Special to the Times

Kim Scott is one of the most sought after classical and jazz flutists in the country. Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, she burst onto the jazz scene in 2011 with her debut CD “Crossing Over”, which received rave reviews from the music industry. After a very successful global campaign, her debut CD made it to the BDS Billboard and Smoothjazz.com charts bringing her into the forefront with visibility across the world.
Known for her hauntingly beautiful, unique tone and for her polished technique, Kim Scott is a fresh sound for today’s increasingly popular smooth and urban jazz music industry.
Scott O’Brien of Smoothjazz.com states, ” Exceptional tone and polished technique will leave you wanting more from this brilliant player” and Ron
Jackson of The Smooth Jazz Ride says, ” The one virtue that stands out when you listen to Scott…her delivery and technique, which can make any tune
her own, be it a cover or not. Give her a listen, and I’m betting that you too will become a believer.”
She has been in high demand for her high energy performances, having been invited this year to play the Preserve Jazz Festival, Atlanta Smooth Music Festival, and Catalina Island Jazz Traxx Festivals, among others. Chair of the Music Department at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, she has been an educator for 13 years and prides herself on passing her musical knowledge on to her students.
Classically trained, she is a member of the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra and performs in solo recitals and concerts across the United States and abroad. Kim Scott is the host of the “Block Party” Radio Show, a jazz radio show which airs weekly in several markets across the United States. She can be heard across the airwaves weekly as an artist and radio host.
Mark Edwards of Smoothjazz.com puts it this way, “Let Kim Scott’s sensual style take you on a journey, one that will never have you thinking the same
way about Smooth Jazz flute ever again”!
Kim Scott’s sophomore CD, “Rite of Passage” was released May 18, 2013 and has taken the world by storm. The first single released from the CD, “Golden”, was the #1 most played/most added track the day it was released, gaining her even more recognition as one of the hottest new flutists on the scene.
Produced by Kelvin Wooten, “Rite of Passage” features some of the most funky and soulful grooves by this artist and the latest single from it, “Block Party”, peaked at #11 and is currently #17 after 14 weeks on the BDS Billboard chart, #16 on the Smoothjazz.com chart, and #6 on the Smooth Indie Star chart. It is steadily climbing and the CD even features a few surprises, like “Sweet Obsession”, on which Kim Scott showcases her sultry, one of kind voice!

 BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Kyle Abraham and his contemporary dance company Abraham.In.Motion (A.I.M.) is the guest company-in-residence for the 2015 Alabama Dance Festival in January. Residency activities and performances will take place in three pivotal communities in the civil rights movement – Montgomery, Selma, and Birmingham – to stimulate community conversations about the civil rights movement through Kyle’s all-new collection of dance works, When the Wolves Came In. Through local partnerships, each community is designing their residency directly with the company.
When the Wolves Came In consists of several new works that explore the historical legacy of two totemic triumphs in the international history of civil rights: the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 20th anniversary of the abolishment of apartheid in South Africa. The works take their inspiration from Max Roach’s iconic 1960 protest album We Insist: Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, which celebrated the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation and shed a powerful light on the growing civil rights movements in South Africa and the U.S. The premiere took place on September 25, 2014 at New York Live Arts.
For the Alabama tour, immediately after the presentation of When the Wolves Came In, everyone, including choreographer, cast, and the audience, will take part in a powerful yet relaxed conversation about the many issues brought up by the work. This community forum is the residency centerpiece tailored for each city, celebrating the theme of “Freedom: our presence, momentum, and impulse.”
Facilitated by A.I.M.’s Community Education Director, Maritza Mosquera, participants will explore present concerns, joys, and visions for self and community through flexible instigations, direct questions and sharing of personal stories. Participants will work individually, in small groups and with the larger audience. Scribes will capture these rich conversations to become a text-portrait of each community.
Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion will join the activities of the Alabama Dance Festival in Birmingham as the featured guest company. The performance of When the Wolves Came In will be presented in partnership with Samford University on January 17, 7 p.m. at the Leslie S. Wright Fine Arts Center. The Community Forum will immediately follow the performance.
This is the company’s second appearance at the Alabama Dance Festival. Presented in 2013 during the “50 Years Forward” commemoration of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Movement, Kyle Abraham’s return to Alabama gives the opportunity to build on relationships that began two years ago.
Dr. Rosemary Johnson, Executive Director of the Alabama Dance Council, explains her 2015 programming decision for the Alabama Dance Festival. “Back in 2013, Kyle and I both recognized that our work together needed to go further and that we weren’t finished yet. From what Kyle has shared with me since then, his experiences in Birmingham became part of the inspiration for When the Wolves Came In.”
When she learned that the premiere of Wolves would coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March, Dr. Johnson immediately began cultivating partnerships in Montgomery and Selma so that the company’s residency could be extended to both communities.
“It became a personal journey for me, something that I had to do. I have ties to all three communities because I was born in Montgomery, grew up in Birmingham after my family moved here in 1963, and worked in Selma as Fine Arts Director at Wallace Community College for 23 years.” Dr. Johnson returned to Birmingham in 2002 when she became Executive Director of the Alabama Dance Council.
The mission of Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion is to create an evocative interdisciplinary body of work. Born into hip-hop culture in the late 1970s and grounded in Abraham’s artistic upbringing in classical cello, piano, and the visual arts, the goal of the movement is to delve into identity in relation to a personal history. The work entwines a sensual and provocative vocabulary with a strong emphasis on sound, human behavior and all things visual in an effort to create an avenue for personal investigation and exposing that on stage. A.I.M. is a representation of dancers from various disciplines and diverse personal backgrounds. Combined together, these individualities create movement that is manipulated and molded into something fresh and unique.
A 2013 MacArthur Fellow, Kyle Abraham began his dance training at the Civic Light Opera Academy and the Creative and Performing Arts High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He continued his dance studies in New York, receiving a BFA from SUNY Purchase and an MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
In November 2012, Abraham was named the newly appointed New York Live Arts Resident Commissioned Artist for 2012–2014. Just one month later, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater premiered Abraham’s newest work, Another Night, at New York’s City Center to rave reviews.
Rebecca Bengal of Vogue writes, “What Abraham brings to Ailey is an avant-garde aesthetic, a original and politically minded downtown sensibility that doesn’t distinguish between genres but freely draws on a vocabulary that is as much Merce and Martha as it is Eadweard Muybridge and Michael Jackson.”
That same year, Abraham was named the 2012 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award recipient and 2012 USA Ford Fellow.
Abraham received a prestigious Bessie Award for Outstanding Performance in Dance for his work in The Radio Show, and a Princess Grace Award for Choreography in 2010. The previous year, he was selected as one of Dance Magazine’s 25 To Watch for 2009, and received a Jerome Travel and Study Grant in 2008.
His choreography has been presented throughout the United States and abroad, most recently at On The Boards, South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, REDCAT, Philly Live Arts, Portland’s Time Based Arts Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, Bates Dance Festival, Harlem Stage, Fall for Dance Festival at New York’s City Center, Montreal, Germany, Jordan, Ecuador, Dublin’s Project Arts Center, The Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum located in Okinawa Japan, The Andy Warhol Museum and The Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pa.
In addition to performing and developing new works for his company, Abraham.In.Motion, Abraham recently premiered The Serpent and The Smoke, a new pas de deux for himself and acclaimed Bessie Award-winning and former New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Wendy Whelan as part of Restless Creature and a new work entitled Counterpoint, for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and the Chicago Dancing Festival.
In 2011, OUT Magazine labeled Abraham as the “best and brightest creative talent to emerge in New York City in the age of Obama.”

For tickets, call 205.726.2853, purchase online at alabamadancefestival.org. or at the door.

KYLE ABRAHAM/ABRAHAM.IN.MOTION EVENTS: 

SELMA, ALABAMA
Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion Performance
Followed by a Community Forum
January 13, 6 – 9 p.m.
Selma High School Auditorium
General Admission $15 | Reserved $25
Co-presented by Arts Revive and Selma City Schools

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion Performance
Followed by a Community Forum
January 17, 7– 10 p.m.
Leslie S. Wright Fine Arts Center
General Admission $15 | Reserved $25
Co-presented by the Alabama Dance Festival and Samford University

OTHER ALABAMA DANCE FESTIVAL EVENTS:
 
BIRMINGHAM DANCE SHOWCASE
January 10, 12:30 p.m.
Mainstage Theatre
Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex
FREE Admission

NEW WORKS CONCERT
January 16, 8 p.m.
Leslie S. Wright Fine Arts Center
General Admission $15 | Students $8

ALABAMA DANCE FESTIVAL SHOWCASE
January 18, 2:30 p.m.
Dorothy Jemison Day Theater
Alabama School of Fine Arts
General Admission $15 | Students $8

ALABAMA DANCE FESTIVAL MASTER CLASSES
January 17 – 18 at various times and locations
For pre-professional dance students (grades 6-12), college, and professional dancers.
Visit alabamadancefestival.org for class schedules and pricing.

by Cheryl Eldridge

Recognition of Black History originated in 1926 by historian Carter G. Woodson as “Negro History Week.” It was later celebrated as Black History Month. Woodson chose the second week of February because it marked the birthdays of two Americans who greatly influenced the lives and social condition of African Americans: former President Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass.
Until the study of Black history, Blacks were absent from history books. Carter G. Woodson established the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915, and a year later founded the widely respected Journal of Negro History. “Negro History Week” was intended to bring national attention to Black people’s contributions throughout history.
Other important dates in February that align with a study of Black History are:
•    2/23/1868 – W.E.B. DuBois was born – civil rights leader and co-founder of the NAACP
•    2/03/1870 – The 15th Amendment was passed – allowing Black men to vote
•    2/25/1870 – The first black U.S. senator took office (Hiram Revels).
•    2/12/1909 – The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) was founded.
•    2/21/1965 – Malcolm X was shot

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The. A.G. Gaston Conference is seeking unsung community heroes for the 2015 A.G. Gaston Community Service Award. Nominations will be accepted through January 25 on the conference website, www.AGGastonConference.com. The award will be presented during the 11th annual conference, to be held Tuesday and Wednesday February 17-18, at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex.
Ideal candidates will exemplify the characteristics of the late Black millionaire A.G. Gaston: active in their church, involved in philanthropic activities, and creating an impact in the metro Birmingham business community. Nominations are being accepted from candidates and persons seeking to acknowledge deserving members of their community.
The A.G. Gaston Conference was founded in 2005 by Bob Dickerson of the Birmingham Business Resource Center and Gaynelle Adams-Jackson of Advanced Planning Services. Dickerson said of the A.G. Gaston Community Service Award, “It is important for us to not only recognize the business leaders in our communities, but also the unsung heroes who are making a difference but barely acknowledged.”
Finalists for the award will be notified by Feb. 1. The winner will be announced during the A.G. Gaston Legacy Luncheon on Tuesday, February 17. The two-day conference will be moderated by Randall Pinkston, a former White House correspondent for CBS. Registration for the conference and a listing of the agenda is available at www.AGGastonConference.com.
The A.G. Gaston Conference draws business leaders from across the Black community, along with a diverse group who gather to honor Gaston’s legacy, discuss current trends in business and lessons today’s Black businesses can learn to cultivate the next generation of Black millionaires committed to serving the community.
Dr. Gaston, named by “Black Enterprise” magazine as the Black Entrepreneur of the 20th Century, built a multi-million-dollar empire that included radio stations, a funeral home, business school, motel, and construction, insurance and banking industries. He was the J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie of Alabama’s Black community. Gaston amassed wealth that provided hundreds of jobs and economic opportunities for African-Americans across Alabama over much of the 20th Century, allowing his legacy to live on past his death in 1996 at age 103.
Gaston recognized the importance of using his wealth to support social justice. During a time when many African-Americans were turned away from hotels practicing Jim Crow segregation, Gaston opened the A.G. Gaston Motel to welcome Black visitors, and allowed civil rights leaders like the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to hold meetings in his downtown office.

Gerald Anderson “Jerry” Lawson (December 1, 1940 – April 9, 2011) was an American electronic engineer known for his work in designing the Fairchild Channel F video game console.
During development of the Channel F in the early-mid 1970s, Lawson was Chief Hardware Engineer and director of engineering and marketing for Fairchild Semiconductor’s video game division. He also founded and ran Videosoft, a video game development company which made software for the Atari 2600 in the early 1980s, as the 2600 had displaced the Channel F as the top system in the market.
Lawson, along with Ron Jones, were the sole Black members of the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of early computer hobbyists which would produce a number of industry legends, including Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Lawson also produced one of the earliest arcade games, Demolition Derby, which debuted in a southern California pizzeria shortly after Pong. Lawson later worked with the Stanford mentor program and was preparing to write a book on his career.
In March 2011, Lawson was honored as an industry pioneer by the International Game Developers Association. One month later, he died of complications from diabetes. At the time of his death, he resided in Santa Clara, California.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.
Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore,’ sermon given at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, 17 May 1956

As I grew up in Birmingham in the 1960s and ’70s, I was keenly aware of the  heroes around me and throughout the country. I was blessed to be reared by parents who were educators and valued the importance of learning. I was also blessed to have teachers in elementary school and high school who instilled in all students the significance of the contributions made by people who looked just like me.
These lessons were invaluable. But one of the greatest revelations came when I realized that the  victories of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the children’s’ marchers, Dr. A.G. Gaston, and many more didn’t just change Birmingham. They changed our nation, and made it a better place.
When we reflect  on the period of commemoration from Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday in January through African American History Month in February, some may ask, “Why Celebrate?”
First of all, African-American history is an integral part of the history of this nation and the world. From Sen. Hiram Revels and Rep. Joseph Rainey’s service in Congress in 1870 to the service of our current President Barack Obama, African Americans have set the foundation for our Democracy.
Secondly, we need to share with all children, the stories of resilience in the face of challenge, so that they know their potential for successfully overcoming life’s obstacles. In elementary and high school as I studied the lives of great men and women, I found myself believing that I too could find success.
The youth of today should be provided constant reminders of our nation’s complete history so that they can fashion a plan that sets them in place to make contributions to our great city and our great nation. This is why we celebrate.

Loveman Village first community approved for the RAD Demonstration program by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Submission of Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant for the transformation of Southtown
Submission of Jobs Plus Pilot Program for Elyton Village residents
Early Childhood Education Grant Partnership with JCCEO for Elyton Village Daycare Center
Magic City Housing Development partnership with Dollar General to implement an E Readers Literacy Program
HABD Scholarship Foundation recognizes and rewards many graduates and successors throughout the year with awards and scholarships
Magic City Housing Development partnered with organizations to recognize middle school youth winners and participants’ success in participation in the essay contest on the importance of African-American contribution to history with emphasis on the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). There were first, second and third place winners for each middle grade 6th, 7th & 8th).
Summer Youth Employment Programs for youth ages 14-18
Youth Summer Camp for ages 7-13
1st Annual Youth Football Camp partnership with Gene Jelks
Annual George A. Pegues Memorial FSS Golf Tournament
Resident Leadership and Team Building Training
Implementation of the Health & Wellness Walking Club
Spirit of the Season – Toy Drive
Numerous partnerships throughout the City of Birmingham continue to Improve the Communities Through…
Elyton Village modernization in three phases to renovate 1, 2, & 3 bedroom units which includes a revised layout to the community center/gymnasium with new ceilings, flooring, updated restrooms, modern features and fixtures, improvements to ADA accessibility, a computer room, and updated resident council office space.
Demolition of structurally damaged units at Morton Simpson – 44 units, North Birmingham Homes – 21 units, Roosevelt City – 12 units
Building Improvements at Benjamin Greene (fiber cement siding, roofing, gutters and downspouts)
Boiler Replacements at Freedom Manor
Collegeville – Fencing and painting
Cooper Green – Building and site improvements (installation of gutters and downspouts)
Kimbrough Homes – Repair of structurally damaged units
Harris Homes – Installation of traffic control measures
Marks Village – Design of building two new buildings incorporating energy efficiency measures
In the process of updating all communities with energy efficiency measures
Tuxedo Terrace – Ribbon Cutting Oct 23, 2014 for the completion of 21 single family homes. One story and two story homes with three bedrooms and up to two and half full bath, parking in the rear of each home, sprinkler systems in lawn, suburban living in an urban area.