ICABA World

Delancyhill P.A. Honored Cheryl Little of the Florida Immigration Advocacy Center

ICABA — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:06:53 +0000

For her tireless efforts in the field of immigrant rights AT 6TH ANNUAL BLACK HISTORY MONTH CELEBRATION

Miami - On Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at its 6^th annual celebration for Black History Month, delancyhill P.A., in collaboration with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Bilmor Advertising, Circle of One Marketing and the law firm of SquiresBenson hosted a reception in honor of attorney Cheryl Little for her unwavering advocacy on behalf of Haitian refugees and other immigrants from the African Diaspora. The reception hosted clients, firm partners and community leaders at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens in Coral Gables, Florida.

In light of the tragic catastrophe in Haiti, the reception also raised over $3,500.00 in support of local organizations serving the needs of the impacted Haitian-American community. The reception also welcomed Haiti earthquake survivor, Faradhiah Moise, who survived beneath the rubble at the Caribbean Marketplace supermarket in Port-au-Prince for over 50 hours, and shared her thoughts about the recovery efforts in Haiti.

For nearly two decades, 2010 honoree Cheryl Little has tirelessly advocated for immigrant rights, establishing her as one of this country’s leading experts in the field of immigration. Cheryl’s extensive involvement in immigration dates from 1985. After graduating from law school with honors, she began working at the Haitian Refugee Center. Since 1996, she has served as the Executive Director of Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, Inc. (FIAC), an agency she co-founded. After years of unwavering advocacy, Ms. Little led efforts to secure Temporary Protected Status (”TPS”) for Haitian nationals after a series of natural disasters culminating with the tragic earthquake.

“Cheryl Little ’s deeds speak loudly for themselves. We were honored to recognize the breadth of her work and her signature mark on Black History in this hemisphere,” stated Marlon A. Hill, partner, delancyhill. As host venue, Bruce Greer, President of Fairchild’s Board of Trustees commented, “Fairchild was thrilled to work with delancyhill for this important annual community event.”

This annual celebration of Black History Month inspired the law firm of delancyhill, P.A. to create the award of Firm Partner Star, previously offered to Ruth Shack, Dorothy Jenkins-Fields, David Wilson, Babacar M’Bow and Commissioner Betty T. Ferguson for their contributions to uplifting South Florida’s communities within the African Diaspora.

Supporting sponsors and partners included: Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, SquiresBenson, Bacardi, Bilmor with Advertising Specialties, Circle of One Marketing, Chef Irie Spice, Bull Bay Catering, We’re Having A Party, Medium Four, South Florida Caribbean News.Com, Jazz in the Gardens, Caribbean Riddims, Social Capital, Management, Caribbean Today, Pixelittle Media, Miami Parking Authority, Unique Coalition of Minority Businesses of South Dade (UCOMB), The South Florida Times, Daily Business Review, and The Miami Times.

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden

Fairchild is dedicated to exploring, explaining and conserving the world of tropical plants. They are one of the premier conservation and education-based gardens in the world and a recognized international leader in both Florida and international conservation. Currently Fairchild has field programs in over 20 countries including support to protected areas in Madagascar and Africa and botanic garden development and renovation projects in South and Central America, the Caribbean and the Middle East. For more information visit the museum at 10901 Old Cutler Road Coral Gables, Florida 33156 or visit their website at www.fairchildgarden.org

About delancyhill.PA.

With offices in downtown Miami and Miramar-Broward, delancyhill, P.A. is a full service law firm practicing in the areas of commercial, construction, family, probate, and criminal litigation, as well as, general corporate, international business and trade, intellectual property, real estate, estate planning , and immigration transactions. The Firm’s mission is to provide the highest quality legal services to our clients from South Florida and the Caribbean, in a manner that upholds the highest legal and professional standards of integrity and demonstrates our commitment to building community through our legal and community service. For additional information about the Firm, call (786) 777-0184 or visit www.delancyhill.com www.delancyhill.com

ICABA™Salutes South Florida’s Leading First Ladies of Worship

ICABA — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:54:47 +0000

Save The Date…Join the Celebration!

Mark your calendar to join the celebration of 100 of South Florida’s Leading First Ladies of Worship at a Recognition Brunch in their honor!

ICABA™ Salutes 100 of South Florida’s Leading First Ladies of Worship is a recognition program designed to recognize and honor leading first ladies of worship across the tri county area of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach for their exemplary civic and religious contributions in support of their pastor/husband, church and community. This program is comprised of several components… A special private reception just for the 100 first lady honorees will be held at Macy’s Aventura, a Recognition Brunch will be held at the Westin Diplomat hotel, Hollywood, Florida, May 15, 2010, 11am-2pm for friends and family to come out and celebrate. A printed, deluxe, full color profile directory will be published profiling the 100 Leading Ladies of Worship, and each First lady will have the opportunity to be included in the ICABA™ World.com social network, to connect and communicate with other South Florida First ladies of Worship. Come out and celebrate your First lady of Worship or one that you know!

Tickets on sale soon! For more information contact us at info@icabaworld.com or call 954-473.4405. See you there!

South Florida’s 50 Most Powerful Black Professionals of 2010

ICABA — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:46:41 +0000

A distinguished committee of community leaders and business executives have taken the task of going through each and every detail of nominations submitted by their peers to select South Florida’s 50 Most Powerful Black Professionals for 2010.

Now in its 5^th year of publication, Success South Florida Magazine has profiled the best and the brightest in South Florida’s Black community and has given a voice to Black owned businesses and those interested in contributing positively to the interests of this community.

The cost will be $100 per person and this includes dinner and an open bar. Official Sponsors for this reception are: Macy’s, Warren Henry Auto, Remy USA, Barefoot Wines, V.Georgio Vodka, The Urban Collective, and The Office on the Causeway.

ATTIRE: Black Tie

High Speed Networking Miami

ICABA — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:22:32 +0000

With HIGH SPEED NETWORKING you can make more new business contacts in one evening than most people will make in 6 months! * Network with other professionals, one on one, a few minutes at a time. * Leave with a pocket full of business cards and a ton of new business connections! * Enjoy complimentary nibbles and Happy Hour drink specials ($1 off draft beer, $2 off wines by the glass and $5 martinis, margaritas and mojitos). Cash bar.

Sponsor: Networking For Professionals

Cost: In advance online: $20 NFP members, $30 non-members. At the door: $35 for everyone. Cash Only.

What do employers look for when hiring for social-media jobs?

ICABA — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:08:51 +0000

BY NIALA BOODHOO

Poked@MiamiHerald.com

Many companies are hoping to capitalize on the hottest advertising trend by hiring people with expertise in social media.

But since many companies are hiring in this area because they don’t know much about it, what qualities are important, especially when these days everyone labels himself or herself an expert?

With that in mind, I spoke with two local employers: AutoNation and the Knight Foundation. Despite the organizational differences of a large, public company versus a nonprofit, three main themes emerged: Personalities matter. So do results. But having a evangelist spirit about social media is just as important.

AutoNation’s social media strategy is simple, said spokesman Marc Cannon: “We want people to be informed customers.”

The Fort Lauderdale company has just hired a social media coordinator, one of five such positions that have been created over the past year. Cannon said the company looked mostly at personality.

“There’s a sense of energy you need with these folks,” said Cannon. “They have to be good conversationalists, and hone things down into short message points.”

But results matter, too.

“Everybody blogs and everybody tweets,” said the Knight Foundation’s Marc Fest, who is looking to fill an online community coordinator position. “Let’s say you have a blog and you routinely get people to comment, and you have 5,000 followers on Twitter. That shows you know how to engage people.”

Both want to infuse a sense of social media not just in that hire but throughout the organization, so having an evangelist nature about spreading social media to other employees is just as important.

Companies shouldn’t be intimidated by hiring for social media, said Jackie Stone, a New York-based vice president with Digitas, an interactive marketing agency, who suggested businesses remember their long histories of hiring in communications.

Whether it’s a big brand, a nonprofit or a small business, the most important thing is to have a sound strategy, a constant voice and to be authentic, she said.

“It’s really important to have somebody who can listen and respond properly — not just respond,” she said.

Poked is a column aboutnetiquette, social media and the business world. E-mail us if you have a vexing question or need advice.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

ICABA — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:56:21 +0000

JUDITH JAMISON, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Masazumi Chaya, ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

All performances include Alvin Ailey’s masterpiece Revelations.

“Every American owes it to him or herself to see the Ailey [company] perform Revelations. It is an American phenomenon. I’ve probably seen it countless times and every time it’s magical and spiritual and hopeful—everything we want ourselves to be and hope that our country will be.”
— Oprah Winfrey on Entertainment Tonight 12/4/08

Second City: Loco in El Show Mas Funny

ICABA — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:04:51 +0000

John Belushi, Bill Murray, Steve Carell, Mike Myers, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey and many more all performed with The Second City. Don’t miss the chance to discover who the next great comedy stars are going to be! Created for the company’s Miami debut, the newest show from Chicago’s acclaimed Second City mines comedic gold from the clash of cultures at the heart of all great American cities.

Florida Grand Opera: Carmen

ICABA — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:01:16 +0000

The seductive and tempestuous gypsy, Carmen, Captures the heart of a young soldier, Don Jose. He sacrifices everything to be with her. Now a fugitive on the run, his life is in ruins. Unfortunately, she is drawn to the dashing matador, Escamillo, and casts Don Jose aside, which seals her fate. In his passionate confrontation with Carmen outside the bullring, Don Jose’s pleas for her to take him back are met with cold rejection…and the tragic murder that concludes the opera devestates audiences as much today as it did in 1875 when Carmen first premiered.

Dissolved NAACP to form new organization

ICABA — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:07:54 +0000

POMPANO BEACH — Leaders of the North Broward NAACP branch said this week that they are forming a new civil rights group after the parent organization merged their division with another branch without their permission.

“Actually, they have been trying to take over the North Broward branch for years,” said Willie L. Lawson III, president of the former North Broward NAACP branch. “We are working on forming a new organization, separate from the NAACP, because they are not telling us anything, and we have cases pending.”

Watch The Video

He continued: “This was not a takeover. It is more like a mess over.”

Lawson said he and other members of the branch’s leadership have held several meetings, and if they do not get clarification from the national organization, they will go forward with plans for the new organization, which they will call the New Alliance.

“We have already begun the process,” Lawson said. “The NAACP is doing the same thing to us that they fought, and criticized other corporations around the country for doing, which is not following the bylaws or due process.”

Lawson said the new organization will champion the same causes and function in a similar way to the NAACP. However, it will have different processes that organizers say will allow them to better utilize today’s technological advances.

Lawson said the new organization will take discrimination complaints on its website, and will include email addresses of executive officers there.

That way, he said, the group can be more reflective of the current racial and social climate.

Despite repeated calls from the South Florida Times to the organization’s national headquarters and media relations agents, no one from the NAACP has responded to questions or emails about the process, or what led to the decision on the merger and consequential dissolution of the North Broward branch.

Erika Lewis of the NAACP’s communications department sent an email to the newspaper on Jan. 29, stating that she is the contact person on the issue. However, she has not responded to calls or emails seeking comment.

After more than 30 years of taking up the causes of people who endured discrimination and suffered through racial inequities in both the northern portion of Broward County and the southern end of Palm Beach County, the North Broward NAACP branch was quietly absorbed into its Fort Lauderdale counterpart last year.

So quiet was the merger that neither Lawson, the members of the branch, nor any of the other branch leaders were aware it had taken place.

“It’s not fair what they [NAACP] have done to us. We need a branch in North Broward, and they did not, and have not told us anything,” said Patricia “Pat” Williams-Thompson, a current North Broward branch NAACP board member, and a former president and vice president of the group.

“We have the membership and we are more active than Fort Lauderdale, so why would they close our branch?” she asked.

The North Broward NAACP has been merged with the Fort Lauderdale NAACP. The two branches now form one organization that is called the Fort Lauderdale/Broward Branch NAACP.

“The North Broward Branch was merged into the Fort Lauderdale Branch by the National Board of Directors during its July 2009 board meeting,” Marsha A. Ellison, president of the Fort Lauderdale/Broward Branch NAACP, said in an email to the South Florida Times.

Ellison, who was president of the organization’s former Fort Lauderdale branch, is also treasurer of the Florida statewide NAACP organization.

“There is now only one Branch chartered to serve Broward County (Fort Lauderdale/Broward Branch NAACP),’’ Ellison stated. “There have been no changes to office location or current administration.”

The organization that is largely responsible for ending segregation in the United States has struggled to remain relevant in an era that witnessed the election of the country’s first black president. Membership around the country has fallen in recent years.

In Broward, while the merger of the two branches has produced a new name, other issues such as the status of officers of the North Broward branch, meeting places, memberships, pending cases, and office locations have yet to be resolved.

Delores Bullard, 58, was one of the founding members of the North Broward branch in 1980. It received its full charter in 1983. Bullard served as president for several years. The branch was based in Pompano Beach, where Bullard still operates a beauty salon.

Bullard was also Pompano Beach’s first black female police officer.

She said she disagrees with Lawson and Williams-Thompson, stating that the merger can be a good thing, providing everyone works together.

“This is not such a big county, so having all the branches working together can be great,” Bullard said. “Of course, they should have been told, and allowed to participate in the process, and that needs to be cleared up. But they can pool their resources and do more for more people.”

Lawson disagreed.

“Fort Lauderdale has not been seen in North Broward or anywhere else, and people have issues,’’ Lawson said. “We have not heard from Fort Lauderdale, or the national, so how can we work together?”

Lawson said his branch has money in the bank, and members who have been renewing their memberships with the branch. He said the national NAACP headquarters has provided no communication about how to proceed.

“If they made a mistake, they should admit it. But if we don’t hear anything, we will form the New Alliance and keep fighting for people,” Lawson said. “We have to get legal advice on what to do with the money, and if we have to stop calling ourselves the NAACP, until they send us a formal notice, but we can’t sit around and do nothing while the national ignores us.”

EJones@SFLTimes.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Photo by Elgin Jones/SFT Staff. Willie L. Lawson III

Ace Tuskegee Airman dies

ICABA — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:33:35 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) — Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Lee A. Archer, a Tuskegee Airman considered to be the only black ace pilot who also broke racial barriers as an executive at a major U.S. company and founder of a venture capital firm, died Jan. 27 in New York City. He was 90.“It is generally conceded that Lee Archer was the first and only black ace pilot,” credited with shooting down five enemy planes, Dr. Roscoe Brown Jr., a fellow Tuskegee Airman and friend, said in a telephone interview last week.

Archer was acknowledged to have shot down four planes, and he and another pilot both claimed victory for shooting down a fifth plane. An investigation revealed Archer had inflicted the damage that destroyed the plane, said Brown, and the Air Force eventually proclaimed him an ace pilot.

Archer, a resident of New Rochelle, New York, “lived a full life,” said his son. “His last two or three years were amazing for him.”

Archer was among the group of Tuskegee Airmen invited to attend President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009. The airmen, who escorted bomber planes during the war, fought with distinction, only to face bigotry and segregation when they returned home. They were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for their service in 2007 by President George W. Bush.

Archer was “extremely competent, aggressive about asserting his position and sometimes stubborn,” Brown said.

“He had a heart of gold and treated people with respect. He demanded respect by the way he carried himself.”

Brown estimated that about 50 or 60 of the 994 Tuskegee Airmen pilots are still alive.

Born on Sept. 6, 1919, in Yonkers and raised in New York’s Harlem neighborhood, Archer left New York University to enlist in the Army Air Corps in 1941 but was rejected for pilot training because the military didn’t allow blacks to serve as pilots.

“A War Department study in 1925 expressly stated that Negroes didn’t have the intelligence, or the character, or the leadership to be in combat units, and particularly, they didn’t have the ability to be Air Force pilots,” said Brown.

Archer instead joined a segregated Army Air Corps unit at the Tuskegee, Alabama, air base, graduating from pilot training in July 1943.

After he retired from the military in 1970, Archer joined General Foods Corp., becoming one of the era’s few black corporate vice presidents of a major American company.

He ran one of the company’s small-business investment arms, North Street Capital Corp., which funded companies that included Essence Communications and Black Enterprise Magazine, according to his son and Brown.

Archer was an adviser to the late Reginald Lewis in the deal that created the conglomerate TLC Beatrice in 1987, then the largest black-owned and -managed business in the U.S.

After retiring from General Foods in 1987, Archer founded the venture capital firm Archer Asset Management.
Archer is survived by three sons and a daughter. His wife, Ina Archer, died in 1996.

Photo By Mike Uller. Air Force Lt. Colonel Lee A. Archer

His son, Roy Archer, said his father died at Cornell University Medical Center in Manhattan. A cause of death was not immediately determined.

The Tuskegee Airmen were America’s first black fighter pilot group in World War II.