Hello World,

I’m back with my monthly roundup of blog posts and or articles for black Christian women! So below is my Top 10 monthly roundup of blog posts and or magazine/newspaper articles for black Christian women for January ( but you don’t have be a black Christian woman to to check them out 🙂  As usual, let me know if you like my list! Enjoy and share!

1. “A Girl Named Keisha: Mayor of Atlanta” by Marshall A. Latimore 

Excerpt: Atlanta native Keisha Lance Bottoms took the oath of office on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018, becoming the 60th mayor in the history of Atlanta, and just the second woman to hold the office. Bottoms also is the first Atlanta Public Schools’ alumnus to hold the office as well.Bottoms was sworn in at the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel on the campus of Morehouse College to a packed auditorium of thousands. Among those who attended the 3-hour ceremony were former mayors Andrew Young, Sam Massell, and Bill Campbell. Civil Rights legend John Lewis also attended the ceremony. See more at: theatlantavoice.com. 

2.”Me Too Creator Tarana Burke Reminds Us This Is About Black and Brown Survivors” by Zenobia Jeffries

Excerpt:  Within 24 hours the hashtag had been used on Twitter 825,000 times, and on Facebook, 4.7 million people had used it in 12 million posts.But there’s another “me too” story, about a movement that began a decade before it was a hashtag. In 2006, Tarana Burke, founder and director of Just Be Inc. and senior director of Girls for Gender Equity, founded the program me too Movement. Its goal is to empower young women of color who have been sexually abused, assaulted, or exploited, women from marginalized communities. These are the women missing from media discussions of celebrity cases such as Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, and Louis C.K. They are the survivors of sexual harassment and assault that occur in ordinary work spaces, or schools, churches, homes of friends or family members, or the streets of their neighborhoods. But they lack the resources, class status, or even the acceptable skin color to have their stories told. I recently had a conversation with Burke about the decade-old me too Movement, the recent social media campaign, and what’s in store for me too in 2018. See more at: yesmagazine.org.

3.”The Woman Behind Oprah’s Powerful Golden Globes Speech: Recy Taylor’s Heartbreaking Fight For Justice After Being Raped By Six White Men” by Rachel Herron

Excerpt:  In 2010, historian Danielle L. McGuire published At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance — a New History of the Civil Rights Movement From Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power, which featured the rape of Recy Taylor and subsequent lack of justice served. The book led to the Alabama Legislature offering an apology to Recy in 2011. In their apology, the Alabama Legislature called the failure to indict Recy’s attackers “morally abhorrent and repugnant.” In early December, a documentary called The Rape of Recy Taylor was released. Recy died three weeks later in Abbeville, Alabama. See more at: bet.com.

4.”In 2018, Black Women Want More Than Thanks. They Want Political Power” by  P.R. Lockhart 

Excerpt: With the beginning of a new year, especially one that will end with a highly anticipated midterm election, the Alabama result offers hope for Democrats eager to regain political power in the Trump era. But for black women, the post-Alabama moment also presents an additional opportunity, a potential turning point in how they are treated in political circles. Both parties have been reminded yet again that black women have been a consistently reliable bloc for the Democrats. In 2018, black women say they want to see a return on their investment. See more at: vox.com.

5.”Jay-Z’s ‘Family Feud’ Video Trashed By Catholic League: It’s Exploitative & Gratuitous!” by Jasmine Brand Staff

Excerpt: Jay-Z’s new video is receiving some heat from the religious community. According to reports, his star studded ‘Family Feud’ video, which was directed by Ava DuVernay is being criticized by the Catholic League. In fact, they call the video “gratuitous as well as exploitative.” In part of the video, Jay-Z, his daughter Blue Ivy and wife Beyonce are in a church. See more at: thejasminebrand.com.

6.”Before Fenty: Over 100 Years of Black Makeup Brands” by Nadra Nittle 

Excerpt:  But the enormous outpouring of support Fenty has received belies the fact that Rihanna is far from the first entrepreneur to meet the cosmetics needs of women of color. For more than a century, makeup brands have courted the black community and prospered, making it all the more curious that it took 2017’s so-called Fenty effect to confirm the obvious: Women of color enjoy makeup and are eager to buy it. The first businessperson to successfully tap into this market wasn’t a black woman, but a black man named Anthony Overton. A lawyer who also had a chemistry degree, he opened the Overton Hygienic Manufacturing Co. in Kansas in 1898. The business initially sold baking powder and other products to drug and grocery stores, but Overton recognized that women of color lacked cosmetics that came in their skin tones. The observation prompted his historic foray into makeup. See more at: racked.com. 

7.”The Student Loan Doctor LLC Becomes the First African American and Woman-Owned Student Loan Debt Repayment Company” by BOTWC Staff

Excerpt:  “I started doing consulting for people in church, then the church sent the community, and the community sent friends,” Sonia Lewis explained in an interview with the Shaderoom. “My passion started from my own debt. I needed to get myself together and sit my own self down. I felt like other people needed this too… Plus, I realized there were no classes to help people really understand their debt.”  The Student Loan Doctor, LLC was designed to: educate people about student loan debt, provide assistance in making tangible action plans towards debt repayment, and to provide coaching around other personal financial decision-making, such as budgeting, home loans and ownership, and loan forgiveness programs. Sonia’s experience working with both high school and college students made starting her own coaching group a natural progression. Her passion and insight into higher education spaces allows her and her team to provide personalized services, including one-on-one coaching and formal and informal speaking engagements. See more at: becauseofthemwecan.com.

8.”Meet The Fearless Cook Who Secretly Fed — And Funded — The Civil Rights Movement” by Maria Godoy

Excerpt: In December 1955, after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white man, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other black ministers and community leaders organized a citywide bus boycott in protest. That part is well known. Less well-known is the story of Georgia Gilmore, the Montgomery cook, midwife and activist whose secret kitchen fed the civil rights movement. When King and others held meetings of the Montgomery Improvement Association at the Holt Street Baptist Church, Gilmore was there, selling fried chicken sandwiches and other foods to the African-American men and women gathered there who’d pledged not to use the city’s buses until they were desegregated. Gilmore poured those profits back into the movement, as John T. Edge recounts in his book The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South. See more at: npr.org. 

9.”Memphis Girl Marches with Martin Luther King Jr., Becomes CEO and Spreads Tolerance” by David Whiting

Excerpt:  To help sort out what’s what, I sit down with CEO Martha Daniel, who on Sunday — along with Roman Catholic Bishop Kevin Vann and me — received the Martin Luther King Jr. Drum Major Award from Christ Our Redeemer Church in Irvine for advancing tolerance, equality, justice. King would be proud. Daniel was born and raised in Memphis and marched with King when she was 15 years old to support the garbage workers’ strike that asked for nothing more than honest wages for honest work. “Baby, don’t go out there,” Daniel’s mother warned. “You’re going to get killed.” Daniel went anyway, locking arm-in-arm with marchers, getting tear gassed and nearly being marooned after curfew and walking miles home after buses were shut down. The evening King was gunned down in Memphis, April, 4, 1968, Daniel and her parents sobbed and hugged with neighbors who grieved the grief of the inconsolable on front lawns and sidewalks. See more at: ocregister.com.

10.”The Black Church Isn’t One-Dimensional: How Communities Subvert Christianity to Work Towards Black Liberation” by Ari Colston-Johnson

Excerpt:  Growing up in the lowcountry AME Church, I saw how Black Christianity and Gullah-Geechee heritage and history formed a tightly knit, codependent relationship. I remember our pastor reading out of the newly published Gullah bible translation. I remember church mothers switching seamlessly between the creole dialect and ‘proper’ English. They sat in front pews wearing handmade talismans against evil spirits as they belted out hymns and Negro spirituals. Regular churchgoers were also root doctors and agriculturalists with special knowledge of herbal medicine and how to work the land. My first lesson on ‘hags’ and ‘haints’ took place at a church fish fry hosted by one of the island’s oldest Black families. I remember the smell of spicy gumbo pervading the yard as the elders spoke in thick accents of spirits and the practice of painting porches blue in the same breath they praised Jesus and scripture. See more at: afropunk.com.

If you know of any black Christian women bloggers and or writers, please e-mail me at jacqueline@afterthealtarcall.com as I’m always interested in expanding my community of black Christian women blogs and websites. As I noted before, while this is a roundup of interesting blog posts and or magazine and newspaper articles for black Christian women, you don’t have to be one to appreciate these pieces  🙂

Any thoughts?