Music & Comedy Icons Who Gave Back Now Gone

Both Issac Hayes and Bernie Mac, unlike many musicians and celebrities that hit the big time as they both did, rarely give back to the communities which they hail from like Hayes did for Memphis Tennessee, and Mac here in Chicago.

With their simultaneous deaths this past weekend to unrelated Health problems the African American community took a big hit along with the rest of American pop culture, Bernie Mac dying at the young age of 50 quite unexpectedly after supposedly being on the rebound from pneumonia in a local Chicago hospital, Hayes at 65 while exercising apparently at home in Memphis.

May they both rest in peace after good and successful lives, hopefully giving hope to millions of young African Americans that unlike Jesse, Al and Even Obama so often erroneously claim for their own benefit and no one elses, that opportunity and success isn't out of reach for them in this great country if they acquire some skills and work hard along with some good luck towards their goals as both these accomplished men did..

Hayes came home again as hero, booster :

Memphis Commercial Appeal: "Being an international icon didn't mean that Isaac Hayes did not also appreciate the love he received in his own hometown.

In three baggage claim areas at Memphis International Airport, oversized images welcome the world to the home of Elvis Presley, B.B. King and Isaac Hayes.

"Isaac was very, very proud of that," says Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau president Kevin Kane.

As Memphis filmmaker Craig Brewer pointed out, Hayes came to embody the Memphis creative spirit: "He was an American icon and also a true Memphis icon. He was really our artist, and an artist in the true sense of his life story -- a guy who as a kid is struggling to live, with his grandmother, without his parents, and living in extreme poverty. ... It's an amazing story."

Hayes, an official ambassador of Memphis music, took part in separate 50th anniversary celebrations of rock and roll and of soul music. The soul music celebration last year meant an appearance in Times Square in New York when Hayes was still recovering from a stroke. "He was absolutely spectacular. His delivery was a little slow because of the stroke, but the place just erupted," Kane says. continued here

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