Daily News Feed 11.01.2009/Vocab: irenic

Bernice King elected SCLC president
The Rev. Bernice King embraced the legacy and leadership of her parents on Friday as she became the first woman to head the civil rights organization co-founded by her father. The youngest child of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King vowed to be a bridge between the civil rights generation and the hip-hop generation as the eighth president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “I stand before you as a daughter of the civil rights movement calling forth the daughters and sons of the next generation of social change,” King said Friday at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her father preached from 1960 until his death in 1968. “I am a King, yet I am mindful that I am not the only one.” (Continue Reading…)

Blacks still drawn to Islam despite FBI raids
By now, Sekou Jackson is used to the questions: Why does he need to leave a work meeting to pray? Don’t black Muslims convert to Islam in jail? Why would you even want to be Muslim? “It’s kind of a double whammy to be African-American and Muslim,” said Jackson, who studies the Navy at the National Academy of Science in Washington. “You’re going to be judged.” Jackson’s struggle may have gotten harder when the FBI on Wednesday raided a Detroit-area warehouse used by a Muslim group. The FBI said the group’s leader preached hate against the government, trafficked in stolen goods and belonged to a radical group that wants to establish a Muslim state in America. The imam of the group’s mosque, a black American named Luqman Ameen Abdullah, was killed in a shootout with agents. (Continue Reading…)

Harvard to offer class on HBO’s ‘The Wire’
Harvard students will be able to watch the “The Wire” for class credit next year. At a panel last night, stars of the HBO hit series joined Harvard professors in discussing the applications of the show—which depicts the struggles of urban life in Baltimore—in understanding and combating real urban social issues. “‘The Wire’ has done more to enhance our understanding of the systemic urban inequality that constrains the lives of the poor than any published study” Sociology Professor William J. Wilson said. (Continue Reading…)

Ex-tobacco insider says companies target Blacks
A former tobacco industry executive said Friday in Charleston that cigarette companies have targeted black people in America. LaTanisha Wright began working for the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., based in Louisville, Ky., in 2001. She resigned after the company merged with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco in July 2004 to form Reynolds American. “My goal is to educate people in churches, schools and community centers, as well as public health officials,” Wright said. She said her experience in the tobacco industry makes her better able to help people now. (Continue Reading…)