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INSIDE MOREHOUSE, MAY 2012
Alexander: “We Have
Abandoned King’s Dream”
BY ADD SEYMOUR JR.
A uthor Michele Alexander said the nation has taken steps backward when it comes to
dealing with race, particularly when it comes to prison incarceration.
“During the last 30 years, a vast new system of racial and social control has emerged
from the ashes of slavery and Jim Crow,” said Alexander during the Martin Luther King Jr.
Collegium of Scholars and Board of Sponsors Induction Crown Forum on April 10. “The
systematic mass incarceration of poor people of color in the United States is tantamount to
a new caste system, one specifically designed to address the social, political and economic
challenges of our time.”
Alexander is the author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness.” The book won the 2011 NAACP Image Award for best non-fiction.
Her Crown Forum speech echoed
the themes of her book in which
Alexander believes higher incar
ceration of poor people of color has
become a new American systems of
racism and segregation.
“In the years following Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.’s death, our nation
was faced with a choice,” she said.
“We could continue down the road
that Dr. King and many others were
traveling; we could choose the path
of compassion, forgiveness, inclusion
and hope. Or we could choose a dif
ferent road - a road more familiar
when it comes to matters of race; the
road of exclusion, division, punitive
ness and despair.
“One day, I believe histo
rians will look back on this era of
mass incarceration and they will say
it was there, right there at the prison gates, that we abandoned Dr. King’s dream and veered
off the trail that he and many others had blazed,” Alexander said.
Just before Alexander’s speech, 13 men and women were inducted into the King
Collegium Board of Scholars and Board of Sponsors. Members are chosen for their
achievements and work in the global community. They also serve as advisers to the Martin
Luther King Jr. International Chapel.
“I charge you to be servant scholar leaders, guarantors of continuity, cel-
ebrators of change, negotiators of structure, ambassadors of the beloved world
community and facilitators of meaning with the hope that we can right age-
old wrongs that continue to haunt the American people and the world,” said
Lawrence E. Carter Sr., dean of King Chapel. ■
Delta Sigma Theta Inc. 22nd National President Gwendolyn Boyd, Delta National President Cynthia
Butler-Mclntyre and Valerie Jackson, chair of the Maynard Jackson Youth Foundation, view the
Dorothy I. Height oil portrait.
Leadership of Dorothy Height
Honored with a Scholarship
and Oil Portrait
BY ADD SEYMOUR JR.
T he legacy of Dorothy I. Height, the late civil and human rights activist,
should be a lesson of persistence for every man of Morehouse, said Cynthia
Butler McIntyre, national president of Delta Sigma Theta, Inc.
“It is my hope and prayer that when you are told that the answer is ‘no,’
if your heart and soul and mind think it should be ‘yes,’ you will be inspired
by Dr. Height to make a way out of no way,” Butler-Mclntyre said during the
Dorothy Height Portrait Unveiling Crown Forum.
Height, who would have turned 100 two days after the March 22 n ^ Crown
Forum, was honored by the College with a new portrait that will hang in the
International Hall of Honor, alongside those of other world human and civil
rights luminaries.
The College also will honor Height’s memory with the Dorothy I. Height
Scholarship.
“As focused as Morehouse is on shaping its students, the College recognizes
the significant roles that African American women have played in helping mold
and mentor the young men that Morehouse has proudly produced for more
than 145 years,” said the College’s First Lady, Dr. Cheryl Franklin, during a lun
cheon following the Crown Forum. “The College understands that women like
Dorothy I. Height are partners in educating and nurturing the next generation
of leaders, men and women, as they overcome challenges, conquer obstacles and
achieve greatness.” ■
ESPN HOUSEsports Weekend Honors Edwin Moses 78 and Times’ Bill Rhoden
Morehouse athletic director Andre Patillo 79 and former Georgia
athletic director Damon Evans listens
THE PRESENT HONORED the
past during the Morehouse College
Journalism and Sports Program’s
ESPN Presents HOUSEsports
Weekend Conference, April 12-14.
Journalism and Sports
Program seniors John Smith and
Devin Emery presented veteran
New York Times columnist William
C. Rhoden the Sports Journalist
of the Year Award and Olympic
track legend Edwin Moses ’78 the
first Edwin Moses Sports Figure
of the Year award during the
Conference’s awards dinner.
The awards among the high
lights of the Program’s first con
ference, which was meant to give
a perspective of the sports and
journalism industries beyond the
boundaries of athletic playing
fields.
“ESPN’s gift allowed the jour
nalism program and HOUSEsports,
a student-run club for aspiring
sports reporters, to host six work
shops and the dinner as the initial
fundraiser for both organizations,”
said Ron Thomas, director of the
Journalism and Sports Program.
Workshop topics included black
sports history, career development
in sports journalism and adminis
tration, and the international per
spective on sports tourism and the
training of elite athletes.
ESPN columnists J.A. Adande
and Jemele Hill took part in one
of the workshops, while a panel
on acquiring leadership posi
tions in sports administration
featured Morehouse athletic
director Andre Patillo ’79, former
University of Georgia athletic
director Damon Evans and Sam
Crenshaw, a sportscaster for
WXIA-TV Atlanta. Sports Radio
680-AM broadcaster Brandon
Leak, who is a student in the
Journalism and Sports Program,
moderated the panel. ■