DeNeen L. Brown

DeNeen Brown:Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby Bridges is on display at the White House

2011-09-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

By DeNeen L. Brown,
Washington Post Staff Writer

The little girl in the painting titled “The Problem We All Live With” is walking to school in a white dress, white socks and white shoes. Her hair is parted in neat plaits and she is carrying a book and a ruler. The girl appears confident and proud, even as she is overshadowed by U.S. marshals in muted gray suits. She does not seem to notice the tomato splashed on the painted wall behind her or the racial epithet scrawled above her.

The Norman Rockwell painting, depicting the walk by 6-year-old Ruby Bridges as she integrated William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960, captures an ugly chapter in U.S. history, a transition between a past of segregation and a new era that would come.

This summer, the iconic artwork has found a temporary home — in the West Wing of the White House, just outside the Oval Office. The road to the White House began in 2008, with a suggestion from Bridges herself. After a lobbying campaign by members of Congress and others, the painting arrived in June.

Read more at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/norman-rockwell-painting-of-ruby-bridges-is-on-display-at-the-white-house/2011/08/26/gIQA66QhlJ_story.html

The Smithsonian Just Got Soul: Soul Train Awards by DeNeen Brown

2011-07-28T16:01:00.000-07:00

By DeNeen Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Peace, love and soooooooul spilled out of a white tent Thursday night on the Mall as a crowd boogied down a massive “Soul Train” line. The event celebrating a donation of artifacts from the popular 1970s-era TV show to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture had, appropriately, turned into a dance party.

A man in brown dress socks and white Converse shoes danced wildly next to a prim woman in a platinum sheath. Nearby, a woman dressed straight out of the iconic television program, in hot pants and platform shoes, grooved to the old-school music pumping through the speakers. Those in the multiracial crowd laughed and threw their hands in the air as they danced the Bump, the Loose Booty, the Robot and the Funky Chicken.“Girl, you better swing it! Push it, baby!” yelled Tyrone “the Bone” Proctor, an original “Soul Train” dancer who taught the crowd iconic dances.

The woman in hot pants pumped a little harder and swung her arms.

“Oh, my!” Proctor yelled. “Stop it! You are impressing me!”

To help celebrate its 40th anniversary, “Soul Train” — which began airing nationally in 1971 and became one of the longest-airing nationally syndicated first-run programs in television history — donated five signature props for the museum’s exhibitions “Musical Crossroads,” “Black Popular Culture” and “Make a Way Out of No Way.” The museum is set to be completed on the Mall in 2015.

The items that were donated: “Applause” signs, the 10-foot-wide neon “Soul Train” sign, the neon “Soul Train Awards” sign, silver African heads from the awards program, and the Scramble Board, on which dancers unscrambled word puzzles quickly, then broke out in dance.

DeNeen Brown Washington Post: Will You Look This Good at 74?

2011-05-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

She is 74 years old, and she is ripped.

Sculpted deltoids, carved biceps and a stomach chiseled into a glorious six-pack that rises and falls into magnificent little hills and valleys.It is the first thing you notice when you see Ernestine Shepherd in the front of the class, teaching body sculpting at a gym north of Baltimore.

Shepherd is wearing tight red shorts and a red bikini top. Between the two is her signature span of chiseled abs.

She is a Dorothy Dandridge beauty, a knockout. Her makeup is perfect, lips painted candy red to match her workout clothes. She has thick, black eyelashes and wears her hair in a long, gray braid that swings down her superbly sculpted back.

She is wearing white Converse sneakers with little white kitten heels. She flexes. “If you are going to try to motivate people, you have to live that part,” she says. “You have to look that part.” Her husband will say later that he still has trouble keeping guys away from her.

Behind her, women many, many years younger than she are struggling — huffing and puffing and trying to keep up. Thighs heavy, bellies jiggling, breath short, they sweat away as their 74-year-old instructor with the body of a college cheerleader counts.

'The Story of Stuff': Cycle of consuming and dumping creates heavy baggage

2010-04-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

We are in a Stuff crisis.

We are either consuming it, acquiring it, complaining about it, cleaning it, moving it from store to car to house to garage to a Pod parked in the driveway. We are worried about it. Bored about it. Happy about it. Our stuff has become our baggage.

We used to be able to fit all our stuff in that Honda Civic we drove across the country. But now we have scary closets packed with stuff. Basements creeping with stuff. Attics weighed down with stuff. When our houses are full of stuff, we buy bigger houses and proceed to stuff the new houses with more stuff.

The stuff cycle is not without consequences.

After the Friending

2009-09-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

By DeNeen L. Brown

I'd like to be friends with you on Facebook. Really, I would. But then what would we do next?
I'm flattered that you want to be my friend, but I wonder why didn't you just pick up the phone and call me.
I know.
I know.
We promised to get together in the new year, and already it's summer and you haven't been to my house and I haven't been to yours. You haven't seen how my kid has grown. And I haven't seen yours. We never had that lunch we both promised we would set up. We never went out for drinks after work, as we both said we would. And here you are on Facebook, wanting to be my friend.
I am eager to hit the "confirm" button, but I wonder what will happen after that. Will we have a virtual lunch or virtual glass of wine? But then how would you notice that I got my first crease around my eyes? Or that I am trying to lose weight? Would you notice my pretty sandals? And that killer purse I just bought?
Oh, you are right. I could just send you a photo, and then you would know. Or would you?
What about the pregnant pauses in the conversation where really good friends go to fill in the blank? What about the story that I can't hide from you when we are face to face? Okay, yes, I know I could tell you all about it online. But where would I start, and who else would be listening?

Oak Bluffs, Mass.: A Place in the Sun

2009-08-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

OAK BLUFFS, Mass. It doesn't matter where America's black elite winters.

Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard is where it summers.

Here, black women with skin tightened by the sea salt wear diamonds casually with bathing suits. And pampered black children run through the seaweed and splash in the cold water of the "Inkwell," a town beach. Black men with trim gray beards carry about them that understated pride that comes with accomplishment.

Colorism: Nobody Wants to Talk About It

2009-08-03T12:48:00.000-07:00

Colorism is the crazy aunt in the attic of racism.
It's best not to mention her in polite company. Or if you find it necessary to talk about her at all, do it in whispers among relatives and people who already know about her.

Grand Achievement

2009-06-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

Teen Pianist From Southeast Orchestrates an Unlikely Rise

D.C. Teen to Perform Piano Piece on NPR
Clifton Williams, a junior at Duke Ellington School for the Arts, plays "Diabolical Suggestion" by Prokofiev. Williams will be performing the piece on the NPR show "From the Top."
» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER

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By DeNeen L. BrownWashington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 30, 2009
He didn't start playing classical piano until three years ago, when he was 14, much later than other classical students his age, who had already been playing for years. He doesn't have a piano at home and the one he practices on at church is slightly out of tune. Clifton Williams doesn't come from a moneyed family that lavishes him with private lessons and trips abroad, and yet there he is at the top, competing, winning classical competitions. Quietly driven. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/29/AR2009042904740.html

Poor? Pay Up.

2009-06-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

Having Little Money Often Means No Car, No Washing Machine, No Checking Account And No Break From Fees and High Prices

With White House Poetry Jam, a New Era Is Spoken For

2009-06-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

Perhaps for the first time ever, the White House jammed and slammed last night.
Poets and playwrights, actors and musicians packed the ornate East Room, delivering cool jazz and glorious spoken-word poetry, sprinkling a bit of hip-hop and a bit of the heroic couplet. And through it all, the president and the first lady watched -- and applauded.
"We're here to celebrate the power of words," President Obama said. Words "help us appreciate beauty and also understand pain. They inspire us to action." He introduced the first lady as his poet.
Michelle Obama told the gathering that the event was a way to open up the White House and invite in diverse voices. "I have wanted to do this from day one," Mrs. Obama said. "The notion of standing in this room and hearing some poetry."

Of Bricks and Beauty

2009-06-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

Of Bricks and Beauty
Murals feed the urban soul