Baton Rouge General's first Black nurses honored BATON ROUGE, La. (Special to AP from the Advocate) - Fifty years ago, the first Black nurses at Baton Rouge General began their careers at a unit called 4-South.  Read More ... Ellyn Couvillion, Contributing Writer

Native Americans of Houma: Where else can their culture survive? Dulac, Louisiana — Some days the only people she serves are wayward journalists and well meaning volunteers who come down to south Louisiana after the nation’s worst oil spill. Some days not even the journalists or volunteers come. The locals have long since abandoned her restaurant.  Read More ... David Hobbs, Contributing Writer

Juneteenth celebrations to be held across La. A number of programs have been planned throughout Louisiana this month to commemorate Juneteenth, an observance that pays tribute to the end of the legal enslavement of Africans in America. Among the cities where these observances will take place are New Orleans and Lafayette. Other cities hosting Juneteenth activities include Richwood, La. and Donald­sonville, La.  Read More ...

Minority are targeted for risky loans, study finds As financial reform works its way through the Senate, a new study by the National Community Reinvest­ment Coalition (NCRC) indicates that subprime lending and subsequent resulting foreclosures were led by the private market and contained a clear racial component not explained by objective underwriting criteria. Read More ...

Oil spill taking a toll on residents, wildlife and economy Nearly three weeks after an oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that claimed 11 lives and set off a panic about a major environmental disaster, there still appear to be few definitive answers about the extend of the disaster or its impact on the human and wildlife inhabitants that call the region home. Read More ...

Portrait of Justice Revius O. Ortique, Jr. is first to hang on SULC Alumni Judicial Wall of Fame The unveiling of a portrait of the late Justice Revius O. Ortique, Jr., which will be hung in the new North Wing of the Southern University Law Center, was the opening highlight of the 2010 Justice Revius O. Ortique, Jr., Symposium on Law, Politics, Civil Rights, and Justice, on Thursday, April 8.  Read More ...

GSU to name new performing arts center in honor of Conrad Hutchison Acting upon a request by Grambling State University to honor one of its musical legends, the UL System Board of Supervisors recently approved the naming of the new performing arts center as the “Conrad Hutchinson, Jr. Performing Arts Center.”  Read More ...

‘Lenient’ hate-crime sentence sparks protest HOUMA — The Terrebonne Parish NAACP and the Lafourche and Terrebonne Parish chapters of the SCLC are protesting suspended sentences a district judge gave to two white men whom an all-white jury convicted of second-degree battery and committing a hate crime, in the beating of an African-American man.  Read More ... Howard Castay Jr., Contributing Writer

Shreveport native gets Landrieu nod for U.S. fire administrator United States Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., on Wednesday appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to support the nomination of Kelvin Cochran, native and former fire chief of Shreveport, to head the United State Fire Administration.  Read More ...

La. Gov. Bobby Jindal to deliver Grambling State University commencement address Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will deliver the Spring 2009 commencement address at Grambling State University at 10:00a.m., Saturday May 16, in the GSU Assembly Center as part of a weekend of activities scheduled at the university.  Read More ...

UNCF announces 2009 annual award recipients The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) recently announced that it would honor Earl G. Graves Sr., founder and publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, and Caroline Kennedy, who has been active in supporting reform of New York City’s public schools, at UNCF’s 65th Anniversary Dinner in New York on March 5. The Dinner will be held at 6:00p.m. at New York’s Sheraton New York Hotel and Tower. Graves will receive UNCF’s Frederick D. Patterson Award, named for the Tuskegee University president who founded UNCF in 1944. Kennedy will receive UNCF’s President’s Award.  Read More ...

Southern states take the lead in illegal gun trafficking (Special to the NNPA from the Final Call) — According to a new report, 10 states are responsible for the majority of the illegal guns shipped across state lines for use in crimes.  Read More ... Jesse Muhammad, Contributing Writer

Mid-south Black males are in a state of emergency (Special to the NNPA from the Final Call) — For decades, data about the condition of Black men and boys in America has shown that they fared far worse than their white counterparts in areas such as economics, education, and health.  Read More ... Jesse Muhammad, Contributing Writer

Census Bureau Data Show African Americans with Lowest Median Income Louisiana is leading the nation in loss of population, supplanting North Dakota in percentage of population decline, new U.S. Census data shows. Between 2000 and 2008, Louisiana’s population — estimated at 4.4 million in 2000 — fell by about 58,000, or 1.3 percent, the Census’ annual survey updates show. Read More ...

Mississippi housing advocates file suit against HUD over diversion of Katrina recovery funds The Mississippi State Conference NAACP, Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center and several individual residents filed a lawsuit on December 10 in federal court in Washington, D.C. against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) challenging its approval of a plan submitted by Mississippi to divert $600 million of federal hurricane recovery funds from housing programs designed to address the affordable housing crisis in Mississippi caused by Hurricane Katrina to finance the expansion of the Port of Gulfport.  Read More ...

Reparations crusader decries sharecropper slavery: March on Washington planned for October 24 JACKSON, Ms. (Special to the NNPA from the Jackson Advocate) - Black slavery continued long after the Civil War under the guise of sharecropping and tenant farming, says a crusading California minister who has issued a call nationally for a four-day reparations march in Washington beginning October 24.  Read More ... By Earnest McBride, Contributing Writer

Hurricanes, Hanna and Haiti: What Natural Disasters Illustrate The storm brought massive destruction. Flooding was considerable.... Houses collapsed on themselves. The roofs of those that did not became the last refuge for desperate men, women and children. With no food or water, they prayed for help, but it did not arrive. Read More ... By Nicole C. Lee, NNPA Columnist

As Katrina anniversary looms, voters more concerned about coastal erosion than crime, economy A new poll released a week before the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (August 29, 2005) shows that voters in south Louisiana are more concerned about coastal erosion than they are about crime or the economy. The poll also shows South Louisianans are almost as concerned about coastal erosion as they are about their highest-ranking worry -- gas prices.  Read More ...

Hurricane Katrina families factor in to resignation of Dallas CEO DALLAS (Special to the NNPA from the Dallas Examiner) - The fact that the Dallas Housing Authority took in almost 7,000 additional families displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was virtually ignored as a factor behind the issues and findings that led to the recent departure of its president and CEO.  Read More ... By Gordon Jackson, Contributing Writer

La. fails to ensure health and safety of its children Advocacy Center staff began visiting child residential facilities approximately five years ago, and what they discovered was alarming. "All children in Louisiana's foster care system deserve to be treated with respect, affection, and a home-like environment. The child residential facilities we visited, all licensed by the Department of Social Services, fall well short of that standard," said Lois Simpson, Executive Director of the Advocacy Center. Read More ...

Rev. Jesse Jackson and Renette Dejoie Hall Rainbow PUSH honors Louisiana Weekly Executive Editor, showcases New Orleans’ musicians The Rainbow PUSH Coalition paid tribute to the executive editor of one of the nation’s oldest Black newspapers and celebrated legendary jazz artists during its 2nd Annual Gulf Coast Economic Summit in New Orleans on May 15-16. The theme for the summit was “40 Years: From Civil Rights to Equanomics, Forging New Economic Opportunities in the Gulf Coast.” Read More ...

Linetta Gilbert Longtime friend of Louisiana receives prestigious national award Linetta J. Gilbert, senior program officer at the Ford Foundation, will be presented the Robert W. Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking when the Council of Foundations holds its international philanthropy summit in Washington, DC next month.   Read More ...

Joint Center urges new responses to disaster preparedness If government agencies are to avoid the kind of flawed responses that exacerbated racially disparate conditions in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, they must take steps beforehand to address historic patterns of discrimination and inequality.  Read More ...