AUSATM,4-5,2023

It’s been 70th

EDITORIAL PUBLISHER

OLAWALE IDREEZ

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

JOHN E. SMITH JR.

EXECUTIVE VIDEOGRAPHER/ EDITOR

RAQUEL SANTIAGO

REGIONAL EDITOR

ADEMOLA LAWAL

EXECUTVE MARKETING MANAGER

WEALTH PRODUCER ADVISOR

JUANITA CREAR-PRICE

DR. STACEE LANG

MARKETING/SALES MANAGER

WILLIAM ROGERS

COMMUNICATIONS LOGISTICS MANAGER

MORGANNA WILLIAMS

EDITORIAL ADVISOR

DR. COLLINS AWOSIKA

ADVISORY

CHARLIE MILES, EXECUTIVE MARKETING STRATEGIST

DR. ROBERT L. SCOTT SR.

MARY L. SWOPES

PUBLIC RELATIONS

RAQUEL LACOUR-MARSH

Celebrating Women, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter

In this issue we are celebrating the upcoming traditional holidays such as Women’s History Month, St. Patrick’s day, and Easter.

We celebrate the contributions of Women with families and friends.

We celebrate and give thanks for our blessings and being able to appreciate our love ones.

JOHN E. SMITH JR. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Robert L. Scott Sr. Photography

Dr. Quinton de’Alexander Chief Tamba Taylor

Dr. Quinton de’Alexander Chief Tamba Taylor

“Make Your Life’s Blueprint”

-Martin Luther King Jr.

Known as the “Talk and Do Chief”, Dr. Quinton de’ Alexander traveled from America during the midst of the ‘Covid 19’ pandemic crisis and against America travel warnings to Liberia to present the 2020 ‘We Dream In Color Foundation “Nelson Mandela Freedom Award” to Liberia native ‘Amb. Bill M. Rogers’ at the historical landmark, ‘Providence Island’. To his surprise, Dr. de’ Alexander became overwhelmed when the people of Liberia bestowed upon him chieftaincy ‘Chief Tamba Taylor’. On that very day, Chief Tamba Taylor made a vow to change the perception of the image and reputation plastered throughout various social media platforms.

Upon returning to America, Chief Tamba Taylor went straight to work. Not only becoming enriched with Liberia’s history and becoming one with ‘Paramount Chief Tamba Taylor’ legacy, he begin to gathering various educational and personal necessities to begin uplifting and empowering those most overlook. The less fortunate children and families of Liberia. In his first two (2) years, Chief Tamba Taylor has delivered over fifty (50) barrels of ‘food, school and educational supplies, new clothes, farming supples, established a playground in remembrance of ‘Paramount Chief Tamba Taylor’, assisted several students with their education fees, provided supplies to fight ‘Covid 19’, sponsored trips for the less fortunate students to the ‘Liberian National Museum’ to become informed and enriched with their history. As well as by requested, established the ‘Chief Tamba Taylor’ support group for athletes feeling ‘Unheard and Seen’ to name a few. Some of the recipients were ‘Belenie Christian Foundation School System, Bill Rogers Youth Foundation, The People of Woryan Town, Women For Positive Actions, Quality Foundation Daycare & Educational Center, Jazhet School and Foundation, The School For Orphans and Deaf Ministry, Wubu Foundation For Deaf Children Development International, Liberia Crusaders For Peace, Armah & Lydia Lansanah Foundation, Dorcas Circle Effort Baptist Church, Liberia, New Life In Christ Interdenominational Church, and The Liberian Nation Museum.

“When you dream BIG and Dream In Color nothing can stop you from reaching the un-reachable star” says multi-award winning self taught ‘Philanthropist, Humanitarian, Designer, Playwright and Executive Producer’, Dr. Quinton de’ Alexander. A designer with ‘50’ fifty plus years of experience, Quinton is known best for what are called “Drama Dresses”. Custom handmade gown created by himself designed to turn heads the minute your entrance is made. Life has been like a dream for this talented designer since his first fashion presentation. Most recently, having his life’s journey showcased through a four month exhibit entitled “BLUEPRINT” at the Du Sable Museum of African American History. As well as being a featured in the newly released book “BLACK LUXE” 110 CONTEMPORARY

AFRICAN AMERICAN ICONS” featured with legendary leaders such as President Obama, Muhammad Ali, Louis Farrakhan & Jesse Jackson Jr. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Quinton is Founder/CEO of We Dream In Color Foundation and Founder /President of Chez de’ Alexander. Creating designs for an impressive range of clientele-from celebrities to small non-profits organizations. Earning various accolades. Such a featured designer for ‘Ebony Fashion Fair’ International Traveling Tour, Designer of The Year of his costume designs of “SONGDIVA” musical & Lakeside Community ‘Humanitarian of The Year’ to name a few. He is a strong believer in giving back to the community and doing so throughout his career. Giving freely of his time to organizations such as ‘La Rabida Children’s Hospital, The Chicago Academy For The Arts, Feed The Children & Seniors Lifestyle Corporation. In 2012, Quinton founder Project “We Live and Remember In Color” whose mission is to unify the awareness colors of health and humanity in one ribbon. Wanting to bring the awareness to unseen survivors making a difference in the community from various life’s challenges, Quinton created “We Dream In Color” Humanitarian Celebration. A red carpet event celebrating the life of survivors and memories of loved ones lost. In eight years, “We Dream In Color” Humanitarian Celebration has become one of Chicago’s not to miss events. Funds raised for the celebration is utilized in feeding those less fortunate through ‘We Dream In Color Foundation Inc.’ monthly feeding program and providing ‘new clothes, books and toys’ during the Christmas Holiday Season. For his generosity and dedication to giving back to the community, Quinton was very honored in the year of 1999 to have November 6th declared Quinton de’ Alexander Day in Illinois by the Honorable Mayor Richard M. Day and receiving in 2019 Proclamation from the Honorable Mayor Lori Lightfoot for his vision of ‘We Dream In Color’ Humanitarian Celebration. The plans are limitless for Dr. de’ Alexander. In 2019, Quinton launched the ‘Blueprint’ Exhibit Tour and design program for “At Risk Youth’ both in the fall of 2020. The mission continues in 2023, with Dr. de’ Alexander’s pledge to build (3) additional ‘Chief Tamba Taylor’ community playgrounds in various disadvantaged communities throughout Monrovia, Liberia. Quinton’s four most proudest moments at this time is becoming ‘Chaplain Dr. Quinton de’ Alexander’ in March 2021, Recipient of the 2022 ‘Mahogany Foundation ‘ Hall of Fame Award’, Recipient of ‘LMA Magazine’ 2022 ‘International Leadership Mind Ambassadors Award’ Asaba, Nigeria, and January 2023, having his Blueprint cemented in the ‘Liberian National Museum’ with his induction of ‘Chieftaincy Image, Chieftaincy Gown and one of his Haute Couture ladies gown to be displayed permanently with ‘Mama Liberia’s’ richness of history and culture. The sky is limitless for an ‘8’ year young self taught designer who wasn’t afraid to dream BIG and DREAM IN COLOR!

Origin of Easter and First Celebrated

The earliest Christians celebrated the resurrection on the fourteenth of Nisan (our March-April), the date of the Jewish Passover. Jewish days were reckoned from evening to evening, so Jesus had celebrated His Last Supper the evening of the Passover and was crucified the day of the Passover. The origin of Easter started with early Christians celebrating the Passover worshiped Jesus as the Paschal Lamb and Redeemer.

The origin of some of the Gentile Christians began celebrating Easter in the nearest Sunday to the Passover since Jesus actually arose on a Sunday. This especially became the case in the western part of the Roman Empire. In Rome itself, different congregations celebrated Easter on different days!

Many felt that the date should continue to be based on the timing of the Resurrection during Passover. Once Jewish leaders determined the date of Passover each year, Christian leaders could set the date for Easter by figuring three days after Passover. Following this schedule would have meant that Easter would be a different day of the week each year, only falling on a Sunday once in a while.

Others believed since the Lord rose on a Sunday and this day had been set aside as the Lord’s Day, this was the only possible day to celebrate His resurrection. As Christianity drew away from Judaism, some were reluctant to base the Christian celebration on the Jewish calendar.

Constantine wanted Christianity to be totally separated from Judaism and did not want Easter to be celebrated on the Jewish Passover. The Council of Nicea accordingly required the feast of the resurrection to be celebrated on a Sunday and never on the Jewish Passover. Easter was to be the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. Since the date of the vernal equinox changed from year to year, calculating the proper date can be difficult. This is still the method used to determine Easter today, which is why some years we have Easter earlier than other years.

Many of Hollywood's biggest stars were honored at the 95th Academy

Awards on Sunday.

"Everything Everywhere All at Once" lead this year's Oscars, winning seven of the 11 awards it was nominated for including the night's biggest prizes of best picture and best director. Michelle Yeoh, the film's star, made history as the first Asian woman to win the Oscar for best actress.

“

This is proof that dreams ... do come true, ” she said during her acceptance speech. “And ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. "

Other actresses nominated in the category included Cate Blanchett for

"Tár,” Ana de Armas for "Blonde, ” Andrea Riseborough for "To Leslie” and Michelle Williams for "The Fabelmans. ”

"All Quiet on the Western Front" followed with four Oscars. "The Whale" took home two awards, including Brendan Fraser's best actor win.

MORE: Oscars 2023: How to watch and what to know ahead of Hollywood's biggest night

Everything Everywhere

All at onceBest Picture

Michelle YeohBest Actress

Jamie Lee CurtisBest Supporting Actress

Brendan FraserBest Actor

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou

F o r b e s 2 0 2 1 :

O k o n j o - I w e a l a ,

S a m i a S u l u h u , a n d

M o A b u d u a re t h e

t h re e m o s t

p o w e r f u l w o m e n i n

A f r i c a

Forbes 2021:

and Mo Abudu are the three most powerful women in Africa

On December 7, Forbes announced its 18th annual ranking of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.

This year ’s list featured only three African women; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Samia Suluhu Hassan, and Mo Abudu.

Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, tops this year ’s ranking, replacing former German chancellor Angela Merkel.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the highest-ranking female politician in the United States of America’s history, took the #2 spot.

Okonjo-Iweala, Samia Suluhu,

Smithsonian American Women: Remarkable Stories of Strength, Ingenuity, and Vision from the National Collection

by Smithsonian Institution

Price: $40.00

An inspiring and surprising celebration of U.S. women's history told through Smithsonian artifacts illustrating women's participation in science, art, music, sports, fashion, business, religion, entertainment, military, politics, activism, and more.

This book offers a unique, panoramic look at women's history in the United States through the lens of ordinary objects from, by, and for extraordinary women. Featuring more than 280 artifacts from 16 Smithsonian museums and archives, and more than 135 essays from 95 Smithsonian authors, this book tells women's history as only the Smithsonian can.

Featured objects range from fine art to computer code, from First Ladies memorabilia to Black Lives Matter placards, and from Hopi pottery to a couch from the Oprah Winfrey show. There are familiar objects--such as the suffrage wagon used to advocate passage of the 19th Amendment and the Pussy Hat from the 2016 Women's March in DC--as well as lesser known pieces revealing untold stories. Portraits, photographs, paintings, political materials, signs, musical instruments, sports equipment, clothes, letters, ads, personal posessions, and other objects reveal the incredible stories of such amazing women as Phillis Wheatley, Julia Child, Sojourner Truth, Mary Cassat, Madame CJ Walker, Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mamie Till Mobley, Dolores Clara Fernandez Huerta, Phyllis Diller, Celia Cruz, Sandra Day O'Connor, Billie Jean King, Silvia Rivera, and so many more.

Together with illuminating text, these objects elevate the importance of American women in the home, workplace, government, and beyond. Published to commemorate the centennial of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, Smithsonian American Women is a deeply satisfying read and a must-have reflection on how generations of women have defined what it means to be recognized in both the nation and the world.

ISBN 10: 158834665X

ISBN 13: 9781588346650

African Women Who’ve Made History

This riveting narrative explores the lives of six remarkable female pharaohs, from Hatshepsut to Cleopatra-women who ruled with real power--and shines a piercing light on our own perceptions of women in power today.

Female rulers are a rare phenomenon--but thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, women reigned supreme. Regularly, repeatedly, and with impunity, queens like Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, and Cleopatra controlled the totalitarian state as power-brokers and rulers. But throughout human history, women in positions of power were more often used as political pawns in a male-dominated society. What was so special about ancient Egypt that provided women this kind of access to the highest political office? What was it about these women that allowed them to transcend patriarchal obstacles? What did Egypt gain from its liberal reliance on female leadership, and could today's world learn from its example?

Celebrated Egyptologist Kara Cooney delivers a fascinating tale of female power, exploring the reasons why it has seldom been allowed through the ages, and why we should care.

Kara Cooney

Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California.

Madam C. J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove in Delta, Louisiana in 1867 to parents who had been enslaved before the Civil War. Orphaned at seven, married at fourteen and widowed at twenty, she spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then—with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for black women—everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: building a storied beauty empire from the ground up, amassing wealth unprecedented among black women and devoting her life to philanthropy and social activism. Along the way, she formed friendships with great early-twentieth-century political figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington and Mary McLeod Bethune.

On Her Own Ground is not only the first comprehensive biography of one of recent history’s most amazing entrepreneurs and philanthropists, it is about a woman who is truly an African American icon. Drawn from more than two decades of exhaustive research, the book is enriched by the author ’s exclusive access to personal letters, records and never-before-seen photographs from the family collection. Bundles also showcases Walker ’s complex relationship with her daughter, A’Lelia Walker, a celebrated hostess of the Harlem Renaissance and renowned friend to both Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. In chapters such as “Freedom Baby,” “Motherless Child,” “Bold Moves” and “Black Metropolis,” Bundles traces her ancestor ’s improbable rise to the top of an international hair care empire that would be run by four generations of Walker women and exists today as MCJW Beauty Culture, a division of Sundial Brands. Along the way, On Her Own Ground reveals surprising insights, tells fascinating stories and dispels many misconceptions.

About A’Lelia

A’Lelia Bundles is an engaging public speaker and skilled MC, who brings warmth, intelligence, humor and a strong grasp of current events and history to her presentations.

Author and journalist A’Lelia Bundles is the author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam

C.J. Walker – a New York Times Notable Book about her entrepreneurial great-great-grandmother – that is the inspiration for Self Made, the fictional four-part Netflix series starring Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer that premiered in March 2020. She is at work on her fifth book, The Joy Goddess of Harlem: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, a biography of her great-grandmother, whose parties, arts patronage and international travels helped define that era.

A’Lelia is brand historian for MADAM by Madam C. J. Walker, a line of hair care products developed in partnership with Sundial Brands and Walmart. In February 2022 she was named the inaugural Center for Africana Studies and Culture Prestigious Fellow in the School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. She is the founder of the Madam Walker Family Archives, the largest private collection of Walker photographs and memorabilia.

She is a vice chair emerita of Columbia University’s Board of Trustees and chair emerita of the board of the National Archives Foundation. She is a member of several boards that reflect her interest in history, journalism, political activism, social justice and historic preservation including the March on Washington Film Festival, the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Indiana Landmarks, Columbia Global Reports and the Smithsonian’s American Women’s History Initiative.

A’Lelia was a network television news executive and producer for thirty years at NBC News and then at ABC News, where she was Washington, DC deputy bureau chief and director of talent development.

Her articles and essays have been published in the New York Times Book Review, Variety, TheUndefeated.com, Al Jazeera, Parade, Ms., O Magazine, Essence, several encyclopedias and books, and on her blog at www.aleliabundles.com. As a speaker and emcee, she has appeared at universities, corporations and book festivals, as well as on ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NBC, NPR, PBS and BBC. She has served as an advisor for numerous documentaries, museum exhibits, biographies, scholarly papers and history texts.

Former First Lady, Michelle Obama by Artist Amy Sherald

Ongoing

NOTE: The museum’s official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama will be off view beginning in May, 2021. Amy Sherald's portrait of Mrs Obama has inspired an unprecedented response from the public, and will be featured in The The Obama Portraits Tour, organized by the National Portrait Gallery The tour will travel to seven cities across the U.S. from June 2021 through October 2022 and is expected to reach millions of people who might not otherwise have an opportunity to view this remarkable painting. The painting will return to view in Washington, D.C., with celebrations at the Portrait Gallery in early November

Former

First Lady, Michelle Obama by Artist Amy Sherald

Ongoing

NOTE: The museum’s official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama will be off view beginning in May, 2021. Amy Sherald's portrait of Mrs Obama has inspired an unprecedented response from the public, and will be featured in The The Obama Portraits Tour, organized by the National Portrait Gallery. The tour will travel to seven cities across the U.S. from June 2021 through October 2022 and is expected to reach millions of people who might not otherwise have an opportunity to view this remarkable painting. The painting will return to view in Washington, D.C., with celebrations at the Portrait Gallery in early November