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February Twenty-Three...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 23, 2019 at 7:07am

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Shaw University, located in Raleigh, North Carolina is the first historically Black institution of higher education in the South and among the oldest in the nation. The University was founded in 1865 by Henry Martin Tupper, a native of Monson, Massachusetts, a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War, and a graduate of Amherst College and Newton Theological Seminary.

Shaw boasts many “firsts”: the first college in the nation to offer a four-year medical program, the first historically Black college in the nation to open its doors to women, and the first historically Black college in North Carolina to be granted an “A” rating by the State Department of Public Instruction. Dr. Paulette Dillard currently serves as the University's 18th President.

The mission of Shaw University is to advance knowledge, facilitate student learning and achievement, to enhance the spiritual and ethical values of its students, and to transform a diverse community of learners into future global leaders. The University currently enrolls more than 1,800 students and offers more than 30 degree programs, including accredited programs in athletic training, kinesiotherapy, social work, divinity, religious education, and teacher education.

Shelton State Community College

Shelton State Community College is part of a state system of public colleges. This system originated in the Alabama Trade School and Junior College Authority Act enacted by the state legislature in May 1963. The governing board for the institutions within this system is the Alabama State Board of Education (ASBE) and the Chancellor, Alabama College System, Department of Postsecondary Education, is the chief executive officer of the system.

Shelton State Community College was established by resolution of the ASBE on January 1, 1979. That resolution combined two existing institutions: Shelton State Technical College, established in 1952, and the Tuscaloosa branch campus of Brewer State Junior College, an institution whose main campus was located in Fayette, Alabama. The Tuscaloosa branch campus of Brewer State had been in operation since 1972.

Shorter College

Shorter College is a private, faith-based, two-year liberal arts college located in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Founded in 1886 by the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Shorter College is one of the nation’s 110 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and the only private, two-year HBCU in the nation. With a Fall 2014 enrollment of over 400 students, Shorter College is the fastest growing campus is Central Arkansas.

Shorter College’s open enrollment policy makes obtaining an associate’s level degree possible for any person having earned a high school diploma or GED completion from an accredited agency. Small, intimate classroom settings and an outstanding faculty create an enjoyable and supportive atmosphere for learning that empowers students to excel toward the pursuit of academic excellence.

Simmons College of Kentucky

A few months after the end of the Civil War in 1865, members of the Kentucky State Convention of Colored Baptist Churches proposed the establishment of Kentucky’s first post secondary educational institute for its “Colored” citizens. In 1879 the State Convention purchased four acres of land in Louisville to serve as the campus for the Kentucky Normal and Theological Institute.

Dr. William Simmons became the second President in 1880 and led the Institute through a period of rapid growth in enrollment and facilities. His efforts led to the addition of a competitive sports program and the attainment of university status. Although Dr. Simmons’ tenure ended in 1890, he set the foundation for continued growth, which included a dramatic expansion of the liberal arts program.”

In the period of 1893 to 1922, student registration increased from 159 to over 500. In recognition of Dr. Simmons’ leadership, the University was renamed Simmons University in 1918.

February Twenty-Two...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 22, 2019 at 6:30am

Savannah State University - Normal Class of 1900

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Rust College

RUST COLLEGE was established in 1866 by the Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Its founders were missionaries from the North who opened a school in Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church, accepting adults of all ages, as well as children, for instruction in elementary subjects. A year later the first building on the present campus was erected.

In 1870, the school was chartered as Shaw University, honoring the Reverend S.O. Shaw, who made a gift of $10,000 to the new institution. In 1892, the name was changed to Rust University to avoid confusion with another Shaw University. The name was a tribute to Richard S. Rust of Cincinnati, Ohio, Secretary of the Freedman's Aid Society. In 1915, the title was changed to the more realistic name, Rust College.

As students progressed, high school and college courses were added to the curriculum, and in 1878 two students were graduated from the college department. As public schools for Negroes became more widespread the need for private schools decreased, and in 1930 the grade school was discontinued. The high school continued to function until 1953.

Saint Paul's College (closed 2013)

Saint Paul’s College, the beleaguered HBCU in Lawrenceville, Va., will cease operation on June 30, according to its board of trustees.

A spokesperson for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) confirmed that Belle S. Wheelan, president of the regional accrediting body, had received a May 28, letter from the chairman of the board of trustees at Saint Paul’s College notifying her of the decision to close the 125-year-old institution. Efforts to reach Board Chairman Oliver W. Spencer Jr., were unsuccessful.

In recent years, SACS cited Saint Paul’s for a series of deficiencies and violations, among them the lack of financial stability and too many faculty without terminal degrees. The college was eventually stripped of its accreditation. A federal judge later issued a preliminary injunction, allowing the college to keep its accreditation on a probationary basis so that Saint Paul’s could continue to enroll students and hold classes. It opened last fall with about 111 students.

During a two-year probation, the private college struggled, but couldn't fix what accreditors found lacking at the institution that largely serves low-income, first-generation students. Saint Paul’s struggled to rebound. Student enrollment continued to tumble, slipping below 100 and the money it raised from gifts, alumni donations, and desperate appeals, never seemed to be enough for the fledgling college to thrive.

Savannah State University

Savannah State University (SSU) is the oldest public historically black college or university in the state of Georgia and the oldest institution of higher learning in the city of Savannah. The school was established in 1890 as a result of the Second Morrill Land Grant Act, which mandated that southern and border states develop land-grant colleges for black citizens. Later that year, the Georgia General Assembly passed legislation creating the Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youths, which served as Georgia’s 1890 land-grant institution until 1947. A preliminary session of the Georgia State Industrial College was held in the Baxter Street School Building in Athens, Ga., before moving to Savannah in October 1891. Richard R. Wright, Sr., was appointed the first president of the institution in 1891, which opened with five faculty members and eight students.

The college awarded its first degree in 1898 to Richard R. Wright, Jr., the son of the founding president and became the ninth president of Wilberforce University. Cyrus G. Wiley of the class of 1902 was the first alumnus to become college president in 1921, the same year the first female students were admitted as residents on campus. In 1928, the college became a four-year, degree-granting institution, ending its high school and normal school programs.

Upon the creation of the University System of Georgia (USG) in 1932, the college became one of the first members of the system and its name was changed to Georgia State College. Its name changed again in 1950 to Savannah State College, and the institution received initial accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) in 1955. The USG Board of Regents elevated the college to university status in 1996 and renamed the institution Savannah State University.

Selma University (ref site - no website available)

The institution was founded in 1878 as the Alabama Baptist Normal and Theological School to train African Americans as ministers and teachers. The school purchased the former Selma Fair Grounds later that same year, moving into the fair's old exposition buildings. Noted ministers such as William H. McAlpine, James A. Foster and R. Murrell were among the founders. At a meeting in Mobile, Alabama in 1874, the first trustees were elected: C. O. Booth, Alexander Butler, William H. McAlpine, Holland Thompson and H. J. Europe. The convention voted to locate the school in Selma in 1877. The school opened four years later in the Saint Phillips Street Baptist Church of Selma (which later became the First Baptist Church).

In 1881, the school was incorporated by an act of the legislature under the name of Alabama Baptist Normal and Theological School of Selma. In 1886, Charles L. Purce succeeded Edward M. Brawley as president at Selma.[1] Purce was successful as president, and helped the university pay off a debt of $8,000. In 1894, he accepted the presidency of Simmons College of Kentucky, then known as the State University at Louisville.

On May 14, 1908, the name was officially changed to Selma University. Wikipedia

A Crumbling Foundation...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 22, 2019 at 6:00am

Topics: Biology, Civics, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights

The U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant spent hours on end planning a wide-scale domestic terrorist attack, even logging in at his work computer on the job at headquarters to study the manifestos and heinous paths of mass shooters, prosecutors say. He researched how to carry out sniper attacks, they contend, and whether rifle scopes were illegal. And all the while, investigators assert, he was amassing a cache of weapons as he ruminated about attacks on politicians and journalists.

But Christopher P. Hasson was not an isolated figure, according to a contractor who worked with him. The 49-year-old lieutenant with more than two decades in the Coast Guard was part of a project to replace some aging cutters in the fleet, tasks that regularly required interacting with civilians and military officials at meetings and on travel.

Hasson was arrested on gun and drug charges after officials with the Coast Guard Investigative Service and agents with the FBI in Baltimore began probing activities that prosecutors said in court were linked to what they described as Hasson’s white-nationalist views. Federal law enforcement officials seized a stockpile of guns and ammunition from his basement apartment in the Maryland suburbs near Washington in the far east side of Silver Spring in Montgomery County.

Coast Guard lieutenant used work computers in alleged planning of widespread domestic terrorist attack, prosecutors say By Lynh Bui, Dan Lamothe and Michael E. Miller

Synopsis:

Birth of a White Nation is a fascinating new book on race in America that begins with an exploration of the moment in time when "white people,” as a separate and distinct group of humanity, were invented through legislation and the enactment of laws.

The book provides a thorough examination of the underlying reasons as well as the ways in which “white people” were created. It also explains how the creation of this distinction divided laborers and ultimately served the interests of the elite. The book goes on to examine how foundational law and policy in the U.S. were used to institutionalize the practice of “white people” holding positions of power. Finally, the book demonstrates how the social construction and legal enactment of “white people” has ultimately compromised the humanity of those so labeled.

Birth of a White Nation: The Invention of White People and Its Relevance Today

Jacqueline Battalora (Author)

February Twenty-One...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 21, 2019 at 6:30am

Pointing to the Hill

Tradition and history is embedded deep within the royal roots of Prairie View A&M University. When we stand for the school’s official song we ” Point to the Hill”. The Hill in which is the highest point in the Waller County area.

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Paul Quinn College

Paul Quinn College is a private, faith-based, four-year, liberal arts-inspired college that was founded on April 4, 1872, by a group of African Methodist Episcopal Church preachers in Austin, Texas. The school’s original purpose was to educate freed slaves and their offspring. Today, we proudly educate students of all races and socio-economic classes under the banner of our institutional ethos, WE over Me. Our mission is to provide a quality, faith-based education that addresses the academic, social, and Christian development of students.

Beginning in the fall of 2015, Paul Quinn College adopted a new student financial structure called the “New Urban College Model” which, among other characteristics, reduced student tuition and fees and provides students with the ability to graduate with less than $10,000 of student loan debt. The centerpiece of the New Urban College Model is Paul Quinn’s decision to become the country’s only urban Work College. There are currently eight work colleges in the nation. Paul Quinn is the ninth federally funded work college in the United States, the first Minority Serving Institution (“MSI”) in the Work College Consortium, and the first work college in Texas.

The vision of the Paul Quinn College Work Program is to transform ability into action and potential into achievement by encouraging all students to embrace the ideals of disciplined work, servant leadership, and initiative in preparation for lives of financial freedom, community engagement, and outstanding character.

Payne Theological Seminary

In 1844, Payne Theological Seminary opened in Wilberforce, Ohio. This institution was and remains affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Payne Theological Seminary was named after Daniel Payne, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the first president of Wilberforce University. This institution's primary mission is to educate future ministers of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 2005, five students graduated from the Payne Theological Seminary with the degree of Master of Divinity, About

Payne also participates with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in the exhibit: "What does it mean to be human?" Smithsonian Payne Media

Philander Smith College

Founded in 1877, Philander Smith College is the result of the first attempt west of the Mississippi River to make education available to freedmen (former African American slaves). The forerunner of the college was Walden Seminary, named in honor of Dr. J.M. Walden, one of the originators and the first corresponding secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Society.

In 1882, Dr. G.W. Gray, president of Little Rock University, the institution for the Arkansas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, met Mrs. Adeline Smith, widow of Mr. Philander Smith of Oak Park, Ill., while soliciting funds. The late Philander Smith had been a liberal donor to Asiatic Missions and had developed an interest in the work of the church in the South. In making her gift to Dr. Gray, Mrs. Smith designated $10,500 for Walden Seminary. The trustees accepted the gift and gave it special recognition by changing the name of the struggling Walden Seminary to Philander Smith College. A new site for the school had already been purchased at Eleventh and Izard Streets. The gift made by Mrs. Smith was a significant contribution towards the construction of Budlong Hall, the first brick building on the new site.

Philander Smith College was chartered as a four-year college on March 3, 1883. The first baccalaureate degree was conferred in 1888. The first president, the Rev. Thomas Mason, resigned in 1896. He was succeeded by a member of the faculty of the college, the Rev. James Monroe Cox, professor of ancient languages. Dr. Cox retired from the presidency of the college in 1924, and was succeeded by the Rev. George Collins Taylor, a graduate of the college. Dr. Taylor served as president from 1924 to 1936.

Prairie View A&M University

Prairie View A&M University, the first state supported College in Texas for African Americans, was established during the Reconstruction Period after the Civil War. This was an historical period in which political and economic special interest groups were able to aggressively use the Federal Government to establish public policy, in an attempt to “alter or reshape the cultural milieu of the vanquished southern states”. The University had its beginnings in the Texas Constitution of 1876, which, in separate articles, established an “Agricultural and Mechanical College” and pledged that “Separate schools shall be provided for the white and colored children, and impartial provisions shall be made for both.” As a consequence of these constitutional provisions, the Fifteenth Legislature established “Alta Vista Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth” on August 14,1876.

The Board of Directors purchased the lands of the Alta Vista Plantation (1388 acres), from Mrs. Helen Marr Kirby, the widow of the late Col. Jared Ellison Kirby, for the establishment of the State Agriculture & Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth. The College was named “Alta Vista Agriculture & Mechanical College for Colored Youth”. The A&M Board of Directors was authorized to appoint a President of A&M College and Alta Vista College with an assigned principal station at Alta Vista to administer the college’s day to day affairs. Confederate President Jefferson Davis recommended Mr. Thomas S. Gathright of Mississippi, also from Mississippi and he brought Mr. L.W. Minor, of Mississippi to serve as Principal. Eight young African American men, the first of their race to enroll in a state-supported college in Texas, began their studies on March 11, 1878.

Dorothy Vaughn...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 21, 2019 at 6:00am

Portrait of Dorothy Vaughan Credits: Courtesy Vaughan Family

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, NASA, Women's Rights, Women in Science

Date of Birth: September 20, 1910

Hometown: Kansas City, MO

Education: B.A., Mathematics, Wilberforce University, 1929

Hired by NACA: December 1943

Retired from NASA: 1971

Date of Death: November 10, 2008

Actress Playing Role in Hidden Figures: Octavia Spencer

In an era when NASA is led by an African American man (Administrator Charles Bolden) and a woman (Deputy Administrator Dava Newman), and when recent NASA Center Directors come from a variety of backgrounds, it's easy to overlook the people who paved the way for the agency's current robust and diverse workforce and leadership. Those who speak of NASA's pioneers rarely mention the name Dorothy Vaughan, but as the head of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) segregated West Area Computing Unit from 1949 until 1958, Vaughan was both a respected mathematician and NASA's first African-American manager.

Dorothy Vaughan came to the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in 1943, during the height of World War II, leaving her position as the math teacher at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, VA to take what she believed would be a temporary war job. Two years after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 into law, prohibiting racial, religious and ethnic discrimination in the country's defense industry, the Laboratory began hiring black women to meet the skyrocketing demand for processing aeronautical research data. Urgency and twenty-four hour shifts prevailed-- as did Jim Crow laws which required newly-hired "colored" mathematicians to work separately from their white female counterparts. Dorothy Vaughan was assigned to the segregated "West Area Computing" unit, an all-black group of female mathematicians, who were originally required to use separate dining and bathroom facilities. Over time, both individually and as a group, the West Computers distinguished themselves with contributions to virtually every area of research at Langley.

NASA Biography: Dorothy Vaughn

February Twenty...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 20, 2019 at 7:30am

Destination Preeminence: Aggies DO!

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, Women's Rights

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University is an academic community focused on students—providing them with interdisciplinary learning opportunities, teaching them with faculty renowned for excellence, connecting them to cutting edge discoveries in research, and encouraging them to serve their communities.

We were founded in 1891 as a land-grant institution, and we've built a strong civil rights legacy along the way. The Greensboro Four—who staged the first ever sit-in at a Woolworth lunch counter in 1960—were NC A&T students.

We strive for excellence and innovation in our curriculum, promote partnerships with public and private entities, and foster a learning environment that focuses less on transmitting information and more on the ability to organize, assess, apply, and create knowledge.

Our campus sits on 200 beautiful acres in Greensboro, NC, and includes a 600-acre university farm. Our enrollment is more than 10,000 students and our workforce includes more than 2,000 employees.

From our roots as an 1890 land-grant university, we have expanded and adapted to become a school fit for the 21st century and beyond.

N.C. A&T still has award-winning faculty, intensive research programs and community-focused initiatives — but now our campus is more diverse, our curriculum includes nanoengineering and our idea of public service encompasses not only Greensboro, but the world.

We believe in the power of our students to solve problems, both local and global, through technology, business, engineering, the arts and other endeavors. We believe that through exemplary instruction and interdisciplinary studies, through scholarly and creative research, and through courage and community service, N.C. A&T prepares students to enhance the quality of life for themselves, the citizens of North Carolina, the nation, and the world.

North Carolina Central University

In 1910, Dr. James E. Shepard, a Durham pharmacist and religious educator, opened the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race and declared its purpose to be “the development in young men and women of the character and sound academic training requisite for real service to the nation.”

The institution struggled financially in its early years. In 1915, it was sold and reorganized, then becoming the National Training School. In 1923, the state legislature appropriated funds to buy the school and renamed it the Durham State Normal School. Two years later, the legislature converted the institution into the North Carolina College for Negroes, dedicating it to liberal arts education and the preparation of teachers and principals. The college thus became the nation’s first state-supported liberal arts college for black students.

In 1939, the college offered its first graduate-level courses in the arts and sciences. The School of Law opened in 1940, followed in 1941 by the School of Library Science. In 1947, the legislature changed the name to North Carolina College at Durham. Shepard served as president until his death in 1947. Dr. Alfonso Elder was installed in 1948 as his successor.

North Carolina College at Durham became North Carolina Central University in 1969. On July 1, 1972, all the state’s public four-year colleges and universities were joined to become the Consolidated University of North Carolina. As part of the transition, the chief executive’s title changed from president to chancellor.

Dr. Albert N. Whiting presided over the transition, leading the university from 1967 until 1983. He was succeeded by Dr. LeRoy T. Walker, vice chancellor for university relations and an internationally renowned track and field coach. Dr. Tyronza R. Richmond succeeded Walker in 1986; Richmond’s tenure saw the establishment of the School of Education.

Oakwood University

The mission of Oakwood University, a historically black, Seventh-day Adventist institution, is to transform students through biblically-based education for service to God and humanity.

Oakwood University, in Huntsville, Ala., was founded by the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) in 1896 to educate the recently-freed African-Americans of the South. Drawing upon its Christian faith and the emancipation of slaves by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, it believed that “all people are created equal” and deserved the opportunity to learn a trade.

Originally, the school was called “Oakwood Industrial School,” opening its doors November 16, with 16 students. A year earlier, the 380-acre former slave plantation was purchased for $6,700. Its towering oak trees – which gave way to the name “Oakwood” – dotted the early residence of America’s most famous slave, Dred Scott. Additional land was acquired in 1918, nearly tripling the campus size to its current 1,186 acres.

Paine College

Paine College was founded by the leadership of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, now United Methodist Church, and the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, now Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Paine was the brainchild of Bishop Lucius Henry Holsey, who first expressed the idea for the College in 1869. Bishop Holsey asked leaders in the ME Church South to help establish a school to train Negro teachers and preachers so that they might in turn appropriately address the educational and spiritual needs of the people newly freed from the evils of slavery. Leaders in the ME Church South agreed, and Paine Institute came into being.

On November 1, 1882, the Paine College Board of Trustees, consisting of six members, three from each Church, met for the first time. They agreed to name the school in honor of the late Bishop Robert Paine of the MECS who had helped to organize the CME Church. In December, the Trustees selected Dr. Morgan Callaway as the first President of the College and enlarged the Board from six to nineteen members, drawing its new membership from communities outside of Georgia so that the enterprise might not be viewed as exclusively local.

Bishop Holsey traveled throughout the Southeast seeking funds for the new school. On December 12, 1882, he presented the Trustees of Paine Institute with $7.15 from the Virginia Conference and $8.85 from the South Georgia Conference. In that same month, Reverend Atticus Haygood, a minister of the ME Church South, gave $2,000 to support President Callaway through the first year. Thus, a $2,000 gift from a white minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church South and $16 raised by a CME minister – penny by penny from former slaves - became the financial basis for the founding of Paine College.

Dr. Percy L. Julian...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 20, 2019 at 7:00am

Percy Julian in the Minshall Laboratory at DePauw University during his tenure as a research fellow. Courtesy DePauw University Archives.

Topics: African Americans, Chemistry, Civil Rights, Diversity in Science, Education, History, Human Rights

In 1935, in Minshall Laboratory, DePauw alumnus Percy L. Julian (1899-1975) first synthesized the drug physostigmine, previously only available from its natural source, the Calabar bean. His pioneering research led to the process that made physostigmine readily available for the treatment of glaucoma. It was the first of Julian’s lifetime of achievements in the chemical synthesis of commercially important natural products.

Percy L. Julian and Chemistry at DePauw University

The early 1930s was a time of great chemical research productivity at DePauw. It was in this decade that William M. Blanchard, Dean of the University, hired Percy Julian as a research fellow. Blanchard, who also served as head of the chemistry department, had been Julian's mentor during his undergraduate years at DePauw. Julian had received a Ph.D. degree in Vienna in 1931 and was in need of a position in which he could continue his research career. The DePauw chemistry program he joined in 1933 had roots that extended back to 1839 when the university was Asbury College and chemistry was offered as a natural science course taught by the president, Matthew Simpson. Chemistry became a distinct department in 1881 under the direction of Phillip S. Baker. The department prospered and a chemistry major was established in 1896. Percy Julian graduated from this program in 1920.

As a research fellow from 1932 to 1935, Julian, working with his colleague from Vienna, Josef Pikl, and several DePauw students, produced a phenomenal number of high-quality research papers. One such paper appeared in the April 1935 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. This paper, entitled "Studies in the Indole Series V. The Complete Synthesis of Physostigmine (Eserine)," which explained how Julian synthesized physostigmine, is undoubtedly the most significant chemical research publication to come from DePauw. The student and faculty collaborative approach, promoted by Julian, has continued to the present, and today most of the research at DePauw is done in collaboration with students.

Physostigmine is a parasympathomimetic, specifically, a reversible cholinesterase inhibitor which effectively increases the concentration of acetylcholine at the sites of cholinergic transmission. Physostigmine is used to treat glaucoma. Source: Drug Bank

Percy L. Julian and the Synthesis of Physostigmine

American Chemical Society

National Historic Chemical Landmark

February Nineteen...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 19, 2019 at 7:30am

April D. Ryan - American Urban Radio Network, CNN White House Correspondent, Morgan State University Alumni Photo - Central Jersey Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta: "The Presidency in Black and White: My Up Close View of the White House and Race in America"

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Morgan State University

Founded in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute by the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the institution's original mission was to train young men in ministry. It subsequently broadened its mission to educate both men and women as teachers. The school was renamed Morgan College in 1890 in honor of the Reverend Lyttleton Morgan, the first chairman of its Board of Trustees, who donated land to the college. Morgan awarded its first baccalaureate degree to George F. McMechen in 1895. McMechen later obtained a law degree from Yale and eventually returned to Baltimore, where he became a civic leader and one of Morgan's strongest financial supporters.

In 1915 the late Andrew Carnegie gave the school a conditional grant of $50,000 for the central academic building. The terms of the grant included the purchase of a new site for the College, payment of all outstanding obligations, and the construction of a building to be named after him. The College met the conditions and moved to its present site in northeast Baltimore in 1917. Carnegie Hall, the oldest original building on the present MSU campus, was erected two years later.

Morgan remained a private institution until 1939. That year, the state of Maryland purchased the school in response to a state study that determined that Maryland needed to provide more opportunities for its black citizens.

From its beginnings as a public campus, Morgan was open to students of all races. By the time it became a public campus, the College had become a relatively comprehensive institution. Until the mid-1960s, when the state's teachers colleges began their transition to liberal arts campuses, Morgan and the University of Maryland College Park were the only two public campuses in the state with comprehensive missions.

Morris Brown College

Morris Brown College, founded in 1881 by the African Methodist Episcopal Church, is a private, coeducational, liberal arts college engaged in teaching and public service with special focus in leadership, management, entrepreneurship and technology. The College is proud of its tradition of serving the educational needs of the best and brightest young minds, while simultaneously providing educational support to students who might not otherwise receive the opportunity to compete on the college level. Students fitting the latter are given the tools they need to increase their potential for earning a college degree.

This is a formula that has proven itself time and again. Among our outstanding alumni are Isaac Blythers, former President of Atlanta Gas Light Company; Eula L. Adams, Executive Vice President for First Data Corporation; Albert J. Edmonds, Retired Lieutenant General of the United States Air Forces; the late Reverend Dr. Hosea Williams, civil rights leader; Thomas J. Byrd, actor of television, film and stage; and Pulitzer prize-winning author, James A. McPherson. Adams and Edmonds were cited recently by Fortune Magazine among the nation’s top African-American corporate executives. The list of our graduates and their accolades go on and on.

Morris College

Under authorization granted by the Baptist Educational and Missionary Convention of South Carolina in 1906, Morris College was established in 1908 "for the Christian and Intellectual Training of Negro youth." This action signaled the beginning of a heroic venture in higher education by a group of men and women less than a half century removed from the blight of American slavery. The majority of these "founding fathers" were poor and without any formal learning, but they possessed an "unfaltering faith in God and a zeal to provide for others the educational opportunities they themselves were denied."

On April 12, 1911, the college received a certificate of incorporation from the state of South Carolina. Initially, Morris College provided schooling on the elementary, high school, and college levels. The college curriculum included programs in liberal arts, in "normal" education for the certification of teachers, and a theological program. In 1915, the Bachelor of Arts degree was conferred on the first two graduates. The institution discontinued its "normal" program in 1929, its elementary school in 1930, and its high school in 1946.

During 1930-32, the school operated only as a junior college, but it resumed its full four-year program in 1933. The word "Negro" appearing in the original certificate of incorporation was eliminated on August 14, 1961 thereby opening the doors at Morris to students of all ethnic groups.

Norfolk State University

Norfolk State College was founded September 18, 1935. The College, brought to life in the midst of the Great Depression, provided a setting in which the youth of the region could give expression to their hopes and aspirations. At this founding, it was named the Norfolk Unit of Virginia Union University. In 1942, the College became the independent Norfolk Polytechnic College, and two years later an Act of the Virginia Legislature mandated that it become a part of Virginia State College. The College was able to pursue an expanded mission with even greater emphasis in 1956 when another Act of the Legislature enabled the institution to offer its first Bachelor's degree. The College was separated from Virginia State College and became fully independent in 1969. Subsequent legislative acts designated the institution as a university and authorized the granting of graduate degrees. In 1979, university status was attained.

From Dark To Missing...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 19, 2019 at 7:00am

An artist's depiction of the filaments of gas that fill intergalactic space, with an inset chart of how those filaments interact with X-rays from a quasar. Credit: Copyright Illustration: Springel et al. (2005); Spectrum: NASA/CXC/CfA/Kovács et al.

Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Dark Matter, Women in Science

Astronomers think they've found a new clue in their continuing quest to solve one of the most substantial mysteries of the cosmos: where about a third of the universe's matter is hiding.

That missing matter isn't dark matter (a whole different head-scratcher), it's perfectly normal, run-of-the-mill matter that scientists simply can't find. And that makes it a massive cosmic annoyance for astronomers. But a team of researchers may have figured out a clue that will help them track down this missing matter, thanks to the NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

"If we find this missing mass, we can solve one of the biggest conundrums in astrophysics," lead author Orsolya Kovács, a doctoral student at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a NASA statement. "Where did the universe stash so much of its matter that makes up stuff like stars and planets and us?"

Kovács and her research colleagues wanted to explore one popular theory: that the missing matter is hidden in the stringy filaments of warm gas that fill intergalactic space. Those filaments are typically hard to study, since telescopes tuned to the same light our eyes can see can't register these structures.

Astrophysicists Find New Clue in Search for Universe's Missing Matter

Meghan Bartels, Live Science

February Eighteen...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 18, 2019 at 7:30am

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Morehouse Alumni), Coretta Scott King and Yolanda King

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Miles School of Law

Miles Law School (est. August 26, 1974 is a law school located in Birmingham, Alabama. It is independent of Miles College.

Miles Law School was founded on August 26, 1974. Among the founders were Bishop C. A. Kirkendoll of the C.M.E. Church, Dr. W. Clyde Williams, former president of Miles College, former Alabama Judge and state Senator J. Richmond Pearson, and Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Source: Wikipedia

Mississippi Valley State University

Legislation authorizing the establishment of the institution under the name Mississippi Vocational College was enacted by the Mississippi Legislature in 1946. The express purpose for the new college was to train teachers for rural and elementary schools and to provide vocational training.

The groundbreaking ceremony was held February 19, 1950, with the late Honorable Governor Fielding Wright, the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, the first president of the University, Dr. James Herbert White, and interested friends participating.

The college opened in the summer of 1950 with enrollment of 205 in-service teachers.

Morehouse College

Founded in 1867 in the basement of Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga., by the Rev. William Jefferson White, with the encouragement of former slave the Rev. Richard C. Coulter and the Rev. Edmund Turney of the National Theological Institute, Morehouse College has had a 150-year legacy of producing educated men and global leaders.

Starting as Augusta Institute under the first president, Dr. Joseph T. Robert, the institution was created to educate black men for careers in ministry and teaching. At the urging of the Rev. Frank Quarles, the school moved to Atlanta’s Friendship Baptist Church in 1879 and changed its name to Atlanta Baptist Seminary.

The seminary moved to downtown Atlanta, and then, in 1885, to a former Civil War battleground site in Atlanta’s West End under President Dr. Samuel T. Graves. By 1897, the institution had become Atlanta Baptist College.

Dr. George Sale was named president in 1890, and Atlanta Baptist College expanded its curriculum and established a tradition of educating leaders for all American life.

During the tenure of the College’s first African American president, John Hope, the College was renamed Morehouse College in 1913, in honor of Henry L. Morehouse, corresponding secretary of the National Baptist Home Missionary Society.

Morehouse School of Medicine

Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), located in Atlanta, Ga., was founded in 1975 as the Medical Education Program at Morehouse College. In 1981, MSM became an independently chartered institution. MSM is among the nation’s leading educators of primary care physicians and was recently recognized as the top institution among U.S. medical schools for our social mission. Our faculty and alumni are noted in their fields for excellence in teaching, research and public policy.

MSM is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, Council on Education for Public Health, Liaison Committee on Medical Education and Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Mission

We exist to:

-Improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities

-Increase the diversity of the health professional and scientific workforce

-Address primary health care through programs in education, research, and service

With emphasis on people of color and the underserved urban and rural populations in Georgia, the nation, and the world.

National Society of Black Physicists...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 18, 2019 at 7:00am

President Obama, Bill Nye, Myth Busters and members of NSBP (from homepage)

Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, NSBP, Women in Science

By the late 1960s and early 1970s the roster of senior African American physicists included James Young, who was at LANL and later MIT, Joseph Johnson (Southern University), Harry Morrison (Berkeley), Pete Bragg (Berkeley), Charlie Harper (Cal State Haywood), James Davenport (Virginia State), Rutherford Adkins (Fisk), James Lawson (Fisk), Warren Henry (Howard), Herman Branson (Howard), and Howard Foster (Alabama A&M), who kept a roster of Blacks in physics. These senior physicists served as role models and mentors to generations of African American physics students, giving emotional and at times financial support.

Events in the spring of 1972 led African American physicists to start convening for an awards banquet that included a Day of Scientific Lectures and Seminars (DOSLAS). These events not only included the scientific sessions, there would also be a social event and banquet to recognize the accomplishments of a specific member of the African American physics community. Out of these DOSLAS meetings NSBP was founded in 1977.

Founded in 1977 at Morgan State University, the mission of the National Society of Black Physicists is to promote the professional well-being of African American physicists and physics students within the international scientific community and within society at large.

The organization seeks to develop and support efforts to increase opportunities for African Americans in physics and to increase their numbers and visibility of their scientific work. It also seeks to develop activities and programs that highlight and enhance the benefits of the scientific contributions that African American physicists provide for the international community. The society seeks to raise the general knowledge and appreciation of physics in the African American community.

The National Society of Black Physicists is a not-for-profit 501c3 organization in accordance with the Internal Revenue Service.

Site: National Society of Black Physicists

February Seventeen...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 17, 2019 at 7:30am

Meharry Medical College - Instagram

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Livingstone College

Livingstone College is a private, historically black Christian college in Salisbury, North Carolina. It is affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Livingstone College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award the Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Fine Arts, and Bachelor of Social Work degrees.

Livingstone College along with Hood Theological Seminary began as Zion Wesley Institute in Concord, North Carolina in 1879. After fundraising by Dr. Joseph C. Price and Bishop J. W. Hood, the school was closed in Concord and re-opened in 1882 a few miles north in Salisbury.

Zion Wesley Institute was founded by the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church. The institute changed its name to Livingstone College in 1887 to honor African missionary David Livingstone. That same year, the school granted its first degree. The first group of students to graduate included eight men and two women, the first black women to earn bachelor's degrees in North Carolina. Source: Wikipedia

University of Maryland Eastern Shore

The University of Maryland Eastern Shore opened its doors Sept. 13, 1886, when it was known initially as the Delaware Conference Academy under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Greeting the nine students who showed up that Monday were two educators, Benjamin O. Bird and his wife, Portia Lovett Bird.

Records indicate by the following spring some three dozen students, likely from farming families in the surrounding area, were enrolled.

The prep school-style institution was founded as a branch of Baltimore’s Centenary Bible Institute, which in 1890 became known as Morgan College – the same year federal legislation passed to support historically black institutions that offered instruction in agriculture and related fields.

With the adoption of the 2nd Morrill Act, the “Industrial Branch” of Morgan in rural Somerset County started receiving funding through the state of Maryland – and eventually was rechristened Princess Anne Academy.

This federal source of money also created a relationship with the Maryland Agricultural College, now the University of Maryland, College Park, although the campus in Princess Anne remained a part of Morgan College – at the time a private institution.

The joint-management arrangement enabled the state to continue offering a land-grant education to white students attending College Park while offering African-Americans that type of instruction at what was referred to in some documents as the Eastern Shore Branch of the Maryland Agricultural College.

Meharry Medical College

Meharry Medical College was founded in 1876 by Samuel Meharry and his four brothers in response to an Act of Kindness he had received on a Kentucky road one rainy night—a chance meeting now known as The Salt Wagon Story. In 1886, Dr. George Whipple Hubbard founded a department that would “provide the Colored people of the South with an opportunity for thoroughly preparing themselves for the practice of dentistry,” and Meharry’s dental program opened its doors to nine students, three of whom were physicians. The School of Graduate Studies and Research at Meharry Medical College began in 1938 as a series of short courses in the basic and clinical sciences; in 1947, a Master of Science Degree program was implemented as the first graduate degree, a Ph.D. program was established in 1972, and an M.D./Ph.D. program in 1982.

Today, Meharry receives over 5,000 applications for admission to the M.D., D.D.S., M.S.P.H., and Ph.D. programs, providing opportunities for people of color, individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, and others, regardless of race or ethnicity, to receive excellent education and training in the health sciences and conduct research that fosters the elimination of health disparities.

Miles College

Miles College, founded in 1898, is a premier liberal arts institution located in metropolitan Birmingham within the corporate limits of the City of Fairfield. The noble founders of the institution saw educated leadership as the paramount need in the black community. Miles, which is fully accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and accredited by Commission on Colleges for the awarding of Baccalaureate Degrees, is the only four-year institution in historic Birmingham, Alabama designated as a member of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). Miles College is a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) higher learning institution. The College is one of only 39 HBCUs to have the designation of a United Negro College Fund (UNCF) institution.

Miles College has as its brand civic engagement and activism. As a matter of fact, during the planning stages of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), when members were deciding what test city to implement the Civil Rights Movement, it was proposed to go to Birmingham, Alabama because the students at Miles College were already engaging in civic protests and boycotts against segregated public facilities. In essence, the Civil Rights Movement, in-part came to Birmingham Alabama, because of the activism of students at Miles College, helping to make Birmingham, Alabama the Civil Rights Capital of the world.

The College offers baccalaureate programs with majors such as Accounting, Biology, Business Administration, Chemistry, Communications, Computer and Information Sciences, History, Language Arts, Criminal Justice, Early Childhood/Elementary Education, English, Mathematics, Political Science and Social Work. In sum, Miles offers 28 Bachelor Degree programs in six academic divisions to an enrollment of approximately 1,700 students.

February Sixteen...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 16, 2019 at 6:40pm

Violet Lewis, founded of Lewis Business College, and the first location on Indiana Street in Indianapolis.

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, Women's Rights

LeMoyne College

In 1862, the American Missionary Association sent Ms. Lucinda Humphrey to Camp Shiloh to open an elementary school for freedmen and runaway slaves after the occupation of Memphis during the Civil War. The school, named Lincoln Chapel, was moved to Memphis in 1863 but was destroyed by fire in the race riots after the withdrawal of federal troops in 1866. The school was rebuilt and reopened in 1867 with 150 students and six teachers. The first years were challenging due to the toll that the yellow fever epidemic took on school personnel. In 1914, the school was moved to its present site on Walker Avenue, and the first building, Steele Hall, was erected on the new LeMoyne campus. LeMoyne became a junior college in 1924 and a four-year college in 1930. In March 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. paid his first visit to Memphis and to our campus.

MISSION STATEMENT

LeMoyne-Owen College provides a transformative experience educating students for urban-focused leadership, scholarship, service and professional careers.

VISION

To be an exemplary historically black college providing an excellent liberal arts education that transforms urban students, institutions and communities.

Lewis College of Business (closed 2013)

At the height of the Great Depression jobs were hard to come by, especially for African-Americans who had moved to northern cities. This was worrying for Violet Lewis, a bookkeeper in Indianapolis, Indiana, who was concerned by the number of unemployed black youths she saw in the city. At the time, public and private higher education schools would not accept African American students, so in 1928, Lewis began offering classes in secretarial work at her house. As the school grew, it moved into a storefront, and the Lewis College of Business was founded. To make it through the Great Depression, tuition was set at $2.50 per week for the 20 to 25 students. The program grew in popularity as Lewis became an established figure in the local media and hosted a popular radio show.

In September of 1939, Lewis College opened its second branch in Detroit on West Warren Street, the first business school in the city to accept African American students. After Lewis realized that running both schools simultaneously would be difficult, she closed the Indianapolis location in 1940 to focus on the Detroit branch. As the school expanded to over 300 daily students through the 1940’s and 1950’s, it moved to Ferry Street near Wayne State University. The transition wasn't smooth - white residents living nearby sued to close the school in 1942 on the grounds that it was a business in a residential area, but Lewis converted the college into a nonprofit and the case was dismissed. Lewis Business College offered courses in typewriting, bookkeeping, stenography, penmanship, and office management. Graduates from Lewis found work at General Motors, Ford, Michigan Bell, and the city of Detroit. Another branch was established in Cleveland, Ohio in 1960, again being the first business school in the city to accept African American students.

Source: Lewis College of Business

The Lincoln University

Originally established as The Ashmun Institute, Lincoln University received its charter from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on April 29, 1854, making it the nation's first degree-granting Historically Black College and University (HBCU).

As Horace Mann Bond, ‘23, Lincoln’s first African American and an eighth president, so eloquently cites in the opening chapter of his book, Education for Freedom, this was “the first institution found anywhere in the world to provide a higher education in the arts and sciences for male youth of African descent.”

The story of Lincoln University dates back to the early years of the nineteenth century and to the ancestors of its founders, John Miller Dickey, and his wife, Sarah Emlen Cresson. The maternal grandfather of John Miller Dickey was a marble merchant in Philadelphia who made contributions to the education of African-Americans in that city as early as 1794. Dickey’s father was a minister of the Oxford Presbyterian Church. After serving as a missionary and preaching to the slaves in Georgia, John Miller Dickey became pastor of that same church in Oxford, Pennsylvania, in 1832. Sarah Emlen Cresson inherited a long tradition of service and philanthropy through the Society of Friends in Philadelphia. John Miller Dickey was active in the American Colonization Society, and in 1851 took part in the court actions leading to the freeing of a young African-American girl who had been abducted from southern Chester County by slave raiders from Maryland. At the same time, having been unsuccessful in his efforts to gain college admission to even the most liberal of schools for a young freedman named James Amos, Dickey himself undertook to prepare the young man for the ministry.

Lincoln University

At the close of the Civil War, soldiers and officers of the 62nd United States Colored Infantry, stationed at Fort McIntosh, Texas, but composed primarily of Missourians, took steps to establish an educational institution in Jefferson City, Missouri, which they named Lincoln Institute. The following stipulations were set for the school:

1. The institution shall be designed for the special benefit of the freed African-Americans;

2. It shall be located in the state of Missouri;

3. Its fundamental idea shall be to combine study and labor.

Members of the 62nd Colored Infantry contributed $5,000; this was supplemented by approximately $1,400, given by the 65th Colored Infantry. On January 14, 1866, Lincoln Institute was formally established under an organization committee. By June of the same year, it incorporated and the committee became a Board of Trustees. Richard Baxter Foster, a former first lieutenant in the 62nd Infantry, was named first principal of Lincoln Institute. On September 17, 1866, the school opened its doors to the first class in an old frame building in Jefferson City.

In 1870, the school began to receive aid from the state of Missouri for teacher training. In 1871, Lincoln Institute moved to the present campus. College-level work was added to the curriculum in 1877, and passage of the Normal School Law permitted Lincoln graduates to teach for life in Missouri without further examination. Lincoln Institute formally became a state institution in 1879 with the deeding of the property to the state. Under the second Morrill Act of 1890, Lincoln became a land grant institution, and the following year industrial and agricultural courses were added to the curriculum.

February Fifteen...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 15, 2019 at 7:30am

Image Source: Lawson State Community College (link below)

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Knoxville College

Knoxville College was founded in 1875 as part of the missionary effort of the United Presbyterian Church of North America to promote religious, moral, and educational leadership among the freed men and women. Its mission today is a direct outgrowth of the purpose of its founding.

Knoxville College opened as a normal school for the training of teachers, but was designated a college in 1877. Dr. John Schouller McCulloch, who had been a chaplain in the Civil War, was called as the College’s first president. The school offered teacher training and full college courses in classics, science, and theology. There were classes in agriculture, industrial arts, and medicine (1895-1900). After the erection of its first building, McKee Hall (the administration building) in 1876, students helped construct most of the other buildings on campus. Wallace Hall (1891) and McMillan Chapel (1913) were built with student labor. A former student, William Thomas Jones, designed McMillan Chapel. Most of the bricks for these buildings were made by students at the campus brickyard. In 1904, students made and used or sold one million bricks. The College also owned some timberland (given to the school by a former student) which was used for its lumber needs.

Since there were so few blacks in the early days that prepared for higher education; Knoxville College initially offered classes from first grade through college level. The elementary department was discontinued during the 1926-27 school years, and the high school, or academy, was dropped in 1931.

Lane College

In 1882, one of the nation’s early Black Church denominations founded what has since evolved into Lane College. Now referred to as The Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church, the organization was originally named the Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church in America when it formed in 1870. Among its top priorities was the establishment of schools to educate the newly freed Negroes following the Civil War. This enterprise of building a school in Tennessee was conceived as early as November 1878 at the CME denomination’s Tennessee Annual Conference. The CME church’s first Bishop, William H. Miles, presided over the meeting which convened at the old Capers Chapel CME Church in Nashville, Tennessee. A most pivotal moment of the conference occurred when Reverend J.K. Daniels presented a resolution to establish a Tennessee school. Amid much applause, the resolution was adopted, and a committee was appointed to solicit means to purchase a site. Reverends C.H. Lee, J.H. Ridley, Sandy Rivers, Barry Smith, and J. K. Daniels constituted this committee.

Due to the great yellow fever epidemic of 1878, the committee’s work was hindered; but when Bishop Isaac Lane was appointed to preside over the Tennessee conference in 1879, there was a turning point. He met with the committee, gave advice, and helped to formulate plans for the founding of what would be called the “CME High School” (now Lane College). For $240, Bishop Lane purchased the first four acres of land to be used for the new school, and they were located in the eastern part of Jackson, Tennessee.

On November 12, 1882, the “CME High School” began its first session under the guidance of its first principal and teacher, Miss Jennie E. Lane, daughter of Founder Isaac Lane. This first day of school marked the beginning of a powerful and ongoing commitment to the uplifting of people throughout the south, the nation, and the world.

Langston University

Established in 1897 as the Colored Agricultural and Normal University (CANU), Langston University was envisioned at least seven years earlier with the 1890 Second Morrill Act. It required states or territories with land grant colleges either to admit African Americans or to provide an alternate school for them in order to qualify for federal funds. In 1892 three citizens of the All-Black town of Langston, including David J. Wallace, asked the Territorial Council to locate a college in the town. In 1897 Rep. William Gault introduced House Bill 151, creating the college and placing it at Langston in Logan County. By September 1898 teachers conducted the first classes at a Presbyterian Church and at Langston's public school, during the first building's construction. CANU lured Inman Page from the Lincoln Institute in Missouri to be the first president.

In accordance with the legislation CANU tried to provide African Americans with an industrial and agricultural curriculum, a normal or teacher's college, and a liberal arts curriculum, all with less funding than many Oklahoma institutions that provided just one of these missions. Under Page the university expanded in the number of students and in campus size. By 1915 the student population had grown from 41 to 639, and the campus had six main buildings.

Source: Oklahoma Historical Society

Lawson State Community College

Lawson State Community College, located in the southwestern section of Birmingham, is composed of two main divisions--an academic division and a career/technical division.

The career/technical division was first established as a result of the Wallace-Patterson Trade School Act of 1947. This Act established Wenonah Vocational and Trade School on August 24, 1949. The school opened with eleven instructors and seventy-five students enrolled in ten courses and one related subject. The first president of the school was Dr. Theodore A. Lawson. The initial funding received by the technical division was $75,000.

The academic division began as Wenonah State Junior College, which was founded under Act No. 93 of the May 3, 1963 Legislature. The College was created in 1965 and was named after its first president in 1969. In 1967, Wenonah State Junior College held its first commencement exercise with 33 graduates. In 1968, another milestone was accomplished when the college received its accreditation by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. In 1969, there were 300 students enrolled at Lawson State Junior College. On October 1, 1973, Wenonah State Technical Institute and Wenonah State Junior College merged and became one institution known as Lawson State Community College.

With its long-standing history, there has been a short list of presidents, Dr. Theodore A. Lawson, 1949-1971; Dr. Leon Kennedy, 1971-1978; Dr. Jesse J. Lewis, 1978-1987; and Dr. Perry W. Ward, 1987 through the present time.

Apathy, Crises and Zappa...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 15, 2019 at 7:00am

Image Source: Five Thirty Eight blog

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Politics

So what exactly is a constitutional crisis? We should be clear about what does — and, more importantly, does not — merit this description. It’s possible to have a major political crisis even if the Constitution is crystal clear on the remedy, or to have a constitutional crisis that doesn’t ruffle many feathers.

Political and legal observers generally divide constitutional crises into four categories:

1. The Constitution doesn’t say what to do.

The U.S. Constitution is brief and vague. (Compare it to a state constitution sometime.) This vagueness has one major advantage: It makes an 18th-century document flexible enough to effectively serve a 21st-century society. But sometimes the Constitution leaves us without sorely needed instructions, such as when William Henry Harrison became the first president to die in office in 1841. At the time, it wasn't clear whether the vice president should fully assume the office or just safeguard the role until a new president could somehow be chosen. (It wasn't until 1967 that the 25th amendment officially settled the question.) When Vice President John Tyler took over, no one was sure if he was the real president or merely the acting president, nor was anyone certain what should happen next. Tyler asserted that he was, in fact, the new president, and since then, vice presidents who have had to step into service as chief executive have been treated as fully legitimate, but early confusion took its toll on the perceived legitimacy of Tyler’s presidency.

2. The Constitution’s meaning is in question.

Sometimes the Constitution’s attempt to address an issue is phrased in a way that could allow multiple interpretations, leaving experts disagreeing about what it means and making it difficult or impossible to address a pressing problem. In this way, both the Great Depression and the Civil War created constitutional crises. The problem sparked by the Civil War is obvious: The fight rested on a bunch of unsettled constitutional questions, the biggest of which was about slavery and the federal government’s ability to control it, a subject on which the Constitution was silent. And while the Constitution provided information on how a state could join the union, it didn't say whether one could leave it or how it would go about doing so. It obviously took a war to resolve this crisis.

3. The Constitution tells us what to do, but it’s not politically feasible.

This category of constitutional crisis can crop up when presidential elections produce contested and confusing results. In the 2000 presidential election, when George W. Bush and Al Gore were separated by just a few hundred votes in Florida, the tipping-point state whose electoral votes would determine the winner, the state’s election results remained contested for weeks due to a number of irregularities and a secretary of state who seemed determined to cut a recount short. In theory, the Constitution allowed for various solutions to this problem: Congress could have decided which of Florida’s electors to recognize, or Congress could have determined that neither candidate had achieved a majority in the Electoral College and let the House of Representatives decide on a president (per the process spelled out in the 12th Amendment). Such outcomes, while certainly constitutional, would have been politically infeasible, creating a significant legitimacy crisis for the new president.

4. Institutions themselves fail.

The Constitution’s system of checks and balances sets the various branches against each other for the laudable purpose of constraining tyranny. However, due to partisan polarization, individual corruption, or any number of other reasons, sometimes the political institutions in these arrangements fail, sending the governmental system into a crisis. This was the type of constitutional crisis commentators were seemingly referring to in describing reports that Customs and Border Protection agents (members of the executive branch) weren't following orders from the judicial branch.

Five Thirty Eight blog: The 4 Main Types of Constitutional Crises, Julia Azari and Seth Masket

*****

Today the government will likely not shut down, but a manufactured crisis by the orange neurosis in chief will be declared for a mythological wall that Mexico is decidedly NOT going to pay for. The great Orange Satan will declare a state of emergency because his jester cabinet of Ann "Adams Apple" Coulter, Sean "The Chin in Suit" Hannity, Laura "The Nazi" Ingram and Rush "OxyContin" Limbaugh would not be pleased unless he trapped the genie in Aladdin and wished the wall into existence, because niggling things like physics, civil engineering and eminent domain impedes its instantaneous, vainglorious appearing.

Alas, this racist totem is not going to magically appear along two thousand miles of the Texas-Mexico border (which, if you read history, used to just be Mexico). The aforementioned eminent domain lawsuits will keep spades and plowshares still for years well after Biff Tannen leaves the republic - like he did his businesses, marriages and normal human relationships - in tatters. Narcissus will cobble together a "win" in a breathless display of mendacity we've grown somewhat accustomed to as well as exhausted by; and his slobbering, nodding hoards will salivate like Pavlov's dogs for the dinner bell. If by some stretch of a miracle of WASP-C privilege he manages to dodge jail as easily as he did the Vietnam draft, we'll likely hear his bombast until his last breath...LITERALLY mid sentence in a complete Word Salad stream-of-semi-consciousness riff is how he'll likely expire because of "stamina," or something. Poetically, I'm rooting for some sentence laced with braggadocio and "greatest" in it.

Why, he's opening the door for his eventual democratic successor to declare a national emergency on things like climate change, Green New Deals; school shootings, teen pregnancy and anti-vaccine groups endangering herd immunity. The absolute horror of "little Marco Rubio" would realized sooner than Miami Beach is submerged to meet Aquaman in Atlantis! Liberal dystopia for the alt-right and "alternative facts" types: sanity, survival and the closest thing to Star Trek for the rest of us.

"One of the things taken out of the curriculum was civics," Zappa went on to explain. "Civics was a class that used to be required before you could graduate from high school. You were taught what was in the U.S. Constitution. And after all the student rebellions in the Sixties, civics was banished from the student curriculum and was replaced by something called social studies. Here we live in a country that has a fabulous constitution and all these guarantees, a contract between the citizens and the government – nobody knows what's in it...And so, if you don't know what your rights are, how can you stand up for them? And furthermore, if you don't know what's in the document, how can you care if someone is shredding it?"

"Notes From the Dangerous Kitchen," a review and a quote from Frank Zappa, Critics at Large

It's more likely we have smart phones versus copies of The Constitution - vague a document it is - in our hip pockets. We collectively know about as much of the nanotechnology that goes into them as we do our own Founding Documents.

So, just how WOULD a self-absorbed latter-day remnant of the human species know their rights are being shredded before their very eyes...if they don't KNOW what they are? Or...they might just wake up after long last as in 2018 one year from now, and vote!

February Fourteen...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 14, 2019 at 7:30am

Johnson C. Smith - The Division of Government Sponsored Programs and Research inducted seven students into its Ronald E. McNair Scholars program. This year’s theme is “Defying Gravity: Launching Scholars Academic Success.”

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Jarvis Christian College

Jarvis Christian College is a historically Black liberal arts, associate and baccalaureate, degree-granting institution affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The mission of the college is to prepare students intellectually, through academic programs that promote excellence in teaching and learning; socially, through student-centered support programs that encourage positive and constructive communication among peers, faculty, and staff; spiritually, through programs that stimulate spiritual growth and worship; and personally, through interaction that fosters self-development and maturity using different modalities of instructional delivery. The mission further seeks to prepare students for professional and graduate studies, productive careers, and to function effectively in a global and technological society.

Johnson C. Smith University

1867

In 1867, the Rev. S.C. Alexander and the Rev. W. L. Miller saw the need to establish an institution in this section of the South. On April 7, 1867, at a meeting of the Catawba Presbytery in the old Charlotte Presbyterian Church, the movement for the school was formally inaugurated, which by charter was named The Freedmen's College of North Carolina, and these two ministers were elected as teachers.

1867-1876

Mary D. Biddle of Philadelphia, Pa. who, through appeals in one of the church papers, pledged $1,400 to the school. In appreciation of this first and generous contribution, friends requested Mrs. Biddle name the newly established school after her late husband, Major Henry Biddle. From 1867 to 1876, the school was named Biddle Memorial Institute and chartered by the state legislature.

Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary

The seminary’s vision is to be an agile institution providing an array of ministerial formation opportunities for ordained and non-ordained persons actively serving the Church.

JCSTS VALUES HERITAGE

Is grounded in the scholarship and history of the African-American religious experience

JCSTS VALUES TRADITION

Embraces the Reformed tradition of the Christian Church embodied in Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

JCSTS VALUES COMMUNITY

Invites and welcomes individuals with no preference to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, or nationality

Kentucky State University

From its modest beginnings as a small normal school for the training of black teachers for the black schools of Kentucky, Kentucky State University has grown and evolved into a land-grant and liberal arts institution that prepares a diverse student population to compete in a multifaceted, ever-changing global society. The University was chartered in May 1886 as the State Normal School for Colored Persons, only the second state-supported institution of higher learning in Kentucky. During the euphoria of Frankfort’s 1886 centennial celebration, when vivid recollections of the Civil War remained, the city’s 4,000 residents were keenly interested in having the new institution located in Frankfort. Toward that end, the city donated $1,500, a considerable amount in 1886 dollars, and a site on a scenic bluff overlooking the town. This united display of community enthusiasm and commitment won the day. The new college was located in Frankfort in spite of competition from several other cities.

Recitation Hall (now Jackson Hall), the college’s first building, was erected in 1887. The new school opened on October 11, 1887, with three teachers, 55 students, and John H. Jackson as president.

KSU became a land-grant college in 1890, and the departments of home economics, agriculture and mechanics were added to the school’s curriculum. The school produced its first graduating class of five students in the spring of that year. A high school was organized in 1893. This expansion continued into the 20th century in both name and program. In 1902, the name was changed to Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute for Colored Persons. The name was changed again in 1926 to Kentucky State Industrial College for Colored Persons. In the early 1930’s, the high school was discontinued, and in 1938 the school was named the Kentucky State College for Negroes. The term “for Negroes” was dropped in 1952. Kentucky State College became a university in 1972, and in 1973 the first graduate students enrolled in its School of Public Affairs.

Semper Fidelis...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 14, 2019 at 7:00am

Topics: Mars, NASA, Opportunity, Planetary Exploration, Spaceflight

NASA's Opportunity Mars rover was built to operate for just 90 days, but kept going for 15 years. NASA officially declared it dead on Wednesday, and its last message to scientists before it went dark eight months ago is getting a lot of attention.

The rover spent a decade and a half sending data bursts, not words, but according to science reporter Jacob Margolis, scientists at NASA said the last message they received from Opportunity effectively translated to, "My battery is low and it's getting dark."

The solar-powered rover was, in the end, doomed by a ferocious dust storm.

Flight controllers tried numerous times to make contact, and sent one final series of recovery commands Tuesday night along with one last wake-up song, Billie Holiday's "I'll Be Seeing You," in a somber exercise that brought tears to team members' eyes. There was no response from space, only silence.

Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA's science missions, broke the news at what amounted to a funeral at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, announcing the demise of "our beloved Opportunity."

'My battery is low and it's getting dark': Mars rover Opportunity's last message to scientists

ABC Chicago, Associated Press

February Thirteen...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 13, 2019 at 7:30am

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Huston-Tillotson University

Huston–Tillotson University is a historically black university in Austin, Texas, United States. The school is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, and the United Negro College Fund. Huston–Tillotson University established in 1881. The University is a member of the Red River Athletic Conference (RRAC). Their colors are maroon and white & their motto is In Union, Strength.

The history of Huston – Tillotson University lies in two schools: Tillotson College and Samuel Huston College. Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute was chartered as a coeducational school in 1877 by the American Missionary Society of Congregational churches. Samuel Huston College developed out of an 1876 Methodist Episcopal conference. On October 24, 1952 Tillotson College and Samuel Huston College merged to form Huston-Tillotson College. It then became Huston–Tillotson University on February 28, 2005.

Interdenominational Theological Center

The Interdenominational Theological Center was chartered in 1958 through the mutual efforts of four seminaries that came together to form one school of theology, in cooperation as an ecumenical cluster. The collaborative later added two additional schools and today houses five seminaries and an ecumenical fellowship. ITC is the world’s only graduate theology program with this unique model that is exclusively African American but inclusive to all. all people.

The Sealantic Fund, established by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to support theological education, was a major source of financial support. In 1959, there were 21 faculty members and 97 students in ITC. The new institution occupied the Gammon campus until its own facilities were completed in 1961.

J.F. Drake State Community and Technical College

J.F. Drake State Community and Technical College is the first and only institution of its kind in Alabama. It’s an institution where students can enhance their futures through comprehensive academic and technical training programs.

The Beginnings of a Rich History

As with so many educational institutions, within Drake State’s history lies many of its strengths.

In 1961, Governor George Wallace founded a group of state, two-year technical institutions to support the technical/vocational career education needs of African Americans. Huntsville State Vocational Technical School was one of these schools. Its original campus covered 30 acres of land deeded by Alabama A & M University to the Alabama Board of Education, and the new college opened its doors in 1962 with 27 students enrolled in four programs – auto mechanics, cosmetology, electronics, and masonry.

In 1966, the school changed its name to J. F. Drake State Technical Trade School in honor of the late Joseph Fanning Drake, long-time president of Alabama A&M University. The Alabama State Board of Education granted Drake State technical college status in 1973 and adjusted its name to J. F. Drake State Technical College, allowing the school to offer the Associate in Applied Technology Degree (AAT).

Jackson State University

Jackson State University has a distinguished history, rich in the tradition of educating young men and women for leadership, having undergone seven name changes as it grew and developed.

Founded as Natchez Seminary in 1877 by the American Baptist Home mission Society, the school was established as Natchez, Mississippi “for the moral, religious and intellectual improvement of Christian leaders of the colored people of Mississippi and the neighboring states.” In November 1882, the school was moved to Jackson; in March 1899, the curriculum was expanded and the name was changed to Jackson College.

The state assumed support of the college in 1940, assigning to it the mission of training teachers. Subsequently, between 1953 and 1956, the curriculum was expanded to include a graduate program and bachelor’s programs in the arts and sciences; the name was then changed to Jackson State College in 1956.

Further expansion of the curriculum and a notable building program preceded the elevation of Jackson State College to university status on March 15, 1974. In 1979, Jackson State was officially designated the Urban University of the State of Mississippi. Presently, Jackson State University, a public, coeducational institution, is supported by legislative appropriations supplemented by student fees and federal and private grants.

Anthony "Tony" Mitchell...

Posted by Reginald L. Goodwin on February 13, 2019 at 7:00am

Anthony "Tony" Mitchell

Topics: African Americans, Civil Rights, Education, Electrical Engineering, NSBE

“The 2019 BEYA Selection Committee, supported by the Council of Engineering Deans of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and our lead sponsor Lockheed Martin Corporation, have invested in me the authority to announce that Tony Mitchell is the 2019 Black Engineer of the Year,” said Tyrone Taborn, CCG CEO and co-founder of the BEYA STEM Conference.

Anthony “Tony” Mitchell is an executive vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton. He leads strategic development and execution of the management consulting firm’s Justice, Homeland Security, and Transportation business.

Recently, Mitchell served as deputy lead for defense and intelligence business, where he executed strategic initiatives to drive growth and financial performance.

In the community, Mitchell serves as a board member and chair of the Audit Committee of United Through Reading, an organization dedicated to uniting U.S. military families through the gift of reading.

He holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from the General Motors Institute (now known as Kettering University) and an M.S. in information systems management from The George Washington University.

2019 Black Engineer of the Year Award: Anthony "Tony" Mitchell

The Talented Tenth Saga----PLEASE DONATE

Posted by Christopher Love on February 12, 2019 at 10:17pm

The Talented Tenth Saga will be an 8 issue, limited run comic book series and film. This series is unique for many reasons.

First of all, it will feature real people versus hand drawn or CGI characters. This is why actors and actresses will be sought.
Secondly, the main characters in the world of The Talented Tenth Saga will be diverse as the world we live in.
And lastly, all 8 issues will be given out for free and can be read at beauty shops, barber shops, schools, libraries and other organizations in local communities starting in Madison County, Alabama and beyond. The film will be uploaded to YouTube and other platforms for free to enjoy and view.

The comic book can be downloaded on IndyPlanet.com

Please support this project.

https://www.ioby.org/project/talented-tenth-saga

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February Twenty-Three...

February Twenty-Two...

A Crumbling Foundation...

February Twenty-One...

Dorothy Vaughn...

February Twenty...

Dr. Percy L. Julian...

February Nineteen...

From Dark To Missing...

February Eighteen...

National Society of Black Physicists...

February Seventeen...

February Sixteen...

February Fifteen...

Apathy, Crises and Zappa...

February Fourteen...

Semper Fidelis...

February Thirteen...

Anthony "Tony" Mitchell...

The Talented Tenth Saga----PLEASE DONATE

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