Banking On Students, Financial Institutions Try to Build Long-Term Customer Base With Technology, Flexibility Monday, Jul 31 2006

 

By Stacy A. Anderson
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, June 2, 2006; 12:26 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/02/AR2006060200783.html

Brittani Riddle, a sophomore radio production major at Howard University, visits a Web site periodically throughout the day — once in the morning on her personal laptop at home; another time on her sidekick while sitting through a dull afternoon poetry class; and again on her laptop after making purchases from a Giant grocery store.

Riddle is not visiting the social network Facebook or Web mail. The focus of her obsession is the Bank of America Web site, where she checks the fluctuating balance of her CampusEdge account throughout the day.

“It saves me the trouble of having to go to the bank. I can see what’s going on with my account before I make a purchase,” she said. “Since I don’t live at home any more, I don’t get my statements, and it’s easier for me to see them online.”

Riddle’s is the most plugged-in generation in history, and its affinity for the online world extends to money matters — in particular Internet banking.

“I have only spoken to a bank teller twice in my life,” said George Washington University graduate student Danielle Duffy. “I do all my banking, transferring, withdrawing and depositing via the Internet or ATMs. I only use my checkbook for my rent — but even my apartment complex has begun an online rent-paying system.”

Several experts say banks have always targeted college students but are pushing harder in recent years with more innovative features geared toward the younger generation.

John Burnett, an associate editor for BankersOnline.com, an online banking network that received 2 million user “hits” in one day for the first time in March, said bank efforts to capture college student customers have changed drastically over the years.

“Back when I was in college, banks typically went after college students with credit card deals, where as now the interest is in checking accounts,” said Burnett, who handled operations, regulatory and legal compliance at Cape Cod Banks and Trust for more than 30 years.

“The focus has shifted completely to a depositing relationship with college students. … [Banks] don’t have to put up as much to attract students. They don’t need as much of a staff and branching network.”

Point and Click

According to a survey released in April by Reston, Va.-based ComScore Networks, the number of consumers who use online banking has increased by 27 percent since last year. It’s no surprise that a large number of this percentage include college students, since most student accounts feature free online banking and free bill pay.

A 2005 survey on financial literacy programs by the Customer Bank Association found that 86 percent of banks surveyed target the general student population and 41 percent use the Internet for college student financial education.

“What is new is more banks have more means to deliver,” said Andy Zavoina, who has worked in banking and finance for 23 years. “The ‘Nintendo era’ has graduated and banking institutions are trying to graduate with them.”

Zavoina, executive vice president of the Glia Group, Inc. and a BankersOnline.com “guru,” said today’s society is more susceptible to instant service.

“The real difference between my father’s generation, who wanted to shake [their] banker’s hand, and people today, who want to see their account online, is many people are not interested in the one-on-one banking anymore,” he said. “We’re heading to a cashless society.”

Elizabeth Jia, a junior broadcast journalism major at the University of Maryland at College Park, has seen the difference in the generation gap.

“My family members prefer the old-fashioned way of ’snail mail,’” Jia said. “On occasion, my parents will access their account information through an automated phone system from the bank.”

The younger generation’s use of online banking has been a natural progression of the times, said Catherine Palmieri, managing director for Citibank.com.

“They grew up with a computer and are comfortable using it. They have contributed to the popularity of online banking,” she said.

Citibank is keen to attract more online customers, even though 51 percent of its checking customers already use the Web site. Citibank recently launched a new service that allows a customer to go from applying to becoming a customer to seeing an account balance all in a six- to seven-minute online session.

Palmieri said Citibank plans to allow clients to bank by mobile phone and Blackberry later this year.

“Particularly, over the past several years, online banking has become a mainstream product that appeals to the broader consumer market,” said Betty Riess, a spokeswoman for Bank of America. “Students are a natural part of the market because of online access.”

Hook In Early

Jia, who opened a checking account with Chevy Chase when she was 18, can attest to the effort of several banks to attract student customers. “Banks have solicited mail about credit cards and also called my dorm to ask if I would like a credit card.”

BankersOnline.com’s Burnett said financial institutions are also trying to attract students before they acquire more expenses.

“Banks think it’s important to start cementing a deposit relationship when the demands are relatively few, as a college student graduates and moves to other aspects of life, trying to cement other relations like home mortgages, in order to get as many roots into the financial institutions,” Burnett said. “The more accounts that a given customer has, the harder it is or [more] reluctant they are to move.”

Duffy has been a Bank of America customer since her freshman year at GWU. She is like many student customers who remain with the same bank after completing undergraduate studies.

“I used to have a student checking account, but I just switched over to a different type of account so I wouldn’t be charged $5 a month,” she said.

Many people associate students’ desire for quick results with a perceived lack of good financial sense. But the idea that most college students are risky clients has diminished as more banks take them on as lifelong customers.

“I do recall that I was terribly irresponsible with money when I was a college student, but I wouldn’t want to paint all students with the same brush,” Burnett said. “Some students are very thrifty — good money managers.”

Jia considers herself a responsible banking customer.

“Most college students are on a tight budget. They don’t spend unless they really want to,” she said. “I think the only college students who cannot handle the money are the ones who don’t have a set budget, and their parents or guardians fund everything without boundaries.”

Jia believes good financial habits are essential for customers of all ages. “I don’t think anyone wants to have bad credit or be in debt.”

Students form money-management habits during college years, Burnett said. “Banks that seek after them as clients are betting that a fair percentage will develop good and loyal banking habits.”

Still, some banking packages offered to students reflect an awareness of risk. Bank of America’s “Stuff Happens” feature, which allows a student to receive a one-time refund on an overdraft or nonsufficient funds (NSF) fee, an overdraft protection transfer fee, a stop-payment fee, or another bank’s ATM fee.

Burnett said the “Stuff Happens” offer is more like a freebie or first-time-offense refund.

Web guru Zavoina agreed. “I would believe that every bank that has charged an NSF fee has refunded an NSF fee. We did it for customers all the time. … Bankers realize that some mistakes do happen.”

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Activists Anticipating Black Panthers’ 40th Anniversary Reunion, Confab Monday, Jul 31 2006

By Stacy A. Anderson, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

Friday, March 17, 2006

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/panthers317

For more than 40 years, civil rights activist, mentor and multi-media producer Ron Scott has been a steadfast voice for underprivileged youth in Detroit’s black community.

Scott’s efforts date back to the 1960s when, as a teenager, he co-founded the first Detroit chapter of the Black Panther Party.

“It was about self-defense in urban areas, since police had been harassing people for many years at that time,” Scott told BlackAmericaWeb.com this week.

Scott, a founding member of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, said the civil rights movement was not always about the violence the media often portrayed.

“It was about guns, but also about creating an intellectual environment, developing our intellect,” he said. “It’s also about how to study, read and understand tacitly and logically. Guns were a defense postured along with the law book.”

Scott said he enjoys giving back to the community through breakfast programs, health clinics and organized bus visits to prisons.

“It humbled me,” Scott said, “when we were able to provide people with their first pair of shoes and food.”

Scott and several other members of the Detroit chapter will continue to focus on social justice and community service during the Black Panther Party’s 40th Anniversary Reunion and Conference, scheduled in Oakland from October 13 – 15 of this year.
One of the main initiatives this year is to press Chicago officials to name a street after slain Chicago Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, an effort that was been met with some resistance. Hampton is known for leading five different breakfast programs on the West side of Detroit and creating several health-related initiatives.

“We need to continue to enhance [our] understanding of the long-range struggle and capture the imagination of our youth,” Scott said.

He decried how some black young people know nothing about the party’s efforts or leaders of the past.

“It’s very important for the next generation to know that we captured the meaning of our people,” said Scott, “that we can change the struggle and create alternatives,.” he said.

October’s Black Panther Party conference — where many Panther loyalists will convene for discussion and fellowship — will hopefully show black youth that the party still has a presence, Scott told BlackAmericaWeb.com, and they can get involved.

“The conference will let people know we are not dead,” he said. “We are not destroyed.”

According to Scott, today’s young people still have myriad issues to rally behind, and more survival programs are still needed today than ever before. He said concepts and ideologies taught by the Black Panther Party in the past are still needed today.

“We didn’t just take an emotional response, we [realized] our situation, used theory and practice, and engaged them to read and study how their people are effected by various situations,” said Scott. “Intellect guided what we where doing, regardless of education level. Black berets and leather jackets were not what we were about. We were about transformation and consistency to benefit them, not suppress them.”

Scott became interested in the Black Panther Party after attending a few local meetings and reading several articles about the emerging party’s founder Bobby Seale and its minister of defense, Eldridge Cleaver.

“In 1968, we were similar to many other youths in the area,” he recalled. “We needed an alternative to the Southern movement, we were intrigued by Bobby Seale and what they had done for self-defense and patrolling the police. We felt part of the movement that had come north. We were looking for alternatives, as far as political formations, that would address urban youth.”

Scott later attended a meeting in Michigan featuring Cleaver’s wife, Kathleen, who spoke of the Black Panther Party’s efforts.

“We went to a meeting held in the center of Detroit,” Scott said. “As a result of her speaking to the crowd, we were really moved. It was fascinating and intriguing. We then, at least, had a feeling that we were a part of the same movement that was uplifting our people through serving the community.”

Scott served as the defense captain for the Detroit chapter from 1968 to 1969, and he and others in the Detroit community organized local tenants and operated a breakfast program, health clinics, and educational forums held every Sunday, which the party is best known for.

He continued his activism throughout the 1970s with involvement in the Africa Liberation Movement and Anti-Stress Campaign. In 1975, Scott became a prominent voice in the community when he started to host and produce “Detroit Black Journal,” a show that tackled black issues.

His efforts to protect the suppressed expanded when he became a victim of police brutality in 1993.

Scott, who has fought against law enforcement abuse since the 1970s, was stopped by police while walking in Detroit’s Greektown District and thrown on the ground. He said six police officers proceeded to jump on his back and taunt him, while partisans in the community urged the police to beat him. He sued, and the final judgment decided in his favor, proving the arrest and misdemeanor charge of loitering unlawful.

Scott is also remembered for mobilizing the Detroit community in 1992 after a white officer used a flashlight to kill Malice Brown, a black motorist who under the influence of alcohol and cocaine. After a racially intense trial, the officer was found guilty of second-degree murder.

The Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality was formed in 1996, and Scott quickly became their spokesman. Within the last 10 years, the coalition has worked on more than 500 cases.

Diane Reeder, a member of the coalition, credits the work Scott did with the Black Panther Party as a stepping stone to his accomplishments today in Detroit’s black community.

“It set the framework on how to approach and also how to deal with strategizing,” she told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “For example, one of their platforms was an anti-police brutality platform. His work with the coalition probably had its genesis with the work he did before. He works to affect structural change and the basis for how a society works.”

Scott, who spends countless hours mentoring youth in Michigan, maintains that the same issues that once stained the 1960s still oppress many of today’s youth, but key differences now are rooted in economic status and technological advances.

In his youthful years, Scott said, “we saw ourselves as transforming the world. We were the front line or vanguard of the revolution, involved in day-to-day activities. As Huey Newton said, we were ‘in motion,’ changing the way we were living and the relationships with the economic system. Young people today are challenged in finding comfort and a connection to people in the struggle.”

Still, however, he is optimistic about the state of black youth.

“I’m very proud of young people today,” Scott said, “despite all that is going against them.”

—

Stacy A. Anderson is a student at Howard University.

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Cuffed Five-Year-Old, Foxx’s Success and Katrina Among ’05 Top Stories Monday, Jul 31 2006

 

By Stacy A. Anderson, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/top2005stories1228

As 2005 draws to a close, BlackAmericaWeb.com News is among the countless news outlets reflecting on the stories that kept its respective audiences captivated over the year — stories that ranged from thrilling and groundbreaking to tragic and unexplainable.

Although a plethora of political and social issues (the CIA leak scandal, unemployment, growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, education and healthcare disparities, etc.) impacted the nation as a whole, among the topics in the news that mattered most to blacks were the case of five-year old Ja-eisha Scott, who was subdued, handcuffed and placed in a police car by officers in Florida after destroying a bulletin board, jumping on office furniture and punching various faculty at Fairmont Park Elementary; Jamie Foxx’s big win at the 2005 Academy Awards for Best Actor, of course, Hurricane Katrina — the top story of 2005, which devastated and destroyed much of the Gulf Coast including Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
The following is a rundown of BlackAmericaWeb.com News’ top 15 stories of 2005:
1. According to the Associated Press, The images from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina made that storm and the others that hit the Gulf Coast the overwhelming choice of newspaper and broadcast news editors as the number-one story from 2005. The storm devastated and destroyed much of the Gulf Coast, including Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama when it hit in late August.

Death tolls reached well over 1,400, and more than half a million residents are still displaced and scattered across the country. The hurricane resulted in the largest displacement of black families since the Civil War.

Coverage of the recent hurricanes Katrina and Rita sparked the debate of how race and economic status is portrayed in the media. Blacks were often called looters and refugees, while whites were considered survivors looking for food.

About 600 children are still displaced while authorities are using sophisticated data base to reunite children with their families. Many displaced black families have until February 7 to vacate government-paid hotels and two weeks ago, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin recently made a personal appeal asking residents to return to New Orleans.
 
2. “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people” was the controversial statement rapper Kanye West declared on an NBC telethon in September that forced the nation to examine the governments response to hurricane relief efforts. Although many public figures have been shy to go on the record in agreement with the award-winning artist’s comment, several black leaders, including Rep. Maxine Waters and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said the Federal Emergency Management Agency, didn’t respond quickly enough to victims of Katrina.

3. Many of the nation’s oil refineries are located in the Gulf Coast, yet the entire country was affected with skyrocketing gas prices after Hurricane Katrina. By the first week in September, gas prices had reached an all time high of $3.01 and even a dollar more in some southern states.

4. Former federal appeals court Judge John Roberts, 50, became chief justice in November after succeeding the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. Black leaders expressed concern about Roberts’ appointment, saying he had a track record for opposing the Roe v. Wade decision, supporting legislation that would limit federal courts from regulating buses to desegregate schools and assisting plans to cut funding for the Martin Luther King Center.

Samuel Alito faces confirmation hearings in January to potentially replace retiring Sandra Day O’Connor in January 2006. Alito, 55, is known for writing memos during the Reagan administration that opposed abortion rights and affirmative action. Alito is currently a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Congressional Black Caucus and several other black lawmakers have opposed the appointment of Alito, saying Alito’s judicial opinions are a threat to longstanding civil rights legislation.

Democrats said a preliminary look at Alito’s record reveals that he has sought to limit the rights of women and people with disabilities in discrimination cases, demonstrated an open hostility to women’s privacy rights, has a record of hostility toward immigrants and tried to immunize employers from employment discrimination cases. Democrats also say Roberts has a long history of opposing civil rights, and both judges, they say, will shift the court to a more conservative ideology for years to come and reverse landmark civil rights decisions.
 
5. Hundreds of people — including former gang members, rap stars and anti-death penalty activists — showed up to pay their final respects to former Crips gang leader Stanley “Tookie” Williams, who was executed on Dec. 13. Williams was convicted of murdering four people: store clerk Albert Lewis Owens, 26, during a convenience store robbery in Pico Rivera in 1979, then less than two weeks later, Tsai-Shai, 63, and her husband, Yen-I Yang, 76, and their daughter, Yee-Chen Lin, 43, while robbing their motel in South Los Angeles. A national movement of civil rights leaders and Hollywood stars, including the NAACP, Jamie Foxx and Rev. Jesse Jackson, opposed Williams’s execution and called on California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to stop the execution, but Schwarzenegger denied clemency to Williams. 

6. Speaking of Foxx, the comic/actor/recording artist won big in 2005, earning a best actor Golden Globe and Oscar for his depiction of legendary blind singer Ray Charles in “Ray.” Foxx was honored for his break-through year in 2004, starring in such blockbusters as “Ray,” “Collateral” with Tom Cruise, “Redemption: The Stan ‘Tookie’ Williams Story” and the romantic comedy “Breakin’ All the Rules” with Gabrielle Union. His second album, “Unpredictable,” was released on J Records last month.

7. March 7th marked the 40th anniversary of a monumental march in black history — more than 500 gathered in Selma, Alabama with an objective to peacefully march to Montgomery on that day in 1965. Marchers were soon attached with tear gas and clubs by law enforcement. At least 17 people were hospitalized on what was later known as Blood Sunday. Two weeks later, Martin Luther King Jr. initiated a second march under federal court protection. More than 3,000 supporters of civil voting rights contributed to the trek of over 50-miles.

This year, 10,000 people turned out for the 40th anniversary march in Selma, including Rev. Joseph Lowery, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Rev. Jesse Jackson, Coretta Scott King, singer Harry Belafonte, and Lynda Johnson Robb, daughter of President Lyndon Johnson, who signed the Voting Rights Act months after the march in 1965.

8. At least a 100,000 people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. for the Million More Movement in October, the 10-year commemmoration of 1995’s historic Million Man March. The march 10 years earlier focused on the responsibilities of men, but this year’s rally called all men, women and children accountable for the progression of each other.

Speakers such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Kweisi Mfume challenged the audience to reshape the status of blacks by working within their own community first. Speakers also addressed the racial tension, and displacement of blacks after Hurricane Katrina. Younger audiences where attracted by the likes of singer Erykah Badu, entrepreneur Russell Simmons and rappers Jadakiss, Styles P, Doug E. Fresh, Wyclef Jean and Jim Jones of the Diplomats.

9. National Basketball Association league Commissioner David Stern set a new dress code in October, banning all headphones, headgear, chains, pendants, medallions, shorts, sleeveless shirts, T-shirts, jerseys, sports apparel, sneakers, sandals, flip-flops, or work boots. Players are required to wear “business casual” attire, which consists of long or short-sleeved dress shirts or sweaters, dress slacks, khaki pants or dress jeans, dress shoes or boots and sport coats.

Athletes replied with mixed reviews, but the most defiant and unhappy about the change was basketball superstar Allen Iverson, who disagreed with the ban on his hip-hop gear. Denver Nuggets center Marcus Camby jokingly told reporters he couldn’t see players complying with the new rule unless they where given a clothing allowance. Some say the new dress code is an effort to make the NBA appear more professional since the Indiana Pacers-Detroit Pistons brawl last year.

10. A five-year old Ja-eisha Scott was subdued, handcuffed and placed in a police car by officers in Florida after destroying a bulletin board, jumping on office furniture and punching various faculty at Fairmont Park Elementary this past March. Chief Chuck Harmon of the St. Petersburg Police department said the officers practiced bad judgment, but did not violate any laws by handcuffing the kindergartner. Scott’s mother, Inga Akins, sought the assistance of Rev. Jesse Jackson to plead her case to the press and said her daughter has since been traumatized for life. Atkins and her daughter have since moved from Florida.

11. Three crosses were found burning within the same hour in Durham, N.C. on May 25. A seven-foot cross was found on South Roxboro Street, across the street from the United House of Prayer and outside St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, which is known for accepting the lesbian and gay community. Some black residents believe the cross burnings are a reaction in support of a proposed change in the rules to elect school board members. The proposal would allow all voters to vote for every school board seat, dwindling black representation. More than 600 rallied in protest of the cross burnings the following day, and a tree was planted where the cross burned near United House of Prayer.

12. Condeleezza Rice was confirmed Secretary of State in January after a final 85-13 vote from the full Senate. Rice is the first black woman and second woman to become Secretary of State. Rice was expected to succeed with the blessings of Collin Powell, as well as President George Bush. Democrats debated her nomination, while considering her contributions to the war in Iraq. Rice was a Soviet expert in the first Bush administration and guided Bush on international policy during the 2000 campaign. She later became his national security adviser.

Rice has become the most popular member of the Bush administration and a potential candidate to succeed her boss in the White House, even as Americans lose confidence in the president she serves and patience with the Iraq war she helped launch.

Entering her second year as the country’s senior diplomat and foreign policy spokeswoman, Rice has improbably shed much of her image as the hawkish “warrior princess” at President Bush’s side. The nickname was reportedly bestowed by her staff at the White House National Security Council, where Rice was an intimate member of Bush’s first-term war council.

13. JP Morgan Chase in January admitted to using about 13,0000 slaves as collateral before the Civil War. JP Morgan Chase officials discovered the slavery connection after the city of Chicago passed an ordinance in 2003 requiring companies that do business with the city to document their business history with slavery. Citizens Bank and Canal Bank are the two lenders identified by researchers as slave owners. They have since closed and were linked to Bank One, which JP Morgan Chase bought last year. The nation’s second largest back issued a public apology in a company letter and said they are creating Smart Start Louisiana, which would offer $5 million over five years for full tuition to Louisiana natives seeking to attend college in the state, where slavery took place.

14. Two police officers in were fired in December for their roles in a New Orleans French Quarter beating shortly after Hurricane Katrina that was photographed and videotaped by AP. A third officer was suspended. A union official vowed to fight the firings of officers Robert Evangelist and Lance Schilling in the alleged beating of Robert Davis, 64. Officer Stuart Smith was suspended for 120 days. The officers’ lawyer said the department rushed the firings. The confrontation renewed longstanding allegations of racism, brutality and corruption in the New Orleans Police Department. The three officers are white, and Davis is black. Davis said he does not believe race was an issue in the beating. All three officers had been suspended without pay since the incident. They have pleaded not guilty and face trial Jan. 11.

15. Mexican President Vicente Fox in May defended his commitment to minorities and human rights on radio program after his controversial comments that Mexicans take the U.S. jobs that “not even blacks want.” Civil rights activists Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton pressed the Mexican president for an apology for the remark that has strained already tense relations between blacks and Hispanics. “I very much regret the misinterpretation,” said Fox.

—

Stacy A. Anderson is a student at Howard University. Associated Press contributed to this story.

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T-shirt Company Defends Right to ‘Offend’ Monday, Jul 31 2006

MSNBC.com

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T-shirt company defends right to ‘offend’; Web site comes under fire for its “arrest black babies” tees

By Stacy Anderson, BET.com

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6881183&&CM=EmailThis&CE=1/

Updated: 2:43 p.m. ET Jan 28, 2005

Tshirthell.com boasts the motto, “where all the bad shirts go.”

And few would disagree after a T-shirt with the slogan, “Arrest Black Babies Before They Become Criminals” went on sale on the site. The shirt is emblazoned with the image of a hand-cuffed Black baby sucking on a pacifier.

Cost? $18.

What’s more, the Web site offers the following disclaimer: “Anyone who thinks the shirt is racist is just ignorant.”

TShirtHell.com started in October 2001 and receives over 75,000 visitors a day, according to the site, which is based in Las Vegas.

But Tshirthell.com is an equal-opportunity offender, according to the site. “We design our shirts to amuse ourselves. We don’t care if you’re offended by them. Regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, or sexual preference- you are all fair game,” the site’s creators state on the Web.

Further, the site asks, why is it that Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle can do stereotype humor without repercussions, and not Tshirthell.com?

T-shirts sold on the site cover a variety of topics including politics, homosexuality, sex and race. Some shirts include phrases such as “I Broke Up Brad and Jen,” “I Still Hate George Bush,” and “Medium Pimpin.” Another shirt proclaims, “I Survived the Tsunami 2004.”

Infant-sized versions read, “Are You My Daddy?” and “Broken Condom.”

The controversial Web site has been featured in The New York Post, Maximum, Stuff, Penthouse, Us, Playboy and others.

Tshirthell.com did not respond to BET.com’s request for comment. The company ships products all over the United States and to 46 foreign countries. Customers can become members and receive benefits, which include discounts and access to free giveaways.

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U.S. Postal Service Debuts Anderson Stamp Monday, Jul 31 2006

By Stacy A. Anderson, Special to BET.com

http://www.bet.com/News/marianandersonstamp.htm?wbc_purpose=Basic

Posted Jan. 28, 2005 — It was more than a coincidence that this week’s unveiling of the new Marian Anderson Black Heritage stamp took place at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

It is the precise location where, in 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution banned the world-renowned contralto from singing, because of a Whites-only policy at its hall. Outraged by the decision, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt invited Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial, where more than 75,000 people showed up to cheer her on.

Anderson became the 28th African American to be honored in the Postal Service’s Black Heritage series. 

“Our stamps are determined by the stamp adviser committee, but we get thousands of suggestions from the public,” said Deborah Yackley, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service.  “This is the 50th anniversary of Marian Anderson’s debut at the Metropolitan Opera, so this year is appropriate. No one can deny that she is a famous Black American and deserving of a stamp.”

The stamp depicts an oil painting by Albert Slark of Ajax, Ontario, Canada, which was based on a black-and-white photograph believed to have been taken by Moise Benkow in Stockholm around 1934.

The ceremony included performances by mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves and students from Washington, D.C.’s Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts. Inspirational words were conveyed by Allan Keiler, author of the biography “Marian Anderson: A Singer’s Journey.” Anderson’s nephew, James DePriest, who is head of the Conducting Department at the Julliard School, also spoke at the ceremony. 

Anderson was born in Philadelphia in 1897.  She started her musical career as a young girl after  joining her family’s church choir and went on to study abroad and perform in Europe. Her first breakout performance was on Dec. 30, 1935, where she was lauded as “one of the great singers of our time.” 

Anderson, who was one of the first Blacks to perform at the White House, is probably best known for her controversial performance at the Lincoln Memorial and was the first Black vocalist to perform at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

Throughout Anderson’s career, she received many high honors, which included becoming a goodwill ambassador to Asia and an appointment as a delegate to the 13th session of the United Nations. She also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, New York City’s Handel Medallion, the United Nations Peace Prize, the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award, the NAACP’s Springarn Medal for outstanding achievements and a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Marian Anderson died from congestive heart failure on April 8, 1993 in Portland, Ore.

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Family Asks Jackson to Bring Hostage Home Monday, Jul 31 2006

By Stacy A. Anderson, Special to BET.com

http://www.bet.com/News/jessehostage.htm?wbc_purpose=Basic

Posted Feb. 1, 2005 — The Rev. Jesse Jackson, in a televised plea Tuesday, urged the Iraqi captors of American contractor Roy Hallums to not use their hostage “as a trophy.”

Jackson, who has a record of successes in freeing hostages, said that as a religious leader he might be able to appeal to the kidnappers in ways that the Bush administration cannot. “Religious leaders can take a different approach…without entangling government in the process,” Jackson said on CNN.

In 1984, Jackson helped gain the release of a Navy pilot held in Syria; in 1991 he negotiated the release of 500 people held captive in Iraq; and in 1999 he convinced Yugoslavia to release three U.S. soldiers during the Kosovo conflict.

Susan Hallums, the captive’s ex-wife, asked for Jackson’s assistance. “I feel so drained, and this has given me more strength again to have more hope and faith,” she told the Daily Bulletin. “I know ultimately it’s in God’s hands. He [Jackson] is a strong religious leader who’s helped many others. I’m just so hopeful that he’ll help our loved one.”
Hallums, 56, was abducted on Nov. 1 along with five others after a mob of more than 20 men raided his company office in Baghdad, according to media reports. Hallums worked for a Saudi company that does catering for the Iraqi army.

Hallums’ ordeal gained international attention after his captors released a 60-second video in late January. On the tape, Hallums is sitting on the floor, pleading for his life while his abductors hold a rifle to his head.

Can Jackson bring Roy Hallums back home to America? Click “Discuss Now” to talk about it.

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