striversrow

Ms. Desiree Rogers, the former White House social secretary, is now the CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, the publisher of Ebony and Jet magazine. Read Full Story

Excerpt: "Varnette P. Honeywood, an artist who gained fame when her vivid and joyful portraits of everyday lives of blacks were prominently featured on TV's "The Cosby Show," died Sept. 12 of cancer at a Los Angeles hospital. She was 59. As a black artist, Ms. Honeywood was "extraordinarily important," partly for the visibility "The Cosby Show" gave her but also because young people were inspired by her "exuberant and positive images of black culture," said Paul Von Blum, emeritus professor... Read Full Story

Excerpt: " She’s a knockout, that’s for sure, who once modeled only in Everlast boxing gear. But Karlene Kelley is now poised to step center stage in the National Miss State teenage beauty pageant, and she credits famed Trenton female boxer Sacred Downing with helping her get there." Read Full Story

Excerpt: "With a degree in civil engineering and another nearly completed in math education, Stacey Reece is pursuing the obvious career path: selling homemade cupcakes out of a truck rolling through downtown Trenton. For more than one reason, Reece says, her launch this week of the roving food business, dubbed Stace of Cakes, makes sense." Read Full Story

Excerpt: For seven years, Mr. Fall sold hats, handbags and other accessories from a collapsible table on the streets of Manhattan, mostly at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue. But while he never managed to move into Bloomingdale’s, he recently accomplished a feat that is quite rare among the city’s street merchants: He opened his own shop. A small storefront on Frederick Douglass Boulevard near 132nd Street in Harlem, it is called Ob’Prama — an amalgam of Obama and Oprah, two people who, he... Read Full Story

Excerpt: "William Holland, a genealogical researcher living in Atlanta, has seen some pretty strange twists in his family tree. Several years ago, he found out that his great-grandfather was a black slave ... who wound up serving as a Confederate soldier during the Civil War. But this year Holland's research resulted in something even stranger. Thanks to DNA testing, Holland is being welcomed as a long-lost relative by a ruling family of the West African nation of Cameroon." Read Full Story

Mr. Algernon Ward was recently appointed to the Trenton School Board. Excerpt: "Algernon S. Ward Jr., a research scientist, city council candidate and community activist who helped defeat former Mayor Doug Palmer’s proposed sale of Trenton Water Works infrastructure, has been sworn in as a new member of the city Board of Education. rd’s term runs to May 16, 2012." Read Full Story

Deonte Bridges has overcome many odds in his life. Excerpt: "Bridges is Washington High’s first black male valedictorian in more than a decade, a rising freshman at UGA, the winner of scholarships totaling more than $1 million. Bridges reset the academic bar at Washington, despite his mother’s cancer, his brother’s death, an armed hold-up and peer pressure to put down his books and embrace the street life." Read Full Story

Mr. Mo Vaughn is a former baseball player who is building a name for himself in New York City real estate. Excerpt: "There are times when Maurice Vaughn, the former major league baseball player universally called Mo, is treated like a businessman — usually when he is deep in talks to buy ratty apartment buildings and make them habitable again." Read Full Story

Ms. Lauren Smith Ira was recently selected to be the press secretary for Tony Mack, the mayor of Trenton. Excerpt: "A former lobbyist whose father is a prominent Trenton cleric and essayist has been tapped as Mayor Tony Mack’s press flack -- “director of policy and communications’’ in political parlance. Lauren Smith Ira, 28, daughter of the Rev. Willie Smith, is a public relations specialist who studied government and politics while with the influential Becker and Porzio lobbying firms." Read Full Story