YO:Durham holds fifth graduation By Evelyn Howell Cook, a former YO:Durham Summer Career Academy team FOR THE TRIANGLE TRIBUNE leader in 2007, said she is “glad and proud” she was given an op - portunity to participate in the program. “I still feel connected to DURHAM – On June 1, 20 teens marched on stage and received this community,” she said. certificates for their hard work during the YO:Durham fifth an - Cook encouraged students to challenge themselves “to be in niversary graduation ceremony. new settings, meet new people and find new opportunities.” Each year at-risk teens are given an opportunity for positive life- Durham Congregations in Action, an interfaith, inter-racial or - changing experiences through a summer school academy, so they ganization, started the YO:Durham program in 2007, where 15- may further develop their strategic thinking skills for success in to 17-year-olds are selected from Durham Public Schools, juve - school. In addition, the program provides a paid, part-time year- nile court counselors and congregation pools. They must be cur - long internship, where young minds can experience firsthand rently enrolled in high school or a recognized GED program, or how the workplace actually works. an alternative school. “You have been given an incredible tool box in this program,” All are identified based on eligibility for free or reduced lunch, said invited speaker Carrie B. Cook, Charlotte regional liaison to court involvement, a history of truancy or suspension, academ - PHOTO/YO DURHAM U.S. Senator Kay Hagan, as she addressed a crowd of about 100 at N.C. Mutual Life Insurance Company. Yo:Durham alum Tyler Allen (center) with his mother, See YO:DURHAM/ 2A Alveda Allen (left) and grandmother. SPORTS Long Ball program begins play at Hillside Park VOLUME 14 NO. 26 WEEK OF JUNE 10, 2012 $1.00 THE TRIANGLE’S CHOICE FOR THE BLACK VOICE Wake Program superintendent discusses VIETNAM WAR’S empowers progress 50-YEAR public By Sommer Brokaw ANNIVERSARY housing [email protected] Superintendent Anthony Tata By Sommer Brokaw had an uphill battle when he took COMMEMORATED [email protected] over North Carolina’s largest school district over a year ago. A new program trains public Tata, the previous chief oper - housing residents to better their ating officer of public schools in communities. Washington, D.C., faced an array Realistic Approaches to of problems when he took lead - Developing Active Residents or ership of Wake County Public RADAR is the name of the train - Schools. Issues ranged from a ing program. Can I Live, Inc. $60 million budget hole to on - Executive Director Racquel going growth to the district’s ac - Williams and Burnetta Smith, creditation being downgraded Wake County Housing Authority to the lack of a solid school as - executive director, are the cre - signment plan. ators. “That’s a pretty tall order for Smith, who has over 30 years any person to come in and face of experience in housing and so I’m proud of the budget that community development fields, we implemented for this year, has lived in subsidized housing. which protected teachers. We Williams, a single mother of four didn’t have a single teacher lay - boys and a motivational speak - off that was induced by fund - er, also identifies with the resi - ing,” he said. dents. Tata said they actually grew PHOTO/SUBMITTED "Oftentimes, you have techni - the number of teachers because cal people but not many people of the growing student popula - First Lt. Fred Black, Company D, First Battalion, 505th Infantry, Third Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division (1969). are able to train the residents of tion, and also added a foreign public housing," she said. language in every middle school, By Sommer Brokaw Vietnamese deaths. Many Americans still question whether it was "Because I look like them, I've and new science and technolo - [email protected] a necessary war or a failed effort to protect the South Vietnamese been through some of the same gy and global networking schools from a totalitarian government. things they've been through, but “in a very lean budget year.” RALEIGH - Instead of getting the homecoming they felt they de - Jim Black (no relation), who now lives in Charlotte and grew up I'm also that consultant trainer Board member John Tedesco, served, some Vietnam veterans were embarrassed to even be seen on the west side of Chicago, was drafted into the U.S. Army in Vietnam it gives credibility to the work." who joined when the Republican- in uniform. Now, they are getting overdue praise. Gov. Bev Perdue in the spring of 1969 and served 26 months. He said he went be - The primary goal of the two- backed board majority took con - recently marked the 50-year anniversary of the war. cause he was ordered to go and didn’t want to be considered a trai - day training is to move resident trol in 2009, said Tata has got - More than 216,000 North Carolinians served in the military dur - tor. councils to become officially rec - ten “glowing” board reviews, es - ing the Vietnam War. Over 4,200 were wounded in action, and 1,624 “Hopefully, it will put some focus on the needs of Vietnam veter - ognized governing bodies and pecially for his support for teach - lost their lives. Perdue proclaimed May 21 the beginning of the ans,” he said regarding the 50th anniversary commemoration. “If functioning agents of communi - ers. state’s observation. The state commemoration will be held in con - you were a Vietnam veteran, you would come home and you took ty improvement. "As I say in “That is the first effort by any - junction with the national one that kicked off on Memorial Day your uniform off, and you didn’t tell anybody except your friends training, nobody wants to be part one to support an increase for with President Barack Obama’s speech at the Vietnam Memorial or people in the service that you’d been in service. I didn’t even look of an organization that's not do - teachers with 1 percent supple - Wall in Washington, D.C. at photographs that I posted (on Facebook) until last week, but I ing anything," Smith said. "You ment, and that’s an acknowl - “And I think there was a lot of vindication there,” said retired don’t have any demons or anything.” don't want to be viewed as a edgement to the work that they Army Colonel Fred Black, a Vietnam War veteran who has served Entering the Army the year after Martin Luther King Jr. was assas - clique or a just a social club or a are doing,” said Tama Bouncer, in the 82nd Airborne Division and now lives in Chapel Hill. sinated, Jim Black said there was racial tension on both sides. “Guys place where you turn your meet - president of the N.C. Association Black said the one thing that makes the national commemora - would call white guys different names and vice versa,” he said. ings into gripe sessions. One of of Educators. tion special is that there was so much criticism of the wall when it “There was so much junk talking . I think when you’re in a com - the things I talk about is resident The Republican-backed school was initially designed or proposed. Another is the history of vet - bat situation, you don’t think about anything but about getting council coming up with a focus. board majority voted to disman - erans being shunned due to the anti-war feelings, especially at col - through it and then afterwards you go your separate ways once you People want to be a part of some - tle the socioeconomic diversity leges and universities. With Fort Bragg being a major training base get back to camp.” thing that is action oriented." policy, which led to a series of at the time, he is also pleased with the governor’s proclamation. Charles Rodman, an Army veteran who now lives in Raleigh, served Through resident councils, arrests and protests of commu - Black recalled the anti-war sentiment when he was in graduate one tour in Vietnam and 13 years in the military before retiring as public housing residents are en - nity activists. The state NAACP school at Syracuse University in the mid-1970s. staff sergeant. He, like many other soldiers, suffered emotional couraged to help ensure safer, also filed a complaint that “The war was coming to an end, but there was still lots of hostil - scars. He said he was a tank mechanic in an area that was heavily cleaner and more productive prompted an accreditation re - ity about Vietnam and in some cases directed to people who had exposed to rocket and mortar attacks. communities. They are also as - view by AdvancED. anything to do with it,” he said. “I was an officer. I volunteered to “I went through that post-traumatic stress trauma, and you just sisted to work with housing au - Within a few weeks of begin - be in the Army. I went through ROTC at the time when the war was have to be careful about how you deal with being surrounded with thorities to provide health, edu - ning his duties on Jan. 31, 2011, a very divisive topic. We had people on our faculty that would feel a lot of people and when you hear gunfire. Things of that nature, it cational and employment oppor - a special review team was ap - free to condemn not only the war, but also the leaders of the coun - kind of sends us back to Vietnam,” he said.