---Viewpoint: Cynthia McKinney on the war---
Here is a brief excerpt from Cynthia McKinney remarks on the war, "We stand here together. Shoulder to shoulder. Refusing to be denied the right to say no to George Bush's war! The Bush Administration calls his attack on Iraq a "just war". But this is not a just war and to call it such dishonors the noble history of our military.This war will never rank alongside any noble battles of that past conflict. This war is about oil and regional interests. We all know that. If it was about ending tyranny, destroying weapons of mass destruction, and restoring democracy to Iraq then George Bush's father could have done that in 1991. But he didn't. Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime were kept in power to balance the supposed threat of Iran and others in the region. I don't hate my country and I certainly don't hate my flag. In fact I love them so much I refuse to be quiet! Those of us who oppose Bush's war span the spectrum. We are conservative, radical - Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Reform, and Green. But more important than any political label, we are America's true patriots. We come from all walks of life. We are the thinkers and the workers that make America strong. And so, in the absence of an America that stands up for justice, and that stands up for dignity; we are the ones who must stand up for peace. Cynthia McKinney was Georgia's 4th Congressional District Representative in the U.S. Congress from 1992 through 2002.

---Linkage's Summit on Leading Diversity in Atlanta, March 24-27, 2003 ----
"The Linkage Summit on Leading Diversity, taking place in Atlanta, Georgia from March 24-27, at the Crowne Plaza Ravinia, tackles "leveraging diversity from the top down and the bottom up," says Summit director, Robin Pedrelli. Since businesses are struggling with falling stock prices, the war on terrorism, and low consumer spending , why would CEOs, senior executives, and diversity experts from organizations as eclectic as Coca Cola, Harvard University, Fannie Mae, the FBI, Kodak, Ernst & Young, and Cingular Wireless take the time to attend Linkage's fourth annual Summit on Leading Diversity? Henry Ryan, Harvard University's director of human resources services answers that question: " Retention and upward mobility of our diverse population continues to be our most urgent workforce challenge and this conference will help us to better understand what we must do to remain an employer of choice." The conference opens with a keynote address by the mother/daughter team of Coretta Scott King and Bernice King, minister/attorney. Susan Taylor of Essence magazine, Maria Hinojosa, CNN correspondent and author and Mark Williams CEO of the Diversity Channel and author of The 10 Lenses: Your Guide to Living and Working in a Multicultural World will also deliver keynote addresses. Attendees will reflect on a sea of diversity challenges plaguing organizations across the country. For more information on attending or covering the conference, send an email to jfondon@unityfirst.com.

---25 Influential Black women in business---
The Network Journal (TNJ) a black professionals and small business news magazine based in New York City will hold its 5th annual achievement awards program to coincide with Women's History Month and recognize "25 Influential Black Women in Business" on March27 from 11:00 a.m.-2:30 p.m. at the New York Hilton Hotel & Towers located at 1335 Avenue of the Americas (at 53rd Street) in New York City Themed, "Women Leading the Way and Staying Strong," the select group of honorees will be saluted for achieving significant levels of success in their businesses and professional careers. The honorees are profiled in the special March/April issue of The Network Journal magazine. For more information or a copy of the publication call 212-962-9448.

---Minority older adults benefit from culturally appropriate healthcare initiatives---A preliminary evaluation of the GlaxoSmithKline SHARE Awards, the first multinational awards program to foster healthy aging across cultures, reveals that culturally-sensitive service and outreach programs do positively impact healthcare access and outcomes for minority older adults. In addition, the programs funded by the GlaxoSmithKline SHARE Awards serve as model initiatives for organizations seeking to improve the overall health of older adults in underserved populations. Barriers of language, race and culture continue to affect the overall access of older adults in minority groups to adequate healthcare. As a result of the award, awardees were able to increase among their target populations: knowledge about health issues, overall life satisfaction and self-esteem, exercise and healthy behaviors among target audiences, access to social support and use of disease screenings. For more information, send, e-mail to share@mail.med.upenn.edu.

---Life expectancy in the U.S. rose to 77.2 Years in 2001----
Americans' life expectancy hit an all-time high in 2001, while age-adjusted deaths hit an all-time low, according to a new report released by HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. The report from HHS' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documents that the national age-adjusted death rate decreased slightly from 869 deaths per 100,000 population in 2000 to 855 deaths per 100,000 in 2001. There were declines in mortality among most racial, ethnic and gender groups. Meanwhile, life expectancy hit a new high of 77.2 years in 2001, up from 77 in 2000, and increased for both men and women as well as whites and blacks. For men, life expectancy increased from 74.3 years in 2000 to 74.4 years in 2001; for women, life expectancy increased from 79.7 years to 79.8 years. Record high life expectancies were observed for white men and for both black men and women.

--- Andrew Young School of Policy Studies/Georgia State University talk about Georgia State Flag---Adult residents of Georgia recently described changing the state flag as the least urgent of eight issues facing the Georgia legislature. In the winter 2003 Georgia State Poll, conducted by the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University from January 13 to February 2, only 2.3 percent of adults felt that changing the state flag was the most urgent issue on the legislative agenda and only an additional 3.5 percent thought it ranked second. In comparison, 38.6 percent gave top priority to creating new jobs. When the same adults were asked about the flag issue in isolation, however, opinion was as unbalanced as ever. The gap between African-Americans and whites remained wide. Only 26 percent of whites thought the previous Georgia State flag should have been changed compared to 74 percent of African-Americans. Thus the almost complete polarization by race on this issue remains. However, African-Americans expressed more intense feelings than whites. Although 52 percent of whites felt very strongly that the flag should not have been changed, 71 percent of African-Americans very strongly endorsed the opposite position.

---Summer Snow: Reflections from a Black Daughter of the South---
Author Trudier Harris was born the sixth of nine children in Greene County, Alabama in 1948. She lived on her family's prosperous eighty-acre cotton farm until her father's sudden death when she was six years old. Forced to sell the farm, Harris's mother moved the family to a three room, tar-papered house in Tuscaloosa where she raised her children with the support of a segregated and tight-knit black community. Today Harris is a widely respected critic of African-American literature and a professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Now, in a collection of essays entitled SUMMER SNOW: Reflections from a Black Daughter of the South, Harris celebrates the southern Black culture that shaped her and explores what it means to be a black "Southerner;" to abhor the South's history of violent racism while embracing the place where her family has lived, loved, and prospered. "The South is not paradise," she muses, "but it's not the devil's home base either." She brings alive the black culture that had such a profound impact on forming her: the local school where vigilant black teachers demanded high performance; the neighborhood busy body who kept her eye on everyone's children; the front porches where the gossip of the day provided constant entertainment; and the small Baptist church, where, Harris notes, "some people sang and everyone else hollered." Harris also analyses the overt and subtle forms of racism she's experienced, both as a child in the segregated South and as an adult working at a southern university. For more information, send an email to: pmaccoll@beacon.org.

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