{"id":21521,"date":"2013-05-23T15:07:21","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T19:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=21521"},"modified":"2013-05-23T15:08:57","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T19:08:57","slug":"citys-black-history-committee-celebrates-25th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=21521","title":{"rendered":"City\u2019s Black History Committee Celebrates 25th Anniver- sary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY LEON B. CREWS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sentinel Staff Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 1988, retired School District instructor, <strong>Bobby Bowden<\/strong>, approached former <strong>Mayor Sandra Freedman<\/strong> over his concern that Black History wasn\u2019t getting the attention it deserved.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had friends in the school system, and I asked them how Black History was being treated. I sat down with <strong>Mayor Freedman<\/strong>, explained to her the necessity of bringing more attention to Black History, and asked the city get involved.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom that meeting, I formed the first 9-member Black History Committee that consisted of staff from various city departments, and we held our first six programs in City Council Chambers, but after the event grew, we moved it to the Convention Center.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After serving as Chair the first five years, <strong>Mr. Bowden<\/strong> released it to the late <strong>Janette Martin<\/strong>, who held the position until she passed. After that, <strong>Bettye Greene Johnson<\/strong> took over as Chair. <strong>Frank Crum<\/strong> is the current Chair.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was under <strong>Mrs. Martin\u2019s<\/strong> leadership the scholarship program began,\u201d said <strong>Mr. Bowden<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom then until now, the committee has raised more than $80,000.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m pleased that city employees and people from the community have supported this. I also thank our corporate supporters. We get no funds from the city. The program is completely self supporting other than the use of the city owned facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mr. Bowden<\/strong> said committee members should be commended for their hard work and dedication, and he\u2019s very proud of them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt city government should do something to help people know about Black History, and that\u2019s why we extended invitations to area schools, including St. Peter Claver.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d also like to commend the school system for doing a better job. Everyone needs to know their history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, May 25<sup>th<\/sup>, the Silver Anniversary Scholarship Gala will be held at the Wyndham Tampa Westshore, 700 North Westshore Boulevard.<\/p>\n<p>Keynote speaker for the event will be Emmy Award nominated actor, film director and political activist, <strong>Danny Glover<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>This year, <strong><em>the Harold Scott, Janette Martin<\/em><\/strong>, and <strong><em>Presidential Scholarships<\/em><\/strong> will be presented.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s scholarship gala chairperson is <strong>Regina Lock-DePass<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY LEON B. CREWS Sentinel Staff Writer In 1988, retired School District instructor, Bobby Bowden, approached former Mayor Sandra Freedman over his concern that Black History wasn\u2019t getting the attention it deserved. \u201cI had friends in the school system, and I asked them how Black History was being treated. I sat down with Mayor Freedman, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}