Blacks Women

Organizers say they expect a huge crowd of black women in Philadelphia Oct. 25 for a rally designed to recapture the spirit of the "Million Man March" in Washington two years ago. Starting a network of black independent schools, helping black women released from prisons and encouraging black female entrepreneurs are among the goals, Zola Aminata, national spokeswoman for the march, said at a news conference in Washington.

On occasion, my wife and I have taken out-of-town visitors on Sunday outings to the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles to expose the uninitiated to the joy of a live gospel choir. I sometimes wonder how I stand with that power greater than myself while intruding on a house of worship solely to observe a spectacle. But we're always received so warmly that I quickly lose myself in the music and forget where I am. In that state, I've paid little notice to hats and shoes and dresses.

The fourth annual Black Women's Conference, called "The Ideal Black Woman: Today, Tomorrow and Beyond," will be held at Cal State Northridge on Saturday. The all-day event, sponsored by the university's Black Student Union and the Black Women's Conference Committee, aims to enhance the lives of black women, said LeiLani Lemle, director of programming for the conference.

The comments started before Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas made history. Haters turned to social media, but not to criticize her performance - that was golden. It was to trash her hair. Slicked back in a high ponytail with half her mane tucked into an elastic band, her style seem to blend in with her teammates'. Hair clips pinned the stray hairs in place as she vaulted into the history books as the first African American to win the women's all-around in gymnastics. Still, that simple style threatened to overshadow her golden moment.

Under overcast skies, hundreds of thousands of black women gathered here Saturday to tell each other and the world, in the words of one participant: "We are unified, we are standing."

Jeans that fit in the waist but not in the butt. Sleeves that aren't long enough. Suits that bunch up in the back. These are some of the fashion misfitting problems black women have dealt with for years when buying clothes. Lori Scott was tired of spending a small fortune on alterations, and she knew many other black women were too. So Scott went to her employer, Spiegel, and pitched an idea: a clothing catalogue geared to the fit and fashion needs of black women.

They're cutting it close. Following the lead of celebrities such as actress Halle Berry and pop singers Toni Braxton and Zhane, black women are cropping their mops. Short 'dos are definitely a lock for the summer. "Everyone coming in (to the shop) wants the Toni Braxton look or the Zhane look," said Brendolyn Davis, a hair designer at Moods International in Oceanside. "They're really cutting it down, above the ears, and going with a bob, short waves and pin curls.

In a revival-style celebration Sunday, more than 200 people honored five African American women of the San Fernando Valley for their years of involvement in their churches, local charities and schools. Dorothy Caldwell, Ida Kinney, Dessa Robinson, Dorothy Bradford and Rosa Broadous--ages 71 to 89--were named "queen mothers" by the San Fernando Valley chapter of the National Council of Negro Women during the group's fifth annual Black History Celebration.

Leslie Small immediately considered his own romantic life when organizers of the fourth Black Women's Conference at Cal State Northridge asked him to host a workshop called "How to Love a Black Man (Without Compromising Yourself)." "I thought, 'How do you love someone like me?' " said Small, a doctoral candidate in urban economic development at USC. "And the best answer I could come up with was: from a distance." Small got a big laugh from the 50 or so women in attendance.

Belting out songs in a popular downtown jazz club, Regina McCrary-Bond is the embodiment of sassy confidence and glamour. No one would guess the depths from which she had climbed to get there. Seven years ago McCrary-Bond, the daughter of a Baptist preacher, a former backup singer to Bob Dylan, a woman of early bright musical promise, had hit rock bottom. After five years of touring with a music legend, she couldn't find work when she came home to Nashville to care for her young son.

Higher levels of childhood physical or sexual abuse are associated with an increased risk for obesity among adult African American women, researchers said. It was the first study to look at a large group of African American women for this association, which has been found among women in previous studies, the researchers from Boston University said in the August issue of the journal Pediatrics. The association was “modest, statistically significant” for women who reported severe abuse early in life.

African American women in six U.S. cities are becoming infected with HIV at a rate five times the national average for black women, and closer to the rates of some African countries, according to a new study. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University and around the country who made the findings suspected the rates were relatively high in these "hot spots" that have battled the epidemic for decades, but the numbers still came as a surprise in a field that tends to focus more on black and gay men. The researchers found that in Baltimore; Atlanta; Newark, N.J.; New York City; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; and Washington, the annual rate of infection was 24 per 10,000 black women.

HIV infection rates among black women in some parts of the United States are similar to the incidence seen in sub-Saharan Africa, researchers reported Thursday. The study found a rate of HIV infection of 0.24% in a group of almost 2,100 women, most of whom were black. That rate is five times higher than previous estimates issued by the federal government. The high infection rate was found in six geographic areas that are known to be hard hit by the HIV epidemic and where poverty is more common.

Having diabetes during pregnancy raises the odds of having diabetes later in life, studies have repeatedly shown. But new research on ethnic variations finds the connection is especially true for African American women. A study of more than 77,000 women from researchers at Kaiser Permanente showed that black women -- although they are less likely to develop gestational diabetes than women in other racial and ethnic groups -- have a much higher risk of having the disease later in life if they experienced the condition during pregnancy.

It's been so long, I can't even remember what the column was about or how I'd drawn the ire of the reader who mailed me in response. She was — like me — black, middle-aged and middle-class, and she disagreed vehemently with whatever I'd said that week. She threw down the gauntlet with her closing remark: "I can tell; you're one of those women with a white boyfriend. " I was pleased to be able to rally back: "My boyfriend is black. " Take that. But I was also grateful that her challenge hadn't come the year before.

Being obese and having a larger waist may be linked with a higher risk of dying for African American women, a study finds. Body mass index and waist circumference were examined in 33,916 women who were part of the ongoing Black Women's Health Study and had never smoked and didn't have cardiovascular disease or cancer at the beginning of the study. In 13 years of follow-up, researchers found that for women who had a BMI of 20 or higher, every five-unit rise in BMI was linked with an 18% increase in the risk of death during the study period.

Oklahoma law professor Anita Faye Hill's public allegations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas may be having a profound effect on one group that historically has shied away from confronting the emotion-charged issue--the nation's black women. Fearful of disrupting the appearance of racial solidarity, black women for the most part have left it to their white counterparts to combat sexual harassment and other gender-related issues.

One winter long ago, Lynn Chamberlain, then a robust 21-year-old, suddenly felt faint with exhaustion. Puzzled but not terribly concerned, she walked into her doctor's office and said, "I don't know what's wrong. Test me for everything." A blood test for the AIDS virus came back positive. Overcome by fear and heaving with sobs, Chamberlain shouted over and over: "Oh my God. I'm going to die." But her doctor stayed calm. He had seen this before. "Tell me about your boyfriend," he said.

A feather of acrid smoke drifts across an open drain choked with bulrushes and plastic bottles beside a muddy lane. It's a forlorn place that will always belong to Noxolo Nogwaza. This is her murder scene. The thick smoke, from a fire kindled by a traditional healer, covers the faces of those who have come to grieve, bringing new tears. Noxolo's aunt, Nonyaniso Nogwaza, knows that she is here, somewhere, beyond the smoke that will bleach out the evil that still lurks. Noxolo died because she dressed like a man and wasn't afraid of anyone, friends and supporters in this township say, one of the latest of a series of brutal rapes and killings of black lesbian women that has stunned this country.

As the star of "33 Variations" at the Ahmanson Theatre, Jane Fonda has been performing six days a week, twice a day on weekends. Instead of relaxing on her day off, she spent Monday discussing her life, career and current play with Michael Ritchie, artistic director of the Center Theatre Group, at a gathering of CTG's Artistic Director's Circle. "Jane woke up this morning with laryngitis," Ritchie said. "She could have easily bailed on the entire evening and all of us would have understood.