Life support was terminated and Coleman died at 12:05 p.m. MDT with family and friends at his side, Utah Valley Regional Medical Center spokeswoman Janet Frank said.

Coleman, with his sparkling eyes and perfect comic timing, became a star after “Diff’rent Strokes” debuted in 1978. He playedArnold Jackson, the younger one of a pair of African-American brothers adopted by a wealthy white man.

“It’s unfortunate. It’s a sad day,” said Todd Bridges, who played the older brother Willis. “It’s sad that I’m the last kid alive from the show.”

The series lives on thanks to DVDs and YouTube. But its equally enduring legacy became the troubles in adulthood of its former child stars.

Dana Plato, who played the boys’ white, teenage sister, committed suicide in 1999. Bridges was tried and acquitted of attempted murder.

Coleman’s popularity faded when the show ended after six seasons on NBC and two on ABC.

He remained estranged from his parents Sue and Willie Coleman, who said they learned about his hospitalization and death from media reports.

Sue Coleman said she wanted to reconcile and had been patiently waiting for her son to be ready.

“One of the things that I had prayed for was that nothing like this would happen before we could sit with Gary and (wife) Shannon and say, ‘we’re here and we love you,’” Sue Coleman said. “We just didn’t want to push him.”

She would not discuss the cause of the estrangement.

In 1989, when Gary Coleman was 21, she filed a court request trying to gain control of her son’s $6 million fortune, saying he was incapable of handling his affairs. He said the move “obviously stems from her frustration at not being able to control my life.”

Coleman chafed at his permanent association with “Diff’rent Strokes” but also tried to capitalize on it through minor reality shows and other TV appearances. His adult life also was marked with legal, financial and health troubles, suicide attempts and even a 2003 run for California governor.

Coleman suffered continuing ill health from the kidney disease that stunted his growth. He suffered thebrain hemorrhage Wednesday at his Santaquin home, 55 miles south of Salt Lake City.

A statement from his family said he was conscious and lucid until midday Thursday, when his condition worsened and he slipped into unconsciousness. Coleman was then placed on life support.

“Diff’rent Strokes” debuted on NBC in 1978 and drew most of its laughs from the tiny, 10-year-old Coleman.

Race and class relations became topics on the show as much as the typical trials of growing up.

Coleman was an immediate star, and his skeptical “Whatchu talkin’ ’bout?” — usually aimed at Willis — became a catchphrase.

In a 1979 Los Angeles Times profile, Sue Coleman said her son had always been a ham as a small child. He acted in some commercials before he was signed by T.A.T., the production company that created “Diff’rent Strokes.”

The attention his starring role brought him could be a burden as well as a pleasure.

Coleman said in 2001 that he would do a TV series again, but “only under the absolute condition that it be an ensemble cast and that everybody gets a chance to shine.”

“I certainly am not going to be the only person on the show working,” he said. “I’ve done that. I didn’t like it.”

Coleman’s kidney disease required dialysis and at least two transplants. As an adult, his height reached only 4 feet 8 inches.

He continued to get credits for TV guest shots and other small roles over the years. But in 2001 he said he preferred earning money from celebrity endorsements.

“Now that I’m 33, I can call the shots,” he said. “And if anybody has a problem with that, I guess they don’t have to work with me.”

Coleman was among 135 candidates who ran in California’s bizarre 2003 recall election to replace then-Gov. Gray Davis, whom voters ousted in favor of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Coleman finished in eighth place with 12,488 votes, or 0.2 percent, just behind Hustler magazine publisherLarry Flynt.

Running for office gave him a chance to show another side of himself, he said at the time.

“This is really interesting and cool, and I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it because I get to be intelligent, which is something I don’t get to do very often,” he said.

Legal disputes dogged him repeatedly. And in a 1993 television interview, he said he had twice tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills.

He moved to Utah in fall 2005, and according to a tally in early 2010, officers were called to assist or intervene with Coleman more than 20 times in the following years. The responses included a call where Coleman said he had taken dozens of Oxycontin pills and wanted to die.

Some of the disputes involved his wife, Shannon Price, whom he met on the set of the 2006 comedy “Church Ball” and married in 2007.

In September 2008, a dustup with a fan at a Utah bowling alley led Coleman to plead no contest to disorderly conduct. The fan also sued him, claiming the actor punched him and ran into him with his truck.

Coleman was born Feb. 8, 1968, in Zion, Ill., near Chicago. His mother told Ebony his kidney disease was diagnosed when he was 2. He underwent his first transplant at age 5.

He attracted attention when he took part in some local fashion shows and people suggested he should get work performing in commercials, which he then did, she said.

She stayed with her son in California while he was making “Diff’rent Strokes,” while her husband Willis, a pharmaceutical company worker, stayed behind in Illinois.

A grand jury indicted Scott Laskowski, Robert Kitzinger, Brandon Hoge and Oscar Falodun on misdemeanor charges of battery and criminal recklessness.

The charges stem from a Jan. 22 school bus incident and a Jan. 8 Carmel High locker room attack. Both incidents were originally characterized as hazing. Prosecutors said there were two victims on the bus and one in the locker room incident.

Details of the alleged crimes were not released.

“I would say it went beyond hazing,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Sonia Leekrcamp told reporters at a press conference.

Today’s news:

>> Falodun is charged with two counts of criminal recklessness and one count of battery.

>> Hoge is charged with two counts of battery and one count of recklessness.

>> Kitzinger is charged with two counts of criminal recklessness and two counts of battery.

>> Laskowski is charged with three counts of recklessness.

Lakskowski and Falodun were involved in the locker room incidents. Hoge and Kitzinger were linked to the event on the team bus trip.

Leerkamp said she was disturbed by attitudes she found among young people during the investigation. Some youngsters feared they would be the next victims; others thought the victims brought the attacks on themselves.

“Both of those attitudes are unacceptable,” Leerkamp said.

The four suspects were expelled, but will be allowed to graduate, Leerkamp said.

The deliberate pace of the investigation fueled rumors in Carmel about the case and criticism of the police and prosecutors. Leerkamp said the severity of the charges under investigation, as well as the youth of the students involved, required that police and prosecutors take their time.

Mickey tells Parade.com, “I’d just as soon do a big-budget movie as an independent one. Sometimes the independent movies can get a little too arty-farty. You watch the IFC Channel and you want to throw up. You don’t always have to take things so serious, you know.”

Photos: Ultimate Hollywood Comebacks

No wonder he didn’t feel guilty about accepting a few perks.

“I’d just come off working on ‘The Wrestler,’ which had no budget and I didn’t even have a chair to sit in. I remember the first day on ‘Iron Man 2′ I said, ‘Can I have a cappuccino,’ and they said, ‘Which kind would you like?’”

While Mickey enjoyed receiving the royal treatment, he doesn’t enjoy today’s young Hollywood set.

Photos: Top Action Film Stars of All Time

“You can be less than mediocre and be a movie star,” he says. “I have respect for very few actors and actresses. Some of them get a lot of acclaim but just because their movie made $200 million at the box office; they still suck. I got no respect for them and I used to let them know it. It was important for me to put that aside and go, ‘You know what? This is a business.’ So, now, I just keep my mouth shut and pet my chihuahuas.”

By Jeanne Wolf, Parade.com

On January 18, 1958, hockey player Willie O’Ree of the Boston Bruins takes to the ice for a game against the Montreal Canadiens, becoming the first black to play in the National Hockey League (NHL).

Born in 1935 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, O’Ree was the son of a civil engineer, in one of Fredericton’s only two black families. He began skating at the age of three, and joined a nearby hockey league when he was only five. During five years playing with his older brother on teams in Fredericton, O’Ree became known as one of the best players in New Brunswick. After one season with the Quebec Frontenacs of the Quebec Junior Hockey League, he joined the Kitchener Canucks of the Ontario Hockey Association Junior “A” Hockey League, setting a career-high mark of 30 goals during the 1955-56 season. That year, a puck struck O’Ree in the right eye during a game, robbing him of 95 percent of the vision in that eye.

O’Ree managed to conceal the injury and continue his hockey career, joining the Quebec Aces of the prestigious Quebec Hockey League in 1956. During his second season with Quebec, the Boston Bruins of the NHL called up the 22-year-old O’Ree to replace an injured player. On January 18, 1958, the Bruins were playing the two-time Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens at Quebec’s Montreal Forum. O’Ree took to the ice as a forward with the Bruins’ third line, as the Bruins pulled off an upset 3-0 victory. He didn’t score, or record a penalty, and the historic event took place amid little fanfare.

Click here to read more…

VIA:  ICDC.Com

THE FBI’S COVERT ACTION PROGRAM TO DESTROY THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY

INTRODUCTION

In August 1967, the FBI initiated a covert action program — COINTELPRO — to disrupt and “neutralize” organizations which the Bureau characterized as “Black Nationalist Hate Groups.” 1 The FBI memorandum expanding the program described its goals as:

1. Prevent a coalition of militant black nationalist groups….

2. Prevent the rise of a messiah who could unify and electrify the militant nationalist movement … Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and Elijah Muhammad all aspire to this position….

3. Prevent violence on the part of black nationalist groups….

4. Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability by discrediting them….

5. . . . prevent the long-range growth of militant black nationalist organizations, especially among youth. 2

The targets of this nationwide program to disrupt “militant black nationalist organizations” included groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), and the Nation of Islam (NOI). It was expressly directed against such leaders as Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokley Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Maxwell Stanford, and Elijah Muhammad.

The Black Panther Party (BPP) was not among the original “Black Nationalist” targets. In September 1968, however, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the Panthers as:

“the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.

“Schooled in the Marxist-Leninist ideology and the teaching of Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung, its members have perpetrated numerous assaults on police officers and have engaged in violent confrontations with police throughout the country. Leaders and representatives of the Black Panther Party travel extensively all over the, United States preaching their gospel of hate and violence not only to ghetto residents, but to students in colleges, universities and high schools is well.” 3

By July 1969, the Black Panthers had become the primary focus of the program, and was ultimately the target of 233 of the total authorized “Black Nationalist” COINTELPRO actions. 4

Although the claimed purpose of the Bureau’s COINTELPRO tactics was to prevent violence, some of the FBI’s tactics against the BPP were clearly intended to foster violence, and many others could reasonably have been expected to cause violence. For example, the FBI’s efforts to “intensify the degree of animosity” between the BPP and the Blackstone Rangers, a Chicago street gang, included sending an anonymous letter to the gang’s leader falsely informing him that the the Chicago Panthers had “a hit out” on him. 5 The stated intent of the letter was to induce the Ranger leader to “take reprisals against” the Panther leadership. 6

To read more click here…

Check out this video of the 1968 Senate hearing on the Black Panther Party:

VIA:  JackieRobinson.Com

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia in 1919 to a family of sharecroppers. His mother, Mallie Robinson, single-handedly raised Jackie and her four other children. They were the only black family on their block, and the prejudice they encountered only strengthened their bond. From this humble beginning would grow the first baseball player to break Major League Baseball’s color barrier that segregated the sport for more than 50 years.

Growing up in a large, single-parent family, Jackie excelled early at all sports and learned to make his own way in life. At UCLA, Jackie became the first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, basketball, football and track. In 1941, he was named to the All-American football team. Due to financial difficulties, he was forced to leave college, and eventually decided to enlist in the U.S. Army. After two years in the army, he had progressed to second lieutenant. Jackie’s army career was cut short when he was court-martialed in relation to his objections with incidents of racial discrimination. In the end, Jackie left the Army with an honorable discharge.

In 1945, Jackie played one season in the Negro Baseball League, traveling all over the Midwest with the Kansas City Monarchs. But greater challenges and achievements were in store for him. In 1947, Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey approached Jackie about joining the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Major Leagues had not had an African-American player since 1889, when baseball became segregated. When Jackie first donned a Brooklyn Dodger uniform, he pioneered the integration of professional athletics in America. By breaking the color barrier in baseball, the nation’s preeminent sport, he courageously challenged the deeply rooted custom of racial segregation in both the North and the South.

Click here to read more on Jackie Robinson…

Check out these highlights from Jackie Robinson’s Career:

VIA:  TheKennedyCenter.Org

(singer; born February 27, 1897, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Most Americans best remember Marian Anderson for her conscience-grabbing concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday, 1939 after she was denied the use of Constitution Hall, an arena that, from 1935 to 1952, opened its doors to white artists only. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, appalled at the Hall’s racist action, opened the Lincoln Memorial for Anderson’s concert. As Abraham Lincoln’s statue watched over her from behind, Anderson gave an extraordinary performance that will go down in history as one of the most dramatic civil-rights spectacles ever.

Growing up in Philadelphia’s “Negro quarter” in a single rented room with her parents and two sisters, Anderson overcame racial and economical boundaries to become a highly acclaimed contralto. At the age of six, Anderson sang in the choir of the Union Baptist Church, where she became known as “baby contralto.” Despite her sporadic musical education, the unique sound and extraordinary range of her voice continued to impress listeners by the time she turned sixteen. In fact, her neighbors were so impressed that they raised enough money for her to study under Guisepe Boghetti, a well-known voice teacher.

While studying under Boghetti, Anderson won the opportunity to sing at the Lewisohn Stadium in New York by entering a contest held by the New York Philharmonic Society. She also received a Julius Rosenwald scholarship allowing her to train abroad in England, France, Belgium, Holland, the former Soviet Union, and Scandinavia. In 1935 her performance at the Salzburg festival earned her worldwide recognition and a compliment from Italian conductor, Arturo Toscanini, who told her, “a voice like yours is heard only once in a hundred years.”

Click here to read more on Marian Anderson…

Footage from Marian Anderson’s performance on the Lincoln Memorial Steps:

VIA:  RedHotJazz.Com

Mamie Smith was the first to record blues songs in 1920 with her versions of Perry Bradford’s “Crazy Blues”, and “It’ s Right Here for You” on Okeh Records. The record was a wild success, selling over a million copies in less than a year, and finally ending up selling over two million copies.

After this it dawned on record companies that there was a lot of money to be made selling what was then called “race records” to various minority groups in big cities. The success of “Crazy Blues” prompted other record companies to also try to find other female blues singers that could match the sales of “Crazy Blues”.

Crazy Blues was a very important record, because it opened the doors of the recording industry to African-Americans, whether they were Blues, Jazz or popular singers or musicians.

Smith herself really wasn’t that much of a Blues singer. She was more of a vaudeville performer, although she included Blues and Jazz numbers as part of her act. She got her start as a dancer at age ten in the vaudeville act the Four Dancing Mitchells and later toured with them as part of the Salem Tutt Whitney and Homer Tutt’s show, “The Smart Set”.

Mamie moved to New York in 1913 with “The Smart Set” and decided that she wanted to stay and quit the show. She strated performing as a singer in Harlem at venues such as Baron Wilkin’s Little Savoy Club, Leroy’s, Edmunds, Percy Brown’s and Banks’ Place. Her first recordings were made in early 1920. They were a couple of pop songs “That Thing Called Love” and “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down”.

Click here to read more on Mamie Smith…

VIA:  NAACP.Org

The NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing horrific practice of lynching and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, the capital of Illinois and resting place of President Abraham Lincoln. Appalled at the violence that was committed against blacks, a group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of abolitionists, William English Walling and Dr. Henry Moscowitz issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice. Some 60 people, seven of whom were African American (including W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell), signed the call, which was released on the centennial of Lincoln’s birth.

Click here to read more on the founding of the NAACP…

VIA:  EncyclopediaOfChicago.Org

Oscar DePriest was born in Florence, Alabama, to ex-slaves. He arrived in Chicago in 1889. DePriest worked as a painter and decorator, reportedly on occasion passing for white to get a job. He developed his own contracting business and began participating in community affairs. He began his political career as a precinct secretary, but by 1904 was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

In 1928 he became the first African American congressman elected to the House of Representatives from a northern state and a national symbol for racial pride. He fought for civil rights but took conservative positions on economic issues and lost his seat to a New Deal Democrat in 1934. He served one more term in the city council at the end of the following decade. De Priest devoted the rest of his years to his real-estate business.