“This is the most phenomenal thing that has ever happened to the organization,” said Village Prep founder John Zitzner. “It really allows us to keep moving forward in the right direction, to keep expanding, to keep adding more children.”
Village Prep, which started only one year ago, has a partner middle school, Entrepreneur Preparatory School, or E-Prep, which was founded in 2006 and has 300 students.
Both are located in Tyler Village, a renovated factory at East 36th Street and Superior Avenue.
“Listen, we need educated folks as we go forward, and good team members, and this school shows everything that we need as we go foward,” said Cliffs CEO Joseph Carrabba, as he helped christen the Cliffs Natural Resources K-2 Wing at Village Prep.
“It’s the foundation of Cleveland,” he told WKYC. “The children, you can see their self confidence when they come into a room. All those leadership qualities are coming along, with everything they’ll need in life skills, and an education.”
The youngsters at Village Prep and E-Prep are held to high standards, says Zitzner. “High expectations, no excuses, very strict discipline,” he explained. “It’s just setting high standards for the kids, for their parents, for everybody. For the teachers, and then holding them accountable for that.”
E-Prep students had some of the highest state achievement test scores in Ohio in April, 2010, far outpacing the average for African-American students around the state, and mostly exceeding the average scores of other public schools.
About 95 percent of the school’s enrollment is African-American, with 82 percent coming from families under the poverty line. Both Village Prep and E-Prep are open to any student in Ohio.
“Just think about all those kids that now have a future in front of them, due to the generosity of Cliffs and other fine organizations in Cleveland,” Zitzner beamed, as he led company executives on a quick tour of the exceptional school.
Carrabba also sensed the enthusiasm his company’s sizeable contribution added to the school’s already positive atmosphere.
“You can see it,” Carrabba noted, glancing at the first graders who had just welcomed his group to the school. “It just abounds in their faces. It gives you a real thrill to see this happen right in front of you.”
Good Black News
Still, Limerick didn’t want to be presumptuous. She wasn’t sure that her mother’s legacy would qualify for the Smithsonian. A documentary producer for National Public Radio, Limerick had heard that the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture was looking for compelling stories about black families and culture. With modest expectations, she nominated her mother, Mae Reeves.
“Oh, God bless you,” Reeves said, as television cameras closed in on her. She’d just been handed a softball-sized bronze model of the Liberty Bell that clanged happily in her lap.
“It’s our biggest honor,” said Melanie Johnson, city representative, apologizing that Mayor Nutter couldn’t make the event. He was in Washington for a meeting, representing the U.S. Conference of Mayors, but promised to make a personal visit upon his return.
“Oh my goodness!” Reeves said.
Now 97 and living in a retirement home in Darby, she arrived in a stylish wheelchair upholstered in teal leatherette. Her arthritic knees were covered by a black chenille blanket to match her beaded black jacket and dress. She wore a hat (of course) – one of her favorites, a cloche layered thickly in shiny black feathers with an emerald and turquoise gleam.
For more than 50 years, until 1997 when she retired at 85, Reeves ran her own store, first on South Street and later on North 60th Street. She sold to stars such as Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne and Marian Anderson; the social and political elite like Leonore Annenberg and C. Delores Tucker; and everyday women seeking audacious hats.
Midway through the ceremony, held in the auditorium of the African American Museum in Philadelphia, a short video was shown. Produced by one of her nine grandchildren, it captures Reeves in a sparky exchange with her daughter.
Having grown up in Georgia and studied millinery in Chicago, Limerick asks Reeves, “Why did you come to Philadelphia?”
“Because I knew people!” Reeves says.
by Melissa Dribben via articles.philly.com
(CBS) A few miles from the White House in southeast Washington sit some of the worst public schools in America. The students there are mostly poor, mostly black, and their test scores are low. Only one in three finish high school; of those who do go on to college, just five percent graduate.
But right in the middle of this same area is also one of the most successful and innovative public schools in the country. Started in 1998, the school is called SEED. It’s the nation’s first urban public boarding school.
Ninety one percent of the students finish high school, and 95 percent go on to college. It’s a charter school that’s getting national attention. Admission is by lottery, open to any family in the district willing to take a chance.
They look alike, talk alike, dress alike…and they’re best friends.
Riding the colt Aristides, Oliver Lewis won the inaugural Kentucky Derby on May 17, 1875. His time of two minutes 37.75 seconds also set an American record over the mile and a half distance (the Kentucky Derby became a 1.25 mile race in 1896). Lewis was one of 13 black jockeys in the 15-strong field. Early in the race, he joined a small group behind Volcano, who led the race from the start. Lewis had been instructed to force the pace to favor another horse owned by H.P. McGrath, Chesapeake. But as they entered the final stretch Aristides and Volcano were out in front and Chesapeake was trailing the pack. Lewis, riding Aristides, won the race in front of 10,000 spectators by two lengths ahead of Volcano. Chesapeake came home eighth. Later the same season, again riding Aristides, Lewis took second in the Belmont Stakes and won three races on Churchill Downs that season, but he never rode in the Kentucky Derby again. Very little biographical information is available, but it is known that Lewis later served as a supplier of information about horses for a bookmaker, which was then legal.
Oliver Lewis was born in 1856 in Fayette County, Kentucky; his parents were Goodson and Eleanor Lewis. Very little is known about Lewis’s life, but according to the Black Athlete Web site he was “A family man, a husband and father of six children.” Lewis was 19 years old in 1875 when he entered the inaugural Kentucky Derby riding Aristide, a colt owned by H. Price McGrath and trained by Ansel Williamson, who was also black. In fact blacks dominated racing in the late 1800s, winning 15 of the first 28 Derbies according to BlackAmericaWeb.com and training six of the first 17 winners. By the early 1900s, however, blacks had been pushed out of the business, which had also become wealthier and less accessible to the working classes. Black jockey James Winkfield won the Kentucky Derby in 1901 and 1902, but after 1921 there were no black riders in the race until Marlon St. Julien in 2000.
The 1875 race was held on May 17 at the newly-opened Louisville Jockey Club race track, now known as Churchill Downs. Lewis’s mount Aristides was one of two horses entered in the race by owner H. Price McGrath in hopes of netting the $2850 prize money. But it was the other horse—Chesapeake, ridden by William Henry—that was expected to win. Lewis’s role in the race was to force the pace so that Chesapeake could take the lead when the rest of the field tired. Aristides and Chesapeake started the race as favorites. Aristides’ reputation for powerful starts and Chesapeake’s strong finishing made them the two most likely contenders, but it was Volcano who took the lead from the start and pulled away, leaving Aristides, closely followed by Verdigris and McCreary just behind.
By the start of the home stretch the race was between Volcano and Aristides, with Chesapeake struggling in the pack. Wondering what was going on behind Lewis apparently eased up and looked back, but was waved on by owner McGrath, who was trackside on the home straight. Larry Muhammad, writing for BlackAthlete.net quotes the Courier-Journal‘s play-by-play, published the next day: “Right gallantly did [Aristides] the game and speedy son of Leamington and Sarong answer the call to his forces, for he held his own all down the stretch in spite of most determined rushes on the part of Volcano and Verdigris, and dashed under the wire the winner of one of the fastest and hardest run races ever seen on track.” Lewis and Aristides led Volcano home by two lengths, with Verdigris trailing in third and Chesapeake eighth. Lewis’s time for the mile and a half long course (reduced to a mile and a quarter in 1896) was two minutes 37.75, an American record for the distance.
Lewis’s achievement in the opening year of what has become America’s longest-running sporting event went almost unrecognized for over a century. He rode Aristides to second place in the Belmont Stakes, which later became one of the “Triple Crown” races, and won a total of three races at the Louisville Jockey Club that season. He never rode another Kentucky Derby, but it is known that he attended the 33rd race, in 1907. Lewis’s career as a jockey did not last long. After a spell working as a day laborer Lewis began providing notes on racing form to bookmakers and later became a bookmaker himself, a profession that was then legal in the United States. Lewis’s methods of collecting data and compiling detailed handicapping charts have been likened to the systems used by the Daily Racing Form. Lewis passed on his bookmaking skills and business to his son James.
Read more: Oliver Lewis Biography http://biography.jrank.org/pages/2969/Lewis-Oliver.html#ixzz0oEEKOlcU
article via www.wikipedia.com