Person of the Day | Sharita Hansford Realizes Dream Deferred
Sharita Hansford received her bachelor’s degree during JSU’s fall graduation. In 2011, she was placed in a year-long medically induced coma.
Sharita Hansford received her bachelor’s degree during JSU’s fall graduation. In 2011, she was placed in a year-long medically induced coma.
The YouthBuild program first started in 1997 after the Department of Labor provided funding to West Jackson CDC, a private nonprofit, which serves as an entity for community-based leadership and revitalization of the community surrounding Jackson State University.
I conclude that the decisions to force Black students to share top honors with white students result from a psychological discomfort known as “white fragility.” This is a state of stress experienced by some white people when they are presented with information about people of color that challenges their sense of entitlement. I maintain that when students of color are named top students in their graduating class, as Shepard was in 2016, white society may begin to fear that students of color are encroaching upon their social turf.
Tragedy marred the first attempt to have a long-delayed 1970 Jackson State graduation, and the pandemic ruined the second attempt scheduled for the 50th anniversary in 2020. Graduates finally got to march in 2021, honoring might have been for Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, killed by police.
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