Empowering Students and Connecting Worlds

 

One of the more publicized highlights of Dr. Carson's amazing career was the first successful separation of craniopagus (Siamese) twins joined at the back of the head in 1987, the first completely successful separation of type-2 vertical crainopagus twins in 1997 in South Africa, and the first successful placement of an intrauterine shunt for a hydrocephalic twin.  Although he has been involved in many newsworthy operations, he feels that every case is noteworthy -- deserving of maximum attention.  He is interested in all aspects of pediatric neurosurgery and has a special interest in trigeminal neuralgia (severe facial pain) in adults.

 

Dr. Carson holds more than 50 honorary doctorate degrees.  He sits on the board of directors of numerous organizations, including Kellogg Company, Costco Wholesale Corporation, the Academy of Achievement, and is an Emeritus Fellow of the Yale Corporation, the governing body of Yale University.  He was appointed in 2004 by President George W. Bush to serve on the President's Council on Bioethics.

 

In 2001, Dr. Carson was named by CNN and Time Magazine as one of the nation's 20 foremost physicians and scientists.  That same year, he was selected by the Library of Congress as one of 89 "Living Legends" on the occasion of its 200th anniversary.  He is also the recipient of the 2006 Springarn Medal which is the highest honor bestowed by the NAACP.  In February, 2008, Dr. Carson was presented with the Ford's Theatre Lincoln Medal by President Bush at the White House.  In June, 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the President, which is the highest civilian honor in the land.  He has received literally hundreds of other awards during his distinguished career.

 

Source:  http://carsonscholars.org/

 

Kenneth Irvine Chenault, born June 2, 1951, was the first African-American CEO of a Fortune 500 company, American Express.  Prior to being appointed CEO, Mr. Chenault served as president of American Express from 1997-2001.  He was born on Long Island in 1951, attended the Waldorf School of Garden City and is a graduate of Bowdoin College (1973) and Harvard Law School (1977).  After Harvard he worked as an associate with the law firm Rogers & Wells in New York City (1977-1979) and as a consultant for Bain & Company (1979-1981).

 

When in January 2001 Mr. Chenault claimed the top position at American Express---one of the best-known symbols of U.S. capitalism, then with yearly sales of $25 billion---the prospects for African-Americans in corporate America had seemed dismal.  Only two other African Americans headed Fortune 500 companies:  Franklin Raines was the CEO of Fannie Mae, and A. Barry Rand was the CEO of Avis.

 

For his part Chenault did not dwell on racial issues.  He understood the social significance of his appointment but wanted people to judge him based solely on his performance.  He commented in Fortune, "It's a big deal; I won't minimize it.  But I want them to say, 'He's a terriffic CEO,' not 'He's a terrific black CEO.'  Because the reasons why I'm CEO have nothing to do with the social significance of this breakthrough.  I've always been focused on performance" (January 22, 2001).

 

In 1995, Ebony Magazine listed Mr. Chenault alongside Michael Jordan, Rosa Parks, Bill Cosby and Colin Powell as one of 50 "living pioneers" in the African-American community.

 

Source:  Nationmaster.com/encyclopedia and Answers.com

 

Marva Collins grew up in Atmore, Alabama at a time when segregation was the rule.  Black people were not permitted to use the public library, and her schools had few books, and no indoor plumbing.  Nonetheless, her family instilled in her an awareness of the family's historical excellence and helped develop her strong desire for learning, achievement and independence.  After graduating from Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia, she taught school in Alabama for two years.  She moved to Chicago and taught in Chicago's public school system for fourteen years. 

 

Her experiences in that system, coupled with her dissatisfaction with the quality of education that her two youngest children were receiving in prestigious private schools, convinced her that children deserved better than what was passing for acceptable education.  That conviction led to her decision to open her own school on the second floor of her home.  She took the $5,000 balance in her school pension fund and began her educational program with an enrollment of her own two children and four other neighborhood youngsters.

 

Thus, Westside Preparatory School was founded in 1975 in Garfield Park, a Chicago inner-city area.  During the first year, Marva took in learning disabled, problem children and even one child who had been labeled by Chicago public school authorities as borderline retarded.  At the end of the first year, every child scored at least five grades higher proving that the previous labels placed on these children were misguided.  The CBS program 60 Minures, visited her school for the second time in 1996.  That little girl who had been labeled as borderline retarded, graduated in 1976 from college Summa Cum Laude.  It was documented on the 60 Minutes programs in 1996.  Marva's graduates have entered some of the nation's finest colleges and universities, such as Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, to mention just a few.  And, they have become physicians, lawyers, engineers, educators, and entered other professions.

 

Her achievements prompted President Ronald Reagan to offer her the post of Secretary of Education, which she declined in order to continue the development of Westside Preparatory School.

 

Ms. Collins has received many accolades in recognition of her outstanding work with children.  She was featured on Good Morning, America, 20/20, Fox News, and many more programs too numerous to list.  A made-for-television movie titled, The Marva Collins Story starred Cicely Tyson and Morgan Freeman first aired in 1982, and is still presented on television. 

 

Some of her awards include:

 

 

She has turned the responsibilities of running her school over to her daughter, Cynthia B. Collins, who was one of her first students in the Westside Preparatory School.  Today, Marva Collins trains teachers in her educational program and methodology.  Her curriculum is based on classical  literature, and other subject material that contain ideas, lofty thoughts, and abstract concepts.  The purpose is to teach children the values that hold societies together and that present to students thoughts that may be interpreted differently.  Fourth graders in her school, for example, read Plato's dialogue, The Republic.  In it, Plato asks, "What is justice?"  Justice has different meaning, according to one's viewpoint or interpretations.  The students are encouraged to express their own opinion.  And, as any observer of Ms. Collins classes will attest, the children are eager to participate in classroom discussions, and their verbal skills are outstanding as are their reasoning abilities.  Her students are taught to appreciate the nuances of language, how to analyze and challenge what they read, and to express their opinions.  They learn to contrast their own ideas with the differing ones as expressed by the other students.

 

Ms. Collins has spoken to many major corporations including The National Girl Scouts, The National Retailers Association, The National Dairy Association, The European Division of IBM, Xerox Corporation, The Million Dollar Roundtable, The Young President's Organization (YPO), The National Bankers' Association, Anheuser-Busch, Coors, and she has trained executives of Long John Silvers.  Corporations have accurately discerned that the same skills Ms. Collins develops in her students are applicable in successful business entities.

 

Source:  http://www.marvacollins.com/

Ann Fudge became the first African-American to head a major advertising agency when she was named CEO of Young & Rubicam Inc., a division of WPP Group.  While at Young & Rubicam she managed the Young & Rubicam Advertising Agency, the Landor Associates branding firm and the public relations firm Burson-Marstellar, among others.

 

Young & Rubicam Advertising at the time Ms. Fudge assumed control was Young & Rubicam's largest operating unit, with reported billings of $3.4 billion in 2002.  She served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Young & Rubicam from 2003 to the end of 2006.

 

The Young & Rubicam agency is a major industry force which has developed ad campaigns for Lincoln-Mercury, AT&T, Colgate, Sears and Metropolitan Life.

 

Prior to joining Young & Rubicam, Ms. Fudge worked at General Mills and at General Foods, where she served in a number of positions, including president of Kraft General Foods' Maxwell House Coffee Company, and president of Kraft's Beverages, Desserts and Post Divisions.

 

Ms. Fudge is one of the most accomplished women in the world of business.  She serves on the Board of Directors of General Electric, Honeywell International, Marriott International, the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  She is also a trustee of the Brookings Institution, and is on the board of overseers of Harvard University.

 

Ms. Fudge received a BA degree from Simmons College and an MBA from Harvard University.

 

Ms. Fudge most recently joined healthcare firm, Norvatis AG's Board of Directors.  Ms. Fudge was elected to the Board of Directors for a three-year term.

 

Founder and owner of the Tamla-Motown family record labels, Berry Gordy, Jr. established Motown Records as one of the most important independent labels in the early '60s.  Assembling an industrious staff of songwriters, producers, and musicians, Motown Records built one of the most impressive rosters of artists in the history of pop music, and became the largest and most successful independent record company in the United States by 1964.

 

With this in mind, Graves founded Black Enterprise magazine in New York City in 1970.  At the time, only the Johnson Company in Chicago issued magazines targeted at Black readers in the United States:  Ebony and Jet.  Many believed Graves was too optimistic in starting a magazine aimed at African American businesspeople.  At the time, there were only about 100,0000 Black-owned businesses in the United States, and most of them were small, family-run, neighborhood operations.  Only three of the 3,000 business leaders who were serving on the boards of Fortune 500 companies were African Americans.  "Lacking capital, managerial and technical knowledge and crippled by prejudice, the minority businessman has been effectively kept out of the marketplace.  We want to help change this," Graves declared in Black Enterprise's first issue in August 1970.

 

Graves' publication was a success within its first year, becoming profitable after just ten issues.  In June 1973, the magazine started listing its Black Enterprise 100, ranking the top Black-owned companies in America by revenues.  At the time, Berry Gordy's music and entertainment company, Motown, was number one on the list, and it remained there for a record eleven years.  In time, as Black-owned businesses grew in both number and revenues, the magazine expanded its rankings to list banks and insurance companies, auto dealerships, and other enterprises; it also began to publish statistics on Fortune 500 and other companies that were positive places for African Americans to work or to join as franchisees.

 

Graves expanded his empire over the years.  He acquired several radio stations, and in 1990, in a much-heralded deal, joined with Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson to acquire the distribution rights for Pepsi-Cola products in the Washington, D.C. area.  It was a $60 million deal, and their venture became the largest minority-owned franchise in the United States at that time.  It was all the more remarkable because Pepsi rarely allowed outsiders to acquire its lucrative local distribution franchises.  "Pepsi-Cola made the conscious decision, to their credit, to identify a minority person who could be a successful bottler," Graves told Beverage World's Tim Davis.

 

Graves has often used the pages of Black Enterprise to call attention to unfinished civil rights business.  He urged readers to support historically Black colleges and to contribute to the United Negro College Fund.  In one "Letter to My Grandchildren," Graves noted that many critical changes had taken place since his own childhood, opening the doors for unparalleled achievement for Blacks in the United States.  "It is important to remind ourselves from time to time that the entrepreneurial, professional, and economic strides and accomplishments that fill the pages of BE each month were unimaginable just a few short decades ago, " he wrote.  However, Graves noted, there was still work to be done, particularly with setbacks in affirmative action in the 1990s. "...Even as we pause to congratulate ourselves, our celebration is tempered by deep concerns," he reflected.  "I worry that the same legislation and policies that enabled the advances of my generation, and that of your parents' generation, will no longer exist for your generation."

 

Black Enterprise magazine continues to thrive.  In 2001, the company enjoyed $5.7 million in sales, with four million readers.  The company also included a book publishing arm, sponsored seminars for entrepreneurs, and ran a private equity investment fund.  Washington Post writer Linton Weeks called its founder, "one of the most influential Black businesspeople in the country" and also said Graves "has used Black Enterprise to tell the community how to work together, dress smart, pull strings, borrow money, live revengefully well."

 

Source:  Answers.com

 

 

After working for KOWH, a Black radio station in Omaha, Hughes was offered a job as a lecturer and Assistant to the Dean of Communications at Howard University School of Communications in Washington, D.C.  In 1973 she became general sales manager of WHUR-FM, and by 1975 was hired as the general manager of the station.  In 1978 Hughes left WHUR for WYCB Radio, where she served as the vice president and general manager of the station.

 

Hughes and her husband at the time, Dewey Hughes, decided they wanted to buy their own radio station in 1979, and after being rejected by thirty-two banks, they found a lender.  With their loan, they purchased WOL, a small Washington, D.C. station, and Radio One was born.

 

Hughes' marriage ended shortly after purchasing the station and she began her path as a single mother.  She purchased her husband's share in the station, but hard times soon forced she and her son, Alfred, to give up their apartment and move into the station to make ends meet.  Over time, however, the station began turning a profit, largely due to the success of her talk show.

 

Since the early days of being a station owner, Hughes' rise has been remarkable.  Today, Radio One owns 65 radio stations throughout every major market in the country, making the company the largest Black-owned radio chain in the nation.  In January of 2004, Hughes launched TV One, a cable television channel targeted at the African American community.

 

Source:  The HistoryMakers

 

 

His story is the American story --- values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

 

As CEO, Mr. Parsons led Time Warner's turnaround and set the company on a solid path toward achieving sustainable growth.  In the process, he put in place the industry's most experienced and successful management team, strengthened the company's balance sheet and simplified its corporate structure, and carried out a disciplined approach to realigning the company's portfolio of assets to improve returns.  In its January 2005 report on America's Best CEOs, Institutional Investor magazine named Mr. Parsons the top CEO in the entertainment industry.

 

Second Lieutenant Emily J. T. Perez, 23, West Point Graduate, became the first Black Woman to become Command Sergeant in the history of the U. S. Military Academy.  Lieutenat Perez graduated in the top 10 percent of her class, out-ran many men, directed a gospel choir, and read the Bible every day.  She also headed a weekly convoy as it rolled down treacherous roads, pocked with bombs and bullets near Najaf, Iraq.  As platoon leader, she insisted on leading her troops from the front.  Shortly before shipping out to Iraq with the 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, she flew cross-country to be a bone marrow donor for a stranger for whom she was a match.  She was killed in Iraq when a bomb detonated near her Humvee in Kifl, south of Baghdad.  She was the 64th woman from the U. S. military to be killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

 

 

Powell earned an MBA at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and after being promoted to major, won a White House fellowship.  Powell was assigned to the Office of Management and Budget during the administration of President Nixon, and here he made a lasting impression on the Director and Deputy Director of the Office:  Casper Weinberger and Frank Carlucci.  Both of these men were to call on Powell when they served as Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor, respectively, under President Ronald Reagan.

 

In 1991, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H. W. Bush, Powell became a national figure during the successful Desert Shield and Desert Storm operations which expelled the Iraqi army from Kuwait.  General Powell continued as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the first months of the Clinton administration.

 

In 2001, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Colin Powell to be Secretary of State.  At the time, it was the highest rank ever held by an African American in the United States government.  In his first months in office, Powell won praise for his efficient administration of the State Department, and cordial relations with other governments.  Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Secretary Powell took a leading role in rallying America's allies for military action in Afghanistan.

 

 

She was the first and only African American woman to be recognized by the Magazine Publishers of America with the Henry Johnson Fisher Award, the industry's highest honor, and the first to be inducted into the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame.  She is the recipient of the NAACP President's Award for visionary leadership, and has honorary degrees from more than a dozen colleges and universities.