Miami, FL — This year’s November general election ballot includes six questions proposed to amend Florida’s constitution. The Miami-Biscayne Bay (FL) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, wants to make sure the community is informed when ballots are cast on these important issues. In partnership with the Miami-Dade and South Dade Branches of the NAACP and the Miami-Dade National Pan-Hellenic Council, The Links will present a virtual issues forum, “WE THE PEOPLE: Get the FACTS Before Voting on Florida’s Constitutional Amendments!” The forum is scheduled for 6:30 PM-7:30 PM ET, Wednesday, October 14, 2020 and will be broadcast on Facebook Live and Zoom.

The program will be moderated by Bobby Henry Sr., publisher of The Westside Gazette, Broward County, Florida’s oldest and largest African American owned and operated newspaper.

Joining Henry for a spirited discussion and deep dive into the amendments are: 

• Yolanda Cash Jackson, Shareholder, Becker & Poliakoff, and member of the Greater Miami (FL) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated;
• Donald Jones, Professor, University of Miami School of Law; and
• JoLinda L. Herring, Shareholder, Bryant Olive Miller, and member of Miami-Biscayne Bay (FL) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated.

“Voting is one of our most important responsibilities as American citizens, we should be sure we are informed when we exercise that right,” said Miami-Biscayne Bay Chapter President Georgia H. McLean. “The goals of this forum are to make sure we have dissected each proposed amendment and that each attendee logs off informed and ready to vote.”

The forum is scheduled for 6:30 PM-7:30 PM ET, Wednesday, October 14, 2020 and will be broadcast on Facebook Live and Zoom. Click here to register in advance. Submit questions, in advance, to [email protected]. 

As reports from around the United States confirm what many have suspected -- blacks are hardest hit by the coronavirus global pandemic, the NAACP has partnered with BET to present the 4-week community program, ”Unmasked: A COVID-19 Virtual Town Hall Series”.

The  first virtual town hall will be presented this Wednesday, April 8 at 8pm ET, 5pm PT. Part one of the four-part series will feature a candid discussion on the health, mental, and economic tolls this crisis has had on our communities and how people of color can apply pressure to ensure the congressional response to this pandemic is equitable.

Click here to register online. 

For several years I've been sharing news, information and commentary through Blogging Black Miami via several social media platforms. It is a labor of love. My mind is so blown that I have been nominated for a #BOMAAward - for Best Communicator of the Year- Digital!

Join me on Wednesday, April 26 for the 2017 BOMA Awards Luncheon! Tickets are available at https://2017bomaawards.eventbrite.com. Thank you to the Black-Owned Media Alliance for this awesome honor. Thank you to all of the readers, subscribers, contributors and supporters of Blogging Black Miami. 

 @vanessawbyers

#BOMA#BlackOwnedMediaAlliance #2017BOMAAwards #BOMAAwards #VaVaNewMedia#socialmedia #digitalinfluencer #socialinfluencer #citizenjournalist #blogger#communicator

MIAMI – Registration is underway for CS50x Miami, the in-person version of Harvard University’s flagship introduction to computer science course. It is now being offered completely free of charge through an expanded partnership between The Idea Center at Miami Dade College (MDC) and LaunchCode, a nonprofit that places aspiring developers and technologists into paid apprenticeships and jobs. The Idea Center is MDC’s hub for creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. 

The 20-week class will provide students with a foundation in computer programming and web development that puts them on a path to launch a career in technology. CS50x Miami, which has been offered with scholarship assistance in the past, is now free and open to the public. All applicants must register and complete a skills assessment test prior to enrolling.

“CS50x Miami is the largest and most successful coding bootcamp in South Florida,” said TheIdea Center’s Executive Director, Leandro Finol. “Now, by offering it for free, we are confident in our ability to attract South Florida’s best and brightest applicants, particularly focusing on the inclusion of minorities and women.”

LaunchCode Executive Director Brendan Lind said CS50x has proven to be an extremely effective pathway to finding a job in technology.

“CS50x is the most efficient and cost-effective way to learn the skills needed to be a successful programmer,” Lind said. “We are excited to expand our partnership with The Idea Center at MDC to offer CS50x Miami for free to the entire South Florida community.”

In addition to providing educational opportunities for students interested in learning how to code, LaunchCode places qualified candidates into apprenticeships and jobs in tech. To date, LaunchCode has placed CS50x Miami graduates with companies including MasterCard, Boeing, Modernizing Medicine, and Kairos.

To register or for more information, please visit CS50xMiami.com. Classes begin Monday, June 13.

Organizational records and personal papers offer unique and varied perspectives on the 20th century fight for freedom

ANN ARBOR, MI – ProQuest continues to advance the study of the civil rights movement in America. The company has digitized the papers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), making their organizational records and their leaders’ personal papers accessible to researchers through the renownedHistory Vault collection Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century. The digitization of SNCC and CORE papers enables researchers to access documents from all four leading organizations in the U.S. civil rights movement. ProQuest has also digitized the papers of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Read CORE’s instructions for interstate bus riders on the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation and other SNCC and CORE documents here: http://bit.ly/SNCC-COREPapers.

Founded in 1942 and inspired by Mahatma Gandhi in India, CORE set the tone for non-violent protest in the civil rights movement and placed in motion milestone events that focused the nation on social injustice. Working with the Wisconsin Historical Society, ProQuest has digitized records and papers from three key decades of the group’s history.  “From their emergence from the Fellowship of Reconciliation in Chicago in the early 1940s, through the Freedom Rides and the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project in the 1960s, the CORE records document the important role that committed pacifists played in the greatest social movement of the 20th century,” said Matt Blessing, State Archivist and Administrator for the Library-Archives, Wisconsin Historical Society. “Its records form one of the cornerstone research collections within the Wisconsin Historical Society’s vast Civil Rights archives. For over 40 years nearly every major scholar of the Civil Right movement has utilized the records of CORE and other grassroots collections preserved by the WHS. We are pleased to share this essential collection with an even larger audience.”

Just as influential in the movement was SNCC. It was formed in early 1960, sparked when a group of black college students from North Carolina A&T University staged an impromptu sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter where they had been denied service. The group’s original mission was to coordinate the wave of sit-ins that followed in college towns across the South. Over the next 8 years, SNCC sent its leaders to some of the most segregated areas of the South as they sought to cultivate local leaders, most famously during Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. In the early 1970s, the King Center assembled, preserved and promoted the group’s records, enabling researchers to understand SNCC’s significant role in the successful efforts to challenge the traditions of racism, inequality and the issues of Jim Crow.

“These files have been frequently consulted for over 30 years by researchers seeking a comprehensive look at the broad, ambitious and revolutionary activities of SNCC’s valiant and dedicated members,” said Cynthia Patterson Lewis, Director of Archives, King Library & Archives, The King Center. “The SNCC records provide an important base of information and an essential bridge to the personalities, the relational perspectives and the impressive aspects of its varied activities. It is a ‘must’ reference for civil rights scholarship.

Working in partnership with organizations and museums holding original documents, ProQuest makes their carefully curated collections more accessible to researchers around the world, driving new insights in the historical record. In addition to the SNCC and CORE records, this newest Black Freedom module also contains four collections from the Chicago History Museum: the Africa related papers of Claude Barnett; the papers of Congressman Arthur Mitchell; Heather Booth’s Papers on her participation inMississippi Freedom Summer; and the records of the CORE’s Chicago chapter. “Some of the most highly-requested material in our research collection is now a part of Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century,” said Gary T. Johnson, President, Chicago History Museum.  “ProQuest is a dream come true for a museum whose mission is ‘sharing stories.’ It is humbling to know that when our own building closes for the day, the History Vault is open and researchers have the tools they need to explore our content. ProQuest has become indispensable to the study of history in America.”

The CORE and SNCC archives, and the Chicago History Museum collections, are joined by the papers of the pioneering Black Power thinker, Robert F. Williams, to create the Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Organizational Records and Personal Papers, Part 2, a key element in ProQuest’s large collection of resources designed to improve research outcomes for those studying the American civil rights movement. The company has created digital paths that unlock a variety of unique primary sources including Southern plantation records, key documents from the Black Abolitionist Movement and has developed broad resources such as Black Studies Center and ebook collections centered on Black History.

To learn more visit www.proquest.com.

WASHINGTON – Communicating a key message to your staff, clients and business partners in a timely and accurate manner is essential when a disaster strikes. Increasingly, organizations are relying on social media to get ahead of and dispel misinformation that can lead to a tarnished reputation, and even failure of the company.