My husband just sent me the saddest report.  Look at this:

When Juanita Goggins became the first black woman elected to the South Carolina Legislature in 1974, she was hailed as a trailblazer and twice visited the president at the White House.

Three decades later, she froze to death at age 75, a solitary figure living in a rented house four miles from the gleaming Statehouse dome.

HUH?!  I have never heard of this woman.  But more important, how on earth could a former political powerhouse end up in such a destitute situation?  Was there no one available to help this human being?

Goggins, whose achievements included key legislation on school funding, kindergarten and class size, had become increasingly reclusive. She spent her final years turning down help from neighbors who knew little of her history-making past. Her body was not discovered for more than a week.

There are times when people need to step in.  If her mind was going (and I have no proof that it was), then she needed help.

Police found Goggins’ body March 3 – two weeks after she was last seen. Her landlord contacted police after a next-door neighbor realized he had not seen her lights on in some time.

Coroner Gary Watts said she died of hypothermia, probably about Feb. 20, and said he found indications of dementia. When she died, during a cold snap, Goggins was wearing several layers of clothing, yet her heat was working at the time.

This is clearly a woman who should have been removed from the house against her will.  The following is very telling:

Why she withdrew remains a mystery even to her son. He attributes it to her illness, which was never fully diagnosed.

Her son indicated that she was also standoffish with him and that he did not know why.

“I would like for her to be remembered as a woman who cared about her community,” he said. “I want her to be remembered as a positive role model, not only for African-American girls, but also any young girl who has a want and a desire to make a change and do something positive.”

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Although I have heard of Alexander McQueen, I’m not familiar with his work. He has hanged himself.

Leading British fashion designer Alexander McQueen, who designed outfits for Sarah Jessica Parker, Kate Moss and Prince Charles, has been found dead after taking his own life. The 40-year-old’s body was discovered at his home in West London, where he had reportedly hanged himself.

It appears as though McQueen had to been suffering depression following the death of his mother earlier this month. A string of worrying posts on Twitter reflected his fragile state of mind.

On Feb. 3 he wrote: “I’m letting my followers know my mother passed away yesterday RIPmum xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.” Four days later he posted: “sunday evening been a f*****g awful week but my friends have been great but now i have to some how pull myself together and finish with the HELLS ANGLES & PROLIFIC DEAMONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I have never comprehended suicide.  And it’s primarily because as a Christian, I know that there is no end to this soul and that the soul will live eternally either in Heaven or hell.  So suicide does not end problems. Suicide makes problems permanent and far worse.

If anyone reading this is contemplating suicide, don’t do it.  Doing so will simply send you into an eternity of torment.  The answer is in Jesus Christ. Put all your worries on Him and allow HIM to work it out.  Depression is an easy disorder for God to deal with.  In fact, nothing is too hard for God.  Hang in there!

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Eunice Johnson may have lived in the shadows of her powerful husband, but as CBS 2 reporter Lauren Green pointed out on May 27, 1994, building the Johnson publishing empire was a joint effort.

The magazine was John H. Johnson’s idea. Naming it Ebony was Mrs. Johnson’s.

“We both decided it was something we should do,” Mrs. Johnson said in 1994. “We both worked equally as hard at it, all the way.”

I have never been a huge fan of the magazine. I thought that it contained too much fluff. But there was one issue I’ll never forget. It was an entire issue dedicated to black-on-black crime. It should have won every prize imaginable. It was a masterpiece.

In any event, I wish peace to the Johnson family at this time of grief.

Hat tip to Oregon Sistah for alerting me to this death.

I am so sorry but for some reason, I thought that Oral Roberts had passed away years ago.  Well he hadn’t.  God blessed him with over 90 years.  God is good, ya’ll.  May the spirit of Oral Roberts rest in peace with our Lord and Savior eternally:

Roberts died of complications from pneumonia in Newport Beach, Calif., according to his spokesman, A. Larry Ross. The evangelist was hospitalized after a fall on Saturday. He had survived two heart attacks in the 1990s and a broken hip in 2006.

Roberts was a pioneer on two fronts: He helped bring spirit-filled charismatic Christianity into the mainstream, and he took his trademark revivals to television, a new frontier for religion.

Roberts overcame tuberculosis at age 17, and he credited that triumph with leading him to become one of the country’s most famous ministers.

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Beyond a shadow of a doubt, he was controversial.  One of his most well known antics was when he had tied in a fundraising effort to his own mortality.  God is a forgiving God, though:

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Wishing peace to the family of Patrick Swayze, as he passed away yesterday.

Patrick Swayze, whose hunky good looks and sympathetic performances in such films as “Dirty Dancing” and “Ghost” made him a romantic idol to millions, died Monday. He was 57.
Swayze died of pancreatic cancer, his publicist, Annett Wolf, told CNN.

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I just heard that DJ AM was found dead with a crack pipe nearby. I am familiar with him because he had dated and was engaged to Nicole Ritchie for a while. She is the daughter of Lionel Ritchie.

Last year DJ AM was one of two survivors of a plane crash. You’d think that after such a close brush with death, he’d turn his life around, but apparently not.

What Adam Goldstein – DJ AM – was trying to do after surviving a horrendous 2008 airplane crash was live his life and stay clean.

But Goldstein, a Philadelphia native who grew up in Rittenhouse Square, was found dead Friday evening at age 36 in his Manhattan apartment, where police found a crack pipe and prescription pills. He had been dealing with burn injuries received in the airplane crash and post-traumatic stress disorder he’d developed afterward.

I heard on the news that he had battled drug addiction in the past. What I don’t comprehend is how anyone on planet earth could still have an interest in crack. Didn’t crack go out of style? You mean there actually are crackheads still walking around?

Those in entertainment need to get their demons under control. And if you ever see a video of DJ AM in a night club, you would fully comprehend how a person would NEED to be high in order to be in such a dark place filled with loud, crazy noise passing itself off as music and surrounded by unhappy losers and drug addicts in a so-called club pretending to be having fun. It’s such an empty life.

Wishing peace to his family. They must be disgusted by how he threw away his life.

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Check out this YouTube video. This nutty music is enough to drive anyone to crack:

Here is wishing peace and solace to the Kennedy family.

He was never able to shake Chappaquiddick.  He was never able to shake his reputation as a womanizer.

I personally never understood how he as a Catholic went against everything that the Catholics believe and and I never understood why he did not leave the religion since he clearly did not follow its teachings.

At the end of his life, he did something that I appreciated.  He embraced Barack Obama and for that, I will always remember him fondly.

I am saddened to report that Eunice Kennedy Shriver has passed away. She is not simply a Kennedy. This is a woman who has done important things in her life. For example, she is the one who founded the Special Olympics. She was 88 years old:

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the sister of President John F. Kennedy and a champion of the disabled who founded the Special Olympics, died Tuesday, the Special Olympics said. She was 88.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver speaks at a dinner in honor of the Special Olympics in July 2006.

Born on July 10, 1921, in Brookline, Massachusetts, Shriver was the fifth of nine children to Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. She emerged from the long shadow of siblings John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy as the founder of the Special Olympics, which started as a summer day camp in her backyard in 1962.
Today, 3.1 million people with mental disabilities participate in 228 programs in 170 nations, according to the Special Olympics.

“She was the light of our lives, a mother, wife, grandmother, sister and aunt who taught us by example and with passion what it means to live a faith-driven life of love and service to others,” the Shriver family said Tuesday in a statement.

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I’m very sorry to receive notice that the world’s first black supermodel has passed away.

Naomi Sims, whose appearance as the first Black model on the cover of Ladies’ Home Journal in November 1968 was a consummate moment of the Black is Beautiful movement, and who went on to design wigs and cosmetics for Black women under her name, died Saturday in Newark. She was 61, her family said, and lived in Newark.

Sims burst onto the scene in the late 1960s, but chose in the ‘70s to focus on a successful line of beauty products for Black women. “There is nothing sadder than an old, broke model,” she once said.
She died of cancer, said her son, Bob Findlay.
Sims is sometimes referred to as the first Black supermodel.

Hat tips to Andrea and Stacey

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