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Xavier University to Hold its Third Annual "Give. Love. Xavier Day" to Raise Funds for Scholarships

By goodblacknews on June 1, 2015
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HBCU Xavier University of Louisiana will hold its third annual Give. Love. Xavier Day – an online, social media-driven fundraising event – from 12:00 a.m. to midnight, June 2nd.
The event encourages alumni and friends to come together for one day to show their support for the University with financial contributions. Participants are encouraged to post about the event via social networks (such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) to spread the excitement and encourage their friends and followers to give. Conversations also are encouraged by sharing the hashtag #GLXU15, connecting to @XULAalumni website, and visiting http://www.xula.edu/givelove to pledge and see real-time results.
This year’s theme is, “Thank You, Dr. Francis”, in honor of retiring XU President Dr. Norman Francis.
Xavier University President Norman Harris
Xavier University President Dr. Norman Francis

Dr. Kenneth St. Charles, XU Vice President for Institutional Advancement, said all gifts made online that day go directly to the Annual Fund, which supports scholarships and other important University programs. The donor goal for this year’s campaign is 2,470 individuals.
“Members of the Xavier community coming together like this showcases the spirit of our University,” St. Charles said. “Part of our mission is to prepare students to assume roles of leadership and service in the global society and these alumni are taking on the responsibility of preserving that tradition. Their donations to the Annual Fund make a vital difference in the lives of current students.”
Tom Joyner, chairman and founder of the Tom Joyner Foundation, said, “I’m hoping alumni, friends, family and other supporters, will show some love by making a gift to Xavier. This is a great way to help out this great HBCU.”
Last year a total of $275,100 was contributed by nearly 1,200 donors, far surpassing the $120,000 collected in the inaugural year of the event.
A key element of Give. Love. Xavier Day is the use of alumni captains to spur interest among fellow alumni, as well as the establishment of key Challenge Grant incentives: dollar for dollar matches that are realized when alumni and friends made their donations on Give. Love. Xavier Day. This year’s event has nearly $135,000 in matching challenge grants which will only be realized if Xavierites and friends make gifts on June 2nd.
“All of last year’s Challenge Grant Initiatives were met,” said Kim Reese, XU Director of Alumni Relations. “Those matches brought in an extra $90,000 in pledges, making many of our donor dollars twice as impactful!”

After a Fire, Pastor Charles Eatman Sr. Keeps a Harlem School Going From His Brownstone

By goodblacknews on May 28, 2015
The 25 students of Mount Pleasant Christian Academy have been going to school at a pastor’s Harlem brownstone since a December fire at their school. (DAVID GONZALEZ / THE NEW YORK TIMES)

The sounds of children once again fill the ground floor of the Eatmans’ brownstone on West 119th Street. This was not exactly the plan the Harlem couple had envisioned after raising four of their own children. But as the Rev. Charles Eatman Sr. knows, few things — other than the Ten Commandments — are written in stone.

In December, a fire caused serious damage to the Mount Pleasant Christian Academy, which Mr. Eatman started in 1982 to provide an education that mixed religion, a sense of the world and pride in African-American culture. Without much delay after the fire, Mr. Eatman and his wife, Lorraine, took in the students, turning the ground floor of their nearby home into a makeshift schoolhouse for prekindergarten through 12th grade.

Despite the tight quarters, nobody is complaining.

“A school is not just about the brick and mortar,” Mr. Eatman said. “It’s not about a building. It’s about nurturing. And part of what we do is teach flexibility. You can’t just fall apart because something went wrong.”

Of course, as a preacher, he does not fail to invoke a favorite biblical verse from Ecclesiastes. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might,” he recited. “In practical terms, I’ve been given some special gifts and I have to make the most of them. So, there was a fire. What next?”

In some ways, his insistence on not letting anything stop him, or his 25 students, dates to his childhood in Harlem and the Bronx, at schools where the curriculum was neither interesting nor challenging. He managed to go on to college, where he was so scared of being called upon by the professor that he prayed it would not happen. Despite his fears, one teacher put him at ease, and that set him on his path to becoming a public-school teacher in Queens.

In the early 1980s, he became pastor of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, making his after-work commute from Queens a problem. He quit his teaching job and became a full-time pastor. Then, in 1982, he persuaded the congregation to let him open a small school. He relocated the school about 12 years ago to a better space inside two brownstones on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard.

His philosophy is direct: Ground students in the basics — in both faith and scholarship — and give them a sense of their identity through classes in black history and service trips overseas to places like Benin and the Dominican Republic. In everything the school does, he said, it treats the students as individuals.

“I want to provide our children with exposure to opportunities they do not find everywhere, especially for young people in the inner city,” he said. “People sometimes have this idea that they can’t handle it, or deserve it. But we give opportunities to every child. They do not compete against anyone except themselves. The question is, how far do you want to go?”

That kind of philosophy appeals to Brian Adjo, whose two daughters attend the school. An accountant, he was headed to see a client a few winters ago when he met two students in the cold selling hot chocolate and cookies to raise money for a water project in Benin. He was struck by their poise. His curiosity led him to Mr. Eatman, who happened to be reading the same book about black Indians that he had just finished. Mr. Adjo was impressed.

1st Black Air Force General Benjamin O. Davis Jr. Honored With New Barracks Named After Him at West Point

By goodblacknews on May 22, 2015

Air Force General Benjamin O. Davis (photo courtesy
Air Force General Benjamin O. Davis (photo courtesy wikiwand.com)

From 1900 to 1932, no African-American cadet matriculated at the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1932, Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the son of an Army officer, was admitted. He was “silenced” or shunned by his classmates for four years as officers and administrators at West Point looked the other way. No cadets, faculty or staff members befriended or spoke to him except on an official basis. Yet Davis persisted and graduated 35th in his class.
Benjamin O. Davis Jr. went on to command the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II and later was the first Black general in the U.S. Air Force. He died in 2002.
Now the U.S. Military Academy is paying tribute to General Davis by naming a new cadet barracks in his honor.
“General Benjamin O. Davis Jr. epitomizes the essence of character and honorable living we strive to inspire in every cadet at West Point,” said Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen, superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy.
article via jbhe.com

Detroit Teacher Nadirah Muhammad, 39, Donates Kidney to 18 Year-Old Student A'Ja Booth

By goodblacknews on May 21, 2015

A'Ja Booth, left, and teacher Nadirah Muhammad are honored with the red carpet treatment by their West Side Academy peers as they enter the gym Tuesday. Muhammad was motivated to get tested as a potential donor when she found out A’Ja needed a new kidney. (Photo: Photos by Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News)
A’Ja Booth, left, and teacher Nadirah Muhammad are honored with the red carpet treatment by their West Side Academy peers as they enter the gym Tuesday. Muhammad was motivated to get tested as a potential donor when she found out A’Ja needed a new kidney. (Photo: Photos by Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News)

A’Ja Booth walked the red carpet into the school gymnasium Tuesday with a shy smile and a new kidney.
It was the 18-year-old senior’s first day back at West Side Academy since a successful transplant five months ago. Ten classmates and a counselor on either side of the red carpet greeted her with confetti while 11th- and 12th-graders seated on bleachers cheered and applauded.
The woman close by her side on the red carpet, the one who linked arms with A’Ja and couldn’t stop smiling, was not just the physical education and health teacher. She was A’Ja’s donor.
They were a perfect match.
“This is what we do as teachers,” said Nadirah Muhammad, 39, who is a wife and the mother of a son. “I did not do it for the accolades. I saw a human being in need and if it were my child, I’d want someone to step forward and help him.”
When it was A’Ja’s turn at the microphone, inside the gym decorated with black and silver balloons, she was overcome with emotion and covered her eyes, crying softly.
The students applauded and shouted, “We love you,” urging her to take her time.  “I am really thankful and blessed,” said A’Ja. “I can’t thank her any more than I already have. I look at her as my second mother. She’s a wonderful woman.”
Andrea Ayler, principal of West Side Academy, said she had to push the teacher to go public about her gift to A’Ja.  “Mrs. Muhammad did not want a lot of publicity, but I told her we have to tell this story,” Ayler said. “People just don’t do this. I myself would be hesitant. … I’m just so grateful to be principal of a school of educators who love children unconditionally the way Mrs. Muhammad does.”
The donor and recipient came together after Muhammad met A’Ja in her dance class during winter semester last school year. In May 2014, the teacher noticed a book A’Ja had written, “My Dialysis Journey” and asked if she could read it.
The book was A’Ja’s story of being a kidney patient. She described undergoing dialysis for four hours at a time, three days a week, and how she needed a transplant. Muhammad was immediately moved to help.
“She had been in my dance class for about two or three months before I even knew she was on dialysis,” said Muhammad. “Now she’s healthy and it’s just great to see her back in school and graduating in a few weeks.”
In her book, A’Ja wrote: “I’m tired of living day to day like everything’s alright. Being in a chair and hooked up to a machine is not a choice. I have to do it.”
After doctors determined teacher and student were a match, Muhammad’s kidney was removed Dec. 15, 2014, at Henry Ford Hospital and transplanted into A’Ja at Children’s Hospital of Michigan. Nearly seven weeks later, Muhammad returned to work at West Side Academy, an alternative education school.  A’Ja, meanwhile, is set to graduate June 8, pending completion of online courses.
Dr. Jason Denny, a surgeon at Henry Ford Health System and the Henry Ford Transplant Institute who performed the transplant, explained that kidney failure requires dialysis, which means a curtailed life.  “The best medical treatment for patients is a transplant, and donors can be living or deceased,” he said.
He emphasized the need for more organ donors. According to the National Kidney Foundation, as of April 22, 101,662 U.S. kidney patients were awaiting transplants.
A’Ja’s friend Dakota Crowder, 18, also a senior, said at first he was frightened for her because he had never known anyone who had had a kidney transplant.  “I felt relieved when I found out Mrs. Muhammad was the one who was donating the kidney,” he said. “When I found out everything was OK after the transplant, I was happy for A’Ja and Mrs. Muhammad.”
A’Ja said she plans to attend Oakland University and hopes to become a nurse.
“She will have a long and prosperous life taking good care of my kidney,” Muhammad said.
article by Shawn D. Lewis via detroitnews.com

Ronald Nelson, Accepted at Every Ivy League College, Opts for 4-Year Full Scholarship from University of Alabama

By goodblacknews on May 14, 2015

Ronald Nelson
Houston High School senior and incoming University of Alabama freshman Ronald Nelson (Photo via businessinsider.com)

High-school senior Ronald Nelson had an incredibly hard decision to make this year about college — mainly because he got into all eight Ivy League universities.

In the end, he decided on the University of Alabama and rejected offers from all eight Ivy League schools.
Nelson also rejected offers from Stanford, Johns Hopkins, New York University, Vanderbilt, and Washington University in St. Louis.
He decided to pass on these big names in favor of UA for two big reasons: He got a full ride from Alabama and got into its selective honors program.
“It took a lot of soul searching for me to push that first ‘accept’ button for Alabama,” Nelson said. “Of course there’s a bit of uncertainty.”
It’s easy to see why Nelson got into UA’s honors program and every single Ivy League school. As a student at Houston High School in Memphis, Tennessee, he has a 4.58 weighted GPA, has taken 15 AP courses, and achieved a 2260 out of 2400 on his SAT and a 34 out of 36 on his ACT. He’s the senior-class president of his high school, a National Merit Scholar and National Achievement Scholar, and a state-recognized alto saxophone player.
Despite his achievements, Nelson did not receive a performance-based scholarship from the Ivy League schools. None of them offer merit scholarships, nor do several other prestigious universities, such as Stanford.
Like many top universities, each of the Ivy League schools vows to meet the full financial need of any student who gets admitted. However, this doesn’t mean they’re covering every student’s tuition. Rather, they use factors such as a family’s income, assets, and size to determine “demonstrated” need.
Each school offered Nelson some financial aid, he said, and “some of it could have been manageable for the first year.”
After that first year, though, his aid package would shrink; his older sister graduates from college in 2016 and his parents would then only be supporting one child’s tuition. The change, according to Nelson, would be “pretty drastic.”

16 Year-Old Thessalonika Arzu-Embry to Enter Ph.D. Program

By goodblacknews on May 14, 2015
Thessalonika Arzu-Embry
Thessalonika Arzu-Embry (Daily Herald)

Thessalonika Arzu-Embry is ahead of her class… way ahead.  The 16-year-old, who lives with her family at Great Lakes Naval Station, has a masters degree and is now going for her doctorate.

She was home schooled and started college at 11. This fall, she’s starting a Ph.D. program in aviation psychology.  “I feel honored for the opportunity to help others at an early age. I feel very glad to enter college and help people,” Arzu-Embry said.

In addition to her scholastic success, Arzu-Embry has already written three books.

article via abc7chicago.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

Baltimore Big Brothers Program Sees 3,000 Percent Increase in Mentorship Requests

By goodblacknews on May 4, 2015
Big Brothers of Baltimore announcing that inquiries were up 3000 percent in 36 hours following unrest. (Photo: BBBS GREAT CHESAPEAKE)

In just 36 hours, following shocking television images of youths rioting in the streets, the Baltimore chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has received the largest surge in mentor applicants in the organization’s history — a whopping 3,000 percent increase.

That spike in interest is unprecedented, President and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Chesapeake Terry Hickey told NBC News.

“To have people reach out and say, ‘I want to make a commitment for the next year of my life spending every week with a young man or woman,’ is blowing my mind actually,” said Hickey.

The organization has received over 500 mentor inquiries in the past few days, compared to the usual four to five inquiries a day.

“I was worried people would see the images on TV of young people looting… you don’t know how people are going to react to the image of young teens running through the streets,” Hickey said. “But people are having their own epiphany, they are saying, ‘It just dawned on me that by being an adult in one kid’s life I can make a real difference.'”

Hickey attributes this realization to all of the young people he has seen interviewed in the media expressing that they do not have adults in their lives who they feel listen to them and who they can trust.

“I’m hoping this means people aren’t about blaming kids for what’s happened, but are recognizing that mentoring needs to be right up there at the top of the list when you talk about building communities,” he said.

Interest in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program surged after protests erupted in Baltimore in response to the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray who was killed in police custody.

Baltimore City State’s Attorney, Marilyn Mosby, announced Friday that Gray’s death was ruled a homicide and other charges would be brought against the six Baltimore police who had contact with Gray.

In the past, Hickey said, it has been hard to recruit a significant number of volunteers, leaving more than 600 children in Baltimore city on the organization’s waiting list. The increase in mentors will help remove some of these children from the waiting list.

According to a press release from Big Brothers Big Sisters, national research found that after 18 months of spending time with their “Bigs,” Little Brothers and Little Sisters were 46 percent less likely to use illegal drugs, 27 percent less likely to begin using alcohol, 52 percent less likely to skip school and 33 percent less likely to hit someone, as compared to those children not in the program.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Chesapeake — which includes Baltimore — founded in 1952, is the oldest and largest youth mentoring organization in the State of Maryland.

article by Tracy Jarrett via nbcnews.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

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.