Tie James-Waddy, founder and CEO of Teens on the
Front Line, promotes sexual abstinence until marriage
by conducting Father / Daughter Purity Balls and Hosting
Retreats, seminars, camps and conferences. Despite the
fact that the majority of teens want to remain virgins until
marriage, 20 percent of students will have had at least four
sex partners before they graduate from high school.
Forty-three percent of youth in evangelical churches have
sex by the time they are 18.

Despite the fact that the majority of teens want to remain virgins until marriage, 20 percent of students will have had at least four sex partners before they graduate from high school. Forty-three percent of youth in evangelical churches have sex by the time they are 18.

Tie James- Waddy, founder and CEO of Teens on the Front Line, has been working with youth on the  issue of sexuality since 2006. She says she saw a need in the community and this is her way of giving back. She developed a program called W.A.I.T, Why Am I Tempted, to help teens resist the pressure to have sex at an early age.

“I believe in abstinence because it is the only 100 percent proof way of avoiding HIV, STDs and unwanted pregnancies,” said Waddy, who also became pregnant at 18-years-old.

But arguing for abstinence among professionals in areas of sex counseling and HIV prevention can be an uphill battle. Now, Waddy has help making her case.

When Annise Parker ran for mayor of Houston, she had an agenda. She was driven by personal motives. She says she wanted anyone to be able to look at Houston and know it was a well run city. She wanted to make Houston the best it could possibly be. This was personally important to her.

“I do have an agenda,” she said. “I have an agenda for the city and you can tell what my agenda is by what my transition teams are looking at in this first two months of office. I have actually one big transition team with five subgroups looking at METRO. I have one transition team working at public works and particularly how we do infrastructure projects in the city of Houston. I have a transition team looking at neighborhood protection and how we can do a better job at taking down derelict buildings and removing neighborhood nuisances. I have a transition team looking at permitting and I finally have a large transition team looking at out W/MBE program for the city of Houston. I want to streamline it I want to improve it. I want to push more contracting opportunities out for small and minority businesses. And the second of the really big transition teams has been looking at housing and all aspects of the housing department. I mean that’s my agenda, nuts and bolts, just bread and butter issues.”

FORTH WORTH- Leaders of Fort Worth’s SCLC, NAACP and LULAC joined forces with the U.S. Department of Justice Community Relations Service to develop a memorandum of agreement to form a civil/human rights coalition.
The purpose of the coalition is to support each other’s initiatives and those of other likeminded organizations.
The coalition will address alleged discriminatory actions against minorities in Forth Worth. The organizations assert discrimination is still very much alive in the metroplex and hope that by combining forces, they will improve race relations between minority communities, school districts, and law enforcement in Tarrant County.

“This is a new day and a new way. We will not rest, we will not sway, we will not tire until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. Our ultimate desire and goal is to find ‘meaningful ways’ to work together to solve our common concerns and issues,” said Pastor Kyev Tatum, president of the Fort Worth SCLC.

According to leaders, this is an unprecedented coalition and the details are still being worked out. Each organization will continue to operate independently, but leaders are confident that this historic union will strengthen their ability to aggressively address issues of discrimination in Fort Worth and help to bridge the gap currently existing within minority populations.

For years, Texas teachers and their unions have fought the drive to tie evaluations and pay raises to Texas standardized testing. But last week, Houston Independent School District teachers lost their battle in a unanimous decision by school board trustees.

“We want a quality teacher in every classroom, end of story, period,” said HISD Superintendent, Terry Grier.

Teachers whose test scores don’t make the grade can be fired. Teachers call it teaching to the test, or teaching to TAKS. Opponents fear teachers will become more consumed with getting their students to pass the test than they will with providing the quality education administrators demand.

"If I could save the Union, without freeing the slaves, I would do it. If I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the coloured race, I do because I believe it would help to save the Union."
Those were the words of our beloved 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. He penned those words in a letter to Horace Greely, written August 22, 1862. In the letter, he expressly stated his only purpose for freeing the slaves was to save the Union, which was in the middle of a civil war.

FT. WORTH- Currently, Pastor Kyev Tatum, president of the Fort Worth SCLC, is leading the charge amid cries of wrongful death in the matter of Michael Patrick Jacobs, Jr., 24. According to reports, on April 18, 2009, Jacobs, who suffered from bi-polar disorder, had stopped taking his medication because it was making him ill. As is common for individuals with mental health issues, he began having difficulties within the home of his parents in southeast Fort Worth.
They placed a call to 911 around 10:30 a.m., alerting them of his condition and requesting MedStar ambulance transport him to John Peter Smith Hospital. But his parents did not receive the kind of help they were seeking.

Officers subdue suspects in  a typical arrest scene using tasers.
The Ft. Worth Medical Examiner’s report states that despite the
fact that officers observed that Michael Patrick Jacobs, Jr., was
unresponsive and had stopped breathing, after tasering him for
54 seconds, they failed to render aid by performing CPR, which
may have saved the victim’s life.

This year, the African-American Chamber of Greater Houston celebrates 21 years of service to the African-American. More than 400 people will gather at the annual banquet, where Houston Mayor Annise Parker will be the guest speaker.

The chamber, organized in 1989, was originally named the Acres Homes Citizens Chamber of Commerce, came as the result of a desire to create a better place for the seemingly forgotten residents of Acres Homes community in the city of Houston. In fact, it was birthed out of a movement.


Roy Douglas Malonson, chairman of the
African-American Chamber of Commerce
of Greater Houston, greets then City-Controller
Annise Parker at a chamber-sponsored event. 
Mayor Parker has agreed to be the guest speaker
at the chamber’s annual awards banquet.

This year, the African-American Chamber of Greater Houston celebrates 21 years of service to the African-American community. More than 400 people will gather at the annual banquet, where Houston Mayor Annise Parker will be the guest speaker.

The chamber, organized in 1989, was originally named the Acres Homes Citizens Chamber of Commerce, came as the result of a desire to create a better place for the seemingly forgotten residents of Acres Homes community in the city of Houston. In fact, it was birthed out of a movement.

“It was a culmination of a lot of things. The Acres Homes chamber of commerce was the second or third thing. Acres Homes had become nationally known as one of the drug capitols of the world.

DALLAS- Curtis King of The Black Academy of Arts and Letters is tired of his patrons getting the boot. King has been working with Dallas City Councilmember Tennell Atkins to address the allegations against Parking Company of America regarding the practice of booting “non-paying” customers. According to TBAAL officials, at least twice a week visitors who patronize the theater return to their cars only to find a “boot” on their vehicle.

At Reese Academy, before school
and after school enrichment
programs are offered from 7 a.m.-
8:30 a.m. and from 4:20-5:45 daily.
Reese will be unaffected by cuts
to the magnet schools.
Photo: Aldine ISD

Part 2: Aldine ISD Magnets lose their protected status
The 1977 reinforcement of the federal desegregation order for Aldine Independent School district was successful in accomplishing a number of objectives. It helped ensure desegregation; it created schools in underserved areas, such as Acres Homes; and it helped move the largely minority district to academic excellence, causing the district to become nationally recognized, demonstrating that urban Blacks could learn and thrive if given the proper resources. It also reinforced the importance of providing quality education regardless of race or socio-economic status.

                                                                                  

President Barack Obama seems oblivious
to the fact that the state of Blacks in America
has consistently been both more disparate
and more desperate than that of mainstream
America.              
White House Photo: Pete Souza

Two weeks ago, President Barack Obama offered his State of the Union Address to the citizens of America. There is an irony in that statement, because the word “union” is derived from the Latin word, “unio” meaning “oneness.” Yet, African-Americans experience a separate reality from that of the mainstream America discussed by the president on Jan. 27.