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Good Black News

Edison O. Jackson Named President of Bethune-Cookman University

By goodblacknews on March 24, 2013

Edison O. JacksonEdison O. Jackson is the sixth president of Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida. He has been serving as interim president since May 2012. He has agreed to serve as president until July 2016. The board of trustees stated that it would begin a search for his successor in January 2015.
Dr. Jackson previously served as president of Compton Community College in California and as president of Medgar Evers College, part of the City University of New York system. He retired as president of Medgar Evers College in 2009 after serving in that position for 20 years.
Dr. Jackson earned a bachelor’s degree in zoology and a master’s degree in counseling from Howard University. He holds a doctorate in education from Rutgers University.

 article via jbhe.com

Three African-American Men Win Marshall Scholarships

By goodblacknews on March 24, 2013

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(L to R) Ronald Allen, Keith Hawkins, and Jacob Tzegaegbe

In 1953 the Marshall Scholarships program was established by an act of the British Parliament. Funded by the British government, the program is a national gesture of thanks to the American people for aid received under the Marshall Plan, the U.S.-financed program that led to the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. The scholarships provide funds for up to two years of study at a British university, and include money for travel, living expenses, and books. Applicants must earn a degree at an American college or university with a minimum of a 3.7 grade point average.  The Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission is authorized to award up to 40 scholarships each year. This year 34 scholarships were awarded. It appears from JBHE research, that three of the 34 winners are African Americans.
Ronald Allen is a senior at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. He will be commissioned into the Marine Corps in May. A native of Seattle, he plans to study for a master’s degree in public policy at King’s College in London.
Keith Hawkins is a senior at Ohio University in Athens. He is an astrophysics major in the university’s Honors Tutorial College. Last summer he spent time conducting research at Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii. He will pursue a Ph.D. in astronomy at Cambridge University. An avid bicyclist, he routinely bikes 50 to 60 miles each weekend.
Jacob Tzegaegbe is a 2011 graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in civil engineering. This May he will earn a master’s degree in civil engineering. His research focused on bus rapid transit systems in African cities. With his Marshall Scholarship, he will pursue a Ph.D. in planning studies at University College London.
article via jbhe.com

University of Tennessee Names Its First Building After an African American

By goodblacknews on March 24, 2013

Fred D. Brown JrThe University of Tennessee board of trustees recently approved names for new buildings and the renaming of several existing structures on the Knoxville campus. Included in these actions is the naming of the Fred D. Brown Jr. Residence Hall, the first building on the Knoxville campus to be named after an African American. The building is the first new residence hall on campus in 43 years. When completed in 2014, the new residence hall will house 700 students.
Fred D. Brown was a longtime staff member at the university and the founder, 40 years ago, of the Office of Diversity Programs in the College of Engineering. Brown was a graduate of Tuskegee University.
article via University of Tennessee Names Its First Building After an African American : The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.

Craig Cameron Named to an Endowed Chair at Penn State

By goodblacknews on March 23, 2013

Craig E. CameronCraig E. Cameron was named to the Eberly Family Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Pennsylvania State University. Professor Cameron joined the Penn State faculty in 1997. His research focuses on the development of strategies to treat or to prevent infections by RNA viruses.
Professor Cameron is a magna cum laude graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he majored in chemistry. He holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
article via Craig Cameron Named to an Endowed Chair at Penn State : The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.

HBCU Elizabeth City State University Opens a New Art Gallery

By goodblacknews on March 23, 2013

guitaplayerjones
“Guitar Player” by Leonard Jones

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

General Lloyd Austin: Meet the Black Man Who Keeps Breaking Army Barriers

By goodblacknews on March 22, 2013

General Lloyd Austin

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.

Words and War: Toni Morrison at West Point

By goodblacknews on March 22, 2013

Students at West Point attending a reading by Toni Morrison on Friday. She read from her novel “Home,” which focuses on a Korean War veteran. (Kirsten Luce for The New York Times)

WEST POINT, N.Y. — As thousands of hungry West Point cadets streamed into the mess hall for their 20-minute lunch break here on Friday, they paused from the rush to the tables to give a rousing group cheer to a guest who has received hundreds of accolades, but perhaps none this thunderous.

“I can’t believe this — it’s like a movie,” said Toni Morrison, who sat at one of the 420 wooden tables in the flag-bedecked Washington Hall, a majestic Romanesque structure at the United States Military Academy.

Seated with members of the African-American Arts Forum at West Point, Ms. Morrison ate her Army-issue ravioli and prepared to read from her most recent novel, “Home,” to the freshman cadets, who studied the book in English class this semester.

The novel is the story of Frank Money, a black Georgia native and Korean War veteran struggling to reintegrate into civilian life in a segregated America, while struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder.

President Obama to Designate Harriet Tubman Park a National Monument

By goodblacknews on March 22, 2013
Harriet Tubman

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

R.I.P. Nigerian Novelist Chinua Achebe, Grandfather of African Literature

By goodblacknews on March 22, 2013

Chinua Achebe in 2008 at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., where he was a professor at the time.(Craig Ruttle/Associated Press)

LAGOS (Reuters) – Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, widely seen as the grandfather of modern African literature, has died at the age of 82.  From the publication of his first novel, “Things Fall Apart”, over 50 years ago, Achebe shaped an understanding of Africa from an African perspective more than any other author.  As a novelist, poet, broadcaster and lecturer, Achebe was a yardstick against which generations of African writers have been judged. For children across Africa, his books have for decades been an eye-opening introduction to the power of literature.

Describing Achebe as a “colossus of African writing”, South African President Jacob Zuma expressed sadness at his death. Nelson Mandela, who read Achebe’s work in jail, has called him a writer “in whose company the prison walls fell down.”

Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”, published in 1958, told of his Igbo ethnic group’s fatal brush with British colonizers in the 1800s – the first time the story of European colonialism had been told from an African viewpoint to an international audience. The book was translated into 50 languages and has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.

Denver Broncos’ Von Miller Tackles Poor Eyesight with "Von's Vision" Charity Foundation

By goodblacknews on March 22, 2013
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)

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.