Recently in In the News Category

Dorothy Height, a leading female voice of the 1960s civil rights movement and a participant in historic marches with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others, died today at age 98. She led the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years and continued to speak out on civil rights issues into her 90s.

According to the Associated Press, President Obama called her "the godmother of the civil rights movement" and a hero to many Americans. Obama said in a statement that Height was the only woman at the highest level of the civil rights movement and witnessed "every march and milestone along the way."

We're saddened to hear of the passing of Benjamin L. Hooks, who died today at age 85. Hooks was a prominent attorney, civil rights activist, NAACP director, and Baptist minister. A remarkable leader indeed. 

We're sad to hear about the passing of Jaime Escalante, the visionary teacher who transformed a tough East Los Angeles high school by pushing and inspiring struggling inner-city students to master advanced math. An immigrant from Bolivia, Escalante's story was immortalized in the hit 1988 film Stand and Deliver. He died yesterday at age 79 after a long battle with cancer.

Actor Edward James Olmos was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Escalante in Stand and Deliver.

"Jaime exposed one of the most dangerous myths of our time -- that inner city students can't be expected to perform at the highest levels," Olmos told the Associated Press. "Because of him, that destructive idea has been shattered forever."

Recently in Utah, state Senator Chris Buttars (R-West Jordan) proposed a way to save his state up to $102 million dollars -- make the 12th grade optional. With a budget deficit of $700 million, Utah lawmakers must be scratching their heads over whether or not to embrace untraditional means to alleviate their budgetary distress -- especially when school districts in places like Kansas City, Missouri, are being forced to use draconian measures to stay afloat financially.

Senator Buttars, who has since backtracked a bit on the proposal, believes that a lot of seniors slack off in their final year of high school and just "play around." This ends up costing school districts money that perhaps may be allotted to extracurricular activities which some may deem unnecessary. So he favors a system of "accelerated graduation" that would get some students out of the system sooner. Opponents of the proposal argue that senior year is still necessary because it helps to mature the students, providing another year to excel academically, athletically, and creatively.

Just say, for a moment, that we were to take Glenn Beck's counsel seriously and flee any church or parish that promoted the idea of "social justice" or "economic justice." We'd probably have to close down 90 percent of the African American churches in this country!

You've likely caught wind of this controversy already. Beck, the fiery and often humorous conservative talk show host on the FOX News network, told his radio and TV audiences last week that the terms are code for "communism" and "Nazism." He advised:

I beg you, look for the words "social justice" or "economic justice" on your church website. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words.

Just to be clear, he added:

Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!

Calling this weekend's earthquake in Chile a divine precursor to his planned speech, controversial Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan predicted on Sunday that America will face its own imminent disaster and must prepare.

Delivering a message titled "The Time and What Must Be Done," Farrakhan addressed thousands at Chicago's United Center as part of an annual celebration of Saviours' Day, marking the birth of W. Fard Muhammad, who founded the faith 80 years ago.

We came across this interesting post by Australian activist Jarrod McKenna over at the God's Politics blog, which is produced by our good friends at Sojourners. In light of all that's happening in Washington this week, especially with President Obama's health-care summit today, we thought we'd post it here in slightly edited form for your reflection.

It's interesting to see Professor Cornel West, a well-known Obama supporter, offer this strong of a critique (in some ways, it's an admonishment) of the President and his performance thus far.

In the African American community, involvement in the church has long been cited as a likely factor in determining whether urban young people graduate high school and go on to college. So, it makes sense that administrators from the California State University system would want to partner with the state's black churches to preach "the gospel of higher education" to the urban community's middle school children and their parents.

The goal is to increase the college enrollment of black students in the Cal-State University system. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the effort, which will reach some 90 churches this month, is having a positive effect. Though black students only represent about 6 percent of all CSU students (compared with about 8 percent of high school seniors in California), applications to CSU from black students have soared from 8,737 in 2005 when the "Super Sunday" campaign began to 15,550 in 2009 -- a 78 percent increase.