The Florida Star - thefloridastar.com

Nelson Mandela Choir Comes to Jacksonville
Jacksonville will be alive with the sound of music this week as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida and the Jacksonville Sister Cities Association, Port Elizabeth, South Africa Committee presents the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) Choir. The Florida tour is part of a cultural exchange program between Jacksonville and our sister city Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality...... MORE

FT. Moses - Florida’s Sanctuary For Runaway Slaves in 1600’s
North America's First Free, Legally sanctioned Black Community
The Spanish culture in Florida in the 17th and 18th century had a different way of viewing slavery than their English neighbors in the Carolina Colony did, and probably due to the influence of the Moors who ruled Spain for 700 years, slavery never had the racial overtones that it did to the English. It was normal to find both enslaved people of African origin and free Africans in St. Augustine...MORE

Miami’s Housing Chief Under Investigation
Cynthia Curry, hired last year by Miami-Dade County to turn around its State

scandal-plagued housing agency, is under criminal investigation for allegedly overbilling in connection with a contract her consulting company held for work at Miami International Airport several years ago. CWC & Associates, which Curry owned at the time with her husband, Garland Curry, subcontracted for one of the main contractors at MIA's massive North Terminal construction project. Curry, an assistant county manager and senior advisor on housing and economic development, said... MORE

Property Tax Vote Set for Next January 29th
Floridians will get to express their choices for property tax issues and presidential candidates on the same day — Jan. 29. The date for the statewide vote was announced last week as lawmakers began meeting to discuss property tax proposals for the special session that begins this Tuesday. Voters would be presented with ballot questions to expand homestead exemptions in the constitution. House Speaker Marco Rubio and Senate President Ken Pruitt wrote to legislators outlining their agreement on the form property tax relief would take. It includes an immediate rollback of city and county taxes... MORE

Are Democrats Ignoring Issues Effecting Blacks?
The war in Iraq and the issue of immigration took center stage during the second 2008 presidential debate in New Hampshire last week. These are issues that African-Americans care about, political observers say, but what about the low quality education in city schools, the violent crime rates that are up for the second year in a row, the unemployment rate among African-Americans that consistently doubles that of Whites and the mandatory minimum sentences that keeps Blacks crowding prisons across the nation? Though African - Americans are adamantly against the war and immigration is on America’s front burner... MORE

Cuba Gooding Jr. Saves Life of Shooting Victim
The Academy Award winner Cuba Gooding Jr. was picking up dinner for Cuba

his family at a restaurant in Hollywood on Memorial Day, after dark, and did not think about the fact that he was an Oscar winner when he heard gunshots and saw a young man walking toward him, bleeding and holding his head. The victim was bleeding from his neck and collapsed. Gooding called for towels to stop the bleeding, waved down a passing police car and waited at the scene until the ambulance arrived...MORE