Page 22 - Florida Sentinel 4-28-17

National
Students At Black High School Earn $80M In College Scholarships
New Orleans Removing White Supremacist Monuments
New Orleans axed the first of several White supremacist symbols of the Confederacy and the Jim Crow South Mon- day, reports The Associated Press.
The Liberty Place monu- ment, a 35-foot granite obelisk that pays tribute to whites who tried to topple a biracial Re- construction government in- stalled in New Orleans after the Civil War, was taken away on a truck in pieces.
In the coming days, the city will also remove three statues of Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beaure- gard and Confederate Presi- dent Jefferson Davis, now that legal challenges have been overcome.
Removing the monuments is “not about blame,” the mayor [Mitch Landrieu] said. Rather, he said, it’s about “showing the whole world that we as a city and as people are able to acknowledge, under- stand, reconcile and — most importantly — choose a better future, making straight what has been crooked and right what has been wrong.”
Due to death threats and se- curity risks, the city will not disclose when the last three monuments will come down, reports CNN.
Ohio Teen Couple Commit Suicide Days Apart
Mercedes Shaday Smith and Markeice Brown each committed suicide.
Whitehaven High School senior Zariah Nolan received $9.6M in scholarship offers.
The Liberty Place monument was taken down in pieces.
MEMPHIS, TN —- Students at Whitehaven High School in Memphis, Tenn., have 80 mil- lion reasons to be proud of their academic endeavors be- cause its graduating class has secured more than $80 million in scholarships.
Last week the students were honored at their Academic Signing Day, but one student took home the largest piece of the scholarship pie, according to ABC News.
Zariah Nolan, who will be the first of her siblings to at- tend college, received $9.6 million in scholarship offers, including 17 full-ride offers, and is heading off to Dillard
University in the fall.
Nolan used the Common
Black College Application, which allows students to apply to any number of 51 HBCUs at the same time for just $35, in- stead of paying multiple col- lege application fees that could range up to $80.
Whitehaven’s student population is 99 percent African American, and a lot of its current teachers, as well as its principal, are products of the high school.
Principal Vincent J. Hun- ter says the breakdown of his team at Whitehaven is unique in that 32 staff members are graduates of the high school.
A tragic story about a teenage couple from Ohio committing suicide just days apart has gone viral on Face- book.
Details surrounding the sui- cides are scarce, but according to online reports, 18-year-old Mercedes Shaday Smith took her own life in her college dorm room in Columbia, Ken- tucky on Thursday (Apr. 20), and her boyfriend, Markeice “Mari” Brown ended his life on Saturday (Apr. 22).
Apparently, Smith’s friends believed that Brown con- tributed to his girlfriend’s sui- cide and they harassed and bullied him online, which, along with the grief of losing his girlfriend, drove him to
commit suicide just days later. The entire situation is being heavily discussed on Facebook and has sparked a serious dis- cussion about suicide aware-
ness and depression.
Smith committed suicide in
her dorm room at Lindsey Wil- son College.
As a result of the online per- secution, Brown — who was also distraught over losing the love of his life — decided to end his own life early Saturday (Apr. 22) just two days after Mercedes ended hers.
Before taking his life, Markeice posted a distress- ing note on Facebook and went on Facebook Live to tell his friends and family goodbye.
5 Die In Suspicious Fire In Queens
Destiny Dones, 20, Melody Edwards, 17, Jada Foxworth, 16, Rawshawn Matthews, 10, and two-year-old Chayce Lipford.
Black Lives Matter Activist DeRay McKesson To Host Podcast
DeRay McKesson is tak- ing his activism from the streets to the pod. The promi- nent Black Lives Matter ac- tivist will soon launch a new podcast titled, A Word with DeRay.
The podcast will focus on so- cial advocacy and issues such as race issues, policing, and politics. McKesson aims to use the platform to continue to spread his message of the im- portance of organizing and ac- tivism, particularly in “Trump’s America.”
He hopes to help listeners better understand advocacy and learn what they can do to contribute to the cause.
In addition to the police re- form campaign he co-founded, Campaign Zero, McKesson has expressed interest in host- ing a podcast for some time. He pitched his idea to another podcast network, but signed with newly formed liberal po- litical media company, Crooked Media, after meeting
its co-founder Jon Favreau last year.
Favreau, a longtime Barack Obama speechwriter founded the company with fel- low former Obama adminis- tration aides Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor. The trio hosts Crooked Media’s flagship program, Pod Save America, which McKesson appeared on as a guest in February.
QUEENS, N. Y. —- On Sun- day, a fire broke out at a two- story Queens home and killed at least five people, three of which were children.
Early on Monday, the NYPD identified those killed as being two boys, ages 2 and 10, and three females, ages 16, 17 and 20. Additionally, four firefight- ers reportedly suffered in- juries.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the fire was the deadliest for New York City in two years
According to the New York
Daily News, the victims were identified Destiny Dones, 20, Melody Edwards, 17, Jada Foxworth, 16, Raw- shawn Matthews, 10, and two-year-old Chayce Lip- ford.
It is not yet clear what started the fire, which blazed so brightly that firefighters could see it before they arrived and called in extra help to get it contained. The flames spread to a house next door, but luckily, no one there was home.
DeRay McKesson
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