Ronald Takaki, a nationally renowned ethnic studies scholar, who taught the campus’ first African-American history course at the University of California-Berkeley, died Tuesday at his home in Berkeley. He was 70. Takaki, who had battled multiple sclerosis for many years, retired from UC Berkeley almost six years ago, but was a regular and popular guest lecturer at the university. He was also a highly sought-after speaker around the country and would appear at social-justice rallies and draw standing-room-only crowds at forums everywhere. “When I think of Ron, the words that come to mind are: solidarity, justice, easy-going, self-effacing, generous, creative,” said Beatriz Manz, chairwoman of UC Berkeley’s Department of Ethnic Studies. “He poked fun at himself and had a contagious laugh. He embodied kindness.” Yasmin Anwar of Berkeley Media Relations writes that during Takaki’s more than 40 years at UC Berkeley, he “established the nation’s first ethnic studies Ph.D. program as well as UC Berkeley’s American Cultures requirement for graduation, and advised President Clinton in 1997 on his major speech on race. In his books, such as ‘Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb,’ ‘Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth Century America’ and ‘Pau Hana: Plantation Life and Labor in Hawaii,’ Takaki tracked the history of racist attitudes not just about Asian Americans, but about all minorities, using real people’s stories to touch all readers, not just scholars.” Don Nakanishi, director of and professor at UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center and a longtime friend of Takaki’s, said, “Ron Takaki elevated and popularized the study of America’s multiracial past and present like no other scholar, and in doing so had an indelible impact on a generation of students and researchers across the nation and world. He had a very special gift of bringing to life – through his oratory and his voluminous writings – the dynamic interconnections between major historical and structural trends and the often unheard voices of ordinary people.” Takaki’s 1989 book, “Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans,” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

Iceberg Slim’s Wife, Collaborator Dies The woman who helped propel bestselling street-fiction author Robert “Iceberg Slim” Beck into literary fame has died. Betty Mae Beck had begun preparing a memoir about her life with Iceberg Slim before she passed away last week due to prolonged illness. Read the rest.  

Georgia Police Chief Denies Luxury Car Scam A former Atlanta-area police chief, fired for allegedly hiding confiscated luxury cars for his personal use, called the investigation into the charges a “witch hunt.” Ex-DeKalb County Police Chief Terrell Bolton is accused of falsifying documents to conceal a $32,000 Range Rover and a $55,000 Mercedes he kept for personal cruising. In addition, investigators said in a lengthy report, Bolton took almost two months of unapproved comp time, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. But Bolton described the allegations as “Mickey Mouse” and blamed the Sheriff’s department of violating his rights. “I never had a chance to address any of those issues before this report was written,” he said. “The report is much ado about nothing. It’s the culmination of a witch hunt.” But Tip Green, the officer who ran the police car pool, said that Bolton told him to “hide” the luxury vehicles, according to the Journal-Constitution. “Bolton said to hide them, and he did not want them showing up in his cost center,” Green told him.

Connecticut Ponders Slavery Apology

Lawmakers in Connecticut are considering following the footsteps of five other states by apologizing for its role in the slave trade and other government-sanctioned racist policies of the past. On Monday, a legislative committee pondered a resolution that would issue a formal, general apology and express the General Assembly’s “profound contrition” for the official acts that sanctioned and perpetuated slavery hundreds of years ago. Read the rest.

A Renowned “Modern-day Griot” Dies William H. Smith, lauded by admirers as a “modern-day griot” for the way he handed down to future generations essential cultural elements, has died of heart failure. He was 88. Smith, a painter, sculptor, and advertising professional, passed away at Silver Lake Center, a nursing home in Bristol, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia. It was as a teen that Smith first gained notoriety, having painted a series of murals on African-American history at Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore, from which he graduated in 1939, Philly.com reports. Smith’s acrylic, oil, pastel and pencil works had been exhibited at the U.S. embassy in Oman, the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Pennsylvania, according to his daughter, Claire, a former sports columnist for The Inquirer and the New York Times. “He was a modern-day griot,” she said, “an African storyteller, historian and entertainer.” His sculpture of Harriet Tubman, commissioned by the African American Historical and Cultural Society of Bucks County, stands in Bristol Lions Park, Philly.com reports.

Prudential Names First Black CEO West Africa native Tidjane Thiam is the first Black CEO ever to run a FTSE 100 company after he was named to head Prudential. Read more.

Salsa Great Joe Cuba Dies Joe Cuba, the “Father of Latin Boogaloo,” best known for his electrifying, pulsating salsa grooves, has died, the Latin Examiner reports. He succumbed to complications from a bacterial infection a day after being taken off life support at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He was 78.  ”I’m hurt and saddened because for me he [Joe Cuba] symbolized my birth as an artist and singer,” José “Cheo” Feliciano, 73, told the Latin Music Examiner on Monday. “At the time, I was a fortunate percussionist, but Tito Rodríguez told me that I had to quit the congas and start to sing. So on Oct. 5, 1957, I got married and on the same night, instead of going on my honeymoon, I went to my first gig as a singer with the Joe Cuba Sextet,” he added. Others in the Joe Cuba Sextet were Jimmy Sabater (timbales), Nick jiménez (piano), Tommy Berríos (vibraphone) and Slim Cordero (bass). Joe Cuba was actually born Gilberto Calderón in 1931 into a New York-based Puerto Rican family. A conga player, Cuba revolutionized the percussive sounds of salsa in the late 1960s, the Examiner writes. “Along with fellow salseros Richie Ray, Bobby Cruz and the late Ray Barretto, he was at the forefront of a bubbling Latin soul beat that emerged in New York in the early 1970s.”

No Telling What You Might Land from Neverland Auction For the right price, you could be the proud owner of Michael Jackson’s famous white glove or of a one-of-a-kind photo of the King Of Pop garbed in an Elizabethan dress holding a crown on a pillow or a 1999 Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph limo with an interior of  24-karat gold elaborations. In April, you might just want to show up at the Neverland Ranch auction, where thousands of Jackson’s belongings will go on the auction block. In addition to the aforementioned items, there are at least three suits of armor, fine artworks, costumes, awards, furniture and goo-gobs of other things. “Michael Jackson was a collector of everything,” said Darren Julien, president of Julien’s Auctions, which will conduct the sale from April 22 to 25 in Beverly Hills. “We’ve never seen a collection that is as extensive and eccentric as his.”

 Charles Morgan, Jr., whose legal brilliance was tapped for some of the most high-profile civil rights cases in modern history, has died. He was 78. During his many courtroom battles, Morgan, helped craft the defense that compelled the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 1967 draft-evasion conviction of world heavyweight boxing champ Muhammad Ali. Read the rest here.

Vincent Ford, the man who wrote Bob Marley’s reggae classic “No Woman, No Cry,” has died in Jamaica. He was 68. Ford lost both his legs to diabetes and died in hospital from complications caused by the disease, a spokesman for the Bob Marley Foundation told BBC News. Ford’s smash hit appeared on Marley’s 1974 Natty Dread album. It was inspired by the Trench Town ghetto in Kingston where both men lived in the 1960s. Some claim Marley wrote it himself but gave Ford the credit to help his friend support himself with the royalties. Ford also received writing credits for the songs “Positive Vibration,” “Roots Rock Reggae” and “Crazy Baldhead” on Marley’s 1976 album, “Rastaman Vibration.” Marley, the most widely known reggae musician, who helped spread Jamaican music to a worldwide audience, died of cancer in Miami in 1981. He was 36 years old.

Respected Black writer dies. Dorothy Sterling, known for her ability to engage young readers with her intriguing stories of African-American historical figures, died earlier this month at her home in Wellfleet, Mass. She was 95. Among her most well known books are “Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman,” which was published in 1954 and is still in print;  “Captain of the Planter: The Story of Robert Smalls” (1958), the first children’s biography of the slave who captured a Confederate gunboat during the Civil War; and “The Making of an Afro-American: Martin Robinson Delany” (1971), which helped stir interest in the little-known abolitionist, Harvard-educated physician and early proponent of Black nationalism. Read more about Sterling here.

Brother of hate-crime victim seeks help. As the New York Police Department’s hate crime task force looks for suspects in the attack of a Ecuadorean immigrant who was beaten to death on Dec. 5, the victim’s brother is asking his neighbors to help find the murderers.  Diego Sucuzhanay’s 31-year-old brother, Jose, was jumped on a Brooklyn street by men who yelled racial and anti-gay slurs at him, police said. Jose Sucuzhanay was attacked by three men who smashed a beer bottle over his head, hit him in the head with an aluminum baseball bat and kicked him, police said. “It shows how far we must still come to address the devastating problem of hate crimes in our communities. Only by exposing these crimes and working together will we be able to make a difference,” Sucuzhanay said at a news conference outside the hospital where his brother died. He said a $27,000 reward was being offered for information that could solve the crime.

Oldest Black frat gets fat gift from the first Black senator. Sen. Edward Brooke and his wife donated $100,000 to Alpha Phi Alpha, confirmed Darryl R. Matthews, the fraternity’s president. Read the rest here.

A Black NASA pioneer dies. Arthur Thompson, a Black pioneer at NASA’s spaceport, has died.  He was 70. Along with his brothers, Alphonso and Raymond, Thompson was among the first African Americans to work at Kennedy Space Center in the 1960s, helping their country race to the moon. He was an engineering technician, running experiments, setting up equipment, collecting data and calculating results for teams of the young aerospace engineers for whom they worked at NASA’s contractor companies. “It was pretty exciting,” recalls his son Anthony Thompson of Winter Park. “It was a first opportunity for a Black man to work in a profession alongside engineers. So, yes, he and his brothers were pioneers.” Thompson died Wednesday of complications from a stroke he suffered last year. He was the fifth of six sons born to a Baptist minister. He and his brothers had owned a TV repair shop in Melbourne before working at NASA.

MC Breed is dead at age 36. Months after he reportedly collapsed on a basketball court due to a kidney ailment, rapper MC Breed has died. The Flint, Mich. native who recorded with West Coast rap stars including Too Short and Tupac was hospitalized in September and placed on life support before recovering. It was reported that he was still in need of a transplant. Born Eric Breed, the rapper whose biggest hit was “Ain’t No Future in Yo Frontin’,” was found dead this past weekend at a friend’s home. He was 36.

In Atlanta, the death of a 92-year-old woman at the hand of police has sparked yet another investigation. While the federal probe is over and three former Atlanta police officers are serving time for crimes stemming from the botched drug raid that led to the Kathryn Johnston’s death in November 2006, Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington is creating a special task force to find out whether any other officers violated police procedures related to the drug raid that resulted in Johnston’s death, the chief said in a statement Tuesday. “Following this task force’s investigation, it will make recommendations directly to me as to any administrative action which should be taken against any other members of this department,” Pennington wrote. The announcement came the day after the FBI turned over a report to the Police Department – the contents of where not made public, reports The Atlanta-Constitution. Pennington said in his statement that no other federal charges are anticipated, but federal authorities did indicate last week that the report was going to address other issues. Johnston died when policed barged into her home with guns blazing as part of a drug raid at the wrong address. They shot her as she brandished her own gun, possibly thinking she was being robbed. U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said it would make recommendations that could lead to state prosecutions or administrative discipline for other officers who played a role in the raid.
A teen staggers into an L.A. school gym, collapses and dies. A teenager bleeding from a gunshot wound staggered into a basketball clinic inside the a Los Angeles High School gym, collapsed and died in front of about 40 stunned students and parents, The Los Angeles Times reported. Investigators say a gunman shot 18-year-old Luis Rosas about 8 p.m. Monday as he played basketball on courts outside the gym. It wasn’t immediately known if Rosas was a student. The teenager then stumbled into the gym and died in front of about 40 people.

Drug gang’s limo took youths to prom. A Hummer limousine connected to an organized crime ring with rap ties was later used to take teens to their proms. The vehicle once owned by the Black Mafia Family, which doubled as an artist promoter, was seized and repeatedly sold in auctions. Even brides and grooms rode to weddings in the Hummer. Later, authorities reportedly discovered $875,000 in cash and several automatic weapons stashed in the vehicle – apparently undetected by the passengers who followed BMF.