(CNN) — More than 3,000 people turned out in downtown Houston, Texas, Wednesday for a job fair designed for convicted felons. Organizers of the Road to Re-entry Employment Fair, created to help those with criminal records find work and reintegrate into society, had expected a few hundred job people. The line of job seekers, which [...]
On Thursday, Febuary 18th at 8pm est, WeeSeeYou will host a live call-in discussion with Pulitizer Prize winning journalist Leon Dash. Over the past few months, we’ve read, discussed and revisited Professor Dash’s award winning series “Rosa Lee’s Story” (the basis for the book Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family In Urban America). This [...]
The crack epidemic refers to the surge of crack houses and crack cocaine use in major cities in the United States between 1984 and 1990. Fallout from the crack epidemic included a huge surge in addiction, homelessness, murder, theft, robbery, gang warfare, and long-term imprisonment. The first effects of the epidemic started in the early [...]
Posted on February 11th, 2010 in Books, Education, Encouragement, Engagement-Debate, Our Communities
Rosa Lee Cunningham, could not read. Her daughter Patty, could not read. She never encouraged her children to even attend school, let alone care what grades they received. Somehow, the whole “get an education” thing, just never resonated. There was a time she saw a glimmer of what she could learn as a student herself, [...]
Posted on February 09th, 2010 in Books, Education, Engagement-Debate, Enlightenment, Our Communities
Stealing Became A Way Of Life Rosa Lee Cunningham guided her 10-year-old grandson through the narrow aisles of the Oxon Hill thrift shop, past the crowded racks of secondhand pants and shirts, stopping finally at the row of children’s jackets and winter coats. The boy picked out a mock flight jacket, with a big number [...]
Posted on January 20th, 2010 in Books, Education, Encouragement, Engagement-Debate, Enlightenment, Our Communities, Politics
Rosa Lee & Me: What One Family Told Me — and America — About the Urban Crisis Excerpt: For four intense years, I followed Rosa Lee Cunningham, her children and five of her estimated 32 grandchildren. I became absorbed by Rosa Lee’s story — and deeply troubled. I also realized that the series that followed [...]
A Daughter Travels The Same Troubled Path Excerpt: The Unbreakable Bond By the time Patty was born in January 1958, Rosa Lee already had five children, all boys. Rosa Lee named her Donna, but no one has ever called her that. When she was little, she was known as “Papoose,” because Rosa Lee thought the [...]
