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Posts tagged as “Pennsylvania”

Desmond Tutu Wins 2013 Templeton Prize With $1.7 Million Award

By goodblacknews on April 4, 2013
Desmond Tutu Templeton

Desmond Tutu was named this year’s winner of the 2013 Templeton Prize.
Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town who rose to international fame as he helped lead the fight against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, was named the 2013 Templeton Prize winner Thursday.  The honor, which comes with a $1.7 million award, is given annually by the West Conshohocken, Penn.-based John Templeton Foundation. It has, in recent years, been awarded to academics who work at the nexus of religion and science.
Tutu is being awarded for his promotion of what the foundation calls “spiritual progress,” including love, forgiveness and human liberation, especially after the fall of apartheid when he chaired South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The commission addressed tensions between perpetrators of the apartheid state and reformers, and granted amnesty on both sides to hundreds of requests out of thousands that were submitted. It is considered key to the nation’s democratic transition in the 1990s.
“When you are in a crowd and you stand out from the crowd it’s usually because you are being carried on the shoulders of others,” Tutu said in response to receiving the prize in a video on the Templeton website. “I want to acknowledge all the wonderful people who accepted me as their leader at home and so to accept this prize, as it were, in a representative capacity.”

Spelman College Graduate to Become President of York College in Pennsylvania

By goodblacknews on March 22, 2013

Pamela Gunter-SmithPamela 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.

Panera Franchisee Pays to Settle Racism Lawsuit with Black Workers

By goodblacknews on December 28, 2012

Sam Covelli, the owner of several western Pennsylvania Panera Bread restaurants is paying for allegedly discriminating against African-American workers. The franchisee will pay Guy Vines, a former employee who is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit $10,000 and $66,000 in attorneys’ fees as part of the settlement. He’ll also pay out an extra 70 cents per hour to each member of the lawsuit for each year after their first year of employment with Covelli, according to a Courthouse News Service report.

Vines and other members of the class action lawsuit claimed they were forced to work in the kitchen because Covelli didn’t want black employees in public view, according to court documents. Vines’ attorney told the judge that about 200 to 300 black workers could be entitled to money.

In a January 2012 complaint, Vines claimed that he worked as a sandwich maker at Panera Bread from 2009 to 2011, but his manager said black workers like him were ineligible for promotion to management. The same manager also allegedly said “customers would not want to see an African-American working in the front of the store,” and feared he would lose his job for disobeying this rule.

Chief U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster in Pittsburgh made the following statement regarding the settlement.

“Here, the class members allege that they were flatly ineligible for promotion because of their race and regardless of their job performance, They allege that this prohibition, although not written down anywhere, was the rule at all of defendant’s restaurants, and that defendant’s managers disobeyed it at their peril. This question of law and fact applies evenly across the class and is sufficient to ensure that ‘the action can be practically maintained and that the interests of the absentees will be fairly and adequately represented.’”

He gave final approval last week after a fairness hearing.

Covelli Enterprises and Panera Bread did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

article by C. Daniel Baker via blackenterprise.com

Teen Achieves Perfect 2400 Score on SATs

By goodblacknews on December 21, 2012

Perfect SAT teen

Every year teens struggle to study and get through the nation’s most-widely-used college admission exam, the SATs, and only a small handful ever achieve a perfect score. Cameron Clarke (pictured), a senior at Germantown Academy in Fort Washington, Pa., just happens to fall in to the category of “perfect scorer,” according to the Huffington Post.

Clarke scored 2400, a perfect score, this past spring, and according to SAT officials, out of the 1.6 million of its test-takers this year, a mere 360 were able to achieve the grade.

Court Rules Pennsylvania Can Vote Without Photo ID

By goodblacknews on October 2, 2012

In one of the country’s most high-profile voter ID cases, a Pennsylvania Commonwealth judge has ordered an injunction to block the state’s strict photo ID law.  The law, which was passed by the state’s Republican-controlled government, required voters to produce a government-issued photo ID in order to cast their ballots–which has been highly criticized by advocates who say it discriminates against minority, low-income and elderly voters, among others.
Pennsylvania is one of many states that passed photo ID laws, many of which are being contested in court. The injunction comes just in time for the November presidential election.
Court Rules Pennsylvania Can Vote Without Photo ID.

Viviette Applewhite, 93-year-old Plaintiff In Pa. Voter ID Case, Gets Card Amid Appeal

By goodblacknews on August 18, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to overturn Pennsylvania’s tough new voter identification law has received the state-issued photo ID card necessary to vote, despite saying she’d been rejected for years because she lacked appropriate documentation to receive the card.

Viviette Applewhite, who recalled marching for voting rights in 1960 with Martin Luther King Jr., was issued the temporary card on Thursday, the same day lawyers for her and others opposing the law appealed a judge’s refusal to halt the law from taking effect in the Nov. 6 presidential election.

Smithsonian Honors Philadelphia Hat Maker Mae Reeves

By goodblacknews on July 28, 2010
  • Taking a bow, Donna Limerick (center) and others modeling her mother's hats acknowledge Mae Reeves, top photo, at the end of the ceremony at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. Thirty of Reeves' hats will become part of the Smithsonian's permanent collection.
Taking a bow, Donna Limerick (center) and others modeling her mother’s hats
Donna Limerick had always believed her mother was a pioneer.
Not many women in the 1940s had the gumption and the bank loans to start their own business. Especially not African American women. Especially not African American women who designed and made millinery in Philadelphia.
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.
Tuesday, two of the museum’s curators attended a ceremony honoring Reeves and announced that 30 hats and several pieces of antique furniture from Mae’s Millinery shop in West Philadelphia will become part of the Smithsonian’s permanent collection.
“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