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Posts tagged as “Virginia”

Virginia Church Awards $2.1 Million Worth of Scholarships to HBCU Bound Students

By goodblacknews on March 1, 2016

article by Victor Ochieng via financialjuneteenth.com
T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, hosted thousands of students on Saturday, February 20, 2016, where students were awarded scholarships to the tune of $2.1 million, the biggest ever by Alfred Street Baptist Church. The scholarships are channeled to the students through Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
The beneficiaries of the event, 14th Annual HBCU College Festival, are high school students joining college.
The doors opened at 10 a.m., although students and their family members started showing up as early as 7 a.m. A big number of those who graced the event came from Washington D.C., while others came from as far as Alabama, New York, Illinois, Florida, among several other places.
A lot of things went down at the festival, with $41,000 given in waiver for applications and up to 1,000 students getting admitted to different colleges on-site. More than 160 students received scholarships based on merit.
The scholarships saw some students get full rides to different HBCUs. This is just one of the ways through which Alfred Street Baptist Church employs to positively impact the lives of young people, and it’s such a timely event as it comes during the Black History Month.
“Black youth are often stereotyped as uneducated, with no ambition or drive, but events like these dispute the perpetual stereotype of black youth time and time again, as nearly 5,000 youth registered online to attend our college festival,” said Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley, pastor of the historic Alfred Street Baptist Church. “Many black youth and their families woke up this past Saturday morning dreaming of a college education and wondering how it would be possible. By noon, of that day, many saw the dreams come to fruition and had answers. God is good and He showed up, and showed out on Saturday.”
The event registered the largest turnout in its history, bringing together more than 3,000 students and members of their family as well as 320 volunteers.
To read more, go to: http://financialjuneteenth.com/virginia-church-awards-2-1-million-worth-scholarships-hbcu-bound-students/
 

Pusha T Quietly Donated Semi-Truckfulls of Water to Flint Residents

By goodblacknews on February 1, 2016
Pusha T (photo via bet.com)
by Paul Meara via bet.com
Many in hip hop have done their part in donating bottled water to victims of the Flint crisis, but for their efforts they understandably make it news for PR purposes. Pusha T decided to donate, except he was trying to escape the publicity.
According to MLive, The G.O.O.D. Music President recently sent two unsuspecting drivers from his hometown of Norfolk, Virginia to Flint with a pair of semi-trucks loaded with 2,000 cases of water to assist those in need of clean water in the Michigan town.
“I knew who was bringing water but I didn’t know who was actually shipping it,” said W.I. James, who was at the helm of one of the semis traveling 830 miles. “All I know is that it was donated.”
Lakeesha Atkinson, member of the philanthropic Partners in the Community, unveiled that Pusha didn’t want anyone to know he was behind the donation. “He’s very humble,” she explained. “He doesn’t do anything for recognition or for the spotlight.”
It took three days to unload and distribute the water as those in charge on the ground decided to bring the water directly to residents rather than simply have a community pick-up point.
To read more, go to: http://www.bet.com/news/national/2016/02/01/pusha-t-quietly-donated-semi-truckfulls-of-water-to-flint-reside.html

Baptist Church in Virginia Pledges $1M to Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture

By goodblacknews on January 3, 2016

Alfred Street Baptist Church members
Alfred Street Pastor Howard-John Wesley with James McNeil, Board of Trustees, Chair and Pat Johnson, Deacon Chair

Alexandria, VA — In the final days of 2015, Alfred Street Baptist Church (ASBC), one of the nation’s oldest historically African American churches located in Alexandria, Virginia, announced that it is pledging to donate $1 million to the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).
As such, the $1 million donation to the museum is the largest from a faith-based organization to date, thus allowing the church to be designated as a founding donor of the museum.
Scheduled to open in the fall of 2016 on the National Mall in Washington, DC adjacent to the Washington Monument, the museum will be a place where visitors can learn about the richness and diversity of the African American experience, what it means to the lives of the American people, and how it helped shape this nation.
Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley, the esteemed pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church said:

“We are very proud and honored to make this contribution to a museum that promises to contribute immensely to the knowledge base of African American history and culture.
This historic attraction will be an astounding and visionary force in our communities and lives for decades to come. More importantly, we as a church, understand the importance of learning about the accomplishments of African American people. Therefore, we realize that if we don’t tell and preserve our own history, our children will never know their real value.”

Accepting the donation on behalf of the Smithsonian’s NMAAHC was Lonnie Bunch, founding director of the museum, who said, “We are honored to have the support of Alfred Street Baptist Church, an institution that has generously served its community for more than 200 years and whose support will help ensure that the museum fulfills its mission to tell the American story through an African American lens.”
James McNeil, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Alfred Street Baptist Church, continued:

“We are pleased to be the first faith-based organization to contribute $1 million to this magnificent cultural development. I challenge others in the faith-based community to follow suit to ensure that the history of African Americans will be celebrated and shared with everyone regardless of their background. The story of our country’s greatness cannot be told without sharing how we live and work together to help America thrive.”

Lt. Gen. Nadja West Confirmed by Senate as First Black Army Surgeon General

By goodblacknews on December 18, 2015

naja west (lt general)
Lt. General Naja West is the Army’s first black Surgeon General (Photo: John G. Martinez, Photojournalist to the Secretary of the Army)

Falls Church, VA  – The Senate confirmed Thursday Lt. Gen. Nadja Y. West to serve as the new Army Surgeon General and Commanding General, U.S. Army Medical Command (MEDCOM).  This makes West the Army’s first black Surgeon General.
Additionally, with the appointment as the 44th Army Surgeon General, West picks up a third star to become the Army’s first black female to hold the rank of lieutenant general.  West was sworn in as the Army Surgeon general on Friday by Acting Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning. She most recently served as the Joint Staff Surgeon at the Pentagon.
The Army Surgeon General provides advice and assistance to the Secretary of the Army and Army Chief of Staff on all health care matters pertaining to the U.S. Army and its military health care system.  West will be responsible for development, policy direction, organization and overall management of an integrated Army-wide health service system and is the medical material developer for the Army. These duties include formulating policy regulations on health service support, health hazard assessment and the establishment of health standards.
Dual-hatted as the MEDCOM commanding general, West oversees more than 48 medical treatment facilities providing care to nearly 4 million active duty members of all services, retirees and their Family members. MEDCOM is composed of three regional health commands, the Medical Research and Materiel Command, and Army Medical Department Center & School.
West holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point and a Doctorate of Medicine from George Washington University School of Medicine. She has held previous assignments as Commanding General, Europe Regional Medical Command; Commander of Womack Army Medical Center, Fort Bragg, N.C.; and Division Surgeon, 1st Armored Division, Army Europe and Seventh Army, Germany.
West hails from the District of Columbia, and she finished high school at the Academy of the Holy Names in Silver Spring, Md.
While West’s promotion to lieutenant general is already effective, she will “pin” on the rank in a formal ceremony in early 2015.
article via eurweb.com

Chiké Okonkwo Joins Ensemble Cast Of "The Birth Of A Nation"

By goodblacknews on July 15, 2015

Chiké_OkonkwoChiké Okonkwo (Banshee, BBC’s Paradox) has been cast in Nate Parker’s The Birth of A Nation. He joins an ensemble that includes Jackie Earle Haley, Armie Hammer, Colman Domingo, Penelope Ann Miller and Mark Boone Junior in the historical drama based on the true story of the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner.

Okonkwo plays a brutalized slave who becomes a freedom fighter and ally to Turner (Parker) during the rebellion. Prompted by religious visions, Turner and a band of about 70 slaves killed between 55 and 65 people in Virginia. The rebellion was stopped after two days, but Turner survived in hiding for more than two months.
Parker is producing and directing from his own script. The film is a Bron Studios, Phantom Four, Mandalay Pictures and Tiny Giant Productions picture, in association with Follow Through Productions, Infinity Entertainment, and Creative Wealth Media Finance. Producers are Bron’s Aaron L. Gilbert, Kevin Turen, Jason Michael Berman, and Preston Holmes. Filming is underway in Savannah, GA.
article by Jeremy Gerard via deadline.com

Governor Orders Confederate Flag Removed from Virginia State License Plates

By goodblacknews on June 23, 2015

(Photo via wtvr.com)
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (Photo via wtvr.com)

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe has ordered the Confederate flag removed from Virginia state license plates. The flag is displayed on a specialty plate designed for the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The governor’s announcement came in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the state of Texas was allowed to reject a license plate design that featured a Confederate battle flag and the removal of the flag from the South Carolina statehouse grounds following last week’s fatal shootings at am African-American church in Charleston.

“As [South Carolina] Governor Haley said yesterday, her state can ill afford to let this symbol continue to divide the people of South Carolina. I believe the same is true here in Virginia. Although the battle flag is not flown here on Capitol Square, it has been the subject of considerable controversy, and it divides many of our people,” Governor Terry McAuliffe said. “Even its display on state issued license tags is, in my view, unnecessarily divisive and hurtful to too many of our people. As you all know, I have spent the past 17 months working to build a new Virginia economy that is more open and welcoming to everyone. Removing this symbol from our state-issued license plates will be another step toward realizing that goal.”

University Department Chair and Artist Sonya Clark Uses Her Head to Win Top Prize in Art Competition

By goodblacknews on December 12, 2014

SonyaClarkSonya Clark, chair of the Department of Craft and Material studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, shared the first prize at ArtPrize, an international competition held annually in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She will split the $200,000 first place cash award.
HairArtClark enlisted 12 hairstylists to craft her head into a work of art for the judges consideration.
Clark is a native of Washington, D.C. Both of her parents are from the Caribbean. She is a graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts. She earned a bachelor of fine arts degree at the Art Institute of Chicago and a master of fine arts degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Before joining the faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University, Clark was the Baldwin-Bascom Professor of Creative Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
article via jbhe.com

Slave Quarters to be Rebuilt at James Madison’s Virginia Home to Give Truer Version of History

By goodblacknews on November 1, 2014

FILE - In this May 17, 2000 file photo, President James Madison’s Montpelier estate in Virginia. Madison’s Montpelier estate in Virginia is planning a major refurbishment and a rebuilding of its slave quarters with a $10 million pledge from a leading Washington philanthropist and history buff. On Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014 businessman David Rubenstein will announce the gift to restore the home where Madison drafted ideas that became the US Constitution and Bill of Rights before he became the nation’s fourth president. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
FILE – In this May 17, 2000 file photo, President James Madison’s Montpelier estate in Virginia. Madison’s Montpelier estate in Virginia is planning a major refurbishment and a rebuilding of its slave quarters with a $10 million pledge from a leading Washington philanthropist and history buff. On Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014 businessman David Rubenstein will announce the gift to restore the home where Madison drafted ideas that became the US Constitution and Bill of Rights before he became the nation’s fourth president. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homes of slaves who served President James Madison at his Montpelier estate in Virginia will be rebuilt for the first time over the next five years, along with other refurbishments to the home of one of the nation’s Founding Fathers, thanks to a $10 million gift announced Saturday.
David Rubenstein, a leading Washington philanthropist and history buff, pledged the $3.5 million needed to rebuild the slave quarters next to the mansion in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Another $6.5 million will be devoted to refurnishing parts of the home where Madison drafted ideas that would become the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
After widow Dolley Madison sold the estate in 1844, many family belongings were dispersed or sold, leaving some rooms mostly empty of period furnishings after the estate opened to visitors in 1987. Now, curators hope to recover or borrow artifacts from the fourth president’s family life to bring the estate back to life, said Montpelier Foundation President and CEO Kat Imhoff.
Rubenstein told The Associated Press he wanted to help make the estate more authentic. Montpelier could draw more visitors to learn about history, he said, if the house is fully restored and its slave quarters built out. It currently draws about 125,000 visitors a year. Last year, Rubenstein gave funds to recreate slave quarters on Thomas Jefferson’s plantation.
“It’s this dichotomy. You have people who were extraordinarily intelligent, well-informed, educated; they created this incredible country — Jefferson, Washington, Madison — yet they lived with this system of slavery. Jefferson, Washington and Madison all abhorred slavery, but they didn’t do, they couldn’t do much about it,” he said. “We shouldn’t deify our Founding Fathers without recognizing that they did participate in a system that had its terrible flaws.”
The donation marks a trifecta of gifts totaling $30 million to projects at Virginia’s oldest presidential sites. Last year Rubenstein gave $10 million gifts to both Jefferson’s Monticello estate and George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon.
Recreating Montpelier’s South Yard, where domestic slaves lived, as well as the basement areas of the mansion where they worked, will help tell a fuller version of history, Imhoff said.
“For folks that have been coming to any of these presidential sites, the fact that we’re bringing this complete American story back into the landscape I think is very important,” she said. “It is challenging, but I also think it’s that wonderful tension that we as Americans are embracing, that this is our history, that making the invisible visible is very important to us as a nation, and it will make a stronger American story.”
The slave quarters at Montpelier were cleared away 165 years ago and planted over with grass, but the site has not been disturbed since. Archaeologists plan to excavate the South Yard in public view to recover remnants of slave life to help illustrate new stories.
One of the slaves who lived in a cramped dwelling was Paul Jennings. He was born at Montpelier in 1799, and at the age of 10 moved with the Madisons to serve in the White House. He later wrote a book about his experience, which is considered the first White House memoir. Jennings recalled helping Dolley Madison save curtains, silver, documents and a famous portrait of George Washington when the British burned the White House in 1814.

Lupita Nyong'o Helps Fight for Preservation Of Virginia Slave-Trade History

By goodblacknews on October 26, 2014

Protesters interrupt the mayor during a news conference Monday, while he announces a plan to move the Richmond Flying Squirrels to Shockoe Bottom. Critics say the ballpark will desecrate ground where hundreds of thousands of slave were once sold and imprisoned. (Scott Elmquist)
Protesters interrupt the mayor during a news conference Monday, while he announces a plan to move the Richmond Flying Squirrels to Shockoe Bottom. Critics say the ballpark will desecrate ground where hundreds of thousands of slave were once sold and imprisoned. (Scott Elmquist)

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — “Twelve Years a Slave” actress Lupita Nyong’o is lending her star power to the opposition to a minor league baseball stadium in what was once the center of Richmond’s thriving slave-trading center.
Nyong’o has been posting anti-stadium opinions on social media to her millions of followers, and has personally appealed to Mayor Dwight C. Jones to withdraw support of the stadium that is the centerpiece of an economic development project.
“Evidence of America’s slave history simply must be preserved, as the legacy of slavery affects all American people,” she wrote in a letter dated Oct. 19 to Jones.
In response, Jones invited Nyong’o to visit the former capital of the Confederacy to see Shockoe Bottom and plans to preserve its slave-trading past.
“Our plans show where we want to invest in that history and lift that history up for future generations to learn from,” Jones wrote.
The stadium-centered project is proposed for Shockoe Bottom, the city’s oldest neighborhood and once the bustling center of the slave-trade. By some estimates, more 300,000 men, women and children were jailed, bought and sold in the Bottom and shipped throughout the Southern states in the decades leading to the Civil War.
The stadium proposal has unleashed pent-up frustration among those who believe the city has literally buried that shameful chapter of its history. The area is now home to nightclubs, restaurants, former tobacco warehouses transformed into townhouses and parking lots.
Nyong’o has a “12 Years a Slave” connection to the neighborhood. The celebrated film depicts the life of Solomon Northrup, who is kidnapped and sold into slavery. He is initially held in a Shockoe Bottom jail where slaves were chained before they were sold to growers in the Deep South.

Michelle Howard Becomes U.S. Navy's 1st Female 4-Star Admiral in its 238 Year History

By goodblacknews on July 1, 2014

140701-N-WL435-327
ARLINGTON, Va. (NNS) — The United States Navy Vice Admiral Michelle Janine Howard earned promotion to the rank of four-star admiral today during a ceremony at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.  Admiral Howard is now the first female four-star in the 238 year history of the United States Navy.
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus presided over the ceremony and administered the oath of office.  “Michelle Howard’s promotion to the rank of admiral is the result of a brilliant naval career, one I fully expect to continue when she assumes her new role as vice chief of naval operations, but also it is an historic first, an event to be celebrated as she becomes the first female to achieve this position,” said Mabus. “Her accomplishment is a direct example of a Navy that now, more than ever, reflects the nation it serves – a nation where success is not borne of race, gender or religion, but of skill and ability.”
“Michelle’s many trailblazing accomplishments in her 32 years of naval service are evidence of both her fortitude and commitment to excellence and integrity,” said Adm. Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations. “I look forward to many great things to come from the Navy’s newest 4-star Admiral!”
Howard, the Deputy CNO for Operations, Plans, and Strategy, will relieve Adm. Mark Ferguson III as the 38th Vice Chief of Naval Operations (VCNO) later this afternoon.  Howard is a 1978 graduate of Gateway High School in Aurora, Colo. She graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1982 and from the Army’s Command and General Staff College in 1998, with a Masters in Military Arts and Sciences.