Name	National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Size	180
Abbreviation	NAACP
Formation	February 12, 1909
Purpose	"To ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination."
Headquarters	Baltimore, Maryland
Membership	300,000
Leader title	President/CEO
Leader name	Benjamin Jealous
Budget	$27,624,433
Website	http://www.naacp.org/

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP ("en double-ay cee pee"), is one of the oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the United States. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination". Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, is one of the last surviving uses of the term colored people.

The NAACP bestows the annual Image Awards for achievement in the arts and entertainment, and the annual Spingarn Medals for outstanding positive achievement of any kind, on deserving African Americans. It has its headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.

Organization

The NAACP's headquarters are in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional regional offices in California, New York, Michigan, Missouri, Georgia and Texas. Each regional office is responsible for coordinating the efforts of state conferences in the states included in that region. Local, youth, and college chapters organize activities for individual members.

The NAACP is run nationally by a 64-member board led by a chair. The board elects one person as the President and one as chief executive officer for the organization; Benjamin Jealous is its most recent (and youngest) President, selected to replace Bruce S. Gordon, who resigned in March 2007. Civil Rights Movement activist and former Georgia State Senator Julian Bond was chairman until replaced in February 2010 by health-care administrator Roslyn M. Brock.

Departments within the NAACP govern areas of action. Local chapters are supported by the Branch and Field Services department and the Youth and College department. The Legal Department focuses on court cases of broad application to minorities, such as systematic discrimination in employment, government, or education. The Washington, D.C., bureau is responsible for lobbying the U.S. government, and the Education Department works to improve public education at the local, state and federal levels. The goal of the Health Division is to advance health care for minorities through public policy initiatives and education.

As of 2007, the NAACP had approximately 425,000 paying and non-paying members.

Pre-History: The Niagara Movement

In 1905, a group of 32 prominent, outspoken African Americans met to discuss the challenges facing "people of color" (a term used to describe people who were not white) and possible strategies and solutions. Among the issues they were concerned about was the disfranchisement of blacks in the South starting in 1890 to 1908, when Southern legislatures ratified new constitutions creating barriers to voter registration and more complex election rules. Voter registration and turnout dropped markedly in the South as a result. Men who had been voting for 30 years were told they did not "qualify" to register.

Because hotels in the U.S. were segregated, the men convened under the leadership of Harvard scholar W. E. B. Du Bois at a hotel (Fort Erie Hotel) on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls in Fort Erie, Ontario. As a result, the group came to be known as the Niagara Movement. A year later, three whites joined the group: journalist William E. Walling, social worker Mary White Ovington, and social worker Henry Moskowitz, then Associate Leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture.

The fledgling group struggled for a time with limited resources and internal conflict and disbanded in 1910. Many members of the Niagara Movement then went on to join the NAACP. Although both organizations shared membership and overlapped in their existence, the Niagara Movement was a separate organization and is historically thought of as having a more radical platform than the NAACP. The Niagara Movement was formed exclusively by African Americans, while the initial meeting which birthed the idea of the NAACP was with three white people.

History

The Birth of the NAACP

The Race Riot of 1908 in Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois had highlighted the urgent need for an effective civil rights organization in the U.S. This event is often cited as the catalyst for the formation of the NAACP. Mary White Ovington, journalist William English Walling and Henry Moscowitz met in New York City in January 1909 and the NAACP was born. Solicitations for support went out to more than 60 prominent Americans, and a meeting date was set for February 12, 1909. This was intended to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, who emancipated enslaved African Americans. While the meeting did not take place until three months later, this date is often cited as the founding date of the organization.

The NAACP was founded on February 12, 1909 by a diverse group composed of Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Archibald Grimké, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, William English Walling (the last son of a former slave-holding family), and Florence Kelley, a social reformer and friend of Du Bois.

On May 30, 1909, the Niagara Movement conference took place at New York City's Henry Street Settlement House, from which an organization of more than 40 individuals emerged, calling itself the National Negro Committee. Du Bois played a key role in organizing the event and presided over the proceedings. Also in attendance was African-American journalist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells-Barnett. At its second conference on May 30, 1910, members chose as the organization's name the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and elected its first officers, who were:

National President, Moorfield Storey, Boston

Chairman of the Executive Committee, William English Walling

Treasurer, John E. Milholland (a Lincoln Republican and Presbyterian from New York City and Lewis, NY)

Disbursing Treasurer, Oswald Garrison Villard

Executive Secretary, Frances Blascoer

Director of Publicity and Research, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois.

The NAACP was incorporated a year later in 1911. The association's charter delineated its mission:

To promote equality of rights and to eradicate caste or race prejudice among the citizens of the United States; to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage; and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for the children, employment according to their ability and complete equality before law.

The conference resulted in a more influential and diverse organization, where the leadership was predominantly white and heavily Jewish American. In fact, at its founding, the NAACP had only one African American on its executive board, Du Bois himself. It did not elect a black president until 1975, although executive directors had been African American. The Jewish community contributed greatly to the NAACP's founding and continued financing. Jewish historian Howard Sachar writes in his book A History of Jews in America of how, "In 1914, Professor Emeritus Joel Spingarn of Columbia University became chairman of the NAACP and recruited for its board such Jewish leaders as Jacob Schiff, Jacob Billikopf, and Rabbi Stephen Wise." Early Jewish-American co-founders included Julius Rosenwald, Lillian Wald, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch and Wise.

According to Pbs.org "Over the years Jews have also expressed empathy (capability to share and understand another's emotion and feelings) with the plight of Blacks. In the early 1900s, Jewish newspapers drew parallels between the Black movement out of the South and the Jews' escape from Egypt, pointing out that both Blacks and Jews lived in ghettos, and calling anti-Black riots in the South "pogroms". Stressing the similarities rather than the differences between the Jewish and Black experience in America, Jewish leaders emphasized the idea that both groups would benefit the more America moved toward a society of merit, free of religious, ethnic and racial restrictions." Pbs.org further states, "The American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and the Anti-Defamation League were central to the campaign against racial prejudice. Jews made substantial financial contributions to many civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, the Urban League, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. About 50 percent of the civil rights attorneys in the South during the 1960s were Jews, as were over 50 percent of the Whites who went to Mississippi in 1964 to challenge Jim Crow Laws." Du Bois continued to play a pivotal role in the organization and served as editor of the association's magazine, The Crisis, which had a circulation of over 30,000.

Moorfield Storey, who was white, was the president of the NAACP from its founding to 1915. Storey was a long-time classical liberal and Grover Cleveland Democrat who advocated laissez-faire free markets, the gold standard, and anti-imperialism. Storey consistently and aggressively championed civil rights, not only for blacks but also for Native Americans and immigrants (he opposed immigration restrictions).

Fighting Jim Crow and disfranchisement

.]] In its early years, the NAACP concentrated on using the courts to overturn the Jim Crow statutes that legalized racial segregation. In 1913, the NAACP organized opposition to President Woodrow Wilson's introduction of racial segregation into federal government policy, offices, and hiring.

By 1914, the group had 6,000 members and 50 branches. It was influential in winning the right of African Americans to serve as officers in World War I. Six hundred African-American officers were commissioned and 700,000 men registered for the draft. The following year, the NAACP organized a nationwide protest, with marches in numerous cities, against D.W. Griffith's silent movie Birth of a Nation, a film that glamorized the Ku Klux Klan. As a result, several cities refused to allow the film to open.

The NAACP began to lead lawsuits targeting disfranchisement and racial segregation early in its history. It played a significant part in the challenge of Guinn v. United States (1915) to Oklahoma's discriminatory grandfather clause that disfranchised most black citizens while exempting many whites from certain voter registration requirements. It persuaded the Supreme Court of the United States to rule in Buchanan v. Warley in 1917 that state and local governments cannot officially segregate African Americans into separate residential districts. The Court's opinion reflected the jurisprudence of property rights and freedom of contract as embodied in the earlier precedent it established in Lochner v. New York.

In 1916, when the NAACP was just seven years old, chairman Joel Spingarn invited James Weldon Johnson to serve as field secretary. Johnson was a former U.S. consul to Venezuela and a noted scholar and columnist. Within four years, Johnson was instrumental in increasing the NAACP's membership from 9,000 to almost 90,000. In 1920, Johnson was elected head of the organization. Over the next ten years, the NAACP escalated its lobbying and litigation efforts, becoming internationally known for its advocacy of equal rights and equal protection for the "American Negro".

The NAACP devoted much of its energy during the interwar years to fighting the lynching of blacks throughout the United States by working for legislation, lobbying and educating the public. The organization sent its field secretary Walter F. White to Phillips County, Arkansas, in October 1919, to investigate the Elaine Race Riot. More than 200 black tenant farmers were killed by roving white vigilantes and federal troops after a deputy sheriff's attack on a union meeting of sharecroppers left one white man dead. White published his report on the riot in the Chicago Daily News. The NAACP organized the appeals for twelve black men sentenced to death a month later based on the fact that testimony used in their convictions was obtained by beatings and electric shocks. It gained a groundbreaking Supreme Court decision in Moore v. Dempsey that significantly expanded the Federal courts' oversight of the states' criminal justice systems in the years to come. White investigated eight race riots and 41 lynchings for the NAACP and directed its study Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States.

The NAACP also spent more than a decade seeking federal legislation against lynching, but Southern white Democrats voted as a block against it or used the filibuster in the Senate to block passage. Because of disfranchisement, there were no black representatives from the South in Congress. The NAACP regularly displayed a black flag stating "A Man Was Lynched Yesterday" from the window of its offices in New York to mark each lynching.

In alliance with the American Federation of Labor, the NAACP led the successful fight to prevent the nomination of John Johnston Parker to the Supreme Court, based on his support for denying the vote to blacks and his anti-labor rulings. It organized support for the Scottsboro Boys. The NAACP lost most of the internecine battles with the Communist Party and International Labor Defense over the control of those cases and the strategy to be pursued in that case.

The organization also brought litigation to challenge the "white primary" system in the South. Southern states had created white-only primaries as another way of barring blacks from the political process. Since southern states were dominated by the Democrats, the primaries were the only competitive contests. In 1944 in Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court ruled against the white primary. Although states had to retract legislation related to the white primaries, the legislatures soon came up with new methods to limit the franchise for blacks.

Legal Defense Fund

The board of directors of the NAACP created the Legal Defense Fund in 1939 specifically for tax purposes. It functioned as the NAACP legal department. Intimidated by the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service, the Legal and Educational Defense Fund, Inc., became a separate legal entity in 1957, although it was clear that it was to operate in accordance with NAACP policy. After 1961 serious disputes emerged between the two organizations, creating considerable confusion in the eyes and minds of the public.

Desegregation

attorney, Birmingham, Alabama, on 5 September 1963. The bomb exploded on 4 September, the previous day, injuring Shores' wife.]] With the rise of private corporate litigators like the NAACP to bear the expense, civil suits became the pattern in modern civil rights litigation. The NAACP's Legal department, headed by Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, undertook a campaign spanning several decades to bring about the reversal of the "separate but equal" doctrine announced by the Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.

The NAACP's Baltimore chapter, under president Lillie Mae Carroll Jackson, challenged segregation in Maryland state professional schools by supporting the 1935 Murray v. Pearson case argued by Marshall. Houston's victory in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938) led to the formation of the NAACP Legal Defense fund in 1940.

The campaign for desegregation culminated in a unanimous 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that held state-sponsored segregation of elementary schools was unconstitutional. Bolstered by that victory, the NAACP pushed for full desegregation throughout the South. Starting on December 5, 1955, NAACP activists, including E.D. Nixon, its local president, and Rosa Parks, who had served as the chapter's Secretary, helped organize a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. This was designed to protest segregation on the city's buses, two-thirds of whose riders were black. The boycott lasted 381 days.

The State of Alabama responded by effectively barring the NAACP from operating within its borders because of its refusal to divulge a list of its members. The NAACP feared members could be fired or face violent retaliation for their activities. Although the Supreme Court eventually overturned the state's action in NAACP v. Alabama, , the NAACP lost its leadership role in the Civil Rights Movement while it was barred from Alabama.

New organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) rose up with different approaches to activism. These newer groups relied on direct action and mass mobilization to advance the rights of African Americans, rather than litigation and legislation. Roy Wilkins, NAACP's executive director, clashed repeatedly with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders over questions of strategy and leadership within the movement.

The NAACP continued to use the Supreme Court's decision in Brown to press for desegregation of schools and public facilities throughout the country. Daisy Bates, president of its Arkansas state chapter, spearheaded the campaign by the Little Rock Nine to integrate the public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.

By the mid-1960s, the NAACP had regained some of its preeminence in the Civil Rights Movement by pressing for civil rights legislation. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place on August 28, 1963. That fall President John F. Kennedy sent a civil rights bill to Congress before he was assassinated.

President Lyndon B. Johnson worked hard to persuade Congress to pass a civil rights bill aimed at ending racial discrimination in employment, education and public accommodations, and succeeded in gaining passage in July 1964. He followed that with passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which provided for protection of the franchise, with a role for federal oversight and administrators in places where voter turnout was historically low.

After Kivie Kaplan died in 1975, scientist W. Montague Cobb became President of the NAACP and served until 1982. Benjamin Hooks, a lawyer and clergyman, was elected as the NAACP's executive director in 1977, after the retirement of Roy Wilkins.

The 1990s: crisis and restored strength

In the 1990s, the NAACP ran into debt. The dismissal of two leading officials further added to the picture of an organization in deep crisis.

In 1993 the NAACP's Board of Directors narrowly selected Reverend Benjamin Chavis over Reverend Jesse Jackson to fill the position of Executive Director. A controversial figure, Chavis was ousted eighteen months later by the same board that had hired him. They accused him of using NAACP funds for an out-of-court settlement in a sexual harassment lawsuit. Following the dismissal of Chavis, Myrlie Evers-Williams narrowly defeated NAACP chairperson William Gibson for president in 1995, after Gibson was accused of overspending and mismanagement of the organization's funds.

In 1996 Congressman Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic Congressman from Maryland and former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, was named the organization's president. Three years later strained finances forced the organization to drastically cut its staff, from 250 in 1992 to just fifty.

In the second half of the 1990s, the organization restored its finances, permitting the NAACP National Voter Fund to launch a major get-out-the-vote offensive in the 2000 U.S. presidential elections. 10.5 million African Americans cast their ballots in the election. This was one million more than four years before,

NAACP President Kweisi Mfume immediately suspended Alcorn and condemned his remarks. Mfume stated, "I strongly condemn those remarks. I find them to be repulsive, anti-Semitic, anti-NAACP and anti-American. Mr. Alcorn does not speak for the NAACP, its board, its staff or its membership. We are proud of our long-standing relationship with the Jewish community and I personally will not tolerate statements that run counter to the history and beliefs of the NAACP in that regard."

Alcorn's remarks were also condemned by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Jewish groups and George W. Bush's rival Republican presidential campaign. Jackson said he strongly supported Lieberman's addition to the Democratic ticket, saying, "When we live our faith, we live under the law. He [Lieberman] is a firewall of exemplary behavior." The leaders of the American Jewish Congress praised the NAACP for its quick response, stating that: "It will take more than one bigot like Alcorn to shake the sense of fellowship of American Jews with the NAACP and black America... Our common concerns are too urgent, our history too long, our connection too sturdy, to let anything like this disturb our relationship."

NAACP and George W. Bush

In 2004, President George W. Bush (president from 2001–2009) declined an invitation to speak to its national convention. The White House originally said the president had a schedule conflict with the NAACP convention, slated for July 10–15, 2004. On July 10, 2004, however, Bush's spokesperson said that Bush had declined the invitation to speak to the NAACP because of harsh statements about him by its leaders.

NAACP and tax exempt status

The Internal Revenue Service informed the NAACP in October 2004 that it was investigating its tax-exempt status based on Julian Bond's speech at its 2004 Convention in which he criticized President George W. Bush as well as other political figures. In general, the US Internal Revenue Code prohibits organizations granted tax-exempt status from "directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office." The NAACP denounced the investigation as retaliation for its success in increasing the number of African Americans who vote. In August 2006, the IRS investigation concluded with the agency's finding "that the remarks did not violate the group's tax-exempt status."

NAACP and youth

This aspect of the NAACP came into existence in 1936 and now is made of over 600 groups and totaling over 30,000 individuals. The NAACP Youth & College Division is a branch of the NAACP in which youth are actively involved. The Youth Council is composed of hundreds of state, county, high school and college operations where youth (and college students) volunteer to share their voices or opinions with their peers and address issues that are local and national. Sometimes volunteer work expands to a more international scale. Committing to the Youth Council may reward young people with travel opportunities or scholarships.

In 2003, NAACP President and CEO, Kweisi Mfume, appointed Brandon Neal, the National Youth and College Division Director. Currently, Stefanie L. Brown serves as the NAACP's National Youth & College Division Director. A graduate and former Student Government President at Howard University, Stefanie previously served as the National Youth Council Coordinator of the NAACP.

Mission of the Youth & College Division

"The mission of the NAACP Youth & College Division shall be to inform youth of the problems affecting African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities; to advance the economic, education, social and political status of African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities and their harmonious cooperation with other peoples; to stimulate an appreciation of the African Diaspora and other people of color’s contribution to civilization; and to develop an intelligent, militant effective youth leadership."

ACT-SO program

Since 1978 the NAACP has sponsored the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) program for high school youth around the United States. The program is designed to recognize and award African American youth who demonstrate accomplishment in academics, technology, and the arts. Local chapters sponsor competitions in various categories of achievement for young people in grades 9–12. Winners of the local competitions are eligible to proceed to the national event at a convention held each summer at locations around the United States. Winners at the national competition receive national recognition along with cash awards and various prizes.

See also

Association for the Study of African American Life and History

Black Rock Coalition

NAACP Image Awards

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

NAACP Theatre Awards

Niagara Movement

Racial integration

Resignation of Shirley Sherrod

Spingarn Medal

References

Sources

Richard Dalfiume, "The Forgotten Years of the Negro Revolution," Journal of American History 55 (June, 1969): 99-100. fulltext in JSTOR

Fleming, Cynthia Griggs. In the Shadow of Selma: The Continuing Struggle for Civil Rights in the Rural South Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. 349 pp.

Goings, Kenneth W. The NAACP Comes of Age: The Defeat of Judge John J. Parker (1990). late 1920s

Hughes, Langston. Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP (1962)

Janken, Kenneth Robert. White: The Biography of Walter White, Mr. NAACP. New Press, 2003.

Jonas, Gilbert S. Freedom's Sword: The NAACP and the Struggle against Racism in America, 1909-1969. Routledge, 2005. 240 pp.

Lewis, David Levering. W.E.B. DuBois (2 vol, 1994, 2001); Pulitzer Prize

Mosnier, L. Joseph. Crafting Law in the Second Reconstruction: Julius Chambers, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Title VII. University of North Carolina, 2005. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is an entirely separate organization despite its similar name

Ross, Barbara Joyce. J. E. Spingarn and the Rise of the NAACP, 1911-1939 (1972)

St. James, Warren D. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: A Case Study in Pressure Groups (1958)

Schneider, Mark Robert. We Return Fighting: The Civil Rights Movement in the Jazz Age (2001)

Topping, Simon; "'Supporting Our Friends and Defeating Our Enemies': Militancy and Nonpartisanship in the NAACP, 1936-1948," Journal of African American History, Vol. 89, 2004

Verney, Kevern and Lee Sartain, eds. Long Is the Way and Hard: One Hundred Years of the NAACP (2009), 16 new essays by scholars

Zangrando, Robert. The NAACP Crusade Against Lynching, 1909-1950 (1980)

Events on the NAACP timeline (1939 - Present), naacp.org

External links

Civil Rights Movement Veterans, crmvet.org

Youth College Mission, naacp.org

Article and Video, The NAACP 100 Years On, governingdynamo.com

Annual ACT-SO Contest, naacp-Los Angeles.org

Official site of the Brooklyn, New York Branch, brooklynnaacp.org

NAACP in Georgia, georgiaencyclopedia.org

The Wichita NAACP Blog, wichitanaacpblog.com

George W. Bush addresses NAACP national convention for the first time July 20, 2006 (Video)

President Obama NAACP Speech: "Your Destiny Is In Your Hands ... No Excuses" - video by The Huffington Post

NAACP Turns 100: The History and Future of the Nation’s Oldest and Largest Civil Rights Organization, democracywow.org video

Niagara Movement Du Bois Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Umass Amherst

Category:Nonpartisan organizations in the United States Category:Organizations based in Baltimore, Maryland

Name	Bono
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Paul David Hewson
Alias	Bono
Born	May 10, 1960
Origin	Glasnevin, County Dublin, Ireland
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, harmonica
Voice type
Genre	Rock, post-punk, alternative rock
Occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, activist, philanthropist
Years active	1975–present
Associated acts	U2
Url	www.u2.com
Notable instruments	Gretsch Irish FalconGretsch Country Club

Paul David Hewson (born 10 May 1960), most commonly known by his stage name Bono ( ), is an Irish singer and musician, best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his future wife, Ali Hewson, and the future members of U2. He was raised in Glasnevin with his brother, Norman Hewson, by their mother Iris (née Rankin), a Church of Ireland Anglican, and their father Brendan Robert "Bob" Hewson, a Roman Catholic. Although Bono was the second child, he also attended Church of Ireland services with his mother and brother. Bono was 14 when his mother died on 10 September 1974 after suffering a cerebral aneurysm at her father's funeral. Many other songs focus on the theme of childhood vs. maturity, such as "Into the Heart," "Twilight", and "Stories for Boys."

Bono attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School, a multi denominational school in Clontarf. During his childhood and adolescence, Bono and his friends were part of a surrealist street gang called "Lypton Village". Bono met one of his closest friends, Guggi, in Lypton Village. The gang had a ritual of nickname-giving. Bono had several names: first, he was "Steinvic von Huyseman", then just "Huyseman", followed by "Houseman", "Bon Murray", "Bono Vox of O'Connell Street", and finally just "Bono".

"Bono Vox" is an alteration of Bonavox, a Latin phrase which translates to "good voice." It is said he was nicknamed "Bono Vox" by his friend Gavin Friday. Initially, Bono disliked the name. However, when he learned it loosely translated to "good voice", he accepted it. Hewson has been known as "Bono" since the late seventies. Although he uses Bono as his stage name, close family and friends also refer to him as Bono, including his wife and fellow band members. The couple have four children: daughters Jordan (b. 10 May 1989) and Memphis Eve (b. 7 July 1991) and sons Elijah Bob Patricius Guggi Q (b. 18 August 1999) and John Abraham (b. 21 May 2001); Memphis Eve portrayed the character Stella in the 2008 film The 27 Club. Bono lives in Killiney in south County Dublin with his family and shares a villa in Èze in the Alpes-Maritimes in the south of France with The Edge.

Bono is almost never seen in public without sunglasses. During a Rolling Stone interview he stated: }}

In 2002, he was listed as one of the 100 Greatest Britons in a poll conducted among the general public, despite the fact that he is Irish.

On 21 May 2010, it was reported that Bono had suffered an injury while preparing for the forthcoming U2 tour, and that he had been taken to a German neurosurgery clinic in Munich for emergency surgery. His doctors, who included noted sports physician Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt, then said Bono had a good prognosis but would need eight weeks of physical rehabilitation, and McGuinness and Live Nation announced that the entire North American leg was being postponed and would be rescheduled into 2011.

Musical career

U2

On 25 September 1976, Bono, David Evans ("The Edge"), his brother Dik, and Adam Clayton responded to an advertisement on a bulletin board at Mount Temple posted by fellow student Larry Mullen Jr. to form a rock band. The band had occasional jam sessions in which they did covers of other bands. Tired of long guitar solos and hard rock, Bono wanted to play Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys songs. Unfortunately the band could not play covers very well, so they started writing their own songs.

The band went by the name "Feedback" for a few months, before changing to "The Hype" later on. After Dik Evans left the group to join another local band, the Virgin Prunes, the remaining four officially changed the name from "The Hype" to "U2". Initially Bono sang, played guitar, and wrote the band's songs. He said of his early guitar playing in a 1982 interview, "When we started out I was the guitar player, along with the Edge—except I couldn't play guitar. I still can't. I was such a lousy guitar player that one day they broke it to me that maybe I should sing instead. I had tried before, but I had no voice at all. I remember the day I found I could sing. I said, 'Oh, that's how you do it. When The Edge's guitar playing improved, Bono was relegated mostly to the microphone, although he occasionally still plays rhythm guitar and harmonica. As of 2006, Bono has taken piano lessons from his children's piano teacher as a means to improve his songwriting.

Bono writes the lyrics for almost all U2 songs, which are often rich in social and political themes. His lyrics frequently allude to a religious connection or meaning, evident in songs such as "Gloria" from the band's album October, and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" from The Joshua Tree. During the band's early years, Bono was known for his rebellious tone which turned to political anger and rage during the band's War, The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum eras. Also featured in the film is footage of Bono spray-painting a monument during an outdoor performance; Bono was forced to pay a fine.

in 1992]] U2's sound and focus dramatically changed with their 1991 album, Achtung Baby. Bono's lyrics became more personal, inspired by experiences related to the private lives of the members of the band. Bono has often allowed fans to come on stage and perform songs with the band.

Bono has won numerous awards with U2, including 22 Grammy awards and the 2003 Golden Globe award for best original song, "The Hands That Built America", for the film Gangs of New York. During the live broadcast of the ceremony, Bono called the award "really, really fucking brilliant!" In response, the Parents Television Council condemned Bono for his profanity and started a campaign for its members to file complaints with the FCC. Although Bono's use of "fuck" violated FCC indecency standards, the FCC refused to fine NBC because the network did not receive advance notice of the consequences of broadcasting such profanity and the profanity in question was not used in its literal sexual meaning.

in November 2005.]] In 2005, the U2 band members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in their first year of eligibility. In November 2008, Rolling Stone ranked Bono the 32nd greatest singer of all-time.

Bono and his bandmates were criticised in 2007 for moving part of their multi-million euro song catalogue from Ireland to Amsterdam six months before Ireland ended a tax exemption on musicians' royalties. Under Dutch tax law, bands are subject to low to non-existent tax rates. The band later responded by stating that approximately 95% of their business took place outside Ireland, and that they were taxed globally because of this. Bono was one of several super-rich figures whose tax arrangements were singled out for criticism in a report by the charity Christian Aid in 2008.

Collaborations

In addition to his work with U2, he has collaborated with Zucchero, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Luciano Pavarotti, Sinéad O'Connor, Green Day, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, and BB King. He has recorded with Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Kirk Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, Tony Bennett, Clannad, The Corrs, Wyclef Jean, Kylie Minogue, Jay-Z and Rihanna, as well as reportedly completing an unreleased duet with Jennifer Lopez. On Robbie Robertson's 1987 eponymous album, he plays bass guitar and vocals. On Michael Hutchence's 1999 posthumous eponymous album, Bono completed a recording of "Slide Away" as a duet with Hutchence.

Other endeavours

In 1992, Bono bought and hired people to refurbish Dublin's two-star 70-bedroom Clarence Hotel with The Edge, and converted it into a five-star 49-bedroom hotel. The Edge and Bono have recorded several songs together, exclusive of the band. They have also been working on penning the score for the 2011 rock musical . Bono is a known Celtic F.C. fan, However, it was reported on 28 April 1998 that this was not the case with Bono saying "it's rubbish. I've been to a couple of games and I'm a fan, but I've got no financial connections."

In May 2007, MTV reported that Bono was writing the foreword for a collection of poetry entitled "Third Rail". The book's foreword gives detail of the meanings of the poetry, saying "The poets who fill the pews here have come to testify, to bear witness to the mysterious power of rock and roll...Rock and roll is truly a broad church, but each lights a candle to their vision of what it is." Bono has invested in the Forbes Media group in the US through Elevation Partners. Elevation Partners became the first outsider to invest in the company, taking a minority stake in Forbes Media LLC, a new company encompassing the 89-year-old business which includes Forbes magazine, the Forbes.com website and other assets. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but reports said the stake was worth about €194 million ($250m).

In film, Bono has played the character of "Dr. Robert", an anti-war shaman, in the musical Across the Universe. Also in this movie, he sang the Beatles songs "I Am the Walrus" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". Bono's other acting credits include cameos in 1999's Entropy and 2000's Million Dollar Hotel, the latter of which was based on a story conceived by Bono. He has been dubbed, "the face of fusion philanthropy", both for his success enlisting powerful allies from a diverse spectrum of leaders in government, religious institutions, philanthropic organisations, popular media, and the business world, as well as for spearheading new organizational networks that bind global humanitarian relief with geopolitical activism and corporate commercial enterprise.

In a 1986 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Bono explained that he was motivated to become involved in social and political causes by seeing one of the Secret Policeman's Ball benefit shows, staged by John Cleese and producer Martin Lewis for the human-rights organisation Amnesty International in 1979. "I saw 'The Secret Policeman’s Ball' and it became a part of me. It sowed a seed..." In 2001, Bono arranged for U2 to videotape a special live performance for that year's Amnesty benefit show.

Bono and U2 performed on Amnesty's Conspiracy Of Hope tour of the United States in 1986 alongside Sting. U2 also performed in the Band Aid and Live Aid projects, organised by Bob Geldof. In 1984, Bono sang on the Band Aid single "Do They Know it's Christmas?/Feed the World" (a role that was reprised on the 2004 Band Aid 20 single of the same name). Geldof and Bono later collaborated to organise the 2005 Live 8 project, where U2 also performed. in 2006]]

Since 1999, Bono has become increasingly involved in campaigning for third-world debt relief and raising awareness of the plight of Africa, including the AIDS pandemic. In the past decade Bono has met with several influential politicians, including former United States President George W. Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. During a March 2002 visit to the White House, after President Bush unveiled a $5 billion aid package, he accompanied the President for a speech on the White House lawn where he stated, "This is an important first step, and a serious and impressive new level of commitment. ... This must happen urgently, because this is a crisis." He was a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, 2005, and 2006 for his philanthropy.

In 2004, he was awarded the Pablo Neruda International Presidential Medal of Honour from the Government of Chile. Time Magazine named Bono one of the "100 Most Influential People" in its May 2004 special issue, and again in the 2006 Time 100 special issue. In 2005, Time named Bono a Person of the Year along with Bill and Melinda Gates. Also in 2005, he received the Portuguese Order of Liberty for his humanitarian work. That year Bono was also among the first three recipients of the TED Prize, which grants each winner "A wish to change the world". Bono made three wishes, the first two related to the ONE campaign and the third that every hospital, health clinic and school in Ethiopia should be connected to the Internet. TED rejected the third wish as being a sub-optimal way for TED to help Africa with his foul-mouthed heckling of a speech by Andrew Mwenda. meeting in Davos, 2008.]] In 2007, Bono was named in the UK's New Years Honours List as an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He was formally granted knighthood on 29 March 2007 in a ceremony at the residence of British Ambassador David Reddaway in Dublin, Ireland.

Bono also received the NAACP Image Award's Chairman's Award in 2007. On 24 May 2007, the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia announced that Bono would receive the Philadelphia Liberty Medal on 27 September 2007 for his work to end world poverty and hunger. On 28 September 2007, in accepting the Liberty Medal, Bono said, "When you are trapped by poverty, you are not free. When trade laws prevent you from selling the food you grew, you are not free, ... When you are a monk in Burma this very week, barred from entering a temple because of your gospel of peace ... well, then none of us are truly free." Bono donated the $100,000 prize to the organisation. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala accepted the award for the Washington-based Debt AIDS Trade Africa.

In 2005 he recorded a version of Don't Give Up with Alicia Keys, with proceeds going to Keep a Child Alive.

On 15 December 2005, Paul Theroux published an op-ed in the New York Times called The Rock Star's Burden (cf. Kipling's The White Man's Burden) that criticised stars such as Bono, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie, labelling them as "mythomaniacs, people who wish to convince the world of their worth." Theroux, who lived in Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer, added that "the impression that Africa is fatally troubled and can be saved only by outside help—not to mention celebrities and charity concerts—is a destructive and misleading conceit." Elsewhere, Bono has been criticised, along with other celebrities, for "[ignoring] the legitimate voices of Africa and [turning] a global movement for justice into a grand orgy of narcissistic philanthropy.

On 3 April 2005, Bono paid a personal tribute to John Paul II and called him "a street fighter and a wily campaigner on behalf of the world's poor. We would never have gotten the debts of 23 countries completely cancelled without him." Bono spoke in advance of President Bush at the 54th Annual National Prayer Breakfast, held at the Hilton Washington Hotel on 2 February 2006. In a speech containing biblical references, Bono encouraged the care of the socially and economically depressed. His comments included a call for an extra one percent tithe of the United States' national budget. He brought his Christian views into harmony with other faiths by noting that Christian, Jewish, and Muslim writings all call for the care of the widow, orphan, and stranger. President Bush received praise from the singer-activist for the United States' increase in aid for the African continent. Bono continued by saying much work is left to be done to be a part of God's ongoing purposes.

The organisation DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) was established in 2002 by Bono and Bobby Shriver, along with activists from the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt Campaign. DATA aims to eradicate poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa. EDUN's goal is to use factories in Africa, South America, and India that provide fair wages to workers and practice good business ethics to create a business model that will encourage investment in developing nations.

on 27 September 2007.]] Bono was a special guest editor of the July 2007 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. The issue was named "The Africa Issue: Politics & Power" and featured an assortment of 20 different covers, with photographs by Annie Leibovitz of a number of prominent celebrities, political leaders, and philanthropists. Each one showcased in the issue for their contributions to the humanitarian relief in Africa.

In an article in Bloomberg Markets in March 2007, journalists Richard Tomlinson and Fergal O’Brien noted that Bono used his band's 2006 Vertigo world tour to promote his ONE Campaign while at the same time "U2 was racking up $389 million in gross ticket receipts, making Vertigo the second-most lucrative tour of all time, according to Billboard magazine. . . . Revenue from the Vertigo tour is funnelled through companies that are mostly registered in Ireland and structured to minimise taxes."

Further criticism came in November 2007, when Bono's various charity campaigns were targeted by Jobs Selasie, head of African Aid Action. Selasie claimed that these charities had increased corruption and dependency in Africa because they failed to work with African entrepreneurs and grassroots organisations, and as a result, Africa has become more dependent on international handouts. Bono responded to his critics in Times Online on 19 February 2006, calling them "cranks carping from the sidelines. A lot of them wouldn’t know what to do if they were on the field. They’re the party who will always be in opposition so they’ll never have to take responsibility for decisions because they know they’ll never be able to implement them."

In November 2007, Bono was honoured by NBC Nightly News as someone "making a difference" in the world. He and anchor Brian Williams had travelled to Africa in May 2007 to showcase the humanitarian crisis on the continent. On 11 December 2008, Bono was given the annual Man of Peace prize, awarded by several Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Paris, France.

Product Red is another initiative begun by Bono and Bobby Shriver to raise money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Bobby Shriver has been announced as the CEO of Product Red, whilst Bono is currently an active public spokesperson for the brand. Product Red is a brand that is licensed to partner companies, such as American Express, Apple, Converse, Motorola, Microsoft, Dell, The Gap, and Giorgio Armani. Each company creates a product with the Product Red logo and a percentage of the profits from the sale of these labelled products will go to the Global Fund.

See also

Timeline of U2

References

;Footnotes

;Bibliography

External links

U2.com—Official U2 website

ONE Campaign—Advocacy and campaigning organization cofounded by Bono

EDUN—Fashion label started by Bono and his wife Ali

Category:1960 births Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:AIDS activists Category:English-language singers Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Golden Globe Award winning musicians Category:Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Category:Free Your Mind Award winners Category:Irish Anglicans Category:Irish humanitarians Category:Irish male singers Category:Irish philanthropists Category:Irish rock singers Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Légion d'honneur recipients Category:Living people Category:People associated with Dalkey Category:People from Dublin (city) Category:Private equity and venture capital investors Category:U2 members Category:International activists against apartheid in South Africa Category:Time Persons of the Year

Alt	Head and shoulders shot of a smiling Berry with dark hair pulled back, wearing a lace shirt and turquoise necklace.
Caption	Berry visiting with sailors and Marines during the opening day of Fleet Week New York 2006
Birth date	August 14, 1966
Birth place	Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Birth name	Maria Halle Berry
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1990–present
Spouse
Partner	Gabriel Aubry (2005- 2010) Olivier Martinez- present

Halle Berry (; born August 14, 1966) is an American actress, former fashion model, and beauty queen. Berry received an Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and an NAACP Image Award for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge She has also been involved in the production side of several of her films.

Before becoming an actress, Berry entered several beauty contests, finishing as the 1st runner-up in the Miss USA Pageant (1986), and coming in 6th place in the Miss World Pageant in 1986. was born on March 16, 2008.

Early life

Berry was born Maria Halle Berry, though her name was legally changed to Halle Maria Berry in 1971. Berry's parents selected her middle name from Halle's Department Store, which was then a local landmark in her birthplace of Cleveland, Ohio. Her mother, Judith Ann (née Hawkins), who is Caucasian, was a psychiatric nurse. Her father, Jerome Jesse Berry, was an African American hospital attendant in the same psychiatric ward where her mother worked; he later became a bus driver. Berry's maternal grandmother, Nellie Dicken, was born in Sawley, Derbyshire, England, while her maternal grandfather, Earl Ellsworth Hawkins, was born in Ohio. Berry's parents divorced when she was four years old; she and her older sister Heidi were raised exclusively by her mother. noting in 1992, "I haven't heard from him since [he left]. Maybe he's not alive." She was the 1986 Miss USA first runner-up to Christy Fichtner of Texas. In the Miss USA 1986 pageant interview competition, she said she hoped to become an entertainer or to have something to do with the media. Her interview was awarded the highest score by the judges. She was the first African-American Miss World entrant in 1986, where she finished sixth and Trinidad and Tobago's Giselle Laronde was crowned Miss World.

Acting career: 1989–2002

In the late 1980s, Berry went to Illinois to pursue a modeling career as well as acting. One of her first acting projects was a television series for local cable by Gordon Lake Productions called Chicago Force. In 1989, Berry landed the role of Emily Franklin in the short-lived ABC television series Living Dolls (a spin-off of Who's the Boss?), during the taping of which she lapsed into a coma and was diagnosed with diabetes. She went on to have a recurring role on the long-running primetime serial Knots Landing. In 1992, Berry was cast as the love interest in the video for R. Kelly's seminal single, "Honey Love".

Her breakthrough feature film role was in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, in which she played a drug addict named Vivian.

Playing a former drug addict struggling to regain custody of her son in Losing Isaiah (1995), Berry tackled a more serious role, starring opposite Jessica Lange. She portrayed Sandra Beecher in Race the Sun (1996), which was based on a true story, and co-starred alongside Kurt Russell in Executive Decision. Beginning in 1996, she was a Revlon spokeswoman for seven years and renewed her contract in 2004.

In 1998, Berry received praise for her role in Bulworth as an intelligent woman raised by activists who gives a politician (Warren Beatty) a new lease on life. The same year, she played the singer Zola Taylor, one of the three wives of pop singer Frankie Lymon, in the biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love. In the 1999 HBO biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, she portrayed the first black woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award.

Berry portrayed the mutant superhero Storm in the film adaptation of the comic book series X-Men (2000) and its sequels, X2: X-Men United (2003) and (2006). In 2001, Berry appeared in the film Swordfish, which featured her first nude scene. At first, she refused to be filmed topless in a sunbathing scene, but she changed her mind when Warner Brothers raised her fee substantially. The brief flash of her breasts added $500,000 to her fee. Berry considered these stories to be rumors and was quick to deny them.

In 2001, Berry appeared as Leticia Musgrove, the wife of an executed murderer, in the film Monster's Ball. Her performance was awarded the National Board of Review and the Screen Actors Guild best-actress prizes; in an interesting coincidence she became the first African-American to receive a Best Leading Actress Academy Award (earlier in her career she portrayed Dorothy Dandridge, the first African-American to be nominated for Best Actress). The NAACP issued the statement: "Congratulations to Halle Berry and Denzel Washington for giving us hope and making us proud. If this is a sign that Hollywood is finally ready to give opportunity and judge performance based on skill and not on skin color then it is a good thing." Her role also generated controversy. Berry's graphic nude love scene with a racist character played by co-star Billy Bob Thornton was the subject of much media chatter and discussion among African-Americans. Many in the African-American community were critical of Berry for taking the part. Her win at the Academy Awards led to two famous "Oscar moments." In accepting her award, she gave an acceptance speech honoring previous black actresses who had never had the opportunity. She said, "This moment is so much bigger than me. This is for every nameless, faceless woman of colour who now has a chance tonight because this door has been opened." One year later, as she presented the Best Actor award, winner Adrien Brody ran on stage and, instead of giving her the standard peck on the cheek, planted a long kiss on Berry.

International success

As Bond girl Giacinta 'Jinx' Johnson in the 2002 blockbuster Die Another Day, Berry recreated a scene from Dr. No, emerging from the surf to be greeted by James Bond as Ursula Andress had 40 years earlier. Lindy Hemming, costume designer on "Die Another Day", had insisted that Berry wear a bikini and knife as an homage. Berry has said of the scene: "It's splashy", "exciting", "sexy", "provocative" and "it will keep me still out there after winning an Oscar." According to a ITV news poll, Jinx was voted the fourth toughest girl on screen of all time. Berry was hurt during filming when debris from a smoke grenade flew into her eye. It was removed in a 30-minute operation.

After Berry won the Academy Award, rewrites were commissioned to give her more screentime for X2. Berry stated during interviews for X2 that she would not return as Storm unless the character had a significant presence comparable to the comic-book version.

In November 2003, she starred in the psychological thriller Gothika opposite Robert Downey Jr., during which she broke her arm. Downey was supposed to grab her arm and twist but twisted too hard. Production was halted for eight weeks. It was a moderate hit at the United States box office, taking in $60 million; it earned another $80 million abroad. In 2004, Berry was voted fourth of Empire magazine's 100 sexiest film stars of all time poll.

Berry received $12.5 million for the title role in the film Catwoman, a $100 million movie; it grossed $17 million on its first weekend. She was awarded a "worst actress" Razzie award in 2005 for this role. She appeared at the ceremony to accept the award in person (making her the third person, and second actor, to ever do so) with a sense of humor, considering it an experience of the "rock bottom" in order to be "at the top". Holding the Academy Award in one hand and the Razzie in the other she said, "I never in my life thought that I would be here, winning a Razzie. It's not like I ever aspired to be here, but thank you. When I was a kid, my mother told me that if you could not be a good loser, then there's no way you could be a good winner."

Berry next appeared in the Oprah Winfrey-produced ABC TV movie Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005), an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's novel, in which Berry portrayed Janie Crawford, a free-spirited woman whose unconventional sexual mores upset her 1920s contemporaries in a small community. She was nominated for an Emmy for this TV film. Meanwhile, she voiced the character of Cappy, one of the many mechanical beings in the animated feature Robots (2005).

]]

In 2006, Berry, Pierce Brosnan, Cindy Crawford, Jane Seymour, Dick Van Dyke, Tea Leoni, and Daryl Hannah successfully fought the Cabrillo Port Liquefied Natural Gas facility that was proposed off the coast of Malibu. Berry said "I care about the air we breathe, I care about the marine life and the ecosystem of the ocean." In May 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the facility. Hasty Pudding Theatricals gave her its 2006 Woman of The Year award.

Berry is involved in production of films and television. She served as executive producer on Introducing Dorothy Dandridge in 1999, and Lackawanna Blues in 2005. Berry both produced and starred in the thriller Perfect Stranger with Bruce Willis and in Things We Lost in the Fire with Benicio del Toro. Berry then starred in the film Frankie and Alice in which she plays Frankie Murdoch who is a young multiracial American women with dissociative identity disorder struggling to retain her true self and not give into her racial alter personality. She was awarded the African-American Film Critics Association for best actress and also was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama.

Berry is one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, earning $10 million per film.

Berry has served for many years as the face of Revlon cosmetics and also as the face of Versace. The Coty Inc. fragrance company signed Berry to market her debut fragrance in March 2008. Berry was delighted, saying that she had created her own fragrances at home by mixing scents.

Personal life

in San Diego, CA]]

Berry has been married twice. Her first marriage was to former baseball player David Justice, shortly after midnight on January 1, 1993. The couple separated in 1996 and their divorce was finalized in 1997. Justice played with the Atlanta Braves and experienced a measure of fame as the team rose to prominence in the early 1990s. The couple found it difficult to maintain their relationship while he was playing baseball and she was filming elsewhere. Berry has stated publicly that she was so depressed after her breakup with Justice that she considered taking her own life, but she could not bear the thought of her mother finding her body.

Berry's second marriage was to musician Eric Benét. They met in 1997 and married in early 2001 on a beach in Santa Barbara. Berry credited Benét with support after she was involved in a February 2000 traffic collision, in which she suffered a concussion and left the scene of the accident before the police arrived. Some in the media complained that her misdemeanor hit and run charge was preferential treatment; she had also been the driver in an alleged hit and run incident three years earlier in which no charges were filed. The incident became fodder for comedians. A civil lawsuit was settled out of court.

The couple separated in 2003. While married to Benét, Berry adopted his daughter, India.

Berry has been a victim of domestic violence, and now works to help other victims. In 2005, she said, "Domestic violence is something I've known about since I was a child. My mother was a victim of it. Early on in my life I made choices, and I chose men that were abusive because that was what I knew growing up...First time it happened, I knew enough to keep moving."

In November 2005, Berry began dating French-Canadian supermodel Gabriel Aubry, nine years her junior. The couple met at a Versace photoshoot. After six months with Aubry, she stated in an interview, "I'm really happy in my personal life, which is a novelty to me. You know, I'm not the girl that has the best relationships."

At one point, Berry had indicated that she planned to adopt children, After initially denying rumors, she confirmed in September 2007 that she was three months pregnant. Berry gave birth to a girl named Nahla Ariela Aubry on March 16, 2008, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Berry hired security guards after receiving racist threats to her unborn baby from a stalker, who said her child will be "cut into hundreds of pieces".

At one time, Berry indicated that she did not intend to marry again, insisting the couple's life was already complete without the need for a marriage. She stated that she hoped to have a second child right away. Aubry told In Touch magazine, "I'd like Nahla to have a sibling in 2009."

On April 30, 2010, it was reported that Berry and Aubry had separated. Berry's representative confirmed their relationship had ended a few days later by saying, "They have been split for some time, but remain friends and committed parents to their daughter." They worked out a financial and 50/50 custody deal with a family lawyer, but TMZ reported that it is not final. The source said, "As much as it can be it's been an amicable split. They both traveled a lot for work anyway, so they were used to spending time apart for long periods, but I think Halle has taken it pretty badly; she truly loved Gabriel and thought she had found the one."

In the media

Parade, Cambridge, MA in February 2006]]

Berry has stated that the manner in which people have reacted to her because of her ethnicity is often the result of ignorance. Her own self-identification has been influenced by her mother. She is quoted as saying

After having many talks with my mother about the issue, she reinforced what she had always taught me. She said that even though you are half black and half white, you will be discriminated against in this country as a black person. People will not know when they see you that you have a white mother unless you wear a sign on your forehead. And, even if they did, so many people believe that if you have an ounce of black blood in you then you are black. So, therefore, I decided to let folks categorize me however they needed to.

While taping the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on October 19, 2007, Berry displayed a distorted image of her face, remarking: "Here's where I look like my Jewish cousin!" During the editing of the program, the comment was obscured by a laugh track. Berry later stated "What happened was I was backstage before the show and I have three girls who are Jewish who work for me. We were going through pictures to see which ones looked silly, and one of my Jewish friends said [of the big-nose picture], 'That could be your Jewish cousin!' And I guess it was fresh in my mind, and it just came out of my mouth. But I didn't mean to offend anybody. I didn't. I didn't mean any harm. – and after the show I realized it could be seen as offensive, so I asked Jay to take it out, and he did.'"

Berry took part in a nearly 2000-house party cell-phone bank campaign for Barack Obama in February 2008, and said that she will "collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear."

In October 2008, Berry was named Esquire Magazine's "Sexiest Woman Alive", about which she stated "I don't know exactly what it means, but being 42 and having just had a baby, I think I'll take it."

Filmography

{| class="wikitable sortable" ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 1989 | Living Dolls | Emily Franklin | TV (canceled after 13 episodes) |- | 1991 | Amen | Claire | TV series, episode: "Unforgettable" |- | 1991 | | Jaclyn | TV series, episode: "Love, Hillman-Style" |- | 1991 | They Came from Outer Space | Rene | TV series, episode: "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" |- | 1991 | Knots Landing | Debbie Porter | TV (cast member in 1991) |- | 1991 | Jungle Fever | Vivian | Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Most Promising Actress |- | 1991 | Strictly Business | Natalie | |- | 1991 | | Cory | |- | 1992 | Boomerang | Angela Lewis | |- | 1993 | Alex Haley's Queen | Queen | NAACP Image Award |- | 1993 | CB4 | Herself | Cameo |- | 1993 | Father Hood | Kathleen Mercer | |- | 1993 | | Autumn Haley | |- | 1994 | | Sharon Stone |- | 2005 | Their Eyes Were Watching God | Janie Starks | Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie |- | 2005 | Robots | Cappy | (Voice) |- | 2006 | | Ororo Munroe/Storm | |- | 2007 | Perfect Stranger | Rowena Price | |- | 2007 | Things We Lost in the Fire | Audrey Burke | |- | 2010 | Frankie and Alice | Frankie/Alice | African-American Film Critics AssociationNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama |- | 2011 | Dark Tide | Kate Mathieson | Post-Production |}

Awards

{| class="wikitable sortable" ! Year ! Award ! Category ! Film ! Result |- | 1995 | NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Actress in a TV Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special | Alex Haley's Queen | |- | 2000 | Primetime Emmy Award | Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or Movie | Introducing Dorothy Dandridge | |- | 2000 | Golden Globe Award | Best Actress – Miniseries or TV Movie | Introducing Dorothy Dandridge | |- | 2000 | Screen Actors Guild Awards | Best Actress – Miniseries or TV Movie | Introducing Dorothy Dandridge | |- | 2000 | Black Reel Awards | Best Actress in a TV Movie/Mini-Series | Introducing Dorothy Dandridge | |- | 2000 | NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Actress in a TV Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special | Introducing Dorothy Dandridge | |- | 2001 | Academy Award | Best Actress | Monster's Ball | |- | 2001 | Screen Actors Guild Awards | Best Actress – Motion Picture | Monster's Ball | |- | 2001 | British Academy of Film and Television Arts | Best Lead Actress | Monster's Ball | |- | 2001 | Golden Globe Award | Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama | Monster's Ball | |- | 2001 | NBR | Best Actress | Monster's Ball | |- | 2002 | Black Reel Awards | Best Actress | Monster's Ball | |- | 2002 | NAACP Image Award | Outstanding Actress | Swordfish | |- | 2002 | BET Awards | Best Actress | | |- | 2003 | BET Awards | Best Actress | | |- | 2003 | NAACP Image Award | Outstanding Supporting Actress | Die Another Day | |- | 2003 | FHM 100 Sexiest Women | Sexiest Woman of the World | | |- | 2004 | NAACP Image Award | Outstanding Actress | Gothika | |- | 2004 | BET Awards | Best Actress | | |- | 2004 | Golden Raspberry Awards | Worst Actress | Catwoman | |- | 2005 | BET Awards | Best Actress | | |- | 2005 | Primetime Emmy Award | Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a Movie | Their Eyes Were Watching God | |- | 2006 | NAACP Image Award | Outstanding Supporting Actress – TV series | Their Eyes Were Watching God | |- | 2007 | People's Choice Awards | Favorite Female Action Hero | | |- | 2008 | BET Awards | Best Actress | | |- | 2009 | Spike Guys' Choice Awards | Decade of Hotness Award | | |}

References

Further reading

Banting, Erinn. Halle Berry, Weigl Publishers, 2005 – ISBN 1-59036-333-7

Gogerly, Liz. Halle Berry, Raintree, 2005 – ISBN 1-4109-1085-7

Naden, Corinne J. Halle Berry, Sagebrush Education Resources, 2001 – ISBN 0-613-86157-4

O'Brien, Daniel. Halle Berry, Reynolds & Hearn, 2003 – ISBN 1-903111-38-2

Sanello, Frank. Halle Berry: A Stormy Life, Virgin Books, 2003 – ISBN 1-85227-092-6

Schuman, Michael A. Halle Berry: Beauty Is Not Just Physical, Enslow, 2006 – ISBN 0-7660-2467-9

External links

Halle Berry Fragrances

Category:1966 births Category:Living people Category:Actors from Ohio Category:African American film actors Category:African American television actors Category:American female models Category:American film actors Category:American people of English descent Category:American television actors Category:Best Actress Academy Award winners Category:Best Miniseries or Television Movie Actress Golden Globe winners Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Miss World 1986 delegates Category:Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Cleveland, Ohio

Category:Miss USA 1986 delegates

Ethan Nadelmann (b. March 13, 1957 in New York City) is the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a New York City-based non-profit organization working to end the war on drugs. Described by Rolling Stone as, "the point man for drug-policy-reform efforts," Ethan Nadelmann is one of the world's most respected and high profile critics and commentators on U.S. and international drug control policies.

Biography

Nadelmann was raised in a Jewish family in New York City; his father was a rabbi. He earned B.A., J.D., and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University and a master’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics. He taught politics and public affairs at Princeton University from 1987 to 1994. While he was at Princeton, he lectured and wrote extensively on drug policy, attracting considerable attention with his articles in such periodicals as Science, Foreign Affairs, American Heritage and National Review. He also formed the Princeton Working Group on the Future of Drug Use and Alternatives to Drug Prohibition.

Nadelmann founded the Lindesmith Center in 1994, a drug policy institute created with the philanthropic support of George Soros. Six years later the Center merged with the Drug Policy Foundation founded by Kevin Zeese and Arnold Trebach. The merger became the Drug Policy Alliance, an advocacy group for drug policies "grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights." As the Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, Nadelmann takes a public health - rather than a criminal justice - approach to the war on drugs advocating for the application of harm reduction principles.

After Barack Obama won the presidential election, Matt Elrod, the director of the drug policy reform group DrugSense, filed an internet petition for Ethan Nadelmann as the new Drug Czar. Although any hopes in getting Nadelmann appointed were downplayed, "this petition will at least encourage President-elect Obama to think twice about his choice of drug czar." Drug Policy Alliance never lobbied for Nadelmann, however once media reports alleged that James Ramstad (R-MN) would be appointed to the post the organization urged people to oppose the appointment due to his opposition to medical marijuana and needle exchange among other things. Seattle's police chief Gil Kerlikowske became the next head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). An appointment that DPA is cautiously optimistic about.

Advocacy

Nadelmann has also been a strong advocacy of less restrictive marijuana laws in the United States including legalizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes and imposing civil rather than criminal penalties for those who are caught using or possessing small amounts of marijuana.

Quotes

The "war on drugs" and its prohibitionist, punitive strategy have failed to solve America's drug problem. In fact, they bear much of the blame for drug-related crime, epidemic use of crack cocaine and the spread of AIDS through dirty syringes. Washington must begin developing policy that seeks first to reduce the harm drugs do users and society. Officials need only look at successful innovations in Europe and Australia like needle exchange, addiction treatment and supervised maintenance, and decriminalization. Public health rather than politics should be paramount. We won't win until the average parent believes drug reform protects kids better than the war on drugs. Who are we? We are people who love drugs...we need to find a way to live with it in peace. But we are also people who hate drugs. We have suffered from overdoses and addiction. But we know that drugs are here to stay, and prohibition and the criminal justice system is not the way to deal with it. And we are people who don't care about drugs. People who care about the Constitution, who care about 2.2 million Americans behind bars, who care about fundamental rights and freedoms. "The best answer is to move slowly but firmly to dismantle the edifice of enforcement. Start with the possession and sale of cannabis and amphetamines, and experiment with different strategies. /.../ Removing the ban on possession would make it easier to regulate drug quality, to treat the health effects of overuse, and to punish drug-users only if they commit crimes against people or property."

Bibliography

Cops Across Borders: The Internationalization of U.S. Criminal Law Enforcement. Pennsylvania State University Press, Dec. 1993. ISBN 0271010959

Policing the Globe: Criminalization and Crime Control in International Relations, with Peter Andreas. Oxford University Press USA, August 3, 2006. ISBN 0195089480

References

External links

Brief bio of Nadelman at Drug Policy Alliance website

Article on his 2001 talk to the San Francisco Medical Society

Ethan Nadelmann, Ph.D A Guide to the Drug-Legalization Movement

Category:American non-fiction crime writers Category:American social sciences writers Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Alumni of the London School of Economics Category:International relations scholars Category:Jewish American writers Category:Princeton University faculty Category:Psychedelic drug advocates Category:1957 births Category:Living people Category:Drug policy reform activists