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Black Unemployment Rate Hits Seven-Year Low

By goodblacknews on May 11, 2015

JobSeekingInterviewUnemployment620480The unemployment rate for black Americans fell below 10 percent in April, for the first time since the economic downfall in 2008.
During the recession, black unemployment had peaked at 16.8 percent in March 2010, while unemployment for whites was almost half that rate. This past April, the unemployment rate for African Americans dipped into the single digits category at 9.6 percent. While the latest data shows signs of improvement, it’s clear that an employment gap still exist between races. Despite the national unemployment rate falling to 5.4 percent, blacks in states like Illinois, Michigan, California and Pennsylvania face unemployment rates above 12 percent.
[Related: U.S. Applications for Unemployment Aid Hit 15-Year Low]
While some reports view education as the reason for the employment gap, data shows that 12.4 percent of black college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 faced unemployment in 2013 whereas the national unemployment rate for college graduates in the same age range was 5.6 percent. The median weekly paycheck for a white college graduate last year was $1,132, versus $895 for a black college graduate.
With factors such as discrimination and workplace bias coming into play when considering the road to employment for blacks, the latest unemployment numbers are not only signs of progression but also proof that more work needs to be done.
article by Courtney Connley via blackenterprise.com

Black Parole Officers Sue Police Department After Being Racially Profiled By White Cops

By goodblacknews on May 7, 2015

Police
(Photo Source: JEWEL SAMAD / Getty)

Four NYPD parole officers have filed a civil lawsuit against the Ramapo Police Department after claiming they were racially profiled during a recent traffic stop, CNN reports.  The officers were stopped on April 21 while attempting to carry out an arrest warrant and wearing their badges, bulletproof vests, and a placard on their truck’s dashboard.
The force claims they received a 911 call about “four big people” with “bulletproof vests on” riding in an unmarked car. According to CNN:

Mario Alexandre and his colleagues — Sheila Penister, Annette Thomas-Prince and Samuel Washington — are all black New York State Parole officers. The parole officers have filed a civil lawsuit, alleging that they were racially profiled by the white officers and that their detainment was unnecessarily malicious and reckless.

In addition to being punched by a lieutenant, Alexandre says he showed his badge but was ignored by the rest of the officers.

Penister said that when she attempted to show her New York State ID to a police sergeant, he “became enraged and approached her in a threatening manner with his hand held on the butt of his gun,” court documents state. When all parole officers were identified, they allege they were still forcibly detained and not permitted to leave.

Penister later told reporters she still suffers anxiety towards other officers. All of the parole officers have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Ramapo Town Assistant Attorney Dennis Lynch says the police officers acted accordingly.

Lynch said called the actions of the police officers “reasonable under the circumstances” and that the “parole officers had not notified the town that they would be in town.”

The officers have not been placed on suspension, despite demands from the victims.

article by Desire Thompson via newsone.com

FAMILY: Teen Danotiss Smith Asks Mom Belinda to Be His Prom Date For The Sweetest Reason

By goodblacknews on May 7, 2015

hunt smith
Danotiss Smith and his mom, Belinda Hunt-Smith (Photo via huffingtonpost.com)

A Michigan senior is going to spend one of high school’s most important nights doing something special for, and with, his mother.
One afternoon last month, Belinda Hunt-Smith asked her 18-year-old son Danotiss Smith — whom she lovingly calls Stump, a nickname his great-grandfather gave him two days after he was born — about who he was taking to prom.
Unexpectedly, Stump told his mom he didn’t want to take anyone but her.
“He explained it to me like, ‘You’re always there, you do everything for me. I want you to go,” Hunt-Smith, who lives in Pontiac, told The Huffington Post. “For him to want to share that moment with me… I’m at a loss for words.”
The invitation was particularly meaningful to Hunt-Smith because, as her son knew, she didn’t go to her own prom. She turned down several dates because she couldn’t afford to buy a dress or get her hair done.
“It tore me up inside, because I really wanted to go. I think I cried every night up until prom,” Hunt-Smith said. She told classmates who asked why she wasn’t there that she hadn’t wanted to attend.
“I didn’t want people to know that I was in a bad situation,” she explained. “I [told myself] ‘If I ever have kids I’ll make sure they can go.'”
When Hunt-Smith was 11, her mom died of leukemia. Her dad decided he couldn’t take care of her and her siblings two years later, she said, and she moved in with her grandmother and helped raise her two younger brothers. She felt like she was on her own in life.
“It didn’t change my way of thinking, because I wanted to make my momma proud of me,” Hunt-Smith said. “She told me before she died, ‘You are my strongest kid.’ And I never understood it until now, but everything I went through, I came out of.”
Hunt-Smith is now filled with pride for her own son. She fondly remembers when he was a 4-year-old water boy for her older son’s third grade baseball team and ended up filling in as third baseman.  “Do you know, my baby got on that base, and not one ball got past him?” she gushed.
Stump eventually switched to football and track. Next year he will go off to college in Iowa. But first, he and his mom will spend Friday evening at the Waterford Kettering High School prom — watch Hunt-Smith show off her dress and teach her son to dance in a video from Click on Detroit by clicking here.
“This is the best Mother’s Day gift I ever could have wanted,” she said.
article by Kate Abbey-Lambertz via huffingtonpost.com

Sam's Club CEO Rosalind Brewer Announces $13.6 Million Commitment to Women and Minority Business Owners

By goodblacknews on May 6, 2015

Sam's Club CEO Rosalind Brewer (Photo via news.walmart.com)
Sam’s Club and the Sam’s Club Giving Program recently announced the Small Business Economic Mobility Initiative, a five-year, multimillion-dollar philanthropic investment in small business growth through increased access to affordable capital and better borrower education. The first round of grants totaling $13.6 million went to eight national nonprofit organizations that provide access to capital and education to underserved U.S. small businesses including women, minorities and veterans. The announcement was made in celebration of National Small Business Week (May 4-8).
”Our founder Sam Walton started Sam’s Club to help small businesses get access to big business savings, save money and grow their businesses as a result,” Rosalind Brewer, president and CEO of Sam’s Club, said in a released statement. “Through this philanthropic investment, our founders’ legacy is carried forward by fortifying our communities’ lending resources to increase access to capital and borrower education for small business owners. In collaboration with dedicated nonprofits, we are proud to open doors for small business and strengthen the backbone of the U.S. economy.”
Through 2019, Sam’s Club’s Small Business Economic Mobility initiative aims to enable nonprofit Community Development Financial Institutions to make 5,000 loans to underserved small businesses with focus on women, minority and veteran-owned businesses with fewer than 20 employees; unlock $100 million in new capital from non-bank, community lending resources to low- and moderate-income small business owners; support 28,000 jobs in the small business community; and, reach one million underserved small business owners with education on responsible lending and better borrower practices.
Sam’s Club launched the philanthropic initiative to respond to the national struggle for small business owners in low-to-moderate income communities to attain affordable loans and navigate the lending process. By bringing together expertise, business initiatives such as the recently announced Business Lending Center and philanthropic investments, Sam’s Club and Sam’s Club Giving Program are uniquely positioned to help small business owners access affordable capital.
Across the country, small businesses and entrepreneurs report that access to capital is a major barrier to growth. According to The State of Small Business Lending report published by Harvard Business School fellow and former SBA Administrator Karen Mills, the share of small business loans provided by banks 20 years ago was about 50%, compared to only 30% in 2012. Specifically, minority owned businesses typically encounter higher borrowing costs, receive smaller loans and see their loan applications rejected more often by banks, according to a Minority Entrepreneurship Report published by UC-Berkeley and Wayne State University.
article by Carolyn M. Brown via blackenterprise.com
 

Prince to Play "Rally 4 Peace" Concert in Baltimore this Sunday

By goodblacknews on May 6, 2015

Prince at the Grammy Awards in February.
Prince at the Grammy Awards in February. (Credit: John Shearer/Invision, via Associated Press)

A protest song was not enough.

Days after announcing his song “Baltimore,” a tribute to Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old who suffered a fatal spinal-cord injury while in police custody, Prince has announced a surprise “Rally 4 Peace” concert in Baltimore. It will be held Sunday at Royal Farms Arena.

“In a spirit of healing, the event is meant to be a catalyst for pause and reflection following the outpouring of violence that has gripped Baltimore and areas throughout the U.S.,” Live Nation, the concert promoter, said in a statement. “As a symbolic message of our shared humanity and love for one another, attendees are invited to wear something gray in tribute to all those recently lost in the violence.”

Tickets go on sale today at 5 p.m. EST at LiveNation.com. Part of the proceeds will benefit Baltimore youth charities, organizers said.

While “Baltimore” has yet to be released — Prince said he was considering streaming the track on Jay Z’s Tidal service — its lyrics were made available online. The song begins:

Nobody got in nobody’s way

So I guess you could say

It was a good day

At least a little better than the day in Baltimore

Does anybody hear us pray?

For Michael Brown or Freddie Gray

Peace is more than the absence of war

Absence of war

article by Joe Coscarelli via nytimes.com

“I’m Here For You”: Black Baltimore Police Sergeant K Glanville Gives Moving Speech To Protesters (VIDEO)

By goodblacknews on May 4, 2015

Baltimore Police Sgt. K. Glanville (Photo via YouTube)
Baltimore Police Sgt. K. Glanville addresses group of peaceful protesters. (Photo via YouTube)

A police officer’s kind words during a period of unrest over the death of Freddie Gray touched many across Baltimore, who have for so long witnessed police violence in their communities.
Sgt. K Glanville spoke to a crowd on Saturday during a festive rally about her role as a police officer and expressed that not all officers are in the business of harming unarmed civilians. Glanville retold stories of her encounters with pedestrians in the city and says she understands why so many have questioned the tactics of police officers.
The mother says she gives out her number to children in an effort to show she is a protector of the community. According to the Huffington Post,

“My heart is in this,” Glanville told a small crowd. “I’m not wasting time on someone that’s not trying to let me in, when I got all these other people that got the door wide open, saying ‘Sgt. Glanville, please step in.’ I am here, I’m available. I give kids my phone number, I tell people ‘you need something, you call me.’ It all starts with relationship building.”

A Baltimore native and a 19-year veteran, the officer has never received a complaint. Her speech brought tears to the eyes of many in the small crowd. Glanville told onlookers that everyone has to start working together to stop the problem of police violence.

”We have to start doing better,” Glanville told the crowd. “We know better, and we have to start doing better. It doesn’t matter what color you are. People are watching to see the next move that Baltimore makes coming out of this … I want other cities to look at this and be able to see a template….And the main thing we need to do is make sure these babies are ok.”

The following day, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced the overnight curfew would be lifted effective immediately. In a statement, Rawlings-Blake expressed that the curfew had helped reduce violence in the city following last Monday’s riots after Gray’s funeral.
Check out Glanville’s speech to the city of Baltimore below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVAIUs83VBE&w=560&h=315]
article by Desire Thompson via globalgrind.com

University of California, Riverside Honors the Tuskegee Airmen

By goodblacknews on May 4, 2015

“Aim High/Rise Above: The Legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen” at UC Riverside (Photo:
“Aim High/Rise Above: The Legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen” at UC Riverside (Photo: ucrtoday.ucr.edu)

The Tomas Rivera Library on the campus of the University of California, Riverside has recently debuted a new exhibit entitled “Aim High/Rise Above: The Legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen.” The library has been collecting historical materials about the Tuskegee Airmen since 2005 with a focus on the personal archives of three Tuskegee Airmen from California: Arthur C. Harmon, Paul Lehman, and William R. Melton.
Archivist Bergis Jules (Photo: LinkedIn)
Archivist Bergis Jules (Photo: LinkedIn)

Bergis Jules, the university and political papers archivist and curator of African American collections at the library, said that “our goal with the exhibit is to highlight how our collection of Tuskegee materials is significant for supporting research activity locally, regionally, and nationally. We are proud to have been entrusted with these materials and excited to continue to grow the collection to document even more of this important history.”
Jules is a graduate of Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. He holds a master’s degree in African American and African diaspora studies and a master of library and information science degree from Indiana University.
article via jbhe.com

Eleven African-American Students Earn Harry S. Truman Scholarships

By goodblacknews on May 2, 2015

2015-truman-scholars-post
(L to R) Top row: Amanda Allen, Darrius Atkins, Rashaun Bennett, Andre Evans, Qiddist Hammerly, and Donovan Hicks. Bottom row: Louis Laine, Krystal McLeod, Caylyn Perry, Mya-Lee Roberson, and Olivia Smith. (Photo via jbhe.com)

The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation has announced the selection of the 2015 Truman Scholars. Each Truman Scholar is awarded up to $30,000 for graduate study. They also receive priority admission to several top-tier graduate schools, have career and graduate school counseling opportunities, and are fast-tracked for internships within the federal government.
Truman Scholars must be U.S. citizens and be in the top 25 percent of their college class. They must express a commitment to government service or the nonprofit sector.
This year, 58 Truman scholars were selected from 688 candidates nominated by 297 colleges and universities. This year’s winners will assemble for a leadership development workshop at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, in late May.
Of this year’s 58 Truman Scholars, it appears that 11, or 19 percent, are African Americans.
Amanda Allen is a junior at the University of Louisville, where she is majoring in communication and political science. At the university, she is the executive director of the Engage, Lead, Serve Board which oversees student service projects on campus. She hopes to earn a master’s degree in education and then enroll in law school.
Darrius Atkins is the junior class president at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He is majoring in political science with a concentration in American government. He plans to pursue a master’s degree in public policy and then attend law school. He has interned in the Illinois House of Representatives and at Goldman Sachs.
Rashaun Bennett is a political science major at Davidson College in North Carolina. He is also pursuing a minor in economics. He has worked with local public schools to increase enrollment in Advanced Placement programs. Bennett plans to earn a master’s degree in public policy.
Andre Evans is a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. A native of Chicago, he is majoring in naval architecture. He is the president of the Midshipmen Black Studies Club and is the bass section leader for the academy’s gospel choir. He hopes to earn a graduate degree in social and urban policy.
Qiddist Hammerly is a student at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She is majoring in social policy and her goal is to end racial disparities in education and the criminal justice system. She plans to study for a master of public policy degree.
Donovan Hicks is a vice president of the study body at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He is double majoring in government and finance and pursuing a minor in accounting. He studied abroad in Germany and interned in southern India. He plans to obtain a master of public policy degree and go to law school.

FEATURE: Meet Marilyn Mosby, State Attorney Overseeing The Freddie Gray Investigation

By goodblacknews on May 2, 2015
Marilyn Mosby
Baltimore State Attorney Marilyn Mosby (Photo via hello beautiful.com)

Baltimore State Attorney Marilyn Mosby is the person in charge of the investigation of Freddie Gray’s death. Gray suffered a spinal injury while he was in custody of six Baltimore officers, who have been charged in his death.
Though locally well-known, Mosby’s announcement of the charges was the first time she’s been prominent in the national news.  She started as an insurance company attorney and got a surprising and deserved win last November, so this is her first stint as an elected official. She beat out incumbent Gregg Bernstein by portraying herself as a crime crusader, determined to keep repeat offenders off the streets.

It was the murder of Mosby’s 17-year-old cousin back in 1994 that helped her see that she wanted a career in criminal justice. “I learned very early on that the criminal justice system isn’t just the police, the judges and the state’s attorney,” CNN quoted her as saying. “It’s much more than that. I believe that we are the justice system. We, the members of the community, are the justice system because we are the victims of crimes.”

HEALTH: 6 Questions You Should Ask Your Doctor About Multiple Sclerosis

By goodblacknews on May 2, 2015

stock-footage-black-woman-talking-to-sincere-african-american-doctor-at-office-deskWhen you’ve been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, all sorts of questions and concerns start racing through your mind:
“Am I going to be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of my life?”
“Will I no longer be able to do the activities I love?”
These are very legitimate concerns and you may even feel as if you’re losing control over your life, which is understandable, but one of the best ways to regain control is by gathering your thoughts so that you can ask your doctor all the right questions.
Multiple Sclerosis is a disease to the damage of the covers of nerve cells which disrupts the ability of parts of the nervous system to communicate, resulting in physical, mental and sometimes psychiatric problems. It is the sisease that forced comedy legend, Richard Pryor, into a wheelchair in the last days of his life
With the help of Dr. Bola Oyeyipo, a family physician in San Antonio, Texas, we’re answering some of your most common questions regarding MS so that you can live your best life.
1. “What kind of MS do I have?” There are four types of MS: Relapsing-remitting MS, Primary-progressive MS, Secondary-progressive MS, and Progressive-relapsing MS. Knowing which form you have is essential in fighting the disease because you will know what to expect in terms of how it effects your body.
“The conventional treatment for MS is often not pleasant – injections of immune-suppressing agents so it’s important to know the type of MS you have so your treatment can be tailored accordingly,” Dr. Oyeyipo says.
2. “How far along is my MS?” MS can be difficult to diagnose due to the fact that it cannot be detected by one single test and the symptoms tend to vary from person to person. As a result, many individuals have MS for quite some time before being diagnosed. By then, the disease will have progressed.
“The current way of diagnosing MS is finding evidence of damage in at least two separate areas of the central nervous system, which includes the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves,” Dr. Oyeyipo says. “This usually start months to years before the physical symptoms show up.”
She adds, “Knowing the extent of demyelination of the brain and spinal cord helps to guide what treatment options to take. The more extensive the disease is, [the patient will require] a more aggressive approach, [such as treatment] with immunoglobulins and steroids to preserve physical function and to achieve remission.”
MUST READ: Do You Know The Different Types Of Multiple Sclerosis?