Resources for understanding education, recreation and how to guide black youth into healthy productive experiences. The information needed to hold schools accountable for the student learning environment for close to 17 million black students and the wise use of limited instructional funding.
SUNNYVALE -- I Belong: Culturally-Responsive Interventions for Math Science Instruction gives educators the tools to address the low participation rates of African-American students in advanced math and science courses from June 12-14, 2013 with exercises in the Computer History Museum and Tech Museum of Innovation. Registration includes the Queen Calafia classroom kit of seven culturally-responsive books.
CAMBRIDGE -- The Hon. Dr. Cardinal Warde has announced the start of applications for the 2013 Student Program for Innovation in Science and Engineering (SPISE). He is founder of the Caribbean Science Foundation.(http://caribbeanscience.org).
DECATUR -- Laron Walker never forgot meeting the late Dr. Frank Greene in an airport. Like Greene, Walker received a masters degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University.
From that point, Greene encouraged Walker to follow in his footsteps as an innovator and entrepreneur.
New awning, wrought iron benches and signage spruce up Marcus Book Store, 1716 Fillmore St. in San Francisco, founded in 1959 by Dr. Raye Richardson and the late Julian Richardson, Tuskegee Institute alumni who sought to insure that African-Americans write their own literature. After republishing the autobiography of Marcus Garvey, the store was the heart of a revival of black independent literature, boosting the careers of Ernest Gaines, Alice Walker, and Terry McMillan among others. Now run by second and third generation family members, the store occupies a building which once housed Bop City, called by Frank Sinatra America's hippest after-hours joint. The Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Institute, housed in the building, is developing landmark applications for the building as part of the development of an African-American Freedom Trail. The tradition of African-American literature in San Francisco goes back to the creation of the Athenian Literary Society near Portsmouth Square in 1854 and the first publication of the Lunar Visitor magazine that same year by Rev. John J. Moore.
CHICAGO -- The reelection of President Barack Obama offered an unexpected plug for serial inventor Dr. Juan Gilbert, project manager for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission's design of a universal voting machine. The lone unscripted remark in his acceptance speech, just after noting the long lines at polling booths, was "we need to do something about that."
SAN FRANCISCO -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. showed up unexpectedly in the lives of both Clarence B. Jones Jr. and Ray Taliaferro, leaving a lasting imprint which almost brought them to tears while reflecting to an audience of students and community members at the University of San Francisco.
MOUNT ROYAL, NJ – The International Game Developers Association’s (IGDA) Executive Director Gordon Bellamy is stepping down after two years to take a position with Tencent as Director of Business Development and Industry Relations.
WASHINGTON -- As the U.S. Navy holds its annual science and technology conference beginning Monday, it underscores the importance of having highly-skilled personnel in cutting edge fields like the 60th commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Adm. Cecil D. Haney, who took command in January.
Adm. Haney, a native of Washington, D.C., is a 1978 graduate of the United States Naval Academy where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Ocean Engineering. He also holds master’s degrees in Engineering Acoustics and System Technology from the Naval Post Graduate School, and a master’s degree in National Security Strategy from the National Defense University.
The Eastern High School graduate is one of two D.C. high school alumni responsible for protecting the U.S. West Coast along with Coast Guard Vice Adm. Manson Brown, Pacific Area commander.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The hand went up as if this was such an easy question that it didn't need to be asked. My question was "What do you know about slavery?"
The reply came back, "People got taken from Africa" -- voice began to trail off and head bowed -- "and they went into slavery."
I was the guest of the San Francisco Achievers program at Raoul Wallenberg High School--two dozen young men in the 12th grade preparing for college with assured scholarships from the foundation.
Then I asked, "What do you know about slavery in the Bible?"
Almost everyone raised their hand and shouted in unison, "Moses took the Hebrews out of slavery across the Red Sea."
The contrast was unavoidable. "Did you hear the difference," I replied. "When you talked about black people being in slavery, they never got out. When you mentioned the Hebrews, you started with their freedom."
It's pretty rare for a group of teens to become silent, but they were speechless.
Choreographer Joanna Haigood's Zaccho Dance Theatre enacts Sailing Away, a powerful dance performed on San Francisco's Market Street between Powell and Battery Streets, through Sunday, Sept. 16 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. It is an enactment of the Exodus of 1858, led by Mifflin W. Gibbs and Peter Lester, when African-Americans moved to Victoria, British Columbia. Travis Rowland is Peter Lester; Antoine Hunter is Mifflin Gibbs, Robert Henry Johnson is Grafton T. Brown; Raissa Simpson is Sara Lester, Matthew Wickett is Archy Lee, Byb Bibene is George Washington Dennis and Amara Tabor-Smith is Mary Ellen Pleasant as they portray eight Underground Railroad operatives who lived along Market Street during the 1850s.
RICHMOND -- N.A.M.E. Brand Records recording artist J. Plunky Branch and his group Plunky & Oneness have joinedwith the Virginia State University Department of Mass Communications to record and release “Vote in November,” a song promoting voter registration and participation in the upcoming elections.
SAN FRANCISCO -- "If God is real, why does he let so much bad stuff happen?"
The question would have been on the minds of the 1658 slave work crew which built the first major road in New York City or the 300 Africans brought into slavery in 1664 aboard the New Gideon on Staten Island.
Red Hook Summer, the latest in Spike Lee's Chronicles of Brooklyn, asks how a relatively affluent pre-teen from Atlanta with his own IPad 2 in 2012 could pose that question.
During National Black Business Month in August, begin by making a commitment that you will prepare your own list to visit at least one black-owned business each day of the month because your traffic brings more revenue and sorely needed new jobs. We offer these suggestions for local options on the nationwide 31 Ways 31 Days list. Black Money Alabama will provide check-in codes at some of the locations listed so new visitors can check in with their cell phones to register their support of black-owned businesses.
During National Black Business Month in August, begin by making a commitment that you will prepare your own list to visit at least one black-owned business each day of the month because your traffic brings more revenue and sorely needed new jobs. We offer these suggestions for local options on the nationwide 31 Ways 31 Days list. Black Money Philadelphia will provide check-in codes at some of the locations listed so new visitors can check in with their cell phones to register their support of black-owned businesses.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Rev. Malcolm Byrd gave the California Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church the kind of boost it hadn't seen or heard for 145 years during the 160th anniversary of First A.M.E. Zion Church.
Preaching from Galatians 6, Byrd noted that believers have a fifth season after summer, fall. winter and spring -- "a due season."
NEW ORLEANS -- The wisdom and sensitivity of The Learning Tree, the mysticism of Ray and Eve's Bayou, the context of Sankofa, the depth of Akilah and the Bee, the action and rebellion of Boyz in the Hood, and a pint-sized Shaft make Beasts of the Southern Wild a must-see in the summer movie season, even if one has to search to find it.
Thirteen action groups have been formed from volunteers in more than 30 states to create a black parents union, to identify effective culturally-responsive practices, developing a certification process for African-centered schools, and creating shadow school boards to monitor public education.
THE VILLAGE OF HARLEM, NY -- A newspaper commentator in the 1700s remarked that one of the favorite pastimes of free Negroes in Manhattan was the Sunday stroll.
OAKLAND -- Dr. Elsie Scott, president of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, hopes the 2012 campaign turns to her focus -- the impact of the Affordable Care Act.
"I wish the President would talk more about all the positive changes because of the Affordable Care Act, particularly with respect to health disparities," said Scott in an exclusive interview on Black America and Capitol Hill on ReUNION: Education-Arts-Heritage.
Scott has led the foundation for more than six years as the operational arm of the Congressional Black Caucus. "We published a guide on the Affordable Care Act so that our constituency would understand all the changes."
WASHINGTON -- The Smithsonian Institution and Monticello will present the daylong webinar “Jefferson: Revolutionary Thinker” Friday, April 27, from 9:50 a.m. to 3:50 p.m.
