| HBO TV Star Felicia "Snoop" Pearson Visits Medgar Evers College |
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| Written by Eddie Ellas |
Brooklyn, NY, October 11  On November 9, 2007, Felicia  Snoop Pearson, recently published author, and star of the acclaimed HBO hit series The Wire will be the featured speaker at The NuLeadership Challenge Forum, at the Medgar Evers College School of Business, City University of New York. Ms. Pearson will be appearing in the second of a six part series of criminal justice challenge conversations produced by the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions at the college. The forum entitled A Conversation with Felicia Snoop Pearson, is being produced in conjunction with Grand
Central Publishing and Abandoned Nation. Atlantic Records recording star Saigon, one of today s hottest young hip hop artists, and Chino Harden, a youth activist and former gang member, will also be appearing on the program with Ms. Pearson.  Felicia Snoop Pearson, whose first book, Grace After Midnight  a Grand Central Publishing hardcover due out on November 1, 2007 , is a leading character on the Peabody Award winning, HBO series The Wire. With chilling realism, she portrays an androgynous street assassin who defies the traditional roles of sexual preference and gender in the tough neighborhood of East Baltimore; yet her real life story is even more remarkable. Grace After Midnight describes Felicia's life on the streets of Baltimore, growing up in the very neighborhoods she portrays on the series. It is a tale of horror, violence, and anger, charting the life of Felicia, who was born a crack baby, slinging drugs at age 14, busted for killing another woman in an act of self defense, and then imprisoned. In the end, however, it is a tale of redemption as Ms. Pearson comes to terms with her life while serving a sentence for manslaughter; thus the process of reconciliation begins. Mindful that she has been given a second chance at life, Felicia is using it wisely. Partnering with youth advocate Jamie Hector, founder of GBU Give Back University and co-star of the HBO series The Wire, she travels to innercity schools around the country to talk with students about the decisions that affect their lives. Her constant theme has been that young people need to think carefully about choosing their friends and the types of activities in which they engage. Using her celebrity, Felicia Pearson is urging young people to think critically, perhaps for the first time, and providing them with the tools to do so. She is making a difference in the lives of the youth she reaches. The NuLeadership Challenge Forum, a six part series of public discussions, features various public figures who are challenging the existence of poverty and violence in urban communities through innovative socialjustice initiatives. The Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions at Medgar Evers College is the first academic center in the country whose faculty is composed of formerly incarcerated professionals. Their work in research, curriculum and program design, and training is concentrated in the field of criminal justice, yet merges that discipline with community economic development as a possible answer to many innercity problems. Hip hop recording artist Saigon, whose debut album The Greatest Story Never Told , which will be released on Atlantic Records in early December, also spent time in prison and emerged a powerful voice for what he calls the abandoned nation. His insight and experience are found in the lyrics of his music: hard hitting, cuttingedge social commentary, as real as the streets that produced him. His Abandoned Nation, a crew of socially conscious brothers who all did time in prison, and are now in the street blending the power of hiphop with their passion for social justice in unique and positive ways. Saigon joins Felicia and Chino Harden, a former gang banger who now counsels at risk youth as director of field operations for the Prison Moratorium Project PMP, a youth activist group, organized by the Center for NuLeadership. PMP advocates for less reliance on incarceration and more on education. Together, Felicia, Saigon, and Chino represent the voice of formerly disaffected youth, who speak to us in a language rarely heard in academia, or the community, but is so sorely needed. We would do well to pay attention. |