Former first lady Michelle Obama speaking with D.C. students (photo via washingtonpost.com) article by Perry Stein via washingtonpost.com
When former first lady Michelle Obama walked into a D.C. high school classroom, the stunned students erupted in tears. One student even darted out of the classroom to regain her composure before she could sit next to her. Obama, who still lives in Washington, made a surprise visit Tuesday to Ballou STAY High School to speak with 14 students for two hours.
Upon arriving, she hugged each of them before taking her seat in the circle. “Once she came in, it was an inspirational feeling,” said Alliyah Williams, 18. “She was so sweet and warm. She was like a mom.”
[Watch Michelle Obama crash these D.C. classrooms and surprise students.]
After visiting the public alternative high school in Southeast Washington, she tweeted “Always love visiting DC schools. Thank you for hosting me today @BallouSTAY. Stories of students #reachinghigher continue to inspire me.” The tweet referenced the White House initiative “Reach Higher” she launched to encourage students to continue their education. To read more, go to: Michelle Obama surprises D.C. students, talks struggles and life goals for two hours – The Washington Post
Columbia University professor Alondra Nelson (photo via news.columbia.edu) article via jbhe.com Alondra Nelson, a professor of sociology and dean of social science at Columbia University in New York City, will be the next president of the Social Science Research Council. Founded in 1923, the Social Science Research Council is an independent, international, nonprofit organization which supports research and development of social scientists. Professor Nelson will serve a five-year term as president of the organization, beginning September 1.
Professor Nelson joined the faculty at Columbia University in 2009 after teaching at Yale University. She is the author of the award-winning book Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination(University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and a co-editor of Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History (Rutgers University Press, 2012) and Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life (New York University Press, 2001). Her most recent book is The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome(Beacon Press, 2016).
Professor Nelson is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of California at San Diego, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She holds a doctoral degree in American studies from New York University.
(photo via YouTube) article via nytlive.nytimes.com
A Catholic Youth Organization basketball team in New Jersey voted to forfeit the season so they could keep two female players on the team. As NJ.com reports, the league’s director told the St. John’s Chargers that they were not allowed to play as a co-ed team, that their record would be wiped because girls had played “illegally,” and that they would be prohibited from playing the final two games of the season if the female players remained on board. Jim Goodness, a spokesperson for the archdiocese of Newark, told NJ.com that the “rules specifically state the teams should be boys or girls only.”Parents and coaches decided to let the children vote on how they would proceed. When asked if they wanted to “play the game without the two young ladies on the team,” or “stay as a team as you have all year,” all eleven players voted to keep the girls on the team and forfeit the season.
To see video of vote, click below:
People blocked an intersection during a demonstration on Friday in favor of changing the name of Yale’s Calhoun College. (PETER HVIZDAK / NEW HAVEN REGISTER, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS) article by Noah Remnick via nytimes.com
After a swelling tide of protests, the president of Yale announced today that the university would change the name of a residential college commemorating John C. Calhoun, the 19th-century white supremacist statesman from South Carolina. The college will be renamed for Grace Murray Hopper, a trailblazing computer scientist and Navy rear admiral who received a master’s degree and a doctorate from Yale.
The decision was a stark reversal of the university’s decision last spring to maintain the name despite broad opposition. Though the president, Peter Salovey, said that he was still “concerned about erasing history,” he said that “these are exceptional circumstances.”
“I made this decision because I think it is the right thing to do on principle,” Mr. Salovey said on a conference call with reporters. “John C. Calhoun’s principles, his legacy as an ardent supporter of slavery as a positive good, are at odds with this university.”
Mr. Salovey and the other members of the Yale Corporation, the university’s governing body, made their decision after an advisory committee unanimously recommended the renaming. The school is still determining when exactly the change will be carried out, but Mr. Salovey said it would be by fall at the latest.
This photo provided by the U.S. Department of Interior shows Harriet Tubman’s home, now officially recognized as a national park. U.S. Department of Interior (photo via nbcnews.com) article by Associated Press via nbcnews.com
Federal parks officials have formally established the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in upstate New York. Members of the state’s congressional delegation joined U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell in Washington, D.C., for the official signing ceremony last month that makes the park part of the National Park Service system. It encompasses the site of Tubman’s old home on the outskirts of Auburn, about 25 miles west of Syracuse, and a nearby church where she worshipped. Harriet Tubman (photo via nbcnews.com)
The New York park will focus on Tubman’s work later on in her life when she was an active proponent of women’s suffrage and other causes. It will be a sister park to the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Maryland.
“These two parks preserve and showcase a more complete history of one of America’s pivotal humanitarians who, at great personal risk, did so much to secure the freedom of hundreds of formerly enslaved people,” Secretary Jewell said. “Her selfless commitment to a more perfect union is testament that one determined person, no matter her station in life or the odds against her, can make a tremendous difference.” To read full article: Harriet Tubman National Historical Park Becomes Reality – NBC News
Imelme Umana (photo via mic.com) article by Mathew Rodriguez via mic.com
On Sunday, Harvard Law School‘s black law students’ association announced on Twitter that Imelme Umana, HLS ’18, had become the first black woman to serve as president of the Harvard Law Review.
According to Clutch, Umana is most interested in exploring stereotypes of black women in American political discourse.
Umana’s role as president of the Review puts her in some pretty great company. Former President Barack Obama was the first black American to serve as president of the Harvard Law Review.
In response, some people put their money on Umana to serve as a future president. Or perhaps she could sit on the Supreme Court bench, as many justices have similar backgrounds with the Harvard Law Review. To read more, go to: Imelme Umana becomes first black woman to serve as president of the Harvard Law Review
article via jbhe.com
The University of Minnesota Libraries has launched a new online database of African American history. The Umbra Search African American History websiteoffer users access to more than 400,000 digitized archival materials documenting African American history from more than 1,000 libraries and cultural organizations. Cecily Marcus, director of Umbra Search and a curator at the University of Minnesota Libraries, notes that “no library is able to digitize all of its holdings, but by bringing together materials from all over the country, Umbra Search allows students and scholars to tell stories that have never been told before. Umbra Search partners have amazing collections, and now those materials can sit side by side with related content from a library on the other side of the country.” Kara Olidge, executive director of Amistad Research Center at Tulane University and an Umbra Search advisory board member, adds that the new service “is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about African American history. By providing access to thousands of digitized materials, Umbra Search makes it possible to do research at libraries all across the country without getting on a plane.” To read more, go to: Vast New Online Archive of African American History Materials : The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
Whitney Young Magnet High School senior Rosario Barrera and Kenwood Academy High School Junior Walela Greenlee, both members of the museum’s Teen Council, in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Wing (photo via wbez.org) article by Lakeidra Chavis via wbez.org
A University of Chicago alumnus and his wife have made it possible for some Chicago teens to visit the Art Institute of Chicago for free for at least the next 25 years. Glenn and Claire Swogger are a philanthropic couple from Kansas who gave the undisclosed gift to the museum.“We try to find programs that will help people have educational and cultural experiences that will be useful to them and good for society,” Glenn said.
Currently, children under 14 years old get free admission into the museum. But starting this week, the Swogger’s foundation will expand that to any Chicagoan under 18 years old. “There’s still the problem of (the teenagers) getting there, they might not have enough money jiggling in their pockets for them to come routinely to the Art Institute,” Glenn Swogger said. He added the museum offers more than just art, including a variety of programs open to youths.“We just wanted to make it a little easier for young people to take advantage of that,” he said.
Art Institute spokeswoman Amanda Hicks said the donation was in the works for about a year, and the museum hopes it will help boost attendance from Chicago’s youth. Illinois art seekers who are over 18 years old can still visit the museum for free every Thursday from 5 to 8 p.m. Source: Chicago Teens Will Now Have Free Access To The Art Institute Of Chicago | WBEZ
Texas Christian University senior Caylin Moore (photo via foxsports.com) article by Sam Gardner via foxsports.com Caylin Moore sat in the rare books room at the Los Angeles Public Library on Saturday evening, his heart beating out of his chiseled chest, awaiting the news that could change his life forever.
Earlier that afternoon, Moore, a senior safety on the Texas Christian University football team, had interviewed for a Rhodes Scholarship, one of the world’s most prestigious academic honors. He was one of 14 finalists competing for two awards in District 16, which covers Southern California, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. The winners — and 30 more honorees from the country’s 15 other districts — would go on to study for two years at Oxford University in England.
And while Moore, a 2011 Children’s Defense Fund Beat the Odds honoree, 2014 Fulbright Summer Institute Scholarship awardee and recent Rangel Scholarship recipient, felt optimistic about his chances, the rest of the room felt at least as good about theirs.“While everyone else is talking and bragging about what they had done, I just sat there quietly,” Moore told FOX Sports this week, recalling the tense three-hour wait between the end of his grueling interview and the announcement of the winners.
“And when they’d ask questions to compare themselves to me, I would just kind of keep it short because I didn’t feel it necessary to do that.“I think half the people that were there, they kind of slept on me,” Moore continued. “They didn’t see me as a threat. They probably just thought I was there for charity.”
If such misguided suspicions did exist among the other finalists, one could understand why.
A child of poverty, Moore is the second of three children, raised in a single-parent home in a gang-ridden neighborhood of Carson, California, and for parts of his life he shared a bed with his mother, Calynn, his big sister, Mi-Calynn, and his younger brother, Chase. His father, Louis Moore, was abusive, Moore’s mother says, both before and after she left him in 2000, when Caylin was 6.
Nine years later, Moore’s dad was arrested for the murder of his then-girlfriend, and in 2012, he was convicted and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison. But there’s far more to Moore’s story than simply using football to escape his own rough neighborhood and hard-luck circumstances. An economics major pursuing minors in mathematics and sociology, Moore carries a 3.9 grade point average and is on track to graduate in May.
While at Marist College, where he played quarterback for three seasons, Moore worked as a janitor. After transferring to TCU, Moore founded an outreach program called S.P.A.R.K. (Strong Players Are Reaching Kids), in which Moore and his Horned Frogs teammates visit elementary schools in disadvantaged Fort Worth neighborhoods, stressing the importance of education. To read full article, go to: The remarkable journey of TCU’s Caylin Moore from poverty to Rhodes Scholar | FOX Sports
Magic Johnson took part Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016 in the Holiday Hope event at Flint Northwestern High School. The Lansing native spoke with children about the importance of education and chasing their dreams before helping to give out food, clothing, and toys to families as part of a partnership between the Magic Johnson Foundation and UnitedHealthcare Community Plan. (Photo via Roberto Acosta | racosta1@mlive.com) article by Roberto Acosta via mlive.com
FLINT, MI — Earvin “Magic” Johnson helped load up meals in the back of vehicles lined up outside Flint Northwestern High School on a snow Saturday morning, but he also delivered an assist to Flint children ahead of the giveaway.
In the Vehicle City for the Holiday Hope Flint event that provided meals, clothes, and toys to families, the NBA Hall-of-Famer told kids seated in the gymnasium to chase their dreams.
“We want you to understand dream big. Get your education and you’ll be able to do anything in life you want to do,” he said. “I was once just like you. A little kid from Lansing, Michigan right down the street. I grew up poor, but I didn’t have poor dreams.”
Johnson stressed to children “Nobody defines who you are going to be but you, but you must get a good education so it starts in school.”
He pledged $250,000 toward Flint Community schools during a September visit that will be used to establish three walk-in clinics within the district and athletic facility improvements and told people he would return to the community.
The NBA Hall of Famer returned to the Flint-area on Friday night for a fundraising event titled “An Evening with Magic Johnson” at the Holiday Inn Gateway Centre.
