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The Afro-American, May 10, 2014 - May 16, 2014
May 10, 2014 - May 10, 2014, The Afro-American
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Entertainers, Political Figures Lead Pomp and Circumstance for Class of 2014 By AFRO Staff Commencement season for colleges and universities in the Baltimore-Washington corridor will feature controversial figures as major entertainers and personalities address the graduates of the class of 2014 and receive honorary degrees. Baltimore native Wes Moore, bestselling author, Army combat veteran, social entrepreneur and broadcast executive, will deliver the keynote address at the University of Maryland, College Park, May 16. Moore, a Rhodes Scholar and Johns Hopkins graduate, will receive an honorary doctorate at the commencement exercises. At the UMD graduation, the list of honorary degrees includes an honorary doctor of public service to be issued to Michael Cryor, chairman of the Board of Visitors of the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine. Cryor, president of The Cryor Group, is chairman of the state Democratic Party and a member of the board of directors of Baltimore Gas & Electric. Patricia L. Schmoke, wife of former Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke and a
practicing ophthalmologist in Baltimore, will be the commencement speaker at Coppin State University’s graduation ceremony May 17. She earned her undergraduate degree at Coppin State. Dr. Schmoke, a Baltimore native, is a member of Links Incorporated Harbor City Chapter; The Monumental Medical Society; University of Maryland Cancer Center, and a diplomat of the Maryland Board of Ophthalmology. Calvin Butler, chief executive officer of Baltimore Gas and Electric, will be the commencement speaker at Morgan State University’s ceremony on May 17. Butler, who received the YMCA’s African American and Hispanic
‘There’s Life after Foreclosure’
Leadership Award, received his bachelor’s degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. and a law degree from Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. Shirley Sherrod, a civil rights activist who was forced to resign as Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture after a maliciously edited video suggested she was a racist, will be the commencement speaker at Sojourner Douglass College graduation exercises June 29 in Baltimore. In D.C., Mother’s Day weekend will mark graduation ceremonies for Howard University and the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). Entertainment mogul and Howard dropout Sean Combs is to deliver the main address at Howard’s graduation exercises when
HBCU Town Hall
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of foreclosure and bring about a soft landing, i.e., a short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure. But there must be an acknowledgement that your home doesn’t make you, and there’s life after foreclosure,” said Mishaga. When viewed from a broad perspective, the housing foreclosures in Maryland are up by almost 35 percent from a year ago, according to recent data from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), despite a decline in foreclosure activity during the first quarter of 2014. Maryland now ranks fourth in foreclosures, behind Wyoming, New Jersey and Connecticut. Homeownership and upward mobility are extolled as the epitome of the American Dream. The Clinton and Bush Administrations both pushed for ways to get lenders to give mortgage loans to first-time buyers. Because of these efforts, each administration belongs
lawsuit clearly has broader implications beyond the fate of the four schools – Coppin, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Morgan State University, and Bowie State University – it represents. “The framers recognize that this is something that has hurt all the HBCU and the response needs to be one that is equal to the framing of the issue. I do know that we as the HBCU community need to increase collaboration and that is something that I have not seen in the past,” she said. “The good thing is that we have a more diverse pool of people that are going to college or who are applying for college, but we’ve got to position ourselves to be able to meet their needs. And I think that’s something that HBCUs historically have done well and again, they’ve done it with limited resources,” Bryant added. However, given the current political climate, e.g. the
certain rights during foreclosure, namely, that most leases will survive foreclosure and the foreclosure sale purchaser becomes the new landlord. Most renters have the right to continue renting the property for the rest of their lease term, or at least to receive a 90-day notice to vacate after the foreclosure process is complete. “As long as folks know their rights, it works out,” Hill said, noting that deceptive notices from purchasers sometimes request that tenants provide the last six months of rent receipts. “But this isn’t the law.” Sometimes real estate agents will offer a “Cash for Keys” deal in which a tenant receives a cash payment in exchange for moving out. “Sometimes this is okay, but it can also be a major problem,” said Hill, “because tenant rights extend beyond this.” Up close and personal in peoples’ lives, foreclosure activity is often a pile of unopened mail, unanswered phone calls from lenders, debilitating shame, depression, and a long list of stress-related ailments. Claudia Wilson, Director of Housing Counseling and Operations at the Southeast Community Development Corporation in Baltimore City, said that once the crisis ends, “a lot of wreckage will be left behind. People will have lost their homes, health, and livelihoods. Given all that people are dealing with, you really can’t blame anyone for not opening their mail.” Wilson recalls a 79-year– Meredith Mishaga old woman who worked on the list of those who deserve a share of the full time, with a heart condition that led to a blame for the housing bubble and bust. long-term hospitalization. “She was too far In 2008, Wall Street bank CEOs were behind, and there was no number for her that grilled by Congressional committees about would work because of her ARM [Adjustable their role in the housing crisis that brought Rate Mortgage], which clearly was not the best the nation’s financial system to the brink. The loan option for someone in her situation,” said legislative hearings revealed an elite group of Wilson. Ivy Leaguers that encouraged a casino culture “Many people are ill, and they may of greed and gambling, collected billions never be able to pay their mortgage again. in bailouts and compensation packages, As housing counselors, we must sometimes and claimed no responsibility for predatory negotiate with a lender just so that a person lending practices and subprime mortgages that can continue to get their cancer treatments,” wrecked lives. she said. Lenders issued sub-prime loans to people Wilson believes the foreclosure crisis is unable to qualify for traditional loans. a multi-layered problem resulting from the People qualifying for traditional loans were collision of many issues at the same time. The encouraged to purchase too much house housing fallout has been exacerbated by high through variable rate loans featuring lower unemployment and the Great Recession which interest rates and lowered payments on the left increased income inequality and wealth front end with balloon payments set to explode loss that disproportionately affected African like land mines later. Americans and other minority groups. The foreclosure crisis has been an ordeal “I resent the notion that somehow you’re for homeowners, and has caused enormous a lesser person because you don’t own a problems for tenants living in foreclosed home,” said Wilson, who points to stable homes. According to Matt Hill, an attorney rental markets in Chicago, New York and other with the Public Justice Center, tenants have cities. “We’re not in a pretty place today. We rights to certain notifications throughout the have to dial it back. Homeownership is not a foreclosure process. sustainable option for everyone. A bona fide tenant is anyone who is not “We had a myth of wealth. What [we] the parent, child, or spouse of a mortgagee, thought we had is not what we had. What is but who pays fair market rent and received a critical is that someone can live with dignity rental/lease agreement as a result of an arm’s and get help with dignity. Our job is to help length transaction. When the bank forecloses, them know their options.” it must take back the property subject to the Call the HOPE Hotline at 877-462-7555 as tenant’s existing lease. The “Protecting Tenants soon as you start having any trouble paying for at Foreclosure Act” provides most renters with your home.
“I think the emotional and mental aspects of foreclosure are the hardest for people to bounce back from because their sense of self is tied to their home. … But there must be an acknowledgement that your home doesn’t make you, and there’s life after foreclosure.”
honorary degrees are to be awarded to CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer; Clive Callender, a surgery professor at Howard’s medical school (and the first doctor to perform a transplant at Howard University Hospital); jazz artist Benny Golson, and PepsiCo chairman and chief executive Indra Nooyi. Also on May 11, Mary Frances Berry, former chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will deliver the commencement address at UDC. She also was the Assistant Secretary for Education in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) and has held the posts of provost of the University of Maryland and chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder. She will join Marie Johns, former Deputy Administrator for the Small Business Administration, and William R. Spaulding, who served on the first elected D.C. City Council, as UDC honorary degree recipients. On May 19, Norman R. Augustine, regent of the University System of Maryland, will be Bowie State University’s commencement speaker. The event will be held at the Comcast Center in College Park.
“There still has not been enough done to close the gap between HBCU and traditionally White institutions. HBCU are still not at parity … whether you look at it from a capital perspective, whether you’re looking at it from a resource perspective whether you’re looking at it from a programmatic perspective.” – Virletta Bryant organized political attempt at voter suppression in several states and the recent Supreme Court ruling effectively upholding Michigan’s affirmative action ban, makes fulfilling the mission of the HBCU that much more harrowing in 2014. “We’re at this point in time where a lot of the things that we have worked for
we’re now watching them from the perspective of being in jeopardy,” Bryant said. “Despite all of the starvation, despite all of the racism HBCUs have experienced since their existence … despite all of those challenges we have still been able to educate and improve the lives of generations. So, I feel that our best days are ahead of us.”
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Continued from A1 Maryland Health Exchange and Mizeur has garnered attention because of her staunchly progressive – or liberal depending upon one’s sensibilities – campaign, which includes her embrace of a living wage, patient-assisted suicide and a moratorium on fracking. But, neither Gansler nor Mizeur have gained significant ground on Brown in any of the major polls taken since the beginning of the year. The three major candidates participated in the first televised gubernatorial debate on May 7. The event – moderated by the host of NBC’s Meet the Press David Gregory – took place at the University of Maryland at College Park and was co- hosted by the school and Bowie State University. But, there has been a vigorous debate over the gubernatorial debates themselves within the community and between the candidates vying to establish the direction of the state for the next several years. Many were outraged the initial debate was not broadcast in the Greater Baltimore viewing area (it was broadcasted live by WRC-TV in Washington) excluding what was once unequivocally the most important jurisdiction in the state. Another televised debate with the three candidates is set for June 2, sponsored by Maryland Public Television, which is expected to be broadcast statewide. However, a third televised debate, at WBFF (Channel 45) in Baltimore, will probably only include two of the major candidates, Mizeur and Gansler. The Brown campaign says the Lt. Gov. will not participate. According to the Brown campaign a radio
debate between the gubernatorial candidates (a date has yet to be determined) will be broadcast in the Baltimore area by Radio One station WOLB (1010 AM) moderated by former state senator Larry Young, host of, “The Larry Young Morning Show.” The battle to succeed Gansler as Maryland Attorney General includes Prince George’s County Del. Aisha Braveboy, Baltimore County Del. Jon Cardin, Montgomery County Sen. Brian Frosh and Montgomery County Del. Bill Frick. A poll published by the Washington Post in February had Cardin with a lead over his Democratic rivals at 21 percent support. However, Braveboy the chair of the state’s Legislative Black Caucus trailed Cardin by single digits with 12 percent with 40 percent of those polled offering no opinion. The poll shows Frosh with 5 percent support and Frick following with 4 percent. If Braveboy were to win she would be the state’s first attorney general of color, as well as the first female to hold the office. She has focused on the lack of diversity within the Maryland State Police, the foreclosure crisis, and the plight of the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Cardin, the nephew of Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin has focused on modernizing crime fighting throughout the state, specifically a stronger, law enforcement focus on cyber crime. Frosh, chair of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee since 2003, characterizes himself as one of the leaders on the implementation of Maryland’s landmark gun control legislation, the Maryland Firearm Safety Act.