AAWMAD Honorees Say Thanks To DUS
Dear Editor:
Thank you for such an honor by the Denver Urban Spectrum (the 2007 “African Americans Who Make a Difference”). It is always a wonderful feeling to be recognized by your own people and friends. As you know, I am just a humble and meek soldier out on the battlefield - just trying to serve and keep it "for real".
-- Stephanie Cross

Dear Editor:
Thank you so much for my selection in this year's Denver Urban Spectrum “African Americans Who Make a Difference” issue.
I am honored and pleased to have been chosen. It is especially an honor to be recognized among so many other distinguished members of the African American community. I know you received many nominations and it was a difficult choice to choose 20 from those nominations. I will forever be grateful that I am recognized for the work I have done and will continue to do to assist the African American community - I would not have it any other way.
Thanks again – the Denver Urban Spectrum staff is indeed the best!
-- Angela Hutton-Howard

Dear Editor:
Thank you for including me in a recent article in the February issue of the Denver Urban Spectrum, “African Americans Who Make a Difference.” It is an honor and a privilege for me to be featured in this article that spotlights 20 individuals who are dedicated and working to make a difference in the Denver community. I was inspired by these leaders and their various efforts to improve our community.
Thanks again, Denver Urban Spectrum, for this very special honor and challenge.
-- Chelsye J. Burrows

Remembering An Abolitionist
Editor:
Feb. 23 is the 200th anniversary of the British Parliament’s vote to abolish the transatlantic slave trade. It is also the release date of a film (Amazing Grace) about the man who led the British Abolition movement, William Wilberforce. While the film does not have much to do with abolition in the United States , Wilberforce certainly did. Abolitionism had widely diffused origins and its advocates lived on both sides of the Atlantic . The movement’s leaders wrote and visited, financed and supported each other from the late 1780s through the 1850s. In the United States , major figures including Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and William Wells Brown publicly praised Wilberforce and were moved by his example. In 1815, one African American minister called him “the immortal Wilberforce,” and upon his death in 1833, the principal of a school for free Black children in New York City wrote a 16-page eulogy as a tribute to the British leader.
The abolition movement was always far more than one man’s story. It begins and ends with the millions of Black people who endured, resisted, rebelled, and ultimately overcame. But Wilberforce’s is a story that inspires us with a sense of the difference one person can make, and then what can happen when thousands or millions make a similar commitment and rally to a worthy idea whose time is at hand.
-- James G. Basker
-- President, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
-- www.gilderlehrman.org

Two Black Coaches
Editor:

Editor’s note: This letter was written the day of Super Bowl XL1.

When I was growing up, football was dominated by Black players, but we weren't allowed to be the quarterback. And we certainly couldn't be the coach.
I don't even care much about football, but I can't wait to watch the game this afternoon. Today, America celebrates a first—two Black coaches in the Super Bowl. It may seem like an accident, or the inevitable result of time's passage, but it's not. Like most civil rights gains, it's the result of active struggle.
In 2002, attorneys Cyrus Mehri and Johnnie Cochran Jr. decided that Blacks had been shut out of coaching long enough. They released a report entitled "Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performances, Inferior Opportunities" that called out the NFL's "dismal record of minority hiring." Two facts stood out in the report: 1) while Blacks comprised 70 percent of NFL players, only 6 percent of coaches and 28 percent of assistant coaches were Black; and 2) while only six of 400 NFL head coaches hired since 1929 were Black, they significantly outperformed their white counterparts in wins and playoff appearances. Mehri and Cochran threatened a lawsuit, and the NFL agreed to change.
Later that year the NFL adopted the "Rooney Rule," requiring teams to interview at least one non-white candidate for any open coaching position. In 2004, two of the seven vacancies were filled by Black coaches. The Rooney rule did what happy accidents and the passage of time could not—make a dent in race-based discrimination in the NFL.
Today, we've got two Black coaches in the Superbowl (and a Black Presidential candidate in the wings), but these are small steps towards a much greater goal of equality and racial justice. Most Black people still have second-class access to quality health care, jobs and education; an increasing number of Black men go to prison instead of college; and Katrina made clear that protecting the lives of Black folks, especially if they are poor, is of little importance to those in power.
My firend Van and I started ColorOfChange because we know that change doesn't happen without a fight, and because we have faith—and great hope—that all of us, together, can keep pushing forward to make major change for Blacks in America.
Today, let's celebrate these two amazing brothers—Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears and Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts—and pay tribute to those who helped them get to the top of the game. And then tomorrow, let's continue the work of raising our collective voices, applying pressure, and fighting for greater justice for us all.
Thank you for being a part of this work.
-- James Rucker
-- Executive Director, ColorOfChange.org