Cedric Jennings was a good kid in a bad school.

	Cedric Jennings Click photo for larger image.

In the mid-'90s, at Ballou High School in Washington, D.C., he was an A+ student. But he and other achievers had to hide their books, their talents and their potential to avoid being harassed by classmates.

Jennings, with this pluck and perseverance, won acceptance to Brown University and the attention of a Wall Street Journal reporter who wanted to chronicle what life was like for an inner-city teen looking to beat negative peer pressure. The reporter, Ron Suskind, followed Jennings through high school, culture shock in the Ivy League and graduation.

In 1998, his Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicles became a book, "A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey From the Inner City to the Ivy League." The book won the hearts of parents and educators for its deeply personal look at Jennings' struggles and the challenges of urban education.

Today, Jennings, 26, will be the keynote speaker at the annual benefit dinner for the Negro Educational Emergency Drive, or NEED, a local organization that awards minority students higher education scholarships.

		NEED Benefit The 41st annual NEED Benefit Dinner will be at 6 p.m. today at the Pittsburgh Hilton and Towers, Downtown. For ticket information, call 412-566-2760.

At Ballou, Jennings said he was once threatened with a gun for stepping on someone's tennis shoes, was criticized for "acting white" for wanting to excel and was constantly taunted.

"It was tough," said Jennings, who is a social worker and public speaker.

After graduating from Brown in 1999, Jennings worked for a while in information technology. It wasn't his cup of tea, so he went to Harvard University and earned a master's degree in human development and educational psychology, while working part time as a counselor in Boston public schools.

"I guess my heart is to help people and not make money," said Jennings, who left Boston and went to the University of Michigan to earn a master's in social work.