Bishop and Mrs. Daniel Payne In 1863 Bishop Daniel Payne, Wilberforce benefactor and 7-year trustee, succeeded Richard Rust to become its second president, and the first African American college president in U.S. history. To read a short biography of this Black pioneer, click on THIS LINK. Posted by Ajuan Mance Read Full Story

Yesterday’s Yahoo! news features included an interesting article in the rise of environmental rankings for U.S. colleges and universities. Apparently, the Princeton Review has added a “green rating” to its annual college guide. The rating will appear in the 2009 edition and is meant to indicate how “environmentally friendly, responsible, and committed the institutions are.” According to the Princeton Review Guide, the schools with the best green ratings are: Arizona State University (Tempe... Read Full Story

A report on the China View website brought to my attention the battle that is taking place at UCLA, between the undergraduate admissions committee and Political Science Professor Timothy Groseclose, a former committee member. Apparently Prof. Groseclose has become convinced that the admissions committee is, to use his language, “cheating” in the admissions process. Since 1996, California’s Proposition 209 has effectively prohibited any form of identity based discrimination or preferential... Read Full Story

We have to have zero tolerance. Any example of racism is one example too much, from the police or any other sector of Harvard University. –Henry Louis Gates, Jr., as quoted in Friday’s Boston Globe Last spring a group of Harvard’s Black student organizations held an end-of-year field day on Radcliffe Quad. Students picnicked, played capture the flag, and ran relay races. A good time was had by all…until two Harvard Police officers drove up on motorcycles and asked whether or not this group... Read Full Story

Fannie Jackson Coppin (1837 - 1913) We do not ask that anyone of our people shall be put into a position because he is a colored person, but we do most emphatically ask that he shall not be kept out of a position because he is a colored person. – Fanny Jackson Coppin, in a speech delivered at a fair in Philadelphia. This speech was anthologized in Negro Eloquence: The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from teh Days of Slavery to the Present Time, edited by Alice Dunbar Nelson (1914... Read Full Story

KAMERAD! KAMERAD! Three colored Canadians imitating the Germans, whom they captured in this dugout near the Canal du Nord, as they put up their hands and shouted “Kamerad”! (Photo and caption from Kelly Miller’s History of the World War for Human Rights [1919])* Posted by Ajuan Mance Read Full Story

The 8/21/08  JBHE weekly bulletin describes a recent finding by the Schott Foundation for Public Education that there is, “a serious crisis in the secondary education of black males.” According to the Schott Foundation’s report, there is a 28 point difference between the high school graduation rate for white males and the high school graduation rate for black males: “Nationwide, only 47 percent of black males are completing high school. For whites, the rate is 75 percent.”    (Source... Read Full Story

1990s rapper Ahmad Ali Lewis at Compton’s Salvation Army Recreation Center. (Source: The Los Angeles Times) I came across this inspiring story in the LA Times. This fall, Ahmad Ali Lewis, whose single “Back in the Day” had heads bumping back in the mid-1990s, will be entering Stanford University. The valedictorian of his community college graduating class, his goal is to earn a Ph.D. in social work and become a university professor. LA Times reporter Larry Gordon reports: Ahmad Ali Lewis... Read Full Story

Kelly Miller (1863 - 1939) To expect the Negroes of Georgia to produce a great general like Napoleon when they are not even allowed to carry arms, or to deride them for not producing scholars like those of the Renaissance when a few years ago they were forbidden the use of letters, verges closely upon the outer rim of absurdity. Do you look for great Negro statesmen in States where black men are not allowed to vote? –Kelly Miller in “As to the Leopard’s Spots; An Open Letter to Thomas Dixon... Read Full Story

Sincerest thanks to SjP at Sojourner’s Place for recognizing Black on Campus with the Brilliant Weblog Award. This blog is a labor of love for me, and I am humbled that such an outstanding blogger has found  this site worthy of mention. I encourage you to drop by Sojourner’s Place, and make it a regular stop on your blog itinerary. Once again, my deepest thanks to SjP. I am honored just to be on your radar. I am humbled by your praise. As a recipient of this award, I am aksed to nominate at... Read Full Story