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Posts published in November 2016

Civil Rights Pioneer and Activist Julian Bond Honored by University of Virginia With an Endowed Chair

By goodblacknews on November 7, 2016

US President Barack Obama shakes hands with former NAACP chairman Julian Bond (L) during the NAACP 100th Anniversary convention in New York, July 16, 2009. (Photo credit SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
US President Barack Obama shakes hands with former NAACP chairman Julian Bond (L) during the NAACP 100th Anniversary convention in New York, July 16, 2009. (Photo credit SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

article via jbhe.com
The University of Virginia has announced that it is creating an endowed professorship to honor the late Julian Bond. Professor Bond, who was a civil rights pioneer and led the NAACP for 12 years, taught at the University of Virginia for 20 years. As a student at Morehouse College, Bond was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He later served as the first president of the Southern Poverty Law Center and was a member of the Georgia State legislature for 20 years.
The Julian Bond Professorship of Civil Rights and Social Justice has been endowed with more than $3 million by 350 alumni and supporters. Ian B. Baucom, the Dean of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia notes that ““Julian Bond worked tirelessly to ensure civil rights were extended to all Americans. The Bond Professorship will help us attract the faculty talent we need to continue the civil rights education work that Julian Bond championed throughout his life.”
Teresa A. Sullivan, president of the University of Virginia, added that “Julian Bond made significant contributions to the University of Virginia, teaching thousands of our students while serving as a mentor and role model for all of us. As a driving force for social change for more than a half-century, he had an extraordinary impact on our University, our community and our nation.”

Ohio State Univ. President Michael V. Drake to Chair Board of Directors of the Association of American Universities

By goodblacknews on November 7, 2016

OSU President Michael Drake (photo via
OSU President Michael V. Drake (photo via thelantern.com)

article via jbhe.com
Michael V. Drake, the 15th president of Ohio State University and the first African American to hold that post, was elected vice chair of the board of directors of the Association of American Universities. He will serve one year as vice chair and then become chair of the board in 2017.
The Association of American Universities is composed of 62 leading public and private research universities in the United States and Canada. It advocates on issues that are important to research-intensive universities, such as funding for research, research policy issues, graduate and undergraduate education, and campus life.
“Our participation in national higher education organizations gives Ohio State a unique opportunity to help set the course for solving the most important higher education issues of the day,” said President Drake. He also serves as chair of the Council of Presidents of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.
Dr. Drake became president of Ohio State University in June 2014. From 2005 to 2014, he was chancellor of the University of California, Irvine. Earlier, he was the director of education and research for the 15 health science schools of the University of California System.
To read more, go to: https://www.jbhe.com/2016/10/michael-drake-to-chair-the-board-of-directors-of-the-association-of-american-universities/

Tamron Hall Creates Fund to Support Domestic Violence Survivors in Honor of Late Sister

By goodblacknews on November 6, 2016
Today Show co-host Tamron Hall (photo via today.com)
Today Show co-host Tamron Hall (photo via today.com)
article by Ashley Monaé via madamenoire.com
It’s been nearly 12 years since Tamron Hall lost her sister Renate to an act of domestic violence. Found beaten and floating face down in a pool in Houston, Hall has since devoted her time to advocating for domestic violence victims and speaking out of the issue.
To honor Renate and take help others dealing with the same issue, the Today co-host decided to partner with non-profit Safe Horizon, launching “The Tamron ♥ Renate Fund” in October, which is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Aimed at providing support for victims, the fund educates their friends and family members so they can learn how to become a strong support system.
In addition to the fund offering educational courses and offering resources like shelter and legal expenses for victims, families can call Safe Horizon’s 24-hour hotline (1-800-621-HOPE (4673)) as another alternative to learning how they can help victims.

 To read more, go to: http://madamenoire.com/724828/tamron-hall-domestic-violence-fund/
EDITORIAL: What I Want To Be Able to Tell My Children About Their Next President

EDITORIAL: What I Want To Be Able to Tell My Children About Their Next President

By goodblacknews on November 5, 2016

Xavier and Lori Hutcherson (screenshot via youtube.com)
Xavier Hutcherson and Lori Lakin Hutcherson (PrioritiesUSA ad screenshot via youtube.com)

by GBN Founder and Editor-in-Chief Lori Lakin Hutcherson
by GBN Editor-in-Chief Lori Lakin Hutcherson

I know everyone wants this election to be over already – you’ve seen every debate, every news clip, every “shocking revelation”; been inundated in your social media feeds for what seems like an eternity with everyone’s thoughts, opinions, screeds, salvos and takes on who is or isn’t a worthy presidential candidate and why.  So here, in these last days, I’ll weigh in with what my choice ultimately boiled down to for me: When the final results are in, what do I want to be able to say to my 9 year-old and my 7 year-old about who their next president is?
In 2008, this moment was revelatory: I was bathing my then almost 2 year-old son Xavier (who since birth has been negotiating the challenges of cerebral palsy and epilepsy) when Barack Obama was officially proclaimed the future 44th President of the United States.  I looked at Xavier… he smiled.  I teared up, my heart swelled and I told him it was just proven without a doubt that the impossible IS possible, that his own potential was limitless and he could be whatever he wanted to be when he grew up.
In 2012, more of the same – but now I got to say it to my then 3 year-old daughter Phoebe too, who in her lifetime has never known a president OTHER than Barack Obama. Wow.  And now in 2016 she has the potential to see a woman rise to the top post of our nation for the first time in U.S. history – which will also be a truly awesome milestone of possibility to celebrate.
But even more than that, I want to be able to tell my children whether or not I or their father agree with the politics of our next president, that our next president is worthy of our respect and support.  That our president at her or his core is a decent human being who is doing her or his best to make our country stronger and create more opportunity for the majority of Americans.  That our president values and respects women, the LBGTQ community, people with disabilities, people of color and people with varied religious beliefs.
For me, it is glaringly obvious that there is only one candidate in true contention for the Presidency who fits that description: Hillary Clinton.  Which is why my sister and our Lifestyle Editor Lesa Lakin produced the ad below and why I agreed to have me and my children take part in the political ad below (we are at the :12 mark).  I wanted Xavier and Phoebe to know who I supported, and why it was worth putting ourselves out there to do so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn59ke-__8w
As difficult and divisive as our current times can be, as I do here on Good Black News, in everyday life I work hard to stay focussed on the positive (and some days, as we all know, that is REALLY REALLY hard).  I always want my children to live in a welcoming atmosphere of possibility, encouragement and hope.  Of civility and decency.  Of responsibility, fairness, and a willingness to admit one’s mistakes and do better.  I want the same values they are learning to live by at home and school – to listen, be polite, not name call, take turns, share – to be values I can say our nation’s leader lives by as well.  Come Wednesday morning, if Hillary Clinton has won, I can say that to them.
But if she doesn’t win… frankly, I don’t know what I’m going to say.

Donors Raise Over $200,000 for Historic Black Church Defaced in Mississippi

By goodblacknews on November 5, 2016
Hopewell Baptist Church in Greenville, MS (photo via chnistiantoday.com)
Hopewell Baptist Church in Greenville, MS (photo via chnistiantoday.com)

article by Charise Frazier via blackamericaweb.com

A GoFundMe account set up to help restore a historically Black Mississippi church defaced by vandals has raised over $200,000.  On Tuesday Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church congregants in Greenville, Mississippi found their sanctuary set ablaze with the words “Vote Trump,” spray painted on one of the church walls, ABC News reports.

According to the outlet, no one was harmed in the fire, but the blaze left behind charred pews and inside structure damage.  At a Wednesday news conference, Hopewell’s pastor, Carolyn Hudson, said parishioners were “heartbroken,” but was faithful that “God would allow us to build another sanctuary in that same place.”
Blair Reeves, a New York Native who organized the GoFundMe campaign, told ABC he felt “compelled” to act and was overwhelmed at the response.  “The animus of this election cycle combined with the potent racial history of burning black churches as a political symbol makes this event something we must not ignore,” Reeves wrote in the campaign’s description. “Only two weeks ago, the internet came together to help repair a North Carolina GOP field office that had been burned by thugs. Justice demands we do the same now.”
Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons, said there was no doubt the attack was calculated at Wednesday’s presser.  “We are well familiar that this form of attack on a black church has occurred many, many years ago. It happened in the ’50s, it happened in the ’60s, but we’re in 2016 and [this] should not happen.”
As previously reported, the Greenville Police Department is investigating the incident as a hate crime, while the FBI announced plans to launch a civil rights probe.
To read more, go to: http://blackamericaweb.com/2016/11/05/donors-raise-over-200000-for-historic-black-church-defaced-by-vandals/

Derrick Deacon of Brooklyn, 58, Awarded $6 Million After Imprisoned 24 Years on Wrongful Murder Conviction

By goodblacknews on November 2, 2016
NYC PAPERS OUT. Social media use restricted to low res file max 184 x 128 pixels and 72 dpi
Derrick Deacon, 58, hugs his attorney Rebecca Freedman, at State Supreme Court after being acquitted for the 1989 robbery and murder of a 16-year-old named Anthony Winn. (JESSE WARD/JESSE WARD FOR NEW YORK DAILY NE)
A Brooklyn man who spent more than 24 years in prison for a murder conviction that was later thrown out by an appeals court has accepted the city’s offer of $6 million to settle his federal lawsuit, the Daily News has learned.
Derrick Deacon was re-tried for the murder in 2013 by the office of then-Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, and the jury acquitted him after deliberating merely nine minutes.  “Based upon newly discovered evidence which implicated another man as the actual killer, the court vacated Mr. Deacon’s conviction and granted him a new trial,” Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the city Law Department said in a statement.
“We have determined that a settlement of this civil suit is fair and in the best interests of the City.”  Deacon, 61, was convicted of robbing and killing Anthony Wynn in April 1989 inside an East Flatbush building. A key eyewitness who pocketed a $1,000 Crimestoppers reward from the NYPD fingered him as the murderer.
But the case began to unravel in 2001 when a federal informant who had been a member of a violent gang called the Patio Crew gave the feds the name of the real killer. The Appellate Division for the Second Department reversed Deacon’s conviction in 2013, but the D.A.’s office refused to drop the case against him.
“The case should have never been retried and the acquittal after nine minutes was a slap in the face of the D.A.’s office,” his lawyer Glenn Garber said Monday. “This settlement is some level of redemption and compensation for Derrick’s suffering.”
To read more, go to: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/brooklyn-man-6m-24-years-wrongfully-prison-article-1.2852913

Venus and Serena Williams to Open Center in Compton for Victims of Violence

By goodblacknews on November 1, 2016

Venus And Serena To Open Center For Victims Of Violence In Compton
Venus and Serena Williams (photo via madamenoire.com)

article by Veronica Wells via madamenoire.com
Venus Williams and Serena Williams may travel the world playing the game they love, but they never forget about their home, Compton, California. The two are giving back to their hometown through the launch of the Yetunde Price Resource Center.
Named after their eldest sister, who was killed as a result of gun violence, the center will connect residents who have been affected by violence to service providers. The center will develop custom plans and function as a liaison between the residents of Compton and the agencies that are there to help them.
Mayor Aja Brown said of the center’s opening:

“This is an incredible investment and commitment by Serena and Venus Williams, and I commend them for their desire to help children and families in Compton thrive. The resource center will serve as vital support to existing nonprofits and organizations that provide critical services to our community.  I understand first-hand the power of partnership, and I am confident that the resource center will play a major role in breaking down silos in our community by facilitating key partnerships to increase asset leveraging and expanding the impact of services. The resource center will be able to map all of the resources in and around the Compton community while providing customized assistance that will be a vital asset to improving our ability to service our youth, adults and families.”

In addition to the resource center, Gatorade will refurbish two tennis courts and dedicate them to the Williams sisters. The courts will be unveiled during the Healthy Compton Community Festival on Saturday, November 12.
To read original article, go to: http://madamenoire.com/724191/venus-and-serena-to-open-center-for-victims-of-violence-in-compton/