The Official Ill Community Black Excellence Thread

Maximus Rex

I'm surprised there isn't one of these on here, and if there is, why Google and board search didn't reveal it. Anway, let's get ? poppin' with those who are at the zenith of black excellence.

The Black Billionaires 2016

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2016/03/01/the-black-billionaires-2016/#1e79293530a8

MAR 1, 2016 @ 05:38 PM


I chronicle Africa's success stories and track its richest people
Translation, I follow and write about black excellence for a living. LOL.

Out of the 1,810 billionaires in the world, 12 of them are black.

Nigerian cement tycoon Aliko Dangote is still the richest black person in the world by far with a fortune estimated at $14.4 billion, down from $15.7 billion last year. Coincidentally, the second richest black person in the world this year is also a Nigerian- Mike Adenuga, a businessman who has built a $10 billion fortune on mobile telecom, oil and real estate investments. He displaces Saudi-Ethiopian

Like last year, Angolan investor Isabel dos Santos, American media mogul Oprah Winfrey and Nigerian oil woman Folorunsho Alakija are still the only black female billionaires on the FORBES billionaires list.

Meet the 11 richest black people on earth:


11) Mohammed Ibrahim,$1.07 Billion, Founder, Mo Ibrahim Foundation
Soruce of Wealth: Communications, Self Made

Born in Sudan and now a U.K. citizen, Mohammed (Mo) Ibrahim founded Celtel International, one of the first mobile phone companies serving Africa and the Middle East, and sold it to Kuwait's Mobile Telecommunications Company for $3.4 billion in 2005 and pocketed $1.4 billion. Since then, he's focused on fighting corrupt leadership in Africa through the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, directed by his daughter, Hadeel. In March 2015, the foundation awarded its $5 million Ibrahim Prize to Namibia's outgoing president, Hifikepunye Pohamba. The award, which recognizes good leadership in Africa, has been given out only four times in the 8 years since it was announced. The foundation also publishes the well-known Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which ranks countries by rule of law, economic opportunity and human rights. Ibrahim owns the majority of assets in Satya Capital, which invests in African businesses.


10) Abdulsamad Rabiu, $1.1 Billion
Source Of Wealth: Cement, sugar

Abdulsamad Rabiu is the founder of BUA Group, a Nigerian conglomerate active in sugar refining, cement production, real estate, logistics and port operations. Rabiu is expanding cement production. In September 2015, BUA signed a $600 million deal with Sinoma International Engineering, a Chinese cement equipment and engineering service provider, to construct a second production line at its flagship Obu cement plant, located in Edo State in the western part of Nigeria. Rabiu's aim is to double capacity and expand BUA's current 10% market share in Nigerian cement. In January 2016, BUA Group agreed to sell its flour milling and pasta making businesses to Olam Group of Singapore for $275 million. Rabiu, the son of a businessman, inherited land from his father. He set up his own business in 1988, importing rice, sugar and edible oils as well as iron and steel rods.


9) Michael Jordan, $1.14 Billion, Athlete
Source Of Wealth: Sports team, Self Made

A well-timed investment in the Charlotte Hornets basketball team lifted star athlete Michael Jordan into the billionaire ranks in 2015, and is keeping him there this year. He acquired a majority stake in the Hornets in 2010 for $175 million. He increased his ownership to 90% in 2013. In 2014 NBA franchise values shot up, thanks largely to racist comments by Donald Sterling that got him banned from the league and led to a bidding war for his Los Angeles Clippers, which was sold to Steve Ballmer for a record $2 billion. The deal helped boost the value of Jordan's Hornets stake to $500 million. MJ is widely acknowledged as the greatest basketball player of all-time, but his salary rarely matched his stature. He was the NBA's highest-paid player only twice during his 15-year career. His total career playing salary was $90 million, but Jordan has earned another $1.2 billion (pre-tax) from corporate partners since he left North Carolina in 1984. His biggest backer has always been Nike, which generates $2 billion in revenue annually from the Jordan Brand. Nike commands 90% of the U.S. basketball shoe market, with the Jordan Brand representing more than half of that. MJ maintains his longtime endorsement relationships with Gatorade, Hanes and Upper Deck. He also owns seven restaurants and a car dealership.


8) Patrice Motsepe, $1.27 Billion
Source Of Wealth: Mining, Self Made

African Rainbow Minerals founder and chairman Patrice Motsepe, a South African, became Africa's first black billionaire in 2009. His net worth dropped in the year through March 2016 due to a sharp decline in the stock price of ARM--which mines and processes iron, manganese, chrome, platinum, copper, nickel, coal and gold-- along with tumbling commodities prices and a rise in the cost of labor and electricity. Motsepe also has a stake in Sanlam, a listed financial services firm, and is the president and owner of the Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club. He became the first black partner at the Bowman Gilfillan law firm in Johannesburg, and then started a contracting business doing mine scut work. In 1994, he bought low-producing gold mine shafts and turned them profitable. South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) laws, which mandate that companies be at least 26% black-owned in order to get a government mining license, benefited Motsepe. His company Ubuntu Botho Investments is partnering with Sanlam to start an Africa-focused private equity firm. The mining magnate is also the first African to sign Bill Gates' and Warren Buffett's Giving Pledge, in which he promised to give at least half his fortune to charity.


7) Femi Otedola, $1.8 Billion,
Source Of Wealth: Gas stations, Utilities, Self Made

Femi Otedola of Nigeria is the controlling shareholder of publicly traded Forte Oil, an oil marketing and power generation company. Originally a Nigerian subsidiary of British Petroleum (BP), Forte Oil has more than 500 gas stations across the country. It owns oil storage depots and manufactures its own line of engine oils. In 2013, Otedola led the company to purchase a government-owned stake in a gas-fired power plant in Kogi state in central Nigeria. In September 2015, Swiss commodities giant Mercuria said it would acquire a 17% stake in Forte Oil for $200 million; as of late February 2016 the transaction is not yet complete. Otedola's daughter, Ifeoluwa, is a popular disc jockey who goes by the moniker 'DJ Cuppy'. She was the official disc jockey during the May 2015 inauguration of Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari. Otedola is a fitness buff, spending at least one hour in the gym every day.

Maximus Rex

Black Billionaires, con't
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2016/03/01/the-black-billionaires-2016/#1e79293530a8


6) Robert Smith, $2.5 Billion, Investor
Source Of Wealth: Private equity, Self Made

Robert Smith quit Goldman Sachs to open his own private equity shop, Vista Equity Partners, in 2000. He has since has racked up one of the best records in private equity buying and fixing up an unglamorous collection of enterprise software companies such as Websense, Applied Systems and Mediaocean. Neuberger Berman bought a stake in the $15.9 billion (assets) Austin, Texas firm in July, but Smith is still the majority owner. That same month, Smith, who is now America's second richest African American, made a splash with his Italian wedding to 2010 Playboy Playmate of the Year Hope Dworaczyk. The son of Ph.D's, he has long demonstrated a fascination with technology-back in high school in Denver he convinced Bell Labs to give him an internship typically only available to college upperclassman by calling them weekly for five months. He later studied chemical engineering at Cornell and earned an M.B.A. at Columbia. Smith won two patents as a rising Kraft executive before moving to Goldman. Smith gave $50 million recently to alma mater Cornell, which renamed its school of chemical and bioengineering after him.


5) Oprah Winfrey, $3.1 Billion, Actress, Director/Producer, Entrepreneur, Personality, Philanthropist
Source Of Wealth: TV shows, Self Made

Oprah Winfrey's magic has rubbed off on Weight Watchers. Since the media mogul bought a 10% stake in the diet empire in October 2015, its stock is up some 90%. The long-reigning queen of daytime TV has also proven she can thrive without a talk show. Her cable network, OWN, delivered its most-watched year in 2015, following four years of double-digit viewership growth, according to Nielsen. Next up: miniseries Queen Sugar, coproduced with Selma collaborator Ava DuVernay, and TV drama Greenleaf, about a Tennessee megachurch.


4) Isabel dos Santos, $3.1 Billion
Source Of Wealth: Investments

Isabel dos Santos is the oldest daughter of Angola's longtime president and, by virtue of her investments in Portugal and Angola, is Africa's richest woman. Though her representatives deny that her holdings have any connection to her father, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, Forbes research found that he transferred stakes in several Angolan companies to her. Her assets in Angola include 25% of Unitel, the country's largest mobile phone network, and a stake in a bank, Banco BIC. In Portugal she owns a nearly 7% chunk of oil and gas firm Galp Energia (alongside Portuguese billionaire Americo Amorim), and nearly 19% of Banco BPI, the country's fourth-largest bank. She is also a controlling shareholder of Portuguese cable TV and telecom firm Nos SGPS (formerly called Zon). In June 2015, media reported that she spent slightly more than $200 million to buy a stake in Portuguese electric power equipment firm Efacec Power Solutions. In October 2015, four members of the European Parliament publicly called for an investigation into her investments in Portugal, questioning their legality, saying that the method of payment --a transfer of funds by the Angolan government - "raises the possibility the Angolan State is indirectly and illegally financing private investments of his daughter Isabel dos Santos." A spokesperson for Dos Santos told Forbes that "Isabel dos Santos is an independent business woman and a private investor representing solely her own interests. Her investments in Angolan and/or in Portuguese companies are transparent and have been conducted through arms length's transactions involving external entities such as reputed banks and law firms."


3) Mohammed Al Amoudi, $8.4 Billion,
Source Of Wealth: Oil, Diversified, Self Made

Mohammed Al Amoudi, son of a Saudi father and an Ethiopian mother, has accumulated a portfolio of construction, agriculture, and energy companies across Sweden, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. He made his initial fortune in construction in Saudi Arabia, and continues to build complexes from hospital centers to university buildings. One of his most valuable assets is oil refiner Preem, which bills itself as the largest fuel company in Sweden. In Ethiopia he has invested in agriculture, cement production and gold mining. His firm Saudi Star Agricultural Development has cultivated thousands of acres of land for fruits, vegetables, cereals, coffee, tea, flowers and rice fields for customers in Ethiopia and abroad. It exports coffee beans to Starbucks and tea leaves to Lipton.


2) Mike Adenuga, $7 Billion,
Source Of Wealth: Telecom, Oil, Self Made

Mike Adenuga, Nigeria's second richest man, built his fortune in telecom and oil production. His mobile phone network, Globacom, is the second largest operator in Nigeria with 32 million subscribers; it also has operations in Ghana and the Republic of Benin. A higher estimate of Globacom's revenues led Forbes to increase the value we assign to it. His exploration outfit, Conoil Producing, operates 6 oil blocks in the Niger Delta. He also owns real estate firm Proline Investments, which has hundreds of properties throughout Nigeria. Adenuga studied in the United States, getting an MBA at Pace University in New York, where he worked as a taxi driver to support himself. He returned to Nigeria and made his first fortune trading lace and Coca-Cola. Along the way he made friends with Nigerian military bigwigs who awarded him lucrative state contracts; those formed the foundation of his fortune.


1) Aliko Dangote, $14.4 Billion, CEO, Dangote Group
Source Of Wealth: Cement, Sugar, Flour, Self Made

Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest man, founded and chairs Dangote Cement, the continent's largest cement producer. In 2015 Dangote Cement launched new plants in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Zambia and Tanzania. The company produces more than 30 million metric tons annually, and plans to double capacity by 2018. Dangote owns about 90% of publicly-traded Dangote Cement through a holding company; this percentage exceeds the 80% ownership ceiling set by the Nigerian Stock Exchange. A spokesman for Dangote told Forbes that the company has until October 2016 to lower Aliko Dangote's stake and plans to do so by then. Other companies in the Dangote Group, which is active in 15 African countries, include publicly-traded salt, sugar and flour manufacturing companies.

ThaNubianGod

Meh, black excellence would be using those billions in a meaningful way to build up our people. Oprah's the only up there I know of doing this.

tompetrez3

very inspiring

Maximus Rex

'Humbled' Long Island High School Student Accepted to All Eight Ivies
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/college-game-plan/long-island-high-school-student-accepted-all-eight-ivies-n551901

APR 6 2016, 10:32 PM ET


Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna. Elmont Memorial High School

by SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES

A Long Island, New York, high school senior has won the college lottery.

All eight Ivy League schools — Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, University of Pennsylvania — have offered Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna places in their freshman class.

In addition to the Ivies, she was accepted by Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Augusta is valedictorian at Elmont Memorial High School, where she has a 101.64 weighted grade point average. The school is no stranger to academic superstars: Last year, senior Harold Ekeh scored the same number of Ivy acceptances.

"I am elated, but most importantly, I am thankful," Augusta, 17, told school officials at Sewanhaka Central High School District.

Augusta said she was "humbled" by the honor, but media requests have been "consuming my life"since the news of her success was announced by her school district.

"Everyone dreams of being a celebrity," she told NBC News. "But this was great for me to realize I serve as an inspiration to others who don't have the same support system I have had."

Augusta said she was at a badminton game on March 31, so-called "Ivy Day," when decisions are announced online. Her guidance counselor asked her to check her applicant portal.

"I was really anxious,"Augusta said. "I looked at each update for each school in ABC order and saw each acceptance after another. I was screaming and crying and started running around the gym."

Everyone on the team came over and shook her hand to congratulate her. "I'll never forget that day," Augusta said.

Augusta's older brother Johnson told NBC News that Augusta's "initiative and perseverance," as well as the family's emphasis on learning, were responsible for his sister's success. And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as both their Nigerian-born parents are college-educated, and her father has a master's and doctorate from the University of Indianapolis.

Education is very paramount in our family," said her brother, who also made his way to the Ivies. He is a freshman at Cornell University, studying biological engineering.

Tobias and Basillia Nna immigrated to the United States in 1994 and settled first in Indiana then New York City. They moved to Elmont in 2000. Their father has worked for various companies as a physical therapist. All four of their children were born in this country.

"Augusta's school days start from 7 in the morning until around 8 at night," said Uwamanzu-Nna. "Not to mention all of the homework assignments, scholarship and other miscellaneous things she gets done."

He said that while his sister was co-founder of her own tutoring service, she also works at another tutoring center on Saturdays.

Augusta thanked her teachers and her parents for bringing her to this point in her academic life. But, she says, hers is not an "immigrant story."

"My parents taught me the value of education, not to take any opportunity for granted,"she said.

Augusta, who was a finalist in the 2016 Intel Science Talent Search, will showcase her project — research on cement that will keep oil rigs intact— at the White House Science Fair next week.

She wants to continue her passion for biochemistry and environmental studies. For now, she has until May 1 to decide which college wins her acceptance.

Her advice to other students? Start on the application early and "really work hard on it."

"Try and figure out what your passion is," Augusta said. "Try to figure out what you are passionate about, what you like and enjoy and talk about what you have learned."

Meet the student accepted into all eight Ivy League schools

http://nypost.com/2015/04/05/meet-the-student-accepted-into-all-eight-ivy-league-schools/

http://community.allhiphop.com/discussion/529744/whiz-kid-is-accepted-to-every-college-he-applied-to-including-all-8-ivy-league-schools


Harold Ekeh with all eight acceptance letters. Photo: Victor Alcorn

By Taylor Vecsey and Natalie O'Neill April 5, 2015 | 1:43am

A Nassau County whiz kid was accepted into all eight Ivy League schools — a year after another Long Island teen hit the rare academic jackpot.

Elmont Memorial High School senior Harold Ekeh boasts a grade-point average of 100.5 percent, an SAT score of 2270 and was a semifinalist for the national Intel Science Talent Search.

“My parents’ hard work and my hard work finally paid off,” Ekeh, 17, told The Post.

Ekeh now has his pick of the nation’s elite institutions of higher learning: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania — none of which accepts more than 14 percent of applicants.

He’s leaning toward Yale, where Kwasi Enin, 18, the son of Ghanaian immigrants from Mastic Beach, LI, who achieved the Ivy sweep last year, now attends.

Ekeh moved to New York from Nigeria at age 8 and wowed admissions officers with an essay about the challenges he braved while “coming to America,” he said.

“My parents left comfortable lives in Nigeria for their kids to have opportunities. So I take advantage of every single opportunity that has been afforded to me,” said Ekeh, who hopes to become a neurosurgeon.

“It was very difficult to adjust . . . I spoke English but with a very heavy accent. It was like, ‘What is this kid saying?’ ” he continued.

In his free time, he does what most other teens his age don’t do — toiling over biochemistry experiments. His grandma’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis — and his own inspiration to find a cure for the degenerative brain disease — fueled his passion for science, he said.


Harold Ekeh Photo: Victor Alcorn

The hardworking student, a salutatorian who also plays the drums, mentors and volunteers for a social-justice campaign, credited his parents, Paul and Roselin — former clerks at a Target store in Queens — for challenging him to study and do his best, “no matter how hard times got,” he said.

“No matter how many times they would get knocked down, they were always positive,” he said.

“Anybody who sees my story can say, ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’ I’m just a kid who had a real strong support system.”

Ekeh was accepted into the other five schools he applied to: MIT, NYU, Johns Hopkins University, Stony Brook University and Vanderbilt University.

“Never would I have expected to get into all 13 schools. I just wanted to increase my chances of getting into one of them,” he said.

He took his amazing accomplishments in stride.

When he learned he’d been admitted to all of the country’s best schools last Tuesday, he celebrated by going to Bible study — and then to Chipotle.

“I don’t see it as an accomplishment for me. I see it as an accomplishment for my community. I hope it inspires the younger generation, not just in Elmont, but overall,” he said.

Maximus Rex

Long Island wunderkind reveals he's going to Yale after being accepted to all eight Ivy League schools

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/wunderkind-kwasi-enin-yale-article-1.1774361

http://community.allhiphop.com/discussion/516166/black-excellence-scholars-of-color-from-recent-headlines-you-should-know


High School senior Kwasi Enin helms his press conference announcing his Ivy League college decision at William Floyd High School in Mastic Beach, LI. He's going to Yale University. (CHRISTIE M FARRIELLA FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

BY
EDGAR SANDOVAL
DAREH GREGORIAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Wednesday, April 30, 2014, 4:27 PM

The Long Island kid who was accepted into all eight Ivy League schools has revealed that he's accepting Yale University.

Kwasi Enin made the eagerly awaited announcement at a Wednesday afternoon press conference at William Floyd High School, where he was surrounded by family, friends and the teachers who helped him achieve his astounding success.

“I'm excited and proud to announce that this fall I will become a member of the Yale class of 2018,” he said to cheers from teachers and students present at the HS gym.

He said a visit to the campus helped him make up his mind.

“My Bull Dog Days experience last week was incredible. I met geniuses from all over the world. And everyone was so friendly and inviting. And I believe that their deep appreciation and love for music, like I have, was very critical,” he said.

He said financial aid was a very important factor for him — and that all schools offered the same package.


Kwasi Enin is Yale-bound, he said Wednesday during a press conference at his Long Island high school. (CHRISTIE M FARRIELLA FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

Enin became a national sensation when his rarely accomplished feat was revealed, and said he decided to announce his decision at a press conference so he could move past the hooplah and focus on his studies for the rest of the year.

The first generation American has a straight-A average, scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT, and aced 11 advanced placement classes.

He's also a shot putter, viola player and a cappella singer who volunteers in Stony Brook University Hospital's radiology department, and is revered by his teachers and classmates as being a great kid.

"He's going to be a leader in whatever he chooses," the Mastic, L.I., school's guidance counselor, Nancy Winkler, gushed earlier this month.

The humble high-schooler has said he was just hedging his bets when he applied en masse to the Ivies — Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth College, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale.


Kwasi Enin — who has a straight-A average and scored in the 99th percentile on his SAT — was accepted to all eight Ivy League schools. (PICASA/WILLIAM FLOYD HIGH SCHOOL)

"By applying to all eight, I figured it would better the chances of getting into one," he said.

His first acceptance letter came from Princeton in December — and then they just kept coming.

The last letter arrived in late March, from Harvard.

"I thought Harvard would be the one to reject me," he said. "They're Harvard."

Enin's feat is especially impressive given that Ivy League schools accepted less than 9% of all applicants for the class of 2018, ranging from 5.9% at Harvard to 14% at Cornell.


Long Island senior Kwasi Enin announced his decision Wednesday afternoon at William Floyd High School. (DAVID WEXLER/DAVID WEXLER)

The son of immigrant nurses from Ghana, Enin, 17, has said he planned on becoming a doctor.

"I'm thinking of being a cardiologist or neurologist," said Enin, who lives in Shirley. "A doctor is a community leader, a protector, someone who people turn to ... when they need help."

He'd said he'd been leaning towards Yale because of its strong reputation in music and medicine, particularly its biomedical engineering program.

"I want the passion of music and medicine to be part of my life wherever I go," he said.

His school's principal, Barbara Butler, has called her student an inspiration.

"I heard other kids remarking about him — 'I want to do that,'" she said. "It couldn't have happened to a better kid. He's such a well-rounded, humble and modest young man."

Maximus Rex

Teen goes from homeless shelter to finishing her first year at Georgetown
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/teen-goes-from-homeless-shelter-to-finishing-her-first-year-at-georgetown/2015/06/14/6c849a32-0957-11e5-a7ad-b430fc1d3f5c_story.html#comments

http://community.allhiphop.com/discussion/516166/black-excellence-scholars-of-color-from-recent-headlines-you-should-know


Rashema Melson walks the grounds of Georgetown University after her women’s health class in April. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)

by DeNeen L. Brown June 14, 2015
She hated being at the D.C. General homeless shelter, where showers ran cold, raccoons roamed dark hallways and all her stuff was crammed into a chaotic jumble under beds and against pale yellow walls.

There Rashema Melson, 19, had gotten used to sleeping “on plastic and a little wool blanket. No sheets.” For three years, the shelter had been the place she, her mother and siblings called home. It was there, on those same walls, that she had taped her honor roll certificates.

About a year ago, she was standing in her dorm room at Georgetown University, where she had received a scholarship after graduating as valedictorian of Anacostia High School a few months earlier.

She unpacked a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter she had saved from a summer academic program. She would not allow herself the luxury of calling her dorm room home.

“Home will come, years later when I finish med school,” she said.


Rashema Melson, a grand marshal at the Martin Luther King Jr. parade, smiles onstage with D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser in January. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)

[Valedictorian says she’s ready to get on with everything]

Last summer, as she moved out of the shelter and headed to Georgetown, her family had wished her well. “Don’t worry about us,” her mother had said. “We will be okay.”

Rashema didn’t believe her. “I guess they think my life is going to be better at Georgetown,” she said. “But I’m not going to pretend they are not hurting,” because they were still living in a shelter.

The contrast between the shelter and the dorm room on the elite campus was stark. At the shelter, people carried all their worldly belongings in black garbage bags and borrowed suitcases. At Georgetown, hovering parents would unload well-packed boxes from Mercedes and BMWs in the parking garage.

For the next year, the young woman with the short, twisted hairstyle would navigate both worlds.

Rashema applied for a grant from Georgetown’s Scholarship Program, which helps low-income students adjust to the university, to move into Harbin Hall a week early because she had no other place to go. The shelter, she said, had taken her name off its list of residents when she left for a summer academic program. During the two-week break before returning to campus for the fall semester, she stayed with a friend in Southeast Washington. But after a week, she left.

So on her first night in the dorms, Rashema’s mother and little brother caught a ride across town to the campus. They brought her three packages of ramen noodles and stayed until Rashema fell asleep, about 4 a.m. Then they caught the Metrobus on the 32 route, winding through the city back to the shelter.


Rashema Melson listens to her professor's lecture during her women’s health class at Georgetown University in April. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)

The next day, Rashema was on her own. She looked around the dorm room. She had peanut butter, bread and the noodles. “I’m trying to make it stretch, one per day,” she said.

By Tuesday, her third day of noodles, Rashema had to reach out to officials with the Georgetown Scholarship Program. “I asked whether the meal plan could be activated early.”

Not until the following week, she was told. But “the lady gave me some money to get some food,” Rashema said. “It lasted two more days.”

Maximus Rex

Teen goes from homeless shelter to finishing her first year at Georgetown, con't
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/teen-goes-from-homeless-shelter-to-finishing-her-first-year-at-georgetown/2015/06/14/6c849a32-0957-11e5-a7ad-b430fc1d3f5c_story.html#comments

http://community.allhiphop.com/discussion/516166/black-excellence-scholars-of-color-from-recent-headlines-you-should-know

According to the D.C. public school system, Anacostia High School’s graduation rate during 2013-2014 was 58 percent. Sixteen percent of the school’s 661 students took Advance Placement courses.

Only 37 percent of all D.C. students who attend college finish it within six years of high school, according to the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education.[/b]

School officials say students who manage to defy the statistics still often have trouble transitioning to competitive universities.

“It is hard. . . . It’s like, ‘Whoa. Where am I?’ ” said Dennis Williams, associate dean of students at Georgetown. Williams runs the Community Scholars program, which helps students from low-income families adjust socially and academically. The five-week summer program requires students to take two courses for credit.

In the fall, the Georgetown Scholarship Program, created 10 years ago to promote more ethnic and socioeconomic diversity on campus, takes over. “Every year, 50 students are invited to participate in the program,” Williams said. “Almost all are from low-income, working-class, single-parent families from urban and rural public schools, places Georgetown doesn’t get a lot of students.”

The program, which has had 600 students participate, becomes a key thread in the safety net “between people in the financial aid office, academic deans’ office, chaplains, counseling,” Williams said.

For Rashema, that meant being assigned a mentor, having someone to help her select classes. For other students it could mean helping a student set up a bank account, pay for train fare home during breaks or buy a coat.

“We realized it was not enough to write a generous scholarship check and hope students get through the next four years,” said Melissa Foy, executive director of the program. “We do a lot of tone-setting, explaining that not only should you not be embarrassed about where you are from, but be proud of it.”

But the differences among the students’ lives are impossible to ignore.

Jawad Pullin, 19, a rising Georgetown sophomore from North Philadelphia, came from a high school that was 99 percent black and a neighborhood that was 95 percent black. At Georgetown, he said, “it felt like a visual imbalance being here.”

He heard students discussing wealth so casually, it felt fantastical. “I heard a kid talking about his New York penthouse that used to be owned by Madonna. He was upset his dad was selling it,” said Pullin, who is attending the university on a Gates Millennium scholarship.

Pullin’s reality couldn’t have been more different. He had to rely on the program to buy him a coat.

Airton Kamdem, 21, a rising junior from Silver Spring, was overwhelmed by invitations to beach houses and lake houses. “I had never been in those kinds of environments,” said Kamdem, whose parents are from Cameroon, where his grandmother still lives with sporadic electricity. “The idea that someone had a house and a second house. . . I asked, ‘Who lives there when you are not here?’ They said nobody.”

Josi Sinagoga, 21, a senior from rural Clinton, Pa., said she walked into a philosophy class and the students were “throwing around names like [Thomas] Hobbes and [Jean-Jacques] Rousseau. That was terrifying. I hadn’t heard of those people before. I realized I was disadvantaged. It was just like another thing I had to beat.”

As much as some students struggled with the adjustment to Georgetown, few students faced the challenges Rashema did, and none of them so publicly.

Her story of moving from homeless shelter to elite university had been covered by various news organizations. Her story, and her face, was well known on the campus.

Her father was killed when she was a baby — the reason she wants to study forensic pa­thol­ogy.

She spent much of her childhood moving from house to house, school to school in the Washington area before her mother moved the family to Ohio when she was in eighth grade.

She detaches herself as she tells the story again:

Rashema, her siblings and mother shared one room. “Two on each bed,” she recalled.

One day, she said, she overheard her mother and the owner of the house arguing in the basement.

Soon, her mother told them they had to leave. “She moved all our household things to storage in Ohio.” Her mother had told her she paid the storage fees for where Rashema packed her favorite books and photos of her father. But Rashema said she suspects her stuff is gone.

A friend later allowed her family to stay at a place he had in Ohio. It was an abandoned building. “There were no lights,” she said. “The toilet would always be stopped up.”

This time the entire family slept in one bed. One morning Rashema awoke with two bruises on her thigh. “They were purple and green,” she said. “ I heard of bed bug bites, but I thought bed bug bites were small. These were bigger than a quarter.”

Her mother took her to the doctor. “But I didn’t have health care in Cincinnati, so they wouldn’t see me,” she said.

Eventually, the wounds turned black and left scars and her mother decided to move again. The family caught a Greyhound bus back to Washington.

At Georgetown, she hears her classmates complain about little things. “I know people who don’t even know how to wash clothes,” she said. “I know how to do things in a situation where I had nothing and I had to turn it into something.”

When she sat in a front desk of her philosophy class second semester, she was aware that people were looking at her.

“People would act like they didn’t know who I was,” she said. “Then I found out they did. I was like, ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ They were like, ‘I didn’t want to be a creep.’ ”

Maximus Rex

ThaNubianGod wrote: »

Meh, black excellence would be using those billions in a meaningful way to build up our people. Oprah's the only up there I know of doing this.

I always trip off the fact how people that aren't multimillionaires and billionaires are always ? about what multimillionaires and billionaires should do with their money.

Maximus Rex

Black Louisville Judge Dismissed Entire White Jury Due To There Not Being One Black Person Of The Defendants Peer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOxlHLH0zOo

Black Judge Dismissed Entire White Jury Citing Lack of Diversity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvegZpQunmU

FOX Faceoff - All-White Jury Dismissed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI69xMzQuBw

KY Judge Olu Stevens Speaks for the First Time After Controversy Over All-White Jury

http://earhustle411.com/black-louisville-judge-dismissed-entire-white-jury-due-to-there-not-being-one-black-person-of-the-defendants-peer/

http://community.allhiphop.com/discussion/537875/black-louisville-judge-dismissed-entire-white-jury-no-juror-of-black-defendants-peers/p1



Unhappy with the number of potential black jurors called to his court last week, Jefferson Circuit Court Judge Olu Stevens halted a drug trial and dismissed the entire jury panel, asking for a new group to be sent up.

“The concern is that the panel is not representative of the community,” said Stevens, who brought in a new group of jurors despite objections from both the defense and prosecutor.

And this wasn’t the first time Stevens, who is black, has dismissed a jury because he felt it was lacking enough minorities. Now the state Supreme Court is going to determine whether the judge is abusing his power.

On Nov. 18, after a 13-member jury chosen for a theft trial ended up with no black jurors, Stevens found it “troublesome” and dismissed the panel at the request of a defense attorney.

“There is not a single African-American on this jury and (the defendant) is an African-American man,” Stevens said, according to a video of the trial. “I cannot in good conscious go forward with this jury.”

A new jury panel was called up the next day.

After that, the Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and Attorney General asked the Kentucky Supreme Court to look at the issue and see if Stevens has the authority to dismiss jury panels because of a lack of minorities. And last month, the high court agreed to hear arguments.

Jefferson County has long had a problem with minorities being underrepresented on local juries. Several black defendants have complained over the years that they were convicted by an all-white jury – not of their peers.

The Racial Fairness commission – a group made up of local judges, lawyers and citizens – has studied the issue for years, monitored the make-up of jury panels and found them consistently lacking in minorities.

For example, in October, 14 percent of potential jurors were black, far below the estimated 21 percent for all residents of Jefferson County, according to records kept by the commission. In September, 13 percent of potential Jefferson County jurors were black.

“It’s a problem,” said Appeals Court Judge Denise Clayton, head of the commission. “We are not hitting that representation.”

But should judges take it upon themselves to try and ensure a more representative jury?

Stevens said through a secretary at his office that he has no comment.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine declined to comment. But in the November case, prosecutors argued the jury panel was chosen at random, as is typically done.

And prosecutors said dismissing a jury after they had learned about the case and sending them back to be with the original pool could taint jurors.

But Stevens said both sides should “erase” what happened with jury selection from their minds and pretend it didn’t happen. In fact, the judge forbade each side from making any motions based on anything the previous jurors had said and referred to the questioning of the second batch of jurors as the first day of trial, according to court documents.

In requesting the Supreme Court hear the issue, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Dorislee Gilbert argued that other judges “may feel societal, political, and other pressures” to dismiss a jury for lack of minorities if allowed.

And Gilbert said that there was no proof the jury in the November case could not be fair and impartial just because of their race.

The judge “struck the jury based on nothing more than unsupported fear or impression that the jury might not be fair because of its racial makeup,” Gilbert wrote in the case, commonwealth vs. James Doss. “There was no consideration of whether the commonwealth or the citizens who had sacrificed of their own lives to make themselves available for jury service had any rights or interests in continuing to trial with the jury as selected.”

In the recent case, on the second day of the drug trial on Oct. 14, Stevens said he was concerned that the panel of jurors attorneys were to choose a jury from included 37 white people and only three black citizens. And two of the three potential black jurors had already been eliminated.

The defense attorney, Johnny Porter, suggested ensuring that the lone remaining black member of the panel makes the final jury.

Stevens told both sides about the Nov. 18 trial, how the second panel of jurors he called up included four black citizens and was more representative.

“We’ve already done this one time,” Stevens said. “So right off the bat, you’ve got a blueprint and we can be a lot more efficient, in theory.”

Maximus Rex

For World’s Top Gymnast, a Body in Motion and a Mind at Rest
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/sports/olympics/simone-biles-gymnast-rio-olympics.html
By JULIET MACUR FEB. 12, 2016

http://community.allhiphop.com/discussion/542951/black-excellence-simone-biles-is-perhaps-the-best-us-gymnast-ever


Simone Biles, 18, who has 10 gold medals from the world championships, practiced at her parents’ gymnastics facility in Spring, Tex., near Houston.

SPRING, Tex. — One Monday morning early in this Olympic year, on no particularly important day with nothing particularly important on the schedule, the world’s best female gymnast — perhaps the best gymnast in history — walked out of her bedroom and into the kitchen.

She sat at the kitchen counter, put her head in her hands and sighed.

The Rio Games were more than six months away, which made this another day of keeping her mind from drifting into dangerous territory.

“I’m not thinking about being in the Olympics,” said the gymnast, Simone Biles. “Well, at least I’m trying not to think about it.”


Simone Biles, left, at home with her mother, Nellie; father, Ron; and sister, Adria. Credit Leslye Davis/The New York Times

Biles is the best American gymnast since, well, probably ever. She is 4 feet 9 inches, with size 5 feet, but there is an unfathomable amount of power packed into her petite package. She flies through the air as if she were part bird and part cannonball. When she competes, it is nearly impossible not to stop and stare.

Last fall, at the world championships, Biles, 18, won the world all-around title for the third consecutive time, a streak that was unheard-of before she came around and shredded the old book. Her 10 gold medals at the world championships are the most for any woman; her 14 overall medals are more than any other American woman.

That makes her the favorite — the runaway favorite, actually — to win the all-around title at the Rio Games. And that, unfortunately, is both a good thing and a bad thing.

“I overthink everything,” she said. “And I have to try not to.”

Dealing with that pressure to live up to expectations could make an athlete more confident, or cause her to crumble. With the Olympics on the horizon, and getting closer by the day, how is Biles handling that mounting stress?


Simone Biles is a three-time all-around world champion, but for now she is trying not to think about the coming Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Credit Photographs by Leslye Davis/The New York Times

“Yep,” Simone replied. “I’ll update the list if I need to later.”

That made Nellie Biles happy. She knows that for Simone to remain successful, she must remain humble. That is something she and her husband, Ron, emphasized in the household when Simone was growing up.

Nellie and Ron are Simone’s grandparents, but they adopted Simone and her younger sister, Adria, when Simone was 3 because the girls’ mother had drug problems and could no longer care for them. Ron and Nellie, now in their 60s, became Mom and Dad and gave their young daughters a safe, loving environment, with rules and reminders to set goals. It was everything the girls needed to blossom.

Now the Biles family lives here in this Houston suburb, in a 6,000-square-foot Tuscan-style house with a six-car garage that is far different from Ron and Nellie’s simpler upbringings. He grew up in a Cleveland housing project and Nellie in Belize, where her family had no television or car.

Maximus Rex

For World’s Top Gymnast, a Body in Motion and a Mind at Rest


Biles’s preparation for the Olympics includes taking baby steps toward Rio and trying not to worry about what’s at stake there.

That made Nellie Biles happy. She knows that for Simone to remain successful, she must remain humble. That is something she and her husband, Ron, emphasized in the household when Simone was growing up.

Nellie and Ron are Simone’s grandparents, but they adopted Simone and her younger sister, Adria, when Simone was 3 because the girls’ mother had drug problems and could no longer care for them. Ron and Nellie, now in their 60s, became Mom and Dad and gave their young daughters a safe, loving environment, with rules and reminders to set goals. It was everything the girls needed to blossom.

Now the Biles family lives here in this Houston suburb, in a 6,000-square-foot Tuscan-style house with a six-car garage that is far different from Ron and Nellie’s simpler upbringings. He grew up in a Cleveland housing project and Nellie in Belize, where her family had no television or car.

They are grateful for how far they have come and don’t brag about their achievements. That humility has rubbed off on Simone.


Biles’s preparation for the Olympics includes taking baby steps toward Rio and trying not to worry about what’s at stake there. Credit Leslye Davis/The New York Times

“Simone is not the type of person to go around saying that she wants to win the gold medal, because that’s thinking too much of yourself and giving yourself too much credit,” Nellie Biles said. “I always tell her, ‘You never know what’s going to happen.’ If doing her best means she will come out on top, that’s awesome. If it means she’ll finish fourth, that’s awesome, too.”

For now, Simone Biles is just trying to lie low before the Olympic trials in July. Her next competition will be the Pacific Rim Championships in April. By then, there will be growing talk about adding to the recent dynasty the United States team has built at the Olympics. American women have won the past three Olympic gold medals in the all-around. For now, though, Biles is tuning that out and focusing instead on her training, reruns of “90210” and “The Carrie Diaries,” and mani-pedis with her sister.

Being normal is how she keeps her mind off being a phenom, and off being the Olympic favorite.

At one meet last year, as she stood on the runway just before performing her vault, she eased her nerves by chatting with a Canadian gymnast. The two talked about a boy they knew.

“I was just asking her about him, and we went back and forth about him for a few minutes,” Biles said with a giggle. “I just needed to keep my mind busy.”

Whatever it takes to keep her mind off the pressure, she’ll do it. So far, so good.

There is pressure on Simone to win the gold medal, of course, but not extra pressure just because she has her own gym, Nellie Biles said. Nellie and Ron recently built and opened a 56,000-square-foot gymnastics facility called the World Champions Centre here. The center is a gymnast’s dream, with workout spaces and therapy centers and even a classroom for athletes who are home-schooled. The business can only be helped by any association with Simone Biles, regardless of how she fares this summer, but it is not essential to the plan.

Nellie Biles, who was a nurse who ended up owning 14 nursing homes, had the vision to build a profitable gymnastics business, and she is making it happen. Simone can chase her own goals.

Simone insists that she is just like any other teenager, but she’s not. She was identified as a gymnastics prodigy when she was 6, when her coach, Aimee Boorman, saw her in a day care class. She is such a talent that now she has a signature move on the floor routine named after her: It is called the Biles, and it’s a double flip in the layout position, with a half-twist added at the end. You will see it soon enough.

Gymnastic is one of those sports that black people would dominate. Unfortunately, it's cost prohibitive, (that coupled with the lack of facilities,) is one of the reasons why you don't see more participation from black people. On another note I've always wanted to ? one of those limber ass big ole leg havin' short ? , buffed gymnast ? . Man, the ? that you could do with one of them. Best of luck to ole girl though. I hope that she wins because the Chinks "be" hella cheatin' and ? .

Maximus Rex

African American Youth Invents Surgical Technique at Age 14

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1nhkvG4DK0

http://milwaukeecourieronline.com/index.php/2012/02/11/african-american-youth-invents-surgical-technique-at-age-14

FEBRUARY 11, 2012

Young, Gifted and Black Series

By Taki S. Raton



He is young, he is gifted and he is Black. At the age of 14, Tony Hansberry II certainly holds grounded status in the league of exceptional youth.

“Tony Hansberry II isn’t waiting to finish medical school to contribute to improved medical care. He has already developed a stitching technique that can be used to reduce surgical complications, as well as the chance of error among less experienced surgeons,” writes Jackie Jones in BlackAmericaWeb.com on June 16, 2009.

“The project I did was basically the comparison of novel laparoscopic instruments in doing a hysterectomy repair,” reveals Hansberry.

At the time, Hansberry was a high school freshman at the Darnell-Cookman Middle/High School of the Medical Arts in Jacksonville, Florida, a special medical magnet school that allows its students to take advanced classes in medicine. Informational documents cite that students at the school are able to master suturing in eighth grade. Suturing is the surgical stitching of a wound.

The son of a registered nurse and an African Methodist Episcopal church pastor, the Darnell-Cookman student said that “I just want to help people and be respected, knowing that I can save lives.” His goal is to become a neurosurgeon.

Jones reports that the idea for his unique procedure was conceived during the summer of 2008 while enrolled as an intern at the University of Florida ’s Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research at Shands Hospital in Jacksonville.

It was noted that Hansberry responded to a challenge to improve a procedure called the “endo stitch” used in hysterectomies that could not be clamped down properly to close the tube where the patient’s ? had been. Using a medical ? , the 14-year-old devised a vertical way to apply the endo stitch, completing the stitching in a third of the time of traditional surgery.

“It took me a day or two to come up with the concept,” Hansberry said in the Jones interview.

He was supervised by urogynecologist Dr. Brent Siebel and Bruce Nappi, administrative director of the Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research. Hansberry’s accomplishment, it is reported, won second place in the medical category regional science fair in February 2009.

“Education experts say that youngsters as young as 10 can experience great achievement at an early age if their thirst for knowledge is encouraged and they are given opportunities to shadow professionals and get internships,” as quoted by Jones.

In April of 2009, Hansberry presented his findings at a medical conference at the University of Florida before an audience of doctors and board-certified surgeons. Medical lead teacher Angela Tenbroeck is quoted noting that in many ways, Hansberry is a typical student, but that he is way ahead of his classmates when it comes to surgical skills.

“I would put him up against a first-year med student. He’s an outstanding young man and I am proud to have him representing us,” she says. As an 11th- grader at the age of 16, the January 25, 2011 Jacksonville.com blog reports that Hansberry was one of nine youth who were selected to travel to Washington that February to present the Boy Scouts of America Report to the Nation to President Barack Obama.

District director for the Boy Scouts of America Lawrence Norman in the Jacksonville report said that when district leaders were asked to recommend an exemplary Scout, “Tony’s name kept coming up.”

Hansberry was also introduced at the annual meeting of the North Florida Council of The Boy Scouts at the University of North Florida on January 25, 2011.

According to Jacksonville writer Justin Sacharoff, the Boy Scouts of America Report to the Nation features the year’s achievements including national service, conservation, healthy living and community involvement.

The Darnell-Cookman Middle/ High School of the Medical Arts is a school within the Duval County Public Schools system in Jacksonville. It is a National Blue Ribbon School and also an “A” school in the State of Florida school grading system.

The school had its beginnings nearly 200 years ago when Methodist minister Reverend S.B. Darnell moved to Jacksonville to serve as pastor of Ebenezer Methodist- Episcopal Church. In the late 1800s, he founded the Cookman Institute. It was the first school of higher education for African Americans in the state of Florida specializing in the religious and academic preparation of teachers.

Under the leadership of Darnell, the school served thousands of young Black men and women until it was destroyed in the Great Jacksonville Fire of 1901. The Reverend Alfred Cookman, a close friend of Reverend Darnell, helped raise the money to rebuild the school. Today, Darnell-Cookman School of the Medical Arts has an enrollment upwards of 1,100 students in grades 6-12. The first graduating class will receive their diplomas in the spring of 2012.

This “Young, Gifted and Black” series is proud to present its first writing during this 2012 February Black History Month by sharing the exemplary modeled accomplishment of Tony Hansberry II. But in reality, Hansberry’s achievement historically in our communities is really not unusual or extraordinary for our African American students when they are taught, groomed and culturally inspired in an academically supportive instructional environment unique to how we learn, grow, and develop mentally, socially, emotionally, and even psychologically as Black youth in today’s challenging diverse society.

And added to this point in his words, our young neurosurgeon to be says that, “It’s not really hard if you have a passion for it.”

Maximus Rex

The Silicon Valley entrepreneur moving black-hair products out of the ethnic aisle
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0221-bevel-walker-20160219-story.html


Tristan Walker, founder and CEO of Walker & Co. Brands, visits the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood before speaking on a panel about diversity in tech start-ups. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)


by Dexter Thomas Contact Reporter

This is probably the blackest this backstage room at the Dolby Theater is going to be for a while.

Granted, there are only two black people in the room — me and a 30-year-old guy named Tristan Walker — but considering that the Oscars will be held here in a week, that's probably a safe assessment.

Walker is the founder and chief executive of Walker & Co. Brands, the company behind Bevel, a line of shaving products for men of color. I'm here to interview him, but he's busy admiring a photo on the wall. The photo is of Halle Berry and Denzel Washington, proudly displaying their Oscars during that one historic moment in 2002 when two black people won the Best Actor and Actress awards.

Walker has flown down from Palo Alto, where he lives with his wife and son, to speak on a panel about diversity in tech start-ups along with Magic Johnson, who is also an investor in Bevel. In the two years and change since Bevel's launch, the company has raised $33.3 million in funding, gotten nods from GQ, picked up a celebrity endorsement from Nas and this month went from an online-only product to a debut on Target's shelves.

I've never so much as touched a Bevel razor, but I'm constantly hearing about it on Twitter, black fashion sites and on any one of several black podcasts. You may be wondering, like I was: Why is everyone so excited about a razor?

Walker tells me that Bevel started from a pair of frustrations. "A lot of global culture is led by American culture, which in turn is led by black culture," he says. "And also Asian and Latino culture." Too often, he says, those contributions go unrecognized.

The second frustration is the plight of what he calls the "ethnic aisle." I'm already laughing when he says the words, because I know exactly what he's talking about: the spot in every grocery store set aside for hair-care products for black and brown people.

"You gotta go back to aisle 15" — at this point, he's laughing too — "but it's not really an aisle, it's just a shelf in the back, right? And you gotta reach down to the bottom of the shelf for some dusty package, and there's a picture of a 65-year-old dude in a Jheri curl and a towel, and they're assuming that I'm going to buy that product. It's that whole second-class citizen experience."

So for Walker, that feeling of being ignored by cosmetics companies was more than an annoyance — it was an opportunity.

Traditionally, we don't think of grooming as being at the top of the list of conversation among men. But for a lot of black and brown men with coarse and curly hair, shaving is a daily ordeal, and a cheap multi-blade razor that works wonders on your white buddy's face can turn your neck into something approximating Nestle Crunch.

This is how Walker says that his company differs from Venice-based Dollar Shave Club, another popular start-up. Dollar Shave Club offers razors starting at $1 (plus shipping) per month, and at $89.95 for a three-month supply of blades and shaving product.

Bevel can't compete on price. But Walker is betting that customers will find that his single-blade razor, which he says is better for men that suffer from razor bumps, is worth the premium. The gamble seems to be paying off, because the company reports that 97% of customers renew their subscriptions.

"I get all these emails," Walker says. "I just got one from a guy in the Army, saying something like 'For as long as I can remember, razor bumps have been as much a part of my military career as my uniform.'" He counts black men in the military among his most enthusiastic supporters.

One engine of Bevel's word-of-mouth success is sponsored podcasts. Black-run podcasts have a wide listenership, and it's pretty common to hear the host of "The Black Guy Who Tips" or "The Combat Jack Show" go on an extended riff about the virtues of Bevel. Walker is enthusiastic about podcasters and rattles off a bunch of his favorites. "We sponsor a whole bunch of them," Walker says.

These podcasts are popular in part because they reach a community that is often overlooked by other media. Because this is a community that is savvy about social media and vocal about what they like (and don't like), when something comes along that speaks to them, they pay attention.

And sure enough, most of the online chatter about Bevel isn't sponsored. It's organic. DeRay Mckesson, a prominent activist who has recently announced his intention to run for mayor of Baltimore, recently tweeted that he had "only heard positive things" about Bevel.

"It was a pretty good point of validation for us, especially with all the really great work he's doing," Walker says. He admits that he gets excited whenever someone famous mentions Bevel online. "We send an email out to everyone, like, retweet! retweet!"

So much enthusiasm surrounds the company that there's now a persistent rumor that Walker turned down a half-billion-dollar buyout offer from Gillette to keep his company black-owned.

"That's not true," Walker says. But he can understand why the rumor started.

"When my mother was growing up, she had SoftSheen Carson and 'Soul Train.' So I'm thinking about how can we build a company that this generation, and future generations, can be fundamentally proud to support? How much is that worth?"

It's worth a lot, he says. People are proud of Bevel. "I think that's why there's this pent-up excitement," which in turn fuels misquotes and rumors.

One of the masterminds behind the brand's visibility is Cassidy Blackwell, who blogged about natural hair care for women for years before joining Bevel. She directs the content on bevelcode.com, a site staffed by Bevel employees. Most of the content would feel at home on a men's fashion or hip-hop site: an interview with Nas about why he started wearing that "half-moon" part in his hair, photos of President Obama's barber, recommendations for Valentine's Day gifts and reviews of good barbershops in a handful of major cities. The site strengthens loyalty to the Bevel brand.

Bevel is a privately held company that doesn't disclose its sales figure. But they seem confident about the future. Walker says they are getting ready to launch a line of products for women of color, and Bevel just announced two major accomplishments.

The first: After two years as an online-only subscription product, Bevel is now stocked on Target shelves because Walker struck up a relationship with a customer who left a glowing review from an @target.com email address.

"He turned out to be in charge of purchasing for personal care products," Walker says. "Two months later we were in a meeting, a year later we were on Target shelves."

Target seems pretty happy about the arrangement:

Maximus Rex

Harvard Law School's First Deaf-Blind Graduate Advocating For People With Disabilities (VIDEO)
Haben Girma, Harvard Law School's first deaf-blind graduate, is fighting for the rights of deaf-blind people worldwide.

http://www.hngn.com/articles/152258/20151121/harvard-law-schools-first-deaf-blind-graduate-advocating-people-disabilities.htm

Nov 21, 2015 12:02 PM EST


President Obama with Haben Girma, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 2013. (Photo : Twitter/Diplomat News Network)

Haben Girma, Harvard Law School's first deaf-blind graduate, is fighting for accessible education for other deaf-blind people worldwide, according to BBC News.

The Eritrean-American was born in California after her mother escaped Eritrea in the early 1980s. Today, Girma is a successful attorney who advocates for civil rights of people with disabilities, reported the Diplomat News Network. She says that she is proof that if you believe that you can achieve a goal, then you will.


(Photo : Twitter/Diplomat News Network)
Deaf-blind Haben Girma graduated from Harvard Law School.

The 27-year-old's family comes from Eritrea, a country in the Eastern region of Africa. Being born deaf and blind in her home country did not give her many options for access to education, noted India.com. There were no schools for people with special physical disabilities, and it would have been impossible for Haben to get the education she needed to become a lawyer. Her older brother was also born deaf-blind and did not have access to special education in Eritrea, either.

Girma went to Lewis & Clark College, where she graduated magna ? laude in 2010. She later matriculated to Harvard Law School and earned her J.D. in 2013.

She celebrated the 25th Anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act earlier this year at the White House with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Check out the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61HzFPs2LXQ

Presidential Remarks on the 25th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (C-SPAN)

Maximus Rex

Two Black Swimmers Make Olympic History

July 6, 2016 | Posted by Ricky Riley

Last Friday, two Black Stanford University student swimmers made it through the Olympic trials in Omaha, Nebraska, making it the first time two Black women will represent the U.S. in swimming.
Swimmers Simone Manuel, 19, and Lia Neal, 21, were placed in the center of racist hyperbole and ridicule when Yahoo announced the news.

History Made as Two African American Women Make the Team Together
http://sports.yahoo.com/video/history-made-two-african-american-231612410.html

For the comments of the salty CAC's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1oEMxINDEc

Two Black Swimmers Make Olympic History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCqQLhbNfq8

Jamaica's Alia Atkinson - First Black Female World Swimming Champion

Maximus Rex

Twin judges: Shera Grant joins sister on the bench
Twin judges: Shera Grant joins sister on the bench

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/01/twin_judges_shera_grant_joins.html

http://community.allhiphop.com/discussion/541381/black-excellence-identical-twin-sisters-are-now-both-judges-in-alabama

By Kent Faulk | kfaulk@al.com
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on January 13, 2016 at 6:53 AM, updated January 13, 2016 at 1:53 PM


Shanta Owens and Shera Grant (Courtesy Taneisha Tucker)

The lives of identical twin sisters Shera Grant and Shanta Owens have often mirrored each other.

Both of the Birmingham natives graduated from Alabama State University. Both graduated from law school at Louisiana State University. While Grant went to Atlanta after law school and Owens came back to Birmingham, both ended up with jobs as prosecutors.

Their girls are both 6 years old and were born four months apart. Their sons are 3 years old and also born four months apart. Their husbands, who they married two months apart in 2003, also have been best friends since kindergarten.

Shanta has been a district court judge since her election in 2008. She won a second term and is up for re-election in 2020.

Now Shera too is a district court judge after Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley on Friday appointed her to fill the seat of Jack Lowther.

"Ms. Grant is highly qualified, motivated and prepared to be a district judge," according to a statement from Jennifer Ardis, communications director for Bentley. "The governor's office found out about her twin sister during the interview process. Public service seems to be a trait that runs in her family."

Grant, 38, Vestavia Hills, said she was "super excited" to be appointed to the judgeship, which handles small civil cases.


Shera Grant (Courtesy Taneisha Tucker)

"I'm just overwhelmed, overjoyed. ... I think this is a wonderful opportunity to serve the citizens of this county," she said.

Grant starts her new job Jan. 25.

"I'm really elated ... I'm excited for her," said Owens, who is four minutes older than Grant. "We're grateful to ? and grateful to the Governor."

Owens said she had one piece of advice for her sister — to remain the person their mom raised them to be, respectful of everyone and work hard.

"I know she'll (Grant) continue to be that person because that's how we were raised," she said.

'Grew up reading'

Owens and Grant were raised by a single mom, Loretta Bitten, who has worked as a librarian at the Birmingham Library since they were 9 years old. Their father had died when they were young.

"We grew up reading," Owens said.

Grant is currently a deputy Jefferson County Public Defender. She also serves on the Vestavia Hills Board of Education.

Identical twins on the bench in Jefferson County might be a first.

"I checked with several of our tenured members, and we are not aware of identical twins sitting simultaneously on Jefferson County's District or Circuit courts," said Bo Landrum, executive director of the Birmingham Bar Association. "There is, of course, the husband and wife team of Judges Eugene and Annetta Verin on the Circuit Court in Bessemer, and brothers Tom (Circuit civil) and Alan King (probate judge) serving simultaneously ... in Birmingham, but identical twins on the bench at the same time may be a first for Birmingham."

Already up for election

This would have been an election year for Lowther, so Grant will have to campaign to keep her newly appointed judgeship.

The Jefferson County Judicial Commission last month recommended three names — Grant, John C. Hall and Robert W. Shores — to Bentley to fill the seat.

Seven lawyers applied. The judicial commission had suggested those interested in being appointed to fill the seat before the election should qualify to run for the seat.

Grant, Hall, and Shores already plan to run for Lowther's seat — District Court Place 5 — in the March Democratic Primary to see who will face Lee Cleveland, who is unopposed on the Republican side, in the general election. Pamela Wilson Cousins, who did not apply for the job, is also running on the Democratic side for the seat.

"I want to thank the judicial commission for selecting my name as one of three qualified attorneys to fill this position," Grant said.

SolemnSauce

I went to her house, she ain't had no kids. She cooked me dinner, we watched a movie. I smashed, fell asleep and woke up round 2am. Told her I was going home, she said aight I'll call you later this week. This was tuesday, she hit me back up Saturday.



Black Excellence

Elzo69Renaissance

A friend of our firm and the 1st black president of the ISBA...ever plus a real brother too

NeighborhoodNomad.

Props to all of the achievements that have been posted but let's always remember Our Excellence has nothing to do with money, title, or White institutional acceptance.

Maximus Rex

Serena Williams wins Wimbledon to tie Open era record with 22nd Slam title
http://espn.go.com/tennis/wimbledon16/story/_/id/16922072/2016-wimbledon-serena-williams-wins-22nd-grand-slam-title-tie-steffi-graf-open-era-record

LONDON -- Serena Williams, who kept coming close without quite getting there, insisted she was not focused on No. 22.

Now she finally has it. And so she can flaunt it.

Williams lifted both arms overhead and raised two fingers on each hand right there on Centre Court to show off the magic number after winning her record-tying 22nd Grand Slam singles title by beating Angelique Kerber 7-5, 6-3 in the Wimbledon final Saturday.

"Yeah, it's been incredibly difficult not to think about it. I had a couple of tries this year," Williams said during the trophy ceremony. "But it makes the victory even sweeter to know how hard I worked for it.

"I have, yeah, definitely had some sleepless nights, if I'm just honest, with a lot of stuff. Coming so close. Feeling it, not quite able to get there."

She pulled even with Steffi Graf for the most major championships in the Open era, which began in 1968. Now Williams stands behind only Margaret Court's all-time mark of 24.

This was Williams' seventh singles trophy at the All England Club -- only Martina Navratilova, with nine, has more -- and her second in a row. Her victory at Wimbledon a year ago raised her Grand Slam count to 21, but while she almost had added to that total since, she was not able to.

There was a stunning loss to Roberta Vinci in the US Open semifinals in September, ending Williams' bid for a calendar-year Grand Slam. Then came losses in finals to Kerber at the Australian Open in January and to Garbine Muguruza at the French Open last month.

"If I'm totally honest, I'm not relieved to have the 22nd, I'm relieved to have Serena back," said Williams' coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. "Everything depends on that. I don't look at the reward, I look at how to achieve it. And there was something missing for a few months, and the thing that was missing was just Serena. The tennis player was there, but Serena as a person wasn't really herself so she was much more beatable.

"She got that back over time. I think we didn't realize how much time she need to recover from the loss at the US Open. Maybe I'm being wrong, but that's how I feel."

And if having the singles title wasn't enough, she later teamed up with sister Venus Williams on Centre Court to capture the women's doubles championship -- their sixth at Wimbledon -- with a 6-3, 6-4 victory against Timea Babos and Yaroslava Shvedova.

In the rematch against the fourth-seeded Kerber on Saturday -- the first time in a decade two women met to decide multiple major titles in a single season -- the No. 1-ranked Williams came through. This goes alongside her six championships at the US Open, six at the Australian Open and three at the French Open.

The 34-year-old American did it, as she often does, with nearly impeccable serving. She slammed 13 aces, including at least one in each of her first eight service games. She won 38 of 43 points when she put a first serve in.

She faced just one break point -- at 3-all in the second set, it represented Kerber's only real opening -- and shut the door quickly and emphatically, with a pair of aces at 117 mph and 124 mph, her fastest of the afternoon.

"This court," Williams said, "definitely feels like home."


Serena Williams dominated with her serve against Angelique Kerber, slamming 13 aces and winning 38 of 43 points when she converted her first serve. GLYN KIRK/AFP/Getty Images

There was more that Williams did well, though. So much more. Facing the left-handed Kerber's reactive, counterpunching style, Williams was by far the more aggressive player during baseline exchanges, trying to make things happen. And she did, compiling a big edge in winners, 39-12.

Williams returned well, hammering second serves that floated in at 75 mph and breaking serve once in each set. She volleyed well, too, winning the point on 16 of 22 trips to the net, including a tap-in on the last point. Soon enough, she was wrapping Kerber in a warm embrace, then holding up those fingers to symbolize "22."

"At the end, I was trying everything, but she deserved it today. She really played an unbelievable match," said Kerber, who hadn't appeared in a major final until beating Williams in Melbourne. "I think we both played on a really high level."

It was breezy, but that didn't seem to hamper Williams, whose older sister Venus sat in her guest box, a couple of seats over from music's power couple of Beyoncé and Jay Z.

Kerber, a German who knows Graf well, defeated Venus in the semifinals and hadn't dropped a set on her way to the final. But on the grass that suits Williams' game so well, Kerber simply could not quite keep up with the trophy on the line, although it was a high-quality match that was more competitive than the scoreline might indicate.

"I also played a good match," Kerber said. "That makes it a little easier for me."

Williams lost only one set this fortnight, the opener of her second-round match against American Christina McHale last week. After dropping that tiebreaker, Williams sat in her sideline chair and proceeded to smack her racket repeatedly against the grass, before flinging the equipment so far behind her that it landed in the lap of a TV cameraman.

That earned Williams a $10,000 fine, but perhaps it pointed her in the right direction. She won all 12 sets she has played since.

"Once I started focusing more on the positives, I realized that I'm pretty good," she said. "Then I started playing a little better."

Said Mouratoglou: "What you saw today, what you saw in the semis and what you saw in the second-round round [against McHale], that was Serena. When she was in trouble -- boom, boom, she did it. When she needed to close -- boom, she did it. That is Serena. I didn't see that for months."

There had been some thought that Williams was really stung by her loss to Vinci in New York, that it was too big a disappointment to push aside and lingered, somehow, when she followed with the setbacks against Kerber and Muguruza.

"If anything, I was able to show resilience that, no, that's not going to shake me, you're not going to break me," Williams said, "it's going to make me stronger."

So, Williams was asked Saturday, is she already thinking about No. 25, to surpass Court?

"Oh, ? , no," Williams said. "One thing I learned about last year is to enjoy the moment. I'm definitely going to enjoy this."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Maximus Rex

Venus, Serena Williams capture sixth Wimbledon doubles title

http://espn.go.com/tennis/wimbledon16/story/_/id/16928324/2016-wimbledon-venus-serena-williams-capture-women-doubles-title

LONDON -- Serena Williams is leaving Wimbledon with two trophies, teaming with her older sister Venus to win the women's doubles final just hours after collecting the singles title Saturday.

The American siblings won their sixth doubles championship at the All England Club and 14th as a pair at all Grand Slam tournaments by beating fifth-seeded Timea Babos of Hungary and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-4.

Earlier Saturday, also on Centre Court, Serena won her 22nd Grand Slam singles title with a straight-set victory over Angelique Kerber in that final. It was the fourth time that Serena won both titles at Wimbledon in the same year; Martina Navratilova pulled off the feat five times in the Open era.

"I had just enough time to change and get my ankles retaped," Serena said about going from one match to the other. "But there was so much adrenaline, I didn't want to cool down too much."

Venus sat in the guest box during the singles final.

"Watching Serena earlier was so amazing, and I was so into that. And then you have to reset yourself and say, 'OK, we've got to play a match and we're going to have to try to win,'" Venus said during a joint interview with the BBC after the doubles. "So she brought the energy from Game 1 and that really brought me up, too."

The Williams sisters also won doubles titles at Wimbledon in 2000, 2002, 2008, 2009 and 2012. Each time, one or the other also won the singles championship, with Serena doing it in 2002, 2009 and 2012 in addition to this year.

They're now 14-0 in major doubles finals. They were unseeded this time because they play doubles so infrequently, and their most recent Grand Slam title before Saturday had come four years ago at the All England Club. Until playing at the French Open in May, they hadn't even entered a doubles draw at any major tournament since 2014.

The 14 Grand Slam titles are tied for second in the Open era with Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva. Navratilova and Pam Shriver hold the Open era record with 20.

The Williams sisters are planning to compete in doubles, in addition to singles, at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics next month. They already have won three gold medals in doubles, at the 2000, 2008 and 2012 Summer Games.

When they were asked during the BBC interview which one is in charge of their doubles team, Serena immediately pointed toward Venus and said with a laugh, "She's definitely the boss."

Said Venus: "Well, I'm the older sister, so it kind of falls on me. But [there are] different times on the court that we both take over. So whatever the team needs, it kind of happens organically. That's the best kind of team."

Shvedova, who lost to Venus in the singles quarterfinals this week, was trying to win her third Grand Slam doubles title, after teaming with Vania King to win Wimbledon and the US Open in 2010. Babos has never won a major doubles trophy; she was the runner-up with Kristina Mladenovic at Wimbledon in 2014.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Qiv_Owan

Jesse Russell should be on that list, he invented and patented 4g/mobile data

Biles made the team too, its crazy how during the selection all the focus was on Gabby...still black excellence

Maximus Rex

Micah Johnson, Gunman in Dallas, Honed Military Skills to a Deadly Conclusion

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/us/dallas-quiet-after-police-shooting-but-protests-flare-elsewhere.html?_r=0

By RICHARD FAUSSET, MANNY FERNANDEZ and ALAN BLINDERJULY 9, 2016


[/b]Police officers outside Micah Johnson’s home in Mesquite, Tex., on Saturday. Mr. Johnson, who shot and killed five officers in Dallas on Thursday night, had conducted training in his backyard. Credit William Widmer for The New York Times[/b]

GARLAND, Tex. — There was a time when he was known as a well-mannered young man — a regular at his church and a pleasant presence on a tree-lined, suburban, multicultural street in a neighborhood called Camelot. He grew up to serve his country in Afghanistan.

But on Thursday night, 25-year-old Micah Johnson, an African-American, drove his car to a rally against police violence and began killing officers in downtown Dallas, hoping to single out the white ones. In the process, he also managed to bring his war back home, killing at least one fellow military veteran and heightening fears that the nation he had been deployed to protect overseas was now failing to address its growing racial divide at home.

The Dallas police remained on edge Saturday. In the late afternoon, officers drew their weapons and cleared an area near the back of their headquarters after a report of a suspicious person in a department parking garage. The agency later said that no one had been found.

In the past several days, as demonstrators jammed the streets in a number of American cities, protesting police violence, new details emerged about Mr. Johnson’s life. They revealed a young man who had returned in disgrace from his stint abroad in the Army Reserve, but then continued a training regimen of his own devising, conducting military-style exercises in his backyard and reportedly joining a gym that offered martial arts and weapons classes.

A Dallas County official also revealed Saturday that Mr. Johnson — who killed five officers and wounded seven others, as well as two civilians,before the police killed him with a robot-delivered explosive device — had kept an extensive journal and described a method of attack in which a gunman fired on a target and then quickly moved to another location to confuse an enemy.

Although it did not seem to be a precise plan for Mr. Johnson’s ambush, it was strikingly similar to the tactics he used.


Micah Johnson enlisted in the Army Reserve in 2009. Credit via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“It’s talking not only about how to ? but how to keep from being killed,” said Clay Jenkins, Dallas County’s chief executive and director of homeland security and emergency management, who said he had not read the original journal but had reviewed summaries of it. “It shows that he’s well prepared.”

Mr. Johnson showed an affinity for radical black-power organizations on his Facebook page. Organizers of the Black Lives Matter network and others have denounced Mr. Johnson’s shooting spree. In a news conference on Saturday in Warsaw, President Obama said it was “very hard to untangle the motives” behind the shooting.

“As we’ve seen in a whole range of incidents with mass shooters, they are, by definition, troubled,” Mr. Obama said. “By definition, if you shoot people who pose no threat to you — strangers — you have a troubled mind. What triggers that, what feeds it, what sets it off, I’ll leave that to psychologists and people who study these kinds of incidents.”

On Saturday, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said in a statement that Mr. Obama had called him to offer condolences. Mr. Abbott said he had thanked the president and reiterated the need for Americans to unite after the shooting.

Tensions remained high, however. In San Antonio, the police were investigating reports late Saturday that gunshots had been fired at their department’s headquarters, Chief William McManus said at a briefing.

Officers said that they heard gunshots hitting the building just before 10 p.m. and that “a number of shell casings” were recovered, Chief McManus said. There were no injuries.


Alexis McCormick, left, and Michaela McCormick at a United to Heal vigil at the Cathedral Shrine of the ? of Guadalupe in downtown Dallas on Friday night. Credit William Widmer for The New York Times

Mr. Johnson spent some of his childhood at the home of his father and stepmother in Garland, about a half-hour drive north of downtown Dallas. Their neighborhood, Camelot, is a collection of one- and two-story ranch-style houses of late-20th-century vintage, and their house is set in the middle of a tree-lined block, where a number of neighboring homes this weekend still displayed American flags from the Fourth of July weekend. The neighbors walking by or working on their lawns were black, white, Hispanic and Asian.

Courtney Williams, 37, an electrician who lives in Forney, just east of Dallas, said he had known Mr. Johnson during his teenage days, when Mr. Johnson would stay with his mother in the Pleasant Grove area of Dallas. The two young men attended the same church, and Mr. Williams recalled Mr. Johnson as a “well-mannered” youth who was active in church events and the typical pursuits of a teenager.

“Video games, the whole nine yards,” he said. Mr. Johnson showed no interest in weapons, Mr. Williams said.

“He was just a quiet kid,” Mr. Williams said. “No attitude, no trouble with school. Just a normal kid.”

Mr. Williams lost touch with Mr. Johnson after the younger man graduated from John Horn High School in Mesquite, Tex., where he had shown some interest in the military, going so far as to participate in the school’s Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program. He was not, it seemed on Saturday, a standout: Horn’s former J.R.O.T.C. instructor said he had little recollection of Mr. Johnson.

He enlisted in the Army Reserve in 2009 and was assigned to a unit — a component of the 420th Engineer Brigade — near Dallas. More than four years later, the unit deployed to Afghanistan. But before the soldiers left for the Afghan theater, they stood in formation not far from the streets where Mr. Johnson would someday stage a siege.

An officer urged them to take care of their families and cultivate their faith. He also emphasized the importance of adapting on the fly.

“Continue to build the flexibility to adjust to changing and unforeseen situations faster than the enemy can adapt,” the officer said, according to a video of the ceremony. “This is how we will succeed.”

But Mr. Johnson did not succeed. While overseas, a female soldier in Mr. Johnson’s unit accused him of sexual harassment. When the Army considered kicking him out, he waived his right to a hearing in exchange for a lesser charge.

Soon he was back in Texas, living with his mother. Ron Price, 49, a former president of the Dallas school board, lives in Mesquite, about four blocks away. He used to see Mr. Johnson in the neighborhood and exchange hellos. He said he had noticed nothing really remarkable about him.

“He was just another guy at the gas station,” he said.

But Mr. Jenkins said a neighbor had seen Mr. Johnson doing militarylike exercises in his backyard in Mesquite in the last couple of weeks.

Mr. Johnson’s preparations seemingly extended to visits to a “self-defense and personal protection” gym in the Dallas area.

Maximus Rex

Micah Johnson, Gunman in Dallas, Honed Military Skills to a Deadly Conclusion,con't


Outside Dallas Police Headquarters, two squad cars have been turned into memorials. Credit William Widmer for The New York Times

The gym’s owner, Justin Everman, told The Daily Beast that it counted many police officers among its members, and he sought to distance himself and his business from Mr. Johnson.

“It’s disgusting, what he did,” Mr. Everman told The Daily Beast. “I’m disgusted.”

In addition to reading summaries of the journal, Mr. Jenkins said he had heard descriptions of its contents from other officials.

Some of it was given over to very specific combat and sniper tactics, including details, Mr. Jenkins said, of “what we call ‘shoot and move’ tactics — ways to fire on a target and then move quickly and get into position at another location to inflict more damage on targets without them being able to ascertain where the shots are coming from.” This tactic is used by the military’s special forces.

“When you couple ‘shoot and move’ and other tactics in his writings, his practice in the yard, his interest in weaponry, it seems to me that this was a well-prepared individual,”[/u[ Mr. Jenkins said.

He added, “It appeared that he was an excellent marksman and was calmly shooting, as opposed to someone who’s just holding a gun up and aiming it and pulling the trigger in the direction of where they think people are.”

Mr. Jenkins said Mr. Johnson had used a semiautomatic SKS rifle and a high-capacity handgun. He drove his vehicle to the demonstration and parked it, Mr. Jenkins said, but was on foot at many points throughout the attack.


Police officers in riot gear moved in to break up a group of marchers as hundreds took to the streets to protest in Phoenix on Friday. Credit Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press

Mr. Johnson’s knowledge of “shoot and move” — and the fact that a few of the protesters in the crowd who were not involved in the shooting were armed and carrying rifles — has helped shed light on how a theory of multiple assailants emerged.

In Texas, gun owners can legally and openly carry what are known as long guns, including shotguns and rifles. The carrying of handguns is regulated in Texas and requires a state-issued permit, whether concealed or openly carried, but the carrying of rifles is largely unregulated and requires no permit. The so-called open carrying of rifles has become common at many demonstrations in Texas in recent years.

“When the shooting first happened, you had people in the crowd who were carrying long rifles and dressed in camouflage,” Mr. Jenkins said. “And then the shooting happens, and those people begin to disperse and move quickly, and they have guns and they’re not police officers and there’s a shooting, and so one of the things that people would investigate quickly is did they have anything to do with whatever is happening.”

Mr. Jenkins said that Mr. Johnson did not appear to have advance knowledge of the march route. Parts of the route were determined on the spot without planning, Mr. Jenkins said.

Throughout a sweltering Saturday, a section of downtown Dallas remained a closed-off crime scene as investigators faced a second day of piecing together the details of the attack, an inquiry that had included more than 200 interviews. More than 20 square blocks remained cordoned off.

Two squad cars outside Police Headquarters have become memorials, covered in flowers, balloons, posters and handwritten notes. On Friday evening, before the officers went on heightened alert, person after person slowly and quietly approached the cars to add tributes. A Dallas police sergeant wiped her eyes, and a handful of people gathered in a circle to pray.

Similar moments played out on Saturday. “I miss you already Brother, but you are home with the angels now,” said a note about Officer Brent Thompson. The authors wrote, “You were, are, and always will be our hero.”

As Mayor Mike Rawlings visited Police Headquarters on Saturday, he told reporters: “We’re all human here, and I think that people feel each other’s pain. And that’s what makes it great, that’s what makes you hopeful that we can do this, that we can move from senselessness, absurdity that’s like a Camus novel, to something that has redemption and hope in it. And that’s ultimately what we need to do.”

He stopped to speak with a woman kneeling by one police car and told her, “Pray hard, sister.”

Richard Fausset reported from Garland, and Manny Fernandez and Alan Blinder from Dallas. Reporting was contributed by Richard Pérez-Peña and Christopher Mele from New York; John Eligon and David Montgomery from Mesquite, Tex.; and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Chicago. Jack Begg and Elisa Cho contributed research.

Maximus Rex

Little Known Black History Fact: The Shoe Clinic

http://blackamericaweb.com/2016/07/15/little-known-black-history-fact-the-shoe-clinic/

D.L. Chandler

The shoe repair business has been around a long time, although there’s typically an emphasis on dress shoes and the like. But in Birmingham, Alabama, two friends can lay claim to creating the state’s first Black-owned sneaker dry cleaning service which has expanded quickly since its opening.

Tavaris Godbolt and Alvin Miller are the founders of The Shoe Clinic, an idea that began humbly in Godbolt’s apartment. The frugal Godbolt had a pair of Air Jordan Retro 13 Flint sneakers he wasn’t ready to part with, so he applied some cleaning techniques and brought them back to life. After posting the results on social media, interest in his cleaning techniques gave him and Miller the idea to start a business.

The Shoe Clinic officially started in 2014 and Godbolt and Miller now have a storefront in downtown Birmingham. They’ve also expanded the focus of the business beyond sneaker restoration. The Shoe Clinic also does customizations and sells an at-home sneaker cleaning kits as well. Miller’s brother, Marcus Goodman, helps to support the shop’s operation.

It isn’t just about shoe repair and custom kicks for Godbolt and Miller. Every Saturday outside the shop, the Clinic hosts what they call the “Sole Care” donations program. Sole Care takes unwanted shoes, restores them, and provides Birmingham’s homeless and poor residents the sneakers free of charge.

Despite the Clinic’s humble growth, they’ve managed to attract business from a few celebrities. Rapper and activist David Banner, comedian Bruce Bruce, Carolina Panthers Defensive End Mario Addison, and University of Alabama star Blake Sims are just some of the Clinic’s notable clients.