User:Edward R. Culvert/sandbox

Dr. Edward Ross Culvert is an African American professor, newspaper publisher, businessman and motivational speaker. He is a professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) and publisher of The Culvert Chronicles USA, a New York City weekly newspaper serving the African American community.

Dr. Culvert serves on several boards of colleges, political, and fraternal organizations including The International Brotherhood Protective Order Elks of the World. He is a Grand Lodge Officer of Elks of the World. He is also the former Commissioner of the New York State Labor Relations Board. In his formative years, Dr. Culvert was a professional musician and an athlete. Early Life & Education

Eddie Ross Culvert was born in Harlem Hospital. He was raised on 127th Street between Fifth and Lenox Avenues. As his family moved up the socioeconomic ladder, they moved to 65 Morningside Ave. and then to Graham Court. The family also lived in Sugar Hill before moving to the Bronx. His father, Henry, was a lawyer and minister. His mother, Lucille, was a school music teacher and a soloist with the Hall Johnson Choir.

A precocious youth and natural athlete, he excelled in football, basketball, track, and soccer. He distinguished himself as an athlete and toured with the United States Youth Team. When his family moved to the South Bronx, Dr. Culvert was sent to St. Peters Military Academy where he had his first encounter with racism. “I fought like hell, but there were too many of them. After graduation, I bounced around schools before dropping out for a year.”

Dr. Culvert told his parents he couldn’t understand how people who were honest and worked hard every day had nothing while the hustlers, hookers, drug dealers and gangsters seemed to have the best cars, clothes and everything. Time away from school convinced Dr. Culvert he had a future and education was the key. His parents enrolled him in Washingtonville, High School in Orange County N.Y. There, he played basketball, volleyball, tennis, soccer and ran track. In addition, he began to study serious music under the tutorage of Mr. Arthur D. Case.

Today, Dr. Culvert holds seven degrees from three universities and has done further study at the City University of New York Graduate Center. His academic achievements include: Texas Baptist University – Austin, Texas, Bachelors of Science, Classical Music Masters of Arts, Music Education, Masters of Divinity, Doctorate of Divinity (Cum Laude) Doctorial Thesis: Homoousios: Jesus Christ Is the Son of God

Thomas Edison University – Trenton, New Jersey, Bachelors of Science, History, Social Science Masters of Arts, History, Social Science City College of New York University – New York, NY Masters of Arts, Sociology City College of New York University Graduate Center – New York, NY Additional Study Stony Brook University Additional Study

Formative Years

Dr. Culvert comes from a generation of dedicated and highly educated African Americans who have been active in civil rights, social justice and economic development. At 15, he began working part-time as a gofer for the legendary Harlem Democratic Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Dr. Culvert was hired at the recommendation of his father, one of Powell’s lawyers at the time.

“I just did little stuff for him, said Dr. Culvert of Mr. Powell during a 2008 newspaper interview. “We did not have cell phones then, so whenever Adam wanted to meet with someone, he would send me around to tell the person that he would meet them at Jocks or The Red Rooster. (His unofficial office)

The astute Dr. Culvert would receive invaluable life lessons from Mr. Powell and gain introductions to much prominent community, civic and religious leaders of the day. Congressman Powell would lose his last election to Democratic Mr. Charles B. Rangel, before passing away April 4, 1972. Years later, Dr. Culvert and Congressman Rangel became friends. While working for Congressman Powell, Dr. Culvert had a name changing experience that continues to impact his life. Famed African American educator, Ms. Mary McLeod Bethune came to New York City for a meeting with Congressman Powell. Dr. Culvert was charged with picking her up and bringing her to Harlem.

Dr. Culvert walked up to the legendary founder of Bethune-Cookman College and the National Council for Negro women, and introduced himself as her ride to Congressman Powell. She asked him his name and when he responded “Eddie,” the acclaimed educator quickly gave him a lesson in self-respect. Ms. Bethune, who served in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet and was a friend to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, said: “That’s not your name. What’s your middle name?” I said “Ross! She said, what’s your last name?” I said “Culvert. She said, so, your name is Edward Ross Culvert.”

“So I’ve been Edward from that day,” Culvert said. “The funny thing is my birth certificate and my driver license is listed as Eddie”. Mr. Powell’s mentorship of Dr. Culvert and his middle-class upbringing would put him on a course to meet some of the leaders who shaped recent history, including Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King Jr., Labor Leader A. Philip Randolph, American Muslim Leader Malcolm X and AFL/CIO, Leader George Meany, Benjamin McLaren, Randolph’s right hand man, T.J. Smalls, Treasurer of the Brother Hood of Sleeping Car Porters, Dr. Sterling Brown of the Inter-racial Colloquy Roy Wilkins; there were too many to remember.

Congressman Powell even took the astute Dr. Culvert to meet Harlem Gangster Bumpy Johnson after the teenager told the Congressman he hoped to be a gangster after observing them do financially better than those working. Bumpy’s enforcer Joseph (Slim) Sumter smacked him in his face and called him a punk. He responded by punching him in the stomach.

“Adam showed me how to see things in a different way,” said Dr Culvert of Congressman Powell also then the revered pastor of the prestigious Abyssinian Baptist Church. “He would talk to anybody, from lawyers to the people serving him food or cleaning up the table. I still do that to this day.” Congressman Powell said “it is the little people who will make you big, not the big people.”

Dr. Culvert said Mr. Johnson was “very smart. They called him ‘The Professor’. He was always reading, writing and playing chess. It was Mr. Powell and Mr. Ben McLaurin who suggested with Labor Leader George Meany’s blessing, that Mr. A. Philip Randolph send Dr. Culvert to Alabama to serve as Meany’s and Randolph’s observer of the 1955 King-led bus boycotts that desegregated Montgomery’s public transportation system.

Dr. Culvert was arrested several times during his stint in Montgomery engaging in civil disobedience. But the silver lining was that he met Sylvia Evans from Mobile Alabama, who was a student at Alabama State University. The two didn’t meet again until he spotted her in New York years later. They’ve been married for 40 years. We know who was in Montgomery and who was not there. We just laugh at the tales they tell. Career

Dr. Culvert’s has reinvented himself through a series of jobs and interests beginning as a teenager working as a gofer for the legendary Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Later as a budding musician, who loved the trumpet. He regularly worked in the club circuit of New York City, traveled the chitterling circuit throughout the South and along the Eastern seaboard. He started playing piano in his father’s church.

Dr. Culvert later muted his horn with a wife and family to support and began playing a more financially lucrative tune eventually settling down in a series of middle-level jobs in the Public and the Private sector, culminating with being appointed as the first African American to serve as Commissioner and Chairman of the New York State Labor Relations Board. Dr. Culvert handled labor representations, elections, and strikes as one of the State’s most influential and highest-ranking labor government officials from 1977 to 1983.

Mr. Powell and Ms. Bethune’s influence would also play a role in Dr. Culvert’s decision to embark on a second career as an educator. In 1969, Dr. Culvert became a professor at the City University of New York where he currently teaches Social Science and African American Studies at Lehman College in the Bronx. He formerly served as a Special Assistant to the President of City College representing City College as part of the Empowerment Zone Initiative sponsored by Congressman Charles B. Rangel.

Dr. Culvert has also taught at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is listed among Who’s Who in American Education and has been chosen as one of the top educators in America. His favorite saying is “learn to give solutions not excuses.” In 2005, he became publisher of The Culvert Chronicles, a New York City-based weekly newspaper. The 125,000 circulation paper recently underwent a digital redesign and is now published on the Internet at theculvertchronicles.com.

Dr. Culvert also serves on several boards of political and social clubs, including serving as a longtime Grand Lodge Officer of the Improved Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of the World. In 1938, he won the Elks Oratorical Contest. The Elks recently awarded him for his many years of dedicated service. In 2012, Congressman Charles B. Rangel placed Edward R. Culverts’ name in the Congressional Record as a distinguished American citizen.

Academic Work

1. In the Matter of Labor 1989 City College

References

1. Daily News Story: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/adam-malcolm-knew-article-1.343713

2. The Culvert Chronicles USA: http://theculvertchroniclesusa.net/