Whats Buzzing in the Streets – Page 49

Dawn Lewis

Dawnn J. Lewis (born August 13, 1961) is an American actress, singer, voice actress , and songwriter. Lewis is best known for her role as Jaleesa Vinson–Taylor on the NBC television sitcom A Different World from the series beginning in 1987 until the end of its fifth season in 1992, in addition to being on the show; Lewis co–wrote the theme song.

Lewis’s other notable roles include portraying Robin Dumars on the ABC sitcom Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper for its first season (1992–93) and as Cheryl Spade in the 1988 film I’m Gonna Git You Sucka. Since then, Lewis has appeared in numerous TV series, including other sitcoms, and has also performed on stage.

Dawnn Lewis was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Carl and Joyce Lewis, who are of African-American and Guyanese descent, She began singing at the age of four and acting at eleven.

Lewis graduated at 16 from the High School of Music & Art in New York City, now known as Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School. Then she majored in musical theatre with a minor in journalism at the University of Miami, graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree, cum laude, in 1982.

Lewis appeared for the first five of the six-season run as Jaleesa Vinson (later Vinson–Taylor) from 1987 until 1992. Lewis co-wrote the theme song to A Different World, with Bill Cosby and Stu Gardner, and co-performed the song for the first season. In A Different World, Although her character was married to another of the main characters on the show, her character disappeared from A Different World without explanation, like Chuck Cunningham of Happy Days. Lewis appeared in a special week-long segment of A Different World called the Hillman College Reunion airing on Nick At Nite, along with Lisa Bonet, Jasmine Guy, Kadeem Hardison, Darryl M. Bell, Cree Summer, and Sinbad. On her Super Password appearance in 1988, she was paired with Dallas star Ken Kercheval, not any of her co-stars.

In 2006, Lewis starred as Melba Early in the film adaptation of Dreamgirls. Lewis released her debut CD, entitled Worth Waiting For, in 2006. She most recently played Addaperle in The Wiz with New York City Center’s Encores! In 2009, Lewis played Denise Fields on One Tree Hill. In 2010, Lewis played a minor recurring role as Lauren’s mother in The Secret Life of the American Teenager. In 2012, she voiced Malora in Strange Frame. She also appeared as Dr. Knapp on Days of Our Lives in 2012–2013. As of 2015, Lewis is playing a recurring role on Major Crimes as Patrice, a love interest for Lt. Provenza, whom he met during a case. In that same year, she also voiced Ruby’s mother Helen Hanshaw in one episode of Sofia The First .

In March 2016, Lewis was cast in Disney Junior’s animated series Doc McStuffins as the voice of Grandma McStuffins. In 2017 she provided the voice of Maybelle Mundy in the film Bunyan and Babe.

In 2018 she began voicing Fannie Granger on DreamWorks’ Spirit Riding Free, and in 2019 began voicing The Chief on Netflix’s animated Carmen Sandiego.

Lewis was married to former NBA player Johnny Newman in 2004. They divorced in 2006.

Venus Williams

Venus Williams was born on this date in 1980. She is an African American tennis player and entrepreneur.

Born in Lynwood, California, Venus Ebone Starr Williams is the daughter of Richard Williams and Oracene Price and the older sister of Serena Williams. She turned professional tennis player on October 31, 1994. In that match in the second round of her first professional tournament in Oakland, Williams nearly upset the top seed Arantxa Sanchez andVicario before losing the match.

With career singles record of over 400 wins, almost 100 playing doubles, and over 40 combined titles, she is one of the best women tennis players in the world.

As a businesswoman, Williams is the CEO of her interior design firm, “V Starr Interiors,” located in Jupiter, Florida. Williams’ company garnered prominence by designing the set of the “Tavis Smiley Show” and the Olympic athletes apartments as a part of the U.S. bid package for New York to host the 2012 games. V Starr Interiors has also designed residences and businesses in the Palm Beach, Florida area.

Williams won her fourth Wimbledon title, ironically on the 50th anniversary of Althea Gibson becoming the first Black woman to win that tournament. The heavily favored Williams won, surprising finalist Marion Bartoli 6-4, 6-1 for her sixth Grand Slam title.

Tupac

Tupac Amaru Shakur born Lesane Parish Crooks; June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), also known by his stage names 2Pac, Makaveli, and Pac, was an American rapper and actor. As of 2007, Shakur has sold over 75 million records worldwide. His double disc albums All Eyez on Me and his Greatest Hits are among the best-selling albums in the United States. He has been listed and ranked as one of the greatest artists of all time by many publications, including Rolling Stone, which ranked him 86th on its list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. He is consistently ranked as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all time. On April 7, 2017, Shakur was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Shakur began his career as a roadie, backup dancer, and MC for the alternative hip hop group Digital Underground, eventually branching off as a solo artist. Most of the themes in Shakur’s songs revolved around the violence and hardship in inner cities, racism, and other social problems. Both of his parents and several other people in his family were members of the Black Panther Party, whose ideals were reflected in his songs. During the latter part of his career, Shakur was a vocal participant during the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry, becoming involved in conflicts with other rappers, producers, and record-label staff members, most notably The Notorious B.I.G. and the label Bad Boy Records. Apart from his career in music, Shakur also acted in films and on TV. He starred in various films in the 1990s, including Poetic Justice (1993), Gang Related (1997) and Gridlock’d (1997).

On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot in a drive-by shooting at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was taken to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, where he died from his injuries six days later.

Gabby Sidibe

Gabourey Sidibe, born May 6, 1983, is an American actress who made her acting debut in the 2009 film Precious, a role that brought her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. From 2010 to 2013, she was a main cast member of the Showtime series The Big C.

Sidibe co-starred on the television series American Horror Story: Coven as Queenie and American Horror Story: Freak Show as Regina Ross, and later reprised her role as Queenie in American Horror Story: Hotel. Since 2015, she stars in the Fox musical drama series Empire as Becky Williams.

Sidibe was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in Harlem. Her mother, Alice Tan Ridley, is an American R&B and gospel singer who appeared on the fifth season of America’s Got Talent, on June 15, 2010. Her father, Ibnou Sidibe, is from Senegal and is a cab driver. Growing up, Sidibe lived with her aunt, the noted feminist activist Dorothy Pitman Hughes. She has attended Borough of Manhattan Community College, City College of New York, and graduated from Mercy College. She worked at The Fresh Air Fund’s office as a receptionist before she went on to pursue a career in acting.

In Precious, Sidibe played the main character, Claireece “Precious” Jones, a 16-year-old mother of two (both of whom are the results of being raped by her father) trying to escape abuse at the hands of her mother. The film won numerous awards, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Award. On December 15, 2009, she was nominated for a Golden Globe in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for her performance in Precious. The next month she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

Her next film, Yelling to the Sky, was a Sundance Lab project directed by Victoria Mahoney and starring Zoe Kravitz, in which she played Latonya Williams, a bully. In 2011, Sidibe was in the film Tower Heist and voiced a “party girl” character in “Hot Water”, the season 7 premiere of American Dad!. She appeared in the season 8 American Dad! episode “Stanny Tendergrass” early in 2013 and also stars in the music video for “Don’t Stop (Color on the Walls)” by indie pop band Foster the People. Sidibe also appeared in the Showtime network series entitled The Big C as Andrea Jackson.

During an interview, Sidibe reported that before landing her role in the 2009 film, Precious, Joan Cusack advised her that the entertainment industry was not for her and to quit, leaning over and stating: “Oh honey, you should really quit the business. It’s so image-conscious.”

In April 2013, it was announced that Sidibe would be joining the cast of the third season of American Horror Story, portraying Queenie, a young witch. She returned to the series for its fourth season, American Horror Story: Freak Show as a secretarial school student, Regina Ross. As of 2015, she stars in Lee Daniels Fox musical series Empire as Becky Williams alongside Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson. Sidibe portrays the head of A&R in the Empire company. In April 2015, it was announced Sidibe would be promoted to a series regular beginning in Season 2. She also starred in the Hulu series Difficult People as Denise.

On June 3, 2015 it was confirmed Sidibe would be writing her memoir and it would be published in 2017. On January 6, 2016, Sidibe appeared in the penultimate episode for American Horror Story: Hotel, reprising her Coven role as Queenie, marking her third season in the series.

In March 2017, Sidibe revealed that she has been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and that as a consequence she underwent laproscopic bariatric surgery in an effort to manage her weight.

Prince

Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer and filmmaker.

Prince Rogers Nelson (born June 7, 1958), known by his mononym Prince, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and actor. He has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career.He has written several hundred songs and produces and records his own music for his own music label. In addition, he has promoted the careers of Sheila E., Carmen Electra, the Time and Vanity 6, and his songs have been recorded by these artists and others, including Chaka Khan, The Bangles, Sinéad O’Connor, and Kim Basinger.

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Prince developed an interest in music at an early age, writing his first song at age seven. After recording songs with his cousin’s band 94 East, seventeen-year-old Prince recorded several unsuccessful demo tapes before releasing his debut album, For You, in 1978. His 1979 album, Prince, went platinum due to the success of the singles “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?” and “I Wanna Be Your Lover”. His next three records, Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), and 1999 (1982) continued his success, showcasing Prince’s trademark of prominently sexual lyrics and incorporation of elements of funk, dance and rock music. In 1984, he began referring to his backup band as the Revolution and released the album Purple Rain, which served as the soundtrack to his film debut of the same name.

After releasing the albums Around the World in a Day (1985) and Parade (1986), The Revolution disbanded and Prince released the critically acclaimed double album Sign “O” the Times (1987) as a solo artist. He released three more solo albums before debuting the New Power Generation band in 1991. After changing his stage name to an unpronounceable symbol (Prince logo.svg), also known as the “Love Symbol”, in 1993, he began releasing new albums at a faster pace to remove himself from contractual obligations to Warner Bros; he released five records between 1994 and 1996 before signing to Arista Records in 1998. In 2000, he began referring to himself as “Prince” once again. He has released thirteen albums since then, including his latest, 20Ten, released in 2010.

Prince has a wide vocal range and is known for his flamboyant stage presence and costumes. He has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. He has won seven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the first year he was eligible. Rolling Stone has ranked Prince No. 27 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Prince’s music has been influenced by rock, R&B, soul, funk, hip hop, blues, new wave, electronica, disco, psychedelia, folk, jazz, and pop. His artistic influences include Sly & the Family Stone, Parliament-Funkadelic, Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Miles Davis, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Marvin Gaye, the Isley Brothers, Todd Rundgren Duke Ellington, Curtis Mayfield, and Stevie Wonder. Prince pioneered the “Minneapolis sound”, a hybrid mixture of funk, rock, pop, R&B and new wave that has influenced many other musicians.

In 1993, while in a contractual dispute with Warner Bros., he changed his stage name to an unpronounceable symbol (Logo. Hollow circle above downward arrow crossed with a curlicued horn-shaped symbol and then a short bar), also known as the “Love Symbol”, and began releasing new albums at a faster rate to remove himself from contractual obligations. He released five records between 1994 and 1996 before signing with Arista Records in 1998. In 2000, he began referring to himself as “Prince” again. He released 16 albums after that, including the platinum-selling Musicology (2004). His final album, Hit n Run Phase Two, was first released on the Tidal streaming service on December 2015. Five months later, at the age of 57, Prince died of an accidental fentanyl overdose at his Paisley Park recording studio and home in Chanhassen, Minnesota.

When They See Us

When They See Usis a four part series based on a case that swept through America’s living rooms. On September 19, 1989 a woman by the name of Patricia Meili was attack in Central Park, located in New York City. The woman was attacked, dragged, beaten and rape. As a result of this crime, the victim was left hospitalized in critical condition with no memory of what had happened to her. The people of New York City wanted justice for the woman who had become known only as “The Central Park Jogger”. The people were outraged.

Prosecutors Linda Fairstein and Elizabeth Lederer headed the investigation of this heinous crime that took the city by storm. Somebody needed to pay for what had happened to this woman. The prosecutor’s office along with the NYPD looked to gather leads to close this case that had gained so much media and political attention. They would stop at no end, even if it took for them to arrest innocent people for crimes that they did not commit.

Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Yusef Salaam and Korey Wise were just adolescents at the time that the crime occurred. As the saying goes “boys will be boys”, these boys happened to be in Central Park on the evening that all of the “wilding” had taken place. As a result, the police rounded up the adolescents and took them into custody at a precinct in Harlem. These young men were interrogated for a two day span with no parental consent. They were not given any food and coerced into making statements implicating themselves and the others as part of the attack that left a woman in a coma for twelve days.

The movie When They See Ustold the story of the way that these boys suffered as a result of the crime that they were wrongly convicted of. The criminal justice system served these young men a serious injustice. At the time of the trial Kevin Richardson and Raymond Santana were only fourteen years old, Antron McCray and Yusef Salaam were fifteen years old. The oldest of the quintet, Korey Wise was just sixteen years old. The quartet that were under the age of sixteen years old were imposed sentences of five to ten years in juvenile correctional facilities. Korey Wise was charged as an adult and was sentenced to five to fifteen years in a maximum state penitentiary where he served twelve years.

In 2002 Matias Reyes confessed to acting alone in the rape and brutal assault of the Patricia Meili. During the time of the confession Reyes was incarcerated for four different rape homicide cases in New York City. By the time of his confession Reyes could not be charged for the crime because the statute of limitations had already expired. It was this confession that exonerated those innocent men after years of suffering. During the incarceration the men known as the Central Park Five had to endure many trials and tribulations that no amount of money can compensate for. These men needlessly suffered mental, physical, emotional and psychological abuse. The system failed them. The sickening part is that there are so many more innocent men and women formerly and currently incarcerated for crimes that they did not commit.

Written by

Regina Annette

El DeBarge

Eldra Patrick “El” DeBarge (born June 4, 1961) is an American singer-songwriter, producer and musician. DeBarge was the focal point and primary lead singer of the family group DeBarge throughout the early to mid-1980s. Popular songs led by El include “Time Will Reveal”, “Stay with Me”, “All This Love”, and “Rhythm of the Night”. As a solo artist, he is best known for his unique high tenor register, strong falsetto and the hits “Who’s Johnny” and “Love Always”, and for his collaborations with Tone Loc, George Clinton, Faith Evans, Quincy Jones, Fourplay, and DJ Quik. DeBarge is a three-time Grammy nominee.

A native of Detroit, Michigan, El was the sixth of ten children born to Robert Louis DeBarge, Sr. (1932-2009) and Etterlene (née Abney) DeBarge. DeBarge was already singing in his local church choir and playing piano as a child. Later after his family moved to Grand Rapids, he and the rest of his family began performing at their uncle’s Pentecostal church. When El was thirteen, his parents divorced after a difficult and stormy marriage. El is of African American, English, French, and Native American descent. Growing up, he was closest to eldest brother Bobby and began imitating his brother’s vocal styling.

For several years, El spent time being in private study with music educator Ricky Callier. By 1975, El had begun to express a desire to become a performer. El became a father for the first time at sixteen. He would eventually father eleven more children. In 1977, he dropped out of high school and began performing with his elder brothers in clubs and venues in Michigan. By 1979, Bernd Lichters was able to secure a deal with Source Records/MCA to release the Pall Mall Groove – Hot Ice album as SMASH for the USA/Canada market and moved El from Michigan to Los Angeles, to have him, his brothers Mark and Randy DeBarge, in addition to their cousin Andre Abney, Elliot Townsend, and Stanley Hood, to back up the release as the SMASH band. Eldest sister Bunny joined her brothers in California as well. In 1980, because of the success of their brothers Bobby and Tommy DeBarge with the hit group Switch, he was able to perform live at the piano and singing in front of Motown CEO Berry Gordy, who immediately signed the group, then known as The DeBarges, to the label.

Motown mentored them with members later working and contributing songwriting, arrangements, and production to the recordings of Switch, including the 1980 albums This Is My Dream and Reaching for Tomorrow. El DeBarge’s first professional recording was as background vocalist to Switch’s 1979 hit “I Call Your Name”. He later helped to arrange music for several Switch songs including “Love Over and Over Again” and “My Friend in the Sky,” which he, Bunny, and Bobby wrote. This song would later be sampled by the likes of Queen Pen and Raheem DeVaughn.

In 1981, The DeBarges was released after the family had worked in the studio for a year recording it. The album was noted for most of its songs produced and written by all four family members including Bobby DeBarge, who helped end the album track “Queen of My Heart” after El had led the song for most of its tenure. The following album, 1982’s All This Love featured younger brother James and saw much success with the compositions “I Like It” and the title track. El would remain the producer and arranger for all of the group’s Motown albums. In 1983, DeBarge released In a Special Way, which spawned the hits “Time Will Reveal (song)” and “Love Me in a Special Way”, and in 1984, the band became a sensation while touring for Luther Vandross on the singer’s Busy Body tour. Though the group enjoyed much success and appeared to be a family unit, there were growing tensions between El and his brothers, mainly because of Motown’s push to have El become the only noted star of the group, repeating a pattern that began with Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. By the end of the tour, El DeBarge was mainly called to handle the production of DeBarge’s next album, Rhythm of the Night, without much help from his siblings.

Rhythm of the Night became the group’s best-selling album ever, though some contended that El DeBarge was the only member present on the album with the exception of the title track, which became a top five hit in several countries including the US and UK becoming the group’s and El’s signature song. In late 1985, he appeared on The Facts of Life in the Season 7 episode “Doo-Wah” as himself and performed his single “You Wear it Well” with Lisa Whelchel, Kim Fields, Mindy Cohn, and Nancy McKeon singing backup. In 1986, El DeBarge left the group and began his solo career with the release of his self-titled debut album, which spawned the hits “Who’s Johnny” and “Love Always”. Three years passed, however, until DeBarge released his second album, Gemini in 1989. The album was a failure. DeBarge’s contract with Motown was terminated in 1990, and he signed with Warner Bros.. In the meantime, DeBarge was featured on the Quincy Jones single “The Secret Garden”, alongside Al B. Sure!, James Ingram, and Barry White, released in 1990.

In 1992, DeBarge released his third album, the Maurice White-produced In The Storm, which featured the Chante Moore duet “You Know What I Like”, which was Moore’s first professional recording. Critics noted the album for its Marvin Gaye-styled productions, with El DeBarge later admitting that Gaye was a huge influence on his musical style. He once commented that he had initially written “All This Love” as a song he imagined Gaye doing, even imitating Gaye’s ad-libs during his I Want You era near the end. That same year, he had chart success on the R&B charts with a collaboration with Fourplay on their version of Gaye’s “After the Dance”. DeBarge’s next album, 1994’s Heart, Mind and Soul, was co-produced with Babyface, yielding modest charted singles such as “Slide” and “Where is My Love” (which featured Babyface on duet vocals).

While DeBarge continued to collaborate on other artists’ projects including brother Chico and rapper DJ Quik among others (the duo collaborated on Quik’s hit “Hand in Hand”), he didn’t release any more albums between 1994 and 2009. In 2010, he finally emerged from a sixteen-year delay with the appropriately titled Second Chance, released after a series of comeback performances and appearances including a well received performance at the 2010 BET Awards. The album yielded two singles, “Second Chance” and the Faith Evans duet “Lay With You”, and later resulted in three Grammy Award nominations: Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, Best R&B Song, and Best R&B Album. He remains the only member of the DeBarges to have Grammy nominations outside of the group and in the family altogether.

Morgan Freeman

Morgan Freeman (born June 1, 1937) is an American actor, producer and narrator. Freeman won an Academy Award in 2005 for Best Supporting Actor with Million Dollar Baby (2004), and he has received Oscar nominations for his performances in Street Smart (1987), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Invictus (2009). He has also won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Freeman has appeared in many other box office hits, including Glory (1989), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), Seven (1995), Deep Impact (1998), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Bruce Almighty (2003), The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012), The Lego Movie (2014), and Lucy (2014). He rose to fame as part of the cast of the 1970s children’s program The Electric Company. Morgan Freeman is ranked as the 4th highest box office star with over $4.316 billion total box office gross, an average of $74.4 million per film.

Morgan Freeman was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the son of Mayme Edna (née Revere; 1912–2000), a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber who died on April 27, 1961, from cirrhosis. He has three older siblings. According to a DNA analysis, some of his ancestors were from Niger. Freeman was sent as an infant to his paternal grandmother in Charleston, Mississippi. He moved frequently during his childhood, living in Greenwood, Mississippi; Gary, Indiana; and finally Chicago, Illinois. When Freeman was 16 years old, he almost died of pneumonia.

Freeman made his acting debut at age nine, playing the lead role in a school play. He then attended Broad Street High School, a building which serves today as Threadgill Elementary School, in Greenwood, Mississippi. At age 12, he won a statewide drama competition, and while still at Broad Street High School, he performed in a radio show based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1955, he graduated from Broad Street, but turned down a partial drama scholarship from Jackson State University, opting instead to enlist in the United States Air Force and served as an Automatic Tracking Radar Repairman, rising to the rank of Airman 1st Class. Freeman’s service portrait appears in his character’s funeral scene in The Bucket List.

After four years in the military, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he took acting lessons at the Pasadena Playhouse and dancing lessons in San Francisco in the early 1960s and worked as a transcript clerk at Los Angeles City College. During this period, Freeman also lived in New York City, working as a dancer at the 1964 World’s Fair, and in San Francisco, where he was a member of the Opera Ring musical theater group. He acted in a touring company version of The Royal Hunt of the Sun, and also appeared as an extra in the 1965 film The Pawnbroker. Freeman made his off-Broadway debut in 1967, opposite Viveca Lindfors in The Nigger Lovers (about the Freedom Riders during the American Civil Rights Movement), before debuting on Broadway in 1968’s all-black version of Hello, Dolly! which also starred Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway.

He continued to be involved in theater work and received the Obie Award in 1980 for the title role in Coriolanus. In 1984, he received his second Obie Award for his role as the preacher in The Gospel at Colonus. Freeman also won a Drama Desk Award and a Clarence Derwent Award for his role as a wino in The Mighty Gents. He received his third Obie Award for his role as a chauffeur for a Jewish widow in Driving Miss Daisy, which was adapted for the screen in 1989.

Although his first credited film appearance was in 1971’s Who Says I Can’t Ride a Rainbow?, Freeman first became known in the American media through roles on the soap opera Another World and the PBS kids’ show The Electric Company[9] (notably as Easy Reader, Mel Mounds the DJ, and Vincent the Vegetable Vampire).

During his tenure with The Electric Company, “(i)t was a very unhappy period in his life,” according to Joan Ganz Cooney. Freeman himself admitted in an interview that he never thinks about his tenure with the show at all. Since then, Freeman has considered his Street Smart (1987) character Fast Black, rather than any of the characters he played in The Electric Company, to be his breakthrough role.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, Freeman began playing prominent supporting roles in many feature films, earning him a reputation for depicting wise, fatherly characters.[9] As he gained fame, he went on to bigger roles in films such as the chauffeur Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy, and Sergeant Major Rawlins in Glory (both in 1989). In 1994, he portrayed Red, the redeemed convict in the acclaimed The Shawshank Redemption. In the same year he was a member of the jury at the 44th Berlin International Film Festival.

He also starred in such films as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Unforgiven, Seven, and Deep Impact. In 1997, Freeman, together with Lori McCreary, founded the film production company Revelations Entertainment, and the two co-head its sister online film distribution company ClickStar. Freeman also hosts the channel Our Space on ClickStar, with specially crafted film clips in which he shares his love for the sciences, especially space exploration and aeronautics.

After three previous nominations—a supporting actor nomination for Street Smart, and leading actor nominations for Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption—he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Million Dollar Baby at the 77th Academy Awards. Freeman is recognized for his distinctive voice, making him a frequent choice for narration. In 2005 alone, he provided narration for two films, War of the Worlds and the Academy Award-winning documentary film March of the Penguins.

Freeman appeared as God in the hit film Bruce Almighty and its sequel, Evan Almighty, as well as Lucius Fox in the critical and commercial success Batman Begins and its sequels, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. He starred in Rob Reiner’s 2007 film The Bucket List, opposite Jack Nicholson. He teamed with Christopher Walken and William H. Macy for the comedy The Maiden Heist, which was released direct to video due to financial problems with the distribution company. In 2008, Freeman returned to Broadway to co-star with Frances McDormand and Peter Gallagher for a limited engagement of Clifford Odets’s play, The Country Girl, directed by Mike Nichols.

He had wanted to do a film based on Nelson Mandela for some time. At first he tried to get Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom adapted into a finished script, but it was not finalized. In 2007, he purchased the film rights to a book by John Carlin, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation. Clint Eastwood directed the Nelson Mandela bio-pic titled Invictus, starring Freeman as Mandela and Matt Damon as rugby team captain Francois Pienaar.

In 2010, Freeman co-starred alongside Bruce Willis in Red. In 2013, Freeman appeared in the action-thriller Olympus Has Fallen, the science fiction drama Oblivion, and the comedy Last Vegas. In 2014, he co-starred in the action film Lucy.

In 2015, Freeman played the Chief Justice of the United States in the season two premiere of Madam Secretary (Freeman is also one of the series’ executive producers).

Freeman made his directorial debut in 1993 with Bopha! for Paramount Pictures.

In July 2009, Freeman was one of the presenters at the 46664 Concert celebrating Nelson Mandela’s birthday at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Freeman was the first American to record a par on Legend Golf & Safari Resort’s Extreme 19th hole.

Effective January 4, 2010, Freeman replaced Walter Cronkite as the voiceover introduction to the CBS Evening News featuring Katie Couric as news anchor. CBS cited the need for consistency in introductions for regular news broadcasts and special reports as the basis for the change. As of 2010, Freeman is the host and narrator of the Discovery Channel television show, focused on physics outreach, Through the Wormhole.

He was featured on the opening track to B.o.B’s second album Strange Clouds. The track “Bombs Away” features a prologue and epilogue (which leads into a musical outro) spoken by Freeman. In 2011, Freeman was featured with John Lithgow in the Broadway debut of Dustin Lance Black’s play, 8, a staged reenactment of Perry v. Brown, the federal trial that overturned California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. Freeman played Attorney David Boies. The production was held at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in New York City to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights.

In 2015 Freeman directed “The Show Must Go On,” the season two premiere of Madam Secretary.

From his early life, Freeman has two extramarital children; one of them is Alfonso Freeman.

Freeman was married to Jeanette Adair Bradshaw from October 22, 1967, until November 18, 1979.

He married Myrna Colley-Lee on June 16, 1984. The couple separated in December 2007. Freeman’s attorney and business partner Bill Luckett announced in August 2008 that Freeman and his wife were in divorce proceedings. On September 15, 2010, their divorce was finalized in Mississippi.

Freeman and Colley-Lee adopted Freeman’s step-granddaughter from his first marriage, E’dena Hines, and raised her together. On August 16, 2015, 33-year-old Hines was murdered in New York City.

In 2008, the TV series African American Lives 2 revealed that some of Freeman’s great-great-grandparents were slaves who migrated from North Carolina to Mississippi. Freeman discovered that his Caucasian maternal great-great-grandfather had lived with, and was buried beside, Freeman’s African-American great-great-grandmother (in the segregated South, the two could not marry legally at the time). A DNA test on the series stated that he is descended in part from the Songhai and Tuareg peoples of Niger.

In a 2012 interview with TheWrap, Freeman was asked if he considered himself atheist or agnostic. He replied, “It’s a hard question because as I said at the start, I think we invented God. So if I believe in God, and I do, it’s because I think I’m God.” Freeman later said that his experience working on The Story of God with Morgan Freeman did not change his views on religion.

Aaron McGruder

The birth of Aaron McGruder in 1974 is celebrated on this date. He is an African American cartoonist and social commentator through media.

Born in Chicago, McGruder and his family moved to Columbia, MD, when he was six. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Afro-American Studies, and a concentration in social and cultural analysis. As a journalistic artist, his comic strip, “The Boondocks,” made its debut in the campus newspaper, The Diamondback, in late 1996. The material is entertaining and also filled with social and political commentary, so much so that it was yanked from the public in the months following the 9/11 tragedy in New York City, Pennsylvania, and D.C.

In 2002, McGruder was awarded the “Chairman’s Award” at the NAACP Image Awards. Additionally, USA Today has called McGruder “the most dangerous black man” and compared his voice (message) to that of Langston Hughes. McGruder is creative, driven, and astute. A frequent public speaker on political and cultural issues, McGruder gave a keynote speech at H2K2 (a hacker’s conference) in 2002, where he railed against the Bush administration, corporate-controlled mass media, political corruption, financial scandal and U.S. foreign policy.

He now lives in Los Angeles, where he is working on projects that include animating Boondocks. He is also the co-author of a graphic novel, Birth of a Nation, published in 2004.

Carmelo Anthony

Carmelo Kyam Anthony (born May 29, 1984) is an American professional basketball player who plays for the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). After a successful high school career at Towson Catholic High School and Oak Hill Academy, Anthony attended Syracuse for college where he led the Orangemen to their first National Championship in 2003. He earned the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player award and was named the Most Valuable Player of NCAA East Regional. After one season at Syracuse University, Anthony left college to enter the 2003 NBA Draft, where he was selected as the third pick by the Nuggets. He was traded to the Knicks several days prior to the 2011 trade deadline.

Since entering the NBA, Anthony has emerged as one of the most well-known and popular players in the league. He was named to the All-Rookie team, to the All-Star team seven times and to the All-NBA team six times. Anthony led the Nuggets to two division titles and to the playoffs every year from 2004 to 2010. In 2009, he helped the Nuggets advance to the Conference Finals for the first time since 1985. As a member of the USA National Team, Anthony won a bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics and gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. In 2012, he broke the United States men’s Olympic team’s record for most points in a single game when he scored 37 points against Nigeria. In 2014, Anthony set the Madison Square Garden and the Knicks’ single-game scoring record with a career-high 62 points against the Charlotte Bobcats.