For the NNPA
Picture this: Morehouse running back J.D. Washington strolling across the stage to receive his college degree, his proud papa shouting “That’s my boy.” The May 2006 graduation was emblematic not just for two-time Academy Award winner Denzel Washington and wife Pauletta but for the battered image of America’s black male.
”We’re coming back,” said J.D., pushing back tears and tossing his black mortarboard into a sea of more than 600 fellow graduates.
Amid the almost daily barrage of media headlines about the dearth of black men in higher education, there are bright spots. Two key studies in July show more and more African-American males are attending and graduating from college. Increasingly, many of them are choosing one of America’s historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.
Morehouse College is one of the nation’s top degree-producing institutions for African-American males. This year, the college graduated its largest class ever – more than 600 graduates compared to less than 500 a year earlier.
A new report from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE) states that in 2004, the latest year for which complete data is available, there were 758,400 black males enrolled in higher education, compared to 603,032 in 2000. This is the highest level of enrollments for African-American males in history. Black males made 4.4 percent of all enrollments in higher education. The JBHE report notes that about 28 percent of foreign-born black men in the U.S. have a four-year college degree. This is very close to the educational attainment figures for native-born white men in America.
Dr. Walter E. Massey, president of Morehouse College, says, ”At Morehouse developing young men is our only business. We build an expectation of success: lawyers, the physicians, the bus drivers and computer technicians.” He cited James Baldwin’s call for radical change: ”These are our children and we will benefit by or pay for what they become.”
Funding for workers with developmental disabilities
Jobs and Employment Support Services (JESS) received appropriations of $835,355 from the Productive Living Board for St. Louis County Citizens with Developmental Disabilities (PLB). It is the fifth largest total appropriations awarded by PLB for fiscal year 2007 which began July 1, 2006 and runs until June 30, 2007.
The appropriations for JESS are part of $15.7 million that PLB is distributing to agencies that support citizens with developmental disabilities so that they can live and work in the community.
According to JESS executive director, Louise Reeves, “This appropriation will enable JESS to continue to create opportunities for clients to work in the private sector earning pay checks, paying taxes and providing valuable goods and services to the community.”
JESS is a private, not-for-profit, 501(C)(3) agency, which provides supported employment services to over 500 youth and adults with developmental disabilities. JESS serves clients in the city of St. Louis and St. Charles County along with those in St. Louis County. JESS receives funding from the St. Louis City and St Charles County counterparts to the PLB. They are the St. Louis Office for MR/DD Resources and the Developmental Disabilities Resource Board of St. Charles.
JESS receives additional funds from the Missouri Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, St. Louis Agency for Training and Employment, United Way of Greater St. Louis, Variety Club, charitable trusts, corporations and individual donors.
Clients assisted by JESS are people who became disabled before the age of 22 due to one of the following conditions: mental retardation, autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, traumatic head injury or a severe learning disability.
Citizens with developmental disabilities in need of employment assistance and employers in need of job candidates are encouraged to call Jerald Marshall, JESS Senior Managing Director at (314)644-1913 ext. 115.
