On yesterday, Presiding Bishop of the Church of God in Christ J. Drew Sheard issued a statement celebrating the establishment of a monument honoring Emmett Till. The Till family was served by Roberts Temple COGIC as many in the nation saw for the first time the horrors of lynching in America. As noted on a site dedicated to the preservation of historic Roberts Temple COGIC, the Church of God in Christ has significant ties to civil rights history in America. Besides Roberts Temple hosting the visitation and funeral of Emmett Till, Malcolm X was funeralized at Faith Temple Church of God in Christ in Harlem, New York and most famously, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” from the pulpit of COGIC headquarters, Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee.
Chicago landmark at Robert’s Temple COGIC Photo Credit: Robert’s Temple (Facebook) taken by Jacek Boczarski
Current presiding bishop Sheard is the eighth in succession and stands on the shoulders of gospel giants who have helmed one of the largest Pentecostal denominations in the world. At the time of Emmett Till’s heinous murder, the Church of God in Christ was still under the leadership of its founder, Bishop Charles Harrison Mason.
At a fraught time in the U.S. over matters concerning race and history, President Joe Biden signed a proclamation creating a national monument honoring Emmett Till, a Black teenager who was abducted, tortured and killed in 1955, and his mother.
The Presiding Bishop had this to say about the monument and what it means to America and the Church of God in Christ:
“On July 25, 2023, what would be Mr. Emmett Till’s 82nd birthday, I am delighted that our nation, under President Joe Biden’s leadership, will honor Mr. Till and his mother, Mrs. Mamie Till-Mobley, with a national monument established across three locations in Illinois and Mississippi, in an effort to protect the actual places that tell Till’s agonizing story.The monument will serve as a reminder of the atrocities that occurred in August 1955, when two white men abducted, tortured, and killed Till, a 14-year old Black boy, accused of offending a white woman. The monument also allows for reflection of the valiant activism demonstrated by his mother, determined to keep the story of her son’s senseless murder alive.
For today’s generation, the monument is a critical symbol of the tribulation endured by African Americans during the harrowing, culture shifting years of the Civil Rights era in America.As the funeral of Mr. Emmett Till was held at Robert’s Temple Church Of God In Christ in Chicago, Illinois, the Church Of God In Christ, Inc. is incredibly humbled to have been a haven for Mrs. Mamie Till-Mobley and her family, as they courageously displayed the injustice inflicted upon the young Emmett Till.This brave family has been a part of the Church Of God In Christ for many generations”.
NEW CHILDREN’S BOOK SERIES FEATURES A STRONG BLACK FAMILY WITH HAPPY FACES… AND A COMMITTED FATHER!
In what they are calling a movement to build strong, happy, confident children, authors Malcolm and Denise M. Johnson are releasing a series of books that portray positive Black households with an active committed father.
Malcolm and Denise M. Johnson are a Black married couple from Chicago who began strengthening their marriage, creating tools to teach children and developing their personal skills by creating and building unique characters. Lotus and Lily Go to the Park (available on Amazon.com) is the first book of their series, and they are currently working on the illustrations for their second book, which is designed for children 5 to 7 years old.
The book is designed for children, 2 to 5 years old – introducing them to new sight words, while teaching them colors and numbers at the same time. In the book, children will learn with repetition and seeing happy faces. The book is written by Denise M. Johnson with original drawings by Malcolm Johnson. The book is colored by Mrs. Johnson as well, using a simple Paint program on their laptop. They followed a complexed process to complete the artwork to avoid purchasing extra software, and are very proud of the outcome as first time published authors and illustrators.
The book relates to the Black community in particular. The family members in the book are all different complexions, which children will enjoy finding a character that they can identify with regardless of their complexions. The book shows a strong black family interacting and enthusiastic to learn and follow routines. The Johnson Jrs are very serious about portraying positive Black households with an active committed father in their writings.
Lotus and Lily Go to the Park is scheduled to be released in paperback on September 6, 2018, and the ebook is available for pre order immediately. The Johnson Jrs look forward to sharing their book with the special children in your lives. They consider this more than a book, but a movement to build strong, happy, confident children before they start school.
CKE Restaurants, Inc. to re-launch Hardee’s, featuring real people, real moments, and real food as part of its larger company strategy
CKE Restaurants, Inc. today announces they are further evolving the separation of their iconic restaurants by saying “Welcome Home to Hardee’s,” celebrating the distinct customer, food culture, and voice Hardee’s has in America.
“Hardee’s has been, and always will be a brand that ‘welcomes you home,’” said Jason Marker, chief executive officer, CKE Restaurants, Inc. “It’s an exciting time for not only the brand, but for the entire company. We will accelerate the growth of our business by providing both iconic brands the space they need to grow, putting our unbeatable quality and great tasting food at the forefront of the business.”
For the first time in nearly a decade, Hardee’s is taking center stage, celebrating America’s heartland with a brand defining campaign, Tastes Like America.
Created by Havas Chicago, Tastes Like America celebrates the values Hardee’s shares with its customers throughout the country. As one of the most beloved regional brands in America, Hardee’s will feature real people, real moments, and real food. Always focused on quality, Tastes Like America celebrates pride in process, providing customers with food the way they’d make it, and creating a true ‘comfort culture’.
“No fast food brand has ‘comfort culture’ more core to its DNA than Hardee’s,” said Jeff Jenkins, chief marketing officer, CKE Restaurants, Inc. “Just like we’re pushing ‘crave culture’ forward with Carl’s Jr., we’re going to use this new campaign to introduce customers to ‘comfort culture’ at Hardee’s, placing a heavy emphasis on local pride and quality food.”
Hardee’s defines ‘comfort culture’ as a “down home, done right” approach to food, from 100 percent Black Angus Thickburgers®, Made from Scratch™ Biscuits, Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders™, to Hand-Scooped milkshakes, and everything that surrounds it. It’s a sense of comfort and pride that comes from who you are, where you’re from, and how you do things. The new campaign features hick hop music star, Big Wet, whose voice personifies an authentic, relaxed vibe that ‘comfort culture’ is all about. His voice is featured on Hardee’s new television commercial and anthem song, which partners his musical style with real people in Hardee’s markets.
“Hardee’s is part of the fabric of a modern American culture,” said Jason Peterson, chief creative officer, Havas Creative, U.S. “It’s a reflection of a contemporary society in America that isn’t celebrated often enough.”
In the coming months, Hardee’s marketing efforts will be impossible to ignore as they build out Tastes Like America on both a regional and local level. Customers can expect to see a revived look and feel at their local Hardee’s, new menu items featuring their handmade process, and regional campaigns tailored to the unique nature of local markets across America.
About CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc. CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc. (“CKE”) is a privately held company headquartered in Franklin, Tenn. CKE is not a franchisor and conducts substantially all of its restaurant activities and operations through its subsidiaries. Carl’s Jr. Restaurants LLC and Hardee’s Restaurants LLC own, operate and franchise the Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, Green Burrito® and Red Burrito® concepts. Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s operate as one brand under two names, acknowledging the rich regional heritage of both banners. After recent international openings in Chile, Cambodia and Kenya, Carl’s Jr. Restaurants LLC and Hardee’s Restaurants LLC now have over 3,800 franchised or company-operated restaurants in 44 states and 43 foreign countries and U.S. territories. Known for its one-of-a-kind premium menu items such as 100 percent Black Angus Thickburgers®, Made from Scratch™ Biscuits and Hand-Breaded Chicken Tenders™, as well as an award-winning marketing approach, the Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s brand continues to deliver substantial and consistent growth in the U.S. and overseas. The Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s system is now 94 percent franchised, with international restaurants representing 21 percent of the system.
About Havas U.S. Havas U.S. is a progressive agency focused on being the most valuable partner to the modern CMO. It offers a comprehensive mix of capabilities that aren’t what you’d expect to find in a creative firm, such as experience design, cognitive, data and technology. With Villages in New York and Chicago, Havas U.S. brings nearly 2,700 of the most talented people in the business. As the most modern, flexible and agile agency in the U.S., Havas U.S. reinforces the following five key pillars in everything it does: creativity, culture, community, consumer experience and commerce. We are creators. We are data. We are social. We are ideas.
As The Godmother of Rock & Roll Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s highly-anticipated induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Early Influences wing approaches on April 14, Verve/UMe is bringing the trailblazer’s vaunted catalog into the digital age, making more than 200 songs available for download and streaming, most for the first time ever. (PRNewsfoto/Verve/UMe)
As The Godmother of Rock & Roll Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s highly-anticipated induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Early Influences wing approaches, Verve/UMe is bringing the trailblazer’s vaunted catalog into the digital age, making more than 200 songs available for download and streaming, most for the first time ever. The initiative, which includes seven long out-of-print albums and all 130 singles she recorded for Decca between 1938 and 1956, began on March 30 with the release of three albums: 1951’s gospel hymns LP Blessed Assurance, originally on a Decca 10-inch LP and now expanded with three rare bonus tracks; an expanded edition of her acclaimed 1958 Decca collection, Gospel Train, with two rare bonus tracks; and her spirited 1960 self-titled album Sister Rosetta Tharpe, originally issued on MGM Records.
Over these next two weeks leading up to her induction on April 14, four additional essential Tharpe recordings and her Decca singles, divided into five volumes, will be released. The albums include expanded editions of her pioneering 1956 album Gospel Train (not to be confused with the 1958 Decca album of the same name), expanded with five bonus tracks including the non-LP single “When The Saints Go Marching In” and two previously unreleased performances, and her riveting 1959 live concert LP The Gospel Truth, bolstered by two unreleased tracks and two non-LP singles from the era, as well as the similarly named 1962 The Gospel Truth: All New! Her Greatest Gospel Hits, featuring brand new recordings of many of her best-known songs, and 1961’s Sister On Tour; the latter two were recorded for Verve. All albums, except the original Gospel Train (1956), are making their digital debut.
Following years of performing in churches across the country, first with her mother as traveling, singing missionaries when young Rosetta was a six-year-old guitar prodigy billed as a “singing and guitar playing miracle,” and later on her own as the star attraction, Tharpe’s recording career began in 1938 when she signed to Decca at age 23. Throughout the next two decades, the singer, songwriter and electrifying guitarist was incredibly prolific, touring incessantly and releasing a steady stream of 78s and 45s consisting of some of her most immensely popular and influential songs. While some of these songs have ended up on various CDs over the years, both official and unofficial, the majority of them have never been released digitally. The Complete Decca Singles Volumes 1-5 collects all of Tharpe’s singles together for the first time and presents them in chronological order by release date with the corresponding B-side. An incredible 90% of these songs will be available digitally for the first time while only 13 of them overlap with the album releases.
Vol. 1, featuring tracks from 1938-1941, includes Tharpe’s earliest recordings including “The Lonesome Road” and Thomas Dorsey’s“Rock Me,” which established her as an overnight sensation and one of the first commercially successful gospel recording artists. Rolling Stone describes the song as a “transformed spiritual…recorded with her soaring held notes and sexy growls back in 1938 – when the latter-day King of Rock & Roll, Elvis Presley, was still a toddler.” Other songs include the well-known “This Train” and “That’s All” and several featuring Tharpe performing with big band leader Lucky Millinder and his Orchestra on such secular songs as “Shout, Sister, Shout.”
Vol. 2, with tracks from 1942-1946, includes her 1945 hit collaboration with boogie-woogie pianist Sam Price, “Strange Things Happening Every Day,” the first gospel record to cross over and become a hit, peaking at #2 on Billboard’s “race chart,” now known as R&B. The song has been cited as an important precursor to rock and roll. Other sides include the jazzy “Two Little Fishes And Five Loaves of Bread,” “Jonah” and the evangelical early blues of “Singing In My Soul,” all with the Sam Price Trio. Vol. 3, covering 1947-1949,collects a number of bluesy spirituals made with Tharpe’s contemporary Marie Knight and the Sam Price Trio such as “Up Above My Head I Hear Music In The Air,” “Didn’t It Rain” and “My Journey To The Sky.” Tharpe is joined by her mother Katie Bell Nubin on the gospel rave up “Ninety-Nine And A Half Won’t Do.”Vol. 4, featuring her Decca singles from 1949-1953and Vol. 5, from 1954-1956,includes more collaboration with Marie Knight and The Sam Price Trio as well as vocal group The Anita Kerr Singers, quartet The Southwinds and country singer Red Foley, showcasing her eclectic career.
In his own Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction speech, Johnny Cash called Tharpe one of his earliest heroes. Elvis Presley named her one of his favorite singers and guitar players, and Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Keith Richards all cited seeing her European tour with Muddy Waters in 1963 as a profound moment in their lives. And, well, she originated the windmill guitar stroke associated with Pete Townsend. Yet Tharpe is not a household name like those men. That’s slowly changing and, over the years, as more has been discovered and written about her, she has been solidified as one of the early architects of rock and roll. Her long overdue induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will put her side by side in the Early Influences wing with fellow luminaries Billie Holiday, Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, Bessie Smith and Howlin’ Wolf. The 33rd Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony takes place April 14 at Public Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio.
Upon the news of Tharpe’s induction, Rolling Stone wrote, “No artist has been more overdue for recognition than Sister Rosetta Tharpe,” adding, “A queer black woman from Arkansas who shredded on electric guitar, belted praises both to God and secular pleasures, and broke the color line touring with white singers, she was gospel’s first superstar, and she most assuredly rocked.” Born March 20, 1915 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, Tharpe defied expectations from an early age as a guitar prodigy. At six years old, her mother left her father to be a traveling evangelist and together they joined the exodus of poor black southerners heading north. They settled in Chicago where young Rosetta encountered the music that migrants had brought with them – blues from the Mississippi delta and jazz from New Orleans. She began performing gospel music as Little Rosetta Nubin with her mother at churches as part of a traveling Baptist roadshow. By the time she was in her 20s, she was a seasoned performer whose distinctive voice and unconventional style, filled with her signature feverish electric guitar playing, attracted many fans.
“She was there before Elvis, Little Richard and Johnny Cash swiveled their hips and strummed their guitars,” NPR proclaimed in their feature of Tharpe. “It was Tharpe, the godmother of rock ‘n’ roll, who turned this burgeoning musical style into an international sensation… Through her unforgettable voice and gospel swing crossover style, Tharpe influenced a generation of musicians including Aretha Franklin, Chuck Berry and countless others.” Without Sister Rosetta Tharpe, rock and roll would not be the same. As the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame said, “She is the founding mother who gave rock’s founding fathers the idea,” declaring, “No one deserves more to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.“
NEW BOOK, “THE GRASS IS THE FIRST TO GO,” TACKLES VIOLENCE, MORALITY, RACE AND POLITICS
Motivational speaker and author, Orlando Ceaser’s, new book uses art to tackle hot topics. The Grass Is the First to Go is ten one-act plays with a discussion guide to stimulate thought and spirited conversations. Their controversial nature and provocative content is written to inspire and jolt people to sit down and talk.
The news is filled with stories on crime, gun violence, mass incarceration, Black Lives Matters, #MeToo, sexual harassment, injustice and gentrification. Schools, businesses and other organizations confront morality, racial identity, unconscious bias and stereotypes. There is a need for resources to increase engagement and interactive problem-solving. The Grass Is the First to Go can be staged or read aloud in small groups to help create dialogue, solutions and action plans. They can help groups break down walls and build understanding about diversity and inclusion.
Am I Black Enough? is a play about the struggle in communities when people within the same group have their cultural and racial identity challenged by their own. The signature play, The Grass Is the First to Go, speaks to the lack of stewardship and the failure to value life, opportunity and resources. I Protest, was inspired by young people in the Black Lives Matter Movement. These brave and vocal souls stand up for justice and equality and against hypocrisy and injustice. My Life Defined, begs the question, what does it say about our lives if our pursuit of pleasure, self-indulgences and selfishness direct our behavior toward matters that do not address the major inequities of our times?
Orlando Ceaser is a writer, professional speaker, thought leader and voiceover specialist. He spent his first career as a business executive in the pharmaceutical industry. He has over 30 years of experience in sales, management, training, diversity, marketing, leadership and personal development. He aspires to entertain, educate and inspire people to unlock their leadership greatness to reach their dreams.
Mr. Ceaser advises students, parents and employees to become Impact Players in school, work and in their communities. Impact players are individuals who are prominent and dominant in their fields. They are the game changes who improve performance through their actions. Mr. Ceaser achieves this objective through key note addresses, workshops, spoken word CDs and books.
Mr. Ceaser has presented to prisoners and those responsible for ministering to them. He presents two decision making models; The Know System(TM) and The Objection Model – The Art of Refusal(TM). These models guide users to make decisions consistent with their faith and value systems. Mr. Ceaser is the author of twelve books including Unlock your Leadership Greatness, Leadership above the Rim, The Isle of Knowledge, Look for the Blessing and Leadership Greatness through High Performance Poetry. His blog, www.myozonelayer.com focuses on management, motivation and leadership.
