Recently in Urban Issues Category

We still can't get over the amazing story about a 13-year-old kid who's currently a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta. According to AOL's Black Voices, young Stephen Stafford has a triple major in pre-med, math, and computer science. He began his college career at age 11, after being home-schooled by his mom.

Though he loves playing video games and drums, he is no typical teenager. His mom said she knew he was ready for college when he started teaching her.

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.

On Monday, Chicago Public Radio's signature news and talk program, Eight Forty-Eight, featured a sobering "barbershop" discussion about the culture of gangs and violence that continues to ravage Chicago's inner-city communities. Since last September, more than 70 Chicago Public School students have been shot; 36 CPS students were killed during the 2008-09 school year; and the brutal Sept. 24 beating death of 16-year-old Derrion Albert made global headlines when cell-phone video of the deadly riot went viral. Chicago Public Radio's Richard Steele led this revealing discussion with a panel of both young and older African American men. For anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the reasons behind the epidemic of violence in our urban communities, and how we can begin to reverse the trend, this 16-minute radio segment is worth your time.