Image from WoMen in Africa photography exhibition by Ludovico Maria Gilberti . Although it was mostly disregarded by mainstream media throughout 2011, the United Nations’ observance of the International Year for People of African Descent launched on Human Rights Day, December 10, 2010, just over a week before the event that would spark the Arab Spring occurred and months before the Occupy Movement got underway. It proceeded in different countries with a variety of programs, initiatives, and publications to commemorate the occasion over the months that followed, and has now been winding down to an official close since December 6, 2011. Read the entire story by Aberjhani by clicking this link : Countdown of 10 amazing moments from 2011: No. 3 Afro-descendants worldwide - National African-American Art | Examiner.com

Artist Lei Yixin with model of Martin Luther King Jr. memorial monument . (photo courtesy of the MLK Foundation) The opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to the public on October 16, 2011, both confirmed Dr. King’s place in world history and marked the triumphant implementation of a plan established by the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity in 1984. King is only the fourth American citizen who was not a president to receive such an honor and the first African American to do so. To continue reading please click this link : Countdown of 10 amazing moments from the year 2011: No. 4 the MLK Jr. Memorial - National African-American Art | Examiner.com

Cover of "Without A Song: 9/11 Concert" album by Sonny Rollins. Welcome to number 6 in Aberjhani’s Countdown of 10 Amazing Moments from the Year 2011: Preeminent saxophonist and all-around jazzmaster Sonny Rollins joined actress Meryl Streep, singer Neil Diamond, celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and Broadway actress and cabaret performer Barbara Cook as a Kennedy Center honoree at the White House and at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. on December 4, 2011. The honor served as tribute to the career of a musician whose work has won over critics and fans alike for all of six decades. Please click the link to read the full story: Countdown of 10 amazing moments from the year 2011: No. 6 Sonny Rollins - National African-American Art | Examiner.com

Poet Nikky Finney and novelist Jesmyn Ward.(photo courtesy of National Book Foundation) It is not uncommon in modern times for African-American women to win major literary awards but it is rare, if not unprecedented, for two such women to win the same major award in separate categories in the same year. That is precisely what happened on November 16, 2011, when Jesmyn Ward won the National Book Award for fiction and Nikky Finney accepted the award for poetry. “We begin with history” Finney, a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Kentucky, won the award for Head Off & Split, her fourth volume of poetry. Her previous titles include: The World Is Round (2003); Rice (1995); and On Wings Made of Gauze (1985). She is also author of the short story collection, Heartwood (1998). Upon accepting her National Book Award, Finney may have summed up just how triumphant the events of the evening turned out to be when she noted the following at the beginning her speech: P