title: Angela Davis

text: A defense motion for a change of venue was granted, and the trial was moved to Santa Clara County. On June 4, 1972, after 13 hours of deliberations, the all-white jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The fact that she owned the guns used in the crime was judged insufficient to establish her role in the plot. She was represented by Leo Branton Jr., who hired psychologists to help the defense determine who in the jury pool might favor their arguments, a technique that has since become more common. He also hired experts to discredit the reliability of eyewitness accounts.


title: Angela Davis

text: After her acquittal, Davis went on an international speaking tour in 1972 and the tour included Cuba, where she had previously been received by Fidel Castro in 1969 as a member of a Communist Party delegation. Robert F. Williams, Huey Newton, Stokely Carmichael had also visited Cuba, and Assata Shakur later moved there after escaping from a US prison. Her reception by Afro-Cubans at a mass rally was so enthusiastic that she was reportedly barely able to speak. Davis perceived Cuba as a racism-free country, which led her to believe that "only under socialism could the fight against racism be successfully executed." When she returned to the United States, her socialist leanings increasingly influenced her understanding of race struggles. In 1974, she attended the Second Congress of the Federation of Cuban Women.


title: Angela Davis

text: In 1971, the CIA estimated that five percent of Soviet propaganda efforts were directed towards the Angela Davis campaign. In August 1972, Davis visited the USSR at the invitation of the Central Committee, and received an honorary doctorate from Moscow State University.


title: Angela Davis

text: On May 1, 1979, she was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union. She visited Moscow later that month to accept the prize, where she praised "the glorious name" of Lenin and the "great October Revolution".


title: Angela Davis

text: The East German government organized an extensive campaign on behalf of Davis. In September 1972, Davis visited East Germany, where she met the state's leader Erich Honecker, received an honorary degree from the University of Leipzig and the Star of People's Friendship from Walter Ulbricht. On September 11 in East Berlin she delivered a speech, "Not Only My Victory", praising the GDR and USSR and denouncing American racism, and visited the Berlin Wall, where she laid flowers at the memorial for Reinhold Huhn (an East German guard who had been killed by a man who was trying to escape with his family across the border in 1962). Davis said "We mourn the deaths of the border guards who sacrificed their lives for the protection of their socialist homeland" and "When we return to the USA, we shall undertake to tell our people the truth about the true function of this border." In 1973, she returned to East Berlin leading the US delegation to the 10th World Festival of Youth and Students.


title: Angela Davis

text: In the mid-1970s, Jim Jones, who developed the cult Peoples Temple, initiated friendships with progressive leaders in the San Francisco area including Dennis Banks of the American Indian Movement and Davis. On September 10, 1977, 14 months before the Temple's mass murder-suicide, Davis spoke via amateur radio telephone "patch" to members of his Peoples Temple living in Jonestown in Guyana. In her statement during the "Six Day Siege", she expressed support for the People's Temple anti-racism efforts and told members there was a conspiracy against them. She said, "When you are attacked, it is because of your progressive stand, and we feel that it is directly an attack against us as well."


title: Angela Davis

text: In 1975, Russian dissident and Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn argued in a speech before an AFL–CIO meeting in New York City that Davis was derelict in having failed to support prisoners in various socialist countries around the world, given her strong opposition to the US prison system. He said a group of Czechoslovak prisoners had appealed to Davis for support, which Solzhenitsyn said she had declined. In 1972, Jiří Pelikán had written an open letter asking her to support Czechoslovak prisoners, which Davis had refused, believing that the Czechoslovak prisoners were undermining the Husák government and that Pelikán, in exile in Italy, was attacking his own country. According to Solzhenitsyn, in response to concerns about Czechoslovak prisoners being "persecuted by the state", Davis had responded that "They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison." Alan Dershowitz, who also asked Davis to support a number of imprisoned refuseniks in the USSR, said that she declined, saying "They are all Zionist fascists and opponents of socialism."


title: Angela Davis

text: Davis was a lecturer at the Claremont Black Studies Center at the Claremont Colleges in 1975. Attendance at the course she taught was limited to 26 students out of the more than 5,000 on campus, and she was forced to teach in secret because alumni benefactors didn't want her to indoctrinate the general student population with communist thought. College trustees made arrangements to minimize her appearance on campus, limiting her seminars to Friday evenings and Saturdays, "when campus activity is low". Her classes moved from one classroom to another and the students were sworn to secrecy. Much of this secrecy continued throughout Davis's brief time teaching at the colleges. In 2020 it was announced that Davis would be the Ena H. Thompson Distinguished Lecturer for Pomona College's history department, welcoming her back after 45 years.


title: Angela Davis

text: Davis taught a women's studies course at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1978, and was a professor of ethnic studies at the San Francisco State University from at least 1980 to 1984. She was a professor in the History of Consciousness and the Feminist Studies departments at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Rutgers University from 1991 to 2008. Since then, she has been a distinguished professor emerita.


title: Angela Davis

text: Davis was a distinguished visiting professor at Syracuse University in spring 1992 and October 2010, and was the Randolph Visiting Distinguished Professor of philosophy at Vassar College in 1995.


title: Angela Davis

text: In 2014, Davis returned to UCLA as a regents' lecturer. She delivered a public lecture on May 8 in Royce Hall, where she had given her first lecture 45 years earlier.


title: Angela Davis

text: In 2016, Davis was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in Healing and Social Justice from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco during its 48th annual commencement ceremony.


title: Angela Davis

text: Davis accepted the Communist Party USA's nomination for vice president, as Gus Hall's running mate, in 1980 and in 1984. They received less than 0.02% of the vote in 1980. She left the party in 1991, founding the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. Her group broke from the Communist Party USA because of the latter's support of the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt after the fall of the Soviet Union and tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Davis said that she and others who had "circulated a petition about the need for democratization of the structures of governance of the party" were not allowed to run for national office and thus "in a sense ... invited to leave". In 2014, she said she continues to have a relationship with the CPUSA but has not rejoined. In the 2020 presidential election, Davis supported the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden.


title: Angela Davis

text: Davis is a major figure in the prison abolition movement. She has called the United States prison system the "prison–industrial complex" and was one of the founders of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization dedicated to building a movement to abolish the prison system. In recent works, she has argued that the US prison system resembles a new form of slavery, pointing to the disproportionate share of the African-American population who were incarcerated. Davis advocates focusing social efforts on education and building "engaged communities" to solve various social problems now handled through state punishment.


title: Angela Davis

text: As early as 1969, Davis began public speaking engagements. She expressed her opposition to the Vietnam War, racism, sexism, and the prison–industrial complex, and her support of gay rights and other social justice movements. In 1969, she blamed imperialism for the troubles oppressed populations suffer:


title: Angela Davis

text: We are facing a common enemy and that enemy is Yankee Imperialism, which is killing us both here and abroad. Now I think anyone who would try to separate those struggles, anyone who would say that in order to consolidate an anti-war movement, we have to leave all of these other outlying issues out of the picture, is playing right into the hands of the enemy.


title: Angela Davis

text: In 2001, she publicly spoke against the war on terror following the 9/11 attacks, continued to criticize the prison–industrial complex, and discussed the broken immigration system. She said that to solve social justice issues, people must "hone their critical skills, develop them and implement them." Later, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, she declared that the "horrendous situation in New Orleans" was due to the country's structural racism, capitalism, and imperialism.


title: Angela Davis

text: Davis opposed the 1995 Million Man March, arguing that the exclusion of women from this event promoted male chauvinism. She said that Louis Farrakhan and other organizers appeared to prefer that women take subordinate roles in society. Together with Kimberlé Crenshaw and others, she formed the African American Agenda 2000, an alliance of black feminists.


title: Angela Davis

text: Davis has continued to oppose the death penalty. In 2003, she lectured at Agnes Scott College, a liberal arts women's college in Atlanta, Georgia, on prison reform, minority issues, and the ills of the criminal justice system.


title: Angela Davis

text: On October 31, 2011, Davis spoke at the Philadelphia and Washington Square Occupy Wall Street assemblies. Due to restrictions on electronic amplification, her words were human microphoned. In 2012, Davis was awarded the 2011 Blue Planet Award, an award given for contributions to humanity and the planet.


title: Angela Davis

text: At the 27th Empowering Women of Color Conference in 2012, Davis said she was a vegan. She has called for the release of Rasmea Odeh, associate director at the Arab American Action Network, who was convicted of immigration fraud in relation to her hiding of a previous murder conviction.


title: Angela Davis

text: Davis was an honorary co-chair of the January 21, 2017, Women's March on Washington, which occurred the day after President Donald Trump's inauguration. The organizers' decision to make her a featured speaker was criticized from the right by Humberto Fontova and the "National Review". Libertarian journalist Cathy Young wrote that Davis's "long record of support for political violence in the United States and the worst of human rights abusers abroad" undermined the march.


title: Angela Davis

text: On October 16, 2018, Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, presented Davis with an honorary degree during the inaugural Viola Desmond Legacy Lecture, as part of the institution's bicentennial celebration year.


title: Angela Davis

text: On January 7, 2019, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) rescinded Davis's Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award, saying she "does not meet all of the criteria". Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin and others cited criticism of Davis's vocal support for Palestinian rights and the movement to boycott Israel. Davis said her loss of the award was "not primarily an attack against me but rather against the very spirit of the indivisibility of justice." On January 25, the BCRI reversed its decision and issued a public apology, stating that there should have been more public consultation.


title: Angela Davis

text: In November 2019, along with other public figures, Davis signed a letter supporting Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn describing him as "a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent far-right nationalism, xenophobia and racism in much of the democratic world", and endorsed him in the 2019 UK general election.


title: Angela Davis

text: On January 20, 2020, Davis gave the Memorial Keynote Address at the University of Michigan's MLK Symposium.


title: Angela Davis

text: From 1980 to 1983, Davis was married to Hilton Braithwaite. In 1997, she came out as a lesbian in an interview with "Out" magazine. By 2020, Davis was living openly with her partner, the academic Gina Dent, a fellow humanities scholar and intersectional feminist researcher at UC Santa Cruz. Together, they have advocated for the abolition of police and prisons, and for black liberation and Palestinian solidarity.


title: Angela Davis

text: On January 28, 1972, Garrett Brock Trapnell hijacked TWA Flight 2. One of his demands was Davis's release.


title: Angela Davis

text: In Renato Guttuso's painting "The Funerals of Togliatti" (1972), Davis is depicted, among other figures of communism, in the left framework, near the author's self-portrait, Elio Vittorini, and Jean-Paul Sartre.


title: Angela Davis

text: In 1971, black playwright Elvie Moore wrote the play "Angela is Happening", depicting Davis on trial with figures such as Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, and H. Rap Brown as eyewitnesses proclaiming her innocence. The play was performed at the Inner City Cultural Center and at UCLA, with Pat Ballard as Davis.


title: Angela Davis

text: The documentary "Angela Davis: Portrait of a Revolutionary" (1972) was directed by UCLA Film School student Yolande du Luart. It follows Davis from 1969 to 1970, documenting her dismissal from UCLA. The film wrapped shooting before the Marin County incident.


title: Angela Davis

text: In the movie "Network" (1976), Marlene Warfield's character Laureen Hobbs appears to be modeled on Davis.


title: Angela Davis

text: A mural featuring Davis was painted by Italian street artist Jorit Agoch in the Scampia neighborhood of Naples in 2019.


title: Angela Davis

text: In 2019, Julie Dash, who is credited as the first black female director to have a theatrical release of a film ("Daughters of the Dust") in the US, announced that she would be directing a film based on Davis's life.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: Amphibia is an American animated television series created by Matt Braly that aired on Disney Channel from June 17, 2019 to May 14, 2022. The series features the voice talents of Brenda Song, Justin Felbinger, Bill Farmer, Amanda Leighton, Anna Akana, Troy Baker, Haley Tju, and Keith David.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: "Amphibia" has been praised by critics for its characters, animation, voice-acting, and balance of emotional weight and humor.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: The series chronicles the adventures of an independent, fearless and brave Thai-American girl named Anne Boonchuy (Brenda Song). On her 13th birthday, Anne is peer-pressured into stealing a mysterious music box (known as the Calamity Box) that magically transports her and her two best friends Sasha Waybright (Anna Akana) and Marcy Wu (Haley Tju) to the world of Amphibia, a wild marshland tropical island full of anthropomorphic amphibians and threatening creatures, where they are separated from each other. Anne is taken in by the Plantars, a family of frogs that consists of excitable young Sprig (Justin Felbinger); unpredictable and adventurous baby pollywog Polly (Amanda Leighton); and overprotective and traditional grandfather Hop Pop (Bill Farmer) who live on a farm in the town of Wartwood. As she bonds with her newfound family, Anne gradually learns what it means to be a hero and develop a true friendship, all the while trying to find her friends and return home. Sasha allies with Captain Grime (Troy Baker), leader of the warfaring toads of Toad Tower, who seek to control their home of Frog Valley. Marcy ends up in Newtopia, the capital of Amphibia, the seat of the government and home to the ruler of Amphibia.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: In the second season, Anne and the Plantars go on a road trip to Newtopia, to learn the secrets of the music box, also referred to as the Calamity Box and find a way to get Anne home. There, Anne reunites with Marcy, who offers to help restore the box's power through a series of ancient trials, unaware that Amphibia's ruler, King Andrias (Keith David), secretly has plans for them. Meanwhile, Sasha and Grime plot to invade Newtopia and overthrow the monarch, allowing the toads to rule over all of Amphibia.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: In the third and final season, Anne and the Plantars are transported to Anne's home in the suburbs of East Los Angeles. Anne must now help the frog family adjust to the human world and keep their identities a secret while searching for a way to return to Amphibia and stop Andrias's invasion of the Multiverse. When they return, they discover Sasha and Grime have started a resistance force in Wartwood and aid them in their rebellion against Andrias, who is using Marcy as a vessel for his master, an entity known as the Core.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: On February 19, 2018, "Amphibia" was greenlit by Disney Channel alongside "The Owl House" with an order of 20 episodes. The series was created and executive-produced by Matt Braly, previously a storyboard artist on "Gravity Falls" and later a director on both "Gravity Falls" and "Big City Greens". According to his Twitter account, he had been working on the series for almost two years before being greenlit, though he began to conceive the project while work on "Gravity Falls" began to conclude. Matt had been developing the series with prototype designs of the protagonists in early 2015.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: On May 15, 2019, Disney Channel renewed "Amphibia" for a second season of 20 episodes ahead of its premiere.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: On June 23, 2020, the show was renewed for a third season of 18 episodes ahead of its second-season premiere. In a Reddit AMA, Braly referred to "Amphibia" as a "three act story" with season two as the "2nd act". He further clarified in the AMA that he had "structured the story for 3 [seasons] currently", implying that Season 3 will serve as the final season of the show. Later on March 16, 2022, storyboard artist Alex Swanson confirmed on Twitter that season 3 is set to be the show's last.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: On February 10, 2022, episodes 10 and 11 of the third season were leaked, and then announced by Matt Braly on Twitter.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: The show was based on Braly's childhood trips to Bangkok, Thailand. The series' tone was inspired by films by Aardman Animations and Studio Ghibli, while its storytelling format was inspired by "Gravity Falls" and "Steven Universe". Braly was also inspired by video games such as "The Legend of Zelda" and "Chrono Trigger" when creating the series. Other inspirations for the series include shows Braly watched in his childhood, such as "" and Disney's "Gargoyles"; he precisely cited "Gargoyles" as an inspiration for the series' story arc. According to Braly, one of the reasons he created the series was because he wanted a show whose lead character had a similar arc to "Gravity Falls" character Pacifica Northwest, as he felt that "to have this character change so drastically was so rewarding, and that's why [he] knew [he] wanted [his] own show to have some of that element as well". The character of Sprig went through several changes through development, with the developers constantly giving him different ages, before choosing to make the character a younger brother-like figure for Anne. Similarly, Anne, Sasha, and Marcy were originally fifteen-years-old because they wanted the series to have a high school-like feel, but were aged down in order to appeal to the series' target demographic; due to this, the trio often realizes actions more akin to high school students, such as driving and having part-time jobs.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: The series marks the first animated show to have a Thai-American lead. Braly, who is also Thai-American, chose to make the series lead character, Anne Boonchuy, Thai-American because he wanted more Thai characters in television series. According to Braly, Anne was loosely inspired by his grandmother. He described Anne being Thai-American as "a number one priority", as he wanted Thai-American kids to see themselves reflected on television. Braly also made the character dark-skinned due to his mother's family being tanned. Season 3, which is set on Earth, further delves into Anne's Thai heritage, including an episode set at a Wat Thai temple in Los Angeles. Braly described the temple's representation in the episode as "pretty accurate", as it is important for him to represent Thai culture accurately.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: Braly chose to make the series to be centered around a frog-populated world because he felt that, due to how frogs change from tadpoles to frogs, they were perfect for the series' theme of change. Braly also implemented themes involving social classes and environmental awareness into the series, with Anne interacting with frogs of several different social backgrounds and learning to "appreciate the natural world around her".


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: Three of the series' four writers are women, which Braly felt necessary due to the show centering on a teenage girl. Storyboard artists are allowed to pitch their own ideas for an episode, a practice Braly took from his time at "Gravity Falls". Braly wanted the series to feature intense sequences, yet still being appropriate for all ages, constantly checking-in whether a scene is too terrifying for children and whether a scene is what it's intended to be.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: On March 27, 2019, it was revealed that Brenda Song would star in the series as the voice of Anne Boonchuy. In April 2019, it was reported that Justin Felbinger would voice Sprig Plantar in the series. On May 15, 2019, it was reported that Amanda Leighton and Bill Farmer joined the cast as the voices of Polly and Hopediah "Hop Pop" Plantar, respectively. Over 50 actresses auditioned for the role of Anne, including Anna Akana and Haley Tju. While the role ultimately went to Song, Braly cast Akana and Tju as Anne's human friends, Sasha and Marcy respectively, instead. According to Braly, certain roles were written with a specific actor in mind, such as King Andrias, who is voiced by Keith David.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: Muppet performer Matt Vogel (as Kermit the Frog) made an appearance in the season 2 episode "Swamp and Sensibility". However, Kermit himself (whom Vogel performed since 2017) was credited for the role in promotional material; Kermit previously appeared in two promotional web videos for the series, as well as in a D23 Expo panel promoting both the series and "Big City Greens".


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: According to Braly, Song ad libbed several jokes during recording. Similarly, Alex Hirsch improvised several lines for his appearance in the season two episode "Wax Museum". During the COVID-19 pandemic, cast members had to remotely record their lines from their homes, after which they sent their lines to the series' editors.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: Rough Draft Korea, Sunmin Image Pictures, and Saerom each provide animation. Braly chose those animation studios due to them still working with hand-drawn animation, a style Braly favored for the series. The animators spend three to four months working on pre-production, with an episode taking about nine months to complete. Forty staff members at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California also worked on the series.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: James Turner, a British illustrator most well known for his work on the "Pokémon" series of games (having created several Pokémon designs and worked as the art director for "Pokémon Sword and Shield"), provided artwork during the initial stages of the project. The series' visuals were inspired by Jim Henson's 1982 film "The Dark Crystal" and the 1977 animated adaptation of "The Hobbit". The series' environments were also inspired by natural settings. According to Braly, storyboarding for an episode begins after its script is finished. Braly said that the different character designs for Anne and Marcy, in spite of both characters having Asian backgrounds, were because the producers "never wanted to be trapped into a character design just because of what people might think an Asian person 'should' look like in a cartoon", as the characters "are representations of folks, not caricatures".


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: By March 24, 2020, Disney Television Animation was closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with work on the series continuing remotely. By that point, the producers had started storyboarding the season 2 finale, while other episodes were only partially completed.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: T. J. Hill composed the score for the series. During production on the series, Leslie Wolfhard, wife of storyboard artist Steve Wolfhard, pitched to the producers a song, which they ended up using in the season 1 episode "Taking Charge". On July 23, 2020, Hill created a SoundCloud playlist featuring 10 tracks from the first season's score.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: A song titled "Welcome to Amphibia", performed by Celica Gray Westbook, was originally intended to serve as the series' theme song. However, the song was later discarded in favor of an instrumental theme. According to Braly, "Welcome to Amphibia" was written due to orders from Disney, but he eventually convinced the studio to use an instrumental theme instead, as he felt it didn't fit with the show or its main character.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: Hyper Potions composed a new version of the instrumental opening for the show's first "Theme Song Takeover" video. A third version of the opening, with lyrics by writer Dan Siegel, was written for the second "Theme Song Takeover" video.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: The first season finale, "Reunion", features the song "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers. Braly said that he constantly listened to the song while developing the relationship between Anne, Marcy, and Sasha, so, when work began on "Reunion", Braly chose to use the song for the scene in which Sasha tries to sacrifice herself.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: On April 23, 2021, an extended play album, titled "Amphibia: Battle of the Bands", was released. The album features the songs "Heartstomper", written by T.J. Hill and performed by Akana, and "No Big Deal", written by Adam Gubman and performed by Song, Akana, and Tju, as well as instrumental covers of both songs by Hill, Todd McClintock and Adam Gubman, respectively.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: Season three featured a Christmas special with a song titled "Our Special Time of Year", which was written by Rebecca Sugar of "Steven Universe" fame; Braly previously served as a writer and storyboard artist in the "Steven Universe" episode "Lars and the Cool Kids".


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: The third season episode, "All In", features the song "As If It's Your Last" by South Korean girl group, Blackpink.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: On July 19, 2018, during the "Star vs. the Forces of Evil" and "Big City Greens" panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Disney released an early version of the intro for the series. They also gave away a limited-edition plush toy of Sprig Plantar.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: On April 26, 2019, Disney FanFest released a music video for a vocal version of the opening theme titled ″Welcome to Amphibia″ performed by Celica Gray Westbrook and a two-minute clip during a livestream. It was originally planned to be used as the show's theme song.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: On May 14, 2019, Disney Channel released the trailer, with Disney Channel releasing the final version of the intro 3 days later.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: "Amphibia" also included shorts, beginning with "Teen Girl in a Frog World". The shorts premiered on September 3, 2019.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: "Common Sense Media"s Emily Ashby rated the show 4 out of 5 stars and praised the series for its characters and themes, writing that "Sprig and Anne's adventures are a joy to behold, mostly thanks to their delightfully compatible personalities and the sweet friendship that develops between them" and that "the story illustrates issues like bullying and emotional manipulation in ways that will resonate with kids and tweens and can prompt discussions about the topics". Bekah Burbank of "LaughingPlace.com" praised the series' ability to balance its humor and its terror elements, as well as its pacing, characters, and animation, stating that ""Amphibia" is clever and goofy with plenty of jokes to keep kids laughing and just enough scary content to hold their attention. The show moves quickly and is broken into two 11-minute episodes that, at least for the premiere, form one complete chapter. The animation is bouncy and colorful and the characters are a delight". "Collider"s Dave Trumbore gave the series' first two episodes a 4 stars rating, feeling that they "[served] as a great introduction to the series".


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: The show won an Annie Award for "Best Character Design" in 2021. In the same year, it was nominated for an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Children's Animated Program", but it lost to "Hilda". The season 2 finale, "True Colors", was nominated for the 2022 Annie Awards for "Best TV/Media - Children", "Best Direction - TV/Media", and "Best Editorial - TV/Media".


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: A book based on the series, titled "Marcy's Journal: A Guide to Amphibia" is set to be released on December 6, 2022, by Disney Books and TokyoPop. The book, which will be a real-life version of Marcy's journal seen through the series, will be written by creator Matt Braly and show writer Adam Colás, with illustrations by "Amphibia" character designer Catharina Sukiman. According to Braly, the book will feature stories not seen within the series, as well as further explore the show's lore and provide further character insight.


title: Amphibia (TV series)

text: Characters from "Amphibia" appear in "Chibiverse", an animated series based on the "Chibi Tiny Tales" shorts.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued for the remainder of his life. He found great popular success and recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. His trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed. Cole also acted in films and on television and performed on Broadway. He was the first African-American man to host an American television series. He is the father of singer Natalie Cole (1950–2015).


title: Nat King Cole

text: Nathaniel Adams Coles was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 17, 1919. He had three brothers: Eddie (1910–1970), Ike (1927–2001), and Freddy (1931–2020), and a half-sister, Joyce Coles. Each of the Coles brothers pursued careers in music. When Nat King Cole was four years old, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where his father, Edward Coles, became a Baptist minister.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole learned to play the organ from his mother, Perlina Coles, the church organist. His first performance was "Yes! We Have No Bananas" at the age of four. He began formal piano lessons at 12, learning jazz, gospel, and classical music "from Johann Sebastian Bach to Sergei Rachmaninoff". As a youth, he joined the news delivery boys' "Bud Billiken Club" band for "The Chicago Defender".


title: Nat King Cole

text: The Cole family moved to the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, where he attended Wendell Phillips Academy High School, the school Sam Cooke attended a few years later. He participated in Walter Dyett's music program at DuSable High School. He would sneak out of the house to visit clubs, sitting outside to hear Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, and Jimmie Noone.


title: Nat King Cole

text: When he was 15, Cole dropped out of high school to pursue a music career. After his brother Eddie, a bassist, came home from touring with Noble Sissle, they formed a sextet and recorded two singles for Decca in 1936 as Eddie Cole's Swingsters. They performed in a revival of the musical "Shuffle Along". Nat Cole went on tour with the musical. In 1937, he married Nadine Robinson, who was a member of the cast. After the show ended in Los Angeles, Cole and Nadine settled there while he looked for work. He led a big band, then found work playing piano in nightclubs. When a club owner asked him to form a band, he hired bassist Wesley Prince and guitarist Oscar Moore. They called themselves the King Cole Swingsters after the nursery rhyme in which "Old King Cole was a merry old soul". They changed their name to the King Cole Trio before making radio transcriptions and recording for small labels.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole recorded "Sweet Lorraine" in 1940, and it became his first hit. According to legend, his career as a vocalist started when a drunken bar patron demanded that he sing the song. Cole said that this fabricated story sounded good, so he did not argue with it. In fact, there was a customer one night who demanded that he sing, but because it was a song Cole did not know, he sang "Sweet Lorraine" instead. As people heard Cole's vocal talent, they requested more vocal songs, and he obliged.


title: Nat King Cole

text: In 1941, the trio recorded "That Ain't Right" for Decca, followed the next year by "All for You" for Excelsior. They also recorded "I'm Lost", a song written by Otis René, the owner of Excelsior.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole appeared in the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts in 1944. He was credited on Mercury as "Shorty Nadine", a derivative of his wife's name, because he had an exclusive contract with Capitol since signing with the label the year before. He recorded with Illinois Jacquet and Lester Young.


title: Nat King Cole

text: In 1946, the trio broadcast "King Cole Trio Time", a 15-minute radio program. This was the first radio program to be sponsored by a black musician. Between 1946 and 1948, the trio recorded radio transcriptions for Capitol Records Transcription Service. They also performed on the radio programs "Swing Soiree", "Old Gold", "The Chesterfield Supper Club", "Kraft Music Hall", and "The Orson Welles Almanac".


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole began recording and performing pop-oriented material in which he was often accompanied by a string orchestra. His stature as a popular star was cemented by hits such as "All for You" (1943), "The Christmas Song" (1947), "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66", "(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons" (1946), "There! I've Said It Again" (1947), "Nature Boy" (1948), "Frosty The Snowman", "Mona Lisa" (No. 1 song of 1950), "Orange Colored Sky" (1950), "Too Young" (the No. 1 song of 1951).


title: Nat King Cole

text: On June 7, 1953, Cole performed for the famed ninth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Chicago which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. Also featured that day were Roy Brown and his Orchestra, Shorty Rogers, Earl Bostic, Don Tosti and His Mexican Jazzmen, and Louis Armstrong and his All Stars with Velma Middleton.


title: Nat King Cole

text: On November 5, 1956, "The Nat 'King' Cole Show" debuted on NBC. The variety program was one of the first hosted by an African American. The program started at a length of fifteen-minutes but was increased to a half-hour in July 1957. Rheingold Beer was a regional sponsor, but a national sponsor was never found. The show was in trouble financially despite efforts by NBC, Harry Belafonte, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Frankie Laine, Peggy Lee, and Mel Tormé. Cole decided to end the program. The last episode aired on December 17, 1957. Commenting on the lack of sponsorship, Cole said shortly after its demise: "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."


title: Nat King Cole

text: Throughout the 1950s, Cole continued to record hits that sold millions throughout the world, such as "Smile", "Pretend", "A Blossom Fell", and "If I May". His pop hits were collaborations with Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins, and Ralph Carmichael. Riddle arranged several of Cole's 1950s albums, including "Nat King Cole Sings for Two in Love" (1953), his first 10-inch LP. In 1955, "Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup" reached number 7 on the "Billboard" chart. "Love Is the Thing" went to number one in April 1957 and remained his only number one album.


title: Nat King Cole

text: In 1958, Cole went to Havana, Cuba, to record "Cole Español", an album sung entirely in Spanish. It was so popular in Latin America and the U.S. that it was followed by two more Spanish-language albums: "A Mis Amigos" (1959) and "More Cole Español" (1962).


title: Nat King Cole

text: After the change in musical tastes, Cole's ballads appealed little to young listeners, despite a successful attempt at rock and roll with "Send for Me", which peaked at number 6 on the pop chart. Like Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Tony Bennett, he found that the pop chart had been taken over by youth-oriented acts.


title: Nat King Cole

text: In 1960, Cole's longtime collaborator Nelson Riddle left Capitol to join Reprise Records, which was established by Frank Sinatra. Riddle and Cole recorded one final hit album, "Wild Is Love", with lyrics by Ray Rasch and Dotty Wayne. Cole later retooled the concept album into an Off-Broadway show, "I'm with You".


title: Nat King Cole

text: Nevertheless, Cole recorded several hit singles during the 1960s, including "Let There Be Love" with George Shearing in 1961, the country-flavored hit "Ramblin' Rose" in August 1962 (reaching No. 2 on the Pop chart), "Dear Lonely Hearts" (No. 13), "That Sunday, That Summer" (No. 12) and "Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer" (his final top-ten hit, reaching number 6 on the Pop chart). He performed in many short films, sitcoms, and television shows and played W. C. Handy in the film "St. Louis Blues" (1958). He also appeared in "The Nat King Cole Story", "China Gate", and "The Blue Gardenia" (1953).


title: Nat King Cole

text: In January 1964, Cole made one of his final television appearances, on "The Jack Benny Program". He was introduced as "the best friend a song ever had" and sang "When I Fall in Love". "Cat Ballou" (1965), his final film, was released several months after his death.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Earlier on, Cole's shift to traditional pop led some jazz critics and fans to accuse him of selling out, but he never abandoned his jazz roots; as late as 1956 he recorded an all-jazz album, "After Midnight", and many of his albums after this are fundamentally jazz-based, being scored for big band without strings, although the arrangements focus primarily on the vocal rather than instrumental leads.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole had one of his last major hits in 1963, two years before his death, with "Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer", which reached number 6 on the Pop chart. "Unforgettable" was made famous again in 1991 by Cole's daughter Natalie when modern recording technology was used to reunite father and daughter in a duet. The duet version rose to the top of the pop charts, almost forty years after its original popularity.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole's final studio album was titled "L-O-V-E". The album peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Albums chart in the spring of 1965.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Around the time Cole launched his singing career, he entered into Freemasonry. He was raised in January 1944 in the Thomas Waller Lodge No. 49 in California. The lodge was named after fellow Prince Hall mason and jazz musician Fats Waller. He joined the Scottish Rite Freemasonry, becoming Master Mason. Cole was "an avid baseball fan", particularly of Hank Aaron. In 1968, Nelson Riddle related an incident from some years earlier and told of music studio engineers, searching for a source of noise, finding Cole listening to a game on a transistor radio.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole met his first wife, Nadine Robinson, while they were on tour for the all-black Broadway musical "Shuffle Along". He was 18 when they married. She was the reason he moved to Los Angeles and formed the Nat King Cole trio. This marriage ended in divorce in 1948. On March 28, 1948 (Easter Sunday), six days after his divorce became final, Cole married the singer Maria Hawkins. The Coles were married in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church by Adam Clayton Powell Jr. They had five children: Natalie (1950–2015), who had a successful career as a singer before dying of congestive heart failure at age 65; an adopted daughter, Carole (1944–2009, the daughter of Maria's sister), who died of lung cancer at the age of 64; an adopted son, Nat Kelly Cole (1959–1995), who died of AIDS at the age of 36; and twin daughters, Casey and Timolin (born September 26, 1961), whose birth was announced in the "Milestones" column of "Time" magazine on October 6, 1961. Maria supported him during his final illness and stayed with him until his death. In an interview, she emphasized his musical legacy and the class he exhibited despite his imperfections.


title: Nat King Cole

text: In August 1948, Cole purchased a house from Col. Harry Gantz, the former husband of the silent film actress Lois Weber, in the all-white Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Ku Klux Klan, which was active in Los Angeles in the 1950s, responded by placing a burning cross on his front lawn. Members of the property-owners association told Cole they did not want any "undesirables" moving into the neighborhood. Cole responded, "Neither do I. And if I see anybody undesirable coming in here, I'll be the first to complain." His dog died after eating poisoned meat, something likely to be connected to his moving to the neighborhood.


title: Nat King Cole

text: In 1956 Cole was contracted to perform in Cuba. He wanted to stay at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba in Havana but was refused because it operated a color bar. Cole honored his contract, and the concert at the Tropicana Club was a huge success. During the following year, he returned to Cuba for another concert, singing many songs in Spanish.


title: Nat King Cole

text: In 1956 Cole was assaulted on stage during a concert in Birmingham, Alabama, with the Ted Heath Band while singing the song "Little Girl". Having circulated photographs of Cole with white female fans bearing incendiary boldface captions reading "Cole and His White Women" and "Cole and Your Daughter" three men belonging to the North Alabama Citizens Council assaulted Cole, apparently attempting to kidnap him. The three assailants ran down the aisles of the auditorium towards Cole. Local law enforcement quickly ended the invasion of the stage, but in the ensuing mêlée Cole was toppled from his piano bench and received a slight injury to his back. He did not finish the concert. A fourth member of the group was later arrested. All were tried and convicted. Six men, including 23-year-old Willie Richard Vinson, were formally charged with assault with intent to murder him, but later the charge against four of them was changed to conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor. The original plan to attack Cole included 150 men from Birmingham and nearby towns.


title: Nat King Cole

text: After being attacked in Birmingham, Cole said, "I can't understand it ... I have not taken part in any protests. Nor have I joined an organization fighting segregation. Why should they attack me?" Cole said he wanted to forget the incident and continued to play for segregated audiences in the south. He said he could not change the situation in a day. He contributed money to the Montgomery bus boycott and had sued northern hotels that had hired him but refused to serve him. Thurgood Marshall, the chief legal counsel of the NAACP, called him an Uncle Tom and said he should perform with a banjo. Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, wrote him a telegram that said:


title: Nat King Cole

text: "The Chicago Defender" said Cole's performances for all-white audiences were an insult to his race. The "New York Amsterdam News" said that "thousands of Harlem blacks who have worshiped at the shrine of singer Nat King Cole turned their backs on him this week as the noted crooner turned his back on the NAACP and said that he will continue to play to Jim Crow audiences". To play "Uncle Nat's" discs, wrote a commentator in "The American Negro", "would be supporting his 'traitor' ideas and narrow way of thinking". Deeply hurt by the criticism in the black press, Cole was chastened. Emphasizing his opposition to racial segregation "in any form", he agreed to join other entertainers in boycotting segregated venues. He paid $500 to become a lifetime member of the Detroit branch of the NAACP. Until his death in 1965, Cole was an active and visible participant in the civil rights movement, playing an important role in planning the March on Washington in 1963.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole performed in 1956 for President Dwight D. Eisenhower's televised birthday celebration. At the 1956 Republican National Convention, he sang "That's All There Is to That" and was "greeted with applause". He was also present at the Democratic National Convention in 1960 to support Senator John F. Kennedy. He was among the dozens of entertainers recruited by Frank Sinatra to perform at the Kennedy Inaugural gala in 1961. Cole consulted with Kennedy and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, on civil rights.


title: Nat King Cole

text: In September 1964, Cole began to lose weight and he experienced back problems. He collapsed with pain after performing at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. In December, he was working in San Francisco when he was finally persuaded by friends to seek medical help. A malignant tumor in an advanced state of growth on his left lung was observed on a chest X-ray. Cole, who was a heavy cigarette smoker, had lung cancer and was expected to have only months to live. Against his doctors' wishes, Cole carried on his work and made his final recordings between December 1 and 3 in San Francisco, with an orchestra conducted by Ralph Carmichael. The music was released on the album "L-O-V-E" shortly before his death. His daughter noted later that he did this to assure the welfare of his family.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole entered Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica on December 7, and cobalt therapy was started on December 10. Frank Sinatra performed in Cole's place at the grand opening of the new Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center on December 12. Cole's condition gradually worsened, but he was released from the hospital over the New Year's period. At home Cole was able to see the hundreds of thousands of cards and letters that had been sent after news of his illness was made public. Cole returned to the hospital in early January. He also sent $5,000 (US$ in dollars) to actress and singer Gunilla Hutton, with whom he had been romantically involved since early 1964. Hutton later telephoned Maria and implored her to divorce him. Maria confronted her husband, and Cole finally broke off the relationship with Hutton. Cole's illness reconciled him with his wife, and he vowed that if he recovered he would go on television to urge people to stop smoking. On January 25, Cole's entire left lung was surgically removed. His father died of heart problems on February 1. Throughout Cole's illness his publicists promoted the idea that he would soon be well and working, despite the private knowledge of his terminal condition. "Billboard" magazine reported that "Nat King Cole has successfully come through a serious operation and... the future looks bright for 'the master' to resume his career again". On Valentine's Day, Cole and his wife briefly left St. John's to drive by the sea. He died at the hospital early in the morning of Monday, February 15, 1965.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole's funeral was held on February 18 at St. James' Episcopal Church on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles; 400 people were present, and thousands gathered outside the church. Hundreds of members of the public had filed past the coffin the day before. Honorary pallbearers included Robert F. Kennedy, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Johnny Mathis, George Burns, Danny Thomas, Jimmy Durante, Alan Livingston, Frankie Laine, Steve Allen, and Pat Brown (the governor of California). The eulogy was delivered by Jack Benny, who said that "Nat Cole was a man who gave so much and still had so much to give. He gave it in song, in friendship to his fellow man, devotion to his family. He was a star, a tremendous success as an entertainer, an institution. But he was an even greater success as a man, as a husband, as a father, as a friend." Cole's remains were interred in Freedom Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Glendale, California.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole's last album, "L-O-V-E", was recorded in early December 1964—just a few days before he entered the hospital for cancer treatment—and was released just before he died. It peaked at number 4 on the "Billboard" Albums chart in the spring of 1965. A "Best Of" album was certified a gold record in 1968. His 1957 recording of "When I Fall in Love" reached number 4 in the UK charts in 1987, released in reaction to a version by Rick Astley challenging for the coveted Christmas number 1 spot.


title: Nat King Cole

text: In 1983, an archivist for EMI Electrola Records, a subsidiary of EMI Records (Capitol's parent company) in Germany, discovered some unreleased recordings by Cole, including one in Japanese and another in Spanish ("Tu Eres Tan Amable"). Capitol released them later that year as the LP "Unreleased".


title: Nat King Cole

text: In 1991, Mosaic Records released "The Complete Capitol Records Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio", a compilation of 349 songs available as an 18-CD or a 27-LP set. In 2008 it was re-released in digital-download format through services like iTunes and Amazon Music.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Also in 1991, Natalie Cole recorded a new vocal track that was mixed with her father's 1961 stereo re-recording of his 1951 hit "Unforgettable" for a tribute album of the same title. The song and album won seven Grammy awards in 1992 for Best Album and Best Song.


title: Nat King Cole

text: His hit singles include "Straighten Up and Fly Right" 1944 No. 8, "The Christmas Song" 1946/1962/2018 No. ?/No. 65/No. 11, "Nature Boy" 1948 No. 1, "Mona Lisa 1950 No. 1, "Frosty, The Snowman" 1950 No. 9, "Too Young" 1951 No. 1, "Unforgettable" 1951 No. 12, "Somewhere Along the Way" 1952 No. 8, "Answer Me, My Love" 1954 No. 6, "A Blossom Fell" 1955 No. 2, "If I May" 1955 No. 8, "Send for Me" 1957 No. 6, "Looking Back" 1958 No. 5, "Ramblin' Rose" 1962 No. 2, "Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer" 1963 No. 6, "Unforgettable" 1991 (with daughter Natalie)


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. He was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990. He was inducted into the "DownBeat" Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Hit Parade Hall of Fame in 2007. A United States postage stamp with Cole's likeness was issued in 1994. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2013.


title: Nat King Cole

text: Cole's success at Capitol Records, for which he recorded more than 150 singles that reached the "Billboard" Pop, R&B, and Country charts, has yet to be matched by any Capitol artist. His records sold 50 million copies during his career. His recording of "The Christmas Song" still receives airplay every holiday season, even hitting the Billboard Top 40 in December 2017. In 2020 Cole was inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Stacey Yvonne Abrams (; born December 9, 1973) is an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, serving as minority leader from 2011 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Abrams founded Fair Fight Action, an organization to address voter suppression, in 2018. Her efforts have been widely credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia, including in the 2020 presidential election, when Joe Biden narrowly won the state, and in Georgia's 2020–21 regularly scheduled and special U.S. Senate elections, which gave Democrats control of the Senate.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams was the Democratic nominee in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, becoming the first African-American female major-party gubernatorial nominee in the United States. She lost the election to Republican candidate Brian Kemp, but refused to concede, accusing Kemp of engaging in voter suppression as Georgia Secretary of State. News outlets and political science experts have been unable to determine whether voter suppression affected its result. In February 2019, Abrams became the first African-American woman to deliver a response to the State of the Union address. She was the Democratic nominee in the 2022 Georgia gubernatorial election, and lost again to Kemp; she conceded on the night of the election.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams is an author of both fiction and nonfiction. Her nonfiction books, "Our Time Is Now" and "Lead from the Outside", were "New York Times" best sellers. Abrams wrote eight fiction books under the pen name Selena Montgomery before 2021. "While Justice Sleeps" was released on May 11, 2021 under her real name. Abrams also wrote a children's book, "Stacey's Extraordinary Words", released in December 2021.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: The second of six siblings, Abrams was born to Robert and Carolyn Abrams in Madison, Wisconsin, and raised in Gulfport, Mississippi where her father was employed in a shipyard and her mother was a librarian. In 1989, the family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where her parents pursued graduate divinity degrees at Emory University. They became Methodist ministers and later returned to Mississippi with their three youngest children while Abrams and two other siblings remained in Atlanta. She attended Avondale High School, graduating as valedictorian in 1991. In 1990, she was selected for the Telluride Association Summer Program. At 17, while still in high school, she was hired as a typist for a congressional campaign and then as a speechwriter based on the improvements she made to a campaign speech.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: In 1995, Abrams earned a Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary studies (political science, economics, and sociology) from Spelman College, "magna cum laude". While in college, she worked in the youth services department in the office of Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson. She later interned at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As a freshman in 1992, Abrams took part in a protest on the steps of the Georgia Capitol, during which she joined in burning the Georgia state flag which, at the time, incorporated the Confederate battle flag. It had been added to the state flag in 1956 as an anti-civil rights movement action.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: As a Harry S. Truman Scholar, Abrams studied public policy at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs, where she earned a Master of Public Affairs degree in 1998. Afterward, she earned a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: After graduating from law school, Abrams worked as a tax attorney at the Sutherland Asbill & Brennan law firm in Atlanta, with a focus on tax-exempt organizations, health care, and public finance. In 2010, while a member of the Georgia General Assembly, Abrams co-founded and served as the senior vice president of NOW Corp. (formerly NOWaccount Network Corporation), a financial services firm.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams is CEO of Sage Works, a legal consulting firm that has represented clients including the Atlanta Dream of the Women's National Basketball Association.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams co-founded Nourish, Inc. in 2010. Originally conceived as a beverage company with a focus on infants and toddlers, it was later rebranded as Now and pivoted its business model to an invoicing solution for small businesses. Now raised a $9.5 million Series A in 2021.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: In 2006, Abrams ran for the 84th district for the Georgia House of Representatives, following JoAnn McClinton's announcement that she would not seek reelection. Abrams ran in the Democratic Party primary election against former state legislator George Maddox and political operative Dexter Porter. She outraised her two opponents and won the primary election with 51% of the vote, avoiding a runoff election.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams represented House District 84 beginning in the 2007 session, and beginning in the 2013 session (following reapportionment), District 89. Both districts covered portions of the City of Atlanta and unincorporated DeKalb County, covering the communities of Candler Park, Cedar Grove, Columbia, Druid Hills, Edgewood, Highland Park, Kelley Lake, Kirkwood, Lake Claire, South DeKalb, Toney Valley, and Tilson. She served on the Appropriations, Ethics, Judiciary Non-Civil, Rules, and Ways & Means committees.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: In November 2010, the Democratic caucus elected Abrams to succeed DuBose Porter as minority leader over Virgil Fludd. Abrams's first major action as minority leader was to cooperate with Republican governor Nathan Deal's administration to reform the HOPE Scholarship program. She co-sponsored the 2011 legislation that preserved the HOPE program by decreasing the scholarship amount paid to Georgia students and funded a 1% low-interest loan program for students.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: According to "Time" magazine, Abrams "can credibly boast of having single-handedly stopped the largest tax increase in Georgia history." In 2011 Abrams argued that a Republican proposal to cut income taxes while increasing a tax on cable service would lead to a net increase in taxes paid by most people. She performed an analysis of the bill that showed that 82% of Georgians would see net tax increases, and left a copy of the analysis on the desk of every House legislator. The bill subsequently failed.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams also worked with Deal on criminal-justice reforms that reduced prison costs without increasing crime, and with Republicans on the state's biggest-ever public transportation funding package.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: On August 25, 2017, Abrams resigned from the General Assembly to focus on her gubernatorial campaign.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams ran for governor of Georgia in 2018. In the Democratic primary she ran against Stacey Evans, another member of the Georgia House of Representatives, in what some called "the battle of the Staceys". Abrams was endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Our Revolution. On May 22, she won the Democratic nomination, making her the first Black woman in the U.S. to be a major party's nominee for governor. After winning the primary, Abrams secured a number of high-profile endorsements, including one from former president Barack Obama.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Almost a week before election day, the Republican nominee, Georgia secretary of state Brian Kemp, canceled a debate scheduled seven weeks earlier to attend a Trump rally. Kemp blamed Abrams for the cancellation, saying she was unwilling to reschedule it. Abrams's campaign manager responded, "We refuse to callously take Georgians for granted and cancel on them. Just because Brian Kemp breaks his promises doesn't mean anyone else should."


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Two days before the election, Kemp's office announced that it was investigating the Georgia Democratic Party for unspecified "possible cybercrimes"; the Georgia Democratic Party stated that "Kemp's scurrilous claims are 100 percent false" and described them as a "political stunt". A 2020 investigation by the Georgia attorney general's office concluded that there was no evidence of computer crimes. Later that year, it was revealed that the alleged cybercrime against Kemp's office was in fact a planned security test that one of Kemp's staff members had signed off on three months prior.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: As Georgia's secretary of state, Kemp was in charge of elections and voter registration during the election. Kemp was accused of voter suppression during the election between him and Abrams. Emory University professor Carol Anderson has criticized Kemp as an "enemy of democracy" and "an expert in voter suppression" for his actions as secretary of state. Political scientists Michael Bernhard and Daniel O'Neill described Kemp's actions in the 2018 gubernatorial election as the worst case of voter suppression in that election year. Election law expert Rick L. Hasen described Kemp as "perhaps the most incompetent state chief elections officer" in the 2018 elections, pointing to a number of actions that jeopardized Georgia's election security and made it harder for eligible voters to vote. Hasen writes that it was "hard to tell" which of Kemp's "actions were due to incompetence and which were attempted suppression."


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Between 2012 and 2018, Kemp's office canceled over 1.4 million voter registrations, with nearly 700,000 cancellations in 2017 alone. On a single night in July 2017, half a million voters had their registrations canceled. According to "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution", election-law experts said that this "may represent the largest mass disenfranchisement in US history." Kemp oversaw the removals as secretary of state, and did so eight months after he declared his candidacy for governor. An investigative journalism group run by Greg Palast found that of the approximately 534,000 Georgians whose voter registrations were purged between 2016 and 2017, more than 334,000 still lived where they were registered. The voters were given no notice that they had been purged. Palast sued Kemp, claiming over 300,000 voters were purged illegally. Kemp's office denied any wrongdoing, saying that by "regularly updating our rolls, we prevent fraud and ensure that all votes are cast by eligible Georgia voters."


title: Stacey Abrams

text: By early October 2018, more than 53,000 voter registration applications had been put on hold by Kemp's office, with more than 75% belonging to minorities. The voters were eligible to re-register if they still lived in Georgia.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: In a ruling against Kemp, district judge Amy Totenberg found that Kemp's office had violated the Help America Vote Act and said an attempt by Kemp's office to expedite the certification of results "appears to suggest the secretary's foregoing of its responsibility to confirm the accuracy of the results prior to final certification, including the assessment of whether serious provisional balloting count issues have been consistently and properly handled."


title: Stacey Abrams

text: On November 6, 2018, Abrams lost the election by 54,723 votes. On November 16, 2018, Abrams announced that she was ending her campaign. She emphasized that her statement was not a concession, because "concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true, or proper", but acknowledged that she could not close the gap with Kemp to force a runoff. In her campaign-ending speech, Abrams announced the creation of Fair Fight Action, a voting rights nonprofit organization that sued the secretary of state and state election board in federal court for voter suppression.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Fair Fight's lawsuit was initiated in December 2018; according to "Politico", it "started as a sprawling case that included allegations of unreasonably long lines and wait times caused by moving and closing polling places; the impact of voter ID rules on people of color, voters with non-Anglo Saxon names and newly naturalized citizens; improper maintenance of Georgia's voter rolls; inadequate training of poll workers; and even the integrity of voting machines". Six months after the lawsuit began, the Georgia legislature passed a law addressing some of its claims, with measures including the implementation of new voting machines with more advanced technology. Fair Fight dropped the claims about voting machines in December 2020, around the time that Donald Trump made baseless claims about voting machine problems in Georgia affecting the 2020 presidential election. In February 2021, a federal judge ruled that Fair Fight's claims about voting machines, voter list security, and polling place issues were resolved by changes in Georgia's election law, or invalidated due to lack of standing to sue.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: In April 2021, a judge allowed some claims in the legal challenge to proceed while rejecting others. In October 2022, a federal judge ruled against Fair Fight on the remaining claims, finding that Georgia's voting regulations did not violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. According to the judge, the case "resulted in wins and losses for all parties over the course of the litigation and culminated in what is believed to have been the longest voting rights bench trial in the history of the Northern District of Georgia." Over the course of the lawsuit, Fair Fight raised $61 million and paid millions to Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Abrams's campaign chair.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Since losing the election, Abrams has repeatedly said that the election was not fairly conducted and has declined to call Kemp the legitimate governor of Georgia. Abrams has since said that she won the election and that the election was "stolen from the voters of Georgia", claims that election law expert Richard L. Hasen said lacked sufficient evidence. Her position is that Kemp, who oversaw the election in his role as Secretary of State, had a conflict of interest and suppressed turnout by purging nearly 670,000 voter registrations in 2017, and that about 53,000 voter registrations were pending a month before the election. She has said, "I have no empirical evidence that I would have achieved a higher number of votes. However, I have sufficient and I think legally sufficient doubt about the process to say that it was not a fair election."


title: Stacey Abrams

text: On November 9, 2018, the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" reported that its investigation of the 2018 statewide elections in Georgia had found "no evidence ... of systematic malfeasance – or of enough tainted votes to force a runoff election". A "USA Today" fact check noted that the actions Kemp's office took during the election "can be explained as routine under state and federal law"; political scientist Charles S. Bullock III said there is "not much empirical evidence supporting the assertion that Kemp either suppressed the vote or 'stole' the election from Abrams."


title: Stacey Abrams

text: According to "Washington Post" fact checker Glenn Kessler, Abrams has variously claimed that she "won" the election, that the election was "rigged", that it was "stolen", that it was not "free and fair", and that Kemp had "cheated". Kessler said that "Abrams played up claims the election was stolen until such tactics became untenable for anyone who claims to be an advocate for American democratic norms and values".


title: Stacey Abrams

text: On January 29, 2019, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced that Abrams would deliver the response to the State of the Union address on February 5. She was the first African-American woman to give the rebuttal to the address, as well as the first and only non-office-holding person to do so since the State of the Union responses began in 1966. Despite being heavily recruited by Schumer, the Democratic National Committee, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to challenge incumbent senator David Perdue, on April 30, 2019, Abrams announced that she would not run for the U.S. Senate in 2020. After Senator Johnny Isakson announced his resignation due to poor health, Abrams declined to run in that election as well, citing a need to focus on ending voter suppression.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: On August 17, 2019, Abrams announced the founding of Fair Fight 2020, an organization to assist Democrats financially and technically to build voter protection teams in 20 states. Abrams is Fair Fight Action 2020's chair. Billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg contributed $5 million shortly after announcing his run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. On ABC's "The View", Abrams defended Bloomberg's spending, saying: "Every person is allowed to run and should run the race that they think they should run, and Mike Bloomberg has chosen to use his finances. Other people are using their dog, their charisma, their whatever." Abrams declined to endorse Bloomberg personally.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: During the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Abrams actively promoted herself for consideration as former vice president Joe Biden's running mate. Kamala Harris was officially announced as Biden's running mate on August 11, 2020. Abrams was selected as one of 17 speakers to jointly deliver the keynote address at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: After Biden won the 2020 U.S. presidential election, both "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" credited Abrams with a large boost in Democratic votes in Georgia and an estimated 800,000 new voter registrations. As part of that election, she served as an elector for the state of Georgia.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: On December 1, 2021, Abrams announced she would run again for governor of Georgia. She ran unopposed in the Democratic primary on May 24, 2022, and faced Georgia governor Brian Kemp in the November 8 general election. Abrams and Kemp had their first of two scheduled debates on October 17. In the debate, Abrams emphasized her support for gun control and legal access to abortion, while Kemp emphasized Georgia's economy under his governorship and his anti-crime proposals. When asked whether she would accept the results of the election, Abrams declined to directly respond. In the final debate before the election both candidates agreed to accept the results. Abrams lost the November 8, 2022 election to Kemp; she conceded that night.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams supports abortion rights, advocates for expanded gun control, and opposes proposals for stricter voter ID laws. She has argued that some implementations of voter ID laws disenfranchise minorities and the poor, but does not oppose voter ID laws in principle and supports voters having to verify their identities. Abrams pledged to oppose legislation similar to the religious liberty bill that Governor Deal vetoed in 2016.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams supports criminal justice reform in the form of no cash bail for poor defendants, abolishing the death penalty, and decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana. She also supports community policing to keep communities safe as part of criminal justice reform.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams would like to increase spending on public education. She opposes private school vouchers, instead advocating improvements to the public education system. She supports smaller class sizes, more school counselors, protected pensions, better pay for teachers, and expanded early childhood education.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: In her campaign for governor, Abrams said her top priority was Medicaid expansion. She cited research showing that Medicaid expansion improved health care access for low-income residents and made hospitals in rural locations financially viable. She also created a plan to address Georgia's high maternal mortality rate.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams is a strong supporter of Israel and rejects "the demonization and delegitimization of Israel represented" by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, which she has called "anti-Semitic". But she voted against Georgia's anti-BDS legislation that punishes companies that choose to boycott Israel or Israeli-occupied territories. Abrams wrote, "Boycotts have been a critical part of social justice in American history, particularly for African-Americans. As the Anti-Defamation League notes, the origin of BDS is based in the anti-apartheid movement."


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Outside of politics, Abrams has found success as a fiction writer. Until 2021, she published her works under the pen name Selena Montgomery. She claims to have sold more than 100,000 copies of her novels. She wrote her first novel during her third year at Yale Law School and published her most recent book in 2009. Her legal thriller "While Justice Sleeps" was published (under her own name) in May 2021. That novel is being produced as a television series by Working Title Films, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Two of her nonfiction works, "Our Time is Now" and "Lead from the Outside", were New York Times Best Sellers.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams has published articles on public policy, taxation, and nonprofit organizations. She is the author of "Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change" (published by Henry Holt & Co. in April 2018), and "Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America" (published by Henry Holt & Co. in June 2020).


title: Stacey Abrams

text: In 2012, Abrams received the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award from the Kennedy Library and Harvard University's Institute of Politics, which honors an elected official under 40 whose work demonstrates the impact of elective public service as a way to address public challenges. In 2014 "Governing Magazine" named her a Public Official of the Year, an award that recognizes state and local official for outstanding accomplishments. Abrams was recognized as one of "12 Rising Legislators to Watch" by the same publication in 2012 and one of the "100 Most Influential Georgians" by "Georgia Trend" for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: EMILY's List recognized Abrams as the inaugural recipient of the Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award in 2014. She was selected as an Aspen Rodel Fellow and a Hunt-Kean Fellow. In 2014, Abrams was named 11th most influential African American aged 25 to 45 by "The Root", rising to first place in 2019. Abrams was named Legislator of the Year by the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals, Public Servant of the Year by the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Outstanding Public Service by the Latin American Association, Champion for Georgia Cities by the Georgia Municipal Association, and Legislator of the Year by the DeKalb County Chamber of Commerce.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams received the Georgia Legislative Service Award from the Association County Commissioners Georgia, the Democratic Legislator of the Year from the Young Democrats of Georgia and Red Clay Democrats, and an Environmental Leader Award from the Georgia Conservation Voters. She is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Next Generation Fellow of the American Assembly, an American Marshall Memorial Fellow, a Salzburg Seminar–Freeman Fellow on U.S.-East Asian Relations, and a Yukos Fellow for U.S.–Russian Relations.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams received the Stevens Award for Outstanding Legal Contributions and the Elmer Staats Award for Public Service, both national honors presented by the Harry S. Truman Foundation. She was also a 1994 Harry S. Truman Scholar.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: In 2001, "Ebony" magazine named Abrams one of "30 Leaders of the Future". In 2004 she was named to Georgia Trend's "40 Under 40" list, and the "Atlanta Business Chronicle" named Abrams to its "Top 50 Under 40" list. In 2006 she was named a Georgia Rising Star by "Atlanta Magazine" and by "Law & Politics Magazine".


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams received a single vote, from Kathleen Rice, in the 2019 election for Speaker of the U.S. House.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: In 2019, Abrams received the Distinguished Public Service Award from the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs, where she obtained her Master's of Public Affairs in 1998. The award is the highest honor bestowed upon alumni of the school, with recipients selected by their fellow alumni. The award reflects her "remarkable leadership on behalf of her constituents as well as citizens all over this country", according to Dean Angela Evans.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: For her nonviolent campaign to get out the vote, Abrams has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. In 2021, she was included in the "Time" 100, "Time"s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance in 2021 for her work on an election-themed special episode of "Black-ish". She lost at the 73rd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards to Maya Rudolph of "Big Mouth".


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams serves on the boards of directors for Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the Center for American Progress, Atlanta Metropolitan State College Foundation, Gateway Center for the Homeless, and the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education; and on the advisory boards for Literacy Action and Health Students Taking Action Together (HSTAT). She also serves on the Board of Visitors for Agnes Scott College and the University of Georgia, as well as on the board of advisors for Let America Vote (a voting rights organization founded by former Missouri secretary of state Jason Kander).


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams has completed seven international fellowships and traveled to "more than a dozen foreign countries" for policy work. She is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and spoke at CFR's Conference on Diversity in International Affairs in 2019. She has also spoken at London's Chatham House, the National Security Action Forum, and a conference hosted by the Yale Kerry Initiative and Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. In 2019, Abrams contributed an essay to "Foreign Affairs" magazine on how identity politics strengthens liberal democracy.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams was featured in "", a documentary about voter suppression in the United States. In it, she talks about her family's voting struggles in Mississippi and voter suppression during her 2018 Georgia gubernatorial campaign.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: Abrams is the second of six children born to Reverend Carolyn and Reverend Robert Abrams, originally of Mississippi. Her siblings include Andrea Abrams, U.S. district judge Leslie Abrams Gardner, Richard Abrams, Walter Abrams, and Jeanine Abrams McLean.


title: Stacey Abrams

text: In April 2018, Abrams wrote an op-ed for "Fortune" revealing that she owed $54,000 in federal back taxes and held $174,000 in credit card and student loan debt. She was repaying the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) incrementally on a payment plan after deferring her 2015 and 2016 taxes, which she stated was necessary to help with her family's medical bills. During the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, she donated $50,000 to her own campaign. In 2019, she completed payment of her back taxes to the IRS in addition to other outstanding credit card and student loan debt reported during the gubernatorial campaign.


title: Chaturbate

text: Chaturbate is a pornographic website providing live webcam performances by individual webcam models and couples, typically featuring nudity and sexual activity ranging from striptease and erotic talk to more explicit sexual acts such as masturbation with sex toys.


title: Chaturbate

text: The site is divided into six categories: female cams, male cams, couple cams, transgender cams, private shows and spy shows. The gender-specific categories are free to watch but viewers have to pay to join a private show. Spy shows are private shows where viewers do not interact, and hence they are cheaper to view than private shows. As of April 2022, Chaturbate was the 57th most popular website in the world and the fifth most popular pornographic site.


title: Chaturbate

text: "Chaturbate" is a portmanteau of "chat" and "masturbate". Viewers are allowed to watch for free (with the exception of private shows), but pay money in the form of "tips" in order to see certain sex acts performed.


title: Chaturbate

text: Models can synchronize remote-controlled vibrators and other sex toys so that they can be activated when "tipped" and the frequencies affected by the amount of "tips" given, with the intention of "users paying to try to give [the models] an orgasm". There are popular chat rooms, that can have more than 500,000 followers and can get up to 20,000 viewers at once. This is due in part to the "follow" button, which permits viewers to receive notifications when the model is broadcasting.


title: Chaturbate

text: Another aspect of the site's inner workings is the use of "mods", short for "moderators", voluntary users who oversee that the broadcasts are compliant with Chaturbate policy, such as no violence or underage models.


title: Chaturbate

text: Models need not be humans, as is the case with Projekt Melody, an artificial intelligence "cam girl", who has about 20,000 followers. However, Chaturbate did require the operator to prove their age.


title: Chaturbate

text: The site itself earns revenues by taking roughly between 40% to 50% from the model's earnings. Chaturbate generates revenue from the audience when they purchase tokens using their credit cards. Each Chaturbate token is worth $0.05 to a model and they need to earn at least $50.00 to receive the payment. However, when purchased by viewers, tokens cost about $0.10, depending on the amount bought in a single transaction.


title: Chaturbate

text: As of November 2019, the site was ranked 22nd in the Alexa global rank and was the largest adult camming site competing with European BongaCams and LiveJasmin, which represented an increase from 167th globally and third in adult websites, trailing Xvideos and Livejasmin, in February 2017. In 2018, the top five countries that their users resided in were 20.5% from the United States, followed by 8.5% from Germany, 6.8% from Japan, 6.2% from the United Kingdom and 4.7% from China.


title: Chaturbate

text: It is estimated that the site receives about 117 million monthly visits, which translates to approximately 4.1 million unique visitors each month, and an estimated 780,000 a day.


title: Chaturbate

text: Chaturbate was the presenting sponsor for the 33rd AVN Awards in 2016, as well as an exhibitor at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo that year and in 2017. In 2020, the site partnered with independent Canadian filmmakers Ethan Cole and Daniel AM Rosenberg to produce Cam_Girlfriend, a 10-episode web series broadcast on YouTube.


title: Hezbollah

text: Hezbollah (; ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah"', among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament.


title: Hezbollah

text: After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the idea of Hezbollah arose among Lebanese clerics who had studied in Najaf, and who adopted the model set out by Ayatollah Khomeini after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. After failing to agree on a name for the new organisation, the party's founders adopted the name chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini, Hezbollah. The organization was established as part of an Iranian effort, through funding and the dispatch of a core group of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (pasdaran) instructors, to aggregate a variety of Lebanese Shia groups into a unified organization to resist the Israeli occupation and improve the standing and status of the long marginalised and underrepresented Shia community in that country. A contingent of 1,500 pasdaran instructors arrived after the Syrian government, which occupied Lebanon's eastern highlands, permitted their transit to a base in the Bekaa valley.


title: Hezbollah

text: During the Lebanese Civil War, Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto listed its objectives as the expulsion of "the Americans, the French and their allies definitely from Lebanon, putting an end to any colonialist entity on our land", the submission of the Christian Phalangists to "just power", bringing them to justice "for the crimes they have perpetrated against Muslims and Christians", and permitting "all the sons of our people" to choose the form of government they want, while calling on them to "pick the option of Islamic government". Hezbollah organised volunteers who fought for the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War. From 1985 to 2000, Hezbollah participated in the South Lebanon conflict against the South Lebanon Army (SLA) and Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which finally led to the rout of the SLA and the retreat of the IDF from South Lebanon in 2000. Hezbollah and the IDF fought each other again in the 2006 Lebanon War.


title: Hezbollah

text: Its military strength has grown so significantly since 2006 that its paramilitary wing is considered more powerful than the Lebanese Army. Hezbollah has been described as a "state within a state" and has grown into an organization with seats in the Lebanese government, a radio and a satellite TV station, social services and large-scale military deployment of fighters beyond Lebanon's borders. Hezbollah is part of Lebanon's March 8 Alliance, in opposition to the March 14 Alliance. It maintains strong support among Lebanese Shia Muslims, while Sunnis have disagreed with its agenda. Hezbollah also has support in some Christian areas of Lebanon. It receives military training, weapons, and financial support from Iran and political support from Syria.


title: Hezbollah

text: Since 1990, Hezbollah has participated in Lebanese politics, in a process which is described as the Lebanonisation of Hezbollah, and it later participated in the government of Lebanon and joined political alliances. After the 2006–08 Lebanese protests and clashes, a national unity government was formed in 2008, with Hezbollah and its opposition allies obtaining 11 of 30 cabinet seats, enough to give them veto power. In August 2008, Lebanon's new cabinet unanimously approved a draft policy statement that recognizes Hezbollah's existence as an armed organization and guarantees its right to "liberate or recover occupied lands" (such as the Shebaa Farms). Since 2012, Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian civil war has seen it join the Syrian government in its fight against the Syrian opposition, which Hezbollah has described as a Zionist plot and a "Wahhabi-Zionist conspiracy" to destroy its alliance with Bashar al-Assad against Israel. Between 2013 and 2015, the organisation deployed its militia in both Syria and Iraq to fight or train local militias to fight against the Islamic State. The group's legitimacy is considered to have been severely damaged due to the sectarian nature of the Syrian war. In the 2018 Lebanese general election, Hezbollah held 12 seats and its alliance won the election by gaining 70 out of 128 seats in the Parliament of Lebanon. Nasrallah declared on 2021 that the group has 100,000 fighters.


title: Hezbollah

text: Either the entire organization or only its military wing has been designated a terrorist organization by several countries, including by the European Union and, since 2017, also by most member states of the Arab League, with two exceptions – Lebanon, where Hezbollah is one of the country's most influential political parties, and Iraq. Russia does not view Hezbollah as a "terrorist organization" but as a "legitimate socio-political force".


title: Hezbollah

text: In 1982, Hezbollah was conceived by Muslim clerics and funded by Iran primarily to harass the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Its leaders were followers of Ayatollah Khomeini, and its forces were trained and organized by a contingent of 1,500 Revolutionary Guards that arrived from Iran with permission from the Syrian government, which occupied Lebanon's eastern highlands, permitted their transit to a base in the Bekaa valley which was in occupation of Lebanon at the time.


title: Hezbollah

text: Scholars differ as to when Hezbollah came to be a distinct entity. Various sources list the official formation of the group as early as 1982 whereas Diaz and Newman maintain that Hezbollah remained an amalgamation of various violent Shi'a extremists until as late as 1985. Another version states that it was formed by supporters of Sheikh Ragheb Harb, a leader of the southern Shia resistance killed by Israel in 1984. Regardless of when the name came into official use, a number of Shi'a groups were slowly assimilated into the organization, such as Islamic Jihad, Organization of the Oppressed on Earth and the Revolutionary Justice Organization. These designations are considered to be synonymous with Hezbollah by the US, Israel and Canada.


title: Hezbollah

text: Hezbollah emerged in South Lebanon during a consolidation of Shia militias as a rival to the older Amal Movement. Hezbollah played a significant role in the Lebanese civil war, opposing American forces in 1982–83 and opposing Amal and Syria during the 1985–88 War of the Camps. However, Hezbollah's early primary focus was ending Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon following Israel's 1982 invasion and siege of Beirut. Amal, the main Lebanese Shia political group, initiated guerrilla warfare. In 2006, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak stated, "When we entered Lebanon … there was no Hezbollah. We were accepted with perfumed rice and flowers by the Shia in the south. It was our presence there that created Hezbollah".


title: Hezbollah

text: Hezbollah waged an asymmetric war using suicide attacks against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli targets outside of Lebanon. Hezbollah is reputed to have been among the first Islamic resistance groups in the Middle East to use the tactics of suicide bombing, assassination, and capturing foreign soldiers, as well as murders and hijackings. Hezbollah also employed more conventional military tactics and weaponry, notably Katyusha rockets and other missiles. At the end of the Lebanese Civil War in 1990, despite the Taif Agreement asking for the "disbanding of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias," Syria, which controlled Lebanon at that time, allowed Hezbollah to maintain their arsenal and control Shia areas along the border with Israel.


title: Hezbollah

text: In the 1990s, Hezbollah transformed from a revolutionary group into a political one, in a process which is described as the Lebanonisation of Hezbollah. Unlike its uncompromising revolutionary stance in the 1980s, Hezbollah conveyed a lenient stance towards the Lebanese state.


title: Hezbollah

text: In 1992 Hezbollah decided to participate in elections, and Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran, endorsed it. Former Hezbollah secretary general, Subhi al-Tufayli, contested this decision, which led to a schism in Hezbollah. Hezbollah won all twelve seats which were on its electoral list. At the end of that year, Hezbollah began to engage in dialog with Lebanese Christians. Hezbollah regards cultural, political, and religious freedoms in Lebanon as sanctified, although it does not extend these values to groups who have relations with Israel.


title: Hezbollah

text: In 1997 Hezbollah formed the multi-confessional Lebanese Brigades to Fighting the Israeli Occupation in an attempt to revive national and secular resistance against Israel, thereby marking the "Lebanonisation" of resistance.


title: Hezbollah

text: Whether the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO) was a "nom de guerre" used by Hezbollah or a separate organization, is disputed. According to certain sources, IJO was identified as merely a "telephone organization", and whose name was "used by those involved to disguise their true identity." Hezbollah reportedly also used another name, "Islamic Resistance" ("al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya"), for attacks against Israel.


title: Hezbollah

text: A 2003 American court decision found IJO was the name used by Hezbollah for its attacks in Lebanon, parts of the Middle East and Europe. The US, Israel and Canada consider the names "Islamic Jihad Organization", "Organization of the Oppressed on Earth" and the "Revolutionary Justice Organization" to be synonymous with Hezbollah.


title: Hezbollah

text: The ideology of Hezbollah has been summarized as Shi'i radicalism; Hezbollah follows the Islamic Shi'a theology developed by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Hezbollah was largely formed with the aid of the Ayatollah Khomeini's followers in the early 1980s in order to spread Islamic revolution and follows a distinct version of Islamic Shi'a ideology ( or Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists) developed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the "Islamic Revolution" in Iran. Although Hezbollah originally aimed to transform Lebanon into a formal Faqihi Islamic republic, this goal has been abandoned in favor of a more inclusive approach.


title: Hezbollah

text: On 16 February 1985, Sheik Ibrahim al-Amin issued Hezbollah's manifesto. The ideology presented in it was described as radical. Its first objective was to fight against what Hezbollah described as American and Israeli imperialism, including the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon and other territories. The second objective was to gather all Muslims into an "ummah", under which Lebanon would further the aims of the 1979 Revolution of Iran. It also declared it would protect all Lebanese communities, excluding those that collaborated with Israel, and support all national movements—both Muslim and non-Muslim—throughout the world. The ideology has since evolved, and today Hezbollah is a left-wing political entity focused on social injustice.


title: Hezbollah

text: From the inception of Hezbollah to the present, the elimination of the State of Israel has been one of Hezbollah's primary goals. Some translations of Hezbollah's 1985 Arabic-language manifesto state that "our struggle will end only when this entity [Israel] is obliterated". According to Hezbollah's Deputy-General, Naim Qassem, the struggle against Israel is a core belief of Hezbollah and the central rationale of Hezbollah's existence.


title: Hezbollah

text: Hezbollah says that its continued hostilities against Israel are justified as reciprocal to Israeli operations against Lebanon and as retaliation for what they claim is Israel's occupation of Lebanese territory. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, and their withdrawal was verified by the United Nations as being in accordance with resolution 425 of 19 March 1978, however Lebanon considers the Shebaa farms—a 26-km (10-mi) piece of land captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 war and considered by the UN to be Syrian territory occupied by Israel—to be Lebanese territory.<ref name="SC/6878"></ref> Finally, Hezbollah consider Israel to be an illegitimate state. For these reasons, they justify their actions as acts of defensive jihad.


title: Hezbollah

text: Hezbollah officials have said, on rare occasions, that it is only "anti-Zionist" and not anti-Semitic. However, according to scholars, "these words do not hold up upon closer examination". Among other actions, Hezbollah actively engages in Holocaust denial and spreads anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.


title: Hezbollah

text: Various antisemitic statements have been attributed to Hezbollah officials. Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese political analyst, argues that although Zionism has influenced Hezbollah's anti-Judaism, "it is not contingent upon it because Hezbollah's hatred of Jews is more religiously motivated than politically motivated". Robert S. Wistrich, a historian specializing in the study of anti-Semitism, described Hezbollah's ideology concerning Jews:


title: Hezbollah

text: The anti-Semitism of Hezbollah leaders and spokesmen combines the image of seemingly invincible Jewish power ... and cunning with the contempt normally reserved for weak and cowardly enemies. Like the Hamas propaganda for holy war, that of Hezbollah has relied on the endless vilification of Jews as 'enemies of mankind,' 'conspiratorial, obstinate, and conceited' adversaries full of 'satanic plans' to enslave the Arabs. It fuses traditional Islamic anti-Judaism with Western conspiracy myths, Third Worldist anti-Zionism, and Iranian Shiite contempt for Jews as 'ritually impure' and corrupt infidels. Sheikh Fadlallah typically insists ... that Jews wish to undermine or obliterate Islam and Arab cultural identity in order to advance their economic and political domination.


title: Hezbollah

text: Conflicting reports say Al-Manar, the Hezbollah-owned and operated television station, accused either Israel or Jews of deliberately spreading HIV and other diseases to Arabs throughout the Middle East. Al-Manar was criticized in the West for airing "anti-Semitic propaganda" in the form of a television drama depicting a Jewish world domination conspiracy theory. The group has been accused by American analysts of engaging in Holocaust denial. In addition, during its 2006 war, it apologized only for killing Israel's Arabs (i.e., non-Jews).


title: Hezbollah

text: In November 2009, Hezbollah pressured a private English-language school to drop reading excerpts from "The Diary of Anne Frank", a book of the writings from the diary kept by the Jewish child Anne Frank while she was in hiding with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. This was after Hezbollah's Al-Manar television channel complained, asking how long Lebanon would "remain an open arena for the Zionist invasion of education?"