July 2, 2009 

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (AP) — The Prince George’s County school board has voted to name an Upper Marlboro elementary school after President Barack Obama.

The board voted unanimously June 25 on the name for the school just miles from the White House.

Barack Obama Elementary School, which is expected to be completed later this year, would be the first school in the Washington region to be named after the president, but not the first in the nation. A Long Island school was renamed shortly after Obama was elected in November.

Some objected to naming the school after a president who has been in office only a few months. But board vice chairman Ron Watson says what Obama has done already is significant enough.

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — Northwestern University is making a rare collection of photographs of East Africa available online. The searchable database chronicles the colonization of East Africa from 1860 to 1960.

More than 7,000 photos are in the collection that was acquired in 2002 by Northwestern’s Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies.

Library curator David Easterbrook said putting the photos online gives an “unprecedented opportunity” for scholars. The collection includes formal and informal portraits, including some of slaves, slave traders, missionaries and colonial officials. The exhibit can be accessed at www.library.northwestern.edu/africana/winter ton.

HOUSTON (AP) — Two historically black Texas colleges just received news that will affect their futures and those of their students.

Texas Southern University, which has battled financial and management problems, was taken off probation June 25 by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the university’s accrediting agency.

Paul Quinn College, a small college in Dallas, plans to appeal a decision removing its accreditation, officials said June 25.

Belle Wheelan, president of the SACS’ commission on colleges, said the board voted to lift the probation after Texas Southern President John Rudley and TSU administrators presented evidence about improvements at the school.

Texas Southern, the state’s largest historically black university, was placed on probation in December 2007 because of financial and management problems.

Wheelan cited Paul Quinn’s debt and a lack of funding, planning, assessment and student learning outcomes in the accreditation decision.

Colleges can’t award diplomas without accreditation in Texas and an unaccredited school’s students can’t receive federal or state financial aid.

Michael J. Sorrell, Paul Quinn’s president, said in a statement that the school was disappointed with the ruling and will appeal.

 (AP) — A former high school basketball coach will stand trial on charges he tried to molest one of his players and embezzled $15,000 that was supposed to be used for his team.

Russell Otis, an ex-coach at Dominguez High School in Compton, was ordered by a judge on June 26 to return to court July 6 for arraignment.

Otis, 46, is accused of sending sexually suggestive text messages to a player, now 17, and offering to pay the boy to engage in a sex act during a meeting at the boy’s home in August. Otis was accused of sodomizing a player in 2000 but acquitted at trial.

Prosecutors also believe Otis used a forged authorization letter to deposit a $15,000 Nike sponsorship check to the school district into his personal checking account.

The school district fired Otis this month.

Information from: Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com.

ATLANTA (AP) — The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vast personal collection of papers will be used for the first time to teach a college course on civil rights this fall.

Morehouse College in Atlanta said June 23 it will use the library of about 10,000 documents, books and other papers that have been housed at the school since 2006.

The course, called “Martin Luther King Jr. and the Modern Freedom Struggle,” will be taught by Clayborne Carson, who was named executive director of the collection in January.

King graduated from historically black Morehouse with a degree in sociology in 1948.

Morehouse owns the collection, which was bought from the King estate for $32 million in June 2006.

AIKEN, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina building that was once an industrial training school for children of former slaves has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The Aiken Standard reported June 25 that the former Immanuel School in Aiken County has earned the designation. The newspaper says it is the future home of the Center for African American History, Arts and Culture.

The Immanuel School was founded in 1881 to train students in reading, writing and math as well as in music and job skills. It’s been known by many names, including Immanuel Institute, Coles Normal and Industrial School and Emanuel Mission School and African School among others. The school closed in 1931.

Information from: Aiken Standard, www.aikenstandard.com.

CLEVELAND (AP) — Rap is and always will be a passion for Darryl McDaniels. Likewise, he says, is education.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame invited the former member of pioneering hip-hop group Run-DMC to rap with teachers attending its annual Summer Teacher Institute.

The weeklong workshop that ended June 26 sought to encourage teachers from across the country to find ways to use popular music to better relate to students. About 40 teachers were at McDaniels’ session June 24.

He said he went to Cleveland to encourage teachers to embrace rap as an educational tool and not fear it, even though rap performers can be raw — unabashedly ranting about crime, drugs, gangs and sex.

“He wanted to get across a positive message, that musicians are the spokesmen of society,” said Jessica Cross, 25, a middle school music teacher in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst.

McDaniels, the “DMC” of Run-DMC, helped establish the rap sound about 25 years ago while in his freshman year at St. John’s University.