Happy Palm Sunday!

Happy Palm Sunday! As Christians all around the world celebrate the beginning of Holy Week, we are reminded of lessons from Jesus' life during a most critical period. Popular opinion and polls change and people are fickle. One minute they are celebrating you and nominating you for President or the Secretary of Defense when they think you can save their hides from oppressive dictators and their armies. The next minute they will desert you when they discover your mission does not line up with their expectations. Some will even turn you in for the right price.

Here's another lesson: some of the people in the crowd that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem shouting "Hail" and "You down with G-O-D", were inevitably in the crowd a few days later when the masses yelled, "Crucify Him!" Also, there were definitely individuals in those crowds that served the same God as Jesus. You do know that the people who paid for Jesus' betrayal and arrest were religious leaders. Everyone praying with you ain't praying for your success.

Jesus knew his mission and that steadied him during his toughest trials even when his closest friends deserted him and his mother could not help him.

Just like Jesus, at some point during our lives we will face injustice. If we know our purpose, we will be able to stand up to the bullies, liars, and demonic forces, and speak the truth.

Confidence over Insecurity

Don't project your insecurities onto someone else. Maybe it's not that they think they are too this or that, it's that you're uncomfortable with who they are and what they represent.

I saw a television show this weekend where a group of women attacked and disliked another woman because her aproach to life and values were different than theirs. "She thinks she's too good for us. She's too quiet. She doesn't hang out with us all the time. She's a goody two-shoes." They felt this way because she did not like the same things they liked. She expressed opinions that were different from the group's opinions. So, naturally she became a target.

As adults and women, we have to be careful that we don't go through life constantly playing middle school games. Let people be who they are. That's a sign of maturity. If you are uncomfortable with who they are, check yourself first. Have the courage to do this as an individual away from the group. It maybe that her example will help you find the confidence to be more of who you really want to be rather than always fitting into the questionable expectations of the group.

Be Present

This week I saw on a talk show the story of two women who had been best friends for a number of years. It appears that the friendship had been lost for several years after an incident where one of the friends did not feel that the other person cared for her the same way she cared for them.

They missed each other's loving support during so many life events where the support of a true girlfriend means more than words can describe. An engagement. A marriage. The birth of a first child. The death of a parent.

The essence of the first major "blow" to the friendship came when one friend called and gave the other friend her credit card number and told her to order a pizza when she heard about the death of her friend's mother. Sounds really callous, right? Of course, the friend who called with her credit card number had an excuse. She said that she did not deal with death very well, but she wanted to help. Now to you or I, this may seem like a lame excuse and would have been unforgivable. But it wasn't just this event that broke up their friendship. However, it was the one thing that always hung over any other misunderstanding.

The bottom line and the moral of the story is this: show up and be present. Sometimes this is going to require you to be in situations that are uncomfortable for you, yet your presence could mean the world to your friend or loved one. When words are in adequate, your presence can communicate the universal language of love. So as much and as often as possible, choose to be present in the lives of those who are important to you.
#emPowerHER #BePresent #Friendship #RealLove #whm #WomenMakingHistory

Reflections On An Extraordinary King and His Dream

I grew up believing in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream. His dream, which should be every American's dream, was that people would be judged by the content of their character, not their skin color. He believed that individuals  should be judged by their skills and comportment, not the pigmentation of their skin, the size of their nose, eyes or lips, the length or texture of their hair, or even their accent.

In the almost 50 years since his death, there has been progress, but not enough. Some of the same problems that plagued King's generation and all those who came before him, still plagued us in the 21st century. Disparities in unemployment and health care, unequal justice, systemic racism, etc. In 2017, we still live in a country where people and their voices are marginalized because they express views that are different.

We as a nation must become uncomfortable with the intolerable just as King, Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, James Baldwin and so many countless others stood up to racism and discrimination, and initiated change. You will not change a system when you are comfortable with the benefits of its injustice. We must become uncomfortable.

The indomitable spirit, that fire that burned within an ordinary mortal man and caused him to risk his life to lead a people to wage a nonviolent war against an unjust system, must lead us to a place where we are re-filled and re-energized to stand against bigotry and exclusion from the rights that every citizen should have. I have personally experienced silence from leaders who are willing to look the other way when the injustice is against those whose beliefs they disagree with or whose profile is not high enough to warrant their attention. But this is not right. 

Injustice is like cancer. Unless we identify it and confront it, it will spread and take over our system. We must stand up and rededicate ourselves to the equality and the inalienable rights of everyone. We are the ones we have been waiting for... 

--Nona O. 

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

 --Martin L. King, Jr.

Happy Thanksgiving!

#HappyThanksgiving from @womenatliberty and #WomenMakingHistory!

Us vs. Them...@vnona

If you do the same things that they do, you are just like them. If you exclude people beause they don't think like you, you are a bigot. If you bully those who look different from you, then you are intolerant.

The end does not justify the means. You are just like them.

--Nona O.

Happy New Year!

from womenatliberty.com, #LeadershipTuesdays and #WomenMakingHistory!

Cleveland Police Officers Not Indicted For Tamir Rice's Death

 

Tamir Rice
June 25, 2002 - November 23, 2014

#‎TamirRice‬: My heart grieves for this family who not only has lost a son and brother, but also probably feels despair tonight at the grand jury‬'s decision. We pray that the people who are around them will comfort them and that God will give them peace.

This was a little boy who tragically lost his life. Tamir was not a hoodlum. Not a drug dealer. But he was a child who was playing with a toy gun. Whether or not he should have been playing with a toy gun is not even a topic that should be explored. The bottom line is you can not police children the same way you police adults.

Tamir should not have lost his life.

For more information on this story, read: 

"Tamir Rice and the Value of Life" by Charles Blow, New York Times, January 11, 2015

#LeadershipTuesdays: Motivating People For Optimal Results...Cindy Holland

"How do they need to hear the input to get the best results out of them? In management, it’s about understanding how the person thinks and even figuring out the right choice of words that will help unlock their creativity and desire to do something."

--Cindy Holland, Vice President-Original Content, Netflix

Every other Tuesday, WOMEN AT LIBERTY provides a platform for a variety of voices and resources to develop, encourage and strengthen women leaders. Today's Leadership Tuesdays feature is Cindy Holland. She is the Vice President for Original Content at Netflix, the company who provides on-demand streaming of television shows and movies via the internet and subscription-based rentals to more than 65 million subscribers in the U.S. and over 40 countries in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Europe. Netflix has been an innovator in how people access entertainment and they have soared in popularity and revenue as traditional competitors in the space, like Blockbuster, has fallen by the wayside.
 
With shows like House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black, Netflix has made a name for itself in the original programming space. Ms. Holland, responsible for “greenlighting” original content, has been with the company for 13 years and assumed her current role in 2012. In a November 2015 article entitled "Learning To Lead On A Pair of Skis", she talked with Adam Bryant of the New York Times’ Corner Office column about her approach to leadership at a disruptive technology and entertainment company like Netflix.
 
The fun part of her job is saying “yes” to projects starring lesser known talent that may have been rejected by other networks. But at the same time she also has the unenviable task of saying “no” to projects that are attached to well-known names and talent that she feels is not right for her company. One of the things that Cindy talks about is how it can be challenging to give feedback in these circumstances and how a leader must think and what they have to know about people, the projects being presented, and the overall goals/objectives of the organization to get the best results for the team.
 
Click on the video below to see the Corner Office interview. To read a more in-depth article written by Adam Bryant, click here. For more information on Leadership Tuesdays or WOMEN AT LIBERTY, click here.

#LeadershipTuesdays: Women And The Media--Miss Representation?

Every other Tuesday, WOMEN AT LIBERTY provides a platform for a variety of voices and resources to develop, encourage, and strengthen women leaders. Gloria Steinem said in a New York Times article that, "it's hard to think of anything except air, food and water that is more important than the media". Given the importance of the media, what do you believe that the images of women we see on television and in film are telling us about the value and worth of women in our society?

Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence of the 14th District of Michigan recently hosted a forum at the Congressional Black Caucus' 45th Annual Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. to discuss this topic. Entitled "Miss Representation: How Women Are Portrayed In The Media" (based on a documentary by Jennifer Siebel Newsom), panelists from the national and local media as well as women from national advocacy groups and public relations professionals led a discussion that helped the audience understand their power to change how women are currently being portrayed in the media.

Today's Leadership Tuesdays features a video commentary and interviews from the seminar as well as an excerpt from actress Viola Davis' acceptance speech at the 67th Emmy Awards where she made history by winning Best Actress In A Lead Role In A Drama Series.

Check out the video and leave a comment.
   

 

 

For more information about Leadership Tuesdays, go to WOMEN AT LIBERTY. To view the trailer from the documentary, click Miss Representation.

#LeadershipTuesdays: Majority Rules Are Not Always Best...Leo Tolstoy

“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”

― Leo Tolstoy, A Confession

Every other Tuesday, WOMEN AT LIBERTY provides a platform for a variety of voices and resources to develop, encourage, and strengthen women leaders. Today's Leadership Tuesdays will focus on the subject of business ethics. Our news headlines are filled with stories of individuals who have made bad decisions because of lapses in judgement and gotten caught in criminal investigations that led to trials and jail time. Some of the people are prominent politicians, some are corporate executives, and some are everyday people like you and me. As the author of today's featured article intimated, learning business ethics or ethical practices is an ongoing process. It's not easy to always make the right decision. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

However, when making any type of decision that may involve potential ethical violations, it helps to have a strong ethical foundation. Angelia White, the author of the blog, "5 Basic Business Ethics Tips", gives us a very practical definition of business ethics and great examples of how she approaches situations in the workplace as an employer, business owner, and leader. At the end of the article she gives advice on some tools that will help strengthen you in your practice of business ethics and help you protect yourself from those who would violate business ethics at your expense.

Angelia White is Publisher, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Hope for Women Magazine. Her passionate dedication towards the Magazine has been evolving for almost a decade. She has a background in publishing and is owner and president of Virtuous Publications, Inc., which serves as the Magazine’s publishing company. Angelia has over 20 years experience in business administration and is a business graduate of Ball State University.

To view today's article click here. For more information on Leadership Tuesdays or WOMEN AT LIBERTY, click here. 

Leadership Tuesdays: Millennial Leaders...We Got Next!

If we stand tall it is because we stand on the shoulders of many ancestors.

--Yoruba Proverb

Every other Tuesday, WOMEN AT LIBERTY provides a platform for a variety of voices and resources to develop, encourage, and strengthen women leaders. Today's Leadership Tuesdays' blog recognizes a few young African American leaders of this generation. In 2012, I was impressed with the activism of four young ladies who, in a matter of days, organized a march in Washington, D.C. to bring attention to the untimely death of seventeen year old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. Heather Rasberry, Megan Goffney, Maliaka Mealy along with Yolanda Carr, their friend from Florida, combined social media, the communications tools of millennials, with the proven tactics of non-violent resistance--marching and speeches--to spark activism in another generation of young people. One thing that should be applauded about their March 2012 rally is the support they received from local community leaders like Rev. Tony Lee who answered their call and used his platform to promote the work the young ladies were doing. For more information on what these young ladies accomplished, click here.

Maliaka Mealy, Heather Rasberry, and Megan Goffney

Another brilliant young woman leader who has risen to prominence in the wake of protests related to the shooting death of Mike Brown by police officer, Darren Wilson, in Ferguson, Missouri is Brittany Packnett. Ms Packnett is a native of St. Louis and the Executive Director of Teach For America in St. Louis, Missouri. A graduate of Washington University located in her home town, she has also spent time in Washington, D.C. earning a Master of Arts degree in Teaching at American University. She taught third graders in South East Washington, D.C. as a Teach For America Fellow while working on her Master's degree. This energetic young lady also worked on Capitol Hill for U.S. Representative Lacy Clay (D-Missouri) whose legislative district includes Ferguson which is a part of St. Louis County. Ms. Packnett moved back to St. Louis in 2012 to lead the local Teach For America organization. In November 2014, she accepted an appointment by Governor Jay Nixon to the Ferguson Commission that has been tasked with addressing the systemic racial and economic issues in Ferguson. Their report is due in September 2015. She was also appointed by President Barack Obama to the Task Force on 21st Century Policing. To read Ms. Packnett's biography and learn more about her organization, click here. You can follow her on Twitter at @MsPackyetti.

Brittany Packnett

For more information on Leadership Tuesdays or WOMEN AT LIBERTY, click here. 

Nona O.

Leadership Tuesdays: The Numbers Do Not Lie..Mellody Hobson

"Now race is one of those topics in America that makes people extraordinarily uncomfortable. You bring it up at a dinner party or in a workplace environment, it is literally the conversational equivalent of touching the third rail. There is shock followed by a long silence.

Now, I know that there are people out there who'll say that the election of Barack Obama meant that it was the end of racial discrimination for all eternity, right? But I work in the investment business and we have a saying, 'the numbers do not lie.' ...There is significant quantifiable racial disparities that can not be ignored in household wealth, household income, job opportunities, health care. I [talk] about this issue of racial discrimination because I believe that it threatens to rob another generation of all the opportunities that all of us want for all of our children no matter what their color or where they come from. And I think it threatens to hold back businesses.

So, I think it's time for us to be comfortable with the uncomfortable conversation about race. Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, male, female, all of us. If we truly believe in equal rights and equal opportunity in America, I think we have to have real conversations about this issue. We can not afford to be color blind. We have to be color brave."*

-Mellody Hobson, President, Ariel Investments; Chairman of the Board, DreamWorks Animation SKG
*This quote is an excerpt from a TED Talk Mellody Hoboson gave on March 20, 2014

Every other Tuesday, WOMEN AT LIBERTY provides a platform for a variety of voices and resources to develop, encourage, and strengthen women leaders. Today's Leadership Tuesdays' post is a courageous talk on race given by Mellody Hobson, President of Ariel Investments, at a TED Conference in March of 2014. Her eloquent discourse regarding an experience she had in 2006 of being mistaken for the "kitchen help" when she showed up with then Congressman Harold Ford (D-Tennessee) for a lunch meeting at the offices of a highly regarded New York publication will make you chuckle because it seems unbelievable. But, yet it is true. As one of only two African American Chairperson of a publicly traded companies (the other person is Ursula Burns of Xerox) she is less well known than a Beyonce or even Oprah Winfrey. However, Ms. Hobson is a highly accomplished, Princeton-educated young woman.

Her talk is both relatable and relevant. She makes a business case for businesses making diversity one of its core values and part of its competitive strategy. She also makes a human argument for why we can not wait for the next election or another year to confront the issues of race and racial discrimination in America.

To listen to today's feature, click here. For more information on Leadership Tuesdays, click here. 

Washington DC's Newest Chief Executive Is A Woman: Mayor Muriel Bowser

On Friday, January 2, 2015, Muriel E. Bowser was sworn into the Office of Mayor of the District of Columbia, the Capital of the United States. She is the second woman to hold this position, following in the footsteps of former Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly (1991-1995), and the 2nd youngest person to be elected Mayor of Washington, D.C. 

Mayor Bowser is a native Washingtonian and a former City Council Member (2007-2014). She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Chatham College and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from American University. 

Check out the clip below to hear a very inspiring excerpt from Mayor Bowser as she talks about making history. To hear the speech in its entirety, go to: http://youtu.be/XsD9zoSUj50. For more information on Mayor Bowser go to: http://www.mayor.dc.gov.

Show What You Are Made Of...Jill Abramson

"And now I’m talking to anyone who’s been dumped! You bet! Not gotten the job you really wanted or received those horrible rejection letters from grad school. You know the sting of losing or not getting something you badly want. When that happens, show what you are made of. 

…it was the honor of my life to lead the newsroom."

--Jill Abramson, Executive Editor of the New York Times (2011 – 2014)

*You are invited to join WOMEN AT LIBERTY for a Twitter Chat (@womenatliberty) Friday, 5/23, 3-4 pm to discuss girls and women succeeding leadership.  #WWYD2H (What Would You Do To Help) We will also discuss why the Nigerian girls becoming "smartgirls" made them such a threat to terrorists in Nigeria.

Let's Stay Together...Happy Black Marriage Day!

Sharing 3/23/14's Motivational Moment in celebration of National Black Marriage Day!

I, I'm so in love with you

Whatever you want to do is all right with me

'Cause you make me feel so brand new

And I want to spend my life with you

Let me say that since, baby, since we've been together

Loving you forever is what I need

Oh let me be the one you come running to

I'll never be untrue

Oh let's, let's stay together...

_________________________________________________________________

Happy National Black Marriage Day!!

Dedication to all of the families who are doing
what it takes to stay and grow together!

Happy National Grandparents Day!!

Surely, two of the most satisfying experiences in life must be those of being a grandchild or a grandparent. 

--Donald A. Norberg

Today is National Grandparents Day! Are your grandparents special. Tell us in a blog or brief video why they are special to you and you could win FREE breakfast for them. See details below. 

Contact info@womenatliberty.com, @womenatliberty on Twitter, or Women Making History on Facebook.

For All Sacrifices Made...Happy Memorial Day!

For all sacrifices made, we honor you and those who sacrifice with you! A soldier never serves alone...

Happy Memorial Day 2013!!

Dear God...National Day of Prayer 2013

Dear God,

Sometimes our words fail to express what our soul really feels. But our God-given translator, the spirit within us, communicates with your Spirit who intercedes on our behalf!

Because of this, we are confident in your ability to see, hear, and help us in our time of need.  Thank you for everyday miracles and unexplained coincidences that assure us that you are present in our lives and listening to what we say and are unable to say.

Amen.

True Costs of Freedom...@vnona

"We will never be able to fully quantify the real cost in lives and sacrifice of freedom."

--Nona O.

Underwater sculpture, in Grenada, in honor of our African Ancestors who were
 thrown overboard the slave ships during the Middle Passage of the African Holocaust.
  --Artist, Jason DeCaires Taylor

Image Source:  http://george-geder.blogspot.com/2012/06/real-african-american-genealogy-brick.html