Some college students campaign for a seat on student-council, Derwin Montgomery aimed higher.

Motgomery, political science major at Winston Salem State University in North Carolina won the Democratic nomination for the East Ward seat on the Winston-Salem City Council. There is no Republican challenger in the Nov 3. General Election.

Montgomery said his focus is on economic development and public safety.

Howard Students Want Demands Met Hundreds of Howard University students, who participated in a loud protest rally outside the main administration building at the historically Black campus on Friday, gave university officials until this week to respond to their demands. Among the diverse complaints lodged by students were the slow pace of financial-aid paperwork, too-little on-campus housing, poor student services and questionable labor practices. “We love Howard,” Corey Briscoe, a 20-year-old junior and the director of student advocacy for the Howard University Student Association, told The Washington Post. “But this impinges on academic freedom.” Protestors, who threatened to sit in at the administration building until they got acceptable answers from university leaders – a formal response, in writing – gave them until Wednesday. Classes at the Washington, D.C., campus began two weeks ago. “I can [now] go to class,” junior Vanessa Ray, told Myfoxdc.com. “But there will be a purge date, and, if I’m still not validated at that time – if they haven’t certified my loan by that time – I’ll be kicked out of school.” That was also Najauna Muschetta’s complaint. “I think… day to day, okay, am I going to be purged?” she said. “Am I still going to be able to go to my classes? Will I still be able to live in my room? And, you know, that’s stressful!” Britney Wilson, a sophomore from Brooklyn who has cerebral palsy, said that she finds it difficult to access most of the buildings on campus in her electric scooter because the power buttons to open the doors rarely work. Administrators have met with student leaders and said they are taking the students’ concerns “very seriously.” President Sidney Ribeau has promised to meet with some of the protesters today.

Praising Black colleges for their historic role in instilling hope and expanding educational opportunity for African Americans, President Obama proclaimed this week National Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Week. “This week, we celebrate the accomplishments of HBCUs and look to the future with conviction and optimism,” Obama said. “These institutions will play a key role in reaching our ambitious national education goals, including having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. As our Nation strives toward this goal, we invite HBCUs to employ new, innovative, and ambitious strategies to help the next generation of Americans successfully complete college and prepare themselves for the global economy. During National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week, we recommit ourselves to never resting until equality is real, opportunity is universal, and all citizens can realize their dreams.” The president noted that such luminaries as W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington, to Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall graduated from HBCUs before going on to shape the course of American history. “For generations, education has opened doors to untold opportunities and bright futures,” he said. “Through quality instruction and a personal commitment to hard work, young people in every part of our nation have gone on to achieve success. Established by men and women of great vision, leadership, and clarity of purpose, historically Black colleges and universities have provided generations of Americans with opportunity, a solid education, and hope.” For more than 140 years, HBCUs – situated in 20 States, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands – have served hundreds of thousands of students from every background, contributing to the expansion of the African-American middle class, the growth of local communities, and the nation’s overall economy, Obama said. “HBCUs have released the power of knowledge to countless Americans … and offer us a window into our nation’s past as well as a path forward,” he said.

By Sherri L. Smith, BlackWeb20.com

Gay Marriage Catches On

Following the lead of the District of Colombia this week, lawmakers voted in favor of same-sex marriage in New Hampshire and Maine. Since Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts already have laws on the books approving gay marriage, tiny Rhode Island stands alone as the New England state without legislation in favor of the issue. Read the rest.

 
Foster Mom Taped Pacifier to Baby’s Mouth

A 30-year-old foster mother in Georgia was arrested Wednesday on charges that she killed a 9-month-old boy by taping a pacifier to his mouth to keep him quiet. Read more.

Norfolk State Gets $3.5 Million Gift The president of historically Black Norfolk State University said she’s not sure where the windfall came from, but she was happy to receive a $3.5 million donation – the largest in school history – during these tough economic times, Black College Wire reports. “We have no idea who gave that money, but we have a lot of people taking credit for it,” university President Carolyn Meyers joked. Jevonya Hughes reports that Meyers announced the gift at last month’s Board of Visitors meeting. A total of  $3 million has been designated to provide financial assistance for NSU students, according to Black College Wire. A second gift of $500,000 will assist the institution in meeting its priorities in areas such as faculty support, research and equipment. “I love the fact that someone donated to the university, because NSU can use that money for so much. The donor should be honored that they gave; they should not want to be kept anonymous,” sophomore music education major Anthony Moody told Hughes. Said Meyers, “We want to make the donor proud to invest in us.”

The nation’s historically Black institutions, often lauded for the job they do in graduating African-American students, are doing a worse job conferring degrees than their traditionally White counterparts, according to a new survey by The Associated Press. Read the rest.

Detroit’s big three auto makers beg Congress. Detroit’s big three auto makers have gone to Capitol Hill with their hats in their hand, hoping that lawmakers will dole out $25 billion to save the limping industry. Unfortunately, the legislation clings to life support as top lawmakers and the White House seem reluctant to help an industry they say has been slow to adjust to consumers’ demand for gas-efficient cars. Democratic congressional leaders want to tap the $700 billion Wall Street rescue package for new loans to U.S. auto manufacturers and suppliers, but the White House and GOP lawmakers say the beleaguered industry shouldn’t get a dime. In a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday, congressional leaders portrayed the Big Three as both short-sighted in their business strategies and central to the economy. “Their board rooms in my view have been devoid of vision,” Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said as Congress kicked off the first of two days of hearings. “They have promoted and often driven the demand of inefficient, gas-guzzling vehicles, and dismissed the threat of global warming.” President Bush and GOP lawmakers instead propose diverting $25 billion in loans approved by Congress in September – designed to help auto manufacturers retool their factories so they can make more fuel-efficient vehicles – to cover the firms’ immediate financial woes.   But auto executives, backed by leading Democrats, insist they need another $25 billion in emergency loans to avert a collapse of one or more of their companies before year’s end. That would bring the total federal help for the industry to $50 billion this year. 

The nation’s oldest private, historically Black university cuts jobs.  The nation’s oldest private, historically Black university is cutting jobs and reducing salaries to make up for a $2.8 million budget shortfall. Wilberforce University interim President Patricia Hardaway says private donations, revenue from the university endowment and tuition have all been hurt by the deteriorating economy. Hardaway says the school in Wilberforce, Ohio, will cut six to eight staff positions and make $850,000 in salary cuts. Wilberforce is also asking employees who have not previously paid into their insurance fund to contribute a small amount. The university has about 800 students. Its total annual operating budget was $15.6 million before the cuts.

Filipino hate-mailer is sentenced to nearly four years

Twenty years worth of hate mail – directed at Black men who married or dated White women – got David Tuason almost four years in prison. Read more at BET.com/News.

HBCU Spelman gets $17 million gift.

Historically Black Spelman College in Atlanta got a surprise package in the form of a $17 million gift to fund an endowment for that will help acquaint its students to the rest of the world. “In the context of an increasingly global economy and a world made smaller by technology, it is more important than ever that students, faculty and staff are prepared for active engagement with the international community,” said Spelman President Beverly Daniel Tatum in a statement. She said that the anonymous gift will help the all-women’s college establish Gordon-Zeto Endowed Fund for International Initiatives, named after Nora Gordon (the first Spelman graduate to teach in the Congo) and Flora Zeto (the first Congolese student to graduate from Spelman). Also covered under the endowment is the Gordon-Zeto Dean for International Inititiatives, who will be the senior administrator of Spelman’s international programs; the Nora Gordon Scholars Program, which will support study abroad programs for Pell grant eligible students, giving first priority to those interested in studying in Africa; and a travel fund to support short-term study trips by students and faculty.

A March for Jobs and Freedom. When hundreds of thousands of people descended on the capital for the March on Washington 45 years ago this week, it was the largest political gathering the nation had ever seen. The event was later recognized as the tipping point in the fight for civil rights. See the pictures here. 

The defense team says that the case is way too weak to justify a conviction.
Rajeeve “Ricky” Rai, whose father is accused of hiring a hitman to kill his African-

American wife, “was a little prejudice” but wasn’t hateful toward Blacks, the son testified in a Georgia courtroom Tuesday. Chiman Rai, 68, who immigrated to the United States from India, is on trial for allegedly paying $10,000 to have his 22-year-old daughter-in-law, Sparkle, murdered eight years ago because he was angry his son had married a Black woman. Members of Sparkle’s family testified that Rajeev was a loving husband and that his passion for his wife prompted Chiman to put a contract out on her. “Ricky loved her,” the victim’s aunt, Ctoria Arnold, said on the stand in Fulton County Superior Court. “[His parents] didn’t like her. She and Ricky both told me that.” Sparkle’s stepmother, Donna Lowry, testified that Rajeev and Sparkle had “a very loving relationship” but that Rajeev was so ashamed of how racist his parents were that he told her they were dead. Rajeev moved to Atlanta to escape his parents’ wrath over his new wife, he said, but when he returned from work to their Union City apartment on April 26, 2000, he found Sparkle stabbed to death. His 6-month-old daughter, Analla, lay crying but unharmed in a nearby room. When police arrived on the scene, Ricky told officers that his parents were “racist” and didn’t like his wife. Prosecutors say they’ve got enough evidence to warrant Chiman Rai’s execution. His lawyers, however, say the case is flimsy, contending that Sparkle Rai was the victim of a robbery. Rajeev has since earned a business degree from Northwestern University and married an Indian woman. He has not seen his daughter in almost eight years. In fact, he gave custody of the child to Lowry. His parents have never seen their granddaughter.