WEDNESDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2017
AN AMERICAN PRINT MEDIA PUBLICATION
Photo courtesy of Open Road Films (From left-right) Josh Gad, Chadwick Boseman and Sterling K. Brown star in “Marshall.”
Film Review: Marshall’s legacy prevails in must-see new film By Dwight Brown Considering all of his major accomplishments, why hasn’t someone made a film about Thurgood Marshall’s life that was comprehensive? He was the lawyer who won the Brown v. Board of Education United States Supreme Court case, the founder of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a United States Solicitor General and the first African American Supreme Court associate justice. But that’s not what the father/son writing team of Connecticut lawyers Michael Koskoff and Jacob Koskoff had in mind when they wrote this slice of life script. It’s a tactic that worked for the movie “Selma,” which only focused on one facet of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life. In 1940, 32-year-old Thurgood Marshall (Chadwick Boseman) heads to tony Greenwich, Conn., to defend Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown, NBC’s “This Is Us”) a Black chauffeur who has been accused of raping and trying to murder his rich, White socialite employer (Kate Hudson). The case is dubbed “The State of Connecticut v. Joseph Spell,” and the presiding Judge Foster (James Cromwell) refuses to let an out-of-state lawyer defend Spell. His reluctance is more out of hostility towards the upstart Black lawyer than for procedure’s sake. Marshall is forced to partner with a young Jewish insurance lawyer, Samuel Friedman (Josh Gad), who has no experience in criminal law. The judge won’t let Marshall speak in court. Friedman is his mouthpiece. The cards are stacked against them. The good points: Though this is not the bio-film Marshall deserves, this glimpse does offer a view of the ingenuity, perseverance and courage that propelled the Howard University law student into becoming a crusading attorney, who was an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement. This case is just one of many that he championed and it serves well as a barometer of the times in regard to how African Americans had to deal with blatant discrimination, racism and segregation. Boseman is making a career out of bio-films (“Get on Up” and “42”). His interpretation of the civil rights advocate is shrewd and strong. Gad maintains an Marshall, see page 3
Photo by Freddie Allen High school students listen during a forum on the Every Student Succeeds Act during the NNPA’s 2017 Mid-Winter Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
States ignore social competency for students in ESSA plans By Lauren Poteat According to a recent report by Education Week, states have largely ignored a critical mandate of the Every Student Succeeds Act that calls for schools to measure the social and emotional competencies of their students.
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NOT a single state’s plan to comply with the federal education law— and its broader vision for judging school performance—calls for inclusion of such measures in its school accountability system,” according to Education Week. However, advocates for measuring social-emotional
learning have said that the current tools need more refinement, before the U.S. Department of Education weighs in. “Existing measures of social and emotional development, which largely rely on students’ responses to surveys about their own character traits, are not sophisticated and consistent enough to be used for such
purposes, they have long argued,” the Education Week article said. Even as school districts in Anchorage, Alaska; Austin, Texas; Chicago, Ill.; Nashville, Tenn.; Oakland, Calif.; and Sacramento, Calif., are actively engaged in incorporating socialemotional learning into their curriculums, civil rights leaders ESSA, see page 2
Everyone knew Houston’s reservoirs would flood-except for the people who bought homes inside them By Neena Satija, The Texas Tribune and Reveal, Kiah Collier, The Texas Tribune, and Al Shaw, ProPublica, October 12, 2017 This story was co-published with The Texas Tribune. When Jeremy Boutor moved to a master-planned community in Houston’s booming energy corridor, he saw it as idyllic. Lakes on Eldridge boasted waterfalls, jogging trails and a clubhouse. It was upscale, secure and close to the office. A bus even picked up his two young sons in front of their house and took them to a nearby international school. “This neighborhood was a paradise,” said Boutor, who moved to Houston from Paris two years ago after his employer, a French-based energy company, asked him to relocate. Houston, see page 3
Family of Sonny Messiah-Jiles, the publisher of The Houston Defender, is rescued by boat from their home as a result of rising floodwaters in Houston.
Eight honored with leadership awards By Stacy M. Brown Congressional Black Caucus Chair Cedric Richmond and Federal Communications Commission Chair Mignon Clyburn were among eight honored with the National Newspaper Publishers Association 2017 National Leadership Awards. Curley M. Dossman Jr., the president of Georgia Pacific Foundation; William Hawthorne III of Macy’s; former education secretary John B. King Jr., CBC Foundation Chair and Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and Rep. Robin L. Kelly (D-Ill.), were also honored at the awards reception held at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C. Tawanda Jones, a community activist from Camden, N.J., probably received the greatest praise during the evening. Jones serves as a mentor to the Camden Sophisticated Sisters Drill Team, a dance-based, nonprofit youth organization that she founded to help
Photo by Freddie Allen
Dorothy Leavell, chairman of the NNPA, Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) chairman of the CBC and 2017 NNPA Leadership Award recipient, and Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., the president and CEO of the NNPA pose for a photo during the 2017 NNPA Leadership Awards Reception in Washington, D.C. children avoid negative activities in the community. “I was thinking about how many untold stories there are,” said Jones, who, just before ascending the stage
to accept her award, was honored with a video tribute created by the Ford Motor Company that depicted her hard work in the community. “I can remember our humble
beginnings, asking people for donations and how many doors slammed in our face,” she said. “Nothing will stop us from moving forward or paying it forward.” According to Jones, the group has educated more than 4,000 members and has a 100 percent high school graduation rate, about 30 percent above Camden’s average. King, the president and CEO of the nonprofit Education Trust, praised the Black Press and urged newspaper publishers to continue their vigilance in being the watchdog for their communities. “This isn’t an ordinary start to a new school year,” King said, noting many of the changes that have occurred during the new administration. “This year, kids come back to school seeing Nazi and [Ku Klux Klan] marches…a travel ban on folks practicing a different religion than theirs and wondering if someone might get deported,” King said,
adding that, “As truth tellers and story tellers, the role of the [Black Press] is critical.”Clyburn, a former publisher and general manager of the Coastal Times in Charleston, S.C., also praised the Black Press. “There will always be a need for the Black Press,” Clyburn said. “A world without the NNPA and its publishers is not a world I want to be a part of.” Richmond, the Louisiana Democrat who was elected the chairman of the CBC in November 2016 and who also serves on the House Committee on Homeland Security and the House Judiciary Committee, said that the renewed attempt by Republicans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act is cause for concern. It’s also a cause for vigilance, he said. “For us to continue progress, to keep us from losing the gains we had, we cannot do it without you [the NNPA],” Richmond said. Awards, see page 3