With correction-officer mom by his side, Bed-Stuy's Jaiquwan Jarrett gets ready for the NFL Draft

Mo' Better Jaguars Football league in Brownsville are doing some big things if you didn't know! This Football program has put many of kids in College through the game of Football. Read this article about Jaiquwan Jarrett written by Mitch Abramson talking about his transition from Fort Hamilton High School to Temple University to becoming a Professional Football Player in the NFL coming from Bed-Stuy!

PHILADELPHIA - The big hit took place in South Philadelphia.

In a game against UConn on Sept. 18, Temple's Jaiquawn Jarrett, a 6-foot, 200-pounder, ran toward the sideline and crashed into Husky running back Jordan Todman, lowering his shoulder and blasting Todman several feet backward. It was the type of collision that leaves both players spinning, but Jarrett, a safety from the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, rose to his feet quickly and nodded his head in approval, fully enjoying the results of his work. Sitting in the stands at Lincoln Financial Field that day was Jarrett's mother, Audrey Young.

"That's my son!" she likes to belt out to anyone within earshot, in case the No. 5 jersey bearing the words "Jarrett's Mother" on her back doesn't convey the message.

She has always been there for her son, raising him, along with his three siblings, as a single mother, playing the role of caretaker, breadwinner, cheerleader, and when she had to be, law enforcer, keeping her kids in line. That last attribute - the disciplinarian - may have been the easiest role for her to adapt.

Community Planning Partner Survey #2

Our Community Planning Partners, Karrie Scarboro and Randy Millard along with Jacqueline Kennedy have created Community Planning Partner Survey #2. Our Community Planning Partners are in Phase II of their Community Planning Process for the Brownsville Partnership. Phase II entails that our Community Planning Partners will engage the community in a discussion on more specific views. The Brownsville residents will be asked what parks, buildings, streets and commercial areas they like and dislike, and why.

Here are the questions:

1. Where are areas in the community that are considered unsafe and undesirable?
2. Name locations in the community that are very important to the community but are underutilized and poorly maintained.
3. What do you like/dislike about the local shopping/commercial areas in Brownsville? (i.e. Pitkin Ave, Belmont Ave., Rockaway Ave and Livonia Ave)
4. What are some intersections and streets that can be enhanced or better guarded for pedestrians and children? And How? (i.e. Speed bumps, bike lanes)
5. What parks in Brownsville do you think need the most work?
6. How can we put usage to vacant spaces and abandoned structures in Brownsville?

You can contact Karrie Scarboro via phone (347) 654-0519 (Cell) or E-mail  kscarboro@commonground.org or Randy Millard via phone (347) 314-0306 or E-mail rmillard@commonground.org

#HOPEISINSIDE

New Book: School Resegregation Is Detrimental To Black Students

Another interesting article from BlackNews.com...

Nationwide (March 14, 2011) -- A new book, Schooling Poor Minority Children: New Segregation in the Post-Brown Era, authored by Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D., chronicles the process of desegregation to a return to post-Brown resegregated schools. The author describes this "new" segregation as a "redesign of pre-Brown segregation" and details the devastating impact upon poor minority students.

The return to segregated neighborhood schools, most often populated by poor black and brown students, unequally funded, and labeled "low performing" or "failing" should be taken very by seriously by the black community. The "new" segregation that has evolved in the post-Brown era is even more insidious than that of pre-Brown segregation. The deeply rooted problems that plagued pre-Brown segregated schools persist; while a new set of problems inherent in the "new" segregation have emerged. The "new" post-Brown segregation is creating a class of chronically undereducated students who will be left with only underclass options.

The author examines two crucial school-related factors characteristic of post-Brown segregated, low performing schools serving predominately poor minority populations: first, a school culture that is characterized by low expectations for students and the lack of a collective responsibility for student learning; and secondly, a stigmatizing school climate that focuses on control of students rather than creating rigorous and challenging learning environments. The combination of these factors results in the failure of these students to develop an academic identity, a lack of achievement motivation, the development of low self-expectations, disengagement from the learning process, academic failure, and in far too many instances non-completion.

Reboundsville: New home construction gives Brooklyn's Brownsville a facelift

Check out this article written by Lynne Miller of NY Daily News as she explains and explores the new home construction in our Brownsville Community. The photos are courtesy of Jeff Bachner. To read the article on the NY Daily News website, here is the link Reboundsville: New home construction gives Brooklyn's Brownsville a facelift

Walk around gritty Brownsville, in northeastern Brooklyn, and you see new apartment buildings and other multifamily homes mixed in with older row houses, including some that are nearly 100 years old. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) helped cause this mini-building boom. Since 2003, HPD, working with developers, has financed the construction or rehabilitation of 3,871 units of affordable housing.

Under Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan, more than 110,000 affordable housing units, financed by HPD, have pumped new life into city neighborhoods, including more than 27,000 in Brooklyn.
“You could call us an urban renewal agency,” says Jack Hammer, director of Brooklyn planning for the HPD.

One of the HPD’s newest projects, the $15.2 million River Rock development on Riverdale Ave. in Brownsville, features 54 rental apartments for low-income families, with 11 apartments for formerly homeless people. On the ground floor, 12,000 square feet have been set aside for retail with space for a local agency that provides social services to residents. On the second floor, there’s a laundry, a community room and terrace. There’s also underground parking.

Fillmore’s Lisa James inside a new two-family home on Tapscott St. (Jeff Bachner)

Greg Donaldson's book 'Zebratown' traces transformation of ex-Brownsville thug Kevin Davis

Read this article about Kevin Davis who was featured in a book title "Zebratown" written by Greg Donaldson who also wrote "The Ville". The article is written by Jake Pearson of NY Daily News.
Check it out!!!

Here is the link for the article Greg Donaldson's book "Zebratown" traces transformation of ex-Brownsville thug Kevin Davis

Author Greg Donaldson inadvertently sent a then-wanted Kevin Davis to prison after a photo of the young criminal appeared on the cover of his highly successful 1994 book, "The Ville."


Since then, the former thug from Brownsville and the John Jay College professor have formed an unlikely, decade-long friendship.

The result is "Zebratown," Donaldson's newest book, which chronicles Davis' struggle to stay clear of street life after nearly 10 years in prison.

"Now I look at Greg like family," said Davis, 42, who spent almost a decade in prison for gun, drug and assault convictions. "One thing about this book is it's all real - you just watch a person's life unfold."

For Donaldson, the book was as much about Davis' life as it was for the thousands of Brooklyn men who have crossed paths with the criminal justice system.

Motorcycle, SUV enthusiats help Flatbush, Brooklyn fire victims

Check out the great work done by the all-women Auto Club Outer Order and other SUV and Auto Clubs for the fire victims of Flatbush, Brooklyn. The event was done at the Brownsville Recreation Center yesterday afternoon. The article is written by Simone Weichselbaum of NY Daily News.

(Dozens were left homeless following deadly fire in Flatbush, Brooklyn.)

Dozens of motorcycle and SUV enthusiasts donated a mountain of clothes, toys, books and food Sunday to the homeless families left with nothing after surviving the Flatbush apartment building blaze.

Mounds of secondhand wardrobes were piled up to the ceiling on a stage inside the Brownsville Recreation Center on Linden Blvd. Center doors will stay open all week for the displaced E. 29th St. residents, organizers said.

"Abortion Is Black Genocide" by Rev. Dr. Clenard H. Childress, Jr.

Nationwide (February 24, 2011) -- Writing in "Right to Life News", a beautiful document about our right to life, the Rev. Jesse Jackson asked an amazingly salient question which shouts across the decades:




"What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person, and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?"



"It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth."

That was January 1977. It is now 34 years later and we emphatically need to examine the profoundness of Jackson's comment, for this is one of the most incredible insights given to America four years after the launch of the systemic eugenics plan--Roe vs. Wade-- in the words of sitting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, mimicking Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, when she said, "Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of." Concern about population growth...? Too many of whom...?

Yes, by design, Abortion was to be seductively proposed to the African-American community to reduce their numbers by ripping children apart within the womb. This plot would not only decimate the African-American community, it would also expedite the depletion of our national conscience. What most America thought then to be radical rhetoric coming from Black America's most popular spokesperson, has in this day become a sociological fact which can be empirically proven. After years of futility, much like Egypt's frustration with Israel in the book of Genesis--the more they afflicted them the more they increased--Abortion has become the "silver bullet" for the imbedded eugenic influence in our nation and the world. Nationally 1,786 African-Americans are killed each day by Abortion, and in New York City, for every 1,000 precious African-Americans born, sadly 1,525 are mutilated to death within the womb.