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• President, Congress Call for Local Days of Honor [Go]

• Phelps Stokes Fund Celebrates 80th Year, Welcomes New President Dr. Badi Foster [Go]

• Spirit Run Youth Cross the Country with a Message of Unity and Hope [Go]

PRESS RELEASE -- For Immediate Release
Advance interviews with filmmaker and NAACP representatives available

More information – Allison Grover, 778-7090; ring9@mediaone.net

PRESIDENT, CONGRESS CALL FOR LOCAL DAYS OF HONOR

Portsmouth July 6 event will recognize Minority Service in World War II
with documentary feature film

PORTSMOUTH – Joining more than 100 cities across the nation, Portsmouth will recognize the contributions of minority veterans of World War II in a Seacoast "Day of Honor" event to be held Thursday evening, July 6, beginning at 7 p.m. at The Pearl, 45 Pearl St., in Portsmouth.

The evening will feature a screening of the award-winning documentary film "The Invisible Soldiers: Unheard Voices", an exploration of the contributions made by African Americans and other minorities during World War II. Former Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke and Hawaii US Senator Daniel K Inouye, both of whom were minority combat soldiers in Europe, are among those interviewed. Much of the film's footage includes firsthand stories of African-American tankers, pilots, marines, infantry, sailors, and support troops, both men and women.

This fund-raiser event for the Portsmouth NAACP will also honor local minority World War II veterans as special guests, and feature an exhibit of paintings by the late New Hampshire artist Mel Bolden.

In an historic move to heal war wounds 55 years in the making, President Clinton recently signed a proclamation that called for all cities and towns across the United States to hold Day of Honor observances for minority veterans of World War II. The president signed the proclamation, the first joint Congressional resolution action to commemorate minority service in WWII, in the oval office on May 26 in the presence of General Colin Powell, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), Secretary of Veteran Affairs Togo West, National Association for Black Veterans President Thomas Wynn, Sr., and Dr. William H. Smith, the national project executive for the Day of Honor 2000 Project.

"We have the opportunity -- and the responsibility -- to acknowledge the contributions our minority veterans have made to the peace and freedom we enjoy today," said President Clinton in the proclamation. "Their extraordinary devotion to duty is a reminder to us all that our Nation's diversity is not a cause for division, but rather one of our greatest strengths."

To date, more than 100 Day of Honor celebrations are planned across the country. According to "Invisible Soldiers" filmmaker William Smith, "The Day of Honor is an important girder as we attempt to bridge America's racial divide. It is a measure of social and moral reparation, and it also has an important educational component for the youth of America."

Proceeds from the $20 admission for the Portsmouth July 6 Day of Honor celebration at The Pearl will benefit the Portsmouth NAACP. Tickets are available at Stroudwater Books on Lafayette Road in Portsmouth.

For more information, please call 778-7090 or email ring9@mediaone.net.

NEWS FEATURES RELEASE -- For Immediate Release

From THE PHELPS-STOKES FUND
For Further Information, please contact Bill Smith, (978) 443-5447

PHELPS STOKES FUND CELEBRATES 90TH YEAR,
WELCOMES NEW PRESIDENT DR. BADI FOSTER

By Phyllis Edgerly Ring

"Every human being is born with a gift, and education’s job, like a gardener, is to figure out what that gift is and help that plant to grow," says Dr. Badi Foster, newly appointed president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund.

For almost a century, the Phelps Stokes Fund has worked to insure that the seeds of such gifts are not lost, especially among those with fewer economic and educational advantages. The non-profit organization is America’s oldest continuously operating foundation serving the needs of African Americans, Native Americans, Africans, and the rural and urban poor. It has built bridges of interracial and international understanding through such efforts as the United Negro College Fund, the Jackie Robinson Foundation, the Native American Science Association, the African Student Aid Fund, the Harlem Boys Choir, the BWI Institute of Liberia, and the Bishop Desmond Tutu Southern African Scholarship Fund.

This year, the Phelps-Stokes Fund celebrates its 90th anniversary of service for education, and also welcomes a new president, Dr. Badi G. Foster.

A New Leader for a New Millenium

"It’s an honor to be part of such a legacy of service," Dr. Foster says. He credits the Fund’s success in improving life for millions of people of color to "a combination of moral vision and action," and calls its history "a rich harvest that we can draw upon in order to go forward into a new century."

Dr. Foster’s background includes extensive experience in the fields of education, health, human development, and leadership. A Princeton University alumnus, he has been professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education; president of the Aetna Institute for Corporate Education; senior vice-president of human services for the University Hospitals of Cleveland; and, most recently, director of the Lincoln Filene Center for Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

While at Tufts, he helped build community partnerships and university programs to provide all students with an education for active community service and citizenship. He also participated in research into the "digital divide" that keeps African-Americans from having access to information on the World Wide Web.

A longtime mentor to students in many academic settings, Dr. Foster describes education’s responsibility as "creating environments that draw out the potential in people in ways that make them want to improve life for others. Teachers, rather than being a sage on the stage," he notes, "see more students blossom and take off when they are a guide on the side."

The Phelps-Stokes Fund recognizes that education’s role is to cultivate both knowledge and values, Foster says. "When you have moral vision, then you recognize that we all need each other. When you’re in the process of trying to serve other people, of trying to do the right thing, you discover that people will look out for you, too, whether it’s the janitor or the police officer on the corner."

A History of Service

In a similar way, the Phelps-Stokes Fund advocates for others through policy-shaping surveys and research aimed at improving educational opportunity for all. One year after its establishment in 1911 through the will of Caroline Phelps-Stokes, a New York philanthropist with a lifelong concern for the educational needs of the underprivileged, the Fund sponsored the first national comprehensive study of education of African Americans. In revealing the injustice they faced, the study served as the foundation for creating educational programs for blacks in America, in particular, the organization of teacher-education programs and funding support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

The Fund’s second major study, conducted in Africa in 1921 by an interracial commission headed by renowned Ghanaian educator Dr. J.E.K. Aggrey, broke new ground as a model of interracial cooperation and unity in service. Focusing on racial amity, this study helped establish the South African Institute of Race Relations, the oldest interracial organization in Africa to stress race equity and harmony over apartheid and separation.

The third broad-scale study conducted by the Phelps-Stokes Fund focused on the problems faced by Native Americans. Known as the Marian Report, it shaped President Franklin Roosevelt’s policies that acknowledged the right if Indian people to retain land still under their control, and "to exist as culturally different people."

A Vision for the Future

The Phelps-Stokes Fund has tended the seeds of human development by serving as an incubator to many nationally and internationally known service organizations and by providing founding grants, which attracted other investments and contributions. Through its Global Education and Leadership Initiative (GELI), the Fund provides programs in response to locally defined needs in partnership with other organizations.

The GELI Partners in Education Books for Global Literacy program brings basic reading and instructional texts to under-served communities in America and Africa. Serving U.S. urban and rural areas, including Indian reservations, it has also delivered more than one million books to schools and communities in the African nations of Mozambique, Angola, Liberia, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Malawi. The program also collects and refurbishes computers for distribution in America and abroad. Partners in Books for Global Literacy include Rotary International, college and high-school students, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and senior citizens.

The GELI Partners in Leadership NIA Project is a dynamic youth-centered initiative that engages African-American college students in mentoring and learning partnerships with high-school students. Named for the Swahili word "nia" which means "purpose," the program is designed to help all of its participants develop leadership skills that can be used to solve problems and improve the quality of life in their own communities. Tapping the resources that youth can offer in generating innovative solutions for local needs, the project also boosts the academic ability of younger students. The NIA Project aims to establish its activity on college campuses throughout the country.

The Phelps-Stokes Fund maintains offices in New York City and Washington, DC, and will open an office in Atlanta Georgia in the Fall of 2001. More information is available by visiting the Fund’s website at www.psfdc.org or by calling (212) 619-1800.

PRESS RELEASE -- For Immediate Release

From The Spirit Run
For more information, please contact Siavosh Khanjani, email skhanjani@aol.com

SPIRIT RUN YOUTH CROSS THE COUNTRY WITH A MESSAGE OF UNITY AND HOPE

BUFFALO, NY -- On May 29, nine ethnically diverse youth began a journey of hope and purpose -- running across North America raising the cry for unity among all peoples and carrying a sacred message to the Indigenous Peoples of this continent.

The Spirit Run is scheduled to arrive in the Niagara Falls area July 30, with visits to the Tuscarora Reserve scheduled for July 31, and the Tonawanda Reserve on Aug. 1. Arrival time in most areas will be between 5 and 7 p.m.

"We're no longer living in a time when words are enough. We must take action, for it is our actions that bring to life our words and beliefs... Spirit Run is unity in action" says Spirit Runner and coordinator Arthur Fernandez Scarberry.

"Our Native ancestors held fast to the spiritual principal of unity. Surviving the corruption, greed, deceit and attempted genocide inflicted upon them during the past centuries, the Native people are now being called upon to arise and take their rightful seat of honor, to call the circle of humanity together and to fulfill their destiny. It has been said that there would come a day when the Native people of this continent would no longer have to petition and fight to become a part of the circle but would be invited in," Scarberry says.

As the Spirit Run has been joined from west coast to east by a river of humanity from all ethnic, economic, and religious backgrounds, the runners have seen their vision of unity become a living reality as the miles pass under their feet. Their nation-wide run covers a course from reservation to reservation and town to town, spanning a distance from Seattle to New York. They travel 54 miles per day and plan to arrive in New York on Aug. 11, where they are scheduled to speak before the United Nations. Their run will conclude with ceremonies near the Shinnecock Reserve outside of New York City in mid August.

Traveling with the group is an elder of the Cree Inuit Eskimo people of Quebec, Bill Ekomiak, who was asked to accompany the team as their spiritual advisor. The nine young runners range in age from 13 to 24 years. There are three girls and six boys. Among the reserves they have visited are those of the Flathead, Salish, Kootenai, Blackfeet, Crow, and Oglala people, the Pine Ridge, Rosebud and Lower Brule Reservations, and the Oglala/Lakota College.

While in the Niagara Falls area, the Spirit Run will follow Routes 253, 204, 52 and 20. It will travel to the Tuscarora Reserve via Route 31. All are welcome to run with the Spirit Runners. For more information, please call (716) 924-6653.