, the assassins successfully killed 81 percent of the ants that fell for their trick. In almost 500 of these attacks, though, not one assassin bug died.
Ants are dangerous game and adept insect killers themselves. Some species are also several times bigger than the assassin bugs. Using its own leg as bait with them would seem to put the assassin in harm's way, but Bulbert and his team think the seemingly risky strategy of letting the ant bite first actually reduces the bug's chances of getting hurt.
By presenting its leg and waiting until the ant latches on, the assassin has tricked the ant into concentrating all its offensive traits—its size, its jaws and its venom—onto one body part. Once the ant attempts to claim its meal, its entire arsenal is occupied, and it's unable to defend itself from an quick counter-attack that comes from above and behind its head. By taking a blow to the leg, the assassin bug turns the hunter into the hunted "unopposed and essentially risk free," the researchers say.
Crafty and effective as it is, the strategy also has some constraints. Only 2.5 percent of the ants that the researchers saw actually grabbed the assassin bugs' legs. But the slim chance of an ant falling for the trick, Bulbert thinks, is offset by their size. The average ant that the assassins preyed on was one to two times larger than its killers, and could feasibly provide enough food to keep an assassin going through some lean times. In some cases, the ants were as much as five times bigger than the assassin, and the bug lost all contact with the ground when it flipped over on top of its prey and had to ride on the ant's back until it died.


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NEW YORK (AP) - During every season of designer previews at New York Fashion Week a few key, quirky items seem to pop up on different runways. They're not quite trends since one has to think they're partly for runway effect not retail orders, but they're part of the style zeitgeist nonetheless.
This time there were fur mittens _ oversized like boxer mitts _ at Alexander Wang and Altuzarra. What were the odds? And how does the ball start rolling on items such as oversized fur mittens, harnesses or sleeveless coats?
It's safe to say designers don't take a meeting together to decide what direction to go in.
"The honest answer is some of it is plain and simple coincidence," said Cindi Leive, editor in chief of Glamour magazine. "These designers are creating hundreds of looks over the course of a season. It would be more unusual if there were no overlap."
Still, she said, there also are fashion cycles and sociological factors to consider as catwalk collections are prepared.
Take fur _ both real and fake. Leive said Sunday it has been on every runway so far on this fourth of eight days of fashion week.
After the recession, no one was touching fur, she said, but it has slowly made a comeback as people feel a little more comfortable about spending money. The interpretation this go-around has been impactful, with an emphasis on oversized unexpected fur touches such as hoods, handbags and boots, but they're not as expensive as a full-length coat.
It's important for fashion insiders to be aware of what's happening in other parts of culture, including politics and art, said Marie Claire executive editor Nina Garcia earlier in the week as she prepared to judge aspiring designers at "Project Runway."
"Successful designers soak it all in," she said.
Fashion week continues in New York through Thursday, when the influential Marc Jacobs closes out things. Runway previews then move on to London, Milan and Paris.
Diane von Furstenberg's "Glam Rock" collection included wrap dresses, long her calling card, jumpsuits and metallic jackets. It also included high-shine silver leather skinny pants.
"The idea is not that it's clothes for a party, but it's clothes. It's life that's a party _ and that was my inspiration," she said in a backstage interview.
She isn't afraid of prints and color, and there were animal prints, angel wings and birds in a sunset palette dotted by rose gold and silver.
Her fall collection had a much less aggressive tone than most of the others. Remember, von Furstenberg is courting the party girl, who'd have places to wear maxi dresses and gold snakeskin jackets. It's chiffon one minute, leather the next.
"Wrapped in a swirl of twisted chain-link, she steps into the night, lights flashing. With an effortless glamour, she winks at herself and smiles at her shadow," von Furstenberg said in her notes.
Donna Karan's DKNY label features a lot of lipstick red and hot pink looks for fall.
Yes, there were tough-girl looks, including a long quilted bomber jacket and a long silk-and-jersey dress with sheer panels in black. But it was the brights, and especially the animal-print brights, that lit up the runway
There was a "heartthrob red" quilted crop top worn over a flowing, long silk dress and a tailored, peak-lapel blazer in "pop pink" over a button-down shirtdress. The animal prints showed off a long tunic-length sweater silhouette.
Colorblocking was freshest when Karan used sophisticated camel, crisp white and downtown black on a paneled parka, and when she mixed gray herringbone, white and black on a flirty dress with a slim bodice, full skirt and soft shoulders.
There were animal prints all over Tracy Reese's fall collection.
A cheetah-print coat opened the show, paired with a black lace shirt and a charcoal pant. The collection also included a cheetah tunic covering a cheetah skirt, a zebra-print trench over a crepe floral dress and an "animal jacquard" coat in tan and black worn over a sequined sweater.
"There are so many cool ways to use animal prints," Reese said backstage. "Subtle and not so subtle. Even in the beading."
Reese said she hoped women would become bolder about mixing prints _ like pairing an animal print with a floral. "Most women like to wear only one print at a time. But I like to mix them, and I wanted to open up the conversation a bit."
Her collection also included a floral-printed neoprene frock in pink, orange and black and a sleek black knee-length number with huge red flowers on it, its dainty shape contrasting nicely with the boldness of the print.
The opening look at Victoria Beckham's show was a windowpane plaid coat. She also incorporated more sweaters and knits into her collection, with a nod to mod with some geometric, colorblocked shift dresses.
The most unexpected looks were the flashes of bright yellow, including a sleeveless trench; the techno shine she added to pleated skirts that the audience could only see as the models walked; and the long cape-style tuxedo coat.
One of the important evolutions for fall is the softer shoulder, which she used to tweak one of her popular zip-back, slim-fit dress silhouettes.
For shoes, she put models in lower kitten heels, made in collaboration with Manolo Blahnik, which was a bit of a surprise for a woman known for skyscraper stilettos.
"I'm always designing what I want to wear," she said.
Derek Lam says a navy-black mix is one of his favorite combinations.
"There's something very unpretentious about navy, and black is very crisp and stark. The navy breaks up the black. And black gives the navy an urban feel," the designer said backstage after his fall-winter preview.
Lam paired a navy-and-white satin top with a black wool trouser. A navy-and-gray wool jersey T-shirt came with a navy-and-black jacquard trouser, plus black shoes and bag. A felt coat came in navy, black and white wool, covering an ivory lace dress.
Another big color on Lam's runway this season: luxurious camel. A classic, loose coat in camel cashmere opened the show, and a roomy cashmere duffel coat looked glamorous with sunglasses of the same color. Camel was also used for a wool cashmere pullover, a wool-and-cashmere dress and a big boucle cape.
Capes in general were a popular item. One particularly nice look was an elbow-length black leather cape that tied in front.
A red, knee-length fox fur vest, paired with wine-colored flat boots, was by far the most flamboyant item in the show. A shorter, navy fox vest was more understated and in line with the rest of the collection. It was paired with a navy crochet dress and brown ankle boots.
Joseph Altuzarra's urban, confident, fashion-forward customer wears graphic black-and-white leather _ layers it on, in fact _ and then there's the fox or mink fur on top. She's not shy about drawing attention in fur mittens, shiny grommet embellishment and strategically placed zippers. She wears her high-waisted trousers with a low-slung belt.
His fall-winter collection also includes optic white pants and a khaki cotton sleeveless trench worn with a khaki four-button tailored skirt.
The silhouette he offers his customers is strong and slim, sometimes with a little bump at the hip.
"The design and construction emphasize the nip of the waist and exaggerate the hip, while shrunken proportions mixed with a bolder shoulder volume sharpen the classic silhouette," he says in describing the shape.
The "Project Runway" alum used the Russian opera as the inspiration for his fall runway show, using a book of Russian opera houses as reference.
The girl wearing this collection, he said, was on her way to see the Russian opera.
"I wanted it to be a story of what she wears during the day, what she'll wear for a cocktail dress, what she'll wear to the opera," he said.
His vintage-inspired day looks evoke many eras, from the 1940s to the 1960s, and were mostly separates of turtlenecks paired with loose leather trousers and faux fur vests in muted colors such as white, black and camel.
One ensemble included a pointed-toe flat in a penny loafer style, a surprise inclusion given fashion's love for the high heel. Siriano explained it as a way to ensure its wearability, and also because he "wanted it to be a bit more demure, a bit simple."
Other shoes in the collection included bootie heels and heeled penny loafers with gold trim, echoing the filigree that anchored many of the evening dresses that closed the show.
AP Writers Jocelyn Noveck, Nicole Evatt and Amanda Kwan contributed to this story.
Follow Samantha Critchell on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AP_Fashion
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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Solar Design Lessons from the 2017 Solar Decathlon Winners
Thursday, October 26, 2017
This article was originally published on the blog of Aurora Solar, a solar design and sales software company.
By Andrew Gong
Two weeks ago, during the Solar Decathlon 2017 competition, we explored the solar powered house designs from participating university teams. The designs showcased many creative and resourceful design strategies—and presented a fun challenge for modeling in Aurora.
With the competition now complete, today's post takes a closer look at the top three teams to identify some of the solar design lessons from their success.


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Get Rid of The Curve to Reduce Microsoft's Headcount
Whew, is it time bring my hands together in a "T" and call time-out? There's a bit of nyah-nyah threading itself through the comments. Part of that is probably due to the lull between significant events: the build-up here at Mini-Microsoft over the past year timed with the one-two punch of Business Week and Forbes publicly bringing forth the discontent right before the reorganization of business groups.
And then? grumbling fatigue.
A comment from Saturday morning from someone flourishing at Microsoft:
I compare us to the rest of the companies in the world I think we do darn well. I have been in the workforce for over 24 years and have worked for several companies during those 24 years. In my 6 years at MS this is the best company that I have ever worked for. I have a great manager, I like the (client) group that I support, I love the work that I do and I have been promoted because of the results that I have delivered and customer focus not my political savy. [...] Like I said, if you think that there are high tech companies that are better and will compensate you what you think you are worth, then you should probably go there. You are obviously not happy at MS and you seem to lack any faith that anything is going to change.
If you're not happy at Microsoft and don't have hope and are not rolling up your sleeves to rewire every aspect of the Microsoft daily-business engine (and get lots of scorched oil squirted on your face), you need to freshen up that resume and look elsewhere. We have a lot of shipping happiness ahead to bolster our spirits, but we need to clean our cluttered house and that's not going to be pretty or enjoyable.
The house cleaning, starting from the bottom of the organization and cascading upwards, has to happen for Microsoft to be agile and efficient and productive and to ship more often and on time. We need our own one-two punch of:
- Organizational flattening to reduce waste of effort, and
- Headcount reduction for efficiency and cost savings (and to show The Street we're committed to a leaner, efficient running of our business).
Headcount reduction. Something to think about is why Microsoft is so bad at firing people (until, cataclysmically, entire groups are paved over or remade). First, firing someone for lack of performance is a terrible thing for a manager to through (and yes, it's a terrible thing to be fired). Unless as a manager you relish unleashing such misery, you're going to be resistant to it. You have to connect the dots that your poor performers are actually putting features at risk and most likely will result in the product either being buggy and slow or having less compelling features. You have to realize that you're not pleasing customers and increasing revenues and shareholder value by keeping around marginal or poor performers.
You have to get rid of your poor performers.
So you do. Let's say you get rid of a few folks over the course of a year. And since good, talented people are hard to find right now, expect those positions to still be open by the time the review model comes around. Then along comes the curve. Say you still have to provide a 25% fit for 3.0s, maybe 45% 3.5s, and 30% 4.0s. If your group is big enough, dropping a few folks didn't make a difference in the number of 3.0s you need to provide. You just screwed some of your 3.5 and, most likely, some of your 4.0 people to fit the curve.
D'oh. Where are those talking points from HR on giving hard review scores again?
Managers learn that lesson really well the first time they go through it. Better to keep low performing reports around to keep the 3.0 bucket full until you're absolutely required to flush them out. Or get some new hires to slap the "welcome!" 3.0 on. Otherwise, your high performers aren't getting the rewards you want and your eyes are twitching as you stare at that blue "Love 'Em or Lose 'Em" book on your shelf.
When Microsoft was roiling with growth, there was enough turn-over going on that the curve got lost in the noise. When we slowed and the dust settled, suddenly all aspects of the curve started to hurt, including 3.5 for people who have done great jobs. And 3.0 for people who had done better than expected. When I was at that manager meeting with HR, one lead related how his boss was ready to go on a hiring spree to help review-time compensation and morale in their group. What kind of hiring spree?
"We need to go hire us a bunch of 3.0s!"
Damn! The Microsoft manager was going out there to specifically hire poor-performers so that the rest of the people in his group could get better review scores (the HR presenter winced upon hearing the story but didn't say much). And you know those new hires didn't just go away quickly but rather settled down like a tick into Microsoft and managed their own success.
Sorry, this is indeed the bad management of The Curve when applied to Stack Ranking. This is the bad management of spoiling Microsoft with persisted poor performers that I doubt anyone has the strength to terminate. And you know that managers know how to avoid the people-review for 3.0s: how many calibration meetings have you been in when folks ruminate over the multi-3.0s and manage to get them to bob up to a 3.5 this time. The radar stops blipping.
My first thought here was to have a safe-harbor for firing people: every person you move out of Microsoft that's good attrition gets to fill one of your required 3.0s for the upcoming review model. The 3.0 bank, so to say. That sort of falls apart when you consider the next year and your bank account is empty. Then you're back to screwing people. I half like this idea. It does give managers the comfort of knowing that they are not going to trend down their really good and great performers just because they thinned their herd for the good of Microsoft and its shareholders.
So consider: if we got rid of The Curve, would it actually make it easier to move on the poor performers at any time during the year? I think so. I believe so. The Curve, for some groups, is actually causing Microsoft to stack up the dead wood so that the bottom of the Stack Rank and the bottom of The Curve are pre-filled.


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Free shipping on orders over $150
DMC Stranded Cotton is a high quality 100% Cotton thread suitable for embroidery, stitching, cross stitch, friendship bracelets and other crafts. Each skein contains 8m of cotton made up of 6 strands. It can be used as a whole thread or split for finer projects.


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Writing a resume is a chore for most people. I know this because whenever I do an online search for the term 'how to write a resume' or 'writing a resume', I come across someone tweeting "ARRRGH I hate writing my resume" or "I have been trying to write this stupid resume for weeks. I hate it!!!"
Being the intuitive person that I am, I, therefore, deduce that resume writing is not something more people enjoy.
Me? I love it!
For me, writing a resume is like a complex puzzle. I have all this information about my client and I have to figure out the best, most effective way to present it. If I get it right, my clients get the jobs of their dreams and that's pretty cool.
So over the next week or so, I'm going to share with you some of the inside secrets to success when it comes to resume writing. I hope that my suggestions will make you rethink that hatred for resume writing and awaken some of the enthusiasm I feel when I start a new resume writing project. So let's get started.
How to write a resume #1 – feel their pain:
When you're struggling with how to write a resume, you're likely focused on yourself. You have questions like 'how do I explain this gap?' or 'how do I show I have the important skills?' or 'should I explain why I left this job after such a short time?'
These are all reasonable questions, but it's this focus on YOU that gets in your way. Because your resume isn't about YOU.
I know that sounds nuts, but if you're focused on yourself, you're missing the point.
If you want your resume to grab the attention of employers, it needs to be about THEM.
The most important question to ask when you're writing a resume:
There is one question I ask myself at the start of every resume project and it's this: What do my target employers want?
You need to answer this question before you think about writing a word. Because the answer to this question will guide you as to what you should include and exclude from your resume. It will help you decide what to do about that gap, or which skills to highlight.
As an example, one current client wants to go back to doing something she last did 8 years ago. Since then she's had several contract and freelance jobs and run her own business. To ensure that employers see her highly relevant past experience, I structured the resume so that all those freelance and contract jobs were rolled into her consulting business. I then kept that section relatively brief and only highlighted the assignments that were closely related to her target positions.
By doing this, I was able to get an 8-year-old experience up to page 1. I also created a strong profile with headlines that described that older experience in a way that would appeal to target employers because it addressed their main concerns.
This new resume has given my client a real shot at her dream job for one reason and one reason only – we thought about the needs of target employers before we started to write one word of the resume.
How do you know what employers need?
If you're staying in the same industry, you will already know this. Think about the most successful people in your field or in your company … what do they do?
Think about your industry… what challenges is it facing?
If you know the company advertising a vacancy, research them to find out all you can about their goals and culture, and market position.
But if you're aiming to move into a new field, you'll need to do more research.
Read all you can on forums and blogs and company websites and industry association websites. Tap into your network and talk to anyone with knowledge of the industry. Reach out to social media connections to see if they will share their knowledge. Scour the web for job postings and note any common themes.
Next comes the good part!
Once you know the answer to the question 'what do my target employers want?' you are ready to start thinking about your resume strategy. It's that strategy that will get you interviews. It's that strategy that will guide you as you make decisions about content and layout and font choice and all that good stuff. And developing that strategy will be the subject of my next post in this series.
Louise Fletcher co-founded Blue Sky in 2002 after a career as an HR executive. She admits to being a 'wordnerd' at heart and loves to write. She developed the Blue Sky resume approach, has written two books, and has been a featured expert for sites such as Monster, The Ladders and HR Guru.
Now read: How to Write a Resume – Step No. 2 – Know Your Value to the Employer


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I'm certainly no expert on vintage skateboard companies, so I'm not quite sure where this fits in, but what we have here is a Santa Cruz advert promoting a Natas Kaupas deck which includes the "Santa Monica Airlines" logo. Perhaps someone can help out with the details of the relationship on that brand to various skateboard companies over the years? I have a vague recollection that it's a complicated story.
On a simpler note the three other decks featured here are from Rob Roskopp, Claus Grabke and Jeff Grosso.
Those last two are skaters who both had a direct impact on Rad Magazine at various points.
Claus Grabke's multi-talented and prolific approach included photography, writing and music so he contributed to the European skate scene and the magazine in a very direct way.
Grosso's influence was less specific, but he was one of those fascinating people who influenced the magazine through his words as well as his skating. He struck chords which resonated strongly with the spirit of the time.


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We've all seen them: the public service announcements about sex trafficking in America. They're plastered on buses and billboards; images of young women exploited for their bodies, with hotlines to call for help.
The numbers are staggering. The Justice Department estimates that each year at least 200,000 children are trafficked for sex in the U.S., and it is said to generate upward of $32 billion a year.
Across the country, teens are being picked up on prostitution charges. It's a stunning contradiction in the law: Girls who are too young to legally consent to sex are being prosecuted for selling it.
Amy Farrell is an expert who studies sex trafficking laws. She tells NPR's Arun Rath some states are trying to fix the problem through what are called safe harbor laws.
Twelve states have passed safe harbor legislation for child victims of sex trafficking, according to Farrell. She says the basic premise of these laws is to give law enforcement and prosecutors a way to divert children who have been prostituted from a juvenile delinquent proceeding and instead put them into what's called a "child in need" proceeding.
In some states without safe harbor laws, there are efforts to set up special courts specifically to deal with these cases.
"This has basically been a whole series of individual judges seeing these cases coming through their courts and becoming passionate and involved in the issue and being willing to work with prosecutors, the defense bar and service providers to establish these problem-solving courts," she says.
Creating A Safe Place
In California, there is no safe-haven law; minors can, and are, prosecuted for prostitution. But in Los Angeles County, Judge Catherine Pratt has set up a special juvenile court to help victims of sex trafficking.
During the last few years, Pratt has been consumed by her work helping young victims of sex trafficking get treated as just that: victims. She says it's been a tough battle because the justice system treats anyone who sells sex as a criminal — even a child.
In normal juvenile courts, young women who are picked up for prostitution don't get counseling and other services — they get punished. Girls can be sentenced to juvenile detention or forced to testify against their exploiter.
Pratt remembers one case that made her believe the system was broken. A young girl was asked to testify against her pimp, in a public adult court, in a case that involved her being drugged into unconsciousness. She was asked by the district attorney to review a tape of the incident, which she had never seen, and identify the defendants in the court.
"It was a devastating experience for her, and she has struggled ever since then," Pratt says. "So that is one of the cases I feel very badly about. I feel like we did a very poor job of protecting her from that and preparing her for that. It's one of the lessons that I learned about how to work with these kids."
So Pratt set out to create a court that would protect girls from trauma at the hands of the justice system and focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment. Girls in her court are placed into special group homes with trauma counselors and sexual education resources. And, in general, the girls aren't compelled to testify against their abusers. It's all about gaining trust, Pratt says.
"When you first meet some of these kids, they are pretty off-putting," she says. "They have these levels of trauma that really prevent them from making connections with people."
Finding Normalcy
To help these victims of sex trafficking make connections with trusted adults, Pratt's court partners with advocacy groups, where adult survivors of sex trafficking work as mentors.
Kristina Fitz is a survivor who mentors for Saving Innocence, a non-profit organization aimed at helping rescue and restore child victims of sex trafficking. Fitz is assigned to 25 girls; she meets with each one for three hours a week for counseling. She says they look up to her because she knows what they went through. Fitz was trafficked for sex for more than three years.
"I'm like a support system to them, so if they want to talk about certain issues that they can't really talk about, or they don't have anybody to talk to," Fitz says. "I take them out on trips, out of their group homes, so they can see there's things other than just working and being exploited through prostitution."
One of the things she teaches girls is how to recognize men who will exploit them, something they call the "Prince Charming guy." Fitz says these are typically men who will manipulate them and make them feel loved by buying them things like a cellphone, jewelry or clothes.
"Those might be little things to us adults, but to children who have never had that before, that's a big deal to them," she says. "So it's easy to manipulate a child by giving her these simple little things."
Fitz says the program also teaches the girls sexual education, like condom use and about sexually-transmitted diseases, as well as helping them with their self-esteem and assertiveness.
The Next Problem
Judge Pratt says that initially her treatment-focused approach was working as intended. It improved the ability to prosecute the traffickers. But then something else happened. A lot of the boys who were coming out of foster care and the juvenile justice system were becoming pimps.
"The foster care system and juvenile justice system is creating both sides of this market, the suppliers and the goods," she says.
Nationwide, pimps are prosecuted far less often than the children they exploit. The men who buy sex from minors are very rarely prosecuted. Farrell says states are beginning to change the law, stiffening the penalties for purchasing sex from a child.
"The bigger problem isn't so much changing the laws — we're starting to do that — the real challenge will be convincing law enforcement and the judiciary to hold people who purchase sex from trafficked persons accountable," she says. "I think prosecutors are reluctant to pursue prosecution against johns because it's not been politically expedient to do so in many communities."
As for the girls in Pratt's special court, she thinks the court has been very successful. She's even working with a national organization of juvenile court judges to teach others how to work with victims of sex trafficking.
The most rewarding thing, though, is her relationship with the girls. Her office looks more like that of a beloved school principal than a judge, with framed pictures of Pratt at birthdays and graduations for the young women who have come through her court.
"Next week one of my girls who was on probation to me turns 19, so she just contacted me and said she wanted to go to dinner," she says.
The grant that funds the court runs out at the end of this year, and Pratt says she's not sure what will happen then. The county has said the budget cannot support the program.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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The Inside Guide has just published an article highlighting the 13 best beaches in Cape Town for 2018 with a warning about security in its first paragraph, as much a sign of the times as it is a an appropriate time for the article that heralds the start of those summer days.
Apart from the sobering reference to security we certainly could not agree more with their choices with Llandudno, Clifton and Boulders taking the top three spots. Personally I am happy to choose my spot in the sun on #12 Fish Hoek where I grew up and where the water is warmer and there is always space enough for some privacy as opposed to some of the others that get far too crowded and a good record of security.
Take a look and see what your favourite will be this summer!


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The Triple Slurp has been taken to the next level with the addition of a killer tail. Now has blades that don't stop turning and a tail that doesn't stop wiggling. Sometimes you need just a bit more of a trigger to get those big ones to bite.
Grape Candy Mini Killer Triple Slurp
"The Killer Mini Triple Slurp"
Blade - Size 7 Triple Propeller Blade (Powder Coated)
Skirt - Single Tinsel Skirts
Beads - Solid Brass Beads
Shaft - .051" Diameter
Bottom Hook - 5/0 Mustad 3551
Split Rings - Wolverine Tackle #6 "Super Rings"
Weight - 2.1 Ounces
Length - 7.5 Inches without Tail, 11.5 inches with tail