On Thursday, June 2, the Renaissance Theater will hold an exhibition and performance for one of Nigeria’s most celebrated artists and cultural ambassadors, Prince Tunde Odunlade. His artistic career spans over five decades, and his works reflect the spirit and resilience of Yoruba culture. His exhibition will showcase his prints and batik artistry. He will also have a musical performance for attendees, free of charge.
Prince Tunde Odunlade was raised in Yorubaland, where music, masquerades, textiles, and oral traditions were part of everyday life. Thus, it is no wonder that he refused to limit himself to a single form of artistic expression. His interest in various forms of expression led him to study under Yinka Adeyemi, known for music and multicolored batiks, and participate in the Oguntimehim Art Workshop in Oshogbo. These experiences helped him blend music, drama, poetry, and visual art into methods of cultural exchange. He believed that African artistic expression best presents itself when interconnected.
Odunlade is also known as an advocate for African arts and cultural exchange. His work inspired viewers to have global conversations about identity, spirituality, and social transformation. This legacy of cultural advocacy partially began with his participation in Festac ’77, also known as the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. The event brought intellectuals and artists from African nations and the African diaspora. Their performances and exhibitions showcased Africa’s postcolonial identity to the world. In 2010, Odunlade continued to attract Western investment in African arts by leading a campaign tagged “Art as a tool to build a virile nation.”
Please join Mrs. Sandra Walker and the Renaissance Theater for this culturally significant event. Doors open at 6:30 pm, and the performance begins at 7:00 pm. Donations will be accepted.
Featured Image: A portrait of Tunde Odunlade during Building Open Glam Photo Walk (Energyme/CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
For pioneering science fiction novelist Octavia E. Butler, writing was more than a profession. It was a form of survival, resistance and reflection. In “Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler,” author and college professor Susana M. Morris shares the quiet yet radical story of Butler’s life, revealing how the worlds she imagined were shaped by the one that often shut her out.
Going from a shy Black girl, born in 1947 and raised under Jim Crow, to a literary icon, Butler’s path to success was not linear. She was told not to dream but to get a “real” job.
As she juggled temp jobs, financial anxiety and a society that resisted making room for her, Butler wrote genre-defining literature that has been adapted for TV and film in recent years, and has continued to go viral nearly two decades after her death in 2006 at 58.
“Positive Obsession,” named for a 1989 essay by Butler, pulls from journals, interviews and personal letters in Butler’s public archives to illuminate the forces that shaped her, revealing an ambitious and meticulous writer.
For most of her career, Butler woke up before dawn to write for hours ahead of what she once called “lots of horrible little jobs.” As she toiled in factories and warehouses, washing dishes, inspecting potato chips and making telemarketing calls, Butler conjured characters from her everyday encounters.
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler.
Morris told NBC that in sharing Butler’s story now, 19 years after her death, she hopes to inspire artists who don’t think they can afford to create to find the time.
“In this economic system that we’re currently in, we are so crunched down trying to buy eggs or pay the rent,” Morris said “sometimes we don’t even feel like we can access art for art’s sake. But through all the trials and tribulations, she was accessing it.”
Butler’s journals show how writing was her way of pushing back against racism, patriarchy and other norms that frustrated her and made her feel overlooked as a creative person and a public intellectual. She wrote because “she had to,” Morris writes. She put pen to paper to make sense of the world and speak back to it.
Beyond writing novels, Butler eventually became known for her direct and evocative engagement with readers, whom she pushed to think deeply about the world around them. She analyzed real-world dynamics and extrapolated them into prescient and cautionary fiction. She wrote stories that seem to have become only more popular as time has passed. Her novel “Kindred” was reimagined into a TV series in 2022, and authors John Jennings and Damian Duffy won a Hugo Award in 2021 for their graphic novel reimagining of her book “Parable of the Sower.”
On social media, the “#OctaviaKnew” trend captures the ominous ways her words resonate in the present on issues like climate change, inequality and politics. Her ability, decades ago, to conjure how we live now gives Morris’ students a feeling of connection to Butler’s work today.
In “Parable of the Talents,” published in 1998 and set in the 2020s, Butler introduces a conservative presidential candidate who urges voters to join him in a project to “make America great again.” The words on the page reverberated through Morris’ classroom as she taught the book during Trump’s first presidency. It’s why many readers think Butler’s work was nearly prophetic. “Psychic? Maybe not,” Morris says. “Prescient? Absolutely.”
Morris uses the 1987 short story “The Evening and the Morning and the Night” — about a community grappling with a fictional genetic disorder — to talk to students about the marginalization of people with disabilities.
Butler’s 1984 short story “Bloodchild” pushes readers to rethink gender, reproduction and family. “We’re living in a moment that demonizes transness,” Morris said. “But in ‘Bloodchild,’ men carry the babies. It complicates our idea of what bodies are supposed to do.”
Butler’s fiction never floated away from reality. It confronted it. And it continues to make readers question what they thought they understood. Though often shelved as science fiction, Morris says Butler’s work transcends the label, and she instead classifies it as “speculative fiction.”
Morris’ immersive portrait can at times feel like reading Butler’s journal or listening to the innermost thoughts of a quiet and sometimes lonely person.
“She lived a life of the mind,” Morris said. Out of that life came work shaped by discipline, imagination and a kind of beautiful obsession — one that Morris hopes others might mirror in their own lives.
“I hope that in this world that is often devoid of beauty,” Morris said, “that other folks can see her example and find the beauty in their own kind of practice.”
It is election year in Alabama and State Rep. Curtis Travis (D – District 72) has announced he is seeking re-election. The first term Democrat’s district covers portions of Tuscaloosa, Bibb, Hale and Greene counties. As a political novice, Travis knocked off incumbent State Representative Ralph Anthony Howard in the May 2022 Democratic Party Primary with 52% of the vote. He was then unopposed in the fall General Election which led him to being sworn into office for the next term. The Tuscaloosa County Legislative Committee member was born and raised in Sawyerville in Hale County. He graduated from Akron High School then earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Alabama. Travis then obtained a master’s degree in environmental engineering. Travis’ career experience includes working as a builder, a manager, and an assistant pastor. Rep. Travis is a member of the Agriculture and Forestry Committee, Ethics and Campaign Finance Committee, Ports, Waterways and Intermodal Transit Committee, and Transportation, Utilities and Infrastructure Committee. Among the more prominent legislation he has sponsored or co-sponsored is a 2024 bill that allows simulcast racing for parimutuel wagering in Greene County, a 2024 bill that provided fair and reasonable terms for sale of agricultural equipment, Ad valorem taxes, a bill setting reappraisal of Class II and Class III property every three years, and legislation preserving Alabama’s state tax exemption on overtime pay. Rural expansion of broadband internet, rural healthcare and support for volunteer fire departments have been among his top priority issues. Party primaries are scheduled for Tuesday, May 19 with the General Election set for Tuesday, November 3
I am Garria Spencer, and this is to announce my candidacy for reelection for Greene County Commissioner of District One. My wife of fifty years Althenia Spencer, and I have three adult children, eleven grandchildren and four great grandchildren, I am a member of the First Baptist Church Union and serve on the Deacon Board. I am retired from Phifer Wire Product and presently work for the Greene County Board of Education serving as a proud Bus Driver. During my tenure over the past three years here are some of my accomplishments, I have helped in building storm shelters accessible to the communities. I have been able to pave four dirt roads in District One, I have worked tirelessly to keep our hospital open and maintain our ambulance service. Greene County is my home and a county I truly love, and I pledge to use my experience, my good will and dedication to not only serve the people of District One but all of Greene County. I am asking for your vote, Your Support and Most Important Your Prayers. Experience Counts!
Harry Dunn, Capitol Police Officer and people attacking the U. S. Capitol on January 6, 2021
By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
On the fifth anniversary of January 6, a date now fixed in the American conscience, Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn returned to the moment that altered his life and the nation’s course. Appearing on “Let It Be Known,” Dunn spoke about the unforgettable day that’s shaped by time, pain, and resolve, revisiting what he has called the worst day of his life.
Dunn joined the United States Capitol Police in 2008 and has served as a Private First Class since 2011. His career placed him on duty for presidential inaugurations, joint sessions of Congress, State of the Union addresses, and hundreds of peaceful protests. As a Crisis Intervention Officer on the USCP Crisis Negotiation Team, he was trained for hostage situations, barricades, and mental health emergencies. None of that training, he said, prepared him for January 6, 2021. “I lived the worst day of my life on national TV,” Dunn said. Five years later, Dunn said something he had not always been able to say. “I’ve healed from that trauma,” he said, referring to his personal wounds from that day. The healing, which he made clear, did not mean forgetting. Dunn said it is possible to recover personally while remaining troubled by what continues to unfold in the country. “As we look around at the things that are going on,” he said, “it’s hard to be okay with everything. If you’re okay right now, I feel like you’re kind of like a callous soul.” Dunn said he remains focused on what he can change and where his voice still matters. January 6, he noted, made him known to much of the world, but it did not define the limits of his responsibility. Accountability, or apparent lack of it, ran through the conversation. Dunn spoke as civil lawsuits continue against President Donald Trump and as Trump has pardoned those convicted for their roles in the attack. Dunn said he was not surprised, adding that Trump had promised those pardons openly. “I knew it was coming,” Dunn said. “So, I had time to prepare.” Preparation meant action. Dunn said he worked as a surrogate for former Vice President Kamala Harris during the Harris–Walz campaign, trying to stop Trump’s return to office. When that effort failed, he said the pain was not sudden. It was familiar. “The wounds were already there,” Dunn said. “I just had time to brace for it.”Dunn rejected calls to move on from January 6, saying the record remains unsettled. “History bends toward distortion when accountability is denied,” he said. “A hundred years from now, somebody is going to read about January 6 and read that he was elected again and ask, ‘How could that happen?’” He said Americans do not need explanation to understand what occurred inside and around the Capitol. “You don’t need a talking head,” Dunn said. “Just press play. Put it on mute. Watch.” Dunn recalled how rioters filmed themselves, how juries later watched those same videos in court, and how the attackers felt emboldened. He said they told officers repeatedly that the president had sent them. “They were telling us, ‘The president said we could,’” Dunn said. He addressed comparisons often drawn between January 6 and Black Lives Matter protests. Dunn said Black Lives Matter demonstrators came to the Capitol, protested, shouted, and left. “They didn’t storm the Capitol,” he said. “Every single person went home that night. I can’t say the same thing about January 6.”Dunn spoke of officers who died and of others who later took their own lives. He said attempts to equate the events ignore those losses. The conversation turned to the present, with Dunn saying January 6 laid groundwork for what he sees now, from threats against other nations to the erosion of democratic norms. He said Americans were warned in advance. “He told us what he was going to do,” Dunn said. “And when he did it, people acted surprised.” The cost, he said, remains deeply personal. Dunn described election night as feeling like a knife through his heart, saying it was difficult to accept that many voters returned to power a man he holds responsible for one of the darkest days in U.S. history. Dunn said he continues to receive hateful messages and death threats, including in recent weeks. He said he takes precautions, leans on his community, and keeps showing up. “That means I’m doing something right,” he said. Dunn also discussed his New York Times bestselling memoir, “Standing My Ground: A Capitol Police Officer’s Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble After January 6th,” which he said was part of his healing. “Where does it end?” Dunn said. “The story is still being written. You can add to it, but you can’t take away from it.”
He said he now speaks across the country about resilience, rejecting easy assurances. “I don’t know if it’s going to be okay,” Dunn said. “But I do know if we don’t fight, if we don’t show up, they’re going to steamroll us.” He paused, then offered what he could promise. “If we show up,” Dunn said, “we give ourselves a fighting chance.”
Betty Reid Soskin, the oldest full-time National Park Service ranger, at a news conference announcing her retirement at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in April 2
By Victoria Meza, NBC Bay Area
Betty Reid Soskin, an iconic former National Park Service ranger, died Sunday, according to her family. She was 104. Soskin’s family said she died peacefully at her home in Richmond on Sunday morning. “This morning on the Winter Solstice, our mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, Betty Reid Soskin, passed away peacefully at her home in Richmond, CA at 104 years old. She was attended by family. She led a fully packed life and was ready to leave,” the family wrote. Soskin was the nation’s oldest park ranger. She became a permanent NPS employee in 2011. She worked on a park service grant to tell yet untold stories of Black Americans who worked in the U.S. during the war, leading to a temporary job with the park service when she was 84 years old. She retired in 2022 and was a long-time docent at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park Museum.
Haiti’s transitional presidential council has backed an electoral law in the latest step toward holding a general election for the first time in nearly a decade. The approval late Monday means that the government can finally publish an official and long-awaited electoral calendar, after fears that the council would try to push back the tentative dates to stay in power longer. Council President Laurent Saint-Cyr called the move a “major decision” for Haiti. “We must finally offer the Haitian people the opportunity to freely and responsibly choose those who will lead them,” he wrote on X. “By taking this decisive step, while remaining fully committed to restoring security, we reaffirm our dedication to putting Haiti back on the path to democratic legitimacy and stability.” The adoption of the electoral law came as some council members have pushed for the ouster of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, including Fritz Alphonse Jean, who was recently sanctioned by the U.S. government. Some believe that U.S. visa restrictions, like the one imposed on Jean, are being used as a threat to try and influence Haiti’s politics. Three of seven council members with voting powers weren’t present for Monday’s meeting, where the electoral law was approved, including Jean, according to Le Nouvelliste newspaper. Council member Frinel Joseph, who voted in favor of the law, said that it marked “a decisive turning point” in the transition of power and that it provided Haiti “with the necessary legal and political framework for holding elections.” Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council has said it plans to hold the first round of voting in August and the final round in December next year, although ongoing gang violence could push back those dates. Meanwhile, the transitional presidential council is supposed to step down by Feb. 7 to give way to democratic rule. Haiti last held a general election in 2016 and hasn’t had a president since Jovenel Moïse was killed at his private residence in July 2021. The transitional presidential council was appointed after the killing, and the prime ministers that have served since the killing have been nominated by the council.
U.S. Representative Shomari Figures, D-Ala., introduced bipartisan legislation today to recognize the Tuskegee Airmen in honor of Veterans Day. The bill introduced by Figures would designate the U.S. Postal Service facility at 401 North Elm Street in Tuskegee as the “Tuskegee Airmen Memorial Post Office.” “Today, on my first Veterans Day in Congress, I want to wish a happy Veterans Day to all the men and women who have ever put on the uniform in defense and protection of the United States of America,” Figures said in a written statement. “You are the reason we enjoy the rights, privileges, and freedoms that we do in this country. On today and every day, I want to thank you for the commitment and courage you have shown throughout your careers to make this a better nation,” the representative continued. “I also want to thank your families, because I know when servicemembers serve, their families do too.” The legislation has received endorsements from each of Alabama’s seven representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as the Tuskegee Airmen Incorporated. Figures expressed hope that the bill would bring attention to the legacy and impact of the first group of African American pilots and support crews to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, who trained at Tuskegee Army Airfield. “Every person who enters the Tuskegee Airmen Memorial Post Office will be reminded of their courage, sacrifice, and service to our country,” Figures’ office wrote.2
The Department of Human Resources said Monday it would suspend Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits on November 1. By: Anna Barnett, Alabama Reflector
More than 750,000 Alabamians, almost half of them children, will lose critical food assistance on Saturday, November 1, 2025 The Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR) said Monday that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits will be suspended on Saturday. The suspension of the 100% federally-funded program comes on the 26th day of the government shutdown. Alabama DHR was notified of the suspension on Friday evening. “We know SNAP benefits are vitally important to the more than 750,000 Alabamians who depend on the more than $140 million in support each month. Alabama DHR, along with many others, hopes Congress will come to a quick resolution on the federal government shutdown,” Commissioner Nancy Buckner said. The 750,000 Alabamians affected represent nearly 15% of the state population. Of that number, 330,000 (44%) are children, according to DHR. DHR said in its Monday statement that Alabamians can still apply for SNAP, even though DHR will not be able to administer any benefits. Buckner also said the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) told her on Friday that it plans to reimburse state administrative costs for November. U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Alabama, joined other House Democrats on Friday in urging Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to release SNAP contingency funds that Congress made available for situations like this, according to a release. Sewell said nearly a quarter of households in her district, which covers the western side of the Black Belt and parts of Birmingham, rely on SNAP. “For so many, SNAP means the difference between a hot meal and going to bed hungry. The fact that President Trump and congressional Republicans would rather take food away from hungry families than work with Democrats to end this shutdown is shameful but not surprising,” Sewell said in a statement. “These are the same people responsible for making the largest cut to SNAP in American history less than four months ago.” Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Alabama officials were aware that federal funding for SNAP would reduce in fiscal year 2027, increasing the state’s share. According to estimates in August, the federal cuts to the program would increase DHR’s budget request by $35 million in FY27 and $208 million in FY28 when the state is responsible for 10% of SNAP benefits. The federal government shutdown is a dispute over health care. Republicans in Congress lack the votes to overcome a budget filibuster. Democrats say they want a bipartisan agreement to extend looming cuts in subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans. Republicans said they won’t negotiate that until a stopgap spending bill is passed. Gina Maiola, Gov. Kay Ivey’s communications director said in a statement Monday that Ivey hopes Senate Democrats will “get on board” to reopen the federal government. Laura Lester, CEO of Feeding Alabama, a food bank network, said in an interview Monday afternoon that she is very concerned about how families will access food. For every meal that Feeding Alabama provides, SNAP provides nine. “So as a result, anytime there’s even a small reduction in SNAP, we see a significant increase in the demand on our food banks,” Lester said. “We’re deeply concerned about what this is going to look like.” Typically, Lester said Feeding Alabama serves both SNAP recipients and non-SNAP recipients. A SNAP recipient gets $6 per day per month to buy groceries. Lester said that money usually lasts about three weeks, then SNAP recipients go to food banks. “Folks work as hard as they can to help that money stretch, but it’s become, obviously, harder and harder with the increased grocery prices,” Lester said. Last year, she said, Feeding Alabama and its partners distributed over 90 million pounds of food. Lester said that Feeding Alabama needs a lot of support from the community in donations and manpower to sort and pack meals.
Demolition of East Wing of White House to construct ballroom
By April Ryan, NNPA White House Correspondent
President Trump is unnerved that people in the Treasury Building across from the East Wing of the White House have been taking pictures of the demolition project for his 90,000 ft.² ballroom.
The optics (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQDTf2ElX-w/?igsh=cGp4NzFyMjY4azcw) of the White House are forever changed as demolition and construction workers begin construction worth $250 million and allegedly funded through private donations. President Trump never received permission to participate in this project. The last time he officially received authorization for an escalation was during his first term working on the Tennis courts on the White House complex.
The last major construction on the White House was in the 1940s; however, according to the president, this venue will hold 999 people. He currently says only 88 people can fit in the East Room of the White House. The bulldozing demolition effort has not considered the history of the building’s walls, windows, or other parts. It is uncertain what will remain of the East Wing, which also houses the presidential movie theater. Speaking with a White House Historical Association source, Rosalynn Carter was the First Lady to have an office in the White House in the East Wing. She established the First Lady’s office on the East Wing’s second Floor. President Thomas Jefferson was the first to propose wings for the White House and introduce the colonnade.
