Special to The Dallas Examiner
DALLAS
The ninth annual “Home for the Holidays” toy drive and adopt-a-family campaign kicked off Dec. 5 in the Flag Room at Dallas City Hall.
Councilman Tennell Atkins and community partners acknowledged the need for the program District 8 as more families have faced tough economic times. The goal of the campaign is to bring holiday joy to as many families as possible.
Over 1,000 children – and 400 families – have been adopted through the program’s “Adopt A Family” Program since its inception. In addition, more than 6,400 have been fed through the program’s “Holiday Feast Luncheon” since its inception.
For more information, call Gaytha F. Davis at 214-670-4066.
DALLAS
(AP) – Under pressure from the NAACP, American Airlines is promising changes in the way it trains employees and handles passenger complaints about racially biased treatment.
The airline announced the steps last Thursday after a meeting between CEO Doug Parker and NAACP President Derrick Johnson.
The civil-rights group issued a “travel advisory” in October warning African Americans they could face discrimination when flying on American. The alert followed several high-profile incidents, including one involving an organizer of the Women’s March who was booted from a flight after a dispute over her seat.
American pledged to hire an outside firm to review its diversity in hiring and promotion, train all 120,000 employees to counteract so-called implicit bias, create a special team to review passengers’ discrimination complaints, and improve resolution of employee complaints about bias.
The NAACP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The airline’s promise followed the second meeting between Parker, Johnson, Women’s March organizer Tamika Mallory and others at American’s headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas.
In October, Mallory called an American Airlines pilot a racist after he ordered her off a flight in Miami. She posted an emotional video about the incident on Facebook, which has been viewed 530,000 times, and mulled whether to take legal action against American.
Two weeks later, the NAACP issued its warning to African American travelers.
DALLAS
(AP) – The children’s book Where’s Waldo? Santa Spectacular is among the 10,000 books banned from Texas prisons, but Adolf Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf makes the cut.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has a list of more than 248,000 works that inmates are allowed to read.
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, a Pulitzer-Prize winner for fiction, and the 2005 best-seller Freakonomics also are not allowed. But two books by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke are OK.
There are a variety of reasons why the Texas agency bans books, such as graphic depictions of illegal sex acts or information on criminal schemes.
The agency also won’t allow covers that can be used to hide contraband, such as pop-up books.
DALLAS
In Conversation: An Evening with Dr. Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. and the Honorable Sylvester Turner will be held Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. at St. Luke “Community” United Methodist Church, located at 5710 E. R.L. Thornton Freeway.
The lecture series focuses on the life and events of the city, state and nation; while raising funds for the Frazier House and other Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. Community Outreach Center programs.
Set to open in early 2018 in the former Julia C. Frazier Elementary School building, Frazier House is a 36,000 square-foot facility located at 4600 Spring Ave. It will provide a wrap-around, comprehensive slate of services; including assistance with educational needs, job skills training, job placement, social services, health-related and legal issues. Services and programs will be provided by local universities and community-based organizations with case managers’ practical solutions and approaches.
The lecture series will be hosted by ZWHJCOC who will serve as program manager for Frazier House. The center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that creates self-sustaining pathways out of poverty for young people and families through education and job placement in Dallas.
For more information and reservation contact Fannie Smith at 214-454-8624 or inconversation@zwhjcoc.org.