by Jonathan Landrum Jr.
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA (AP)—Denzel Washington still applies the same principles in his acting career that he learned when he was a third grader in the Boys & Girls Club of America.

Now, the Oscar-winning actor along with director Ron Howard want to show how the club has impacted his life along with 20 other celebrities and entertainers, who were once members of the club.

PART OF THE SOLUTION—Actor Denzel Washington talks about a public service advertising (PSA) campaign for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Sept. 21, at the National Press Club in Washington. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)

ATLANTA (AP)—Georgia's board of pardons rejected a last-ditch clemency bid from Troy Davis on Tuesday, one day before his scheduled execution, despite support from figures including an ex-president and a former FBI director for the claim that he was wrongly convicted of killing a police officer in 1989.

Davis is scheduled to die Wednesday at 7 p.m. EDT by injection for killing off-duty Savannah officer Mark MacPhail, who was shot dead while rushing to help a homeless man being attacked. It is the fourth time in four years that Davis’ execution has been scheduled by Georgia officials.

TROY DAVIS

(NNPA)—Move over Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio: producer and actor Tyler Perry is the richest man in entertainment, according to Forbes magazine.

The 42-year-old Perry, creator of the popular “Madea” franchise and the TBS shows “House of Payne” and “Meet the Browns,” recently topped the magazine’s list of Entertainment’s Highest Paid Men. Perry, whose films rarely find an audience outside the US, recently helmed an adaptation of stage play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” which starred Whoopi Goldberg, Thandie Newton and Janet Jackson.

TYLER PERRY

Forbes wrote, “Thanks to five movies he has cranked out over the past two years and two TV series, Perry earned $130 million between May 2010 and May 2011, which ranks him as the highest-earning man in entertainment for that time period.”

Week of September 24-30

September 24

1957—President Dwight Eisenhower orders federal troops into Little Rock, Ark., to prevent angry Whites from interfering with the integration of the city’s Central High School by nine Black students. The confrontation was one of the most dramatic during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. Governor Orval Faubus had vowed to go to jail to block the court ordered desegregation of the school claiming that Whites would be destroyed if they integrated with Blacks. But the confrontation settled the issue of whether states had to obey orders issued by federal courts.

1965—President Lyndon Johnson issues what is generally considered the nation’s first affirmative action order—Executive Order #11246. It required companies receiving federal construction contracts to ensure equality in the hiring of minorities. Despite a disastrous war in Vietnam which would eventually force his resignation, the Southern-born Johnson generally supported a host of legislative and executive efforts beneficial to Blacks.

PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON