Life

Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings

Soul singer Sharon Jones, died on Friday, November 19, 2016  at age 60 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Known as the James Brown of Soul, Sharon Jones' success after a long music career, came into her her 40s. She found success with her  band, the Dap-Kings. 

By her side until her death, the Dap-Kings band backed her up during her tours and performances. Commenting on her death, Dap-King's Gabriel Roth said that Sharon Jones, " was the strongest person any of us had ever known, and she just kept singing. She didn't want to stop singing."

Sharon Jones was diagnosed with  cancer in 2013. She never stopped performing even during treatment. Asked by Associated Press  recently, why she never stopes she said: "It's therapy, I know I need rest and sleep. But I want to work and that is our job.. You got to be brave. I want to use the time that I have. I don't want to spend it all laid up, wishing I had done that gig."

Her bravery will surely inspire many. She will be missed!

Gwen Ifill with the Dalai Lama in 2010

Gwen Ifill, the first Black woman to host a major political TV program has died. She was 61. Gwen Ifill was one of the most prominent political journalists in the United States. She has covered major events and campaigns. The most notable political events she hosted included moderating the 2004 and 2008 vice presidential debates and a presidential primary debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.  

 Gwen  Ifill was the best-selling author of The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama". 

In his remarks  about Gwen Ifill's passing, during a press conference before his last international trip as the US President,  President Obama gave the following tribute:

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson, NASA mathematician, physicist, and scientist. Credit NASA

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson is known as the NASA mathematician, physicist, and scientist who used her math genius to guide to and land Apollo 11 on the moon and bring it back to earth. As  NASA chief Charles Bolden, in a Vanity Fair Magazine article,  recently put it, Katherine "advanced Human Rights with a slide rule and a pencil", and the "frontier of human achievement at the same time."

Yet, at the time of her birth, on August 26, 1918,  the odds of reaching such a human achievement were remote at the best, if not impossible. It was the time when women were not encouraged to pursue high degrees or math and sciences. Moreover, Katherine Johnson was a Black woman, born in a segregated America. Hence,