The Road To Success: NSBE flips the script on lagging recruitment and retention

Written by Chris Levister | 23 June 2011

(NNPA) – In 1971, during the civil rights movement, Arthur J. Bond a student leader at Purdue University led students to demand that the engineering and science powerhouse open up its engineering schools to more Blacks and women. Fredrick L. Hovde, Purdue’s president at the time, was sympathetic to the cause. He appointed Bond to a steering committee, which organized the first national effort to increase minority participation in engineering.

Prophetic Genius of Gil Scott Heron

Written by Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. | 02 June 2011

Gil Scott Heron (1949-2011) was more than a legendary entertainer. He was a social and political visionary that helped to inspire generations of young gifted and talent poets, spoken word artists, rappers, and a global cadre of musical and cultural satirists that have contributed to the irreversible, progressive transformations of the mindsets of hundreds of millions of young people from Harlem, New York to Soweto, South Africa; and from the Delta in Mississippi and the bayous of Louisiana to Trench Town in Jamaica to the barrios of Brazil and deep into the crucible neighborhoods of the South Bronx and South Central LA as well as throughout what is culturally referred today as the "Dirty South."

Your Take: Threat to Blacks in the Public Sector

Written by Lee Saunders | 02 June 2011

Radical conservative politicians want to slash city, county and state jobs -- and undercut the economic security of African-American families, says this union official. When I was growing up in Cleveland, some of the most respected people in my neighborhood were the folks who worked for the city, county or state. My father was a city bus driver who took great pride in getting people safely to and from their jobs every day. My mother was a community college teacher who loved preparing her students for success.

Flawed Exam Cost Blacks More Than Jobs

Written by Wendell Hutson, Special Chicago Crusader | 02 June 2011

Had Arthur Lewis Jr. been hired after taking a 1995 entrance exam to be a Chicago firefighter he could have been promoted three times by now. "I could have been a battalion chief. Who knows what my rank would be had I been given a fair chance to compete for what I consider is the greatest job in the world," Lewis told the Crusader.