Wednesday, May 11, 2005

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY NEW YORK ALUMNI HONOR TWO PIONEERS AT THE SECOND ANNUAL AWARDS RECEPTION.

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY, PA (www.lincoln.edu)--Wilbert Tatum ’58, owner of the NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS, and writer Lawrence P. Neal ‘61 (posthumously) will be honored by the New York area alumni of Lincoln University at its Second Annual Alumni Awards Reception being held on Friday, May 20, 2005 at 6:00 p.m. at Loft Eleven (Westside Loft), 336 W. 37 Street, New York City.

Warren R. Colbert Sr. ‘68, first vice president, UBS, and chairman, Planning and Development Committee, Lincoln University Board of Trustees, stated: “The goal is to highlight and celebrate the tradition of excellence exhibited throughout Lincoln’s 151-year legacy as America’s First Historically Black College and to recognize and encourage Lincoln students from the New York area.” Lincoln University currently has 337 students from New York and over 2,000 alumni in the tri-state area. Colbert conceived the event and serves as its co-chair along with The Honorable Ruth E. Smith, ’81, Civil Court Judge for the City of New York, and Robert A. James ’66, Entrepreneur.

Noted journalist and businessman, Wilbert “Bill” Tatum graduated from Lincoln University in 1958 before going on to attend Yale University as a National Urban Fellow sponsored by the National League of Cities, the United States Conference of Mayors and the Ford Foundation. He received his Masters Degree in Urban Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles, California. In 1971 Mr. Tatum purchased the NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS with his partners. In 1972 they went on to purchase New York City radio stations WLIB and WBLS: the flagship stations of the Inner City Broadcasting Corporation’s consortium of stations in California, Michigan, Texas, Indiana and New York. Mr. Tatum and his partners also own corporate stock for the famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem. He and his wife, Susan Kohn, have a daughter, Elinor, who serves as publisher and editor-in-chief of the NEW YORK AMSTERDAM NEWS.

 

Larry (Lawrence Paul) Neal was well known as a writer, literary and music critic, and major catalyst for the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Born September 5, 1937 in Atlanta, Georgia he grew up in Philadelphia and graduated from Lincoln University in 1961 with a Bachelor of Arts in History and English. In 1964 he received a Masters Degree from the University of Pennsylvania and moved from Philadelphia to New York City. The following year he married Evelyn Rodgers, a chemist at Mount Sinai Hospital. Until 1976, Neal taught creative writing and English at several universities including City College of New York, Case Western Reserve and Yale University. In 1970 he became a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Afro-American critical studies. In 1971 they adopted a boy named Avatar and purchased their residence on Jumel Terrace in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem. It served as a magnet for the creative individuals of the period, including literary figures whose works gained attention during the late 1960s and the early 1970s such as: Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones), Ishmael Reed, Quincy Troupe, Askia Muhammad Toure, Hoyt Fuller, Stanley Crouch, and Henry Dumas. Neal also served as the education director of the Black Panther Party and a member of the Revolutionary Action Movement. Neal died of a heart attack in 1981.

Founded in 1854, Lincoln University is a premier, Historically Black University that combines the best elements of a liberal arts and sciences-based undergraduate core curriculum and selected graduate programs to meet the needs of those living in a highly technological and global society. The University is nationally recognized as a major producer of African Americans with undergraduate degrees in the physical sciences (biology, chemistry and physics); computer and informational sciences; biological and life sciences. Lincoln enrolls 2,012 undergraduate and graduate students.

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