Positive Young Black Male News: Urban Prep Does It Again

Tony Moseley, 18, a Posse Scholar, center, is congratulated by friends James Cole, 18, left and Cedric Hakeem, 17, as he steps to the front of the auditorium to be recognized for his accomplishments during an assembly at Urban Prep on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011. Every senior at Urban Prep Academy in Chicago has been accepted to a four year college and the school held an assembly.
----Nancy Stone/ Chicago Tribune
from The Chicago Tribune:

Urban Prep charter school again beats the odds
All seniors accepted to college for second year in row
By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Tribune reporter
9:32 p.m. CST, February 16, 2011

Fire broke out in Cedric Abdul-Hakeem's Englewood home Dec. 31. After making sure everyone was out safely, the 17-year-old re-entered the smoke-filled home to retrieve his laptop.

"My laptop had all my applications, and most college applications are due Jan. 1," explained Abdul-Hakeem. "I figured if my laptop burns, I'm through."

He got his laptop. He got the applications in on time. And so far, he's been accepted to half a dozen colleges, including Grinnell College in Iowa, where most of his tuition will be paid through scholarships and grants.

Abdul-Hakeem is yet another Urban Prep success story. For the second consecutive year, every single senior in Chicago's only public all-male, all-African-American high school has been accepted to a four-year college or university.


In all, the 104 members of the 2011 graduating class have been accepted to 103 colleges, including some of the country's most selective schools. With many acceptance letters still anticipated, the charter school, which has campuses in the Englewood, South Shore and East Garfield Park neighborhoods, is hoping at least one of its students this year will land an Ivy League invitation.

"We would never advocate that anybody run into a burning building to get a computer or essay or application, but what (Abdul-Hakeem's story) speaks to is how much our students are dedicated and focused on getting into college," said Urban Prep's founder and CEO, Tim King. "They recognize that with college they will have very different lives that will be transformative for them and their communities."

On Wednesday, Urban Prep Academy for Young Men celebrated its repeat with a tie-exchanging ritual in which the final three seniors to receive acceptance letters exchanged their red uniform ties for red-and-gold ones as the other seniors did before them. Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago Public Schools' interim chief education officer Charles Payne were on hand. So was alum Israel Wilson, a freshman at Morehouse College in Atlanta, who said he has earned a 3.3 GPA and made the dean's list his first semester.

Skeptics last year had questioned whether grads would actually attend college and be able to succeed in higher ed programs. One of the school's missions is to ensure students earn that bachelor's degree, so King and his staff have helped secure money for plane tickets, driven students to college campuses, held workshops for alumni in the summer and winter, and checked up on them. Of the 107 seniors in 2010—the school's first graduating class—101 enrolled in college, King said. Three went into the military and another three joined the work force.

Just some good news this morning. Many blessings in the future for these young men.

Andrew Greeley’s Chicago Catholics -- Sightings

The Roman Catholic Church in America is an interesting institution.  It seems to be getting more and more conservative, especially as seen in pronouncements of its bishops on issues such as abortion.  It is also getting more ethnically diverse.  Even as White Catholics seem to be exiting, their ranks are being taken more and more by Latinos.  Consider this statistic from Putnam and Campbell's American Grace -- 58% of Catholics between the ages 18 and 34 are Latino.  If it weren't for Hispanic immigration, the Roman Catholic Church would be in a position similar to Mainline Protestantism (American Grace, pp. 300ff).   One of the most interesting interpreters of Roman Catholicism over the years has been Andrew Greeley, a Catholic priest, sociologist, professor, and author of rather racy novels.  His final book takes up the Catholic situation in Chicago, and in today's edition of Sightings Greeley's colleague at the University of Chicago and long-time friend Martin Marty takes up the issues raised by this locally focused book, which suggests that there is good news for Catholics, but maybe not for the bishops!

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Sightings 12/20/2010

Andrew Greeley’s Chicago Catholics

- Martin E. Marty

Father Andrew Greeley, friend, neighbor, sociologist, novelist, youngster—we were born on the same day, but he arrived three hours later—has published over 150 works of fiction and non-fiction. Chicago Catholics and the Struggles within Their Church is his final book. Final, that is, because two years ago he suffered a brain injury, after the manuscript was well along. Colleagues brought the materials together, but insist that it is “Andy’s book,” and anyone who has read him and reads this will recognize the stamp: he honors some friends, picks some fights with others, and loves to present data which many will find provocative, controversial, and slanted counter-intuitively.

While the Pope and the bishops, with most of whom he is out of patience, make global news, Greeley has engaged in survey work which assures that he has his feet on the ground. His regard for the Catholic people—whom he thinks the hierarchs overlook—is evident. His writing occupies only sixty-five pages; the rest of the book is made up of appendixes: the Survey Questionnaires, revealing “Interviews in Depth,” and “Transcripts.” If that sounds boring, his opening but summary statements startle.

Yes, he insists, 25 percent of the people in the sample have left the Church, but not for the reasons mass media give. The Church neglects the young, but they are more attached to it than were those in the past (I keep my fingers crossed on that one). “Four-fifths of Chicago Catholics approve of the pope, the Cardinal, and their pastor.” Note that bishops are not included in that list. The lay people make up their own minds about the Church: “With astonishing ease, Chicago Catholics have separated what God demands of them and what the Church expects of them.” After the papal encyclical banning birth control back in 1968, Greeley first foresaw them heading for the exit doors in disappointment and disgust. Many did. Most do not argue about the teachings which do not square with their experience, their life in community, and what they consider to be the Catholic story. They simply ignore what the bishops declare, and bond with each other, enjoying what appeals to them in Catholicism.

Not that all is well with Chicago Catholics. “Very few young people plan to be a priest or a nun. Cafeteria Catholicism divides the Catholic population into two groups. Catholic schools are closing. Many dispense themselves from Sunday Mass because they get nothing out of it, because it is dull, tedious, and BORING!”

It wouldn’t be part of Greeley’s testament if it did not include his prediction about the reception of his survey findings and conclusions: “Both the left, which thinks Chicago Catholics should be more resentful of their leadership, and the right, which thinks that Catholics are more orthodox—or should be—on sexual issues, will try to cast doubts on the study.” He defends the survey methods and justifies the choice of Chicago, with which he has a love affair, for his sampling. And it wouldn’t be Greeley if it did not include lines like this: “The current bench of bishops is terrified of research which, because the men sitting on the bench (most of whom should have been left back in the locker room) have learned to expect nothing but bad news from research. . . It does not matter that much of the research reports good news.” The bad news of the last two years is Greeley’s debilitating injury. The good news appears along with mixed data in what he found and for what he argues in this book and, better yet, that the book could appear at all.

References:

Andrew Greeley, Chicago Catholics and the Struggles within Their Church (New Jersey: Transaction, 2010).

Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Bishop Arthur M. Brazier passed away at the age of 89

When a whole lotta Negroes were scared of upsetting King Richard Daley I, and turned their backs on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he came to Chicago, Brazier was not one of them. He welcomed Dr. King and marched with him proudly.

It was Brazier's Apostolic C.O.G.I.C. where then candidate Barack Obama came to deliver his Father's Day speech in 2008, after the whole Rev. Wright fiasco.

from the Chicago Tribune:

Bishop Arthur M. Brazier, 1921-2010
Civil rights legend, founder of The Woodlawn Organization
By Margaret Ramirez, Tribune reporter
9:00 p.m. CDT, October 22, 2010

In the 1960s, Bishop Arthur M. Brazier marched through the streets of Chicago alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the struggle against segregation in housing and schools.

He helped start The Woodlawn Organization to shepherd his South Side community through racial unrest and neighborhood upheaval. A spiritual leader as well, Bishop Brazier was Pentecostal pastor of the Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn for more than 48 years, building a congregation of nearly 20,000 members before handing church leadership over to his son, the Rev. Bryon Brazier, in 2008.

Bishop Brazier, 89, who influenced generations of pastors and parishioners and who was praised by President Barack Obama as "one of our nation's leading moral lights," died Friday, Oct. 22, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, after a five-year struggle with prostate cancer, his family said.
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For decades, Bishop Brazier fought gangs and crime and pushed for more affordable homes and better schools. As founding president of The Woodlawn Organization, he opposed plans by the nearby University of Chicago to expand, which would have displaced residents and use land he hoped to develop for low-income housing.

While he refused to preach politics from the pulpit, his wide influence made the Apostolic Church of God an obligatory campaign stop for politicians.

On Father's Day in 2008, presidential candidate Obama delivered a key campaign speech on the importance of family in Bishop Brazier's church. The president issued a statement Friday saying he and the first lady were "deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our dear friend, a stalwart of the city of Chicago."

"Bishop Brazier … promoted spiritual empowerment and economic development through his pastorate of Apostolic Church of God and leadership of numerous community organizations and charitable efforts," Obama said.

rest of obituary at link above.