WSSN Stories

By Chairman Matthew Nelson Statement

It is with a heavy heart that I offer my first official communication as the national chair of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). I find myself in a difficult situation when responding to recent instances of social injustice. A significant portion of the revenue used by NSBE to fund scholarships and programs for aspiring, young black minds comes from corporations seeking to increase their diversity through their relationships with our organization. I hope this letter does not estrange them. However, our mutual goal of a diverse engineering workforce is unattainable when black students are more worried for their lives than about their lectures, and when black employees lose productivity over concerns of prejudice.

Over the past few days, the deaths of Philandro Castile and Alton Sterling have peeled back the scab that covers the septic state of race relations in America. These incidents are especially concerning given the manner in which they occurred: Sterling shot while being pinned to the ground, Castile while reaching for his wallet at an officer’s command. Although both officers will face investigations to determine legal culpability, the visceral reaction evoked is one of shock, fear and fury. The most frightening notion is that our compliance with law enforcement officers may no longer be sufficient for survival. Recent events have caused individuals who have made significant contributions to the advancement of science, technology, engineering and math to question the relevance of their education in a society that undervalues their lives.

However, the value of life is not exclusive to one race or one profession. The solution to addressing the concerns of our community certainly does not reside in the assassination of public safety officials. Incidents like the recent shootings of police in Dallas during a peaceful protest make a hazardous atmosphere even more toxic. Just as we are praying for the families of the black men slain, we pray for the families of the police officers who were struck down while in the line of duty.

The issues plaguing the black community extend far beyond police brutality. Unemployment, lack of access to services, underfunded educational systems, the prison-industrial complex, black on black crime, etc.: all of those concerns need to be addressed. However, we must not avoid confronting the ugly truths around policing in America. We must hold our elected officials responsible for the conduct of the officers who work on their behalf. A sheriff is typically an elected official. A police chief or commissioner is usually appointed by a mayor or city council. Research your candidates for government offices, and continue to voice your concerns once they begin their terms.

In addition, leverage your economic power to influence policy. Choose wisely when deciding where you will live and pay taxes. Make the choice to shop and dine in areas where black consumers are welcomed and appreciated, not labeled and harassed. Take note of the response from the LGBT community to North Carolina House Bill 2 and the effect of that response on that state’s economy. Circumstances will not change until the message is made clear: the unjustified use of force against blacks will be met with swift political and economic repercussions.

Times like these challenge our belief in justice and our faith in humanity, yet we still must march on, carrying the burdens of oppression, discrimination and hatred in a country that often fails to acknowledge our contributions, our place in society and our rights as citizens. Although these events have obviously rocked us to our very core, emotionally and spiritually, this is not the time for us to lose sight of our mission. It is imperative that we continue to expose our people to opportunities and encourage each other to strive for excellence, while engaging in meaningful dialogue about how to navigate today’s world. Cultural responsibility must prevail. For additional resources to help you focus your frustrations on positive outcomes, read the post “STEM and Social Justice: Applying an Engineering Lens to Social Change,” located on NSBE’s website (www.nsbe.org) in the Blog section.

If you take nothing else from this letter, please understand that as the leader of NSBE, I feel the same pain, anger, confusion and hopelessness you may be feeling. When one of us is hurting, we all feel the effects. I realize that NSBE cannot turn a blind eye to the needs of the black community. We may not be able to address them all, but we must be cognizant of their impact.

Toward this end, I have activated NSBE’s Culturally Responsible Task Force for our 2016–2017 program year. The purpose of this entity will be, in part, to respond to issues that affect black communities; to create a safe space online where our members can express their frustrations about racism without fear of repercussions; and to write reports that capture concerns about racism on college campuses that have active NSBE chapters.

We also encourage you to use social media and the hashtag #NSBESpeaks to continue the conversation about social injustice.

I pray for your understanding of the constraints placed on our Society with regard to activism, and I hope for the day when Black Lives Matter is a historical reference and no longer a current cry for justice.

By Naomi K. Bonman

The week of July 5 was a very emotional and overwhelming time for not just our Black community, but for the Nation as an entirety. With the shootings of two unarmed Black men and then the event in Dallas, Texas, as a Black community we have become fed up.  We are tired. Tired of the same cycle that keeps happening and has been happening for decades with no hope of ever changing.

From protest after protest, stand-in after stand-in, and boycott after boycott, nothing is changing. It is like we are working hard to seek justice and for equality rights, but constantly being ignored by the system. We feel alienated from society, as well as used and abused. Our culture in America has constantly been mocked, mocked for centuries.

Since the 1960s Civil Rights Movement very little change has happened. Racism in America has taken a reverse turn. So what is the solution? What have we as a community been doing wrong and what do we need to do to start seeing REAL change? Three Black millennial entrepreneurs have spoken up on the issues that have seen in the years and what they feel needs to be done in order for change to prosper.

“When you do not know who you are anyone can come along and give you an identity! It’s time for us to know who we are, be proud of who we are, stop shaming,” Author T’ana Phelice states. “It’s time for Black men and women to begin to celebrate one another again. It’s time to raise our children as a village and take pride in having a disciplined community. It’s time to mend fences and break chains that are meant to separate us. It’s time to unite! It’s time to make God popular again!“

Author and playwright, T’ana Phelice (31), from San Bernardino feels that in order for us to do better and make permanent changes that our community needs to be honest. We need to start being ashamed. We need to start being persistent. We need to educate ourselves on historical information; things that affect us and our children.

Marketing guru, Jay Parnell (33), of Perris speaks on the desensitization of our children. He believes that the current generation has been desensitized by how they are being marketed to through music, television, and social media. These media outlets have the power to develop and alter a person’s ideology.

Starh, owner of Fancy Cartel, from San Bernardino sums everything up with in order for change to come, the issues at hand need to be addressed. Once the current issues within our community are addressed we can then come to an agreement to start seeing the change that we all have longed for.

To listen to the full commentary, click below:

By Ronda Racha Penrice, Urban News Service

When Jeff Friday traveled to his first Sundance Film Festival to catch Love Jones in 1997, what struck him most is what he didn’t see.

“I returned from Sundance very inspired by what I saw there, but what I did not see was filmmakers of color,” says Friday. “So I came back to New York inspired to create something like it that really served as a platform for black filmmakers.” That’s when Friday first envisioned the American Black Film Festival.

Back then, the Newark native and Howard University alumnus — who holds an MBA from New York University — worked as a high-ranking advertising executive at the black-owned UniWorld Group. There, he oversaw marketing campaigns targeting African-American moviegoers. Mexico’s Ministry of Tourism, a UniWorld client, loved the concept and hosted the event in Acapulco.

Ninety people, including longtime supporters Bill Duke and Robert Townsend, attended that very first Acapulco Black Film Festival. Nearly 800 arrived the next year, and 3,500 attended in 2001. The festival moved to Miami Beach in 2002 and domesticated its name to the American Black Film Festival. From South Beach to L.A. and New York City, the site of 2015’s gathering, between 5,000 and 10,000 regularly attend.

While there are many other black-oriented film festivals, Friday’s uniquely integrates black Hollywood veterans, new talent and numerous corporate partners.

“The artistic community, the actors, the writers, the producers, the directors, they all support us, and the corporate community,” says Friday. “You need companies to support [the festival], so we’ve been very, very successful at getting companies to understand the importance of the mission, the importance of diversity. This was before #OscarsSoWhite, so it was a little more difficult getting companies to understand the importance of inclusion in film and TV.”

Founding partner HBO, known for its signature HBO Short Film Competition, got it from the start. The festival also has welcomed, among others, Fox Searchlight, Starz, TV One and Universal. In addition, it has sought non-traditional partnerships. Cadillac has been a long-term partner. And, this year, McDonald’s sponsored the “My Community” national video competition for aspiring black filmmakers, giving them a chance to be mentored by The Best Man writer/director Malcolm D. Lee. Prudential presented a seminar with Oscar-nominated costume designer Ruth E. Carter (Malcolm X, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Black Panther).

The players may change, but the festival’s primary mission never does. “This was always about empowering people of color to make movies and being a platform for supporting the next generation,” Friday says.

Actress Emayatzy Corinealdi remembers this support the most. “They’re about nurturing you and giving you opportunities,” says Corinealdi, winner of the 2010 Rising Star award, a festival honor first given to Halle Berry. Corinealdi’s recent credits include Roots and Miles Ahead.

Producer Will Packer (Uncle Buck, Think Like a Man) and actor/director Nate Parker (The Great Debaters, Red Tails) are other talents whom this festival embraced early on. And they give back. At this year’s gathering, Packer hosted a “first look” for his latest film, Almost Christmas. Parker did the same with his highly anticipated Nat Turner slave-rebellion film, The Birth of a Nation. Corinealdi was a “Black Women in Hollywood” panelist.

Serving the black film community beyond the festival is very much on Friday’s mind these days. To honor black Hollywood pioneers and welcome new talent, Friday and his team conceived the ABFF Awards as a private dinner long before the #OscarsSoWhite firestorm resulted in BET televising the affair this past February. That successful partnership led to the inaugural ABFF Encore during the 2016 BET Experience, which supports the BET Awards. Standouts included a master class with Black-ish creator Kenya Barris and indie pleaser Destined from this year’s festival.

Other efforts include the short film showcase ABFF Independent on the Magic Johnson-owned network Aspire, as well the series For the Love on Comcast/Infinity, featuring industry interviews with such shakers as Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil, the husband-and-wife team known for Being Mary Jane and The Game.

Friday is also confident that a more embracing Hollywood vanguard — like the Oscar-granting Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ recent membership invitation to a record number of black film professionals — won’t drop the curtain on the American Black Film Festival.

“The general market can’t possibly serve our community like we can serve our own, and I promise that won’t change,” Friday says. “We will always have a space to focus on our own.”

By Edmund Andrews

By analyzing data from 4.5 million traffic stops in 100 North Carolina cities, Stanford researchers have found that police in that state are more likely to search black and Hispanic motorists, using a lower threshold of suspicion, than when they stop white or Asian drivers.

The empirical study found that while blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be searched, those more numerous searches are less likely to uncover illegal drugs or weapons than searches of vehicles with white or Asian drivers.

Studies based on the incidence of searches by race, and the outcomes of those searches, have been done in the past, forming the basis for concerns about racial profiling by police.

But the Stanford team – graduate students Camelia Simoiu and Sam Corbett-Davies, and assistant professor of management science and engineeringSharad Goel – developed a third, entirely new measurement called a threshold test.

The researchers show that this new measure offers a statistically rigorous way to quantify how suspicious officers were to initiate a search. For example, did officers conduct searches when there was a 15 percent probability of finding weapons or drugs, or was a 5 percent inkling enough? They correlated these threshold assessments to the race or ethnicity of the subjects across the entire dataset of 4.5 million motor vehicle stops.

“Our threshold test suggests that officers apply a double standard when deciding whom to search, with black and Hispanic drivers searched on the basis of less evidence than whites and Asians,” said Simoiu, adding, “We consistently observe this pattern of behavior across the largest 100 police departments in the state.”

The study marks a new milestone in Stanford’s Project on Law, Order and Algorithms, which has already collected data on 50 million traffic stops in 11 states and is aiming to expand the database to 100 million stops from at least 30 states and every region of the Unites States. The purpose of the database, which the researchers plan to make publicly available, is to shed light on the prevalence of racial profiling and to identify techniques for improving police practices.

In the case of North Carolina, the researchers obtained records for traffic stops in the state from 2009 through 2014. The records included information about the ethnicity, age and gender of the people being pulled over and at least some information on the rationale of police officers for searching particular people and vehicles.

Racial differences

Until now, analysts have used two fairly simple statistical tests to look for patterns of racial profiling.

The first test, known as benchmarking, involves comparing search rates for people of different ethnicities. If blacks account for 10 percent of the local population but 30 percent of searches, that higher incidence would be evidence of discrimination. A second test examines the “hit” rate or outcome – the percentage of searches that actually lead to the discovery of weapons, drugs or other illegal contraband.

In North Carolina, both statistical tests provided strong evidence of unfounded racial discrimination. Police searched 5.4 percent of blacks and 4.1 percent of the Hispanics they pulled over, but only 3.1 percent of whites. In many cities and towns, however, searches of blacks and Hispanics were actually less likely to uncover contraband than searches of whites.

But even when both tests converge, this analysis has limitations. If a higher percentage of people in one ethnic group actually do carry illegal drugs or weapons, for example, a higher search rate for that group may not reflect racial discrimination.

So the Stanford researchers went further than prior studies to get a more accurate view of the presence or absence of unfounded discrimination.

They did this by developing a complex statistical tool they call a threshold test. It analyzed four variables for each of the 4.5 million stops:

• Race of the driver
• Department of the officer making the stop
• Whether the stop resulted in a search – and, if a search occurred,
• Whether it turned up drugs, guns or other contraband

These four variables provided a statistical snapshot of an officer’s threshold of suspicion before searching a person of a given race. As the authors wrote: “In nearly every one of the 100 departments we consider, we find that black and Hispanic drivers are subjected to a lower search threshold than whites, suggestive of widespread discrimination against these groups.”

Specifically, the study found that police decided to search black drivers based on a 7 percent certainty that they might be hiding something illegal. If an African American driver looks nervous, for example, police might interpret the nervousness as a sign of possible guilt and insist on a search.

For Hispanics, the search threshold was 6 percent certainty. But police in these 100 North Carolina cities wanted a 15 percent certainty before searching the vehicles of white drivers. The threshold for searching Asians was about the same as for whites.

Suspicions and searches

The finding has important implications, the researchers noted.

Had North Carolina’s police applied the same standard of suspicion to blacks as whites, the researchers estimate that they would have searched 30 percent fewer black drivers – about 30,000 people over the six years they study. Hispanics would have experienced a 50 percent reduction in searches affecting 8,000 drivers.

But while the new test reveals that the threshold of suspicion varies by race, the authors note a caveat.

“We cannot, however, definitively conclude that the disparities we see stem from racial bias,” they wrote. “For example, officers might instead be applying lower search thresholds to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, a demographic that is disproportionately black and Hispanic.”

The Stanford researchers are collecting traffic stop data from other states to see what patterns are revealed by their analyses. They are also considering ways to apply their new statistical methods to other settings where race or ethnicity may be a factor, such as mortgage lending and hiring.

“We hope our results spur further investigation into allegations of police discrimination, and help improve public policy,” Goel said.

BJ, founder of The Garage Dance Studio

Do you like to dance? Do you like to move? This week BJ, founder of The Garage Dance Studio, is What It Do! Living in an urban community with many talented youth, I am so happy that a positive individual like BJ is giving back. What a breath of fresh air for our youth. Not everyone sings, raps, or plays an instrument; some simply dance! With that being said here’s more about the choreographer they call BJ.

As a young child growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, BJ sat in front of his parent’s TV set constantly mimicking dance moves from artists such as Michael Jackson. He eventually received a chance to perform in front of crowds of people. From family parties, to dance competitions, and dance studios, the talented dancer impressed the public with his street choreography. Watching artists and dancers perform moves motivated him to dance and get better. By his teenage years, BJ realized that dancing could be something to pursue, so he kept going.

BJ was introduced to the dance world when he began touring doing background dancing for upcoming artists and other dance crews in need of extras. His first tour was back in 2000 and from there he has been addicted to the popularity.

He continued to push fourth and was added to a popular tour called “Scream tour” with artists that included as Bow Wow, B2K, and other big names. BJ soon began to make a name for myself in the Dance community when he was a part of the Dance show called “Dance 360,” which aired on UPN where he was called out to battle amongst five other people and won.

With his journey and experience in dance, BJ believes that if he ever had the opportunity to open his very own dance studio he would in a heartbeat and that is exactly what happened. This dude turned his mother’s garage into a mini dance studio and name it “The Garage Dance Studio.”

“Knowing that there is no source of entertainment or dance here in the Lost City a.k. Colton, California motivated me to open the dance studio,” BJ states.“For me being a dance lover, I wanted to open the facility to give youth the opportunity to come and learn dance. A lot of these kids don’t have the means to go to LA. I figured why not give it a shot and open something for them. With over seventeen years of professional experience under my belt, I provide lots of variety to students. My dance instruction involves a mixture of hip-hop, pop, and old-school dance styles.”

“All in all, I feel like I have lived up to my childhood dream by becoming a hardworking, successful dancer and I will continue to push fourth until I reach the top. There are lots of things that I have to still accomplish until I past that bridge. I will continue to bless others with my gift of dance.”

 Make sure you support this young man and his efforts. Remember to make the world your DANCE FLOOR. L’z!

Lou Coleman

By Lou Coleman

You better check yourself before you wreck yourself!  Take God’s grace for granted if you want too! SUDDEN DESTRUCTION will come upon you so fast that it will have your head spinning.  God will not allow you to become complacent or neglectful concerning Him. He will not allow you to take Him for granted. Beware of taking God’s grace for granted! He does not take it lightly.  When God learnt of what Israel had done to His servants; when He learnt of how Israel had over and over again, betrayed His love and taken His grace for granted, God became furious. His patience had been tested by His very own people – Israel. And so God’s wrath came upon Israel. God used the Roman armies to destroy Israel and its Temple. “What shall you say then? Shall you continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid….”— [Rom. 6:1-2; 15-16]

Listen, God is NOT SLACK! We MUST understand that! And He says that He does not want ANY of us to perish, but that we should ALL come to REPENTANCE! And that is what this message is all about. Today, I plead with you, in love for your soul, not to be foolish, but to be wise, to consider your “latter end,” and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior.  I want you to know that God is stirring up His Spirit in a few who are awake to the call to REPENT AND AWAKEN. We know that time is short, and we have remembered what Christ taught us through His Word and through all of His apostles, including His end time apostle. Those of us who are awake know that time is URGENT. We see the sword and we are heeding God’s instruction to WARN! “Again the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying….. Speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, when I bring the sword upon a land … when the watchman see the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; then whosever hear the sound of the trumpet, and take not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. But he that takes warning shall deliver his soul. So I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shall hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me…” [Ezekiel 33:1-4]

The Trumpet is sounding…… who will hear? Consider these Scriptures [Leviticus 26] and [Deuteronomy28], the “blessings and cursing” chapters of the Bible; in light of what you have just read: the increasing pressure that God applies in order to draw us closer to Him and to stop taking Him for granted. See how these curses are increasingly intensified each time Israel failed to repent of neglecting of God. What tragic results complacency toward God reaps! I tell you the Holy Spirit cries out for you who are Christians to take your Christian faith seriously, not to neglect it, not to take it for granted, and certainly not to despise it. You have been called out of darkness into the marvelous light of Christ. You have been baptized into Christ and called out of Satan’s kingdom and into the kingdom of Christ. But you’re not home free until you’re home; you have been shown wondrous grace. But you also have a warning from God in the pages of the Holy Scripture that you do well to heed, never to take His grace for granted. If only Israel had heeded this warning given by Christ. But, just like their forefathers who left Egypt with Moses, they took God’s grace to them for granted. Don’t let that be said about you!

You may assume that since you were once called to faith and baptized, you don’t need a living and active faith in Christ; you don’t need to hear His Word and receive His Sacraments as much as other people do. You may assume that since you have worked so hard to live a good and decent life, you now deserve God’s grace and recognition more than someone else does. Don’t be deceived! Satan will try to lead you to such false assumptions, to take God’s grace for granted and to imagine that you’ve earned His favor and deserve His goodness. But such wickedness drives out faith and the Holy Spirit and threatens to make your outcome like that of Israel. Payback is a Mother….. To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear?

July 1 is an important date for students and families: it’s when most changes to federal student aid – both loans and grants – go into effect. For the year starting July 1, 2016, new federal loans for undergraduates, graduate students, and parents will have lower fixed interest rates than loans taken out the year before, and the maximum Pell Grant will be higher. To help inform college borrowing decisions, there is a new easy-to-read chart with 2016-17 interest rates, loan amounts, and other useful information for the most common types of federal loans.

The coming changes include:

• On July 1, the maximum Pell Grant will be adjusted for inflation to $5,815, up from $5,775. Pell Grants help nearly eight million lower income students pay for college and limit how much they need to borrow.
• The new maximum grant for will cover less than 30% of the cost of attending a public four-year college, the smallest share in over 40 years. And under current law, the maximum Pell Grant will no longer be tied to inflation after 2017-18.
• On July 1, the fixed rates for new federal loans will be lower than the rates for loans issued last year.

• Stafford loans for undergraduates, subsidized and unsubsidized: 3.76% for loans issued in 2016-17 (down from 4.29% for loans issued in 2015-16).
• Stafford loans for graduate students: 5.31% for loans issued in 2016-17 (down from 5.84% for loans issued in 2015-16).
• Parent and Graduate PLUS loans: 6.31% for loans issued in 2016-17 (down from 6.84% for loans issued in 2015-16).
• On October 1, origination fees will increase slightly for new federal loans.
• For loans issued October 1, 2016 through September 30, 2017, fees will be 1.069% of principal for all Stafford loans (up from 1.068%), and 4.276% for all PLUS loans (up from 4.272%).

For more information about federal student loans for the coming school year, see the summary chart, Federal Student Loan Terms for 2016-17 below:

This chart summarizes the interest rates, loan limits, and other terms for federal student loans issued from July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017.

Basic Eligibility Requirements

Stafford Loans

PLUS Loans

How Interest Rates are Determined

During Repayment

By Lue Dowdy

Aspiring Rap Artists, Sirr Jones is WHAT IT DO WITH THE LUE! OMG! So I met this dude via Facebook and it was all over from there.

The versatile Sirr Jones’ passion for all forms of music created his belief that, “Music is the soul of man.”  He practices this belief through his conglomeration of catchy and insightful tunes and at times hilarious freestyles. Hailing from California’s Inland Empire it was 2007 in the Tucson Desert where Sirr’s epic crusade began with small town hits such as “Light it Up.”

During his time in Tucson his stage presence and freestyle earned him the moniker “Sirr,” meaning all would have to address him with respect. Jones true strength is his ability to change with the mercurial world of Hip Hop and R&B, while maintaining his own distinct style. His high energy changeups and freestyles has also gotten the attention of many reputable artists, such as Lil Wayne, Kurupt, and Bone Thugs and Harmony, who invited Jones to be a part of different shows and acts. Sirr Jones’ passion and versatility only grows as he crusades to drop hits.

Not only does this talented recording artist make magic in the studio, he also has his own clothing line titled, “Multiple hustles,” because as we all know you gotta’ have multiple hustles these days in order to make it. Make sure to follow Sirr Jones on all media sites. Until next week folks, L’z!

By Naomi K. Bonman

The Tea Rose Garden in Pasadena, California was filled with such positive energy of women, young and seasoned, uplifting one another and supporting each other on their journey to greatness at the 3rd Annual Phenomenal Women Tea presented by LyLuLs Mentoring.

LyLuLs Mentoring, which stands for ‘Love Yourself Like You Love Shoes,’ was founded by Charmel Sanders has a mentoring group dedicated to the empowerment of young women ages 14 to 18. LyLuLs was launched two years ago as an event to provide young women with a safe shopping environment at Sanders’ shoe boutique called, “The Shoe Lounge.”

“As the event grew, I added guest speakers and partnered with the Art Institute of Riverside Fashion Club to provide the girls with life skills and self-esteem tools for success,” Sanders stated. “My Motto is, ‘Stepping up to help others Step out into Success.”

Saturday’s tea was MC’ed by Matumaini “Matu” Taylor who did an excellent job of keeping the afternoon flowing as she introduced each guest speaker and activity of the day. The guest speaker of this year’s event was Danielle Holloway. Holloway poured motivation and knowledge to the graduating seniors on how to succeed on the next step in their journey.

Spelman graduate, Sabra Marie, also gave the girls inspiring words through a spoken word piece that she wrote about the journey that we go through in life as girls coming up to womanhood. In keeping the creative energy flowing, the Epifani Dancers gave a dance tribute to the tunes of “I Rise Up” and Jimmy Soul Smooth serenaded to the young ladies with a neo-soul piece to show them how they are appreciated and to always know their worth. That wasn’t the only singing though, Jackie Coco-Ford did an inspiring acapella piece for the girls.

The afternoon ended with a raffle and an award ceremony for the mentors and mentees who have assisted in making LyLuLs Mentoring a success, and those who have shown great community service. Mentors of LyLuLs presented Sanders with flowers for her dedicated work to the community and said a prayer over her vision for the organization as it continues to move forward.

Again, congratulations to the graduates, Destinie Wortham, Taylor Evans and Christine Jackson.

Blacks in the United States continue to lag far behind whites in key areas of economic well-being like wealth, income and homeownership, a new report from the Pew Research Center finds. While these trends have been consistent for decades, what’s particularly notable is that these disparities between blacks and whites persist regardless of the level of education they attain, said Juliana Horowitz, an associate director of research at Pew. “Even when we only look at people with bachelor’s degrees, we still see these gaps,” Horowitz said. Take income. In 2014, the median household income for whites was $71,300 compared to $43,300 for blacks. But for college-educated whites, the median household income was $106,600, significantly higher than the $82,300 for households headed by college-educated blacks.

Click here for the full story