Uhuru hits newsstands.

Grab your copy of the spring 2010 issue today!

Commentary: A Governmental Push to End Sagging

Photo via GQ
NY senator Eric Adams is running a campaign to end sagging. Read Dwayne Yates' commentary on sagging and more about Adams below.







By Dwayne Yates
I remember the day I started sagging my pants. I was 13, in the seventh grade and was walking home from school. It was a warm, spring day. I know so because I remember I wasn't wearing a jacket. I actually remember exactly what I was wearing. On top, I had on a blue and orange plaid Ecko shirt and a pair of jeans by the Tommy Hilfiger brand.
I only remember one thing from the day at school preceding this walk. I had a conflict with a white girl concerning my mixing Tommy and Ecko. I quickly shut her down by saying something sharp advising her not to mix Wal-Mart and KMart.
She didn't change my mind about how I dressed--I just remember that exchange too vividly to leave it out of this story. It was all my peers that prompted this change in the way I wore my pants.
If there is one thing I remember about middle school, it is how judgmental everyone was toward one another. If someone had bad hair, their hair was the day's topic of discussion. If you wore the same jeans more than one day a week, people noticed and told you they noticed. I remember people always had something to say about the clothes I wore. My mother kept me draped in turtlenecks, button ups, and khakis. People called me white because that and my vernacular. If being different was a crime, being "white" was a felony five.
I now know that people may have been jealous of me and I should have stayed true to myself, but that teenage insecurity got the best of me, and on that warm spring day in Akron, the world got its first glimpse of my butt cheeks.
By tenth grade, I was wearing tall, white tees so you couldn't see what color my underwear were no matter how low my pants were. I was also looking like less of a gentleman than ever. I dressed so thuggish I had people believing I was someone I wasn't. And, I am pleased to say that those days are over. With the help of college and adulthood, I am more of a gentleman than ever. Now, I see young men--even little cousins--with the same sagging problem that I had just two years ago and sigh.
As black men, we don't have control over many things in this world. One thing we do have control over, though, is how we dress. More importantly, we have control over how low we wear our pants.
I remember rap music was at the height of its profitability during my years in middle and high school. Rappers seemed to have it all: Money, cars, clothes and hoes. They also had a specific look to them. You could even call it a uniform: Big shirt or Jersey, baggy jeans, chain, hat cocked and a du-rag present. Take a second and look around you. If there are any brothas around, what are they wearing? If it's what I just described, they're subject to this media brainwashing rap music has left in the black community on how men should dress. They're also living in the past.
The trend of wearing huge, unflattering clothing is on the decline. This could be due to a new social climate in America. The president is black. That has already changed the attitudes of people in this country, no matter their color. President Obama is always dapper and wearing a suit.
Music has also changed. Pop music is on top, and the last super-star rapper, Jay-Z, is a business mogul who traded in his tees for tailor-made suits. The other greatest rapper alive, Lil' Wayne, wears skinny jeans and plays guitar. With these and many more black men breaking norms, black culture has changed and is changing at a rate faster than it took for America to get its first black president.
There are still some who are not progressing, though. Not all black men want to look like they have somewhere to be in twenty minutes. Some would much rather street trap and goon all day long in their jeans that touch the ground.
New York senator Eric Adams is running a campaign to end sagging. His slogan is "Raise your pants, raise your image!" It makes sense to me. If people don't see your derrière in the first thirty seconds of knowing you, they might have a little more respect for you.
Even if the political move does make sense, Russell Simmons thinks the senator buying eight billboards in Brooklyn to spread his message is a waste of time. He says kids don't want to dress like Sen. Adams.
I don't want to dress like Sen. Adams, but I like his message. Let's remember that Simmons made millions of dollars off of sagging with his popular clothing line Phat Farm. Lines like Phat Farm and Ecko aren't making money anymore, though, because their clothes had no longevity. They were static. They cashed in off the street wear trend, but now the climate has changed so Simmons is biased. It's definitely not a waste of time to encourage young, black men to take pride in their appearance. I just don't know if spending state dollars on eight billboards is smart in these economic times. It just may be a waste of money.
I feel that there is a renaissance on the horizon. In bigger cities, black men and women are taking pride in how they dress. They pay attention to detail and even include ethnic accessories and patterns in their wardrobes. I admit that sometimes my pants find their way below my ass, but I take time to pull them up. Degrading yourself to fit in with people who degrade themselves makes no sense. Don't settle for a life you weren't destined to live.

And the People Mourned

By Kyle Roerink

Dallas Kinney was the first person to photograph the body of Dr. Martin Luther King after the Civil Rights leader’s death in Memphis on April 4, 1968. When he went back home to Iowa after covering the tragedy, he “cried for three days.” Forty-two years later, the short and stocky 73 year old with a white beard and rosy cheeks was barely able to hold in his tears while speaking about the assassination.

“I wasn’t seeing a situation or racial rights,” he said. “I saw a people who were facing a great loss.”

Before the high-caliber bullet tore through his neck, Dr. King gave his last speech at the Mason Temple on April 3 in Memphis to help achieve equity for black sanitation employees who wanted to improve their working conditions and eliminate discrimination at their place of work.

“Every black person in Memphis heard that speech the night before.” Kinney said. “And the next day the unthinkable happened.”

While speaking to those who gathered at the temple, it seemed as if Dr. King had a revelation. In this famous address, he said, “ … In the human rights revolution, if something isn’t done, and in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I’m just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period to see what is unfolding. And I’m happy that He’s allowed me to be in Memphis.”

The next time the nation would see the Civil Rights leader would be in a bronze casket on April 5.

Kinney, who later in his career would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize, received a call on the day of the assassination from his managing editor at the Debuque Telegraph Herald located in Debuque, Iowa.

“King has been killed,” he said to Kinney.

This was managing editor James Gelades’ way of assigning Kinney to the story.

“What do you want to see,” he asked Gelades.

“If it’s going to look like Life, Time and UPI don’t do it,” Gelades said.

After arriving in Memphis on April 4, Kinney spent the remainder of the day and the first part of April 5 in the newsroom of the local paper, The Commercial Appeal, until word spread of a press conference at the Lorraine Motel. The tables were directly below the balcony where Dr. King lay with blood gushing out of a gaping hole in his neck only hours before.

“It was a press conference held by black leaders from residential Memphis,” Kinney said. “But it was more style than substance—there was nothing going on.”

Afterwards, the rest of the media members went back to their hotels and newsrooms to wait for the funeral, which was to be held in Atlanta. Kinney, remembering the words of Gelades, didn’t follow the pack.

After taking a photo of an elderly black man standing near the street outside of the motel, Kinney had a conversation with him.

“What’s going on,” the man asked Kinney.

“I really don’t know,” Kinney replied.

“I am going down to see the body,” the man said.

“Do you care if I walk along with you,” Kinney asked.

“It’s your white ass,” the man said.

At that point in time no news organizations knew where or when Dr. King’s Memphis viewing would be.

“I guarantee that was local knowledge,” Kinney said. “That did not come out of the press conference nor was it broadcast at all.”

Riots in parts of Memphis erupted after the announcement of Dr. King’s death, closing many of the city’s main roads to motor vehicles. Kinney knew he was taking a chance walking through the streets of a city that had been torn apart due to prejudice, but it was the only way he could get to the R.S. Lewis and Sons Funeral Home. He said handling a situation like that is “all attitude.”

When Kinney arrived at the funeral home he immediately approached the funeral director and said, “This is what we need to do. The first person to see Dr. King’s body has got to be recorded.”

He assured the director that if his photography intruded upon the privacy of those who came to see the body all he had to do was “raise one finger” and Kinney would leave.

The layout for the viewing was in a proscenium arch style. The photos may seem like he was positioned right over casket, but because of his lenses he was able to make pictures without hovering over Dr. King’s body.

“I was visible, but I did not stand out,” he said.”

Kinney positioned himself and waited to capture the first onlooker. When the procession began he saw an elderly woman making her way to the bronze casket to look at Dr. King. She was holding a bagged lunch. Kinney said the look on her face and all of the others in attendance at the viewing was a different emotion than he had “ever encountered.”

The enormity of the situation was not conveyed only with sorrow. Kinney said the morale of the community expressed “authentic grief bathed in shock.”

“I saw that first woman and I knew that I knew it was a monumental moment of what I was privileged to be part of,” he said.

After a while, a well-dressed woman approached the casket to see for herself what had become of Dr. King. Kinney clicked his camera’s shutter.

“She looked through then lens of my 85mm and gave me a look like ‘how dare you,’” he said. “I stopped photographing after that because the photo captured something that intruded upon her grief.”

He informed the woman that no one would ever see the picture. After 22 hours in Memphis with no sleep and the first images of the martyred Civil Rights hero laid to rest, Kinney went back home to Iowa.

Having the opportunity to photograph the tragedy gave Kinney the credentials to photograph the riots that proceeded the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Robert F. Kennedy, and the Pulitzer-Prize winning images of migrant workers in Florida.

He says that photographing Dr. King is monumental because he captured a situation where people lost a part of their souls.

“He had a dream,” Kinney said. “They lost the dream. Not for a moment. Not for a week. Not for a month—For a lifetime.”

See a slideshow of photos from King's funeral here

Kent birthed the leader of one of America's most famous slave revolts.

Photo courtesy soul.org

By Kelly Petryszyn

When people learn about slave revolts in class they normally don’t feel that they have a connection to them. People may be shocked to learn that one of the abolitionists behind these revolts, John Brown, lived right here in Kent. At the time Kent was referred to as Franklin Mills.

Brown led a group of armed men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, according to the Portage County Timeline found at the Portage County Historical Society. He wanted to seize guns and ammunition to arm the slaves in a fight for freedom.

Before he was able to finish, he was captured by army General Robert E. Lee. He was later tried and convicted of treason. He was then hanged in Charles Town, Virginia.

Even though he failed at completing this revolt, Brown’s abolitionist spirit penetrated the hearts of Franklin Mills residents prior to his death, spreading abolitionism throughout the town.

John Brown helped turn Franklin Mills into a network of safe houses for slaves to get food or shelter on their journey to Cleveland, where freedom awaited them across Erie Lake in Canada.

It is interesting to look back at Kent today and imagine that one day the people opened their doors to runaway slaves. The activities of the Underground Railroad in Franklin Mills created a solidarity that united the people. Who is the John Brown of Kent today? Are the people of Kent still wiling to go to the same length to help their fellow people?

Check out a story about the journey of slaves who traveled on the Underground Railroad in Uhuru --available on the Kent State University main campus soon!

To do your own research on the underground railroad visit the Ohio Historical Society at http://www.ohiohistory.org/undergroundrr/ or the Friends of Freedom Society http://www.ohioundergroundrailroad.org/ .

Modista presents Dreamland

Modista hosted the first fashion show to take place on Rockwell Hall's runway in decades last Friday. The event ended Black History Month programming by taking its audience to dreamland. If dreamland is where the best fashion show at Kent State in the past three years takes place then Kori Fields and members of Modista sure got us there.

Co-founder of Modista, Fields, exudes confidence walking the runway in a chartreuse dress she made. The fabric is weaved on the silhouette of the dress. This is one part of her collection.

Intrendzick designer Jasmine Williams took spectators to the dark side of glamor. Models appeared to be incredibly vain as they exited a picture frame and posed as mannequins.

Williams' designs coming down the runway.

Audience members were heard saying "I'm scared" when designer Marquis "Lucky" Engle's scene began. His one part Rihanna, one part Saw introduction set a tone for his collection. From his "Diva" shades to the reoccurring shoulder pads, the whole collection encompassed what urban edginess is today. It was nice to see studded shades pushed to another level when Engle put a broken CD on the lenses of a pair of his shades.

This was Ashley Tolliver's first make-up scene in Ohio in almost a year. With Ashley Morgan on hair, Tolliver had audience members talking more about their leotards designs than their hair and make-up skills. Morgan used interesting colors to create couture hair, and Tolliver gave the models a natural look to match hair colors. But it was the pearl-embellished leotards that left the audience talking.

High Fashion

Left: Jasmine Williams, Right: Sheila Denanyoh

The .designers responsible for making the garments worn in the "Black is Beautiful" shoot

Sheila Denanyoh owner of Ill-La-La Designs

Sheila Denanyoh

Jasmine Williams owner of Intrendzick Couture

Jasmine Williams

Jasmine R Williams and Sheila Denanyoh are UHURU magazines' spring 2010 designers to watch. For more information read their interviews below and also look for their designs in our spring 2010 "Black is Beautiful" in April.

Designer to Watch: Sheila Denanyoh

Interview By: Britany Ruby

Photography By: Benjamin Moten

Sheila Denanyoh has always had a strong love of fashion, but she was raised in a community where being a fashion designer was not a respected occupation. When she entered college, Denanyoh chose to major in Interior Design. Now at the age of 21, she is an up and coming designer on her way to fashion greatness.

Clothing Line: Ill-La-La Designs

Based In: Kent, Ohio

What is your design style? Ill-La-La Designs is a very eccentric clothing line, with African print and soft fabrics.

When did you know you wanted to be a designer? I started sewing when I was in the fourth grade, but it wasn't until I was ready to graduate high school that I realized that I would like to get into designing clothes.

Where do you get your inspiration? Most of my inspiration comes from Africa. It ranges from the people to the culture. My friends are from all over the continent of Africa. I draw inspiration from them and their heritage.

What new trends should we expect from you in 2010? I am focused on a sophisticated more grown-woman style.

Do you have any advice for aspiring fashion designers? Be sure this is something you want to get into. When you really know that this is what you want, you have to push hard, look past all of the obstacles and keep pushing.

What are you currently working on? I have just started working on a WInter/Fall 2010 line, but I still have a lot to do.

For more Information on Ill-La-La Designs contact Sheila at

Sdenanyo@kent.edu