by Jamie Stengle
Associated Press Writer

SHREVEPORT, La. (AP)—Christopher Patlan was hanging out with friends on the Red River when he heard the desperate screams coming from seven teenagers. One minute they were wading in shallow water, the next they plunged into a dropoff 25 feet deep.

Patlan bolted the 10 yards to the river and jumped in, saving 15-year-old DeKendrix Warner. By the time he had dragged the boy to safety, the six others from two families —all nonswimmers—had drowned. Family members, who also can’t swim, watched helplessly.

HELPLESS—The grief of the family is shown as Shreveport Fire Department and Caddo Sheriff’s deputies scour the beach at Charles and Marie Hamel Memorial Park in Shreveport, La. Monday, Aug. 2, in search of teens believed to have drowned while swimming in the Red River.

For the Week of August 12-18

August 12

1890—This is generally considered the day that the systematic and nominally legal exclusion of Blacks from the political life of the South began. It was the day that the Mississippi Constitutional Convention began. Barred by the 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution from excluding Blacks by race, the convention instead adopted a host of strategies including literacy or so-called “Education Tests” specifically designed to prevent Blacks from voting. The tests required reading and interpreting the Constitution. Blacks would be given difficult passages to interpret while Whites were either exempted or given easy passages. Soon, most Southern states adopted the so-called Mississippi Plan to exclude Blacks from voting. The racist plan was effective. In one Mississippi County, for example, there were 30,000 Blacks but only 175 were eligible to vote.

OPHELIA MITCHELL, ERNEST E. JUST, MARCUS GARVEY

(NNPA)—Saint Paul’s College a historically Black college, located in Lawrence­ville, Va., recently received the largest donation in the school’s history from the estate of former Washington, D.C. Councilwoman Hilda Mason, a St. Paul’s alum, and Charles N. Mason Jr.

The $1.4 million endowment will be used to create a scholarship fund available to students pursuing a degree in any major area at the college.

“My mother was determined, compassionate, and a fighter for all people,” Carolyn Nicholas, Mason’s daughter, said in a statement.

HILDA MASON

by William Croyle

The Kentucky Enquirer

COVINGTON, Ky. (AP)—Ten-year-old Na’Dreya Lattimore is not happy with the country’s education system, and she let President Barack Obama know it.

Last Thursday, the president shared her sentiments with the nation.

SPECIAL LETTER—Na’Dreya Lattimore, 10, of Covington, Ky., holds a copy of the letter she sent to President Barack Obama, as well as his letter in response, July 28.

Na’Dreya, a fifth-grader at Sixth District Elementary School, wrote the president a letter in December. She received a hand-written response from him in May, and he referred to her letter at the end of his education reform speech during the National Urban League Centennial Conference in Washington, D.C.