On Wednesday, June 22nd at 7:30pm, Actor, Producer & Entrepreneur Rodney Chester comes to The Big Apple from Hollywoodand shares an intimate night with fans and supporters of his work on both television & the silver screen. There are so many unanswered questions from the last season of the Noah’s Arc TV series and fans want to know what Rodney has been up to for the last four years. Rodney and his friend & television host, Lloyd Boston come together during NYC Pride week this June to interact and share Rodney’s untold stories at the Faison Fire House Theater, 6 Hancock Place (at 124th Street & St. Nicholas Blvd), Harlem, NY 10027.
His latest project entitled An Evening with Rodney Chester: This Ain’t A Game!Produced and directed by Nathan Hale Williams, co-written by Craig Rose and managed by Richard E. Pelzer II, & Chrissy Dorey promises to be a SMASH hit and the talk of the town. Through anecdotes, vignettes, never before seen clips and behind the scene stories, Rodney will entertain you all the while giving you the inside "T! “ In this in your face one man show, Rodney strips down all of the layers and is more transparent than ever about his life, career and his experiences as a star on the hit show Noah's Arc. And, you know a Rodney Chester performance won't be complete without a two step - he loves to dance. So, join us for a fun filled, irreverent night with your favorite character from the groundbreaking series.
For every ticket purchased on RodneyChester.com, you will receive access to our VIP Belvedere RED pre-reception from 6:30pm -7:15pm at The Faison Firehouse Theater (please note: you must be 21 or older and ID’s are required to enter). Seating is limited for this special performance with Rodney so get your ticket in advance. A portion of proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to The Black AIDS Institute.
On Wednesday, June 22nd at 7:30pm, Actor, Producer & Entrepreneur Rodney Chester comes to The Big Apple from Hollywoodand shares an intimate night with fans and supporters of his work on both Television & the Silver Screen.There are so many unanswered questions from the last season of the Noah’s Arc TV series and fans want to know what Rodney has been up to for the last four years.Rodney and his friend & television host, Lloyd Boston come together during NY Pride week this June to interact and share untold stories at the Faison Fire House Theater, 6 Hancock Place (at 124th Street & St. Nicholas Blvd), Harlem, NY 10027.
Rodney Chester bestknown asAlex from the hit Logo Network original series; “Noah’s Arc”has been a working professional in the field of dance and choreography for the past 15 years. He worked with Patrik-Ian Polk on his independent film Punks, which led to his starring role in Polk’s series “Noah’s Arc.”In the fall of 2008, Noah's Arc the movie “Jumping The Broom” surprised the entertainment industry by opening at Number 1 on the independent film box office report, according to IndieWire.com . Since the success of the movie, Rodney hosted the 2009 Out Music Awards, will appear in HBO’s original series "PLAYERS" and travels the U.S. hosting events.
A native of Cocoa Beach, Florida, Chester graduated with honors from Bethune Cookman College. He began his career as a dancer, which took him all over the world. His talents led him to a dancing role in “Cinderella,” starring Whitney Houston and other production work for Prince, Chaka Khan, Diana Ross, Toni Braxton, TLC and Deborah Cox to name a few. In addition, Chester has acted in a variety of Off-Broadway productions and television commercials.
Chester attributes (the) performances in television, film and music video to his success as owner and director of Trio Talent Agency (www.triotalentagency.com)in Los Angeles. He enjoys working with some of the world’s top musical and dance artists, continuing to be at the top of his dance game on all levels. As he continues to create new entertainment ventures, Chester still makes himself available to host events around the world.
His latest project entitled An Evening with Rodney Chester: This Ain’t No Game!produced by Nathan Hale Williams, co-written by Craig Rose and managed by Richard E. Pelzer II, & Chrissy Dorey promises to be a SMASH hit and the talk of the year.Seating is limited for this special performance.Tickets are available at RodneyChester.com. Purchase TODAY and don’t Da GAG-GAG! A portion of proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to The Black AIDS Institute.
“Through hard work and perseverance success is imminent”
One of the leading African American ministers in the country stood in his pulpit to eulogize Ugandan gay advocate, David Kato, who was murdered after having a death threat against him published on the front page of a local newspaper.The Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, head pastor of the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, announced to the 150 people gathered at the memorial service on Monday, February 7, 2011, that he was “beginning the conversation” to engage Black church leaders to save the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender leaders such as David Kato.
"Tonight we make an important first step in bridging the chasm that separates gay & straight people in the church," Butts proclaimed. "This discussion on human sexuality should have happened a long time ago and if it had maybe Kato's and many many other's lives would have been saved."
Frank Mugisha, Executive Director of Sexual Minorities of Uganda, who worked closely with David, said, "Being here tonight inspires me and gives me strength to carry on David's work advocating for gays and lesbians, bailing them out of jail, providing financial support and protection.Before coming here I did not know that a religious leader could stand up freely and support gays and lesbians. In Uganda when a pastor did that he was excommunicated."
Uganda has been under international scrutiny as it continues to consider a law that would included the death penalty for gay people.Conservative Evangelicals have been documented spreading anti-gay sentiment to Uganda so that Ugandan LGBT people are now having to flee their homes due to threats and persecution.
"So long as these laws remain in force millions of people will continue to live their lives under the threat of arrest and in some cases even execution. These laws legitimize homophobia by giving it a government sanctioned seal of approval,” said Charles Radcliffe. "Our first challenge has to be the decriminalization of homosexuality." Mr. Radcliffe is the chief of global issues for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
New York City Speaker Christine C. Quinn, in a written statement read by a representative, called Kato's death "a reminder that every single individual has the power to promote equality and stand up against injustices both near and far.”
Pastor Joseph A. Tolton, Pastor of Rehoboth Temple and organizer of the service, praised Dr. Butts for his leadership in this critical moment.“The gay and lesbian African American community had a historic homecoming in this memorial service for David Kato.We found ourselves welcomed home to the cradle of the Black Church.We are clear that we all walk under the banner of love where our community will work together and not allow ourselves to be divided because of sexual orientation or gender identity.This is our first step in a long journey.”
The service, reminiscent of those held for the many martyrs who paid the ultimate price for freedom in the US, included a solitary portrait of Kato bearing the words "Demand Justice" positioned in the front of the church.Local church choirs and a featured solo from violinist Juliette Jones brought the gathered community to their feet with tears in their eyes. The memorial was one of two memorials held in New York City just two weeks after Kato was murdered in his home in Uganda. His death captured international attention and yesterday's memorial will certainly carry forward the discussion of homophobia in Uganda, the United States and the 70 countries that still imprison or execute gay and transgender people.
Prince is continuing his mission to pay it forward and pave the way for the next generation to attain greatness. The seven-time Grammy award winner gave a $1 million line of credit to the Harlem Children's Zone and $250,000 each to the Uptown Dance Academy and the American Ballet Theatre .The lines of credit allow Prince to remain involved in and know the needs of the organizations as they draw on the funds to grow and accomplish their missions.
The announcement came yesterday during a press conference that Bleu attended at Madison Square Garden in NYC featuring Harlem Children's Zone's President and CEO Geoffrey Canada and 30 students from the community-based educational organization. The same night Prince concluded the first leg of his phenomenally successful "Welcome 2 America" tour, one of the highest grossing recent tours in the country.
For a century Harlem has been celebrated as the capital of black America, a thriving center of cultural achievement and political action. At a crucial moment in Harlem's history, as gentrification encroaches, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts untangles the myth and meaning of Harlem's legacy. Examining the epic Harlem of official history and the personal Harlem that begins at her front door, Rhodes-Pitts introduces us to a wide variety of characters, past and present. At the heart of their stories, and her own, is the hope carried over many generations, hope that Harlem would be the ground from which blacks fully entered America's democracy.
Rhodes-Pitts is a brilliant new voice who, like other significant chroniclers of places-Joan Didion on California, or Jamaica Kincaid on Antigua-captures the very essence of her subject.
HISTORIC HARLEM CHURCH TO HOLD SERVICE FOR UGANDAN GAY ADVOCATE
As gay and transgender Ugandans and same-gender-loving faith leaders in the United States mourn the death of gay leader David Kato, the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City is opening its doors to host a memorial service for Mr. Kato. The Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III one of the leading African American ministers in the United States will preside over the service in a congregation known as the “cradle of the Black Church.” Info: http://gaybygod.net/david-kato/
WHO: The Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor Abyssinian Baptist Church
Pastor Joseph W. Tolton, pastor of Rehoboth Christ Consciousness
Pastor Michael Walrond Jr., pastor of First Corinthian Baptist Church
Bishop Yvette Flunder, presiding bishop of The Fellowship
Frank Mugisha, president of Sexual Minorities Uganda
Charles Radcliffe, Office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
WHAT: Memorial Service and call for solidarity in remembrance of slain Ugandan gay rights advocate, David Kato.
WHEN: Monday February 7, 2011. 7pm
WHERE: Abyssinian Baptist Church 132 Odell Clark Place, NY, NY (W 138th St)
WHY: On Wednesday January 26, 2011 David Kato, a Ugandan gay rights advocate, was beaten to death in his home. His death comes just months after his name, picture and home address were published by the Ugandan newspaper, Rolling Stone, where Kato and 99 others were pictured in an article calling for their execution. Uganda came under scrutiny last year as its parliament proposed the death penalty for gay people. Many believe American Evangelicals who visited Uganda in 2009 helped create the bill and fomented a climate of fear leading to violence.
The memorial, will remember Kato's work, celebrate his life, and mourn his death while challenging lawmakers, foreign and domestic governments and citizens of this world to respond with action against anti-gay movements stoked by religion.
In January, Bascom Hill Publishing Group is thrilled to publish Cheryl Wills’ first book, DIE FREE: A Heroic Family History (Bascom Hill Publishing Group, January 3, 2011), a true-story of the television journalist’s remarkable family journey from slavery to freedom in America.
As the nation marks the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War in 2011, Cheryl is hopeful that her great-great-great grandfather Sandy Wills’ courageous stint in that Great will be remembered along with the other 200,000 members of the United States Colored Troops.In Civil War anniversaries past, black soldiers have been largely ignored.
DIE FREE is packed with powerful personal stories, many of which are obtained from the National Archives in Washington, D.C.Cheryl’s exhaustive research, with the help a genealogist and the popular website ancestry.com, unearths a history that defies common stereotypes about the antebellum and reconstruction periods in the United States. For example, Cheryl’s great-great-great grandparents, Sandy and Emma Wills, remained friendly with their former slave owners and even married in their house. In DIE FREE Cheryl also uncovers how the federal government routinely discriminated against black Civil War veterans and their widows when they applied for pensions.Documents reveal a disturbing pattern of injustice as veterans were required to answer humiliating questions about their skin color and forced to hire legal representation.
This fascinating thread of American history is set against a backdrop of Cheryl’s father, a courageous army paratrooper who served during the Vietnam era and later joined the ranks of the New York City Fire Department.As the first African-American who integrated the oldest firehouse in the city, Engine 1, the author digs deep and shares how her father died at the age of 38 – without ever knowing his family’s distinguished Civil War legacy.
DIE FREE is a call to action for all Americans to ‘uncover your past to empower your future.’Cheryl Wills demonstrates that you can be emboldened by the courage of your ancestors and walk confidently in the direction of your dreams. After reading the pages of this uplifting book, you’ll learn that the debt for your freedom and prosperity has already been paid.
“Die Free is a compelling American story. As Cheryl Wills traces the life of her forefathers and foremothers, she traces a critical part of American history that puts in perspective where we have come from to get to where we are.”
-Rev. Al Sharpton
“Ancestry.com is proud the Cheryl Wills used our comprehensive website to make such a fascinating discovery. Die Free is a perfect example of why we do what we do!”
-Loretto “Lou” Dennis Szucs, V.P., Ancestry.com
“The stories are so deeply engaging that readers will quickly realize that in telling her personal story, Cheryl Wills is also telling ours”
-Warrington Hudlin, Pres., Black Filmmaker Foundation
“Die Free is a significant contribution to the body of literature that traces the experiences and family heritage of Africans in the diaspora, a journey that is all too familiar.”
-Sidique Abou-Bakarr Wai, President and National
Spokesperson, United African Congress
“The discovery of Cheryl’s great-great-great grandfather has been a fortuitous and unexpected find---tracking down slavery ancestry is never easy as slaves were treated as property, brought and sold, and rarely referred to by name.”
-Craig Rice, Association of Professional Genealogists
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cheryl Wills, longtime news anchor for Time Warner Cable’s New York 1 News featured regularly on the Huffington Post, holds a degree in Broadcast Journalism from the renowned S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.She was awarded in 2005 with an honorary doctorate from New York College of Health Professions and honored in 2010 as a broadcast legend in a regional campaign for McDonalds.Wills has moderated events broadcast on C-SPAN, is a nationally known public speaker, and has played herself in several big-screen movies.
As Ugandan Member of Parliament David Bahati, the sponsor of a Draconian new bill making homosexuality a capital offense in his country, came to the United States this past week, seeking support for the legislation, an “Emergency Town Hall Meeting” was held Saturday, in New York City. Organized by the Black Faith Alliance for Global LGBT Justice, the event at Rehoboth Temple Christ Consciousness Church in Harlem featured a keynote address from Frank Mugishi, of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). At issue was the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Act, whose provisions include life imprisonment for anyone found guilty of homosexual relations, and execution for anyone having previous convictions for homosexuality, is HIV-positive, or has gay sexual relations with a person under 18. In addition, the bill also makes failure to report a “known homosexual” to the authorities a crime, punishable by 7 years in prison, and creates an extradition process for Ugandans who are caught having gay relationships anywhere in the world. This extraordinarily harsh legislation against gays also highlighted, according to the meeting’s organizers, the involvement of the Christian Right here in the United States in the bill’s development.
Citing the “continued efforts of the religious right in turning blacks and gays against each other”, Bishop Zachary Jones of the Unity Fellowship Church spoke of how the Christian right in the US was heavily engaged in California’s Proposition 8, which overturned gay marriage in that state, and on the use of Uganda as a “lab” in which the effects of anti-gay legislation could be observed. “The religious right,” Jones stated, “Is using Africans as pawns in a global chess game.” Jones was joined at the pulpit by Pastor Joseph Tolton, Rehoboth’s own presiding cleric, who read out the “call to action” on Uganda, imploring the United Nations and the US State Department to make decisive moves to address the plight of Uganda’s gays. Tolton cited a right-wing, Republican-based, American evangelical group, “The Family” with “exporting hatred to Africa, with a direct threat to the LGBT community in Uganda, by funding and sponsoring the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.” Tolton linked the situation in Uganda with American gays, saying, “We know that the freedom of our brothers and sisters in Uganda is clearly connected to our freedom here at home in the United States.” Pastor Tolton was followed by Frank Mugishi, who recounted in chilling detail the suffering of gays and lesbians in his home country.
Frank Mugishi, of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) Photo Credit: Ocean Morisset
Mugishi described forced hiding for gays and lesbians, “corrective rape” programs for lesbians, and the outright publication of the names and hometowns of gays and lesbians in local newspapers, creating a mob atmosphere in which gays feared being hunted down and beaten or killed. Mugishi stated that Uganda was “determined” to use all possible means to remove gays from its society, and the Anti-Homosexuality Act enjoyed broad public support. Mugishi and his organization have been operating underground in Uganda, and with the possible passage of Bahati’s bill, feared a catastrophic wave of anti-gay killings. GBM News asked Mugishi about the extradition clause in the Anti-Homosexuality Act. Mugishi confirmed that this would leave Uganda’s gays “little chance of escape”.
In a televised interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, MP Bahati cited “God’s Law” as justification for the proposed bill, and told viewers that “children were being recruited into homosexuality” by gay men in Uganda. When pressed to provide evidence of his claims, Bahati demurred, repeating only that “homosexuality is not of [Ugandan] culture.” While in Washington, Bahati stayed at a residence on C Street, also shared by numerous Republican members of Congress, and found receptive ears in several right-wing Christian organizations for his rhetoric. In Uganda, Bahati has gained the support of powerful allies such as Pastor Martin Ssempa, who showed scatological pornography as his “example” of gay sexual practices, and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has said he will not oppose the bill if it passes Parliament. Bahati himself, in the documentary Missionaries of Hate, aired last summer on Current TV, stated that he would not hesitate to have his own daughter put to death under the law he authored, if she were found to be a lesbian.
In final statements at the Town Hall meeting, Pastor Tolton called upon all closeted gays and lesbians to “come out, wherever you are”, because “now is the time”. He urged gays of color to engage in a “sustained response” to homophobia, decrying the “spiritual colonialism” of the “religious right”. The approximately fifty attendees were brought to the pulpit as a show of unity, singing We Shall Overcome, recalling the civil-rights struggles of the 1960s. An appeal was made for donations to help Mugishi spread his message about the Ugandan situation, and to support Uganda’s imperiled gay population. Whatever lies ahead for Uganda’s gays in the coming months, it was clear that this critical, complex issue involving the efforts of a modern state government to exterminate a minority within its population, will continue to call to the hearts and minds of the LGBT community the world over.
The Global Justice Institute, GLAAD, GLO TV Network, GayByGod.net, The Fellowship, MCC New York & Rehoboth Temple join efforts to mobilize the community.
CALL TO ACTION
The Christian Right is Killing BLACK Gay People in Uganda
The Human Rights THREAT in Uganda effects ALL OF US
Rachel Maddow- -Kill the gays- bills U.S. supporters
On Wednesday, June 22nd at 7:30pm, Actor, Producer & Entrepreneur Rodney Chester comes to The Big Apple from Hollywood and shares an intimate night with fans and supporters of his work on both Television & the Silver Screen.
