The film, “Race” chronicles the life of Bro. Jesse Owens. It’s the first feature film about the athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.
Page 3 AΦA FRATERNITY, INC. • KAPPA PHI LAMBDA (ΚΦΛ) CHAPTER • COLUMBIA, MD
FEBRUARY 2016
www.apakpl.org • Edited by Bro. Kerry G. Johnson • email: caricatureKerry@verizon.net
Alpha Achievers and other students take stand against racist online video On Tuesday (Feb. 2) more than 150 students from Mount Hebron High School (MHHS) located in Ellicott City, MD walked out of classes to protest an amateur video that was uploaded to social media. The widely-viewed video depicted a white MHHS student calling blacks an inferior race. He also made negative comments about the “Black Lives Matter” movement. Since the video was launched, the uproar throughout the region (and country) has been harsh and swift!
During the demonstration, African American students along with other students and parents from different races, shouted, “Stop the silence! Start a conversation!” Several Alpha Achievers were involved with the peaceful and emotional event. Later that evening, there was a community town hall meeting at Bridgeway Community Church in Columbia, hosted by Dr. David Anderson, a widely recognized thought leader on racial issues and president of a global diversity organization.
BALTIMORE SUN article: http://fw.to/kawpTuX
• See related article on Page 5
WBAL TV video: http://www.wbaltv.com/news/students-stage-walkout-over-racist-video/37781134
HCC HONORS HOWARD CO. EDUCATOR, BRO. SILAS CRAFT WITH ANNUAL BUFFET The Silas Craft Collegians Scholarship Endowment at Howard Community College is a program named in honor of Bro. Dr. Silas Craft, Howard County’s first African American high school principal. Bro. Craft was a highly-respected civil rights activist, and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. The HCC Educational Foundation, in partnership with Hunan Manor Restaurant, are pleased to present the Silas Craft Collegians Dinner on
Monday, March 7, serving dinner continuously from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. Hunan Manor Restaurant, located at 7091 Deepage Drive, Columbia, MD, 21045 will offer a Chinese buffet that supports the program that was initially implemented to assist African American high school graduates whose past academic performance did not reflect their true potential or desire to succeed. The program has been expanded to include other minority students.
For more details, see the flyer on Page 2 Tickets can also be purchased by contacting
Bro. Norris Jennings, via e-mail: ntjenni1942@gmail.com
IT’S TIME FOR A NEW NORMAL Here is a reprint of a letter that Bro. Sherman Howell submitted to Mount Hebron High School and Howard County Public School System The default position in our school system must not always be white Time for a “new normal” • Stop hedging education Eradication of the perceived right of “white supremacy”
On Feb., 2, here in Howard County, MD, students, says an article in the press, “walked out after a viral video slams the Black Lives Matter movement.” Zakariya Kmir, 16, a senior and president of Howard County’s “Alpha Achievers,” and a student at Mount Hebron High School, appears to have correctly grasp the centrality of the issue involved here: “It’s not just race” Zakariya, says. And when properly intellectually analyzed, Zakariya is perhaps correct, for racism is perceived by many scholars as an integral part of U.S. capitalism. The Mount Hebron student committing the offense, incidentally, had said that “Black lives do not matter. .. because they’re an inferior race”— that traditional on-going “single story” of Blacks as a race of people not having contributed much of substance, especially, but not limited to the founding of civilization. To show in this case the nonsensical or absurdness nature of the student’s statement, try going to your fraternity, sorority, church or other organizations declaring your founders as irresponsible or
inferior in terms of intellectual ability. Or, on the issue of George Washington being the “Father of this nation,” (yes we know that George Washington owned slaves), try disrespecting George Washington’s revered founder status. Again, yes we have “racism” in Howard County but I think that identifying Black students as being of an “inferior race” is more akin to our students being estranged from a full origin of understanding of the true source of what’s called civilization and there proper placed in the legacy of the world. Take me for example, I was educated during Jim Crow when and where “Western Civilization” (i.e., Greeks, Romans, etc., contributions) teachings dominated as the primary source of the beginning of civilization. Mrs. Jones, my history teacher, for example, complied with Continued on Page 3