The parents of slain teenager Trayvon Martin are set to attend a march in his honor Wednesday evening in Union Square where supporters will demonstrate for “an end to racial profiling.

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This past week the KONY 2012 campaign took over every crevice of the internet causing all types of uproars, initiating conversations, debates, and more than anything spreading awareness. Amidst everyone exchanging ideas, urging action, and utilizing the moment to voice their opinion, Washington Post wrote this article that looks at what KONY has offered Businesses on Viral Marketing

Individuals, companies and now social causes are harnessing the exceptional power of viral for significant marketing gain. They are doing so to push their message and grow awareness with speed and reach that simply cannot be matched through other channels. It is now well-understood that social media, including video sharing on YouTube and similar platforms, is not just simply on the upswing, but changing the way we experience our world.

By midday Friday, just three days after its release, more than 70 million people had viewed or seen parts of the video, with the issue trending on Twitter and much of the mainstream media providing coverage. It is safe to say their mission of exposure and awareness has been accomplished and it is thanks to viral video marketing. Viral simply achieves remarkable reach very quickly, presenting a dynamic model of marketing, changing traditional timelines and targeting strategy.

This new model of marketing is powerful, and this case has successfully opened the door to step two for the movement: Turning great exposure and awareness into action and measured results for those impacted by the continued violence perpetrated by Kony in central Africa.

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PUNK IN AFRICA is the story of the multi-racial punk movement within the recent political and social upheavals experienced in three Southern African countries: South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. In these societies, the punk subculture represented a genuinely radical political impulse, playing out against a backdrop of intense political struggle, economic hardship and even civil war.

PUNK IN AFRICA traces this until-now untold story from its roots in the underground rock music of early 1970s Johannesburg, the first multi-racial punk bands formed in the wake of the Soweto Uprising and the militant anti-apartheid hardcore and post-punk bands of the 1980s to the rise of celebratory African-inspired ska bands which sprang up from Cape Town to Maputo in the democratic era of the 1990s. Today, an emerging generation of bands continue to draw on this legacy to confront the political challenges of contemporary Zimbabwe and the uncertain identity issues of the Afrikaans minority in South Africa.

Punk In Africa Mixtape

“This isn’t just the story of a man, but the story of a country and a century.”- Variety
“A quiet beautiful song of protest a man who is still trying to change the world.”- Yahoo Movies

SCREENING FOLLOWED BY DISCUSSION PANEL
Admission Includes Raffle for 2 Tickets ($500 Value) to CNUS Gala with Guest of Honor Harry Belafonte

Proceeds go to help fund Center For NuLeadership’s programs and initiatives.

BUY TICKETS HERE

JOIN JAMAL JOSEPH, AFENI SHAKUR & IMPACT REPERTORY THEATRE
TONIGHT Feb 17th, 2012
6:30-8pm
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY – The Miller Theater

The evening will celebrate the release of the autobiography, Panther Baby, (Algonquin) with a conversation with the author, political activist Afeni Shakur, and Columbia faculty of political science and public affairs, Dorian Warren. IMPACT Repertory Theatre in Harlem will conclude the evening with a performance. Jamal Joseph, Film Faculty and the author of the illustrative biography Tupac Shakur Legacy (Atria, 2006) publishes a gripping memoir, Panther Baby. The book is an intimate account of Joseph’s coming of age within the Black Panther movement. His memoir recounts his compelling and illuminating personal odyssey.

RSVP HERE
BUY PANTHER BABY HERE

TUNE IN HERE TODAY AT 3PM
Talib Kweli headlines Rap Sessions on Friday, Feb 17th, 3:00 pm EST at Jackson State University. “Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama/Tea Party Era” will be a community dialogue on the ways race and gender discussions in national culture have evolved since the 2008 Election. Also featuring Mark Anthony Neal, Joan Morgan, John Jennings and Elizabeth Mendez Berry. Moderated by Bakari Kitwana.

For the last six years, Rap Sessions, the first national tour of its kind, brought townhall style meetings to scores of cities across the country. In 2011, Rap Sessions continues its commitment to engaging the most difficult dialogues facing the hip-hop generation. By touring the nation with leading hip-hop activists, scholars, and artists, Rap Sessions helps jumpstart crucial local debate. Past participating institutions include Princeton University, Brown University, University of California-Berkeley, Vanderbilt University, University of California-Los Angeles, the University of Chicago, Harvard Law School among others.

On Tour With Black Thought, DJ Rich Medina Promotes Getting In Shape For Philly’s Kids.

Rich Medina is a DJ.  He’s a producer, and a poet, and an educator.  He’s a father.  And now, he’s an activist too.

He’s also spinning in thirteen cities, and starring in an upcoming tour with Black Thought’s GrassROOTS Organization. Let’s Move It!!, a campaign designed to address the epidemic of childhood obesity, focuses specifically on an at-risk population: young underprivileged women.

Medina met with me at Sigma Sound Studio to talk about the cause, and the shows, and bit too about his own evolution as an artist and a parent.  As we discussed his role in the tour, his son Kamaal raced across the wide, empty space facing the Sigma Sound Stage, his sneakers clapping against the hardwood floor and boasting his enviable four-year-old energy, and at once capturing and illustrating all the motivations behind this campaign

Continue to full story on 215mag.com >>

Visit the Let’s move it event Page  >>

FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each has witnessed the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet.

Among several main characters, FRESH features urban farmer and activist, Will Allen, the recipient of MacArthur’s 2008 Genius Award; sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma; and supermarket owner, David Ball, challenging our Wal-Mart dominated economy.

Click Here To Watch The Full Movie For Free

More Info On The Fresh Documentary & The Movement

When the Senate comes back into session next week, they’ll be
voting on whether to grant themselves the power to turn off parts of the
Internet. Fun sites you YouTube. Informative sites like Wikipedia.
Political sites like MoveOn.org.

If enacted, new laws would force Internet Service Providers to block
websites that any corporation suspects violates a copyright or suspects
doesn’t monitor it’s users’ content close enough for copyrighted
materials. That means that any website, foreign or based in the U.S.,
could be wiped out on suspicion and made unavailable to everyone in the
world.

Sign The Petition To Say NO to Internet Censorship