Legacy Black Student Leadership Conference
Powerful Beyond Measure: Student Leaders Leaving a Legacy
January 29, 2010 - January 30, 2010

Contact: Dean Tammy Futrell

Washington and Lee University is hosting this year’s Legacy Black Student Leadership Conference on Jan. 29-30. The theme is “Powerful Beyond Measure: Student Leaders Leaving a Legacy.”

The conference is a collaboration of five small, private, selective, predominantly white institutions in South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.

They annually bring black students together to share and learn from common experiences; to encourage full participation in the broader college experience; to learn strategies for overcoming obstacles; and to engage in culturally affirming social activities.

Member institutions are Davidson College, Furman University, Presbyterian College, Washington and Lee University and Wofford College.

Conference check-in beginning at 3 p.m. Friday with Opening Banquet at 6 p.m. on Friday. The Opening Session is Saturday at 8:30 a.m.

The keynote speaker is Sophia A. Nelson, the founder and Chairman of the Board of iask, Inc. (formerly I Am My Sister’s Keeper), an organization dedication to the relational, emotional, spiritual, career and health of professional black women. She is a regular contributor to Huffington Post, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, CNN, and NPR, among others.

Topics of sessions include The Origins of Historically Black Fraternities and Sororities and the Recruitment Process; Strategies for Addressing Racism on Campus; and Missing in Action: Black Professors, Cultural Centers and Cultural Courses. The conference includes panels during the sessions.

Conference facilitators are Christina K. Brogdon, professional in human resources at Bluefield College; Dr. Rodney Cohen, director of multicultural affairs at Presbyterian College; Dr. Nancy Fairley, professor of anthropology at Davidson College; Tammy Futrell, associate dean of students at W&L; Rev. Ernest Jeffries, assistant dean of students at Davidson; and Dr. Idella Glenn, director of multicultural affairs at Furman University, among others.

For more information see legacyleadershipconference.com

“Last night’s speech was President Obama at his oratorical best. Powerful opening—great walk through the struggles of our nation’s history. He was Presidential and confident. He was humble, yet scolding of the politicians that filled the chamber. The best line of the night came from a letter written by a woman, “We are strained but hopeful, struggling but encouraged.” The President said, “The American people deserve a Government that matches their decency.” I agree Mr. President. As I listened to the President outline his 2010 agenda “jobs” rightfully topped the list, however, I could not help but wonder what happened to healthcare? Overall, it was a good speech focused on the very issues the President should have tackled from day #1—JOBS, the ECONOMY, and International TRADE.

In the final analysis, it looks like the Massachusetts Senate upset gave the President a wakeup call. I hope so, because if he returns to us as the man who won the White House in 2008 on a mantra of “change we can believe in” then the nation will certainly be better off with a renewed and focused President fighting for us all.”

Sophia A. Nelson, Political Strategist
Washington D.C Race Talk BLOG Kirwan Institute, Ohio State

Friends, Supporters, Countrymen:

Happy New Year! The PI Blog will be undergoing some major changes in 2010 and we will start postings again in February 2010. You can follow Sophia Nelson’s postings via Huffington Post, TheRoot.com, & the Grio to name a few.

Thank you for your patience as we undergo some changes to make this blog one of the best in the marketplace of ideas!

Carpe Diem!

Editorial Staff

Republican Governor-elect Bob McDonnell, center, holds hands with Attorney General-elect, Ken Cuccinelli, left, and Lt. Gov-elect Bill Bolling during their victory party in Richmond, Va., Tuesday Nov. 3, 2009. (AP Photo/Scott K. Brown)

Governors-elect Bob McDonnell (VA) and Chris Christie (NJ) proved last night that the moderate/centrist wing of the GOP is not dead. Republicans beat independents 2 to 1 in Virginia and did about the same in New Jersey.

This should send a strong message to the White House and to Democrats. There is an “angry middle” out there that is unhappy with what it has seen in the first 10 months of the Obama administration.

But these elections should also prove that the so-called “right wing” of the GOP is not as powerful as everyone thinks, which also explains the results in the special election of New York’s 23rd congressional district, where Democrat Bill Owens overtook a conservative GOP opponent.

In fact, the results in New York 23 show that although the conservative candidate made strong inroads, he was defeated by a Democrat in a district that had been held by Republicans for 100 years. I think this is something that the national Republican party should pay keen attention to as they head into the 2010 election cycle. It is a mistake to run Republican standard bearer candidates out of office just because they are socially moderate and replace them with more conservative Republican candidates. This might work in the southeast or southwest, but it does not work in the Northeast or in New England.

Take for example the campaign that Bob McDonnell ran in Virginia. Bob ran as a pro-growth, pro-transportation, and pro-business Republican. He even attracted the devoted support of former BET Chairman Sheila Johnson, who resides in Republican-leaning Loudoun County, Virginia as I do. McDonnell did not run as the pro-life, pro-gun, anti-gay marriage, very conservative Christian man that he is.

McDonnell was so acutely aware that he had to run to the political center in this campaign that when Creigh Deeds started to attack him over a 23-year-old thesis that he wrote about the roles of women and how he felt it was more important for them to stay home and rear families, McDonnell swiftly sidestepped the issue, responded and ran ads which featured his college educated daughters and wife all of whom are accomplished women.

In New Jersey, Christie understood that the corruption and scandals in that state’s politics had reached a crescendo and ran as a law and order type governor who would restore New Jersey’s fiscal and moral house. Socially moderate and fiscally conservative, Christie is very similar to his two GOP predecessors, Governor Tom Kean in the 1980s and Gov. Christie Whitman in the 1990s. Those are the only kind of Republicans that win in the Northeast.

So what does all of this mean as we head into 2010?

What it means is that the successful Republican candidates of 2009 figured out how to win by moving away from socially divisive issues like gay marriage, abortion, and religion, instead choosing to focus on pocket book issues like job creation, lower taxes, and transportation needs. If this is the kind of Republican Party that emerges from the rubble as we head in the 2010 election cycle then the GOP may be headed towards a new political birth of sorts, while the Democrats should start to become very worried.

My unsolicited advice to the president is that he starts to move away from the left fringe of his party and move toward the middle as Bill Clinton did in the mid 1990s after the Democrats were defeated in the 1994 elections. The good news for the president is that he is getting a chance to adjust before he loses the majority in the Congress. I hope he takes heed and makes that correction now.

Join award winning journalist and syndicated columnist Roland Martin and his guests Sophia A. Nelson, HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius, April Ryan, Nia Malika Henderson and others at 11AM EST & 5PM EST on TV One this Sunday November 1, 2009.

President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for his work to improve international diplomacy and rid the world of nuclear weapons — a stunning decision to celebrate a figure virtually unknown in the world before he launched his campaign for the White House nearly three years ago.

The President will make remarks this morning at 10:30AM in the Rose Garden from the White House.

PI Editor Sophia Nelson will be one of the featured panelist on the CBC Emerging Leaders Town Hall hosted by Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS): The Evolution of Politics and Empowerment on Friday, September 25, 2009 at the Washington, DC Convention Center–Room 202 AB. Featuring Roland Martin (moderator) and other noted panelists.

Sophia will also be a featured panelist  on the forum being hosted by Congressman Jessie Jackson Jr. His Issues Forum: From Lincoln to Obama--moderated by CNBC Contributor Keith Boykin, featuring an all start panel discussion on Friday, Sept. 25th from 2-4 PM.

Former President speaks at Pentagon dedication of Rebuilt Section

President Obama Remembers Today 9/11/09, 8 year Later

It was a beautiful September morning, unlike any I had seen in years.

It was crisp, cool, and sunny.

At about 8:55 a.m. I was standing in my living room in my two story townhouse in Alexandria Virginia, about 1.5 miles down the road from the Pentagon when my sister-in-law called and told me to turn on the T.V. I told her I had to go as I was headed to the Hill to go to a hearing on the Senate side.

Mom had already left for work at Washington Hospital Center (she is a Nurse) earlier that morning, and I was running late.  The sound in my sister-in-law’s voice was grim, however, and it made me pause.  I turned on NBC the Today where Katie Couric and Matt Lauer were broadcasting LIVE  and discussing the plane that had just hit the Twin Towers in NYC.  Like most Americans I was confused and stunned as to what could have happened.

Then within a few minutes, I watched on LIVE TV (as millions did that morning) as the 2nd plane drove through the second tower.  My heart dropped–I knew we were under attack.  The worst was yet to come, however, as we watched people jumping from windows screaming, and others running below for their lives.  My thoughts turned to my friends who worked and lived in NYC and their safety.

At about 9:45 or so, I heard this horrible whizzing sound–then a horrific explosion, it knocked me off my balance and I could hear car alarms going off.  My knees buckled.  I knew we had been hit in D.C. but the question was where? TV stations started reporting that a car bomb had gone off, but that did not sound right to me as I would not have felt that across the Potomac into Alexandria.  I ran outside as did many of my neighbors, all of us horror struck, and one of my neighbors a defense contractor who had been in the military for years, had his camcorder and I went up and grabbed mine. He said he heard the Pentagon had been hit.  He was correct.

We went to the side of the ramp off of 395 headed into DC just across from Pentagon city and we could see and smell what appeared to be an inferno blazing on the west side of the Pentagon facing Arlington VA.  I have video of that horrible scene just moments after it occurred.  It is an image I will never forget as long as I live.

Fast forward 8 years later and America has a new President, and is still at war with the Terrorists.  Yet, we still have not captured Osama Bin Laden. Today is hard for all of us as Americans, because we will never forget that peaceful morning that forever changed the safe haven of America.  To President George W. Bush I say thank  you for keeping America safe for 7 years on your watch.  To President Obama I say our prayers are with you as you continue to keep America safe on your watch.

To my fellow Americans I say this: Please do not forget the way we all felt on that fateful September morning.  The way we hugged our families when we came home from work, or called friends and loved ones with fear in our hearts.  Never forget that life is a vapor and fragile and not ours to control.  Never forget to be kind, and show daily that you are in fact your brother/sister’s keeper.  And lastly, please remember that one day all of us will face death–we will do so alone–and with no-one to go with us.  As such, we should spend our time on this side of eternity doing good to others as we able, living in love, making peace and not war, and enjoying the love of our family, friends and neighbors.  That is what it is all about folks–not your money, your job, your success, your car, your house. 9-11 should have changed us all for the better. It should be an event that we carry with us daily in our hearts and in our actions.

Reprinted from Essence.com:

As a lifelong Republican who joined the GOP after meeting the late Jack Kemp and George H.W. Bush in 1988, I’ve been more than dismayed and disappointed at the rhetoric directed at President Obama in the past few months.

For a member of Congress like Rep. Joe Wilson to shout out “you lie” on national TV while the President was actually in the well of the Congress speaking is simply stunning to me as an American citizen. This is not Great Britain where members of parliament openly shout and rant at one another. This is a democratic Republic where we have an elected President as the head of our government.

No, he is not a King (as some on the far right have suggested) and can therefore be criticized, but we have crossed a dangerous line in the last few months with the lack of civility in our political discourse. Consider the photos of the President as “Hitler” or dressed in “native African garb” that read “Obamacare scare” being brandished at rallies, or of people taking guns to rallies; then there are the “birthers” who say he is not a legitimate President at all because he was not born in the U.S., or those who suggest he’s “a socialist” and therefore unfit to address our nation’s school kids via live video feed lest he brainwash them as Hitler did.

The Republican Party better take a long hard look at itself. It’s perfectly legitimate to disagree with the President on his policies and legislative agenda. It is not, however, legitimate to try and defeat the President’s agenda by playing to American’s worst fears on race (e.g., Obama is a radical Black nationalist and cavorts with such people like Van Jones), or on health care (e.g., “death panels”) or any other policy. The GOP must let their ideas stand in the marketplace or find a way to work with this President in the areas in which they can agree (and there are a few as the President pointed out in his remarks last evening).

Rep. Joe Wilson should be censured because as he said “he could not contain his emotion” and as such he has shown himself unworthy to hold the esteemed title of “The Gentleman from South Carolina.”

Sophia Nelson is editor-in-chief of the Politicalintersectionblog.com and is a contributor to many national media and news outlets.

BET Corresp. Jeff Johnson, Pamela Gentry & Sophia Nelson

PI Editor in Chief Sophia Nelson took time on Wednesday evening from working on her forthcoming non-fiction book (Black. Female. Accomplished.) to join BET NEWS Team lead by Jeff Johnson, BET Correspondent Pam Gentry, and other guests to analyze (pre and post) the President’s Speech to Congress on Healthcare Reform. Coverage of the President’s Speech was taped LIVE from the Newseum in Washington, D.C. at 8:00PM EST. (7:00PM Central) (5:00PM PST).

Both BET and BET J aired the coverage LIVE. Please click on www.betnews.com to see clips of the coverage.
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Senator Edward M. Kennedy

AP News: Senator Edward M. Kennedy Dies After Long Battle with Brain Cancer

President Obama was awoken by a top aide about 2 a.m. and notified of Kennedy’s death, a spokesman said. Obama spoke by telephone to the senator’s widow, Victoria, and issued a statement that said he and first lady Michelle Obama were “heartbroken” at the loss of a political mentor and cherished friend.

“An important chapter in our history has come to an end,” said Obama, who is vacationing with his family at a rented compound in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., a short ferry ride from the Kennedy compound where the ailing senator died late Tuesday. “Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States Senator of our time.”

Aides said the president was expected to speak to reporters about Kennedy at 8:30 a.m.

Kennedy, the Senate’s third-longest serving member, was a liberal guidepost in the chamber, spending almost 47 years advocating for national health care and civil rights in particular. But his friendships crossed the aisle, and his absence during the last 15 months while battling brain cancer had cast a pall on the chamber. Many lawmakers have wondered this summer how the ongoing negotiations over health-care reform would have been different if the man known as the lion of the Senate had been able to actively participate.

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Book Due for Release in 2010

Media Commentator, Freelance Journalist/Blogger, and Attorney Sophia A. Nelson has signed her first major book deal with SmileyBooks (A Hay House Publishing Partner). The book will tell the story of a new generation of African American Professional Women (emphasis ages 34-45) and how they are coping with a myriad of challenging issues in the era of Michelle Obama (the ultimate strong, successful professional black woman).

SmileyBooks was founded by media pioneer Tavis Smiley (one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world) in 2004 as a co-publishing venture with Hay House Inc.; Smiley Books is a general trade book publisher that specializes in quality nonfiction. Smiley Books’ expanded publishing vision is anchored by the imprint’s 2007 #7 New York Times best seller, THE COVENANT In Action, a companion volume to the 2006 #1 New York Times best seller, the Covenant with Black America. The book project has been in the works since 2006 and has some of America’s most well respected pollsters/researchers, and personalities working with Ms. Nelson. It is a must read book that will be released in the late summer of 2010.

Please see the companion website at http://www.blackfemaleaccomplished.com for more details, to join our Facebook page, or to take the historic online national survey on the lives of professional black women (which will close on September 1, 2009).

The roll-call vote has been taken and yesterday the United States Senate confirmed its 111th Supreme Court Justice.

Madam Justice Sonia Sotomayor will be sworn in tomorrow (in a private ceremony at the Supreme Court Building by Chief Justice John Roberts) as the nation’s first Latina Justice, making her only the third woman in U.S. history to be appointed to the High Court. She will take her place on the court for a special hearing set in September to hear a case on Campaign Finance, before the normal first Monday in October when the Court officially begins each new session.

The politics behind the Sotomayor nomination are complex. Only nine Republicans voted for her nomination. But, ironically, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (who was an early skeptic and questioned her fairly vigorously during the hearings) and Senator Kitt Bond of Missouri, two tough conservatives, voted for her. However, the real “win” for the GOP (if there is one) is that it succeeded in drawing the battle lines for the next Obama nominee to the Court. Many judicial watchers and analysts suspect that Obama might possibly get to name as many as two or more Justices if he is elected to a second term.

If this is the case, then what the Republicans needed to do with the Sotomayor confirmation was draw sharp ideological and political lines around judicial philosophy. Interestingly, Judge Sotomayor drew more “no” votes than one of President George W. Bush’s nominees, John G. Roberts Jr., and fewer than the other, Samuel A. Alito, Jr. But all three confirmations proved far more polarizing than had been traditional for the Senate, including as recently as the two justices chosen by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

During Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings last month before the Judiciary Committee, even some Republicans said her record from 17 years as an appellate and trial judge fits within the legal mainstream. But in the end, more than three-quarters of the Senate’s 40 Republicans voted against her, characterizing her as biased—and wrong on three of her best-known rulings on constitutional matters (which at least one dealt with the issue of so-called “racial preferences” and affirmative action).

In the final analysis, Justice Sotomayor is an apt replacement for retiring Justice David Souter, who was appointed by Republican President George HW Bush (the same President who first appointed Judge Sotomayor to the U.S. District Court). She will be in the “mainstream” of votes cast by the Court, and I fully expect her to be the court’s new “Sandra Day O’Connor.” She’ll be that voice of reason and wisdom that carefully tips the balance on impending 5-4 decisions. Sometimes she will vote with the conservatives (Thomas, Scalia), and at other times she will vote with the more liberal Justices (Ginsberg, Stevens). This is a good thing for the Court and for our nation.

After all, I would expect no less from a wise Latina woman.

Sophia A. Nelson is a political and social commentator who writes for NPR, Huffington Post, and The Root.com. You can follow her blog at politicalintersectionblog.com.