President Barack Obama greeting military personnel at Pensacola base in 2010 . (White House photo) Prior to leaving Washington D.C. on December 23 to join his family on Christmas vacation in Hawaii, President Barack Obama spent the week advocating for passage of the Payroll Tax Cut Extension, finally achieving a last-minute victory in the kind of intense political tug of war that characterized much his presidency in 2011. His endurance in his third year as the “leader of the free world” and the often-debated advances he has achieved on behalf of the U.S. in the face of economic and political upheavals that shook the world place him at number 2 in the current countdown . To read more of the article by Aberjhani please click this link : Countdown of 10 amazing moments from the year 2011: No. 2 President Obama - National African-American Art | Examiner.com

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

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