Ms. Elam - myspace

A citizen's blog on Champaign Unit 4

Champaign Schools, Consent Decree

Includes multiple references and comments on the Consent Decree and related issues involving racism in local public schooling.

Law, Race and Space group page

Reading Group, Notes

Page, including notes and readings, of Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities reading group, Law, Race and Space, includes notes on various issues facing African-Americans in Champaign-Urbana.

N Search of Hip Hop Express Blog

Hip Hop, Public Engagement

Blog of Summer 2010 Hip Hop Express Project

Thursday, July 22, 2010
Champaign-Urbana Youth Discuss Needs on Xpress
video

One of the exciting things about N Search of Hip Hop Xpress is the engagement with young people of Hip Hop Generations. Part of this project was to get young people more involved in community development and sustainability initiatives. Here, we engaged them while they were putting together a computer workstation for the trailer. During the activity, they shared their thoughts about how to get young people engaged in the community.
Posted by Dr. William M. Patterson at 6:57 PM 0 comments
Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Hip Hop Xpress Rocked the Eagles Nest in East St. Louis
N Search of Hip Hop Xpress rolled out of Champaign-Urbana today headed to East St. Louis, Illinois. The focus of the trip was to support a celebratory event at The Joseph Center for veterans that the Eagles Nest was hosting. The Eagles Nest is a not for profit 501 c 3 organization dedicated to serving the developmental needs of homeless veterans. The entire trip was exciting because it was the first time that N Search of Hip Hop Xpress hit the highway. The response was phenomenal. I'm surprised we didn't cause an accident because so many people traveling on the highway were in awe of the trailer, passengers as well as drivers. Eventually, we whipped out our Flip Video camera to capture the moments.

When we arrived, it felt like it was 100 degrees. I used an MP3 device to get the event going while we set up the trailer. The set up takes close to an hour if we want to showcase the technology on the trailer. All of the technology was a hit, however, there was particular interest in the IPAD as well as the archiving turntable. One gentleman went home and brought back a collection of 45 records. He indicated that he had a recording of James Brown when he was nineteen years old that he wanted to share with us.

Once Ms. Watts, the coordinator of the event, learned the full capacity of the trailer. She expressed a desire for us to assist them in capturing the oral histories of the veterans at the center. Their end goal is to contribute the documents to the Library of Congress. This is the exact purpose that N Search was created for - to provide a means for capturing histories while providing a learning opportunity for young people of Hip Hop generations to capture those stories. video

As intended, Hip Hop Xpress served as an authenticating agent for us to capture great stories today because there was an overwhelming response from the veterans and the coordinators of the event. After we packed up and started heading back home, I started thinking about the various outcomes that could emerge from the recording project, and one of the most critical aspects of N Search of Hip Hop Xpress is providing the foundation for inter-generational learning to occur between Hip Hop, Black Power, and Civil Rights generations. To help accomplish that task I got on the phone and called one of my students involved in the Youth Media Workshop, Jay Walker. Jay Walker is one of the students that produced the inter-generational documentary, "And the Beat Goes On: Capturing the spirit in the legacy of the Douglass Center Drum Corps." Jay will be instrumental in capturing the stories in East St. Louis, but also providing an example on how Hip Hop generationers in East St. Louis can contribute to the process for developing and sustaining their community.

When I arrive back on campus I will be reaching out to the Graduate School of Library Information Sciences, Community Informatics, Youth Media Workshop, and others involved in ESLARP to facilitate the opportunity to capture the oral histories of the homeless veterans that reside at the Joseph Center in East St. Louis, IL. Capturing the stories of our homeless veterans as well as exposing young people to the life stories of men who have served our country is a great example of how Illinois is developing new and innovative methods for inter-generational community redevelopment and sustainability. More soon...
Posted by Dr. William M. Patterson at 9:15 PM 0 comments
Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Google Buzz
Friday, July 16, 2010
THE PURPOSE OF N SEARCH OF HIP HOP XPRESS


The idea behind N Search of Hip Hop Xpress is steeped in the civic engagement scholarship of Tuskegee Institute. Booker T. Washington, President of Tuskegee in the early 1900's, believed that the Institute had the ability to improve the life experience of sharecroppers if they had an opportunity to receive an education. President Washington mandated that Tuskegee Professor, George Washington Carver, Jr., an accomplished agricultural scientist, create a method to extend the knowledge and services of Tuskegee to the sharecroppers by creating a moveable school. Through the philanthropic support of Morris K Jessup, a New York financier, the Jessup Wagon was developed.

Fast forward 100+ years, N Search of Hip Hop Xpress was created by Dr. William M. Patterson of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The idea was to create a mobile media classroom, technology showcase, and sound machine that was designed to capture stories and teach Hip Hop generations, the descendants of southern sharecroppers, how to build and sustain community "one record at a time." video
Posted by Dr. William M. Patterson at 4:02 AM 0 comments

William Patterson

Summer 2010

Images from Memory Workshops, Part 2

Images from Memory Workshops

A Brief History...Liberty Temple Ministries

Church History

History of Liberty Temple Ministries in Champaign

2010

Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club Redesign Project 2010

Computer Lab, Boys and Girls Club, Campus-Community Initiatives

Promotional Video of the Learning Center and Computer Lab Redesign for the Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club of Champaign, IL.

Devin Gibbs

2010

The Odyssey Project website

Higher Education, Education Inequalities, Douglas Center, Campus-Community Initiatives

Website of the Odyssey Project, a higher education program run in affiliation with the University of Illinois at the Douglas Center. Has articles and information on the program.

Odyssey Projec Team

wikispaces

2010

Dr. David Harold Blackwell, African American Pioneer

Mathematics, Black Experience on Campus

Biography of David Blackwell, born in Centralia, and student in Mathematics at the University of Illinois from 1935 to 1941.

Nkechi Agwu, Luella Smith, and Aissatou Barry

Mathematics Magazine, 76, 1

February 2003