(Akiit.com) Cleveland – The achievement gap separating black boys from just about everyone else springs from a powerful, anti-education culture rising in the black community, a local black think tank argues in a new report. Parents who undervalue education, and a mass media that peppers youth with the quick, shallow ...

(Akiit.com) Wyclef Jean, Steve Harvey, Biz Markie, Doug E. Fresh and a host of other performers have joined forces to support the “50 Million Pound Challenge,” designed to address obesity in the black community and help millions of African Americans lose weight. Spearheaded by celebrity physician Dr. Ian Smith of ...

Stop the killing — before we lose yet another young life (Akiit.com) What are we to do now? That question nagged me every time I thought about the family of Blair Holt. Blair was the 16-year-old Julian High School junior who was killed Thursday when a 16-year-old gang member opened ...

(Akiit.com) Andrea Riggs was ready to take on the competition when she opened her personal training studio in Black Jack, Mo. The niche for Body Beautiful was to help black women get into shape, be healthy and look good. The competition she ran into, however, wasn’t Bally or Gold’s or ...

WASHINGTON (Akiit.com) – The prospects are bleak. Genocide is no exaggeration. Incarceration, AIDS, unemployment and the school drop-out rate are all problems challenging Black people in America—Black males in particular—and according to this year’s annual report released Apr. 17 by the National Urban League (NUL) entitled “The State of Black ...

(Akiit.com) BATON ROUGE, LA. The National Conference of Black Mayors unveiled a partnership Friday with environmental consultants Envirosource and Historically Black Colleges and Universities aimed at studying the impact of landfills on African-American communities. Robert Bowser, mayor of East Orange, N.J. and president of the National Conference of Black Mayors, ...

EDITOR’S NOTE: Among the findings of a statewide survey of Californian’s thoughts on the state’s public education system, is the fact that African Americans are steadily losing faith in the system, while Latinos remain optimistic. Carolyn Goossen writes on education and other issues for NAM. (Akiit.com) SAN FRANCISCO, CA — ...

(Akiit.com) We have a phenomenon that occurs in the black community-somewhere in the fabric of what makes some of us who we are and what we are, there is a misguided notion as to what is good and what is bad. It can be seen in our use of language. ...

(Akiit.com) The African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” is finding new application among African-American parents who are opting to educate their children at home. But these parents are choosing their own village, rejecting the public education system that at first denied them and later failed them. ...

“You are not a victim of circumstances. You create your life.” (Akiit.com) Neither Don Imus’ words nor a rapper’s degrading lyrics can silence Ariel Kelly’s voice. On Sunday, it fell on Kelly’s slight, 16-year-old shoulders to open the annual EspeciallyMe conference for young African-American women by singing “Lift Every Voice ...

Cure every cell – a sickle cell support group (Akiit.com) There’s quite a lot of stigma toward the whole subject of sickle cell anemia. People can feel guilty because they carry a gene and they choose not to talk about it. So they need to talk about it to start ...

Housing advocates report finds discrimination in properties for rental (Akiit.com) NEW ORLEANS – Blacks already feeling the pinch from a housing shortage in the New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina are facing racial discrimination in their search for rental property, a survey by housing advocates found. The survey sent black ...