Links:The Black Star Project's website:
Black Star Journal:
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82 SHOT- 15
FATALLY- IN CHICAGO OVER HOLIDAY WEEKEND
Monday, July 07, 2014
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Violence in
Chicago over the holiday weekend once again garnered national attention after
more than 80 people were shot, at least 15 of them
fatally.
"It's Groundhog Day in Chicago," Chicago Police
Superintendent Garry McCarthy said on Monday. He ran through a list of the
shootings, focusing on the guns the alleged offenders had- and their criminal
pasts. Between 4 p.m. Thursday, July 3, and 3:30 a.m. Monday, 82 people
were shot on the streets of Chicago. Fourteen of them died. McCarthy cited lower
numbers- and a shorter time span from 6 p.m. Thursday to midnight Monday -
during his news conference. In eight incidents, Chicago police officers
were threatened or shot at and returned fire, McCarthy said. Police wounded five
people, killing two of them, in those shootings. The police-involved shootings
are under review, as standard procedure. Who are the murderers and their
victims? A 2011 Chicago police analysis found 90 percent of murder victims in
the city are men, 76 percent of victims have prior arrest records, and the most
common ages of killers are 17 and 18 years old. He said over the holiday
weekend hundreds of extra police officers were on patrol across in many of the
most violent dangerous neighborhoods. "There are no swings.
No basketball courts. They holler, 'This is my turf.' No. I pay $1,200 a year in
taxes. This is my turf. OK. And they need something for young people,"
Washington said."The gun violence that was part of this
weekend was totally unacceptable to every resident from the city of Chicago
regardless of where they lift," Emanuel said. "Where are the parents? Where are
the communities? Where are the gun laws?"
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With 82 people shot in
Chicago,
why is Chicago letting one of the
best youth not-for-profits in America, in one of Chicago's most violent
communities, close its doors?
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Diane Lakiter and youth in
front of former community center for Kids Off The Block. Program is now being
run from her house, again. Shame on all of
us!
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Remarkable
Woman: Diane Latiker
Kids Off the Block founder opens
home, heart, to children in
need
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz, Tribune
newspapers
December 12,
2011
Diane Latiker balked when her
mother first suggested she get the neighborhood teens off the street by inviting
them into her home.
"For the life of me I didn't
want to do it," said Latiker, a mother of eight living in the gang-torn Roseland
community on Chicago's far South Side.
But after praying on it,
Latiker decided for the sake of her youngest daughter, Aisha, 13 at the time, to
open her doors to youth needing a safe haven from broken homes and
violence-plagued streets. What began as 10 of Aisha's friends hanging out in her
living room soon grew to 20 kids pushing into her dining room, then 40, and
more.
"One
day I looked up and there were 75 young people in my apartment," said Latiker,
who was living in the modest three-bedroom two-flat with her husband, daughter
and mother.
Latiker got rid of furniture
to make room for the kids and sold the family's TV to buy six used computers,
setting them up in her dining room. The idea was that the teens would come after
school, but they came whenever they needed. Some showed up at 6 a.m., Latiker
said. Others would spend the night sleeping on her floor. She came to be known
as "mom" to many.
Eight years later, some 1,500
kids have cycled through Latiker's nonprofit, Kids Off The Block, which now runs
out of a squat brick building, formerly a liquor store, at 117th Street and
Michigan Avenue, a few doors down from her house.
(Latiker
has been honored by as a ComEd "Neighborhood Hero" 2014; a Defender "Women of
Excellence Awardee" 2014; a BET "Shine Your Light Awardee" 2013; a Red Cross
"Community Impact Awardee" 2012; and a CNN "Top Ten Hero Awardee"
2011.)
Click Here to Read Full
Story***************************************************************
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Head stones for hundreds of
youth killed in Chicago at a memorial site managed by Kids Off the
Block
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Click Here to ask Chicago
Mayor Rahm Emanuel to support Kids Off The
Block or call his office at 312.744.5000.
Click Here to Invest in the Work
of Kids Off The Block.
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Join The Black Star
Project
as
We Invite Parents to an "Action Meeting" on Reducing Violence in
Chicago
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Only
Committed, Engaged Parents Can Effectively Reduce
Violence in Chicago
on:
Saturday, July 12, 2014, 11:00 am
The Black Star Project, Suite 2B
3509 South King Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60653
Please call 773.285.9600 for more
information.
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The Community
Plan to Reduce Violence in Chicago
If you are
failing to plan, you are planning to fail
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Inspired by the peacemaking
efforts of The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in Chicago, the Fruit of Islam
men of Muhammad Mosque No. 45 in Houston took to the streets to promote peace on
July 16, 23 & 28, 2012. The brothers visited the Southwest Side. And also
Crestmont and Villa Americana Apartment Complexes in the Southeast area. (Photo
by Jesse Muhammad).
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Community Asking for a Re-Direct of
$100 Million in Police Overtime in 2013 to
$100 Million in Community Literacy,
Mentoring, Parenting and Employment Programs to Reduce
Violence
The community
plan includes:
1) Establish and fund 8 Community
Enterprise Zones for $12 million each with police overtime money, which will
include job training, entrepreneurship, small business development, jobs and
corporate/community partnerships in the communities with the highest rates of
violence. A community advisory board made up of community members and some
government officials will govern the Community Enterprise Zones.
2) Establish Community Safety
Patrols of community members that will operate on main thorough fares, in
business districts, at transportation hubs and in the communities with the
highest rates of violence. These men and women are not police officers will not
have police powers. Their job is to promote community safety in ways that the
police cannot. We would request The Nation of Islam
to do the training of the Community Safety Patrols.
3) Establish a street corner
mentoring of young men that puts mentors in the lives of young men on street
corners, at liquor stores, at barbershops and other places that these young men
frequent. Arm these mentors with resources that include educational
opportunities, fatherhood programs, employment opportunities, expungement,
recreational activities, gang deactivation programs and other needed
resources.
4) initiate a "Ban the Box"
legislative initiative to de-criminalize citizens who are returning to their
communities from prison. They have served their time. This will help rebuild
the workforce and family units in these communities.
5) Establish a Community Clean-up
Corps of young men cleaning, building and beautifying the communities of which
some of them are now terrorizing.
Please call Chicago's City Hall at 312.744.5000 and ask for the Mayor's
Office or go to www/cityofchicago.org and click on
"Contact us" to request this plan. Please request that the City of Chicago
support and implement the "The Community Plan to Reduce Violence!"
Click Here to see the men from
the Nation of Islam, Mosque No. 45 bring discipline, order, peace and hope to
the streets of Houston.
Please call The Black Star Project at 773.285.9600 for more information
about this plan.
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WELL-EDUCATED
BLACK PARENTS EQUAL BRIGHTER FUTURES
By Michael Holzman
June 30, 2014
The U.S. Department of
Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress periodically measures
literacy skills at grades four, eight, and 12.
The results are reported at four
levels: At Basic and below Basic; at Proficient and at Advanced for each grade
level. As reading is the basis for all other education, and as by grade eight
schooling has had ample time to be effective, grade eight reading proficiency
can be taken as a good indicator of the quality of education available to
students.
The quality of the data made
available by NAEP allows us to identify those factors most significant in
determining whether a child will grow up in the virtuous circle of good
educational opportunities and class mobility, or the vicious circle of poor
educational opportunities and caste sedimentation.
In 1992, nine percent of black
students in grade eight read at the Proficient level and for all practical
purposes no black students read at the Advanced level. Twenty-one years later,
in 2013, 16 percent of black students read at the Proficient level in grade
eight and one percent read at the Advanced level. Although the percentage of
black students reading a grade level or above in grade eight has doubled, 83
percent of African American students still read below the level expected at
grade eight.
According to U.S. Department of
Education data for the 2011-12 school year, the most recent available, there
were 586,231 black students and in eighth grade. Therefore, there were nearly
half a million black students reading below grade level and almost exactly
100,000 black students reading at or above grade level in grade eight, which is
one-third the number that would be expected if Black students had equal
educational opportunities to those afforded white students.
Black students who reported that their parents who had
graduated from high school were at or above grade level 9 percent of the time in
2013. For black students who said that their parents had some education after
high school, 21 percent were at Proficient or above in 2013. The black children
of college graduates were at or above grade level 22 percent of the
time.
Twenty percent of black students, without regard to
family income or parental education attainment, attending schools in the
suburbs, as compared to 14 percent in city schools, read at or above grade
level.
Twenty-two percent of black eighth graders whose parents
had completed college were at least proficient readers as compared to 8 percent
of those whose parents had not completed high school.
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Join the
2014
Million Father
March
630 Cities
Participated in the
2013 Million Father March!!!
Every Father and Every Man and Every School in America Should Participate
in the Million Father March on the First Day of School!!!
Call
773.285.9600 to lead the effort in your city. Women should
encourage and support men in this effort. Women can also take the lead. We
will give you everything you need to create a successful Million
Father March in your city or at your
school.
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Girls
Need Mentoring Too!!!
The Black Star Project
Begins Mentoring Girls
Bring
Your Girls 9 to 14 Years Old
Thursdays, 6:30 pm, FREE!
The Black Star Project
3509 South King Drive
Chicago, Illinois
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Parents should call 773.285.9600 to enroll their
daughters, granddaughters or nieces into this
program.
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