This is a CNN report on the Hip-Hop Caucus’ “Green the Block Initiative,” a campaign intended to address urban poverty and climate change at the same time.

The Hip Hop Caucus’ – Respect My Vote! Campaign, along with Radio One, Inc. and the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, registered more than 30,000 voters during its national “One Vote Day” voter registration drive on September 30th – according to news sources.

Thousands of citizens in sixteen cities across the country participated in events aimed at mass voter registration. Radio One stations broadcasted live from central locations in each of the participating cities urging unregistered voters to attend their local registration site to register onsite. Artists such as Nelly and Raheem DeVaughn helped draw large crowds to registration stations, allowing Hip Hop Caucus volunteers to register an average of 1,200 voters within each of the different markets. (more…)

The Hip Hop Caucus and Multi-Platinum, Grammy Award Winning Superstar T.I. have joined forces to launch a powerful new voter registration and Get Out the Vote campaign that combines the power of celebrity and media with 21st century grassroots organizing tactics to mobilize and educate young people between the ages of 18 and 29, who are not in college.

The campaign slogan, “Respect My Vote!” and t-shirts were unveiled today at a press event in Washington, DC, with DJ Green Lantern, Dawn from Danity Kane, Young Berg, Maino, Wale, Young Steff, Washington Wizard Etan Thomas, Olympic Gold Medalist Anthony Killieberew, Immortal Technique, Pleasure P, World Class Sprinter and Champion Michael Walton, BET Executive Vice President Stephen Hill and many others turning out to support. (more…)

Birmingham, AL – For some people, the term “hip-hop generation” probably conjures up images of teenagers with baggy pants and backwards hats listening to loud obnoxious music. Or worse, the phrase might bring to mind criminal mischief, some kind of gritty thug life replete with guns and drugs. Unfortunately, what doesn’t come to mind is political activism, community organization and social justice.

But Rev. Lennox Yearwood is looking to change that. Back in 2004, the Louisiana native founded a national, nonpartisan nonprofit organization called the Hip-Hop Caucus — in part to change how America perceives young African-Americans, but, more importantly, to change how members of this group view themselves. (more…)

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., president of the Hip Hop Caucus, was attacked by six capitol police today, when he was stopped from entering the Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill, where General Petreaus gave testimony today to a joint hearing for the House Arms Services Committee and Foreign Relations Committee on the war in Iraq.

Yearwood suffered a broken leg and had to be hospitalized following the attack. (more…)

On July 23, four hundred people showed up at the office of Detroit Congressman John Conyers. They demanded that as chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee he initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez and others. They delivered to his office a petition with one million signatures demanding impeachment.

After conferring briefly with a few of them, including former CIA agent Ray McGovern, congressional candidate Cindy Sheehan, and the Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., president of the of the National Hip Hop Caucus, Conyers announced that despite his prior public statements, impeachment would remain “off the table.” (more…)