Elizabeth City State University, the historically Black educational institution in North Carolina, recently opened its new Kermit E. White Graduate and Continuing Education Center. The center houses the university’s art gallery.
One section of the gallery will display pieces from the university’s permanent collection of African and African American art. The other part of the gallery will exhibit a rotating selection or a visiting collection.
Professor Alexis Joyner, chair of the art department at the university, loaned eight pieces from his personal collection for the opening exhibit. In addition, works by Leonard Jones, a former professor at Virginia State University and Charles Joyner of North Carolina State University are in the opening exhibit.
The accompanying illustration shows one of the pieces in the exhibit, “Guitar Player” by Leonard Jones.
article via jbhe.com
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On Friday, Gen. Lloyd Austin became the first African-American leader of the U.S. Central Command, which has a wide-ranging area of responsibility for 20 countries in the Middle East and southwest Asia. It’s not the first time in his 37-year career that he’s broken barriers for black members of the Army. He was also the first African American to serve in his previous position as the vice chief of staff.
Read more at: General Lloyd Austin: Meet the Black Man Who Keeps Breaking Army Barriers.
Harriet Tubman pictured with a group of formerly enslaved African-Americans, in an undated photo.
On Monday, President Barack Obama will designate five new National Monuments, including one for abolitionist Harriet Tubman. The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument, located on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, will receive a designation as a National Park, along with Delaware’s First State National Monument, Ohio’s Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument, the Río Grande del Norte National Monument in New Mexico, and the San Juan Islands National Monument in Washington State. The designations are made by under the Antiquities Act, and the new monuments will be administered by the Department of the Interior.
The Antiquities Act, which was first used by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, allows presidents to preserve public lands and historic places in the U.S., such as the Statue of Liberty and the Grand Canyon.
A statement from a White House official read:
“The monument commemorates the life of the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad who was responsible for helping enslaved people escape from bondage to freedom. The new national park, located on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, includes large sections of landscapes that are significant to Tubman’s early life in Dorchester County and evocative of her life as a slave and conductor of the Underground Railroad. The park includes Stewart’s Canal, dug by hand by free and enslaved people between 1810 and the 1830s and where Tubman learned important outdoor skills when she worked in the nearby timbering operations with her father. Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and Refuge lands, although park of the new national park, will continue to be managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument also includes the home site of Jacob Jackson, a free black man who used coded letters to help Tubman communicate with family and others. The monument will also partner with the State of Maryland’s Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park Visitor Center when it opens in 2015.”
article via thegrio.com
Denver Broncos’ Von Miller talks to the press after receiving the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year at the 2012 NFL Honors at the Murat Theatre on February 4, 2012 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Joey Foley/Getty Images)
He sat down with theGrio at the unveiling of AXE’s Face range and Shave line to discuss how having good vision contributed to his career success and what he’s learned about leadership from teammate and Denver Quarterback Peyton Manning.
What about good vision made you want to pursue it as a charitable effort?
I feel like society puts emphasis on maintaining your senses, eating the right foods, and personal hygiene, yet I feel not enough is not dedicated to your eyes. While you’re able to get your teeth fixed or replaced when they’re not cleaned properly, you only have one pair of eyes you know?
If you start off having a bad foundation in relation to your eyes at an early age, you’re starting off on the wrong foot as a kid. You’d be amazed to know how many kids need glasses, but aren’t aware that they have eye problems. I’m here with my foundation to solve that.
NBC Southern California – The gutting of Men’s Central Jail cells to be replaced with inmate classrooms is one element of a dramatic re-envisioning of the Los Angeles County jail system as proposed by Sheriff Lee Baca.
During his tenure, Baca has expanded educational opportunities for county inmates. Gutting the old central jail to make room for inmate classrooms would take the program to a new level.
Inmates who obtain their high school graduate equivalent degrees (GEDs) are more likely to find work when released into society, and less likely to re-offend, Baca is convinced.
The response to the county’s inmate educational program is “like nothing I’ve seen in my 47 years in law enforcement,” Baca told reporters Tuesday outside the County Hall of Administration. “It’s a good idea,” said one man following his release from Men’s Central Jail after serving a week for a drug violation. “Not everyone, but a lot of the men want to change.”
“Education can help,” said the former inmate, who declined to give his name. Other aspects of his plan include building a new central jail, repurposing Lancaster’s Mira Loma detention center, and transferring women inmates out of the Century Regional Detention Facility, either to Mira Loma or to the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.
Pamela Gunter-Smith has been selected to become the fourth president of York College in York, Pennsylvania. She will begin her new role on July 1. York College enrolls about 5,800 students in undergraduate and graduate programs. African Americans make up about 4 percent of the undergraduate student body.
Since 2006, Dr. Gunter-Smith has been provost and academic vice president at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Previously, she was the Porter Professor of Physiology at Spelman College in Atlanta. At Spelman, she chaired the biology department for 10 years and was the program director of the Center for Biomedical and Behavioral Research.
Dr. Gunter-Smith is a graduate of Spelman College. She earned a Ph.D. in physiology at Emory University in Atlanta and did postdoctoral research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.
article via Spelman College Graduate to Become President of York College in Pennsylvania : The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
David J. Johns has been appointed as the executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans. As executive director Johns will be asked to identify evidence-based best practices to improve African American student achievement from cradle to career. The goal of the initiative is to work with federal, state, and local agencies as well as community groups to produce a more effective continuum of education programs for African-American students.
Johns has been serving as a senior education policy advisor to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. He is a former elementary school teacher in New York City.
Johns is a graduate of Columbia University where he triple majored in English, creative writing, and African-American studies. He earned a master’s degree in sociology and education policy at Teachers College of Columbia University.
article via The New Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans : The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
First lady Michelle Obama smiles during a reception for Ireland’s prime minister in the East Room of the White House on March 19, 2013 in Washington, DC. President Obama met with Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny prior to the annual St. Patrick’s Day lunch hosted at the Capitol. (Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)
BETHESDA, Md. (AP) — Michelle Obama marked the first day of spring with an early Easter celebration as she delivered holiday treats to military families and children. The first lady stopped by the Fisher House at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Wednesday as families decorated Easter cards.
She asked the children if they were ready “to show me how to make some stuff.” Mrs. Obama, accompanied by first dog Bo, carried a basket full of cookies made by the White House pastry chefs in the shape of the Portuguese water dog. She also brought tickets for the families to attend the White House Egg Roll on April 1. The Fisher House program provides temporary housing for military families while their loved ones receive medical care.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press by Stacy A. Anderson via thegrio.com
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Paulette Brown, a partner in the law firm Edwards Wildman Palmer in Madison, New Jersey, is the uncontested nominee to assume the presidency of the American Bar Association in 2015. Her elevation to the position of president-elect is expected at the ABA’s next midyear conference in February 2014. If approved, she will become the first African-American woman to lead the American Bar Association.
Brown is a prominent labor attorney and long-time advocate for increasing diversity in the legal profession. She is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she majored in political science. She obtained her law degree at Seton Hall University in Newark, New Jersey.
article via jbhe.com
Frank X. Walker, an associate professor of English at the University of Kentucky, has been named as the poet laureate of Kentucky by Steve Beshear, the state’s governor. He is the first African-American poet to hold that position. Walker also serves as the university’s director of African-American and Africana studies program.He will take the position of poet laureate in a public ceremony that is to take place at the state capitol building in Frankfort.
Walker, who is the author of a number of books, has taught at the University of Kentucky since 2010. Before that, he was a member of the faculty at Northern Kentucky University and at Eastern Kentucky University. He has become well-known for creating the term “Affrilachia,” which is designed to unify Appalachian and African-American culture and history.