HILLSBOROUGH: Camille Aitcheson wins a Robeson award

Middle schooler honored for community service

   Hillsborough Middle School Camille Aitcheson was one of 53 middle and high school students from Somerset and Hunterdon counties honored April 8 at the 24th annual Paul Robeson Youth Achievement Awards Reception, held at Raritan Valley Community College in Branchburg.
   The awards, sponsored by the Paul Robeson Institute for Ethics, Leadership and Social Justice at RVCC, are given in four areas in which Mr. Robeson excelled: scholarship, the arts, community service and athletics.
  Camille won her award for community service.
   The keynote address was by motivational speaker Nashad L. Warfield, a native of Plainfield.
   The National Council of Negro Women and RVCC sponsors the achievement awards program to pay tribute to the attainments of students in the two counties. The awards are named for Mr. Robeson, a Princeton native who grew up in Somerville and graduated from Rutgers University.
   The 53 students were nominated by guidance counselors, teachers and administrators. RVCC faculty and administrators made selections.
   Paul Robeson, son of an escaped slave, rose from humble beginnings to become a superior athlete, scholar, orator and linguist and a star in theater, film and on the concert stage.
   Mr. Robeson also was an outspoken and controversial advocate of civil rights for African-Americans. In the 1950s, during the McCarthy era, he was persecuted for his political ideas and prevented from working.
   Mr. Robeson died in Philadelphia in 1976 at the age of 77.