Talladega College Showcases Historic Murals in Chicago

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A TALLADEGA BREEZE SWEEPS THE WINDY CITY TALLADEGA COLLEGE HOSTS EXHIBITION RECEPTION IN CHICAGO

Talladega, Alabama— Chicago is the third most populous city in the U.S., and it’s also a premier world city noted for its worldwide economic and cultural influence. A 70+ year-old treasure was on display Thursday night for many to see in this influential city.

Dr. Billy C. Hawkins, president; the Talladega College Board of Trustees, and the Talladega College Alumni Association Midwest Region welcomed guests to a special celebration of the Talladega College Hale Woodruff Murals Exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center.

The Talladega College Murals were originally constructed between 1939-1942. They are six, vibrant, colorful, awe-inspiring renditions of American history. The murals depict the mutiny on La Amistad, the Spanish ship carrying the Mende slaves; the ensuing historical first civil rights case in the United States and more. The panels are entitled: “The Mutiny on the Amistad, The Trial of the Amistad Captives, The Repatriation of the Freed Captives, The Underground Railroad, The Building of Savery Library and Opening Day at Talladega College. These murals and 30 other works of famed Harlem Renaissance artist, Hale A. Woodruff, are on display at the center. Woodruff was commissioned in 1938 by Talladega College to create art for the opening of its library and to commemorate the 100th centennial anniversary of the Amistad mutiny, the trial and freeing of the Mende slaves in America.

Last year, the national tour of the exhibit, “Rising Up: Hale Woodruff’s Murals at Talladega College,” began in June at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to the tour opening, the murals had undergone a twelve-month conservation and restoration process as a result of the collaborative project agreement between Talladega College and the High Museum.  The six panel murals are considered to be the greatest works of Hale Woodruff.  Talladega College and the High Museum entered an agreement to restore, research and exhibit the murals.

Following the stop in Atlanta, the tour proceeded to the African American Museum in Dallas, Texas. The murals were displayed through February 2013 at the museum located in Fair Park. These celebrated Woodruff works were a highlight during the Texas State Fair. Woodruff’s artwork was exhibited in the 30’s at the Hall of Negro Life in 1936 during the Texas Centennial. Seventy-six years later, his works were again displayed for Texans and visitors to behold.

Talladega College president, Dr. Billy C. Hawkins and the Board of Trustees are proud to share this treasure with the world which depicts monumental moments in America’s past. “This is a historic time for Talladega College. As the nation celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement, it’s an added milestone to have our murals on a national tour in major museums across the country. We are grateful to the city of Chicago for welcoming us,” remarks Dr. Hawkins.

The Rising Up exhibit will be on display at The Chicago Cultural Center through June 16.  Following this visit, the murals will proceed to NYU in New York City. For more information on the tour, go to AmistadMurals.com or www.talladega.edu.

Homeless Teen, Valedictorian, now Spelman College Student.. Meet Chelsea Fearce!

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Did we forget to mention that she is enterting into Spelman as a Junior!!

Chelsea Fearce is a shining example of a student that didn’t let obstacles get in her way when it came to her education. You  see, during most of Chelesa’s high school career she was homeless and living in her mother’s car.  Chelesa, a senior at Charles Drew High School in Clayton County, Georgia, knew that her hard work would pay off, despite the obstacles presented to her.

“I just told myself to keep working, because the future will not be like this anymore,” Fearce said. “You’re worried about your home life and then worried at school. Worry about being a little hungry sometimes, go hungry sometimes. You just have to deal with is. You eat what you can, when you can.”

Although her family occasionally lived in an apartment, because of her mother’s lay-offs, they took refuge in shelters.

“Ended up back in another shelter because I got laid off from my job maybe about four or five times,” Fearce’s mother, Reenita Shephard said.

“I just did what I had to do,” Fearce said.

None of that stopped Chelesa from achieving a 4.466 GPA and a 1900 SAT score.  On top of her regular high school course load, Chelesa was able to enroll in college courses during her last two years of high school.  When she enters Spelman in the fall, she will do so as a college junior.

Brains apparently run in the family. Chelesa’s sister is graduating from George Washington Carver High School as a salutatorian.

“I read to them a lot. Everything was a learning experience,” Shephard said.

“Don’t give up. Do what you have to do right now so that you can have the future that you want,” Chelesa said.

Full article & video at Clutch Mag

College: ‘The Best Four or Five Years of Your Life’

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When Mecala Holmes was a freshman at Howard University in 2008, she recalls seeing a t-shirt in the school’s book store that read “Howard University, the best four or five years of your life.”

Holmes recalled, “I saw that and thought ‘I’m not going to be here for five years. And then I finished my freshman year and I thought ‘I’m about to finish in five years.”

Holmes, a computer engineering major, decided  to take 12 credits every semester to better balance her challenging curriculum with the social opportunities Howard had to offer—from events, to social and service organizations such as Jewels, Inc. a mentoring program she was an active member of throughout college.

Twelve credits per semester, however, wouldn’t help her accrue the 126 she needed to graduate within four years.

Although Holmes had realized she wouldn’t be graduating with the class, watching her friends and peers prepare for their long-awaited commencement without her was emotional for her.

“Last year, I cried on graduation day,” Holmes said. “But if I had graduated last year I wouldn’t have the opportunities I have now. Looking back, I wouldn’t have done it differently.”

Read more here

Southern University’s world-renowned Human Jukebox featured in music video

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AHitulGaS9k

The Southern University marching band dubbed as the “Human Jukebox” is featured in the Jonas Brothers’ latest music video “Pom Poms.”

Check out the video above

About the Human Jukebox:

From performing high-volume rhythm and blues, to playing flawless, show-stopping classics, from popular hip hop dance moves to precision drill steps, the Southern University Marching Band is without question a spectacular force.

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NCCU opens arms to LGBT students

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April 9 commemorated the opening of N.C. Central University’s first LGBT Student Resource Center. The LGBT Center is located in G-64 of the Alphonso Elder Student Union. The center is supported by Creating Open Lives For Real Success (C.O.L.O.R.S.) and Dominating Overly Motivated Studs (D.O.M.S.).

The opening of the center marked NCCU as the first HBCU in North Carolina and the second among all HBCUs to have a center dedicated to the LGBT community.

The center is designed for students to connect with other members of the LGBT community and learn about their culture and identity. The research center contains an array of resources such as an LGBT support network, the LGBT lecture series, educational and social programming and a library of LGBT materials.

According to Special Projects Coordinator and co-advisor of C.O.L.O.R.S. Morris Barrier, the organization began as a small group of individuals meeting in Chidley, originally called Brothers and Sisters, who connected with each other to make NCCU visible.

“When I was at NCCU as un-undergrad, I was actually in colors, and worked with them to become president,” said Barrier.

He said that his main concern now is to work towards an active membership and maintain it to have a larger community that is visible on campus.

Read more here

Preserve The Sexy: Run, Give and Support the HBCU 5K in DC

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Black Girls RUN! will sponsor the DC Metro HBCU Alumni Alliance  5K run and 2K walk on the campus of Howard University on June 29 in Washington D.C.

The event will benefit high school students who choose to attend a HBCU, according to BlackGirlsRun.com

To register for the 5k run and the 2k walk click here.

About Black Girls RUN!:

Created by Toni Carey and Ashley Hicks in an effort to tackle the growing obesity epidemic in the African-American community, Black Girls RUN! encourages African-American women to make fitness and healthy living a priority.

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HBCU College Grad Gets 30-year Prison Sentence 6 Days After Graduation

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Olivia Moody, 21, from Chicago graduated from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. Six days later she went to jail to begin a 30-year prison sentence for second-degree murder.

Life changed in an instant for the honor student who worked her way out of Chicago’s crime-ridden Roseland neighborhood to become the first in her immediate family to graduate from college.

In May, less than a week after she received a degree in criminal justice from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, a jury convicted her of killing a 21-year-old mother of two after a senseless altercation over a young man.

Moody claims that she had been bullied by a group of women from the neighborhood and that the shooting was self-defense. The jury decided it was second-degree murder.

Now the young woman born to a prostitute and crack addict who abandoned her at the hospital after birth, a young woman who believed that education would be her ticket “out of the ghetto,” is serving a 30-year sentence in an Arkansas prison.

Read more here

Spelman parent vows to stop support after being locked out of graduation

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Melvin Cox spent more than $1,400 in airfare and accommodations to attend his daughter’s graduation at Spelman College, which took place on Sunday at 3 p.m, but was denied entry and missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Now he vows to stop financially supporting the University.

Watch the video above

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Tuskegee opens new building for agriculture and science

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ribbon-cutting

Tuskegee University recently opened its first science building in 80 years.

The James Henry Meriwether Henderson Hall Agricultural Life Science Teaching, Extension and Research Building will provide labs for teaching introductory courses in animal, plant, soil, and environmental sciences as well as biology and chemistry, according to the school website.

Tuskegee University President Gilbert L. Rochon said the building pays homage to the past and the University’s continuing effort to promote agricultural studies and to improve agribusiness in Alabama’s Black Belt region.

“Although this new facility will house state-of-the-art laboratories and classrooms, it is rooted in the legacy of this institution,” said Rochon.

Read more here

About Tuskegee:

Founded in a one room shanty where thirty adults represented the first class – Dr. Booker T. Washington the first teacher, Tuskegee University is an independent and state-related institution of higher education since 1881. 

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New crowdfunding website BlackStartup.com is brain child of Morehouse Alumni

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As a Morehouse, Berkeley and Harvard-educated man, a world of opportunities has been available to Nathan Bennett Fleming. Instead of starting his career by working on Wall Street or for some prestigious law firm, Fleming and five other partners decided to take a different path.

They are the co-founders of BlackStartup.com, which is a crowdfunding platform for ideas, projects, and causes connected to the African-American community.

Crowdfunding sites, the most famous of which is Kickstarter, allow people to use the power of networks to raise money using online tools for almost any type of project imaginable. Empowering the black community to pool its resources can help African-Americans channel some of its nearly trillion-dollar yearly spending power into sustaining black businesses.

Creating access for black businesses

“Access to resources and capital have been traditional problems to the African-American entrepreneurial community,” Fleming told theGrio. “Crowdfunding is a new technology that democratizes and expands access to capital. We haven’t seen that tool leveraged in a way that creates a significant value proposition in the black community. BlackStartup is an idea to address what we like to call the ‘black entrepreneurial gap,’ which is the fact that black entrepreneurs start businesses at a higher rate than non-minority groups, but we lag behind in owning sustainable operational businesses. Lack of capital is a main reason behind this lag.”

Fleming continued, “BlackStartup also solves the problem of social networks and social interaction. There is a lack of interaction with individuals and institutions that can help fund our businesses. This includes high net worth individuals, angel investors, and venture funds. Furthermore, access to education are causal factors behind the black entrepreneurial gap. On BlackStartup, we will have a knowledge center and will also incorporate a mentorship aspect in the site.”

The potential social impact of solving the undercapitalization of black businesses is what drew Fleming, who has a public policy degree from Harvard and a law degree from University of California, Berkeley, to entrepreneurship.

Full article at thegrio.com

Class of 2013: Your Degree Doesn’t Mean Squat

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Simply having a college degree will not get you hired. We need to break away from this idea. In all reality, most employers could care less about your GPA or where you went to school.

Today, getting hired in entry-level positions requires experience and fine-tuned skills, not a 4.0 GPA. This probably isn’t what most new grads want to hear, but it’s the truth.

Many new college graduates enter their job search with a why-wouldn’t-someone-hire-me mindset. But most employers aren’t going to take on an entry-level hire unless they’re certain they’ll positively impact the company.

So the real question for new graduates to consider is this: What can you bring to the table that makes you worth hiring?

Here’s some food for thought for those entering the workforce:

1. Your degree isn’t a golden ticket. We need to put an end to the “silver spoon complex.” Simply obtaining a degree may only help you out if you’re planning to go the corporate route, where companies have more time and money to invest in training programs. But at my company, I don’t even know which of my employees has a degree or not–it makes no difference to me. I care more about the impact my employees have on my company.

I’d much rather hire someone who has been freelancing as a web developer for three years than someone who has a master’s degree in computer science. They’re bound to be more passionate, driven, and profitable in the long run, as they know what it takes to impact the bottom line.

2. It’s all about experience. I started my company Ciplex when I was 17. Throughout college I ran my business on the side, in addition to working in my college IT department. Today, undertaking one internship isn’t enough to prove your experience to employers. The reason so many college graduates can’t find work is because they lack experience.

One simple way to get more experience within your industry is by taking on freelance work and contracting gigs. These types of experiences will help you learn and grow while developing a sense of independence, responsibility, and drive. All of these traits are highly attractive to employers.

Read more here

About the author:

Ilya Pozin is the founder of Ciplex and a Columnist for Inc, Forbes & LinkedIn. He is listed as one of the “30 Coolest Entrepreneurs Under 30.”

Murder Trial Beginning A Year After VSU Killing

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A little more than a year after a shooting left a Petersburg man dead and a Virginia State University student wounded just off campus, VSU student Ryan Christopher Simms will go on trial today on charges he killed a man in a drug rip-off scheme that went terribly wrong.

The jury trial, which is scheduled to last four days, comes as the VSU community is still grappling with the aftermath of the April 20 deaths of two VSU students who drowned trying to cross the Appomattox River as part of a social club initiation rite.

Nearly 40 witnesses have been subpoenaed to testify at the Simms trial, including a man who was initially charged in the incident. Simms faces charges of first-degree murder, malicious wounding and using a firearm in the commission of a felony in the incident on April 17, 2012.

Simms, who was 19 at the time, is accused of fatally shooting Tyrail H. Hughes, a 2012 graduate of Petersburg High School, after Hughes — waving a gun — confronted Simms and several young men with him, believing they had helped rob him of an ounce of marijuana he was selling for $425, according to testimony at Simms’ preliminary hearing last summer.

Read full article

Why ‘so-so’ students should drop college to pick up plumber trade

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If you are a underachiever in your studies, maybe you ought to skip college and become a plumber instead.

Well at least that is what billionaire and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg advised ‘so-so’ students to do in order to avoid expensive college fees.

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Daily Mail:

New Yorkers are used to Mayor Bloomberg trying to nanny them with laws about soda sizes and smoking but now the billionaire has taken to dishing out career advice.

Speaking on his weekly radio show on Friday, Bloomberg suggested that ‘so-so’ students might want to consider going to trade school and becoming a plumber as a better economic bet than obtaining an expensive undergraduate degree.

‘The people who are going to have the biggest problem are college graduates who aren’t rocket scientists, if you will, not at the top of their class,’ he said.

‘Compare a plumber to going to Harvard College – being a plumber, actually for the average person, probably would be a better deal.’

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Mayor Bloomberg has a point. Who wants to stack up on student loan debt when you can pick up a trade like plumbing or a position in the department store industry?

The average amount of student loan debt for the Class of 2011 was $26,600, and the median expected salary for a typical plumber position in the United States is around $40,00–give or take things like location and experience.

So installing and repairing your own waste disposal system to keep the house tidy is not too shabby over having Sallie Mae as a long-term pimp after graduation, right?

PHOTO: Rain Rain Go Away

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Some students wore ponchos to avoid the rain at Morehouse College. Others were just happy to graduate.
Some students wore ponchos to avoid the rain today at Morehouse College. Others were just happy to graduate.

After four (five, six, etc.) years of college, students at Morehouse College had to tackle one more obstacle at graduation today: the rain.

President Barack Obama, who address the historically black college as Commencement speaker, jokingly told students the unavoidable truth.

“I also have to say you all are going to get wet,” Obama said at graduation.

“I would be out there with you if I could. But Secret Service gets nervous, so I’m going to have to stay here, dry. But know that I’m with you in spirit.”

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Obama Morehouse Speech: President Talks Good Deeds, Race & Manhood At 2013 Commencement

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President Barack Obama at Morehouse College.
President Barack Obama at Morehouse College.

BY DARLENE SUPERVILLE, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Barack Obama, in a soaring commencement address on work, sacrifice and opportunity, told graduates of Morehouse College Sunday to seize the power of their example as black men graduating from college and use it to improve people’s lives.

Noting the Atlanta school’s mission to cultivate, not just educate, good men, Obama said graduates should not be so eager to join the chase for wealth and material things, but instead should remember where they came from and not “take your degree and get a fancy job and nice house and nice car and never look back.”

“So yes, go get that law degree. But if you do, ask yourself if the only option is to defend the rich and powerful, or if you can also find time to defend the powerless,” Obama declared. “Sure, go get your MBA, or start that business, we need black businesses out there. But ask yourself what broader purpose your business might serve, in putting people to work, or transforming a neighborhood.”

“The most successful CEOs I know didn’t start out intent on making money – rather, they had a vision of how their product or service would change things, and the money followed,” he said.

For those headed to medical school, Obama said “make sure you heal folks in underserved communities who really need it, too.” He asked those headed to law school to think about defending the poor.

Read more here

About Morehouse:

The only all male historically black institution of higher learning in the United States, Morehouse College is a private, all-male, liberal arts, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia.

WATCH: FOTUS Michelle Obama speaks at Bowie State

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Michelle Obama spoke to 600 graduates and thousands of family, friends and supporters at Bowie State University in Maryland on Friday.

FOTUS Obama reminded students in her 21-minute address of struggles blacks faced in the past and the importance of personal responsibility.

“Today, more than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, more than 50 years after the end of Separate But Equal, when it comes to getting an education too many of our young people just can’t be bothered,” she said.

“Today instead of walking miles every day to school they’re sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV instead of dreaming of being a teacher or lawyer or business leader they’re fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper.”

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