Black Woman

BIG CREEK, W.Va. - For at least a week, authorities say, a young black woman was held captive in a mobile home, forced to eat animal waste, stabbed, choked, and repeatedly sexually abused - all while being peppered with a racial slur. It wasn't until deputies acting on an anonymous tip drove to a ramshackle trailer deep in West Virginia's rural hills that she was found. Limping toward the door with her arms outstretched, she uttered, "Help me," the Logan County sheriff's office said.

A Connecticut woman has agreed to settle a lawsuit against her Jewish congregation over the burial of a black woman in the synagogue's cemetery. Maria Balaban's lawyer said he and an attorney for the Congregation Ahavath Achim in Colchester reached a tentative deal Wednesday, in the middle of the trial. Terms were not disclosed. The congregation's board and members must approve the agreement. Balaban, 73, sued the congregation last year over the burial of Juliet Steer in 2010, saying the synagogue broke its own rules against burial of non-Jews at the cemetery.

ALBANY, Ga. -- The only woman ever executed in Georgia's electric chair is being granted a posthumous pardon, 60 years after the black maid was put to death for killing a white man she claimed held her in slavery and threatened her life. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has decided to pardon Lena Baker and plans to present a proclamation to her descendants at its Aug. 30 meeting in Atlanta, Scheree Lipscomb, a spokeswoman for the board, said yesterday. The board did not find Baker innocent of the crime, Lipscomb said.

I recently met Carl Bernard Mack, director of the National Society of Black Engineers, who was in town to check out the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. During breakfast, I was introduced as the chairwoman of the board of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. He took one look at me and shook his head in surprise. "You're the chair of the Convention Center? In Massachusetts? In Boston?" We've made a concerted effort at the convention center to attract multicultural events to the city of Boston.

South Africa's main opposition party has for the first time elected a black woman to lead it in parliament. Thursday's election in Cape Town among the 83 Democratic Alliance members of parliament puts 31-year-old Lindiwe Mazibuko in the spotlight. She has been a party spokeswoman and in the parliamentary leadership race had the support of the party's president, Hellen Zille. The Democratic Alliance has been trying to shake its image as a bastion of white liberals.

A Connecticut woman has agreed to settle a lawsuit against her Jewish congregation over the burial of a black woman in the synagogue's cemetery. Maria Balaban's lawyer said he and an attorney for the Congregation Ahavath Achim in Colchester reached a tentative deal Wednesday, in the middle of the trial. Terms were not disclosed. The congregation's board and members must approve the agreement. Balaban, 73, sued the congregation last year over the burial of Juliet Steer in 2010, saying the synagogue broke its own rules against burial of non-Jews at the cemetery.

Viola Davis has spent the last six months defending herself and her movie in a way I've never known an Academy Award nominee to have to do. She tussled with Tavis Smiley. She was candid with The Wall Street Journal. Alongside Charlize Theron and George Clooney on a Newsweek panel, she was searching and blunt. Davis isn't running for office. She didn't ruin the economy. She's not trying to get some new piece of legislation passed. All Viola Davis did was play a maid. All she's about to do (probably)

In the year of America’s first black president, it makes sense that Disney would introduce its first black princess. On the surface, this feels revolutionary. Her name isn’t Ariel or Belle. It’s Tiana. And she and all the black characters in “The Princess and the Frog’’ have been drawn, by hand, with an appreciable degree of love and care - wide noses and full lips realistically scaled for each bright, brown face. Even the somewhat stereotypical voodoo man, a light-skinned toothpick with purple pupils and a gap in his teeth you could sail a boat through, looks like one of my uncles.

PBS's "American Masters" series presents "Judy Garland: By Myself," at 9 tonight on Channel 2. Spoiler alert: The ending isn't happy. Last week on "The Bachelorette" : Finalist Ian confides that he will not propose to Meredith on TV, because he wants to maintain his privacy. Millions of viewers appreciate his tasteful restraint. The finale is tonight at 9 on Channel 5. In "Beah: A Black Woman Speaks , " the black woman also acts and writes poetry.

ATLANTA -- A black female state Supreme Court justice who overcame Republican efforts to block her reelection took the oath of the chief justice's office, with her longtime friend US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas saying he never thought he would witness such an event. Leah Sears is the first black woman to head the highest appeals court in any state, according to the National Center for State Courts, based in Williamsburg, Va. She will take office tomorrow, becoming the first woman to serve as chief justice in Georgia.

When civil rights activist Ray Robinson arrived at Wounded Knee in April 1973 to stand alongside Native Americans in their fight against social injustice, he excitedly called his wife back home in Alabama and told her, "This could be the spark that lights the prairie fire. " "No, it's not. Come home. Please come home," his wife, Cheryl Buswell-Robinson, recalled begging of him. The black activist and follower of Martin Luther King Jr. never made it home to Bogue Chitto, Ala. He was declared dead, but his body was never found and little is known about what happened.

ON WGBH Greater Boston 7 p.m. WGBH (Channel 2) ON CHRONICLE Indie Showcase 7:30 p.m. WCVB-TV (Channel 5) Tom Rush discusses "For the Love of Music: The Club 47 Folk Revival," at the Boston International Film Festival. RADIO HIGHLIGHTS Wacky Wednesdays 5 a.m. WUMB-FM (91.9) NightSide With Dan Rea8 p.m. WBZ-AM (1030) Organ banks. Classical Music with James David Jacobs 9 p.m. Classical New England (99.5) NEWS AND TALK SHOWS Morning CBS This Morning at 7 a.m. on Chs. 4 and 12. Good Morning America at 7 a.m. on Chs....

SANFORD, Fla. — George Zimmerman once took criminal justice classes at the community college and was practically a one-man neighborhood watch in his gated part of town, calling police close to 50 times over the past eight years to report such things as slow-driving vehicles, strangers loitering in the neighborhood, and open garages. Now, suddenly, people are wondering if Zimmerman, 28, is an earnest if somewhat zealous young man who was just looking out for his neighborhood, or a wannabe cop who tried to take justice into his own hands.

When "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" opened on Broadway in 1984, playwright August Wilson emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, as an electrifying new voice in American theater. The poet from Pittsburgh was hailed for his lyrical voice and for his singular ability to capture the hopes and dreams - often deferred - of black Americans. Wilson, of course, went on to produce a cycle of 10 plays about the black experience, one for each decade of the 20th century. By the time he died in 2005, at 60, he had become a cultural icon.

Despite torrents of debate among African-Americans over the merits of the segregation-era movie "The Help," most still hoped that Viola Davis, who plays a maid, would become just the second black winner of the best actress Oscar. And so there was widespread disappointment when Davis lost the Academy Award to Meryl Streep on Sunday night. Still, ambivalence tinged the reaction: Besides regret that the ranks of black Oscar winners remained small, many felt relief that a role viewed as stereotypical was not honored.

Viola Davis has spent the last six months defending herself and her movie in a way I've never known an Academy Award nominee to have to do. She tussled with Tavis Smiley. She was candid with The Wall Street Journal. Alongside Charlize Theron and George Clooney on a Newsweek panel, she was searching and blunt. Davis isn't running for office. She didn't ruin the economy. She's not trying to get some new piece of legislation passed. All Viola Davis did was play a maid. All she's about to do (probably)

Despite torrents of debate among African-Americans over the merits of the segregation-era movie "The Help," most still hoped that Viola Davis, who plays a maid, would become just the second black winner of the best actress Oscar. And so there was widespread disappointment when Davis lost the Academy Award to Meryl Streep on Sunday night. Still, ambivalence tinged the reaction: Besides regret that the ranks of black Oscar winners remained small, many felt relief that a role viewed as stereotypical was not honored.

I recently met Carl Bernard Mack, director of the National Society of Black Engineers, who was in town to check out the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. During breakfast, I was introduced as the chairwoman of the board of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. He took one look at me and shook his head in surprise. "You're the chair of the Convention Center? In Massachusetts? In Boston?" We've made a concerted effort at the convention center to attract multicultural events to the city of Boston.

WASHINGTON - Michelle Obama is challenging assertions she has forcefully imposed her will on White House aides and says people have inaccurately tried to portray her as "some kind of angry black woman. " Obama told CBS News she has not read New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor's new book that characterizes her as a behind-the-scenes force whose strong views often draw her into conflict with President Obama's top advisers. "I never read these books," she told CBS's Gayle King in an interview broadcast yesterday.

First lady Michelle Obama is challenging assertions she's forcefully imposed her will on White House aides, saying she's tired of people portraying her as "some kind of angry black woman. " Mrs. Obama tells CBS News she hasn't read New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor's new book that characterizes her as a behind-the-scenes force in the Executive Mansion, whose strong views often draw her into conflict with President Barack Obama's top advisers. "I never read these books," she told CBS's Gayle King in an interview broadcast Wednesday.