1929 – 1995

Cassietta Baker George was born January 23, 1929 in Memphis, TN to Pastor Peter A. Baker and Cassietta Epps Baker.
Life changed in 1953 after moving to Chicago, IL where Cassietta caught the eye of the late Rev. James Cleveland. At his invitation, Cassietta became a member of the now world famous Caravans at that time featuring Johnerine Davis, Louise McDonald-Ross, Albertina Walker and James Cleveland. Years later, the group featured Dorothy Norwood, Inez Andrews, Josephine Howard, Shirley Caesar and Dolores Washington. As a member of The Caravans, Cassietta wrote and led over 40 songs, bursting the group into the number one most iconic gospel group of all times. Her most noted recordings in The Caravan legacy were Will My Jesus Be Waiting, Remember Me Oh Lord, Let’s Break Bread Together, One Baptism, To Whom Shall I Turn, I’m Ready to Serve the Lord, Seek Ye the Lord, Jesus and Me, My Religion, Walk Around Heaven All Day and I’m Going To Work Until My Day Is Done.
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Cassietta George wrote 108 songs, recorded 16 albums during her solo career, and was nominated for two Grammy Awards.

A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Franklin was raised by his great aunt Gertrude, having been abandoned as a baby by his mother. Gertrude collected and resold aluminum cans to raise money for Kirk to take piano lessons from the age of 4. Kirk excelled in music, able to read and write music by ear. He received his first contract offer at the age of 7, which his aunt turned down. He joined the church choir and became music director of the Mt. Rose Baptist Church adult choir, at the age of eleven. Despite his strict religious upbringing, Franklin rebelled in his teenage years, and in an attempt to keep him out of trouble, his great aunt arranged an audition for him at a professional youth conservatory associated with a local university. He was accepted and while his life seemed to be on track for a while, the announcement of a girlfriend’s pregnancy and his eventual expulsion from school for behavioral problems proved otherwise.

After the shooting death of a friend, Franklin returned to the church, where he began to direct the choir once again. He also co-founded a gospel group, The Humble Hearts, which recorded one of Franklin’s compositions and got the attention of gospel music legend Milton Biggham. Impressed, Bigham enlisted him to lead the DFW Mass Choir in a recording of Franklin’s song “Every Day with Jesus.” This led to Bigham hiring Franklin (at just twenty years old) to lead the choir at the 1990 Gospel Music Workshop of America Convention, a major industry gathering.

In America’s season of discontent, much of the outrage is trained on President Barack Obama. But division persists over how much race influences the backlash.

WASHINGTON — In the predawn hours of last Nov. 5, while much of the nation celebrated Barack Obama’s election as the nation’s first black president, three white men in Springfield, Mass., doused the partially completed Macedonia Church of God in Christ with gasoline and burned it to the ground.
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Paul Robeson was the first major concert star to popularize the performance of Negro spirituals and was the first black actor of the 20th century to portray Shakespeare’s Othello on Broadway. As of 2009 Robeson’s run in the 1943–45 Othello production still holds the record for the longest running Shakespeare play on Broadway. In line with Robeson’s vocal dissatisfaction with movie stereotypes, his roles in both the American and British film industries were some of the first parts ever created that displayed dignity and respect for the African American film actor, paving the way for Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte.

President Barack Obama has taken the old-fashioned prayer line to a new level. The LA Times has reported the president addressed more than 1,000 faith leaders in two conference calls, hoping they will pass on his message about the overhaul of healthcare to their parishioners.
After weeks of resistance to his plan at town hall meetings across America, Obama sold his plan to overhaul healthcare directly to a friendlier audience — faith leaders who see reform as an ethical and religious imperative. Obama addressed more than 1,000 religious figures in two conference calls, allowing him to extend his message to legions of faithful in the pews………. read more