Marketplace.org recently posted a podcast about African-American hair salons and the entrepreneurial environment that exists within and around them. Check it out below:
[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/102465676″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson
Posts tagged as “Cleveland”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5elloa4kOc&w=560&h=315]
On Monday, Charles Ramsey became a national hero. Ramsey is the next door neighbor to the three Castro brothers, who allegedly held three women captive in a Cleveland home for more than a decade. Ramsey says shortly after he’d returned home from McDonald’s on Monday, he heard “a girl going nuts” at the Castro house.
It was Amanda Berry. But Ramsey didn’t know who she was. He’d lived next door to the Castro brothers and barbequed with Ariel Castor in the back yard. But he’d never seen this young woman before. “She said help me get out,” he says. “I figured it was a domestic violence dispute,” he told The Associated Press. The door would only open a crack, so he told her to kick out the screen. “She comes out with a little girl and says ‘Call 911.’
CLEVELAND, Ohio — A federal jury awarded $13.2 million to a former housing authority security officer Friday after finding two Cleveland detectives fabricated or withheld evidence at his 2000 murder trial.
David Ayers, 56, who spent 11 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, and several jurors wept as the verdict against detectives Denise Kovach and Michael Cipo was read in U.S. District Court.
“These detectives didn’t do their jobs at all,” juror Stephanie Kocian told The Plain Dealer in an interview. “They manipulated the evidence, and didn’t look at anyone else except the most convenient suspect to convict. The word ‘railroaded’ was thrown around the jury room during deliberations.”
At the time of his 1999 arrest, Ayers had been working for more than eight years as a security officer with the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority. He was accused and eventually convicted of the beating death 76-year-old Dorothy Brown, who lived in a CMHA high rise in Cleveland.
Ayers continued to maintain his innocence, filing appeals while serving a life prison term for aggravated murder. He finally prevailed in 2011, when DNA tests proved that a single pubic hair found in Brown’s mouth did not come from him.
Photo caption: Image – Mortar Practice Grouping – of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Cleveland’s Public
It was in 2010 that researchers verified the service of around 140 black soldiers from the area who fought in the Civil War but were omitted from the tablets. The commission overseeing the monument said it will honor these men, mostly like by inscribing their names on the tablets, and others they uncover through additional research.
The Robinson Global Sports & Entertainment Group announced its plans to build the Gospel Music and Preachers Hall of Fame Museum (Gospel Hall) as an addition to the existing R&B Music Hall of Fame Museum (R&B Hall) project.
“What makes this Gospel Hall unique is that we also honor the preachers alongside with the gospel music to celebrate their significant influence in the history of the black church. We envision the combination of these museums to be one of the top musical entertainment attraction in the country, bringing visitors from everywhere.” says LaMont “ShowBoat” Robinson, Developer and Founder of the project.
Beginning September 2013, the Gospel Hall will hold an induction ceremony annually to honor preachers and music legends who have contributed significantly to the history of gospel music such as the founder of the Church of God In Christ Bishop Charles Harrison Mason in Memphis, TN and Reverend T.D. Jakes of the Potter’s House in Dallas TX, Father of Black gospel music Thomas A. Dorsey and the gospel music icon Kirk Franklin.
The public is invited to visit www.gospelmusicpreachershofm.com to vote for their favorite pastor and gospel singer starting January 3, 2013 and for more information about the Gospel Hall. Groundbreaking is scheduled to take place in the summer of 2013 in Cleveland, Ohio.
Read more at http://www.eurweb.com/2012/11/gospel-preachers-hall-to-be-added-to-rb-music-hall/#wsLE6ytQ7KzJ3Oix.99
David Boone used to sleep on this bench in Artha Woods Park when he had nowhere else to go. Next fall, the senior at Cleveland’s MC2STEM High School is headed to Harvard.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — David Boone had a system. There wasn’t much the then-15-year-old could do about the hookers or drug deals around him when he slept in Artha Woods Park. And the spectator’s bench at the park’s baseball diamond wasn’t much of a bed.
But the aspiring engineer, now 18 and headed to Harvard University in the fall, had no regular home. Though friends, relatives and school employees often put him up, there were nights when David had no place to go, other than the park off Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
So he says he made the best of those nights on the wooden bench.
His book bag became his pillow, stuffed with textbooks first — for height, he says — and papers on top for padding.
In the morning, David would duck into his friend Eric’s house after Eric’s parents left early for work so he could shower and dress before heading to class at Cleveland’s specialized MC2STEM High School. David expects to graduate from there next month as salutatorian of the new school’s first graduating class.
“I’d do my homework in a rapid station, usually Tower City since they have heat, and I’d stay wherever I could find,” he said.
If you meet David Boone today, his gentle, confident demeanor and easygoing laugh betray no cockiness over racking up a college acceptance record that others brag about for him. He was accepted at 22 of the 23 schools he applied to — including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown and Penn.
He also gives no hint of the often harsh and nomadic life he has led. The medical problems he faced as a boy, a splintered family, being homeless — it all could have left him bitter and angry.
But David says that giving up would have left him stuck in a dead-end life, so it was never an option.
“I didn’t know what the results of not giving up were going to be, but it was better than nothing and having no advantages,” he said. “I wanted to be in a position to have options to do what I want to do.”
David was born to a young mother, who divorced his father when David was a little boy.
But the aspiring engineer, now 18 and headed to Harvard University in the fall, had no regular home. Though friends, relatives and school employees often put him up, there were nights when David had no place to go, other than the park off Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
So he says he made the best of those nights on the wooden bench.
His book bag became his pillow, stuffed with textbooks first — for height, he says — and papers on top for padding.
In the morning, David would duck into his friend Eric’s house after Eric’s parents left early for work so he could shower and dress before heading to class at Cleveland’s specialized MC2STEM High School. David expects to graduate from there next month as salutatorian of the new school’s first graduating class.
“I’d do my homework in a rapid station, usually Tower City since they have heat, and I’d stay wherever I could find,” he said.
If you meet David Boone today, his gentle, confident demeanor and easygoing laugh betray no cockiness over racking up a college acceptance record that others brag about for him. He was accepted at 22 of the 23 schools he applied to — including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown and Penn.
He also gives no hint of the often harsh and nomadic life he has led. The medical problems he faced as a boy, a splintered family, being homeless — it all could have left him bitter and angry.
But David says that giving up would have left him stuck in a dead-end life, so it was never an option.
“I didn’t know what the results of not giving up were going to be, but it was better than nothing and having no advantages,” he said. “I wanted to be in a position to have options to do what I want to do.”
David was born to a young mother, who divorced his father when David was a little boy.
Cliffs Natural Resources, formerly known as Cleveland Cliffs, made the substantial investment in Village Prep, an inner-city school with 180 kindergarteners and first graders.
“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.”