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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. ■