Dec. 13, 2015

Dr. Abdullah

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Dr. Makola M. Abdullah, 46, provost and chief academic officer of Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Fla., will be the next president of Virginia State University. 

Cincinnati City Manager Harry E. Black, rector of the VSU Board of Visitors, introduced Dr. Abdullah on Friday, Dec. 11, as the 14th president of the 133-year-old university located near Petersburg, Va.

An academic veteran, Abdullah has served as Bethune-Cookman’s provost since 2013. His career also includes stints as provost of Florida Memorial University and as dean of the College of Engineering Sciences, Technology and Agriculture at Florida A&M University.

Black, who chaired the VSU search committee, hired the Chicago native and Howard University graduate after receiving authority from the board in November “to negotiate and execute a contract” with the board’s top choice, according to the minutes.

To confirm he acted properly, Black released a statement from the university’s legal representative, Ronald C. Forehand, senior assistant attorney general. In the statement, Forehand confirms that the Board of Visitors passed a “resolution delegating to the rector the authority” to make the deal with the incoming president and to sign the contract.

“That has been done,” Forehand stated.

Word of the appointment began to leak after VSU staff raced to compile a list of alumni, donors and other guests and to issue email invitations to the announcement and reception at 10 a.m. in the Engineering and Technology Building Auditorium.

The announcement came on the eve of VSU’s winter commencement ceremony on Saturday, Dec. 12, at which the outgoing interim president, Dr. Pamela V. Hammond, was to receive an honorary degree in recognition of her service.

It also took place just days after the university’s accrediting body extended a warning against VSU about concerns involving the school’s governance and financial control of its independent foundations.

Abdullah is expected to arrive in January to begin the transition and officially take the helm Feb. 1. Hammond’s contract as interim president will expire Jan. 31.

Dr. Hammond, a former provost at Hampton University, has led VSU since Jan. 1, and is the first woman to serve as the school’s chief executive.

Behind the scenes, several board members grumbled before the announcement that Black had moved too quickly and too secretively, even raising questions about the legality of the process, though Mr. Forehand’s statement quickly dispelled that concern.

The upset members claimed Black never provided them with information on the contract nor sought their approval and kept them in the dark about the purpose of Friday’s announcement.

“Dr. Abdullah was the top candidate,” a board member told the Free Press on the condition of not being identified. “However, it was understood that before he or anyone was hired, the contract would be brought back to the board for review and approval. The expectation was that the announcement would come in January.”

Some faculty members also are complaining about Mr. Black’s and the board’s failure to allow the Faculty Senate to play more of a role in the selection, or at least meet the top two candidates in advance of the contract award.

The selection of Abdullah caps a yearlong search that began at the same time Hammond was named as interim president in November 2014. She had competed for the permanent position, but dropped out when she was unable to secure enough support from the board.

Abdullah earned his undergraduate degree from Howard University and master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering from Northwestern University. As provost and chief academic officer, Dr. Abdullah has overseen academic and research programs at Bethune-Cookman University.

As Florida Memorial University’s provost, Dr. Abdullah was credited with leading the institution’s successful re-accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and for increasing grant funding for research projects.

He also created centers of academic support and retention to reduce the number of students dropping out for failing to meet academic requirements.

Earlier, he spent 15 years at Florida A&M University, where he won credit for increasing enrollment and research grants as dean of the College of Engineering Sciences, Technology and Agriculture. He also started the CESTA Scholars program to provide opportunities for students to be involved in research and agriculture extension programs.

Dr. Abdullah has published 24 papers related to earthquake and wind engineering and has sought to increase the number of African-Americans in the professional fields of science, mathematics and engineering.

He is the husband of Dr. Ahkinyala Cobb-Abdullah, an assistant professor of integrated environmental science at Bethune-Cookman. The couple have a son, Mikaili, and a daughter, Sefiyetu.

Dec. 15, 2015

Tour of Baltimore Neighborhood Shows ‘Typical’ Sites of Black America
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Only minutes into Sen. Bernie Sanders’ tour through the impoverished Sandtown community in West Baltimore, he asked a burning question: “What I’m seeing is ‘Checks Cashed’”,  he read the sign on a nearby storefront. “Why go in there and cash my check?” asked the Vermont senator, peering at a check cashing store.

His leading tour guide, Pastor Jamal-Harrison Bryant, of Baltimore's Empowerment Temple, explained:

“You can’t find banks here. They just drop ATMs. So, they take your money, but they’re not looking for you to invest or to save…Our communities are peppered with these check cashing places that we want to see closed.”

As they continued the walk, trailed by dozens of other pastors, community leaders, neighborhood residents and a horde of reporters, Sanders got an earful.

Bryant described the 16,000 abandoned homes in Baltimore neighborhoods, “stores with no fresh vegetables, no produce; literally processed, canned” foods, and the 20 Black-owned businesses with no insurance money to rebuild after being burned out during the April riots. Simultaneously, neighborhood residents called out their need for jobs and activities to keep children off the streets.

“They don’t want us to sell drugs. We need help to get a job!” shouted one woman as other community residents chimed in.

Flanked by Bryant, Pastor Lisa Weah of the New Bethlehem Baptist Church in West Baltimore and Pastor Donte Hickman, whose senior center is being rebuilt after it was destroyed by fire during the April riots, Sanders heard the pain expressed by neighborhood residents and the pastors during the approximately 20-minute walk. But, despite all the voices, the greatest impact was what the senator saw for himself. Glaring at the blight, he appeared confounded.

“One would not know that we’re living in the wealthiest country in the history of the world when what you look at is what a third world country would look like,” he said. “It’s a pretty sad state of affairs…It is stunning.”

Organized by Pastor Bryant, Sanders’ whirlwind visit in the 63.7 percent Black Baltimore was like a snap shot of Black America – a far cry from Sanders’ home town of Burlington, Vermont – Black population – 3.9 percent.

“He needed to see what the realities of Baltimore are; not just the inner harbor, but the pains of every day working people who want an opportunity and I wanted him to see them as a potential president - the real work that has to be done,” said Bryant, pausing mid-street to answer a reporter’s question.

Ironically, the disparities pointed out during the brief walk Dec. 8 were synonymous with those in any major city in America.

“This is typical in urban communities,” said Sen. Nina Turner of Ohio. The plight of a community is dependent upon “where you put the dollars; where you put the investments. And it’s not happening in the urban communities,” she said.

Back on the bus, Sanders reflected on the sights. “This is an extreme situation,” he told Bryant. “This is a different world. Nobody talks about this world.”

But they would talk about it over the next hour as more than a dozen pastors and community leaders convened in conference with Sanders back at the Freddie Gray Empowerment Center. There, the presidential candidate who self-identifies as a “democratic socialist” responded to issues rolled out by the pastors, centered mainly around three topics:

• Black Lives Matter: Aggressive and militarized policing; mass incarceration; and criminal justice issues;
• Black Minds Matter: Education, educational opportunities and protecting HBCUs;
• Black Dollars Matter – economic disparities in Black communities.

Pastor Greg James, pastor of Life Church International in Tallahassee Fla. an ex-offender, received encouragement from Sanders for his fight for fair sentencing and parole policies.

“Do you know how much we’re spending a year locking people up? $80 billion dollars a year!,” said Sanders. “It is an absolute no brainer to take some of that money, rebuild the neighborhoods in Baltimore and give jobs.”

The Rev. Carlton Lee, Pastor of Flood Christian Church on Florissant Ave. in Ferguson, ground zero for the Michael Brown protests last year, recalled red police sniper dots on the front of his body so plentiful that they looked like he had wasted Cool Aid on his shirt. “My children to this day are terrified of police”, he said.

Sanders said he would oppose the federal government’s equipping local police with military equipment. “I saw the pictures. It looked like we were in Iraq someplace; not in a small community in the United States of America.”

The youngest person at the table, 23-year-old Steven Green, a seminary student and activist from Chicago, said despite cases like Laquan McDonald, shot 16 times while walking away from the police, Chicago still has a police review board with no subpoena power, no indictment power and appointed by the mayor.

“There’s a lack of faith and trust in these citizen review boards,” Green said. “They don’t meet national standards and they are tilted to the mayor’s perspective and we have no redress.”

Sanders agreed that the police who break the law must be held accountable and police departments should “look like the communities they serve.”

He added that despite the fact that violence and murder against unarmed African-Americans have been happening for decades, social media has “revolutionized the visibility. So now, whether it’s the McDonald case or the Freddie Gray case, we now see things on television that before was kind of swept under the rug.”

Turning to educational issues, Bryant pointed out that Coppin State College, a historically Black college, is only six blocks away from the site of the arrest of Freddie Gray, a 21-year-old who could have been a student in that college under different circumstances.

Dr. Lezli Baskerville, president/CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, said HBCUs are most often located in areas of high destress and fewer resources.

If there were more resources for HBCUs, much in the community could be turned around, she said. HBCUs are “3 percent of American colleges and universities and graduate 50 percent of teaching professionals, 60 percent of health professionals, and 42 percent” in STEM fields, Baskerville said.

Sanders agreed, “You can’t achieve your goals without thriving HBCUs.”  He stated his desire to make tuition free at public colleges and universities and to expand Pell grants, which are now being cut.

On economic justice, the conversation came full circle back to the streets.

“If you look at Sandtown, there’s not a bank branch within two miles of the neighborhood. But, you can find banking systems such as check cashing stores, and liquor stores” said the Rev. S. Todd Yeary, pastor of the Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore.

“These are not new problems. This is dejavu,” Yeary said, referring to the Kerner Commission report of 1968. That report infamously concluded, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one Black, one White - separate and unequal”.

Sanders agreed, reflecting on his brief tour of Sandtown: “We walked around. There were no branch banks here. So where do I do my banking? What do I have to pay to cash my check of $250? What interest rate do I have to pay? Point being, it is very expensive to be poor,” he said to the verbal agreement of many around the table.

Sanders continued, “Second of all, where I live, there is quality food. I didn’t see a grocery store around here. So, what are Moms feeding their kids? Potato chips? It’s quite expensive. It probably costs more to eat here than it does in my community to be honest with you and the quality is substantially worse. Clearly, we need a revolution in financial services in America.”

Emerging from the meeting into a press conference, Bryant was clear that the pastors who participated were not endorsing Sanders, but simply having a conversation as they will with other presidential candidates – Democrats and Republicans.

The ultimate hope, he said, is justice for people in Baltimore – and across America – who live under oppressive conditions.

“They’re not looking for welfare, they’re not looking for handouts. They’re looking for an opportunity to work and to - in fact - be giving citizens back into the community,” Bryant explained. “The people behind me stand and bear witness that this is not just a Baltimore problem; it is a Black America problem.”

Dec. 13, 205

Blackonomics

Compro Tax - This Black-owned National Tax Preparer is Available Year Round
By James Clingman

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As we talk about what to do and not do with our dollars during the holiday season, retailers are eagerly awaiting and preparing for another way to get your money.  After the “after Christmas” sales, furniture stores, electronics outlets, car dealers, and anyone else with something to sell will be licking their lips about yet another high-spending season.  It is a time of the year when consumers are quite vulnerable because many of us feel like we have “extra” money to spend.  That extra money is called “tax refunds.”

Other than folks who get the earned income credit, most people do not view tax refunds as their own money that has IRS has held for a year or more.  Many treat it like found money, which makes it very easy for us to go out and spend it on “Tax Refund Sales.”  Truth is, it’s already your money; you earned it and the IRS is just giving it back to you.  Irrespective of that reality, each year consumers splurge and go on buying binges with their “windfall” refunds.

This is not an effort to tell you how to spend your refund; that’s your decision.  This is an effort to inform my readers about Compro Tax, a national Black owned and operated tax preparation and financial services firm.  As I have done virtually every year via this column and in the five books I have written, I continue to write about Compro Tax, especially around this time of the year because if we have to hire someone to prepare our taxes, at least let it be a Black owned company.

According to Franchise Help.com, “The tax preparation industry is big business – 38,287 firms operated in the field last year, generating 7.7 billion in annual revenue. Because it is required, tax preparation tends to be recession resistant.”

Compro Tax, started more than 30 years ago, comprises over 200 affiliates throughout the country, was founded by Jackie Mayfield, and is domiciled in Beaumont, Texas.  Mayfield and his partners, associates, and staff are dedicated not only to being the best of the best in the tax industry but being great corporate citizens in the communities in which they reside.  In addition, Compro Tax offices are open and active all year long rather than just moving in for the tax season and disappearing after April 15^th.

Further, prospective Compro Tax affiliates are offered across-the-board assistance with start-up and continuous training in an effort to stay up to date on all tax policies and other financial issues and benefits of which customers can take advantage.

If you hire someone to prepare your tax return, even if you do not use Compro Tax, please hire a Black owned company.  It makes no sense for us to be so ensconced in demonstrations and protests around Black dollars while not making every effort to spend some of those dollars with a Black owned tax firm—and other Black companies, not just because they are Black but also because they provide excellent service.

Compro Tax is committed to improving communities and affording business opportunities to prospective entrepreneurs.  As a glowing example of community involvement and “giving back,” Compro Tax built, owns, and operates a convention/event center in Beaumont, Texas to serve the needs of residents for a top-notch, first-class meeting facility.

Eighty-two million tax returns are filed by paid preparers.  Don’t you think that in light of our rhetoric about supporting Black businesses we should support Compro Tax?  Franchise Help.com also wrote, “The vast, vast majority of tax preparers are small – 37% were run by a single person, while 53% were operated by less than ten. There were128,393 total employees in the field last year. There were plenty of tax returns to go around.”

Unlike other tax firms, Compro Tax does not hire folks in clown suits to wave placards in front of their offices to attract customers; Compro Tax gets its business simply by providing outstanding customer service from industry experts.

Finally, for those who believe that advocating for support of Black businesses is separatist, divisive, or unfair, as some Black folks in Detroit voiced back in 2005 when Dr. Claud Anderson attempted to develop a Black business enclave in that city, I offer one more quote from the article on Franchise Help.com: “One approach some tax preparation businesses take to avoid the stark seasonality of the tax preparation business is to diversify and enter other related fields.  Others, like Siempre Tax+ are focused on specific markets, like the ‘Hispanic’ population.”

I rest my case.

To find the Compro Tax office nearest you or if you are interested in starting your own Compro Tax office, go to their website:  www.comprotax.net or call 409-882- 9893; toll free, 1-888 884 2829.  And don’t spend all of your tax return in one place.