“There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution.” – Frederick Douglass
Black History Month Celebration Inside •
C e l e b r a t i n g 4 8 Ye a r s o f S e r v i c e
•
Serving More Than 50,000 African American Readers Throughout The Metropolitan Area / Vol. 48, No. 18 Feb. 14 - Feb. 20, 2013
Jacqueline Simms, a third-grade teacher at Anne Beers Elementary School in Southeast, appears stunned at winning the $25,000 prize from the Milken Family Foundation for excellence in teaching on Feb. 6. See Story on Page 19. /Photo by Khalid Naji-Allah
Economists and Scholars Discuss Disparities & Race By Barrington M. Salmon WI Staff Writer About two dozen economists, academics and other scholars spent the day laying out an often dismal picture of the economic stressors that push and pull against African Americans, Latinos and Asians on a daily basis.
But rather than just laying out a litany of problems, the group, in a series of presentations, offered varied prescriptions for reversing the vast disparities between people of color and their white counterparts in the United States. Speaker after speaker gave voice to the institutional racism
that consigns disturbing numbers of non-whites to high levels of unemployment, a widening wealth gap, educational disparities and economic distress that bodes ill not just for these respective communities but America as a whole. According to the U.S. Census, in 2012, white households
had incomes that are two-thirds higher than blacks and 40 percent higher than Latinos. White adults are also more likely than black and Latino adults to have college degrees and to own their own homes. The gap in poverty rates has narrowed since 1980 but it remains substantial. The poverty rate for whites is 7.7
Visit us online for daily updates and much more @ www.washingtoninformer.com. Ward 7 Neighborhood Gets $25 Million Grant Page 13
Magic Johnson Brings AIDS Message to Howard University Page 14
percent. The rate stands at about 24 percent for blacks and 21 percent for Latinos. The speakers said there is continued urgency around finding solutions to seemingly intractable problems facing African Americans. Blacks have been battered by the recession, and
Follow us on
A Swan Song for Famed Alvin Ailey Dancer Page 42
See SUMMIT on Page 8
and on DCTV 95 & 96