WOMEN: African Americans Turn Headlights on Sex-Traffic > Womens eNews

African Americans

Turn Headlights on

Sex-Traffic

Brook Bello had all the trappings of a successful career. But the actress-poet-filmmaker also had a horrible childhood secret. Now she's teaming up with the International Black Women's Public Policy Institute to talk about sex traffic.

By Margaret Summers

WeNews correspondent

Monday, April 30, 2012

(WOMENSENEWS) -- African American film artist Brook Bello, whose toned, slim build and close-cropped blonde hair belie her 40 years, has appeared in TV commercials and dramas, such as the science fiction program "Stargate SGI."

She was featured in the 1995 futuristic movie "Strange Days," starring Angela Bassett and Ralph Fiennes. She has also authored a book of poems, "To Soar without Leaving the Ground."

Despite her achievements, Bello was desperately unhappy for many of these apparently successful years. She had a horrific youth hidden deep inside her. Often, to block it out, she numbed herself with drugs and alcohol. She fought the impulse to take her own life.

Bello had been one of the millions of women and girls in the U.S. and internationally who are abducted, duped or coerced into selling sex for their "owners'" profit.

For years she said nothing, but now she's going as public as she can.

Bello has written, produced and directed a documentary film, "Survivor: Living Above the Noise," in which she tells her own story as a sex trafficking victim, as do others in the film. The documentary takes the viewer to Bahrain in the Middle East, one of the global hotspots of the practice, where Bello went to recover from her experiences and learn about the impact of sex trafficking on women and girls there.

She is also partnering with the International Black Women's Public Policy Institute to expose the problem of sex trafficking in the African American community. Bello and the policy institute, founded in 2009 in Washington, D.C., are planning nationwide discussions and screenings of her film, which will be shown in May at the 65th Cannes Film Festival.

Keeping a Special Eye

Ka Flewellen, co-founder and executive director of the International Black Women's Public Policy Institute, says African Americans must keep a special eye on trafficking victims who are women and children from the African diaspora.

"We will mobilize women of African descent within the U.S. to participate in a special hearing this fall on Capitol Hill, in an effort to develop a public policy response," Flewellen said. "Sexual slavery and trafficking aren't just international occurrences. They happen in our communities here in the U.S. We must eradicate these practices."

As a vehicle for sharing her experiences and raising awareness of sexual trafficking, Bello said her documentary has helped her healing process.

"Through the film, I speak for those who didn't make their way out," Bello told a gathering in March of African American female leaders convened in Washington, D.C., by the International Black Women's Public Policy Institute. "I speak for the prostitutes on the street."

Bello said that like most sex trafficking victims, she was abused and sexually assaulted as a child. "There was violence in my family. My mother was a highly educated woman, but she lived with a lot of pain. I had four stepfathers. She was beaten regularly, so much so that there were times I couldn't recognize her face. Then, when I was 11, I was raped."

She said she started drinking to ease her pain, and when she felt she could no longer stand the violence at home, she and a friend ran away to Los Angeles, where she started working for a madam as a prostitute.

"They kept me high on Quaaludes and heroin," she said, so she would keep working in order to buy drugs and earn money for the madam.

Eventually, Bello and her friend escaped. They hitchhiked to Las Vegas, then to New York, where Bello was arrested at 16 for prostitution. Upon release, Bello moved back to Los Angeles and began her acting career.

"I was always good at accents and characters," Bello told the Washington gathering.

Losing herself in film roles helped her pretend her earlier life of sexual abuse and victimization hadn't happened. But denial and delusion didn't help. "I was gripped by fear. I tried to commit suicide. I didn't know how to talk to people."

Producing the film and founding the nonprofit Above the Noise, which assists sex traffic victims, helped Bello overcome the years of abuse and victimization.

1.75 Million Internationally

The numbers of women and girls involved in sex slavery are hard categorize, since they are often included with statistics for other forms of involuntary labor and smuggling undocumented immigrants across borders. But in 2009 UNICEF estimated that 1.75 million women and children have been trafficked for sexual purposes internationally.

U.S. State Department data indicate that between 14,200 and 17,500 women and children are trafficked in the U.S. annually. Most are between 12 and 14 years old. Increasingly, boys between 11 and 13 are also trafficked.

Sexual trafficking of women and girls is highly profitable. A 2008 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that trafficking in Europe alone generates $3 billion per year.

Children are usually abducted from their families or sold to traffickers by parents or guardians to pay off a debt.

Women are often tricked into sex slavery.

"A well-dressed man might approach a family in Nigeria, for example, and say that their daughter is eligible for a full scholarship to study in Paris," Ellyn Jo Waller, wife of the pastor of Philadelphia's Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, told those at the gathering.

From there Waller described a typical scenario. The man will pay the daughter's airfare and arrange for her identification papers and passport. At the airport, he will take the daughter's papers from her for "safekeeping." After landing in France the daughter is abducted and told that she has to sell sex.

At that point she is cut off and without any options, said Waller. "The daughter is trapped in a country where she knows no one, doesn't speak or understand the language and is afraid to report her situation to authorities."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Would you like to Comment but not sure how? Visit our help page at http://www.womensenews.org/help-making-comments-womens-enews-stories.

Would you like to Send Along a Link of This Story?
http://womensenews.org/story/prostitution-and-trafficking/120429/african-americans-turn-headlights-sex-traffic

Margaret Summers is a Washington-based writer.

For more information:

"United Nations organizations cooperate to stamp out human trafficking and sex tourism," United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime:
http://tinyurl.com/6wq8oo2

via womensenews.org

PHOTO ESSAY: In Pictures: South Africa’s 18 years of ‘freedom’ > Al Jazeera English

In Pictures:

South Africa’s

18 years of ‘freedom’

President Jacob Zuma struggled to get the party started on the 18th anniversary of the end of apartheid.

Matthew Cassel Last Modified: 30 Apr 2012

Pretoria, South Africa - It was easy to hear the young woman shout out: "Marry me, Zuma!" when the South African president took to the podium.

Not only was she standing just next to me, it was one of very few sounds of excitement when Jacob Zuma prepared to address the crowd of thousands on Freedom Day in Pretoria.

The national holiday celebrates the end of apartheid in South Africa, and the country's first ever free and fair elections in 1994 - when Nelson Mandela, then head of the African National Congress (ANC), was elected president. The date, April 27, is commemorated each year outside the president’s offices at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.

But, despite the event being heralded by Zuma's speech, he wasn't the man at the focus of celebrations for much of the crowd.

"We are free because of Mandela," said Maria Mokari, a woman sitting under a tent in the "elderly" section near the back of the rally. Nelson Mandela, now a reportedly ailing 93-year-old, gave his inaugural address at the Union Buildings - an event attended by hundreds of thousands back 1994.

Mokari recognized Zuma as the president and said "sure" she supports him, but continued: "The real man who did this is Mandela.

"We pray that God will give him more days to lead this country."

As Zuma’s speech continued, much of the crowd held side conversations, and many fell asleep on the grass under the autumn day's gentle sunshine. Save a small group of a few dozen near the speaker's podium, very few of the thousands at Union Buildings seemed interested in the speech.

While Zuma focused on "nonracialism" - a principle that defined the ANC and much of the anti-apartheid movement since the 1955 Freedom Charter - the racial element of the day could not be ignored. Not including myself, I counted no more than five or six white people among the crowd.

As Zuma spoke of diversity, a man walking through the crowd shouted: "What diversity?" - his hands outstretched amid the crowd of black faces.

Moments after his speech ended, a popular song came on that electrified the crowd. "Nelson Mandela, there is no one like you," sang the band in Zulu, and the crowd of thousands joined along with them.

Hanging out with his friends on the steps of the Union Buildings, 17-year-old Matswi told Al Jazeera that it wasn't Mandela on his own who "freed" the country from nearly five decades of apartheid, "but he helped in the freeing of South Africa".

Matswi said he'd been inspired by Mandela, and described himself "as an aspiring freedom fighter".

For many, the day remains an emotional event.

Seventy-two-year-old Beauty Mmsiza described the incident that made her realise the injustice of apartheid when, in 1955, she, her father and her sister, watched as police beat her mother for leaving her identification papers at home. Her mother was then imprisoned for a number of months.

When asked how she felt today, Mmsiza replied: "Wow, I am so happy. I can walk in town at midnight, go to the [same] toilet [facilities as] white people, I can buy what they buy. Before it wasn't like this.

"Now, I can even talk to you."

View As One Page >>

View As Slideshow >>

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

The Freedom Day event was promoted with posters announcing an appearance by the South African president.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

While the ANC commands the support of a majority of black South Africans, some supporters of other political parties say that until blacks gain economic rights, "freedom" has yet to be achieved.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

President Jacob Zuma told the crowd: "Like a phoenix, a new society rose from the ashes of what was called 'a crime against humanity'."

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Many in the audience appeared uninterested in Zuma's speech.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

After hours of speeches by Zuma and others in his government, the party began in earnest.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Music was an important part of the resistance to apartheid, and much of it contained strong political messages.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Face paint and untied shoes were popular among the younger revellers.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Near to the crowd, a mobile clinic offered free HIV testing. In recent years the government has taken greater efforts to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Maria Mokari, a woman celebrating Freedom Day, said: "We pray that God will give [Mandela] more days to lead this country."

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Beauty Mmsiza was 15 years old when she witnessed police beat her mother for not carrying her identification papers.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Patrick Mazwagi, a member of the Communist Party of South Africa and a supporter of the ANC, said that, after the first Freedom Day, when South Africans face problems "we resolve them all together".

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Thuthukani Cele and his One People Band perform for the crowd.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Many among the crowd cheering the musical performances praised Nelson Mandela and focused on the idea of unity.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Revellers were enjoying the music and happy to be photographed.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Young people hang out beneath a stature of former South African Prime Minister JBM Hertzog in the gardens of the Union Buildings. Only two decades ago, it would have been unthinkable for black people to walk freely around the presidential compound.

Start Slide Show

Stop Slide Show

1 / 15

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

The Freedom Day event was promoted with posters announcing an appearance by the South African president.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

While the ANC commands the support of a majority of black South Africans, some supporters of other political parties say that until blacks gain economic rights, "freedom" has yet to be achieved.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

President Jacob Zuma told the crowd: "Like a phoenix, a new society rose from the ashes of what was called 'a crime against humanity'."

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Many in the audience appeared uninterested in Zuma's speech.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

After hours of speeches by Zuma and others in his government, the party began in earnest.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Music was an important part of the resistance to apartheid, and much of it contained strong political messages.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Face paint and untied shoes were popular among the younger revellers.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Near to the crowd, a mobile clinic offered free HIV testing. In recent years the government has taken greater efforts to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Maria Mokari, a woman celebrating Freedom Day, said: "We pray that God will give [Mandela] more days to lead this country."

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Beauty Mmsiza was 15 years old when she witnessed police beat her mother for not carrying her identification papers.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Patrick Mazwagi, a member of the Communist Party of South Africa and a supporter of the ANC, said that, after the first Freedom Day, when South Africans face problems "we resolve them all together".

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Thuthukani Cele and his One People Band perform for the crowd.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Many among the crowd cheering the musical performances praised Nelson Mandela and focused on the idea of unity.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Revellers were enjoying the music and happy to be photographed.

Matthew Cassel/Al Jazeera

Young people hang out beneath a stature of former South African Prime Minister JBM Hertzog in the gardens of the Union Buildings. Only two decades ago, it would have been unthinkable for black people to walk freely around the presidential compound.

Follow Matthew Cassel on Twitter: @justimage

via aljazeera.com

HISTORY: May Day - What It Really Is

MAY DAY

What It Really Is

Background to May Day: In 1884, unions declared that eight hours would constitute a legal day’s work from and after May 1, 1886. When workers went on strike at a factory in Chicago on May 3, 1886, police fired into the peacefully assembled crowd, killing four and wounding many others. The workers movement called for a mass rally the next day in Haymarket Square to protest this brutality. The rally proceeded peacefully until the end when 180 police officers entered the square and ordered the crowd to disperse. At that point, someone threw a bomb, killing one police officer and wounding 70 others. The police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one and injuring many others.

Eight of the city’s most active unionists were charged with conspiracy to commit murder even though only one even present at the meeting was on the speakers’ platform. All eight were found guilty and sentenced to death, despite a lack of evidence connecting them to the person who threw the bomb. Four were hanged on November 11, 1887, Louis Lingg committed suicide in prison, and the remaining three were finally pardoned in 1893. Lucy Parsons, the widow of Albert Parsons, traveled the world urging workers to celebrate May Day and to remember the events of Haymarket and the subsequent government-sponsored murder of those fighting for the rights of all workers.

Over time, May Day grew to become an important day for organising and unifying the international struggle of workers and their allies. Viva May Day!

>via: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=443211699029189&set=a.108291159187...

__________________________

May Day's Radical History:

What Occupy Is Fighting for

This May 1st

Occupy actions planned on May Day are tied to the generations-long movement for the eight-hour day, to immigrant workers, to police brutality and repression of the labor movement.

by Jacob Remes

April 27, 2012 |

American general strikes—or rather, American calls for general strikes, like the one Occupy Los Angeles issued last December that has been endorsed by over 150 general assemblies—are tinged with nostalgia.

The last real general strike in this country, which is to say, the last general strike that shut down a city, was in Oakland, California in 1946—though journalist John Nichols has suggested that what we saw in Madison, Wisconsin last year was a sort of general strike. When we call a general strike, or talk of one, we refer not to a current mode of organizing; we refer back, implicitly or explicitly, to some of the most militant moments in American working-class history. People posting on the Occupy strike blog How I Strike have suggested that next week’s May Day is highly symbolic. As we think about and develop new ways of “general striking,” we also reconnect with a past we've mostly forgotten.

So it makes sense that this year’s call for an Occupy general strike—whatever ends up happening on Tuesday—falls on May 1. May Day is a beautifully American holiday, one created by American workers, crushed by the American government, incubated abroad, and returned to the United States by immigrant workers.

The history of May 1 as a workers’ holiday is intimately tied to the generations-long movement for the eight-hour day, to immigrant workers, to police brutality and repression of the labor movement, and to the long tradition of American anarchism.

Perhaps the first nation-wide labor movement in the United States started in 1864, when workers began to agitate for an eight-hour day. This was, in their understanding, a natural outgrowth of the abolition of slavery; a limited work day allowed workers to spend more time with their families, to pursue education, and to enjoy leisure time. In other words, a shorter work day meant freedom. It was not for nothing that in 1866, workers celebrated the Fourth of July by singing “John Brown’s Body” with new lyrics demanding an eight-hour day. Agitating for shorter hours became a broad-based mass movement, and skilled and unskilled workers organized together. The movement would allow no racial, national or even religious divisions. Workers built specific organizations—Eight Hour Leagues—but they also used that momentum to establish new unions and strengthen old ones. That year, the Eight Hour Movement gained its first legislative victory when Illinois passed a law limiting work hours.

The demand for an eight-hour day was about leisure, self-improvement and freedom, but it was also about power. When Eight Hour Leagues agitated for legislation requiring short hours, they were demanding what had never before happened: that the government regulate industry for the advantage of workers. And when workers sought to enforce the eight-hour day without the government—through declaring for themselves, through their unions, under what conditions they would work—they sought something still more radical: control over their own workplaces. It is telling that employers would often counter a demand for shorter hours with an offer of a wage increase. Wage increases could be given (and taken away) by employers without giving up their power; agreeing to shorter hours was, employers knew, the beginning of losing their arbitrary power over their workers.

The Illinois eight-hour law was to go into effect May 1, 1867. That day, tens of thousands of Chicago’s workers celebrated in what a newspaper called “the largest procession ever seen on the streets of Chicago.” But the day after, employers, en masse, ignored the law, ordering their workers to stay the customary 10 or 11 hours. The city erupted in a general strike--workers struck, and those who didn’t leave work were forced to by gangs of their colleagues roaming through the streets, armed with sticks, dragging out scabs. After several days of the strike, the state militia arrived and occupied working-class neighborhoods. By May 8, employers and the state they controlled had won, and workers went back to work with their long hours. The loss of the eight-hour-day movement led also to a massive decline in unions, and the labor movement would not pick up in such numbers for almost two decades.

The Illinois law and its defeat, however, were not forgotten. By the 1880s, a new labor movement had grown up in Chicago. This one was more radical and was dominated by immigrant workers from Germany. They remembered 1877, when a strike by railroad workers spread around the country. For a brief moment, as strikers took control of St. Louis and Pittsburgh, staring down the national guard and local police, nobody knew what would happen. But President Rutherford B. Hayes called out the army and brutally repressed the strike. They also remembered the state was rarely if ever on the side of the worker. Yet they also remembered the brief shining moment when it appeared that there might be an eight-hour day.

So in 1886, the Chicago Central Labor Union again demanded an eight-hour day. Led largely by anarchists like August Spies and Albert Parsons, this renewed movement demanded “eight for 10”--that is, eight hours’ work for 10 hours’ pay. Throughout the winter of 1886, they successfully organized and won a series of small victories, largely in German butchers’ shops, breweries and bakeries, where owners agreed to recognize unions and grant shorter hours. Then they issued a new demand: that again on May 1, Chicago would go on a general strike and not return to work unless employers agreed to an eight-hour workday.

The demands of the militant Chicago anarchists coincided with a massive upswing in other militant movements. Workers and Texas farmers were rebelling against a monopolistic railroad system. The Knights of Labor were rapidly organizing and spreading their vision of a cooperative, rather than capitalistic, society. “What happened on May 1, 1886,” writes James Green, the most recent and most accessible historian to have written about it, “was more than a general strike; it was a ‘populist moment’ when working people believed they could destroy plutocracy, redeem democracy and then create a new ‘cooperative commonwealth.’”

Four days later, it all came crashing down. On May 3, police had shot to death six strikers at the McCormick Works, where a long-standing labor dispute had turned the factory into an armed camp, and beaten dozens more. On May 4, anarchists held an outdoor indignation meeting at a square called the Haymarket to protest the police murders. Anarchist leader Samuel Fielden was wrapping up his speech when the police, led by the same inspector who had led the charge at McCormick the night before, moved in to disperse the crowd. “But we are peaceable!” Fielden cried, and just then somebody wasn’t. Somebody threw a bomb at the police, the police open fire, and the course of American history changed.

To this day we do not know, nor will we likely ever know, who threw the bomb. Some say it was an agent provocateur. Some say it was an anarchist. If it wasn’t an anarchist, it surely could have been, since there were indeed anarchists who made bombs and would have thrown one given the opportunity. But we also know that many of those who died that night, including police, were felled by the police bullets.

We also know that the effect of the Haymarket bombing was far greater on the labor movement than it was on the police. Eight anarchist leaders were rounded up and put on trial for the murder of a police officer. No evidence was ever given that any of them threw the bomb, and only the flimsiest evidence was presented that any of them were remotely involved. All eight were convicted, and seven were sentenced to hang. Two of these had their sentences commuted, and a third—Louis Lingg, undoubtedly the most radical and militant of them—cheated the hangman by chewing a detonator cap and blowing off his jaw. The remaining four—August Spies, Albert Parsons, Samuel Fischer, and George Engel—were hanged on November 11, 1887. They went to their deaths singing the Marseillaise, then an anthem of the international revolutionary movement, and before he died, Spies shouted out his famous last words: “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.”

Before that happened, the state ensured more silence. The strike collapsed. Police around the country raided radicals’ homes and newspapers. The Knights of Labor never recovered. In the place of the radical industrial labor movement of the mid-1880s rose the American Federation of Labor, the much more exclusive and conservative organization that would dominate the labor movement until the 1930s. Meanwhile, it would take until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to finally enshrine the eight-hour day into federal law.

May 1 would live on, mostly abroad. In 1889, French syndicalist Raymond Lavigne proposed to the Second International—the international and internationalist coalition of socialist parties—that May 1 be celebrated internationally the next year to honor the Haymarket Martyrs and demand the eight-hour day, and the year after that the International adopted the day as an international workers’ holiday. In countries with strong socialist and communist traditions, May 1 became the primary day to celebrate work, workers and their organizations, often with direct and explicit reference to the Haymarket Martyrs. May Day remains an official holiday in countries ranging from Argentina to India to Malaysia to Croatia—and dozens of countries in between.

Yet in the United States, with some exception, the workers’ tradition of May 1 died out. Partially this was because the Knights of Labor had already established a labor day in September. Opportunistic politicians, most notably Grover Cleveland, glommed onto the Knights’ holiday in order to diminish the symbolic power of May 1. In 1921, May Day was declared “Americanization Day,” and later “Loyalty Day” in a deliberately ironic attempt to co-opt the holiday. Even that was not enough, though, and in 1958 Dwight Eisenhower added “Law Day” to the mix, presumably a deliberate jibe at the Haymarket anarchists who declared, “All law is slavery.” Today, few if any Americans celebrate Loyalty Day or Law Day—although both are on the books—but the origins of May Day are largely forgotten. Like International Women’s Day (March 8), which also originated in the U.S., International Workers’ Day became a holiday the rest of the world celebrates while Americans look on in confusion, if they notice at all.

Yet May 1 lives on, and indeed has been rejuvenated in the United States in the past few years. In 2006, immigrant activists organized “a day without an immigrant,” a nationwide strike of immigrant workers and rallies. It was perhaps the largest demonstration of workers in United States history. These immigrants, mostly from Latin America, had brought May 1 back to its birthplace, and in so doing they resurrected its history as a day specifically for immigrant workers.

It is appropriate that when the Occupy L. A. first issued its call for a general strike this May 1, it said the strike was “for migrant rights, jobs for all, a moratorium on foreclosures, and peace.” The order was significant, for migrants in the United States have been the ones who have made sure that the voices the state strangled that November day have remained so powerful. And regardless of what happens on Tuesday—and of course an actual general strike, in which cities grind to a halt and workers control what activities occur, is unlikely—we can, through a national day of action for the working class, work toward a new cooperative commonweath. We have a opportunity now to create and renew the labor movement, through new tactics, but ones that pay homage to the generations that preceded us.

Jacob Remes teaches history and public affairs at Empire State College, SUNY’s college for adult learners.

>via: http://www.alternet.org/story/155182/may_day's_radical_history:_what_occupy_is_fighting_for_this_may_1st_?page=entire

VIDEO: See the Inaugural UNESCO International Jazz Day Concerts Here! (April 30, 2012) #jazzday

International Jazz Day

Sunrise Concert

– April 30, 2012 from

Congo Square, New Orleans

See the Inaugural UNESCO

International Jazz Day

Concerts Here!

(April 30, 2012) #jazzday

Posted on April 29, 2012 at 11:00 PM

The first ever International Jazz Day will be celebrated around the world on Monday, 30 April 2012. Three star-studded concerts have been planned for the auspicious event!

International Jazz Day Launch Concert at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France on 27 April 2012:

Vocalist China Moses' enthusiastic introduction started off the evening in Paris. The Madame Director General of UNESCO welcomed the audience in French and English. Another speech came from someone that presented greetings from President Barack Obama. During Herbie Hancock's presentation, I found out that Google and Microsoft were among the numerous sponsors for International Jazz Day (don't mind me, that's just a random comment). The concert starts about 21 minutes into the video. Check out the entire two hour and forty-five minute video below:

From the Press Release

Herbie Hancock

Sunrise Concert:

The inaugural International Jazz Day will be celebrated by millions worldwide on Monday, April 30, and will begin with an all-star sunrise concert in New Orleans' Congo Square, the birthplace of jazz and culminate with a sunset concert at the United Nations. Presented by UNESCO in partnership with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, International Jazz Day will encourage and highlight intercultural dialogue and understanding through jazz, America's greatest contribution to the world of music.

Herbie Hancock will be joined in New Orleans by jazz luminaries Terence Blanchard, Ellis Marsalis, Dianne Reeves, Kermit Ruffins, Treme Brass Band, and Jeff 'Tain' Watts and many more.

The sunrise concert from Congo Square is open to the public and begins at 7am (8am EDT), and will be video streamed live at Jazz Day and Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

Sunset Concert:

International Jazz Day culminates at the United Nations with an all-star sunset concert. Joining Herbie Hancock are: Tony Bennett, Terence Blanchard, Richard Bona (Cameroon), Dee Dee Bridgewater, Candido, Robert Cray, Eli Degibri (Israel), Jack DeJohnette, Sheila E., Herbie Hancock, Jimmy Heath, Zakir Hussain (India), Chaka Khan, Angelique Kidjo (Benin), Lang Lang (China), Romero Lubambo (Brazil), Shankar Mahadevan (India), Wynton Marsalis, Hugh Masekela (South Africa), Christian McBride, Danilo Pérez, Dianne Reeves, Bobby Sanabria, Wayne Shorter, Esperanza Spalding, Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, Hiromi (Japan), and others.

George Duke will serve as Musical Director. Confirmed Co-Hosts include Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Quincy Jones.

The concert at the United Nations General Assembly Hall begins at 7:30pm (Eastern Daylight Savings Time) and will be video streamed live at Jazz Day and Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.

Enjoy!

via elementsofjazz.com

VIDEO: Lynnee - DeniseTurkish Skies (A Musical Moving Picture Book) on Vimeo

Turkish Skies

(A Musical

Moving Picture Book)

by lynnee denise

Join us, the International Locals for a ride into the daily rhythm and movement of the magical Istanbul. This entire video was captured using an Iphone and related applications. The soundtrack that accompanies the journey was mixed and selected by dj lynnee denise.

via vimeo.com

PUB: Academic Manuscripts Sought for Book Series: CROP International Studies in Poverty Prize 2012 > Writers Afrika

Academic Manuscripts Sought

for Book Series:

CROP International Studies

in Poverty Prize 2012

Deadline: 1 August 2012

CROP, in cooperation with Zed Books, requests entries for the CROP International Studies in Poverty Prize 2012. The winner will receive NOK 50.000 (1 Norwegian krone equivalent to $0.17). Deadline is August 1.

We seek original, high-quality, alternative and critical academic manuscripts. Works challenging the dominant thinking and knowledge about poverty and providing sound contributions to the eradication and/or prevention of poverty in our world are especially welcomed.

Poverty must be the central focus of the monograph. Innovative manuscripts are accepted from all disciplines of the Social Sciences and the Humanities. Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome as well as comparative perspectives. Participation of academics from all over the world is expected and submissions from the South are encouraged.

CLOSING DAY FOR SUBMISSION OF ENTRIES IS 1st of AUGUST 2012.

The winner of the CROP International Studies in Poverty Prize 2012 receives NOK 50.000. The manuscript will be published in the CROP International Studies in Poverty series by way of Zed Books and worldwide copyright of the winning entry will be held by CROP. The winner also receives 10 copies of the book. An additional prize of NOK 3.000 will be awarded to two runner-ups. All entries received might be considered for future publication in the collection.

Submissions will undergo a blind, fair and unbiased, review by a panel of international judges. The judge’s cannot discuss individual entries with author(s) and their decision will be final. Entries should be original and written in the English language. They should not have been published partially or in full in any format, including electronically. Manuscript length should be approx. 80 000 – 100 000 words and only electronic submissions are accepted. Manuscripts should not contain any identifying marks but the title. Author(s) information should be given in a separate form to accompany the work.

The result will be simultaneously published on the CROP and Zed Books websites by November, 2012.

Zed Books editorial norms are found here.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For inquiries: for additional information, e-mail crop@uib.no

For submissions: no detailed submission guidelines can be found; you may inquire by e-mail at crop@uib.no or contact the editors of ZED Books at tamsine.o'riordan@zedbooks.net or ken.barlow@zedbooks.net

Website: http://www.crop.org

via writersafrika.blogspot.com

PUB: Submission Guidelines — Mason's Road

Submission Guidelines

SUBMIT HERE

As a literary journal with an educational twist, Mason’s Road aims to focus each issue on a particular element of the writing craft.

For our upcoming issue, the theme is characterization. We are looking for submissions in which characters’ voices, behaviors, and thoughts resonate and shine.

New! 2012 Mason’s Road Literary Award – $1,000
Issue #5: Characterization

- No Entry Fee -

Our Current Reading Period is Open
February 15, 2012 -
May 15, 2012

While we always aim to publish the very best work that we receive, our genre editors will sift through their selections from Issue #5: Characterization to nominate their favorite for the $1,000 2012 Mason’s Road Literary Award. A special guest judge (TBA) will select the prize winner from these nominations.

Submit today!

We have a blind submissions policy and accept work in fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, drama (stage or screen), art, craft essays, and audio drama from both emerging and established writers and artists. Some of our do’s and dont’s:

We only take online submissions.

Do not include your name or any identifying information within the attachment. We do a blind selection process which means we consider all work without knowing who wrote it. Please do not insert a header or footer containing your name, and please do not include your name and contact information at the top of the document.

Please submit only one document in a genre for each issue, and limit prose to 5,000 words (double-spaced), poetry to 5 poems (up to 5 poems in a single document), and artwork up to 5 graphics (on a single file, or send a link to a website where the art has been uploaded).

Only the following file types will be accepted: *.doc & *.rtf for text, *.jpg & *.gif for art, and *.mp3 for audio.

Mason’s Road does not accept previously published work.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted as long as they are indicated as such and we are notified immediately upon acceptance elsewhere.

All published work will be archived online, and after publication all rights revert back to the author/artist.

Good luck & thank you!

via masonsroad.com

PUB: The Iowa Poetry Prize > University of Iowa Press

The Iowa Poetry Prize

Eligibility

The Iowa Poetry Prize, open to new as well as established poets, is awarded for a book-length collection of poems written originally in English. Previous winners, current University of Iowa students, and current and former University of Iowa Press employees are not eligible.

Manuscript

Manuscripts should be 50 to 150 pages in length. Put your name on the title page only; this page will be removed before your manuscript is judged. Poems included in the collection may have appeared in journals or anthologies; poems from a poet's previous collections may be included only in manuscripts of new and selected poems. Manuscripts will be recycled; please do not include return packaging or postage.

Publication

The winning manuscript will be published by the University of Iowa Press under a standard royalty agreement.

Submission

Manuscripts should be mailed to:

The Iowa Poetry Prize
University of Iowa Press
119 West Park Road
100 Kuhl House
Iowa City IA 52242-1000

Submissions must be postmarked during the month of April.

A $20 reading fee is payable to the University of Iowa Press Poetry Fund. We consider simultaneous submissions but ask that you notify us immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere. Only the winners will be notified. The results will be announced on our website in the summer.

via uiowapress.org

PUB: Call for Submissions for Spring/ Summer Issue: MoJo! Journal of Black and African-American Women's Poetry and Flash Memoir > Writers Afrika

Call for Submissions for

Spring/ Summer Issue:

MoJo! Journal of

Black and African-American

Women's Poetry and Flash Memoir

Deadline: 15 June 2012

MoJo!, an online journal of Black and African-American women's poetry, flash memoir, and social commentary, is now reading submissions for the Spring/Summer Issue.

GUIDELINES

Black and African-American women are invited to submit Poetry of any style and on any topic, of fewer than 100 lines (shorter is better). The process of selection is very subjective. The editor is not generally looking for very religius poems, although spirituality is welcome. Please lighten up on the ryhme. Flash Memoir or social commentary of fewer than 1,000 words is also published. Journalism is not accepted. A personal viewpoint is wanted. Profanity, slurs, gratuitous violence and overt sexuality et cetera will not be published.

Feel free to query.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For inquiries/ submissions: mojoeditor@yahoo.com

Website: http://mapsonehq.wordpress.com/mojo/

via writersafrika.blogspot.com

VIDEO: The Number, The Lost Episode ft. Issa Rae > Clutch Magazine

The Number,

The Lost Episode

ft. Issa Rae

Monday Apr 30, 2012 – by Britni Danielle

Dennis Dortch of Black & Sexy TV continues to crank ‘em out, and this time we get another glimpse at Issa Rae reviving her role as hater # 1 on The Number.

If you haven’t been keeping up, The Number centers around an engaged couple who decides to share their sexual “number” with each other, and of course things go awry.

After Jason finds out his fiancée Melissa is more sexually experienced, he begins to have doubts about their relationship. It also doesn’t help that Jason’s big sister Lisa (Isaa Rae) hates his fiancée and is on a quest to hook him up with someone else.

Will the couple be able to overcome their challenges and make it down the aisle?

Check it out:

via clutchmagonline.com