Milestones

New Crisis, The, May/Jun 2002

First Black Women to Graduate from The Citadel

On May 11, seven cadets will become the first Black women to graduate from The Citadel. The Charleston, S.C., military college was founded in 1842 and only began admitting women in the fall of 1996. Jamey McCloud of Wadmalaw Island, S.C.; Renee Hypolite of Philadelphia; Natosha Mitchell of Dyersburg, Tenn.; Adrienne Watson of Sanford, N.C.; Geneive Hardney of Staten Island, N.Y.; Toshika "Peaches" Hudson c Columbia, S.C.; and Lesjanusar "Sha" Peterson of Chicago (pictured left to right, beginning with the front row) underwent the traditional grueling first year of indoctrination in 1998, but survived and excelled.

Hudson rose to company commander and Peterson served on the regimental staff this year. "There will be bad days, weeks and months where you will call home for someone to come get you. Everyone goes through it. You have to come here with the mentality that you belong hear and nothing is going to make you leave," Mitchell says. In 1970, Charles Foster became the first Black cadet to graduate from The Citadel. Today, minority students represent 19 percent of the student body. The class of 2002 includes 25 women and 359 men. After distinguishing themselves in college, the women he diverse plans for their futures. Peterson is going into the Air Force. Watson is headed for the Army. And Hypolite is putting her military training to use in medical school.

Clark Atlanta University President is Retiring

After 14 years, Thomas W. Cole Jr. is retiring as president of Clark Atlanta University. The school was established in 1988 when Atlanta University and Clark College merged. Cole is the first and only president Clark Atlanta has ever had. He will step down in June. More than 5,000 students are enrolled at Clark Atlanta, a private HBCU, which awards more than 40 doctoral degrees a year. Walter D. Broadnax, dean of the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C., was named president-elect of Clark Atlanta on Feb. 25 and will assume the post on Aug. 1.

White House Initiative on HBCU's Names New Director

Leonard Spearman has been named executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Spearman, who served as president of Texas Southern University in Houston from 1980 to 1988, is the first former HBCU president to head the initiative, which is housed in the education department. The initiative was created in 1980 to serve as a liaison between the executive branch and the colleges and to assist the campuses in pursuing federal grants and contracts.

Colson Whitehead Receives Literary Honors

Author Colson Whitehead's critically acclaimed novel, John Henry Days, was recently recognized at two awards ceremonies. The book was a finalist for the respected National Book Critics Circle award in the fiction category and on March 20 won the New York Public Library's 2002 Young Lions Fiction Award for writers 35 or younger. In the July/August 2001 issue of The Crisis, reviewer William Jelani Cobb lauded John Henry Days, the story of a "jaded journalistic hustler" covering a threeday celebration of the John Henry postage stamp in Talcott, W. Va. "Consider these pages as further proof that Whitehead is his own man-of-letters, as more reason to banish the facile comparison to the old master [Ralph] Ellison," Cobb wrote. "Whitehead is swinging a heavy hammer and with John Henry Days, he nails the spike flush."

Howard University Television Gets New General Manager

Adam Clayton Powell III was named general manager of WHUT-TV, the first African American-owned public broadcast station in the nation. Powell has more than 30 years in media management. In 1991, he co-founded and served as general manager of the second Black-owned public broadcast station in the country - KMTPTV in San Francisco. Powell co-produced the recent Showtime movie Keep the Faith, Baby, about his father, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who was elected in 1945 to represent Harlem in the U.S. House of Representatives.