Black Tie Lounge

An organization I'm in is hosting a formal event entitled "Lyrics & Liberation: A Soundtrack to Black Citizenship," which will be an evening dedicated to how music has played a role in expressing the political and social struggle of black people throughout the generations. The evening is organized into different musical eras starting with Jazz moving up to Hip Hop. I'm responsible for doing a monologue on the Motown Era. Not to toot my own horn but I slaved over the event name and I'm glad it stuck!! In doing some research on the period in which Motown grew I found out so much that was going on. The thrust of the monologue is to describe the Motown Era in conjunction with the achievements of blacks. Here are some things I found. In 1963 two months before the March On Washington, The Fabulous Miracles hit Top 10 on the charts with "You Really Got A Hold On Me." In 1964 one month prior to President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "Da...

Yes we did! I made it to the 56th Inauguration. I'm actually surprised that the trip went as smoothly as it did. Myself and four other members of the Black Graduate Student Organization left Blacksburg at 10:30 pm. I had every intention of sleeping the whole way up. Some how I did not. Maybe it was because I was afraid our driver would fall asleep behind the wheel. The Young Jeezy and Jay-Z songs about Barack Obama and Busta Rhymes single "Arab Money" kept me awake as well. This in addition to the conversations about how the Boondocks is a political and social satire of our time, and my sharing my life story with everyone contributed to me not sleeping. To our fortune there was no traffic what so ever on 66E. We made it to the Vienna metro station without a problem. We cheered as we tried to pull into a parking lot that only let visitors out and not in. We were second in line, behind a compact car whose driver decided to park and sleep until the gate open. Our car was p...

It has been awhile since I have written. At first I was so addictive to blogging but as I became more and more nervous about my writing style and being more politically conscious, I have definitely fallen back. Why? I don't know. I go through phases where I try to be one thing and then I move on to another. Earlier this year, I tried to write for the CT. Hence my latest blogpost. That didn't fly over and it was mostly due to a miscommunication by the staff. Oh well, I can find other places to get my writing out. Why this concern with publishing? Well, this is my last year of graduate school and for now I am trying to get a job at a PR agency. Which agency you ask? I'm not sure. They all look the same as far as I can see. Really, I want an organization that is ok with the fact that I do not know fully what I want to do. I like PR because it provides me with the variety I need and communication is a strength of mine. Either PR or teaching. I've been doing quite a bit of s...