AFRO Black History Character Education 2013 - Week 4

Afro-American Newspapers February 23, 2013 Character Education/Black History Month 1

2 Character Education/Black History Month February 23, 2013 Afro-American Newspapers

4 Black History Introduction

5 Character Education Profile: BGE

6 The March Embodies Freedom Fights Past and Future

7 Character Education Profile: College Savings Plans of Maryland

11 Character Education Profile: Legg Mason

14 Character Education Profile: T. Rowe Price

15 Character Education Profile: T. Rowe Price

18 Character Education Profile: Verizon

19 Character Education Profile: Verizon

Table of Contents

A publication of the Afro-American Newspapers

The Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper

2519 N. Charles StreetBaltimore, MD 21218

(410) 554-8200

The Washington Afro-American Newspaper

1917 Benning Road NEWashington, DC 20002

(202) 332-0080

John J. Oliver Jr.Chairman/Publisher

Executive Editor Avis Thomas-Lester

Character Education Project ManagerDiane Hocker

Character Education CoordinatorTakiea Hinton

Project EditorRev. Dorothy Boulware

LayoutDenise Dorsey

Cover Design Denise DorseyVickie Johnson

Cover Photos: Courtesy Office.Microsoft.com,AFRO Archives

Character EducationBlack History Month

At the Crossroads of Freedom and Equality:

The Emancipation Proclamation and the March on Washington


The Afro-American Newspapers’ Character Education program is

designed to promote positive character traits in our public school students. Each year, several corporate professionals and business leaders join our effort and share stories that illustrate how the building of their character not only helps them personally but also in the workplace. During Black History Month, the AFRO is delivered to public middle schools across the region including Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City and Baltimore County, Howard County, Montgomery County, Prince George’s County and Washington, D.C. Each publication contains the testimonies of our corporate partners.

How does it work?During the AFRO’s Black History

Month series – the newspapers’ most active and sought after series each year– we feature a Black History and Character Education publication that profiles diverse corporate professionals, their success stories and helpful strategies for planning a successful career. Each week, eighth-graders in participating

jurisdictions receive the publication at no cost. The goal is for students to read the featured profiles and Black history content and submit an essay connecting what they’ve learned from a particular profile to the importance of character building. Winners of the essay contest are awarded valuable prizes to further their education and an opportunity to meet the corporate professional they chose to write about.

Why eighth-graders?Our research shows that by the

eighth grade, most students have started to seriously think about their career goals and and are more receptive to the information shared by the business community.

How can the schools help?• Allow the AFRO to deliver

Character Education to your school on a weekly basis throughout the month of February. In addition, provide the Afro-American Newspapers in your school’s media center or library on a weekly basis for the current calendar year.

• Assist in coordinating the distribution of the publication within participating school districts.

• Identify a liaison to advise us on information concerning character education that can be included in each edition.

• Encourage teachers and students to participate in the essay contest.

How do schools benefit?• The AFRO encourages staff and

students of participating schools to submit stories, columns, photos, etc., about the importance of education and good character.

• During February, all participating schools receive the Character Education publication to assist students in their learning of Black history and to further promote literacy.

Partnership opportunityCorporations, nonprofits and other

organizations are invited to become strategic partners with this campaign. By becoming a partner, your company will help provide the AFRO as an educational tool to eighth-graders throughout the region. In addition, your company will illustrate its support for professional development among today’s youth.

Welcome to Character Education 2013


The Emancipation Proclamation mandated freedom for Black slaves, 150 years ago, open-ing doors to unknown opportunities, clearing roads to previously unimagined destinations.

Some newly freed Americans were afraid so they “stayed put.” Others went out on their own but soon returned for whatever reasons.

But many ventured forth to become the “firsts” that we celebrate each year during the shortest month of the year. Here at the AFRO, the celebration is ongoing and is alive and well in AFRO archives that detail the ascendancy from slave to sharecropper to landowner to entrepreneur.

The journey was long and hard with many bumps in the road, but they persevered and became our heroes and sheroes. They laid the founda-tion for generations to come who would have the audacity to dream a dream of free-dom that extended beyond separate but equal – a dream fueled by Brown v. Board of Education, a dream eventu-

ally fueled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Most poignantly, a dream articulated by a young Black man, a Nobel Prize winner, a Baptist preacher, son of a Baptist preacher.

The estimated 250,000 people gathered at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, were accosted with a phraseology unheard of – being judged on the content of

character rather than skin color, black children and white children playing peace-fully together, rings of justice sounding from the south as well as the north.

This Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. headlined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom organized by A. Phillip Randolph and other civil rights leaders who had the audacity to take it to the capital, built by slaves, and demand the Ameri-can dream for all people.

At this time, the Civil Rights Act backed by then president John Kennedy was being held hostage in Congress. Demonstrations had been held all over the coun-try. The time was right. The right combination of people were at the planning table. Those who wanted a seat were ready to claim it. The full freedom that had been pend-ing was again demanded, and not just for African Americans, but a conscious sense of justice that should be had by all.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

August 31, 1963 AFRO Edition


I was relatively shy and introverted growing up and my lack of self-confidence was my biggest hurdle. At age 13, I wanted to be a news anchor but I knew I would never be able to conduct a successful television interview if I was too afraid to speak in public.

One of my first jobs out of school was as the director of career services at TESST College of Technology where I helped unemployed adults develop new skills to find a job. It was daunting to see how these men and women struggled to learn a new trade. I knew I would have to display a lot of confidence to get them to trust me to help them find work. This position, along with other roles in my early career, required that I speak in front of large groups. Eventually, my confidence grew and I gained a sense of pride for the work I was doing to assist others.

Although I chose not to pursue a career in television, my strong interpersonal and interview abilities are still two of the most important skills I use in my daily work of recruiting new employees for BGE. They are the same skills needed to ensure that I ask the right questions during a job interview and pick the best candidate for the job.

My primary goal as a talent acquisition manager is to encour-age other hiring managers and coworkers to embrace diversity. It is important to understand that employing individuals with differing opinions and backgrounds builds a better organization where diversity is welcomed and embraced. I get a great deal of job satisfaction in seeing how I contribute to transform lives by placing people from my community in jobs within the company.

My advice to my 13-year-old self, or anyone else in middle school, is to take your education seriously and do the very best that you can at all times– even when it’s very difficult. If you don’t understand a certain subject, don’t be afraid to speak up and ask for help – and don’t stop until you get it! If someone tells you that you can’t do something, work even harder to prove them wrong. Set goals for your-self and don’t ever be afraid to be passionate about what you want.

Don’t Stop Until You Get It!

Scott TrappManager, Recruiting, HR Operations


By Zenitha PrinceSpecial to the AFRO

One footstep. Two footsteps. Four, 10,100, 1,000, thousands of footsteps, sometimes in sync, sometimes not, but always heading inexorably toward one goal—freedom and equality. That has been the journey of Blacks in America, a long march, an individual and collective protest against a nation that for hundreds of years had denied the humanity of a section of its people.

“Blacks always used whatever means of protest they could get away with from the time [they] were taken from Africa,” said Debra Ham, professor of history at Morgan State University. “There has always been a tradition of protest,” she added; “there was never a time where Blacks were content with being mistreated.”

Even in the Middle Passage, enslaved Africans waged dissent, making the short march from the deck of slave ships to the eternal freedom of the sea.

On the plantation the march continued, mostly in quiet treads: The enslaved defied their “owners” by worshipping in the secret of the woods, learning to read and write, damaging tools, working slowly, falling in love and jumping the broom, reaffirming their humanness in a society that labeled them property.

But there were also the louder outbursts. Slaves took their freedom into their own hands by running away from their masters, sometimes with bloodthirsty hounds and equally bloodthirsty bounty hunters on their heels. Hundreds were aided by the clandestine escape network that

was the Underground Railroad, one of the more dramatic, continuous protests against slavery in the history of the United States.

Many escaped slaves—such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman—joined the abolitionist movement, which originated with the Quakers and was headed by White personages such as William Lloyd Garrison.

“Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground,” said Douglass, a master orator, of the need for protest.

“This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle,” he added. “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

For some Blacks the march took on a more militant cadence. In 1829,

David Walker, a freed Black, ignited a firestorm with his “Appeal,” a call to the African enslaved to take their freedom by force if necessary.

“The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and blood-thirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority,” he wrote.

“Now, I ask you, had you not rather be killed than to be a slave to a tyrant, who takes the life of your mother, wife, and dear little children?” he later added. “Look upon your mother, wife and children, and answer God Almighty; and believe this, that it is no more harm for you to kill a man, who is trying to kill you, than it is for you to take a drink of water when thirsty.”

There were many that subscribed to Walker’s point of view. Historians estimate there were more than 200 slave revolts in the United States, beginning in the 1600s. The most

The March Embodies Freedom Fights Past and Future

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Continued on page 9


I come from a southern, hard-working family. My mother had to work so we needed to be somewhere in a structured program. My older sister and I went to a pre-k program and it was run by a lady named Mrs. Myrtle Huffman. She never had children herself but she and her husband were absolutely lovely and they were ‘the salt of the earth’. Not only did she take really great care of us, and I will say this, and I know the separation of church and state, but she was a very Christian woman. She wore white all the time and was very proper, if you will, about what one said, how one dressed, how one comported him or herself. And so while we were surrounded by love, it was this formal intervention in which we learned things.

When we went to kindergarten, we were ready. We had experiences where we went on trips, such as to the Scheile Museum that was like a planetarium in Gaston County, N.C. where we lived. We would go to places like that and be engaged in learning about things outside of our normal day and our normal environment.

I had one of those wacky December birthdays and school policy was, if by Sep-tember ‘x’ or October ‘y’, a child was not going to be six years old, they could not start school. So we went to Catholic School as an entrée into our K-12 education. Education was always important and because my mother and my family believed in education, they wanted us to have better opportunities than they had. Edu-cation was critical, but it was also critical that my mother needed to work. We needed daycare, and she thought it was far more beneficial for us to be in some sort of structured environment than it would be for us to be with a babysitter. So I know very well what an impact a strong early learning development program can have on children and not only about just the academic learning and know-ing things like the numbers, the colors and being able to read, but also the social interactions and how to deal with our peers and how to respect other adults outside of the home. It was very powerful in preparing me for school.

One does not even realize until older, the actual sacrifices that were made to give us opportunities that our parents did not have. I had extraordinary teachers beginning with dear, sweet Mrs. Huffman, and even as a professional, I have had superintendents and people in the business world who have reached out and sup-ported me in many ways. These relationships have allowed me to build meaning-ful, life-long relationships. So I have been blessed to have phenomenal people pass through my life and people who think like I do – that we are only as strong as the weakest link.

A Head Start is a Good Start

Dr. Lillian LoweryState Superintendent of Schools


...before the March

Former Morgan State University student protesters turned out for the 2011 opening of an historical exhibit at Morgan to ‘set the record straight’ about student leadership and involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. They are, from left, Clarence Logan, Phillip Savage, Walter Dean and the late former senator Clarence Mitchell III.

AFRO File Photo


successful of them was Nat Turner’s rebellion of August 1831 in Virginia.

When the Civil War came, Blacks made a giant step forward in their march toward freedom. Many slaves shook off the “chains” of bondage and made their way to join the Union Army. And, after President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation declared all slaves within the Confederate states to be free, many more Blacks abandoned their former masters and flocked to the battle lines, where they served the Union cause as cooks, nurses, sailors, laborers, soldiers and spies. More importantly, Black leaders like Douglass and the former slaves themselves, helped define the war as a fight against slavery, giving the North the moral authority needed to tip the outcome in their favor.

In the next few years the victories piled up with the ratifying of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments which granted, respectively, universal freedom from slavery, guaranteed due process and equal protection under the law and granted voting rights to all male citizens regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

During that Reconstruction Era (1865-1877), Blacks moved into positions of political power, from sheriff’s offices to Congress; they established independent churches and began to purchase property; they established schools and opened businesses.

But, even as Blacks began to progress, their White antagonists struck back—hard.

“You got a strong, strong resistance from White Southerners—and some Northerners—to equality for Blacks,” Professor Ham said. “Even in the North, those who wanted Blacks to be free still had a problem with Blacks being equal.”

The Klu Klux Klan and other White paramilitary organizations such as the White League sprouted up, wreaking violence on Blacks, particularly around elections. The groups also undermined the Black vote—in many Southern states the Black electorate equaled or outnumbered White voters—by fraud, such as ballot stuffing, or intimidation. Further, corruption within President Ulysses S. Grant’s administration led to the eruption of political-racial tensions in the Republican Party—then advocates for Black progress—which led to a splintering of the party and the eventual abandonment of Reconstruction.

Over the next decades, from the end of the 19th century into early to mid-1900s, the post-Civil War gains of Blacks were whittled away.

In the South, Blacks faced labor discrimination, limiting their economic mobility. Blacks were portrayed as shiftless and lazy and were generally barred from the textile mills, the region’s major industry, though a few found work in the new iron foundries and steel mills. Consequently, many Southern Blacks

became sharecroppers or tenant farmers. And, even in the North, such discrimination was rampant.

Then in 1896, the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision established the doctrine of “separate but equal,” institutionalizing segregation and ushering in a new dark age in Black history.

Even then African Americans marched on through the oppressive fog of de jure discrimination.

The NAACP instigated its protest in the courts, seeking to overthrow laws that annulled the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.

2005 - Marchers make their way on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Atlanta to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, August 6th.

AP Photo/Gene Blythe

Continued on page 10



Then the onslaught of World War I and II ushered in a whole new era of protest.

“During the war years Black people’s level of protest really rose,” Ham, the historian, said.

For example, in 1917 during World War I, labor leader Asa Phillip Randolph founded the political magazine, The Messenger, through which he agitated for the inclusion of more Blacks in the armed forces and war industry and demanding higher wages. Believing that unions were the best means to secure economic parity for African Americans, Randolph tried to unionize African-American shipyard workers in Virginia and elevator operators in New York City during this time. And, in 1925, Randolph founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

Randolph’s efforts mirrored those of the National Urban League, who advocated on behalf of Blacks who had fled the South to seek economic opportunity in the North. Many of them encountered discrimination barriers to upward mobility such as labor discrimination, redlining from banks, housing prejudice and the like. The NUL fought to dismantle those barriers, including racial bias in the defense sector.

In that same vein, during World War II, Black newspapers launched the “Double V” campaign, which promoted the idea of “victory from without” over the Axis powers and “victory from within” the United States to end discrimination via posters, lapel pins, stickers, songs, etc.

Because of those collective efforts, in 1948, President Truman issued an executive order desegregating the armed forces.

In 1954, Blacks secured another victory with the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board

of Education, which began the dismantling of segregation, based on the premise that separate is inherently unequal.

And the civil rights movement marched on, defined mostly by the Ghandian principle of nonviolent resistance, which sought to highlight the inequities of American society.

Between 1955 and 1968, the movement engaged in several acts of civil disobedience aimed at desegregation of public accommodations, Black voter empowerment, educational parity and economic mobility, which were usually met by draconian responses from the authorities.

The movement engaged in boycotts, such as the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott which was sparked when seamstress Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in an Alabama bus to a White customer; sit-ins, such as the 1960 protests in Greensboro, N.C., where four A&T freshmen students decided to integrate the lunch counter at Woolworth’s, eventually triggering over 400 demonstrations in at least 250 major cities and

towns in the U.S. by the end of 1960; Freedom Rides and marches, such as the seminal March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 and the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965.

“It begins to have a lot of momentum,” Ham said of the movement, “and it is not any one of the organized groups that provides the momentum for the movement, I would argue, it was the television.”

Comedian and activist Dick Gregory, who himself participated in several marches and was jailed for his efforts, agreed.

“Without folks seeing dogs sicced on children or having hoses turned on them, the movement would not have had the impact it had,” he said. “Those marches…got people’s attention all over the world.”

Added Ham, “It was very smart for Blacks to use Gandhi-like protest where they’re not fighting back. The strategy was attractive to Whites. You saw nuns in their habits, preachers, students – everyday people just wanting to stand up and say

“We come to petition our lawmakers to be as brave as our sit-ins and marchers.”

ROY WILKINS


As a child I heard this phrase many times, “good things come to those who wait.” I was born and raised in New York, N.Y. and am one of seven children. As you can imagine there were many things I had to wait for, especially the bathroom. I realized that patience can be helpful and allowed me to fo-cus on what I really wanted whether it was in sports or in any other part of my life.

Now I want to clarify something very important. This does not mean that we should stand around and wait for things to happen for us. As I said I come from a large family and I in fact am the only one to have ever graduated from high school let alone college. I was told by many teachers and other people outside my family that I should not set my expectations too high. “Maybe you should get your GED and enroll in the military” or “you probably shouldn’t look at this college because it is hard to get into” were some of the things I was told. But by those I cared about most and respected, I was always told that I could do anything I put my mind to, so I never let the negative comments stop me from going after what I really wanted. I now have a successful career, in a job I never thought about growing up and continue to work towards progressing even further.

What I would want for my children is what I would want for all. Never let people tell you what you can’t do. If you really want something, be prepared to work really hard to get it and you will give yourself the best chance for success. And don’t measure suc-cess by money; there are many other things in life that are just as important if not more, like family. So to enhance the title I will quote Benjamin Franklin “Good things come to those who wait, but only what’s left over from those who hustle.” John

Callender Internal Wholesaler

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait?


100 years is too long to wait for the promises of the Civil War and the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.”

As a result, she added, “People, who were able to, went to the South on their own. It was like a volunteer army. They were like ‘where do I sign up?’

“They felt that if these Black people are willing to put their lives on the line then they had to be willing to do the same for a just cause.”

Additionally, with a harsh global spotlight being

shined on America, U.S. leaders were shamed into action.

Legislative achievements during this time included the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination in employment practices and public accommodations; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that restored and protected voting rights; the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, that dramatically opened entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than traditional European groups; and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, that banned

discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.

While the civil rights movement did march mostly to the tune of nonviolence, there were other, more militant cadences, which grew in volume as inequality and justice persisted despite the civil rights laws.

“What you find in the next 10 years (after the March on Washington), ’63-’73, people are saying if the nonviolent protest didn’t make a change people are willing to try violent means. There were some Black people who were unwilling to ‘go limp,’” to be bludgeoned, power-hosed and otherwise humiliated, Ham said.

And things got especially worse after King’s assassination in 1968, she added.

“I was at Howard [University] at the time and I remember a classmate saying, ‘They have killed the prince of peace, they must want war,’” she recalls. “It was an extremely violent time in American history and the

closest to a war zone I’ve ever been.”Black militant movements flourished from

Black nationalist ideals, which encouraged Blacks to see the beauty in themselves, to foster a sense of racial pride and to pursue independence rather than integration.

Figureheads of that thought included Malcolm X, who maintained that separatism would better serve Blacks as they could control their education, politics, and economics within their

AFRO File Photo

“Marchers” come back to Washington for the 2011 dedication of the MLK Memorial.


“Sometimes in your life when you’re fighting for freedom and human dignity, your faith fails you and you wonder whether democracy is worth fighting for or whether you can ever be an American citizen in this country.”

DAISY BATESCIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, PUBLISHER, WRITER, NAACP PRESIDENT

1957 - Daisy Bates with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.


own communities. He called nonviolence the “philosophy of the fool,” and urged Blacks to claim their Second Amendment right to arms and physically defend themselves against their White oppressors.

Then in 1966, Trinidadian-American Stokely Carmichael, then-leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, popularized the slogan and the movement, “Black Power,” which became the mantra of a younger, more radical civil rights movement that was disillusioned by the slow pace of progress.

“We been saying ‘freedom’ for six years,” he said in a speech given after a Black freedom walker was shot and killed in Mississippi. “What we are going to start saying now is ‘Black Power.’”

In his 1968 book, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation, Carmichael said Black power “is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.’’

With his switch in philosophies, Carmichael left SNCC and became leader of more radical Black Panthers, based in California, which also advocated violence in their campaign against police brutality and other forms of White oppression.

“It was not the peaceful movement that made the change. They inaugurated it [but] it was these angry young people that made Americans realize that Blacks weren’t going to sit down and patiently wait,” said Ham. “That’s when we began to see

affirmative action programs and community action programs; that’s when you saw the rise of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party and the (Democratic) Party having answer to African-American voters.”

The tactics of the Civil Rights Movement, in all its interpretations, reverberated across the world and throughout the ages.

“Oppressed people around the world identified with the plight of African Americans in the U.S. and it became a model for how people waged protest,” Ham said, then added, “Almost every subsequent movement (women, handicapped, aged, the modern-day Occupy Movement) has utilized similar strategies in terms of gaining equal rights in America.”

And so, the march continues….

AFRO File Photo


In middle school I was jealous of all the kids that I perceived as “naturally smart.” Although I was registered in the same advanced classes, I felt I always had to work harder at grasping the concepts.

In the 8th grade, my parents got divorced and we temporarily moved an hour away from school for about a month until our home was available. In addition to the difficulties at home, I had rigorous course work and was the starting center forward on my middle school basket-ball team. During this period I was required to be at school at 6 a.m. for basketball practice, returned from school at 7 p.m. after extracur-ricular activities and did homework until about midnight. During these long days I wished I was one of those students who “just got it” when it came to certain school subjects as that would have reduced my stress and study time. I would not have had to work so hard at my studies throughout middle school and later in high school and college.

While it may have been easier and a lot more fun to spend less time on my studies and still get great grades, I know that my work ethic has given me the opportunity to succeed in areas that I never dreamed possible. I graduated from high school at the top of my class and at-tended my number one choice for college—Columbia University. I majored in engineering, and while many of my friends were often at the best parties on campus, I was busy studying and attended only a few parties each semester. In the end, I graduated with an outstanding GPA, a great college experience and my dream job in consulting.

To attend graduate school, I got tutors, studied hard, and attended preparation classes for the business school entrance exam, the GMAT. After obtaining a good score, I applied to several schools and was awarded full tuition scholarships to Ivy League programs like Cornell, Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. I selected Harvard Business School and received a great job offer to join Goldman Sachs after graduation. I am now very proud to work at T. Rowe Price as a marketing manager.

These experiences taught me that working hard to achieve excellence is something I should be proud of because it has made me who I am today. What I have also learned is that my dreams and goals can become a reality if I am willing to dedicate my efforts to excellence. In everything that I do, I follow a few lessons I have gathered along the way:

Have the courage to dream big—I didn’t want to just go to college. I specifically wanted to go to an Ivy League school. I got accepted to schools that my peers with better SAT scores didn’t get into because I had a very well-rounded application, outstanding grades and slightly above-average scores. I played varsity volleyball and basketball and ran track in high school. I was also on the debate team, president of my class and volunteered at the local hospital on the weekends.

Solicit help—I learned at an early age to never be afraid to ask for help from friends, tutors or teachers on subjects that were difficult to understand.

Strive for excellence, not perfection—I am not a perfectionist, but I can’t sleep unless I know I have given every project or assignment my best. While no one has the ability to be perfect, we can always work at the best of our ability.

Pray and be thankful—No matter how hard you work, sometimes things don’t always work out the way you intended. It can be disappointing and sometimes frustrating when hard work doesn’t pay off. I have learned that everything happens for a reason, and oftentimes something better is being orchestrated by a higher power and that, at some point, I will be thankful.

Don’t Be Afraid of Hard Work

Taneka Francis

Marketing Manager


There is a host of people who have contributed to my becoming the man I am today. I consider myself blessed to have grown up

with my grandparents during a time when everyone in the neighborhood, in addition to your family, looked out for each other. I real-

ize as an adult that growing up old school had its advantages. I was taught to say, “thank you,” “yes ma’am,” and “yes sir.” I also was

taught to respect others and to treat others as I wanted to be treated. I’ve had my share of adversities in life. Being raised by a single

mother and never having a relationship with my father, I never used that as an excuse not to do my best and to succeed in life. I’ve

always been surrounded by a loving family and close friends and have learned valuable lessons from each of them.

All Things are possible

I recall that, during my childhood, my grandmother asked me to do something for her and I re-

plied, “I can’t.” At that point she assured me that there was not anything I could not do if I put my

mind to it. I have continually applied that in my life. No matter the task or situation I face, I never

have the mindset that I can’t achieve it but that I will be successful at it. Believing that all things

are possible led me to God and to pastor a small but growing church in Baltimore city.

Hard work

I learned the value of hard work from my grandfather. We would drive to his garden in Essex,

Md., before sunrise. I would complain about the early morning drives, and he would tell me, “When

I grew up, you had to wildcat for it—you don’t catch nothing, you don’t eat nothing.” After the food

was picked, snapped and cooked, I understood what my grandfather meant and the hard work we

did every morning. Over the years, my hard work paid off. Starting at T. Rowe Price in 1998 as a

temporary employee and then working in the mailroom, I am now the facilities supervisor, leading

two teams with approximately 15 employees. I am also responsible for four mail centers in three

states, overseeing multi-million dollar international and domestic shipments and accounts.

Looking out for others

My mother once told me that it was better to give than to receive. It sounds like something

that every parent should say to their child. The difference is that I saw her do it. I watched as she

worked as a counselor for foster kids and would bring the older kids home with her for the week-

end. Faces would light up when she gave them a gift, but her face would light up even more be-

cause of their happiness. I have continued in her spirit of giving. I often get in trouble with my wife

because she thinks I do too much for others at times. But I believe that I have been truly blessed in

life, and if I can put a smile on someone’s face, it will make me smile all the more. As the Bible tells

me, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me.”

(St. Matthew 25:40)

William Ray MosleyFacilities Supervisor

Growing up in the Big House


“I’ll Overcome Someday” written by the Rev. Charles Albert Tindley, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, is the likely source of “We Shall Overcome,” although the title, words, and tune differ substantially.

The song that was forged into a protest hymn during a 1945-46 workers strike against American Tobacco in Charleston, S.C. and became the anthem of the American Civil Rights Movement fueled other demands for freedom around the world.

It was the subject of a copyright application by Louise Shropshire in 1954.

Adopted in Northern Ireland in 1968, when the Catholics sang this song when protesting for equal rights, it was the start of trouble that lasted for another 30 years.

“We Shall Overcome” later was adopted by various anti-Communist movements in the Cold War and post-Cold War. In his memoir about his years teaching English in Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution, Mark Allen wrote:

“In Prague in 1989, during the intense weeks of the Velvet Revolution, hundreds of thousands of people sang this haunting music in unison in Wenceslas Square, both in English and in Czech, with special emphasis on the phrase ‘I do believe.’ This song’s message of hope gave protesters strength to carry on until the powers-that-be themselves finally gave up hope themselves.

In the Prague of 1964,Seeger was stunned to find himself being whistled and booed by crowds of Czechs when he spoke out against the Vietnam War. But those same crowds had loved and adopted his rendition of ‘We Shall Overcome.’ History is full of such ironies – if only you are willing to see them.”

—’Prague Symphony’, Praha Publishing, 2008

On June 7, 2010, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, released a new version of the song as a protest of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.[40]

On July 22, 2012, Bruce Springsteen performed the song during the memorial concert in Oslo after the terror attacks in Norway on July 22, 2011.

In India, renowned poet Girija Kumar Mathur composed its literal translation in Hindi “Hum Honge Kaamyab / Ek Din” which became a popular patriotic/spiritual song during the 1980s, particularly in schools.

In Bengali-speaking India and in Bangladesh there are two versions, both popular among school-children and political activists. “Amra Karbo Joy” (a literal translation) was translated by the Bengali folk singer Hemanga Biswas and re-recorded by Bhupen Hazarika. Another version, translated by Shibdas Bandyopadhyay, “Ek Din Surjyer Bhor” (literally translated as “One Day The Sun Will Rise”) was recorded by the Calcutta Youth Choir arranged by Ruma Guha Thakurta during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence and became one of the largest selling Bengali records. It was a favorite of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and regularly sung at public events after Bangladesh gained independence.[citation needed]

In the Indian State of Kerala, the traditional Communist stronghold, the song became popular in college campuses in late 1970s. It was the struggle song of the Students Federation of India SFI, the largest student organisation in the country. The song translated to the regional language Malayalam by N. P. Chandrasekharan, an activist of SFI. The translation followed the same tune of the original song, as “Nammal Vijayikkum.” Later it was also published in Student, the monthly of SFI in Malayalam and in Sarvadesheeya Ganangal (Mythri Books, Thiruvananthapuram), a translation of international struggle songs.

SOURCES:• http://www.weshallovercomefoundation.org/weshallovercome.html• Kennedy Center ARTSEDGE• http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/ledarbloggens-youtubiana-hela- listan_1811227.svd

‘We Shall Overcome’


Photos by Alexis Taylor

Wall Street Protest 2011

...the struggle continues


Dreams offer a vision for your life.One of my favorite authors is Langston Hughes. When I was growing up, my bedroom wall had a

poster with a quote from his poem “Dreams” – Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. Unknowingly, this quote has always been my mantra. I use the premise behind it when giving advice to my younger cousins and I use it in my own life.

We are usually asked and tend to ask others “what do you want to do or be?” This question forces you to envision how you want your life to be.

Early on I looked at life from the perspective of what I didn’t want. For example, I knew I did not want to live at home after high school. So that meant I had to study hard, graduate from high school and go away to college – Florida A&M University. It also meant get-ting a job upon graduation. I had the second highest starting salary in my graduating class from the school of business.

Eventually my perspective changed and I started to dream about what I wanted. I wanted a successful career and a life of travel. My career has included roles as a manager, sales director and currently senior account manager at Verizon. My travels include visiting more than half of the United States and 13 other countries (Africa twice) – some for business and some pleasure.

I guarantee that as you go through life and meet others who are successful, they will tell you they had a dream, a vision for their life and a plan.

The dreams you have for your life should be yours, they will change and they should.

The important thing is…. Just keep dreaming.

Hold Fast to Dreams…

Kimberly Hailey

Senior Account Manager, Government/Education


Webster’s dictionary defines accountability as the quality or state of being accountable, an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions or being answerable. It’s really a fan-cy way of saying that you are willing to step up and answer for the choices you make in life – large and small. Being account-able is a highly valued quality I believe is sought after far more than the ability to simply make ‘good’ decisions. The reason for that is because no one will go through life making the best decisions 100 percent of the time; it’s just impossible. However, those who are willing to take responsibility for the decisions they make will always transform any outcome into a learning experi-ence for the future.

I have found that being a person who is accountable or someone that is willing to own his or her choices (good, bad or indifferent) has really helped to propel me in life. This is largely because being accountable allows people to trust in you and have confidence in your abilities. That trust is not bred from the idea that I do not make mistakes but rather that when I do, I own them and do what’s possible to learn and grow from them. Being someone who is accountable has made it so that my mistakes and less than perfect choices have not come to define who I am. I am evaluated by the level of maturity and courage it takes to say “this may not have been the best decision but it was mine and I take ownership of its outcome.”

“A” is for Accountability

Kia WilsonGroup Managerof Channel Strategy and Sales Support for the Mid-Atlantic Area


Afro-American Newspapers’ Character Education Essay Contest

T he Afro-American Newspapers’ Character Education

Contest was launched 16 years ago to promote

positive character development among the nation’s

leaders of tomorrow – our youth.

We believe good character has to be taught and

modeled, which is why we have chosen to profile local corporate

professionals and business leaders in our publication.

The featured individuals, time and time again, incorporate positive

character traits – such as honesty, respect, responsibility, courage

and perseverance – in their everyday lives, proving to be positive role

models in their community.

For the contest, students are asked to read the featured profiles

and choose the one that inspires them most to incorporate positive

character traits in their own lives. Students should then write an essay

that best explains why they chose the article and how they plan to use

what they’ve learned to shape their future.

• Essays should be between two and four pages in length (double-

spaced) and must be typed.

• Essays will be judged on neatness, grammar, punctuation and the

student’s ability to give insight on what they learned from the profile.

Judges are impartial volunteers and may include teachers, staff from

local colleges and universities and the editorial staff at the AFRO.

For more information concerning the Afro-American Newspapers’

Character Education Contest, please contact: Diane Hocker,

410-554-8243.

Deadline: April 8, 2013Mail typed essays to:

Diane Hocker • Afro-American Newspapers 2519 N. Charles Street • Baltimore, Md. 21218

or e-mail them to: [email protected]

No faxes will be accepted

Cash prizes to be awarded

Eighth-Graders Only

Documents

AFRO Black History Character Education 2013 - Week 4