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FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

VOLUME 23 NO. 8

‘COULD FERGUSON HAPPEN HERE?’ A young unarmed Black man is shot dead by a White cop. What happens in the aftermath? Criminal justice professionals and activists in Broward County (Fort Lauderdale) disagree. BY THE FLORIDA COURIER STAFF

CHARLES W. “WIG” CHERRY III / FLORIDA COURIER

Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, Attorney Benjamin L. Crump, Fort Lauderdale/Broward County NAACP Branch President Marsha Ellison, and Broward State Attorney Michael Satz answer questions from the community.

Former B-CU coach under fire

POMPANO BEACH – On Feb. 14, a high-powered discussion panel, including Broward County’s elected prosecutor, sheriff and public defender, joined by the county’s NAACP branch president and a nationally known civil rights attorney, argued for two hours about the criminal justice system in America. The panel discussion, the fourth annual installment of Bethel AME Church’s Men’s Day program called “Real Talk,” focused on the Black community and law enforcement in front of an audience of approximate-

son “cannot happen” in Broward. “The problem of Ferguson was more than a White police officer killing an unarmed Black man. The problem was the community was approximately 75 percent African-American and a police department that was approximately six percent African-American. It’s not like that in Broward County or the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO),” Israel explained, later pointing out the sizable number of Blacks in BSO leadership positions. Could it happen? According to 2014 U.S. The first question: Census estimates, Bro“Could Ferguson happen ward County is 28.5 perin Broward County?” See PANEL, Page A2 Only Israel said Ferguly 400 people, including Olsen Middle School students from nearby Dania Beach. Panelists included Fort Lauderdale/Broward County NAACP Branch President Marsha Ellison, Broward State Attorney Michael Satz, Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, and civil rights attorney Benjamin L. Crump. Florida Courier Publisher Charles W. Cherry II moderated the panel.

SOUTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

Another HBCU on the brink

‘Prison coach’ story goes national COMPILED FROM WIRE AND STAFF REPORT

MONTGOMERY, ALA. – The world of Brian Jenkins, one of the best head football coaches in Bethune-Cookman University’s history, has turned upside down with allegations in the national media of rampant rules violations, lawsuits, bullying, and even “homeless” players during Jenkins’ five-year tenure at Daytona Beach-based B-CU.

Great B-CU history Soon after a bitter 2009 Florida Classic loss to archrival Florida A&M University, a B-CU selection committee made up of coaches, former players, staff members and others put together by former B-CU President Trudie Kibbe Reed fielded 87 applicants for the position from which longtime Head Coach Alvin “Shine” Wyatt was fired. Five hopefuls were interviewed. In December 2009, after nearly a two-month vacancy period, the school hired Jenkins, who was 39 years old at that time and was serving as the Rutgers University wide receivers coach. Jenkins served five seasons as head coach at B-CU (2010-2014), winning more than 76 percent of

TRACY GLANTZ/THE STATE/TNS

On Feb. 16, supporters of historically Black South Carolina State University gathered for a rally in the state capital of Columbia, S.C. to keep SCSU from shutting down for two years due to a budget crisis. Read a related “No Chaser” column on Page A4.

See COACH, Page A2

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

2014 was record year for tourism

BY NOAM N. LEVEY TRIBUNE WASHINGTON BUREAU / TNS

NATION | A6

How notoriety is playing out in Ferguson

ALSO INSIDE

Obamacare enrollment soars, White House says WASHINGTON – Approximately 11.4 million people have signed up for health coverage through the Affordable Care Act this year, President Obama announced Tuesday, signaling a strong conclusion to the federal health law’s second enrollment period. With thousands more people expected to enroll in the coming days as applications for coverage are completed and processed, the total will likely increase. That should ensure that the final 2015 tally would easily exceed last

year’s enrollment total and mark further progress in the law’s program for expanding coverage. More still may enroll if the Obama administration decides to hold a special enrollment period after April 15. The administration has been considering doing so to allow people who had to pay a penalty for not having health coverage in 2014 get insurance this year and avoid a second year of penalties.

‘Hungry’ for coverage “It gives you some sense of how hungry people were out there for affordable, accessible health insurance,” Obama said

in a two-minute video posted on Facebook that features him speaking in the Oval Office with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell over a background soundtrack. The 2010 law allows Americans who don’t get health benefits at work to shop among private insurance plans sold on state-based marketplaces operated by the federal government or by the states themselves. Consumers making less than four times the federal poverty level – or about $94,000 for a family of four – qualify for subsidies. Insurers must provide a basic set of benefits and cannot

turn away consumers, even if they are sick.

Challenge ahead The Supreme Court will hear a challenge next month to the law’s system for providing subsidies to offset insurance premiums in states that rely on the federal government to operate their marketplaces. Should the court rule against the subsidies later this year, most of the Americans on the marketplaces would no longer be able to afford their coverage and would likely drop their enrollment.

COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4 COMMENTARY: BRUCE A. DIXON: LYNCH IS CONDOLEEZZA RICE WITH LAW DEGREE | A5

FOCUS

FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

COACH from A1

his games (46-14), winning or tying for four Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) titles, earning three Football Championship Series playoff berths and two HBCU national titles. B-CU won at least eight games each season, including a pair of 10-win seasons, and never finished below second place in the MEAC standings in posting a 34-6 record in MEAC contests, including a perfect 8-0 mark in 2012. The Wildcats also won 18 straight conference games between 2011 and 20113, the second-longest streak in MEAC history. A three-time conference coach of the year, Jenkins’ teams also defeated Florida A&M four straight seasons (2011-2014) for the first time in school history. In 2013 and 2014, the Wildcats defeated Florida International University, with both triumphs coming on the road. Of Jenkins’ 14 losses as a head coach, four are to BCS schools (Miami 2011, 2012; eventual national champion Florida State University, 2013; eventual American Conference Champion Central Florida, 2014), and three came in the FCS playoffs.

Sought-after coach Jenkins was in great demand after beating FAMU in the 2014 Florida Classic, with head coaching overtures from other HBCU programs and assistant coaching possibilities in the National Football League. He chose Alabama State University’s football program in Montgomery, Ala., after resigning as BCU’s head coach last December. Just a few months later, his future and his coaching legacy are in jeopardy. The Montgomery Advertiser, the city’s daily newspaper that is owned by the Gannett Co. – also the owner of USA Today – outlined accusations of rules violations and mistreatment of players in a series of articles written by reporter Josh Moon, and subsequently reprinted by USA Today. Contentions against Jen-

PANEL from A1

cent Black and 26.9 percent Hispanic, which means that the majority of Broward’s population is non-White. “When you look at the Broward Sheriff’s Office, it’s like looking in a mirror. You see Broward County,” he said. He explained that if an unarmed Black man was killed in Broward by a police officer, “it would be investigated, immediately. We are gonna have meetings that night. We’ll let you know the information…we are gonna pray together and heal together.”

Large department According to the BSO website, Israel administers the largest fully accredited sheriff’s office in the United States with 5,800 employees and an annual operating budget of $730 million. He said if the shooting was right or wrong, he would fully explain it to the community. Broward’s jail population is disproportionately Black. According to BSO’s April 2010 Broward County Jail Population Trends & Forecasts, Black men made up 50.96 percent of the Broward County jail population during the year 2008, though Black men make up approximately 13 percent of Broward’s total population. That number runs close to the state prison population, which has been more than 50 percent Black for years.

FLORIDA COURIER FILES

In 2012, Bethune-Cookman University Athletic Director Lynn W. Thompson, Head Coach Brian Jenkins, President Dr. Edison O. Jackson and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Commissioner Dennis E. Thomas celebrated B-CU’s MEAC/SWAC Challenge win. kins include providing improper benefits to players; exceeding weekly practice time limits; and bullying and retaliating against staff and player “whistleblowers’’ who complained. The Advertiser story also highlights “dysfunction” on the B-CU football team, quoting more than a dozen former players and four former coaches.

Varying responses According to the Advertiser, Jenkins did not respond to several requests for comment. B-CU replied in a written statement. “During the fall semester of 2014, Bethune-Cookman University (B-CU) received information about allegations of possible violations of NCAA rules regarding our football program. We immediately notified the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) of this matter.

Practice, not policies Ellison disagreed with Israel. “All agencies have policies and procedures, but it’s the practice that gets us,” she said, referring to difficulties in filing complaints against cops, the lack of response to complaints that are filed against police, the lack of diversity in the 17 municipal police departments in Broward County , and the “military equipment” in the hands of local departments. “Absolutely it can happen here…I pray that it does not, but you have to be concerned about your children every day.” Crump, a Broward County native now living in Tallahassee, said, “Leaders matter so much,” especially in the case of an elected prosecutor. He is nationally known as the attorney for the family of Martin Lee Anderson, a teenager who was killed in a Florida stateoperated “boot camp” almost 10 years ago. He also represents the families of Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo.; Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, N.Y.; and Tamir Rice, who was killed by a police officer in Cleveland, Ohio.

‘Turned on its head’ “We can predict what’s gonna happen when a little Black boy is accused of a crime,” Crump said. “They will throw the book at him. But we look at a little Black boy or Brown boy laying on the ground, and the criminal justice system gets turned on its head.”

“B-CU has also launched an internal investigation which is ongoing in an effort to ensure and maintain compliance. “The University will have no further comment until the investigation has been completed,” the university stated. Alabama State interim athletic director Melvin Hines told the Advertiser that he was aware of the investigation and the alleged incidents, and that ASU’s board of trustees were also aware of the allegations before hiring Jenkins on Dec. 16, 2014 and before approving Jenkins’ contract on Feb 5. The contract will pay Jenkins a first-year salary of $175,000, which is $90,000 less than what he was earning at B-CU. At least two trustees denied that they knew anything about the allegations. ASU Board Chairman Locy Baker said the school would “wait and see” if any NCAA violations were

Crump went on to explain how the local prosecutor in the Michael Brown case, Robert McCullough, “went out of his way in the grand jury proceeding to make sure all of the evidence got in. …When does that happen in America except when there’s a little Black boy dead in the ground?”

‘Sophisticated’ procedure “Ferguson can happen here,” said Finkelstein, the county public defender, who attacked the secrecy of the grand jury. “(Law enforcement and prosecutors)… have become very sophisticated when somebody of color is dead on the ground, and the person who pulled the trigger is law enforcement. They have it down… it’s not an accident that takes months…all of a sudden state attorneys morph into super defense attorneys and see problems everywhere with the case. And over months, people’s memories fade and people’s emotions get diminished. Finally when it’s resolved, you never really know because the grand jury is secret. The perception is…you’re not getting a fair shake.” Finkelstein also agreed with Crump that “the rules are different” when a grand jury evaluates whether to charge a police officer with a homicide. “When you are behind closed doors, you have to wonder if truth and justice were the only forces in that room, and in many cases, they are not,” he added.

‘Wouldn’t hire them’ Satz, who has been Bro-

proven before taking any further action.

List of claims Here are some of the allegations the Advertiser stories reported from former players and coaches: Rahdeese Alcutt, a former player, said Jenkins threatened him and another player with a knife at a team dinner. Alcutt told B-CU officials that another player spilled a drink and Alcutt began laughing, which upset Jenkins. Players were not allowed to speak at the pre-game meals. Jenkins allegedly picked up a knife and pointed it at the players, then said, “Do I have to cut your (expletive) throats to get you to be quiet?” Jenkins then stared at the two players for several seconds, Alcutt said. Former offensive lineman Blake Pritchard, who played in 2011 and 2012, said B-CU practices went 26 to 28 hours per week, well in excess of a 20-hours-

ward’s chief prosecutor for 39 years, oversees a staff of 500 employees, including more than 200 prosecutors. He said that a Ferguson-type incident could happen as a consequence of a cop’s inexperience, mistake, or because the officer was just “bad.” “We’ve had bad police officers in Broward County,” Satz said. “The sheriff’s been a police officer for years…he can tell you he’s worked with people that he wouldn’t hire today.” Satz identified the inability to get rid of bad cops as a problem. “Howard (Finkelstein) and I and the sheriff have been in the system a long time and there are a lot of people who shouldn’t be police officers. The sheriff will tell you…that he can’t dismiss them. What do you do with he or she?’’ However, Satz thinks, like the sheriff, that the aftermath of a Ferguson-type shooting would be different. “I think and hope we have a different type of community,” citing better communication between community leaders and residents and among community leaders themselves. “Bad things happen all the time. We try to do the right things for the right reasons and protect the people that live in our communities.”

Few Blacks in system Cherry grilled Israel, Satz and Finkelstein on the fact that there are relatively few Black deputy sheriffs, prosecutors and defense attorneys on their staffs.

per-week maximum mandated by the NCCA during football season. Pritchard and former tight end Isaac Virgin said two-a-day fall practices would occasionally go eight hours. In fall 2013, Jenkins surprised the team with a 1 a.m. practice two weeks prior to B-CU’s first game. This was the team’s third practice in 18 hours. The team rebelled and refused to practice the next day. In response, Jenkins locked the weight room and locker room and wouldn’t allow anyone in for the next two days. Jenkins paid $250 of his own money to get a player’s student records cleared so he was eligible to play against the University of Miami in 2012 – a major violation of NCAA rules. A number of players were literally homeless as a consequence of financial aid and housing problems at B-CU. Some players slept on an alternating basis in a group of houses

where teammates were living. One player slept in his truck for most of the 2014 football season with the full knowledge of Jenkins and other coaches. Ryan Kobbe, a former assistant who is White, filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint against Jenkins alleging racial discrimination and physical threats. He and John Schmitz, a massage therapist/trainer, also have jointly filed a federal lawsuit against B-CU alleging they weren’t paid for their work under Jenkins. In the comment section of the Feb. 15 Advertiser’s online issue, former BCU player Kevin Williams wrote that Jenkins is “better suited to coach a prison team” than a college team. “I came in on the 2011 recruiting class, and left after the first season, all because of that guy,” Williams wrote, adding that Jenkins is “good for coaching ruffnecks basically.”

Satz blamed the fact that only three percent – approximately 3,000 – of the more than 100,000 lawyers in Florida are Black, as well as the relatively low salaries that state prosecutors make, for the low numbers in his office. Finkelstein cited “years of neglect, discrimination, and doing the wrong thing,” saying that it has taken 10 years for his public defender’s office to begin to turn the perception that his office is just “another White man’s institution.” He also cited Broward’s judiciary as “completely out of whack.” There are 90 full-time circuit and county court judges, but only six (6.6 percent) of them are Black in a county with a 29 percent Black population.

people in the streets” in local Black communities. Eventually, Israel and Cherry agreed that racial diversity at all levels of BSO was important.

‘Looking down’ “My clients (of color), when they walk into the courthouse, do not feel that they get a fair shake because almost nobody there looks like them, comes from their neighborhood, or talks like them. As a result, they don’t think that (the judge) looking at them looks favorably on them, but rather looks down on them and with judgment.” Israel proudly pointed out two rows of Black BSO deputies, including command staff and high-ranking officers, to bolster his argument that his department reflected the county population. Cherry pressed him, arguing that while having Blacks in leadership was great, it was the deputies on road patrol who were “the retail end of law enforcement dealing with our

Solutions generated The two-hour discussion ended with questions from the audience, with Cherry recapping solutions the panel and audience had generated. A partial list included grand jury reform and complete transparency in the criminal justice system; hiring more Black public defenders, prosecutors and law enforcement officers; electing more Black judges and advocating for gubernatorial appointments; enacting a law requiring that an independent, non-local prosecutor be appointed anytime a police shooting occurs; more community mentorship programs, especially for Black boys; increased local voting and community involvement, especially with regard to elections of judges and prosecutors; easing restoration of civil rights; and addressing racism in the criminal justice system head-on. Bethel AME Church is located in Pompano Beach; the Rev. Eddy Moise, Jr. is the pastor there. Attorney Johnny L. McCray, Jr. was the Men’s Day chairperson. Special guests who flew in for the discussion included Tamir Rice’s mother, Samaria Rice, as well as Attorney Anthony Gray, who also represents Michael Brown’s family. You can read a longer story online at www.flcourier.com.

FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

FLORIDA

State entertained 97.3 million tourists in ’14 Florida sees record number of visitors and tourism workers BY JIM TURNER THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

TALLAHASSEE – Florida attracted a record number of tourists in 2014, inching closer to an annual goal sought by Gov. Rick Scott. An estimated 97.3 million visitors came to Florida in 2014, a 3.9 percent increase from the year before, according to information released Monday by Visit Florida, the state’s tourism-marketing arm. Scott, who has asked lawmakers to increase tourism-marketing funding from $74 million in the current fiscal year to $85 million during the budget year that begins July 1, has been pushing for Florida to surpass 100 million visitors a year.

1.1 million tourism jobs The latest figure represents the state’s fourth consecutive year with an alltime high in tourism. “Not only are visitors coming to our state at record levels, but there are also a record number of Floridians employed in our tourism industry,” Scott said in the release. The state Department of Economic Opportunity estimates that of the 9.1 million people currently employed in Florida, 1.1 million have jobs tied to the tourism industry. The increase in visitors also means additional revenue for the state.

Marketing plan Visit Florida President and Chief Executive Officer Will Seccombe told leg-

JOE BURBANK/ORLANDO SENTINEL/TNT

Disney World is a prime destination spot for tourists visiting Florida. Harambe Nights, an after-hours dinner, show and street party featuring a live-performance retrospective on “The Lion King,” debuted June 7, 2014, at Disney World’s Animal Kingdom. islators last week that approximately 12 percent of all state sales-tax revenue comes from people who don’t live in Florida. Tourism officials think they can boost the number of visitors with additional money for marketing and by getting people to also consider Florida for ecotourism and more off-thebeaten path trips. The marketing agency hopes to attract wealthier international travelers, who will spend more, and to entice people to consider Florida for bicycle trips and small-downtown shopping in addition

to Disney World and the beaches. Seccombe outlined the marketing plan during an appearance before a Senate budget panel last week. “With all the marketing in the world we couldn’t put a whole lot more people down into the Florida Keys today,” Seccombe said. “They’re running 92, 95-percent occupancy in the Keys. But there are areas that don’t have that high occupancy. We’re working very hard in our strategic planning process to identify the need areas of the state.”

Economic impact But some senators last week raised questions about the return on investment if they increase funding for Visit Florida to $85 million during the upcoming fiscal year. Senate Transportation, Tourism and Economic Development Appropriations Chairman Jack Latvala, RClearwater, said it appears the increase in tourism numbers has gone up at a slower rate than the state’s spending. “To me, potentially, we’re getting to a situation where maybe we’ve spent

Come explore the rich heritage of

Black History Month Bethune-Cookman University

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Enter to learn. Depart to Serve.

or are spending what we need,” Latvala said during last week’s meeting of his panel. Seccombe estimated that about 50 million visitors each year would come to Florida regardless of advertising, due to family, friends and other personal interests. But competition has grown as other states realize the economic impact of tourism, he said.

By the numbers Nationally, only two other states – also traditional vacation locations – spend more on self-marketing:

California at $100 million and Hawaii at about $80 million. The majority of Florida’s 2014 visitors came through domestic travel, with Visit Florida giving a ballpark figure of 11.5 million for those traveling from overseas. Another 3.8 million were from Canada. The 97.3 million visitor total doesn’t include the approximately 20.2 million in-state “pleasure trips” taken by Floridians. For the fourth quarter, the state estimated 22.4 million visitors, a 2.8 percent jump from the same period in 2013.

EDITORIAL

FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

Getting off your religious high horse The comment by President Obama that people should get off of their ‘religious high horse’ at the National Prayer Breakfast sparked much controversy within news outlets. In a speech that didn’t describe one religion or one faith inferior, greater, or superior to another, the President in essence admonished all of us to religious humility. Anyone who studies history will conclude that violence, murder, and war have started because of ideologies surrounding religion. To act as though we live in a perfect society without flaws, errors, and disagreements is to live in a bubble. What’s so troubling is that many conservatives (not all) refuse to look at history and see how people use religion for their own self-fulfilling purpose.

DR. SINCLAIR GREY III GUEST COLUMNIST

Not so perfect Christians Case in point - Tucker Carlson, from FOX News said that it was Christians who ended slavery and Jim Crow. What’s so scary about this assumption is that he failed to mention how the Ku Klux Klan killed Black people in the name of their religion. Wait a minute – wasn’t their religion called Christianity. Perhaps, Carlson should understand why Christian slave masters encouraged slavery – for economic, political, and social reasons. I would love to hear him explain

how Christians ended slavery and Jim Crow when many of the perpetrators were so-called and even self-proclaimed Christians themselves. Carlson goes on to add that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., helped to end slavery and Jim Crow. Yes, Dr. King contributed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, however we must not forget the many heroes and sheroes who lost their lives for freedom and equality. Let’s face it – some of those individuals were Christian and some were not. As long as we have people who are political puppets and historically ignorant voicing their opinion to the masses, the truth will remain hidden.

Stop the divisiveness Here are some suggestions I

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: OBAMA’S WAR POWER

PARESH NATH, THE KHALEEJ TIMES, UAE

Random thoughts of a free Black mind, v. 246 HBCUs in trouble – Our beloved Black colleges and universities have been at “tiptoe stance,” in MLK’s immortal words, for years. That reflects the general fragility of Black life and Black institutions in which our respective existences are constantly disrespected and must be continually justified. The Obama administration has been unfriendly to HBCUs in any number of ways, especially with regard to not consulting HBCU advocates about the impact his policies will have on our schools. I’ve complained since 2008 about Bro. Prez’s exclusive use of Ivy League grads as “the smartest people in the room” with regard to making decisions. Federal support to HBCUs is down everywhere, including loans to parents and students as well as grants to students and the schools. And Obama’s recent proposal to fund two years of free education applies only to community colleges, not to fouryear HBCUs. Last week, a website that monitors the Congressional Black Caucus, crewof42. com, reported that Obama was critical of HBCU’s low graduation rates and seemed to have no understanding or concern about their historical mission of admitting unprepared students who take longer to graduate. He’s said to believe that perhaps HBCUs have served their time and

QUICK TAKES FROM #2: STRAIGHT, NO CHASER

CHARLES W. CHERRY II, ESQ. PUBLISHER

run their historical courses. Also last week, South Carolina lawmakers proposed shutting down the state’s only public HBCU, South Carolina State University, for two years because it’s millions of dollars in debt, enrollment is down, and only 14 percent of its students graduate in four years. But there’s more to that story. Research indicates that Black land grant universities like SCSU and FAMU, established on federal land given to their respective states with the condition that funds given to the school by the federal government each year would have to be matched by the state, have been shortchanged for decades. Meanwhile, predominantly White land grant colleges like Clemson University and the University of Florida received MORE than they were owed. One solution? Going private. More next week.

Contact me at ccherry2@gmail.com.

Opinions expressed on this editorial page are those of the writers, and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of the newspaper or the publisher.

THE CREDO OF THE BLACK PRESS The Black Press believes that Americans can best lead the world away from racism and national antagonism when it accords to every person, regardless of race, color or creed, full human and legal rights. Hating no person, fearing no person. The Black Press strives to help every person in the firm belief...that all are hurt as long as anyone is held back.

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would like to drop to those who need to learn about history. Distance yourself from political parties and their ideology and read historical books that speaks openly and candid about history and its historical figures for yourself Stop prejudging people based on name, ethnicity and religion Work towards making this country better through collective work and responsibility instead of divisive attacks Religious institutions must find a way to put aside differences to work for peace. Even though there are fundamental religious beliefs and differences, if we all work together under a 4-letter word – LOVE, many of our wars will end. Maybe if those who hate President Obama would learn to put aside their disdain hatred of him and learn to work with

him, they could show the world – LOVE. Can the Tucker Carlson’s of the world preach unity instead of constantly bashing the Commander-In-Chief? FYI – A report by The 2014 Global Slavery Index says, “An estimated 35.8 million men, women, and children around the world are trapped in modern slavery today.” - GlobalSlaveryIndex.org

Dr. Sinclair Grey III is an activist, speaker, writer, author, life coach, and host of The Sinclair Grey Show heard on Mondays at 2 p.m. on WAEC Love 860am (iHeart Radio and Tune In). Contact him at drgrey@ sinclairgrey.org or on Twitter @drsinclairgrey. Click on this article at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

Will Florida’s tax-credit voucher system hurt public schools? In the African-American community, a quality education is a challenge, and in certain locations, non-existent. Black and minority schools are battlegrounds, and many of the students are so far behind that teachers don’t care because they will never catch up. As a result, schools operate as holding centers to keep the children off the streets while their parents go to work. The Florida school system has many problems, and Governor Scott is a proponent of choice, and an advocate for the tax-credit voucher system. There are many different components to the Florida’s tax-credit voucher system, and many Black church schools, charter schools, home schools and online schools support the voucher system. The public schools are not teaching the students in certain locations, and it makes sense for parents to choose a different system.

Lawsuit filed At the present time, there is a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Florida’s Tax-Credit Scholarship Program, and being heard in front of Leon County Circuit Judge, George Reynolds. The lawsuit against the program was filed in August by the Florida Education Association, the Florida League of Women Voters, and other school groups. “The Constitution of Florida specifically calls for a public system of high-quality public education. Private and for-profit schools are using marketing messages to entice low income families to leave their public schools. The league says “buyers beware –these schools are separate and unequal,” says Deirdre Macnab, president of the Florida League of Women Voters. There is no one solution or methodology in educating our children in 2015. All around the country there is a movement to incorporate innovative concepts, new systems, and the use of ground-breaking technology to help our children learn. Florida is the second state in the country to initiate an Educational Savings Account (ESA), and everyone in education is looking forward. Last year, Florida lawmakers appropriated $18.4 million to the ESA and this year Governor Scott is proposing an increase to $23.5 million. Scott has increased funding to charter schools, home schooling, online schooling and technical schools. Education has changed in 2015, and parents are taking a larger role in the education of their children.

‘Renewed commitment’ In order to accommodate the different

ROGER CALDWELL GUEST COLUMNIST

“Instead of the exit strategy from public education that these programs represent, we need a renewed commitment to strong neighborhood public schools for every child.” Randi Weingarten President of the American Federation of Teachers educational choices in Florida, it is necessary to appropriate more funding to all the systems, with a major focus on the public school system. “Instead of the exit strategy from public education that these programs represent, we need a renewed commitment to strong neighborhood public schools for every child,” says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Florida Education Association will probably be defeated in its lawsuit against the tax-credit voucher system. There will be fraud in the system because corporations can donate taxes they owe to the state to Step Up For Students or AAA the Scholarship Foundation. The Florida ESA program will also be a nightmare to manage because once parents receive their checks for the education of their children someone must regulate how they spend that money. Everywhere you turn, every education system is being challenged in Florida, while parents, teachers, and children are confused.

Roger Caldwell is the president and CEO of On-Point Media Group. Click on this article at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

Is image everything? While recalling those camera commercials, featuring Andre Agassi (Pro Tennis Player) saying “Image is everything” and Billy Crystal’s Saturday Night Live character, Fernando, who always said, “You look marvelous! It is better to look good than to feel good,” I also thought of the NAACP Image Awards and the fact that the NAACP’s image is taking a huge hit, especially among some of its members. During the past month I have spoken to many people who are very disenchanted with the NAACP, not for the same reasons we hear all the time from young folks and others who feel the organization has served its usefulness, but for a much worse reason: Corruption. To borrow the most over-used word in the Obama administration’s lexicon, let me be “clear.” I am not on a mission to destroy the NAACP. The only administrator I have ever had contact with is Gill Ford, who presides like a dictator over the local branches.

Continuously unavailable Getting a response from folks at the National Office, by email, letter, phone call, or carrier pigeon is tantamount to trying to break into the CIA. Having written, called, and sent emails on many occasions, I can

JAMES CLINGMAN NNPA COLUMNIST

personally attest to that fact. And don’t dare to call it out; that road usually leads to nowhere. Therefore, the conclusion I have drawn is that image means more to the NAACP than its local members, who are just pawns that are used and disposed of at the whim of Gill Ford. The mistreatment of local members is shameful and disrespectful. Right now, the NAACP is mis-leading our people, and is using its image to shroud the wrongdoing within its ranks. I trust they will clean it up before it’s too late or, even worse, before they get caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar.

James Clingman is one of the nation's most prolific writers on economic empowerment for Black people. Click on this article at www.flcourier.com to write your own response.

FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

Loretta Lynch is Condoleezza Rice with a law degree By the late 1950s, America’s rulers knew domestic Jim Crow was a global strategic liability. All but diehard Southern White supremacists could see it was bad for business. It interfered with America’s penetration of the former European colonial empires in Africa and Asia. The image of a settler state, built with stolen labor on stolen land, where lynch mobs and White violence could break out at any time, where Blacks were legally under-educated couldn’t compete with the egalitarian rhetoric of the Soviet Union and China. Jim Crow just had to go. Media and political elites singled out Dr. Martin Luther King as the favored face of what they called the civil rights movement before his 30th birthday. They awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 36, but shunned and denounced him in the final year of his life when he condemned not just racism, but economic injustice at home and imperial war abroad. King’s death at only 39 enabled the US elite to construct their own useful tool, the Dreamer, who is the Martin Luther King we mostly hear about today.

‘Affirmative action’ In the early 70s, serious enforcement of the Voting Rights Act began, while the US military, elite universities and corporations instituted what came to be known as “affirmative action.” The economic gains ordinary Black families made in the 60s and 70s didn’t last. These were largely curtailed and rolled back beginning in the 80s and 90s. But the end of legal segregation and the opening of affirmative action had a long term consequence. It integrated America’s corporate, military and political elite. By the turn of the century there were dozens of Black admirals and generals, more than ten thousand Blacks holding elected office, with many more un-elected officials from the US Secretary of State down to wardens of state and federal prisons, and a layer of Black corporate functionaries, academics, celebrities and lawyers. Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell were part of that layer, as are Susan Rice, Eric Holder, the despicable “Morehouse Man” Jeh Johnson at Homeland Security, and Loretta Lynch, whom Presi-

BRUCE A. DIXON BLACK AGENDA REPORT

She’s the vicious federal DA who prosecuted thousands of poor defendants on petty drug charges each month, while she ignored the official crimes of NYPD excepting a single case that put tens of thousands of angry New Yorkers in the street. dent Obama has nominated to replace the first Black attorney general, Eric Holder. Lynch did her undergrad and law school at Harvard. She went from there to the prestigious NY firm Cahill Gordon & Rendall, the folks who represent Bank of America, Merril Lynch, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and the like.

White collar crime Lynch served her first term at the Justice Department co-chairing something called the White Collar Crime Subcommittee. But you never hear Lynch bragging about how many White collar crooks, fraudulent bankster, predatory speculators and greedy CEOs she’s locked up. That’s just not what the Department of Justice does any more, whether under Democrats or Republicans. Hence Loretta Lynch’s expertise in advising and defending the few White collar criminals who got close to seeing the inside of a courtroom made her eminently qualified for DOJ’s “White Collar Crime Subcommittee.”

To be fair, this kind of misrepresentation on the part of elite corporate Black lawyers of what they do isn’t unique to Ms. Lynch, it’s pretty typical. Corporate lawyer and current Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed used to bill himself as a “civil rights lawyer,” which was only true in the sense that he was paid to represent corporations in employment law, age discrimination and civil rights cases against, not for those whose rights were violated. Eventually Lynch returned to private practice, this time at Hogan & Hartson again focusing on “commercial litigation, White collar criminal defense and corporate compliance issues”...in other words, keeping corporate criminals out of jail.

War on drugs Perhaps tiring of keeping people out of prison, Lynch went back to the Justice Department a second time in 2000, this time as Brooklyn NY’s federal district attorney. In 2005 Lynch was recruited by US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Stephen Rapp to administer “victor’s justice” upon the losers in Rwanda’s civil war. The US had backed Paul Kagame, trained at Ft. Leavenworth Kansas, who shot his way to power with an army that included child soldiers. In the process Kagame’s forces committed a sizeable share of the 800,000 murders in what the world knows as the Rwandan genocide. So in Rwanda Loretta Lynch interviewed only persons brought to her by Kagame’s cronies. Like the rest of the International Tribunal, she never questioned Kagame’s role assassinations of the Rwandan and Burundian presidents, the tens of thousands of murders that occurred in areas controlled by Kagame’s forces, or the role of Kagame and his partners in the ongoing pillage of neighboring Congo which had taken some 5 million lives and counting by 2008. When President Obama took office, there was an urgent need for Lynch’s unique talents. Greedy speculators, banksters and hedge fund sharpies had crashed the US economy in 2007, leading to millions of foreclosures and the most catastrophic loss of Black family wealth since the US began measuring it. But banking, insurance and finance had been the incom-

A lesson from Black history For most American families, it is extremely difficult to both earn a living and successfully raise our children. This reality is certainly the truth for families who are poor, of whom minorities constitute a disproportionate share. Yet, it also is true for any of us who consider ourselves to be middle class. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of American families with children have either two working parents or a single parent — and a majority do not have a stay-athome parent to provide child care. Balancing child care and work is a major challenge.

Lack of resources A key obstacle is financial. Far too many families simply do not have the financial resources to pay for the quality child care and early child education their children need. President Obama has been making the case that affordable child care and education must be a national priority. Our families need help, our economy would benefit, and the next generation

U.S. REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D-MD.) SPECIAL TO THE TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

would be far better qualified to strengthen our middle class. The President reminds us of some eye-opening facts. For example, the average annual cost of full-time care at an infant childcare center was about $10,000 per child in 2013. That’s higher than the average cost of in-state tuition at a public 4-year college. From the perspective of public policy, our current approach is inadequate, even where tax credits and Early Head Start are available. These shortcomings are preventing tens of millions of American families from raising themselves into the middle class — and even more affluent families are being stressed.

dle-Class Economics” at the University of Kansas, the President recalled how his grandmother worked on an assembly line for bombers during WWII. Since women in the workforce were critical to the war effort – and a national priority – our country provided universal child care. Many economists would agree that supporting families in the workforce must become a national economic priority once again — as do the President and I. The President is proposing that we increase the maximum child care tax credit to $3,000 per year per young child and expand access to child care assistance for all eligible families of moderate income (below 200 percent of the poverty line). The President’s FY 2016 Budget would also expand access to high-quality early childhood education for low and moderate income families, long a top priority of my own.

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: PROFESSOR OBAMA

JOHN COLE, THE SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUNE

ing administration’s biggest contributors. “White collar crime specialist” Lorretta Lynch answered the call. She came back to Washington to protect the pillagers and perps who made her career, and the Obama administration possible.

Get out of jail free She has served them well. In more than one Rolling Stone article, Matt Taibi has described her role in shielding HSBC. “The deal was announced quietly, just before the holidays, almost like the government was hoping people were too busy hanging stockings by the fireplace to notice. Flooring politicians, lawyers and investigators all over the world, the U.S. Justice Department granted a total walk to executives of the British-based bank HSBC for the largest drug-andterrorism money-laundering case ever. Yes, they issued a fine – $1.9 billion, or about five weeks’ profit – but they didn’t extract so much as one dollar or one day in jail from any individual, despite a decade of stupefying abuses...” Lynch also helped negotiate the DOJ settlement with Citigroup, one of the main entities that packaged and sold fraudulent mortgage securities to clients around the world. She let them off the same way, and guaranteed them immunity in the cases that state attorneys general were pursuing. That’s her specialty, that’s who and what she is. Loretta Lynch is the lawyer who writes the fine print on the “get out of jail free” cards the Justice Department hands out to banksters, specuObama’s initiatives, despite the fact that reducing net taxes on working families is a cornerstone of any viable tax reform. Those who are reluctant to confront the challenges of family and work should take a Black History lesson to heart. Consider this: Some of the most compelling lessons of history for our own time are subtle — among them, the truth that our desire for freedom and our love of family have always been mutually reinforcing. Last month, I was invited by Governor O’Malley to participate in the official unveiling of the Harriet Tubman bust. In preparation for that ceremony, I re-read her March 1913 obituary from the annals of the Auburn, NY Citizen. Although seldom stressed by historians, once liberated in the North, her initial forays in her 19 journeys as a conductor on the Underground Railroad were to rescue her own loved ones. Enduring hardship and risking life and liberty in pursuit of her calling to reunite her family, she repeatedly traveled across the Mason-Dixon Line and into our history.

lators and too-big-to-jail CEOs. She’s the vicious federal DA who prosecuted thousands of poor defendants on petty drug charges each month, while she ignored the official crimes of NYPD excepting a single case that put tens of thousands of angry New Yorkers in the street.

But she’s Black Lynch sees nothing wrong with the NSA harvesting everyone’s email, phone and other communications. She’s got no problem with the president ordering the drone murder of US citizens or foreigners, whoever. She’s OK with prosecuting whistle blowers and journalists for “espionage” and she’s not the least bit interested in lowering the prison population, curbing asset forfeitures, ending the failed 40 years war on drugs, or restraining and demilitarizing the police. The useless Congressional Black Caucus, as Glen Ford points out only cares about her Black womanhood, out of which they and others will manufacture many “stand by a sista” moment. But those with eyes open know who Loretta Lynch is. She’s Condoleezza Rice with a law degree and no known musical talent. She’s a corporate fixer and enabler. She’s a vicious prosecutor and a soulless corporate operative. She’s a Black woman, and likely the next US Attorney General.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report. Click on this article at www.flcourier.com to write your own response. Americans honor Harriet Tubman for her courage — and those of us who are Americans of Color revere her as “the Moses of our People.” Yet, to fully grasp her relevance for our own time, we should remember that Ms. Tubman’s driving motivation, at least initially, was love of family. Those who are tempted to resist the President’s child care and education initiatives on economic grounds would do well to remember this historical truth. In the 19th Century, the slavebased economy failed, in part, because it refused to recognize and support the critical importance of family to those upon whose labor that economy depended. In our own time, we should take Harriet Tubman’s example to heart and not make a comparable error. Making child care more affordable and supporting early childhood education must become national priorities.

Congressman Elijah Cummings represents Maryland’s 7th Congressional District in the United States House of RepNaysayers abound resentatives. Click on this ar‘A national priority’ ticle at www.flcourier.com to Some conservatives in the Love of family In his recent remarks on “Mid- Congress may resist President A century and a half later, write your own response.

Questions about the measles controversy I have to confess that I really cannot believe the measles controversy. The issue of vaccinations had been settled, at least so I thought, until I realized that instead of science, there is an increased reliance on, forgive me for this expression, “urban myths.” I remember first encountering a major urban myth in connection with the suggestion that there were/are alligators in the New York City sewer system. Proponents of this myth were always so certain and so definitive that it seemed that there was little question as to the validity of the story, i.e., that baby alligators had been flushed down toilers and now haunted the sewer system. There

EDITORIAL

BILL FLETCHER, JR. NNPA COLUMNIST

was only one problem: it was not true.

Endless worry What I learned from this is that many people can and will adopt a certain viewpoint irrespective of the facts if it substantiates an opinion or fear that they have. This seems to have become the case in the matter of mea-

sles. The suggestion that the measles vaccination will result in autism has been repeated time and again. Is it possible that there will be side effects with the vaccination? There are possible side effects with any vaccination, but the percentages are so infinitesimally small. Yet, if one wants to, one can worry about this endlessly. Yet, I will suggest something that is actually worth worrying about and, yes, it is in connection with measles and, no, it has nothing to do with a side-effect of the vaccination: birth defects. People infected and contagious with measles represent an immense danger to pregnant women. This is a fact and it has been demonstrated. Women who contract the

measles during pregnancy face contracted it, I thought that I was the very real risk of their baby going to die. The level of pain, having birth defects. misery and weakness helped me to truly understand why it can be fatal for adults to contract “childImpact on others It is for this reason that the hood illnesses.” When you are thinking about current debate about the measles vaccination is so myopic and the measles vaccination issue wrong-headed. We should be consider this carefully. Think more concerned about what hap- about the vulnerable populapens when an illness that is pre- tions. This is really not a personventable is let loose and its im- al decision, to be honest. This is a pact on vulnerable populations. social decision, that is, the deciThis is not mainly an issue of chil- sion of the individual potentially dren catching the measles from has a far broader impact than on others, but rather its impact on one child or even one family. others. Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the host of Let me tell you a story. At the age of 39, I contracted chicken The Global African on Telesurpox. I had thought that I had had English. He is a racial justice, it as a child. I may have had con- labor and global justice writer tact with it but I never had a full and activist. Click on this arblown case. When I got it, two ticle at www.flcourier.com to weeks after my then 4-year-old write your own response.

NATION

TOJ A6

FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

How notoriety is playing out in Ferguson Missouri town draws 1,000 applications for police force job

department and city’s operations. He has ridden along with officers on patrol, learned how evidence is secured, made the rounds with officers assigned to schools and observed the municipal court.

BY CHRISTINE BYERS ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH/TNS

‘Professional’ force

FERGUSON, Mo. — Protesters waved signs at Patrick Melvin II as he drove through town one late October day, but he didn’t have time to read what they said. Melvin was focused on finding Ferguson police headquarters, hoping an interview would land him a law enforcement internship to work alongside the officers at the center of national controversy over police tactics and race. Now, about one month into that internship, the Harris-Stowe State University senior from Phoenix, Ariz. said he wants to pin on a Ferguson badge. But he’ll have to get in line. A long one. The department has received more than 1,000 applications for one open dispatcher’s position. The 20 or so applications on file for a patrolman’s opening about doubled since Officer Darren Wilson shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown on Aug. 9. That spot remains unfilled, as do vacancies from two newer resignations: from Wilson and one other officer.

J.B. FORBES/ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH/TNS

Intern Patrick Melvin, 21, from St. Louis, catches a quick meal with Ferguson Police Evidence Officer Greg McDanel at a Subway Restaurant on Feb. 12, 2015, in Ferguson, Mo. Invitations for public appearances are sending Ferguson officials such as Police Chief Tom Jackson and Mayor James Knowles III across the country. “For better or worse, Ferguson will be noted as a catalyst for positive changes in policing,” Jackson said. “And moving forward, I believe people want to be part of that.” That attention, Knowles pointed out, has cut both ways. He said nobody from the city was invited to the University of Chicago to respond to criticism that Ferguson police dealt with

Catalyst for change More than six months after Wilson’s shooting of Brown made Ferguson a household name, and left many wondering about the fate of the police department in the community of about 20,000, its story is playing out in sometimes surprising ways.

one part of the community differently from another. “I don’t have an ego about it all, but what I say is, if you’re going to have conversation about it, you need to have a primary source,” Knowles said.

Criticism and kudos He also criticized Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon’s formation of the Ferguson Commission without anyone from Ferguson among the appointees. At the same time, Knowles said his wife complains that it takes him too long to make a trip to the grocery store because,

“People stop me at the store for pictures and hugs and say, ‘We love Ferguson,’ and, ‘You’re doing as good as you can.’ “ The mayor said he has been invited to speak before some religious services, yet told by others in the clergy that they “won’t even be in the same room with me.” Last month, Knowles and Jackson were met with hostility when they appeared at an event at Harvard Law School. But Jackson received standing ovations at the National Narcotics Officers’ Coalition conference in Washington.

Making the rounds Knowles complained that some want to tread on his city’s name, citing recent publicity suggesting the police force was considering use of a gun attachment to make a shot less lethal. “We never committed to using any of their products and they just got about $1 million in free advertising just by using our name in a newspaper article,” he said. While this swirls on the outside, Melvin, the intern, has been working three days a week on the inside, learning about the police

Melvin said he had applied to several other police departments but sees Ferguson as the best fit, despite federal investigators looking for signs of racism in the department’s soul. He has a natural call to police work: His father is chief of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Police Department, in Arizona. He said he looks beyond criticisms in the news. “I definitely see Ferguson going through a rebuilding,” he said. “And like the chief said, a lot of people want to help and be part of a positive name for Ferguson P.D.” Melvin, who is Black, recognizes that with just four African-Americans among 53 officers, the police department is disproportionately White. But he said what he has seen from them has been “professional.” “I don’t see me being a minority being much different than any other officers that are there,” he said. “It’s just me being part of the team.” Melvin acknowledged that his decision to do an internship in Ferguson, and possibly begin his career there, surprised his parents, classmates and teachers. But he said that for him, it’s not a question of why to work in Ferguson, but why not?

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IFE/FAITH College grads struggle to get full-time work See page B4

FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

SHARING BLACK LIFE, STATEWIDE

SOUTH FLORIDA / TREASURE COAST AREA

‘Book of Negroes’ now on DVD See page B5

WWW.FLCOURIER.COM

SECTION

A MAN AHEAD OF HIS TIME BY ZENITHA PRINCE TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

arter G. Woodson seemed born to defy the odds. The future father of Black history came into the world on Dec. 19, 1875, in New Canton, Va., during a time both of upheaval and promise. Twelve years before, President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing Black slaves from centuries of cruel bondage. Ten years before, Confederate and Union forces — including Blacks — finally laid down their weapons, signaling the end of the Civil War and the demolition of the institution of slavery. And then came Reconstruction. “Woodson was born in 1875 toward the end of the Black Reconstruction period — about 10 years of enhanced freedom for Black people,” said Alvin Thornton, professor of political science at Howard University. “I don’t think Carter Woodson would have been able to do what he did if he were not born during that period. Black people were able to do things — they were able to run for office, vote and seek educational opportunities.”

How Carter G. Woodson became the ‘Father of Black History’

Politics in the 1870s Under the political auspices of Radical Republicans, former slaves or “freedmen” became politically active. In Virginia and throughout the South, they joined organizations such as the pro-Republican Union League, holding convention and demanding universal male suffrage and equal treatment under the law, as well as demanding disfranchisement of ex-Confederates and the seizure of their plantations. In fact, according to the African-American Odyssey: Volume 2, fourth edition, during the 1870s, about 1,465 Black men held political office in the South. Among the first to serve in the U.S. Congress were Rep. Robert C. DeLarge of South Carolina; Rep. Jefferson Long of Georgia; Sen. Hiram R. Revels of Mississippi and several others. It was during that time that Congress also passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which sought “to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights.” “Be it enacted,” the law read, “That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.”

Lack of food, work But the time was also one of economic instability. Virginia, the site of many Civil War battles, had been devastated. Railroads and other infrastructure lay in ruins. Once-proud plantations had been reduced to burnt-out carcasses. Scores of former slaves had no jobs and had to depend on the Freedmen’s Bureau for basics such as clothing, food, water and health care. Woodson’s parents, James and Anne Eliza were former slaves and, like many of their peers, were abjectly poor. “Carter, one of nine children, said he often left the dinner table hungry and sought food in nearby woods. After he went to bed on Saturday nights, his mother washed the clothing he had been wearing so he could don clean clothes to church on Sundays,” author Burnis R. Morris writes in Woodson’s biography on the website of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), which Woodson founded.

Railroad worker James Woodson, a Civil War

Carter Godwin Woodson was born in 1875 in New Canton, Va. One of the first African-Americans to receive a doctorate from Harvard, he dedicated his career to the field of African-American history and founded Negro History Week, a precursor to Black History Month. He died in Washington, D.C., in 1950.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Carter G. Woodson wrote many historical works, including the “The Mis-Education of the Negro,” which was originally released in 1933.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH veteran, learned carpentry from his father and did masonry for a living. It was a hard life, but unlike others, he refused to hire out his children to supplement the family income. Carter said his father “believed that such a life was more honorable than to serve one as a menial,” Morris cites. Such dire straits meant Woodson had to work from an early age, however. He worked the family’s five-to-sixacre farm, which was situated on poor land, but produced enough crops to feed the family. As a teen, when the family migrated to Huntington, W.Va., to take advantage of burgeoning opportunities, Woodson joined his older brother Robert in working to rebuild the railroad from Thurmond to Loup Creek. He also did a six-year stint in the coalfields at Nuttallburg in Fayette County.

Creation of public schools Woodson’s responsibilities gave him little time to take advantage of the free education then available to Blacks. After the Civil War, missionary and aid groups from the North worked with the Freedmen’s Bureau to build colleges, institutes and normal schools to educate former slaves throughout the South. Beginning by offering elementary and secondary educa-

Black laborers are shown on the United States Military Railroad in Northern Virginia circa 1862 or 1863. As a teen, Carter G. Woodson also worked with his older brother Robert in working to rebuild the railroad from Thurmond to Loup Creek in West Virginia.

tion, after a decade Black colleges soon offered academic and trade course and professional and military training. In fact, one of the most enduring and widely recognized achievements of the bureau was its creation of universal, public school systems. Young Woodson had a spotty school attendance record, however; he attended only on days of rain and snow when he was not needed to work the farm. “To a large extent Woodson would be self-educated,” said Daryl Scott, executive director of ASALH. It was not until 1895 – when Woodson was 18 – that he would enter high school — the all-Black Douglass High School in Huntington — but he graduated two years later. “There was something innate about him,” said Thornton about Woodson’s ability to succeed in school despite the challenges.

On to Berea College Scott agreed. “When you realize that only 2 percent of Americans were graduating from high school at the turn of the 19th century, then you know this is a guy who truly believes in education and is driven by something out of the ordinary.” In the fall of 1897, Woodson enrolled at Berea College in Kentucky. It was close to his Huntington, West Va., home. But more than that, it was one of the few higher education institutions at the time that pro-

moted interracial education. The experience would likely shape his views about race relations. He graduated in 1903. Once again, Woodson seemed to be favored by time. Though born during Reconstruction, he came at its tail end when the Ku Klux Klan began to rise in power and influence, spreading hate and terror among the ex-slaves. He grew up at a time of growing post-war resentment among Whites still smarting from the complications of dealing with free labor; and he entered adulthood when conservative Democrats finally wrested control from the Radical Republicans, passing laws and constitutional amendments to disenfranchise African-Americans though poll taxes and literacy tests, and to restore the idea of White supremacy by the entrenchment of Jim Crow segregation. “Not long after Woodson leaves Berea, Kentucky passes a law that Blacks and Whites cannot be educated together,” Scott said. “If he (Woodson) had come a couple of years later, he would not have been able to matriculate there.”

Taught in Philippines While attending Berea, Woodson taught school in Winona, W.Va., and later served as principal of his high school alma mater. In November 1903, he left for the Philippines to serve as a teacher and supervisor. The ex-

perience reinforced what would later form the basis of his life’s work in America. “What he learned from that experience is that you have to teach people based on their own experiences. History is not simply Western; it’s not simply about elites; it’s about ordinary people and them knowing themselves,” Scott said.

Black history research After several more travels, Woodson returned home to continue his studies as a fulltime student at the University of Chicago. His work at Berea was deemed unacceptable, but that didn’t stop him. He worked hard and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees simultaneously. It was there, according to A Life in Black History: Carter G. Woodson by Jacqueline Goggin, that Woodson began to pursue his passion for documenting Black history. In February 1908, he wrote W.E.B. Du Bois with statistics about the Black church because Du Bois at the time had amassed research and publications about African-American achievement for scholarly research. It is believed, however, that he may have been deterred by his professors and eventually chose French diplomatic policy toward Germany for his dissertation. See WOODSON, Page B2

CALENDAR & EVENTS

WOODSON

FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

group will perform free along with the Miami Mass Choir on Feb. 22 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Pesrforming Arts of Miami-Dade County.

MAXWELL

from B1

Doctorate from Harvard With his advanced degrees from the University of Chicago, Woodson enrolled at Harvard University, and in 1912, became the second African-American, after Du Bois, to obtain a doctoral degree from the Ivy League school. The accomplishment was an astonishing one in that time, especially for someone of Woodson’s background, Scott said. “To talk about a Ph.D. was so rare …. So Woodson was a freak of nature,” the ASALH director said. But life at Harvard was not without its challenges, historians said. Woodson had believed the institution to be a place that was liberal and racially enlightened. Instead, he found instructors were propagating the same, widely touted misinformation about Black intellect and Black — therefore American — history, and some tried to dissuade him from his goal of rewriting the historical record. “Harvard University has ruined more Negro minds than bad whiskey,” Woodson is quoted as saying later on.

The soulful crooner will perform at the 2015 Jazz in the Gardens. It takes place March 21-22 at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens.

Jacksonville: Catch K. Michelle on March 1 at the Florida Theatre Jacksonville. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. St. Petersburg: The Ramsey Lewis Quintet with special guest Philip Bailey will perform Feb. 24 at the Mahaffey Theater.

ROLARD MARTIN

Jacksonville: Actress and comedian Wanda Sykes takes the stage on Feb. 26 at the Florida Theatre Jacksonville. The show begins at 8 p.m.

Journalist Roland Martin will be the guest speaker at a scholarship ball hosted by Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and the GZl Educational Foundation on March 28 at the Mainsail Conference & Event Center in Tampa. More info: gzleducationalfoundation.org or call 813-451-3306.

Tampa: The Tampa chapter of the Florida A&M University National Alumni Association will host a scholarship gala on Feb. 20 at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel. The speaker will be FAMU President Dr. Elmira Mangum. More information: 813-238-7235.

First Black history book After graduation, Woodson continued to teach in Washington, D.C. He had funded his education through teaching jobs at schools such as Armstrong Manual Training High School and eventually M Street High School, a high school for the District’s Black elite. It was at the M Street High School that Woodson introduced Black history into the schools’ curriculum. And it is while teaching there that he defied his Harvard critics and others, publishing his first tome on AfricanAmerican history, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, in 1915. He also travels to Chicago and establish the Association for the Study of Negro of Life and History, which later becomes the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. “He’s a high school teacher and what he presumes to do in establishing this association is take on the whole academy,” Scott said. “He was prepared to do intellectual combat with the leaders of the Western world and all the great universities who had insisted for generations that Black people have no history. And he wasn’t even a university professor.”

The story is special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper. Afro American archivist JaZette Marshburn contributed to the story.

West Palm Beach: Gladys Knight takes the stage at the Kravis Center on March 5. The show starts at 8 p.m.

BEVERLY CRAWFORD

The International Worship Summit continues through Feb. 21 at Majestic Life Ministries in Orlando. Performers include Grammy and Stellar Award winner Beverly Crawford and many more gospel artists. More information: gospelheritage.org.

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR St. Petersburg: Journalist Byron Pitts will be the speaker in a discussion titled “Race & America: Examining Media’s Coverage of Social Justice Issues’’ on March 13 at Poynter Institute, 801 Third St. S. More

information: www.poynter.org.

Auditorium on April 5.

Clearwater: The Clearwater Sea-Blues Festival takes place Feb. 21-22 at Coachman Park. Free admission. Performers include Amos Lee and Robert Rudolph & the Family Band. Complete lineup: clearwaterseablues.com.

Orlando: Catch rapper Waka Flocka Flame on Feb. 28 at Firestone Live.

Fort Lauderdale: The Mighty Clouds of Joy and Lee Williams will be at the War Memorial

St. Petersburg residents trying to save Woodson museum BY SAM JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE COURIER

The fate of St. Petersburg’s only African-American museum is in limbo. Many in the St. Petersburg community have voiced their support to keep the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African-American Museum open at 2240 Ninth Ave. S. The museum is a landmark in the Black community. With a 4-3 vote in late January, the St. Petersburg Housing Authority set in motion a plan to sell the building. The museum has been given six months to vacate the building. At a meeting this month at the museum, advocates discussed the significance of the museum and its location. Board members, community activists and some elected officials are focused on preserving the museum. A recent appraisal valued the property at $663,000. The housing authority cited murky bookkeeping as a reason for the sale. Terri Lipsey Scott, the museum’s chair of the board, put those allegations to rest, noting that the museum has never had a “dirty audit.’’ Scott added that the museum’s accountant finds the notion of murky bookkeeping to be comical because there’s not enough money to be audited.

Place to educate, enlighten The museum derives its name from the AfricanAmerican historian, journalist and writer, who back in 1926, established a celebratory week focused on Black history. In 1969, this was transformed into a full month in February. It is housed in a modest, early 20th-century bungalow near the intersection of Ninth Avenue and 22nd

TOJ

Estero: Actor and comedian Kevin Hart has a show scheduled at the Germain Arena in Estero near Fort Myers on March 27. Miami: The legendary Grammy-nominated gospel

Naples: Journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault will be the speaker at a March 15 Hattitude luncheon hosted by the Collier County Alumnae of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. www. Collierdeltas.org. Tampa: Candy Lowe hosts Tea & Conversation every Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at 3911 N. 34th St., Suite B. More information: 813-394-6363. St. Petersburg: The legendary Smokey Robinson performs April 12 at The Mahaffey Theater. Tampa: Tickets are on sale for the Nephew Tommy Comedy Tour featuring Thomas Miles at the University of South Florida’s Sun Dome on April 18.

ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE FOR BLACK STUDENTS. NO EXCUSES. The classic guide from Florida Courier publisher, lawyer and broadcaster CHARLES W. CHERRY II PRAISE FOR ‘EXCELLENCE WITHOUT EXCUSE’:

The Dr. Carter G. Woodson Museum is a landmark building in St. Petersburg. Street in south St. Petersburg. For years, the building has served as a civic center, meeting place, education center and venue for wedding ceremonies. Rene Flowers, a Pinellas County school board member and St. Petersburg native, passionately told the crowd at this month’s meeting of the museum’s historical importance to her and others in the Black community. “There have been exhibits of all walks of life in this building of poetry, art... Children have come through this building to see this historical relevance that African-Americans have for St. Petersburg,” she explained. “A place where once I couldn’t sit on the green bench downtown; a place where once I couldn’t go McCrory’s or Kress to get something to eat... I’m not telling you what I heard – I’m telling you what I know.”

Other options Another twist in the attempted sale of the property is the role of St. Petersburg College. St. Petersburg City

Councilman Steve Kornell said he thinks a well defined plan that includes the college, is a good idea. He said that a true partnership would be beneficial to both institutions. The college was planning to take over the allvolunteer board and replace the members. This would effectively take stewardship away from the long-established role the African-American community has played in the museum’s governance. Another option has been proposed by Charlie Gerdes, chairman of the city council. His idea is for St. Petersburg to classify the museum with a historic status, which could protect the museum’s current location. This means that the city would buy the museum from the housing authority. Shannon Ligon, an attorney at Ligon Law Group, has devoted pro bono work to streamline the legal entanglements and keep the dispute from escalating into litigation.

“This guide for African-American college-bound students is packed with practical and insightful information for achieving academic success...The primary focus here is to equip students with the savvy and networking skills to maneuver themselves through the academic maze of higher education.” – Book review, School Library Journal • How low expectations of Black students’ achievements can get them higher grades; • Want a great grade? Prepare to cheat! • How Black students can program their minds for success; • Setting goals – When to tell everybody, and when to keep your mouth shut; • Black English, and why Black students must be ‘bilingual.’ …AND MUCH MORE!

www.excellencewithoutexcuse.com Download immediately as an eBook or a pdf Order softcover online, from Amazon, or your local bookstore ISBN#978-1-56385-500-9 Published by International Scholastic Press, LLC Contact Charles at ccherry2@gmail.com

Facebook ccherry2 excellencewithoutexcuse

for info on speeches, workshops, seminars, book signings, panel discussions.

Twitter @ccherry2

STOJ

FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

BLACK HISTORY

Black History Month is a good time to recognize the work of underappreciated artists MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL

arter G. Woodson launched Negro History Week in 1926 as part of his life’s work of shining a scholarly light on the neglected contributions of African-Americans to our society and culture. Today there are people who are uncomfortable with Black History

Harry Belafonte released an album simply called “Calypso’’ in 1956. “Calypso” was nothing less than a revolution at 33 rpm. The album spent an incredible 31 weeks at the top of the Billboard album charts and is one of the most successful albums in Billboard history. It spawned two massive hit singles, “Jamaica Farewell” and “The Banana Boat Song (Day-O),” and the commercial impetus it gave to folk and world beat music continues to echo today. Characteristically, Belafonte refused to exploit the calypso craze and instead turned his attention to the wider spectrum of folk and world music including chain gang songs, blues, spirituals, lullabies, African, Greek and even Yiddish material. If anything, his influence grew. Bob Dylan made his national recording debut playing harmonica on Belafonte’s album “Midnight Special.” His 1959 double disc concert album “Belafonte at Carnegie Hall” spent three years on the charts and was the first live album to be a major commercial success. At the same time he was popularizing folk and world music, Belafonte was conquering live theater, films and television. In 1954 he had won a Tony for his work in the play “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac.” In 1957 he defied racial attitudes of the time when he appeared in “Island in the Sun” as a character who weighs whether to have a romance with a white woman. He was television’s first black producer and won an Emmy for the special “Tonight with Harry Belafonte.” In 1968, Belafonte found himself at the center of controversy when he appeared on a NBC television special hosted by British songstress Petula Clark. Clark touched Belafonte’s arm

She was only about 25 when her first novel, “Breath, Eyes, Memory,” began casting a spell over readers in 1994. Critics praised Edwidge Danticat as a graceful and vibrant writer and forgave some of the excesses in this story of a 12-year-old who leaves her home in Haiti and moves to New York City. Four years later, Oprah Winfrey picked “Breath, Eyes, Memory” for her TV book club — and introduced its author to masses of readers. And though Danticat is known in literary circles, her complete works are worthy of wider recognition. At 37, she is still at the start of her career. If her work to date is any indication, she could grow into one of 21st-century American literature’s major immigrant voices. Her novels and short stories deal frankly with the horrors of her native Haiti and of the inner struggles and losses of the exile, the immigrant. Her themes range from mother-daughter relationships to sex, migration and lives disrupted by history and the struggles of a post-colonial nation. Her emphasis so far has been on women, but male responses to a disrupted, uneasy history are also explored. “I struggle with horror myself, just the way things keep happening in our history,” she told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel during a 2004 book tour. “It is the reality of a generation of Haitians who grew up with a shadow of horror. I remember fear as a child, always: the fear of expatriate invasions, the fear of American invasion, a regime using everything — public executions — to stay in power. But because people had to, they went on with their lives, even with the horror

Month, as we now call what Woodson started, for various reasons, including the perception that it can tend to limit appreciation of black accomplishments to the shortest month of the year. But there are still plenty of black artists whose work deserves wider recognition. We asked some of our cultural critics and arts writers for appreciations of performers and creators whose contributions to our culture are underappreciated or even unsung.

While their choices have some fame in their fields, they’re all creators who should have a wider audience. Serendipitously, the four the writers chose have a strong connection to the Caribbean islands, showing that immigration continues to be a freshening influence in the body of American culture.

briefly in the show, which led the sponsor Plymouth Motors to request the segment be cut. To her credit, Clark did not back down and the show aired intact to high viewership. As one would expect, Belafonte was and still is no stranger to controversy. He was a good friend of Martin Luther King Jr. and an active presence in the civil rights struggle. Belafonte also has a long record of humanitarian work. He was one of the main organizers of the “We Are the World” benefit for African relief in 1985 and also appeared in Live Aid. In 1987, UNICEF appointed him a goodwill ambassador. Even in his 80s, Belafonte remains outspoken and sometimes sharply critical. In 2006, he drew fire for referring to President Bush as “the greatest terrorist in the world.” Earlier he clashed with the Bush administration when he referred to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as house slaves for their high-ranking positions in the administration. It is, however, the music for which he will rightfully be remembered best. — Dave Tianen

all around. That’s what I try to convey, that even with this horror, people are living their lives.” “Breath, Eyes, Memory” explores that fear through a mother remembering being raped by the paramilitary group Tonton Macoutes as a child. “The Farming of Bones,” Danticat’s second novel, recounts a 1937 massacre in Haiti; it won the 1999 American Book Award among other awards. Danticat, who lives in Miami with her husband and daughter, was born in Port-au-Prince in 1969. When she was 2 her father left to look for work in New York. Two years later, her mother followed him, leaving Danticat with an aunt and uncle. Danticat grew up speaking French and Haitian Creole. It wasn’t until she had moved to Brooklyn to join her parents at age 12 that she began to speak English — a late-blooming facility that now glows in the suppleness of her prose.

She began writing fiction seriously in high school after the New Youth Connection published an essay she’d written on her immigrant experience. She went on to study French literature at Barnard College and earn a master of fine arts degree from Brown University. In 1995, the year after her first novel came out, she published “Krik? Krak!” a collection of stories that won her a nomination for the National Book Award. Danticat’s second collection of stories, “The Dew Breaker,” came out in 2004. It is a chilling yet moving exploration of Haitian lives both on the island and in America. (The title refers to government torturers who come to pick up their victims at dawn, breaking the dew on the grass.) Among her awards is a Pushcart Prize. GRANTA magazine named her among the best young American novelists in 1996. Danticat’s “Brother, I’m Dying” was released by Knopf in 2007. — Geeta Sharma Jensen

Edwidge Danticat’s critically acclaimed first novel, “Breath, Eyes, Memory,” was published in 1994. RHONDA VANOVER/ SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL

“Play it, Hazel. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’” Hey, it coulda happened. While the studio was in preproduction on what would become one of the greatest movies of all time, Warner Bros. executive producer Hal Wallis urged casting director Steve Trilling to check out a singer-pianist who was all the rage in New York. Forget that the script for “Casablanca” called for a black man to play the part of Rick Blaine’s (Humphrey Bogart) piano-playing comrade; Hazel Scott “would be marvelous for the part,” Wallis wrote Trilling in a February 1942 memo, quoted in Rudy Behlmer’s studio history “Inside Warner Bros.” That the studio stuck to its original plan — and gave singer Dooley Wilson a bit of movie immortality in the process, with “As Time Goes By” — was the first time Scott’s star was dimmed. It wouldn’t be the last. Born in Trinidad in 1920, Scott was a natural at the piano. Not long after she and her family immigrated to New York City, the 4-year-old Hazel climbed onto a piano and began playing a MCT tune — in perfect pitch. Hazel Scott’s “Relaxed She had her first recital Piano Moods” from at age 13; at 16, she was 1955. hosting her own radio show; at 18, she debuted on Broadway and was fronting her own band. But her star shone brightest on New York City’s bustling nightclub scene. Scott’s gigs at Café Society were the talk of the town. In 1945, Scott married Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a New York congressman and civil rights leader. Neither shied away from taking a public stand against racial injustice. When the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow her to perform in Washington’s Constitution Hall, she and Powell made a federal case of it, leading to protests and calls for the group to lose its charter for its discriminatory policies. Scott landed appearances in a handful of movies. In the biggest of them, she plays herself in an extended scene in the 1945 George Gershwin biopic “Rhapsody in Blue.” In July 1950, she became the first African-American to host her own television show. Then the roof caved in. The same year she made TV history, her name was included on a list of communist sympathizers. In an attempt to win back her reputation, she volunteered to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee; while her testimony drew praise, her concert bookings slowed to a trickle. Scott eventually moved to Paris, where her career revived, albeit out of sight of American audiences. After a decade, she returned to the States. This time, the adoring crowds were gone, but the artistry, and the pride, remained, jazz critic Leonard Feather recalled. Scott died in 1981 from pancreatic cancer. — Chris Foran

Without the man born Clive Campbell in 1955 in Kingston, Jamaica, there would be no LL Cool J, no Jay-Z, no 2Pac. We never would have been urged to pump up the volume, to push it, to lean back or to get low. Beyond the world of hip-hop, without Campbell, acts from Beck to Moby, Korn to Britney Spears, would lack a crucial influence. Stages from Ozzfest to your average Euro-trash club would not sound the same. Campbell moved to the Bronx with his family in 1967. In 1973, the teenager began to play music at parties organized by his sister in the rec center of their apartment building. Disco was the ruling style of the day, but Campbell drew heavily from late ’60s funk. And he did more than just spin the records. Working with equipment that seems Stone Age beside today’s digital turntables, Campbell taught himself how to isolate a song’s rhythmic spine — that pairing of percussion and bass known to cause visceral booty-shaking — and repeat it, over and over, switching from one turntable to another. The breakbeat was born. Above his addictively danceable beats, Campbell often “toasted” — addressing specific people on the dance floor or pumping up the crowd with repetitive phrases. Ever been told to throw your hands in the air and wave ’em like you just don’t care? Thank Campbell for importing the toast tradition from his native Jamaica. Kool Herc — his stage name evolved from the nickname “Hercules,” after his muscular frame — began performing with two friends who favored microphones over turntables. The rappers’ verbal acrobatics of rhyme and rhythm were the perfect compliment to Herc’s increasingly complex turntable showmanship. Herc and the Herculoids were born, creating a template — two rappers and a DJ — that would give us Run-DMC, Salt ’n Pepa and a host of other hiphop stars. As breakbeat-based music became a billion-dollar, global movement that would influence electronica, pop, alt-rock and nu-metal, the originator became a footnote. None of Herc’s legendary, ground-breaking performances were recorded. And unlike many other old school pioneers, Herc has resisted the temptation to release a tossedtogether album for a quick buck. The real godfather of hip-hop still spins today, however, in the Bronx, at parties on both coasts and across Europe. — Gemma Tarlach

Kool Herc DONNA WARD/ABACA

EDUCATION

FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

TOJ

said in an interview. “They graduated high school like they were told. They went to college and graduated. They entered the labor market. But they are more likely to be unemployed than their White counterparts.”

A heavy burden

PHIL VALESQUEZ/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS

Jeramey Winfield pauses at a traffic light as he walks to the CTA Green Line station after getting some career coaching at Career Transitions Center in Chicago on Jan. 28. It’s been more than a year since he graduated from an elite private college, but he has yet to find employment.

African-American, educated, and can’t find a good job Road to full-time work is rocky for Black college grads BY LOLLY BOWEAN CHICAGO TRIBUNE/TNS

Months before he graduated from college, Jeramey Winfield was sending out resumes and applying for jobs online in Chicago. The media studies major hoped to jump from Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire right into the Chicago workforce, in marketing or event planning, so he could get his

own apartment and begin helping his family financially. But after more than a year of networking, sending out applications and asking mentors for help, Winfield still doesn’t have a full-time job. In fact, he said, he’s rarely been called back for an interview. “I had this picture in my mind of working downtown, taking the train in and contributing to my profession,” said Winfield, who often wears dapper, fitted business suits. “I had this vision of helping my mom out, since she struggled to raise five of us. I

Sheldon becomes Illinois’ childwelfare chief

George Sheldon

Former Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary George Sheldon has been named by Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner to run that state’s Department of Children and Family Services. Sheldon, 67, made an unsuccessful bid last year for

wanted to give her some relief.” While unemployment is falling to its lowest level in years, recent college graduates across the country are nonetheless struggling to find work.

Brutal for Blacks A new report found that, for young African-Americans with a four-year degree, the job search has been especially brutal. They are having a harder time than Whites finding a job, are more likely to be in a job that does not require their college degree and

Florida attorney general. He takes over an Illinois agency that was the subject of a Chicago Tribune investigation that found juvenile wards had been assaulted, raped and lured into prostitution at residential treatment centers, according to the paper. The Tribune also reported on other problems including shoddy investigations into child deaths and heavy worker caseloads.

are being paid less than White workers with the same experience. Even African-Americans who study science, technology, engineering and math — majors that have been winners in the job market — have had a hard time finding work, said John Schmitt, a senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, who co-authored that recent report, “A College Degree is No Guarantee.” “We are looking at a group of people who did everything right,” Schmitt

Sheldon, a former state lawmaker who most recently held a post in the Obama administration, ran Florida’s much-scrutinized DCF under former Gov. Charlie Crist.

School board members form statewide group Four school board members in the state announced Monday they were establishing a conservative counter-

In many cases these graduates were the first in their family to attend college, so they bear heavy expectations and responsibilities, from carrying the banner of success for the family to providing financial help. That has made their search for work all the more urgent, and their failure a greater burden. The gap between Whites and Blacks has been fueled by many factors. Black college graduates don’t have strong networks, and they often don’t have the experience to navigate the corporate world and reach the people who hire. More important, according to Schmitt, young African-Americans can face a measure of discrimination when they try to get their foot in the door, sometimes losing job opportunities to White applicants. “Employers give in to their racial bias and they are more likely to offer a job to a White candidate than a Black candidate,” Schmitt said. Among recent Black graduates ages 22 to 27, the jobless rate in 2013, the last year for which data are available, was 12.4 percent compared with 5.6 percent for Whites. For Black 22-year-olds just leaving college, 67.1 percent were underemployed, compared with 56.2 percent for all college graduates in that age group, Schmitt said.

Sharp and confident At Colby-Sawyer College, Winfield was a standout student who created the campus’ first gospel choir. “Jeramey is just a won-

weight to the Florida School Boards Association (FSBA), as that organization backs a lawsuit challenging the state’s de facto school-voucher program. The Florida Coalition of School Board Members – currently consisting of Jeff Bergosh of Escambia County, Erika Donalds of Collier County, Shawn Frost of Indian River County and Bridget Ziegler of Sarasota County – hopes to quickly sign up 40 to 50 like-

derful person who made our campus a better place,” said the college’s president, Tom Galligan, who became friends with Winfield while he was on campus. “He brought enthusiasm, a unique perspective on life and passion for music. A lot of us now listen to gospel music, because of him.” His success at ColbySawyer, which he attended on a scholarship, is part of the reason Winfield can’t understand why he can’t find a job. “I feel like I’m a sharp and confident person,” he said. “I’ve always gone above and beyond. It does make me think, ‘Am I not good enough? What’s wrong with me?’ ” So instead of working full time, Winfield scrapes by earning money from working with a mentoring program at his former high school in North Lawndale. Occasionally he will pick up substitute teaching jobs, which pay him about $125 a day. The rest of the time, he volunteers as a youth leader at his church and searches for work. He lives with a relative in the same West Side neighborhood he worked so hard to escape. As the first college graduate in his family, Winfield feels pressure to contribute soon. He has an older brother who was shot and left paralyzed. His mother is low-income and his siblings struggle to get by. Winfield has an education valued at more than $200,000, yet no work. “Being rejected by the professional world has pushed me to go harder working at my high school and my church,” he said. “Since I can’t give what I learned to a professional environment, I know I can come back to where I came from and use it here. I’m still a success to the people here.” minded colleagues. But Bergosh said the coalition isn’t trying to usurp the Florida School Boards Association. School board members can be part of both groups. “We’re not out to replace the current organization,” Bergosh said. “We want to make certain all viewpoints are represented, including the conservative viewpoints.”

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STOJ

FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

Meet some of

FLORIDA’S

finest

submitted for your approval

Think you’re one of Florida’s Finest? E-mail your high-resolution (200 dpi) digital photo in casual wear or bathing suit taken in front of a plain background with few distractions, to news@flcourier. com with a short biography of yourself and your contact information. (No nude/ glamour/ fashion photography, please!) In order to be considered, you must be at least 18 years of age. Acceptance of the photographs submitted is in the sole and absolute discretion of Florida Courier editors. We reserve the right to retain your photograph even if it is not published. If you are selected, you will be contacted by e-mail and further instructions will be given.

lynn College student and athlete Kendall is currently studying physical therapy. He dreams of seeing himself in the lights of Times Square and on the big screen. Follow Kendall: @kroach2010 Credit: DC Bryant Photography

kendall

South Florida resident Lynn is very passionate about singing, dancing, and modeling. She can be contacted on twitter @_LynnAllen_.

BET’s ‘Book of Negroes’ now available on DVD Six-part series recounts West African woman’s survival of slavery FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

The Book of Negroes miniseries aired this week on BET, recounts the harrowing journey of Aminata Diallo (Aunjanue Ellis, “The Help,” “Ray’’) and her return home after being forced into slavery as a child. The miniseries made its U.S. broadcast premiere on BET in two-hour installments. The series is now available for download from all major digital platforms. An adaptation of the critically acclaimed book by Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes depicts the life of Diallo – an African woman who survives against all odds in a world that forever underestimates her.

Gooding, Gossett in film Kidnapped by slave traders in West Africa and subsequently enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata must navigate her way through the American Revolution in New York, the isolated refuge of Nova Scotia and the treacherous jungles of Sierra Leone, before ultimately securing her freedom in England at the dawn of the 19th century. The six-part historical drama is directed by award-winning filmmaker Clement Virgo (“The Wire”, “Poor Boy’s Game’’) and co-written by Hill and Virgo. Joining Ellis in the series is Cuba Gooding Jr. (“Jerry Maguire”), Jane Alexander (“The Cider House Rules”) and Ben Chaplin (“The Truth About Cats and Dogs”). Louis Gossett Jr., who won an Emmy for his supporting role in “Roots,” also co-stars.

First for BET “It’s very exciting for us for ‘Book of Negroes’ to be our first miniseries,” said Debra L. Lee, chairman and chief operating officer of BET Networks. “My vision for BET is to be a wellrounded network. There are so many stories in our culture to

Oscar winner Louis Gossett Jr., left, and Lyriq Bent star in “The Book of Negroes.” tell, and I’m so proud of this. I’m hoping that it’s ‘Roots’ for a younger generation.” In recent years, the network has gravitated toward more upscale fare, including sharp comedies (“Real Husbands of Hollywood’’) and scripted dramas (“Being Mary Jane”). Lee added that she felt that the miniseries would have widespread appeal: “It’s a universal story of a legendary woman. There’s loss, a long journey and triumph.”

Canadian influence Although there are moments of uplift, the miniseries also contains its share of harrowing sequences and violence. Ellis said that although the role presented challenges, she embraced the character, calling the experience life changing. “She had a spirit inside her that still lingers in me,” said the actress by phone. “She had the ability to survive and excel. I

“The Book of Negroes’’ is from a 2007 novel by Canadian writer Lawrence Hill.

Aunjanue Ellis and Cuba Gooding Jr. appear in a scene from “The Book of Negroes,’’ which made its U.S. debut this week on BET.

feel forever changed by playing someone like her.” The project has an AmericanCanadian pedigree: Clement Virgo, who directed the miniseries and developed it with his production company Conquering Lion Pictures, and Hill, the

author of the novel, are Canadian. “The Book of Negroes,” released in Canada in 2007, was published in the U.S. under the title “Someone Knows My Name.” “The core of this story is the resilience of this woman, even

JOE ALBLAS

though she was captured,” said Hill. “This also gives a realistic picture of how awful the slave trade really was.”

An article by Greg Braxton/ Los Angeles Times/TNS was used in this report.

FOOD

FEBRUARY 20 – FEBRUARY 26, 2015

TOJ

PANTRY ESSENTIALS MEDITERRANEAN CHICKEN PITAS Prep time: 10 minutes Servings: 2 1 (10-ounce) can chicken breast, drained and flaked 1/2 cup finely chopped cucumber 1/2 cup finely chopped red bell pepper 1 (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chilies, drained 1/4 cup Greek yogurt 2 tablespoons fresh chopped dill 2 whole wheat pitas 4lettuce leaves In large bowl combine chicken, cucumber, red bell pepper, green chilies, yogurt and dill; toss to mix well. Cut each pita in half horizontally; carefully open each pita half. Fill each with 2 lettuce leaves and half of chicken mixture.

for nutritious, homemade meals

Mediterranean Chicken Pitas FROM FAMILY FEATURES

Pasta e Fagioli Soup

Quinoa Chicken Vegetable Salad

Pea and Corn Risotto

Almond Cherry Tres Leches Cake

Every parent has been there. It’s Thursday afternoon and the kids are asking, “What’s for dinner?” Searching for inspiration, you head to the refrigerator, only to realize that the groceries you bought on Sunday have run out or spoiled. But before the panic sets in and you reach for the takeout menus, remember that the solution for a wholesome, homemade meal is right in your pantry — or “Cantry.” “With a well-stocked pantry full of canned ingredients, I know I always have the makings of a nutritious and flavorful meal,” said Kelsey Nixon, host of “Kelsey’s Essentials” on Cooking Channel and Food Network. “Fruits and vegetables are harvested at their peak of ripeness and canned in just hours, making the can one of the best ways to get food from its source to my family’s table. I just open up a can, unlock that flavor and goodness and make it a ‘Cantry’ Thursday night!” With canned food staples like canned beans, chicken, green beans and broth on hand, you’ll be well on your way to savory meals like Quinoa Chicken Vegetable Salad and Nixon’s Pasta e Fagioli Soup. For more information about the canning process, delicious recipes and to learn how you can get cooking with canned foods, visit CansGetYouCooking.com. PASTA E FAGIOLI SOUP Recipe created by Kelsey Nixon Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time: 25 minutes Servings: 4 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 4 ounces chopped pancetta (about 1/2 cup) 1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped 3 cloves garlic, minced 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves 1/2teaspoon kosher salt 1/2teaspoon cracked black pepper 2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced fire-roasted tomatoes 3 (14.5-ounce) cans chicken broth 1 1/2 cups ditalini pasta (short tubular pasta) 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, for garnish In large heavy-bottomed pot, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Brown pancetta bits just until they start to crisp before adding onion, garlic and thyme. Season with salt and pepper, and saute until fragrant and golden brown. Add canned beans, tomatoes and chicken broth. Bring soup to rapid boil before adding pasta. Reduce to simmer and cook soup covered, stirring occasionally for 8–10 minutes or until pasta is cooked al dente. Season with salt and pepper to taste before serving. Garnish with Parmesan cheese and serve with crusty bread. Note: You can substitute bacon for pancetta, if desired. QUINOA CHICKEN VEGETABLE SALAD Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time: 10 minutes Servings: 6 1 (14.5-ounce) can chicken broth 1 cup quinoa 1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained 1 (10-ounce) can chicken breast, drained and flaked

1 (8-ounce) can cut green beans, drained 1 (8.75-ounce) can corn, drained 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper In medium saucepan over high heat, heat chicken broth and quinoa to boiling. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Set aside to cool. In large bowl, combine cooled quinoa, diced tomatoes, chicken breast, green beans, corn, olive oil, lemon juice, parsley and pepper; toss to mix well. PEA AND CORN RISOTTO Servings: 4 4 cups canned low sodium chicken broth 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 small onion, diced 1 cup Arborio rice 1 (11-ounce) can no salt added whole-kernel corn, drained 1 (8.5-ounce) can low sodium peas, drained 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese 1 tablespoon butter Salt and ground black pepper, to taste In 2-quart saucepan over high heat, heat chicken broth to simmering; keep warm. Meanwhile, in 3-quart saucepan over medium heat, in hot olive oil, cook onion until tender-crisp, stirring occasionally. Add rice and cook for 2 minutes until coated with oil. Gradually add chicken broth, 1/2 cup at a time, until absorbed, stirring frequently. Continue adding remaining broth, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring occasionally, cooking rice until al dente, about 25 minutes. Stir in corn, peas, Parmesan cheese and butter to heat through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

ALMOND CHERRY TRES LECHES CAKE Recipe created by Kelsey Nixon Servings: 12 Cake: 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened 1 cup granulated sugar 5 large eggs 1/2 teaspoon almond extract 1 (14.5-ounce) can pitted cherries, thoroughly drained Tres leches mixture: 1/4 cup heavy cream 1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk Icing: 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, chilled 4 tablespoons powdered sugar 1/4 teaspoon almond extract 1/4 cup chopped almonds, toasted For cake, preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 9-by-13inch cake pan. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt into large mixing bowl. Cream butter, sugar and eggs with electric mixer on high until yolks turn pale yellow. Mix in almond extract. Slowly incorporate dry ingredients into wet ingredients until fully combined — avoid over-mixing. Pour into prepared pan, evenly spreading batter out. Bake until cake has cooked through, 30 minutes. Cool slightly, then pierce surface of cake with fork several times. Combine heavy cream, evaporated milk and condensed milk in small bowl or pitcher. Drizzle milk mixture over top and allow cake to sit and absorb milk mixture. For icing, whip together heavy cream, sugar and almond extract. Spread evenly over top of soaked cake. Top with toasted almonds. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or until ready to serve.