The NorthStar News and Analysis

Black Students Flock to STEM Fields

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:35:17 GMT

Yet Business Lobby Pushes for More Temporary Workers

by William Spriggs
Over last weekend, young people watched or read about President Obama speaking at Morehouse College and First Lady Michelle Obama addressing the graduates of Bowie State University. Hopefully they were inspired by seeing so many young and gifted people finishing the course they chose to follow. Well, here is a little known set of facts.

Those colleges are both historically Black colleges-known as HBCUs-and they graduate a disproportionate share of the nation's Black science, technical, engineering and math (STEM) majors-the very majors everyone points to as the skills America will need to succeed. And, it turns out, HBCUs are important because those fields are the backbone of the new Black middle class.

More Blacks work in computer-related occupations than are employed as elementary and middle school teachers or postal workers. And, like those students at Morehouse and Bowie State, Black college students are more likely to choose computer science as a major than White students. In part because of the high share of blacks who major in computer science and because of the large number of Black college students, there are more baccalaureate degrees awarded to African- Americans than to Asian-Americans in computer science.

Now, a great challenge lies ahead. Having found a path to the middle class through education and training, business interests are pushing hard in Congress to import temporary workers to do computer-based jobs. This while there are still 20,000-plus fewer Blacks employed as computer programmers and systems analysts since their employment peaked in 2008.

But, while those workers continue to search to get back to the high-tech jobs they trained for, we have seen businesses increase requests for H-1B visas (visas for high-tech workers). And now the Senate Judiciary Committee adopted ludicrous amendments, introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in the immigration bill, that refuse to give America's workers a first shot at these jobs. These amendments would even allow businesses to fire American workers and replace them with temporary workers.

The AFL-CIO is fighting to restore some reason here. We need to protect American workers' huge investment in college loans to get trained in computer and science skills the country needs, while providing a road map to citizenship for all aspiring Americans.

So, the AFL-CIO is challenging Sen. Hatch and the business lobby to make sure there are safeguards to keep a path to the middle class open.

Spriggs is chief economist to the AFL-CIO and is a professor in, and former chair of the Department of Economics at Howard University. Bill is also former assistant secretary for the Office of Policy at the United States Department of Labor.

Even in Death, Trayvon Martin is Racially Profiled, Attorney says

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:16:00 GMT

Benjamin Crump, the attorney for Trayvon Martin's family, said on Thursday that the teenager is being posthumously racially profiled.

Crump made the statement after attorneys for George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin's killer, released texts from the teenager's mobile phone in which he discussed fighting, smoking marijuana, having a gun and being forced to move out his mother's house.

"If they had suggested Trayvon is nonviolent and that George is the aggressor, I think that makes evidence of the fighting he has been involved in the past relevant," said Mark O'Mara, Zimmerman's lawyer.

Zimmerman has pled not guilty to second-degree murder in Martin's shooting death, which occurred on February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Fla. A police dispatcher ordered Zimmerman to stop pursuing Martin, but Zimmerman ignored the order before killing the unarmed teenager.

Zimmerman is scheduled to go on trial for Martin's murder in June.

Crump said: "Trayvon Martin died because George Zimmerman profiled him as a criminally minded young punk under the guise of protecting his neighborhood. And now, Trayvon Martin is being profiled again as a marijuana-loving violent thug under the guise of pursuing justice."

Boy Scouts Lift Ban on Openly Gay Scouts

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:05:01 GMT

Gay adult leaders are still barred

The Boy Scouts of America on Thursday dropped its 100 year-old prohibition on openly gay scouts, but a ban on gay adult leaders remains in place.

"Today, following this review, the most comprehensive listening exercise in scouting history the approximate 1,400 voting members of the Boy Scouts of America's National Council approved a resolution to remove the restriction denying membership to youth on the basis of sexual orientation alone," Boy Scouts of America said in a statement. "The resolution also reinforces that scouting is a youth program, and any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of scouting age is contrary to the virtues of scouting."

The Boy Scouts of America, which is based in Irving, Texas, noted that the organization's policy banning gay adults was not under consideration during the review.

The change in policy will become effective Jan. 1, 2014. Boy Scouts has approximately 116,000 scouting units nationwide.

Black Caucus Weekend Begins Sept. 18

Fri, 24 May 2013 09:51:36 GMT

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc., will hold its 43rd Annual Legislative Conference Sept. 18-21 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus and other black elected officials and non-elected officials attend the conference in which they discuss a variety of issues affecting African-Americans.

At the upcoming conference, the CBCF, the non-profit arm of the Congressional Black Caucus, will host a town hall meeting that will focus on the theme "From Poverty to Prosperity: Confronting Violence, Restoring Opportunity, and investing in Youth." The town hall will address the impact of poverty, juvenile justice, and gun violence.

In the conference's exhibit hall, the CBFC will introduce a new procurement fair for small businesses.

"ALC is recognized as one of the most-important gatherings of American Americans in the nation," said U. S. Rep. Chaka Fattah ( D., Pa) and the conference chair. "Every year, we see thousands of returning attendees and even more new faces ready to join the dialogue so they, too, can be change agents in their communities."

Blacks in Michigan Have the Nation's Highest Unemployment Rate

Fri, 24 May 2013 03:08:18 GMT

Mississippi's black jobless rate is twice that of the state's whites

The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based think tank, recently reported that unemployment rates among African Americans in Michigan and Mississippi are double each state's white unemployment rate.

Blacks in Michigan, however, have the highest jobless rate in the nation, EPI reported.

In 2012's fourth quarter, Michigan's black unemployment rate was 18.5 percent, compared with a jobless rate of 7.5 percent for white workers, wrote Mary Gable, policy analyst at EPI, and Douglas Hall, EPI's director of the Economic Analysis and Research Network.

Although Michigan's black unemployment rate is extremely high, it is much lower than it was when it peaked at 26.9 percent in 2010's third quarter, wrote Gable and Hall.

"Michigan's recovery from the depths of the Great Recession has been impressive at times, spurred in particular by the successful bailout of the auto sector. Yet despite significant reductions in overall unemployment, nearly one in five African-American workers continues to be unemployed. Others have stopped looking for work and have fallen out of the labor force altogether, adding to the human cost of an economic collapse and slow economic recovery that has taken a much greater toll on African Americans than whites," Gable and Hall wrote in a policy brief titled, "Ongoing Joblessness In Michigan."

The news is not any better for black workers down South.

In Mississippi, the black unemployment rate was 14.3 percent in 2012's fourth quarter, compared with the white jobless rate of 5.4 percent. Mississippi's African-American unemployment rate is the ninth highest among the 24 states with sufficiently large black populations to measure unemployment, Gable wrote.

"Despite significant reductions in overall unemployment, about one in seven African-American workers is unemployed," Gable wrote in a policy brief titled "Ongoing Joblessness in Mississippi."

Saint Augustine Drops Plans to Buy Struggling St. Paul’s College

Fri, 24 May 2013 02:50:57 GMT

125-year-old HBCU Surprised by Decision

by Jeremy M. Lazarus
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

Lawrenceville, Va. --- Saint Paul’s College, a historically African-American college, no longer has a buyer. Saint Augustine’s University of Raleigh, N.C., has dropped plans to take over 125-year-old Saint Paul’s, its sister Episcopal-affiliated school in Lawrenceville, 80 miles southwest of Richmond.

Taking Saint Paul’s officials by surprise, Dr. Diane B. Suber, president of Saint Augustine’s, announced the decision last Friday following a six-month review.

“After careful due diligence and much deliberation, Saint Augustine’s has decided … the acquisition is not a fiscally responsible option,” she stated in a release. “We concluded the acquisition … would significantly challenge the fiscal stability of Saint Augustine’s University.”

That decision was totally unexpected, according to Dr. Oliver W. Spencer Jr., chairman of the Saint Paul’s board of trustees and superintendent of Brunswick County Public Schools.

“We had anticipated that as a result of our discussions and planning, we would be moving forward with the possible merger acquisition process.”

Dr. Spencer's statement was released and posted on Saint Paul’s website Monday. Despite the setback, he vowed that the board would “continue to pursue all options, including continuing discussions with Saint Augustine’s board.”

Dr. Spencer issued the statement a day after the school awarded about 60 degrees at its 2013 commencement, possibly the last for the school. Saint Paul’s management is already in flux. The most recent president, Dr. Claud Flythe, resigned last month. Dr. Algeania W. Freeman, former president of Livingstone College in North Carolina, has been named interim president, according to Dr. Spencer.

Dr. Suber hinted that Saint Augustine’s could change its mind again. She stated that the Saint Paul’s board would be allowed to present a plan to the Raleigh university’s board on Friday, May 31, in hopes of reversing this latest decision.

Saint Augustine’s began takeover talks with Saint Paul’s last Thanksgiving and appeared to have committed itself a month ago. On April 4, the board of Saint Augustine’s notified a federal court in Atlanta that the school planned to move forward with the takeover of Saint Paul’s and would seek approval of the takeover from its accrediting body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools' (SACS) Commission on Colleges.

As a result, the court put off hearing Saint Paul’s lawsuit challenging SACS’ decision to pull its accreditation in 2012, enabling Saint Paul’s to maintain accreditation — and access to federal, state and private tuition support for its students. The case is to resume once Saint Augustine’s drops the merger.

Saint Augustine’s history dates to 1867. The school enrolls about 1,500 students at its Raleigh campus. Since January, it has co-managed the Saint Paul’s campus in Brunswick County.

Saint Paul’s, which Episcopal Archdeacon James Solomon Russell founded in 1888, dropped to 150 students during this school year, far short of the 700 students it once served annually. It has been seeking a takeover suitor since the SACS Commission on Colleges voted to strip its accreditation last summer.

Without a deal for the campus, Saint Paul’s future appears bleak. Virginia State University earlier rejected the school’s offer of its campus, and, to date, Saint Augustine’s is the only other school to express interest.

St. Paul’s was founded on Sept. 24, 1888, as the Saint Paul Normal and Industrial School.

Blacks Twice As Likely to Learn in Church About Finances

Fri, 24 May 2013 02:41:16 GMT

by Frederick H. Lowe
If investment counselors want to sign African-Americans as clients, they should go over money issues in a church because there is greater reliance on faith-based institutions for financial information, according to a Prudential Inc. survey.

This includes pastors imparting financial information from the pulpit or financial professionals being invited to speak to the congregation.

The report, which is titled "The African American Financial Experience 2013-14," found that 13 percent of blacks received their financial information through church or other faith-based institutions, compared to only 6 percent of the general population.

Prudential's study also reported that 29 percent of African Americans get their information from a professional financial advisor, compared with 37 percent of the general population.

Blacks, however, want advice from financial professionals, but only 26 percent believe any financial-services company has engaged or shown their support for the African-Americans.

"African-Americans are not only less likely to have a financial advisor but also less likely to have been contacted by one," the study found.

Blacks also receive financial information through credit unions, local banks, materials from financial-services companies, friends, employers, financial companies' websites, newspapers and magazines, co-workers and television programs.

Prudential, a Newark, N.J.-based $10 billion financial-services company, conducted a nationwide, online survey of 1,153 African-American adults 25 to 70 years old March 1-19, 2013.

Some 26 percent of respondents reported a household income between $25,000 and $49,000; 35 percent reported a household income between $35,000 and $75,000; 15 percent reported a household income between $75,000 and $99,000 and 24 percent reported a household income between $100,000 or more.

The survey reported that 16 percent of the respondents lived in the Northeast United States; 59 percent lived in the South; 17 percent lived in the Midwest and 8 percent lived in the West.

Prudential issued a similar report about African-American financial concerns in 2011.

Younger, Educated Blacks More Optimistic about Financial Future

Fri, 24 May 2013 02:28:11 GMT

by Frederick H. Lowe
Despite a difficult economy in which the seasonally adjusted black-unemployment rate is higher than a year ago, African-Americans are more optimistic about their financial situation, compared to a year ago, but that view is mostly held by young people and college graduates, according to a Prudential Inc. survey.

The report, titled "The African American Financial Experience 2013-14," found that 50 percent of blacks who participated in the survey reported that they were financially better off than they were a year ago, compared with 19 percent who said they were worse off.

This compares to 33 percent of the general population who believe they were better off than a year ago and 15 percent who believe their financial situation is much more dire.

The financial confidence, however, is not across the board, and it is affected by several factors, the survey found. Gen Y, the millennial generation or those born in the late 1970s and up to 2000, were more confident than older generations about their financial future.

So were black college graduates, who earn $75,000 or more annually, the study reported.

Prudential noted that it is better to measure financial progress over a generation when it comes to African-Americans.

Some 65 percent of those surveyed feel they are better off financially than an earlier generation, compared with 19 percent who believe they are worse off.

Compared to five years ago, 47 percent of African Americans believed they were financially better off , but 23 percent did not feel that way.

Prudential found that nearly half, or 46 percent of survey respondents felt they were prepared to make financial decisions, compared with 35 percent in the general population.

Although 50 percent of the general population placed their economic confidence in their household assets, only 17 percent of African-Americans placed a high value in this area.

The key drivers for African-American financial confidence also include life insurance. In addition, blacks focus on liabilities, including health-care costs, household expenses debt and children's and grandchildren's financial future.

Only 14 percent of blacks are concerned with macro issues, including higher interest rates or inflation, compared to 28 percent in the larger population.
Prudential, a Newark, N.J.-based $10 billion financial-services company, conducted a nationwide, online survey of 1,153 African-American adults 25 to 70 years old March 1-19, 2013.

Some 26 percent of respondents reported a household income between $25,000 and $49,000; 35 percent reported a household income between $35 and $75,000; 15 percent reported a household income between $75,000 and $99,000 and 24 percent reported a household income between $100,000 or more.

The survey reported that 16 percent of the respondents lived in the Northeast United States; 59 percent lived in the South; 17 percent lived in the Midwest and 8 percent lived in the West.

Prudential issued a similar report about African American financial concerns in 2011.

African Americans' Top Priority Is Paying Down Debt

Fri, 24 May 2013 02:11:12 GMT

by Frederick H. Lowe
Paying down or paying off consumer-loan and student-loan debt are the chief concerns of African-American consumers and recent college graduates, according to a Prudential Financial Inc., survey, released on Tuesday.

The report titled, "The African American Financial Experience for 2013-2014," revealed that high-consumer debt was a source of anxiety and depression for one in four African Americans.

The survey also reported that median household debt, including high-interest credit-card loans, was $18,000, 50 percent higher than the household debt for the general population.

In addition, the survey reported that four in 10 black college graduates are distressed over having student-loan debt significantly higher than the general population.

African-American homeowners, however, do get a break on their mortgage loans, which is not considered consumer-loan debt. The survey reported that blacks have a lower median mortgage debt of $117,000, compared to $142,000 among the general population.

The report found that 48 percent of African Americans who earned an extra 10 percent of income would spend the money on paying down debt, which is a higher response rate than the general population.

"Debt garners more than three times the responses of the next highest answer," the 20-page study reported.

Black consumers also would spend extra income on putting money in an emergency fund or short-term savings fund, contributing to retirement savings, saving for a large purchase, such as a home or a vacation, saving for children's education, investing in a non-retirement account, giving to a charity, purchasing life insurance and spending the money shopping.

Prudential, a Newark, N.J.-based $10 billion financial-services company, conducted a nationwide, online survey of 1,153 African-American adults 25 to 70 years old March 1-19, 2013.

Some 26 percent of respondents reported a household income between $25,000 and $49,000; 35 percent reported a household income between $35 and $75,000; 15 percent reported a household income between $75,000 and $99,000 and 24 percent reported a household income between $100,000 or more.

The survey reported that 16 percent of the respondents lived in the Northeast United States; 59 percent lived in the South; 17 percent lived in the Midwest and 8 percent lived in the West.

Prudential issued a similar report about African-American financial concerns in 2011.

NorthStar's Days In Black History

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:05:31 GMT

May 21

1969 ----- Police and National Guardsmen fired on demonstrating students at North Carolina AT&T in Greensboro, N.C., killing one student on this day.

The uprising began at Dudley High School, when Claude Barnes, a write-in candidate for student-council president at Dudley High School was denied a landslide victory because school officials feared his involvement in the Black Power Movement.

The next day, Barnes and his friends protested the school administration's interference in the student council election by walking out of school. The following day a few more students joined.

The city's black leaders urged Dudley officials to recognize Barnes' victory, but instead school administrators called the police. Barnes said he thinks the protest would have quickly run its course. When the police were called, however, more students joined the protest, according to Bluford Library at North Carolina AT&T.

The student uprising spread to nearby North Carolina AT&T, and the college students supported Dudley's students. The incident led to a violent three-day confrontation between North Carolina AT&T students, Vietnam veterans, Greensboro police and 650 National Guardsmen.

During the battle, Willie Ernest Grimes, a 20-year-old AT&T student and a member of the Army ROTC, was shot to death, though it is not clear if he was killed by the police, National Guardsman or student demonstrators. Grimes and some friends were walking near Carver Hall. Witnesses said someone fired the fatal shot from a passing car. Others said the shot came from an unmarked police car. Grimes died from the unshot to his brain at Moses Cone Hospital. His murder never has been solved.

Grimes was buried in his hometown of Winterville, N.C., and more than 2,000 people attended his funeral. North Carolina AT&T erected a marker on campus in Grimes's memory.

The campus confrontation is captured in the documentary "Walls That Bleed: The Story of the Dudley-AT&T Student Uprising." The film was made in 2008 by North Carolina AT&T alumni Michael Anthony.

Anthony made two versions of the documentary. The second version, released in 2012, includes archival footage, which Anthony could not afford to buy for his first film. The second version also highlights North Carolina AT&T's activist movements from 1960 to 1969.

After the confrontation ended, the North Carolina State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights found that Dudley's administration suppressed dissent.

May 22

1959 ----- Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., was temporarily promoted on this day as the first Major General in the United States Air Force, making him the first African American to achieve the rank. A Major General has two stars and Brigadier General has one star.

Davis's nomination became effective on June 30, 1959, and it lasted until May 16, 1960. He was permanently promoted to Major General in 1962.

Davis, the son Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., the first black general in the in the U.S. Army, graduated in 1936 from the United States Military Academy at West Point. None of the other cadets would speak to him except in the line of duty during his entire four years.

He never had a roommate. He ate meals by himself. He attended academy dances by himself and danced by himself, according to his 1991 autobiography, "Benjamin O. Davis, Jr: American."

Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.

His classmates hoped that this would drive him out of West Point. The "silent treatment" had the opposite effect. It made Davis more determined to graduate.

General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. troops during the Vietnam War and a West Point classmate of Davis, apologized many years later to Davis for the way in which he treated him. Davis' other classmates followed Westmoreland's lead.

After graduating from West Point, Davis transferred to the Army Air Corps in May 1942, where he was commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron at Tuskegee Army Base in Tuskegee, Ala. He moved his unit to North Africa in April 1943 and later to Sicily.

In October 1943, he assumed command of the 332nd Fighter Group. The unit returned to Italy with the group two months later, according to his official Air Force biography. The all-black flying squadrons were called the Red Tails, because the planes' tails were painted red.

Davis continued to climb through the ranks, and in 1998, President Clinton advanced him to Four Star General. Davis had retired from the Air Force in 1970 after 38 years of service.

General Davis died on July 4, 2002, and during his burial at Arlington National Cemetery, a Red-Tailed mustang fighter plane flew overhead to pay Davis a fitting final salute.

May 23

1871 ----- Landrow Bell, a Washington, D.C., waiter, was awarded patent number 115,153 for the invention of new and useful improvements to smokestacks or chimneys for locomotives and other engines.

Bell's invention prevented the dangerous effluence of sparks and cinders that harmed train passengers and property along the railroad line, according to the book "The Inventive Spirit of African Americans."
"Bell's invention consisted of a division of the crescent-shaped flue that confined the cinders and sparks to the ash pan and the engine firebox," according to the book.

Dr. Peter Marshall Murray

May 24

1954 ----- Dr. Peter Marshall Murray was installed on this day as president of the New York County Medical Society, becoming the first African American to head a unit of the Chicago-based American Medical Association.

Dr. Murray, a 1914 graduate of Howard University Medical College in Washington, D.C., served in that position from 1954 to 1957, according to the Encyclopedia of Black America.

He became the first official African-American member of the AMA House of Delegates in 1950. During his 12 years at the AMA, Dr. Murray was instrumental in desegregating the organization's chapters, including those in the deep south, according to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

After graduating from Howard Medical College in 1914, he interned at Freeman's Hospital in Washington, D.C. He remained on the staff as assistant clinical professor of surgery and assistant surgeon-in-chief until 1920.

He practiced in Washington for several years before moving to New York City. Murray joined the staff of Harlem Hospital, where he became director of the gynecological service before retiring in 1953. he began is New York practice in 1921.

Dr. Murray was born in 1888 in Houma, La., and he received his bachelors degree from New Orleans University in 1910.

Advocates Outraged Over Bill With $21 Billion Food-Stamp Cut

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:26:38 GMT

by Zenitha Prince
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper

(TriceEdneyWire.com) --- Congressional leaders and anti-hunger advocates expressed outrage over a U.S. House committee’s passage of a bill that includes a $21 billion slash in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the nation’s largest nutrition-assistance program.

The bill, formally known as the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013, passed out of committee by a vote of 36-10 on May 15. A day before, the Senate passed its version of the farm bill, including $4 billion in cuts to SNAP, by a vote of 15-5.

“A vote for this level of cuts is shameless,” David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, said in a statement. “Millions of people will lose food assistance and hundreds of thousands of households will see their benefits cut dramatically at a time when families across the country are struggling with long-term unemployment or reduced wages. Hungry and poor people do not deserve to bear the brunt of our deficit-reduction efforts.”

Supporters of the bill say the cuts in SNAP, better known as the food-stamp program, reflect savings from the elimination of errors and fraud—the first reform of the program since the Welfare Reform Act of 1996.

“I am proud of the committee's effort to advance a farm bill with significant savings and reforms,” Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said in a prepared statement. “We achieve nearly $40 billion in savings by eliminating outdated government programs and reforming others. No other committee in Congress is voluntarily cutting money, in a bipartisan way, from its jurisdiction to reduce the size and scope of the federal government.”

But detractors said SNAP has the lowest error rate among federal programs, and the budget cuts penalize those who need the government’s help the most.

On May 14, Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, a Democrat, urged his colleagues to consider the moral implications of allowing so many Americans to go hungry.

The farm bill includes $20 billion in SNAP cuts “at a time when we have 50 million hungry Americans. At a time when we have 17 million hungry kids,” McGovern said. “We were elected to solve problems and help people; not make things worse,” he said. “We were elected to help make lives better. We were elected to do the right thing. Cutting SNAP – making it harder for hungry Americans to put food on their tables – is the wrong thing.”

The proposed measure would remove 2 million SNAP recipients from the program, reduce SNAP benefits by about $90 each month for 850,000 households, end free school meals for 210,000 children and cut international food aid by $2.5 billion over five years, the lawmaker said. Those measure are in addition to a $25 per month cut that every SNAP recipient will see this fall when the increase from the Recovery Act ends. During the bill’s markup on May 15, McGovern offered an amendment to restore the cuts that failed by a roll call vote of 17-27.

Advocates said the decision undermines the first line of defense against hunger and will impede the work of charitable and faith-based organizations such as Bread for the World, Catholic Charities USA, Feeding America and United Way Worldwide in feeding the hungry, especially with food demands going up and charitable giving on the decline.

Feeding America estimates that these cuts would amount to over 8 billion lost meals for struggling families.

“If divided evenly across Feeding America's national network of food banks, every food bank would have to provide an additional 4 million meals each year for the next 10 years, and that is just not possible,” Bob Aiken, president and CEO of Feeding America, said in a statement. “There is no way that charity would be able to make up the difference. We are already stretched thin meeting sustained high need, and we simply do not have the resources to prevent hunger in all of the families who would be impacted by these cuts.”

The groups say they will continue to lobby lawmakers to reverse course and restore SNAP’s funds as the bill moves to the House floor. And several lawmakers have vowed to do the same.

“We must stand for the most vulnerable in our country,” McGovern said in his floor speech. “And we must End Hunger Now – not make it worse.”

Black Consumers Focus on Getting Out of Debt, Prudential Survey Finds

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:16:57 GMT

A Prudential Financial Inc. survey of more than 1,000 African-American adults about their financial concerns found that most blacks are focused on paying down debt.

Debt reduction was the number one priority, Prudential's African-American Financial Experience 2013 biennial survey of 1,153 individuals reported. The report also found that African Americans are less likely to own investment products or to have a trusted relationship with a financial advisor.

Prudential, a Newark, N.J.-based financial-services company, released the survey's entire results during a news conference and panel discussion today in New York. Prudential conducted its first African American Financial Survey in 2011. Prudential reported $10.2 billion in revenues for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013.

Alicia Rodgers Alston, director of Global Communications for Prudential, outlined this year's report's findings. The release was followed by a panel discussion, which included Michael Davis, senior vice president of Stable Value, Prudential Retirement; Valerie Coleman Morris, author and personal finance expert, and Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League.

Prudential partnered with GfK Public Affairs & Corporate Communications, a Nuremberg, Germany-based firm with offices worldwide, to survey African-American respondents between 25 and 70 years old from March 7-19. Participants reported annual household incomes of $25,000 or more.

States with the highest survey participation were California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

Two Tennessee White Men Plead Guilty to Hate Crimes

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:13:20 GMT

Two white men who spray painted swastikas and hung nooses on the cars and the homes of African Americans in a subdivision, near Nashville, Tenn., have pled guilty to hate crimes, and they now face up to 10 years in prison.

Dakota James Calderhead, 20, and Kristian Chancellor Mathis,19, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to deprive a person of his civil rights in U.S. District Court in Nashville.

Mathis admitted to spray painting racial slurs and swastikas on the home of an African-American family who lived in Spring Lake. Calderhead owned up to tying a noose, which Mathis hung from a tree outside the home.

He also admitted to tying a noose to the rear-view mirror of a school bus parked in front of the home of another black family, said U.S. Justice Department officials.

The two said their acts of vandalism were motivated by hate. Both live in Spring Hill.

"These innocent families were targeted and subjected to acts of harassment and intimidation for no other reason than their race," said Roy L. Austin, Jr., deputy assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division.

Calderhead and Mathis are scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 21, 2013.

Murder of a Black Gay Man in New York Is Called a Hate Crime

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:06:43 GMT

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called the recent shooting death of a black gay man a hate crime.

Police said Elliott Morales, a 33-year-old ex-convict, was yelling anti-gay slurs before he allegedly shot to death Mark Carson, following a brief argument Friday night in New York's Greenwich Village.

Carson and his friend walked away from Morales and his two friends, but Morales followed Carson to continue his end of the argument.

Carson, 32, was shot once in the face, and he died instantly. Morales attempted to escape by running and blending into the crowd, but police caught him with a pistol, believed to be the murder weapon.

"This clearly looks like a hate crime," Kelly said during a Saturday news conference. On Sunday, prosecutors charged Morales with murder as a hate crime.

Carson's murder is the second involving a black gay man in four months. Marco McMillian, an openly gay black men who was running for mayor of Clarksdale, Miss., was found murdered February 27 near a Mississippi River levee.

Police arrested 22-year-old Lawrence Reed and charged him with McMillian's murder.

The National Black Justice Coalition, a black gay, lesbian and transgender organization based in Washington, D.C., has hired Parks & Crump to investigate conflicting reports surrounding McMillian's death. NBJC said McMillian was tortured because there were third-degree burns to his body. The sheriff’s department said McMillian died from asphyxiation.

Parks & Crump, a Tallahassee, Fla., law firm, also represents Trayvon Martin's family.

Settlement Honors Black Ancestors in Canadian Village

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:44:14 GMT

70 Buxton citizens returned to U.S. to fight in the Civil War

by Frederick H. Lowe
Residents of Buxton, Ontario, Canada, a town founded to help runaway slaves and free blacks to become self-sufficient business and property owners, something only a few blacks were allowed to achieve in the United States, held its annual commemoration service on Sunday.

The church service honored the lives of Buxton ancestors who built what at one time was Canada's largest black-owned settlement.

The hour-long service at the North Buxton Community Church included among its honorees 70 black men who returned to the United States to fight for the Union Army in the Civil War, Shannon Prince, curator of the Buxton National Historic Site & Museum, and a sixth-generation Buxton resident, tells The NorthStar News & Analysis.

"The men fought with the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the 55th Massachusetts Regiment, the 102nd Michigan Regiment and regiments in Indiana and Kentucky," said Prince, whose husband, Bryan, is writing a book about the black men from Canada who fought in the Civil War. The book is titled “My Brother’s Keeper,” and it is scheduled for publication in 2015.

The 54th Massachusetts Regiment’s story was told in the 1989 Academy Award-winning film, "Glory." It was one of the first regiments of African-American soldiers organized to fight in the Civil War.The lesser-known 102nd Michigan Regiment was organized in Detroit in 1863. The regiment fought in 10 battles.

North Buxton Community Church is next to the cemetery where Buxton residents are buried. The cemetery was recently expanded. It is not known how many people have been buried in the cemetery since it opened in 1855.

"Many of the graves are unmarked," Prince said.

The service that honors Buxton's ancestors is held annually on the third Sunday of May, she explained. It is not known how long the service has been a tradition, but Prince said her grandfather told her that his father collected money from residents to keep up the cemetery.

"It has been a tradition for at least 90 years and maybe more," Prince said.

The Rev. Dr. William King, an Irish Presbyterian minister, who inherited 15 slaves while living in the United States, founded Buxton in 1849. Initially, it was called The Elgin Settlement. King and the town's black and white residents, organized as the Elgin Association, purchased 9,000 acres of heavily wooded land near Lake Erie and the Thames River, from the Anglican Church of Canada. King named the town in honor of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, a close friend and an English abolitionist.

"Rev. King realized he could not free his slaves in the South, so he moved to Canada, which abolished slavery in 1834," Prince said.

He also believed that if blacks were provided an opportunity, they could become property and business owners. North Buxton, which is an hour east of Detroit, also has been called "The City of God" and "The Terminus of the Underground Railroad."

Residents were required to construct homes with at least four rooms, and the homes had to have both a vegetable and a flower garden. The homes also had to have a porch.

In 1860, 1,200 to 2,000 individuals lived in Buxton. The town had a mill, a blacksmith's shop, a commercial bank, a mercantile bank, a brickyard and a strict real-estate covenant: blacks could sell their property only to other blacks.

James T. Rapier taught school in Buxton,
and he later became a congressman
in Alabama.

North Buxton had three schools: one for students from first to the eighth grade, another for students in the first to the ninth grade and a third that offered grades one through 10th grade. That school was located in a section of the Buxton Museum.

The schools had one teacher for every 100 students.

The first black teacher in Buxton was James T. Rapier, who taught at SS No. 13, a school constructed in 1863 in Raleigh Township.

Rapier, who attended Buxton Mission School, was a Republican who later represented Alabama's second congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1873 to March 3, 1875.

After the Civil War, many Buxton residents moved to the United States. Others stayed, but the town's population has dwindled to 100, Prince said.

Man Breaks Guinness Record for the Longest Ride on a Ferris Wheel

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:35:39 GMT

Clinton Shepherd, a Chicago Navy Pier employee, on Saturday broke the Guinness World Record for the longest ride on a Ferris wheel.

Shepherd rode the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, a Chicago amusement park, for 48 hours, 8 minutes and 25 seconds, breaking the previous record of 30 hours and 35 seconds. He completed his victory ride at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 18. When Shepherd, who had gone without sleep during his world record ride, reached his goal, he was greeted by a fireworks display.

Shepherd, Navy Pier's director of operations, began his Ferris wheel ride at 2:30 pm on Friday, May 17.

He dedicated his ride to men and women in the Armed Forces. All of the rides are free for Armed Forces personnel and their families.

The nation's first Ferris wheel was built in Chicago in 1893 for the Columbian Exposition by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.

Obama Approval Ratings Rise as He Flies Above Washington Scandals

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:31:32 GMT

by Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) --- The 2013 Morehouse College Commencement theme, “Keeping Our Focus,” defined by the university’s President John Wilson as attending to important matters “to the exclusion of distractions," appears also to describe the strategy employed by its graduation speaker, President Barack Obama.

With Washington scandals raging in the background, Obama focused keenly on the crucial challenges of the economy and jobs in America. In Sunday’s speech, he told the graduates at the Atlanta-based university that his job is to push for domestic policies that will make life better for them and everyone else.

“There are places where jobs are still too scarce and wages are still too low; where schools are underfunded and violence is pervasive; where too many of our men spend their youth not behind a desk in a classroom, but hanging out on the streets or brooding inside a jail cell,” he told the all-male class.

He continued, “My job, as President, is to advocate for policies that generate more opportunity for everybody -- policies that strengthen the middle class and give more people the chance to climb their way into the middle class; policies that create more good jobs and reduce poverty, and educate more children, and give more families the security of health care, and protect more of our children from the horrors of gun violence. That's my job. Those are matters of public policy, and it is important for all of us -- black, white and brown -- to advocate for an America where everybody has got a fair shot in life. Not just some. Not just a few,” he said to rousing applause.

The applause appears to reflect rising approval of the way the President is doing his job. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation International survey, conducted over the weekend, showed his job performance disapproval at 45 percent, but performance approval at 53 percent, rising from 51 percent just last month. The poll was in sync with a Gallup poll conducted about the same time, which also showed rising approval for the way the President is handling his job.

In his fifth year, President Obama is facing the biggest scandals of his administration, drawing widespread scrutiny and Congressional hearings. Those controversies include the targeting by the Internal Revenue Service of Tea Party and other conservative groups as they applied for tax-exempt status; continuing questions about how the Obama administration handled the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed a U.S ambassador and three other Americans; and -- most recently -- scrutiny over the secret collection of Associated Press phone records as part of a government probe into leaks of classified information.

The President has not ignored the scandals, but he appears to be keeping his distance and only addressing the issues as necessary, while allowing investigating agencies, including Congressional committees, to do their jobs. Though the IRS and Associate Press controversies appear to have drawn bipartisan outrage, Republican lawmakers and pundits made rounds on Sunday talk shows with specific criticism of the Obama Administration.

Meanwhile, at Morehouse’s rainy graduation, his second spring commencement address after Ohio State earlier this month, the president appeared to enjoy a love fest of support in a comfortable home base of African-Americans at the alma mater of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He welcomed the opportunity to hit home his domestic-policy agenda and encourage the graduates to change their communities for the better.

“I love you!” a voice rose from the audience as the president settled at the podium.

“I love you back. That’s why I’m here,” he responded.

Obama Tells Morehouse Graduates They Come from a Long Line of Strong Black Men

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:20:29 GMT

by Frederick H. Lowe
President Barack Obama on Sunday told Morehouse College's 2013 graduating class they come from a long line of strong black men who did not make any excuses when challenged by racism.

"You now hail from a lineage and legacy of immeasurable strong men --- men who bore tremendous burdens and still laid the stones for the path on which we walk," President Obama told graduates of the nation's only all-male liberal arts college for black men.

"You wear the mantle of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, and Ralph Bunche and Langston Hughes, and George Washington Carver, and Ralph Abernathy, and Thurgood Marshall, and, yes, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These men were many things to many people. And they knew full well the role that racism played in their lives. But when it came to their accomplishments and sense of purpose, they had no time for excuses."

The president said to the graduates that many of them have been told by their parents that as an African-American they have work twice as hard as anyone else to get by.

"I think President [Benjamin] Mays [former Morehouse president] put it even better: He said, 'Whatever you do, strive to do it so well that no man living and no man dead, and no man yet born can do it any better,' " said President Obama.

"And I promise you, what was needed in Dr. Mays' time --- that spirit of excellence, and hard work, and dedication, and no excuses --- is needed now more than ever. If you think you can just get over in this economy just because you have a Morehouse degree, you're in for a rude awakening. But if you stay hungry, if you keep hustling, if you keep on your grind and get other folks to do the same --- nobody can stop you."

President Obama reminded the graduates they are competing in a global economy with people who faced much tougher challenges.

"It's just that in today's hyper-connected, hyper-competitive world, with millions of young people from China, India and Brazil --- many of whom started with a whole lot less than all of you did --- all of them entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything that you have not earned," Obama said.

He also urged Morehouse graduates to help others in an exhortation similar to one made decades ago by President John F. Kennedy, who urged Americans to work to improve the country.

"So, yes, go get that law degree. But if you do, ask yourself if the only option is to defend the rich and the powerful, of if you can also find some time to defend the powerless," President Obama said. "Sure, go get your MBA, or start a business. We need black businesses out there. But ask yourselves what broader purpose your business might serve, in putting people to work, or transforming a neighborhood. The most-successful CEOs I know didn't start out intent on just making money---rather they had a vision of how their product or service would change things and the money followed."

President Obama, who received an honorary doctorate from Morehouse, referred to himself as an honorary Morehouse Man. He gave the graduation speech on a rainy day that was spiked with thunderstorms.

The class of 2013 is the 129th class to graduate from the college. Morehouse, which is based in Atlanta, was founded as the Augusta Institute in 1867.

The Alliance Between Warmongers And The Press

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:43:42 GMT

by A. Peter Bailey

(TriceEdneyWire.com) -- Once again the American press, which loves to loudly and consistently boast of being the best and freest press in the whole wide world, is allowing warmongering politicians and pundits to do their thing without asking a most-basic question: How many family members of the trash-talking chicken hawks will actually fight in the war they insist is absolutely necessary for U.S. national security? Please notice the words, “Fight in combat.” Just being in the military is not sufficient. Much too often the relatives of the warmongers who go into the military are not assigned to actual combat zones.

Every day one sees or hears “chicken hawks," such as Senator Lindsay Graham, Senator Ted Cruz, and columnist Charles Krauthammer, as well as propagandists Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Bill Kristol with his neo-con desk warriors of the Fox and Friends crew, plus the editorial page writers of the Weekly Standard, and their cohorts, rant and rave about some kind of military involvement in Syria.

This is especially true of Senator Graham. Yet the highly paid, supposedly independent and truth-seeking members of the national print and broadcast press never ask them how many of their children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews or first cousins will face the possibility of combat in Syria or anywhere else. They are high among the chief beneficiaries of the existing system and should be the first ones willing to fight for its continuance.

All one has to do is read Faces of the Fallen, published several times annually in The Washington Post. Its most recent listing was published May 3, 2013. The casualties included many military personnel from places such as Claremore, Okla.; Cabot, Ark.; Tolar, Tex.; Liverpool, N.Y.; Maysville, N.C.; Houlton, Maine; Sierra Vista, Ariz.; Gillette, N.J.; Gardiner, Ore.; Greer, S.C.; Jordan, Minn.; Sidney, Mont., and New Carlisle, Ohio.

While these overwhelmingly small-town soldiers are being killed and maimed in “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, family members of the warmongers continue attending birthday parties, celebrating holidays, vacationing in the Caribbean, graduating from colleges and universities, attending weddings and jamming at pool parties with their economically and socially elite peers.

Meanwhile, their warmongering grandfathers, fathers, uncles, brothers and cousins are insisting on U.S. military involvement in Syria and members of the press still don’t ask them the most-basic question: How many of your immediate family will be in combat if you are successful in your quest for another war of choice? It’s for sure that my godson, who was sent to the Iraq combat zone 5 times wants an answer to that question.

A. Peter Bailey is a journalist, activist and writer.

Gold Rush Leads to Mine Collapse in North Sudan, 100 Lives Lost

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:39:08 GMT

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from GIN

(TriceEdneyWire.com) --- Efforts to ramp up Sudan’s gold mining industry came to a disastrous end this week when the 131-foot deep Jebel Amir mine collapsed, taking 100 lives.

Sudan had hoped to turn the country’s small-scale gold mining efforts in the region into a major moneymaker, replacing the oilfields now claimed by the newly-independent nation of South Sudan. Some $2 billion was earned last year from gold exports.

Hopes were to produce about 50 tons of gold this year, making Sudan the third-largest gold miner in Africa, according to Reuters.

Thousands of artisanal miners began digging for gold until the mine collapsed. Nine rescuers also lost their lives in the disaster.

Local officials dispute the number of fatalities, which were allegedly confirmed by an African Union / U.N. peacekeeping delegation (UNAMID) that has been attempting to keep peace among local ethnic groups, bandits and rebels in the still hotly contested region.

At press time, responsibility for the condition of the mine or the welfare of the widows was not determined.

Meanwhile, in Khartoum, Sudan’s national assembly ratified the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance, adopted by the African Union Assembly in 2007.

The charter contains controversial provisions which allow the AU to intervene in member states to restore democracy.

Samia Habbani, a member of parliament, warned that the charter could be another "rope wrapped around Sudan's neck," while MP Ahmed Hassan Kambal stressed that signing the charter into law requires the country to have a "clean" human rights record which does not apply to Sudan.

A third minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, called the charter an opportunity that should not be missed, adding that this step means African leaders have initiated reform by themselves, mentioning that if Arab leaders took the same step, they could have prevented the eruption of the Arab Spring.

African Union Will Celebrate 50th Anniversary of OAU

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:24:35 GMT

The African Union will meet for three days, beginning May 25 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African Unity.

The meeting, which will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, will focus on the achievements of the OAU, which was founded on May 25, 1963, and later replaced by the African Union in 2002.

The OAU was established during an era of militancy in which many African countries were shaking off the vestiges of colonialism. The countries were also capitalizing on their new-found sovereignty.

The organization was criticized for not advancing the cause of peace on the continent, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s when there were several civil wars.

The OAU, however, helped successfully mediate border disputes between Algeria and Morocco in 1963 and 1964 and between Kenya and Somalia in 1965 and 1967. The OAU was also credited with helping end apartheid in South Africa.

In the mid-1990s, Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddfi proposed that OAU be replaced by the African Union. Gaddafi wanted an economic, as well as a political, union similar to the European Union. On July 9, 2002, the AU replaced the OAU.

Thado Mbeki, president of South Africa, was the first AU president, serving from July 9, 2002, to July 10, 2003. The African Union has 54 countries as members. Morocco is the only African country that is not a member of the African Union.

Black Civil War Museum Will Honor 150th Anniversary of Troops

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:13:11 GMT

by Frederick H. Lowe
The African American Civil War Memorial Museum will host a wreath-laying ceremony at 11 a.m. Wednesday, May 22, in Washington, D. C., to mark the 150th anniversary of the Bureau of the U.S. Colored Troops.

The names of Caesar Cohen, the great-great-grandfather of First Lady Michelle Obama, and Jerry Sutton/Suter, stepfather of Obama's great grandmother, are listed on the memorial along with 209,144 other honorees.

Cohen was about 25 years old when he joined the 128th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops. Cohen's name is listed on wall "D," plaque 134. Sutton/Suter, who joined the 55th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops, is named on wall “C," plaque 67.

The United States War Department issued General Order Number 143 on May 22, 1863, establishing a Bureau of Colored Troops to facilitate the recruitment of African-American soldiers for the Union Army during the Civil War.

Regiments, including infantry, cavalry, engineers, light artillery and heavy artillery units, were recruited from all states of the Union and became known as the United States Colored Troops (USCT). By the end of the Civil War, the men of the 175 regiments of the USCT comprised one-tenth of the Union Army.

The wreath-laying ceremony will be followed by a presentation at the African American Civil War Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. by author Rachel L. Swarns.

Swarns, a former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, wrote the book “American Tapestry” about Michelle Obama's ancestry, including her Civil War relatives. In addition to Swarns, Audrea Barnes, Michelle Obama's second cousin, also will speak about her research into the family's history.

Barnes, Cohen, Sutton/Suter are from the Robinson side of the Michelle Obama's family. The First Lady was born Michelle LaVaughn Robinson on January 17, 1964, in Chicago, to Fraser Robinson, III, a city water plant employee and a Democratic precinct captain, and Marian Shields.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing Says No to Another Term

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:02:45 GMT

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing announced that he will not run for re-election when his term ends in December.

Mayor Bing, who was elected in 2009 to complete the term of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, told supporters on Tuesday at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History that the job he started after his election is far from complete. Kilpatrick resigned in September 2008.

"There's a lot of work that still needs to be done. All the plans that we put into place will not be completed by the end of my term," he said.

Bing decided not seek re-election after Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder appointed Kevyn Orr as Detroit's emergency manager, giving Orr final say in all of the city's financial matters.
http://www.thenorthstarnews.com/Story/michigan-governor-names-an-emergency-financial-manager-for-detroit

Detroit has a budget deficit that could reach $380 million by July and the city's long-term debt is more than $1.4 billion. The city could run out of cash before the end of the year.

Detroit's financial problems have not deterred candidates from lining up to take Bing's old job. Twenty-two candidates, including a perennial candidate and a former Detroit police chief, have lined up to run in the August 6 primary. The filing deadline was Tuesday, May 14.

Bing moved to Detroit in 1966 to play for the Detroit Pistons. He was later elected to National Basketball Hall of Fame.

When his playing days ended, he founded The Bing Group, an automotive-parts supply company. He served as the company's president and chairman until 2009, when he successfully ran for mayor.

Bing has not completely closed the door on his political career. He is exploring the possibility of running for Wayne County, Mich., executive. Detroit is located in Wayne County.

Sale of Basquiat Painting at $48 Million-Plus Breaks His Record

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:32:11 GMT

by Frederick H. Lowe
Jean-Michel Basquiat painted “Dustheads” in 1982, and on Wednesday, May 15, Christie's, the New York-based auction house, sold the piece of art for more than $48 million, a world record for Basquiat's work.

It is not known who wrote a $48,843,750 million check for "Dustheads," but it was not the highest-selling painting sold at the world-wide auction. The same night, Jackson Pollock's "Number 19, 1948," sold for $58,363,750 million, also a record sale.

It is very strong recognition for both painters. Pollock traded beer for his early paintings, and Basquiat slept in NewYork's Central Park because he couldn’t afford an apartment.

Jean-Michel Basquiat poses with some of his work.

As a result of the deals, Christie's raked in a record $495 million from the auction, the highest in the company's history.

Basquiat painted "Dustheads" at the height of his creative development and fame, according to a Christie's news release. The signed piece is painted with acrylic, oil stick, spray enamel and metallic paint on canvas.

The painting's backdrop is an inky blackness with brightly colored figures. The painting had been part of a private collection for nearly 20 years before it sold.

Even before the auction was held, Christie's predicted that "Dustheads" would break a sales record for a Basquiat painting.

Basquiat, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., was the son of a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother. He died Aug. 12,1988. He was only 27.

Basquiat began as an obscure graffiti artist in the late 1970s before evolving into one the world's most-acclaimed artists.
He initially signed his graffiti art as SAMO. Homeless and living in Central Park, abandoned buildings and with friends, Basquiat sold hand-painted postcards and T-shirts to make money when he first started out.

In May 1981, Basquiat held his first solo exhibition in Modena, Italy. His first U.S. show took place a year later at the Annina Nosei Gallery in New York. After that his work began to sell internationally.

Both Jay-Z and Kanye West referred to Basquiat in their 2011 collaborative album “Watch The Throne.”

Jury Convicts Philadelphia Obstetrician of Murder

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:20:37 GMT

He is sentenced to two life sentences

A jury in Philadelphia on Monday convicted a board-certified obstetrician of three counts of first-degree murder for killing babies born live in late-term abortions by cutting their spinal cords.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, also was found guilty of 21 counts of abortion of the unborn, 24 weeks or older. In Pennsylvania, abortions past 24 weeks are illegal unless the health of the mother is at risk.

Gosnell operated the Women's Medical Society, and eight employees had pled guilty to various charges, including four for murder.

Gosnell faced the death penalty under Pennsylvania law. On Tuesday, however, Gosnell was sentenced to life sentences, following a plea bargain.