Refuge in (RITT) Troubled Times presents Yana’s Christmas Prayer with RITT
Monday, December 23 at The Harbert Center, 2109 4th Avenue, North, Birmingham, Ala., 6-9p.m.

Yana’s parents took her shopping. They asked what was her desire for Christmas.
Yana replied: I want nothing for myself; just give my gifts to the children who have no parents. Ashley, Yana’s mom, called RITT; her prayer began to become reality. Many of our children’s father or mother have lost their life by homicide or senseless violence. Some of these children are being supported by grandparents with little or no income enough to support a little one, let alone themselves. Will you help make “Yana’s Christmas Prayer with RITT” become true for them with so little. Drop off site is at the Dollar General on 3rd Avenue West by Burger King across from Shell Service Station. You may enter the store to make purchases also.

Donations are welcomed. We are a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization. All gifts are tax-exempt.

Thank you in advance, Brenda Paige Ward, Founder
Contact: 205-240-9910 for ADS or Pick-up.

The lovely ladies of Panache had a preholiday  luncheon at Chuy’s to kick off the holiday season. Delicious food and great fellowship was enjoyed by all.

Reginald and Ronald Nall spent their first and quite exciting Iron Bowl at Jordan-Hare Stadium with Reverend James Owen and his wife Gloria. He is the first Black Football scholarship player at the University of  Auburn in 1969. His nephew, Ladarius Owens is linebacker for SEC
Western Division Champions Auburn Tiger. The Nall brothers were teammates at Fairfield High School.

On Saturday, November 2, 2013, members of Magic City (AL) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, gathered for a luncheon to celebrate 20 years of “friendship and service” to the Birmingham-Jefferson County community. The event was held at The Club, where the Magic City Chapter was chartered in 1993 by then National President Marion Schultz Sutherland, Chapter Establishment Officer Marion Ridley Sweeney and Southern Area Director Katie Bell.
A Friendship Ceremony led by chapter president, Charletta T. Sheehy set a celebratory tone for the event, which was chaired by Connie Sheppard Harris. Deidra Perry served as Mistress of Ceremonies, and members Connie S. Harris, Deborah B. Walker, and Margaret Z. Beard participated in the program as well. A photo presentation by Donna Lawson brought memories and laughter to the crowd.
Charter members in attendance included: Adriene Balton-Topping, Margaret Z. Beard, Diana T. Chambliss, Connie Sheppard Harris, Bettye Warren Mitchell, Charletta T. Sheehy, Sharon Spencer, M.D., Juanita Jordan Vann, Deborah Byrd Walker and Michelle Williams-Bridgewater.
Joining in the celebration were members inducted  from 2000 – 2012: Stacy Haynes-Nelson, M.D., Sandra Z. Harris, Gloria Jemison, Nichelle Gainey, Joyce P. French, Cheri Gardner, Terri Gardner, Merika Coleman-Evans, Adrienne Royster-Bell, Mary B. Williams, Melissa Howard Smoot, KeAndrea Stephens Jones, Donna R. Lawson, Lila E. Hackett, Belinda J. Hall, Karen Winston Fox, Barbara Regan, Marguerite Johnson, Nena Moorer, Cecilia Crenshaw, LaJuana Bradford, Deidra K. Perry and Brandi Rudolph Bolling, M.D.
Alumni members honored for their service to the chapter included Willa R. McGlothan, Margaree Martin, Juanita J. Balton and Sara Myers.
Guests included Connecting Links Leonard Smoot, Cleophas Vann, Frederick Bolling, Clifford Hall and Reverend James Myers. Also Ms. Diane Rudolph.
The Links, Incorporated founded in 1946 is one of the oldest and largest volunteer service organizations for women who are committed to enriching and ensuring the culture and economic survival of African American and persons of African ancestry. The Links, Incorporated has membership of over 12,000 professional women of color serving 272 chapters in 42 states, the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.
Through its philanthropic arm, The Links Foundation, Incorporated, the organization has contributed more than 24 million dollars to charitable causes since its founding.  Links have contributed 1.2 million documented hours of volunteer service during the 2006-2008 biennium, to assist communities throughout the United States and developing countries in Africa.

The Birmingham (AL) Chapter of the Links, Incorporated to Host Civil Rights Program at Parker High School

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. –  A select number of Parker High School juniors and seniors participated in a one-day symposium at A.H. Parker High School on Wednesday, November 6, from 9a.m. until 12:30p.m. to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the civil rights movement.
The event, “History in Your Backyard,” highlighted Birmingham foot soldiers who helped fight for justice and equality in the 1960s. Speakers included Circuit Judge Helen Shores Lee and Barbara Shores, daughters of famed Birmingham civil rights attorney Arthur Shores. Each student received a signed copy of The Gentle Giant of Dynamite Hill , which is about Arthur Shores’ life written by his daughters.
The goal of the program was to provide students with a better understanding of Birmingham’s civil rights movement and the significant roles that people in the students’ very own community played to make the movement of 1963 a movement that changed the world. Students learned about the critical role Parker High School students played in the movement, heard the Shores’ sisters’ accounts of growing up with their father and viewed photos from the movement. “The Barber of Birmingham,” an Academy Award-nominated documentary about the life of Birmingham foot soldier and barber James Armstrong, was also shown.
Parker High School History:
A. H. Parker High School was conceptualized as the first public high school for Black students in Birmingham. In 1900, its initial enrollment consisted of 18 students. Today, it serves 871 students in grades 9-12.  Daryl Hudson is the principal.
Notable former students and alumni include:
•    Carole Robertson, one of the four girls killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on September 15, 2013
•    Oscar Adams, Jr., Alabama Supreme Court Justice
•    Anne Marie Adams, Jefferson County Court Clerk
•    Herman “Sonny” Blount, jazz musician, known as “Sun Ra”
•    Erskine Hawkins, musician
•    Lola Hendricks, African-American civil rights activist
•    John Rhoden, sculptor and head of the Art Commission of the City of New York
•    Katherine Burt’s Brooke, Freedom Rider

The Links, Incorporated is an international, not-for-profit corporation, established in 1946. The membership consists of 12,000 professional women of color in 276 chapters located in 41 states, the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. It is one of the nation’s oldest and largest volunteer service organizations of extraordinary women who are committed to enriching, sustaining and ensuring the culture and economic survival of African Americans and other persons of African ancestry. Links members contribute more than 500,000 documented hours of community service annually – strengthening their communities and enhancing the nation. The organization is the recipient of awards from the UN Association of New York and the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation for its premier programs.

The Birmingham Chapter, Alabama’s first chapter, began with a core group called “Pacesetters”, consisting of eight women: Hattie Calloway, Columbia Clayborne, Madeline Davis, Mayo Forniss, Minnie Gardner Gaston, Theodora Shores, Bernice Sterling and Essie Taggart. Area Director Georgia Schank installed the charter members on February 4, 1956.
The Birmingham Chapter continues to be a leading organization in the community in the areas of service and philanthropy. The support of the community and dedication of resourceful Link members have resulted in programs, scholarships, and activities that have benefited the Birmingham community.

  By Jessica Jones

Angelica Littleton is the new barber on the block as she opens her new barbershop, Artistic Designs, in Bluff Park. A newcomer to the area, she’s no novice when it comes to cutting hair. Littleton has been cutting hair for 16 years and has been a professional barber since she graduated from Lawson State in 2006. Her interest in barbering began when she first picked up a pair of clippers to help line up her boyfriend she had at the time, or so she thought.
She later found out that she came from a family of hair stylists. “Before my grandmother passed this year she told me her father was a barber and he had his own barbershop,” Littleton said. Her great grandfather owned Jones Barber and Beauty Salon in Avondale. Littleton’s great grandmother was also a stylist. Her great grandfather’s uncle and his nephews were barbers as well.
Throughout her high school years, cutting hair was a good source of pocket change, but Littleton hasn’t always wanted to be a barber.
“I would cut hair on the porch or as a side thing, but I never expected that to be my career. Never,” she said. Unsure of what she wanted to do after high school, Littleton didn’t attend school for barbering until 2004. “Didn’t know God had this thing set up for me to be a barber.”
After working at other shops, she’s now the owner of Artistic Designs Lounge in Bluff Park, a diverse location perfect for Littleton who cuts all types of hair. But she didn’t do it alone. Lawrence Carpenter, owner of U R Next barbershop and a high school friend, had been after her for years to own her own shop, but she never felt she was ready.
“He wanted me to run his shop in West End,” she said. “He heard the buzz about me and I didn’t know it. Everybody was talking about that female barber…and I didn’t know that. He said ‘Angel, I need you to come run my shop,’ and I said, ‘I can’t do that. The Lord hadn’t led me [there].’”
Concerned about the loyalty of her clients who lived in the Homewood and Hoover area, she didn’t want her clients to have to relocate. For five years he asked her to help him run his shop and for five years she declined.
“What the Lord said to me is I had a fear of succeeding and tried to call it a fear of failure,” Littleton said.
She quit her job at the shop she worked in at the time and went in search for a building for her new business. After searching with no success, she called Lawrence who told her at that moment, he was at the building that was to be her new shop and had been waiting for her to call him. Finally, she said yes and moved into her shop a little over six weeks ago. It’s a leap Littleton said she’s glad she made.
“The peace that God has given me owning my own shop, it has been wonderful,” she said.
Along with her career choice came the stereotypes that barbers, both male and female, face about the legitimacy of a craft that is often seen as a hustle. There is a belief that barbers don’t go to school or don’t have a real career, she explained.
“That’s a lie,” she said. “When I attended Lawson in 2004, I had to take psychology. I had to take math. I had to take the Science of Barbering, the History of Barbering. I didn’t just cut hair.” She completed two years of school before she earned her license. “You go to school for this. This is not a hustle.” “I’m able to educate my clients on the hair part and the science part and also the history part of [barbering] because I went to school for it.”
As if being stereotyped as uneducated isn’t enough, there is also the issue of gender. In a male dominated field, Littleton has often had to prove herself as being just as good as male barbers. She’s had plenty of encounters with men who were reluctant to allow a woman to cut their hair, but one moment in particular stands out in her mind as the most memorable. Known as “the female barber who cuts fast but precise,” she’d just finished cutting four clients when a new client walked through the door. When she signaled for the next client to come over, he refused.
“He said ‘uh,uh I’m not going to let you cut my hair,’” she said. She attributed his refusal to her attire that she describes as being feminine. “Most female barbers are hard and that’s what they (male clients) are looking for if they can cut hair.”
It wasn’t until after another client walked in and sat in her chair to get his hair cut that he allowed her to cut his hair once he saw the other barbers weren’t as fast as Littleton. She earned a new faithful client that day,
Despite the stereotypes and misconceptions of being a barber, owning her own shop also comes with rewards, she said.
“Being the shop owner, I’m able to set my own atmosphere,” she said. “If I’m peaceful, then the atmosphere will be peaceful. There’s a stability in the atmosphere so that’s one of the biggest things [I enjoy].”
That stable atmosphere is one of the things that keeps client Cliff Long coming back.
“I like the atmosphere,” Long said. “It’s a family friendly atmosphere. I can bring my daughter here and I don’t have to worry about barbershop talk and barbershop talk literally runs the gamut.”
“I like the professionalism,” he said. “I like the fact that if I call she can let me know if she can fit me in her schedule. I have a very busy work schedule. I don’t have a lot of time, so for me, when I do need a haircut, it’s on a schedule and I need someone who’s professional. Barbers are notorious for having you sitting in the shop all day long and I never have experienced that with Angel.”
Artistic Designs Lounge is located at 2400 Mountain Drive Suite 104, 35226.