Notes
Photo ardir: Keith Taiman, ford Motor Company
Langston Hughes and Sonia Sanchez:
2001 Ford Freedom Award Winners
Sonia Sanchez, 2001 Ford Freedom Award Lecturer, author, activist
and professor, with student essay winners from Metro Detroit area
schools of the 2001 Ford Freedom Award program, sponsored by Ford
Motor Company at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African
American History, Feb 22.
Sonia Sanchez. 2001 Ford Freedom Award Lecturer, author, activist
and professor, lectures to Detroit area students on staying positive, and
staying in school at the 2001 Ford Freedom Award Lecture Ceremony
held at the Detroit Opera House, Feb 23.
The 2001 Ford Freedom Award was given to Langston
Hughes, one of the most prolific African-American writers of
all time. Sonia Sanchez, poet and activist, was named the
Ford Freedom Scholar in honor of Hughes. The three-day
celebration at Detroit’s Museum of African American History
was held in February, Black History Month.
The Ford Freedom Award was created in 1999 to recog­
nize, posthumously, distinguished individuals whose lives
improved the African-American community and the world at
large. Last year, Sammy Davis Jr. was the second recipient of
the Freedom Award and Gregory Hines, actor, dancer and
choreographer, was the Ford Freedom Scholar.
Q
African Americans On Wheels
Mazda Foundation Boosts Grant to Japanese
Studies Program at Dillard University
The Mazda Foundation, which already contributes
$40,000 annually to Dillard University’s Japanese Studies
Program, will add $25,000 to its grant.
The additional funding will be dedicated to the creation of
a Mazda Foundation Japanese Studies Computer Lab.
In 1998, the Mazda Foundation began funding scholar­
ships for Dillard's Japanese Studies Program, the first of its
kind at a historically Black college or university. Since 1999,
the Foundation has provided $40,000 annually. Dillard
matches the Mazda grants on a dollar-per-dollar basis, fur­
ther boosting funding for students pursuing language as well
as business studies that focus on the Far East.
The Mazda Foundation was created in 1990 to demon­
strate Mazda’s commitment to improving the quality of life in
the communities in which it does business.
In a separate announcem ent, Dillard President, Dr.
Michael Lomax named Steven Odell, vice president of mar­
keting and sales of Mazda North American Operations, to the
New Orleans-based school's board of directors.
Minority-owned Company Buys a M ajority
Interest in an Illinois Seat Supplier Firm
Ernie
Green
Industries Inc., of
Dayton,
Ohio,
increased its business
with Toyota by acquir­
ing a majority interest
in a seat supplier.
Green
Industries
purchased a majority
interest
in
the
Lawrenceville,
111.,
operation of Trim
Masters Inc. The Trim
Masters facility is a
Johnson Controls Inc.
joint venture with
Araco Corp., and is
one of six manufactur­
ing
plants
Trim
Masters operates in
the United States.
Ernie Green will oversee new venture
The new minority-
owned company, called Automotive Technology Systems,
LLC, officially launched operations at the Lawrenceville site
in January. It is supplying automotive seat systems and door
panels for Toyota pickup trucks produced in Princeton, Ind.
Green Industries now holds a 51 percent majority stake in
the new company. Trim Masters will own the remaining 49
percent.
Ernie Green, founder, president and chief executive officer
of Ernie Green Industries, will serve as CEO of Automotive
Technology Systems.
www. onwheelsinc. com