Farrakhan to hold press conference addressing events in the Middle East and the Libya policy of the Obama administration

For Immediate Release
March 29, 2011

Contact: Richard Muhammad, The Final Call
Email: editor@finalcallnews.com
Cell: 773-512-9931

Farrakhan to hold press conference addressing events in the Middle East and the Libya policy of the Obama administration

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan will hold a press conference on Thursday, March 31, 2011 at Mosque Maryam, the international headquarters of the Nation of Islam located at 7351 S. Stony Island Avenue in Chicago, Illinois at 1:00 p.m. Central Time. (6:00 GMT)

Minister Farrakhan feels compelled to deliver a word of guidance and warning during this time of upheaval and trouble.

Minister Farrakhan watched with great interest and concern along with millions across the globe, President Barack Obama’s March 28 address from the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He has also followed the recent comments of the Obama administration officials and advisors.

The press conference will be shown live via internet webcast at http://www.noi.org

All media are invited to attend and directly ask questions of Minister Farrakhan. Doors open for Media setup at 11:45 a.m.

For those media organizations interested in coverage, please go to www.finalcall.com/press

Jews Pressure To Disinvite Minister Farrakhan From Townhall Meeting

Editor Manie Barron,dies at age 55

NEW YORK (AP) -- Manie Barron, an editor and literary agent who worked on and advocated for African-American books through much of a 23-year publishing career, has died at 55.

Barron died Saturday at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, his widow, Wendalyn R. Nichols, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. He was being treated for lung cancer.

A native of New York's Harlem section and a childhood friend of the late comedian Freddie Prinze, Barron studied acting and accounting at City College of New York and applied both performance and monetary savvy to the publishing industry.

He held numerous positions, from sales at the since-closed Doubleday bookstore to telephone sales at Random House, where he moved into editing. After working as publishing manager at Amistad, an African-American imprint at HarperCollins, Barron was a representative at the William Morris Agency. He then co-founded the Menza-Barron Literary Agency with Claudia Menza.

Authors he worked with included vampire novelist L.A. Banks, Harlem Renaissance historian Sondra Kathryn Wilson and fiction writer Guy Johnson, the son of Maya Angelou. One of his proudest projects was editing Velma Maia Thomas's "Lest We Forget," an interactive history of slavery that sold tens of thousands of copies despite receiving little publicity.

Barron was often one of the few African-Americans, if not the only one, at his workplace and was open about his frustration. "Y'all just don't get it," was a favorite expression about executives who rejected a proposal for an African-American book, according to his widow, whom he met at Random House. During a panel discussion in 2000 about minorities in publishing, Barron likened his status to a collapsible car: constantly being rebuilt.

"You always have to prove yourself," said Barron, an editor at Random House at the time. "You can have successes, but even though you've made money you're still thought of as a fluke." Not long before he died, Barron wrote on his blog that he had been a battered child who "learned the rules were funky in ... the game of Life." Still, he noted, "I kept my dignity intact and won. That's really the best we can hope for."

Barron is survived by his wife and his daughter, Veronica Grace Nichols Barron.

Judith Jamison retires from Alvin Ailey after 21 years

By Jamilah Lemieux


This past Sunday marked the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company's final New York performance with the legendary Judith Jamison serving as Artistic Director.

A native of Philadelphia, Jamison began dancing at only ten years old, and later attended Fisk University and the Philadelphia Dance Company. She joined Ailey's company under the direction of the late choreographer in 1965, becoming a principal dancer (and Ailey muse) shortly thereafter.

Jamison departed in 1980 to star in the Broadway musical, Sophisticated Ladies, based on the music of Duke Ellington. She was selected by Ailey to replace himself as Artistic Director for the company and did so following his death in 1989.

Jamison, who will be replaced by choreographer Robert Battle, was honored by the White House last October; first lady Michele Obama spoke of bringing her daughters to see Jamison as often as she could because "(I) want them to see Judith's gifts on display, because I want them to witness the grace and the beauty that stirs our souls and connects us to each other like nothing else can."

Jamison's awards include the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors in 1999 and a National Medal of Arts in 2001. She received both an Emmy and an American Choreography Award for the PBS Great Performances: Dance In America special "A Hymn for Alvin Ailey" (1998).