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BOBSA EMAIL BLASTS BOBSA has over 3,200 members in the organization marketing email network. How it Works - Create your personalized email blast - Email a .PDF or .JPG format to Sam@bobsa.org - A proof will be sent directly to your email - Request changes or approve email
Your Email will be sent to over 3,200 people nationwide both at the beginning and end of the month.
Price for blast: US$200.00 Please contact Sam Ennon at (650) 863-3491 (Pacific Time) BOBSA can create personalized email blast for an additional $50.00. 
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Talk, Touch & Listen While Combing Hair©
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The Tulane University School of Social Work Natural Connections Center for Research and Training in partnership with the local Head Start Center at Kingsley House and New Orleans Women's Shelter in New Orleans, LA; and collaboration with Southern University of New Orleans, Lehigh University, and their community partner Healthy Start at Hamilton Health in Harrisburg, PA; will conduct a multi-site research pilot of the Talk, Touch & Listen While Combing Hair© program.
The Natural Connections Programs uses a university/community partnership
 approach to deliver programs that promote 'PATH' - Positive Attitudes Toward Hair-combing Interaction. Healthy interaction during the everyday routine of combing hair will strengthen the bonds between a parent-and their child. The programs are based on over a decade of research on the hair-combing task as a valid context to understand African American mother-child relationships (Lewis, 2013). The programs are designed to engage parents and compliment the support and case management services offered by community agencies. The programs promote the positive benefits of using the daily task of combing hair as an opportunity to connect with children, culture, and community.
 This low-cost, open-ended, drop-in program held at the sponsoring agency is designed to engage parents with food, humor and meaningful conversations on the positive psychological benefits of daily hair combing interaction with their infant or toddler. The Cafés serve as a recruitment tool for enrolling parents in the parent group provided by the University/Agency partnership. The goal of the Cafés is to connect parents with their child, culture, and community. Any parent/caregiver, including fathers and grandparents who is a client of the sponsoring agency may participate in the program. These Cafés provide an opportunity for parents to have a gently facilitated conversation about topics related to values and behaviors of acceptance or rejection of young children based on their skin color and hair texture.
Michelle Carter
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Carlton Pitts Speaks to Contact Reasoning Part I
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On November 11, 2015, Carlton Pitts wrote: Where there is no joy in living, there is no fear in dying!
Conflicting reasoning, "You will hear the truth and the truth will set you free", then why do most Blacks live a lie? Why is it you own the economic houses of your community and still have to enter through the back door, or not at all? Why do you protest community woes with no objective plan for building common community ownership with joint liability?
The truth is you must encourage everyone that positive changes comes with building a circle of like minded individuals to grow and support each other in reaching and sharing common goals, while avoiding conflicting reasoning?
Conflicting reasoning, as used here, is when a person's mental power of reasoning is out of line with community peace, prosperity and justice. Tell somebody I am black and am tired! Tired of fighting the same injustices, decade after decade, tired of being a part of a group that every group on earth hates, or fleeces, tired of fearing those that looks like you or me, "Your COLOR but not Your KIND". .tired of negative objectives, tired of hearing the inaudible sounds of egregious words from the likes of FOX network and the Suge Knights and JayZs of this world with speech and rap words that sound more like growls and grunts than song or news! Tired of broke folks not understanding broke folks and all the savageries that often come with the pains of having no value, no worth, no legacy, no hope, no love and no money and owning little are nothing being played like the fools we are! Truth is we all must have goals and objectives, that identify what and who we are. When we meet someone who has neither goals nor social objectives, share those you have or run like hell!
We can't go through life on auto-pilot, in survival mood, where's the rationality and joy in that? Truth is each of us is responsible for our own successes or failures, in spite of the social engineering of black people. We have a united responsibility to your culture and are equally responsible for a standardized code of conduct and ethics, with an unspoken need for enforcing mandatory accountability to each other, your brothers and sisters, call them what you may...! Racial pride and prejudice is real but so is ignorance. I believe that a person that has no racial pride has no racial worth. To see the lack of black commerce on every street, boulevard or avenue with the Name (Martin Luther King Jr.), isn't just about the loss or lack of Black legacy and pride but rather the loss and lack of economic stewardship by Black and White people. It is simply not smart business and is political incompetence with a missed economic opportunity...Period! It's out of line with capitalistic reality and is void of black value.
Truth is, God, damns a people that would unite on Sunday and kill each other on Monday. In too many instances this type of person respects and fears the dead while having a willingness, even an eagerness to kill the living, reasoning outside the lines of community accountability, making this a peoples problem. It's a deprived aptitude with a nefarious attitude that creates behaviors that conflict with sound reasoning. Truth is, be warned of a left eye minister who preaches on the subject of heaven and hades for their congregations with a right eye for earthly riches and self economic empowerment. God damns a preacher who never calls down damnation on the economic community thief and destruction of the family by groups (Koreans, middle eastern and others) from the community. These preachers are not only bad stewards but also bad businessman; most often these economic thief's don't attend your places of worship yet rob your community and spit on your religion. These groups not only take from the community, they take from his or her collection plates. These greedy self-ordained faith claiming sociopaths say nothing, truth is they're simply not true stewards!
Michelle Carter
Editor
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Codis Hampton 's Hair Care Update - Part II
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Codis Hampton II continues with the Hair Care Update Part II.
Think about it. Of all the numerous manufacturing and service industries in this country, which one should be dominated primarily by the consumers they serve? Of course, it's the Black Hair Care Industry. In Part I of this article, you got the 411 on the Koreans attempt to dominate that industry. And make no mistake about it, only a tiny fraction of the funds Koreans earn from black consumers find its way back to our communities. So let's put a number on it and say ninety cents of every dollar earned goes to the Koreans coiffures never to return to the hood.
Those black consumers who buy their hair products, wigs and accessories from the neighborhood beauty supply store? On the way, they often pass by empty storefronts, closed schools, and vacated fire stations. Do you ever wonder why we have to shop at suburban malls to find a major department outlet? A store run and mostly staffed by Koreans has no intention of putting any of their profits in your community, nada, zip, none, 0 dollars.
You say our communities are poor and cannot support our grocery stores, sidewalk cafe's and any entity that provides a quality product for a fair price? Here is a quote from Nielsen's African-American Consumer Report from 2013. "Despite historically high unemployment rates, Blacks have shown resiliency in their ability to persevere as consumers. Black buying power continues to increase, rising from its current $1 trillion level to a forecasted $1.3 trillion by 2017." There is no reason the bulk of that buying power should not be circulating in the black community before heading out to other communities. Click
here to read the complete commentary by Codis Hampton II.
Michelle Carter
Editor
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Featured Article
Dr. Timuel Black Remembers
Annie Malone and Poro College
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Dr. Timuel D. Black remembers Annie Malone and Poro College in Chicago during an interview with Editor Michelle Carter. Ninety-six years old Dr. Black is a senior citizen giant who is nationally and internationally known as an historian, activist, author, lecturer, community organizer, and recipient of several prestigious awards with honors for excellent service in the field of education. Below are excerpts of the interview with Dr. Black.
MC: Did you ever meet Annie Malone or did you see Annie Malone in person?
TB: I am pretty sure I met her though she may not have remembered meeting me. But when Poro College was created, while I was still quite young and later, it was very popular because African American women at that time, moving from the south, many of them did not have hair care and so they tried to do their hair like white women. Annie Malone was a person who was skilled in making hair look beautiful. She bought property at 45th and South Parkway, a mansion, and that is where young women from all over the country could come and begin their training and that was the beginning of Poro College in Chicago.
MC: Did you ever attend any functions at Poro College? What can you tell us about Poro College?
TB: Many of my young lady friends who wanted to be hair dressers attended and in addition to the hair profession there was entertainment at the college. These young ladies would invite us young men to be their guests. What I remember most about Annie Malone was the strictness of which she demanded that we come to that affair dressed well and behaved well. So we had to really perform whenever we went to those very nice affairs. And I remember that we had to wear tuxedos and clothes of that sort. But we were always well dressed and had good manners or we could not stay. That is the kind of discipline that I remember from Ms. Malone and we carried that discipline forward because it was in accordance to what our parents, particularly mothers, were demanding, but to hear it from someone outside continually made it impossible for us to not act like ladies and gentlemen.
MC: Why is her legacy so important today?
TB: Her legacy is important because she was a pioneer in the business of hair care in the urban community and also a business person. She knew how to run the business she had created and was one of the first women millionaires. She left a legacy of culture of not only how to behave and develop skills, but also the accumulation and distribution of wealth in your community.
MC: What type of message can we tell our young people about Annie Malone?
TB: Madam Malone is a prime example of how ordinary people, if they are prepared, can do extraordinary things. She is a prime example of a person of color working against the opposition of others, the oppressors, to overcome and keep an optimistic attitude and move on to success. We have to put in front of our young people that history that they cannot deny because it is part of their heritage. On the African side it tells how you can use your skills and your determination to prepare for the future and to help others. Madam Malone in her period was an example.
MC: How do you think she would feel about the way young people act and dress today?
TB: She would be furious (laughs) and tell them to pull their pants up and walk right. Along the Poro block you kind of felt that if we were going to walk pass her mansion, we had to be dressed and act right just to walk down the street, that was Madam Malone's territory. That was how pervasive and how universal the spirit of her presence and her success was viewed by those of my generation. But in the segregation and discrimination that still existed in Chicago when the first great migration came, we needed those kinds of examples because we could not go outside our own community and what it gave us inside the Black Belt was a feeling of independence and power. We had our own businesses and the dollar turned around in the old Black Belt in Chicago six times. The area where Ms. Malone's business was located had all kinds of successful businesses. Imagery and spirituality of people like Madam Malone helped us feel that we could overcome any obstacles. So her contribution, her legacy is important to be transferred from generation to generation. And I feel though I was not a hair care person, but I knew people who were, and I enjoyed the hospitality, I feel a responsibility to at least give a bit of that personal history to those who may not know it.
So the period that we are speaking of, about Madam Malone, is a period where she among others were encouraging a brighter future through preparation for all of us who were younger in the Black Belt and was an inspiration to people beyond the Black Belt so they could see and be prepared, young ladies in particular, with a profession for the future.
MC: I found Dr. Black's presence extremely captivating and so intriguing until it was difficult to end my interview with him, and I felt so fortunate to connect with someone who had first-hand knowledge about Annie Malone and Poro College. Dr. Black, I pray that you will be blessed to have many, many more years in which to share your vast knowledge of our African American history, in particular the history of Annie Malone and Poro College.
Michelle Carter
Editor
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