Life

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson is known as the NASA mathematician, physicist, and scientist who used her math genius to guide to and land Apollo 11 on the moon and bring it back to earth. As  NASA chief Charles Bolden, in a Vanity Fair Magazine article,  recently put it, Katherine "advanced Human Rights with a slide rule and a pencil", and the "frontier of human achievement at the same time."

Yet, at the time of her birth, on August 26, 1918,  the odds of reaching such a human achievement were remote at the best, if not impossible. It was the time when women were not encouraged to pursue high degrees or math and sciences. Moreover, Katherine Johnson was a Black woman, born in a segregated America. Hence,

 "If I die, it will be my day. And remember that no one can escape his destiny,"  the late Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana said on the evening of April 05, 1994, the eve of his assassination. President Habyarimana made the prediction at his residence in Kanombe, when walking out some of the guests he had entertained that evening. Among the guests were Mrs. Gaudence Habimana Nyirasafari and her husband, Phocas Habimana.

 Mrs. Gaudence Nyirasafari was one of the prominent Rwandan politicians and perhaps the highest ranking and most recognizable woman in the Rwandan politics, over more than 2 decades. She is also known as the first Rwandan woman to have obtained the most advanced university degree, that she earned from a Belgian university in early 1960s. Known for her integrity, she was well admired by Rwandan intellectuals and common people and trusted by Western diplomats in Rwanda and by governments around the World, especially the United States.

With the support from  the United States government, she was entrusted with the most important program funded by the Unites States, Family

President Obama, President Bush and Vice-President Baiden, along with their spouses, in Dallas on July 12, 2016 ,  paid respect to 5 slain officers.  In their speeches, Obama and Bush called on Americans to do deep soul searching on race relations. Below are extracts from the main speeches during the event:

Afeni Shakur Davis, the mother of the late iconic hip-hop figure, Tupac Shakur, has died at age 69, in Sausalito, California. Afeni Shakur Davis  was an activist,  Black Panther as a young adult and and philanthropist. Tupac Shakur dedicated the famous song  "Dear Mama,"  to her mother; a song that topped the charts. 

Rustin Bayard,  a key advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,  was the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  Rustin Bayard is not as well known as other civil rights leaders. Yet, he is perhaps one of the major figures who became instrumental in the success of the Civil Rights movement. The reasons behind his less prominent visibility have nothing to do with his role.  In large part because he was  Black and gay and his brief flirtation, during his twenties, with Communism, he was forced to remain in the background.

Despite that, he played his role and remained a trusted advisor of Dr King and an effective leader. Rustin Bayard was a brilliant thinker and strategist a  radical pacifist, with an incredible charm to win converts to

The movement started as a Twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, in the summer of 2013, after the acquittal of the accused in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. By 2015, the movement Black Lives Matter has become a mainstream grassroots organization fighting for human and Civil rights. It has been able to challenge US politicians and its platform has become one of the main topics for 2016 US Presidential race.

The late Catholic nun Mother Teresa of Calcutta (or Kolkata)  will be soon among the saints, the Roman Catholic Church has said in a statement released today, on Friday Dec 18, 2015. The statement was made after Pope Francis cleared a way to sainthood, on the basis of a second miracle attributed to her. Two such miracles are need for a Catholic to be declared a Saint. The first miracle was recognized by the late Catholic Pope  John Paul II in 20013, while beatifying Mother Teresa.

One must visit Calcutta to see how much Mother Teresa had to face on a daily basis. The Calcutta that Mother Teresa found when she started her

In certain circumstances, differences in prostate cancer treatment outcomes for Black men may not be due to biological differences in tumor aggressiveness, a Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston found.

According to the study, led by Dr. Quoc-Dien Trinh, there are no overall or cancer-related race differential survival rates  among the

Malaria affects the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the World, especially in Africa.  Roundworm parasites infect millions of people living in the poorest countries in the World.  The roundworm parasites cause river blindness and elephantiasis.

River blindness, an eye and skin disease that ultimately leads to blindness, has affected millions of the people in Africa. Elephantiasis,  also known as  lymphatic filariasis, causes painful swelling of the limbs.  Both of these diseases are on the verge of extinction.

Malaria is in control, thanks to the research by a Chinese woman, Professor Youyou Tu. Professor Youyou Tu graduated in the 1960s from

You may accuse him of other things. What is sure is that he speaks his mind, and his supporters and even the American maintream are liking it. The person is the US Presidential candidate  Donald Trump. When he srtarted, few believed that Donald Trump was serious. Then he had that speech about Mexican immigrants. Subsequently, the polls in his favor shot into the roof.  He has been dominating the Republican landfield to date. 

Initially, only Fox News  and, perhaps, a couple more media  networks  talked about him. Today, Donald Trump has entered the mass media, and

The legendary guitarist and Blues singer Riley B. King,  known as B.B. King, has died  in Las Vegas on Thursday May 14, 2015 at age 89. Known for his soulful velvety voice and his unique style of blues, he is credited for making Blues one of the mainstream music genres around the World.

The King of the blues, as he was affectueusly known,  was born in Mississippi from where he got the inspiration of what he called "Delta blues roots". His music has influenced a lot of music stars and music genres, including rock, R&B,  pop, and of course blues. Rock, R&B, pop,  and blues

They are smart, dedicated, articulate, women, and leaders. The fact that they are also Black may be a coincidence, but also a historical convergence, that augurs the things to come. These four Black women are bound by the death of Freddie Gray, a 25 Black man, while in the custody of the Baltimore police. The death was followed by protests by citizens seeking justice  and violent riots, burning, and looting of Baltimore shops and police cars by angry citizens, mostly young, over yet another young unarmed Black man killed by the Police in the United States.

 The four women are: