This past Saturday Journey of a Young Lady teen ladies took part in the fight against hunger led by Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson.  Journey teen Jasmine Nalls worked with Mrs. Fatima Ali of Congresswoman Johnson’s office on the event.

Trees where donated by TXU Energy, and the planting was over seen by the Texas Trees Foundation who instructed volunteers on the proper way to plant each fruit tree.   The trees consisted of apple, peach, pear, and fig.  The goal of the initiative is address the hunger issues here in Dallas by planting fruit trees in neighborhoods so they have free access to fresh fruit.

The Planting Ceremony took place at Promise of Peace Gardens on E. Grand Avenue where Congresswoman Johnson spoke to the community on the importance of this project while recognizing key partners instrumental in making this effort possible.

Journey Teen volunteers included: Morgan Wright, Mikala Wright, Libby Wright, Chief Administrator,  Ayalah Raphiel, Jasmine Nalls, and Tamera Nalls, CEO.

Journey Teens also represented for the DeSoto Library Teen Board Council under the direction of Mark Rennels, Teen Volunteer Coordinator where Jasmine Nalls is President, Mikala Wright is Vice-President, and Ayalah Raphiel, is Treasurer.

With the month of February comes a variety of big celebrations such as the Super Bowl, Black History month and, of course, Valentine’s Day. Even if you have a valentine you can still show yourself some love too, right? Here are a few things the fitness chick can do to show herself love for Valentine’s Day:

Inspire Yourself- If you are feeling down and need some inspiration, purchase a new book. There are hundreds of books that will inspire you about whatever journey you are on. A great, quick read is Runner’s Revelations: How Running Changed My Walk by Monisha Randolph. You will surely be inspired as Ms. Randolph takes you on her funny, moving and triumphant journey through training for her first marathon.

Celebrate Uniquely- Instead of the normal girl’s night out, try something fun that will expand your knowledge at the same time such as a cooking lesson, a dance class, painting, etc. This month, Sporty Afros is hosting February Fabulousness, where we will have a discussion about fitness, style, nutrition, hair care over cocktails. It will be fun and informative. Check out SportyAfros.com for more details.

Spruce Up Your Hair- A new doo always makes a girl feel better! Do you normally wear your hair straight? Try experimenting with curly half wigs or a roller set for new look you are sure to love. If you normally wear your hair curly, try straightening it out or try a straight wig for a sleek new look.

Splurge on Gear- For you all who are still keeping your fitness new years’ resolutions, what better way to spoil yourself than with new workout gear and gym bag essentials?! Here are few of our favorite finds that we love: Under Armor sports bras, any Nike leggings and/or workout pants, Brook’s performance shirts, Burt’s Bees moisturizing lip balm, iPod and Adidas duffel bags. With these items, you will be able to step up your workout routine. Your entire body will thank you too.

New Workout Class – Bored with your usual workout routine already? Try a new workout class/routine to switch it up. Some of our favorites are hot yoga, zumba, belly dancing, rock climbing, hip hop dance; the list goes on and on. Check your local area to see what fun classes are happening.

Remember, Valentine’s Day is not only for giving and receiving gifts but showing yourself some love too!

Whitney Patterson and Alexandria Williams are two triathletes who startedSportyAfros.com after constantly being asked how they maintained their curly/coily hair while sticking to a consistent workout routine. Sporty Afros is the first site to connect the dots between hair care, exercise and nutrition.

We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.  The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen.  We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood.  They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation.  We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer.  Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process.  We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women.  We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue.  We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics.

Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work.  We ask for the public’s understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.

We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern.

At approximately 9:45 pm last night, officers were flagged down by an individual  in the 2500 block of Grand Avenue who stated he had just been robbed at gunpoint and the suspect was in the process of robbing another individual.  Officers located the suspect and approached the vehicle he was in. The suspect pulled a gun on the officers forcing them to fire at the suspect.

The suspect sped away in the vehicle with the female victim still inside. Officers found the vehicle abandoned down the street and began to look for the armed suspect on foot. Officers encountered a possible suspect and attempted to detain him.

The suspect ignored officers verbal commands and reached in to his pocket causing an officer to fire his weapon at the suspect. During this criminal episode, 3 individuals were transported to Baylor with gun shot wounds. All are non life threatening. No officers were injured.

UPDATE: Officers Joshua Shipp, #9163 and Thomas Hughes, #9071, were flagged down by an individual in the 2500 block of Grand Avenue who stated he had just been robbed at gunpoint and the suspect was in the process of robbing another individual. Officers located the suspect (Donnell Collins B/M/04-07-1982) and approached the vehicle in which he was seated. The suspect pulled a gun on the officers forcing them to fire at the suspect.

The female victim was also inside the vehicle and she sustained an injury, though at this time we have not been able to determine if it was from a bullet grazing her or from the flying glass fragments. The suspect sped away in the vehicle with the female victim still inside. Officers broadcast the suspect description over the radio, including the fact that he was armed. Officers found the vehicle abandoned down the street and began to look for the armed suspect on foot.

Officer Bunthavuth Te, #10054, encountered a possible suspect that matched the description of the armed robbery suspect and attempted to detain him. Officer Te gave the suspect verbal commands to show his hands. The suspect ignored the officer’s commands and reached into his pocket. Officer Te, believed the suspect was reaching for a weapon and fearing for his life, fired one round at the suspect. It was later determined that this suspect was not connected to the robbery. Officers located and arrested Collins. He has been charged with Unlawful Restraint. During this criminal episode, Collins, the female victim and the other individual were transported to Baylor Hospital and treated for their injuries.

Created By: MBA Online

Heelys, Inc., (NASDAQ:HLYS) manufacturer of Heelys(R) skate shoes, announced that it will donate $15,000 worth of shoes to Buckner International, a global Christian ministry based in Dallas.

Heelys will provide Buckner International with 232 pairs of its MegaWatt model in a wide variety of sizes, for distribution to orphans, vulnerable children and families.

Heelys has been a regular donor to Buckner International, having sent them more than $100,000 worth of product over the past two years.

“Heelys is a proud ongoing partner with Buckner International in its mission of restoration and healing,” said Rick Groesch, the chief commercial officer for Heelys, Inc. “Putting shoes on the feet of so many in need is a simple but powerful ministry. What we are really excited about is not only the opportunity to supply the much needed shoes but also allow the kids to have fun when the wheels are in place.”

Buckner International annually serves more than 400,000 people in more than 60 countries around the world. Established in 1879 as the Buckner Orphans Home in Dallas, Buckner International restores and heals children, families and senior adults.

Photo from Heely’s Facebook page.

For those of you who, like me, did not live through the so-called “Civil Rights Era,” there is a real risk that the Civil Rights Movement has become reduced to a mere history lesson — a phenomenon relegated to a distinct period of time that had an identifiable start and end, and that we study in school and hear about on nights like tonight and during Black History Month, but then largely forget until the following year.

I am afraid that for many of us, the Civil Rights Movement and many of its most recognized leaders, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., have become the grainy black and white photographs that we are so used to seeing in the history books or in that lovely documentary “Eyes on the Prize.”

If you go online and visit Wikipedia.org (which if you don’t know, is to kids today what the Encyclopedia Britannica was to many of us growing up), you will find the following definition of the civil rights movement: “The African-American Civil Rights Movement . . . refers to the movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring voting rights to them. ”

The short definition I just read is quite telling, if you break it down: The first thing you will notice is that it refers to “movements,” plural, within the definition of “Civil Rights Movement.” And this is as is should be, because the so-called “Civil Rights Era” (which is how we commonly refer to that period between 1955 and 1968 when you saw most of the boycotts, sit-ins, and marches for which the Civil Rights Movement is now known to most people) does not represent the beginning or the end of the Civil Rights Movement.

The “Civil Rights Era” reflects only the beginning and the end of one phase of the broader Civil Rights Movement: the “mass action” phase. And the reality is, the mass action phase of the Civil Rights Movement, which was characterized by the major campaigns of civil resistance that we have come to associate with the Civil Rights Movement such as boycotts, sit-ins, and marches was actually the third phase of the Civil Rights Movement.

You see, the Civil Rights Movement began long before the 1960s. It began the day the first African was brought to the United States of America as a slave, for as soon as slavery was introduced into this country, the Civil Rights Movement had begun, except we called it “abolitionism” and we called our leaders “abolitionists.” Do you remember Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman? We don’t talk about them much when we discuss the Civil Rights Movement because we’ve confused Phase 3 of the Civil Rights Movement, the mass action phase, with the entire movement, and we’ve forgotten these people. Remember them!

They are an important part of the Civil Rights Movement and we need to remember what they were able to accomplish and how they accomplished it. They defeated slavery itself, and they did it through a variety of means. We could learn a lot from studying those means, but first we have to remember that this phase of the Civil Rights Movement ever occurred!

There was a second phase of the Civil Rights Movement, which is also often forgotten. It began after Reconstruction and ended when the “mass action” phase of the Civil Rights Movement began. It arose in direct response to the fact that although the South had been defeated in the Civil War and the US Constitution had been amended to give black people the right to vote and enjoy the rights of citizenship equal to their white brothers, the reality was that black people were far from equal anywhere in the country, and that in the South, blacks had been forced back into conditions that were almost as bad as slavery under what came to be known as Jim Crow.

The Jim Crow period was characterized by racial segregation, disfranchisement of black citizens, economic exploitation of black workers and farmers, and violence against blacks of all ages. During this horrible period, which many historians have described as the low point in American race relations, the Civil Rights Movement evolved into its second phase: the organizational and legal phase. It was during this phase that we started organizations like the NAACP, which was founded in 1909, and we earned legal victories in cases like Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which overturned “separate but equal.” Do you remember Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall?

We don’t talk about them much when we discuss the Civil Rights Movement either because, again, we’ve confused the so-called Civil Rights Era, with the entire movement, and we’ve forgotten these folks, too! Remember them! These geniuses (and that is what they were) defeated segregation itself. We could learn a lot from these civil rights heroes, but again, we first have to remember that this phase of the Civil Rights Movement even occurred!

Of course, we also cannot forget the third phase of the Civil Rights Movement — the “mass action” phase or the so-called Civil Rights Era — because it was during this phase of the Civil Rights Movement that we earned so many hard-fought and seemingly impossible victories: the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56, which lasted an incredible 381 days and involved 90% of the black folk living in Montgomery; the 1963 March on Washington which led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; or the 1965 Selma to Montgomery Marches which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

We should remember and celebrate all of the victories that occurred during the “mass action” phase of the Civil Rights Movement, and all of the people who were instrumental in delivering us those victories: people like Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and Congressman John Lewis. And we should remember and celebrate all of the victories mentioned earlier — our victories over slavery and Jim Crow — to remind ourselves of what we are capable of accomplishing when we determine that there is a need for a new phase of the Civil Rights Movement.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for us to act again. I think it is time for us to move into the next phase of the Civil Rights Movement. As a person who has been placed in a position of trust and responsibility within our community, it is my duty to sound the alarm when there is a threat at the door, and not to “cry wolf” or sound the alarm when there is no genuine threat merely to score cheap political points or to pander. So, here is what I say: The next phase of the Civil Rights Movement needs to be about justice: educational justice, economic justice, and criminal justice.

I say this because I have a front row seat to what’s going on in our political system, and things are about to break one way or the other. We are either going to have real education reform that gives poor black children the same opportunities to receive a quality, 21st century appropriate education as their wealthier white counterparts, or black people are going to become, literally, the least employable people on the entire planet —Yes, the entire planet.

The reason? If we stay on our current path, we as black people won’t be able to compete for the high skilled jobs that the US is increasingly specializing in and there won’t be many low-skilled jobs left to compete for since these jobs are increasingly being outsourced overseas. And the few low skilled jobs that remain will be end up being filled by over-qualified college graduates since college degrees are becoming increasingly common. If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe President Obama. He himself has said that “education is the civil rights issue of our time.” I couldn’t agree more. Education is key.

In addition to educational justice, we must also demand economic justice. What are we thinking as black people, sitting and watching college kids use the very tools we showcased to the world during the Civil Rights Era to fight for economic justice without our help and support? Shame on us! Are things going so well for us that we don’t see ourselves as part of the 99% that the Occupy Movement is fighting for? Is our unemployment rate not high enough compared to whites for us to protest? Are the interest rates we are being charged by payday lenders not high enough for us to protest?

Are the mortgage interest rates that some banks charge us not high enough compared to what they charge white customers with the same credit scores for us to protest? Are there so many blacks in upper management at the law firm, accounting firm, or company where you work that you wouldn’t dare protest or even show support to those who are protesting? We better remember how we got to where we are and understand that the minute we lose sight of the collective “we” that go us through the third phase of the Civil Rights Movement, we are doomed.

Blacks make up nearly 12 percent of the people in the State of Texas, yet we make up nearly 45 percent of the inmates in this state — that is simply unacceptable. Discrimination is present on every level of the criminal justice system, from racial profiling on our streets by the police we pay for, to the criminal courts themselves, all the way to presidential pardons where whites are four times more likely to be pardoned than blacks.

From 1980 to 2000, for every four black men who went to prison, only one went to college. Over that same period, Texas’ prison spending outpaced its higher education spending by seven times. It’s time we do something about this. It is time to educate ourselves. It’s time for us to demand real criminal justice reform. Even Ron Paul, with whom I rarely agree, agrees that the War on Drugs failed and that black people are far more likely to see the inside of a jail cell than whites or any other group for committing the exact same crimes, particularly when it comes to drug crimes!

In his Letter From a Birmingham Jail, Dr. King spoke of direct action and he spoke of the need for creating “tension.” “Tension,” Dr. King said, “is the only way to compel action, the only way to overcome the many forces attempting to maintain the status quo.” As Black people, we simply cannot afford to be as complacent as we’ve become since the last phase of the Civil Rights Movement!

We must again become actors, and we must create the tension that will topple those oppressive forces that remain within our society and within our political system. How do I know that this tension will be sufficient to topple these forces? Remember Phases 1, 2, and 3 of the Civil Rights Movement? Our track record is pretty darn good.

American Airlines is making some very tough business decisions to ensure that our region’s largest employer emerges from bankruptcy and becomes a stronger and more financially sound company.  Those decisions are not easy and will affect hundreds employees who live in Dallas and surrounding communities.  I believe American Airlines and DFW Airport will emerge stronger. As mayor of Dallas, I am committed to grow our local job base so when we are faced with a situation like this, we can keep those employees in our city and the region.

To that end, as these layoffs occur through this restructuring process, I have asked the DFW regional workforce systems to assist in efforts with those employees affected by these layoffs.  They are monitoring the situation and ready to assist anyone affected by displacement. Services include assistant in filing for unemployment, job fairs, resume preparation, interviewing skills and some workers may be eligible for retraining scholarships depending on their current skills.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings

Businesses in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex are invited to participate in a career fair at the University of North Texas at Dallas March 1 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The campus hosts the career expo every fall to connect students with local companies where they can work after graduation or even gain experience while finishing their degrees. Patricia Quinones, career development coordinator at UNT Dallas, also said students from other local schools and the public may come to the job fair.

“This is an excellent opportunity for employers to meet a diverse set of candidates and create fruitful connections with the new university in the Metroplex,” Quinones said.

To sign up or for more information, contact Quinones at (972) 780-1JOB (1562), or e-mailjaguarjobs@unt.edu. Registration is $75 for two representatives from for-profit businesses and $35 for two representatives from nonprofit organizations.

UNT Dallas is located at 7300 University Hills Blvd. (formerly Houston School Road) one mile north of I-20, and one mile east of I-35E off Camp Wisdom.