Houstonian who helped found embattled SAE chapter at OU speaks out - Houston Chronicle
Dear Mr. Vinekar:
Thank you for speaking out and for your service to the academic community and public.
I was moved by what I had read about you and SAE in the recent
Chronicle article. I believe the right steps were take to calm down the public outcry
over the offensive chants and incident. But I wanted to work with the
students involved and your SAE chapters to create a positive community
project that is meaningful and will leave a legacy for students and leaders nationwide.
After reading how the students and chapter were expelled, and even the chef for the SAE chapter lost his job, I contacted Gladys House [see emails below] who had authored business plans, including a position for a full-time cook, as part of the budget for her Veteran housing proposal to save the last 10 historic rowhouses in Freedmen's Town, where I started volunteering after graduating from Rice.
I thought this project could be ideal for the students to restore
good faith relations with the public, since it is a national historic landmark
of Freed Slave churches and Civil Rights endangered and destroyed for lack of funds and support. Community residents and leaders I've been supporting
and financing had authored plans to restore the landmark housing as a sustainable
campus, modeled after Rice.
http://www.campusplan.org Adjunct professor Stephen Fox has been a key advocate for historic preservation, but even with Rice alum Annise Parker as Mayor the business plans have not been funded but overrun by political conflicts of interest with corporate developers, that received
millions in tax funding while nonprofits seeking preservation were evicted to tear down the community plans for restoration as a campus.
I was looking for support to promote national support and funding
for these campus plans, including connecting them with Obama's
executive order on Excellence in African American Education,
but the local politics has prevented unity.
When this issue concerning SAE came up, I saw a perfect opportunity to create student internships and community service
to help the African American communities to save irreplaceable history
through a campus concept that can be replicated as a model nationwide.
I have set aside $10,000 in an LLC created just to launch this campaign for creating a campus district, and to organize a team of students and professional mentors to lead it. But gave up because of exhaustion from working two jobs, struggling even to pay the interest on loans to the non profit volunteers, and obstruction from endless politics that prevented the right people from coming together to make this a reality.
Here is the unfinished website I had started, including the campus plans signed
into federal HUD legislation, and Gladys House's Veteran Housing
plans which I thought the students at SAE could help us to save.
http://www.freedmenstown.com
Working two jobs, I have not had the time, focus, or business and marketing skills to take this to a national level. I had planned to offer a contest to students to write to the President about this campus plan, but don't even have the energy to do that.
I'd be willing to consult with you, if it is better for me to invest the
$10,000 I saved to start a trust to buy land, or to create jobs for
the OU students and SAE chapter to take on this project and promote it correctly.
Would you be willing to consult or direct students to raise funds to
buy out the land and build a campus under this LLC?
With $10,000 to get this started, I would like to offer this project as a proposed project for the students and your SAE chapter.
Can this project be used for community service to save the SAE chapter
that you worked so hard to create. If so, I would gladly donate the money
I saved up as closing costs to buy the property, and work with you and
SAE students to set this up where it helps the community and everyone.
The students at the local schools in our district wanted to save the last historic
houses, but the politics ran right over all of us. Rice alum Juliet Stipeche
is on the trustee board of HISD in our district and wanted to help the students.
Here is the news video from fellow classmate Ned Hibberd at Fox 26,
covering our efforts to save the last blocks of historic rowhouses which
Gladys House had proposed to save for Veterans in a business plan,
budget application for funding to both the VA and to HUD but got no help.
Time running out for historic Freedman s Town - FOX 26 News MyFoxHouston
I would like to see students lead this effort, where the educational programs are sustainable not just for training student interns, but also for training Veterans and community leaders in owning and managing business, property, schools and government administration before running for public office.
If you like the idea of launching a student contest to write letters or create a video PSA to officials or foundations to raise the funds for saving Freedmen's Town, I would be happy to sponsor a $1000 contest through SAE to promote this national landmark as a campus model for economic and government reform through legal and financial education.
Thank you for your outreach, and please let me know if I can help restore your goals with the SAE and the students involved at OU.
Yours truly,
Emily Nghiem
73 820 5130
emilynghiem@hotmail.com
http://www.isonomy.org
http://www.ethics-commission.net
http://www.earnedamnesty.org
To promote the youth business education center and music production studio, which Gladys House already bought the land to build, I even spoofed a rock song and rap about the history of Freedmen's Town and the struggle to save it as a campus to end slave labor worldwide through student campus organizations:
http://www.rightsfortheworkers.org This song is dedicated to Dr. Tim O'Brien who passed away years ago and never got to see his book published on Freedmen's Town and the fruit of his fight to save it, and to Lenwood Johnson, the co-author of the original campus plans, who is still with us but lost his son, a Veteran, who might still be alive if we had been able to complete the plans in time to buy the 10 houses and move him closer to his father and received community support.
I never forgave myself for that failure, but just ask and pray that Lenwood's plans be supported to restore the entire district as a campus and stop any further losses. Please see attached letter to Ted Cruz's office on the restitution owed to taxpayers for abuses of public funding and authority, which I ask to be credited back to finance the creation of a campus district to teach the lessons and legacy of Freedmen's Town and the political history of African Americans and Civil Rights.
If you can see any way to turn these problems into an educational opportunity for students to make a meaningful and lasting contribution, I appreciate any suggestions or ideas you have. Thank you very much.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <
gcarpetdepot@aol.com>
Date: Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: found a chef for your Vet Housing Plans?
You may give them my number of
713 742 6995.
Alumni scheduled to meet this Saturday at 1:00 p.m. unless the president
has to work.
Gladys
-----Original Message-----
To: Gladys House <
gcarpetdepot@aol.com>; Gladys House <
gladys.house@ymail.com>; emilynghiem <
emilynghiem@hotmail.com>; Emily Nghiem <
emilynghiem@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tue, Mar 10, 2015 3:23 pm
Subject: found a chef for your Vet Housing Plans?
A black chef might lose his job because of the racist Oklahoma frat chant but the internet is trying to help - Houston Chronicle
^ Black Chef lost his job due to racist chants that expelled the Fraternity at OU ^
Dear Gladys:
Can we lobby the SAE fraternity that shut down due to racist chants at OU,
and ask to create a campus job for them to save the Vet housing plans?
The Black Chef for the expelled chapter lost his job.
I have 10K in the bank toward that project.
Can Minister Pervis Hall organize and use that LLC
to draw the expelled students and chapter here to FT
to help you with the Vet housing and music studio project?
My coworkers are interested but want to know what
celebrities you want to work with to promote the studio.
Can I give them your number to invite them to a meeting of FT alumni on this?