Prince Georges Afro American Newspaper February 28 2015

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY EDITION

Volume 123 No. 30

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FEBRUARY 28, 2015 - MARCH 6, 2015

Obama Speech Inspires Sagging DNC Members

By James Wright Special to the AFRO President Obama lifted the sagging spirits of Democratic Party leaders in a speech highlighting the accomplishments of his administration. Obama spoke to the group – leaders from the 50 states, the District, and U.S. territories and possessions – at its annual Winter Meeting Feb. 20 at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill. While the Democrats lost control of the U.S. Senate, lost seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, lost governorships, and control of some state legislative chambers in the 2014 midterm elections, Obama said the party is on the rebound because America is on the upswing.

“It’s been about a year since our last meeting and as I had indicated, as I had predicted, it was a breakthrough year for America,” the president said.

“Last year our economy created more than three million new jobs, the best single year for job growth since the 1990s.”

Obama said 12 million new jobs were created in the past five years and which is a sign of economic growth for middle-class families that “wages are beginning to rise again.” The president said Americans are graduating from high school and college at historically high rates and that the nation is the world

AP Photo

First lady Michelle Obama, right, speaks during the “Celebrating Women of the Movement,” event honoring Black History Month. On stage with the first lady from left are, Janaye Ingram, Carlotta Walls, Sherrilyn Ifill, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Chanelle Hardy, and Vanessa DeLuca.

First Lady, Panelists: Education Crucial in Struggle for Civil Rights AP File Photo

President Obama spoke before Democratic Party leaders recently.

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leader in energy resources as oil, gas, and wind power.

He boasted about his landmark legislative achievement: the Affordable Care Act. “We’ve extended the security and fundamental right to affordable, accessible health care to more than 10 million uninspired Americans,” Obama said.

“And we are counting each and every day. Folks are signing up and benefitting Continued on A8

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By LaTrina Antoine Washington D.C. Editor As part of a Black History Month event at the White House, five women who have contributed to the civil rights movement, discussed the liberalization effect of education in communities of color. The “Celebrating Women of the Movement” event focused on ways to ensure that little girls with big dreams had the opportunity to make those dreams a reality.

“Like many of you, I believe that education is the single most important civil rights issue that we face today,” first lady Michelle Obama told various women and girls in the East Room on Feb. 20.

Obama introduced the panel, including Carlotta Walls LaNier, member of the Little Rock Nine; Charlayne HunterGault, activist and journalist; Sherrillyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Chanelle Hardy, National Urban League senior vice president for Policy and executive director of the National Urban League Washington Bureau; and Janaye Ingram, national executive director of the National Action Network.

According to a blog on whitehouse.gov, these women “have played critical roles in America’s progress on civil

rights. Vanessa De Luca, editor-in-chief of Essence magazine moderated the event and Allyson Carpenter, Ward 1 advisory neighborhood commissioner, introduced the first lady.

“These women represent many different facets of the movement [with] their humble core and belief in the power of education,” Obama said. “Every woman on this stage graduated

“…I believe that education is the single most important civil rights issue that we face today.”

– Michelle Obama from college. And some of them did it at tremendous risk to themselves and to their families.”

Obama emphasized that although the circumstances have gotten better and there are more African Americans graduating from college, there is still a huge deficit when compared to other races in the U.S. “Today, many of the opportunities Continued on A5

DMV Resident HighestRanking Black Female Federal Officer

By Lauren E. Williams Special to the AFRO Imani-Frances Smith was dedicated to serve and excel in the United States government, even though it was through a racist and sexist system. It didn’t matter that she was frequently overlooked as the smallest federal officer in the room.

Nor did it bother her that she was often one of the only women of color. Smith knew she was going to become one of the nation’s highest ranking officers in her time.

History shows she was right.

Smith, or “Mama Imani” as many in the D.C.,

Maryland, and Virginia areas call her, served in the federal Continued on A5

Saving Our Sons Forum Held In Prince George’s County Camara Mintz, Marcus Gates and Mark Magaw

By Courtney Jacobs AFRO Staff Writer

Imani-Frances Smith served in the federal government from 1975 – 1996.

Dignitaries, officers, and activists spoke to residents from D.C. and Prince George’s County, Md. Feb. 21 to discuss issues around how to save adolescent and adult men. Inclement weather cut the discussion short due. The next meeting is scheduled for March 21.

The First Baptist Church of District Heights hosted the town hall forum “Saving Our Sons,” for men ages 13 to 35 to talk about how they could make their relationships better with the police and the community. Panelists included former Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, Defense Attorney Camara Mintz, entrepreneur and Critical Condition Band (CCB) member Marcus Gates, Prince George’s County Police Chief Mark Magaw, Prince George’s County Deputy Chief George Nadar, and filmmaker Jimmy Jenkins. Pastor Bobby Manning moderated the discussion.

Copyright © 2014 by the Afro-American Company

Continued on A4

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The Afro-American, February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015

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Former NFL Player Loses Seven-Year-Old Son to Brain Tumor

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Former NFL player Adrian Peterson lost his seven-yearold son A.J. on Feb. 17 to a brain tumor.

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Former Chicago Bears running back Adrian Peterson lost his seven-year-old son A.J. on Feb. 17 to a brain tumor known as Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, or DIPG. Peterson, not to be confused with former Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who has the same name and who is currently suspended for disciplining his child, posted his son’s death on his Facebook page. “#Ajsoars is in Heaven, where he belongs... #ajsoar #P3 #MyFirstSuperHero,” he wrote. These hashtags have become a symbol of support over the past week for Peterson and his family.

Peterson and his family made a GoFundMe page for A.J. in September, when they first received his diagnosis of DIPG. The online donation site saw 453 different people donate money in seven months, raising $44,189 out of the $50,000 goal they have set, as of Feb. 19.

“As a kid, I always thought that I could move a mountain with one push,” Peterson wrote on the page. “But over the past week, I have learned that with ‘help’ that mountain moves much easier.”

A.J.’s homegoing service will be held Feb. 21 at 3 p.m. at the Evergreen Missionary Baptist Church in Kingsland, Ga.

Students Display Alleged White Supremacy Sign at High School Basketball Game

Tension at an already drama-filled basketball showdown between rival Texas high schools on Feb. 13 was ratcheted up when students were spotted holding up a sign with an allegedly racist message.

The basketball game between Flower Mound High School and Plano East went into three overtimes. But it was the offcourt drama that had social media and news sources buzzing, after a photo was tweeted showing fans in the Flower Mound section holding up a placard that read “WHITE POWER.” The sign was up for about 30 seconds before mortified teachers rushed forward to take it down, but the damage was done and school officials are now investigating.

“This is ridiculous I thought we passed the racial stage of society,” wrote Plano East athlete Devin Gifford, who posted the now-infamous picture on his Twitter page.

According to Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA, witnesses said the incident happened

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late in the game when the excitement was at fever pitch. A Plano East student athlete who asked to remain anonymous said he recalls a specific moment when the noise in the gym became more strident.

“Our student section started pointing at the sign. That’s when it clicked into everyone’s mind… ‘Whoa... what are these guys doing?’ And the teachers came and took the signs down,” the athlete said.

Witnesses also said racial slurs were lobbed at athletes on the court, particularly after a player was injured, WFAA reported.

And, according to Twitter interchanges, Flower Mound students defecated and urinated on Plano East’s team bus, though those allegations have not been verified.

Lewisville Independent School District’s Interim Superintendent Kevin Rogers said the unfortunate occurrence would be fully investigated.

First African American Architect, Robert Robinson Taylor, Honored with Postage Stamp

The United States Postal Service continued its annual recognition of Black excellence by honoring the first academically-trained Black architect, Robert Robinson Taylor, with the 38th Black Heritage stamp on Feb. 12.

Since 1978, the Postal Service has celebrated the progress and impact of African Americans by highlighting their achievements and contributions to the American History with its Black Heritage stamp.

The Black Heritage stamp features an African American man or woman who had made a significant impact to the American history.

Taylor was born in 1868 in Wilmington, N.C. to a middle class family, according to the news website People’s World.

His father, Henry, was the son of a White Slave owner and a Black mother, and worked as a carpenter.

Taylor worked for his father as a construction foreman before entering MIT’s School of architecture in 1888. After graduating, Taylor worked as an architect and educator at the Tuskegee Institute, founded by Booker T. Washington. There, Taylor worked closely with Washington and was charged with designing most of the university’s campus until his retirement in 1935.

Taylor died in 1942 at age 74 after collapsing while attending services at the Tuskegee Butler Chapel.

Taylor is the great grandfather of Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama. According to Jarrett, Taylor believed that with good education, hard work, determination and dedication to family, there is no limits as to what can be accomplished.

“The example he set gives me strength and courage,” Jarrett said, during the induction ceremony of the stamp at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum. “My family is proud to stand on his shoulders and we know that it is our responsibility to embrace his values, to ensure that his legacy will be ‘forever stamped’ in the conscious of future generations.”

February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015, The Afro-American

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HEALTH

New Dietary, Exercise Guidelines Key to Developing Heart-Healthy Youth

By Shantella Y. Sherman Special to the AFRO

C

hronic diseases usually emerge in middle age after long exposure to unhealthy lifestyles that involve tobacco use, a lack of regular physical activity, and diets high in saturated fats, sugars and salt.

While the prevalence of health conditions like hypertension and heart disease have long been diagnosed among older African Americans, in recent years, children and young adults within the Black community have shown an increase in rates of cardiac-related illness and death.

Central to national health concerns is the pandemic rates of childhood obesity linked to the development of cardiovascular disease and death in adulthood.

Each year, about 15,000 people under the age of 20 are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes

and healthcare providers are increasingly finding more children between the ages of 10-19 with type 2 diabetes – a disease normally diagnosed in adults over the age of 40. Currently, more than 23.9 million children aged 2-19 are considered over their recommended weight; with 35.9 percent of all African-American children within that age range considered with overweight or obese.

The American Heart Association recently made recommendations for updating federal Dietary Guidelines to promote diet and exercise as the key components to reducing the nearly 14 percent of kids (12-19) already suffering with hypertension. The report, presented to the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) stresses the importance of a healthy dietary pattern limited in saturated and transfat, added sugars, and sodium.

“It’s clear that Americans need to change their eating habits and make more nutritious choices,” said Elliott Antman, M.D.,

“More of our kids are suffering from elevated blood pressure, and one-third of them are overweight or obese,” added Antman.

“Too much salt in our children’s diets will make this situation worse and put future generations on the road to heart disease and stroke. There’s no question that we should continue to strive to reduce the sodium in the foods our kids eat.”

Overweight and obese Black teenagers had four risk factors for cardiovascular disease, and 36 percent had five or more risk factors – the most common high blood pressure and low good cholesterol.

Low levels of physical activity in young adults also accounts for a “substantial” proportion of high blood pressure incidence over time.

Nationwide, 26.7 percent of African-American teens said they had not taken part in any level of physical activity

Preventing Childhood & Youth Cardiovascular Ailments Healthy Living

“More of our kids are suffering from elevated blood pressure, and one-third of them are overweight or obese. Too much salt in our children’s diets will make this situation worse and put future generations on the road to heart disease and stroke.”

-Elliott Antman, M.D.

president of the American Heart Association. “Reducing excessive salt in our diets is critical to cutting our cardiovascular risk, and the association is pleased that the committee emphasizes this in their recommendations,” Antman said.

The February 19 report noted the strong correlation between decreasing children’s sodium intake and lowering their blood pressure – a key factor in developing cardiovascular disease.

their white peers. Coupled with environmental factors that limited green spaces for exercise or outdoor sports, and few sources to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables (supermarkets or farmer’s markets), aggressive advocacy is needed to safeguard the heart health of Black youth.

– including ball playing, jogging, aerobics, or cycling – in the previous week.

Researchers with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the number of hours spent watching television was positively associated with increased caloric intake and the prevalence of obesity.

The 12-17-year -olds studied viewed 14 percent more food product advertisements (usually processed or fast food advertisements) than

By Shantella Y. Sherman Special to the AFRO There is some good news in the fight against childhood obesity and its links to cardiovascular disease.

With a focus on teaching low-income communities how to eat better, nutrition assistance programs began providing food education in 2011 to the more than 3.9 million African-American families receiving SNAP benefits. Programs such as SNAP-Ed, a partnership between USDA and the states that provide education to help families, are helping families learn to eat healthier within a limited budget.

Recommendations for a heart-healthy lifestyle consist of adopting a diet of increased whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables and water intake. Some researchers believe young people should avoid ALL fast food and foods found in vending machines because of their high levels of sugar sodium, and additives. Regular exercise – at least 60 minutes a day – is also recommended to ward off heart ailments and reduce weight.

Parents should speak with health professionals about specific exercises that benefit young people and can be made fun for the entire family. Communities not served by recreations centers should contact local schools and churches to provide recreation space to facilitate exercise, dance or aerobics classes for families.

Teens should advocate for smart vending machines in their schools that provide fresh fruits, vegetables, and wholesome snacks, rather than sugary sodas and processed foods.

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The Afro-American, February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015

Old, New Leaders Clash Over New Direction

By Jacquelyn Johnson Howard University News Service On one side was Julian Bond, a long-time civil rights activist, founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and former chair of the NAACP. He was accompanied by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), also a long-time civil rights activist and former SNCC member who was also a member of the famous Mississippi Freedom Summer and worked with slain civil rights icon Medgar Evers.

On the other side were Howard University Student

Activists from two generations gathered for a discussion on racial profiling in America Feb. 18 at Howard University. The conversation quickly turned to how the generations can learn from and work with each other to address contemporary human rights issues.

Norton said she was pleased to see the recent protests led by young people against the police-related deaths of unarmed Black men in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City. “I have been so elated by seeing young people get out in the streets, I don’t know what wto do,� she said.

Still, she felt the marches and demonstrations , while

“Back in the days of the Woolworth sit-ins, the demands were clear. No one needed to articulate demands.� –Eleanor Holmes Norton

Association President Leighton Watson and Howard University Student Association Vice President Anthony Driver.

important and necessary, lacked focus and a clear direction. “Back in the days of the Woolworth sit-ins, the demands were clear,�

Malcolm X Commemoration

Courtesy photo

Ibrahim Mumin, Ilyasah Shabazz, one of Malcolm’s daughters, and Thomas Penny at the 50th Anniversary Program commemorating the Assassination of Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom (i.e. now the Shabazz Center) in Harlem, N.Y.

AFRO file photos

Julian Bond and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, among others, gathered for a discussion on racial profiling in America Feb. 18. she said. “No one needed to articulate demands.�

Today, the demands aren’t clear. “I haven’t heard any demands articulated. We hear hands up, don’t shoot and Black lives matter, but in fact, much of America may think that what people are really concerned about is B men getting shot in the

streets. “That does occur considerably more often than White men, but that’s not what brought people of every color out. “It’s racial profiling that did it,� she said.

In response, Watson said it would help his generation to have guidance from the older generation in how young people today should lead and organize. “I think that part of the disconnect is that you have young people who have the enthusiasm and the energy to be out in the streets,�

Watson said. “There are ideas floating around, “but without communication with the people that have experience, have ideas, and know how the

system works, that can tell us that these are viable ideas or this is what worked for us, it’s frustrating.�

We “have all of these solutions and ideas, but it’s hard not knowing if they can even work,� he continued. “So, if the older generation is sitting on ideas that can change the circumstances, then I would think that there needs to be communication, so that the young people can implement these.�

Bond said he thought it was important for the new generation to chart its own course without waiting to hear from their elders. “I think people in my generation

are a little reluctant to say to these young people, ‘Why don’t you do this? How about you do that?’� Bond said. “I’m not willing to say that, because I think you know what the problems are, You know what the solutions are, and I’m sure we will be glad to help, but don’t depend on us to tell you what to do. Just go out and do it.� “After being in Ferguson and in Chicago, I feel like the disconnect is young people feeling as though the older generation comes in to (assume control of) their movements, or to show face and take credit for their movements,� Driver said.

95-Year-Old Civil Rights Pioneer Shares Wisdom believe in. If you don’t stand up for what you believe in, you will get knocked down for nothing,� Zeigler said. He emphasized his desire Though he recently turned 95, Hardy for the younger generation of today to listen to Zeigler has no plans to stop their elders for they have a story pushing for racial and civil to tell and wisdom to offer. equality. Born on March 4, Zeigler remains active 1920 in Damascus, Md., throughout his community in the civil rights leader has many ways public speaking, participated in social activism and participating in roundtable since the 1950s, leading the events focused on issues fight for equality for African such as education, housing, Americans in Montgomery voting, and issues surrounding County, Md. the 14th Amendment. He Zeigler’s experiences attends the Friendship United with discrimination led him Methodist Church in Damacus, to challenge segregation and Md. and freely shares his pay equality, and question experiences at any chance. a curriculum that did not In the 1950s, Zeigler was include the accomplishments a voice for the separate but of African Americans. “Before equal cause fighting for equal Courtesy photo integration we were segregated. pay for Black teachers. In Hardy Zeigler took part We went to all Black schools. the 1960s Zeigler became a in the Martin Luther King Teachers taught White history youth advisor for the NAACP Jr. celebration in North in the schools. I went to Montgomery County Chapter.

Bethesda, Md. on Jan. 19. the school board to make “We sued Montgomery a recommendation that we for fair equal pay because change this,� Zeigler said.

Black teachers were making less than White Mr. Zeigler inspires others to support the teachers,� Zeigler said. cause. “The young generation of today should His accomplishments and contributions to listen, fight hard, and work hard for what they the Black community are vast and they include

By Natascha Saunders Special to the AFRO

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playing a leadership role in the historic March on Washington, working with the NAACP and

the Maryland State Conference to sponsor the busses and coordinate participants.

Saving Our Sons Forum

Continued from A1

The panel had enough time to discuss one but just because you’re a pawn doesn’t mean topic – how to make the relationship between you can’t see yourself as a king,� he said. law enforcement and the community a more “You have to know how to move your pieces.� positive one. “It’s all about education and One of the most common concerns was outreach no matter how much we legislate,� how young men should respond to police Brown said. “You can’t legislate fairness. We when they are pulled over or stopped on the have made a lot of improvements in Prince street. Most of the panelists responded with George’s County.� “Don’t say too much.� They said that arguing “This is part one,� Manning said. “We and trying to prove your point at that time will plan on doing this again in about a month. just make things worse.

Thank you for coming out despite this terrible One of the audience members told a story weather. What I see today is that everybody is about wearing a ski mask outside on a really at the table. We have panel of leaders that are cold day and being approached by an officer willing to listen.� for no reason and being harassed. Another Mintz works with young males on a daily shared that her sister and brother were killed basis and has seen them throw away their lives in confrontations with police. because they did not handle certain situations In response, Magaw told Jenkins to get right when dealing with law enforcement. “We the officer’s name and badge number and need to breakdown the distrust between the file a complaint against him so he can take law enforcement and the Black community,� further action with the situation. The panel Mintz said. “I know it’s a generational thing because our parents and grandparents went through the same thing.�

Gates said, “For the young people, you get treated based on how you present Anthony Brown, Deputy Chief George Nadar and Jimmy Jenkins yourself. If you want respect, you have to give respect. Be mindful of how you act. We can suggested the woman get her son involved in change and build relationships with police.� extracurricular activities, such as sports.

Magaw, with the police department since Prince George’s County NAACP President the 1980s and its chief since 2010, has seen a Bob Ross told the {AFRO}, “Police have to be more transparent with their community significant change in the county over the last outreach.� couple of decades. “This has to be ongoing He said the forums provide a good conversation,� Magaw said. “People think it’s dialogue, but more has to be discussed and kind of an ‘us’ against ‘them,’ mentality, but required. “We need to say what actions we that’s not true. This man I know was singing want the police department to do, he said. in a church choir and stopped singing and “Those are the questions that are not being walked off the stage. He took off his choir asked. We need to get back to community robe and had his police uniform underneath. policing and not just when crimes happen.�

What’s the difference? He is still the same At the next forum overcoming the odds person. We have to see past the uniforms.� and the next steps to take to make better Jenkins, 24, shared a young Black man’s perspective. “In chess a pawn is not a knight, a relationships between community and laws knight is not a bishop, a bishop is not a queen, enforcement will be discussed.

February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015, The Afro-American

Bread for the City Volunteers Help Poor

responsible for searching through large boxes filled of food and canned goods to remove any unhealthy junk food.

WASHINGTON – They are all so very Carter said the satisfaction she gets from different. One is a retiree. Another is a mere helping others is better than any amount of 18 years old. One returned home recently money, lessons she passes onto her 8-year-old after years in Vermont. Another is a recent granddaughter. “There is always someone transplant. They were brought together by one doing way worst than you are,” she said. “If place, Bread for the City, an agency that feeds someone has helped you, you should always and gives medical and legal care to thousands help others.” of low-income Washington residents.

Adriene Perkins, 18, is a freshman at Mary Howard Carter University. couldn’t bare Perkins, who sitting around volunteered at her house on a food bank in W Street after her hometown she retired Atlanta, from the brought her senior citizen will to serve home she with her to worked in for D.C. She many years. said when She needed a she handed a way to keep bag of food to herself busy. a struggling Bread for the mother of City became Courtesy photo three recently, her outlet. the mother’s Food is donated to Bread for the City by various Carter began organizations and people in the Washington community. excitement of volunteering having fresh at the agency last year and has been working produce brought joy to her heart. “Seeing the in the organization’s food pantry three days out smiles on the clients’ faces makes everything of the week. worthwhile,” she said. “It was great to know She and others are responsible for sorting, my small four hours of time can help someone stocking, and bagging white potatoes, sweet in need.” potatoes, cabbage, granola bars, canned goods, During the warmer months, the volunteers and sugar-free beverages for the clients to take are responsible for growing fresh fruits and home and share with their families. The food vegetables on the organization’s rooftop is donated to Bread for the City by various garden. organizations and people in the Washington Bread for Life began 41 years ago as a free community. The volunteers also are medical clinic in a cramped basement with

A5

Amtrak Honors Community Leaders

By Elaina Johnson Howard University News Service

DMV Resident

Continued from A1

government from 1975 – 1996. She worked for several offices and agencies, but had her longest tour of duty working at the U.S. Department of Justice. As a federal officer she went through several tests, certifications, and evaluations, and earned numerous accolades. She held various titles and rankings throughout her career including marksman, adjudicator, customs officer, and inspector.

Smith helped immigrant orphans find families in the United States, and aided refugees from several African countries during Apartheid, including Sierra Leone and South Africa. To their surprise, Smith’s face was one of compassion, often the first that refugees had seen in a long time. She said she helped them through the naturalization process, and was proud to do so. They “truly believed in the American dream,” Smith said.

She also saw herself in them. “I’m a Black person, I don’t like to use the term African American. I’m old school. We say Black,” Smith said.

While Smith was helping African refugees find asylum from prejudice and persecution, she experienced it herself. As an officer, she was often sent to very racially divided areas of the country. Blacks weren’t always welcome, and neither were women. Smith went anyway. And, because she did, we can all learn from her story today. “I was little, and I had to learn how to take down a man. It was difficult, but I did it. And once I did, I was able to get respect,” she said.

Many people have been touched by Smith’s work. Rows of pictures and awards are evidence of this. She has received letters and proclamations from many high-profile politicians, local leaders, and celebrities. Former Prince George’s County Executive Wayne Curry, former Maryland State Sen. Arthur Dunman, and U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski are just a few.

Her son, known by the rest of the world as Grammy-nominated singer and philanthropist Raheem DeVauhgn, has been touched by her work. Smith said he is one of her proudest achievements. Not only is she proud of him, he is proud of her.

“My mother is the source of my strength,” DeVauhgn told the AFRO on Feb. 19. “She is my SHE-RO. I admire her for so many reasons, especially for the sacrifices she made for me. My mother is valued, loved, and appreciated. I am so proud of her.”

First Lady

Continued from A1 that these women have fought for are going unrealized,” Obama said. “While we should be proud that the high school graduation rate for Black students is improving, it is still lower than just about any other group in this country.”

Obama said her hope is for all of the young people to fulfill their potential. “Everyone in this room believes in our young people and I love you all,” she said.

Panelist, varying in experience, shared their stories with the audience composed of girls from the first lady’s mentor program and Howard University along with dignitaries, including Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.); E. Faye Williams, national president and CEO of the National Congress of Black Women; and Sylvia Cyrus, executive director for the Association for the Study of AfricanAmerican Life and History (ASALH).

The panelists were asked how education was instilled in them at an early age. All answered that is was valued, encouraged, and required. “Education is the key to success,” said LaNier.

Hardy said, “We are here to help find and keep your righteous mind,” referring to a personal anecdote of being underestimated as a child in school because she was Black.

“What we can control, in a world that seems pretty crazy some times, is what we do and

education is important to that,” she said.

According to the Legal Defense Fund “Unlocking Opportunity for African-American Girls” report, released in 2014, 75 percent of African-American girls were the most likely group of girls to consider themselves to be leaders, and the most likely to have leadership experience (78 percent).

Ifill questioned what happened in the period from when a little Black girl believed she would be or was a leader to what she ended up becoming. “We have to create an environment, a society to receive people who want to achieve, who are ambitious, who have a sense of themselves as leaders and we have to give them the tools that they need to be able to live out their dreams,” Ifill said.

The discussion also touched on contemporary issues, such as police brutality, Ferguson, Mo. and the need to talk about Black history continuously instead of only in February.

In her closing remarks, Norton said, “I think what we will do is to take from [the panel] the inspiration to move forward collectively, to make ourselves a part of the continuing movement for change, and to say to them, ‘Just as you have given us so much, this afternoon, we promise you, in return, we will give you our continuing commitment to keep pressing for change until every American has equal rights under the law and in fact.”

Courtesy photo

Amtrak has partnered with NBA basketball teams the Washington Wizards and Brooklyn Nets to honor community leaders with the 2015 Amtrak Pioneer Award.

The award is given to community leaders in the Washington, D.C. and New York City metro areas that have exhibited resolve and perseverance in their efforts to positively impact their communities. L to R: Amtrak Chief of Marketing and National Advertising Programs, John Lee, presents the Amtrak Pioneer award to Sultan Shakir (Executive Director of S.M.Y.A.L.), Lecester Johnson (CEO of Academy of Hope), Ebony Lewis (Executive Director of Miss Believe), and Joe DuPriest (CMO at Monumental Sports & Entertainment). three examining rooms and a $30,000 budget.

It now serves 33,000 clients annually at two Washington locations – one in northwest at 1525 Seventh St. and the other in southwest at 1640 Good Hope Road.

Kristen Kozlowski, associate director of development for the organization, said 92 percent of its clients are African American and 5 percent are Hispanic, while 62 percent of the clients are women with children under age 18.

Volunteers are vital in the operation of this organization, whose work one year brought President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, and their two daughters to the center to help out one Thanksgiving Day. Molly Cielinski, Georgetown University sophomore, said, “I come every week to get out of Georgetown and see what other people are experiencing.”

Cielinski, 20, started out wanting to explore the Logan Circle and Shaw area when she learned about Bread for the City. Her adventure, she said, turned into a life changing experience. “It is all worth it when you see people who need food, leaving with it,” she said.

Hannah Lehrenbaun, 22, is another regular volunteer. Lehrenbaun is a recent graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont and she returned home to Washington to help those less fortunate in her own “backyard,” she said. “I love the workers, clients and fellow volunteers. There is a real need for food in this area and I am glad to help those who need it most.”

For information on how to volunteer, call 202.265.2400 in northwest Washington and 202.561.8587 for the southwest facility.

A6

The Afro-American, February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015

Some Faith Leaders Victimize Rape Survivors Again

By Jazelle Hunt NNPA Washington Correspondent THIRD IN A SERIES WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Simone Oliver had always been called, as they say in the religious community. She was active in the Baptist church throughout her youth, playing piano for the youth choir and even ghostwriting sermons for several pastors as a teen. She loved Scripture, loved preaching, and loved God. For her, church was heaven-on-earth.

But it was also hell. At 15 years old, Oliver’s then-pastor called her into his church office, grabbed her, put his tongue in her mouth, and fondled her until she broke away. It was the third time in her life she had been sexually assaulted, already a rape survivor at 12 years old at the hands of her sister’s first husband, and again at 13 by a family friend staying in her home.

Still, her faith did not waver. In fact, it grew stronger as Oliver transitioned from being a public school teacher to a minister.

In the mid-2000s, she took on an associate pastor’s role at a non-denominational church in New Jersey. The founding pastor tried to court her for years until she finally acquiesced and the two began a secret relationship. However, Photo courtesy of Simone Oliver a year later, he decided to marry someone else. Still, the Minister and full-time affair continued. seminary student Simone “I couldn’t get out. It was Oliver turned her ministry almost like sinking into an to women and sexual abyss,” she remembered. “I assault in the church after had gone to someone in the being attacked by a fellow church to let them know this clergymember. was going on. And they pretty much turned on me.”

And no group leans on the church more than Blacks.

“While the U.S. is generally considered a highly religious nation, African-Americans are markedly more religious on a variety of measures than the U.S. population as a whole, including level of affiliation with religion, attendance at religious services, frequency of prayer and religion’s importance in life,” according to a report titled, “A Religious Portrait of AfricanAmericans” by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Black Women are the Most Religious

And among the most religiously committed, no segment is more committed than African-American women. The report

found that 84 percent of Black women say religion is very important to them and 59 percent say they attend religious services at least once a week.

As committed as she was, Oliver eventually left that church, broke off the affair with the pastor, began dating the man who would become her husband, and was accepted into Princeton Theological Seminary. As her life got better, her former copastor’s behavior grew worse. He sent threats to her regularly, and began stalking her and her then-fiancé.

She recalled, “He said to me – not of himself – but he said, ‘A man can commit murder, do his time, put on a suit, and still be a man. But when a woman’s reputation is ruined, she is

In 2011, five days before her wedding, the pastor’s behavior moved beyond idle threats.

“It’s a miracle story I’m here and alive, because this man stabbed me 30 times. I was paralyzed from the waist down,” Oliver recounted. Years later, she still remembers his final threat, prior to the day of the attack: “‘When I’m finished with you, you will not get married, you will not have a ministry, and Princeton will never have you.’ That was the last thing he said to me.”

Oliver was stabbed mostly in her abdomen and back, damaging her spinal cord and liver. Her former co-pastor was arrested walking down the street covered in her blood, still holding his hunting knife.

Survivors Need More than Prayer

Sharon Ellis Davis, a former criminalist in the Chicago Police Department and retired pastor, knows a bit about crime from more than one perspective.

She said, “I was married to a police officer, and there was a domestic abuse issue and sexual abuse. It was dismissed all the time. It was a matter of, ‘You all stop,’ or ‘Don’t be so bad,’ or ‘It’ll be okay.’ But never ‘I hear you, I understand you, I believe you.’ Even if [the department] knew the abuser was guilty, there was that code where you don’t rat on other police officers.”

So Davis channeled her frustration into something useful.

She successfully lobbied for an internal domestic violence advocate, a civilian who would support and speak for domestic violence victims in police officers’ homes and became a fulltime police chaplain.

But in Davis’ own church experience – first in the

“I couldn’t get out. It was almost like sinking into an abyss.”

– Simone Oliver

Photo courtesy Sharon Ellis Davis

Retired pastor and survivor, Sharon Ellis Davis now teaches seminary classes on race, gender, class, and sexual assault and abuse. ruined.’ Those were his threats to me.”

Pentecostal church as a child, then in the United Church of Christ as an adult – she saw parallels to the way she was treated by the police department.

“The church was nice to me, but they didn’t know what to do with me,” she said. “I need more than prayer, I need more than a hug. In fact, sometimes [survivors] don’t even want to be touched. I need more than a deliverance service, I need more than a Band-Aid on what forgiveness might look like.

“The two very important institutions that I was involved with – the church and the criminal justice system – both in the time that I needed them, failed me. Now they didn’t know they did, because they were not conscious of it.”

Davis feels that lack of consciousness grew from the problematic messages about women coming from the pulpit.

For example she points out the Biblical stories that are emphasized, such as the false rape accusation of Joseph, and the ones that are largely ignored, such as the actual rapes of Dinah and Tamar as well as David’s coercion of Bathsheba.

To her, they all sent the message that the burden of sexual trauma is not welcome in the sanctuary.

“The church has not become the safe place it needs to be that would give some women in church permission to disclose,” Davis said. “The consequences of not having church as a safe place…you can kill the souls of the people that are there.

People can lose their faith.”

Sex and sexuality remain taboo in many faith communities.

“How is it that the church is going to really be advocates for victims of rape in the Black church when even having normal conversations of sexuality can’t happen? How can we talk about patho-sexuality if we haven’t talked about normal sexuality?” she asked. “We’re still stuck in many way on the thou-shalt-nots. We spend more time judging the behavior than helping someone understand this was not their fault.”

Even worse than a lack of knowledge among leadership is that perpetrators often exist within the church, their violence and damage unchecked and even covered up.

Oliver said, “I had a woman call me – I thought she was calling to check on me and see how I was – but she called to tell me her own story, about a pastor. Someone [else] told me a story. She was invited out to another church to preach, and was raped by the pastor who had invited her. When the third person, and fourth person, and the fifth time you hear these stories….

I’m like okay. Something is going on here.”

After more than three months of physical rehab, Oliver overcame her paralysis and learned to walk again. She testified in court against her attacker, who was sentenced to 21 years in prison.

For all their silences and inadequacies, many Black faith centers are adept at serving their communities and fostering communal solutions and cooperation. Both Davis and Oliver assert that Black faith centers have also made great strides toward addressing domestic violence, with permanent ministries and pastor trainings becoming more common.

“We’re better in the Black church at caring for people,” Davis explained. “But we’re not as good at having a model of pastoral care for people who have been sexually abused. We’re not having clergy exposed to the education that they need to understand these dynamics.”

Some outside the faith community recognize this as well, including Sherelle Hessell-Gordon, executive director of the D.C. Rape Crisis Center.

“The Word says faith without works is dead,” she says.

“There has to be fruit, there has to be action, there has to be community…there has to be active justice,” she said.

“The rhetoric of ‘It’ll get better by and by’ – nah. That’s just spirituals to move our souls. When you leave that room, you’re still carrying that cross.”

Oliver, now a full-time seminary student, said, “I’m a rape survivor, but I’m also a gender-based violence survivor, and it took the violence for me to really reckon with the rape,” she acknowledged. “In telling my story…I started to realize how many horror stories are in church.”

February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015, The Afro-American

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COMMUNITY CONNECTION Alexandria, Va. Delta Teen Summit 2015

The Alumnae chapter for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority will hold Teen Summit 2015, “Teen Talk: the relationship edition” on Feb. 28 from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Mount Vernon High School, 8515 Old Mount Vernon Rd. The day is dedicated to youth empowerment, awareness, “real talk” conversations, and community resources.

The event is free to all high school students. Preregistration is required. Register at www.dstnovac.org.

The Alumnae chapter for Parental consent is required. Delta Sigma Theta Sorority For more information, will hold Teen Summit email: teensummit@ 2015. dstnovac.org.

McLean, Va. McLean Youth Orchestra Concert

The McLean Youth Orchestra’s second concert of the 2014-15 Season, cancelled due to the weather, has been rescheduled for March 14 at 3 p.m. at the Oakcrest School, 850 Balls The McLean Hill Road. The concert will feature Youth performances by the McLean Youth Orchestra’s Orchestra and the MYO Repertory concert Orchestra. The Orchestra’s new Music has been Director, John Devlin, will conduct rescheduled Brahms, Beethoven and two pieces by for March 14. composer, Evan Meier. The MYO will

perform Assembleges and Pastiche by Meier. The MYO Repertory Orchestra will perform music by Mozart and Grainger. The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, please see the orchestra’s website, mclean-orchestra.org or call 703-893-8646.

Washington, D.C. Luke James & BJ The Chicago Kid to Perform at Howard Theatre

p.m. Tickets cost $7 for general admission, $4.50 for seniors, students and military. Tickets can be purchased at www.goethe. de/washington. For more information, call 202-2891200.

Youth Law Fair

The District Court of the Singers Luke James and BJ The District of Chicago Kid will perform at the Columbia along Howard Theatre on Feb. 28 at 7:30 with DC Bar p.m. As a New Orleans native, will host James brings a real-deal the 16th approach to music. Tickets annual costs range from $25 to Youth $55. General Admission Law includes standing room Fair The Goethe-Institut ($25 Advance / $30 Day on of Show). Seating is March Washington will show The Spy Who Came in limited and available 21 on a first come, first from from the Cold on March 2. served basis. Parking 10 tickets are available a.m. at Ticketmaster.com. to 2:30 p.m. at the D.C. Superior For more information, Court, H. Carl Moultrie Court review FAQ @ House, located at 500 Indiana thehowardtheatre.com/faq.

Avenue N.W. The event is free and Singers Luke James (above) and BJ The Chicago all high school students are invited.

Kid will perform at the Howard Theatre on Feb. Activities at the fair will include 28. holding cell tours, mock trials, speak-out sessions, among other activities.

Register at http://tinyurl.com/youthlawfair.

For The Goethe-Institut Washington, The German Cultural Center located at 812 Seventh St. N.W. will show the film more information, call 202-626-3263 or email outreach@ dcbar.org.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold on March 2 at 6:30

Film Series at Cultural Center

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The Afro-American, February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015

Michael Walton Foundation Invests in D.C. Youth

By Kyra O. Davenport Special to the AFRO Michael Walton dedicated his life to investing in the community and children.

Walton stops by Friendship Collegiate Academy in Northeast D.C. three times a year through the Michael Walton Foundation – an organization that provides positive outlets for youth and young adults through creative programs and services.

According to its website, the foundation targets minority students from the sixth to 12th grades.

“This is what drives me – being a part of inspiring the youth, going around the world empowering students and making them aware that they can achieve anything they put their minds to, anything,” he said.

This time Walton brought rhythm and blues singer

Kenny Lattimore and actress Raven Goodwin from the BET sitcom “Being Mary Jane” with him on his visit Feb. 12.

Both celebrities are native Washingtonians and recognize how important it is to invest in the lives of young people.

“Being at home in D.C. where we started this was us chasing our dreams,” Goodwin said. “This is where our hunger for success began.”

Lattimore said that it is a priority to empower the youth. “I’ve always been dedicated to empowering young people using the elements of education, mentoring, and the arts,” he said. “When I found out the

Michael Walton Foundation’s mission was similar to mine – it was a great fit.”

During the workshop students defined success within themselves. “Success to me is following my dreams no matter what. I want to be an engineer and nothing is going to stop me from achieving my goals, it’s up to me,” graduating senior Shaunetta Green said.

The overarching purpose of the day was to challenge students to understand that being successful is something they must focus on every day.

“Success for me is learning something each day. I think that really is success because

“This is what drives me – being a part of inspiring the youth…”

–Michael Walton

Courtesy photo

Raven Goodwin, Michael Walton, and Kenny Lattimore money comes and goes. There are highs and lows – triumphs and failures but the journey – and how we navigate the journey is my barometer for success,” said Lattimore.

Another lesson the children learned was about having a sense of community.

“My mother really inspired

me and made me conscious of the importance of giving back. She managed my career and guided my life from the beginning. My musical heroes are Chaka Khan and Stevie Wonder, they’re also huge givers in our community and I’ve watched and emulated them. Jesus Christ is my

ultimate hero. I try to follow his principles and the way he lived,” Lattimore said.

“Young people are responsible for [their] own futures and they have to invest in themselves.

Education and information will empower them to make great decisions” he continued.

De-Constructing Uncle Tom Awakens Audiences to Endemic Racial Bias

By Shantella Y. Sherman Special to the AFRO When The Conciliation Project founder Tawnya PettifordWates decided to explore a deconstruction of the archetype Uncle Tom from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s controversial novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it’s doubtful she knew the impact her work would have. Staged entirely in blackface minstrelsy, De-Constructing Uncle Tom provides an historical trajectory of the tall-tale, originally published in 1852. The hourlong production demonstrates how the racial stereotypes Stowe manufactured continue to adversely position Black families, churches, athletes, and youth, in the white American consciousness.

Pettiford-Wates said that the untold history of the nation’s racial past compels audiences to question their own education and knowledge of history. By presenting such lessons in minstrel character the company strikes at deeply-held belief systems and unrealized prejudices. Admittedly, the blackface proves overwhelming at first, forcing viewers to look beyond the grotesqueness of saucer eyes and big red lips, against coalblack skin. The challenge is to see and acknowledge the people beneath the caricature.

“I didn’t like the blackface… it made me feel embarrassed, but I understand why. I’ve read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and it was painful to read Black people described like we were animals.

There was no humanity in [Stowe’s] work. I brought my son with me to the show because I wanted him to understand that society’s perceptions of you can be a dangerous,” said Jamal Rayford. “He’s fifteen and looked me dead in the face and said, “White people wear masks too because they’re afraid.”

As a part of the performance’s epilogue, the company of actors remove their make-up in the presence of the audience.

The process, called de-masking, is one of the production’s most

Photo by Shantella Y. Sherman

De-Constructing Uncle Tom was performed entirely in blackface minstrelsy by a diverse group of actors during The Atlas Theater’s Intersections Festival.

prolific moments, shared between the actors and audience as a moment of solidarity. This de-masking is occurring regularly in popular culture – undertaken recently by actresses Viola Davis and CCH Pounder on primetime television shows, How to Get Away with Murder and The Sons of Anarchy.

“The lies live behind the masks. So when you symbolically wipe off the mask, you expose the lie,” Pettiford-Wates said following a recent performance at The Atlas Theater’s Intersections Festival. “That’s not to say that people can’t put it right back up again, that’s why I say consciousness has to be intentional. That’s why you have to intentionally take it off.”

Pettiford-Wates said that taking off the blinders and seeing the truth -- even though painful and ugly, is necessary to the nation’s healing.

Audience member Cheryl Dyson said that this ritualistic removal of make-up and wigs by African- American women in popular television shows and the actors in the play help disabuse Americans of lying about race and establishing new barriers.

“De-Constructing Uncle Tom shows that although they’ve been modernized over the years, few white people view African Americans today outside of the characteristics of Uncle Tom, Mammy, and Topsy. Removing the masks symbolizes a refusal to keep up the pretense by Black people. It is scary for the larger society because it simultaneously exposes whites, and systems of oppression we’ve come to accept as normal,” Dyson said.

The Conciliation Project (TCP) has an 11-year history of facilitating difficult conversations around race and racism through the use of theatre. The Richmond-based social justice theatre company partners with organizations and communities to engage in the long process of healing our nation’s historic past.

Obama Speech

Continued from A1

because of what we fought for. Because of what you fought for.”

Obama said that Republicans are changing their message because of the success of Democratic policies. “And now that their

grand predictions of doom and gloom, and death panels and Armageddon haven’t come true,” he said, “the sky hasn’t fallen, Chicken Little is quiet, and the new plan apparently, of Congressional Republicans, and this is

progress, the new plan is to rebrand themselves as the party of the middle class. I’m not making this up.”

Obama chided Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for crediting the GOP for the country’s economic recovery by quoting McConnell saying “it’s better because we just got elected [winning the Senate] and people are feeling more optimistic.”

“I didn’t know that’s how the economy worked,” the president said to laughter.

“But maybe? We’ll call some economists.”

In a quick, conversation with Donna Brazile, a District resident and the party’s vice president of voter registration and participation, he said Republicans need to follow through on their commitment to helping middle-class Americans. “So

I am encouraged that they’re speaking about middle class and speaking about wages,” he said. “But there is this old saying that you can’t just talk

Elliott said that Obama is a part of a legacy of accomplishment. “Everyone does better when a Democrat is president,” she said.

“Our nation is so much better off because we elected him twice.”

– Arkansas State Sen. Joyce Elliott the talk. Donna, you got to do what?”

“Walk the walk,” Brazile said.

“You got to walk the walk,” the president repeated after her.

Arkansas State Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock) said Obama’s speech reminded her why she worked hard for his election in 2008 and re-election in 2012. “He reminded me of the deep trouble our country was in when he came into office,” Elliott said. “He reminded me just far we have come when we were deep in the abyss.

Our nation is so much better off because we elected him twice.”

George Wallace, the mayor of Hampton, Va., agrees with Elliott. “His speech was a litany of his accomplishments,” Wallace said. “He has performed a metamorphosis of this country. He has performed his duties without B.S.” The Rev. Randy Kelley, the senior pastor of the Goodsell United Methodist Church in Lannet, Ala., said that Obama’s speech was “powerful and practical.”

“He presented an outline of what he has done,” Kelley said. “He has a strong track record and I think that he will go down in history as the most successful president of the modern era.”

February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015 The Afro-American

COMMENTARY

The Power of the Truth

As a practicing attorney for two decades, I learned that clear factual evidence was my most powerful ally in achieving justice.

It does not surprise me, therefore, that greater access to the facts in the death of Staten Island’s Eric Garner led to wider public disagreement with the grand jury’s failure to indict than had been the case with a similar failure in Ferguson, Missouri.

According to a December Elijah Cummings Pew Research /USA Today poll, this difference was especially pronounced among polling respondents who were white.

By a wide margin (64 percent to 23 percent), whites said that the grand jury made the right decision in Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson. However, just 28 percent of whites said that the grand jury made the right decision in not charging a police officer in Eric Garner’s death — nearly one-half (47 percent) saying that the grand jury made the wrong decision.

This insight about the power of the truth in achieving justice may not be much solace to either Michael Brown or Eric Garner’s loved ones. Nevertheless, it is critically important in advancing our movement for national policing reform.

Most deaths in police-involved shootings occur in relative obscurity, even within the local communities where they take place. This is one of the realities that we are working to change.

On Jan. 26, I joined Representatives John J. Conyers Jr., Bennie G. Thompson and the 53 other congressional members in offering to work with President Obama to achieve full funding of the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) operated by the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention.

The NVDRS provides states and communities with funding to document the causes of violent deaths, including those resulting from “legal intervention” by law enforcement authorities. It also tracks the race of victims, the causes of injuries and the relationship of victims to their suspected killers.

In our letter to the President, we expressed our concern that current NVDRS data from the 17 states that are now reporting shows that African-Americans were killed at a rate three times higher than their white peers during “legal intervention” by those with legal authority to use deadly force. “HispanicAmericans” also were disproportionately more likely to die as a result of being injured by law enforcement officers.

“These disparities are alarming and unacceptable for a country that holds ‘equal justice under law’ as a core ideal,” we wrote. “The lack of comprehensive federal data regarding the number of Americans killed during police encounters also presents a significant challenge for elected officials and citizens interested in providing better training and resources for law enforcement officers.”

Our request for full funding would enable NVDRS to increase its collection and reporting of data on violent police encounters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It is information that the public – and the Congress - want and need.

In the current Congress, however, full funding for NVDRS may be difficult to achieve. Yet, we remain hopeful — in part because our movement for greater transparency in policeinvolved deaths has gained an important ally.

On February 12, James B. Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, gave an important and widelyreported speech at Georgetown University expressing some “hard truths about law enforcement and race.” The full text is available at http://www.fbi.gov.news/speeches/ .

Director Comey is a Republican, white and “pro-lawenforcement” to his core. He also is a fierce and ethical seeker of the truth, wherever his search for the truth may lead.

His candor that too much of law enforcement’s history within communities of color has not been what it should be

Selma Marches On

Selma. For those of a certain age, the word Selma is evocative of a time when people stood against insurmountable odds. It is an ever-lasting illustration of why the right to vote must never be taken for granted. People of all colors bled and died so that we might exercise that quintessential American right to choose our elected leaders. We must feed this spirit to a new generation so that they might experience the freedom that comes from knowing their history, so they are not doomed to repeat it.

I watched the movie Selma through the eyes of my teenager and it hit me that they do not understand who they are because they have not been afforded the luxury of understanding how we got here. Here, meaning a society with Black mayors, senators and even a president. Here, in a society with major cracks in our “post-racial” America. To see a teenager try to make sense of the bombing of four little girls in a Birmingham Kim M. Keenan church is to see innocence and armor in the eyes of a young Black male eager for a post-Trayvon society.

Ava Duvernay’s Selma is more than a movie. It is a call to action to reclaim our history in our own words. When I saw it, all I kept thinking was she took the women out of the kitchen and restored them to their pivotal role in history. Today, it seems so obvious that Black women had to be omnipresent in the struggle. I still remember hearing that Dorothy Height always placed herself in the middle of the picture lest she get cropped out later when the picture was printed. Duvernay captured all of this with a subtly so exquisite, one wonders how this story could have been told any other way.

Her critics claim that she portrayed Lyndon B. Johnson as George Wallace-light, but of course, if you change the lens, you change the view. PolitiFact, the fact-checking site, affirmed that President Obama was correct when he asserted that during LBJ’s first 20 years in Congress, he opposed every civil rights bill that came up for a vote.

The fact-checking site quoted Johnson biographer Robert Caro as saying, “He had been a congressman, beginning in 1937, for eleven years, and for eleven years he had voted against every civil rights bill – against not only legislation aimed at ending the poll tax and segregation

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— and that, even today, racial bias is too often present in the actions of the police — has received most of the commentary, as, no doubt, it should.

Yet, equally important, were his remarks about the compelling need for greater transparency and reporting in policing, especially with respect to police-involved shootings.

“Not long after riots broke out in Ferguson late last summer,” Director Comey recalled, “I asked my staff to tell me how many people shot by police were African-American in this country. I wanted to see trends. I wanted to see information.”

“They couldn’t give it to me, and it wasn’t their fault,” he continued. “Demographic data regarding officer-involved shootings is not consistently reported to us through our Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Because reporting is voluntary, our data is incomplete and therefore, in the aggregate, unreliable.”

James Comey’s acknowledgment may be somewhat surprising to those of us who were raised to believe that the FBI, our nation’s foremost law enforcement agency, is allseeing and all-knowing.

Yet, I, for one, deeply appreciated the Director’s candor — and his emphasis on the importance of more comprehensive disclosure by our police.

“How can we address concerns about “use of force,” Director Comey asked at Georgetown University, “how can we address concerns about officer-involved shootings if we do not have a reliable grasp on the demographics and circumstances of those incidents?”

At least part of the answer to his questions is clear.

A fully-funded and operational National Violent Death Reporting System would provide much of the information about police-involved shootings that the FBI, the Congress and all of us need.

Only through full disclosure of the truth can we be fair to both our citizenry and our police.

Congressman Elijah Cummings represents Maryland’s 7th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.

in the armed services but even against legislation aimed at ending lynching: a one hundred percent record.”

Caro added that while running for the U.S. Senate in 1948, Johnson had assailed President Harry Truman’s entire civil rights program as “an effort to set up a police state.”

It was only in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination that Johnson, picking up the torch of the slain president, rose above his past. He deserves credit for that, but he did not, as some of his supporters claim, come up with the idea of the Selma-to-Montgomery March.

Let’s celebrate Black history and not let others revise it.

February is the “season of Blackness,” a time when the nation lifts up our inextricable role in American history. This is fine and well, but every day we need to remember and heed the lessons of Selma. We have a Voting Rights Act that is broken. Some of us can vote easily, some of us face challenges no less daunting than poll taxes, and others have been stripped of their right to vote or even worse coerced into believing that our vote does not matter. At the heart of the American dream, whether it is educational or economic opportunity, equal justice, or net equality, is the right to vote. Until the right to vote is automatic, permanent, portable and convenient to every adult citizen, then none of us will truly be free. We have the technology, we have capacity, we need the will.

I understand why the Oscars overlooked Ava Duvernay. She is not a director from a sexy foreign country, or a darling of the one-dimensional Oscar set. She is a woman, who like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., decided to stir the pot in a world where voting rights have been unnecessarily curtailed and unexplained murders and urban unrest is on the rise. Maybe her real reward is telling our story, raw and uncut in a world that sees Black images predominately through the lens of non-Black eyes. She is a reminder that we must tell our own stories, in our own words so that we can be reminded that history has a way of repeating itself when people forget. It does not mean others cannot tell our stories, it just means that our voice must be soar above the mix. Selma must march on.

Kim M. Keenan is the President and CEO of the Multicultural Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC). Prior to taking the helm at MMTC, Keenan served as General Counsel and Secretary of the NAACP. She is a past president of the National Bar Association and the District of Columbia Bar.

Facing America’s Lynching Frenzy We live in a era when humankind seems awash in wardriven atrocities. Men, and in some instances, boys – for this is, overwhelmingly, a matter of the sins of males – who once lived within the boundaries of decency have dedicated themselves to committing crimes of shocking depravity.

Whether driven by tricked-up political ideologies, ethnicgroup grievances, or pseudo-religious mumbo-jumbo, many of these killers display a seemingly unfathomable desire to be inhuman, monstrous.

I have a name for this bloodletting and the people who engage in it. I call it and them the Prime Evil. The phrase isn’t my creation. It was applied two decades ago to one man, Eugene de Kock, a colonel in South Africa’s police force during the apartheid era who directed the government’s terrorist squad that Lee A. Daniels used torture and murder to try to destroy the freedom movement led by Nelson Mandela.

One of that unit’s many “specialties” was, after it had finished torturing a captive, to tie him up, place him over an explosive device and detonate it. Brought to justice after the fall of the Afrikaner regime, de Kock was sentenced to more than 200 years in prison for his crimes.

De Kock’s name has been in the news this winter because the Black-majority South African government announced in late January that it would parole him. I’ll explore that extraordinary decision further in my next column. My point here is that De Kock’s release reminds us that although the Internet now makes it possible for many of us to witness acts of horrific violence, such depravity isn’t new and has never been limited to just the colored peoples of the world.

That fact was underscored by the release earlier this month of a report documenting how widespread and horrific the dynamic of America’s Prime Evil – White racism – once was. The document, “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror,” was compiled by the Equal Justice Initiative, (EJI) a Montgomery, Alabama-based social justice organization.

It found that between 1877 and 1950 a total of 3,959 Black Americans were murdered by a “racial terror lynching” in the twelve most active lynching states, all but one of which had been part of the Confederacy. The report defines a racial terror lynching as one whose real purpose

was not to punish an individual so much as to terrorize an entire group: Americans of African descent.

Contrary to the conventional view of these murders as furtive acts done by a few on the fringe of Southern White society, EJI documents that the “lynching frenzy” murders were often barbaric communal “festivals” involving ghastly rituals of mutilation and burning – symbolic of both cannibalism and necrophilia – that were attended by dozens, or hundreds, or even thousands of Whites. Some, in which Blacks locked up in local jails were targeted, were even advertised in local newspapers in advance. Further, these “celebratory acts of racial control and domination” were bolstered by the White South’s using Christianity to justify Jim Crow.

The Equal Justice Initiative wants to erect in these states, which are chock-full of memorials to the architects of the Prime Evil of Negro Slavery and Jim Crow, markers of and memorials to the lynchings at many of the sites where they happened – a plan, a New York Times article on the report noted “will involve significant fund-raising, negotiations with distrustful landowners and, almost undoubtedly, intense controversy.”

The latter prospect should be especially welcomed by those who think, as the EJI report states, America “must fully address our history of racial terror and the legacy of racial inequality it has created. … by urging communities to honestly and soberly recognize the pain of the past.

Only when we concretize the experience through discourse, memorials, monuments, and other acts of reconciliation can we overcome the shadows cast by these grievous events.”

“Tsultrim,” a reader responding online to the Times Feb. 10 article put it even more poignantly.

“Imagine driving through your town today and seeing a body hanging from a lamp post, or a bridge. Imagine watching your neighbors burn a person to death in the public square. If we think this is shocking, then we must take steps to acknowledge our past, commemorate those who died, own responsibility for acts that have informed attitudes to this day. This is our holocaust.

It’s past time to own it, examine ourselves, and change. Who are we if we refuse to look, refuse to acknowledge?”

Lee A. Daniels is a longtime journalist based in New York City. His essay, “Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Great Provocateur,” appears in Africa’s Peacemakers: Nobel Peace Laureates of African Descent (2014), published by Zed Books. His new collection of columns, Race Forward: Facing America’s Racial Divide in 2014, is available atwww.amazon.com

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The Afro-American, February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015

MGM National Harbor Celebrates Black History Month.

We celebrate the leadership, courage and vision of the inspiring African Americans who overcome adversity on their paths to achievement.

MGMNationalHarbor.com

February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015, The Afro-American

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Dr. Carter G. Woodson addressed students at Morgan State University in April 1931.

Woodson’s work created new generations of historians and legitimized the academic field of Black Studies.

AFRO Archives

ASALH is Woodson’s Dream ‘Come True’

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By Zenitha Prince Senior AFRO Correspondent

arter G. Woodson had a dream – to legitimize and establish the true place of the Black race in the world’s history, and in so doing change the Negro’s view of himself and the public’s view of the Negro, leading to racial equality and an elevated existence for the Black community. And, in 1915, with the creation of his premier legacy, 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), Woodson created the major vehicle for making that vision come true.

“Carter G. Woodson taught African Americans and Americans more generally the importance of self-knowledge and how it is central for making a democracy work… [and] ASALH was the mechanism he created for what I call his ‘self-knowledge project,” said Daryl M. Scott, current president of ASALH. “Woodson viewed ASALH as a means of transforming how people of African descent saw themselves and were seen by the people of the world,” he continued. “It was an institution whose mission required it to collect, research and create knowledge about the African past and the African-American experience and disseminate it to the public with the hopes of informing race relations both here and abroad.”

In January 1916, Woodson launched what would become the cornerstone of ASALH, The Journal of Negro History (now The Journal of African American History). From its inception, the pages of the scholarly quarterly became a treasured space where harmful lies and propaganda about the Black race

“Carter G. Woodson taught African Americans and Americans more generally the importance of self-knowledge and how it is central for making a democracy work… [and] ASALH was the mechanism he created for what I call his ‘self-knowledge project.”

could be crushed, golden nuggets of forgotten or hidden Black history could be found and precious artifacts of the African Diaspora experience displayed in scholarly fashion.

“It has been an important intellectual space for a variety of scholars to present their work on various issues related to the African-American community,” said Dianne Pinderhughes, a professor of Africana Studies at the University of Notre Dame. She added, “It has been instrumental in moving the public perception of Black history from a limited perspective to a broader, deeper view.”

For 30 years, Woodson edited the Journal and it flourished under his direction. Many say it is one of the most enduring and influential aspects of his legacy.

On the occasion of Woodson’s death, thenpresident emeritus of Morgan State College, D.O.W. Holmes, said in a written tribute to the “father of Black history” published in the May 13, 1950 edition of the AFRO: “The ‘Journal’ is indeed the monument to Carter Woodson far more enduring than anything we can possibly conceive as a memorial.

Scattered throughout the libraries of the schools and cities of America, it is a constant source of information to the scholar and an inspiration to every person of colored blood.”

AFRO Archives

Members of the Baltimore NAACP Youth Council join in a national demonstration against lynching.

In 1920, ASALH also created its own forprofit publishing house, Associated Press Inc. (API), to help Black scholars publish their manuscripts.

ASALH’s annual meeting has also been a welcoming intellectual space—scholars, college students, archivists, librarians and lay persons from a variety of disciplines get the chance to network, explore and present papers on various aspects of Black history and experience.

The organization’s work made Black history a legitimate and accepted subject of intellectual inquiry, inspiring the creation of Black studies programs in colleges and universities throughout the United States and birthing generations of Black historians, included noted intellectuals such as John Hope Franklin, Charles Wesley and Benjamin Quarles; But ASALH’s mission was never just about appealing to academia, experts said.

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The Afro-American, February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015

Alpha Omega Chapter, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity held it’s 58th Annual Mardi Gras Feb. 6 at the Washington Hilton International Ballroom in Northwest, D.C. Several hundred members, patrons and friends crowded into the ballroom for an evening of gaiety, fun and merriment to celebrate the rich legacy of Alpha Omega and raise funds to benefit their scholarship fund and the chapter’s social action initiative to clothe and Chapter feed the hungry. A major highlight of the Mardi Gras was the crowning Basileus, of the 2015 Mardi Gras Queen, Brianna D. Jones, a Howard University Brother student by the chapter Basileus, Walter B. Hill Jr. Walter B. This was followed by the Parade of Patrons in Hill Jr. Costumes led by the Mardi Gras Combo. After the Brothers sang Omega Dear, dancing for all to the music of Just ‘s Friends Band. Congratulations to Brother Charles Briggs, Chairman of the Mardi Gras Committee for a Mardi Gras Queen, very festive affair.

Briana Jones and Kenisha Salvary, Miss Trinidad and Tobago United Nations 2015 Brother Marlon B. Allen, Master of Ceremonies

Brothers singing Omega Dear

Jonya Wagnes (seated), Terrie Carter, Carolyn Cole, and Donna StellaPonder; Leslie Hagans (standing), Marcia Samuels and Rod Watson

Mardi Gras Combo leading the Parade of Patrons in Costumes

The 2015 Omega Mardi Gras, Alpha Omega Chapter Queen’s Court: Unique Williams, Taylor Evans, 2014 Mardi Gras Queen, Rachael Radley, Tatiana Camphor and Brianna Jones

Cheers...we are here to enjoy the festivities Couples are in the mix

We are ready for the Parade of Patrons in Costumes HBCUs are parading also

Joe Briggs (seated), Sue Briggs, Dorothy Edmonds, Pat House, Oscar Harrison and Queen Carroll; Robert Edmonds (standing), Sara Santiago and Keith Harrison

Bertha Cross, Edgar Brookins and DeGloria Hallman Let the Parade of Patrons begin

Ladies of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority

Photos by Rob Roberts

Right Worshipful Senior Grand Warden, Quincy Gant, The Most Worshipful Grand Master, Norman Campbell and Charles Briggs, Chair, Mardi Gras Committee

The ladies of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority

The Friends of Old Westview Cemetery (FOWC) 501©13, a non-profit organization located in Washington, D.C. held its l3th Annual Holiday Gala fundraiser at the Washington Navy Yard

Catering and Conference Center on Dec. 6, 2014. The fundraiser benefits the restoration of Westview Cemetery in Wadesboro, N.C. The mission of the FOWC, Inc. is to restore this once abandoned cemetery.

Dr. Barbara Jackson (seated), Ethel Lee Walker and Aurelia Martin; Rev. Charles Jackson (standing) and Craig Syphax

Left to right Marcia Arnold, Keith Beatty, Michele Lucas, Jeanette Campbell, Pearline Danner , Rip Preston, Dianne Lowe, Arnita Berry, Johanna Tucker, James Bolden

Flora Marsh, Vannie Kirby, Robert Chichester Sr.

Robert Chichester Jr, William Toler, Mary Flakes Liles, Fathia Thompson Theodore and Johanna Tucker

Robin Queen

Vickie Vaughan; Terri Biddiex; Linda Watson, Faye Bland Back row - Ronald Chase; Tracey Queen; Rose Young, President of F.O.W.C. Jesse and Gwen Porter, Diana and Eugene Parsons

Individuals from North Carolina with loved ones buried in the Old Westview Cemetery in Wadesboro, NC.

Robert Jaeger and Nicole Edwards

James Leak and William Frank Ratliff

F.O.W.C. crew Courtesy Photos

February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015, The Afro-American

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ARTS & CULTURE

Oscar Spotlight Draws Attention to Industry Diversity Issue

By Jake Coyle AP Film Writer It was a year ago that Lupita Nyong’o, shortly before winning the Academy Award for best supporting actress, gave a speech about what she called “dark beauty.”

Nyong’o, who so dazzled Hollywood and the Oscarviewing public through awards season, spoke tenderly of receiving a letter from a girl who had been about to lighten her skin before Nyong’o’s success, she said, “saved me.”

The letter struck Nyong’o because she recognized herself in that girl: “I remember a time when I too felt unbeautiful. I put on the TV and only saw pale skin.”

“And so I hope that my AP Photo presence on your screens and Lupita Nyong’o in the magazines may lead you, young girl, on a similar journey,” concluded Nyong’o, accepting an award at the Black Women in Hollywood luncheon.

The Mexican-born, Kenyan-raised actress was a central part last year to an Academy Awards flush with faces uncommon to the Oscar podium. There was Ellen DeGeneres, a proud lesbian, hosting. There was the first Latino, Alfonso Cuaron, winning best director. There was the Black filmmaker Steve McQueen hopping for joy after his “12 Years a Slave” won best picture.

What a difference a year makes.

This year’s Oscars repeat a stubborn pattern that has plagued the Academy Awards throughout its history: Whenever change seems to come, a frustrating hangover follows. “Every 10 years, we have the same conversation,” Spike Lee, a regular witness to the sporadic progress, has said. A year after Chris Rock hosted the 2005 awards show, which featured nods for Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle, Jamie Foxx and Sophie Okonedo, the ‘06 nominees followed with only Terrence Howard.

Seldom have such fits and starts been starker than this Oscars, coming a year after a richly diverse Oscar crop. In Sunday’s Academy Awards, all 20 acting nominees are white, a result that prompted some to declare that they would boycott this year’s ceremony. The lack of nominations for “Selma” director Ava DuVernay and star David Oyelowo were a particular flashpoint, viewed by many as unjust oversights not only because they merited honoring, but because their absences furthered an ignoble Oscar history.

“I was surprised but then I wasn’t,” said Darnell Hunt, a UCLA professor and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, who co-authored a 2014 diversity report on the film and TV industries. “What we saw in terms of the nominations this year was business as usual. What we got was more or less an accurate reflection of the way the industry is structured and the way the academy is populated.”

An Associated Press survey of the academy’s voting history since the first Academy Awards in 1929 shows gradual progress but not nearly at a rate to match the ever-increasing diversity

of the American public. In those 87 years, nine Black actors have won Oscars, four Latinos and three Asians, a record that doesn’t even speak to other categories like best director, where only one woman (Kathryn Bigelow) has won.

The number of non-Whites to be nominated for best actor or best actress has nearly doubled in just the last two decades, but the 9.4 percent of non-white acting nominees over the academy’s history is about four times less than the percentage of the non-white population.

Not all of this can be laid at the film academy’s feet, but some of it can. The 6,000-plus membership of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences was found to be 94 percent white and 77 percent male in a 2012 Los Angeles Times investigation. Since becoming president of the academy, Cheryl Boone Isaacs has worked to diversify the academy’s ranks, though change comes slowly considering membership is for life.

“In the last two years, we’ve made greater strides than we ever have in the past toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization through admitting new members and more inclusive classes of members,” Isaacs told the AP shortly after nominations were announced.

“And, personally, I would love to see and look forward to see a greater cultural diversity among all our nominees in all of our categories.”

But the academy is a reflection of the film industry; it can only reward the films that get made. What this year’s all-White acting nominees did was lay bare the enormous, hulking iceberg of the movie business’ diversity problems.

The UCLA diversity report released last year after eight years of research put numbers to an often amorphous issue. It was arguably the most comprehensive such study, and it found the underrepresentation of minorities and women throughout film and TV, from board rooms to talent agencies.

“White males have dominated things for so long that it’s been hard to image an alternative that would produce or be open to producing the types of projects that are likely to enlist more people of color or women. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, this vicious cycle that produces the same type of stuff over and over again.,” says Hunt. “It’s hard to blame any single institution. It’s not all the networks. It’s not all the studios. It’s not all the talent agencies. But together, the way they all do business, combines to create this stalemate where we just don’t get past where we are right now.”

What’s particularly galling for many of those working to change Hollywood is that minorities are among its most passionate customers. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, Hispanics made up 25 percent of moviegoers in 2013, considerably more than their 17 percent share of the population.

“They acknowledge the demographic. They understand our participation rate. They continue to market these projects to the community, but never with the community’s identity or building a base of A-lister talent,” says Felix Sanchez, president of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts.

Sanchez has seen “busts of diversity” come and go, like the attention that came and went with Ricky Martin’s 1999 Grammy performance. But even though the film industry sits in a town rich in Hispanics, 150 miles from the Mexico border, Whites are often cast in top Latino roles. Ben Affleck played Tony Mendez in “Argo” and, more recently, the casting of Catherine Zeta-Jones as a Colombian drug dealer drew criticism.

“Who’s in charge of that image making?” says Sanchez. “So much of it is left in the hands of people who don’t have any kind of commitment to authenticity to the community at large.”

Combating such an entrenched, systematic problem isn’t easy; prejudice is nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

“There’s no front door to knock on. There’s nothing but side doors,” says Sanchez. “At some point, either there’s change or there’s a revolt amongst the viewers of simply not participating with entertainment that’s not reflective or inclusive of Latino images in a contemporary way.”

Hunt hopes that by studying diversity objectively, the data will reveal “the bottlenecks” that are stifling advancement. That includes findings that show more diverse projects make more money at the box office and earn better TV ratings. He knows the one thing Hollywood will respond to: the bottom line.

Legendary Jazz Musician Clark Terry Dead at 94 NEW YORK (AP) —Clark Terry, a Grammy Award-winning jazz trumpeter who played in the orchestras of both Count Basie and Duke Ellington and on “The Tonight Show” and collaborated with jazz greats including Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, has died. He was 94.

Terry’s wife announced his death on his website late Saturday night. Gwen Terry’s statement did not provide further details and she did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press.

Born in St. Louis, Terry started playing music as a child. After a stint in the Navy from 1942 to 1945, he worked in a number of bands, joining Count Basie’s orchestra in 1948 and Duke Ellington’s in 1951. In 1960, he joined the house band for “The Tonight Show” and stayed for more than a decade.

Terry was a frequent performer and prolific recording artist with several hundred recordings to his credit over his decades in the music industry. The list of famous names he recorded with also included Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, and Ella Fitzgerald.

Wynton Marsalis, artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the orchestra had recently played a concert for a hospitalized Terry in Arkansas in December. He wrote at the time, Terry “was the first great jazz trumpeter I had ever heard actually playing live. His

Clark Terry spectacular playing made me want to practice (of course) but his warmth and optimism made me to want to be a part of the world of jazz.”

A strong proponent of jazz education,

Terry taught at camps, clinics and festivals, and was an ambassador for the musical form around the world.

In 2010, Terry was the given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

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The Afro-American, February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015

Carmelo Anthony Has Season-Ending Surgery on Knee

SPORTS

By Courtney Jacobs AFRO Staff Writer

New York Knicks all-star Carmelo Anthony has decided to end his season after having surgery on his left knee, according to ESPN. Anthony’s procedure included a left knee patella tendon debridement and repair, which will keep him off the court for four to six months.

“What we’re finding out from the medical is …, it could be four to six months,” Knicks president Phil Jackson. “We can’t put it at a timetable until after the surgery. But that’s what they’re saying. They say it can be anywhere between New York Knicks all-star Carmelo Anthony has decided to four to six months for Carmelo end his season. to be back on the floor.”

This is not the first time Anthony has had trouble with his left knee. In 2011, Anthony had an arthroscopic procedure on his left knee.

Anthony played 30 minutes in the NBA All Star game in New York on Feb. 15, but only finished with 14 points on 6-of-20 shooting.

Anthony currently leads the Knicks in points per game with 24.2 and rebounds per game with 6.6.

The Knicks have the worst record in the NBA at 10-43. The Knicks have not won a game this season without Anthony, who already missed 13 games this season.

Superman’s Kryptonite Recently, I met up with two of my buddies from the old days, and we talked about how we would prowl the neighborhoods of Northwest D.C. Depending on the mood, we were John Wayne and his boys trying to take a hill during World War II, or Robin Hood and his gang about to storm a castle. Our imaginations were our playground, and we worked them overtime.

The topic got around to my recent sharing of some of the adventures of my pop, Sam Lacy, in this space from week to week. We observed that we experienced something similar when we were kids. On Saturdays, after the chores and minihustles we had going, we would gather and head for the movies. The price was 14 cents, and we walked both ways. For a quarter we could get entry to the movie and buy a bag of popcorn.

We would stay in that movie theater until dark.

We saw two chapters in which the hero took us on a new adventure from week to week. Throw in a couple of cartoons and a double feature and we had

entertainment that would cost about 15 bucks today.

Sam’s story comes in chapters, and my buddies look forward to the next installment from week to week. After all, they have a personal stake in his life story. He was one of the parents, and like the rest of the dads, he was viewed as Superman.

My grandparents lived in a three-story house, and this was the castle of my youth.

While my parents were at work, I spent the day with my grandparents and my great aunt. I never grew tired of roaming from floor to floor and an occasional trip to the basement. There was a giant oil burning furnace in a dark corner and, depending on the temperature, there were strange noises coming from that corner. My bravery was tested and the furnace won.

Most of the time my pop would pick me up.

From time to time my grandmother would drop a chore on him, which he accomplished gladly. Things got a little dicey when he was asked to restring some venetian blinds. I guess Sam

thought this was a simple chore. He spread the blinds out on the floor and went to work. My pop was not a cussing man, but I detected some blue language mixed up in his utterings. Finally, a trip to the local hardware store solved the problem.

One day, Sam was asked to hang a mirror over the credenza in the dining room. A hammer, nail and a picture hook were the tools needed for this chore. Sam rolled up his sleeves and went to work. After all, how hard could it be to hang a mirror? But considering that the mirror weighed almost as much as I did, we had a recipe for disaster. The deed was accomplished—and just as we gathered around to witness his work, the mirror came crashing down.

I have to chuckle when I think of this, because home improvement turned out to be Superman’s Kryptonite.

However, I can’t laugh too hard, because my wife had me restring the drawstring on the drapes over our patio window. I may have used some of the same words Sam used, and they didn’t help. Déjà vu.

Bowie State University Basketball—Men

Bowie State Enters CIAA Tournament with Best Record in Conference

By Perry Green AFRO Sports Editor Senior guard Cam Knox scored a team-high 17 points

to lead the Bowie State Bulldogs to a 89-77 win over the Elizabeth City State University Vikings in the regular season finale for both teams on Feb. 21 in Elizabeth City, N.C. The win marked the third straight for Bowie State, which ended its regular season with a 21-7 overall record, and 13-3 against the Central Interscholastic Athletic Association (CIAA). Bowie State claimed the top seed in the CIAA Tournament,

scheduled to start Feb. 26 in Charlotte, N.C. Bowie State used a balanced scoring attack to dispatch Elizabeth City State. Seven different players scored at least six points in

the first half for the Bulldogs, leading them to a 47-37 lead by halftime. Bowie State maintained that lead over Elizabeth City State in the second half to seal the victory.

Five players scored double digits in points for the Bulldogs, including freshman guard Dayshawn Wells with 14 points. Senior

guard Brachon Griffin scored a game-high 23 points for Elizabeth City.

Next: Bowie State will face the winner of the CIAA Tournament’s first round matchup between Elizabeth City State and Chowan.

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The Afro-American, February 14, 2015 - February 14, 2015

February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015, The Afro-American

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Woodson’s Dream Continued from B1

“We have been the nexus between the community and the academy,” Scott said.

“ASALH is not and has never been an association of PhD’s,” he added. “The Association is at bottom an association that belongs to the community and the community is at the foundation of what we do. From 1915 to 1968, for the first 53 years of our existence, there was no such thing as Black Studies; it was the Black community studying itself.”

Pinderhughes, the Notre Dame professor, said ASALH’s egalitarian membership has given it an advantage.

“It is an organization with broader impact compared to some of the traditional academic organizations,” she said.

The initiation of Negro History Week in 1926 considerably advanced the cause of making the Black experience accessible and acceptable to the general public. As did the launch in 1937 of the Negro History Bulletin, a magazine aimed at putting Black history into the hands of primary and secondary school teachers, students and the general Black

reading public, according to Organizing Black America.

Sixty-five years after Woodson’s death, ASALH’s mission has not changed and Woodson’s vision continues to be realized, Scott said.

“Woodson’s vision was very clear and straightforward, consequently, we’ve not had to change much in 100 years,” the ASALH president said.

In 1976, the efforts of ASALH and others bore fruit when the celebration of Negro History Week was expanded to Black History Month. Each year, the organization provides the theme for the month’s observations. This year—appropriately—the theme arose out of ASALH’s centennial anniversary.

“We’ve been in a season of a lot of 50year, 100-year and 150-year anniversaries for a while so they have pretty much determined the themes,” Scott said.

But mostly, particularly with topical themes, the Association tries to use history to illuminate matters facing the modern-day

AFRO Archives

John Lewis addressing the crowd at the 1963 March on Washington.

Black community.

“History has a responsibility,” Scott said.

“We’re not antiquarians; we don’t study the past just for the sake of the past; we study the past for the sake of the living.”

ASALH continues to face challenges as it seeks to fulfill its mission—as with many other organizations, garnering funds has been a challenge as has been the obstacles inherent with trying to adapt to a digital age. In fact, the Internet has reinforced the importance of ASALH’s work as being a source of reliable information.

“What is apparent to me is that the Internet

has made it necessary to the Association to take more seriously its original approach [to disseminating Black history] because the Web is awash in bad information,” Scott said.

Pinderhughes said that’s one of many reasons ASALH will continue to be an integral and necessary organization or the Black community and broader American public.

“It has been a consistent source of information about Black history and its importance in U.S. everyday life,” she said.

“I think it is an organization that’s going to be around for a long time.”

The

dream

is real.

Thanks to the AFRO American for more than 120 years of inspired reporting and for showing all of us the power and the promise of equality.

The Journal of African American History previously the Journal of Negro History, is one of the most enduring aspects of Carter G. Woodson’s legacy.

In recognition of Black History Month, Baltimore invites visitors to discover the city’s deep-rooted African-American story on the Legends & Legacies Heritage Bus Tour. Visit the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, the National Great Blacks In Wax Museum, and the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Museum. Enjoy a personal tour guide, appearances by period actors, a special “shoe box lunch,” giveaways and more.

To reserve your space on Baltimore’s Legends & Legacies Heritage Bus Tour call 410-244-8861 or visit baltimore.org.

BGE.COM FEBRUARY 21 & 28, 2015 | Tickets: $25/per person Reserve your space today, call 410-244-8861 or visit baltimore.org.

B6

The Afro-American, February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015

BUSINESS Anti-Ratchet Superhero Saves D.C. Nightlife

By Christina Sturdivant Special to the AFRO With as much history, art and culture as D.C. holds, it can still be hard to find a quality nightlife scene – one where bottles aren’t being popped pretentiously, women aren’t dressed to the nines – only to stand in the corner – and fights do not break out between business professionals looking to be reality TV stars.

(Photo via www.about.me/risikatokedeyi) Risikat Okedeyi, owner of Risikat Okedeyi, owner of Lil Soso Productions.

Lil SoSo Productions, is on a constant mission to bring quality nightlife to D.C. with her self-labeled “anti-ratchet superhero” powers. What is ratchet?

It is behavior that is not synonymous with Blackness like so many believe. Rather, it is defined as being disposable, Okedeyi told the AFRO, Feb 5.

“It offers very little and it’s entertainment for the sake of entertainment. There’s really nothing to be learned and there’s always been this element of spectacle that doesn’t really serve a long term purpose,” she said.

Okedeyi was born in the District and lived in Prince George’s County until she was sixyears-old. Years later, she returned to the D.C. metro area and earned a degree in African American studies from the University of Maryland, College Park. She then went on to receive a master’s degree in African literature and history from The Ohio State University.

Through Lil Soso Productions, which was officially incorporated in 2011, Okedeyi brings a different perspective to nightlife culture – one that is transformational and of substance, but still has a party atmosphere. “I like the idea of going out and actually being empowered or released and feeling better after the night is done,” she said. “When I think of what I do, I feel like I am taking different aspects of music, literature, historical photography, video and fashion aesthetics, and constructing and building something.”

Every other month at Red Rocks in the H Street Corridor, socially conscious partygoers can have a good time at Axel F, an event celebrating “the best in jheri curl funk, champagne soul, and lazer boogie.”

Tossing aside modern-day top 40 hits, the DJ spins classics from the ‘70s and ‘80s, even outside of the expected rounds of Michael Jackson and Prince. “The DJ is weaving a narrative

(Photo via www.axelfparty.com)

Partygoers at Lil Soso Productions bi-monthy Alex F Party. and reminding everyone in the room of the rich musical history that we possess and that’s not happening on a regular basis,” said Okedeyi. “I think D.C. is in sore need of it because a lot of the indigenous music forms [and venues] are being pushed out to make way for coffee shops and tanning beds. So the more that we can do to sustain a rich cultural depth in terms of what we’re presenting, the better for everyone.”

This fall, Okedeyi hopes to release her next big project – one that will reimagine Black progressive thought in literature, music, art and culture. In the meantime, she will continue to lend her skillset as a producer, director, and planner to consult with local creatives and build lasting content through multiple channels.

“All I’m attempting to do is shine a light on the bit that I know and try to learn some stuff in the process,” she said.

To get more information on upcoming events and services by Lil Soso Productions, visit www.lilsoso.com.

February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015, The Afro-American

B7

EDUCATION Blacks Underrepresented in STEM Classes

By Freddie Allen NNPA Senior Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Many young African Americans will be shut out of the high paying jobs of the future, if they don’t earn a degree in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), according to a new report.

The new report by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 advocacy and outreach groups, said that less than 3 percent of Blacks have earned a degree in the natural sciences or engineering fields by the age of 24 and that the STEM labor force is projected to grow by 2.6 million jobs over the next five years. Researchers said that more than half of those jobs will go to people with bachelor’s or master’s degrees.

In a press release about the report Wade Henderson, president and CEO of both the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the Leadership Conference Education Fund, said that equal access to a STEM education is crucial to the future of our country and economy, and to the lives of millions of minority and women students.

“We must – all of us – examine what systemic changes are necessary to ensuring that STEM learning is inclusive, engaging, and equally accessible, so that all of our children have the same opportunities to adequately prepare for college and for careers that will allow them to support themselves and their families,” said Henderson.

According the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, STEM workers, specifically in computer and math careers, make more than $80,000 per year. Even workers that graduate with associate’s degrees earn about 10 percent more than those working in non-STEM jobs.

“Yet, right now, all across America, there are nearly 40 million adults – disproportionately people of color and those who grew up in poverty – who do not have a high school diploma or its equivalent,” stated the report. “And they are effectively locked into the lowest rungs of the occupational ladder.”

The majority of poor children don’t know enough words or have enough math skills when they start kindergarten and confronted with less experienced teachers and limited

resources are ill-equipped for Algebra, a prerequisite for higher-level math courses, by the time they reach the 8th grade.

Some states failed to provide minority students access to those high-level math and English courses altogether.

“In 2013, there were 11 states where not one Black student took the Advanced Placement (AP) computer science exam, which allows high school students to earn college credit: Alaska, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming,” stated the report. “Nearly 20 percent (Freddie Allen/NNPA/FILE PHOTO) of African-American high Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human school students attend a high Rights. school that does not offer any The Department of Education launched The Equity and AP courses.”

Excellence Commission, in an effort to eliminate the racial The report included a number of policy proposals and and socioeconomic disparities in education. That group necessary actions for federal, state, and local lawmakers as recommended ensuring high-quality early learning programs well the private sector and philanthropic groups designed for low-income students, distributing highly effective teachers to encourage diversity in STEM careers and to raise the equitably, incentivizing the development of racially and awareness of opportunities in STEM in the Black community. socioeconomically diverse schools, and strengthening parent Those proposals included provided access to STEM courses engagement programs. as early as elementary school, investing more resources into The Leadership Conference report said that it’s time training teachers, developing technical job programs for an for the United States to the examine the pressures that evolving workforce, and asking business and industry leaders squeeze minority children out of the STEM pipeline and to to collaborate with colleges to make sure that students are accelerate the reforms that work to close the opportunity and gaining skills to fill vacant STEM jobs.

The report noted that, “The President’s Council of Advisors achievement gaps.

“STEM education isn’t merely a new feel-good fad,” stated on Science and Technology (PCAST) warned that 300,000 or the report. “It is now – and will continue to be – the backbone so college students graduating each year with bachelor’s and of our dynamic and constantly changing world. And it’s critical associate’s degrees in STEM fields is one million off the mark that we make sure that it’s equally available to every child.”

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Superior Court of the District of District of Columbia PROBATE DIVISION Washington, D.C. 20001-2131 Administration No. 2014ADM625 Grant B. Easterling Decedent Joseph L. Gibson, Jr Antoine Jones Suite 381 Largo, Maryland 20774 Attorney NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS Alyce J Easterling, whose address is 414 Rittenhouse Street, NW, Washington, DC 20011 was appointed personal representative of the estate of Grant B Easterling , who died on January 24, 2014 without a will, and will serve without Court supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment (or to the probate of decedent´s will) shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W., 3rd Floor Wa s h i n g t o n , D . C .

20001, on or before August 13, 2015. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or filed with the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before August 13, 2015, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of Publication: February 13, 2015 Name of newspaper: Afro-American Washington TRUE TEST COPY Law Reporter REGISTER OF WILLS Alyce J. Easterling TYPESET: Feb 10 15:06:56 EST 2015 Personal 02/13, 02/20,Tue 02/27/15 Representative Superior Court of the District of District of Columbia PROBATE DIVISION Washington, D.C. 20001-2131 Administration No. 2014ADM1164 Thorald A. Johns, Sr. Decedent NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS Lydia W. Johns, whose address is 2416 17th Place, SE, Washington, DC 20020 was appointed personal representative of the estate of Thorald A. Johns, Sr, who died on August 5, 2014 with, a will and will serve without Court supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment (or to the probate of decedent´s will) shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W., 3rd Floor Wa s h i n g t o n , D . C .

20001, on or before August 13, 2015. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or filed with the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before August 13, 2015 or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of Publication: February 13, 2015 Name of newspaper: Afro-American Washington Law Reporter Lydia W. Johns Personal Representative

Superior Court of the District of District of Columbia PROBATE DIVISION Washington, D.C. 20001-2131 Administration No. 2015ADM77 Kenneth Jerome Somerville Decedent NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS Kenneth Jerome Somerville and Kennia Jermayne Somerville, whose addresses are 6712 Homestake Dr. Bowie MD, 20720 & 307A Delancey St. Philadelphia, PA 19106 were appointed personal representative of the estate of Kenneth Jerome Somerville Sr., who died on November 11, 2014 without a will, and will serve without Court supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W., 3rd Floor Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before August 13, 2015. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or filed with the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before August 13, 2015, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of Publication: February 13, 2015 Name of newspaper: Afro-American Washington Law Reporter Kenneth J Somerville Kennia J Somerville Personal Representative TRUE TEST COPY REGISTER OF WILLS 02/13, 02/20, 02/27/15

TRUE TEST COPY REGISTER OF WILLS 02/13, 02/20,Tue 02/27/15 TYPESET: Feb 24 Superior Court of the District of District of Columbia PROBATE DIVISION Washington, D.C. 20001-2131 Administration No. 2014ADM1123 Adrienne Anita Sedgewick Decedent NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS Michelle L. Sedgewick, whose address is 3815 24th Street,NE., Washington, DC 20018 was appointed personal representative of the estate of Adrienne Anita Sedgewick, who died on June 6, 2014 without a will, and will serve without Court supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose where-abouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W., 3rd Floor Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before July 23, 2015. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or filed with the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before July 23, 2015, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of Publication: January 23, 2015 Name of newspaper: Afro-American Washington Law Reporter Michelle L. Sedgewick Personal Representative TRUE TEST COPY REGISTER OF WILLS 01/23, 01/30, 02/06/15

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TYPESET: Tue Feb 10 15:07:16 ESTTue 2015 TYPESET: Tue Feb 10 15:07:58 2015 TYPESET: Feb 24 15:53:19 EST 2015 LEGALEST NOTICES LEGAL NOTICES LEGAL NOTICES

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B8 The Afro-American, February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015

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Mail in your ad on form below along with CHECK or MONEY ORDER to: WASHINGTON AFRO-AMERICAN CO. 1917 Benning Road, N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002-4723 Attn: Clsf. Adv. Dept.

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PROBATE DIVISION Washington, D.C. 20001-2131 Foreign No. 2015FEP11 Date of Death October 19, 2014 Braxton N Young Sr. Decedent NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT OF FOREIGN PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE AND NOTICE TO CREDITORS Mary L Young whose address is 530 Hart Road Franklintown NC 27525 was appointed personal representative of the estate of Braxton N Yo u n g S r . , b y t h e Franklin County Clerk of Court for Franklin County, State of North Carolina deceased, on November 3, 2014, Service of process may be made upon Glenmont Corp c/o Braxton Young Jr. 3030 30th Street SE #112 Washington DC 20020 whose designation as District of Columbia agent has been filed with the Register of Wills, D.C. Claims against the deTYPESET: Tue Feb 24 15:52:38 EST 2015 cedent may be presented to the undersigned and filed with the Superior Court of Register of Wills for the the District of District of Columbia, District of Columbia Building A, 515 5th Legal Advertising Rates PROBATE DIVISION Street, NW 3rd Floor, Washington, D.C.October 1, 2008 Effective Washington, DC 20001 20001-2131 within 6 months from the Administration No. date of first publication of 2014ADM1384 this notice.

PROBATE DIVISION Nathaniel Wright Jr. Mary L Young Decedent (Estates) Personal TYPESET: Tue Feb 24 15:52:20 EST 2015 NOTICE OF Representative(s) 202-332-0080 APPOINTMENT, TRUE TEST COPY NOTICE TO REGISTER OF WILLS PROBATE NOTICES Superior Court of CREDITORS Date of first publication: the District of AND NOTICE TO February 27, 2015 District of Columbia UNKNOWN HEIRS Name of newspapers a. Order Nisi $ 60 per insertion $180.00 per 3 weeks PROBATE DIVISION Mildred Rogers-Wright, and/or periodical: b. Small Estates (singlewhose publication 60 per insertion Washington, D.C. The Daily Washington address is $4029 20001-2131 Law Reporter c. Notice to Creditors M e a d e S t r e e t , N E , Administration No. The Afro-American Washington, DC 20019 TYPESET: Tue Feb 24 15:52:54 EST 2015 1. Domestic $ 60 per insertion $180.00 per 3 weeks 2015ADM136 2/27, 3/06, 3/13/2015 was appointed personal Maurice Slye Sr. $180.00 per 3 weeks 2. Foreign insertion representative of$ 60 theperJames Decedent TYPESET: Feb 24 15:52:02 estate of Nathaniel d. Escheated Estates $ 60 per insertion $360.00 per 6Tue weeks Superior Court of NOTICE OF Wright, Jr., who died on the District of APPOINTMENT, e. Standard Probates $125.00 November 30, 2014 withDistrict of Columbia NOTICE TO out a will, and will serve SUPERIOR COURT OF PROBATE DIVISION CREDITORS without Court superviTHE DISTRICT OF Washington, D.C. AND NOTICE TO CIVIL NOTICES COLUMBIA sion. All unknown heirs 20001-2131 UNKNOWN HEIRS PROBATE DIVISION a n d h e i r s w h o s e Persharwner Slye- $ 80.00 Administration No. a. Name Changes 202-879-1133 Washington, D.C. whereabouts are un- Chappell, whose ad2015ADM158 20001-2131 known shall enter their dress is 1452 Howard$ 200.00 b. Real Property Martha C. Freeman Foreign No. appearance in this DecedentEST 2015 Road SE, Washington, 16:51:04 2015FEP17 proceeding. Objections DC 20020, was apNOTICE OF Date of Death to such appointment APPOINTMENT, pointed personal repreFAMILY COURT April 12, 2007 shall be filed with the sentative of the estate of NOTICE TO 202-879-1212 CREDITORS Register of Wills, D.C., James Maurice Slye Sr., Gordon Watt Jennings Decedent AND NOTICE TO 515 5thDOMESTIC Street, N.W., 3rd RELATIONS who died on November NOTICE OF UNKNOWN HEIRS Floor Washington, D.C. 18, 2014 without a will, APPOINTMENT D e n i s e F. H a w k i n s , 202-879-0157 20001, on or before Au- and will serve without OF FOREIGN whose address is 6615 gust 27, 2015. Claims Court supervision. All unPERSONAL Wilson Lane , was apagainst the decedent known heirs and heirs REPRESENTATIVE pointed personal represhall be presented to the whose whereabouts are$ 150.00 AND a.

Absent Defendant sentative of the estate of undersigned with a copy unknown shall enter their NOTICE TO Martha C. Freeman, who b. Absolute Divorce to the Register of Wills or a p p e a r a n c e i n t h i s $ 150.00 CREDITORS died on January 16, 2015 filed with the Register of proceeding. Objections$150.00 c.

Custody Divorce Mary E Jennings whose without a will, and will Wills with a copy to the to such appointment address is 1300 Nalley serve without Court suundersigned, on or be- shall be filed with the Terrace, Hyattsville, pervision. All unknown Register of Wills, D.C., fore August 27, 2015, or ext.

Maryland 20785 was apTo place your ad, call 1-800-237-6892, 262, Public Notices $50.00 & up heirs and heirs whose be forever barred. Per- 515 5th Street, N.W., 3rd pointed personal reprewhereabouts are unFloor Washington, D.C. sons believed to be heirs depending on size, Baltimore Legal Notices are $24.84 per inch. sentative of the estate of known shall enter their or legatees of the de- 20001, on or before Au- Gordon Watt Jennings , appearance in this gust 892 27, 2015. Claims 1-800 (AFRO) cedent who do not reproceeding. Objections against the decedent deceased by the Circuit ceive a copy of this notice Court244 for Halifax County, For Proof of Publication, please shall call be 1-800-237-6892, to such appointment presented to the ext. by mail within 25 days of undersigned with a copy State of Common Wealth shall be filed with the its first publication shall to the Register of Wills or of Virginia on January 10, Register of Wills, D.C., so inform the Register of filed with the Register of 2014, 515 5th Street, N.W., 3rd Wills, including name, Wills with a copy to the Service of process may Floor Washington, D.C. address and relation- undersigned, on or be- be made upon Manuel 20001, on or before Auship. gust 27, 2015. Claims fore August 27, 2015, or Geraldo , Esquire, 1316 Date of Publication: against the decedent be forever barred. Per- Pennsylvania Avenue, FebruaryEST 27, 2015 shall be presented to the TYPESET: Tue Feb 24 15:52:38 sons believed to be heirs S E , C a p i t o l H i l l , 2015 LEGAL NOTICES Name of newspaper: undersigned with a copy or legatees of the de- Washington, DC 20003 Afro-American to the Register of Wills or cedent who do not re- whose designation as filed with the Register of Washington ceive a copy of this notice District of Columbia Superior Court of Wills with a copy to the Law Reporter by mail within 25 days of agent has been filed with the District of undersigned, on or beMildred Rogers-Wright its first publication shall the Register of Wills, District of Columbia fore August 27, 2015, or Personal so inform the Register of D.C. PROBATE DIVISION be forever barred. PerRepresentative Wills, including name, The decedent owned the Washington, D.C. sons believed to be heirs address and relation- f o l l o w i n g D i s t r i c t o f 20001-2131 Colombia real property: or legatees of the deship.

TRUE TEST COPY Administration No. an undivided two-thirds cedent who do not reDate of Publication: REGISTER OF WILLS 2014ADM1384 interest in 715 Longceive a copy of this notice FebruaryEST 27, 2015 TYPESET: Tue Feb 24 15:52:20 2015 Nathaniel Wright Jr. f e l l o w S t r e e t , N W, by mail within 25 days of Name of newspaper: 02/27, 03/06, 03/13/15 Decedent Washington, DC 20011 its first publication shall Afro-American NOTICE OF Claims against the deso inform the Register of Washington Superior Court of APPOINTMENT, cedent may be preWills, including name, Law Reporter the District of NOTICE TO address and relationPersharwner sented to the underDistrict of Columbia CREDITORS ship.

Slye-Chappel signed and filed with the PROBATE DIVISION AND NOTICE TO Date of Publication: Personal Register of Wills for the Washington, D.C. UNKNOWN HEIRS February 27, 2015 Representative District of Columbia, 20001-2131 Mildred Rogers-Wright, Building A, 515 5th Name of newspaper: Administration No. whose address is 4029 Street, NW, 3rd Floor, Afro-American TRUE TEST COPY 2015ADM136 Meade Street, NE, Washington, DC, 20011 Washington REGISTER OF WILLS Washington, DC 20019 James Maurice Slye Sr. within 6 months from the Law Reporter was appointed personal Decedent date of first publication TYPESET: Feb 24 15:52:02 EST 2015 of Denise F. Hawkins 02/27, 03/06,Tue 03/13/15 NOTICE OF representative of the this notice. (Strike Personal APPOINTMENT, estate of Nathaniel preceding sentence if no Representative NOTICE TO Wright, Jr., who died on real estate.)

SUPERIOR COURT OF CREDITORS November 30, 2014 withTHE DISTRICT OF TRUE TEST COPY AND NOTICE TO out a will, and will serve Mary E Jennings COLUMBIA REGISTER OF WILLS UNKNOWN HEIRS without Court superviPersonal PROBATE DIVISION sion. All unknown heirs Persharwner SlyeRepresentative(s) Washington, D.C. 02/27, 03/06, 03/13/15 a n d h e i r s w h o s e Chappell, whose adTRUE TEST COPY 20001-2131 whereabouts are un- dress is 1452 Howard REGISTER OF WILLS Foreign No. known shall enter their Road SE, Washington, Date of first publication: 2015FEP17 DC 20020, was apappearance in this February 27, 2015 Date of Death proceeding. Objections pointed personal repreName of newspapers April 12, 2007 to such appointment sentative of the estate of and/or periodical: Gordon Watt Jennings shall be filed with the James Maurice Slye Sr., The Daily Washington Decedent Register of Wills, D.C., who died on November Law Reporter NOTICE OF 515 5th Street, N.W., 3rd 18, 2014 without a will, The Afro-American APPOINTMENT Floor Washington, D.C. and will serve without OF FOREIGN 20001, on or before Au- Court supervision. All un02/27, 03/06, 03/13/15 PERSONAL gust 27, 2015. Claims known heirs and heirs REPRESENTATIVE against the decedent whose whereabouts are AND shall be presented to the unknown shall enter their NOTICE TO undersigned with a copy a p p e a r a n c e i n t h i s CREDITORS to the Register of Wills or proceeding. Objections Mary E Jennings whose filed with the Register of to such appointment address is 1300 Nalley Wills with a copy to the shall be filed with the Terrace, Hyattsville, undersigned, on or be- Register of Wills, D.C., Maryland 20785 was apfore August 27, 2015, or 515 5th Street, N.W., 3rd pointed personal reprebe forever barred. Per- Floor Washington, D.C. sentative of the estate of sons believed to be heirs 20001, on or before AuGordon Watt Jennings , or legatees of the de- gust 27, 2015. Claims deceased by the Circuit cedent who do not re- against the decedent Court for Halifax County, ceive a copy of this notice shall be presented to the State of Common Wealth by mail within 25 days of undersigned with a copy of Virginia on January 10, its first publication shall to the Register of Wills or 2014, so inform the Register of filed with the Register of Service of process may Wills, including name, Wills with a copy to the be made upon Manuel address and relation- undersigned, on or beGeraldo , Esquire, 1316 fore August 27, 2015, or ship.

Pennsylvania Avenue, be forever barred. PerDate of Publication: SE, Capitol Hill, sons believed to be heirs February 27, 2015 Washington, DC 20003 or legatees of the deName of newspaper: whose designation as cedent who do not reAfro-American District of Columbia ceive a copy of this notice Washington agent has been filed with by mail within 25 days of Law Reporter the Register of Wills, Mildred Rogers-Wright its first publication shall D.C. Personal so inform the Register of The decedent owned the Representative Wills, including name, following District of

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TYPESET: Tue Feb 10 LEGAL NOTICES

APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS Rebat Halder, whose address is 2101 11th Street NW PH#1, Washington, DC 20001, was ap15:07:35 EST 2015reprepointed personal LEGAL NOTICES sentative of the estate of Frederick Jack, who died on August 4, 2014 with a will, and will serve without Court supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment (or to the probate of decedent´s will) shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W., 3rd Floor Wa s h i n g t o n , D . C .

20001, on or before August 20, 2015. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or filed with the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before August 20, 2015, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of Publication: February 20, 2015 Name of newspaper: Afro-American Washington Law Reporter Rebat Halder Personal Representative

undersigned, on or before August 20, 2015, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of LEGAL NOTICES Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of Publication: February 20, 2015 Name of newspaper: Afro-American Washington Law Reporter Valorie Zanders Personal Representative

February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015, The Afro-American TYPESET: Tue Feb 24 15:51:09 EST 2015

LEGAL NOTICES

Walk, Run to Help Homeless Children

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Superior Court of the District of District of Columbia PROBATE DIVISION Washington, D.C. 20001-2131 Administration No.

By Francisca Fournillier 2015ADM157 P Film Writer Henrietta V. Parker AKA Henrietta Vivian Parker Mariah Paul still remembers how her four-year-old son, Willy struggled with his speech.

221 Missouri Ave. NW TRUE TEST COPY Washington, DC 20011 REGISTER OF WILLS That was before he enrolled in Bright Beginnings.

Decedent “Before he came here, his speech was really messed up,” Paul said. “But they did the proper proceNOTICE TYPESET: Feb 16 17:21:44 EST OF 2015 02/20, 02/27,Mon 03/06/15 APPOINTMENT, dures to give him speech therapy and anything else that he needed.”

NOTICE TO CREDITORS Bright Beginnings, which provides quality childcare for the homeless families in Washington, has been SUPERIOR COURT OF AND NOTICE TO THE DISTRICT OF helping children like Willy for more than 20 years, and it said it wants to continue to do so.

UNKNOWN HEIRS COLUMBIA Henry E. Parker Jr. , But this weekend, it needs your help. This is the weekend it hosts its annual five kilometer walk/run at 8 PROBATE DIVISION whose address is 221 Washington, D.C. a.m. in West Potomac Park.

M i s s o u r i Av e , N W, 20001-2131 Washington, DC 20011 The event helps the organization raise money to continue to serve scores of homeless infants, toddlers Foreign No. was appointed personal 2015FEP8 and pre-schoolers and their families, free-of-charge. Services include education, therapy and health care representative of the Date of Death estate of Henrietta V. for families living in crisis shelters or in transitional housing complexes.

March 18, 2014 Parker aka Henrietta VivBernard A LeBeau Whitney Faison, a volunteer and communication specialist at Bright Beginnings, said the goal for this ian Parker, who died on Decedent December 30, 2014 with year is $75,000, and the money this year will allow the organization to expand its efforts. “We’re buildNOTICE OF a will, and will serve withAPPOINTMENT ing a second center in hopefully this June,” Faison said. “We’ll break ground on that, and that will help out Court supervision. All OF FOREIGN unknown heirs and heirs PERSONAL whose whereabouts are REPRESENTATIVE unknown shall enter their AND appearance in this NOTICE TO proceeding. Objections CREDITORS to such appointment (or Jennifer M LeBeau to the probate of dewhose address is 264 cedent´s will) shall be Amherst Road, Pelham, filed with the Register of MA 01002-9714 was apWills, D.C., 515 5th pointed personal repreStreet, N.W., 3rd Floor sentative of the estate of Wa s h i n g t o n , D . C .

Bernard A LeBeau , de20001, on or before Auceased by the Probate gust 27, 2015. Claims and Family Court for against the decedent TRUE TEST COPY Hampshire County, State shall be presented to the REGISTER OF WILLS of Massachusetts, on undersigned with a copy April 3, 2014.

TYPESET: Mon Feb 16 17:20:37 EST 2015 to the Register of Wills or 2/20, 2/27, 03/06/2015 Service of process may filed with the Register of be made upon David Wills with a copy to the Booths Beers, Goodwin Superior Court of undersigned, on or beProcter LLP , 901 NY the District of fore August 27, 2015, or Avenue NW, Ste 9E, District of Columbia be forever barred. PerWashington, DC 20001 PROBATE DIVISION sons believed to be heirs whose designation as Washington, D.C. or legatees of the deDistrict of Columbia 20001-2131 cedent who do not reagent has been filed with Administration No. ceive a copy of this notice the Register of Wills, 2015ADM131 by mail within 25 days of D.C. Sheba B. Smith its first publication shall Claims against the deAKA so inform the Register of cedent may be preSheba Beatrice Smith Wills, including name, sented to the underDecedent address and relationsigned and filed with the NOTICE OF ship.

Register of Wills for the APPOINTMENT, Date of Publication: District of Columbia, NOTICE TO February 27, 2015 Building A, 515 5th CREDITORS Name of newspaper: Street, NW, 3rd Floor, AND NOTICE TO Afro-American Washington, DC 20001 UNKNOWN HEIRS Washington Children in high spirts at Bright Beginnings Calvin T. Norman, whose within 6 months from the Law Reporter date of first publication of address is 12405 Henry E. Parker Jr this notice.

Lampton Lane, Fort Personal Washington, MD 20744 Representative Jennifer M LeBeau was appointed personal Personal representative of the TRUE TEST COPY Representative(s) estate of Sheba B. Smith REGISTER OF WILLS TRUE TEST COPY TRUE TEST COPY AKA Sheba Beatrice REGISTER OF WILLS REGISTER OF WILLS TYPESET: Wed Feb 25 09:53:30 EST 2015 Smith, who died on Au02/27, 03/6, 03/13/15 gust 9, 2014 a will, Date of first publication: TYPESET: Mon Feb 16 17:19:41 ESTwith 2015 02/13, 02/20, 02/27/15 February 20, 2015 and will serve without Superior Court of Court supervision. All un- Name of newspapers the District of known heirs and heirs and/or periodical: Superior Court of District of Columbia whose where-abouts are The Daily Washington the District of PROBATE DIVISION Law Reporter unknown shall enter their District of Columbia Washington, D.C. The Afro-American appearance in this PROBATE DIVISION Feb 24 15:51:4020001-2131 EST 2015 02/20, 02/27,Tue 3/6/15 proceeding. Objections TYPESET: Washington, D.C. Administration No. to such appointment (or 20001-2131 2014ADM859 to the probate of deAdministration No. Geraldine Y. Griffith Superior Court of cedent´s will) shall be 2015ADM122 Decedent the District of filed with the Register of Rudolph A. Taylor Bernice A. Harleston, District of Columbia Wills, D.C., 515 5th Decedent Esq PROBATE DIVISION Street, N.W., 3rd Floor Wesley L. Clarke 1003 K Street, NW 3rd Washington, D.C. 1629 K Street NW Ste W a s h i n g t o n , D . C .

Floor 20001-2131 20001, on or before Au300 Washington, DC 20001 Administration No. gust 20,2015. Claims Washington, DC 20006 Attorney 2015ADM85 against the decedent Attorney NOTICE OF shall be presented to the L a S h a w n T e r e s e NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT, undersigned with a copy Childs APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO to the Register of Wills or 5401 Hunt Pl NE NOTICE TO CREDITORS filed with the Register of Washington, DC 20019 CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO Wills with a copy to the Decedent AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS NOTICE OF undersigned, on or beUNKNOWN HEIRS Keith G. Tolar, whose adAPPOINTMENT, Damian Taylor , whose fore August 20, 2015, or dress is 2152 S Howard NOTICE TO address is 1207 Fair- be forever barred. PerSt., St. Paul, MN 55119, CREDITORS m o n t S t r e e t , N W , sons believed to be heirs was appointed personal AND NOTICE TO Washington, DC 20009, or legatees of the derepresentative of the UNKNOWN HEIRS was appointed personal cedent who do not reestate of Geraldine Y. representative of the ceive a copy of this notice M a u r i c e E . C h i l d s , Griffith, who died on May estate of Rudolph A. by mail within 25 days of whose address is 4317 4, 2014 with a will, and Taylor, who died on its first publication shall 57th Avenue, Bladenswill serve without Court December 16, 2014 with- so inform the Register of burg, MD 20710, was apsupervision. All unknown out a will, and will serve Wills, including name, pointed personal repreheirs and heirs whose without Court supervi- address and relation- sentative of the estate of whereabouts are unLaShawn Terese Childs, sion. All unknown heirs ship. known shall enter their who died on December a n d h e i r s w h o s e Date of Publication: appearance in this 19, 2014 without a will, whereabouts are un- February 20, 2015 proceeding. Objections and will serve without known shall enter their Name of newspaper: to such appointment (or Court supervision. All unAfro-American appearance in this to the probate of deknown heirs and heirs proceeding. Objections Washington cedent´s will) shall be whose whereabouts are to such appointment Law Reporter filed with the Register of February 20, 2015 unknown shall enter their shall be filed with the Wills, D.C., 515 5th Personal a p p e a r a n c e i n t h i s Register of Wills, D.C., Street, N.W., 3rd Floor Representative proceeding. Objections 515 5th Street, N.W., 3rd Wa s h i n g t o n , D . C . to such appointment (or Floor Washington, D.C. 20001, on or before July to the probate of de20001, on or before Au- TRUE TEST COPY 9, 2015. Claims against cedent´s will) shall be gust 20, 2015. Claims REGISTER OF WILLS the decedent shall be filed with the Register of against the decedent presented to the underWills, D.C., 02/20, 02/27,Mon 03/06/15 Feb 16 17:21:01 EST 515 20155th shall be presented to the TYPESET: signed with a copy to the Street, N.W., 3rd Floor undersigned with a copy Register of Wills or filed Wa s h i n g t o n , D . C . to the Register of Wills or with the Register of Wills 20001, on or before Aufiled with the Register of Superior Court of with a copy to the undergust 27, 2015. Claims Wills with a copy to the the District of signed, on or before July against the decedent undersigned, on or beDistrict of Columbia 9,2015, or be forever shall be presented to the fore August 20, 2015, or PROBATE DIVISION barred. Persons believed undersigned with a copy be forever barred. PerWashington, D.C. to be heirs or legatees of to the Register of Wills or sons believed to be heirs 20001-2131 the decedent who do not filed with the Register of or legatees of the deAdministration No. receive a copy of this noWills with a copy to the cedent who do not re2015ADM48 tice by mail within 25 undersigned, on or beceive a copy of this notice Misha McLamb days of its first publicafore August 27, 2015, or by mail within 25 days of Decedent tion shall so inform the be forever barred. Perits first publication shall NOTICE OF Register of Wills, includsons believed to be heirs so inform the Register of APPOINTMENT, ing name, address and or legatees of the deWills, including name, NOTICE TO relationship. cedent who do not readdress and relationCREDITORS Date of Publication: ceive a copy of this notice ship.

AND NOTICE TO January 9, 2015 by mail within 25 days of Date of Publication: UNKNOWN HEIRS Name of newspaper: its first publication shall February 20, 2015 Valorie Zanders, whose Afro-American so inform the Register of Name of newspaper: address is 5755 Rhode Washington Wills, including name, Afro-American Island Drive, WoodLaw Reporter address and relationWashington bridge, VA 22193, was Keith G. Tolar ship.

Law Reporter appointed personal rePersonal Representative Damian Taylor presentative of the estate Date of Publication: Volunteers and children at Bright Beginnings Personal of Misha McLamb, who February 27, 2015 TRUE TEST COPY Representative died on January 12, 2015 Name of newspaper: REGISTER OF WILLS Afro-American without a will, and will us serve an additional 100 infants and toddlers. So, all of our funds right now really, besides just general Washington TRUE TEST COPY serve without Court su01/09, 01/16, 01/23/15 Law Reporter REGISTER OF WILLS operating fees, and anything else that we’ve raised especially with the 5k, will go towards that second pervision. All unknown Maurice E. Childs heirs and heirs whose center.”

Personal TYPESET: Feb 16 17:20:18 EST 2015 02/20, 02/27,Mon 03/6/2015 where-abouts are unRepresentative The second Bright Beginnings facility will begin construction this June and its tentative opening date known shall enter their appearance in this is scheduled for August 2016. The second location will be splaced on 4th Street by the Congress Heights TRUE TEST COPY Superior Court of proceeding. Objections REGISTER OF WILLS the District of Metro station, across from Ballou High School. to such appointment (or District of Columbia to the probate of deBright Beginnings is expanding due to the high demand of free quality childcare in D.C., Faison said.

02/27, 03/06, 03/13/15 PROBATE DIVISION cedent´s will) shall be Washington, D.C. filed with the Register of The organization is hoping for a larger turnout this year, Faison said, in order to raise more money. “Usu20001-2131 Wills, D.C., 515 5th ally have 200 to 300 people register for the 5K, which is a pretty nice group,” she said. “ So, it’s a good Administration No. Street, N.W., 3rd Floor 2015ADM137 Wa s h i n g t o n , D . C . size. It’s very early in the morning, but everyone is really energetic and we have several prizes for differFrederick Jack 20001, on or before Auent groups and it’s nice to see who’s participating last year.”

Decedent gust 20, 2015. Claims Clarissa T. Edwards against the decedent Despite the cold weather, Faison urges people to come out and show their support for DC’s homeless 2402 L’enfant Square shall be presented to the children, she added.

SE undersigned with a copy Washington, DC 20020 to the Register of Wills or “I would encourage people just to think about the lives that are impacted by their efforts,” she Attorney filed with the Register of said. “Every registration goes towards just improving the quality of life for a child who is very NOTICE OF Wills with a copy to the APPOINTMENT, undersigned, on or bevulnerable.”Crowdrise was created for people who may not walk or run, but still want to donate to Bright NOTICE TO fore August 20, 2015, or Beginnings. The f;undraising page allows co-workers, community groups, friends and family to donate CREDITORS be forever barred. PerAND NOTICE TO sons believed to be heirs and raise funds.

UNKNOWN HEIRS or legatees of the deMariah said she and her son, along with many other Bright Beginnings families who will participate in Rebat Halder, whose ad- cedent who do not redress is 2101 11th Street ceive a copy of this notice the walk.

NW PH#1, Washington, by mail within 25 days of “Come and take a walk with me, a long, long walk.”

DC 20001, was apits first publication shall pointed personal repre- so inform the Register of sentative of the estate of Wills, including name, For more information on the walk, go to Bright Beginnings or visit Crowdrise to donate.

Frederick Jack, who died address and relationon August 4, 2014 with a ship. will, and will serve with- Date of Publication: out Court supervision. All February 20, 2015 unknown heirs and heirs Name of newspaper: whose whereabouts are Afro-American

Superior Court of the District of District of Columbia PROBATE DIVISION Washington, D.C. 20001-2131 Administration No. 2014ADM1046 Anne Dillingham Williams Decedent Joseph D Gallagher 98 Church Street Rockville, MD 20850 Attorney NOTICE OF APPOINTMENT, NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND NOTICE TO UNKNOWN HEIRS John B. Williams, whose address is 8210 Osage Lane, Bethesda MD 20817, was appointed personal representative of the estate of Anne Dillingham Williams, who died on September 14, 2014 with a will, and will serve without Court supervision. All unknown heirs and heirs whose whereabouts are unknown shall enter their appearance in this proceeding. Objections to such appointment (or to the probate of decedent´s will) shall be filed with the Register of Wills, D.C., 515 5th Street, N.W., 3rd Floor Wa s h i n g t o n , D . C .

20001, on or before August 13, 2015. Claims against the decedent shall be presented to the undersigned with a copy to the Register of Wills or filed with the Register of Wills with a copy to the undersigned, on or before August 13, 2015, or be forever barred. Persons believed to be heirs or legatees of the decedent who do not receive a copy of this notice by mail within 25 days of its first publication shall so inform the Register of Wills, including name, address and relationship.

Date of Publication: February 13, 2015 Name of newspaper: Afro-American Washington Law Reporter John B. Williams Personal Representative

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The Afro-American, February 28, 2015 - March 6, 2015