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Azia: Hey guys, it is Azia Celestino, and today I am in Portland, Oregon, at the Pensole Design Academy, where students are turning sketches on a sheet to sneakers on your feet. And Channel One News starts right now.

Keith: All right, Azia and her cool kicks are coming up. Hey guys, I am Keith Kocinski.

Emily: And I am Emily Reppert.

Keith: And we are starting off today's show with an icon of the civil rights movement. 

Emily: Yeah, Keith. Linda Brown was just a kid when she became the face of the movement to desegregate schools back in the 1950s, and she died on Sunday at the age of 75.

Linda Brown's walk here, to the all-black Monroe Elementary School, sparked a lawsuit that changed history. But as a third-grader, she didn't realize it.

Linda Brown: I only knew that I wanted to go to school with the children that I played with on a daily basis.

Enimini Ekong: You don't wake up as a young person saying that “I'm gonna change the world,” but for all she knew, she was groomed for it.

Emily: Before the mid-1950s, many schools across the United States were segregated, meaning black students and white students went to separate schools, rode different buses, and white students were usually granted more opportunities than their black peers. 

In Topeka, Kansas, 7-year-old Linda Brown had to take the bus to an all-black school a mile away. But just a few blocks from her home was Sumner Elementary, where only white students were allowed.

Brown: We virtually lived together, and why didn't we go to the same school? My parents tried to explain to me it was because of the color of my skin. 

Emily: So her father sued the school board, arguing that "separate but equal" was in fact not equal at all and violated his daughter’s rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. 

The landmark case, Brown v. Board of Education, changed the face of America's schools, declaring separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. Linda was the movement's fearless face.

Sherda Williams: She was so photogenic and, you know, touched so many people through the photographs of her standing in front of the school.

Emily: But behind closed doors, Linda shied away from the spotlight.

Carolyn Campbell: It was very difficult for her as a young person to be thrown in the spotlight because she wanted to be a quiet person, but she grew into that responsibility.

Emily: Her friends remember a quiet, piano-playing, poem-writing person. 

Campbell: Anyone that knew Linda, you loved her, because she was just a kind, meek type person.

Emily: Now her legacy lives on. 

Ekong: But if not for Brown, there wouldn't be the talks that we have about gender equality. See how inclusive we're becoming as a society — all of that was really the snowball effect that occurred in 1954 and went forth.

Emily: Emily Reppert, Channel One News. 

Keith: Now on to today's Words in the News: the Equal Protection Clause, which is part of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and reads, “No State shall … deny to any person … the equal protection of the laws.”

Okay, next up, we have got a pop quiz for you. Every 10 years, the government does a head count of the entire U.S. population, asking questions to find out how many people live in what areas and to gather other information like income, race, age and profession.

It is actually required by the Constitution under Article I, Section 2, but do you know what that is called? What is the government survey of the U.S. population? 

Is it

a. the decennial census

b. the public land survey

c. the American national assessment or 

d. the USG Survey

You have got five seconds. 

Time is up! The answer is a, the decennial census, but often just referred to as the census.

The Commerce Department is currently getting ready for the next census in 2020, and it made a big announcement yesterday that is causing controversy.

A new question will be added to the survey — Are you a U.S. citizen? — a question that was once on the census before 1950. And already California and New York state attorneys general announced they would sue to block the question, saying it is unconstitutional.

Attorney General Xavier Becerra: By including a citizenship question, which will diminish response rates, the census will not be able to fulfill its constitutional duty to count everyone.

Keith: The Trump administration asked to add the question to the 2020 census to measure the population that was eligible to vote. But critics say it will make the census less accurate because immigrants here illegally may decide not fill it out for fear that they will be deported — that means forced to leave the country. 

And that would make the population totals off, which could impact the number of Electoral College votes a state gets and the number of seats in the House of Representatives, which are based on population. Also, the change could have a big impact on areas with a lot of undocumented immigrants.

All right, when we come back, we are jumping feet first into a career you might not expect. 

Keith: Sneakers are a $55-billion industry, so that means there is a lot of opportunity for you sneaker heads. So get this: There is a school focused solely on footwear design. Want to know more? Well, Azia Celestino gets schooled on sneaks in today's What Next. 

Azia: You have laced up and maybe even lined up for a cool pair of kicks. 

Greyson: You can just express, you know, either your mood for that day or, like, the culture or the seasons, you know, what you can wear with all the different colorways and styles.

Azia: But there is a lot of work that goes into your sneakers before they hit a box in a store.

Anthony: The storytelling, the consumer profiling, the color and materials that goes into it, the proportions — you gotta make sure your foot actually fits in your concept.

D’Wayne Edwards: The companies won't let you see how they make them. They won't let you see what goes into it. They don’t let you see how they're designed. And that's part of the reason why no one knows how to do it.

Azia: Pensole Academy is changing that. We visited the Portland, Oregon-based sneaker school teaching students how to design footwear. The program was created by former designer D'Wayne Edwards, who is kind of a big deal in the sneaker industry. He was the youngest design director in Nike's history. 

Edwards: I've designed shoes for all of the Jordan athletes: of course, obviously, Michael Jordan was the highlight of the whole thing, Carmelo Anthony, Derek Jeter.

Azia: Even though D'Wayne was always passionate about sneakers and drawing, he was never formally trained in art or design.

Edwards: I'm the youngest of six kids, raised by one parent. There was no money to send me to college.

Azia: But he loved shoes, so he got a job filing papers for a footwear company.

Edwards: They put these wooden, small suggestion boxes in every department, so I started dropping in sketches. My little sketch had a note attached to it, like, “Hire me as a footwear designer.”

Azia: You had a suggestion.

Edwards: I had a suggestion. I had several suggestions. For six months I had a suggestion every day.

Azia: At 19 he scored his first design job, and when D'Wayne found success, he started getting sketches from aspiring creatives.

Edwards: It just reminded me of how I started. I started mentoring kids as a way to kind of do what I wished somebody would've done for me.

Azia: His mission to help young people with the same drive for design inspired him to start Pensole. The academy has trained hundreds of students, providing them with the tools and skills needed for jobs in the industry.

Nathan: Around here you have, like, all of the supplies you need to create a shoe or create a prototype of a shoe.

Edwards: Footwear has STEM in it. All over it, all through it! We make chemicals here; we create colors; we create materials — all of that exists in footwear.

Azia: This class has the ultimate group project: Student teams are assigned a major sneaker company to create a product they will present at the end of the semester.  

Nathan: I'm, like, really excited to see the final projects. Like, nine brands, and everyone's doing something really big.

Azia: But Pensole students definitely have their work cut out for them.

Rebecca: I was like, “Okay, this is going to be kind of like college and stuff,” but it turned out to be way more intense. The thing about it is that you really want to be there. It's not something that you have to do, really — it's something that you get to do.

Azia: Unlike some four-year universities, Pensole students make it into the competitive program based on talent alone, and they don't have to foot the bill for tuition.

Edwards: I didn't want another kid like me to have that problem. And so companies that work with us, they would pay for the tuition and the housing for the student to come to the school, because ultimately, they were the beneficiary of the talent when it was over.

Rebecca: So it demands you to be professional. You have to be on top of everything.

Azia: For these students the opportunity is everything, because it provides them with the blueprint for their dream job.

Nathan: It's the commitment.

Anthony: Each day, you know, within this program, I feel like I'm getting a whole lot better, and I’m getting closer and closer to pursue my dream.

Azia: Azia Celestino, Channel One News.

Keith: I am definitely digging the story, Azia. 

So what comes next for a career in sneaker design? Well, take fashion, product or graphic design courses in high school and college. Designers usually get a bachelor's degree, but it is not required. Most designers in fashion make about $65,000 a year.

And we have got more cool artistic careers, from graphic designer to jewelry maker. It is all up on . 

Well, we are going to run out of here. Have an awesome day, and we will see you right back here tomorrow. 

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