Former Zulu queen Desiree Rogers named White House social secretary

by Jonathan Tilove, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday November 25, 2008, 7:35 AM
Jennifer Zdon, The Times-PicayuneDesiree Rogers, daughter of late City Councilman Roy Glapion, was named White House social secretary Monday.
WASHINGTON -- Desiree Rogers, a former New Orleans Zulu queen and daughter of the late city councilman Roy Glapion Jr., was named incoming White House social secretary on Monday by President-elect Barack Obama.
In a statement Monday announcing the Rogers' appointment, Obama and wife Michelle highlighted Rogers' qualifications as one of Chicago's most high-powered executives, a former head of the Illinois Lottery, former president of the Chicago utility, Peoples Energy, and most recently president of social networking for Allstate Financial.
What the statement didn't mention is that Rogers, 49, is a native New Orleanian who twice was queen of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, a krewe dating back to 1916. She was queen of Zulu in 1988, and in 2000 reprised the reign in honor of her father, who died about two and a half months earlier.
Glapion, a former director of sports for the New Orleans public schools and member of the New Orleans City Council from 1994 until his death in 1999, was instrumental in leading the Zulu krewe from a dwindling band of fewer than 100 black men in the early 1970s to a robust, financially healthy and racially integrated krewe. Over the course of many years, Glapion served variously as finance chairman, president and chairman of the Zulu board.
Rogers is a pillar of the Chicago business and social scene -- a friend to Barack and Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Valerie Jarrett, the Obama confidante from Chicago who is co-chairing the transition effort and will serve as a senior adviser to the president in the new administration.
Rogers' new job will require all her business and social skills. Her office will be responsible for every ceremony and event that occurs at the White House, from state dinners on down. On Nov. 14, she threw a birthday party for Jarrett attended by the president-elect.
Rogers is a regular on lists of the most powerful African-American female executives in America.
Much of her work in her new job will be hand-in-glove with Michelle Obama, a friend of long standing from the same social circle in Chicago.
Rogers' former husband, John Rogers, is chairman and CEO of Ariel Capital Management in Chicago, the nation's first African-American-owned money management company. John Rogers is very close to the Obamas and a major fundraiser for Obama's Senate and presidential campaigns. He played basketball with Michelle's brother Craig Robinson, at Princeton, and played basketball with Sen. Obama on Election Day. He is co-chairman of the inaugural committee.
The Rogers have a daughter, Victoria, who is a student at Yale University.
Desiree Rogers received her undergraduate degree at Wellesley College and her MBA from Harvard University.
In a 2004 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Rogers said the best advice she ever received from her parents is that "nothing is ever impossible."
Her mother, Joyce, now retired, ran day-care centers and was also active in Carnival. She is known as a great cook and entertainer. Rogers' brother, Roy A. Glapion, an engineer, is senior vice president of Professional Service Industries Inc., and is active in New Orleans civic affairs. Both her brother and mother live in New Orleans.
According to an interview last year with the HistoryMakers, an African-American oral history project, Rogers' favorite color is black, her favorite food is chicken and her favorite saying is "laissez les bon temps rouler."
Jonathan Tilove can be reached at jtilove@timespicayune.com or 202.383.7827.
Read other articles, columns and blogs about Roger's appointment:

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/former_zulu_queen_picked_for_w.html

History & Archaeology: The Lasting Impact of a Civil Rights Icon's Murder

One of three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964 was James Chaney. His younger brother, Ben, would never be the same
By Hank Klibanoff
Smithsonian magazine, December 2008

By Hank Klibanoff
Smithsonian magazine, December 2008

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In the 44 days that his brother and two other young civil rights workers were missing in Neshoba County, Mississippi, 12-year-old Ben Chaney was quiet and withdrawn. He kept his mother constantly in sight as she obsessively cleaned their house, weeping all the while.
Bill Eppridge, a Life magazine photographer, arrived in Neshoba County shortly after the bodies of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were pulled from the muck of an earthen dam on August 4, 1964. Inside the Chaney home in nearby Meridian, Eppridge felt that Ben was overwhelmed, "not knowing where he was or where he should have been," he recalls. "That draws you to somebody, because you wonder what is going on there."
On August 7, Eppridge watched as the Chaney family left to bury their eldest son. As they awaited a driver, Fannie Lee Chaney and her husband, Ben Sr., sat in the front seat of a sedan; their daughters, Barbara, Janice and Julia, sat in the back with Ben, who hunched forward so he'd fit.
Eppridge took three frames. As he did so, he could see Ben's bewilderment harden into a cold stare directed right at the lens. "There were a dozen questions in that look," Eppridge says. "As they left, he looked at me and said, three times, 'I'm gonna kill 'em, I'm gonna kill 'em, I'm gonna kill 'em.' "
The frames went unpublished that year in Life; most news photographs of the event showed a sobbing Ben Chaney Jr. inside the church. The one on this page is included in "Road to Freedom," a photography exhibit organized by Atlanta's High Museum and on view through March 9 at the Smithsonian's S. Dillon Ripley Center in Washington, D.C., presented by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Chaney, now 56, cannot recall what he told Eppridge in 1964, but he remembers being livid that his mother had to suffer and that his father's generation had not risen up years before so that his brother's generation wouldn't have had to. "I know I was angry," he says.
Ben had lost his idol. Nine years older, James Earl Chaney—J.E., Ben called him—had bought Ben his first football uniform and taken him for haircuts. He had taken Ben along as he organized prospective black voters in the days leading to Freedom Summer. Ben, who had been taken into custody himself for demonstrating for civil rights, recalls J.E. walking down the jailhouse corridor to secure his release, calling, "Where's my brother? "
"He treated me," Ben says, "like I was a hero."
After the funeral, a series of threats drove the Chaneys from Mississippi. With help from the Schwerners, Goodmans and others, they moved to New York City. Ben enrolled in a private, majority-white school and adjusted to life in the North. But by 1969 he was restless. In Harlem, he says, he was elated to see black people running their own businesses and determining their own fates. He joined the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army.
In May 1970, two months shy of 18, Chaney and two other young men drove to Florida with a vague plan to buy guns. Soon, five people, including one of their number, were dead in Florida and South Carolina.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Indelible-Images-Moment-of-Reckoning-200812.html#

Family of Sean Bell Meets with Federal Prosecutors

WPIX News
Family of Sean Bell Meets with Federal Prosecutors


Glenn Thomson reporting
November 18, 2008
BROOKLYN, NY - Family members of Sean Bell had their first ever meeting with federal prosecutors Tuesday. The meeting came almost two years after Bell died in a hail of 50 bullets outside the Queens nightclub Kalua, when undercover cops fired at Bell and his group, assuming they were armed. The officers who killed the unarmed father, set to get married the next day, were later cleared of state criminal charges.
"Justice was never served in this case," said family attorney Michael Hardy. "We still want justice for Sean."
The family has been pushing for the Justice department to bring civil rights charges against the officers. After their first meeting with federal prosecutors, the family now believes that it is possible.
In a statement, Rev. Al Sharpton said he believes today's meeting is "a sign that the federal government has begun to seriously look into the egregious denial of the civil rights of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman, and Trent Benefield."
Bell's family echoed the thoughts of Sharpton, saying this meeting is a step towards justice.
"Sean had a life ahead of him," fiancee Nicole Paultre Bell told reporters. "This has given us hope."
Administrative charges are still pending on the three detectives and one other shooter not charged in the case. Officials said they are awaiting a decision by federal authorities before pursuing any or all charges.

Region mourns death of Miriam Makeba

published: Wednesday November 12, 2008

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on Monday expressed shock at the passing of South African singer Miriam Makeba, who reportedly suffered a heart attack and died after performing at an anti-Mafia concert in Italy on Sunday. She was 76.

Speaking with the Caribbean Media Corporation via telephone from Antigua, CARICOM Chairman Baldwin Spencer described Makeba as a "towering figure in the fight against apartheid.

"Not only the music world, but the black diaspora and (all) peoples of goodwill would certainly mourn at her passing," Spencer said, adding that "she has certainly made a significant contribution to the efforts of her country and indeed the world".

Obama Pledges to Confront Economic Crisis 'Head On'

Barack Obama pledged Friday to "confront this economic crisis head on" as soon as he is sworn in as the country's 44th president.

But the president-elect also warned of a tough road ahead during his first press conference since Election Day, held in Chicago just minutes after meeting with a team of top economic advisers.

"It is not going to be quick. It is not going to be easy for us to dig ourselves out of the hole that we are in," Obama said. "But America is a strong and resilient country, and I know we will succeed."

Obama stressed the need to extend unemployment benefits, stimulate job growth and reduce the number of foreclosures, and he pressed for Congress to pass a new stimulus package "sooner rather than later."

"If it does not get done in a lame duck session, it will be the first thing I get done as president of the United States," Obama said.

He also deferred to President Bush, saying "we only have one president at a time." He said he appreciated Bush's commitment to ensuring a smooth transition and said he was "grateful" Bush invited him and his wife, Michelle Obama, to the White House on Monday.

Obama spoke after he and Vice President-elect Joe Biden convened a meeting of the transition economic advisory board, a high-powered group of business, academic and government leaders. They included Lawrence Summers, who some have mentioned as a candidate for Treasury secretary, a post he held in the Clinton administration; Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, whose state has been hit hard by losses in the auto industry; Google CEO Eric Schmidt; and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

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Rahm Emanuel, who will be Obama's White House chief of staff, also participated in the meeting.
Other participants in the meeting included executives from Xerox Corp., Time Warner Inc.; and the Hyatt hotel company. Investor Warren Buffett was calling in by telephone.

More evidence of a recession came Friday when the government reported that the unemployment rate had jumped from 6.1 percent in September to 6.5 percent in October.

Obama has been meeting privately with his transition team, receiving congratulatory phone calls from U.S. allies and intelligence briefings, and making decisions about who will help run his government.

One person frequently mentioned for a Cabinet post, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, will not be available until 2011, say officials close to him. Rendell has two years left of his term, and Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll, a Democrat, is ailing. Next in line to be governor is the Republican president pro tempore the state Senate.

Rather than take the chance that the GOP would gain control of the governor's office, Rendell has signaled he will stay put for the time being.

On Friday morning, Obama and his wife, Michelle, attended a parent-teacher conference at the University of Chicago Lab School where their daughters, Malia and Sasha, are students. The couple planned to visit the White House on Monday at President Bush's invitation.

Obama planned to stay home through the weekend, with a blackout on news announcements so he and his staff can rest after the grueling campaign and the rush of Tuesday night's victory. He is planning a family getaway to Hawaii in December before they move to the White House, and to honor his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who died Sunday at her home there.

Obama, who bested Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, has made it clear he will rely heavily on veterans of her husband's eight-year administration, the only Democratic presidency in the past 28 years.

Obama also is certain to bring to the White House a cadre of longtime aides like senior adviser David Axelrod and press secretary Robert Gibbs. Both have worked closely with Obama since he ran for the Senate in 2004.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/07/obama-meets-team-economic-experts/

Obama turns to building a presidency*

WASHINGTON – His storied election behind him and weighty problems in his face, Barack Obama turned Wednesday to the task of building an administration in times of crisis as Americans and the world absorbed his history-shattering achievement as the first black leader ascending to the presidency.
Obama enjoyed an everyman day-after in his hometown of Chicago on Wednesday after an electric night of celebration, anchored by his victory rally of 125,000 in Chicago and joyful outpourings of his supporters across the country. The president-elect saw his two young daughters off to school, a simple pleasure he's missed during nearly two years of virtually nonstop travel, then had a gym workout.
Pressing business came at him fast, with just 76 days until his inauguration as the 44th president.
The nation's top intelligence officials planned to give him top-secret daily briefings starting Thursday, sharing with him the most critical overnight intelligence as well as other information he has not been allowed to see as a senator or candidate. And Obama planned to give the first of his daily briefings to the media on Thursday as he moves quickly to begin assembling a White House staff and selecting Cabinet nominees.
Obama was asking Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, former political and policy adviser to President Clinton, to be his White House chief of staff, Democratic officials said. John Podesta, who served as Clinton's chief of staff, was expected to join Obama Senate aide Pete Rouse and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett in leading the transition team.
President Bush pledged "complete cooperation" in the transition and called Obama's victory a "triumph of the American story."
Naming the staggering list of problems he inherits in his decisive defeat of Republican John McCain — two wars and "the worst financial crisis in a century," among them — Obama sought to restrain the soaring expectations of his supporters late Tuesday night even as he stoked them with impassioned calls for national unity and partisan healing.
"We may not get there in one year or even in one term," he said. "But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there."
Helping him to get there will be a strengthened Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. When Obama becomes the president on Jan. 20, with Delaware Sen. Joe Biden as his vice president, Democrats will control both the White House and Congress for the first time since 1994.
A tide of international goodwill came Obama's way on Wednesday morning, even as developments made clear how heavy a weight will soon be on his shoulders.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a congratulatory telegram saying there is "solid positive potential" for the election to improve strained relations between Washington and Moscow, if Obama engages in constructive dialogue.
Yet he appeared to be deliberately provocative hours after the election with sharp criticism of the U.S. and his announcement that Russia will deploy missiles near NATO member Poland in response to U.S. missile defense plans.
In Afghanistan, where villagers said the U.S. bombed a wedding party and killed 37 people, President Hamid Karzai said: "This is my first demand of the new president of the United States — to put an end to civilian casualties."
Young and charismatic but with little experience on the national level or as an executive, Obama easily defeated McCain, smashing records and remaking history along the way.
Ending an improbable journey that started for Obama a long 21 months ago, he drew a record-breaking $700 million to his campaign account alone. The first African-American destined to sit in the Oval Office, he also was the first Democrat to receive more than 50 percent of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976. He is the first senator elected to the White House since John F. Kennedy in 1960.
And Obama scored an Electoral College landslide that redrew America's political dynamics. He won states that reliably voted Republican in presidential elections, such as Indiana and Virginia, which hadn't supported a Democratic candidate in 44 years. Ohio and Florida, key to President Bush's twin victories, also went for Obama, as did Pennsylvania, which McCain had deemed crucial for his election hopes.
With most U.S. precincts tallied, the popular vote was 52.3 percent for Obama and 46.4 percent for McCain. But the count in the Electoral College was much more lopsided — 349 to 147 in Obama's favor as of early Wednesday, with three states still to be decided. Those were North Carolina, Georgia and Missouri.
The nation awakened to the new reality at daybreak, a short night after millions witnessed Obama's election — an event so rare it could not be called a once-in-a-century happening. Prominent black leaders wept unabashedly in public, rejoicing in the elevation of one of their own, at long last.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who had made two White House bids himself, said on ABC's "Good Morning America" that the tears streaming down his face upon Obama's victory were about his father and grandmother and "those who paved the fights. And then that Barack's so majestic."
Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and leading player in the civil rights movement with Jackson, said on NBC's "Today" show: "He's going to call on us, I believe, to sacrifice. We all must give up something."
Speaking from Hong Kong, retired Gen. Colin Powell, the black Republican whose endorsement of Obama symbolized the candidate's bipartisan reach and bolstered him against charges of inexperience, called the senator's victory "a very very historic occasion." But he also predicted that Obama would be "a president for all America."
On Capitol Hill, Democrats ousted incumbent GOP Sens. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and John Sununu of New Hampshire and captured seats held by retiring Republican senators in Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado. Still, the GOP blocked a complete rout, holding the Kentucky seat of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a Mississippi seat once held by Trent Lott.
The Associated Press prematurely declared incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman the winner in a race against Democratic former comedian Al Franken that by state law is subject to a recount based on the 571-vote margin. The party also held onto a Mississippi seat once held by Trent Lott.
In the House, with fewer than a dozen races still undecided, Democrats captured Republican-held seats in the Northeast, South and West and were on a path to pick up as many as 20 seats.
"It is not a mandate for a party or ideology but a mandate for change," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
After the longest and costliest campaign in U.S. history, Obama was propelled to victory by voters dismayed by eight years of Bush's presidency and deeply anxious about rising unemployment and home foreclosures and a battered stock market that has erased trillions of dollars of savings for Americans.
Six in 10 voters picked the economy as the most important issue facing the nation in an Associated Press exit poll. None of the other top issues — energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care — was selected by more than one in 10. Obama has promised to cut taxes for most Americans, get the United States out of Iraq and expand health care, including mandatory coverage for children.
McCain conceded defeat shortly after 11 p.m. EST, telling supporters outside the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, "The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly."
"This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and the special pride that must be theirs tonight," McCain said. "These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face."
The son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas, the 47-year-old Obama has had a startlingly rapid rise, from lawyer and community organizer to state legislator and U.S. senator, now not even four years into his first term.
Almost six in 10 women supported Obama nationwide, while men leaned his way by a narrow margin, according to interviews with voters. Just over half of whites supported McCain, giving him a slim advantage in a group that Bush carried overwhelmingly in 2004.
The results of the AP survey were based on a preliminary partial sample of nearly 10,000 voters in Election Day polls and in telephone interviews over the past week for early voters.
In terms of turnout, America voted in record numbers. It looks like 136.6 million Americans will have voted for president this election, based on 88 percent of the country's precincts tallied and projections for absentee ballots, said Michael McDonald of George Mason University. Using his methods, that would give 2008 a 64.1 percent turnout rate, the highest since 65.7 percent in 1908, he said.
(This version CORRECTS SUBS 5th graf to correct spelling of Emanuel. AP Video.)