Houston-based recording artist CherylFortune is set to embark on her solo recording career with the release of her Lucius B. Hoskins-produced debut single “Fighters” set to impact gospel radio January 2017. “With this single I created an anthem for women that would offer a sense of hope, strength and boldness,” Cheryl.
CherylFortune is widely known throughout the gospel music industry as a former member of her husband’s GRAMMY-nominated and Stellar Award winning recording group James Fortune & FIYA. As the sound of the ensemble Cheryl lended backing vocal, co-writing and vocal production on projects such as, LIVE THROUGH IT (2014), GRACE GIFT (2012), IDENTITY (2012), ENCORE (2010) and TRANSFORMATION (2008). Cheryl contributed backing vocals on other artists projects including Kirk Franklin (Hello Fear), Shirley Caesar (Good God), Zacardi Cortez (The Introduction, Reloaded), Bishop T.D. Jakes (Sacred Love Songs, Vol 2) and Isaac Carree (Uncommon Me). She recorded a song “Running To You” (composed by Terence Vaughn) for the 2013 released compilation project KINGDOM MUSIC, VOL 1 (FIYA World/Light) among many other compilation projects as well. Most recently she toured with Kirk Franklin on the 20 Years In One Night World Tour.
As a songwriter Cheryl is most notable for co-writing the Billboard #1 smash hit single “I Trust You” which maintained that position for 28 consecutive weeks on Billboard’s Gospel Airplay chart. She also co-wrote the song “Hold On” which features Fred Hammond and R&B singer Monica. Additionally, Cheryl wrote the current single “God Held Me” (Lucius B. Hoskins) recorded by Zacardi Cortez.
A vocal prowess full of grace, style and poise, Cheryl is ready for her next chapter in life through song with the ability to speak and help battered and broken women about overcoming and surviving all types of abuse, form of cancer, or any challenge life has thrown ones way. Her estranged husband James Fortune admitted to CBN News in the June 2016 story Gospel Artist James Fortune Opens Up: ‘I Was an Abuser’ by Efrem Graham that he was an abuser as he pleaded guilty to a October 2014 assault of his wife in court earlier this year, resulting in “five years probation, five days in jail, and 175 hours of community service” for his domestic violence. He also told CBN News that he has been in therapy since the incident of domestic violence, allowing the news outlet in a meeting. Finally, Fortune revealed that “he and Cheryl are legally separated and moving forward with a divorce. Legally, they can have no contact with each other for the next five years. He spent six months separated from his four children.”
It’s supposed to be the “most wonderful time of the year,” a time when built-up grievances melt under the glow of multicolored Christmas lights and warm Christmas music, families flung far across the country corral themselves to remember their roots and strangers smile at one another for no other reason than to demonstrate “peace and goodwill to all men.” But this Christmas season of 2016, despite all of the light displays and songs, planned family pilgrimages and spontaneous smiles, the parasites of racism are still attached to America’s underbelly and will not release its host even for the reprieve of Christmas…
While I celebrate Jesus and not Santa Claus at Christmas, the image of Santa Claus, though not real, has always brought comfort and joy! A jolly man awarding nice not naughty children with gifts, who swoops down, with the help of reindeer led by Rudolph and his red nose, on homes across America every Christmas – what’s not to love? In the broader culture, yes, Santa Claus is typically white, but here in Atlanta, the birthplace of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I remember black Santas malls in black neighborhoods when I was growing up. Though I may be wrong, I don’t remember there being any controversy regarding being black Santas in some neighborhoods.
But I guess the first black Santa at the Minnesota’s Mall of America, no less, is too much! At least for some Americans…According to rawstory.com article “Santa is WHITE. BOYCOTT Mall of America’: Online racists are Having a Meltdown Over Mall’s Black Santa,” Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s editorial editor had to shut down comments on its black Santa article because of offensive comments. How disturbing particularly since Santa Claus is not even real! And Santa Claus is based on Saint Nicholas, who according to New Testament and early Christianity expert Harvard Professor Laura Nasrallah was ” born into a family that probably considered itself to be ethnically Greek but in an area of the world that we now call Turkey.” She further noted that, “Historically, you can’t import a category like ‘white’ into fourth century Asia minor,’ according to the politico.com article “Scholar: Santa Race Claim Nonsense” which was written after Fox’s Megyn Kelly said Santa Claus and Jesus were white in 2013.
Last year, I wrote the post “Why is the ‘Real Face’ of Jesus Controversial? The Real Christmas Story” about the medical artist Richard Neave’s rendering of the real face of Jesus going viral. I expressed confusion because “although my earliest recollections of portraits of Jesus featured a man with blonde hair and blue eyes which I probably learned about in Sunday School and or the private Christian school I attended as a child, I stopped believing those depictions were accurate once I understood the Christmas story even as a child. That was probably around the time that I read ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ and began to study world history. My deductive reasoning led me to believe that Jesus, while in human form, must have been of a darker hue and looked similar to those who live in the Middle East.”
All of this to say, a black Santa, or an Asian Santa, or a Hispanic Santa, etc. shouldn’t be offensive to anyone born in America (or elsewhere for that matter), which is promised to be the melting pot of all cultures and countries…
And then juxtapose that display of racism with the display of racism that is unfolding in Charleston, South Carolina where Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooter Dylan Roof is on trial for killing nine black churchgoers following a Wednesday evening Bible Study in 2015. In an FBI video, Roof said of his murderous acts, “Somebody had to do it.” According to the CNN article “Mass Shooter Dylann Roof, With a Laugh, Confesses,’I did it'” he also said, “Black people are killing white people everyday… What I did is so minuscule compared to what they do to white people every day.” He specifically targeted the church because it is a historic black church. “It’s historic, too, you know. I think at one time it had the highest ratio of blacks to white during slavery, and AME is a historic church. I researched black churches.” Maybe it’s no coincidence that this church is named after the name of Jesus Christ that we use at Christmas time and that this trial is unfolding during the Christmas season. The Jesus Christ I believe in and know to be real wants all of His children to be treated as human beings. Anything less than that demonstrates that America still needs healing despite how far we have come.
Just miles away from me in Carrollton, Georgia, another display of racism at Christmas time happened last week. Gerald Byrd, who is black and Carrollton’s Mayor Pro Tem, was collecting pine cones in a local park for an art project, when he was approached and threatened by a white man after the man questioned him about why he was in a state park. “Then he said, ‘My wife is coming and she has something for you, too.’ Up comes his wife with a German shepherd and I’m too far from my car to run and I’m petrified,” Byrd said,” according to a wsbtv.com story. Byrd posted a video about the incident at the park shortly afterward on Facebook and has received death threats since then!
These are just three incidents that demonstrate how deeply America has been and is still infected by racism. At this time of the year, I would like to pretend that racism doesn’t exist and even just for a month (the last month of President Obama’s presidency,) we can all get along but sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case…
As of today, we’re one week into December so before any more of the month gets away from me, below is my Top 10 monthly roundup of blog posts and or articles for black Christian women ( 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. “In the Wake of Trump’s Election, A Meeting in the Ladies’ Room” by Amy Butler and Leslie Copeland-Tune
Excerpt: Four percent of black women voted for Donald Trump to be president of the United States. While others didn’t like Hillary Clinton or didn’t trust her, we understood that there was really no other choice for us. We have lived the tension between racism and sexism our whole lives. We know that as a black woman you have to be even more than 10 times better, more educated, more prepared than a man to just be considered minimally qualified. We knew that we could not give the office of president of the United States to someone who used racism and misogyny to win, someone who belittled women and sexualized his own daughter. No, not on our watch. Amy, what we don’t understand is why our white sisters, who as women share at least a part of our struggle, came out and voted to support him? How can this be? What in the world happened? See more at: baptistnews.com.
2. “U Name It: Viral Star Shirley Caesar”
3. “Keepin’ It Locked ‘Til She Gets A Rock: What We Can Learn From Insecure’s Yvonne Orji” by Stephanie Caudle
Excerpt: Yvonne, despite her character Molly’s sex life, is a 32-year-old virgin. Charlamagne jokingly told her that she played her character a little too well to be a virgin but Yvonne persisted that this was in fact her truth. “Personally, I had plans to have sex when I turned 18,” she said. “I was dating [dude] and I had it figured out. But, I got to college at 17 in D.C and then I got saved.” See more at: xonecole.com.
4. “Pastors Tell Black Women to be Passive and Wait for Love. I Don’t Believe in That” by Janelle Harris
Excerpt: Because the statistical odds are not in our favor, many of us are so desperate to understand why we’re not married and what we need to do to get married that we will listen to whoever seems as though they have the answers. Most often that boils down to two categories of folks: men and ministers, because as far as we know, they have an inside connection. It’s a situation ripe for exploitation: best-selling books, sold-out conferences, some of them birthed from a genuine desire to help, some of them preying on the vulnerabilities of good, Christian women trying to figure out why, despite faith and diligent prayer, their spouse’s arrival has been indefinitely postponed. See more at: washingtonpost.com.
5. “7 Women Besides Susan B. Anthony Whose Graves Deserve ‘I Voted’ Stickers” by Maddy Foley
Excerpt: Every election, a pilgrimage to Rochester, New York takes place. People from all over the United States, a large number of them women, place their “I Voted” stickers on suffragette Susan B. Anthony’s grave, an homage to her fight for the 19th Amendment. But there are a number of women besides Susan B. Anthony whose graves deserve “I Voted” stickers — and today, let’s honor them…Born into slavery, Sojourner Truth escaped with her baby daughter in 1826. In 1828, she sued her former owner for custody of her son and won, becoming the first black woman to win such a case against a white man. Truth is perhaps most famous for her extemporaneous speech “Ain’t I A Woman?” delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. The speech argued for the equal rights of women as well as African-Americans. Truth is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek, Michigan. See more at: bustle.com.
6. “Off-Duty Buffalo Officer Saves a Life on Plane to Las Vegas” by Lou Michel
Excerpt: Buffalo Police Officer Jennifer D. Whitaker arrived at a 911 call for a woman who had collapsed last year. She panicked and froze. Other first responders soon arrived and revived the woman. “I made a vow to God that I would act immediately if given the opportunity again,” Whitaker said. She kept her vow on a recent flight to a friend’s wedding in Las Vegas. “I was listening to Gospel music on my headphones when I heard somebody saying, ‘Help this lady, help this lady.’ It must have been loud. I could hear it over my music.” Whitaker jumped up and looked behind her. A woman was lying unconscious in the aisle. See more at: buffalonews.com.
7. “Sasha and Chuck Fenda Collaborate”
Excerpt: Born Karen Chin, Sasha is no newcomer to the music industry. In 2004, while still a secular artiste, she enjoyed international success with “I’m Still In Love With You,” a duet which she recorded with Sean Paul for his Dutty Rock album on Atlantic Records. The song topped reggae charts globally and peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Although she has walked away from the secular stage since she became a Christian, she is not afraid of being judged on this project as it is reminiscent of her earlier recordings. See more at: jamaica-star.com.
8. “‘The Girls’ Gatherings are Great Assets for Black Women” by Alonzo Kittrels
Excerpt: A few Sundays ago, I overheard several female members at church discussing plans to attend a gathering at the home of a church member. I must admit that I did not pay much attention to the conversation until I learned that the gathering, only involving females, was a luncheon for “the girls” to come together as a way to show appreciation for those that provided kindnesses and support to this member during a recent medical challenge. The get-together was also an opportunity for friends and family to bond. See more at: phillytrib.com.
9. “New Music Center at Evanston Seminary to Focus on Black Church Experience” by Genevieve Bookwalter
Excerpt: The Center for Music and Worship in the Black Church Experience will begin educating students Jan. 22 with four-day classes of intense study, designed for church musicians who want to advance their skills but don’t always have the time or finances to enroll for a full semester, officials said. The Rev. Cynthia Wilson, assistant vice president of student life and dean of students at Garrett-Evangelical, said she expects the inaugural class to come from the Chicago area and throughout the Midwest. Students can choose from a variety of disciplines, including dance, choral development, liturgy and “worship and holy hip-hop,” among other courses. See more at: chicagotribune.com.
10. “BET’s ‘Love & Happiness: An Obama Celebration’ Brought Us Some Much-Needed Joy” by Shamika Sanders
Excerpt: As the last days of the Obama administration fade into yesterday, we are reminded of their love story with programs like BET’s ‘Love & Happiness: An Obama Celebration’ special that aired last night. Hosted by Terrence J. and Regina Hall, the celebratory event featured star-studded performances by Jill Scott, Janelle Monaé, Common, Usher, Bell Biv DeVoe, The Roots, De La Soul, Yolanda Adams, Michelle Williams, Kierra Sheard, and former Hamilton star Leslie Odom, Jr. See more at: elev8.hellobeautiful.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 articles for black Christian women, you don’t have to be one to appreciate these pieces 🙂
A vocal prowess full of grace, style and poise, Cheryl is ready for her next chapter in life through song with the ability to speak and help battered and broken women about overcoming and surviving all types of abuse, form of cancer, or any challenge life has thrown ones way. Her estranged husband James Fortune admitted to CBN News in the June 2016 story Gospel Artist James Fortune Opens Up: ‘I Was an Abuser’ by Efrem Graham that he was an abuser as he pleaded guilty to a October 2014 assault of his wife in court earlier this year, resulting in “five years probation, five days in jail, and 175 hours of community service” for his domestic violence. He also told CBN News that he has been in therapy since the incident of domestic violence, allowing the news outlet in a meeting. Finally, Fortune revealed that “he and Cheryl are legally separated and moving forward with a divorce. Legally, they can have no contact with each other for the next five years. He spent six months separated from his four children.”
