Bring It On! – WFHB

On today’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts Clarence Boone and Liz Mitchell speak to Troy Thomas and Ruben Marté, who are the two African-American candidates for Monroe County’s crowded primary election field for sheriff.

Troy Harris was born in Bloomington and still calls it home today. Troy has served on the board of directors for Big Brothers Big Sisters and is currently a member of the Moose Lodge. As part of the Lodge, Troy assists in raising money for organizations in Monroe County, including the Bloomington Animal Shelter, Shop with a Cop, Life Designs, Middle Way House, and many more.

Upon graduating from Bloomington North High School, Troy joined the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office as a jailer in the county jail. A few years later Troy joined the Patrol Division, becoming the first African American patrol deputy in the history of Monroe County. Troy has risen through the ranks of the Sheriff’s Office from patrol deputy to Detective, Sergeant, Lieutenant, and Captain. He has led the Detective Division and Patrol Division. As part of the Patrol Division, Troy was an integral part of modernizing the Field Training Officer program, moving from paper forms to a digital solution. Throughout his 26 years with the Sheriff’s department Troy has worked to modernize the department as policing and community needs evolve. In addition to his work with Monroe County, Troy has trained hundreds of officers across the state as an instructor at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy.

Ruben Marté is a 31-year veteran with the Indiana State Police and currently serves as a Captain in the Office of the Superintendent. His previous assignments include the Legal Office, the South Zone Area Captain for the Criminal Investigation Division, Records Division Assistant Commander, Lieutenant of the Criminal Intelligence Section, and Special Investigation Section, which encompasses the Vehicle Theft Unit, White Collar Crime Unit, Cybercrime Unit, and Crimes Against Children. Captain Marté also developed and commanded the Indiana State Police Security Threat Group Unit, which monitors and controls gang activity occurring at special events in Indiana.  This past year, Captain Marté, who is bilingual in both English and Spanish, was appointed as the first Equity and Inclusion Officer of the Indiana State Police.

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Bring It On!’s host Clarence Boone spends the hour with sisters Briah and Taylor O’Neal, who are African-American junior competitive tennis-playing sisters and now children’s book authors.  As reported in The Herald-Times on June 19, 2021, Briah and Taylor started playing tennis when they were 3 and 4 years old. They were inspired by Venus and Serena Williams to start playing tennis. They are currently competitive junior tennis players who attend Bloomington High School South students.

In 2019 the sisters had published Serve It to Me, Too (The O’Neal Sisters Tennis Adventures), the first of three volumes of children’s books, which Briah wrote and Taylor illustrated. As brand ambassadors for Justice girls clothing, they were sent to Justice’s headquarters in Ohio in April 2019 for a brand ambassador summit. There they heard keynote speakers; some of whom were young authors. The experience inspired them to write about their own experiences and journey as African-American girls playing the white-dominated sport of tennis.

With the help of their parents, Briah and Taylor found a publisher for their children’s books, and they became published authors in November 2019. Throughout the hour, the sisters talk about what inspired them to write their first book and what continues to drive them today as they continue their journey as competitive junior tennis players. Foremost, the sisters want to spread a message of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and, thus, the book ends with the young girl Deja, the main character, saying “Serve it to me, too”.

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In today’s edition of Bring It On!, hosts, Clarence Boone and Maqubé Reese, welcome guests Nordia McNish and Teyaqua Davis, two resilient women of color.

While it is true that our past can shape us, it does not have to define us. Life experiences can be traumatic, but they can be overcome and serve us in positive ways. As Jesse Jackson would often say in his days of civil rights   advocacy, “I am somebody!” And the late Maya Angelou penned in 1978, “Out of the huts of history’s shame, I rise. Up from a past, that’s rooted in pain, I rise.”

The stories of this evening’s guests, Nordia McNish and Teyaqua Davis, exemplify how women of color have endured, persevered, and overcome obstacles on their way to achieving success.

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This is a rebroadcast from September 20, 2022:

Today on Bring It On!, hosts, Clarence Boone and William Hosea, speak with James T. Averhart, the National President at Montford Point Marine Association, Inc., and Joe Geeter, the former Present and current National Director of Publications at Montford Point Marine Association, Inc.

Montford Point Marine Association, Inc. is the organization for The Montford Point Marines Memorial. It is dedicated to the legacy of nearly 20,000 African-Americans who served in the Marine Corps but trained in the segregated training facility known as Montford Point Camp in Jacksonville, NC from August 26, 1942, until the camp was decommissioned on September 9, 1949. The memorial tells the story through architecture and sculpture. The memorial is located within the LeJeune Memorial Gardens in Jacksonville, NC.

As of June 25, 1941, racial discrimination in the defense industry or in government was prohibited with the signing of Executive Order 8802 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Owing to the threat of strike and a march on Washington, D.C. by the first African-American labor union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and the need for more recruits to fight WWII, President Roosevelt desegregated the armed forces and the federal government.

President Averhart, and former president Greeter, of the Montford Point Marine Association, Inc. explain more about the grand history of Montford Point and the role of African American soldiers in WWII.

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On today’s edition of Bring It On!, host Clarence Boone continues the conversation about COVID-19 with Penny  Caudill, health administrator for the Monroe County Health Department and former “2021 – Bloomington Woman of the Year”, and Shelli Yoder, Indiana State Senator for District 40 and a former Miss Indiana and a Miss America 1993 contestant. Today’s focus is on COVID-19 vaccination rates and booster shots.

In trying to explain low vaccination and booster rates compared to other industrialized countries, the New York Times offers the following: “The United States has a vaccination problem. Moreover, it is not just about the relatively large share of Americans who have refused to get a shot. The U.S. also trails many other countries in the share of vaccinated people who have received a booster shot.

The vaccinated-but-unboosted more closely resemble the country as a whole. Millions of Americans have already received two vaccine shots — eagerly, in many cases — but have yet to receive a follow-up. The unboosted span racial groups. One answer is that medical care in the U.S. is notoriously fragmented nor equitably service all communities. There is neither a centralized record system, as in Taiwan, nor a universal insurance system, as in Canada and             Scandinavia, to remind people to get another shot. Many Americans also do not have a regular contact point for their health care. As a result,  preventive care — like a booster shot — often falls through the cracks.

Today’s host is Clarence Boone.

Today’s show is a rebroadcast from December 27, 2021:

On today’s Bring It On!, hosts, William Hosea and Gloria Howell spend the hour with Drs. Tennisha Riley, James Brooks, and Amrita Myers to help us better understand the mental state of college students in general and how they appear to be coping during a pandemic era.

Dr. Tennisha Riley is an assistant professor in the Counseling & Educational Psychology department with an appointment in Human Development.  Her extensive research seeks to expand our foundational knowledge of adolescent emotional development and situate that knowledge within a sociocultural context for Black youth. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University and subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Indiana University’s Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society.

Dr. James Brooks, assistant professor of Counseling Psychology at Indiana University. Dr. Brooks has expertise in relationship counseling and the impact of race & racism on multiracial families and interracial relationships. As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Brooks has worked with students on campus (here at IU and at Tennessee State University) around their mental health needs and has worked with students who are counselors in training to help them.

Dr. Amrita Myers is a renowned Ruth N. Halls associate professor of  History and Gender Studies at Indiana University and a consulting editor of the Journal of American History. Amrita is a historian of the black female experience in the United States, and her research interests revolve around issues of race, gender, freedom, and power and the ways in which these constructs intersect with one another in the lives of black women in the Old South. She is also the author of Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston, 1790- 1860.

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Today on Bring It On!, host Clarence Boone speaks with Shatoyia Moss, director of Safe and Civil Cities for the City of Bloomington, and Gloria Howell, director of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University, about Black History Month.

The foundations of Black History Month started with Daryl Michael Scott, Professor of History at Howard University, in Chicago during the summer of 1915. An alumnus of the University of Chicago, Carter G. Woodson traveled from Washington, D.C. to participate in a national celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation sponsored by the state of Illinois. Thousands of African Americans travelled from across the country to see exhibits highlighting the progress their people had made since the destruction of slavery. On September 9, 1915, Woodson met at the Wabash YMCA with four others and formed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH).

As early as 1920, Woodson urged black civic organizations to promote the achievements that researchers were uncovering. In 1924, they responded with the creation of Negro History and Literature Week, which they renamed Negro Achievement Week. The 1960s had a dramatic effect on the study and celebration of black history. Before the decade was over, Negro History Week would be well on its way to becoming Black History Month. Since the mid-1970s, every American president, Democrat and Republican, has issued proclamations endorsing the Association’s annual theme.

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On today’s  Bring It On!, hosts Clarence Boone and William Hosea speak with Monroe County Prosecutor Ericka Oliphant, Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jeff Kehr, and State Police Captain Ruben Marté about the killing of black men and BLM allies.

2021 has been a year of high-profile court cases involving lethal crimes to people of color, or cases tangentially related to people of color. Noticeable cases have included the Ahmaud Arbery, Kyle Rittenhouse, and the Kim Potter court cases. Recently, a stray bullet fired by a police officer killed Valentina Orellana Peralta, a 14-year-old girl, who had recently moved to Los Angeles from Chile. This senseless killing has enlisted Ben Crump, the civil rights lawyer who has represented the families of high-profile victims of killings around the country to get involved.

Here to help us with an analysis of the disturbing and growing trend of senseless lethal violence to people of color, and how to hold individuals accountable are Monroe County Prosecutor Ericka Oliphant, Chief Deputy Prosecutor Jeff Kehr, and State Police Captain Ruben Marté.

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Today’s Bring It On! hosts, Clarence Boone and William Hosea speak with Dr. Eddie Cole. He is the keynote speaker for the City of Bloomington’s annual MLK celebration. He is speaking on “The Challenge of Action and the Challenges of Action.” Dr. Charlie Nelms also joins the conversation.

Dr. Eric Cole is an associate professor of higher education and organizational change at UCLA. In 2021, Education Week named Dr. Cole as one of the most influential U.S.- based education scholars. His work and speaking events on college presidents and race has appeared in multiple popular press outlets, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among others.

Dr. Charlie Nelms, a native of the Arkansas Delta, has devoted his life to equalizing opportunities for disenfranchised peoples. He is currently a senior scholar at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and a senior consultant for the Association of Governing Boards, specializing in HBCU governance and leadership, as well as retired Chancellor, North Carolina Central University, and IU Vice President for Institutional Development and Student Affairs Emeritus.

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