District of Columbia
The Children’s Defense Fund, (CDF), and Washington National Cathedral are hosting a forum on ending the gun violence epidemic, followed by a children’s Sabbath service with a sermon by Marian Wright Edelman, CDF president. The forum and worship service will be live-streamed and also posted on the home page of the National Cathedral after the event at www.cathedral.org. To symbolize the theme of the Sabbath celebration, “Beating Swords into Plowshares: Ending the Violence of Guns and Child Poverty,” blacksmiths will turn illegal guns confiscated by the police into life-affirming tools that will be used in community gardens to grow healthy food for families.
Florida
The Miami-based non-profit organization, Yoga Gangsters, is looking to expand in Tallahassee starting with Florida A&M University. FAMU will be the first HBCU offering Yoga Gangster certification training. According to the organization, a Yoga Gangster is “one who intentionally utilizes their thoughts, words and actions to empower humanity. Qualities displayed include compassion, acceptance, awareness, health and willingness to grow and develop oneself and to support the healing of others and the planet.” Yoga Gangsters’ mission is to inspire youth by focusing on the signs of trauma and poverty. These indicators include “limited education, addiction, violence, incarceration, teen pregnancy, HIV, physical/mental disabilities and more using the science and practice of yoga. The organization serves inner city communities by providing a network of free classes teaching yoga in at-risk schools, hospitals, jails, youth centers and other non-profit organizations.
Georgia
Clark Atlanta University (CAU) has received a five year, $3.4 million grant to implement and lead the Georgia-Alabama Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in support of underrepresented students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). CAU President Carlton E. Brown, principal investigator for the grant, said, “I am very pleased that our excellent STEM faculty and those of the alliance will have the opportunity through this program to expand the number of undergraduates that they teach and mentor in their research laboratories, while providing these students the chance to conduct cutting-edge research. This alliance will allow for more than 130 minority undergraduate students per year to have direct exposure to the STEM fields.”
Maryland
In an historic, 60-page decision on Oct. 7, a federal court judge ruled that Maryland violated its constitutional commitment to dissolving vestiges of segregation in higher education by allowing traditionally White institutions (TWI) to duplicate programs already offered by historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU). In the suit, filed in 2006 and argued in 2012, current and former students of Maryland’s public HBCUs—Bowie State University, Coppin State University, Morgan State University, and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore—argued they were subjected to ongoing segregation policies traceable to the du jour or legal era of segregation. Federal District Judge Catherine Blake ruled partly in favor of the HBCUs, agreeing that Maryland had undermined the Black colleges through unnecessary program duplication. The resulting lack of unique programs at the state’s HBCUs, she wrote, had a segregative effect, by making those schools less attractive to students of all races. For example according to the ruling, in 1976, HBCUs reported 18.2 percent White undergraduate and graduate enrollment. But by 2008, seemingly as a result of the increase in duplicative programs at proximate TWIs, the enrollment of White undergraduates at HBCUs was 3.35 percent.
Michigan
Jackets for Jobs, (JFJ) Inc., a nationally recognized award-winning nonprofit organization, provides career skills, interview training, work etiquette and professional clothes to clients searching for employment. The vast majority of JFJ clients need professional clothing to wear on job interviews. Detroit Mayor Dave Bing recently availed his support for the 13-year-old organization and arranged for a clothing pick up. Alison Vaughn, JFJ founder stated, “Unemployment comes in all sizes, and we are grateful to Mayor Bing [6 feet, 3 inches tall] for his generous donation of suits and shirts. We thanked the mayor for believing in our mission.” The organization has assisted more than 14,000 job seekers since opening its doors in 2000. Weatherman Al Rocker, Grammy award-winner BeBe Winans and R&B singer KEM also donated to the men’s division of the organization.
Minnesota
A 2-year-old boy, who was reportedly the son of Minnesota Vikings star Adrian Peterson, died Friday of injuries he suffered after allegedly being abused, police said. According to law enforcement officials, Joseph Robert Patterson, 27, has been charged with aggravated battery of an infant and aggravated assault. If convicted on the charges, both felonies, Patterson could face up to 40 years in prison and an $80,000 fine. Patterson called authorities about 5:45 p.m. Wednesday to report that a 2-year-old was choking in his Sioux Falls, S.D. apartment, police spokesman Sam Clemens said. Officers arrived to find that the toddler was unresponsive, and he was rushed to a nearby hospital. Authorities determined that the child had suffered injuries to his head consistent with abuse, according to Clemens. Police said Patterson, whom they described as the boyfriend of the child’s mother, was the only other person in the residence at the time.
Pennsylvania
National and local civil rights organizations are calling on Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett to immediately address the tragedy of the Philadelphia school budget crisis and to provide more fair and equitable state funding so that every Pennsylvania student can receive a high-quality education. In a letter sent this week to Gov. Corbett, organization leaders called on the state to immediately release $45 million in funds earmarked specifically for the School District of Philadelphia. The leaders are also calling on the Governor to restore and update a funding formula put in place by his predecessor that more fairly distributed education funding based on costs, rather than the newly adopted system, which greatly underfunds low-income school districts. Signers of the letter include the heads of national and local affiliates and partners of the NAACP, the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, the National Urban League; as well as the heads of national groups including The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the League of United Latin American Citizens; and the heads of the local affiliates of the Education Law Center.
National
The National Black Church Initiative, a coalition of 34,000 churches representing 15.7 million African American churchgoers, labeled governors who are blocking implementation of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare reform initiative as “wrong, misguided, and placing more undue financial burdens on the backs of the poor and middle class. We are ashamed to see governors throughout our country refusing to expand Medicaid in their states as a part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, ACA; what we see as President Obama’s greatest accomplishment and indeed one of the greatest laws in American history,” NBCI President Rev. Anthony Evans said in a statement released Oct. 11. The statement was issued at the end of the second week of a chaotic inaugural sign-up period for health insurance under the ACA. Yet, the NBCI statement pointed out, “more than 20 states, mainly Republican-led … are refusing to expand Medicaid or leaning in that direction.”
Compiled By Juliana Norwood.
