This year’s YWCA Greater Pittsburgh Week Without Violence strayed from last year’s focus on Black-on- Black street violence and opened its scope to include violence hitting several different segments of society.

“We wanted to focus this week on all types of violence—amongst males and females, including gays and lesbians, date violence and on the recent increasing levels of violence among girls,” said CEO Magdeline Jensen. “Street violence can be perpetrated on all of these populations, but we wanted the message during the week to bring focus on some of the other forms of violence that pervade our society.”

The Pitt African American Alumni Council’s Oct. 22-25 “Sankofa” Homecoming Weekend paid tribute to the activism of pioneer student activists as well as the recent academic achievements of Black Pitt students. These included Rhodes Scholars Donna Roberts and Daniel Armanios, Marshall Scholar Rebecca Hubbard, Truman Scholars Armanios and Adam Iddriss and Goldwater Scholars Armanios and Benjamin Gordon, among others.

That festive celebration marked the 40th anniversary of Year Zero in the presence of Blacks at the University of Pittsburgh. The changed landscape for Blacks at Pitt is remarkable. Before 1969, Black students at Pitt, as at other Northern universities, were almost invisible members of the university community—few in number, excluded from many areas of campus life, studying without benefit of Black faculty mentors, and with their history and culture largely absent from the curriculum.

by Renee P. Aldrich

Four years and more than 200 couples later, the founding agencies of a federally funded marriage education program  “The Marriage Works” came together for an elegant dinner held last month at the Pittsburgh Athletic Association to honor and celebrate the accomplishment of Shawn Pinkston as project  director of the program.  Close to 100 individuals, many of whom were couples who have been through the 10- week “Marriage Works” program, were on hand to take part in the celebration.

MARRIAGE TEAM—This team helped drive the success of “The Marriage Works” program over the past four years.