TYLER THE CREATOR (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, file)

by Candice Choi

AP Food Industry Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — PepsiCo is once again learning the risks of celebrity partnerships after an ad for Mountain Dew was criticized for portraying racial stereotypes and making light of violence toward women.

OLIVIA NUTTER

PHILADELPHIA (AP)—A teenager has been charged in an alleged assault on the teenage daughter of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.
Authorities say it's in connection with an altercation after a track meet in the city's East Mount Airy section April 18. Court records allege 18-year-old Ciarra Ryan punched Olivia Nutter, a senior at Masterman High School, in the head and face and pulled her hair.
Police say Ryan surrendered Monday. She's charged with simple assault and recklessly endangering another person; a telephone number for her could not immediately be located.
The mayor's spokesman, Mark McDonald, says there was an "incident" and the mayor's daughter is fine.
In 2007, when Nutter was running for his first term, a then 12-year-old Olivia Nutter achieved local fame starring in a TV commercial for her father.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS

May 1
1866—The two-day Memphis, Tenn., race riots, one of the most savage events immediately following the civil war, begins. When it was over, former Confederate soldiers, angered by the loss of the Civil War and the new status for Blacks, had killed 46 Blacks and two of their White supporters, as well as raped five Black women and torched over 90 homes, schools and churches. In support of the rebel soldiers, local police arrested hundreds of Blacks and not the Whites who were rioting. However, the savage nature of the rioting in Memphis (and a similar disturbance in New Orleans) prompted Congress to pass radical Reconstruction to aid Blacks, a Civil Rights bill, and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing citizenship and equal protection to former slaves.
1950—Brilliant poet Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize, is born on this day in Topeka, Kan.

1967—The “Long Hot Summer” begins. The period between May 1 and Oct. 1, 1967 witnessed the most dramatic and destructive series of Black urban disturbances in American history. Major riots took place in 40 American cities. There were also lesser disturbances in 100 smaller towns and cities. Many felt the riots were sparked by a collective sense of frustrated hopes and a new urban generation less willing to adopt peaceful means for change.
May 2
1844—Master inventor Elijah McCoy is born in Colchester, Ontario, Canada. He would become the holder of over 50 patents—most were mechanical devices, which greatly improved engines, locomotives and steamships. The superiority of his inventions led to the phrase “the real McCoy” coming to mean the mark of excellent and authenticity. McCoy was born to slaves who escaped America for a free life in Canada. His parents became successful and sent him to study engineering in Scotland when he was only 16. After the end of U.S. slavery, he settled in Ypsilanti, Mich., and began his remarkable career.
1870—One of the most unsung religious leaders in American history, William Seymour, was born on this day in Centerville, La.  Seymour became pastor of the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles and the catalyst for the worldwide Pentecostal movement. He not only rejected racial barriers in the church in favor of “Unity in Christ,” but he is also credited with eliminating many of the restrictions placed on women in the church. He died of a heart attack in 1922.
May 3
1845—Macon B. Allen passes the Massachusetts bar thus becoming the first African-American lawyer to pass a state bar and the first Black person permitted to practice law in the United States.  Allen was born in Indiana but after the Civil War he moved to South Carolina where he was elected a judge in 1873.
May 4
1891—Dr. Daniel Hale Williams founds the Provident Hospital and Training Center in Chicago, Ill. It becomes a major training center for Black doctors and nurses.  Williams is best known, however, for performing the nation’s first open heart surgery on July 9, 1893. He operated on a man injured in a knife fight. The man would live for another 20 years after the surgery.
1961—Thirteen Freedom Riders began bus trips through the South to test Southern compliance with a 1960 U.S. Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation in interstate transportation facilities. They were soon joined by hundreds of other “Freedom Riders” of all ages and races. Despite the Court decision, dozens of Freedom Riders were arrested as the South attempted to hang onto its segregationist ways.

May 5
1905—Robert Sengstacke Abbot founds the Chicago Defender newspaper calling it “the world’s greatest weekly.” Indeed, he would build the Defender into the largest circulation and most influential Black newspaper of its day. The Defender, which became the most widely circulated Black newspaper in the country, came to be known as "America's Black Newspaper" and made Abbott one of the first self-made millionaires of African-American descent. In 1919, Illinois Gov. Frank Lowden appointed Abbott to the Race Relations Commission. Abbott died of Bright's disease in 1940 in Chicago, Ill.
May 6
1787—Prince Hall organizes the nation’s first Black Masonic lodge in Boston, Mass.—African Lodge #459. Hall would go on to become the father of Black Masons in America and a major Black leader in the Northeast.
1812—Martin R. Delany, a pioneering Black nationalist, is born on this day in Charles Town, Va. Abraham Lincoln once described him as one of the most brilliant men he had ever met. Delany would fight in the Civil War to end slavery and become one of the nation’s first Black military officers. After the war he became a doctor. But over the years he became frustrated with American racism and began to advocate a return of Blacks to Africa.
May 7
1800—On this date the founder of the settlement which would grow to become the city of Chicago, Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable, sold his property and left the settlement. The Haitian-born frontier trader and businessman had a history of building significant wealth, losing it and building it again. He would die 18 years later in St. Charles, Mo.
1878—Black inventor, Joseph R. Winters, receives a patent for his designing of the fire escape ladder.
2010—A report on felony disenfranchisement laws begins  to receive widespread publicity. The report was actually released on April 21 by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. It showed that 5.3 million Americans were being denied the right to vote because of past felony convictions. Disproportionately, those denied voting rights were African-American. In fact, the report revealed that 13 percent of Black males could not vote because of felony convictions. Historically, most voting disenfranchisement laws were enacted after the Civil War as a means to keep newly freed Blacks from voting.

FORMER SPEAKER--House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

by Roz Edward
(RTNS)—Since its inception, the NAACP’s Annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner in Detroit has been known as the largest sit-down dinner in the world. The illustrious list of keynote speakers has included Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
On April 29 the democratic leader of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, stood at the podium and delivered the organization’s keynote address.
Pelosi a 26-year veteran of the U.S. Congress spoke solemnly about the challenges the nation faces.
“We didn’t invite Nancy Pelosi because she is a Democrat,” said Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the NAACP Detroit branch, the largest and most active branch in the nation. “We invited her because when we call on her [for assistance] she will push open the gates, and if she can’t push them open, she will climb over the gate, and if that doesn’t work she will parachute in.”
Pelosi a 26-year veteran of the U.S. Congress spoke solemnly about the challenges the nation faces.
First she acknowledged Alabama congresswoman Terri Sewell, the first Black woman to be elected to congress from that state, for introducing a house bill to honor the “Four Little Girls” killed in an Alabama church bombing in 1963.

Pelosi went on to inspire the 10,000 plus audience members with one of her favorite Dr. King quotes, "Freedom must never be defaulted, it must forever be exalted!"

The popular politician, a 26-year veteran of congress, then outlined her plan for making change in America.  "To achieve economic sustainability, we have to build confidence. We have to do this to enable everyone in America to achieve prosperity. We must address disparities in quality and in income," said Pelosi.

Congresswoman Pelosi may best be known for spearheading passage of the historic health insurance reform legislation in the House of Representatives, which established a Patient's Bill of Rights and will provide insurance for more Americans while lowering health care costs over the long term.

Pelosi also encouraged all Americans to recognize the dignity and worth of every human being, emphasizing the importance of creating a society at peace with itself.

Other dinner highlights included prestigious awards to; 108 year-old Emma Didlake who received the James Weldon Johnson Lifetime Achievement; Dr. Michael Eric Dyson who received the Ida B. Wells - Freedom Fund & Justice; the Honorable JoAnn Nichols Watson received the Mary Church Terrell Freedom and Justice Award and the Michigan Chronicle's own Bankole Thompson who received the Great Expectations Award. 

Against the backdrop of the most successful NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund dinner in history a small group of BANCO protestors marched in outside of Cobo Hall calling for the resignation of all Detroit Branch board members.