Today, I was the ONLY African American male to graduate with my PhD from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. #blackphdgrad#blackmeninpublichealth
In 1980, singer and actress Della Reese collapsed on a TV soundstage after a brain aneurysm ruptured.
Before she hit the floor, she spoke six words:
“Into your hands, I commit my spirit.”
The same words Christ spoke before dying.
Doctors initially dismissed her condition. One hospital reportedly assumed drugs were involved and wasted precious time testing her instead of treating the bleed in her brain.
Della survived two brain surgeries in ten days.
Years earlier, her own mother had died from a cerebral hemorrhage before age fifty.
Della lived another 37 years.
Born in Detroit in 1931, she started singing in church as a child and later toured with gospel legend Mahalia Jackson at just thirteen years old.
She went on to become a chart-topping singer, the first Black woman to host a national talk show, and later the beloved angel Tess on Touched by an Angel.
But surviving that aneurysm changed her deeply.
She became an ordained minister and spent the rest of her life speaking about faith, compassion, and the value of human dignity.
People watched her comfort strangers on television for years without realizing she had once stood at the edge of death herself.
Della Reese died peacefully in 2017 at age 86.
The woman who once collapsed whispering a final prayer spent the rest of her life helping other people believe they could survive too.
We don’t talk enough about how a middle aged Black woman who started in R&B turned herself into the undisputed queen of Rock & Roll! This LEGEND
The Skyline was a DC staple that kept reinventing itself. A mid-century luxury oasis for Hill visitors turned pool party central for a new generation of young locals. Southwest’s skyline won’t be the same without it. June 1964:
Being a DC Native is such a strange paradox…. People almost resent you for having pride in being from DC
It’s like everyone can love where they from but us … it’s so weird