Category Archives: OP-NAT HEROES OF THE MONTH

Hero Of The Month (April): Shannon McDonald

by Brian A. Wilkins
5/31/2009 (links and photos updated December 16, 2018)

Temple University in Philadelphia, and apparently all others good journalism schools, require its students to write some sort of police story before graduation. Shannon McDonald was a senior this past February when she did a ride-along with Philadelphia cop William Thrasher. Ms. McDonald would learn and report something that is all too familiar to black and Latino Americans, but dismissed in Euro-American media as “the race card.”

Here is the gist of this whole situation: Ms. McDonald wrote an article for the Temple News, the

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HERO OF THE MONTH (March): Ty’Sheoma Bethea

by Brian A. Wilkins
3/18/2009 (links and photos updated January 6, 2020)

DILLON, SOUTH CAROLINA — The story of Miss Ty’Sheoma Bethea is so heartwarming and so indicative of a new era of black American youth. She inspired us to create a new category of blog entries: Hero of the Month.

 

This young, intelligent black teenager exhausted every remedy needed for success. She wrote a letter to Congress telling them about the structural problems at J.V. Martin Junior High. Her school was built in 1896 and it’s age is certainly showing. The letter ultimately reached First Lady … Read Entire Article