by Don C. Locke

Why “getting to?” Every organization is dynamic in terms of diversity and inclusion. Every organization is in the process of becoming diverse and inclusive. If we really believe in the importance of all people and groups, then every organization has room to improve.

Don C. Locke is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus, NC State University.

“Are You Ready to Fix Racism? (or are you still pretending it doesn’t exist?),” a presentation by damali ayo, will highlight a series of events at UNC Asheville to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Week. Her talk, which begins at 7 p.m. Thursday, January 19 in UNC Asheville’s Lipinsky Auditorium, is free and open to the public.

damali ayo

The official incorporation of the Young Men’s Institute took place on May 8, 1906, making it among the earliest, if not the oldest, black cultural centers in the country.

by Johnnie Grant
Photo: Renato Rotolo

The YMI Cultural Center has served as the hub and center of black life in Asheville for more than a century. It has reflected, guided, and in many respects shaped the historical and cultural legacy of African Americans throughout Western North Carolina, making it by far the most significant focal point of black history in the region.

The impetus for its existence is believed to have come from the Jamaican-born Professor Edward L. Stephens, who served as principal of Catholic Hill School, the city’s first public school for black children. He learned that George W. Vanderbilt had refused to follow the custom of segregating his workers by race when he built his Asheville home, Biltmore House, and he prevailed on the tycoon to establish an institution in Asheville “for the convenience and service of colored men and boys.”

President Obama wants to put citizens back to work. Photo: Micah Mackenzie/Urban News

by Moe White

The big story of 2011 might be titled, “How the president got his spine.”

After two years of being battered by Republican opponents in the Senate and House of Representatives, and two years of reaching out to those opponents in a sincere, if misguided effort to find common ground, President Obama finally hit the wall at the end of August.

After huge fights in the spring that led to a first-time-in-history downgrading of the nation’s bond rating by Standard & Poor, and another in August that brought the country to the brink of defaulting on its bonds—another first in history—the mild-mannered Obama finally realized that Republicans in Congress are not his political opponents, but his avowed enemies, as determined to bring him down as Al Qaeda and the Taliban. And he decided (at long last, in the eyes of many) to fight back.