Many thoughts cross my mind and sometimes I jot them down.

Cue the Jazz, brew the jasmine & chai, and let's enlighten one another.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

I think I'll go for dapper

Models from the 1950s
Whoa! Can you believe that there was a time when wearing your actual dress size was in and you could tell the difference between sexes?!Is it really that hard these days to look as if you care about yourself? To look as if you'd like to have a career at some point in time? To look as if you werent raised in a barn yard? To make good long lasting impressions by simply wearing a belt with your britches? To not go outside with your sleep scarf on looking like youre about to fight someone? To be the only one who knows what color undies you put on in the morning?
In the words of Marvin "What's going on?"

**Please excuse my rant

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Two Worlds. Capetown, South Africa.

Nkanini. a black township in Capetown where the team placed an awesome impact in the lives of children who placed an unforgettable experience in our hearts.

This is the most amazing campus that I have ever done ministry!! UWC ♥

The best team of students! (no we dont sing) 1 Peter 3:15

Amazing beaches!! even in the winter

Nelson Mandela'a Prison Cell. Robben Island, SA

Nelson Mandela'a Prison Cell. Robben Island, SA

View of Table Mountain from Robben Island

Tehillah Community Collaborative Elsie Park, Capetown (coloured township)

Pques (pronounced Princess) I really miss her.

Our Faithful Translators Victoria (left) and Pinky (right)

I love these two and they LOVED the camera! Smile ♥

My Students from Holiday club! (im the one with the fro. blending in well with the chil'ren)
Some of the beautiful ladies on the team


Pinky's baby! she never would wake up for me :-(



Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Summer Reading List


Now I know its time to Vaca and enjoy the sun but what will you be doing while you wait for your plane to arrive at its destination, or during the long rides across the country? If youre like me there's but so much you can talk about with your girls or guys during the ride. Check out my summer reading list and please, share yours. - Chaneal

1. Beloved by Toni Morrison (classic)
2.The Black Aesthetic by Addison Gayle Jr.
3. Dust on a Track Road by Zora Neal Hurston
4. Keeping up with the Jones by Solomon Jones
5. The Blueprint by Kirk Franklin

Oh! here's a cool idea buy a book for for a little kid in your family or or your block. Let them see just how far reading will take them! I love the kids ha. no seriously I do.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

HER MINDSET

Most days when I wake up I don't have time for make up. I just gracefully rise and shine. Surviving when material and vain things get lost in time because anything can be taken. Except my mind. I Grind. Watch this Phoenix Rise right before your very eyes.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

New Post Coming soon!!

Dearest Followers,
With all the demands that comes along with obtaining my degree, I havent be able to post any new entries. However,  I will be back on the scene momentarily. Until we meet again in whatever you do stay lovely. Stay true.

Lovingly Submitted
Chaneal Denise
P.S I'm on a Zora Neale Hurston Kick..will explain later

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Day 3: Black History Month Feature: Milla Granson

In Natchez, Louisiana, there were two schools taught by colored teachers. One of these was a slave woman who had taught a midnight school for a year. It was opened at eleven or twelve o’clock at night, and closed at two o’clock am…Milla Granson, the teacher, learned to read and write from the children of her indulgent master in her old Kentucky home. Her number of schools was twelve at a time, and when she had taught those to read and write she dismissed them, and again took her apostolic number and brought them up to the extent of her ability, until she had graduated hundreds. A number of them wrote their own passes and started for Canada.


At length her night-school project leaked out, and was for a time suspended; but it was not known that seven of the twelve years subsequent to leaving Kentucky had been spent in this work. Much excitement over her night-school was produced. The subject was discussed in their legislature, and a bill was passed, that it should not be held illegal for a slave to teach a slave. She not only [re] opened her night- school, but a Sabbath school. Milla Granson used as good language as any of the White people.

Milla Granson learned to read and write through the exceptional indulgence of her white masters. She used her skills not to advance her own status, but to help her fellow slaves, and this under the most difficult circumstances. The act of a Black person teaching and sharing knowledge was viewed as naturally threatening to the power structure. The knowledge she conveyed had a politically and materially transforming function, that is, it empowered people to gain freedom.

-except from HOW HAS THE ROLE OF BLACK WOMEN SCHOLARS IN AMERICA ADVANCED THE BLACK RACE ON A COLLEGIATE LEVEL? by Chaneal D. Conway

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Day 2: Black History Month Feature: John Hope Franklin



John Hope Franklin was the James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History, and for seven years was Professor of Legal History in the Law School at Duke University. He was a native of Oklahoma and a graduate of Fisk University. He received the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Harvard University. He has taught at a number of institutions, including Fisk University, St. Augustine's College, North Carolina Central University, and Howard University. In 1956 he went to Brooklyn College as Chairman of the Department of History; and in 1964, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, serving as Chairman of the Department of History from 1967 to 1970. At Chicago, he was the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor from 1969 to 1982, when he became Professor Emeritus.

Professor Franklin's numerous publications include The Emancipation Proclamation, The Militant South, The Free Negro in North Carolina, Reconstruction After the Civil War, and A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Ante-bellum North. Perhaps his best known book is From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans, now in its seventh edition. His Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities for 1976 was published in 1985 and received the Clarence L. Holte Literary Prize for that year. In 1990, a collection of essays covering a teaching and writing career of fifty years, was published under the title, Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938-1988. In 1993, he published The Color Line: Legacy for the Twenty-first Century. Professor Franklin's most recent book, My Life and an Era: The Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin, is an autobiography of his father that he edited with his son, John Whittington Franklin. His research at the time of his death dealt with "Dissidents on the Plantation: Runaway Slaves."

Professor Franklin was active in numerous professional and education organizations. For many years he served on the editorial board of the Journal of Negro History. He also served as President of the following organizations: The American Studies Association (1967), the Southern Historical Association (1970), the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa (1973-76), the Organization of American Historians (1975), and the American Historical Association (1979). He has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Fisk University, the Chicago Public Library, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association.

Professor Franklin served on many national commissions and delegations, including the National Council on the Humanities, from which he resigned in 1979, when the President appointed him to the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. He also served on the President's Advisory Commission on Ambassadorial Appointments. In September and October of 1980, he was a United States delegate to the 21st General Conference of UNESCO. Among many other foreign assignments, Dr. Franklin served as Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University, Consultant on American Education in the Soviet Union, Fulbright Professor in Australia, and Lecturer in American History in the People' Republic of China.

Professor Franklin was the recipient of many honors. In 1978, Who's Who in America selected Dr. Franklin as one of eight Americans who has made significant contributions to society. In the same year, he was elected to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. He also received the Jefferson Medal for 1984, awarded by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. In 1989, he was the first recipient of the Cleanth Brooks Medal of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and in 1990 received the Encyclopedia Britannica Gold Medal for the Dissemination of Knowledge. In 1993, Dr. Franklin received the Charles Frankel Prize for contributions to the humanities, and in 1994, the Cosmos Club Award and the Trumpet Award from Turner Broadcasting Corporation. In 1995, he received the first W.E.B. DuBois Award from the Fisk University Alumni Association, the Organization of American Historians' Award for Outstanding Achievement, the Alpha Phi Alpha Award of Merit, the NAACP's Spingarn Medal, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1996, Professor Franklin was elected to the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Frame and in 1997 he received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. In addition to his many awards, Dr. Franklin has received honorary degrees from more than one hundred colleges and universities.

Professor Franklin has been extensively written about in various articles and books. Most recently he was the subject of the film First Person Singular: John Hope Franklin. Produced by Lives and Legacies Films, the documentary was featured on PBS in June 1997.

Professor Franklin died of congestive heart failure at Duke Hospital on the morning of March 25th, 2009.

-article courtesy of Duke University