By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

(NNPA Newswire) – A group of researchers from Rutgers University and Michigan State University have launched a major study to examine the long-term effects of structural racism on cognitive aging, physical decline, and frailty—particularly in Black Americans. A five-year grant from the National Institute on Aging, a division of the National Institutes of Health, will support the study under the direction of Danielle L. Beatty Moody, an associate professor at Rutgers University, and Richard C. Sadler, an associate professor at Michigan State.

The research team plans to explore how lifetime exposure to structural racism in neighborhoods affects the aging process. The study will involve 800 Black and White participants from Baltimore who have been tracked for over two decades as part of a larger project on healthy aging in diverse neighborhoods. The long-term data will allow researchers to examine the cumulative impact of historical, enduring and contemporary markers of structural racism.

In a news release, Moody and Sadler asserted that the study moves beyond traditional research focused only on residential segregation or redlining. 

“It’s not just redlining, and it’s not just segregation,” they said. “The patterns of racist, discriminatory practices go far deeper. We need to comprehensively document the full array of tools used to entrench structural racism in our urban landscapes to understand why racial inequities persist across numerous health outcomes.”

In addition to exploring how non-Black residents in the same communities are affected, the researchers said they would investigate personal experiences with discrimination and biological and social factors that influence risk and resilience. 

The authors expect the study will inform strategies to address racial inequities in accelerated aging, particularly in communities where Black Americans live and age in place.

Once completed, researchers said they would share the results with participants and local stakeholders to support ongoing advocacy and policy efforts to achieve health equity. Moody and Sadler hope the study’s findings will help drive transformative change, particularly in housing and neighborhood environments.

“We are not only looking at the past or present,” Sadler remarked. “We’re also aiming to influence the future of health equity in communities where Black Americans continue to take the hardest hits.”

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By Aria Brent
AFRO Staff Writer
abrent@afro.com

In a continued effort to promote inclusivity, fairness and justice for all residents, the Baltimore Office of Equity and Civil Rights (OECR) is hosting Civil Rights Week. Taking place from Oct. 4-12, the event serves as a platform for education, advocacy and reflection on the ongoing struggles for equality and justice and other pressing civil rights issues in the city.

OECR, alongside local leaders, activists and community members, has curated a dynamic lineup of events that engages the community in meaningful discussions and actions around the intersections of race, gender, disability and socio-economic status within the framework of civil rights.

“Civil rights can’t be forgotten. I could go on and on about the things that are currently being discussed across the nation in 2024, and so many of them show that these conversations have to continue,” said Caron Watkins, interim director for OECR. “Although we’re delivering this message in a very concentrated way for this week, this is also the work our office is doing year round.”

Watkins continued, “We can look at history. We can look at the current dimension and we can plan for the future by bringing people together that are interested in protecting civil rights and advancing equity.” 

The theme for this year is “From Protest to Progress,” and the week was kicked off on Oct. 4 with “Prayers for the City.” As part of this event, faith leaders representing different denominations across the city were asked to pray for the city during their respective services.

Following that will be the 31st Baltimore City Civil Rights Breakfast on Oct. 7, during which selected community leaders and changemakers will be honored, including Anthony Jenkins, president of Coppin State University; Taylor Branch, author and historian who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning trilogy on the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Jamye Wooten, founder of CLLCTIVLY, a Black philanthropy network; Larry Gibson, famed law professor, activist and author; and Wanda Best, executive director of the Upton Planning Committee.

Throughout the week, a series of workshops, panel discussions, trainings and interactive sessions will be held in-person and online centering on civil rights issues, such as racial justice, housing equity and voters rights. Special attention will be given to the current challenges Baltimore faces, including police reform, affordable housing and educational disparities. 

On Oct. 8, a full day of events will be held between two locations: National Federation of the Blind (NFB), located at 200 East Wells St. in Baltimore, and the Morgan State University Student Center, located on the Northeast Baltimore campus at 1700 E. Coldspring Lane. 

At 10 a.m. on Oct. 8, information released by OECR states that NFB programming will engage “Baltimore City children with disabilities and their families or caregivers for a day of enriching programming co-hosted by the OECR and Mayor’s Office of Children and Family Success (MOCFS).” Later, from 2:30-4:30 p.m., NFB will also offer “an opportunity to Baltimore City residents, particularly those who are themselves living with disabilities, to make their concerns known” and get answers from city officials. 

That afternoon, in-person events will be held at Morgan State University. At 4 p.m., the ties between Prince Hall Freemasonry and historically Black colleges and universities will be discussed. That will be followed by a 6 p.m. panel session with Marco K. Merrick, founding director of the Community Concert Choir of Baltimore, titled, “Music of Change: Protest, Uplift and Hope.”

The “Future Paths Expo: Beyond College Doors” session will take place at Middle Branch Fitness and Wellness Center, located at 201 Reedbird Ave., on Oct. 9 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

The same day, Coppin State University will host two panels: “From Protest to Progress: How the Birthplace of Redlining Turned into the Black Butterfly,” will take place from 4-5:30 p.m., with a focus on redlining in Charm City; and from 6-9:30 p.m., the panel session “Women of Courage: Baltimore’s Civil Rights Trailblazers.” Both events will be located in the Tawes Center Ballroom.

Oct. 10 will feature a conversation on “Immigration and Inclusion: A History of Struggle and Progress” at the Thurgood Marshall Amenity Center, located in the 1300 block of Division St. The Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Central Branch Library will host the Civil Rights Week reception at 400 Cathedral St. from 7- 9 p.m. on Oct. 11. And the week closes out on Oct. 12 with the Historic Upton Neighborhood Walk and Resource Fair at St. Peter Claver Church, which is located at 1526 N Fremont Ave. 

The OECR has partnered with various community organizations, advocacy groups and local businesses to ensure the week reflects the diverse needs and interests of Charm City residents. This collaborative approach aims to foster a sense of unity and shared purpose as the city works toward a more equitable future.

Through this programming, along with several others, the Baltimore OECR hopes to inspire tangible changes both within local government and across communities. Civil Rights Week will spotlight the voices and efforts that have long sought to dismantle inequality and encourage every Baltimorean to be an active participant in the continued fight for justice.

For a full list of Civil Rights Week activities, visit this link. 

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Reginald Williams
Special to the AFRO

William ‘Bill’ Lucy, a labor union stalwart and civil rights activist, is best remembered for his significant role in the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike, a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement. His leadership and support of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., served as the beginning of many historic contributions during his illustrious career that spanned multiple decades. Lucy passed away in his home in Washington, D.C. at age 90.

“Bill Lucy was a giant, one of the most accomplished and influential trade unionists ever-in any country, at any moment in history,” said Lee Saunders, national president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. 

Derrick Johnson, president, and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said in a statement that “William ‘Bill’ Lucy, is a true champion of the labor movement and a steadfast advocate for social justice. For over four decades, Bill dedicated himself to uplifting workers’ rights, leaving an indelible mark on American labor and civil rights.” 

Born in Memphis, Tenn., on Nov. 26, 1933, but raised in Richmond, Calif., Lucy rose to national prominence in 1968 when he returned to Memphis to mediate the stalemate between the Black sanitation workers and the union led by Henry Loeb, the White segregationist who served as public works commissioner.

The death of Robert Walker and Echol Cole, Black Memphis sanitation workers crushed to death while trying to find cover in the truck’s tailgate during an intense rainstorm, sparked the strike.  

While handling union affairs for Council 77 in Detroit, Lucy, at the encouragement from Jerry Wurf, then-president of AFSCME, traveled to Memphis to help support Dr. King in the strike. Lucy is responsible for the iconic slogan, “I Am A Man,” which appeared on signs carried by approximately 1,300 striking sanitation workers.

“From his leadership in the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike to the founding the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, to his role in defeating and dismantling South African apartheid, he was a courageous trailblazer,” said Saunders. 

Saunders’ influence was felt worldwide. He was instrumental in Nelson Mandela becoming the president of South Africa. According to his obituary, Lucy led an AFL-CIO delegation to monitor the 1994 South African election responsible for Mandela’s presidency. His work with the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists ensured the “independent voice of Black workers within the trade union movement, challenging organized labor to be more relevant to the needs and aspirations of Black and poor workers.”

The former emeritus secretary of treasurer for AFSCME 1733, the University of California at Berkeley graduate served as the secretary-treasurer of AFSCME for more than 30 years. After graduating from Berkeley with a civil engineering degree, Lucy’s involvement in labor organizing began with his first job as a research engineer in Contra Costa, Calif.  

Lucy joined AFSCME Local 1675 in 1956, was elected president in 1965, and moved cross-country to Washington, D.C., in 1966 to work in AFSCME’s national office as the legislation and community affairs department’s associate director. He will be remembered as a legend of the labor movement.

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By Crystal Turner
Special to the AFRO

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture announced the installation of a striking new mural, “Frederick Douglass / Liberty” by contemporary artist Adam Himoff. The mural will be on display starting Sept. 18 through Dec. 31, 2024, on the President Street side of the museum building.

“Frederick Douglass / Liberty” is a modern linocut print that reimagines the iconic American abolitionist, writer and orator Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) through a contemporary lens.

The giant print features Douglass in a bold, stylish pose against a backdrop of graffiti, combining traditional relief printing techniques with modern elements. This fusion prompts viewers to recontextualize Douglass’ enduring impact and consider how he might engage with the world today.

“Douglass was the most photographed man of his time. He was always meticulously dressed in the latest fashion. If alive today, we think this representation is very likely close to how he would present himself,” said Terri Lee Freeman, president of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, about the artwork. “It also demonstrates that simply because you wear sneakers with your suit does not automatically mean you have nothing to say.”

Adam Himoff, born in New York City in 1976, is a renowned contemporary artist whose work

bridges traditional and modern artistic practices. Influenced by New York’s rich cultural tapestry and trained at various esteemed institutions, Himoff’s work often explores themes of race, social justice and national identity. His artistic journey, which includes a notable transition from a successful career in finance to a full-time art practice, is reflected in his innovative approach to printmaking.

Freeman said Himoff’s depiction of Douglass makes the historic icon more accessible and relatable to a new generation.

“I think it is important for us to present this mural because it has the potential to

have some audiences see Frederick Douglass as a more reachable historic figure,” the museum president said. 

“Frederick Douglass / Liberty” invites viewers to engage with Douglass’ legacy in a fresh way. The artwork challenges viewers to think about Douglass’ potential role in today’s

society and reflects on the freedoms and unfinished work that his efforts have impacted, museum officials said of the impact they hope to have..

“This representation of Douglass is modern and relevant,” Freeman said. “We want to encourage people to think and have conversations. Historic figures are representative of their time, but if they could time travel, would the exterior affect their intrinsic intellect? I think not.”

Web Info: Frederick Douglass Mural at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum

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By Reginald Williams
Special to the AFRO

On Sept. 7, the Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice opened to the public in Durham, North Carolina’s West End. The center has been under renovation for some time, according to local news reports. Billed as “A Celebration of Homecoming,” the event drew diverse visitors, all looking to honor and remember the civil rights leader’s work. 

“It has been a decade-long journey,” said Angela Thorpe Mason, the center’s executive director, to The Living Church, a religious publication. “The house was slated for demolition in the early 2000s, and was in extremely bad shape. A group of local advocates rallied to save it. The Pauli Murray Center was established in 2012, but the rehabilitation wasn’t complete until this April.

Anna Pauline “Pauli” Murray was a pioneer and a person of many firsts. Born in 1910, the trailblazing civil rights attorney, a 1944 graduate of Howard University Law School, was the only woman in her law class, where she ranked first. She was also the first African American to earn a Doctor of Jurisprudential Science from Yale Law School in 1965. 

Murray was also a changemaker in the religious realm. The Episcopal Church at the Washington National Cathedral ordained Murray into the priesthood on January 8, 1977. The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina specifies that she was “the first Black person perceived as a woman ordained.” Murray is noted as an Episcopal saint.

Her activism was bold.

Four years before Irene Morgan refused to unseat herself in 1944 while riding on a segregated bus in Virginia, and 11 years before a 15-year-old Claudette Colvin set the stage for Rosa Parks’ civil disobedience by refusing to move from her seat on a Montgomery, Ala. bus— “Pauli,” as she preferred to be called, was arrested for disorderly conduct.

The year was 1940 when Murray, while traveling from New York to North Carolina, refused to move from the designated White-only section. Law officials arrested her for violating Virginia’s state segregation laws. 

The mission of the Pauli Murray Center is to continue addressing the injustices and inequalities for all people that Murray fought for. Their vision is “To realize a world in which wholeness is a human right for all and not the privilege of a few.”

The preservation of the center, which is the activist’s childhood home, is “supported in part by an African American Civil Rights Grant from the Historic Preservation Fund administered by the National Park Service (NPS), Department of the Interior.” The NPS designated Murray’s home as a National Historic Landmark in 2016.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1910, Murray was said to be ahead of her time. 

“She championed the cause of human rights through her work as an author, educator, lawyer, feminist, poet and priest,” states information released by the Pauli Murray Center. 

Murray’s work with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Philip Randolph was rooted in her discontentment with inequalities related to Black women and their lack of decision-making power when in grassroot struggles of Black people. Murray is credited with partnering with Bayard Rustin and James Farmer to establish CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) while attending law school. She also co-founded the organization, NOW (National Origination of Women), fighting for the presence of Black women. 

“Her legal work laid the foundation for major civil rights advances. Her 1950 book, “States’ Laws on Race and Color,” was hailed by Thurgood Marshall as the “bible” of the civil rights movement,” says Carl Kenney, assistant professor at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Her legal arguments, particularly on the unconstitutionality of segregation, were influential in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision that ended legal racial segregation in U.S. schools.”

According to information available at the Pauli Murray Center, the ardent activist “fought to lift up women in the civil rights movement, and women of color in the women’s rights movement. She believed that leaving anyone behind on the road to full equality would neglect a part of herself.”

A few years after being appointed by Eleanor Roosevelt to serve as the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, Murray wrote “Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII,” an article that exposed the gender discriminatory practices and laws that outright oppressed women. The impact of that article inspired Atty. Ruth Bader Ginsberg to include Murray’s name on the brief cover written for Reed v. Reed 404 US 71. The 1971 landmark Supreme Court case struck down laws that discriminated against women by using the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which says no state can deny equal protection of the laws to anyone within its jurisdiction.

“Murray was a key figure in the second wave of feminism…advocating for gender equality and helping to shape the feminist movement’s focus on equal rights and dismantling systemic sexism,” says Kenney.

During an era when the use of nonbinary, non-gender pronouns was non-existent, Murray pushed the boundaries of gender and sexual identity. At 18, Murray shortened Pauline to Paulie to embrace a more androgynous identity. Many published reports maintain that Murray believed she was born a man in a woman’s body. 

Rosalind Rosenberg, author of  “Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray,” notes that Murray identified “as a female who believed she was a male, before the term transgender existed. 

Kenney, a passionate promoter of women’s rights and the LBGTQ movement, says Murray was private about more sensitive topics. Still, many today recognize Renee Barlow as a long-time romantic partner of Murray. 

“Although she never publicly acknowledged her sexual orientation, in private writings, Murray expressed feeling like a man trapped in a woman’s body, making her an early figure in the conversation around gender identity,” says Kenney.

 She died on July 1, 1985, at the age of 74. 

Murray’s impact can still be felt in Durham, where she was raised by her aunt Pauline Fitzgerald Dame, after her parent’s death. The Durham Public School Board of Education recently voted unanimously to name their newest elementary school, Murray-Massenburg Elementary School, after Murray and Betty Doretha Massenburg, the first Black women principal in Durham. 

Today, five Murray murals exist throughout Bull City: 1101 West Chapel Hill Street, 2520 Vesson Avenue, 313 Foster Street, 117 S. Buchanan Boulevard, and 2009 Chapel Hill Road, keeping the activist’s memory alive. 

The Pauli Murray Center is just one more jewel added to the area, in honor of Murray’s work. According to information released by the center, Murray’s childhood home “was built by her grandparents in 1898 at 906 Carroll Street in Durham, North Carolina.” Today and every day moving forward, the center will keep the name of Pauli Murray alive “by connecting history to contemporary human rights issues” and encouraging people “of all ages to stand up for peace, equity and justice.”

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By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com

Democracy in America and closing the racial economic wealth gap were topics of discussion on Sept. 12 at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s (CBCF) 2024 Annual Legislative Conference (ALC). 

Day two of the event kicked off with a National Town Hall under the theme “Pathways to Prosperity: Advancing Democracy and Black Economic Opportunity.”

The event was hosted by veteran journalist and moderator Don Lemon and included Dr. Michael McAfee, president and CEO of PolicyLink; LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund; Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Planned Parenthood Federation of America; and Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP. 

Legislators, top officials and leaders from around the country, including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), attended the two-part town hall to discuss the state of American democracy and explore ways to increase access to economic opportunities for Black Americans.

“There is a huge disparity in terms of wealth between the Black community and the majority community, and we know it is our obligation to do what we can to close that gap,” said Nicole Austin-Hillery, president and CEO of the CBCF. “ is a moment for us to use our collective and collaborative thinking and strategies to make a difference.”

Austin-Hillery encouraged attendees to “figure out how each of you, in your own communities, in your own jurisdictions, can be leaders right where you sit.”

Moore fired up the crowd with powerful remarks on why and how the racial economic wealth gap should be closed and what he’s doing in Maryland to slash poverty and create economic equality.

“We didn’t have, in our state, an 8-1 racial wealth gap because one group is working eight times harder,” said Moore. “If you do not understand things like racist procurement policies and how government dollars are being used to support some and not others, then you cannot understand why this gap exists in the first place.”

Moore detailed victories won in the fight to eliminate economic disparities in Maryland. 

 “We’ve been able to raise minimum wage,” he said, “Because gone should be the days when you have people who are working jobs– and in some cases multiple jobs– and still living at or below poverty line. We’ve been able to pass the most aggressive housing package in the history of the state of Maryland, turning renters into homeowners.”

Moore emphasized that policy matters when it comes to economic opportunities for African Americans. Still, he acknowledged that this was not enough. 

“We will not make progress with policy alone,” said Moore. “We’re going to need everybody involved in this conversation.” 

Moore highlighted that “this country has lost $16 trillion in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) over the past two decades because of the racial wealth gap.”

“Racism is expensive, bigotry is expensive,” he said.

Moore vowed to use every day left of his first term as governor to work towards economic equality. 

“Our time in these seats are temporary,” he said, addressing the conference audience. “We’re not going to waste a minute.” 

Democracy in America

Panelists of the town hall answered questions from Lemon regarding solutions to the democracy issues faced by Black America and the country as a whole. 

“What happens to a nation when the population that it never loved becomes the majority?” quipped Dr. Michael McAfee, president and CEO of PolicyLink. “We haven’t really designed our institutions and our systems for the multi-racial democracy we have. In too many instances, we haven’t shown the intellectual and the applied interest to do that work.” 

“It’s unsexy work,” said McAfee, “But it’s foundational work. That’s what nation building work looks like.”

Derrick Johnson said “work, not rhetoric” will help ensure African Americans advance regardless of the general election results this year.

Derrick Johnson spoke on solutions to the problem.

“If we’re saying that economic advancement is through home ownership, we have to chart out how to get there,” he said. 

Johnson said loan forgiveness was one avenue of helping African Americans buy homes by putting dollars back into their pockets.

Through revisions to the PSLF, $5.2 billion was forgiven for 66,900 borrowers, according to the U.S. Department of Education. 

Derrick Johnson said this “opens up the ability for individuals to get into home ownership.”

Still, it seems as though as soon as one battle is won, another rages on.

“Private equity firms are buying up lots of homes to create permanent home renters,’ said Derrick Johnson. “We have to revise public policies to prevent that so we can get into the game.”

Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.-02), ALC honorary co-chair, echoed Johnson’s sentiment.

“Today’s conversation isn’t just about identifying problems, it’s about finding real, tangible solutions,” said Carter. “It’s time to push the policies that expand access to capital for Black entrepreneurs…invest in education and workforce development and create affordable job options.”

“We need to dismantle the systems of discrimination in hiring, lending and tax practices,” said Carter. “We must ensure that Black Americans have a seat at the table- or seats- at the table when decisions that shape our economy, shape our future and shape our lives are being had.”

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By Willy Blackmore

A federal judge in Louisiana has blocked the federal government from investigating whether race should be considered as a factor in the enforcement of environmental laws, including the issuing of pollution permits. 

The ruling from the U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana, issued late last month, makes permanent a hold on disparate impact assessments that was put in place back in January.

The decision by Judge James Cain, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, effectively bars the Environmental Protection Agency from using Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the agency’s best — and arguably only — enforcement mechanism for environmental justice issues.

At issue is the EPA’s action taken on a claim that Earthjustice, an environmental law organization, filed with the agency in 2022 on behalf of residents in St. John the Baptist parish — a community located in the heart of the state’s infamous Cancer Alley. Earthjustice wanted the EPA to investigate whether petrochemical corporations deliberately located a vast network of industrial facilities in a predominantly Black community, disparately harming the residents. 

The landscape for the claim looked much more favorable then: the Biden administration and the EPA had taken a much more aggressive approach with environmental justice issues. A draft plan negotiated between the EPA and the state of Louisiana showed that there was the possibility of overhauling the pollution permitting process, so that the cumulative effect of an industry on a given area would be considered. 

Things changed when then-state Attorney General Jeff Landry sued the EPA over its use of the disparate impact framework. He argued that Title VI should come into play only if an investigation found clear proof of overt racial discrimination. 

In Landry’s argument, the federal government essentially would need to find indisputable evidence that a Louisiana official pushed the chemical companies to build in St. John’s Parish with the explicit intent of harming its Black residents. 

After the lawsuit, the EPA dropped its investigation, as well as similar Title VI investigations in Republican-controlled states across the country. An April letter from 23 Republican state attorneys general called disparate impact “racial engineering,” and made it clear that Louisiana is not alone in its desire to quash Title XI investigations. 

While the new ruling only applies to Louisiana, other states will likely try to get similar protections from EPA investigations. 

“Louisiana has given industrial polluters open license to poison Black and brown communities for generations, only to now have one court give it a permanent free pass to abandon its responsibilities,” Patrice Simms, Earthjustice’s vice president for healthy communities, said about the August ruling in a statement. “Louisiana’s residents, its environmental justice communities, deserve the same Title VI protections as the rest of the nation.”

Now, it seems more a question of whether environmental justice communities outside of Louisiana will be able to keep their Title VI protections too.

This article was originally published by Word In Black.

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By Aziah Siid
Word in Black

From the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s to the Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s death, Black students have been marching in the streets and demanding justice. Some are more hesitant than others about engaging in political discussions or activism, while others jump in as soon as they get the chance.

Now, with a presidential election on the horizon — one that could see Vice President Kamala Harris become the first woman of color in the Oval Office — educators and experts see a historic, teachable moment unfolding outside the classroom. They are exploring ways to get students engaged with what’s happening around them and how their voices can influence history.

“Black people — especially young Black people — can make a huge difference in swaying election outcomes,” says Diane Robinson, educator and founder of Yard Girl Productions, which makes films about education and social change. One need look no further, she says, than to the last presidential and midterm elections: “In 2020 and 2022, Black people and young people were key to the outcomes of those elections.” 

This year, “young people are 40 percent of the (U.S) electorate — they can determine the outcome of the election by either staying home or how they vote,” Robinson says. “Their voices and vote especially definitely matter.”

K-12 students and voting  

Jonathan Collins, professor of science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, says K-12 students and political activism go hand in hand. Schools have helped educate young people about politics for generations, and not just in civics classes.

During the civil rights era, for example, Black children were on the front lines of the movement, even if they weren’t old enough to vote. Ruby Bridges was just 6-years-old when she became the first student to integrate an all-White school in the South; in the Children’s Crusade in Birmingham, about 1,000 grade-school students marched every day for a week, demanding equality.

More recently, after Floyd, Breanna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbury and other unarmed Black people were shot and killed under questionable circumstances, Black K-12 students joined Black Lives Matter activists in protest marches from New York to California. And there have been youth-led movements demonstrating against everything from school shootings to climate change.

With data showing 1 in 4 Black people age 23 or younger is registered to vote, several nonprofit voter-registration organizations have popped up in recent years, looking to harness that political power. Organizations like The Civics Center and the Youth Voter Movement help students organize in-school voter registration drives and provide information on voting laws in all 50 states.

More specifically, initiatives like Black Voters Matter and other activist networks work to mobilize young Black voters to gather and utilize their voice. 

Threat to Black voices 

Despite the long tradition of student activism and voting, the right of young people to protest is under threat. They point to Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for the next Republican president, that would remake the federal government — including shutting down the Department of Education.

If that happened, full control of the nation’s education policies would revert to the states, and students would lose the Office of Civil Rights, a key department responsible for investigating complaints of discrimination. Without the Education Department, Black students likely would lose the right to equitable resources, culturally relevant learning, and other essential support for Black students. Given that, it’s highly likely Black students would be opposed to Project 2025.

One way Collins recommends students who oppose the plan and want to make it known is to create or ensure they have a safe space to come together and share their thoughts. Second, he says, is to start having important conversations among peers and others about what changes in their schools, around their neighborhoods, and in the districts they’d like to see. 

“There will be a response to what they identify as an important problem,” he says. “Especially Black kids. We don’t even see the idea that we have agency in these kinds of processes.”

He cites an example from his own high school experience to illustrate the point.

“I went to an all-black high school,” he says. Back then, “the idea that we could go to a school board and actually push back against some of the rules and policies that were forced upon us — we didn’t think that was possible.”

Yet Robinson, the educator and filmmaker, says students using their voices to oppose something real going on in their lives is the foundation for initiating change, forcing policy makers to pay attention and connect it to their right to vote.

“Based on what I have learned by spending time with young Black people and asking them what inspires them to get involved in our political system, I think it is always best to start with the issues young people care about,” Robinson says. 

Fighting disinterest  

Too often, young Black people are disillusioned with politics; studies show they don’t believe one vote makes a difference in their lives. According to a Harvard Youth Poll, fewer Black voters under age 30 plan to vote in the upcoming presidential election than did at this point in the 2020 election cycle.

But an increasing number of Black elected officials — including Harris, the vice president, who could become the first president to graduate from an HBCU and the first who is a member of a Black sorority — could drive up voter participation among Black youths. For the first time since 2016, they will have someone on the presidential ballot who looks like them.

“Representation matters, and this is where the authenticity of the representation matters,” Collin says. “The job of the representative is to kind of be that conduit between communities. So if we get representatives who are comfortable in these community spaces, well, then you have someone who’s there and who comes from where you come from to have a certain kind of political conversation. ”

Robinson, who in 2020 followed the lives of a diverse group of students and activists in the film ‘The Young Vote’, agrees. Besides representation, she says, it’s about equipping young people with the tools and skills they need to take action.

“Specifically, a young African American woman that I followed in The Young Vote was encouraged by her teacher to reach out to a local elected leader about an issue that was really important to her,” Robinson says. “This started her journey as a student activist and got her to make the connections between what she cared about and the political system.” 

Still, there are different ways for young Black people to get involved in a movement or a campaign. Some use their social media presence; others stand on street corners, handing out flyers or speaking into a bullhorn. Still others prefer taking trips to Capitol Hill to watch committee meetings or contact their members of Congress.

“The young woman that we followed in The Young Vote was initially skeptical about the power of voting but she realized that it was a powerful way to use her voice,” Robinson says. “I also learned from her that voting alone does not make you a “beautiful citizen” but it is staying engaged in your community in an ongoing way.”

This article was originally published by Word In Black.

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By Aziah Siid
Word in Black

What was supposed to be a routine field trip to the courthouse turned into a nightmare for 15-year-old Eva Goodman, a Detroit teenager, who found herself handcuffed, forced into jail clothes, and detained for hours — all under the orders of Michigan’s 36th District Court Judge Kenneth King.

The dehumanization and mistreatment of the teen during the Aug. 13 incident sent shockwaves through Detroit, and people across social media asked why the child was treated so poorly, and speculated on if Eva had not been a young Black girl, would she have been treated the same 

The questions highlight the broader issue of the adultification of Black children — how they are often perceived as older and less innocent than their White peers, leading to harsher treatment. Given that the teen is homeless, the incident also put the plight of Black students who are housing insecure in the spotlight.

The adultification of Black kids 

Research shows that due to racial bias, people simply don’t assume the best of Black children, and are apt to criminalize them. Whether they’re in school or on a field trip, because of this bias, Black children are expected to behave like adults, and they’re deprived of the care, concern, grace, and empathy given to their White peers. They are adultified.

“When people see Black children, if they don’t see them as people, they definitely don’t see them as children,” Amir Gilmore, assistant professor of cultural studies and social thought in education at Washington State University, explained to Word In Black last year. 

Indeed, people may fall asleep in court due to medication, a medical condition, the temperature in the courtroom, or not understanding the court proceedings. But instead of assuming Eva was tired for a good reason, King assumed she had fallen asleep to disrespect him. 

“It wasn’t so much, in fact, that she had fallen asleep because I have attorneys that fall asleep sometimes, so that’s not too big of a deal. It was her whole attitude and her whole disposition that disturbed me,” King told 7 News Detroit in an Aug. 14 interview. “I wanted to get through to her, show how serious this is and how you are to conduct yourself inside of a courtroom.” 

Eva and her mother say the judge took an unnecessarily harsh approach to the teen. As a result, Eva — along with her mother Latoreya Hill — is suing Judge King, alleging that he violated her Fourth Amendment rights. The lawsuit states that King’s actions were his own version of “Scared Straight,” a misguided attempt to “teach a lesson” that left Eva traumatized and humiliated. In the wake of the lawsuit, Judge King has been temporarily removed from the docket and is expected to undergo additional training.

“It’s been pretty devastating. Eva doesn’t want to come outside … It’s hard for her to sleep at night. She’s asking me, ‘why did the judge do me like this out of all the kids?’ Like she’s really not understanding the or the whole thing of the system or what happened or was going on,” Hill said at a news conference after the incident.

A Crisis of Housing Insecure Students

The judge was so busy disciplining Eva he failed to learn she and her family are unhoused. Till told NBC News that they have no permanent housing at the moment, and actually arrived late where they were staying the night before the field trip. 

A recent analysis of students in Detroit found that “Black students were at a greater risk of homelessness than their peers of other races at 86 percent of students who were homeless compared to 83 percent of students overall.”  At a national level, an analysis of federal data found that “Black high school students are 2.25 times more likely to experience homelessness.”

Given their lack of housing, Eva’s mom expressed her outrage over what King said to her daughter to Detroit’s WXYZ-TV.

“The fact that he was talking about ‘You go home and get in your bed,’ how do you know my baby got a home? How do you know my baby got a bed, her own bed she could sleep in? She don’t have that right now, so she was tired,” Till said.

King defended his decision to have the teen treated like a criminal, stating he did not like the child’s attitude. He told WXYZ-TV he hadn’t been disrespected like that in a long time.

The negative effect on Eva, however, could last for the rest of the teen’s life. “I wish I could have brought my daughter here for today, but she doesn’t want to be in front of the camera,” her mom said. “She doesn’t want to talk. She’s embarrassed, humiliated, and I can’t blame her.”

This article was originally published by Word in Black.

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By Ariyana Griffin 
AFRO Staff Writer 
agriffin@afro.com

The Bethune Height Recognition Program of the National Council of Negro Women’s (NCNW) Mid-Atlantic Region will take place at Martin’s West, 6817 Dogwood Rd, Baltimore, MD 21244, on September 7 from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. This year, the organization celebrates the 50th anniversary of the luncheon.

NCNW has 300 campus and community-based sections and 32 national women’s organizations around the country. The organization stands on strong roots of advocacy and empowerment dating back to 1935 when NCNW was founded by Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune.

This year’s luncheon is expected to have over 400 guests and serves as a way to highlight volunteers, community members and members of the organization. They will also raise money for a donation to NCNW in the name of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune and Dr. Dorothy Irene Height.

“We make an annual donation of $300, that money is used to support activities in the community for women and children of african descent,” Catrice Vandross, a co-chair of the NCNW’s Mid-Atlantic Bethune Height Recognition Program told the AFRO.  The Bethune Height Recognition Program was founded in 1974 as a way to help raise funds for NCNW

The Recognition Program recognizes and uplifts the  achievements of honorees. “The Bethune/Height Recognition Program honors Bethune Achievers, persons who contribute $300.00 or more, Life Members, and Legacy Life Members who contribute, join or upgrade through the Program,” said the organization. 

Tilynn Cobb, Monique Robinson-Poole and Awanya D. Anglin Brodie are this year’s special honorees. The theme for this year’s luncheon is “Fifty Years Honoring a Dedicated Mission: Together the Mission Shall Continue.”

“We chose this theme because we want to look back and honor the 50 years of our dedication to the mission and the realization that together our mission will continue,” Vandross told the AFRO.
For more information on the luncheon and The National Council of Negro Women please visit ncnw.org.

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By AFRO Staff

On Aug. 24 the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights held their Biennial Civil Rights and Fair Housing Gala inside of The Hall at Live! Casino in Hanover, Md.  The program paid homage to both Governor Wes Moore, the first Black man to lead Maryland, and Lt. Governor Aruna Miller, first woman of color to be lieutenant governor, for service to the state. 

Other honorees for the evening of pomp and circumstance included Superintendent of the Maryland State Police Colonel Roland L. Butler Jr., and President and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance Lisa Rice.

Comptroller of Maryland Brooke E. Lierman and Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown were recognized with Visionary Awards during the program, which featured author and activist Dr. Michael Eric Dyson as keynote speaker.

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

(NNPA Newswire) – On the 116th anniversary of the Springfield Race Riot, President Joe Biden signed a proclamation establishing the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument in Springfield, Illinois. The new monument will preserve 1.57 acres of federal land and highlight a significant but painful moment in American history, when a White mob attacked the Black community in Springfield, leading to the lynching of two Black men and widespread destruction of homes and businesses.

“Our history is not just about the past; it’s about our present and our future,” Biden said during the announcement. “The Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument will help us remember an unspeakable attack on the Black community and honor the Americans who came together in its aftermath to help deliver on the promise of civil rights.”

The Springfield 1908 Race Riot was a violent response by a White mob to allegations against two Black men, Joe James and George Richardson, held in the Sangamon County Jail. The mob’s demands for their release escalated into widespread violence after the men were moved to another location for their safety. 

Throughout the weekend of Aug. 14-16, 1908, two Black men, Scott Burton and William Donnegan, were lynched, and dozens of Black-owned and Jewish-owned businesses were looted and destroyed.

The riot, which occurred just blocks away from President Abraham Lincoln’s home, shocked the nation and led to the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Civil rights leaders such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. Du Bois and Mary Church Terrell played pivotal roles in establishing the NAACP, an organization that has been instrumental in the fight for civil rights in the United States.

NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson attended the event at the White House on Aug. 16, where President Biden signed the proclamation. The president also hosted guests in the Oval Office, including the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the trade association of the Black Press of America.

The designation marks Biden’s 11th use of the Antiquities Act, following the establishment of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in 2023, created on the 82nd anniversary of Emmett Till’s birth. The White House announced that the National Park Service (NPS) will manage the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument and include the charred foundations of five homes never rebuilt after the riot.

“Establishing the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument is an important step in recognizing and remembering this painful but important moment in America’s history,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. “The Springfield 1908 Race Riot was a horrific and significant part of our nation’s march toward equality and civil rights. As we work to tell America’s story—even when difficult—may this monument help us learn from the past in order to build a more just and equitable future.”

NPS Director Chuck Sams also applauded the new monument. “This national monument will provide current and future generations an opportunity to reflect on the tragic events but also to be inspired by the resilience of the Black community and national leaders that went on to fight for social change and civil rights in America,” Sams said.

The Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument joins an extensive network of sites dedicated to commemorating civil rights history across the United States, including the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and the Brown v. Board National Historic Park. The NPS plans to collaborate with local communities to prepare for interpretation, commemoration, and visitor experiences at the new site, which will eventually be part of the NPS’s African American Civil Rights Network.

White House officials said the new monument underscores the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to advancing civil rights and racial justice. Officials said it also builds on previous actions such as signing the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, establishing the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, and making Juneteenth a federal holiday.

With the president’s actions, the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument became part of the National Park System, which now includes 431 national park sites.

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By Zenobia Judd-Williams
Special to the AFRO

Frederick Douglass famously said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

Unfortunately, some Americans don’t want everyone to read. While the tactics may have changed since the 19th century, there are still well-organized efforts to take away the fundamental right of literacy from Black children.

A well-orchestrated campaign to ban specific books in schools has the potential to undermine the reading development of Black children. If this effort is successful, it will deprive our students of valuable knowledge and undermine their interest in learning to read. Far too often, those proposing book bans target books by Black authors and about the Black experience.

As the leader of the Baltimore region of a national literacy organization, our model encourages tutors to pick books relevant to children’s lives. When students read about characters and experiences they identify with, they relate to the story and take away life lessons. They’re also more engaged when books reflect their cultures and tell their ancestors’ stories.

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation has documented that 30 percent of books that are censored include characters of color and themes of race and racism – a number that is disproportionate given the far lower percentage of published children’s books overall that include primary characters of color.

Other organizations, such as the American Library Association and the Southern Poverty Law Center, have identified books about Black history, such as picture books about the 1619 Project and The Tulsa Race Massacre, as common targets. The novels of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison are also often targeted as books to be banned.

When asked about how students respond to culturally relevant materials, one Reading Partners tutor said, “I especially enjoyed seeing my student so amazed to see his heritage represented in the books that I found for him…. He wanted to know all about the author as well as wanting to read it over and over again. Representation really matters.”

The state legislature passed the Maryland Right to Read Act this spring. Outlawing censorship in public libraries is a step in the right direction and a beacon of hope for Maryland’s communities. But the next step is to ensure our students have the right to read great works by Black authors and about great Black artists, inventors and leaders like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman.

Our community has to stand guard. The book banners want to put up roadblocks to the reading development of our children and keep censoring the history and art of the Black experience in America.

We must be prepared to stop an organized effort to block books about Black experiences, which would rob our children of the opportunity to engage with books that would make them enthusiastic about reading and give them a rightful sense of belonging.

Zenobia Judd-Williams is the executive director of Reading Partners Baltimore. She has over 20 years of nonprofit leadership experience across healthcare, housing, education, and family investment sectors. A dedicated community advocate, Zenobia is passionate about empowering organizations and individuals to achieve their full potential.

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By Assemblymember Tina McKinnor

Organized retail theft is a significant issue that impacts both consumers and businesses. While it is crucial to address theft and protect businesses from losses, we should also be mindful of safeguarding individuals’ constitutional rights, particularly the right to due process.

AB 1990 by Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo, also known as the STOP Act, raises concerns about the balance between addressing theft effectively and ensuring civil liberties are upheld. This bill allows law enforcement officers to make warrantless arrests for shoplifting offenses not witnessed by the officer, as long as there is reasonable cause to believe the individual committed the crime. This bill has a dangerous potential for overreach and infringes on civil liberties, particularly the right to due process.

While the stated intention behind the STOP Act is to combat organized retail theft and protect businesses, there are valid concerns that this bill is an overreach and that existing law works, if properly enforced by our partners in law enforcement. A petty theft involving property stolen valued at $950 or less may be charged as a felony or misdemeanor (called a wobbler) if the offender has the following prior convictions: 1) at least on prior petty or theft-related conviction for which a term of imprisonment was served, and 2) a prior conviction for a serious or violent offense, for any registerable sex offense, or for embezzlement from a dependent adult or anyone over the age of 65. 

A misdemeanor can result in a sentence of up to one year in jail, whereas a felon can mean incarceration for 16 months, two years or three years. Let’s look at shoplifting in California. It occurs when a suspect enters a store, while that establishment is open, intending to steal property worth less than $950. The crime is considered a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in the county jail.

Granting officers the authority to arrest individuals based on reasonable cause, without witnessing the crime firsthand, can lead to negative consequences and possible violations of individual rights. Probable cause is the legal standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal and for the courts to issue a search warrant. A grand jury uses the probable cause standard to determine whether or not to issue a criminal indictment. The principle behind the probable cause standard is to limit the power of authorities to conduct unlawful search and seizure of a person or its property, and to promote formal, forensic procedures for gathering lawful evidence for the prosecution of the arrested criminal. 

Reasonable cause does not require any of this due process and only requires that an officer reasonably believes that a crime has been committed. It is essential to find a middle ground that effectively addresses organized retail theft without compromising the fundamental rights of individuals.

California’s current laws, including the use of witness statements and surveillance evidence are sufficient for addressing suspected shoplifting and organized retail theft. California Attorney General Rob Bonta recently prosecuted Michelle Mack, a suspected organized smash and grab ringleader who paid twelve women to travel around California and commit over $8 million in retail theft at 21 different stores. AG Bonta used California’s current laws to have the suspect arrested and brought to justice.

The State of California is also making significant investments to address retail theft. Just this past year California invested an additional $267 million to combat organized retail theft. It has been less than a year and our law enforcement partners should have the opportunity to address this recent spike in retail theft crime.

Los Angeles County recently applied for and received a grant for the State of California for $15.6 million dollars to address retail theft enforcement. LA District Attorney George Gascon also recently formed an organized retail task force that partners with LA County Sheriff’s Department, Glendale, Beverly Hills, Burbank, Torrance and Santa Monica Police Departments to integrate their response to retail theft across the region. These collaborative efforts, such as those seen in initiatives like the organized retail task force in LA County, demonstrate the importance of a united approach to tackling theft while maintaining a balance between enforcement and civil liberties.

As we move forward, it is essential for policymakers, law enforcement agencies, businesses and communities to work together in finding solutions that effectively address organized retail theft without encroaching on individual rights. Ongoing evaluation and a commitment to thoughtful consideration will be crucial in navigating this challenge and fostering a safe and prosperous environment for all. Balancing the scales of justice to protect businesses while upholding civil liberties demands a comprehensive and conscientious approach from all stakeholders involved.

I am confident we can find that balance.

This commentary was originally published by the San Diego Voice and Viewpoint.

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By Aria Brent 
AFRO Staff Writer 
abrent@afro.com

Highly acclaimed civil rights attorney, Ben Crump and attorney, Christopher Seeger of Seeger Weiss announced on Aug. 5 they have filed a lawsuit on behalf of the family of Henrietta Lacks. The lawsuit is against Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., Novartis Gene Therapies Inc., Viatris Inc. and Mylan Pharmaceuticals. The lawsuit was filed regarding justice for the wrongful and unauthorized commercialization of  Lacks’s cells, known as the HeLa cell line. For decades these cells have been used for the advancement and development of medical research and drug development without her or her family’s consent.

Lacks was being treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the early 1950s and during a procedure, tissue samples were extracted from her cervix unbeknownst to her. It was found by medical experts that her cells were unique in comparison to typical cells due to their ability to reproduce indefinitely outside of the human body. This discovery led to the creation of the first immortalized human cell line.

“Henrietta Lacks’s cells have fueled countless medical breakthroughs, from the development of the polio vaccine to advancements in gene mapping and in vitro fertilization,” said Seeger. “Yet, despite the monumental impact of HeLa cells on medical science, Mrs. Lacks’s family has had to fight for compensation and acknowledgment for their profound contribution.”

The lawsuit brings attention to the conscious decisions  made by Novartis and Viatris to commercialize Lacks’ cells and profit from it, all the while being well aware of the unethical harvesting of the cells. Novartis  acknowledges Lacks story on their website, however they’ve continued to profit off the use of her genetic material without having permission to do so and without compensating her estate. Viatris and its subsidiary Mylan Pharmaceuticals have also heavily relied on HeLa cells for the development of medicine, the advancement of their research and the increase of revenue.

“Medical research has a long, troubled history of exploiting Black individuals, and Henrietta Lacks’s story is a stark reminder of this legacy,” Crump added. “It is time for these corporations to be held accountable for their unjust enrichment and to provide the Lacks family with the recognition and compensation they deserve.”

The lawsuit provides a singular cause of action for unjust enrichment, noting that the defendants’ ongoing use and commercialization of HeLa cells are unethical, morally corrupt and unequitable without compensation to or the consent of the Lacks family. It declares that the profits made from the use of these cells should be given to the estate of Lacks.

“Black people have the right to control their bodies and their genetic material,” Crump stated. “The exploitation of Henrietta Lacks’s cells must be acknowledged, and justice must be served for her family. We will fight tirelessly to ensure that her legacy is honored and that her family receives the compensation they are owed.”

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By DaQuan Lawrence
AFRO International Writer
DLawrence@afro.com 

Aug. 9 marks 10 years since the shooting death of Michael Brown, a teenager shot by former police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo. 

The death sent shockwaves through the community, with protests sparking all around the country in 2014. 

Last month, on July 10, the Brown family appeared before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) for a first-of-its-kind international law hearing on Brown’s case. The virtual hearing featured testimony from Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, as well as attorneys and activists from the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. 

The hearing was conducted virtually, open to the public and provided one last opportunity for public accountability in Brown’s killing, as the Inter-American Commission heard an individual case about police violence in the United States for the first time in history. 

“The last decade has proven that our domestic legal structures are insufficient and outdated compared to international human rights standards,” Wade McMullen, SVP of programs and legal strategy at RFK Human Rights, said. 

“After exhausting every U.S. mechanism for justice, the Brown family is now looking to the IACHR for accountability in the death of their loved one,” McMullen said. 

Representing McSpadden, RFK Human Rights and Howard University have requested that the IACHR recommend an independent investigation into Brown’s death and a public apology to Brown’s family. Advocates also called for the implementation of key U.S. legislation such as the BREATHE Act and the recently reintroduced Helping Families Heal Act, which would expand mental health services for communities harmed by police violence.

The IACHR is a major and autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (OAS) whose mission is to promote and protect human rights in the American hemisphere. Created by the OAS in 1959, the Commission is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and composed of seven independent members who serve in a personal capacity.

The hearing marked a vital milestone in an arduous legal journey that began in 2015 when Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center first petitioned the IACHR to review Michael’s case. In 2022, the IACHR determined that the petition raised claims that the U.S.’ failure to hold the officers accountable violated rights guaranteed under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. 

“August 9 will be 10 years since Mike Brown was killed, and it’s a chance for us to reflect on what’s happened since then,” Howard University law professor Justin Hansford, told the AFRO.  

“I am really honored to still be fighting alongside Mike Brown’s mother. It’s important to recognize that the impacted families’ lives don’t stop when cases leave the headlines. They still deal with things every day,” Hansford said. 

Mike Brown joined a growing list of Black and brown people who were unlawfully killed by U.S. law enforcement or members of non-minority communities in the 2010s and early 2020s, from 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012 to George Floyd in 2020. Before the formal advent of the Black Lives Matter movement, members of the Ferguson community endured tumultuous conditions seeking justice for Mike Brown. 

“The people in Ferguson inspired me the most because they were out there before it was trendy,” Hansford said. “Many protestors were not from privileged backgrounds or lost their jobs, as some people worked at local convenience stores or Walmart.” 

Hansford was involved in the fallout of the protests in Ferguson and was one of the legal advocates who initially tried to take Brown’s case to an international stage. Hansford highlighted the unwavering spirit of protestors and mentioned that he was deeply moved by the community’s support prior to the commercialization of the Black Lives Matter hashtags and aid from allies.

“Before protesting was something mainstream, it was considered completely unsafe. protests were really some of the most authentic moments in American history,” Hansford said. 

The July hearing was a breakthrough for issues of police brutality and human rights in America, as legal advocates involved in Mike Brown’s case made arguments pertaining to human rights within the field of international law. Hansford emphasized how the hearing at the IACHR is distinct from previous legal proceedings.  

Historically known as a field that concerns the legal relationships between sovereign states, modern definitions of international law define the subject matter as the legal relationships that exists not simply between states, but also between and among international organizations, individuals, groups, multinational corporations and other entities that are considered capable of possessing the characteristics of legal personality. 

“It’s a new framing and a new and better venue. I have always said that human rights law is better than American constitutional law or civil rights law, because human rights law is agreed upon by people all over the world,” Hansford explained.  

Traditionally, the way states treat their citizens has been considered a subject of that state’s domestic law alone. Within contemporary international law, scholars and practitioners maintain that every state is subject to a body of law – broadly defined as human rights. The domain of human rights is inexplicably linked to rights that may be deemed cultural, political, economic and social. 

According to Amnesty International, human rights issues are often vast and consist of many grey areas regarding public policy, allowing insidious violations to occur due to the implications and applications of international law. 

The increase in police-civilian conflict has led to suggestions within international law as academics, legal professionals, students, activists and members of the international community alike seek options that hold perpetrators accountable. 

“Michael’s case is emblematic of widespread police violence against Black people in the U.S.,” Delia Addo-Yobo, staff attorney at RFK Human Rights, said. 

Black people are almost three-times more likely to be killed by police than white people in the U.S. according to Mapping Police Violence, an organization that tracks information about police killings due to the lack of comprehensive data provided by law enforcement agencies. 

Often cited as “police brutality”, police violence has a long history within the U.S., which stems back to the American slavery period and continued throughout the Jim Crow era and the development of social organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. 

“More people were killed by police last year than any other year on record. By taking on Michael’s case, the IACHR is facilitating new pathways to justice for those impacted by discriminatory and pervasive police violence,” Addo-Yobo explained. 

According to the Law Enforcement Epidemiology Project based at the University of Illinois Chicago, more than 600 people are killed by law enforcement in the U.S. annually. Based on data collected by Mapping Police Violence, police officers have killed 793 people in the U.S. this year as of Aug.9.. 

Police-citizen confrontations in Minneapolis, Minn., Baltimore, Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y., have been the subject of international attention, and the issue of police violence has moved public opinion regarding police-citizen confrontations and incidents where citizens have their human rights violated. 

Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department, attended the July 10 hearing and defended the department’s decision not to seek charges.

“Federal authorities reviewed physical ballistic evidence, forensic and crime scene evidence, medical reports and autopsy reports, officer Wilson’s personnel records, audio and video recordings, internet postings and the transcripts from the proceedings before the St. Louis County grand jury,” Clarke said.

Clarke mentioned that although federal prosecutors and agents interviewed dozens of witnesses, and FBI agents canvassed more than 300 homes to find and interview additional witnesses, ultimately the evidence didn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Wilson violated the statutes needed to charge him.

“I understand that this 2015 conclusion gravely disappointed Mr. Brown’s parents and family and many in the community,” Clarke said. “I ask that the commission and any interested parties read the full report, which shows the thoroughness of the department’s criminal investigation into Mr. Brown’s death.”

A recent study from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions and Vanderbilt University found that from 2015 to 2020, an average of 1,769 people were injured annually in police shootings, 55 percent of them or 979 people, fatally. 

Hansford elevated the concerns of legal experts seeking justice for Mike Brown and emphasized the trustworthiness of state officials involved. 

“They tried to say Darren Wilson was acting in self-defense, yet a prosecutor was already proven to be biased. We have 10 years to reflect on the crazy way they prosecuted that case and the IACHR is saying Mike Brown’s human rights were violated— not just his civil rights,” Hansford said.  

The U.S. is often revered as a nation of unprecedented freedoms, a land of opportunity, and sometimes regarded as an international leader on human rights issues. Recent events targeting American minorities – who are largely disenfranchised – and unrest that followed their killings in U.S. cities, has attracted due attention and criticism. 

 “I think reparations is what justice looks like in the 21st Century, and the government that caused trauma and heartbreak should be responsible for healing. We’re calling on them to provide an apology, financial reparations, and mental health support for any family that is victimized by police violence,” Hansford told the AFRO. 

Following the July hearing, the IACHR will publish a report outlining their findings on the case and issuing recommendations to the United States government. A full list of proposed remedies can be found here. 

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The Moral Mondays leader and other clergy prayed at the Supreme Court for the poor, seeking action to ensure their voices and votes are heard..

By Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware
Word in Black

On July 29, leaders from various faiths gathered in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., to demand justice. Together, they called for equality in pay, housing, voting rights, public safety, and health care.

This group regularly collaborates with the Right Rev. William J. Barber II, president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. Barber has instituted a year-long effort to engage eligible voters who haven’t voted in the past because their concerns have not been addressed by those in power.

“We come in all of our rich diversity, seeing the divinity in our diversity, to pray keeping faith with the highest ideals,” said the Rev. Dr. Alvin O’Neal Jackson in his opening remarks. “Praying that we would use our voices and votes to get closer to what we say we want to be…one nation under God.”

Barber said, “We come as clergy because the right to vote is from God, not from humanity or a constitution. God gives us the ability to choose this day. My Jewish friends taught  me that the words for voice and vote are the same in Hebrew. Something is deeply wrong when any candidate says vote for me and I alone can fix things. Vote for me and it will be the last time.”

Rev. Rob Stevens introduced the first leaders to pray, reminding that prayer changes things, “but more importantly prayer changes us.” 

“It can help us come closer to what we say we want to be, one nation under God with liberty and justice for all,” he added. “Kneel before our Creator with many names.”

Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, echoed the synonymous meaning of voice and vote. He also, with one biblical story, summed up issues of justice for women. He referenced the least familiar Noah in the Bible, a young woman and her four sisters. Because of the times, they were not being considered as heirs to their now deceased father. But they insisted they would not be left out of their fair share just because of their gender and the lack of a man to protect them. They appealed to the prophet who appealed to God. The verdict was that God pronounced their cause just.

Rev. Jimmy Hopkins of the Presbyterian Church USA prayed for guidance during the election, condemning those in office who prioritize their interests over the public’s. He criticized their focus on legislation benefiting the wealthy while disparaging and neglecting those who have too little..

He closed with a plea: “Open our eyes to elect those who have a determined heart to do justice and to love kindness in a humble walk with our God.”

The prayers continued and will be offered the last Monday of each month until the General Election on Nov. 5.

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior Writer
@StacyBrownMedia

(NNPA Newswire) – This week marks a monumental victory for Black farmers as they begin receiving payments from the $2.2 billion Discrimination Financial Assistance Program (DFAP). After decades of advocacy and struggle, John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association (NBFA), declared the day “a huge win.”

Nearly two years ago, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Section 22007, authorizing compensation for farmers who faced racial discrimination in the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) farm lending practices before 2021. This week, around 43,000 farmers will receive payments of up to $500,000, with the average award being $82,000.

Reflecting on this long-awaited achievement, Boyd recounted his journey, which began almost 40 years ago when he first experienced these injustices. 

“No matter how it is sliced, the $2.2 billion in payouts is historic,” he said. This follows previous settlements, including a $1 billion payout in 1999 and a $1.25 billion settlement in 2013.

The NBFA’s relentless efforts have also paved the way for similar settlements with Hispanic and women farmers ($1.3 billion), Native American farmers ($800 million), and the Cobell case settlement ($3.4 billion).

Boyd’s dedication to justice has been challenging. He faced hateful phone calls and mail, and even death threats. Despite these obstacles, he remained steadfast in his fight. 

“Total restoration is impossible, but for me, the fight was about justice,” Boyd emphasized.

Midtown Group, an unbiased third-party administrator, oversaw the DFAP’s administration to ensure a fair adjudication procedure for each farmer’s case. Although the 40-page application process and long wait times added to the farmers’ pain, the payments represent a bittersweet victory. 

Boyd acknowledged that issues such as banks denying operating funds or farm ownership loans persist, as do recent allegations of racial discrimination against companies like John Deere.

For those denied assistance through the DFAP, there is no appeal or review process, a reality Boyd profoundly regrets. Many Black farmers have died waiting for justice, but the recent announcement brings some closure. 

Boyd reflected on his tireless efforts, from lobbying Congress to protesting with his mules “Struggle” and “Forty Acres,” and riding his tractor, “Justice” to Washington. Listening to Senior White House Advisor Stephen Benjamin detail the award notifications and check disbursement made it all worthwhile. 

“Today is a huge win for the NBFA,” he declared.

In October 2022, civil rights attorney Ben Crump announced a class action suit against the United States government on behalf of the NBFA. The lawsuit came after findings that Black farmers lost approximately $326 billion of land due to discrimination during the 20th century. Crump and the farmers argued that the federal government breached its contract with socially disadvantaged farmers under the American Rescue Plan Act.

Despite these challenges, President Biden reaffirmed his commitment to addressing inequities in farming. 

“Farmers and ranchers work around the clock to put food on our tables and steward our Nation’s land. But for too long, many farmers and ranchers experienced discrimination in farm loan programs and have not had the same access to federal resources and support. I promised to address this inequity when I became President. Today that promise has become a reality,” Biden stated.

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By Deborah Jeon

“The past refuses to lie down quietly,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu famously said of the process of racial reconciliation in South Africa following the dismantling of apartheid. 

Renowned civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill echoes this sentiment in describing the shadow of past racial violence haunting Maryland’s Eastern Shore: 

“The terror visited upon African American communities … lives in the deep wells of distrust between Blacks and Whites in the sense that Blacks still must keep their place and that both Blacks and Whites must remain silent about this history of lynching.” In Wicomico County, site of one horrific lynching chronicled by Professor Ifill, the system of racial subjugation endures through an election plan that makes the votes of Black residents count less than those of their White neighbors.

Challenges to all-White political rule on the Eastern Shore began in the 1980s, when ACLU lawyer Chris Brown and civil rights leader Carl Snowden first engaged with Black voters to pursue a series of Voting Rights Act lawsuits. As a young sidekick to Brown and Snowden, my ACLU career was indelibly inspired by the extraordinary courage I witnessed in Black trailblazers who took on systematic disenfranchisement of Black voters across the Shore. These heroes of yesteryear – Honiss Cane, Fannie Birckhead, James Purnell and Billy Gene Jackson, among others – sparked transformative change that opened doors to Black representation in many Shore communities for the first time ever.

Now, more than three decades after those historic advances, the struggle to overcome racial oppression continues anew amid the Shore’s increasing racial diversification. In the Town of Federalsburg and in Wicomico County, Black voters aligning with the NAACP and Caucus of African American Leaders are rising up to tackle unfinished work of that earlier era.   

Discriminatory election structures enable the White majority to dilute votes and silence the voices of Black residents despite – or perhaps because of – their growing numbers. Voting patterns throughout the Shore are strongly polarized by race, meaning election preferences of Black and White voters consistently differ. And in general, White voters favor White candidates and oppose candidates of color, preventing Black candidates from attaining political office.

In Wicomico County, BIPOC residents make up 42 percent of the population, and a clear majority – 62 percent – of children in public schools. But because the election structure combines at-large and district components in a seven-member system, Black candidates are limited to just one majority-Black district in both County Council and School Board elections. Limiting such a large BIPOC population to a single representative is not only unacceptable, but blatantly illegal. 

Veteran activist Mary Ashanti, who came of age amid stark segregation and racism in Wicomico County, sees this as a calculated means of suppressing Black voices. She says it operates “just as it was designed to – keeping Black people in their place, confined to their one lonely opportunity” notwithstanding Black population growth.  

Consequences of this lack of fair representation are “profound,” says Wicomico NAACP President Monica Brooks. The effects include Black schoolchildren taunted by White classmates with racial slurs; Black Lives Matter protesters openly condemned by the local sheriff; NAACP officials refused entry to the County Office Building by the White county executive and the teenaged son of a White school board member posting video of himself with a scoped rifle threatening to shoot Black residents “for sport.”   

As a first step toward remedying these frightening injustices, Black Wicomico voters are asking a federal judge to invalidate the County’s discriminatory election system and order reform. A new system is needed that eliminates the at-large structure and expands Black election opportunities among the seven seats.

Last year, a similar lawsuit in Federalsburg achieved remarkable success after Black voters challenged the all-White municipal government that stayed in place for two centuries even as the community grew to half Black. Through court-ordered reforms, Federalsburg voters made history last September by electing two Black women as the first-ever Black officials in their town’s 200-year existence. What’s more, the Federalsburg plaintiffs went on to secure unprecedented restorative measures – including an official written apology for past racism – as part of their lawsuit’s settlement.

While the Federalsburg and Wicomico activists follow in the footsteps of the bold Eastern Shore voting rights crusaders who came before them, they are also charting a path of their own, highlighting and seizing opportunities for an overdue racial reckoning.  Perhaps this can, at long last, bring the reconciliation needed to vanquish the racial injustices of our past.  

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By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Political Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com

D.C. leaders gathered at the John A. Wilson Building on the evening of July 17 to celebrate the John Lewis National Day of Commemoration and Action. Lewis, who died on July 17, 2020, was well known for his persistent work as an American civil rights leader and legislator.

“We have to be careful that we don’t lose the history. We know that there is a systematic attempt to erase the history,” said D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), during the live-streamed ceremony. “We have to make sure that our children, our new activists, our voting educators are reminding everyone of the remarkable life of John Lewis.”

Lewis was largely known for leading the Selma March in 1965 on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. The significant event of the civil rights movement was abruptly ended by police violence, which included tear gassing and assaulting unarmed marchers with billy clubs. 

“At 23, he became the youngest speaker at the March on Washington. At 25 he was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge,” said Barbara Arnwine, president of the Transformative Justice Coalition. “He didn’t need a doctor’s degree. He didn’t need a law degree. What he needed, as everybody has mentioned, was God-given courage. Afterward, what happened? The president of the United States introduced the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and it passed! For fifty years John Lewis, for the remainder of his life, was a champion of voting rights.”

“He was a dear friend of mine and the last time I saw him it was in the halls of Congress where we had just passed the then-called Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019 in December of that year,” said Arnwine. “He gave me a hug and when I felt him I knew something was wrong. I said Lord, protect our brother. We are standing here today not just to celebrate, but we’re standing here today because we know his legacy and we are saying to his spirit, ‘we’re going to finish the job.’”

Bowser uplifted the importance of voting in this year’s election, what’s at stake and the ongoing call for D.C.’s statehood. The call for D.C. to be recognized as a state is partly to ensure adequate representation in Congress for the more than 678,000 District residents and reduce Congress’ legislative authority over the D.C. Council.

“What John Lewis fought for, what so many people fought for, we know is on the ballot this year. On Nov. 5, Americans will go – all the states, all of the territories and of course the best city in the world – and cast our ballots for, I believe, how we will save our democracy and our right to vote,” said Bowser. “We are especially concerned in Washington, D.C. We want to ensure our already limited autonomy is not further trampled on.”

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By ReShonda Tate
The Defender

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee died at 74, her family announced Friday night (July 19). An apologetic champion for her constituents, the longtime Congresswoman served the public for more than 30 years.

“A local, national, and international humanitarian, she was acknowledged worldwide for her courageous fights for racial justice, criminal justice, and human rights, with a special emphasis on women and children,” a statement from her family said.

Last month, Jackson Lee announced she was fighting pancreatic cancer. In a statement, Jackson Lee said she was undergoing treatment to battle the disease “that impacts tens of thousands of Americans every year.”

“She will be dearly missed, but her legacy will continue to inspire all who believe in freedom, justice, and democracy. God bless you Congresswoman and God bless the United States of America,” Jackson Lee’s family said.

This article was reprinted with permission from The Houston Defender.

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

(NNPA Newswire) – As mainstream media and some Democrats zero in on President Joe Biden’s recent debate missteps, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is drawing attention to Donald Trump, the 34-times convicted felon and twice-impeached former president. The ACLU released its memo, “Trump on Surveillance, Protest, and Free Speech” as part of its 2024 election policy series. The analysis, written by ACLU experts on topics like the First Amendment, surveillance and privacy, details the dangers posed by a potential second Trump administration and provides a road map to combat them.

The memo highlights what it calls an unprecedented threat to democracy, pointing to Trump’s promises to criminalize dissent, suppress free speech, expand government surveillance and target political opponents. 

“The Trump presidency, with its false declarations of national emergencies in service of discrimination and total disregard for the rule of law, demonstrated what we’ve always known—that relying on unwritten norms for presidential behavior is grossly insufficient. Trump is now threatening to be even less constrained if given a second chance,” said Cecillia Wang, deputy legal director of the ACLU.

According to the memo, a second Trump administration would likely:

• Leverage federal law enforcement to attack journalists and protesters, violating First Amendment rights and possibly deploying the military in urban areas to suppress protests.
• Exploit executive powers to spy on Americans using authorities like Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Executive Order 12333, leading to the mass collection of private data.
• Target political opponents through investigations and prosecutions, replacing civil servants with loyalists, and demanding employee loyalty pledges.

The ACLU’s roadmap for protecting civil liberties includes litigation to defend those wrongfully prosecuted, mobilizing public support to limit executive power, and state and local advocacy to enact strong data protection laws. 

“Donald Trump has made no secret of his disregard for the rule of law and his intent to corrupt the immense powers of the federal government to target his opponents and break the institutions that could pose checks and balances to presidential power,” said Mike Zamore, national director of policy and government affairs for the ACLU. “In a second term, unleashed and feeling invulnerable from legal and political repercussions, he would pose an unprecedented challenge to our constitutional values. But the ACLU is ready. If Trump is elected and comes for our First Amendment rights, we’ll stand with the people of this country to defend our freedom.”

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By Stacy M. Brown

NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

(NNPA Newswire) – To address systemic racial disparities in the real estate appraisal profession, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently announced an historic conciliation agreement with The Appraisal Foundation (TAF).

TAF, the organization responsible for setting standards and qualifications for real estate appraisers, faced allegations of creating discriminatory barriers that prevent Black individuals and other persons of color from entering the profession, violating the Fair Housing Act.

Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics highlights the stark lack of diversity in the appraisal industry, with 94.7 percent of property appraisers and assessors being White and a mere 0.6 percent being Black, making it the least racially diverse among 800 surveyed occupations. The Interagency Task Force on Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) warns that this homogeneity contributes to the persistent undervaluation of properties in communities of color, further entrenching the racial wealth gap.

Fannie Mae’s 2021 research underscores this issue, revealing that 12.5 percent of appraisals in majority-Black neighborhoods and 15.4 percent in majority-Latino neighborhoods were valued below the contract price, compared to just 7.4 percent in predominantly White neighborhoods.

The HUD complaint against TAF identified the experience requirement for appraisers as a significant barrier to entry for people of color. This requirement often forces aspiring appraisers to secure supervision from a licensed appraiser, typically someone they know personally, thereby perpetuating a cycle of exclusion. The new agreement aims to dismantle these barriers by providing increased funding for alternative pathways to meet experience requirements, making the profession more accessible and inclusive.

HUD Acting Secretary Adrianne Todman hailed the agreement as a significant victory in the fight against racial bias in home appraisals. “To eliminate racial and ethnic bias from home appraisals, we must ensure that the industry reflects the diversity of America,” Todman stated. “This historic agreement will help build a class of appraisers based on merit rather than connections, bringing us closer to eradicating housing discrimination and opening doors of opportunity for all.”

Diane M. Shelley, HUD’s principal deputy assistant secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, emphasized the agreement’s significance in promoting inclusivity. She thanked Demetria McCain, who initiated the investigation and secured the conciliation. 

“HUD’s agreement requires policy changes that expand pathways to becoming an appraiser, promoting greater inclusion of Black people and other persons of color,” Shelley said. “This groundbreaking agreement addresses systemic issues that have perpetuated unacceptable inequities in the appraisal industry.”

Melody C. Taylor, executive director of PAVE, highlighted the crucial role of homeownership in addressing the racial wealth gap. 

“Homeownership remains a primary driver of wealth disparity, with wide racial and ethnic gaps in homeownership rates and financial returns from owning a home,” Taylor noted. “This Agreement is a significant step forward in cultivating a diverse and well-trained appraiser profession that upholds equal opportunity for all.”

Under the terms of the Agreement, TAF will establish a $1.22 million scholarship fund to cover costs for aspiring appraisers attending the Practical Applications of Real Estate Appraisal (PAREA) programs. These programs provide an alternative pathway to meet state licensure experience requirements. The agreement also includes:

• Provisions for marketing the PAREA program and scholarship fund to diverse communities.
• Evaluating the effectiveness of this marketing.
• Collaborating with state and territory appraiser regulatory agencies for the program’s adoption.

Although HUD did not issue findings before the agreement and the deal does not constitute admissions by TAF of any violations, it represents an enforceable resolution to dismantle long-standing barriers and foster greater diversity and equity within the appraisal industry.

Individuals who believe they are victims of housing discrimination can contact HUD at (800) 966-9777 (voice) or (800) 927-9275 (TTY). Additional information is available at HUD’s fair housing website.

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By Amber D. Dodd
Special to the AFRO
adodd@afro.com 

On Father’s Day, recognized this year on June 16, Hannah Rosenzweig, Jamal Holtz and Diane Robertson premiered their film “51st State.” The documentary was shown at the second annual D.C./DOX Film Festival, a program that highlights projects capturing and cultivating life in the nation’s capital. 

Rosenzweig created the film while Robertson served as the executive producer. The documentary follows statehood activists and D.C. natives Holtz and Demi Stratmon. Their work is housed under 51 for 51, an organization committed to D.C.’s statehood.

“We have to see D.C. statehood as a fight for racial justice,” Holtz told the AFRO. “There are people who are advocating around racial justice across the country, but we have to see D.C. statehood as an intersection to those issues.”

In 1787, the founding fathers decided that D.C. cannot have congressional representation since the federal government is located there. 

This set the precedence for the lack of political power and representation for D.C.’s 700,000 residents today. Though D.C. residents are America’s highest taxpayers, there is no Senate or State representation.

Historians argue that D.C.’s statehood is an issue of voter suppression and disfranchisement as Wyoming and Vermont, two states with lower populations than D.C., possess full political representation in the House and Senate. 

“People don’t think about this as a voting rights issue, but it very much is,” Stasha Rhodes, strategist and Democracy Reform Leader and former director of 51 for 51, said. “Our democracy, specifically in the Senate, gives more power to smaller, Whiter, redder states.”

United States House of Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, a staple in the nation’s capital, serves as Congress’ only representation for the district.

“We don’t have any senators, the District of Columbia only has me on the House floor,” said Norton, who makes an appearance in the documentary. “The fight is really about becoming equal to other Americans.”

The fight for D.C. statehood is done through three different legislative acts; For the People Act (H.R. 1), The Washington D.C. Admissions Act (S.51) and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R.4.). The bills did not pass during the 2021 legislative session.

The bills garnered the support of notable politicians such as the ACLU, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and U.S. President Joe Biden. 

“We have to push those individuals, especially those Democrats senators who have not yet spoken on D.C. statehood,” Stratmore said. “D.C. is a Black and Brown place, it’s easy to disenfranchise a group of people that have been disenfranchised for the entire history of this country.”

Holtz and the 51 for 51 team vie for statehood in other avenues such as the Young Democrats of D.C.. Holtz becomes president of the respective organization, inviting D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.

“We are always going to fight for D.C. statehood,” Bowser said, to the Young Democrats of D.C. “I am counting on you to take us to the next level.”

Robertson, Rosenzweig and Holtz participated in a panel after the documentary’s premiere. Fawn Johnson, news director of the Bloomberg Industry Group, moderated the panel. 

“As a historian and democracy advocate, I just saw this as the perfect story to tell,” Robertson said. 

“D.C. is not going to become a state until the other 50 states decide that it should be a state, and that requires education, so this was the perfect vehicle to tell a story that would go beyond its intended audience and be used in places where people aren’t thinking about it.”

The trio agreed that the film serves as a starting point for nationwide support of D.C. statehood. “One of the things Jamal and I talked about was the importance of this story…of the need for statehood outside of the city,” Rosenzweig said. “That was a reason for somebody outside of the district like myself to make the film and hopefully bring it to new audiences. ”

Visuals of the everyday Black Washingtonians enjoying their lives, even through their struggle for political representation, is a potential connection point for D.C.’s goals for statehood.

“Culture allows for connection,” Holtz said on authentic D.C. representation. “I go back to using the word ‘humanity.’ People get to connect with the human themes rather than the policy.”

Longtime statehood activist Henry Hughes said statehood efforts are intertwined with the roots of Black activism. 

“This cycle is about self determination,” Hughes said.

If D.C. earns its statehood, it would be the first majority Black state in American history. This, Holtz says, could garner the support of Black communities who could empower their respective senators to support D.C. as the 51st state.

“There are Black people in South Carolina, in Texas, all over the country that have a connection to the Black culture displayed at an all-time high in Washington D.C.,” Holtz told the AFRO. “I think it’s important to showcase what D.C. is for other people to at least feel an immediate connection and familiarity…Black people across the country should be outraged that D.C. is not a state.”

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By Dayvon Love

If we accept the premise that Black peoples’ grievances with America began with enslavement in the U.S., then we are also accepting White people’s ability to define and shape our reality. 

The drive toward global domination of the non-White world by Europe and America was carried out by waging war against sovereign nations and societies. People of African descent in the Western-Hemisphere are prisoners of war. America is a settler colony that was able to emerge as a global superpower because of the material wealth it genocidally extracted from the dehumanization of Indigenous people and people of African descent. 

The economic inertia from stealing the land from native people of the Americas and the enslavement of African people created the foundation upon which America has been able to become the wealthiest nation in the world. 

Starting our grievances against the U.S. with enslavement renders the larger project of America as a legitimate enterprise. As Derrick Bell has brilliantly theorized, racism in America is permanent. There is no version of America where Black people are not subject to collective oppression and subjugation. Many in the mainstream social justice space are operating under the guise that they are fighting to make America a genuine multiracial democracy. As a Pan-Africanist, I am clear that what Black people should be fighting for is the development of independent Black institutions that will give us the capacity to navigate this society from a position of sovereignty and power, instead of relying on the benevolence of people outside of our community. We should build coalitions with other groups that are based on respect for our need for independent political action. We should not be looking to get this racist society to recognize our humanity, but to build the power needed to effectively advance our collective interests.

Over the past several years, a movement called American Descendants of Slaves (ADOS) has emerged and has taken up significant time and space in the conversation about reparations. They have been hostile toward Pan-Africanist and approaches to reparations that come from proponents of it. A lot has been said in these discussions, but I want to focus on the ADOS demand for lineage-based reparations. The central area of contention in the reparations conversation between ADOS and Pan-Africanists is about whether or not Black people should strive to be integrated into the American mainstream. Revolutionary Pan-Africanists believe that reparations should be about building our capacity to practice sovereignty. Pan-Africanists are clear that the existing social order is structured on the global system of White supremacy, capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. The emphasis by ADOS on lineage reparations and a lack of serious engagement on how to build independent Black political power demonstrates that they are interested in an agenda that ultimately integrates Black people into the American mainstream. Cash payments for individual Black people are one intervention that should be on the table when discussing a holistic approach to reparations. But focusing on cash payments to African descendants in America simply puts more money in the hands of individual Black people in this oppressive social order that will ultimately maintain the collective subjugation of Black people.

All of the civilizational machinery that structures our individual engagements with society are owned and controlled by non-Black people. Global telecommunications, transnational financial institutions, the medical industry, and any of the major arenas of civic life that structure this society are not controlled by Black people. We cannot be a truly free and liberated people until we exercise meaningful power over the aforementioned arenas of civil society. This is truly a long-term endeavor, but this should be the framework we use to guide the work we are currently doing toward Black Liberation. This means that in regard to reparations, there needs to be investments in community-controlled, independent Black institutions that occupy various arenas of civil society. This is a complex but essential endeavor to build collective power amongst Black people. Any other approach that is based on having hope that this society will recognize the humanity of Black people is not informed by a sober-minded analysis of history.

One of the arguments that ADOS has used against Pan-Africanists who are advocates for reparations is that they are just talk and not actually engaged in work to impact Black people. This seems like an attempt to avoid substantive arguments about the limitations of their approach to reparations. LBS has been engaged in moving reparation policies in Maryland that have resulted in the establishment of dedicated funds for the communities impacted by the war on drugs. In Baltimore and in Maryland, where the majority of LBS’ work is done, I don’t see ADOS seriously engaged in the political arena. And what I see online appears to be mostly disruption and verbal confrontations that are not grounded in meaningful political advocacy. The focus on excluding non-American-born Black people from reparation demands seems like a pointless waste of time and energy that would be better spent moving policy that could result in reparations for Black people. 

Seems counter-revolutionary to me. 

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By Joseph Green Bishop
Arise Rejoice News Service

Rev. Frederick Douglass Taylor, whose presence in the American Civil Rights movement is critically important, died on the evening of June 21, at Tranquillity Hospice in Austell, Ga. 

He was 81-years-old.

A lieutenant to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mrs. Ross Parks, Rev. Joseph Lowery, Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, Ambassador Andrew Young and others, he served in various capacities at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Atlanta for more than forty years.

Rev. Taylor died from respiratory failure, said his daughter, Vonya, who held her father in her arms as his life slipped away.

“My daddy always taught me, his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren to be quality people,” Vonya Taylor said. “He believed that the highest calling in life was to serve others, and to improve the human condition,” she added.

Taylor said that her father, Rev. Taylor, who was born in Prattville, Ala., began his mornings well before dawn in prayer and reflection. He then turned to physical exercise, she said.

“At six in the morning he began a two- hour jog and walk through the streets of Atlanta,” she said. “He continued to do that until eighteen months ago when he became ill.”

The late Mayor Maynard Jackson, the first African American elected to lead the city of Atlanta, once said that Rev. Taylor, who he knew well, was “an engineer of social change in Atlanta, in Georgia and in the United States.”

Dallas civil rights leader, Rev. Peter Johnson, who joined the Civil Rights movement as a youth as did Rev. Taylor, said that his friend was “fully committed to remaking the world, and to giving those who lived on the margins of American society a brighter future.”

Raised by his grandmother whom he affectionately called “Ma-Dear,” Rev. Taylor initially thought of pursuing a career in medicine.

After completing undergraduate school at Alabama State University, Rev. Taylor earned a Masters Degree in Divinity from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta in 1969.

That same year he took a position at the SCLC, with plans to remain for only two years. His childhood pastor in Alabama, Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, headed the organization when Rev. Taylor joined its professional staff.

“It was never my goal to be in leadership,” Rev. Taylor, a resplendent rose in the Civil Rights garden, once said. “ It was my sole objective to serve others, to support and encourage them. I was not interested in making a personal fortune. Being part of substantive social change for all people enriched me greatly.”

An associate pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga., Rev. Taylor spoke at churches and rallies throughout the nation.

He was one of the final living connections to Dr. King, Mrs. Coretta Scott King, Dr. Lowery, Mrs. Rosa Parks, Congressman John Lewis, NAACP board chairman Julian Bond, Rev. Mamie Williams, Ambassador Andrew Young and Rev. Hosea Williams, all civil rights legends. 

In addition to his daughter, Vonya, Rev. Taylor’s survivors include five grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, his former wife, Carolyn Yvonne McDaniel, his uncle, Isaac Bates, his 96-year-old aunt, Lillian Bates, his Trinity Baptist Church family and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference family.

This article was originally published by Arise Rejoice News Service.

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Editorial by
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee

Juneteenth was first celebrated in the State of Texas capital city of Austin in
1867 under the direction of the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Freedmen’s Bureau
was established to aid newly freed enslaved persons with their transition into
freedom, and remains the oldest known celebration of slavery’s demise, and
jubilation at their newfound FREEDOM. Juneteenth is a celebration of
African American culture that recognizes each generations’ sacrifice and
contributions that played a major role in making America live up to its
promise. Through the efforts of so many courageous African Americans, the
conscious of our nation transformed from slavery to one more accepting of
diversity as its strength to form a more perfect union.

My work to establish a Juneteenth Federal holiday began in 2013, when I
introduced my first Juneteenth Resolution recognizing the day’s importance.
I continued to introduce a Resolution each year.

In 2020, the world witnessed with their own eyes and ears as George Floyd
gasped for help while a Minneapolis police officer suffocated him with his knee for over nine minutes. Shortly afterward, streets filled with marches
across the nation.

This same emotion and response were also evident in the halls of Congress. It was apparent when I sent out a “Dear Colleague” seeking support from m
fellow Members of Congress to join as cosponsors of my 116th Congress
Juneteenth Resolution. The Resolution was introduced on June 15, 2020,
with over 200 original sponsors, and reached a total of 214 bipartisan
cosponsors before being adopted by the House of Representatives on June
30, 2020.

After seeing this tremendous level of support for the Juneteenth Resolution,
I knew the time had arrived for Juneteenth to become a federal holiday and
I tasked my Policy Director, Lillie Coney, to have Legislative Counsel draft a
Juneteenth Federal Holiday bill for introduction. The bill was drafted, and a
“Dear Colleague” was sent inviting members to join as original cosponsors of
the bill to establish Juneteenth as a Federal Holiday.

When I first introduced the bill, the House Parliamentarian blocked its
enrollment or listing as a House Bill because it violated a rule that prohibited
the introduction of bills establishing federal holidays. When I asked why the
parliamentarian did this, I was informed that House procedural Rules
prevented its introduction. The reply from the Parliamentarian was that the
bill included a specific date, “June 19,” which is prohibited by the House
Rules.

Because the holiday was Juneteenth—its name is the date, I directed that
“June 19” be removed from the House bill. After this change was made,
another “Dear Colleague” was circulated informing members of the change,
and the bill was introduced on June 18, 2020, with the designation of H.R.
7232, the “Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.”

My staff confirmed with the Congressional Research Service of the Library of
Congress, that H.R. 7232 was the first bill ever introduced in the history of
the House or Senate that would establish Juneteenth as a Federal Holiday.

Following the introduction of H.R. 7232, Senator Ed Markey’s staff reached
out to collaborate on a Senate Companion bill to H.R. 7232, the “Juneteenth
National Independence Day Act and introduced the Senate version of my
bill, under the designation of S. 4019 on June 22, 2020. Although, there was
one difference–the Senate bill included the date “June 19,” because there was
no rule in the Senate prohibiting a date.

The work of the 116th Congress ended without passage of the Juneteenth
National Independence Day Act; however, both the House and Senate
adopted their respective Juneteenth Resolutions for the first time.
In the 117th Congress, on June 16, 2021, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee
and Senator Edward Markey simultaneously introduced both Juneteenth
National Independence Day Bills (known as H.R. 1320 and S. 475), and they
issued a joint press statement announcing the joint bill introduction.

Although the House could not advance H.R. 1320, the Juneteenth National
Independence Day Act, it would take up its Senate companion bill once it was
passed by that chamber. My efforts shifted to getting allies in the Senate to
work towards its passage. My long-time Juneteenth partner in the Senate,
Senator John Cornyn, joined this effort wholeheartedly and became the lead
Republican sponsor of the Markey bill, but this was not enough to meet the
required 60 votes to bring it before the full Senate for a floor vote.

Fifty-four bipartisan Senators are listed on the bill at the introduction of
S.475, the “Juneteenth National Independence Day Act”.

It would have been unwise to force a vote before we were certain it would
pass without objections. In the Senate if fewer than sixty Senators do not
agree to a vote on a bill it will not proceed. This meant that our next step was
to get six additional Senators to cosponsor S. 475 to ensure it would pass
without objections.

In March, Republican Senators John Hoeven of North Dakota and Shelley
Moore Capito of West Virginia, and Democratic Senators Mark Kelly of
Arizona joined as cosponsors of the bill. In May, Senators Ben
Cardin of Maryland and Jon Ossoff of Georgia added their names. And on
June 8, 2021, my dear friend Senator Raphael G. Warnock of Georgia became
the sixtieth Senator to cosponsor the bill.

Senator Warnock is the Senior Pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta,
the former pulpit of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was poetic that
Senator Warnock’s co-sponsorship of the bill was the deciding factor in its
path to becoming the first Federal Holiday in nearly 30 years since the
Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday was established. The bill was taken
up by the Senate and passed on June 15, 2021, and sent to the House. The
House passed the bill on June 16, 2021.

President Biden was in Europe on June 16, 2021, when he decided to return
to the United States to sign the bill into law— just in time for the first
celebration of the Federal Juneteenth National Holiday to take place on
Friday, June 18, 2021, due to June 19 falling on a Saturday.

I was invited along with the entire Congressional Black Caucus, and Ms. Opal
Lee, to the White House for the official signing of the Juneteenth National
Holiday Act bill. At that moment, I thought of State Representative Al
Edwards, who introduced the June 19, Emancipation Bill, the first state
holiday bill in the nation, which became law establishing Juneteenth as a
holiday starting in 1980 for the state of Texas.

I applaud the U.S. Senate for passing S. 475, Juneteenth National
Independence Day Act, the companion legislation to H.R. 1320, which
commemorates the end of chattel slavery—America’s Original Sin, and to
celebrate the perseverance that has been the hallmark of the African
American struggle for equity and equality.

I thank Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts for contacting my office in June
2020, with his request to introduce the Senate companion to H.R. 7232. I
also thank my Senator, the senior Senator from Texas, Senator John Cornyn
for his continuous and steadfast support of the Juneteenth holiday, along
with others who spearheaded this effort in the Senate, including Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who shepherded the bill through the
process to ensure its passage.

My unwavering appreciation and thanks to President Joe Biden for sending
a powerful message about the importance of Juneteenth, by his swift action
to sign the bill in time for the National Holiday to be timely celebrated in
2021.

This is the history of how Juneteenth became the most recent Federal
Holiday, as the nation joined 47 states in recognizing this day as a time to
bond with African Americans in commemoration and celebration of
‘America’s second Independence Day.’

The post Do You Know the Legislative History of the Juneteenth Federal Holiday? appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

By Tashi McQueen and Madeline Seck 
AFRO Political Writer and AFRO Intern

At the 2024 National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) Convention in Baltimore on June 21, panelists discussed the importance of racial impact studies in public policy making, especially in an election season.

Panelists included Major Neill Franklin (Ret.), treasurer of the Law Enforcement Action Partnership; Captain Sonia Y. W. Pruitt (Ret.) of the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland; Jiles H. Ship, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives New Jersey; and Special Agent Trevor Velinor (Ret.), police commissioner of the US Virgin Islands Police Department.

A racial impact study is a technique that the government can apply to look at how a policy or budgetary measure would affect different racial groups. 

“I work very closely with the New Jersey Legislative Black Caucus and a number of other state legislators in the state of New Jersey. I will tell you, when the legislation is made and we’re not at that table, we’re probably on the menu. You need to be at that table,” said Ship. “One of the things we were able to do in New Jersey, any legislation that’s dealing with public safety that comes up, before any reports are signed by the governor, they have to have a racial impact study.”

On Jan. 21, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 13985: Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. This order reinforced preventable measures to ensure laws created have equal opportunities and equity for all. 

“Whoever is elected into office decides on what policy is going to be impacting you and your daily lives,” said Jiles, pushing the importance of getting out to vote. “Decisions being made right now on the U.S. Supreme Court going to impact everyone in this room’s daily lives.”

State Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Md.-41) was also in attendance and spoke to the AFRO afterward about the use of racial equity impact studies in Maryland and how effective they are for inclusive lawmaking.

Since 2021, the Maryland General Assembly has enacted a requirement for racial equity impact notes to reduce racial discrimination and inequities on significant criminal justice bills making their way through the Legislature. 

“It happened around the time the whole country seemingly woke up about the racial disparities in this country, it happened around the time of George Floyd,” said Carter. “Senators and the Senate president got together and we all discussed what are some of the ways that we can make this place more balanced racially. One of the suggestions was to have a racial impact note on every piece of legislation.”

Carter elaborated on how racial equity impact notes have supported her legislative efforts.

“There’s a lot of times, of course, when many people want to contend that issues don’t have a racial impact and that it’s only imagined by some Black people that it has a disparate impact on the Black community,” said Carter. “This helps us legitimize our arguments and helps us use data to show what percentage of Black people are impacted by a certain piece of legislation.

“I think every single legislature should have a racial impact study and note on every piece of major legislation,” continued Carter.

Though moves are being made in state and local legislatures to consider how policies will impact the Black community if enacted, Jiles encouraged African Americans to do their part to ensure Black people have a say in public policy.

“People come to us all the time complaining about policies that law enforcement have, agencies have in place. The first question I asked them was when was the last time you were at a council meeting when they were deciding what that policy was going to be?” said Jiles. “Do you know who your state representative is?”

He also encouraged the Black Press to help reach African Americans with the truth about policy-making, especially about policies that will directly impact the Black community.

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On June 29, Rev. William Barber III will convene The Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington D.C. and to the Polls, a somewhat unwieldy name for what could be a big political flex.

By Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware
Word in Black

Overview:

Reminiscent of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the upcoming rally on the National Mall is intended to change the narrative around poverty and politics.

There are over 140 million poor and low-income people in the U.S.  In most cases, in the richest nation on Earth, their lives are defined by what they don’t have — healthcare, food, housing, a job that pays a living wage. 

The Right Rev. William Barber, an anti-poverty activist and community organizer, will try to change that narrative this weekend by reminding politicians what poor people do have: the power to vote. 

On June 29, Barber, the founding director of the Center for Public Theology at Yale Divinity School, will convene the Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington D.C. and to the Polls, a gathering on the National Mall designed to flex the political muscle of low-income Americans. 

Though it echoes a similar rally Martin Luther King Jr. held some six decades earlier, the Mass Poor People’s March march will “launch a season of continued outreach to 15 million poor and low wage infrequent voters ahead of the 2024 U.S. elections and beyond,” Barber said in a statement.

“We will be demanding that both political parties heed the needs of poor and low-wage people, who we will be working to organize into America’s most potent swing voting bloc,” he said, adding his signature phrase: “It’s not just a march, it’s a movement.”

In other words, the event is intended to send a message to both President Joe Biden and his rival, former President Donald Trump and lawmakers in Congress: poor people will no longer be ignored. And in 2024, where Biden and Trump are running neck-and-neck for the presidency, every vote will matter. 

With poverty defined as a household of four making less than $31,000,  the data alone hints at poor voters’ potential to move the political needle. 

Consider:  almost 39 million children are living in poverty, according to the Repairers of the Breach website. But the largest number of poor people in the U.S. are White, at around 65 million. 

Still, economic justice issues have remained on the fringes of our nation’s public and political discourse for decades, 

At a rally earlier this month, the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, said the nation must do better for the less fortunate.

“Given the abundance that exists in this country and the fundamental dignity inherent to all humanity, every person in this nation has the right to demand dignified jobs and living wages, housing, education, health care and welfare,” she said. “But the truth is that millions of Americans are denied those fundamental rights, and thousands are dying as a result.”

Along with demonstrating political power, the event comes with a list of demands for lawmakers. They include abolishing poverty as the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S., hiking the minimum wage to at least $15 per hour, expanded access to the ballot box and universal healthcare. 

Appearing on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” last week, Barber said he also wants to change racial stereotypes and erase perceptions about poverty in America — including the fact that White people make up the majority of low-income households. 

“I told him (Stewart) the truth about poverty in America: that we have over 135 million poor and low-wage people in this country, 60 percent of Black people are poor or low wealth,” said Barber, co-author of  “White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy, in a statement. “That’s 26 million people. But in terms of raw numbers, a whopping 66 million White people are in the same category – 40 million more people.”

On June 29 at the march, “we plan to address the needs of all of America, poor and low wage people, by building a moral fusion movement,” he said. 

Barber went further in an appearance on CNN. 

“We will have White women from West Virginia and Black women from the Delta standing together to demand a moral public policy agenda that makes it so that poverty is no longer the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States,” he said. 

This article was originally published on WordinBlack.com.

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By Aria Brent 
AFRO Staff Writer 
abrent@afro.com 

Throughout its more than 80 years of existence, the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) has served as a pillar within the Black Press, allowing for generations of Black journalists to get their start. Many of the organizations within the NNPA are small but mighty publications that have been around long enough to watch journalism students turn into media moguls.

NNPA publications are known for being an environment that offers a warm introduction into the world of journalism, while also providing live opportunities to cover important issues in the Black community. 

“I graduated from Florida A&M University and my first job out of college was at the Daytona Times, where I’m the publisher,” said Jenise Griffin, publisher of the Daytona Times and the Florida Courier. “I worked there for four years and I was able to do a lot more there than I would be able to do at a mainstream paper.”

Griffin previously worked at the Daytona Times early on in her career and she explained how much she values the experiences she had during her first few years as a journalist. Sharing that working for a Black publication helped hone her skills and prepare her for greater opportunities outside of the Daytona Times. 

“I was able to get some really great reporting experience. I was able to move up and I learned about editing. I really honed my skills at the Daytona Times,” Griffin recalled. “When I left the paper I was the managing editor. I left there and went to the Orlando Sentinel and I became one of the first Black copy editors there.”

William Rhoden echoed Griffin’s sentiments, discussing how vital Black Press assignments can be for budding Black journalists. 

“My first job was with the AFRO American Newspapers. Frances Murphy taught this journalism course at Morgan State where I was a student and I took her course,” said Rhoden, former AFRO staff and sports writer. “She told me that if I didn’t get drafted by an NFL team and if I decided not to go to graduate school, then I was to bring my butt to the AFRO American Newspaper and start working.” 

“I got my Bachelor’s degree in journalism at the AFRO,” he says, fondly. 

Following his time at the AFRO, Rhoden went on to work for a series of other well known publications like EBONY magazine and The New York Times. He credits his experience at the nearly 132 year old publication for teaching him the basics of journalism and establishing the foreground for his career.

“Although I left the Black Press after EBONY, I’ve always had the Black Press in my heart,” Rhoden stated. “I always represented the Black Press. Whether that be writing about Black people, issues that affect Black people or advocating for Black people through athletics.”

Like Rhoden, Griffin noted that service within the ranks of Black Press is indispensable.

“If you talk to a lot of journalists who’ve gone on to great positions in this industry, you’ll see that a lot of them worked at the Black Press,” shared Griffin. “That was invaluable to them. I think that we really should talk about that more.”

Former AFRO editor, Sean Yoes explained how working for an NNPA publication provided him opportunities he wouldn’t have received at a White publication. He explained how these special opportunities are necessary to help amplify the voices of young, Black journalists.

“They gave me a chance. I was a young kid and I got thrown right into the fire,” Yoes recalled. “My first week at the AFRO I was on the front page. They took a chance with me because I didn’t know what I was doing. They guided me, they believed in me and I pulled it off–thank God.”

Yoes first began working for the AFRO in 1989 and throughout the years he returned to the publication taking on a series of roles. In between his time at the AFRO, he pursued other forms of media like acting, filmmaking and radio hosting. He noted that having a chance taken on him instilled a confidence in him that he’s carried with throughout his career.

“They gave me a platform when I was just a young kid. It was a trip to see my name in the newspaper, on the byline at age 23,” said Yoes. “I’ll always be thankful for that and in giving me that chance, it instilled confidence in me. That was the greatest gift they gave me– a chance.” 

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Former Amsterdam News VP takes the helm at New Jersey Urban News

By D. Kevin McNeir 
Special to the AFRO

During the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s (NNPA) mid-winter conference, held earlier this year in January, six new publishers were approved as members of the historic organization, often referred to as “The Black Press.”

The newest members of the NNPA, attending their first national convention June 19 – 22 in Baltimore, and the publications they represent include: Dale Edwards, of the Cleveland American News, in Cleveland; David Mark Greaves, of Our Time Press, in Brooklyn; Cary Wheelous, of Hayti, in Durham, N.C.; Penda Howell, of the New Jersey Urban News, in Newark, N.J.; D. Etta Wilcoxon, publisher of The Renaissance Observer, in Detroit and James DuBose, publisher of In the Black Network, in Woodland Hills, Calif. 

The Black Press and its legacy can be traced back to 1827, when Freedom’s Journal, America’s first Black-owned and operated periodical, began publication.

Others would soon follow in the footsteps of  Samuel Cornish and John Brown Russwurm, the founders of Freedom’s Journal, including Philip Alexander Bell, who printed the Colored America from 1837 – 1841; Frederick Douglass, who printed the The North Star  from 1847 – 1860, and Daniel Rudd, who published the Ohio Times, founded in 1885. Rudd later expanded into the American Catholic Tribune – reportedly the first Black-owned national newspaper in America. 

The NNPA, formerly the National Negro Publishers Association, was established in 1940 and took its current name in 1956. Since its founding, the NNPA has consistently served as the voice of the Black community and an incubator for news that makes history and impacts the country. 

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., president and CEO of the NNPA and a civil rights icon in his own right, proudly touts the legacy of the NNPA. 

“We have shown the nation the struggle, sacrifice, progress and triumph of Black Americans and of America as a nation from the Black perspective,” he said in a statement. “The Black Press covers the progress of Black Americans and provides interpretation of the events involved in our progress. No other print or digital media serves in this role quite like the Black Press.” 

New Jersey publisher returns to his roots 

Penda Howell, publisher of New Jersey Urban News, is no stranger to the Black Press. Howell formerly served as the director of advertising for the Amsterdam News, where he worked for 18 years before leaving in 2021 as the newspaper’s vice president and chief revenue officer. 

He remembers how he first began to shape what has evolved into New Jersey Urban News. 

“In 2019, I was accepted as a Maynard 200 fellow in the entrepreneurial cohort and for my project, I was given the task to develop a concept that served a digital-only audience composed of readers who lived in a news desert,” said Howell. “In 2020, I formed the company and began playing around with different designs. The launch of NJ Urban News occurred the following year, in 2021, at which point it became a very personal, side project – one to which I was totally committed.” 

Howell, a native of Paterson, N.J., currently resides in East Stroudsburg, Penn. with his wife Dorothy, CFO and COO of the publication. He said returning to his roots, where Black voices and stories of Black achievements are routinely ignored, served as a motivation for establishing his digital-only publication. 

“It may have started as a project, but I soon realized that a platform which amplifies the voicers of underrepresented communities in New Jersey was sorely needed – one which also addressed the lack of comprehensive communication and focused journalism in New Jersey’s Black communities,” Howell said. “My goal, since our founding, has remained the same: to deliver inclusive, impactful news coverage that both informs and empowers our readers.”

Howell said without question, the Black Press and the message its publications disseminate are more relevant than ever before. 

“Given the misinformation and polarization of information distributed by mainstream media, the relevance of the Black Press cannot be emphasized enough,” he said. “It’s vital that Black communities have news and information that can impact and edify their personal lives – information that assists readers to make better informed decisions for their families and themselves, and which encourages a commitment to civic engagement.” 

“Black communities rely on the Black Press because they know they can trust us – we deliver news that is unbiased and community focused,” continued Howell. “We are local news at its best.”

The New Jersey publisher, 55, said his decision to join the NNPA was an easy one. 

“NNPA is in my blood and after 18 years of service, I recognize the importance and relevance of the Black Press,” he said. “I come from a general marketing media background and before joining the Amsterdam News, I was part of the North Jersey Media Group, which is now Gannett, where I was first exposed to the strengths of the Black Press.” 

Howell spoke on how Black Press changed his life so many years ago. 

“It was apparent, even then, that the news and information that Black publications provided was the kind that was relevant, resourceful and impactful to me both personally and professionally,” he said. “I wanted to be a cog in that chain – one which added to their capacity. Joining the NNPA was an easy decision because there’s no other media trade organization in America that does it better.” 

You can read and support New Jersey Urban News by visiting their website, www.njurbannews.com.

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By Deborah Bailey
AFRO Contributing Editor

Vashti Murphy McKenzie, the retired and first female bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, used the pulpit of The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., to render a searing sermon calling the faithful to “put feet to our prayers” as she set the stage for America’s celebration of Juneteenth on June 19. 

McKenzie, president of the National Churches of Christ, delivered the morning message at the Cathedral on June 16, and went straight into dissecting the rationale behind America’s cultural wars in the form of book banning, and laws passed restricting how history is taught in schools across the U.S. 

According to the Black Education Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, 18 states have imposed restrictions and bans on teaching race and gender since 2021.  At least 32 states have jurisdictions that have passed some form of book ban.     

“If we are a truly great nation, the truth cannot destroy us,” McKenzie said, quoting from Nicole Hannah Jones’ Pulitzer Prize winning 1619 Project. She then asked the congregation: “If you could change the narrative to your liking, what would your truth look like? “

McKenzie led the audience on a whirlwind historical “roll call” of efforts to revise the narrative of cultural events around the globe, including in Hungary, China, and the United States. She reminded the audience of efforts to ban books and restrict the rights of Jews. 

 “Are you breathing?” she stopped and asked the congregation before reeling off a second roll call of U.S. riots, rebellions and mass shootings from 1863 to today, designed to restrict and destroy Black American institutions and communities. 

“Here in the home of the brave and the land of the free, the New York City assacre, The Memphis Massacre, the Camila Massacre, The Opelousas Massacre, The Danville Riot, Springfield Massacre, Tulsa Black Wall Street Massacre, The Orangeburg Massacre, Charleston South Carolina Mother Bethel Massacre, Massacre at Tops Market, the Jacksonville, Dollar Store Massacre…,” McKenzie said in the space of two minutes.  

“That’s here,” she added as the audience became silent. 

“Are you breathing? Are you still in the room?” McKenzie asked as she moved on quickly to share more.

“Remembering Juneteenth serves as a historical reminder of what did happen,” she said before taking the audience through a vivid tour of brutal historical events characterizing slavery and the disenfranchisement of Black people.

 Reflections from the audience were varied. 

Longtime parishioner Jim Fulton thought McKenzie’s sermon was needed at the National Cathedral. 

“This is the kind of message I want to hear, and I want other people to hear,” he said. 

Others added that the sermon was so packed with information, they needed to do a second take. 

“For some of our audience, people may be hearing the historical references for the first time. But this is an audience that will listen carefully to the sermon, go back, study the transcript, and ask questions,” said the Rev. Jo Owens, pastor for digital ministry.

Owens said National Cathedral is considering an online community for people who want to ask follow-up questions and reflect more deeply after messages like McKenzie’s. 

Grace Matthews was one of those parishioners who was ready to ask the deeper questions right away. Matthews admits she has political positions on most issues and wants to ensure her views are consistent with her faith and values. 

As she listened to McKenzie’s description of the often bloody and brutal history leading up to Juneteenth and continuing today, she has questions about how America moves forward with its troubling past and present divisions. 

“Where is the line between forgiving and forgetting when you’ve turned the cheek so many times that you’ve run out of cheeks?” Matthews reflected after the sermon.

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By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Political Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com

Celebrating 40 years since Maryland’s divestment from apartheid-era South Africa, the “Marylanders Cry Freedom: Civil Rights At Home and Abroad” is an exhibition that opened inside of Baltimore’s City Hall on June 18, highlighting impactful contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.

During the opening ceremony Baltimore City Mayor Brandon M. Scott (D) emphasized that the fight for civil rights is ongoing, acknowledging the 400 years of slavery, decades of segregation and the battle to stop police brutality and “realize the liberty and justice for all promised centuries ago.”

“We must acknowledge our state and our city’s deep ties to this challenging part of America’s past,” said Scott. “Baltimore, as a port city, played a significant role in the transatlantic slave trade. Baltimore was where some of the strictest policies and codes in the country were created, worsening the mistreatment of African Americans.”

Scott acknowledged the people who didn’t settle for the harmful past of Baltimore and worked to change things for the better.

“Because of their perseverance and unwillingness to back down we are here,” he said, to the large crowd in the rotunda of City Hall. “You are here able to hold power in these halls that used to serve laws to prevent those who look like us from achieving our excellence. We can never forget the history, the good and the bad.”

The exhibit was created through the partnership of Baltimore City, the Maryland and KwaZulu-Natal Sister State Committee, a partnership between Maryland and the Province of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa and the Sister States of Maryland, a conduit for Maryland’s sister state relationships.

“It’s important for us to ensure that something like art, that is a living tool, a living symbolic representation of that struggle, continues,” said Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby (D). “That’s why we must continue to support our artists, that’s why we must tell our own stories.”

The exhibit will be open to the public weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The post Maryland leaders, officials celebrate new civil rights exhibition in Baltimore City Hall appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Political Writer
Tmcqueen@afro.com

By Tierra Stone 
AFRO Intern 
tierrastone@afro.com 

The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) is hosting its annual four-day convention at the Four Seasons in Baltimore from June 19-22. This year, the event consists of an array of sessions concerning the Black Press, Black communities, families and voter turnout.  

Damon Todd Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, was keynote speaker of the June 20 session titled, “What is at Stake for African Americans: the 2024 Vote,” held on day two of the convention. He spoke primarily about the range of challenges Black people are facing throughout the nation today. 

“We actually exist in a moment of strategic and orchestrated erasure,” said Hewitt. “They’re trying to erase references to facts. They’re trying to erase everything that we use to understand ourselves, to know ourselves, to know our identity, to know what our struggles are and to know what our plan should be next.”

The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law was founded in 1963 by urging of John F.Kennedy to ensure that lawyers used their expertise to bring awareness to the fight of the civil rights movement and to help bring it inside the courtroom. Hewitt not only detailed the history of voting but how the Lawyers Committee has worked to maintain and increase the voting numbers of African Americans. 

“It wasn’t until 1965 that the passage of the Voters Rights Act which resulted from Bloody Sunday and the March from Selma to Montgomery, where everybody came to Selma— including Malcolm X. That was the first opportunity for Malcolm X to join the Civil Rights Movements in a larger context,” he said. “It is this civil rights event that is commemorated annually because of its urgency and importance. The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has poured into that over the years.”

Hewitt highlighted why African Americans should take to the polls during this year’s general election on Nov. 5. 

“Our voice is on the line,” said Hewitt. “We fought so long for a voice in the political process. I think that our vote is the loudest and clearest part of our voice.”

This year, Americans are voting for the president, congressional members and state and local legislators.

Hewitt explained that there’s been a recent wave of voter restriction laws, voter intimidation, misinformation and disinformation. For example, Georgia passed laws in 2021 to ban voters from receiving food and water while waiting in line to cast their ballots. 

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a non-profit public policy organization, in 2021 more than 440 bills restricting voter access were introduced in 49 states throughout the country. From January 2021 to December 2021 the Brennan Center for Justice recorded that around 19 states passed 34 laws effectively restricting voting access.

Hewitt shared that when voter suppression happens online it can also play a part in prohibiting people from voting. 

“Voter suppression is not just when they close polls early or play those little tricks,” he said. “What people do online is a form of voter suppression. When they discourage you to vote online and try to make you think you shouldn’t vote or there’s a reason not to vote, and ‘somebody ain’t doing enough for the Black man’ and that’s why you shouldn’t vote’ that’s a form of voter suppression in some countries even voter suppression online is outlawed for some reason in America that’s not enforced,” he said. 

To fight against these actions Hewitt suggests African Americans turn out to the polls this November and use the Election Protection hotline, 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683), a voter information helpline where people can access election facts and options.

Furthermore, Hewitt prompted the Black Press to answer the call to action by publishing and spreading information Black Americans need this election season.

“We need your help. I mentioned the election protection hotline. The hotline only works when people call it,” he said. “We need targeted advertising to reach the Black community.” 

He also encouraged local Black publications to write about the opportunities and Black power in the communities they operate within.

“We need space, opportunity ​​and publications and platforms to lift the ideas ,” said Hewitt. “We need to leverage that reputation capital.”

Aside from Hewitt’s presentation, the day included a panel on GenZ voter issues and a session called “Get Your Money Right for Your Business.” Convention attendees were then able to tour Baltimore’s famed National Great Blacks in Wax Museum. The second day of the conference concluded with the NNPA Fund’s Messenger Awards Reception.

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As Juneteenth arrived, the AFRO was honored to highlight the leaders who have made change in the community. From civil and human rights to change in the classroom, Dr. Thelma Thomas Daley, has made an indelible impact on people from all different walks of life. This year, she received recognition at the AFRO News annual Juneteenth breakfast. 

Dr. Daley is a renowned counselor-educator, organizational leader, college professor and activist. She has devoted her career to empowering others through her professional, charitable and public service endeavors. 

In 2020, she was inducted into the Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) and Baltimore Sun’s Business and Civic Hall of Fame. Daley was also listed in 2023 as a distinguished alumna of Bowie State University. In April 2024, the American Counseling Association at its national convention unveiled the Thelma Thomas Daley Advocacy and Equity Award. She is a commissioner on the Baltimore Architectural and Engineering Commission.

She has served as president of five national organizations. In January 2023, she completed a successful term as the eighth president and chair of the National Council of Negro Women.

Dr. Daley broke racial barriers in the American School Counseling Association, the largest counseling association in the world, as the first African-American president in the 1970s. At the time, she was only the third woman to lead the organization. She also had a long professorial tenure with Loyola in its graduate school counseling program. 

Other professorial roles have included serving at her alma mater, George Washington University, and the Harvard University Summer Institute for Counselors. She has contributed as a member of several local and national boards, including Saint Agnes Hospital, the Carrollton Bank (now WesBanco), Education Testing Service (ETS), College Board, the National Board for Certified Counselors and the State Council on Vocational-Technical Education. She currently serves on the national board for the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton. In September 2023, the secretary of the United States Department of Interior appointed her to the National Historic Site Advisory Commission for the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House.

Dr. Daley has conducted workshops or given speeches in the U.S. and in Africa, Europe and Asia. She has touched the lives of many through her counseling and organizational leadership and remains a strong advocate for equity and social justice. For her hard work and dedication, the AFRO is proud to honor Dr. Thelma Thomas Daley.

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By AFRO Staff 

The AFRO American Newspapers, now 131 years old, hosted the company’s 2024 Juneteenth breakfast on June 19 at the Center Club in downtown Baltimore.

The event was a celebration of the Black Press and leaders in the Black community who have helped push the race forward.

“So often we want to honor people after they have died,” AFRO CEO and Publisher Dr. Frances Toni Draper. “I believe that it’s important to give people their flowers while they are still living— especially those who have made so many important contributions to our community.”

“It’s good for people of all ages to be able to meet and celebrate those in our community who continue to do so much for the uplifting of our communities,” she said.

All four honorees, legendary activist and educator Dr. Thelma T. Daley, NNPA Chairman and President Dr. Benjamin Chavis, NNPA Chairman Bobby Henry Sr. and Dr. Vonnya Pettigrew, leader of Root Branch Media Group, were present for the event.

The breakfast attracted attendees from all walks of life, including elected officials like Baltimore City Mayor Brandon M. Scott, who addressed the crowd in an all white suit, complete with a nod to Juneteenth on his shirt. 

“Today is a day to be celebrated, it’s a day to remember and reflect, but most importantly it is today to rejoice and celebrate the successful struggle to end slavery in this country,” said Scott. “We have to continue the fight.”

Scott praised the Black Press for recording the triumphs and challenges faced by African Americans and the hard work done to pass Black history from generation to generation.

“We know that for much of our history, the true story of that struggle and those who fought for freedom were passed down by word of mouth, through stories told from friend to friend and family member to family member,” he said. “I’m moved to be in this room with all of you and the legacy that you all represent to all of our honorees. The AFRO, for its entire existence, has served and honored that sacred responsibility.” 

Dr. Kaysona Wise Whitehead, who served as keynote speaker, addressed the importance of Juneteenth, which is now federally recognized across the United States. The holiday is celebrated on June 19 of each year in honor of the day that slaves in Texas learned the Emancipation Proclamation had freed all slaves in Confederate territories that seceded from the Union nearly two years before, on Jan. 1, 1863. 

“People don’t understand where you come from, being formerly enslaved,” said Dr. Whitehead, reminding the audience that Black Press began “when Black folks couldn’t even read,” and “had to run away to the woods to get even an inkling education.” 

“We have to uplift what that means,” she said. “If we don’t tell the world about Black history they will never know. And for those who do know, who are extremely conservative, they will act like they never heard. They’ll pretend they can erase us.” 

“Our duty, our responsibility is to hold up the banner of Black history to remind the world over and over again that we are the cradle of civilization, Black literature, Black understanding, Black family, Black tenacity and dare I add– Black joy,” said Dr. Whitehead.

Each of the honorees received a specialized front page of the AFRO with a story about their life and the work they’ve done in the community. Near the end of the event, Dr. Chavis echoed Whitehead’s sentiments, acknowledging Juneteenth 2024 as a time to reflect on how far we’ve come and how far we have to go. 
“We have something to be joyous about,” he said. “We’re joyful for the success and progress, the history and the contemporary impact of the AFRO and all of our newspapers.”

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By Gabrielle Howard
AFRO Intern
ghoward@afro.com

Each year millions of people throughout the country celebrate Juneteenth. The holiday, made official in 2021, is the perfect time to uphold sacred traditions and give thanks to the ancestors who have paved the way.

In a day and age where history is being rewritten and retold it’s important now, more than ever, to uphold traditions of the Black community.

Dr. Clinton Bolton, a respected psychologist, believes upholding tradition can give way a strong sense of ancestral connection and belonging.

“Honoring tradition allows individuals to reflect on the progress made and the ongoing fight for equality, fostering a profound connection to their ancestry and boosting self-esteem,” said Bolton. “It also has the ability to heal generations from the epigenetic trauma of slavery.”

Whether it’s reading Black literature, attending a cookout or learning something new about Black history– members of the Black community have a variety of options when it comes to grounding oneself in the pride and identity that accompanies many Black traditions.

As the Black community has faced– and continues to face– generational trauma and family displacement, honoring Black triumphs in time on an annual basis can help preserve the rich heritage of African Americans and their holidays, like Juneteenth and Kwanzaa.

The calls to bring back certain Black traditions from the old days, such as eating together, supporting the work of griots who pass down stories, drum circles, attending homecomings at a hometown church, quilting or simply spending time with elders is growing louder.

Bolton said that participating in Black community rituals can go a long way in “preserving the memory of past struggles and triumphs, such as the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in 1865.”

“This is crucial for resilience and empowerment,” he added. “It highlights the endurance and strength of the Black community.”

Psychiatric nurse Robyn Manning agrees, saying in an AFRO interview that Juneteenth marries the ideas of identity and empowerment.

“Understanding where we come from is empowering,” said Manning. “Without having a sense of identity, it really is hard to stand on anything.”

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Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams features nearly 140 works from the 1970s to the present—including sculpture, jewelry, textiles, artwear garments, performance compilations, prints, mixed-media installations, and a new large-scale commission. The astonishing virtuosity and ingenuity of Scott’s work in every medium seamlessly coalesces with her lifelong vision to confront racism, sexism, classism, and “all the ‘isms’ society offers” through impish and audacious humor, expressions of beauty, and a humanistic engagement with global events. Her innate ability to move across medium and genre, leveraging her materials to speak fearlessly to subjects of deep personal and communal meaning make her one of the most significant artists of our time and deserving of greater scholarly study and public recognition.

“Joyce J. Scott is a living legend and a pillar of Baltimore’s artistic community. Her multidisciplinary practice is in a word, magnetic, distinguished in its ability to conjure moments of beauty and awe, while also bringing people into conversation about challenging subjects in a way that is open and embracing. Her work is deeply rooted in both local and global contexts, vibrating with a resonance that is utterly and uniquely Joyce,” said Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. “The BMA has had the honor of engaging audiences with Scott’s work for many years through exhibitions, public programs, and acquisitions. We are thrilled now to present this comprehensive exhibition that highlights the remarkable range of her career.”

Scott has embraced her identity as an artist and performer since childhood. At home in Baltimore, her mother, the artist Elizabeth Talford Scott (1916–2011) taught her to sew and express herself creatively. Scott considers this knowledge her inheritance: both the specific techniques and aesthetic traditions carried by enslaved people from Africa to the Americas and the awareness of her own life’s potential as part of a continuum.

In the 1970s, Scott began what would become a lifelong commitment to artistic learning and engagement with global cultures. Her extensive travels have taken her to many countries, including Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Mali, Senegal, Scotland, South Africa, Thailand, and Italy, where she connected with local artisans and community members through a shared embrace of textiles, beads, and glass. As a result, Scott’s work has responded to global events—from the AIDS crisis to South African Apartheid and to American police brutality—and served to memorialize personal and collective transformations and traumas.

Tickets $15 for adults, $13 for seniors, $12 for groups of 7 or more, $5 for students with ID, and $5 for youth ages 7-18. BMA Members, children ages 6 and under, and student groups are admitted free.

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Invite only event to take place on White House South Lawn

By Megan Sayles
AFRO Business Writer
msayles@afro.com

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will once again commemorate Black freedom with a Juneteenth Concert on June 10. The musical event will take place on the South Lawn of the White House, featuring a slate of artists that includes Gladys Knight; Raheem DeVaughn; Doug E. Fresh; Patina Miller; Brittney Spencer; Kirk Franklin; Anthony Hamilton; Patti LaBelle, Trombone Shorty; Roy Wood Jr. and Charlie Wilson.

The event takes place during Black Music Month, which acknowledges the contributions of Black musicians, composers, singers and songwriters. Former President Jimmy Carter established the month-long celebration in 1979, long after African Americans began shaping the course of music.

“Black music began when enslaved people, who were cruelly prohibited from communicating in their native languages, found ways to express themselves through music,” wrote Biden in a May 31 proclamation for Black Music Month. “Set to the sound of African rhythms, they captured the inhumanity, tragedy and toll that America’s original sin took on their lives while also telling the stories of their hopes and dreams, spirituality and love and purpose.” 

“Ever since, Black performers have carried on that tradition of using art to break down barriers, create sacred spaces for expression and give voice to the promise of America for all Americans,” he continued. 

Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19, marks the day Union troops of the American Civil War arrived in Galveston, Texas to announce the end of slavery in 1865—two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation declared Black people free. 

Juneteenth became a federal holiday on June 17, 2021 when Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law. Last year, the president’s inaugural Juneteenth Concert showcased artists, like Jennifer Hudson, Ledisi and Method Man. 

The White House’s 2024 Juneteenth Concert will start at 7 p.m. on June 10.

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By Danielle Browne
Inequality.org

When Dr. Emanuel J. Carter talks about redlining, he doesn’t mince words. The Associate Professor in SUNY-ESF‘s Department of Landscape Architecture grew up in a redlined part of Philadelphia during the 1950s and 1960s.

“All of the wealthy moved away and left only the poor in a socially disastrous state,” says Carter. 

Then, as compared to now, he recalls, “You had the same thing — low income families, gangs, a sense of anger. The young men and women who looked towards their future and saw nothing there.”

“This was a direct result of redlining,” said Carter. “I went to school with kids who were sure they would die before 30 and they were okay with that because they felt they could never fit into the American economy, the American dream.”

A product of policy choices, redlining at the federal level has roots in the Great Depression, when the U.S experienced an unemployment rate of 25.6 percent. 

By 1932, Americans were at greater risk of losing their homes: Some 275,000 people lost their homes to foreclosure as home values dropped by 35 percent. Nearly half of all mortgages were in default by 1933. 

According to Richard Rothstein’s “The Color of Law,” in the early 1900s, homebuyers were expected to pay 50 percent down payments with a five to seven year amortization period. If you were buying a house worth $100,000, you would have to pay $50,000 and then pay off the remaining $50,000 within five years. In other words: Those who bought property typically already had a significant amount of money. 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt needed to change how mortgages worked. As a part of the New Deal — a series of initiatives to stabilize the economy and more progressively distribute wealth — he proposed the Home Owners’ Loan Act of 1933. 

As a result, the country created the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration in 1934. Both programs were meant to provide relief to financial institutions and Americans who were unable to afford housing costs, making home financing more accessible and affordable. 

In addition to increasing home quality standards and lowering down payment requirements, the bill introduced longer mortgages of over 15 years, allowing more buyers to enter the market. However, like many facets of the New Deal, such relief didn’t apply to everyone. 

“Small groups of federal agents were sent out to every metropolitan area in the U.S. where they connected with realtors and bankers. The appraisers then decided who were at ‘high risk’ for defaulting on loans,” explains Carter.

Pulling a book by the name of “A Prayer for the City” off the shelf, he marked pages that detailed how the now defunct Home Owners Loan Corporation created its redlining system. The author, Buzz Bissinger, viscerally described the function of redlining maps:

“It was a map… buried and folded in a musty box of documents in the National Archives in Washington… untouched. It was color coded in shades of green, blue, yellow and red… marked with the letters A, B, C and D to correspond with each color….. it was hard to believe that in this map, in the careful and deliberate choice of colors and grades for each section of the city, like the inverse of a secret treasure, lay the startling evidence of the seeds of the city’s destruction.”

“First grade” areas were colored green and marked with the letter “A,” signifying that they were well planned areas, mostly free of Black people. These areas were eligible for 100 percent backing loans from the federal government. 

“Second grade” areas were colored blue and marked with the letter “B,” signifying areas that were still desirable but not as great as the First Grade areas due to a marginally higher presence of minorities which were labeled a risk for residential mortgage lenders. For this reason, blue property was given an 85 percent backing loan. 

“Third grade” areas were colored yellow and marked with the letter “C,” characterized by the government as an area with the “infiltration of a lower grade population.” The government encouraged mortgage lenders to be careful with making any loans within that area. Despite this, yellow property was still eligible for 15 percent of backing loans. 

And “fourth grade” areas were colored red and marked with the letter “D,” characterized by the government as “detrimental influences in a pronounced degree, undesirable population or an infiltration of it.” These areas weren’t eligible for any loans. 

The banks succeeded in stopping certain areas, and people of color, from fully participating in the American economy by getting on the path to homeownership. The beneficiaries were typically White, middle-class individuals who could afford to buy houses in the first place. 

In recent years, the national homeownership rate was 44 percent for Black families versus 73.7 percent for White families. According to Redfin, over the past 40 years, homeowners in redlined neighborhoods have earned 52 percent less in home equity. 

To further put the wealth divide into perspective, the recent “Still A Dream: Over 500 Years to Black Economic Equality” report from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and the Institute for Policy Studies states that, in 2021, African Americans had 62 cents to the White household’s dollar. At that rate, it would take Black people 513 years to achieve the White median household income.

Not much is better on the renter’s side: the National Multifamily Housing Council reports that 38 percent of multifamily units were owned by individual investors in 2021 while 42 percent were owned by corporate entities. 

A 2022 study projected that mega-landlords and investors could account for 40 percent of the market by 2030, and it only takes one glance at a newspaper to know that rents are skyrocketing to ever-higher prices. 

This is only widening racial disparities. Nationwide, 58 percent of Black families rent rather than own their homes, compared to just 28 percent of White families. Says Dr. Carter: “No good jobs, no good housing and no good schools have killed more of our people than a lot of wars.”

From the 1960s to present day, Black workers remain twice as likely as White workers to be among the “working poor,” meaning they have a job but it doesn’t pay enough to cover basic living expenses. 

Redlining doesn’t just adversely affect housing or material wealth: It has devastating physical consequences. According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, there are statistically significant associations between residence in a redlined neighborhood and heightened risk for hypertension, kidney disease, strokes, diabetes and lower life expectancy at birth. 

The same source also notes that the average prevalence of poor mental health also increased from 12.7 to 16.1 percent in historically redlined areas.

And redlining puts communities of color on the frontlines of climate change’s worst consequences: A recent “One Earth” study reveals a link between urban segregation and exposure to extreme heat risks, as neighborhoods with less regional income are more likely to bear higher temperatures.

It’s well past time to banish redlining and its toxic effects. 

Over the last few years, lawmakers have taken steps to build more equitable housing and attendant financial systems. 

In 2020, for example, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit against Townstone Financial, Inc., a Chicago-based mortgage lender and broker that discouraged redlined African-American neighborhoods from applying for their mortgage loans on the basis of race. 

This suit set a precedent as the first public redlining case to be brought against a non-bank lender, providing a framework for the rest of the nation to analyze when forming claims against other non-banking institutions which have no legal obligation to lend in any specific geography like banks do. 

But as the “Still A Dream” report from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and the Institute for Policy Studies outlines, there’s far more work to do.

The report proposes that American governments close the appraisal gap, implement federal reparations policies and use luxury transfer taxes to fund affordable housing. The country, its states and its cities should use modern tools to solve an age-old crisis.

The “Still A Dream” report’s authors also support the reintroduction of the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act which would, among other solutions, allocate a $445 billion investment to finance over two million homes for low-income families and require mortgage companies to provide assessments of their community development on cities across the country to narrow the racial wealth divide in the U.S. 

The “Still A Dream” report also makes it very clear that offering reparations for Black communities is a fundamental step towards repairing historical and present-day wealth disparities. 

Evanston, Illinois is one of the first communities to establish a reparations-inspired program funded by a tax on cannabis sales within the city, which aims to provide funding for homeownership and home repair.

Similarly, San Francisco — where the median Black income in 2019 was $31,000 compared to $116,000 for White households — is considering a non-binding draft reparations plan put forth by the San Francisco African American Advisory Committee. 

The draft serves as a model for federal strategy, offering more than 100 reparations recommendations to address the Black-White racial wealth divide like providing tax relief and incentives to help grow Black-owned enterprises, funding for state-level affirmative action programs and forming of a community land trust for housing governed by Black residents to create a pool of permanently affordable housing. 

As cities incubate innovative solutions, Congress’ Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act would study the role of the federal government and states in supporting the institution of slavery, analyze discriminatory laws and policies against freed African slaves and their descendants and recommend ways the United States may remedy the effects of slavery and discrimination on the African American community. 

While only the federal government has the financial capacity to take on the deep-rooted issue of White socioeconomic supremacy, the “Still A Dream” report makes a convincing case for how we can move forward by using the power of government on every level.

“It is time for our country to take a comprehensive approach and marshal our resources in support of that,” says Carter. “We must treat our entire population as if it deserves quality housing and, with that, the better opportunity to build community. Given our incredible diversity, we live in a country that is a summary of human-kind in being able to live in safe, quality housing and in a community that allows us to engage and learn from one another with a strong sense of ‘We.’ Our failure to do so would surely undermine the ever-evolving American dream.”

This article was originally published by Inequality.org.

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By Ashlee Banks
Special to the AFRO

The NAACP is teaming up with elected officials to empower and celebrate the Black community during its 115^th National Convention in Las Vegas this summer.

The civil rights organization recently gave reporters a first look at what to expect for this year’s convention, which will take place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas from July 13 to July 17. This year’s theme is “All In,” reaffirming the organization’s commitment to using creativity, ingenuity and strength to continue the fight for social justice and civil rights.

During the convention, experts and attendees will discuss ways to combat Republican-led attacks to dismantle equality, diversity and inclusion (DEI), voting rights, affirmative action and reproductive rights across the nation. NAACP members told reporters that the goal of the convention is to find ways to mobilize Black voters, to ensure that they use their voice in the election on Nov. 5.

Those slated to attend the gathering will include thought-leaders, entrepreneurs, scholars, influencers, change-makers and the like.

“Our convention must strive to make people aware of the attacks, threats and they must be ready to engage and mobilize to protect our democracy,” said Leon Russell, NAACP chairman.

“This election cycle is…a choice of whether we have a functional democracy or something less than,” said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “It is important for us to see our institution to increase voter participation to protect our democracy.”

U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, (D-Nev-4), who also serves as the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus stated that he is “honored” the convention will be held in his district.

“For more than a century the NAACP has been at the forefront of the most pressing issues facing Black communities around our nation,” said Horsford. “It’s because of the work of the NAACP that communities around our country to achieve their piece of the American dream.”

The NAACP has yet to announce its list of notable speakers for this year’s convention, however the organization teased that it will have some of the most prominent voices hailing from the Black community. Last year’s speakers included Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass-7), Tenn. Rep. Justin Jones, Rome Flynn, actor “Raising Dion,” Jabari Banks, actor “Bel-Air,” and Jasmine Guy, actress “A Different World.”

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Honoring the Black, buried, and missing at Normandy American Cemetery
By Col. (Ret.) Edna W. Cummings
Special to the AFRO

“All last night, guns shook on the ground on which I slept. Our long toms slugged it out with German 88s in a duel that has no end.” 

—Ollie Stewart, AFRO American Newspaper correspondent with Invasion Forces
France 
July 15, 1944

Eighty years ago, the most heralded battle of World War II, June 6, 1944, or D-Day, consisted of Allied Forces landing along the 50 mile stretch of beaches along the coast of Normandy, France.

The beaches held codenames of “Utah,” “Omaha,” “Gold,” “June” and “Sword.”

Approximately 2,000 Black troops participated in Operation Overlord and the full Battle of Normandy

that lasted until August 1944. Relegated to service units, they moved supplies (e.g., Red Ball Express), built bridges and dug graves for the fallen.

Of the 9,387 military personnel laid to rest at Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, 135 are African-Americans men, three are women and five are listed on the Wall of the Missing.

Only one Black combat unit, the 621 member 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, landed on D-Day at Omaha and Utah Beaches. Three soldiers from that unit died on June 6: Cpls. Brooks Stith from North Carolina, Henry Harris originally from Pennsylvania, and Private James L. Simmons, of Upper Marlboro, Md. 

Brooks and Stith are buried at Normandy and Simmons is buried at Mt. Carmel Cemetery, Upper Marlboro. 

A July 1944 edition of the AFRO American Newspaper reported on the death of Simmons, who arrived in France in December 1943. Three days before he died, he wrote to his family, “The way things are going now, it won’t be long before I’ll be going home.”

At 22 years old, Sgt. Willie Leroy Collins from Macon, Ga., also died on June 6, 1944. He served with the 490th Port Battalion. He was killed by German artillery while unloading cargo onto Utah Beach. He was the only reported D-Day casualty from his unit.

Beyond D-Day

Planning for the catalytic D-Day battle began several years prior, and in December 1943 the engagement strategy developed into Operation Overlord that lasted until June 30, 1944. However, the full Battle of Normandy did not end until August 1944, with the liberation of Paris.

The war in the European Theater of Operations ended with Germany’s surrender on May 8, 1945. According to the Department of Defense, between June 1944 and May 8, 1945, there were 552,117 U.S. casualties in the European Theater of Operations with 104,812 killed in action. Some of these deaths occurred in segregated units that constructed and repaired roads, airfields and bridges.

The 364th Engineer Service Regiment has five members buried at Normandy who died from July-August 1944: PFC Earlie Carothers, 25, of Mississippi, July 7;  Sgt. Melvin Jones, 22, of Georgia, July 8; PFC William L. Ryerson, 24, of New York, July 7; Cpl. General U. Walker, 25, of Florida, July 7; and Master Sgt. James W. Kersh, of Tennessee, Aug. 11.

The only Black officer buried at Normandy is Second Lt. Eddie May. He was originally from Mississippi and joined the Army in Wisconsin and served with the 1349th General Service Regiment. In 1942 he graduated from Beloit College and Beloit refers to him as one of the finest athletes in World War II. In 1964 Beloit inducted him into the Hall of Honor.

Also buried at Normandy is one Black Merchant Marine, Mess Steward Earlie J. Gabriel, and several Navy personnel. Two days after D-Day, Clarence N. Copeland was killed. He was a Navy Steward’s Mate Second Class from Jersey City, Hudson County, N.J. Copeland was assigned to the USS Rich that sank from hitting an underwater mine and a follow-on attack by the Germans.

In July, 1945, three Black women from the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion lost their lives in a vehicular accident, Sgt. Delores Brown and Private Mary Barlow, of Connecticut, and Private Mary Bankston, of New York. 

Barlow and Bankston were members of the 6888th’s entertainment troupe that performed two months earlier at a show hosted by the Birmingham, England Hospitality Committee. Unlike other troops buried at Normandy under combat conditions (i.e., mattress covers, parachutes, tentage or similar materials), these women were buried in their military service dress uniforms. The 6888th’s commander, Maj. Charity Adams collected funds to ensure burial in a casket built by German prisoners. Like other wartime interments, initially, the women were buried at another location, and with their families’ consent, relocated to Normandy American Cemetery in 1948. 

On March 14, 2022, President Biden recognized the 6888th’s service with the nation’s highest honor, a Congressional Gold Medal.

Normandy’s Wall of the Missing bears 1,557 names, and three are from the segregated 364th Engineer Service Regiment: PFC Sylvester D. Haggins, of New York; PFC Mack Homer, of Georgia and Tech 5 Daniel Wyatt, of Louisiana. They died on July 7, 1944. 

Two other names of Black troops appear on the wall: Tech 5 Reese G. Boone from North Carolina, 514th Port Battalion and TSGT Raymond Heads, from Texas and of the 3688th Quartermaster Truck Company.

As we honor the fallen on Memorial Day and commemorate the 80th Anniversary of D-day, I hope that we continue to honor the service and sacrifice of the thousands of troops who are missing or resting in hallowed grounds away from their loved ones.

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By Aria Brent
AFRO Staff Writer
abrent@afro.com

 Congressman Kweisi Mfume (MD-07) announced on June 5 that he has been appointed to the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The decision to appoint the veteran congressman was made by Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and was later unanimously approved by the U.S. House Democratic Caucus.

“From my time on the Baltimore City Council, fighting to divest city funds from the then-apartheid government of South Africa, to working alongside former President Bill Clinton to bring peace and order in Haiti, I have never shied away from using whatever platform I have had to find solutions to global problems,” stated Mfume.

While serving in this position Mfume will be responsible for oversight and legislation regarding national security developments affecting foreign policy; foreign assistance; the Peace Corps; strategic planning and agreements; war powers, treaties, executive agreements and the deployment and use of United States Armed Forces. He will also be lending his expertise to peacekeeping, peace enforcement; enforcement of United Nations or other international sanctions; arms control and disarmament issues; arms control and disarmament issues and a plethora of other matters.

“This appointment is a tremendous honor and responsibility that I do not take lightly given today’s state of affairs. I look forward to joining my colleagues on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs to ensure the United States remains an advocate for peace, security, and equality both at home and abroad,” Mfume shared.

Although this role with the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs is Mfume’s most recent venture in the world of politics, he has a lengthy record when it comes to serving his community and our nation. He’s served as a member of Congress under five presidents, including Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, William J. Clinton, Donald J. Trump, and Joseph R. Biden. He is currently working in Congress as a member of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus and the Congressional Caribbean Caucus.

 In addition to this, he has witnessed and served through events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the first Gulf War, the Panamanian incursion (“Operation Just Cause”), U.S. intervention in Haiti (“Operation Uphold Democracy”), attempts to coordinate foreign interference in U.S. elections, the rise of global cyberthreats and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa.

“From the famine in Africa to the strife in the Middle East, there are so many hotspots today that require strong voices for fairness. I have worked tirelessly throughout my life and in many different capacities to address global issues that impact our people,” Mfume shared. “I am eager to utilize my experiences and begin working now as the only Maryland congressperson appointed to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.”

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

(NNPA Newswire) — Major League Baseball (MLB) has taken a historic step to rectify a long-standing oversight by officially incorporating Negro Leagues statistics into its historical record. Starting May 29, the achievements of approximately 2,300 Negro Leagues players will be recognized alongside those of MLB legends like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.

For decades, Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb were celebrated as the greatest figures in baseball, with Ruth hailed as the best player and Cobb as the premier hitter. However, these narratives often excluded African American athletes whose contributions were underreported or dismissed. This exclusion persisted despite the talents that led to Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in 1947 as the first Black player in the modern Major Leagues.

MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred announced this significant change three years ago, emphasizing the league’s commitment to correcting a historical wrong by elevating the Negro Leagues to “Major League” status. John Thorn, an MLB historian, and the Negro Leagues Statistical Review Committee have been responsible for the meticulous process of officially incorporating Negro Leagues stats into MLB records. The team has been reviewing thousands of box scores and other historical data to integrate the statistics of the seven Negro Leagues into MLB’s database.

Josh Gibson, a standout in the Negro Leagues, will now lead multiple batting categories. His career batting average, slugging percentage and OPS surpass those of Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth. While some of Gibson’s legendary feats, such as the nearly 800 home runs mentioned on his Hall of Fame plaque, will not be included, many of his official stats will now be recognized.

Thorn hailed the decision as “not only righting a social, cultural, and historical wrong, it’s defining baseball as a game for Americans without exclusion.” He emphasized that baseball is a sport of tradition, but its capacity for profound change is equally significant.

To honor the Negro Leagues, MLB will host a tribute game on June 20 at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama—the oldest professional baseball park in the U.S. Players will don period uniforms and pay tribute to legendary center fielder Willie Mays, an Alabama native.

With the integration of these statistics, players like Buck Leonard, Buck O’Neil, Cool Papa Bell, Doc Sykes, Monte Irvin, Leroy Satchel Paige and Gibson will finally receive their due recognition. Fans will now appreciate the true scope of their talents and achievements.

Sean Gibson, the great-grandson of Josh Gibson and executive director of the Josh Gibson Foundation, expressed the family’s excitement over this acknowledgment. “We always considered him a major leaguer; he just didn’t play in the major leagues,” Sean Gibson told NBC Sports, adding he is eager to see how his great-grandfather’s stats compare to those of other MLB legends.

Reflecting on this milestone, he added, “If Josh Gibson was alive right now, he’d be honored. He’ll probably wonder why it took so long. He’ll be happy for all the other baseball players, and more importantly he’ll be excited for his family to carry on his legacy.”

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By Gary D. Robertson
The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Ralph Kennedy Frasier, the final surviving member of a trio of African American youths who were the first to desegregate the undergraduate student body at North Carolina’s flagship public university in the 1950s, has died.

Frasier, who had been in declining health over the past several months, died May 8 at age 85 at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, according to son Ralph Frasier Jr. A memorial service was scheduled for May 18 in Columbus, Ohio, where Frasier spent much of his working career.

Frasier, his older brother LeRoy, and John Lewis Brandon — all Durham high school classmates — fought successfully against Jim Crow laws when they were able to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall of 1955. LeRoy Frasier died in late 2017, with Brandon following weeks later.

Initially, the Hillside High School students’ enrollment applications were denied, even though the UNC law school had been integrated a few years earlier. And the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregation happened in 1954.

The trustee board of UNC — the nation’s oldest public university — then passed a resolution barring the admission of Blacks as undergraduates. The students sued and a federal court ordered they be admitted. The ruling ultimately was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The trio became plaintiffs, in part, because their families were insulated from financial retribution — the brothers’ parents worked for Black-owned North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Durham, for example. The brothers were 14 months apart in age, but Ralph started his education early.

After the legal victory, it still was not easy being on campus. In an interview at the time of his brother’s death, Frasier recalled that the school’s golf course and the university-owned Carolina Inn were off-limits. At football games, they were seated in a section with custodial workers, who were Black. And the three lived on their own floor of a section of a dormitory.

“Those days were probably the most stressful of my life,” Frasier told The Associated Press in 2010 when the three visited Chapel Hill to be honored. “I can’t say that I have many happy memories.”

The brothers studied three years at Chapel Hill before Ralph left for the Army and LeRoy for the Peace Corps. Attending UNC “was extremely tough on them. They were tired,” Ralph Frasier Jr. said this week in an interview.

The brothers later graduated from North Carolina Central University in Durham, an historically Black college. LeRoy Frasier worked as an English teacher for many years in New York. Brandon got his degrees elsewhere and worked in the chemical industry.

Frasier also obtained a law degree at N.C. Central, after which began a long career in legal services and banking, first with Wachovia and later Huntington Bancshares in Columbus.

Ralph Frasier was proud of promoting racial change in the Columbus business community and by serving on a committee that helped put two Black jurists on the federal bench, his son said.

Relationships with UNC-Chapel Hill improved, leading to the 2010 campus celebration of their pioneering efforts, and scholarships were named in their honor.

Still, Ralph Frasier Jr. said it was disappointing to see the current UNC-Chapel Hill trustee board vote this week to recommend diverting money from diversity programs for next year.

“It’s almost a smack in the face and a step backwards in time,” Ralph Frasier Jr. said. The action comes as the UNC system’s Board of Governors will soon decide whether to rework its diversity policy for the 17 campuses statewide.

Frasier’s survivors include his wife of 42 years, Jeannine Marie Quick-Frasier; six children, 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

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By Gary D. Robertson
The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Ralph Kennedy Frasier, the final surviving member of a trio of African American youths who were the first to desegregate the undergraduate student body at North Carolina’s flagship public university in the 1950s, has died.

Frasier, who had been in declining health over the past several months, died May 8 at age 85 at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, according to son Ralph Frasier Jr. A memorial service was scheduled for May 18 in Columbus, Ohio, where Frasier spent much of his working career.

Frasier, his older brother LeRoy, and John Lewis Brandon — all Durham high school classmates — fought successfully against Jim Crow laws when they were able to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall of 1955. LeRoy Frasier died in late 2017, with Brandon following weeks later.

Initially, the Hillside High School students’ enrollment applications were denied, even though the UNC law school had been integrated a few years earlier. And the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregation happened in 1954.

The trustee board of UNC — the nation’s oldest public university — then passed a resolution barring the admission of Blacks as undergraduates. The students sued and a federal court ordered they be admitted. The ruling ultimately was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The trio became plaintiffs, in part, because their families were insulated from financial retribution — the brothers’ parents worked for Black-owned North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Durham, for example. The brothers were 14 months apart in age, but Ralph started his education early.

After the legal victory, it still was not easy being on campus. In an interview at the time of his brother’s death, Frasier recalled that the school’s golf course and the university-owned Carolina Inn were off-limits. At football games, they were seated in a section with custodial workers, who were Black. And the three lived on their own floor of a section of a dormitory.

“Those days were probably the most stressful of my life,” Frasier told The Associated Press in 2010 when the three visited Chapel Hill to be honored. “I can’t say that I have many happy memories.”

The brothers studied three years at Chapel Hill before Ralph left for the Army and LeRoy for the Peace Corps. Attending UNC “was extremely tough on them. They were tired,” Ralph Frasier Jr. said this week in an interview.

The brothers later graduated from North Carolina Central University in Durham, an historically Black college. LeRoy Frasier worked as an English teacher for many years in New York. Brandon got his degrees elsewhere and worked in the chemical industry.

Frasier also obtained a law degree at N.C. Central, after which began a long career in legal services and banking, first with Wachovia and later Huntington Bancshares in Columbus.

Ralph Frasier was proud of promoting racial change in the Columbus business community and by serving on a committee that helped put two Black jurists on the federal bench, his son said.

Relationships with UNC-Chapel Hill improved, leading to the 2010 campus celebration of their pioneering efforts, and scholarships were named in their honor.

Still, Ralph Frasier Jr. said it was disappointing to see the current UNC-Chapel Hill trustee board vote this week to recommend diverting money from diversity programs for next year.

“It’s almost a smack in the face and a step backwards in time,” Ralph Frasier Jr. said. The action comes as the UNC system’s Board of Governors will soon decide whether to rework its diversity policy for the 17 campuses statewide.

Frasier’s survivors include his wife of 42 years, Jeannine Marie Quick-Frasier; six children, 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

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The landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling declared racially segregated schools unconstitutional, but recent data reveals persistent inequities in U.S. education.

By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

(NNPA NEWSWIRE) – On the 70th anniversary of the historic Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision President Joe Biden emphasized his administration’s commitment to educational equity by announcing new funding and resources aimed at enhancing school diversity and tackling racial segregation. The landmark 1954 ruling declared racially segregated schools unconstitutional, but recent data reveals persistent inequities in U.S. education.

“Every student deserves access to a high-quality education that prepares them to be the next generation of leaders,” Biden stated. 

To further this goal, the Biden-Harris administration introduced several initiatives, including a $20 million investment through the Department of Education’s Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP). This funding will support magnet programs in states such as Arkansas, Colorado and Florida, designed to attract students from diverse backgrounds. Additionally, the administration’s 2025 budget proposal seeks $139 million for MSAP and $10 million for the Fostering Diverse Schools program.

Moreover, a new Technical Assistance Center on Fiscal Equity will assist states and districts in developing fair resource allocation strategies. The initiative aims to address the stark resource disparities that exist between racially and economically segregated schools.

Stephen Benjamin, senior adviser to Biden and former mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, acknowledged the ongoing challenges. 

“There’s an acknowledgment every day with our president that we’re not where we ought to be, but we’re certainly not where we used to be. Still a lot of work to be done,” Benjamin said.

The research underscores the strong correlation between school segregation and racial achievement gaps. The desegregation following Brown significantly boosted graduation rates for Black and Latino students. However, recent decades have seen a reversal, with segregation between White and Black students increasing by 64 percent since 1988, and economic segregation rising by 50 percent since 1991. 

According to the Department of Education’s State of School Diversity Report, racially isolated schools often lack the critical resources necessary for student success.

To combat these trends, the Department of Education announced the release of new data on access to math and science courses, highlighting ongoing racial disparities. The administration said it also plans to launch an interagency effort to preserve African American history, ensuring that students and the public have access to essential historical and cultural resources.

Officials noted that the American Rescue Plan has directed $130 billion to the nation’s schools, with a focus on underserved institutions. This includes nearly $2 billion in additional Title I funding, and a five-fold increase in funding for Full-Service Community Schools, which provide essential services to students and families in need.

Recognizing the importance of teacher diversity, the administration has prioritized efforts to increase the number of educators of color. Competitive grant programs have awarded $450 million to support teacher recruitment and retention, with a particular focus on diversity. Additionally, the Augustus F. Hawkins Centers of Excellence Grant program has provided over $23 million to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), tribally controlled colleges and universities (TCCUs) and minority-serving institutions (MSIs) for teacher preparation.

The president met with family members of the plaintiffs from the Brown v. Board case. Cheryl Brown Henderson, daughter of lead plaintiff Oliver Brown, expressed the ongoing struggle for educational equity. 

“We’re still fighting the battle over whose children we invest in. Any time we can talk about failing underfunded public schools, there is a problem,” Henderson said. 

NAACP President Derrick Johnson, also in attendance, affirmed, “We must continue to fight on all fronts.”

As the nation reflects on seven decades since Brown v. Board of Education, the White House said that the Biden administration’s initiatives signal a renewed effort to fulfill the promise of equitable education for all. 

Schools “remain divided along racial, ethnic, and economic lines,” according to a 2022 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. “With around 18.5 million children attending schools where 75 percent or more of students were of a single race or ethnicity.”

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By Ashlee Banks
Special to the AFRO 

On May 17 President Joe Biden commemorated the 70^th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which prohibited the operation of racially segregated schools and regarded them unconstitutional and unequal.

In a White House statement obtained by the AFRO, Biden said, “That landmark decision helped us move closer to realizing the idea that defines who we are as a Nation.”

“We are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives,” said Biden. “While our society has never fully lived up to that idea, we have never fully walked away from it either — and on this milestone anniversary, we promise we will not walk away from it now.  

To acknowledge the importance of Brown v. Board of Education, Biden met with the plaintiffs of the historical case and their families at the White House including Adrienne Jennings Bennett, a plaintiff in Boiling v. Sharpe which was argued alongside Brown v. Board of Education and Cheryl Brown Henderson, the daughter of Oliver Brown, the lead plaintiff in the case.

Steve Benjamin, senior advisor to the president and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement attended the meeting and told reporters Biden “commended” the plaintiffs and families “for changing our nation for the better.”

Benjamin added that the president stated that he is going “To continue his fight to move us closer to the promise of America.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters during a briefing on Thursday that Biden was “proud” to meet with the plaintiffs and families of Brown v. Board of Education and to “honor the legacy of those who paved the way for progress and hard-fought rights for Black Americans.”

Pierre added that during the meeting the president “ his vision for how we must continue to build on these freedoms.”

Included in that vision are several new initiatives Biden announced this week to advance racial, educational equity and ensure that each student has access to a “world-class education.”

On Friday, he unveiled a plan that will make sure that Black history is preserved, underserved educational institutions are well resourced and educational institutions across the nation are equipped with a diverse staff.

Biden said that he “believes every student deserves access to a high-quality education that prepares them to be the next generation of leaders.”

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By Deyane Moses
Special to the AFRO

In a groundbreaking initiative, Harvard University launched the Black Teacher Archive (BTA) in late 2023. This digital treasure trove offers a wealth of primary source materials – journals and newsletters – created by members of the Colored Teachers’ Associations (CTAs) between 1861 and 1970.

Dr. Jarvis R. Givens, a distinguished author and professor at Harvard who co-founded the BTA, reached out to Afro Charities in April about the treasure trove of information housed within the AFRO Archives. He was eager to explore the AFRO’s collection and discover if it held any materials related to the CTAs.

This fruitful collaboration led to a virtual discussion featuring Givens and Senior Project Manager, Micha Broadnax. The conversation delved into the significance of the BTA, particularly how providing access to these historical documents, created primarily by Black educators in segregated Southern schools, will revolutionize research in various fields – from the history of education to African American studies and critical pedagogy.

BTA is based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in association with the Monroe C. Gutman Library Special Collections and is made possible through the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Spencer Foundation.

Moses: Thank you for joining me. Tell me a little about yourself. How did you come to the BTA?

Givens: The BTA grew out of my own research on Carter G. Woodson’s partnership with Black teachers, but also from collaborations with a colleague of mine, professor and co-founder, Imani Perry. Through our respective research we noticed the scattered existence of CTA materials in collections and decided we wanted to make them available in one particular place. Additionally, we are taking advantage of new technologies in terms of preservation when it comes to digital humanities. 

Broadnax: I’ve worked in the archival profession for about 10 years and always wanted to center Blackness in my work. It was really great when I saw the call that Jarvis and Imani put out, recognizing the skill set an archivist or librarian can bring to the project. I’m just fortunate to be working with them to make this history more accessible.

Givens: The history offered through the Black Teacher Archive does two important things when it comes to current educators. First, it helps contextualize the current attacks on teaching truth within a much longer history, while also offering a tradition of teaching and teacher organizing that resisted such conservative factions in America schooling. Second, it allows teachers to go back and study this history. By understanding themselves as part of a much longer tradition grounded in study, scholarship and research, they can cultivate among themselves more empowered and historically informed professional identities.

Moses: Absolutely. The AFRO’s collection has an estimated three million photographs in addition to other ephemera, artwork and physical objects. What’s in the BTA’s collection?

Broadnax: The BTA is a digitally curated collection with material from over 70 institutions. In this first phase we are focused on journal publications. These publications were published at the state and national level, sometimes monthly or biannually. We are looking to expand the material to meeting minutes of these associations and track down any kind of photographs or audio visual materials that may exist that helps tell the story of these teachers associations. 

We’ve been in contact with Afro Charities to help fill those gaps. In the collection, some states are better represented than others–particularly in the South. We are interested in seeing the coverage of northern and border state teachers associations within the Black Press. 

Moses: Why is the BTA crucial for appreciating the ongoing contributions of Black teachers?

Givens: One of the most important things we’ve been finding in this research is the need to tell and retell powerful historical narratives about Black educators, because the archive is filled with them, yet public memory is quite impoverished when it comes to the legacy of Black teachers. The BTA showcases the amazing things Black teachers did to fight for educational justice in African American communities, especially for students. It provides a model of teachers who worked together, organizing to teach against the grain and push back against the aggression, and in many ways, violence they experienced; experiences that resemble what teachers are facing today. The BTA is crucial not just for understanding history, but also for inspiring effective organizing strategies for educators today.

Black educators, in particular, are often social justice-oriented educators within the profession. Many of them are called to the profession because they want to correct experiences they had, or they want to inspire young people the way they were inspired from those who came before them. This is especially important in this moment, when teachers overall are constantly under attack. It’s an unfortunate reality that we live in a time where many are discouraged from entering the teaching profession. We see this with teachers being targeted for teaching an inclusive curriculum, whether it’s African American history, gender or sexuality.

Moses: Is there an example of this in the BTA?

Givens: Of course. Lots of them. For instance, if we look in the 1935 Louisiana Colored Teachers Journal, we’ll see teachers organizing themselves into study groups by grade level where they’re reading emerging scholarship and literature by Black writers and Black scholars– and they’re doing this with the purpose of integrating this new Black scholarship into their classrooms. Of course, this was not formally sanctioned by Louisiana’s Board of Education. We find similar cases in other states.

Moses: How are researchers and institutions using the BTA?

Broadnax: The BTA is publicly available to anyone around the world at https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/Black-teacher-archive. Right now we have a lot of traction on our education history timeline. We’ve had K-12 teachers write to us about using it in the classroom and asking questions about how dates might correspond or conflict with their previous understandings.

Givens: There’s a variety of people engaging with the collection. We’ve had some folks inform us about things they’ve found in the BTA which they’re now incorporating in books, other writings, and in the classrooms. These are particularly scholars in higher education who have been able to incorporate the BTA into their courses on the history of African American education. We are hoping to see more of this, in African American studies, teacher education and history courses.  

Broadnax: The BTA is also a resource for genealogical research for both educators and students. I often ask my mom and her friends to tell me about teachers from their school days. The records demonstrate their teachers’ network, organizing, or professional  development and how that might translate to how they experienced those instructors. It’s a wonderful resource. 
Givens: Absolutely.

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire

On May 7 plaintiffs in a sizable class action lawsuit against insurance giant Geico joined prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump at a press conference in the nation’s capital. The lawsuit, alleging contractual breaches regarding policy renewal commissions and accusations of unjust enrichment, represents a coalition of minority business owners formerly associated with the company.

At the heart of the allegations is the contention that Geico, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, systematically deprived minority Geico Field Representatives (GFRs) of critical business opportunities through what Crump termed as “unfair and unlawful” practices.

“It is important to note that Geico had quality reports that detailed Geico field representative’s metrics. These reports were downright discriminatory for the Hispanics, and Asians who worked for Geico,” Crump declared, noting that the names of the reports were themselves steeped in racial bias. “Geico, you are better than this.”

The news conference spotlighted several key revelations:

1. Disproportionate Termination: In an unprecedented move in March 2023, Geico terminated agents across the United States, with a staggering 67 percent of those affected being minorities.
2. Exploitation of GFRs’ Labor: Plaintiffs assert that Geico reaped the rewards of GFRs’ hard work, retaining commissions generated from the business portfolios they painstakingly built. Moreover, Geico’s purported control over various aspects of GFRs’ operations allegedly left many questioning their professional futures post-termination.
3. Representative Testimonies: Present at the conference were four terminated GFRs, all from minority backgrounds:

• Steve Ching, a Navy veteran of Asian descent, was the sole minority GFR in the Pacific Northwest, operating in Portland, Oregon.
• Kim Dao, a Vietnamese woman, saw her Atlanta, Georgia, office shuttered while those managed by white GFRs remained operational.
• Denise Buckley, a Latina based in Houston, Texas, was the only Spanish-speaking agent in a region with a significant Latino population.
• Kevin Ware, an African American with a decade-long tenure at Geico, managed the largest agency in the Midwest before its closure.

The lawsuit, initiated on Nov. 7, 2023, in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, alleges a litany of legal violations, including breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and misclassification.

After Geico’s parent, Berkshire Hathaway’s, recent annual shareholder meeting on May 4, 2024, scrutiny has intensified on the conglomerate’s corporate governance. Crump and the plaintiffs have galvanized attention toward what they see as Geico’s discriminatory treatment of minority GFRs, igniting a national conversation on equity and accountability within the insurance industry.

This article was originally published by NNPA Newswire.

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

Bishop William J. Barber II, president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival alongside the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, led a press conference on April 29 at the National Press Club to unveil plans for the “Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington, D.C.: A Call to the Polls and to Vote.”

Scheduled for June 29, the assembly aims to commence four months of outreach efforts targeting 15 million poor and low-wage infrequent voters nationwide. According to the study “Waking the Sleeping Giant: Poor and Low-Income Voters in the 2020 Elections,” approximately 85 million eligible voters in the United States are classified as poor or low wage, constituting at least 30 percent of the electorate. In battleground states, the percentage climbs to over 40 percent.

“This is movement time,” declared Bishop Barber. “We are here this morning to mobilize the power of over 33 million infrequent voters, poor and low wage, to demand attention to their concerns in the political arena.”

Rev. Theoharis echoed this sentiment. “Our goal is to center the desires and political agenda of those who are often left out of the conversation,” Theoharis said.

The coalition, comprising representatives from over 30 state coordinating committees, religious organizations, labor unions and advocacy groups, seeks to mobilize the substantial voting bloc to demand political candidates’ endorsement of a moral agenda addressing the poverty and low-wealth crisis, which claims 295,000 lives annually.

“Poor and low-wage voters are saying in this season that if you want these votes, talk to poor and low-wage folks,” said Barber.

The Rev. Mark Thompson, who also works for the National Newspaper Publishers Association, was among the many coalition members who addressed the issues during the news conference, which aired live on C-Span and at BlackPressUSA.com.

Thompson highlighted the interconnectedness of poverty with various social issues. “Wherever there is a lack of health care and voting rights, LGBT rights and immigrant rights, there is an abundance of poverty,” he said. “Wherever there is a lack of jobs and labor unions, sensible gun laws and women’s bodily autonomy, there is an abundance of poverty.”

He continued: “Wherever there is a lack of racial justice and legal rights, criminal justice reform, access to adequate legal representation, an alternative to incarceration and police reform, wherever those things are in lack, there is an abundance of poverty. Wherever there is a lack of what is now under attack–diversity, equity, and inclusion, affirmative action; investment in education a lack of educational opportunities, there is an abundance of poverty. Wherever there is lack of religious tolerance, racial harmony, and beloved community, there is an abundance of poverty.”

The event’s organizers emphasized their commitment to empowering impoverished and low-wage individuals, aiming to amplify their voices in the political discourse. 

Rev. Thompson concluded, “I contend we do not need to ask permission to finish Dr. King’s work. He did not retire. It is our duty to pick up his baton and move forward. They always talk about the people who don’t want to vote. They never talk about the impoverished and low-wage individuals. We want to lift them and bring them forth. If we address these issues, we will address all these others.”

As the nation gears up for the 2024 elections, Bishop Barber, the Poor People’s Campaign and its allies assert that they are poised to make their presence felt, advocating for policies that address the systemic issues perpetuating poverty and economic inequality across the country.

“We want to lift them up and bring them forth. If we address these issues, we will address all these others,” Thompson said.

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By Darlene Superville
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on May 3 bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 19 people, including civil rights icons such as the late Medgar Evers, prominent political leaders such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. James Clyburn, and actor Michelle Yeoh.

Biden said the recipients of the nation’s highest civilian honor are “incredible people whose relentless curiosity, inventiveness, ingenuity and hope have kept faith in a better tomorrow.”

One of them, Clarence B. Jones, said in an interview that he thought a prankster was on the phone when he answered and heard the caller say they were from the White House.

“I said, ‘Is this a joke or is this serious?'” Jones recalled. The caller swore they were serious and was calling with the news that Biden wanted to recognize Jones with the medal.

Jones, 93, was honored for his activism during the Civil Rights Movement. He’s a lawyer who provided legal counsel to Martin Luther King Jr. and helped write the opening paragraphs of the “I Have a Dream” speech that King delivered at the Lincoln Memorial at the 1963 March on Washington.

The White House said the recipients are “exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.”

The 10 men and nine women hail from the worlds of politics, sports, entertainment, civil rights and LGBTQ+ advocacy, science and religion. Three medals were awarded posthumously.

Seven politicians were among the recipients: former New York mayor and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg, former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, climate activist and former Vice President Al Gore, Biden’s former climate envoy John Kerry, former Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who died in 2013, Clyburn, the Democratic congressman from South Carolina, and Pelosi, the Democratic congresswoman from California.

Biden in his remarks acknowledged that Clyburn’s endorsement in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary helped him score a thundering win in South Carolina, powering him to his party’s nomination and ultimately the White House. Bloomberg mounted a short-lived bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

“I can say this without fear of contradiction,” Biden said. “I would not be standing here as president making these awards were it not for Jim. I mean that sincerely.”

In addition to representing North Carolina in the Senate, Dole, a Republican and the widow of former Sen. Bob Dole, also served as transportation secretary and labor secretary and was president of the American Red Cross. She currently leads a foundation supporting military caregivers.

Pelosi is the first and only woman ever elected to the speaker’s post, putting her second in the line of succession to the presidency. Biden referenced her legislative achievements, noted her actions during the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and said “history will remember you, Nancy, as the greatest speaker of the House of Representatives.”

Evers received posthumous recognition for his work more than six decades ago fighting segregation in Mississippi in the 1960s as the NAACP’s first field officer in the state. He was 37 when he was fatally shot in the driveway of his home in June 1963. His daughter, Reena, who was 8 years old when her father was killed, accepted his medal.

Yeoh made history last year by becoming the first Asian woman to win an Academy Award for best actress for her performance in ” Everything, Everywhere All at Once.”

Jim Thorpe, who died in 1953, was the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States.

Judy Shepard co-founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation, named after her son, a gay 21-year-old University of Wyoming student who died in 1998 after he was beaten and tied to a fence.

Jones said he felt “very touched” after he digested what the caller had said.

“I’m 93 years old with some health challenges, but I woke up this morning thanks to the grace of God,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview May 2. “I’m looking forward to whatever the White House would like for me to do.”

The other medal recipients are:

— Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit Catholic priest who founded and runs Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention and rehabilitation program.

— Phil Donahue, a journalist and former daytime TV talk-show host.

— Katie Ledecky, the most decorated female swimmer in history.

— Opal Lee, an activist who is best known for pushing to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Biden did so in 2021.

— Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman in space and the second female director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

— Jane Rigby, an astronomer who is chief scientist of the world’s most powerful telescope. She grew up in Delaware, Biden’s home state.

— Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers and the first Hispanic woman to lead a national union in the U.S. The union has endorsed Biden’s reelection bid and backed him in 2020.

In 2022, Biden presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 17 people, including gymnast Simone Biles, the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and gun-control advocate Gabby Giffords.

Biden knows how it feels to receive the medal. As president, Barack Obama presented Biden, his vice president, with the medal a week before their administration ended in 2017.

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By Mogomotsi Magome, The Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — As 72-year-old Nonki Kunene walks through the corridors of Thabisang Primary School in Soweto, South Africa, she recalls the joy she and many others felt 30 years ago when they voted for the first time.

It was at this school on April 27, 1994, that Kunene joined millions of South Africans to brave long queues and take part in the country’s first democratic elections after decades of White minority rule which denied Black people the right to vote.

The country is gearing up for celebrations April 27 to mark 30 years of freedom and democracy. But much of the enthusiasm and optimism of that period has subsided as Africa’s most developed economy faces a myriad of challenges.

Like many things in South Africa, the school that Kunene remembers has changed, and what used to be a school hall has now been turned into several classrooms.

“I somehow wish we could go back to that day, because of how excited I was and the things that happened thereafter,” said Kunene, referring to Nelson Mandela becoming the country’s first Black president and the introduction of a new constitution that afforded all South Africans equal rights, abolishing the racially discriminative system of apartheid.

For many who experienced apartheid, those years remain etched in their collective memory.

“I cannot forget how we suffered at the hands of Whites. In the city at night, there were White bikers with hair like this (describing a mohawk-like hairstyle) who would brutally assault a Black person if they saw them walking on a pavement. Those White boys were cruel,” said 87-year-old Lily Makhanya, whose late husband died while working in the anti-apartheid movement’s underground structures.

“If they saw you walking on the pavement, you would be assaulted so badly and left for dead.”

For Makhanya and many others who stood in those queues to vote in 1994, it represented a turning point from a brutal past to the promise of a prosperous future.

But 30 years later, much of that optimism has evaporated amid the country’s pressing challenges. They include widening inequality as the country’s Black majority continues to live in poverty with an unemployment rate of more than 32 percent, the highest in the world.

According to official statistics, more than 16 million South Africans rely on monthly welfare grants for survival.

Public demonstrations have become common as communities protest against the ruling African National Congress’ failure to deliver job opportunities and basic services like water and electricity.

An electricity crisis that has resulted in power blackouts that are devastating the country’s economy added to the party’s woes as businesses and homes are sometimes forced to go without electricity for up to 12 hours a day.

Areas like the affluent Johannesburg suburb of Sandton, which hosts beautiful skyscrapers and luxurious homes, are an example of the economic success enjoyed by a minority of the country’s 60 million people.

But the township of Alexandra, which lies a few kilometers (miles) from Sandton, is a stark reflection of the living conditions of the country’s poor Black majority, where sewage from burst pipes flows on the streets and uncollected rubbish piles up on pavements.

Such contradictions are common across the major cities, including the capital Pretoria and the city of Cape Town, and they remain at the center of what is expected to be one of the country’s most fiercely contested elections in May.

For the first time since the ANC came to power in 1994, polls are indicating that the party might receive less than 50 percent of the national vote, which would see it lose power unless it manages to form a coalition with some smaller parties.

For some younger voters like 24-year-old Donald Mkhwanazi, the nostalgia does not resonate.

Mkhwanazi will be voting for the first time in the May 29 election and is now actively involved in campaigning for a new political party, Rise Mzansi, which will be contesting a national election for the first time.

“I had an opportunity to vote in 2019, and in local elections in 2021, but I did not because I was not persuaded enough by any of these old parties about why I should vote,” he said.

“I didn’t see the need to vote because of what has been happening over the past 30 years. We talk about freedom, but are we free from crime, are we free from poverty? What freedom is this that we are talking about?”

Political analyst Pearl Mncube said South Africans are justified in feeling failed by their leaders.

“More and more South Africans have grown skeptical of pronouncements from government due to its history of continuously announcing grand plans without prioritizing the swift execution of said plans,” Mncube said.

She said while Freedom Day is meant to signify the country’s transition from an oppressive past, it was important to highlight current problems and plans to overcome them.

“We cannot use the past, and any nostalgia attached to it, to avoid accounting for the present,” she said.

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Justice Thurgood Marshall to be spotlighted 

By AFRO Staff

It has been almost 70 years since the seminal Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision crumbled the legal wall of separation between Black and White students in public schools, and served as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement and the striking down of other bulwarks of segregation and discrimination in American society.

On April 24, just under a month before the official anniversary on May 17, the Thurgood Marshall Center Trust and the Reginald  F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture will host a commemorative event that will spotlight the legacy of Thurgood Marshall, the attorney who argued the landmark case before the high court on behalf of the NAACP and, later, became the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court (1967–’91).

The free event, comprising a reception and panel discussion, will take place at the Museum’s facility in downtown Baltimore, beginning at 5:30 p.m.

The panel discussion will feature several renowned  civil rights leaders, including U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., former head of the NAACP. Also appearing will be Larry Gibson, longtime professor at the Frances Carey School of Law, University of Maryland and  author of “Young Thurgood – The Making of a Supreme Court Justice.” And last, Benjamin Chavis, president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and chair of the Thurgood Marshall Center Trust’s Board of Directors, will round off the list of featured speakers.

The memorial event will engage the panelists in sharing their experiences, expertise and knowledge of Justice Marshall’s life, career and legacy. The discussion will be moderated by Terri Lee  Freeman, president of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, and will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience. 

To register for this free event, go to:  

https://lewismuseum.ticketing.veevartapp.com/tickets/view/list/70th-anniversary-of-brown-v-board

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By Ariyana Griffin 
Special to the AFRO

Howard University partnered with Spotify to host a listening session April 16 on the Washington, D.C. campus to highlight the launch of “1619: The College Edition” podcast,  in which students unpack what they have gleaned from their study of “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story,” under the direction of its author, Pulitzer Prize winner, Emmy winner and investigative reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Kristen Jarrett, Spotify’s lead on its equity, diversity and impact team and its NextGen program, explained that the collaboration between Spotify and Hannah-Jones flourished from an unsolicited email.  

“Believe it or not, it was a bit of a cold email to Professor Hannah-Jones to see if she was interested in collaborating, and she said yes. From there it was listening to her and what she was interested in doing with her students,” said Jarrett. “We allowed her to guide us in terms of what she wanted to do, and then it was working with her students, delivering equipment and providing guidance.  From there we were able to co-create this beautiful piece of content. I say co-create very loosely; her students really created this podcast and we were just happy to be a part of supporting the process.” 

Spotify’s program NextGen provides students with the resources and support they need to activate and grow podcast culture on campuses. In the past, the program has been on Spelman College’s campus as well as other universities such as New York University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California. NextGen is supported by their Creator Equity Fund, which seeks to “uplift creators who have historically been underrepresented in the audio industry.”

At the April 16 event, Spotify also presented a $10,000 scholarship to sophomore journalism major Karys Hylton, one of the students who participated in the course and in the development of the podcast.

The course that Hannah-Jones teaches at Howard University, where she is the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism, is titled after her award-winning book, “The 1619 Project.” Students who take the course and study the material are required to write an essay taking a deep dive into history on a topic they pitch and get approved.

Those essays then were developed into the student-led podcast. Three episodes were produced by students working in groups under the topics, “Principles of Drip,” “Color Theory” and “Queer Seminar.” The series allowed Howard students to “apply their own unique lens to what they learned from studying the 1619 Project and make surprising, compelling and critical connections to the ways that slavery still impacts their lives and ours,” according to a description of the podcast.

Hannah-Jones shared that she was excited for the opportunity to partner with Spotify and give her students the opportunity to dig deeper into history and share what they’ve learned.

“The podcast is based on the basic formula of the ‘1619 Project,’ which is that slavery in its legacy is shaping our society in all of the ways that we don’t think about,” said Hannah-Jones. “I hope it leads us to ask more questions, to think deeper about the way we treat Black people, the way that we think Black Americans are, and that we have a better understanding of ourselves, and that people who aren’t Black have a better understanding of us.” 

She explained that most of the students had no previous script writing experience, but they all were dedicated to producing something the world could learn something from. 

“When they came into the podcasting course, most had never written a podcast script, had never done podcast production, had never actually done the type of reporting that I required,” said Hannah-Jones. “I made them interview scholars, I made them find archival clips. They had to produce ambient sound. There were elements that each podcast had to incorporate.” 

She said she believes each student walked away with new reporting skills and an ear for audio narrative. 

Zoe Cummings, a sophomore honors journalism major and Spanish minor, said when she saw the “1619”  course offering, she didn’t know what it was but she knew that she would learn and grow under Hannah- Jones. And, she took away an important lesson.. 

“I realized for the first time that I was learning how to be American,” she said. “I was learning how to hold my Blackness in one hand and my Americanness in another and understand that the two things aren’t that different. And professor Jones gave me that.”

Cummings, who produced the “Principles of Drip” episode, shared that the episode was important because she originally wrote the essay it was curated from. “Drip,” in urban vernacular, refers to something or someone that is “cool,” is stylish or has a high element of “swag.” It is a quality she strongly associates with her D.C.-based campus and HBCU students in general, she said.

“When it was time to create this into a podcast we had to bring it to the yard; we had to bring it to Howard Homecoming; we had to bring it to y’all,” said Cummings. “I don’t know about y’all, but I have never seen anyone more ‘drippy’ than a Howard University student.”

Jacob Smith, a junior television and film major with a minor in theatre arts stage management, worked on “Color Theory” as an editor. The episode takes a look at colorism in the Black community and its roots.

 “What we really wanted to do was dive into the innate biases that even probably some at this school had, and talk about how those biases and those beliefs, this ideology comes from an institution of White supremacy and slavery all throughout,” said Smith.

“Queer Seminar,” produced by Trinity Webster-Bass, a junior honors podcast journalism major and Afro-American studies minor,  is a combination of two essays: one based on discrimination against queer individuals and how it dates back to slavery; and the other on the origins of ballroom culture. The podcast highlights O’Shea Sibley, a 28-year-old queer man who was murdered after performing “voguing” – a highly stylized dance which grew out of the 1960s Harlem ballroom scene, in which dancers mimic fashion models’ poses – at a Brooklyn gas station. The students were able to interview and feature one of his best friends, who was there that tragic night. Through the trauma that lies within the community, the podcast and students also wanted to highlight its beauty.

“We wanted to show all the creativity, all the love, all the passion that exists within the Black queer community,” said Webster-Bass. 

Hannah-Jones expressed that she was so excited to be able to provide resources like this to her students. 

“This is why I came to a place like Howard to be able to work with students and help them get these types of resources,” she said.

“The NextGen partnership with Spotify is so important because we know that HBCUs have no lack of talent, no lack of ambition, no lack of brilliance. These students are some of the hardest working students in America,” added Hannah-Jones. “What they often lack is resources. They’re often overlooked. They don’t often have this—the type of connections to corporations. They don’t have the type of dollars to be able to, for instance, create a podcasting lab on campus or to have access to those types of courses.”

The event allowed the audience to hear some clips from the episodes as well as hear from the students and their creative process. Spotify gifted everyone who attended bluetooth mics to help support those who are interested or want to get into audio or content creation. 

Spotify NextGen is looking forward to continuing the expansion of  the program across more HBCU campuses in the future. Listeners can find the podcast on Spotify by creating a free account and searching for “1619: The College Edition.”

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By TriceEdneyWire.com

Less than a year after the fanfare announcement that he will succeed the Rev. Jesse Jackson as leader of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Rev. Dr. Frederick D. Haynes III announced his resignation this week amid what insiders described as a painful financial situation. 

Few details were available at Trice Edney News Wire deadline, but according to Dr. Haynes’ April 16 statement titled, “Public Resignation Statement,” he said the following as he resigned from the organization that announced him as Jackson’s successor last July and formally installed him Feb. 1:

“After continued prayer and deliberation, I have decided to step down from the position of Chief Executive Officer and President of Rainbow Push Coalition (RPC), effective immediately. I remain committed to honoring the rich history of RPC and the legacy of its esteemed leader, the incomparable Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr., and, most significantly, to the calling and pursuit of social justice. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to all who have expressed their support since my appointment in July of last year. Rest assured that my work in the fight for liberation and freedom continues. 

Yours in the struggle, Frederick D. Haynes III”

Neither Rev. Haynes nor Rev. Jackson, who has been ill with Parkinson’s disease, could be reached for comment by deadline. Sources close to RPC said the organization has been stricken with insurmountable financial problems. 

Dr. Haynes still serves as the Senior Pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas.

On its website, RPC describes itself by saying, “We protect, defend, and gain civil rights by leveling the economic and educational playing fields, and to promote peace and justice around the world.”

According to its written history, The Chicago-based organization, founded in 1971, “is the product of a social justice movement that grew out of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s (SCLC) Operation Breadbasket. Founded by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Operation Breadbasket sought to combine theology and social justice and to effect progressive economic, educational, and social policy in America. In 1966, Dr. King appointed Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. to serve as the first director of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago.”

According to a news release, Haynes’ sold-out installation event on Feb. 1 this year, “featured VIP program participants and attendees from all over the country, including Roland Martin, Rev. Al Sharpton (NAN), Shavonne Arline-Bradley (NCNW), Dr. Michael Sorrell, Dr. Amos Brown, and Dr. Ron Daniels.”

Rev. Sharpton who was keynote at the event, said in his speech, “Look at the time we are in: everything that was gained in the ’60s is now under threat…They talk about affirmative action, women’s rights, diversity, inclusion, voting rights, like somebody woke up and gave us that. Nobody donated anything to us. We fought for everything we got and we need to get back to fighting right now. And that’s why I’ve come to celebrate Freddy, because we need fighters in the pulpit… We need a fighter like Freddy Haynes.” 

Vice President Kamala Harris, at the Rainbow/PUSH convention where Haynes was announced last July, said, “I am so confident in his leadership and his ability to carry on the greatest traditions of this organization and to meet the challenges of this moment.”

This article was originally published by TriceEdneyWire.com.

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By Helen Bezuneh
Special to the AFRO 

It was the night before diversity consultant Verna Myers’ eighth birthday when the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. rocked her hometown of Baltimore, leaving it in turmoil. Born and raised in the city, she had never witnessed such profound sadness and literal flames of protest engulfing her community. 

“My dad was crying,” she told the AFRO. “It was at that moment – maybe it was throughout that period – but I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to be the person that Martin Luther King fought for.’ I understood the sacrifice that had been made for me, so I wanted to make good on the dream.”

Since then, Myers has made it her mission to ensure that Dr. King’s wisdom continues to resonate through her work. As the founder of The Verna Myers Co. (TVMC), she has leveraged her upbringing to establish herself as a powerhouse in the arena of diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Having previously served as Netflix’s vice president of inclusion strategy, she has made a substantial impact on the ways in which people approach the work of DEI. Through TVMC, Myers advises corporations and universities, offers DEI online training courses and does keynote speeches, spreading the message about the best ways to incorporate inclusion within every aspect of our lives.

“We started off by helping people recognize that there needs to be a strategy rather than just having events and even having training,” she said. “We started to do cultural assessments. What are people experiencing, what are the strengths, where are the areas that need more shoring up and change?

“We did a lot of strategic planning, assessments and we did an enormous amount of training, we call them workshops,” she added. “What we discovered was that there were a lot of people who morally have this idea that they want to be equal and yet they aren’t aware of all the ways in which they may be creating an exclusive environment.”

Before Myers started TVMC, she worked as a Harvard-trained lawyer, driven by her dedication to civil rights. She wanted to ensure that equality was extended to all–especially Black people, women, and the like.

“I got to law school and realized that often the law is the tool of folks who are already in power and already dominant and already actually responsible for creating unfair structures and systems within our society. So that was a bit of a blow,” she said of that experience. She added, “While it’s also true that lawyers are extremely important in winning rights and changing laws, more of what I saw in law school was men, especially, figuring out ways to manipulate the law so that it ultimately kept them in power.” 

Myers went on to practice at a predominantly White law firm in Boston. Eventually, however, she realized she could do more impactful, equity-driven work elsewhere. As she began to consider what her calling was, she became involved in a minority-owned law firm, which ended up being an incredibly enriching experience. 

Through the experience, she became passionate about advocating for more representation of Black lawyers in Boston law firms, particularly given Boston’s reputation as a city inhospitable to Black folks. This drive led her to assume the role of executive director of an organization focused on addressing the shortage of lawyers of color, a group now known as the Boston Lawyers Group.

From there, the attorney general of Massachusetts invited Myers to develop a diversity practice within his office. Serving as his deputy chief of staff, she focused on crucial issues such as combatting sexual harassment and increasing the representation of lawyers of color.

“Of the things that I did, a lot of it was focused on diversity and on creating environments where people of different backgrounds can thrive,” she said. “It was also about reaching out to the larger public from all sorts of diverse communities for them to actually recognize that the attorney general was a place where they could come and get protection and have the laws actually work for them.”

After a period of reflection, Myers came to the realization that she wanted to be her own boss and work independently. Motivated by this aspiration, she founded TVMC.

“I set out to create my own diversity consulting practice because I could see that in every organization, there needed to be a specific strategy for how that organization was going to not only bring in people who had been historically excluded, but actually create a kind of environment that would allow those people to succeed,” she said, later adding, “I wanted to talk more with leaders about what it looks like to create an environment that was conducive to the success of women and people of color –– at the time those were the groups that we really focused on.”

In 2018, Myers took on the inaugural role of vice president of inclusion strategy at Netflix. She was able to host in-person workshops, have intimate conversations with vice presidents at the company and get everyone on the same page about Netflix’s developing approach to DEI. 

“It is such an incredible place that is very motivated by the culture of curiosity and the culture of feedback, and all of these things serve DEI very well,” she said about Netflix. “It’s also a culture of being direct, a culture that invites dissent, a culture that asks leaders to account for their behavior or to actually be aware when they make mistakes. It’s a very humble culture, too.”

She then introduced the idea of having an “inclusive lens” to Netflix, encouraging people to think about inclusion within every part of their work –– even when the diversity and inclusion team is not in the room. She encouraged folks to not only think about how they speak to their team, but also about how their content reflects their commitments. 

“Who’s represented, who’s not represented in our content?” she said. “Who’s directing? Who’s writing? Who’s acting? How authentic is the story we’re telling? But on the tech side, we were also asking people, how can people access our service? Can people who are deaf actually enjoy our service? Can people who are blind actually take advantage of our service?”

Myers ultimately left her role with Netflix in 2023, returning to her work with TVMC. 

“When I first entered Netflix, they were so kind but I said, ‘You know, I have my own business, I really love what I’m doing, I don’t know if I wanna come,’” she said. “And they were like, ‘But you’re going to really help us, we really need this, we’re trying to entertain the world and we need to have the skills to do that.’ So they convinced me. But I was never planning to stay for a long time and they knew that.”

Myers has authored her own books, including “What If I Say the Wrong Thing? 25 Habits for Culturally Effective People” and “Moving Diversity Forward: How to Go from Well-Meaning to Well-Doing.”

As she moves forward, she aims to emphasize that the work of DEI begins first and foremost with oneself.

“One of the things that I really want to talk about is the importance of spiritual tools,” she said. “So much about being a person who can help DEI move forward starts first within us, which means that we need to be compassionate to ourselves and to others. We need to show grace to ourselves and others. We need to learn how to forgive, to repair often and regenerate. I want to talk about those and integrate those in the work that I’m doing.”

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The Associated Press

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Association of Black Students at St. Louis’ Washington University on April 5 held a sit-in at a dining hall where a group of students last month allegedly threw eggs, stood on tables and used racial slurs in front of primarily racial minority workers.

University spokesperson Julie Flory in a statement said the private college does not “share information about any specific incident or investigation involving our students or other members of our community.”

“We are working directly with our students and other members of our community to address their concerns,” Flory said.

Dining hall workers felt intimidated and uncomfortable when students on March 21 jumped on tables, spit at each other and used racial slurs, the president of a local food workers union, David Cook, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Association of Black Students told the newspaper that most of the workers that night were racial minorities.

St. Louis Democratic state Sen. Karla May in an April 5 statement said she reached out to student advocates and campus leaders “to ensure steps are being taken to address these overt acts of racism.”

The Association of Black Students met at the cafeteria April 5 to write thank-you notes and show support for workers who were present during the alleged incident, which the group said was “not an isolated instance of violence.”

“It shows how racism is still a part of the culture and has been fostered at Washington University, elite institutions, and historically white organizations for far too long,” the group said in a statement posted on the social media platform Instagram.

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By Stephen Janis and Taya Graham 
Special to the AFRO

The small town of Federalsburg on Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore for decades used a method of voting that systematically denied African Americans from holding elective office.

This week, the town did something that rarely happens: They issued a formal apology to the residents who had been harmed by that policy.

In what plaintiffs are describing as a landmark settlement, the town agreed to a formal apology which it will frame and display inside city hall. The agreement comes after Black residents, along with the ACLU, had sued the town in 2022, alleging the practice of electing council members “at large” rather than by district had prevented Black residents from being elected.

“The Town of Federalsburg formally acknowledges responsibility and expresses its deep regret for actions and inactions contributing to racial discrimination and exclusion of Black residents, including its use of an election system that prevented any Black person from holding a position on the Town Council over 200 years,” the apology states.

“As officials of the Town, we accept moral accountability for the harm these actions inflicted upon Black residents, their families, and ancestors before them.”

The town has also pledged to annually proclaim Sept. 26, as “Voting Rights Day” to commemorate the historic election of two Black council members. It will also create a Town Unity Committee to foster communications between Black and White residents with an eye to boosting civic engagement and ensuring future elections are conducted fairly. 

Federalsburg is a town of 2,800 residents roughly 30 miles north of Salisbury, Md. It has a four-member town council and a separate mayor’s office. 

Before the lawsuit, city officials were elected at large on odd-numbered years, not by district. The elections were staggered so that each council member was up for reelection every two years. 

Since the town had a slight majority of White residents, a Black councilperson had not been elected in Federalsburg’s roughly 200-year history. 

In 2022, both the ACLU of Maryland and the NAACP, along with several residents, sued the town, arguing the system violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The town initially denied the allegations, canceling the 2023 election. 

The suit was settled after U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Gallagher ruled the city had violated The Voting Rights Act and ordered mediation between the opposing parties. The town then agreed to move to four single-member districts, which led to the election of two Black council members in September 2023.

Carl Snowden, the convener of the caucus of African-American leaders, called the settlement a historic win for the rights of Black voters on the Eastern Shore. 

“I commend the town of Federalsburg for settling this federal voting rights case and ensuring that the Black residents of their municipality will be given opportunities for generations to come to elect representatives of their choice,” Snowden said.

“We are particularly pleased that a permanent plaque will be erected to memorialize this important moment in history.” 

Here is the full apology which will be enshrined in a plaque in City Hall:

“By this writing, the Town of Federalsburg formally acknowledges responsibility and expresses its deep regret for actions and inactions contributing to racial discrimination and exclusion of Black residents, including its use of an election system that prevented any Black person from holding a position on the Town Council over 200 years. As officials of the Town, we accept moral accountability for the harms these actions inflicted upon Black residents, their families, and ancestors before them.

“Black residents have lived in Federalsburg since the Town’s founding in 1823, and today make up a much-valued share of our diverse community. In times past, however, the Town excluded Black residents from full participation in the Town’s political life, working a grave injustice for which we are deeply sorry. As officials and residents of the Town of Federalsburg, we have collective responsibility to build a community based firmly on the principle of equality of opportunity, regardless of one’s race or ethnic origin.

“Through this expression of regret to those who endured race-based hardship and injustice, we seek to turn the page on this shameful history, and to begin a process of reconciliation among all of the Town’s residents. Our deep sorrow for past wrongs inspires our unwavering commitment to build a better future for all Federalsburg residents. Going forward, we pledge to do all within our power to ensure that such injustices never happen here again, and to embrace all residents of our Town in an inclusive and vibrant community.”

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By Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware
Word In Black

Bishop Leah Daughtry was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., into a family where church was their life, which is the definition of a preacher’s kid. She began teaching Sunday school at 13 but carries none of the usual “PK” cynicism. “Usher, church administrator; being a preacher’s kid in a smaller church, you had to do all these things. We didn’t get to sit and wear pretty clothes,” she says. 

But a PK component emerged when asked if she’s ever cleaned the church bathroom.

“Yes, Ma’am, the bathroom, the kitchen, sweep the floor, make the bulletins in the old days with the mimeograph machines,” she says when I interject, having to clear mistakes on the bulletin master with a razor blade. She continues, laughing, “Buy the chicken, fry the chicken, serve the chicken, raise the money, count the money, take the money to the bank.”

Daughtry had no expectation of formal ministry until the call came in 2000. And she answered in a wholehearted way. 

She is now the presiding prelate of that church, a Pentecostal Assembly founded in 1929 by her grandfather, Bishop Alonzo Daughtry. It’s formally called The Church on the Mount, but the national fellowship of churches is called The House of the Lord.  

That fellowship describes its mandate as prophetic, political, pastoral, priestly, pedagogical and programmatic. 

A church full of registered voters

“We believe in the small church model, which is biblical,” she says. “It’s important that the shepherd be able to count the sheep. Know them by name. Know what their conditions are. There’s no need to go through lots of layers to get to the shepherd.” 

The members of The House of the Lord are educated in the necessity of voting and required to register; they are enlightened about the issues.

“We give them tools to make assessments for themselves. We don’t tell them who to vote for. They don’t have to vote, but they do have to register. When candidates come to speak, they know they’re addressing a church full of registered voters.”

So they immediately see the dichotomy in a platform that declares itself pro-life but has no care about the quality of the child’s life once it’s here.

“Abundant life in all its phases. Food. Shelter. Water. Good schools. Safe streets,” the Bishop says. 

“I want to be clear that I am not fighting for abortions. I’m pro-choice, but not pro-abortion. That’s between the women and their God. Everyone has a God-given right and a God-given ability to make personal decisions, including who you want involved in those decisions, but definitely not the government.”

She said we should have autonomy over our being and personhood. We are endowed with the right and freedom.

The bishop responds to the revisionist history being propagated. “The boldness of the lie is quite stunning,” she says. “That people learned skills, had housing. What housing? Our responsibility is to challenge the lie. It’s just a lie.”

And her tone softened as she recalled the family history that recorded her then fourth-grade-age grandmother having been raped, and chosen as the bed partner for the slave master. He legally claimed the son as his own, but who would deny the violence perpetrated upon a child?

Bishop Daughtry says the same force wants to make decisions for us — basic life decisions and choices: “It is the same force that made decisions over our grandparents. People outside myself make decisions. It’s the same demonic force.”

A Capitol Hill start

“My first vote was for Jesse Jackson for President in 1984. In my junior year of college, I interned for U.S. Rep., the Rev. Ed Townes of New York,” she says. 

She says working on Capitol Hill for those four years gave her an on-ramp into the Washington political establishment through his values lens, which reflected her own values and showed that faith and politics could be intertwined without losing their parameters. 

She also worked for Democratic National Committee Chair Ron Brown and had a hand in logistics for the 1992 convention. She was also an administrative assistant for Alexis Herman, the first African American to be Secretary of Labor

Trump surprise? Not. 

Bishop Daughtry says she’s not surprised that Trump is once again the Republican front-runner. 

“Because this country is what it is. We’ve never really repented for the sins of slavery, racism, sexism. When you dehumanize God’s creations, making them less than you…you commit a sin. Because our country refuses to deal with the sin of racism and sexism at its core, we’ll keep coming back to the consequences…Trump is one of the consequences,” she says. 

“My deeply held faith drives me to believe that every single human being is a person of worth, in whom God has invested His own time and His own breath to bring into being. I am compelled therefore to love and care for God’s handiwork — my sisters and brothers on this earth — and to see them as reflections of God’s love, grace and joy.”

For Bishop Daughtry, voting means choosing the person who represents her and her values. “Trump in no way represents my values. I don’t want my young nephews spending four years looking at him as a leader, as president or thinking his views are OK.”

What about the young people who are threatening to withhold their vote from the Biden administration because of Gaza?

“I’m really disappointed in the administration and the way it’s managed Gaza. There are 30,000 innocent dead people, people who had absolutely nothing to do with Hamas. They just happened to be living where Hamas is the political party in power,” she says. 

“And our country is funding the weapons Israel is using to kill Palestinians. They’re pushing them from Gaza to Rafa. Where are they going to end up?”

She prays every day and works every day to get the current administration to do the right thing, 

“I’m devastated at what’s going on in Gaza. But I’m also concerned about what’s happening on the South Side of Chicago, what’s happening in Bed Stuy. In Oakland. In Atlanta,” she says. 

“Trump ain’t going to help with none of them. If Trump was president now, Israel would have obliterated Palestine by now. That’s what he said.”

What have I done?

What have I done? That expression of regret is what Bishop Daughtry wants no voter to feel the morning after any election. Regret at having chosen the wrong candidate, or no candidate at all for the wrong reason. Everyone’s worst nightmare. 

There has been much conjecture as to the number of votes that will be lost because of the way the Biden administration has acted during the war in Gaza.

“The Democrats are my party, and I support them. I don’t support everything that they do.  And I definitely don’t support the way they’ve handled the situation in Gaza,” she says. 

“I was happy to hear President Biden say he was going to build a port city so the U.S. and other countries could provide food, clothing, medicine, and other essentials of which they are currently deprived.”

But what if Trump had been president when this happened? “Israel would have obliterated Palestine by now. He said out of his own mouth that Israel should just get it over with.”

And, says Daughtry, “President Biden said something no recent president has said, that there needs to be two states. The Palestinians should be able to govern themselves, without oversight of Netanyahu.”

A missed opportunity

Some people, especially Christians, say they’ll vote for the House and Senate, but not the top of the ticket.

“They should read Project 2025. It’s the Trump manifesto. It states what they plan to do if they get another go at the White House,” the Bishop says. “They’re going after everything they want with executive orders, all that don’t require congressional approval.”

She says they’re planning to deport Muslims, and half her family members are Muslims. 

“I’m concerned. They’re going to overturn laws — replace them with new laws. The top of the ticket matters,” she says.

Not voting is a missed opportunity.

“And you end up with, ‘Oh my God, what did I do?’”

This article was originally published by Word In Black.

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By Megan Sayles
AFRO Business Writer
msayles@afro.com

Maryland is conducting a disparity study intended to ascertain the presence of racial or gender discrimination within the markets in which the state does business. Business owners have until March 31 to participate in a 10-minute vendor questionnaire and share their encounters – if any – with discrimination and its effect on their ability to compete in Maryland’s marketplace. 

Studies like this enable the state to gather evidence that can provide justification for race- and gender-conscious procurement policies. 

Maryland commissioned MGT Consulting Group to lead the investigation. The firm will collect data on the presence of minority- and women-owned businesses in the state and their utilization as primes and subcontractors in Maryland’s procurement system. 

Aside from the vendor questionnaire, local business owners can email MGT at stateofmddisparitystudy@mgtconsulting.com to indicate their interest in participating in an in-depth interview or focus group. They can also submit comments about their experiences 24/7 using the same email address, calling 301-658-3440 or using the disparity study contact form.

Megan Sayles is a Report for America corps member.

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OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Mar 29, 2024–The Oklahoma Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on April 2 in a case brought by the two last known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Nine justices will determine whether the Survivors can be blocked from seeking justice for one of the worst racial incidents in U.S. history. The highly anticipated decision could have far-reaching implications for all Oklahomans who’ve suffered rights violations, with the potential to either uphold everyday people’s access to the civil court system, or curtail it significantly.

Lessie Benningfield Randle and Viola Ford Fletcher, both 109, continue to make history by pressing on with their lawsuit against the City of Tulsa and other institutions that played a direct role in carrying out the massacre, which left hundreds of Black people dead and one of the country’s most affluent Black communities in ruins. They are hoping that the state’s Supreme Court will swiftly direct the Tulsa District Court to move the case forward – thereby giving them a shot at seeing justice during their lifetime.

“We are grateful that our now-weary bodies have held on long enough to witness an America, and an Oklahoma, that provides Race Massacre survivors with the opportunity to access the legal system,” Randle and Fletcher said in a joint statement. “Many have come before us who have knocked and banged on the courthouse doors only to be turned around or never let through the door.”

“Now, our pursuit of justice rests in the hands of our Oklahoma Supreme Court. They have the power to open the doors of justice and give us the opportunity to prove our case.”

The lawsuit, filed in 2021 under Oklahoma’s public nuisance law, cleared historic legal hurdles and sparked hope that, for the first time in over a century, the massacre’s perpetrators would be brought to trial.

In August, the decision by a Tulsa district judge to dismiss the Survivors’ lawsuit on dubious procedural grounds sent shockwaves across the country. However, the Oklahoma Supreme Court quickly revived the case, agreeing to consider the Survivors’ argument that they were being held to a standard that no other plaintiff in Oklahoma is required to meet.

“It breaks my heart that even after suffering through a state-sponsored atrocity and its demoralizing aftermath, the last two Tulsa Race Massacre survivors are devoting the fleeting time they have left to a battle that the defendants hope will break their spirits,” said Damario Solomon-Simmons, lead attorney for the survivors. “But the City of Tulsa’s shameful plan will not work.”

“To be clear, the fight facing Mother Fletcher and Mother Randle is about more than just Black Wall Street. It is about the right of every person in Oklahoma to be rest assured that if they are ever abused, swindled, or exploited, they will have a reasonable chance to prove their case in court. This is what every American deserves, and it’s what the City of Tulsa, one of the main culprits behind the Tulsa Race Massacre, is trying to take away. I look forward to the Oklahoma Supreme Court hearing our arguments, and pray that they uphold the rights of my clients, and all victims in the state, by swiftly directing District Judge Caroline Wall to proceed with the case.”

“We look forward to the opportunity to explain to the court why our clients have met Oklahoma’s pleading requirements and why the case should continue expeditiously in the trial court.” said Michael Swartz, partner at Schulte Roth & Zabel, co-counsel on the case representing the two remaining survivors. “The defendants are asking the Oklahoma Supreme Court to hold Mother Randle and Mother Fletcher to a higher pleading standard than any other plaintiff who seeks justice in Oklahoma courts, which would be a grave injustice.”

If the justices find that the survivors did not meet the pleading standard and uphold the Tulsa District Court’s dismissal, the decision could fundamentally change Oklahoma’s pleading standard for all future plaintiffs. Such a holding would make it harder for any victim in the state to move a lawsuit forward.

Further, if the justices delay in making a decision, the April 2 hearing could be the survivors’ final courtroom appearance while they’re still alive. Hughes “Uncle Red” Van Ellis, who was the youngest of the remaining massacre survivors at 102, died in October. In 2021, he participated in a Congressional hearing, where he made the tearful plea: “Please do not let me leave this earth without justice.”

Ellis’ sister, Viola Fletcher, turns 110 on May 10.

Justices will hear oral arguments April 2 at 1:30pm CST/2:30 EST at the Oklahoma State Capitol (2300 N Lincoln Blvd, Oklahoma City, OK), in the Supreme Court Room on the 2nd Floor.

The hearing will be open to the public and live streamed at: JusticeforGreenwood.org/watchparty

Media interested in interviews should contact: 

Gerry Johnson 
gerrycj@01iampeace609-923-1816

Stanton 
Mike Goodwin 
mgoodwin@stantonprm.com
646-502-3595

Sneha Satish 
ssatish@stantonprm.com
646-502-3556

ABOUT THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE

The Tulsa Race Massacre took place in 1921 when a mob of white individuals, deputized and armed by municipal and county officials, killed, looted, and burned down the Greenwood area. The Massacre resulted in the murder of more than 300 Tulsans and the destruction of the prosperous Greenwood neighborhood, often referred to as “Black Wall Street.”

ABOUT GREENWOOD

Greenwood, most revered for “Black Wall Street” was co-founded by Black Creeks—it became one of the most prosperous, organized, and successful Black communities in United States history, and a place for Black people to escape the political, economic, and social oppression of southern lawmakers post-civil war.

ABOUT JUSTICE FOR GREENWOOD FOUNDATION

Justice for Greenwood is a grassroots, 501(c)(3) organization with a big vision: to get Respect, Reparations, and Repair for the Greenwood community for the near century of historical omissions and continued harm caused by the 1921 Massacre, through survivor and descendant support, public education, and advocacy.

ABOUT SCHULTE ROTH & ZABEL

With a firm focus on private capital, Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP (“Schulte”) comprises legal advisers and commercial problem-solvers who combine exceptional experience, industry insight, integrated intelligence and commercial creativity to help clients raise and invest assets and protect and expand their businesses. The firm has a long history as a leader in pro bono legal work and a legacy of contributing to the greater good. Schulte embraces its professional and moral obligations to seek justice through the legal system. The firm directly represents and empowers the most vulnerable and marginalized; brings impact litigation to fuel social change; and supports social entrepreneurs to form the next generation of mission-driven organizations that will advocate for the underserved.

RECOGNIZING OUR ACCOMPLISHED LEGAL TEAM, AND NATIONAL & LOCAL PARTNERS

Damario Solomon-Simmons and Kym Heckenkemper of Solomon Simmons Law; J. Spencer Bryan and Steven Terrill of BryanTerrill, P.C.; Professor Eric Miller of Loyola Marymount College of Law; Maynard M. Henry, Sr.; Lashandra Peoples-Johnson and Cordal Cephas of Johnson Cephas Law PLLC; Michael Swartz, Randall Adams, Sara Solfanelli, McKenzie Haynes, Erika Simonson, Lea Dyce, Sedinam Anyidoho, Alex Mason-Pazmiño and Ben Lewson of Schulte; Tiffany Cross (American television personality, political analyst, and author); Gerry Johnson (Human Rights Watch); Dr. Tiffany Crutcher (Executive Director and Founder, Terence Crutcher Foundation); and Cassidy Fallik (ACLU OK).

View source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240329214115/en/

Gerry Johnson,gerrycj@gmail.com; Michael Goodwin,mgoodwin@stantonprm.com; Sneha Satish,ssatish@stantonprm.com

KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA OKLAHOMA

INDUSTRY KEYWORD: CONSULTING OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES LEGAL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

SOURCE: Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP

Copyright Business Wire 2024.

PUB: 03/29/2024 04:16 PM/DISC: 03/29/2024 04:17 PM

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240329214115/en

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By Joseph Williams
Word in Black 

America’s anti-DEI crusaders — or, more accurately, the nation’s shameless racists and unabashed White supremacists who want to say the N-word publicly but don’t have the guts — are at it again. 

Hours after the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster unfolded in his city, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott appeared with fire department and rescue squad commanders for a press conference. As rescue divers continued searching the frigid Patapsco River for possible survivors, Scott appeared shaken as he began his remarks, carried on live television nationwide. 

“This is an unthinkable tragedy,” Scott, only 39 years old and the youngest Black mayor in Baltimore history, told reporters. “We have to first and foremost pray for all of those who are impacted, those families, pray for our first responders and thank them. We have to be thinking about the families and people impacted. We have to try to find them safe.” 

Maybe it was the fact that Scott is a young Black man with a neatly trimmed beard and modest afro. Perhaps it was the fact that he was wearing a baseball jacket with the seal of Baltimore and his name embroidered on it. It could have been Scott’s unscripted, heart-on-his-sleeve concern for the road repair crew that vanished into dark, cold waters when a cargo ship veered into and knocked down the bridge.

Regardless of the reason, Scott’s television appearance triggered multiple bigots on X, formerly known as Twitter, who decided to drag the mayor for no clear reason. One of the most popular posts declared that the Black man leading Charm City through the crisis is, in their opinion, a “DEI Mayor,” whatever that means.

The nonsensical tweet by @iamyesyouareno incited many questions— what is a DEI mayor anyway? Why are things going to get worse? What’s up with that X handle? — immediately began trending, racking up nearly 10,000 likes and more than 7,000 shares at last count. 

Other like-minded people put on their tinfoil hats and quickly jumped in, drawing imaginary lines between DEI programs and the Key Bridge disaster, the company that owns the ship that hit the bridge, Baltimore’s crime rate, and even how well the Port of Baltimore is managed. 

It’s clear from the thousands of angry responses to those tweets that those on the left see DEI as the new “woke,” which became shorthand for efforts in schools or the workplace to eliminate racism and level the playing field for Black people. 

To their credit, dozens of respondents called out the writers of those tweets as racists, while dozens more suggested they get real with themselves and use the “N-word” next time. 

At this moment, authorities don’t know exactly why the massive cargo ship Dali lost control and slammed into the Key Bridge, sending six workers to all but certain death. But it’s safe to say that DEI didn’t build the bridge, didn’t load the ship, and wasn’t steering it when it veered into the Key Bridge support pillar at 1:30 EDT Tuesday morning. DEI didn’t even elect Scott, a native Baltimorean, in the 2020 mayoral race: more than 70% of Baltimore voters did. 

DEI tweets aside, Scott — who went to high school in Baltimore and returned after college to become one of the youngest members of the city council in history — has checked all the right boxes for a big-city mayor managing a catastrophe so far. In public and written statements, he has shown leadership, empathy, and concern for the victims as well as first responders. He has also kept the city informed through his social media accounts. 

And his love for the city has come through. 

“My heart is with those families tonight and in the days ahead,” he wrote on Twitter, referring to those who lost loved ones in the bridge collapse. “Let us wrap our arms around them and our entire community. Baltimore, we will get through this together.”  

This article was originally published by Word in Black. 

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

(NNPA NEWSWIRE) – A coalition of advocacy groups is urging the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to address racial bias in traffic enforcement, citing concerns over its ineffectiveness and disproportionate impact on Black motorists.

In a recent report co-authored by the Center for American Progress, the Vera Institute of Justice and Color of Change, it’s revealed that despite roughly 20 million traffic stops occurring annually in the United States, Black drivers are more likely to be stopped and searched, especially for minor infractions, which continues to raise grave concerns about racial profiling and the safety of African American motorists.

The coalition’s report presents several recommendations to incentivize reforms at the state and local levels.

“To honor Tyre Nichols and so many others who have been surveilled, harassed, and, too often, killed while doing something as simple as driving while Black, DOT must take swift, public action to consider and adopt policies that advance safety and equity on our nation’s roadways,” said Patrick Gaspard, president, and CEO of the Center for American Progress.

Nick Turner, president and director of the Vera Institute of Justice, added that routine traffic enforcement doesn’t make people safer. “It makes many communities feel less secure,” said Turner, who urged the DOT to support state and local innovations that reduce police involvement in minor traffic infractions.

Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, also emphasized the need for increased support for national research to bridge existing studies with emerging approaches. “DOT must take seriously the recommendations provided and take actionable steps to prioritize alternative traffic enforcement practices for traffic safety,” Robinson said.

Moreover, the coalition’s report criticized the DOT’s current Equity Action Plan for its failure to address specific goals related to reducing racially biased police traffic enforcement.

The report noted that his administration has championed a “whole-of-government equity agenda since President Joe Biden’s inauguration.” They pointed out that the DOT has taken up the mantle by establishing its Equity Action Plan, centered around wealth creation, power of community, proactive intervention, planning and capacity building, expanding access, and institutionalizing equity. “While these pillars are broad in concept, nowhere does the action plan specifically reference equity goals related to police traffic enforcement—or even enforcement more generally,” the report’s authors declared.

“This glaring omission calls into question the level of priority and intentionality being dedicated to addressing this critical issue, which affects the safety of Black drivers and other drivers of color. DOT should include more explicit equity goals related to reducing racially biased police traffic enforcement of minor violations.”

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By Michael Goldberg and Emily Wagster Pettus
The Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge on March 21 finished handing down prison terms of about 10 to 40 years to six White former Mississippi law enforcement officers who pleaded guilty to breaking into a home without a warrant and torturing two Black men in an hours-long attack that included beatings, repeated uses of stun guns and assaults with a sex toy before one of the victims was shot in the mouth.

U.S. District Judge Tom Lee called the culprits’ actions “egregious and despicable” and gave sentences near the top of federal guidelines to five of the six men who attacked Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker in January 2023.

The case drew condemnation from top law enforcement officials in the country, including Attorney General Merrick Garland. In its grisly details, local residents saw echoes of Mississippi’s history of racist atrocities by people in authority. The difference this time is that those who abused their power paid a steep price for their crimes, the victims’ attorneys said.

“The depravity of the crimes committed by these defendants cannot be overstated,” Garland said March 21.

Brett McAlpin, 53, who was the fourth highest-ranking officer in the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office, received a sentence of about 27 years on March 21. McAlpin nodded to his family in the courtroom. He offered an apology before he was sentenced but did not look at the victims as he spoke.

“This was all wrong, very wrong. It’s not how people should treat each other and even more so, it’s not how law enforcement should treat people,” McAlpin said. “I’m really sorry for being a part of something that made law enforcement look so bad.”

The only defendant who didn’t receive a prison term at the top of the sentencing guidelines was Joshua Hartfield, 32, a former Richland police officer who did not work in a sheriff’s department with the others and was not a member of a “Goon Squad.” He was the last of the six former officers sentenced over three days this week, months after they all pleaded guilty.

Before giving Hartfield a 10-year sentence March 21, Lee said Hartfield did not have a history of using excessive force and was roped into the brutal episode by one of the former deputies, Christian Dedmon. Lee said, however, that Hartfield failed to intervene in the violence and participated in a cover-up.

Lee sentenced Dedmon, 29, to 40 years and Daniel Opdyke, 28, to 17.5 years on March 20. He gave about 20 years to Hunter Elward, 31, and 17.5 years to Jeffrey Middleton, 46, on March 19.

Arguing for a lengthy sentence, federal prosecutor Christopher Perras said McAlpin was not technically a member of the Goon Squad but “molded the men into the goons they became.”

Parker told investigators that McAlpin functioned like a “mafia don” as he instructed the officers throughout the evening. Prosecutors said other deputies often tried to impress McAlpin, and Opdyke’s attorney said March 20 that his client saw McAlpin as a father figure.

The younger deputies tried to wrap their heads around how they had started off “wanting to be good law enforcement officers and turned into monsters,” Perras said March 21.

“How did these deputies learn to treat another human being this way? Your honor, the answer is sitting right there,” Perras said, pointing at McAlpin.

In March 2023, months before federal prosecutors announced charges in August, an investigation by The Associated Press linked some of the deputies to at least four violent encounters with Black men since 2019 that left two dead and another with lasting injuries.

The officers invented false charges against the victims, planting a gun and drugs at the scene of their crime, and stuck to their cover story for months until finally admitting that they tortured Jenkins and Parker. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing it in what federal prosecutors said was meant to be a “mock execution.”

The terror began Jan. 24, 2023, with a racist call for extrajudicial violence when a White person complained to McAlpin that two Black men were staying with a White woman at a house in Braxton. McAlpin told Dedmon, who texted a group of White deputies asking if they were “available for a mission.”

“No bad mugshots,” Dedmon texted — a green light, according to prosecutors, to use excessive force on parts of the body that wouldn’t appear in a booking photo.

Dedmon also brought Hartfield, who was instructed to cover the back door of the property during their illegal entry.

Once inside, the officers mocked the victims with racial slurs and shocked them with stun guns. They handcuffed them and poured milk, alcohol and chocolate syrup over their faces. Dedmon and Opdyke assaulted them with a sex toy. They forced them to strip naked and shower together to conceal the mess.

After Elward shot Jenkins in the mouth, lacerating his tongue and breaking his jaw, they devised a coverup. The deputies agreed to plant drugs, and false charges stood against Jenkins and Parker for months.

McAlpin and Middleton, the oldest in the group, threatened to kill other officers if they spoke up, prosecutors said. In court March 21, McAlpin’s attorney Aafram Sellers said only Middleton threatened to kill them.

Sellers also questioned a probation officer about details submitted to the judge. When federal investigators interviewed the neighbor who called McAlpin, that person reported seeing “trashy” people at the house who were both White and Black, Sellers said. That called into question whether the episode started on the basis of race, he argued.

Federal prosecutors said the neighbor referred to people at the home as “those people” and “thugs.” 

The information included in the charging documents, which the officers did not dispute when they pleaded guilty, revealed some of them used racial taunts and epithets throughout the episode.

Majority-White Rankin County is just east of Jackson, home to one of the highest percentages of Black residents of any major U.S. city. The officers shouted at Jenkins and Parker to “stay out of Rankin County and go back to Jackson or ‘their side’ of the Pearl River,” court documents say.

Attorneys for several of the deputies said their clients became ensnared in a culture of corruption that was encouraged by leaders in the sheriff’s office.

Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey revealed no details about his deputies’ actions when he announced they had been fired last June. After they pleaded guilty in August, Bailey said the officers had gone rogue and promised changes. Jenkins and Parker called for his resignation and filed a $400 million civil lawsuit against the department.

Bailey, who was reelected without opposition in November, said in a statement March 21 that he is “committed to the betterment of this county” and will work “with the honest, hard-working men and women currently with this department” to make Rankin County safer.

In a statement read by his attorney March 21, Jenkins said he “felt like a slave” and was “left to die like a dog.”

“If those who are in charge of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office can participate in these kinds of torture, God help us all,” Jenkins said. “And God help Rankin County.”

___

Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him at @mikergoldberg.

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

(NNPA NEWSWIRE) – With the observance of Women’s History Month in full swing, the music world has finally begun to recognize female artists’ vast contributions.

The latest report from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative reflected on the strides forward and the persistent obstacles women professionals in the music industry face.

The USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and associate professor of communication Stacy L. Smith conducted the study, which included 1,200 songs from the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Charts and provided a detailed analysis spanning 12 years. Its scope encompassed the roles of artists, songwriters and producers while delving into Grammy Award nominations across six major categories.

The study’s findings painted a nuanced picture of progress and disparities within the industry. Notably, there has been a marked increase in the representation of women artists, reaching a 12-year high of 35 percent. Researchers said this surge, particularly evident in the rise of individual female artists claiming over 40 percent of spots on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Chart in 2023, signaled a positive shift. 

However, despite the gains, the study authors noted that it’s crucial to recognize that women still occupy less than a quarter of artist roles overall, underscoring the need for sustained efforts toward greater inclusivity.

Behind the scenes, there have also been advancements. The study revealed a significant rise in the percentage of female songwriters, climbing from 14.1 percent to 19.5 percent in 2023. The increase is largely attributed to the contributions of women of color. Similarly, while the number of women producers reached a modest high, significant challenges remain in achieving equitable representation in these roles.

The study’s key findings center on the crucial role that women of color have played in advancing change within the sector. Accounting for a staggering 65 percent of female artists on the charts in 2023 and making significant gains in songwriting roles, women of color have been instrumental in shaping the industry’s trajectory. Jay-Z’s Grammy speech, in which he questioned why his wife, Beyonce hadn’t won Album of the Year honors despite being arguably the most successful female music star in history, underscored the lack of recognition for women, particularly in prestigious award nominations.

The study authors wrote that efforts such as “She Is The Music,” “Spotify Equal” and “Girls Make Beats” have been crucial in fostering inclusivity and providing platforms for women, including women of color, to showcase their talent. However, they said there remains a need for collective action to dismantle systemic barriers and biases that hinder women’s progress, particularly those from marginalized communities.

“As the industry continues to evolve, it must strive to amplify women’s voices, focusing on women of color and ensuring that diversity and representation remain at the forefront of its agenda,” the authors concluded. “Only then can the industry truly reflect the richness and diversity of talent within its ranks and pave the way for a more inclusive future.”

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By Kate Brumback and Alanna Durkin Richer
The Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — A special prosecutor who had a romantic relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis formally withdrew March 15 from the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump after a judge ruled he had to leave or Willis couldn’t continue to pursue the charges.

Attorney Nathan Wade’s resignation allows Willis to remain on the most sprawling of four criminal cases against the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election.

But the long-term damage to the public perception of the prosecution remains unclear, particularly in light of Trump’s relentless barrage of attacks on the pair who pledged to hold Trump accountable but found their own actions under a public microscope.

Wade offered his resignation in a letter to Willis, saying he was doing so “in the interest of democracy, in dedication to the American public and to move this case forward as quickly as possible.”

“I am sure that the case, and the team, will be in good hands moving forward and justice will be served,” Wade wrote.

Willis complimented Wade’s “professionalism and dignity” in a letter accepting his resignation, effective immediately. She said he had endured threats against himself and his family, as well as “unjustified attacks” in the media and in court on his reputation as a lawyer.

“I will always remember — and will remind everyone — that you were brave enough to step forward and take on the investigation and prosecution of the allegations that the defendants in this case engaged in a conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 Presidential Election,” Willis wrote.

Trump’s team felt differently.

In a social media post, Trump said the “Fani Willis lover” had “resigned in disgrace,” and Trump repeated his assertion that the case is an effort to hurt his campaign to reclaim the White House in November. 

Trump has denied doing anything wrong and pleaded not guilty.

An attorney for the former president said they respected the court’s decision but believe the judge “did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade.”

“We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place,” Trump attorney Steve Sadow said.

Defense attorneys could try to appeal the ruling, but they would need the judge’s permission to do so.

In a separate criminal case against Trump in New York, a judge agreed March 15 to delay the trial related to hush-money payments during Trump’s 2016 campaign until at least mid-April. The trial was supposed to begin later this month, but Trump’s lawyers said they needed more time to sift through evidence they only recently obtained from a previous federal investigation into the matter.

In Georgia, Wade’s resignation came hours after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee said he had to be removed or Willis must step aside from the case. McAfee did not find that Willis’ relationship with Wade amounted to a conflict of interest but said the allegations created an “appearance of impropriety” that infected the prosecution team.

“As the case moves forward, reasonable members of the public could easily be left to wonder whether the financial exchanges have continued resulting in some form of benefit to the District Attorney, or even whether the romantic relationship has resumed,” the judge wrote.

“Put differently, an outsider could reasonably think that the District Attorney is not exercising her independent professional judgment totally free of any compromising influences. As long as Wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist.”

The extraordinary developments underscored the extent to which the case that began with allegations that a former president tried to undermine the will of the people who voted him out of the White House had become consumed by talk of the love lives of its top prosecutors. In accepting Wade’s resignation, Willis made clear her determination to turn the page from weeks of embarrassing headlines about romantic getaways, sex and stashes of cash that have dominated coverage of the case.

Willis hired Wade in 2021 to lead the team to investigate and ultimately prosecute Trump and 18 others on charges that they illegally tried to overturn his narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia in 2020. The case uses a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other aides of a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power.

Willis and Wade testified at a hearing last month that they had engaged in a romantic relationship, but they rejected the idea that Willis improperly benefited from it, as lawyers for Trump and some of his co-defendants alleged. Willis and Wade insisted they didn’t begin dating until after he became special prosecutor, though a former friend and employee of Willis’ testified that she saw the pair hugging and kissing before he was hired.

Willis and Wade said the relationship ended in the summer of 2023. They both said that Willis either paid for things herself or used cash to reimburse Wade for travel expenses.

McAfee wrote that there was insufficient evidence that Willis had a personal stake in the prosecution. And he said he was unable to “conclusively establish by a preponderance of the evidence” whether Willis and Wade began dating before or after he was hired as special prosecutor.

“However, an odor of mendacity remains,” the judge wrote. He said “reasonable questions” about whether Willis and Wade testified truthfully about the timing of their relationship “further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it.”

Even so, he said, dismissal of the case was not the appropriate remedy to “adequately dissipate the financial cloud of impropriety and potential untruthfulness found here.”

An attorney for co-defendant Michael Roman was the first to ask McAfee to dismiss the indictment and prevent Willis and Wade and their offices from continuing to prosecute the case. The attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, alleged that Willis paid Wade large sums for his work and then improperly benefited from the prosecution of the case when Wade used his earnings to pay for vacations for the two of them.

Merchant said in a statement March 15 that while Roman’s team maintains that the judge should have disqualified Willis’ office entirely, the judge clearly agreed with the defense that there is a “risk to the future of this case” if Willis “doesn’t quickly work to cure her conflict.”

____

Richer contributed from Boston. Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker in Washington contributed.

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By Tawanda W. Johnson
Special to the AFRO

Concerned about the education achievement gap in Howard County, a group of volunteers decided to form an organization to ensure that African-American children in the county are ready to succeed in kindergarten. 

Now, five years later, the group, known as the “Bronze Villagers,” is still fulfilling their mission to improve academic support for the students just beginning their time in the classroom. 

“The Bronze Villagers are excited to celebrate five years as an organization making a difference,” said Gerry B. Taylor, chair of the organization’s board of directors. “We have toddlers saying the sounds of the alphabet and three- and four-year-olds reading on first- and second-grade levels.”  

The Bronze Villagers meet virtually twice a month with parents of young, African-American children – birth to age five – to help them instill a love of learning and enhance school readiness within their children. Specifically, they help the parents instruct their children on topics such as understanding sounds for reading, recognizing math quantities and learning information about science and Black historical figures. 

The organization has 14 volunteers who regularly serve about 30 families with a total of nearly 60 children. The program is free and called Parents of African American Children Kollege (PACC Kollege). In addition to the learning activities, the program provides parents with resources that they can access to further aid their children. 

Rachel Cook, a volunteer with Bronze Villagers, is proud that her grandson Simon, age 3, is a participant in the school readiness program and now an advanced reader. During a recent community event showcasing the Bronze Villagers’ activities, she was thrilled to share important tips for parents to help educate their children. 

“You can use these basic words to help with reading activities,” said Cook, while pointing toward small placards that contained the words “head,” “nose,” and “eye.” She added that parents should consult the book, “The Formula: Unlocking the Secrets to Raising Highly Successful Children.” It features the latest scientific research on child development, learning, and brain growth and highlights the success stories of ordinary people. For example, the book includes the story of how a hardworking farmer taught his child math and science, despite their grueling lifestyle. 

Autumn L. Johnson, another volunteer, said she, too, enjoys coaching parents on reading activities to help their children. 

“It’s so wonderful to watch the children as they improve their literacy skills,” she said. “These foundational activities will go a long way in helping them to become successful not only in kindergarten but also later in life.” 

Dawnita Burton, another volunteer with the Bronze Villagers, also spoke about her experience. 

“It’s very rewarding to see the children grow and to watch their progress,” she said. 

During the Bronze Villagers community event, Burton demonstrated how household items, such as paper bags and cotton balls, can be used to design and teach children about their digestive system and other bodily functions. 

Rashidat Oliwo, a parent who attended the community event, said she was eager to learn how to help her children.

“I’m always looking for a way to engage my children,” she said. 

Taylor said parents play crucial roles in aiding their children’s educational development. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “by five years of age, our brains have grown to about 90 percent of their adult size, but it’s important to note that while a five-year-old’s brain may be 90 percent of adult size, this does not mean that a child’s brain is 90 percent finished developing by age five.”

Given that information, there’s little time to waste in preparing children for success in school. Taylor said that the Bronze Villagers want to see the educational achievement closed in Howard County.

“The parent is the first teacher in a child’s life,” she said. “We must begin at home.” 

To learn more about the Bronze Villagers, visit their website: https://bronzevillagers.org/

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By Ericka Alston Buck 
Special to the AFRO 

Audiences are awaiting Tyler Perry’s new movie, “Six Triple Eight,” featuring Kerry Washington, but the Netflix movie isn’t the only thing in the works to remember the courageous Black women of WWII. The women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion will also be the subjects of a play coming to Broadway.

Recently, the AFRO had the opportunity to sit down with part of the creative team producing “Six-Triple-Eight, A New Musical.”

At the helm of this groundbreaking musical co-created by Holly Garman and Joe Trentacosta, is a team of visionary talents. The script is written by Morgan J. Smart, with music and lyrics by Ronvé O’Daniel and Jevares C. Myrick. “Six-Triple-Eight” promises to be a captivating fusion of storytelling and music. Ret. US Army Col. Edna Cummings, who was named AFRO person of the Year in January, serves as historian for the production, providing invaluable insights. The musical is executive produced by Blair Underwood, the internationally known stage and film star. 

In a recent interview, Smart shared her journey in bringing this remarkable story to life. Reflecting on her initial encounter with the tale of the 6888th Battalion, Smart expressed her immediate fascination and the profound impact it had on her. She delved deep into research, drawing inspiration from the stories of these trailblazing women and their quest for freedom amidst the constraints of Jim Crow America.  

“I actually did not know a thing about this unit these Black women being a part of World War II at all. When I was approached by the producers, Holly and Joe, I was immediately interested,” said Smart.  “I immediately jumped into research and wanted to know more about them.” 

As she delved deeper into the history of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, Smart was struck by the profound significance of their experience and “the fact that these women were able to experience a freedom that they’d never gotten before in Jim Crow America.” 

She highlighted their unprecedented opportunity to work in military positions, receive badges of honor and be celebrated by a whole different country. This newfound sense of freedom allowed them to explore, travel and contribute to the war effort in ways that were previously unimaginable.

The process of adapting such a rich historical narrative into a musical presented both challenges and opportunities for Smart and her team. 

“I had to sift through the parts of the history that were found to be particularly important and extremely interesting,” Smart told the AFRO. 

With a wealth of research at their disposal, they navigated the delicate balance of honoring the truth while crafting an engaging and entertaining narrative. Through meticulous attention to detail and a commitment to authenticity, they endeavored to shine a light on the multifaceted experiences of Black women during wartime.

Central to the heart of “Six-Triple-Eight” is the celebration of Black womanhood in all its complexity. Smart aims to challenge stereotypes and showcase the myriad dimensions of strength, resilience, and joy embodied by the women of the 6888th. Through their journey, audiences will witness a powerful affirmation of identity and a testament to the enduring spirit of sisterhood.

“It’s a story about Black women who contributed to the war effort. I think that’s just a huge push in the right direction and having them be honored and known for that achievement,” said Smart. “We’ve been working as closely as possible with some of the families of surviving members to make the story as true as possible, and to get it to audiences in a way that they’re able to really absorb .”

As anticipation builds for the premiere of “Six-Triple-Eight: A New Musical,” audiences can expect to be transported on a journey of discovery and inspiration. With its infectious melodies, compelling storytelling, and powerful themes of courage and resilience, this musical promises to leave an indelible mark on the hearts and minds of all who experience it.

In honoring the legacy of the 6888th Battalion, “Six-Triple-Eight: A New Musical” not only pays tribute to the past but also serves as a beacon of hope for the future. It is a reminder that even in the face of adversity, the human spirit remains unbreakable, and the voices of those who have been silenced will always find a way to be heard.

The post “Six-Triple-Eight: A New Musical,” to honor Black women of WWII’s European Theater  appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

By Zy Richardson
Zy Media Group

The Greater Baltimore Urban League (GBUL) announced a nationwide search for a new president and CEO on March 11. During the search, the GBUL Board has established an interim management structure to ensure effective and responsible handling of operational and administrative responsibilities during this transitional period.

“As we embark on this journey, we seek someone with a deep appreciation for GBUL’s rich history and a commitment to serve by exploring untapped opportunities within the Greater Baltimore region, a leader to champion a bold and visionary approach, aiming to elevate a local powerhouse like GBUL to national prominence, fueled by unparalleled passion, relentless drive and innovative thinking,” said Board Chair Ricky D. Smith Sr., who is leading the process.

The Board has already established a 15-member selection committee representing various sectors of the community throughout the Greater Baltimore region and plans to complete the search process by late fall. 

The committee envisions a president and CEO who can develop and communicate the vision of the GBUL, providing leadership to the organization with a deep knowledge about the challenges facing African-American and minority communities.

Established in 1924, GBUL stands as one of the oldest affiliates of the National Urban League, reflecting a rich history of community engagement and service.  For a century, GBUL has played a crucial role in the region, leaving an indelible mark on communities across Greater Baltimore. With an annual operating budget of $5.73 million, GBUL is dedicated to addressing social, economic, health, and educational disparities among African Americans and other minorities.

Notably, GBUL leads popular workforce development programs, including the Cybersecurity Certification Program and the Career Trade Apprentice Program, Project Jumpstart, both of which have been instrumental.  Additionally, GBUL actively invests in Maryland’s future workforce through the Youth Empowerment Program. This initiative includes the Saturday Leadership Program, a college and career readiness opportunity with a 96 percent college acceptance rate. Project Ready, a community-centered program, prepares youth through mentorship. These programs will continue apace as the search process unfolds.

GBUL also proudly leads the Raymond V. Haysbert Sr. Center for Entrepreneurship to help entrepreneurs start or expand their businesses. One standout initiative within the center is the Black Restaurant Accelerator Program (BRAP), now in its fourth successful year. In collaboration with the PepsiCo Foundation and the National Urban League, BRAP provides intensive training related to business operations, marketing, financial management, staffing, and regulation compliance for aspiring restaurateurs. The program offers an eight to 10-week intensive curriculum to empower and educate Black restaurant owners, and awards $10,000 in individual grants to participants. Since its inception, BRAP has graduated 24 restaurant owners, collectively awarded $240,000 in grant funds and created 96 restaurant jobs in the greater Baltimore region.

As the organization welcomes its new CEO, these impactful programs will continue to thrive and evolve, reinforcing GBUL’s unwavering dedication to community empowerment and development over the past century.

“We need candidates who embrace visionary and responsible leadership as a catalyst, influencer and change agent,” added Smith Sr. “I am enthusiastic about the future of GBUL and the path we are charting, and I look forward to having a dynamic new CEO lead us on our journey.”

The Board is also preparing for the upcoming celebration of GBUL’s centennial. This 100-year milestone presents an opportunity to reflect on the remarkable history and service of GBUL and envision its promising future. Preliminary plans are in progress for the 100^th Anniversary Celebration in October, with intermittent events leading up to the main celebration.

This article was originally published by Zy Media Group. 

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Sponsored by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

All communities should have the resources they need to strengthen their economic futures. This Black History Month, JPMorgan Chase is affirming their commitment to breaking down barriers — including the racial wealth gap — and promoting opportunity for all.

In recognition of Black History Month, we connected with Thelma Ferguson, Global Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Vice Chair, Commercial Banking at JPMorgan Chase, to get her insights on how she’s celebrating Black History Month, how JPMorgan Chase is advancing equity and inclusion and what she hopes to achieve in the year ahead.

1. Tell us a little about yourself and your role at JPMorgan Chase? 

The majority of my 25-year tenure at JPMorgan Chase has been in Commercial Banking, providing clients with the financial solutions they need to grow their businesses. Yet, no matter what my role was, I have always been focused on driving inclusion and equity.

Today, as the Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, I’m proud to look after our leading strategies to uplift employees, clients and the communities we serve as the bank for all. I also continue to serve as Vice Chair for Commercial Banking, building and managing key client relationships from coast to coast.

• What does Black History Month mean to you and how are you celebrating?
  
  

Black History Month is an important opportunity to reflect on the achievements and struggles of our Black communities. To me, this means honoring the immense reach, depth and richness of Black communities’ global history, in addition to its connection and intersection with other communities. At JPMorgan Chase, we organize events and activities to honor the designation, highlight Black history and culture, and enable impactful conversations and opportunities to continue our commitment to help create more equitable pathways for all.

• How is JPMorgan Chase working to advance a more inclusive economy?

We believe that we are only as strong as the communities we serve and the economies they support. We also understand that our company can play a role in helping communities grow, driving local economies, and helping people build their prosperity.

We’re helping to power economic growth by breaking down barriers and creating opportunities in communities across the globe. We do that through a focus on advancing diversity, equity and inclusion within our own workforce, as well as through business and community investments and policy advocacy.

•  How has your company’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion strategy evolved over the past couple of years as the spotlight has been put on the country’s lingering racial inequality and social injustice issues?

We’re working to address inequities, including the racial wealth gap, in a meaningful way. Our efforts to support inclusive growth dates back decades. One more recent example is our $30 billion, five-year Racial Equity Commitment (REC) focused on advancing sustainable homeownership, driving small business growth, bolstering financial health and expanding access to banking. Through this commitment, we’re helping to create greater access to affordable home loans, low-cost checking accounts and financial health education workshops in the communities we serve and particularly in historically underserved neighborhoods. Our goal is to help close the racial wealth gap and ensure all members of communities – including our own employees – can access the resources they need to strengthen their economic futures.

• How should other companies and individuals be thinking about diversity, equity and inclusion as it relates to the growth of their business?

Inequity stifles economic growth. If you start with that fact, it becomes clear how engaging more communities and helping to create more equitable opportunities is just smart business. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are not buzzwords. Their tenets should be core ingredients in the design and execution of your business strategies and run with the same commitment and rigor as other parts of your business.

• What are your goals for this year and what are you looking forward to in 2024?

This year, my goals include deepening our culture of inclusion for our 300,000 employees, across all backgrounds and geographies and perspectives. I’m also focused on further embedding inclusive practices and solutions within JPMorgan Chase to inform our business, gain efficiencies and deepen impact. I am optimistic about the road ahead and continued progress in helping to lift all.

SPONSORED BY JPMORGAN CHASE

Learn more about JPMorgan Chase

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By Megan Sayles
AFRO Business Writer
msayles@afro.com

District Court Judge George L. Russell III recently dismissed a discrimination lawsuit lodged against Atlas Restaurant Group (Atlas), owner of Ouzo Bay, by Baltimore real estate planner, Marcia Grant.

Grant sued the company in July 2020 after she and her nine-year-old son, Dallas, were prohibited from dining at the upscale Harbor East restaurant. At the time, staff asserted that Dallas’ athletic shorts were a violation of the establishment’s dress code, which was posted at the entrance. In response, Grant recorded a now viral video showing a similarly aged White boy dining at the Greek restaurant who appeared to be wearing a similar outfit, but with “khaki shorts” instead of basketball shorts.

Now, years later, a decision has been handed down.

Atlas President and CEO Alex Sm[1] [2] [3] ith released a statement after the court ruling saying his team was pleased with Russell’s decision.

“While incredibly unfortunate, we have long maintained the 2020 incident was purely a customer service issue and most certainly was not a case of discrimination or racial bias in any form, which was confirmed by the court today,” said Smith.

“Atlas Restaurant Group will continue embracing the core values of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging,” said Smith. “These foundational pillars create Atlas’s strong work culture and vibrant Baltimore community. Atlas will continue building and promoting a culture that celebrates diversity in all its forms.”

Russell ruled that Grant did not have sufficient evidence to prove that Atlas intentionally discriminated against her and her son based on their race and granted the hospitality group’s motion for summary judgment, forgoing a trial.

“I respect the court’s decision. There was some disappointment in the outcome, but it was short-lived,” said Grant. “I quickly resolved that the win is in the pursuit of what’s right. The win is progress. It can never be said that I didn’t make an impact, that I didn’t move us forward.”

Much of Grant’s case centered around whether the White child was wearing gym shorts, like Dallas. At the time, Atlas’ dress code, which was amended after the incident, prohibited activewear, gym clothing and gym shorts. Russell concluded that while Dallas was wearing basketball shorts, the White child was wearing khaki or “Bermuda shorts,” according to court documents.

Grant also alleged that Atlas, as a restaurant group, had engaged in a known pattern of discrimination. During the case, affidavits from two former employees of other Atlas restaurants recounted perceived incidents of discrimination.

One alleged that they witnessed Loch Bar deny service to a Black woman wearing leggings and a button-down shirt over a tank top, which they believed to be because of her race. The other asserted that Azumi was on “higher alert” with the attire of patrons of color when compared to the dress of White customers.

An employee that worked for Ouzo Bay during the incident, Rafael Coppolla, also made an affidavit claiming that he complained to a manager about a server who avoided waiting on a Black couple, but was told he was exaggerating.

The court ruled that these statements were hearsay and conclusory opinions, which are not admissible evidence.

“‘Not guilty’ does not mean ‘innocent.’ It simply means that after administering the rules set forth by the court, which is usually a high bar and rightfully so, the court could not find guilt,” said Grant. “That is a very important concept and distinction that must be understood.”

“In a similar fashion, the judge presiding over our case that it did not meet the bar that is set forth to proceed with a federal discrimination suit,” she added. “This means just that and nothing more. It does not mean that this was not discrimination. Guilty people walk everyday, especially when they have the means to be well-represented.”

Since the incident, the restaurant group revised its dress code policy so that children aged 12 and younger, who are accompanied by an adult, do not have to follow it.

Megan Sayles is a Report For America corps member.

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By Aria Brent 
AFRO Staff Writer 
abrent@afro.com

Last year, March 9 was declared 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion Day after Gov. Wes Moore signed the statewide day of commemoration into law. The predominantly Black, all female sector of the Women Army Corp (WAC) was responsible for sorting and clearing a huge amount of backlogged mail during World War II. Their work helped restore the military postal system which allowed soldiers and civilians to effectively communicate amidst wartime. With the special occasion approaching, Gov.Moore spoke about his administration’s commitment to recognizing the service of the 6888th.

“Here in Maryland, we will protect, preserve and celebrate our rich history, and it’s my honor to recognize March 9 as 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion Day,” said Gov. Moore. “These women were trailblazers and their commitment to service was invaluable to our country. The Moore-Miller administration is proud to commemorate their legacy.”

The battalion has received a series of other honors including a Congressional Medal of Honor, a monument in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and a national day of recognition which is observed on Sept.16. However, this is the first year the legendary group of women will be honored throughout the state of Maryland.

Retired Col. Edna W. Cummings has played a vital role in highlighting the legacy of the 6888th battalion and she explained how this honor is a representation of all Black women who have served in the military. 

“We must continue to honor the 6888th because they represent the service and sacrifice of thousands of Black women who served our nation and were unheralded,” Cummings stated. “They served the country when the country didn’t always serve them. The 6888th and other Black women from that era are a new set of role models for the thousands of Black women in the military.”

U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-M.D.-07), of Maryland, shared similar sentiments, praising the bravery of the women in the battalion. 

“Amid the peril and danger of World War II, the tenacity of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion never wavered,” Mfume shared. “These 855 Black women bravely served our nation despite knowing their return home would be to an America that still denied their basic rights and liberties.”

The resilience and tenacity of the 6888th seems to resonate with Black women both in and outside of the military. There have been so many instances of Black women’s achievements being disregarded but Cummings and many others are determined to not let this story go untold. The preservation of their history is detrimental to the preparation of our nation’s future. Sen.Cory McCray talked to the AFRO about the importance of knowing the story of the 6888th and using it to inspire the next generation of young Black women. 

“It’s important that we recognize that this is a critical component of our history. The upcoming 6888th day is an example of how we preserve our history and how we make sure that their story is told over and over again,” McCray stated. “Their story is ongoing and if we don’t know where we come from we won’t know where we’re going.”

It’s been nearly 80 years since the battalion of groundbreaking women discontinued their work and yet their impact is still so powerful. To this day, the 6888th is the only unit made up entirely of women of color to serve overseas. The history those women 

created has yet to be repeated making their legacy all the more precious.

After serving in the military for several decades and then dedicating herself to honoring the work of the 6888th battalion, Cummings is proud to see them recognized on a national and local level. 

“I’m honored and humbled to know that our grassroots efforts for the 6888th have led to state and national recognitions for these veterans and other Black women from World War II. This recognition secures their legacy alongside the rest of our nation’s heroes,” Cummings stated proudly. “Women have always volunteered to serve this country and made significant impacts. We must include women’s contributions as part of military history and not as an afterthought.”

The post Maryland to celebrate inaugural 6888th Battalion Day on March 9  appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

By Megan Sayles
AFRO Business Writer 
msayles@afro.com

Dr. Sherita Hill Golden has exited her post as vice president and chief diversity officer for Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM), according to an email sent by Dean and CEO Theodore L. DeWeese and Executive Vice President Kevin W. Sowers on March 4. As the medical institution prepares to conduct a national search for a new, permanent diversity lead, Chief Human Resources Officer Inez Stewart will assume the role in the interim. 

Golden’s departure comes after she received public criticism over her definition of “privilege” in an email sent out to the JHM community, which she later retracted. 

“We are writing to share the news that after a great deal of reflection, Dr. Sherita Golden has decided to step down from her role as vice president and chief diversity officer for Johns Hopkins Medicine,” wrote DeWeese and Sowers in the email. “She has been a valuable member of the Johns Hopkins Medicine leadership team, and, like many of you, we wanted her to stay in her role, but we respect her decision.”

In a digital January newsletter, Golden defined privilege as “a set of unearned benefits given to people who are in a specific social group.” She proceeded to list White people, males, Christians, heterosexuals and able-bodied people—among others— as part of those groups. 

After the email was shared beyond the JHM community, an X account titled “End Wokeness” posted a screenshot referring to it as a “hit list of people automatically guilty of privilege whether they know it or not.” The viral post sparked a number of negative comments about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and calls for Golden to be fired. 

JHM rebuked the language used in Golden’s definition, saying it ran counter to its values and commitment to serving everyone equally. The medical institution said Golden acknowledged her mistake and retracted the definition. 

Students and employees of JHM expressed their disappointment over the renouncement in an open letter to DeWeese and Sowers. They contended that the pushback on the definition was a part of a broader effort to spread disinformation about the importance of DEI at colleges and universities. 

Golden is not the first Black woman to resign from a prominent position in higher education in the wake of public backlash this year. In January, Claudine Gay, the first Black president of Harvard University, resigned from her position after coming under fire for her response to questions about Anti-Semitism in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. 

“Surely discussions about privilege can be challenging. The word is easily misinterpreted or taken to mean that people who benefit from systems of advantage are immoral or unworthy,” wrote JHM students and employees.

“However, it is important for our institution to respond to assaults on our commitment to DEI with courage and conviction. In the face of bad-faith attacks, Johns Hopkins Medicine and Johns Hopkins University must state clearly, loudly and proudly that we value diversity, equity and inclusion.” 

JHM leadership did not address the controversy in their announcement of Golden’s resignation. Instead, they praised her dedication to health equity and efforts to recruit and retain diverse talent across the institution. 

Golden will remain on JHM faculty as the Hugh P. McCormick Family Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Megan Sayles is a Report For America corps member. 

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By Ashleigh Fields
AFRO Assistant Editor
afields@afro.com

A massive wave of political justice advocates gathered in Selma, Ala. March 3  to promote the John Lewis Voting Rights Act amidst the state’s Supreme and lower courts repealing legislation to prevent disenfranchisement.  Over the course of two days, March 3 and 4, Vice President Kamala Harris, Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.-6), Steny Hoyer (D-M.D.- 5) and newly appointed Senator Laphonza Butler (D-CA) marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate “Bloody Sunday.”

On March 7, 1965 over 600 civil rights demonstrators were violently attacked by state troopers as they marched across the bridge to protest the violation of their constitutional rights to vote. 

“Hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, they marched for the freedoms that were theirs by birth and theirs by right: the freedom to vote, the freedom to live without fear of violence or intimidation, the freedom to be full and equal members of our nation,” shared Harris, according to a transcription sent out by her office.

Over 59 years later, the Black community still faces discrimination. 

Butler shared a statement addressing the 2013 case, Shelby County v. Holder, which eliminated necessary federal protections for minority voters in various jurisdictions and the 2021 Brnovich v. DNC, which adopted ‘guideposts’ that make it hard to prove racial discrimination when casting a ballot.

“Though state lawmakers and election officials may no longer make voters of color count the number of jelly beans in a jar or the number of bubbles on a bar of soap, we know that they continue to draw racially discriminatory Congressional districts in a way that prevents voters of color from electing the candidates of their choice,” Butler wrote. “One need only to look to the Alabama State Capitol just a short walk away from where we sit today and the state legislature’s attempt to defy the Supreme Court’s order in Allen v. Milligan last summer to draw an additional majority-Black congressional district to understand that some things have not changed.” 

In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that Republican lawmakers clearly violated voter’s rights after they redrew the state’s congressional map after the 2020 census and failed to create a second Black district.Since then, a new district has been added to account for the discrepancy. For years,, lawmakers have committed to gathering in Selma annually to convene with local leaders.

“I come back to Alabama – to Montgomery and Selma – first, because I was so close to John Lewis. I walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge 15 times with John Lewis, seven of which I held his hand as we walked across. That was one of the highlights of my life because John Lewis exuded the best of us in America, the best of us as human beings, the best of us as children of God,” Hoyer expressed. “It wasn’t so long ago that civil rights leaders, like my dear friend and brother John Lewis, put everything on the line in Alabama and across the country to advance voting rights for African Americans.”

Currently, members of Congress are pushing to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act in his honor which would require states to seek federal approval before changing their voting laws. 

This article has been updated to reflect the proper people and position in cutlines; clarify lawmakers in attendance during three separate trips to Selma, Ala.; clarify Bloody Sunday march happenings and the addition of a new voting district in Alabama. The AFRO deeply regrets these errors.

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By Joseph Williams
Word In Black

For years, as test scores fell and teachers fretted, educators and analysts rang the alarm: the U.S. is facing a grade-school reading crisis. If left unaddressed, they say, Black children could fall even further behind. 

Now, college professors are sounding an alarm of their own. They say college students are entering college unprepared to read anything more than a few pages, and struggle to understand and interpret what they’ve read. 

“Professors are also discussing the issue in academic trade publications, from a variety of perspectives,” Adam Kotsko, a humanities and theology professor, wrote in an essay in Slate, an online magazine. “What we almost all seem to agree on is that we are facing new obstacles in structuring and delivering our courses, requiring us to ratchet down expectations in the face of a ratcheting down of preparation.”

But along with COVID-19 learning loss, social media addiction, and attention-draining cell phone scrolling, researchers and educators have identified a new culprit: state and school officials who are stripping diverse books from library shelves and curbing the teaching of Black history.

“This is actually a very preventable problem,” says Allison Rose Socol, vice president for P-12 policy, research and practice at Education Trust. Studies show that “if (students) are given access to texts in which they see themselves reflected, that they will not only want to read, but they will develop a love of reading.” 

But “the access and availability of culturally relevant, rich texts are not happening in a lot of schools,” Socol says. “And that is disproportionately affecting the fundamental reading skills of many students of color.”

Data tells part of the story. 

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, in 2022, average scores decreased for both literary and informational texts at both the fourth- and eighth grade level, compared to 2019. 

Eighteen states or jurisdictions scored lower on literary reading in 2022 than in 2019, according to NAEP, while 29 states scored lower on informational reading at grade 4. In eighth grade, 22 states scored lower in 2022 on literary reading, and 30 states scored lower for informational reading.

“And when you look at the data for certain groups of students — particularly marginalized students — the numbers are so much more concerning,” Socol says. 

The data shows “just 17 percent of Black students, 21 percent of Latino students, 11 percent of students with disabilities, and 10 percent of multilingual learners in fourth grade are found to be proficient” in reading, she says. “Those numbers are just unacceptable.”

And yet, despite research that should encourage reading diverse texts, “there are states and districts that are putting in place legislation and regulation and policy that removes or penalizes teachers, for teaching honest, accurate history, for using books that represent the diversity of our country and for doing things that we know are important for opening up students,” Socol says. 

Those books are key to “engaging hearts and minds and creating critical thinkers and engaged citizens,” Socol says. 

Kotsco, the humanities professor, agrees the book bans are doing damage to the students he’ll eventually have to teach, depriving them of the ability to read long texts and think for themselves. 

“Motivated by bigotry, it has already done demonstrable harm and promises to do more,” he wrote. “But at the same time, the appropriate response is, in principle, simple. Named individuals have advanced explicit policies with clear goals and outcomes, and we can replace those individuals with people who want to reverse those policies.”

“That is already beginning to happen in many places,” he wrote, “and I hope those successes will continue until every banned book is restored.”

This article was originally published by Word In Black.

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By Joseph Williams 
Word In Black

Less than a year after the Supreme Court voided race-based admissions policies in top colleges, diversity advocates breathed a sigh of relief when the high court passed on hearing a challenge to an initiative to bring more Black students to an elite Virginia magnet school. 

But experts warn that the court’s decision not to hear a challenge to an admissions policy at Thomas Jefferson High School in suburban Washington, D.C., is more likely the justices deciding to hit the pause button on a politically charged issue — not a clear win for diversity in secondary education.

The court apparently “is not ready to opine on such a question” so soon after its landmark 2023 ruling, says Deborah Hellman, a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.  While it’s hard to read the court’s motives, she says, “I think will be for some time.”

On Tuesday, the justices declined to add to their upcoming docket a case arguing that the admissions policies for the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax, Va., discriminate against Asian American applicants.

The highly-anticipated case, “Coalition for T.J. v Fairfax County School Board,” was brought by a group of Asian-American parents who argued that the strategies the school implemented to increase the number of Black and Latino students left their children out in the cold. 

Although the conservative-majority court agreed to punt the case, Justice Samuel Alito wrote a 10-page dissent slamming the “indefensible” decision. He said a lower court ruling that now stands is “based on a patently incorrect and dangerous understanding of what a plaintiff must show to prove intentional race discrimination.”

The reasoning behind that ruling, Alito wrote, is “a virus that may spread if not promptly eliminated.”

At issue is a series of changes the high school made in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, when the country underwent a racial reckoning. The school board made what it called “holistic” changes to Thomas Jefferson High’s admissions requirements — including priority admission for the top 1.5 percent of eighth-grade students in the county’s public middle schools, elimination of the entrance exam, and waiver of a $100 fee. 

The changes triggered an increase of nearly 1,000 more applicants, including substantial upticks in the acceptance of Black and Hispanic students. But Coalition for T.J. sued in federal court, and a federal district judge sided with them in 2022. 

But in a 2-1 decision, an appellate court overturned that decision last year. In its ruling, the court noted that, even after the changes, Asian American students made up more than half of those who received offers of admission. White students made up 22 percent of the admission pool, with Latino students at 11 percent and Black students at less than 8 percent. 

Hellman, the University of Virginia professor, says that although the Supreme Court’s dismantling of affirmative action in college admissions was a backdrop, the facts and issues raised in the Thomas Jefferson High School case are different, and that may have given pause to the justices. 

In the college admissions case, race was an explicit factor in deciding who won admission to Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, Hellman says. But Thomas Jefferson, she says, adopted “a facially race-neutral policy. The new policy was one that didn’t use race-based classification.”

Though they lost at the Supreme Court, lawyers for Coalition for T.J. say they haven’t given up on trying to change the admissions policy at the high school.  

“If anything, this multiplies our efforts,” Glenn Roper, a senior attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented the plaintiffs, told Inside Higher Ed. “There are multiple unanswered questions from the Students for Fair Admissions ruling that the court is going to have to address eventually.”

This article was originally published by Word In Black.

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By Amber D. Dodd
Special to the AFRO
adodd@afro.com 

To celebrate Black History Month, The National Links Trust (NLT), a non-profit organization created to protect and promote municipal golf courses, showed the documentary “Uneven Fairways” on Feb. 20. The screening took place at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill.

“The legends of Black golf have forged for inclusion at the highest levels of golf competition for all people,” said Damian Cosby, executive director of NLT. 

Released in 2009, Uneven Fairways is narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, an avid golfer whose activism and work in Black communities stretches back to being a student at Morehouse College in the 1960s. 

The film highlights the pantheon of Blacks–from Pete Brown, the first Black golfer to win a PGA Tour event at the 1965 Waco Open, to Jim Thorpe, a 75-year-old golfer and Morgan State University graduate with 21 professional wins–who reflect the vanguard of Black golfers who were barred from the professional ranks but persisted in the sport until the PGA’s racial barriers ceased in 1961. 

Peggy White, the daughter of Ted Rhodes appeared in the documentary, too; Rhodes was widely considered to be the greatest Black golf player before Tiger Woods’ emergence.  

Rhodes did not get a chance to compete on the PGA Tour. 

“I don’t think my father was aware of the trailblazer he was,” White said. “He had a dream that he would be the finest golfer in the world, but I don’t think he realized he accomplished that goal.”

Throughout the film, golfers detail how the PGA’s color barrier was upheld by a longstanding clause in the PGA. From 1929 to 1961, Article III Section I of the PGA’s handbook stated that 

“Male professional golfers of the Caucasian race, over the age of eighteen (18) years, residing in North or South America, who can qualify under the terms and condition hereinafter specified, shall be eligible for membership.” 

While the documentary tells the story of the individual experience of being Black in golf, Uneven Fairways also highlights the founding of the United Golf Association, commonly known as the Chitlin Circuit, which provided Black golfers opportunities to compete.

“Black people, being very resourceful, wanted to play and so in 1925, a group of Black businessman met in a YMCA in Washington D.C. and basically said ‘Well, PGA won’t let us play on their tour, so we’ll start our own tour,’” said Pete McDaniel, author of Uneven Lines: The Heroic Story of African-Americans in Golf.

Later that year, the first National Negro Open was contested.

The Chitlin Circuit served as an incubator for many of golf’s first popular Black players and served as fertile ground for future golf giants. 

Speaking to the documentary’s name, golfers talked about the conditions of golf courses that UGA players conducted golf tournaments on, citing shoddy landscapes and uneven grounds, usually played on municipal golf courses.

“One of the reasons why I love municipal golf is that it brings people together,” Cosby said. “It’s the easy way to get a young Black kid who’s probably never seen as much green grass on a golf course to keep them out there. That’s what I love about , it connects people to the game and brings people to the game.”

Inclusivity was no question for the UGA. Black women were automatically members of the association. Renee Powell, the second Black woman to participate in the LPGA tour, who spoke about her admission into UGA as a teenager golfer was mentioned in the documentary. 

“All the young Black golfers, that’s where they played,” Albert Green, a UGA/PGA player explained. “Lee Alder, Charlie Sifford,  Calvin Peete, Teddy Rhodes, that’s where those guys got their start.”  

Ron Terry called the Chitlin Circuit a family-affair, “It was a tour where you got to know everybody,” he said. “It was more like a fraternity than anything.”

Many mentioned how players supported one another on efforts on and off the course.

“We all traveled together anyway, so we helped each other…if you were hungry, we’re going to feed you, we weren’t going to let go around hungry,” Leonard James explained.

Members often paid for and provided their own resources which they were happy to share with others.

“They were going to eat because I always carried electric pots with me, and a frying pan,” James Black joked back.

Although an alternative league was created, it was still very clear that the color line imposed barriers that didn’t impact White athletes. 

“It was a joy to be around but it was separate, totally separate and not equal,” said John Merchant, a former USGA executive committee member.

Though golfers made their own efforts to break the color barrier of the golf world, the documentary shed light on how Joe Louis, the former heavyweight champion broke the color barrier in the PGA-sanctioned tournament in 1952 San Diego Open. Louis spoke against the PGA as they would become the final major American sports corporation to integrate Black athletes.

Louis’ son, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., spoke on behalf of his father’s racial contributions in both boxing and golf. “If you ask any of those older golfers, the reasons they’re playing golf today, or throughout their career is because of Joe Louis,” Barrow said.

Along with streaming Uneven Fairways, NLT specializes in restoration of municipal golf courses, including the Langston Golf Course in Northeast D.C. which highlights their mission of exposing more youth of color to the game of golf via public golf courses.

“For us at NLT, we personally have a special connection to this story, Langston was built for Black players in the age of segregation,” Cosby explained. “It opened in 1939 and is one of the oldest Black golf clubs in the country.” 

In light of Black female golfers, members of the Wake-Robin Golf Club were in attendance. Founded in 1937 in Lanham, Md., it is America’s oldest African American women’s golf club. Debbie Tyner, president of the Wake-Robin Golf Club, said the legacy of Powell and those alike set examples of newer generations of Black female golfers.

“This club is 87 years old this coming year and we continue this work by bringing on members and amateurs,” Tyner said. “They pass on the legacy of Black women in golf…and I want to see the club change with the times. We’re partnering with Howard University who have a very strong women’s golf team, and we work with them to provide them with scholarship and mentorship, so in turn, it becomes an intergenerational thing.” 

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

(NNPA NEWSWIRE) – In a press briefing on Feb. 29, U.S. Senate leaders alongside civil rights advocates announced the reintroduction of S.4, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, aimed at safeguarding voting rights and fortifying the nation’s democratic foundations.

According to Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on March 12 to discuss the growing threats to voting rights and the need for federal voting safeguards.

The leaders said as the nation reflects on the sacrifices of civil rights champions like the late Rep. John Lewis, the call resounds for every member of Congress to endorse pivotal democracy bills, including the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, the Freedom to Vote Act, and the Native American Voting Rights Act, ahead of the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday on March 7.

“This year’s presidential election will be the first since Republican-led state legislatures passed a wave of restrictive voting laws,” Durbin remarked. “As members of Congress, we have an obligation to defend our democracy against these attacks on our fundamental right to vote.”

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York emphasized what he called the vital role of a robust democratic foundation. “To make real progress on the issues we care about, the foundation of democracy must be strong,” Schumer said. “The hard right is trying to cut those efforts off at the knees, making it harder for people to participate in democracy and be represented.”

Georgia senator the Rev. Raphael Warnock underscored the legislation’s importance in preserving democracy. “Let’s protect the sacred right. We’ve got to get this done in the spirit and in the name of John Lewis, and because our democracy itself is at stake,” Warnock said.

Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference, emphasized the non-partisan nature of the cause. “This is not about partisanship; this is about people having power. That is why we need the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,” Wiley said.

Others from various civil rights organizations also weighed in, with John C. Yang of Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) urging Congress to support the change, and Damon Hewitt of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law stressing the need for a democracy that works for everyone.

“Voters are demanding better from their representatives, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act must be the response,” added Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer of ACLU.

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By Ashleigh Fields
AFRO Assistant Editor
afields@afro.com

C-suite executives, students and leaders from around the country gathered at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture on Feb. 22 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of JPMorgan Chase’s Advancing Black Pathways program. The initiative was created in 2019, sparking corporate efforts to address racial economic injustices. 

“For far too long Black communities have faced profound challenges and inequality due to systemic racial barriers. At JPMorgan Chase, we recognize our responsibility as one of the world’s largest banks to address these disparities and are harnessing our expertise in business, policy, data and philanthropy to empower Black communities around the world,” Byna Elliott, head of Advancing Black Pathways shared.

The Feb. 22 event was widely attended by prominent Black leaders such as former Atlanta Mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms (D), former Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) and current Mayor Brandon Scott (D). Both cities have predominantly Black populations and received various investments from the bank in hopes of spearheading more racial equity. 

JPMorgan Chase recently announced a new virtual call center in Baltimore that would create additional jobs. The company also expanded its Atlanta office in Buckhead by 40,000 square feet, committing to hiring 500 employees by the end of 2025.

“We aren’t just in the business of moving money around but uplifting people and their dreams and hopes,” mentioned Thelma Ferguson, Vice Chair for JPMorgan Chase Commercial Banking. “When we first started this program in 2019 it was our goal to strengthen the economic foundation of the Black community and since then something great has materialized.” 

To date, JPMorgan Chase has pledged $30 billion in investments by 2025 to support their endeavors to break down systemic barriers for minority communities. A total of $30 million will be dedicated to supporting the success of students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) across the country. Local scholars at various HBCUs were in attendance to include Elliott’s son and Morgan State University students in addition to collegiate chapters of Black Girls Vote.

The organization invited the Howard University Gospel Choir to perform a rendition of  the Black National Anthem and the gospel song Hold On (Change Is Comin’) paying homage to Black History Month with this historic celebration held in the Robert Frederick Smith Family Pavilion.

Currently, JPMorgan Chase reigns as the first and only financial institution to partner with all 9 members of the National Pan-Hellenic Council.

“All of the Divine 9 collectively believe in upward financial mobility being the real answer to how we move our collegiate members into opportunities to create a lifestyle that they dream of and desire. Advancing Black Pathways gives them the technical skills, the career capacity and shows them mirror images of who they can become,” said Dr. Stacie NC Grant, international president of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority. “This is a powerful program and I love the leadership from the top down, from the C-Suite to ranking followers. Everybody has an opportunity to win and you can’t be what you don’t see. Tonight, we saw an example; celebrating a company that is invested in the success of Black and Brown people.” 

Other National Pan-Hellenic Council presidents were in attendance and openly shared the benefits of working in collaboration with the cutting edge program. Last year, the company launched the Black Future Leaders program in South America to help individuals develop professional skills and is currently providing two year English course technology training to over 150 students in Brazil free of charge.

“We are a proud partner of JPMorgan Chase through their Advancing Black Pathways Program. It’s exciting to celebrate five years and exhilarating to work with them on a day to day basis to serve our community,”  expressed Elsie Cooke-Holmes, president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. “This is a great milestone, we definitely have a lot to build upon but we are excited to continue partnering with them as they embark on the next five years of this great program.”

These ventures started just two years after the company reached a $53 million settlement with the Justice Department due to violations of the Fair Housing Act between 2006 and 2009. During those years, the bank’s wholesale lending brokers charged minority borrowers more than White borrowers of similar financial means.

“If we turned someone down inappropriately that’s terrible, if you’re saying we did it because they’re Black I don’t know if that’s accurate but anyone who has something to say about that should send us their stuff and if they deserve a loan they should get a loan,” JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon told the AFRO.

On stage at the Feb. 22 event, Dimon vowed to evolve efforts towards equity on a national and global front for minority communities throughout the world. 

“There are issues like this for the Black community in Brazil, for minorities in India and we try to help them all,” Dimon mentioned to the audience after announcing that he sold $150 million worth of the bank’s stock for the first time since 2005 later that evening. 

The sell comes at the helm of a larger plan to trade 1 million of the 8.6 million shares owned by Dimon and his family as revealed in an SEC filing. However, JPMorgan has assured that the sale is not related to leadership succession. 

Dimon concluded by sharing, “Anything that works we’re going to double down on and if it doesn’t work we will change it; I’m not afraid of that either.”

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By Ron Taylor
Special to the AFRO

A group of former colleagues gathered recently to commemorate and share the distinction of being part of a rare fraternal order. But this wasn’t just another governmental or corporate sub-unit meeting for drinks and chit-chat.

Assembled in a Martin Luther King Jr. Library conference room, were roughly 60 Howard University alum who were reporters, editors, photographers and business staff of The Hilltop, Howard ’s student newspaper, created 100 years ago, the largest student-run newspaper at a historically Black college or university in the U.S.

“We were the student voice of Howard University,” said Adrienne Mann-Israel, a Hilltop editor in the early 1960s who later served as acting editor of the Baltimore AFRO American.  

She and other Hilltop alumni echoed that sentiment about their time as student journalists. 

“It was a special time. It was a special place,” said Alonzo Robertson, a production editor in the late 1980s. “And I’m happy to a part of it.”

“We were part of the people, walking the street,” said Robertson. “We were reporting it and recording it. That’s what the Hilltop is.”

As students, they watched the Civil Rights Movement blossom  and evolve into a national change agent, they documented student protests that were at the heart of the Vietnam anti-war movement blossom, they reported on higher education’s growing pains and watched D.C.’s population become more Black than White in the 1960s, and, after the District burned in riots, become White again at they end of the 20th century.

And there were world events to cover. As student journalists Hilltop staffers covered the march of Vietnam anti-war demonstrators as protesters crossed the Potomac River to the Pentagon.

Hilltop reporters were once challenged for being “too passive” amid student protests that forced Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater to step down from Howard’s board of trustees. 

While non-journalist classmates claimed Hilltop reporters weren’t  radical enough in the 1960s, some alumni said, sometimes Howard administrators told The Hilltop they were going “too far,” former editor Adrienne Mann-Israel said.

Howard administrators denied press credentials to students when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he was  to appear at Howard’s Cramton Auditorium and when vulgar language showed up in print in a feature about student attitudes, Mann-Israel said she was summoned to the university president’s office to explain the Hilltop editor’s judgment.

She said she was pleased with the commemoration of The Hilltop hitting the centennial mark and impressed that today’s Hilltop staff of 60 would dwarf the staff of 10 that she oversaw in the 1960s. 

Like many Hilltop top editors, she came to D.C. from  a mostly White background in Masselon, Ohio. Howard nurtured her eagerness to thrive in a Black background for her and others who came to Howard from White backgrounds. 

Jazmine Goodwin, an Arizona native who was on The Hilltop Editor-in-Chief in 2018, said her time in D.C. helped develop her. 

“I was able to build my skills, build my craft and really just see what everything looked like up close and person,” she said. “From the day I arrived at Howard there was, like, a protest, Black Lives Matter.”
Mann-Israel said the experience of handling competing demands prepared her to step up her game in journalism after Howard. She went to the Washington Daily News and then the Washington Post before being hired by Elizabeth Murphy Moss to write and edit the AFRO as a 23 year old.

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By Lisa Woelf
Capital News Service

More homeless people than ever sleep on the streets.

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide if local governments can punish homeless people who sleep or camp outside when no shelter beds are available, or if such laws violate the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

The issue came to the court from the small Oregon city of Grants Pass, which has more homeless people than shelter beds. City ordinances prohibit those people from sleeping on the street or in parks if they use a blanket or cardboard box as protection from the weather. Three homeless people filed a complaint against the city, and a district court ruled that the city can’t enforce that law.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in late April.

Elected officials including California Gov. Gavin Newsom urged the Supreme Court to take the case and side with Grants Pass.

In a statement, Newsom said that “the courts have tied the hands of state and local governments that seek to use common sense approaches to clean our streets and provide help for unhoused Californians living in inhumane conditions.”

In an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, Newsom argued that local governments “need the flexibility to…address immediate threats to health and safety in public places – both to individuals living in unsafe encampments and other members of the public impacted by them.”

Ed Johnson, lead counsel for the homeless respondents in the Supreme Court case, said in a written statement: “This case is not about a city’s ability to regulate or prohibit encampments. That has always been permissible.” Instead, the issue is whether cities can punish homeless residents “for simply existing without access to shelter,” he said.

The Supreme Court decided to take on the case amid what Jesse Rabinowitz at the advocacy organization National Homelessness Law Center (NHLC) calls a “nationwide movement…to criminalize people experiencing homelessness.”

In an analysis of 187 city laws from 2006 to 2019, NHLC found a vast increase in laws targeting visible homelessness, such as panhandling and sleeping in public.

“It’s sad that cities are throwing up their hands and saying the only way we can end homelessness is by arresting people,” Rabinowitz said.

In recent years, the NHLC recorded an increase in state-level efforts to criminalize homelessness. As of Jan. 24, 11 states had seen bills criminalizing homelessness introduced or passed, according to the organization.

While criminalization efforts increase, the number of homeless people sleeping on the streets reached an all-time high in 2023. In a single night, 256,104 people were counted as unhoused across the United States, according to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The data is collected nationwide every year on a specific night and goes back to 2007, the year with the second-highest number of homeless people sleeping outside.

An analysis of the nationwide data shows that there was a nationwide downward trend in unsheltered homelessness until 2015, after which the number steadily increased for five years.

The 2020 count took place before the coronavirus pandemic swept the country. The effects of the virus and measures against its spread impacted the 2021 survey that shows a sharp drop in unsheltered homelessness, often attributed to federal moratoriums on evictions, among other causes.

Since then, the number of unsheltered homeless people has increased again, peaking in 2023.

In contrast to the national trend, Maryland has significantly reduced homelessness over the last 14 years, according to HUD data.

The numbers for 2021 and 2022 “were suppressed by the pandemic,” Danielle Meister, assistant secretary for homeless solutions at the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, said in a statement.

Compared to 2020, 7.8 percent fewer people were homeless in 2023. The number of homeless people sleeping outside plummeted by 23 percent.

According to Jake Day, Maryland’s secretary of housing and community development, the state is “within striking distance” of ending homelessness for veterans, unaccompanied youth and domestic violence survivors.

To reach that goal, the department needs to focus on solutions that work: “reducing housing instability, lowering barriers to services, and investing in permanent supportive housing,” Day said in a statement.

Rabinowitz said that he hopes the Supreme Court will uphold the lower court’s precedent and side with homeless people. “Criminalizing people experiencing homelessness keeps them homeless longer,” he said. “When folks get the housing they need, they thrive.”

This article was originally published by the Capital News Service

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By Anne D’Innocenzio
AP Retail Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s labor board ruled on Feb. 21 that Home Depot violated federal labor law when it fired an employee for refusing to remove the hand-drawn “BLM” acronym for “Black Lives Matter” from a work apron.

The National Labor Relations Act said it protects the legal right of employees to engage in “concerted activities” for the purpose of “mutual aid or protection” regardless of whether they are represented by a union.

The board reasoned that the decision by the worker — identified as Antonio Morales — to display the BLM acronym on the apron was a direct response to racial discrimination complaints within the store and is protected under federal law. It was also an attempt by Morales to bring the complaints to the attention of Home Depot managers.

“It is well-established that workers have the right to join together to improve their working conditions — including by protesting racial discrimination in the workplace,” said Chairman Lauren McFerran in a statement. “It is equally clear that an employee who acts individually to support a group protest regarding a workplace issue remains protected under the law.”

In an email statement to The Associated Press on Feb. 21, Home Depot, based in Atlanta, said it disagreed with NLRB’s decision.

“The Home Depot is fully committed to diversity and respect for all people,” the company said. “We do not tolerate any kind of workplace harassment or discrimination.”

The right to wear clothing with BLM insignia or other social justice apparel in the workplace became a big issue in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in May 2020.

That same year, American Airlines announced that it would let employees wear Black Lives Matter pins on their uniforms, calling it a matter of equality and not politics. The company joined Starbucks, Delta Air Lines and other major companies that let employees wear items supporting the movement that protests police violence against Black people.

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By Juan A. Lozano
The Associated Press

ANAHUAC, Texas (AP) — A Black high school student’s monthslong punishment by his Texas school district for refusing to change his hairstyle does not violate a new state law that prohibits race-based hair discrimination, a judge ruled on Feb. 22.

Darryl George, 18, has not been in his regular Houston-area high school classes since Aug. 31 because the district, Barbers Hill, says the length of his hair violates its dress code.

The district filed a lawsuit arguing George’s long hair, which he wears in tied and twisted locs on top of his head, violates its policy because it would fall below his shirt collar, eyebrows or earlobes when let down. The district has said other students with locs comply with the length policy.

After about three hours of testimony in Anahuac, state District Judge Chap Cain III ruled in favor of the school district, saying its policy is not discriminatory because the CROWN Act does not say that exemptions for long hair can be made for hairstyles that are protected by the law, including locs. And he said courts must not attempt to rewrite legislation.

“Judges should not legislate from the bench and I am not about to start today,” Cain said.

The CROWN Act, which took effect in September, prohibits race-based hair discrimination and bars employers and schools from penalizing people because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including Afros, braids, locs, twists or Bantu knots.

The judge encouraged George to ask the state Legislature or the school board to address the issue.

George’s family has also filed a formal complaint with the Texas Education Agency and a federal civil rights lawsuit against Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with the school district, alleging they failed to enforce the CROWN Act. The lawsuit is before a federal judge in Galveston.

Allie Booker, George’s attorney, said she planned to seek an injunction in the federal lawsuit to stop George’s punishment and that she also would appeal this week’s decision.

For most of the school year, George, a junior, has either served in-school suspension at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu or spent time at an off-site disciplinary program.

“The Texas legal system has validated our position that the district’s dress code does not violate the CROWN Act and that the CROWN Act does not give students unlimited self-expression,” Barbers Hill Superintendent Greg Poole said in a statement.

The district did not present any witnesses, instead only submitting evidence that included an affidavit from the district’s superintendent defending the dress code policy. Its attorneys argued that the dress code policy does not violate the CROWN Act because the law does not mention or cover hair length.

Before the trial, George and his mother, Darresha George, said they were optimistic.

Wearing locs is “how I feel closer to my people. It’s how I feel closer to my ancestors. It’s just me. It’s how I am,” George said.

After the ruling, George and his mother cried and declined to speak with reporters.

Candice Matthews, a spokesperson for George’s family, said the 18-year-old asked her as he left the courthouse: “All because of my hair? I can’t get my education because of my hair?”

Testifying for George, Democratic state Rep. Ron Reynolds, one of the co-authors of the CROWN Act, said that while the protection of hair length was not specifically mentioned in the CROWN Act, it was inferred.

“Anyone familiar with braids, locs, twists knows it requires a certain amount of length,” Reynolds said.

It is “almost impossible for a person to comply with this (grooming) policy and wear that protective hairstyle,” he said.

Reynolds said he was disappointed by the ruling, and that he would file a bill for a new version of the CROWN Act that specifically mentions protections for hair length.

“The purpose of the legislation is to protect students like Darryl … the same students that Barbers Hill has discriminated against because of their locs, their braids and their twists,” Reynolds said.

U.S. Rep Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat who has tried to get a federal version of the CROWN Act passed, called the Feb. 22 decision “a terrible interpretation of the CROWN Act.”

“This is what we mean by institutional racism,” Coleman said on X.

In his statement, Poole pushed back against allegations that the district’s dress code is racist, saying such allegations undermine “efforts to address actions that violate constitutionally protected rights.”

In a paid ad that ran in January in the Houston Chronicle, Poole wrote that districts with a traditional dress code are safer and have higher academic performance, and that “being an American requires conformity.”

Barbers Hill’s hair policy was also challenged in a May 2020 federal lawsuit filed by two other students. Both withdrew from the high school, but one returned after a federal judge granted a temporary injunction, saying there was “a substantial likelihood” that his rights to free speech and to be free from racial discrimination would be violated if he was barred. That lawsuit is pending.

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By James Pollard 
The Associated Press/Report for America

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A Black transgender woman and the guy she was secretly dating had just been pulled over in rural South Carolina. Dime Doe, the driver, was worried. She already had points against her license and didn’t want another ticket to stop her from getting behind the wheel. Daqua Lameek Ritter, whom she affectionately called “my man,” frequently relied on her for rides.

Everything seemed to turn out OK: Doe sent a text message to her mother that afternoon saying she got a $72 ticket but was “alright.”

Hours later, police found her slumped over in the driver’s seat of her car, parked in a driveway off a secluded road. Her death on Aug. 4, 2019, is now the subject of the nation’s first federal trial over an alleged hate crime based on gender identity, which started Feb. 20.

Much of what transpired in the roughly two-and-a-half hours between the last time Doe was seen and the discovery of her body remains unclear. But as prosecutors wrap up their case this week, more details are emerging about the furtive connection between the 24-year-old Doe — remembered by friends as an outspoken party lover — and Ritter, a man whose distinctive left wrist tattoo is captured in body camera footage from the traffic stop.

Ritter has been charged with a “hate crime for the murder of a transgender woman because of her gender identity,” using a firearm in connection with the hate crime and obstructing justice.

The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that he killed Doe to prevent further exposure of their affair in a small country town where the rumor mill was already churning. Text exchanges between the pair show Ritter tried to dispel gossip of the relationship in the weeks preceding Doe’s death. He also tracked the investigation of her killing while coyly answering his main girlfriend’s questions in the following days, according to trial testimony.

It was no secret in Allendale, South Carolina — population 8,000 — that Doe had begun her social transition as a woman shortly after graduating high school, her close friends testified. Doe started dressing in skirts, getting her nails done and wearing extensions. She and her friends went out drinking. They discussed boys they were seeing.

One of those boys was Ritter, who traveled from New York to visit family during summertime. Doe and Ritter grew close over the course of those stays, leaving Delasia Green — Ritter’s primary girlfriend in the summer of 2019 — with a “gut feeling” that something was up.

Ritter initially told Green that he and Doe were cousins, the girlfriend testified this week. But then she found messages on his phone from an unsaved number that spoke of “getting a room.” She assumed they were from Doe.

When Green confronted Ritter, he became upset and told her that she shouldn’t question his sexuality, she said.

Yanna Albany, Doe’s cousin, testified that she too had a relationship with Ritter that summer but ended it after about three weeks when Doe told her she was also seeing him. Albany said when she broke up with Ritter, he turned red, threatened to beat Doe for “lying on him” and used a homophobic slur.

Nonetheless, Doe’s relationship with Ritter seemed to grow stronger after the entanglement, Albany said. Other friends said Doe never mentioned any drama between the two.

Still, texts obtained by the FBI suggest that Ritter sought to keep their connection under wraps as much as possible. He would remind Doe to delete their communications from her phone, and the majority of the hundreds of texts sent in the month before her death were removed.

Shortly before Doe’s death, the text messages started getting tense. In a July 29, 2019, message, she complained that Ritter did not reciprocate her generosity. He replied that he thought they had an understanding that she didn’t need the “extra stuff.” He also told her that Green had recently insulted him with a homophobic slur. In a July 31 text, Doe said she felt used and that Ritter should never have let his girlfriend find out about them.

Ritter’s defense attorneys said the sampling of messages introduced by the prosecution represented only a “snapshot” of their exchanges. They pointed to a July 18 text in which Doe encouraged Ritter, and another exchange where Ritter thanked Doe for one of her many kindnesses.

But witnesses delivered other potentially damning testimony against Ritter.

On the day Doe died, a group of friends saw the defendant ride away in a silver car with tinted windows — a vehicle that Ritter’s acquaintance Kordell Jenkins testified he had seen Doe drive previously. When Ritter returned to play cards several hours later, Jenkins said he wore a new outfit and appeared “on edge.” It was a buggy summer day, and the group of four began building a fire in a barrel to smoke out the mosquitoes.

Ritter emptied his book bag into the barrel, Jenkins testified. He said he couldn’t see the contents, but assumed they were items Ritter no longer wanted, possibly the clothes he’d worn earlier that day.

Jenkins said that when the two ran into each other the following day, he could see the silver handle of a small firearm sticking out from the waistline of Ritter’s pants. He said Ritter asked him to “get it gone.”

Defense attorneys argued it was preposterous to think that Ritter would ask someone he barely knew to dispose of an alleged murder weapon.

But soon after Doe died, Allendale was abuzz with rumors that Ritter had killed her.

Green testified that when he showed up later that week at her cousin’s house in Columbia, he was dirty, smelly and couldn’t stop pacing. Her cousin’s boyfriend gave Ritter a ride to the bus stop, presumably so he could return to New York. Before he left, Green asked him if he had killed Doe.

“He dropped his head and gave me a little smirk,” Green said.

Ritter monitored the fallout from Doe’s death from New York, according to FBI Special Agent Clay Trippi, citing Facebook messages between Ritter and a friend from Allendale, Xavier Pinckney. On Aug. 11, Pinckney told Ritter nobody was “really talking,” which Trippi said he took as a reference to scant cooperation with police.

But by Aug. 14, Pinckney was warning Ritter to stay away from Allendale because he’d been visited by state police. He later said that somebody was “snitching.”

Trippi testified that his sources never again saw Ritter in Allendale for the summers following Doe’s death.

Federal officials charged Pinckney with obstructing justice, saying he provided false and misleading statements.

___

Pollard is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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By Russ Bynum 
The Associated Press

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Michael Thurmond thought he was reading familiar history at the burial place of Georgia’s colonial founder. Then a single sentence on a marble plaque extolling the accomplishments of James Edward Oglethorpe left him stunned speechless.

Within a lengthy tribute to the Englishman who died in 1785, the inscription read: “He was the friend of the Oppressed Negro.”

Oglethorpe led the expedition that established Georgia as the last of Britain’s 13 American colonies in February 1733. Thurmond, a history aficionado and the only Black member of a Georgia delegation visiting the founder’s tomb outside London, knew Oglethorpe had tried unsuccessfully to keep slaves out of the colony. Historians widely agreed he was concerned for the safety and self-sufficiency of White settlers rather than the suffering of enslaved Africans.

Could Georgia’s White founding father possibly have been an ally to Black people in an era when the British Empire was forcing thousands into bondage?

“It was stunning,” Thurmond recalled. “Initially, I was consumed by disbelief. I didn’t believe it was true.”

Thurmond would grapple with questions raised by that visit for the next 27 years, compelled to take a closer look at Oglethorpe. Now he has written a provocatively titled book: “James Oglethorpe, Father Of Georgia — A Founder’s Journey From Slave Trader to Abolitionist.”

Published this month by the University of Georgia Press, Thurmond’s book makes a case that Oglethorpe evolved to revile slavery and, unlike most White Europeans of his time, saw the humanity in enslaved Africans. And while Oglethorpe’s efforts to prohibit slavery in Georgia ultimately failed, Thurmond argues he left a lasting — and largely uncredited — legacy by influencing early English abolitionists.

“He is shining a spotlight on the part of Oglethorpe’s life that most people have kind of thought was just periphery,” said Stan Deaton, senior historian for the Georgia Historical Society. “I think he’s thought deeply about this. And let’s be honest, there have not been many African-Americans who have written about colonial Georgia and particularly about Oglethorpe.”

Though this is Thurmond’s third book about Georgia history, he’s no academic. The son of a sharecropper and great-grandson of a Georgia slave, Thurmond became an attorney and has served for decades in state and local government. His 1998 election as state labor commissioner made Thurmond the first Black candidate to win statewide office in Georgia without first being appointed. He is now the elected CEO of DeKalb County, which includes portions of Atlanta.

His book traces Oglethorpe’s origins as a wealthy Englishman who held a seat in Parliament and served as deputy governor of the slave-trading Royal African Company before departing for America. Thurmond argues that seeing the cruelty of slavery firsthand changed Oglethorpe, who returned to England and shared his views with activists who would become Britain’s first abolitionists.

“What I tried to do is to follow the arc of his life, his evolution and development, and to weigh all of his achievements, failures and shortcomings,” Thurmond said. “Once you do that, you find that he had a uniquely important life. He helped breathe life into the movement that ultimately destroyed slavery.”

In its early years, Georgia stood alone as Britain’s only American colony in which slavery was illegal. The ban came as the population of enslaved Africans in colonial America was nearing 150,000. Black captives were being sold in New York and Boston, and they already outnumbered White settlers in South Carolina.

Historians have widely agreed Oglethorpe and his fellow Georgia trustees didn’t ban slavery because it was cruel to Black people. They saw slaves as a security risk with Georgia on the doorstep of Spanish Florida, which sought to free and enlist escaped slaves to help fight the British. They also feared slave labor would instill laziness among Georgia’s settlers, who were expected to tend their own modest farms.

It didn’t last. The slave ban was widely ignored when Oglethorpe left Georgia for good in 1743, and its enforcement dwindled in his absence. By the time American colonists declared independence in 1776, slavery had been legal in Georgia for 25 years. When the Civil War began nearly a century later, Georgia’s enslaved population topped 462,000, more than any U.S. state except Virginia.

“At best, you could say Oglethorpe was naive,” said Gerald Horne, a professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Houston and author of the book “The Counter-Revolution of 1776.” “Almost inevitably, like kudzu in the summer, slavery started spreading in Georgia.”

Like other historians, Horne is highly skeptical of Oglethorpe being a forefather of the abolitionist movement. He says the Georgia colony ultimately protected slavery in its sister colonies by serving as a “white equivalent of the Berlin Wall” between South Carolina and Spanish Florida.

Oglethorpe used slave labor to help build homes, streets and public squares in Savannah, the colony’s first city. Escaped slaves captured in Oglethorpe’s Georgia were returned to slaveholders. Some colonists angered by the slave ban made unproven accusations that Oglethorpe had a South Carolina plantation worked by slaves.

Thurmond’s book openly embraces such evidence that Oglethorpe’s history with slavery was at times contradictory and unflattering. That makes his case for Oglethorpe’s evolution even stronger, said James F. Brooks, a University of Georgia history professor who wrote the book’s foreword.

“He has engaged with the historiography in a way that is clearly the equivalent of a professional historian,” Brooks said. “This is good stuff. He’s read everything and thought about it. I don’t see any weakness in it.”

Thurmond’s evidence includes a letter Oglethorpe wrote in 1739 that argues opening Georgia to slavery would “occasion the misery of thousands in Africa.” Thurmond describes how Oglethorpe assisted two formerly enslaved Black men — Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Olaudah Equiano — whose travels to England helped stir anti-slavery sentiments among White Europeans.

Oglethorpe befriended White activists who became key figures in England’s abolitionist movement. In a 1776 letter to Granville Sharp, an attorney who fought to help former slaves retain their freedom, Oglethorpe proclaimed “Africa had produced a race of heroes” in its kings and military leaders. He also spent time with the author Hannah More, whose writings called for the abolition of slavery.

In 1787, two years after Oglethorpe’s death, Sharp and More were among the founders of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Thurmond argues Oglethorpe deserves credit as an inspiration to the budding movement.

“He founded slave-free Georgia in 1733 and, 100 years later, England abolishes slavery,” followed by the U.S. in 1865, Thurmond said. “He was a man far beyond his time.”

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By Megan Sayles
AFRO Business Writer
msayles@afro.com

Tax season is upon us, with tax returns due to the IRS on April 15. If you brought in less than $64,000 last year, you qualify for free tax preparation through the IRS’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) programs, like the CASH Campaign of Maryland. 

If not, you may choose to file your taxes independently, but if you don’t, choosing a qualified, trusted tax professional is crucial. According to the IRS, thousands of people have fallen victim to tax scams, losing millions of dollars and their personal information. 

“I know people don’t want to spend a whole day going over the best way to file their taxes. It’s something people just want to get over with,” said John Hardt, director of the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic at Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service (MVLS). “But, I would recommend that people take the time to pay attention to what the tax preparers are advertising, what their reputation is and to see if they can find recommendations from people who have used a tax preparer for multiple years.” 

Hardt connected with the AFRO to share some of the warning signs associated with fraudulent tax professionals and offer guidance on how to find a trustworthy preparer. The responses below have been edited for length and clarity. 

Q: What are some common tax scams?

A: A fraudulent tax preparer could direct the refund check from the IRS to them instead of the taxpayer if the taxpayer opts to receive their check by mail or if they leave that decision up to the preparer. Also, some tax preparers will try to convince the taxpayer to give the tax money to them instead of directly to the IRS or the Maryland Comptroller, which allows the fraudulent tax preparer to pocket the money and disappear. 

Another one that is more subtle is when a tax preparer charges a commission based on the size of your refund. They can actually apply for certain tax credits and deductions that they know the taxpayer doesn’t qualify for, and, usually, the taxpayer will initially receive that credit as part of their refund if the return is not audited right away. This means a larger refund and a larger percentage for the fraudulent tax preparer. 

When the comptroller or the IRS takes a closer look at the return after filing season, they will reject the credit. If that happens, the taxpayer is required to pay back all of the extra money that they received, not the preparer. 

Q: Are there any groups of people who are especially vulnerable to tax scams?

A:  Yes. Some of the populations that fraudulent tax preparers will go after are older or retired taxpayers. They will also go after low-income taxpayers who they believe don’t have as much education or familiarity with the tax system. The third group they definitely go after are taxpayers who don’t speak English or speak it as a second language. Our tax system is mostly in English, and a lot of the forms don’t have an official Spanish translation or translation to other languages either. 

Q: What are some things to watch out for when using a tax preparer? 

A: You should immediately stop working with a preparer if they ask you to sign blank or incomplete forms or if they try to get you to fill out forms in pencil. If they don’t sign their own name on the return as a preparer and don’t provide a Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) that is a big red flag. 

Another indicator is if they don’t ask you for important documents like your W-2. We’ve seen some fraudulent tax preparers say they can fill out a person’s taxes over the phone without any documents. No matter how good a preparer you are, it’s impossible to fill out taxes like that. 

Finally, watch out for aggressive advertising. Fraudulent tax preparers often make very bold statements saying they will get you a bigger refund than any other preparer. It’s a common promise that unfortunately isn’t true. Tax preparation is more like solving a math equation. If two competent tax preparers do the same person’s taxes, they should get the same answer. 

Q:  How would you recommend people find a trustworthy tax preparer?  

A: The IRS has a directory of all registered, federal tax return preparers in the country. They all have a PTIN and are legally authorized to prepare people’s tax returns for money. It’s not necessarily an endorsement that the preparer is going to do a good job, but it does show that the person is not pretending. Maryland also has their own state licensing board, the Maryland Board of Individual Tax Preparers, and they have a database as well. 

More generally, people should be mindful of the tax preparer’s reputation. The tax preparation business is very seasonal, so scammers can open up shop at the beginning of a tax season and disappear after the filing deadline. A tax preparer is a lot more trustworthy if they’ve been in the community for a while and if they’re open year-round. 

Megan Sayles is a Report For America corps member. 

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By Roger House
Word in Black

James Pierson Beckwourth is a pioneer of the American West largely erased from history lessons. Recovering his story, however, can help us to better understand current debates over historical revision versus woke education — which is to say that, if he had been White, people likely would have learned about him in school.

Beckwourth was an American original, at times a slave, miner, fur trapper, leader of the Crow Indians, Army scout and guide to the California gold mines in the 1800s. He opened a vital trading post and hotel in the Sierra Nevada mountains that became Beckwourth, Calif.

Historians have enshrined White “mountain men” like Kit Carson, Thomas Fitzpatrick and William Sublette in American folklore, but not so with Beckwourth. Because of racism, writers disparaged his feats and ridiculed his name. However, his keen observations of frontier life could spark discussions on colonial ideologies of ethnic displacement like manifest destiny, slavery and miscegenation, White settler violence against Indigenous people, and commercial exploitation of the land.

His controversial exploits were investigated by historian Elinor Wilson in 1976 in “Jim Beckwourth: Mountain Man and War Chief of the Crows.” She argued that he “was a figure suited to the making of Western legend” had it not been for his race. She found that “racial prejudice inspired much of what early writers said about his life,” and that he was branded a “gaudy liar” — even in a culture that valued the tall tale — an unfair indictment that has been recycled in contemporary times.

His accomplishments were preserved in a memoir, as well as physical landmarks, on websites, and in documentary treatments. Central is his colorful autobiography, but unlike the frontiersman Davy Crockett, students don’t learn about the “Black King of the Wild Frontier.”

Yet, his story would seem appropriate for educators today. For example, it fits with several of the topic sections in the revamped AP African American history framework issued by the College Board. The “Unit 2” sections on Black identity, freedom, autonomy and living in Indigenous territory would seem particularly relevant.

And the Beckwourth story could be a vehicle for an action movie or television treatment. In fact, his name is used teasingly for a character in the 2021 Netflix Western, “The Harder They Fall.” And there is a documentary, “Jim Beckwourth: War Chief of the Crow,” in the 2022 Apple TV series, “Into the Wild Frontier.” Surely, his story could be relevant to controversies over racial representation in Hollywood.

Beckwourth’s wild frontier  

Born into slavery in about 1798 in Fredericks County, Va., Beckwourth was a product of rape and the legal property of a tobacco plantation owner. The violence shaped his racial identity in conflicting and accommodating ways. His pioneer outlook was fueled by the opportunities of the Louisiana Purchase. About 1805, his master took him to work at a St. Louis fur trading post; he was later hired out for a lead-mining expedition to Illinois on the Mississippi River.

With money earned from the mines, he returned to St. Louis to buy his freedom. His story from that point sheds light on the incorporation of the wild frontier into Western capitalism. His work as a trapper in the dangerous but lucrative fur trade is a window into the diverse people, places and cultures of the old west, and the systems of colonization and slavery that made America an economic power.

For instance, he was hired by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to supply animal pelts for fashionable wear. At the same time, as he trekked about the frontier, his freedom was subject to challenge under the fugitive slave laws of 1793 and 1850. Like other free Black people, he lived at risk of kidnapping and enslavement; his former master testified to his legal emancipation in courts several times.

Over the years, Beckwourth gained a reputation as a skilled hunter, fur trapper and courageous mountaineer. His assignments took him to Iowa, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. He witnessed — and participated in — skirmishes among indigenous nations and with White settlers. About 1828, he was captured by warriors of the Crow Nation in Montana.

Tribal leaders evidently saw value in his understanding of White culture, fluency in English, and bravery in combat. In the tribe, he rose to the position of a war chief. Today, his observations of their way of life before displacement by White settlers are valued as precious anthropology.

Witness to continental expansion

Beckwourth was a rare Black witness to the Seminole Nation and runaway slaves in Florida. He participated in the second of three wars from 1835 to 1842. During the conflicts, he served as a messenger delivering instructions between army forts. He observed the deadly Battle of Okeechobee on Christmas Day 1837, involving about 800 troops under the command of Col. Zachary Taylor.

Though Taylor, who later became president, proclaimed the battle a victory, many historians tend to agree with Beckwourth’s assessment that the Seminoles got the better of the fight. He recounted: “I could not see that Ok-ke-cho-be was much of a victory; indeed, I shrewdly suspected that the enemy had the advantage; but it was called a victory by the soldier, and they were the best qualified to decide.”

Beckwourth also provided insights into the opening of California during the gold rush. In 1850, he located a passage through the Sierra Nevada mountains known as Beckwourth Pass. Then, he organized a team to prepare a road for wagon trains between Reno and northern California, known as the Beckwourth Trail, which enabled thousands of settlers to reach the fertile central valley in safety — and allowed Beckwourth to achieve a measure of commercial success.  

This fascinating pioneer lived to see the end of slavery; he died around 1866, shortly after the Civil War. But he never enjoyed the rights of citizenship, even though he was an authentic product of the American experience. As such, the rediscovery of his story can provide an engaging springboard for re-envisioning the wild frontier.

This article was originally published by Word In Black.

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By Ben Finley
The Associated Press

PARKSLEY, Va. (AP) — A married couple who fled Haiti for Virginia achieved their American dream when they opened a variety market on the Eastern Shore, selling hard-to-find spices, sodas and rice to the region’s growing Haitian community.

When they added a Haitian food truck, people drove from an hour away for freshly cooked oxtail, fried plantains and marinated pork.

But Clemene Bastien and Theslet Benoir are now suing the town of Parksley, alleging that it forced their food truck to close. The couple also say a town council member cut the mobile kitchen’s water line and screamed, “Go back to your own country!”

“When we first opened, there were a lot of people” ordering food, Bastien said, speaking through an interpreter. “And the day after, there were a lot of people. And then … they started harassing us.”

A federal lawsuit claims the town passed a food truck ban that targeted the couple, then threatened them with fines and imprisonment when they raised concerns. They’re being represented by the Institute for Justice, a law firm that described a “string of abuses” in the historic railroad town of about 800 people.

“If Theslet and Clemene were not of Haitian descent, Parksley’s town government would not have engaged in this abusive conduct,” the lawsuit states.

The town council is pushing back through a law firm it hired, Pender & Coward, which said its own investigation found many allegations “simply not true.”

The couple failed to apply for a conditional use permit and chose to sue instead, the law firm countered. It said the council member cut an illegal sewage pipe — not a water line — after the food truck dumped grease into Parksley’s sewage system, causing damage.

The council member had authority to do so as a public works department representative, the law firm said.

“We expect to prevail once the evidence is presented,” attorneys Anne Lahren and Richard Matthews said.

Conflicts between local governments and food trucks have played out in the U.S. for decades, often pitting the aspirations of entrepreneurial immigrants against the concerns of local officials and restaurants. Tensions can spark debates about land use, food safety and food truck owners’ rights in underserved communities.

The Parksley dispute is unfolding on a narrow peninsula of farmland and coastline between the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean, where the population is majority White but growing increasingly diverse.

Black and Hispanic migrant workers from Florida, Haiti and Latin America began picking fruits and vegetables in the 1950s. Many people from Haiti and elsewhere in Latin America now work in the coops and slaughterhouses of the expanding poultry industry, which extends north into Maryland and Delaware.

Several community members said the lawsuit unfairly maligns a town that has integrated recent immigrants into its 0.625 square miles (1.62 square kilometers).

Parksley has two Caribbean markets, a Haitian church and a Latin American restaurant, all of which sit near the hardware store, flower shop and iconic five & dime.

Jeff Parks, who serves on the Accomack County Board of Supervisors, said the town “has welcomed any business which operates within the rules.”

Once a transportation hub for trains and trucks that hauled away grains and produce, Parksley has lost two grocery stores, a bank and a garment factory in recent decades. Some shops on the town square sit empty.

“It’s disheartening to see a town that is so open to everyone and welcoming new businesses into its storefronts to be mischaracterized,” Parks said. “We have multiple Haitian businesses, so it wouldn’t make sense that this one was being targeted.”

Bastien and Benoir said they were singled out.

“We did everything we’re supposed to do,” Bastien said.

The couple came to the U.S. in the 2000s and received asylum after fleeing this hemisphere’s poorest nation. Benoir is a U.S. citizen, while Bastien is a permanent resident.

They initially worked in a poultry processing plant. But in 2019, the couple opened the Eben-Ezer Variety Market in Parksley.

The food truck opened in June on the store’s property after the couple passed a state health inspection and obtained a $30 business license, their lawsuit stated. But Henry Nicholson, the council member, allegedly complained the food truck would hurt restaurants that buy equipment from his appliance store.

Nicholson cut the water line, causing $1,300 in spoiled food, the lawsuit said, and then tried to block a food shipment and screamed: “Go back to your own country!” when Bastien confronted him.

Nicholson declined to comment.

In October, Parksley’s council passed its ban on food trucks, except for special events. Mayor Frank Russell said it wouldn’t impact the food truck until its one-year business license expired.

But Parksley’s position changed after the Institute for Justice raised concerns, the lawsuit said. The town claimed food trucks were always illegal under zoning laws and threatened fines of $250 a day and 30 days in jail for each day the food truck remained open.

The couple quickly closed the town’s only permanent food truck, which now sits empty.

“We’re waiting to see what justice we’re going to get,” Bastien said. “And then we’ll see if we reopen.”

The couple’s lawsuit is seeking compensation for $1,300 in spoiled food, financial losses and attorneys’ fees. They also want $1 in nominal damages for violations of their constitutional rights.

Food truck disputes in America date back to the 1970s, said Ginette Wessel, an architecture professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island.

Restaurants often accuse food truck vendors of playing by their own rules, while immigrants can face perceptions they’re doing something unsanitary or illegal.

Wessel said lawsuits often end in compromise: “The (food trucks) do get restrictions, but they don’t get elimination. Or the city backs down and says, ‘OK, we can negotiate.'”

Meanwhile, the region’s Haitian community keeps growing as more people work in the poultry industry, said Thurka Sangaramoorthy, an American University anthropology professor who studies the area’s immigrant populations.

U.S. Census numbers show that 600 people identify as Haitian in Accomack County, with several thousand more on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and in lower Delaware. Sangaramoorthy said the region’s Haitian population likely numbers in the tens of thousands.

She said Parksley’s Haitian food truck provided something vital — familiar foods that remind people of their homeland — to people often working long hours.

“It’s a community that is triply marginalized for being foreign, Black and speaking Haitian Creole,” Sangaramoorthy said. “They feel like they need to keep to themselves, so it’s surprising that this couple was brave to even file a lawsuit.”

The post They opened a Haitian food truck. Then they were told, ‘Go back to your own country,’ lawsuit says appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

By Deborah Bailey
AFRO Contributing Editor 
dbailey@afro.com

Seated humbly in a chair on the platform of the Washington National Cathedral, former United Nations Ambassador and Congressman Andrew Young preached extemporaneously Jan. 14. King confidante, friend, collaborator and fellow pastor, Young is among a dwindling number of activists who worked and served full time in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. 

Young knew King from the start of the Civil Rights Movement and was at King’s side as he died in 1968 on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. As few movement veterans can, Young is still able to offer a first-hand account of times that transformed both him as a man and the world. 

Young’s recollections of King as the young, inexperienced pastor of the conservative Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala.  in 1955, set the tone for the conversation.

“Martin had no time. He received the announcement one hour before the start of the meeting. He rose to the occasion with less than one hour to prepare himself and made one of the better speeches of his career,” Young said, referring to the speech made at Montgomery’s Holt Street Baptist Church, urging the continuation of the bus boycott. 

Young said the Montgomery bus boycott was originally planned to last one day, but persisted for 381 days until November 1956, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal on public transportation systems. 

History changed King’s trajectory as well, said Young, who spoke about his involvement in a series of civil rights campaigns King led in Georgia, Alabama, Washington, D.C  and Alabama. But Young said the campaign in Chicago, Ill. Introduced King to another side of the American cultural dilemma. 

“More and more he began to see the problems we were having in Northern cities were not just social; they were economic,” said Young. “That commitment led him to Memphis,” he added, noting that  sanitation workers were preparing to strike after the accidental deaths of sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker. 

 “I think he knew his days were numbered. I think he had decided if he gave his life had decided if he gave his life, he wanted it to be for the least of these, God’s children. The sanitation workers, the garbage workers were a perfect example of ‘the least of these.’ The garbage workers had no benefits, no retirement,” Young said. “They were still virtual slaves in our modern democracy. I think he knew. Everything about the way he acted in those next several days led us to believe that he knew he was going to his death.”

 “When I heard that shot, I looked up at Martin Luther King and ran to the top of the steps. realized that…the bullet moved faster than his feelings,” said Young. 

The grand sanctuary of the National Cathedral became pin-drop silent. “He probably never felt that bullet,” he said. “I think that’s the reason why, 50 something-odd years later, we’re still gathering all over the world to celebrate him…and the values for which he gave his life,” Young said of King. “He probably never heard that bullet. I thought that maybe it’s true that someone can go straight from this life to heaven on a flaming chariot.”

Randolph Hollerith, dean of the National Cathedral, captured the sentiments of the parishioners and visitors who came to hear Young’s presentation. 

“Sir, you honor us today. Wherever I go and whatever I do I’ll always remember these words and you sitting in this chair offering them,” Hollerith said to Young, before the entire congregation. 

Others attending felt a similar sense of awe following the service.

“I’m so grateful for Rev. Young’s account of MLK’s life, in which he breathed new life,” said Natalie Doyle. 

Georgianne Thomas was also grateful to be in attendance.

“Thank you, Ambassador Young, for your long committed service to our community,” said Thomas. “We live Black – daily. Unless you live it, you will never understand it.”

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By Corey Williams
The Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) — A Black man who was detained by police during an early morning walk in a quiet community northwest of Detroit says the White officer who threw him against a squad car, cuffed him and accused him of planning to break into a car also told a significant lie.

Brian Chaney says he asked for a supervisor during his arrest in Keego Harbor, Michigan, and Police Officer Richard Lindquist told him that another officer present was in charge. The problem: That second officer was not a supervisor or even a member of the Keego Harbor Police Department.

Lindquist was never disciplined and his chief says that while a suspect has the right to request a supervisor, what the officer did was OK.

“An officer can lie in the field when he’s not under oath,” Keego Harbor Police Chief John Fitzgerald said in a deposition in Chaney’s $10 million wrongful detention lawsuit.

But with American trust in police plummeting, buttressed by cellphone and bodycam videos that can expose untruths, a profession once broadly considered above reproach has seen its reputation suffer.

“It’s well accepted that the weakest and most vulnerable members of society are the biggest victims of coercive practices, like police being dishonest and deceptive practices in interrogations,” said James Craven, a legal associate with Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice and a former criminal defense attorney.

In a Gallup poll last year, 43 percent of respondents said they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the police, down from 51 percent in 2021 and 64 percent in 2004. Gallup says 43 percent is an all-time low.

“We need police we can trust,” Craven said. “We need to start envisioning a police force that’s built with integrity at the center.”

Several recent cases underscore that need.

In May, a Washington, D.C., police officer was arrested on charges that he obstructed an investigation and lied about leaking confidential information to Proud Boys extremist group leader Enrique Tarrio.

A White police officer and union leader in Portland, Oregon, was fired in 2022 for leaking a false report from a 911 caller who claimed a Black city commissioner had been involved in a hit-and-run. The department later reinstated him.

A former officer in Louisville, Kentucky, admitted in court that she and another officer falsified information in a search warrant that led to the 2020 fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman.

Police are allowed to use deception and present false evidence during interrogations and investigations to get suspects to admit guilt, according to a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

New York State has considered legislation that would ban police from lying to suspects during interrogations, while Illinois,Colorado and Oregon prohibit police from lying when interrogating juveniles.

Chaney, a licensed therapist and certified hypnotherapist from suburban Detroit, says in his lawsuit that in July 2021 he dropped his two teenage sons off at a gym. He was walking for exercise along a commercial street in Keego Harbor, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of Detroit, when Lindquist drove up behind and shouted: “Get your hands out of your pocket!”

According to the lawsuit, Lindquist told Chaney, “I’m going to frisk you because you look like you have a weapon and were going to break into cars.”

Lindquist called him a “dog,” shoved him in the back and pushed him against the squad car, injuring his groin. His wrist was hurt from the handcuffs in the ordeal lasting more than 20 minutes, Chaney’s complaint says.

Chaney said Lindquist only released him after he asked, “What are you going to do next, put your knee into my neck?” referencing the killing of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer.

Fitzgerald said in his deposition on July 18, 2022, that Lindquist wasn’t disciplined over the lie about the supervisor, characterizing it as “an attempted de-escalation, momentary speculation.” He insisted lying is not policy in his department but that “it’s what they’re allowed to do.”

Citizens who have been detained can ask for a supervisor — in this case, Fitzgerald — and officers should call him. Lindquist didn’t call and he didn’t think the officer gave Chaney his phone number, Fitzgerald said.

The chief declined to comment to The Associated Press, citing the pending litigation, and several national and international organizations advocating on behalf of law enforcement did not respond to messages from the AP.

Lindquist no longer works for the Keego Harbor police and the AP was unable to reach him. Attorneys representing Lindquist in Chaney’s case did not respond to requests for comment.

“You should not have the right to lie,” said Leonard Mungo, Chaney’s attorney. “That’s something that we’re writing into the moral fabric of the most powerful institution of our society that has the authority to put you in jail.”

Detroit-area attorney David A. Robinson said the lies are a disappointment.

“People hold police in high esteem,” said Robinson, who spent 13 years as a Detroit police officer. “A cop’s fall from grace is higher than that of a regular person when he is caught in a lie, simply because of this perception.”

Robinson is Black and most of his clients are Black people alleging civil rights violations by police.

“My experience with the profession reveals police officers seem often to take liberties in reports in order to justify force or buttress an arrest,” Robinson said. “It is therefore foolish to take an officer’s word at face value.”

Once someone realizes an officer has lied to them, trust is difficult to restore, according to Robert Feldman, professor of Psychological and Brain Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“Basically, I think police officers lie because they can,” Feldman said. “Most of the time they are not caught lying, and even if they are, they get away with it. If you come to an understanding the police are not credible and they use deceit, it makes you suspicious of everything they are saying.”

___

Associated Press researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this story. ___

Corey Williams is a member of AP’s Race and Ethnicity team.

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(Black PR Wire) – Lanny Smoot, a Disney Research Fellow and longtime member of Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, is being inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He is the first Disney Imagineer to receive this prestigious recognition and only the second individual from The Walt Disney Company to be inducted—the first being Walt Disney, honored posthumously in 2000 for the multiplane camera. Smoot and his fellow Class of 2024 inductees will be formally honored in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 9.

Upon learning of his induction, Smoot said, “I was honored and humbled at being inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. With all of the inventing greats, however, I caught a true lump in my throat when I realized that I was only the second person at The Walt Disney Company being presented with this honor, and the first person was Walt Disney himself.”

For nearly three decades, Smoot has continued to push the boundaries of technology to bring to life awe-inspiring, one-of-a-kind experiences to Disney guests around the world. Throughout his illustrious career, he has worked as a theatrical technology creator, inventor, electrical engineer, scientist, and researcher, resulting in more than 100 patents—an incredibly rare feat that makes Smoot one of the most prolific Black inventors in American history, based on patents issued, according to Disney patent attorney Stuart Langley. Of that total, 74 of his patents were created during his 25 years at The Walt Disney Company.

“At Disney Experiences, we’re committed to world-class storytelling, creativity, and innovation in everything we do, and Lanny Smoot embodies every one of those ideals,” said Josh D’Amaro, chairman, Disney Experiences. “As Disney’s most prolific inventor, Lanny continues to amaze all of us with his artistic ingenuity, technical expertise, and endless imagination.”

Among his many accomplishments, Smoot is credited with giving Madame Leota her ability to “float” in the Séance Room at the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland Park; crafting the state-of-the-art extendable lightsaber used by Disney Live Entertainment; inventing the Magic Playfloor interactive game experience on the Disney Cruise Line; producing the immersive Fortress Explorations adventure at Tokyo DisneySea; and designing the virtual and interactive koi ponds at the Crystal Lotus Restaurant at Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel.

When deciding which of his patents to highlight as part of his National Inventors Hall of Fame induction, Smoot selected “Where’s the Fire?” at Innoventions, previously featured at EPCOT. This interactive exhibit promoted fire prevention through engaging challenges; guests “shined” a special flashlight on the walls of a house and, through the magic of his technology, exposed hidden fire dangers and learned how to prevent them from happening.

Smoot is the recipient of many awards and honors, including three Thea Awards from the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) for his work on the attractions Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage and Kim Possible: World Showcase Adventure, as well as the Ghost Post limited-time experience inspired by the Haunted Mansion. In 2020, Smoot’s expertise in theatrical technology earned him the esteemed title of TEA Master.

Smoot’s forward-thinking inventions have also empowered the theatrical community to create new entertainment, illusions, and magic. He is currently working on the HoloTile floor, the world’s first multi-person, omni-directional, modular, expandable, treadmill floor. It allows any number of people to have a shared virtual reality (VR) experience, walk an unlimited distance in any direction, and never collide or walk off its surface. The HoloTile floor can also be an insert in a theatrical stage, allowing performers to move and dance in new ways, or stage props and structures to move around or appear to set themselves up.

Prior to joining Disney, Smoot completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering at Columbia University. Before Disney, he worked at Bell Laboratories, followed by Bell Communications Research. While at Bell, he received patents for his role in the early development of video-on-demand technology, video conferencing, and more.

Source: The Walt Disney Company

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By Jake Offenhartz
The Associated Press

A judge has ordered the Los Angeles Police Department to get rid of photographs of legal documents that officers allegedly took during an unannounced raid on the home of an attorney representing a prominent Black Lives Matter activist.

The attorney, Dermot Givens, said roughly a dozen Los Angeles police officers descended on his townhouse on Jan. 23, ordering him to stand outside as they executed a warrant.

When he went back inside, Givens said he saw an officer photographing documents left on his kitchen table related to a lawsuit filed against the department on behalf of Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter.

Abdullah has alleged officers violated her civil rights in 2020 by forcing her out of her home at gunpoint after receiving a hoax call about a hostage situation there.

The papers photographed by police contained “portions of Mr. Given’s case file, and potentially attorney work product” related to Abdullah’s case, according to an application in Los Angeles County Superior Court requesting that police destroy or return the materials and provide a copy of the warrant used to justify the search.

On Jan. 26, Judge Rupert Byrdsong granted that request. Givens said he had not received confirmation from the LAPD or any information about the warrant as of Jan. 27.

A police spokesperson said the department was conducting an internal investigation and declined to provide further details about the search. “This is an open criminal investigation as well as an internal affairs investigation,” the spokesperson, Capt. Kelly Muniz, said by phone.

According to Givens, police said they were responding to a GPS tracker located near his home as part of their search for a young man named Tyler. After surrounding the townhouse with guns drawn, officers in tactical gear “ransacked” his house, he said, emptying drawers, opening his safe, and rifling through his briefcase.

Givens said he had lived in the house for more than two decades and did not know anyone who matched the name and description of the person police claimed to be looking for. The raid was first reported the night of Jan. 26 by the Los Angeles Times.

The attorney alleged that it was the latest instance of harassment from the LAPD for his work on behalf of clients who are suing the department. He said police “know exactly who I am and where I live” and they’re lying if they say otherwise.

Givens is currently representing Abdullah in her lawsuit against the LAPD for their response to a “swatting incident” at her home in 2020, which involved officers surrounding her house and ordering her and her children to come outside through a loudspeaker.

She has alleged that police used the prank call, which was carried out by teenagers, as pretext to “terrorize” her for her role in organizing protests following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020.

Los Angeles police have not commented on officers’ actions at Abdullah’s home, citing the pending litigation.

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By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Political Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com

The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) recently filed a joint motion with the Department of Justice (DOJ) announcing that BPD has reached full and effective compliance on two sections of their mandated consent decree. 

“Together with the DOJ, we filed a joint motion that BPD has reached a state of full and effective compliance on two sections of our consent decree: transportation of persons in custody and officer assistance and support,” said Baltimore City Commissioner Richard Worley at a live-streamed press conference on Jan. 17. “Reaching full and effective compliance with these two sections of the consent decree not only helps us build trust with our communities but also sends a message to our members that their health and wellness is a priority.”

The BPD Consent Decree Monitoring Team’s report in December 2023 found BPD to be in full and effective compliance with the two provisions.

The decree was spurred in part by the 2015 death of Freddie Gray, who died after sustaining injuries while being transported by BPD. The death influenced the DOJ to conduct a comprehensive investigation of BPD’s practices. A consent decree was approved in 2017 and the city complied to resolve inadequacies identified through the investigation. 

 “Under my administration, I am proud that for the first time in the consent decree’s nearly seven-year history, we are able to join DOJ in jointly recommending the court to find us in full and effective compliance with whole sections of the decree,” said Scott. “It is no coincidence that as we make progress in implementing the consent decree, we have also managed to achieve record-year reductions in violence in Baltimore City. In fact, 2023 was the first year that Baltimore has had less than 300 homicides since the death of Freddie Gray.”

There have been 11 homicides and 22 non-fatal shootings as of Jan. 23, according to BPD. Last year, on this same date, there were 17 homicides and 27 non-fatal shootings. 

According to the monitoring team report, BPD still needs to work on systematically documenting services offered to its personnel after traumatic events and the timing of such outreach. They also need to better document and label protests and demonstration-related activity. BPD must ensure their personnel adhere to supervisors’ instructions when unrest or demonstrations occur.

“Constitutional policing and the reduction of crime are inseparable components of our law enforcement strategy. They are not disparate goals; rather, they are interconnected elements that reinforce each other,” said Baltimore City Solicitor Ebony Thompson. “Today, we affirm our commitment to constitutional principles as the driving force behind our crime reduction initiatives. Together, we build a safer community where justice, fairness and respect for individual rights guide our path forward.”

Tashi McQueen is a Report For America corps member.

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By Juan Lozano
The Associated Press

ANAHUAC, Texas (AP) — A judge ordered Jan. 24 that a trial be held next month to determine whether a Black high school student in Texas can continue being punished by his district for refusing to change a hairstyle he and his family say is protected by a new state law.

Darryl George, 18, has not been in his regular classroom in Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu since Aug. 31. Instead, he has either been serving in-school suspension or spending time in an off-site disciplinary program.

His Houston-area school district, Barbers Hill, has said George’s long hair, which he wears in neatly tied and twisted locs on top of his head, violates a district dress code that limits hair length for boys. The district has said other students with locs comply with the length policy.

George, a junior, said Jan. 24 that he has felt stress and frustration over what he sees as unfair punishment, but that he was grateful to soon be getting his day in court.

“I’m glad that we are being heard, too. I’m glad that things are moving and we’re getting through this,” George said after the hearing in Anahuac, with his mother, Darresha George, standing next to him.

State District Judge Chap Cain III in Anahuac set a Feb. 22 trial in a lawsuit filed by the school district regarding whether its dress code restrictions limiting the length of boys’ hair violates the CROWN Act. 

The new Texas law, which took effect in September, prohibits race-based hair discrimination and bars employers and schools from penalizing people because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including Afros, braids, locs, twists or Bantu knots.

Darresha George said she was disappointed the judge did not consider granting a temporary restraining order, which would have halted her son’s punishment until next month’s trial.

“I have a son, 18 years old, that wants to go to school, that wants to get his education, and y’all messing with him. Why?” she said.

In an affidavit filed last week in support of the temporary restraining order, Darryl George said he is being subjected to “cruel treatment.”

“I love my hair, it is sacred and it is my strength,” George wrote. “All I want to do is go to school and be a model student. I am being harassed by school officials and treated like a dog.”

A spokesperson for the school district didn’t speak with reporters after the hearing and didn’t immediately reply to an email seeking comment.

In a paid ad that ran this month in the Houston Chronicle, Barbers Hill Superintendent Greg Poole maintained the district is not violating the CROWN Act.

In the ad, Poole defended his district’s policy and wrote that districts with a traditional dress code are safer and had higher academic performance and that “being an American requires conformity.”

“We will not lose sight of the main goal — high standards for our students — by bending to political pressure or responding to misinformed media reports. These entities have ‘lesser’ goals that ultimately harm kids,” Poole wrote.

The two Texas lawmakers who co-wrote the state’s version of the CROWN Act — state Reps. Rhetta Bowers and Ron Reynolds — attended the Jan. 24 hearing and said the new state law does protect Darryl George’s hairstyle.

The district “is punishing Darryl George for one reason: his choice to wear his hair in a protective style which harms no one and causes no distraction in the classroom,” Bowers said.

George’s family has also filed a formal complaint with the Texas Education Agency and a federal civil rights lawsuit against Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with the school district, alleging they failed to enforce the CROWN Act. The lawsuit is before a federal judge in Galveston, Texas.

Barbers Hill’s policy on student hair was previously challenged in a May 2020 federal lawsuit filed by two other students. Both students withdrew from the high school, but one returned after a federal judge granted a temporary injunction, saying the student showed “a substantial likelihood” that his rights to free speech and to be free from racial discrimination would be violated if not allowed to return to campus. That lawsuit remains pending.

___

Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

(NNPA NEWSWIRE) – Recent research conducted by Scientific American Online supported fears that facial recognition technology (FRT) can worsen racial inequities in policing. The research found that law enforcement agencies that use automated facial recognition disproportionately arrest Black people.

The report’s authors stated that they believe these results come from factors that include the “lack of Black faces in the algorithms’ training data sets, a belief that these programs are infallible, and a tendency of officers’ own biases to magnify these issues.”

FRT was again cast in a negative light after the arrest of a 61-year-old grandfather, who is now suing Sunglass Hut’s parent company after the store’s facial recognition technology mistakenly identified him as a robber. Harvey Eugene Murphy Jr. was subsequently held in jail, where he says he was sexually assaulted, according to a lawsuit.

The robbery occurred at a Sunglass Hut store in Houston, Texas, when two gun-wielding bandits stole thousands of dollars in cash and merchandise. Houston police identified Murphy as a suspect, even though he lived in California.  They arrested Murphy when he returned to Texas to renew his driver’s license. His lawsuit claims that, while in jail, he was sexually assaulted by three men in a bathroom, causing him to suffer lifelong injuries.

The Harris County District Attorney’s Office later determined Murphy was not involved in the robbery, but the damage was already done while he was in jail, his lawyers said in a news release.

“This is precisely the kind of situation we’ve been warning about for years: that these systems, whatever their theoretical reliability, are in practice so finicky and consequential that they cannot be fixed,” Os Keyes, an Ada Lovelace Fellow and doctoral candidate at the University of Washington, told Vice News.

“The only thing I’d push back on is Murphy’s lawyer’s claim that it could happen to anyone; these systems are attractive precisely because they promise to automate and speed up ‘business as usual,’ which includes laundering existing police biases against people who are already in the system, minority groups, and anyone else who doesn’t fit,” Keyes continued. “This outcome is as inevitable as it is horrifying and should be taken as a sign to restrict and reconfigure policing in general as well as FRT in particular.”

Scientific American researchers noted that the algorithms used by law enforcement “are typically developed by companies like Amazon, Clearview AI and Microsoft, which build their systems for different environments.” They argued that, despite massive improvements in deep-learning techniques, federal testing shows that most facial recognition algorithms perform poorly at identifying people besides White men.

In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission prohibited Rite Aid from using FRT after the company wrongly accused individuals of shoplifting. CBS News noted that, in one incident, an 11-year-old girl was stopped and searched by a Rite Aid employee based on a false match.  Also last year, the Detroit Police Department was sued by a woman whom their technology misidentified as a carjacking suspect. Eight months pregnant at the time, Porcha Woodruff was jailed after police incorrectly identified her using FRT.

The Commission acknowledged that people of color are often misidentified when using FRT. 

“Disproportionate representation of white males in training images produces skewed algorithms because Black people are overrepresented in mugshot databases and other image repositories commonly used by law enforcement,” Scientific American researchers determined. “Consequently, AI is more likely to mark Black faces as criminal, leading to the targeting and arresting of innocent Black people.

“We believe that the companies that make these products need to take staff and image diversity into account. However, this does not remove law enforcement’s responsibility. Police forces must critically examine their methods if we want to keep this technology from worsening racial disparities and leading to rights violations.”

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire

The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) is gearing up for its 2024 Annual Mid-Winter Training Conference, which begins on Jan. 24, at the B Ocean Resort and Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 

Representing 250 African American-owned newspapers and media companies in the United States, NNPA’s theme for this year’s conference is “Empowering in 2024: The Black Press, The Black Vote and Black America.”

The four-day interchange promises attendees valuable insights into performance-driven tools and methodologies aimed at expanding and monetizing their businesses. Highlights include workshops, presentations and discussions featuring prominent figures from various fields.

NNPA Chairman Bobby R. Henry Sr. affirmed, “As the Chairman of our beloved association, hosting the NNPA members — the Black Press of America — in Florida’s Broward County in the city of Fort Lauderdale is a true honor. In these challenging times, the Black Press confronts bigotry and hatred, understanding the need for collective action. The Westside Gazette and the NNPA, through the NNPA’s National Town Hall Meeting aims to reaffirm the historic bond between Blacks and Jews in America, rooted in the shared struggle for civil rights and freedom.”

NNAP Chairman Henry emphasized, “It’s a call to re-engage and strengthen this significant relationship. Remembering we marched together, fought together, and died together for civil rights.”

Main registration for the conference opens at 8 a.m., Jan. 24, 2024. The NNPA will host its board meeting at 11 a.m., and the NNPA Fund will hold its meeting at 2 p.m.

Again, one of the many highlights is the NNPA National Town Hall Meeting: “Reaffirming the Relationship between Blacks and Jews in America.” The NNPA National Town Hall Meeting will convene on Jan. 24 at 7 p.m. Eastern Time at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale.

The National Town Hall Meeting will feature distinguished panelists, including NNPA Chair and Westside Gazette Publisher Bobby Henry, NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., U.S. Congresswoman Deborah Wasserman Schultz, who serves as the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives; U.S. Congresswoman Sheila Cherflius-McCormick, who represents Florida’s 20th District in the U.S. House of Representatives; Jonathan Greenblatt, the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); and Dr. Marvin Dunn, a renowned psychologist and historian.

On Jan. 25, 2024, Carolyn Fox, the managing editor of the Tampa Bay Times, will discuss “Revenue Generating Strategies in the Publishing Digital Age” in a public session. The always-popular fireside chat occurs Jan. 25 at 11:50 a.m. between Chavis and Stephanie Childes, vice president of Diageo. It will explore “Harnessing the power of community, the Black Press, and inclusive corporations.”

At 12:45 p.m., Pfizer Rare Disease plans to conduct a lunch talk on “Sickle Cell and ATTR-CM.” Freshman U.S. Congressman Maxwell Frost has been invited to give the keynote address, “The Black and Brown Vote,” at 1:15 p.m.

Another highlight on Jan.25 is expected to be a 2:30 p.m. session featuring Google News Initiative experts, titled “The Power of Audience to Generate Revenue.”

Highlights for Jan. 26, 2024, include a Hyundai-sponsored breakfast at 8:30 a.m. which promises to provide informational speeches, a film presentation, and a panel discussion.

Later on Jan. 26, a Millennial Panel on “Digital Creative Storytelling” will include Lafayette Barnes, Micha Greene, DaNiesha Bell, and Ashleigh Fields. Niele Anderson, the founder, and CEO of PLB Media Inc., will host a workshop at 11:20 a.m., discussing the importance of being relevant and profitable in a digital world and riding the 2024 election revenue wave.

The PGA TOUR will demonstrate its commitment to education by providing two $5,000 scholarships for HBCU students Jasmine Ball and Victoria Gisel Montanet.

The elegant black-tie affair, the NNPA 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award Gala, will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Friday evening of Jan. 26, 2024, at B Ocean Resort and Hotel, Promenade A & B & C. The conference adjourns on Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024 with a continental breakfast and a NNPA publisher’s think tank. Dr. Benjamin Chavis stated, “On behalf of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, we are elated and so very much pleased to present the NNPA 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award to Carol and John Zippert, the distinguished co-publishers of the Green County Democrat newspaper in Eutaw, Alabama. Carol and John are longtime freedom-fighting publishers for civil rights, justice, equality and freedom.”

NNPA’s 2024 Mid-Winter Training Conference is made possible through the support of its sponsors and partners, each playing a crucial role in fostering empowerment and growth within the Black press and community. The sponsors include:

Diageo: A global leader in beverage alcohol, Diageo is known for its wide range of spirits and beers, committed to promoting responsible drinking and supporting communities.

Hyundai: The automotive giant, Hyundai, is dedicated to innovation and sustainability, consistently contributing to technological advancements in the automotive industry.

Comcast: A leading telecommunications conglomerate, Comcast provides a range of services including cable television, internet and telephone, shaping the landscape of digital connectivity.

AARP: A non-profit organization advocating for the well-being of older adults, AARP focuses on issues such as healthcare, employment and retirement planning.

The American Petroleum Institute (API): Representing the oil and natural gas industry, API plays a pivotal role in setting standards and promoting safe and sustainable practices.

Volkswagen: A renowned automotive manufacturer, Volkswagen is recognized for its commitment to quality, innovation and environmental responsibility.

Rebuild Local News: This initiative is dedicated to supporting and revitalizing local journalism, recognizing its crucial role in informing and engaging communities.

Wells Fargo: A major financial services company, Wells Fargo is committed to providing banking, investment and mortgage services, contributing to financial stability.

Nissan: As a leading automobile manufacturer, Nissan is synonymous with innovation, quality and sustainability in the automotive industry.

NNPA Partners

NNPA’s partnerships play a key role in advancing its mission. Partners include :

Reynolds:

Reynolds is a prominent American company known for contributing to the tobacco and packaging industries. While they are historically recognized for their tobacco-related products, the company has diversified its portfolio and is engaged in various business sectors. It has a substantial presence in the packaging industry, offering innovative solutions and products.

Pfizer:

Pfizer is a leading global pharmaceutical company widely recognized for its contributions to healthcare and the development of innovative medicines. With a focus on research and development, Pfizer has played a crucial role in addressing various health challenges, from infectious diseases to chronic conditions. The company is committed to advancing medical science and improving health outcomes worldwide.

NNPA Media Partner, Google News Initiative:

The Google News Initiative (GNI) is an effort by Google to collaborate with the news industry and support the future of journalism. GNI aims to strengthen quality journalism, empower news organizations through technology and foster a sustainable ecosystem. It provides tools and resources for journalists, publishers and newsrooms to adapt to the evolving digital landscape.

General Motors:

General Motors (GM) is a major American automotive company with a rich history in the automobile industry. GM has been a key player in shaping the automotive landscape, known for iconic brands such as Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC. The company is committed to innovation, producing a wide range of vehicles that include electric and autonomous options, contributing to the advancement of the automotive industry.

This article was originally published by NNPA Newswire.

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By José Luis Vilson

Claudine Gay was the first Black president in Harvard University’s history and, as such, stewarded the work of the world’s most prestigious university over a six-month tenure. I’ve read dozens of opinions, and no one has any illusions about the nature of working for a university like Harvard. Creating a space where intellect and fierce debate flourish while keeping funders, academics and policymakers happy is no small feat, even less so when the leader embraces her Black heritage. 

High-level jobs of this nature already look difficult without layering international conflicts, fascism and growing social stratification across the board, but here we are. 

So in December, when Rep. Elise Stefanik interrogated three college presidents about the role of antisemitism on college campuses, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. In speaking to current Harvard students and reading posts from current Harvard students, many of them didn’t feel like Gay did enough to protect students who support Palestinian rights from doxxing, harassment and other forms of ostracization for exercising the right to protest a mass genocide. Other students didn’t feel like she could have done more to quell the protests and the anti-Jewish provocations that spiked post-Oct. 7. Then, Congress compelled Claudine Gay and two other college presidents to testify about a stormy situation on campus that no one’s gotten pitch perfect. 

Rep. Stefanik asked, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university’s rules or code of conduct?” 

University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill, MIT President Sally Kornbluth and Gay each gave responses based on their code of conduct. Knowing how they would respond, Stefanik jumped on the moment to charge each of the presidents and their institutions with antisemitism. 

To critics, this moment required an answer that placated the general public, not the lawyers. It didn’t matter that Stefanik’s use of “intifada” was imprecise or that she currently supports a presidential candidate with openly anti-Jewish sentiment. It also didn’t matter that a consortium of Black Harvard alumni rejected initial calls for her ouster. 

A small set of well-organized and well-funded malcontents could galvanize their coalition to oust university leadership and chip away at the credibility of higher education.

Of course, none of this helps college students, just the folks who openly plot against legitimizing a democratic plurality under the guise of plagiarism. A few months later, the day after Haitian Independence Day, Gay resigned. 

As a Dominican-Haitian American, I saw what she did there. People who empathized with Gay understood that her mental health and personal well-being mattered way more than this esteemed position. Yet, Black women and other women of color saw how the nonsense solidified the glass ceiling on their prospects again. Legions of conservatives and their devotees celebrated the move, but as I scanned through those who celebrated, I didn’t see anyone who would directly benefit from her stepping down. 

Well, besides a few cheerleaders whose plan had come to successful fruition. Then it hit me: too many people look for any reason to tell Black people — and so many “others” — that they’re inferior as opposed to figuring out why they don’t love themselves enough. 

For instance, people have charged Gay with plagiarism, but her doctoral advisor shot the accusation down, as have most scholars who followed 1990s editions of APA citation styling. With the advent of ChatGPT and the plethora of college essay writers and black-market test-prep companies, charging plagiarism at a moment’s notice only makes college entry harder for everyone. Amid hundreds of formulaic essays detailing prospective students’ accomplishments and sob stories, admissions offices may be more inclined to lean toward essays that don’t sound like the writer checked off the typical checkboxes.

If admissions become even more opaque for prospective students, that serves no one. But dissenters don’t care that their own people do it; they just know that Claudine Gay can be charged with it, and enough people believe it. Billionaires worry not about the hypocrisy games, just about whether they can restrict the referees. Mainstream media shares the blame here, too.

They’ll say Black people have the lowest GPAs when matriculating in colleges and universities but rarely account for how prospective Black and Latinx students generally have higher GPAs than the average GPA just to get in. They proclaim that DEI and other identity-based initiatives have deteriorated academic expectations, but students of various backgrounds provide evidence that we’re not even close to achieving equality– much less equity– on campuses large and small. They shout about how inclusivity programs, including affirmative action, have subverted notions of merit, but merit has always been a subjective measure, and affirmative action programs were an effective corrective measure. 

They’ll say professors fear “cancel culture,” but the only “canceling” we’re seeing is the work of people that a select few have deemed as “the other.” Because the same folks who took advantage of diversifying neighborhoods have retrofitted this narrative to college campuses they deem too inclusive. 

After Gay’s resignation, Gay still sought to uphold Harvard’s values. Time and again in American history, the people least likely to get the largesse of what America has to offer continue to hold this country accountable to its purported values. Ivy League schools shouldn’t have so much power over how we discuss college, but they do. In this light, universities of all statuses should take a real stance about the movement to delegitimize the pluralism so many people have fought to attain. The motives for using academic tools against someone matter just as much as the purported offense.

I also know exclusivity and prestige are part of the game, but hear me out. Rather than placate white supremacists who wish to narrow curricula, college and university presidents should look for more ways to advance a truly shared humanity where we can better redefine and characterize education. With all the intellectual and societal resources that these institutions have, colleges can also build coalitions that set better expectations for everyone’s prospects. Taking a page from K-12 teachers and communities, we need to open up more of the works happening in the ivory towers and commission more professors to do public-facing work.

Placating fascists only makes that movement grow.

Oh, and institutions of higher education should prepare to defend themselves and each other. Because dictatorships usually come for the intellects of their most marginalized, then everyone else. We’re seeing it now.A version of this post originally appeared at The José Vilson.

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By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.

Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Education sent all colleges and universities across the nation a notice, reminding them that they need to comply with the newly updated cybersecurity regulations published by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The regulations – which include specifications such as implementing critical controls for information security programs, maintaining oversight of service providers and designating an individual to oversee a school’s cybersecurity infrastructure – came in response to an uptick in ransomware attacks on schools around the United States.

While these regulations are certainly warranted in an age where personal data is becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyber-criminals, the penalties for failing to comply with the regulations – especially the withholding of federal needs-based funding under Title IV – pose an existential threat to schools operating under tight budgets.

Take historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which have throughout their existence struggled to find the substantial funding that many state and private predominantly White institutions (PWIs) of higher education enjoy and who are already steeling themselves to deal with an expected surge of applicants following the Supreme Court’s regressive decision to effectively end affirmative action admission programs.

The loss of Title IV funding would drastically affect around 80 percent of the student bodies at HBCUs and would have a consequential negative impact on the future of these vital institutions of higher education.

Endowments at HBCUs pale in comparison to those at the U.S.’s top ranked colleges and universities, with the overall endowments at all the country’s HBCUs accounting for less than a tenth of Harvard’s.

The gap in funding between PWIs and HBCUs isn’t just because of smaller endowments, it’s also because state lawmakers keep funds off HBCU campuses – in North Carolina, for example, legislators awarded N.C. State an extra $79 million for research while N.C. A&T – the nation’s largest HBCU – was given only $9.5 million.

When it comes to access to technology, HBCUs also face an uphill battle with 82 percent of HBCUs being located in so-called “broadband deserts.”

Despite their struggles with funding, and the fact that these schools constitute only 3 percent of four-year colleges in the country, HBCU graduates account for 80 percent of all Black judges, 50 percent of Black lawyers, 50 percent of Black doctors, 40 percent of Black members of Congress and our country’s current vice president.

HBCUs truly know how to do more with less, but they cannot be saddled with costly regulations that pose an existential crisis to their ability to operate and be given no help to deflect some of the costs. Fortunately, however, there are businesses and individuals who see the importance of HBCUs to the Black community and are willing to lend their hands – and their dollars – to support them.

The Student Freedom Initiative (SFI), a non-profit chaired by philanthropist and entrepreneur Robert F. Smith and funded by major tech companies like Cisco, has raised millions of dollars to help HBUs comply with the Education Department’s mandates. Cisco alone donated $150 million to the SFI with $100 million allocated to bringing HBCU cybersecurity system upgrades and $50 million going to establish an endowment to offer alternative student loans.

With $89 million already distributed to 42 HBCUs across the nation, the initiative has already saved around $1.5 billion in needs-based funding to these colleges and universities and is making strong inroads to helping these institutions meet the new cybersecurity regulations, but more is required if all HBCUs are to be saved.

Given the empowering impact HBCUs have on the nation’s Black community and the future promise of a more inclusive America, it is imperative that more companies support the work the Student Freedom Initiative is doing to ensure these vital higher education schools can continue to educate and inspire future generations.

As Vice President Harris said, “What you learn at an HBCU is you do not have to fit into somebody’s limited perspective on what it means to be young, gifted and Black.”

We in the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) https://www.nafeonation.org/ stand in strong support of the Student Freedom Initiative. We all should work together to ensure the sustainability of HBCUs in America.

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By AFRO Staff

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the Prince Williams County Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority (PWCAC-DST) held their 39th annual oratorical competition at Charles J. Colgan High School in Manassas, Va. Students from sixth to 12th grade competed for a cash prize, a Drum Major medal, certificate and other gifts. 

Participating schools included Graham Park Middle School, Rippon Middle School, Ronald Reagan Middle School, Charles J. Colgan Sr. High School, Manassas Park High School and Gar-Field High School.

There were three levels of the competition. Each school chose the student who would represent their school at the regional competition. Next, those students presented their speeches virtually to a panel of judges from the community on Jan 3 and 4.  The judges selected six students, three middle school students, and three high school students for the honor of speaking at the Jan 15 event.

The middle school students chosen were Ashley Gutierrez  Garcia from Graham Park, Rabab Raza from Rippon, and Ebenezer “Ben” Samuel from Ronald Reagan. The high-schoolers chosen were Alyssa Godfrey from Charles J. Colgan, Myles Lanier from Manassas Park, and Brooklyn Saunders from Gar-Field.

At the regional competition, Samuel and Lanier were awarded Best Before Judges. 

In the final competition, Best Before the Audience and Drum Major Awards were awarded to Raza and Lanier.

The judges also selected two students whose content or style impressed them the night of the regional competition for the Judges Choice/Honorable Mention category. Arisha Nawab of Saunders Midke and Gabriel Hamilton of Osbourn Park were awarded this honor also at the Jan. 15 event.

Hosted by Mayor Derrick Wood of Dumfries, Va., this year’s speech topic was: ‘If America is to remain a great nation, we must… .” 

“This year’s speech prompt is thought-provoking and demonstrates that you have challenged the next generation to delve deep within themselves and share their vision of what it will take for our nation to prosper in the years ahead. The student orators have always done an outstanding job in the past, and I have no doubt that this year will be no exception,” said Kevin D. Newman, superintendent of Manassas City Public Schools in a letter statement featured in the event’s program. 

Samuel is an eighth-grader who had never participated in any public speaking contest prior to this.

“To be honest, I was not expecting to get this far. I sat down in a day and wrote this whole speech. The third day I memorized it all and here I am. I just want to spread awareness, and I want to bring more appreciation to his words and honor him with my speech,” Samuel said.  

Several special guests were in attendance such as Sen. Tim Kaine and U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., who each gave a few words on the significance of the event and what it meant to them. Spanberger even announced that she’d entered the event as well as each orator into the Congressional Record.

The event also featured the MLK Community Choir, which was made up of children from grades K-12. 

Maziah Thomas, a member of the choir and an 11th-grader at Woodbridge High School graduating early this spring, said the group started rehearsing in October for the final performance.

“It’s very exciting because I am a Woodbridge Middle School alumni, so I’m able to be with my old choir director,” he said. “ It’s a good experience of getting service hours.”

The choir performed “Glory” by John Legend and Common, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” written by James Weldon Johnson and Stevie Wonder’s rendition of “Happy Birthday to You!”, and closed the program with “We Shall Overcome” by Joan Baez.

Pamela Shavers, a member of the PWCAC-DST chapter, assisted with the youth choir for this year’s program.

“It’s been great working with the kids. They’re really enthusiastic and excited about it. Being able to stand up and do something to remember Dr. King and all of his contributions—I’m hoping that will really touch the kids today as they participate in the program,” Shavers said.

Several other members of the PWCAC-DST chapter also assisted in running several aspects of the event.

For Nicole Gaskin, a longtime event attendee, she was able to experience the event as a volunteer and member of the sorority for the first time. Gaskin assisted with the oratorical event and will soon participate in another community service event later this month. 

“I always enjoy this experience. I’m just super excited that this time I get to be on this side of it. In the times we’re in right now, it helps to bring the community together to see that we can all come together and still focus on a common goal,” Gaskin said.

To learn more about this event and upcoming programs, visit pwcacdst.org.

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By Heather Hollingsworth and Summer Ballentine
The Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Many students at a historically Black college in Missouri returned from Christmas break this week dressed in black, mourning the suicide of a beloved administrator who had alleged bullying and racism by the school’s White president.

Known for keeping her office door open and greeting everyone at Lincoln University with a smile, Antoinette Bonnie Candia-Bailey’s death has spurred student protests and #JUSTICE4BONNIE T-shirts across the idyllic red-brick campus in Jefferson City.

While President John Moseley agreed last week to go on paid leave pending a third-party investigation, many of the school’s 1,800 students and its alumni group are calling for his termination. A string of #firemoseley social media posts have questioned his qualifications, his treatment of the Black administrator and whether it was appropriate for a White man to lead an HBCU.

“We do want to see the removal of Dr. Moseley, as well as the board of curators and everybody else who was responsible,” said 22-year-old senior Xoe Binford, who was among about 30 protesters at a curators’ meeting on Jan. 17.

The board described the 49-year-old’s death on Jan. 8 as “tragic,” but declined to comment in detail, citing the need to keep personnel information confidential.

“As a University community, we want to prioritize the mental health of everyone here and make sure each employee and student is treated with dignity and respect,” Board of Curators President Victor Pasley said.

Monica Graham, a Lincoln graduate and longtime friend, said Candia-Bailey killed herself days after being fired as vice president of student affairs. Graham shared an email in which Candia-Bailey detailed the problems she was having with Moseley, including saying that he harassed her and alluded to her being “an angry Black woman,” which she described as a “stereotype that has demoralized Black women for decades.”

Candia-Bailey wrote that the situation deteriorated after she requested time off through the Family Medical Leave Act to deal with her “severe depression and anxiety.”

Moseley has not responded to an email seeking comment.

Most historically Black colleges and universities had White presidents through the 1940s after which graduates began to push back, said Marybeth Gasman, a Rutgers University historian whose research focuses on systemic racism in higher education.

Today, a White president at an HBCU is a rarity, she said. She was aware of just one other example, Bluefield State in West Virginia, which is now a majority White school.

“As it’s rare, we don’t know much about the consequences,” she said. “However, we do know from research and many examples that Black women are often mistreated, bullied, and harassed in the workplace by White men and others. They have to contend with sexism and racism as well.”

The first Black female president of Harvard University was recently forced to resign after being accused of plagiarism and amid backlash over her testimony at a Congressional hearing about antisemitism on campus. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled to end affirmative action in college admissions, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs are increasingly under attack in academia and the corporate world.

Just 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Lincoln University, anti-racism protests erupted at the University of Missouri’s Columbia campus in 2015, forcing that school’s president to resign. One Black student at the overwhelmingly White campus went on a weeklong hunger strike. Dozens of Black football players refused to play until the president stepped down.

Friends of Candia-Bailey said Moseley was never a good fit to lead the historically Black university.

“Why would you appoint a White president for such a position?” asked 53-year-old Eric Malone, who met the late administrator when they were both students at Lincoln and kept in touch with her over the years. His main concern, though, was Moseley’s qualifications.

Moseley was named as president in January 2022 after serving as the school’s director of athletics and basketball coach. His wife is an assistant professor at Lincoln.

“When he was the basketball coach, we loved him,” said Graham. “Everything was great. But then he became president and that’s where we didn’t support that. Again, not because he’s White, but because he wasn’t qualified to lead a university.”

Kendra Perry, 50, who also met Candia-Bailey when they were students, questioned his motivation in accepting the leadership role.

“I have to ask myself, ‘Are you really going to be for us or are you for what you can benefit from?’ And I saw him being more political and not being more personable to ensure that you keep the integrity of our HBCU,” Perry said.

Emails shared by Graham show Candia-Bailey reached out to the board in November about her troubles with Moseley, and that the board apparently dismissed her concerns. The board president, Pasley, told Candia-Bailey that the board “does not engage in the management of personnel issues for Lincoln University and will not be taking further action related to this issue.”

Pasley declined to comment to The Associated Press.

Cierra Tillman, a freshman computer information systems major at Lincoln, said she hoped the protests achieve “justice, not only for Dr. Bailey, but to raise mental health awareness for every student on campus and every other faculty or staff.”

“Her voice should have been able to be heard before we got to this point,” Tillman said.

Funeral services are set for Jan. 20.

The death has really taken a toll on Perry, whose daughter was hoping to become the fourth generation of her family to attend the school. She is wondering if they should rethink that plan.

“If you can break down someone as strong and confident as Bonnie, then I am in fear for my own child,” Perry said. “I can’t send her down there. I don’t have the trust. I lost the trust in that university.”

___

Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas.

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University officials take issue with chief diversity officer’s definition of ‘privilege’ in ‘Diversity Digest’ newsletter

By Megan Sayles 
AFRO Business Writer
msayles@afro.com

Employees and students at Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) have sent a letter to President Kevin W. Sowers and Dean Theodore L. DeWeese expressing their disappointment over the institution’s response to its chief diversity officer’s definition of “privilege” in a monthly newsletter shared with the school community.  

In the January issue of JHM’s “Diversity Digest,” Dr. Sherita Hill Golden defined “privilege” as a “set of unearned benefits given to people who are in a specific social group.” She went on to list White people, males, Christians, heterosexuals and English-speaking people –among others– as part of those social groups. 

JHM’s leadership renounced this language, saying the definition ran counter to its values and commitment to serving everyone equally. 

“The January edition of the monthly newsletter from the Johns Hopkins Medicine Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity used language that contradicts the values of Johns Hopkins as an institution,” wrote a JHM spokesperson in an email to the AFRO. “Dr. Sherita Golden, Johns Hopkins Medicine’s chief diversity officer, has sincerely acknowledged this mistake and retracted the language used in the message.” 

According to the open letter, students and employees believe this retraction was provoked by pushback from individuals external to the JHM community who claimed that the definition was discriminatory. 

An account on X (formerly known as Twitter), titled “End Wokeness,” posted a screenshot of the newsletter on Jan. 10, drawing a number of negative comments about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and demands for Golden to be fired. Tesla Motors CEO and X owner Elon Musk quoted the post, writing “This must end,” in reference to the newsletter. Conservative-leaning tabloid the Daily Mail referred to the newsletter as a “diversity hit list.” 

“The pushback about the article was not part of a commitment to building an inclusive and fair community at Hopkins. Rather it was part of a strategic effort to disseminate disinformation about the importance of ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion at institutions of higher learning,” wrote JHM students and employees in the letter. 

They continued, taking issue with those responding to Golden’s statements with the line that “not all White men have privilege.” They clarified that Golden did not claim all or only White men have privilege– but that there are certain unearned privileges that accompany White and male identities. 

“Surely discussions about privilege can be challenging. The word is easily misinterpreted or taken to mean that people who benefit from systems of advantage are immoral or unworthy,” wrote JHM students and employees.

“However, it is important for our institution to respond to assaults on our commitment to DEI with courage and conviction. In the face of bad-faith attacks, Johns Hopkins Medicine and Johns Hopkins University must state clearly, loudly and proudly that we value diversity, equity and inclusion.” 

Megan Sayles is a Report For America Corps member. 

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By Anne D’Innocenzio and Alexandra Olson
AP Business Writers

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents of workplace diversity programs are increasingly banking on a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to challenge equity policies as well as funding to minority-owned businesses.

Section 1981 of the act was originally meant to protect formerly enslaved people — or Black people specifically — from economic exclusion. But now the American Alliance for Equal Rights — a group run by Edward Blum, the conservative activist who challenged affirmative action in higher education and won — is citing the section to go after a venture capital fund called the Fearless Fund, which invests in businesses owned by women of color. A federal appeals court temporarily blocked funding for Fearless Fund’s grant program as the case proceeds.

Conservative activists have brought lawsuits using the 1981 section against other companies and institutions, including insurance company Progressive and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The cases are being monitored carefully as the battle over racial considerations shift to the workplace following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling ending affirmative action in college admissions.

While the 1981 statute had been used well before the latest affirmative action ruling to prove reverse discrimination, Alphonso David, Fearless Fund’s legal counsel who serves as president and CEO of The Global Black Economic Forum, said that there’s a “coordinated use of Section 1981 now that we did not see before.”

Here’s what’s happening and what the impact could be:

What is Section 1981?

The 1866 Civil Rights Act is a federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, and ethnicity when making and enforcing contracts. Section 1981 specifically grants all individuals within the U.S. jurisdiction the same rights and benefits as “enjoyed by white citizens” regarding contractual relationships.

However, the Supreme Court’s 1976 McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation decision broadened those protections, ruling Section 1981 prohibits racial discrimination in private employment against White people as well as people of color.

“It’s a very clever game plan,” said Randolph McLaughlin, a civil rights attorney and law professor at Pace University, referring to the use of the 1866 law. “They want to turn civil rights law upside down.”

The standard of proof for the 1981 section is high. That’s because of the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Comcast v. National Association of African American-owned Media establishing that the plaintiff who sues for racial discrimination under the section bears the burden of showing that race was the central cause in denying a contract opportunity — as opposed to merely a motivating factor.

Why not rely on Title VII instead?

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects employees and job applicants from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. If the plaintiff opts to sue via Title VII, then he or she needs to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. That’s a process that takes up to 180 days. After that, the plaintiff can file a lawsuit. Choosing the 1981 route is much quicker.

Section 1981 is also broader than Title VII, which generally applies to employers who have 15 or more employees, legal experts said. Also under Title VII, a plaintiff can recoup only up to $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages total. Section 1981 has no limitation.

Title VII does have a lower standard of proof than Section 1981. Plaintiffs only have to show race was a motivating factor, not a central cause.

Why is the case against the Fearless Fund potentially significant?

In its lawsuit, American Alliance For Equal Rights seeks relief by arguing that the fund’s Fearless Strivers Grant Contest, which awards $20,000 to Black women who run businesses, violates Section 1981 by excluding some people from the program because of their race.

Attorneys for the Fearless Fund have argued in court filings that the grants are donations, not contracts, and are protected by the First Amendment.

David, the Fearless Fund’s legal counsel, says that if these types of grants are considered contracts, one can make the argument that grants issued in many other forms and contexts could also be considered contracts.

“Think of every foundation out there that issues grants,” David said. “They issue grants to people of different demographic groups. They issue grants only to women. They issue grants to survivors of earthquakes. Are those all contracts?”

Angela Reddock-Wright, an employment and Title IX attorney and mediator based in Los Angeles, believes it is “very possible” that the case could end up at the Supreme Court.

“Ideally, the court would decline to hear this matter on the grounds that Section 1981 was not intended to cover matters such as this, but this court appears to operate under different rules and standards,” she said.

What impact have similar lawsuits had?

Some companies have already changed their criteria for their diversity fellowship programs.

Law firms Morrison Foerster and Perkins Coie opened their diversity fellowship programs to all applicants of all races in October, changes the companies said were in the works before Blum filed lawsuits against them. He subsequently dropped them. Previously, the programs for first year law students had targeted students in historically underrepresented groups.

Morrison Foerster’s fellowship program now caters to students with demonstrated commitments to equity and diversity. Perkins Coie announced that it had opened its fellowship programs to all applicants, regardless of their race, gender or LGBTQ identity. In a statement, Perkins Coie said the changes arose as part of updates to its diversity and inclusion policies following the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action.

Last February, Pfizer dropped race-based eligibility requirements for a fellowship program designed for college students of Black, Latino and Native American descent. A judge had dismissed a lawsuit filed by the conservative nonprofit Do No Harm, which claimed Pfizer’s program violated Section 1981, but Do No Harm is appealing the ruling.

“What would work in (companies’) favor is to lower their profile,” said University of Virginia’s Distinguished Professor of Law George Rutherglen. “Which means they do not explicitly consider race in making these decisions. Look to other conditions and requirements that might achieve the same objective.”

______

AP Business Writer Haleluya Hadero in New York contributed to this report.

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By Mylika Scatliffe
AFRO Women’s Health Writer 
mscatliffe@afro.com

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane because it often results in physical death.”  – Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the 55 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., we are still grappling with the institutional and systemic racism and oppression for which he sacrificed his life.  It affects every aspect of life for Black people, including  health care. 

Black people have fought health care disparities for decades largely due to lack of access to health care for people of color. 

Dr. Roderick King, chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer of the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), is a physician with deep roots in advocacy for health equity.  His career spans nearly three decades, but his passion for health care equity stemmed from what he witnessed as a boy and young man growing up  in Brooklyn, N.Y.

“My father cared for underserved populations and addressed issues of health in equalities experienced by his patients for nearly four decades, so I’ve witnessed the value of the role community plays in health care all my life,” said King.

King believes one of the reasons for the lack of progress regarding inequities in health care is the oversimplification of the problem.

“We don’t embrace the complexity of understanding that root causes will vary from one area to another and one community to another. The drivers of diabetes among Black men and infant mortality rates for Black women may differ for the rural population on the Eastern Shore of Maryland versus urban west Baltimore,” said King.

Under King’s leadership, each of the eight UMMS hospitals has an equity and patient care team. Each team takes on clinical metric such as pediatric asthma, diabetes, or unplanned return visits to hospital emergency departments, and is tasked with venturing into the community to learn the root causes of these disparities.

King’s wealth of experience includes being a clinician, professor and administrator at an academic medical institution. He also works in health policy with the federal government, which has made him an invaluable asset to building excellence in health equity across all the communities and people served by UMMS.  

“People didn’t really believe health disparities existed until a Congress funded report called ‘Unequal Treatment’ in 2003 – only 20 years ago! Its sole purpose was to confirm that health disparities exist in the United States,” said King.

Fast forward 20 years, and UMMS has what King calls a “watershed” moment of demonstrating how a health system can address equity and patient care.

“I don’t think there is any health system in the country doing what we’re doing – using data, identifying key disparities, driving action plans and measuring our impact within different communities. Others have already started to watch and take notice and begin to emulate what we’re doing at the University of Maryland system,” said King.

Community outreach is also a passion of Dr. Pat Mathews-Juarez,  senior vice president for strategic initiatives and innovation, and professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn.  As a native of rural North Carolina, advocating for health care equity at the community level has been her life’s work in one way or another.

“Access to health care services is critical for good health and increased quality of life. People living in rural and underserved communities historically encounter extreme barriers to accessible heath care services. This is deemed as common and usual in a rational health care system,” said Matthews-Juarez.

“I knew that from growing up in the rural South that my job was to become an instrument for doing what I thought was good.  I understood it took much more than just having an idea. People had to get involved at the community level.” Matthews-Juarez continued.

Matthews-Juarez has sought health care equity in communities around the United States including in New York, North Carolina, Boston, Los Angeles as well as London, England.  

She believes community health workers help get information to underserved communities and help them leverage access to care.

Meharry Medical College along with CVS is working to expand the community health workforce.  They will collaborate to increase local clinician diversity and decrease health disparities, and make sure historically oppressed and marginalized communities in the largely rural communities throughout Tennessee have equitable access to health resources.

“There are Black men in the Mississippi Delta that are losing their limbs and on dialysis because of diabetes. There are Black women who are experiencing poor maternal outcomes. And it’s because they don’t have access to information and care.  Why aren’t the men given information on managing their diabetes? Why are Black women just being told to watch their blood pressure but not being actively monitored to control it?” asked Matthews-Juarez.

“This collaboration will leverage our mission to improve health outcomes and advance health equity,” said Matthews-Juarez.

King and Matthews-Juarez have similar missions – to put ideas into action.

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 Johnson and others said the conflict between Israel and Palestine and Russia and Ukraine would have stirred King to declare that there was little difference between the demand for civil rights and the cry for peace.

By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

(NNPA NEWSWIRE) — During his short life, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped on all kinds of powerful toes in his fight for civil rights, and he was a courageous and determined leader who refused to let prison or violence sway his end mission. He also never lost sight of the fact that civil rights—addressing racial and economic injustice—was inextricable from peace.

As the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King led a nonviolent movement to abolish the triple evils crippling American society: racism, poverty, and militarism. Associates said he believed those forces were contrary to God’s will for humanity and that they could only be opposed by a religious vision of nonviolent social change.

In April of 1967, King spoke publicly against the war in Vietnam. Today, as the nation observes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, civil rights activists, including those who knew the slain leader, offered their thoughts on what his position might be on conflicts in the Middle East and Russia and on the twice-impeached and four-times indicted former President Donald Trump.

“At the March on Washington in 1964, Dr. King talked about Alabama Gov. George Wallace having his lips dripping with interposition and nullification,” said the Rev. Peter Johnson, who began working for the Congress of Racial Equality in Plaquemine, La., and later was recruited by Andrew Young to work for King in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta. “What’s the difference between George Wallace and Donald Trump? You’re not going to hear Trump publicly say the n-word, that’s the only difference.

He continued, “King would easily have seen that Trump is a bigot in the true sense of the word, who actually believes he is superior to people of color.”

Johnson and others said the conflicts between Israel and Palestine and Russia and Ukraine would have stirred King to declare that there was little difference from the demand for civil rights and the cry for peace.

“ Benjamin Netanyahu is on the wrong side of history,” legendary civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson told the Black Press. “What led up to Oct. 7 (when Hamas attacked Israel) is the issue, not what happened on Oct. 7.” 

Jackson, like he said King would have, decried the mass killings taking place in the Middle East and the war strategy occurring in Ukraine. “Those captured,” Jackson demanded, “should be allowed to go home under the supervision of the United Nations and anyone tried should be done so in the World Court.”

Jackson noted that King spoke of a deeper malady in American society. His view was that presidential administrations have been embroiling themselves in conflicts across the globe for the wrong reasons.

“Dr. King was outspokenly anti-war and anti-racism,” said the Rev. Mark Thompson, a civil rights leader who recently joined the National Newspaper Publishers Association as the trade association’s global digital transformation director. “There’s no question King would oppose the war in Ukraine and seek diplomatic solutions. I believe he would also call for a ceasefire in Gaza.”

Thompson added that the reason for King’s cancellation of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1967—one year before his assassination—suggests King had an evolving posture on the Israel-Palestine question. 

“In canceling the pilgrimage during the Six-Day War, King said, ‘I just think that if I go, the Arab world, and of course Africa and Asia for that matter, would interpret this as endorsing everything that Israel has done, and I do have questions of doubt,’” Thompson said.

“I believe his posture on Congress’s dysfunction would be consistent with the words he used to describe segregationist intransigence in his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech—interposition and nullification,” Thompson declared.

NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., also an SCLC alum, concurred. “Dr. King was a nonviolent freedom fighter who believed that we all are members of one humanity. His concept of the ‘beloved community’ was all-inclusive and not discriminatory to anyone,” Chavis said. “Today’s world realities of racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, oppression, war, hatred and bigotry are void of love for one another. We need Dr. King’s wisdom, inclusive theology and leadership courage today more than ever before.”

Johnson said there’s little doubt about where King would stand on today’s issues because the icon never wavered.  He said, “I don’t think he would have changed his position fundamentally.”

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One of the last surviving members of King’s inner circle, Young sat down for an exclusive interview on PBS-TV’s “The Chavis Chronicles” with National Newspaper Publishers Association President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., where he shared valuable insights into his historical journey as a leader of the civil rights movement and his own enduring legacy.

By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

(NNPA NEWSWIRE) — As the nation commemorates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, civil rights icon, diplomat and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young reflected on King’s legacy and progress in America since the 1960s.

One of the last surviving members of King’s inner circle, Young sat down for an exclusive interview on PBS-TV’s “The Chavis Chronicles” with National Newspaper Publishers Association President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., where he shared valuable insights into his historical journey as a leader of the civil rights movement and his own enduring legacy.

“I do this,” Young said, reflecting on challenging injustices like the false arrest and imprisonment of the Wilmington Ten in the 1970s, “because it’s the right thing to do. I wasn’t being militant or outspoken, I was trying to get people to see just what it is.”

From his beginnings in segregated schools in New Orleans to his early graduation from Howard University and later studies at Hartford Theological Seminary, Young’s commitment to justice emerged during his time as a pastor in southern Georgia. Organizing voter registration drives in the face of death threats, he played a crucial role in the campaigns leading to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Elected to congress in 1972, Young became the first African-American representative from the Deep South since Reconstruction. His legislative efforts included establishing the U.S. Institute for Peace, The African Development Bank and the Chattahoochee River National Park. He left an indelible mark on the city by negotiating federal funds for vital infrastructure projects in Atlanta.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Young as the first African American ambassador to the United Nations, where he played a crucial role in shaping U.S.-Africa policy based on human rights. His efforts contributed to ending White-minority rule in Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Reflecting on his experiences, Young shares poignant moments during the interview, including facing violence during the Civil Rights Movement. 

“When the Klan came marching down in the community, they wanted to provoke a fight. They had guns under their sheets in Lincolnville, Florida,” he recalled. “The same Black folks who got beat up with me said they had the love of Jesus in their hearts; that spiritual witness of nonviolence and forgiveness moved the Congress, and the next week they passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.”

Assessing the progress in civil rights, Young emphasizes the strides made, saying, “If anybody says things are no better now than they were then, they don’t understand how well we have it now.” 

He acknowledges the challenges but underscores the opportunities for education and progress.

As Young reflects on Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream, he interprets it as a call for equal opportunity. “We are no longer slaves; we have equal opportunity to make this a great nation if we are able to work hard. The educational opportunities are opening up,” Young said. He acknowledges the partnership with White folks that contributed to Atlanta’s success.

Young said he remains optimistic about the nation’s future, echoing Dr. King’s words: “It’s inevitable to me that this nation, as Martin Luther King said, will live out, one day, the true meaning of its creed.”

Click here to view the full episode with Ambassador Andrew Young.

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By Carolyn Thompson 
The Associated Press

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Federal prosecutors said Jan. 12 that they will seek the death penalty against a White supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket.

Payton Gendron, 20, is already serving a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole after he pleaded guilty to state charges of murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism in the 2022 attack.

New York does not have capital punishment, but the Justice Department had the option of seeking the death penalty in a separate federal hate crimes case. Gendron had promised to plead guilty in that case if prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.

The decision marks the first time that President Joe Biden’s Justice Department has authorized a new pursuit of the death penalty.

Gendron drove more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) from his home in rural Conklin, New York, to a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo’s largely Black East Side neighborhood, where he shot eight supermarket customers, the store security guard and a church deacon who drove shoppers to and from the store with their groceries. Three people were wounded but survived.

In court papers announcing the decision to seek the death penalty, Trini Ross, the U.S. attorney for western New York, cited the substantial planning that went into the shooting, including the choice of location, which she said was meant to “maximize the number of Black victims.”

Relatives of the victims — who ranged in age from 32 to 86 — have expressed mixed views on whether they thought federal prosecutors should pursue the death penalty. Mark Talley, whose 63-year-old mother, Geraldine Talley, was killed, said he “wasn’t necessarily disappointed” by the decision, even if he would have preferred Gendron spend his life behind bars.

“It would have satisfied me more knowing he would have spent the rest of his life in prison being surrounded by the population of people he tried to kill,” Talley said.

In a joint statement, attorneys for some of victims’ relatives said the decision “provides a pathway to both relief and a measure of closure for the victims and their families.”

An attorney for Gendron, Sonya Zoghlin, said she was “deeply disappointed” by the government’s decision to seek the death penalty, noting that her client was 18 at the time of the shooting.

“Rather than a prolonged and traumatic capital prosecution, the efforts of the federal government would be better spent on combatting the forces that facilitated this terrible crime, including easy access to deadly weapons and the failure of social media companies to moderate the hateful rhetoric and images that circulate online,” Zoghlin said in a statement.

Federal death penalty cases have become a rarity since the election of Biden, a Democrat who opposes capital punishment. Under the leadership of Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Justice Department has permitted the continuation of two capital prosecutions and withdrawn from pursuing death in more than two dozen cases.

Garland instituted a moratorium on federal executions in 2021 pending a review of procedures. Although the moratorium does not prevent prosecutors from seeking death sentences, the Justice Department has done so sparingly.

It successfully sought the death penalty for an antisemitic gunman who murdered 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue, though that attack was authorized as a death penalty case before Garland took office. It also went ahead last year with an effort to get the death sentence against an Islamic extremist who killed eight people on a New York City bike path, though a lack of a unanimous jury meant that prosecution resulted in a life sentence.

The Justice Department has declined to pursue the death penalty in other mass killings, including against the gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.

Gendron carried out his attack on May 14, 2022, using a semi-automatic marked with racial slurs and phrases including “The Great Replacement,” a reference to a conspiracy theory that there’s a plot to diminish the influence of White people.

Prosecutors met Jan. 12  with several family members of victims before the decision to seek the death penalty was made public.

Pamela Pritchett, whose 77-year-old mother, Pearl Young, was killed in the attack, said the mood was somber.

“I will be scarred. Everybody, every family, the community of the East Side, we’re all gonna be scarred,” she said. “For me, my goal is to look at the scar and know that I am healed.”

Gendron did not appear at a status conference held Jan. 12.

___

Associated Press writers Jake Offenhartz in New York and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this report.

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By Hannah Schoenbaum
The Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Black woman hired by a northern Utah school district to investigate racial harassment complaints the year after a 10-year-old Black student died by suicide says that she, too, experienced discrimination from district officials.

Joscelin Thomas, a former coordinator in the Davis School District’s equal opportunity office, alleges in a federal lawsuit that district staff treated her “as if she were stupid,” accused her of having a substandard work ethic and denied her training and mentorship opportunities that were offered to her White colleagues.

“From the beginning of her employment, Dr. Thomas was treated differently than her lighter-skinned and non-Black coworkers and was subject to a hostile work environment,” the complaint states.

Thomas was part of a wave of new hires in 2022 after the U.S. Department of Justice ordered the district in a settlement agreement to create an office tasked with investigating and addressing reports of racial harassment. The order stemmed from a 2021 federal investigation, which uncovered widespread racial harassment of Black and Asian American students in the district just north of Salt Lake City, including hundreds of documented uses of the N-word and other derogatory epithets over a five-year period.

The civil rights probe found that Black students, who make up about 1 percent of the district’s 74,000 students, had been disciplined more harshly than their White peers for similar behavior. District officials admitted to federal investigators that years of discipline data demonstrated a trend of staff treating students of color differently than White students, but the district had done nothing to correct the disparities, federal investigators said.

Several Black students had also told investigators that their White peers referred to them as apes, made monkey noises at them in class and told them that their skin looked like dirt or feces. Inappropriate comments about slavery and lynching sometimes went unpunished, and Black students recalled being told by their peers, “Go pick cotton” and “You are my slave.”

The district’s racial issues came to a head just two weeks later when Isabella “Izzy” Tichenor, a Black and autistic fifth grader, died by suicide after her family said she was relentlessly bullied by her classmates at Foxboro Elementary School in North Salt Lake. The 10-year-old’s parents blamed her death on what they called an inadequate response by school administrators, whom they said were aware of the bullying but did nothing to stop it.

Tichenor, the only Black student in her class, had kids regularly calling her the N-word, telling her she was smelly and teasing her for being autistic, according to a lawsuit filed by the family. District officials admitted last year that school staff had mistreated the girl and agreed to pay her family a $2 million settlement after initially defending how it handled the bullying allegations. They also announced a separate $200,000 settlement shared between three Black students who said they experienced daily racial harassment.

The school district updated its harassment policy following the federal investigation and Tichenor’s death, and it launched an anonymous online platform for any student, parent or staff member to report incidents of harassment or discrimination, spokesperson Christopher Williams said on Jan. 11.

Thomas was among those tasked with investigating the anonymous reports, but her attorney, Katie Panzer, said Thomas’ own experiences call into question whether the district has made any real effort to change its culture.

“Our hope is that through our efforts to address the violation of Dr. Thomas’ rights, the district will be forced to make systemic change,” Panzer said. “The district has an obligation to provide both students and employees a safe environment free from race discrimination. We would like to see them actually fulfill that obligation.”

The lawsuit filed in Utah district court accuses Thomas’ colleagues of treating her as a subordinate rather than an equal. About a month into her employment, a colleague handed her a pile of garbage and ordered her to clean up the trash during what was supposed to be an opportunity for Thomas to network with other administrators, the complaint states.

Her employment ended June 30, 2023, after administrators decided not to renew her one-year contract, Williams said, declining to explain why. Her photo had not been removed from the district directory as of Jan. 11.

Thomas said she had scheduled a meeting a couple of months earlier with the district’s human resources director to discuss the discrimination she had experienced, but earlier that day, she said, the assistant superintendent placed her on administrative leave with little explanation and told her the district would be investigating her workplace conduct. Her contract soon expired, and she never learned the result.

“Davis School District administrators, teachers and staff stand firmly against any form of harassment or discrimination that affects a child’s learning experience in our schools,” Williams said, declining to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit. “Our primary duty and responsibility is to create a safe environment for every child, employee and patron.”

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By Mekhi Abbott
Special to the AFRO

William H. “Billy” Murphy Jr. has invested $1 million dollars into the Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law, housed within the Francis King Carey School of Law at the University of Maryland. 

The school of law announced the new center in Fall 2023, with a goal of improving the lives of those affected by historical, systemic and current racial oppression. 

Murphy, a Carey Law alum,  said he took the initiative to help advance the center’s mission.  

“My goals for Black people now align with what the University of Maryland is about to do. I have known Larry since 1959. When the university decided to open the center and do it in the name of – among others– Larry Gibson, that was music to my ears,” said Murphy. 

Larry Gibson is a professor and legal historian who has written “one of the definitive biographies of Thurgood Marshall,” the law school’s website says. 

Murphy has long been a champion for justice and Black empowerment. He quickly grew to prominence as a criminal defense lawyer in Maryland in his early years practicing law. 

“I now have a vehicle for donating money that will have a legacy value for years to come. And it will advance the cause of justice for Blacks, Browns, women and others who have been mistreated because of their status or their color or nationality,” Murphy said. “The center is going to focus mainly on getting Black people to become full-fledged citizens in this country for the first time,” said Murphy, when asked why it was important for him to make this donation. 

The Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law is named after the University of Maryland’s first Black male and female tenured professors, Larry Gibson and Taunya Lovell Banks. 

“Larry Gibson became a member of the faculty in the ‘70s and has a distinguished reputation as a professor at the university. He has taught about every Black graduate who came out of the university. He taught evidence and criminal procedure and he has taught civil procedure. That man has been the ‘Chief Historian’ of Black lawyers in the United States,” said Murphy.

Carey Law professor and faculty director Michael Pinard reiterated the sentiment shown to Gibson and Banks, while also adding some insight on their legacy and impact to the school of law. 

Pinard said that Larry Gibson and Taunya Lovell Banks “devoted their careers and advocacy to addressing racial and intersectional oppression,” adding that “no other name would be appropriate,” for the law center.

In honor of the Gibson-Banks Center launch, Pinard penned a letter for what the center will achieve in the proceeding years. Pinard also shared that the students will see the importance of the center as the law school “deepens their commitment to addressing racial oppression.” 

Dean of Carey Law, Renée McDonald Hutchins, extended much praise to Murphy for his donation. 

“Billy Murphy’s gift was an absolutely transformative gift. One of the things we have said all along is that we want to make sure that the center is adequately funded at an endowment level so the good work of the center will continue no matter who is sitting in leadership chairs and Billy Murphy’s gift absolutely accomplishes that.” 

Carey is one of the most diverse law schools in the nation, and 39 percent of the 2023 incoming class were students of color.

As far as what impact the donation will have on students from the Dean’s prospective, Hutchins said that the center will be hiring student fellows and allowing law students to train in an area focused on civil rights law, which in her opinion is “absolutely central to the future of American democracy.” 

The center has already hired its first fellow and the Gibson-Banks Center is hitting the ground running. Last November, the center co-sponsored Professor Matiangai Sirleaf’s book launch and it will continue to roll forward with events after that, according to Hutchins. 

When asked what the future of the center looks like in the next 20 years or so, Hutchins painted a picture of philanthropy and progress. 

“Maryland Carey Law is already a thought leader in the state and in the nation. I would love to see the center lean into that legacy and become a thought leader on questions of race and democracy in America. I would love to see the center be the go to voice when we are wrestling with hard issues in this country and say, ‘Here’s a path forward. Here are some things that we need to consider and here are some things we need to investigate.’”

Hutchins ended by adding that Murphy is a “remarkable representation of the high quality attorney that the law school produces.” She added that Carey is very thankful for Murphy’s donation and proud of his success, as someone who has been practicing law for over five decades. 

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(Black PR Wire) — What: The 47th stamp in the Black Heritage series honors Constance Baker Motley (1921-2005), civil rights pioneer and the first African American woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court and the first to serve as a federal judge.

The dedication ceremony for this Forever stamp is free and open to the public. News of the stamp is being shared with the hashtags #ConstanceBakerMotley and #BlackHeritageStamps.

Who: The Honorable Anton Hajjar, member of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors

When: Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, at 11 a.m. EST

Where: Constance Baker Motley Recreation Center, 348 E. 54th St., New York, NY 10022

RSVP: Attendees are encouraged to register at: usps.com/constancebakermotley.

Background: Constance Baker Motley started her career in 1945 when she began working for the future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

From 1945 to 1965, Motley worked on about 60 cases that reached the Supreme Court. She won nine of the 10 cases she argued before the Court.

In 1966, Motley was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York — the largest and busiest federal trial court in the country. She rose to chief judge in 1982 and senior judge in 1986.

The stamp features a portrait of Motley by artist Charly Palmer, based on an Associated Press photograph. Rendered in acrylic on canvas work, the portrait displays elements of Palmer’s signature style. The stenciled circular shapes around the head suggest royalty, and the heavy brushstrokes and scratches provide added textures. Stenciled curlicues embellish the lower background and continue onto Motley’s black dress. Her colorful corsage and a brooch further enliven the image.

The Constance Baker Motley stamp will be issued in panes of 20. Forever stamps will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price.

Postal Products

Customers may purchase stamps and other philatelic products through the Postal Store at usps.com/shopstamps, by calling 844-737-7826, by mail through USA Philatelic or at Post Office locations nationwide. For officially licensed stamp products, shop the USPS Officially Licensed Collection on Amazon.

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The United States Postal Service is an independent federal establishment, mandated to be self-financing and to serve every American community through the affordable, reliable and secure delivery of mail and packages to 167 million addresses six and often seven days a week. Overseen by a bipartisan Board of Governors, the Postal Service is implementing a 10-year transformation plan, Delivering for America, to modernize the postal network, restore long-term financial sustainability, dramatically improve service across all mail and shipping categories, and maintain the organization as one of America’s most valued and trusted brands.

The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

For USPS media resources, including broadcast-quality video and audio and photo stills, visit the USPS Newsroom. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the USPS YouTube Channel and like us on Facebook. For more information about the Postal Service, visit usps.com and facts.usps.com.

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By Colleen Slevin
The Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — A judge sentenced an ex-Colorado police officer to 14 months in jail for his role in the death of Elijah McClain after hearing the young Black man’s mother on Jan. 5 call the officer a “bully with a badge” who will always have blood on his hands.

The officer, Randy Roedema, was the first and most senior law enforcement member on the scene of McClain’s death and the only one found guilty. A jury convicted him in October of criminally negligent homicide, which is a felony, and third-degree assault, which is a misdemeanor.

The 23-year-old’s killing on Aug. 24, 2019, received little attention at the time but gained renewed interest the following year as mass protests swept the nation over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. McClain’s death became a rallying cry for critics of racial injustice in policing.

In a separate trial, two paramedics were recently convicted for injecting McClain with an overdose of the sedative ketamine after police put him in a neck hold. Sentencing for the paramedics will come later this year.

Before Judge Mark Warner handed down the sentence, McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, raged against Roedema after he expressed remorse but stopped short of apologizing.

“Randy Roedema stole my son’s life,” she said, “All the belated apologies in the world can’t remove my son’s blood from Randy Roedema’s hands.”

Protecting the community was “the furthest thing from his mind” the night her son was stopped walking home from the store, she said.

Roedema also spoke at the hearing, as well as his sister and former military colleagues. Roedema was a U.S. Marine who was wounded in Iraq.

“I want the McClain family to know the sadness I feel about Elijah being gone. He was young,” Roedema said.

Roedema suggested Jan. 5 that first responders get more training in how to deal with situations such as the one that led to McClain being given an overdose.

“Ultimately the situation has caused a lot of pain, and we are faced with the choice of how to deal with it,” Roedema said.

Roedema’s lawyer Don Sisson declined to comment on the sentence as he left court with Roedema and his wife. A deputy escorted them to their cars.

McClain was stopped by police after a 911 caller reported that he looked suspicious. Another officer put his hands on McClain within seconds, beginning a struggle and restraint that lasted about 20 minutes before paramedics injected him with the ketamine.

Experts say the sedative ultimately killed McClain, who was already weakened from struggling to breathe while being pinned down after inhaling vomit into his lungs.

Roedema helped hold McClain down while paramedics administered the ketamine. He was often visible in the body camera footage shown over and over to jurors, and he could be heard directing others how to restrain him.

Roedema had faced anywhere from probation to up to three years in prison for criminally negligent homicide, defined as killing someone by failing to recognize a substantial risk to their life. The assault conviction was punishable by probation up to two years in jail.

The same jury that convicted Roedema acquitted former officer Jason Rosenblatt, whose lawyers stressed that he wasn’t close to McClain when the ketamine was injected.

A different jury acquitted officer Nathan Woodyard a few weeks later, after he testified that he put McClain in a neck hold, briefly rendering him unconscious. Woodyard testified that he feared for his life after Roedema said McClain had tried to grab one of their guns. Prosecutors say the gun grab never happened.

Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec were convicted last month. Cichuniec, the senior officer, was found guilty of the most serious charge faced by any of the first responders: felony second-degree assault. It carries a mandatory prison sentence of between five and 16 years in prison.

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By Sharon Johnson
The Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A core mission of Florida A&M University from its founding over a century ago has been to educate African Americans. It was written into the law that established the school along with another college, in Gainesville, reserved for White students.

At Florida’s only public historically Black university, some students now fear political constraints might get in the way of teaching parts of their history.

A law signed last spring by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, blocks public colleges from using taxpayer money on diversity programs. It also forbids instruction of theories that “systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.”

The new law, part of broader GOP efforts to rein in campus efforts on equity and inclusion, has spurred protests on campus. Some students say they are watching for signs the new guidance will affect teaching of topics related to race and American history.

Chad Preston, a senior political science major, said he worries some viewpoints will be silenced.

“We deserve the same level of education that all these other states are getting. We deserve the same information,” he said.

DeSantis describes the law as an effort to rid university classrooms of what he calls left-leaning “woke” indoctrination. His education policies — including limits on what schools can teach about racism and which bathrooms students use — have faced criticism from civil rights leaders but fueled his political rise by harnessing culture war passions.

“In reality, what this concept of DEI has been is to attempt to impose orthodoxy on the university,” DeSantis said at a ceremony in May when he signed the bill into law. “This has basically been used as a veneer to impose an ideological agenda, and that is wrong.”

The university, founded in 1887, hosts about 10,000 students at its campus a few blocks from the state capitol.

The new law has made Florida a difficult learning environment for students and faculty of color, said Marybeth Gasman, a Rutgers University historian whose research focuses on historically Black colleges and universities and systemic racism in higher education.

“I’ve talked to some FAMU faculty who have basically told me that they’re keeping their head down because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their jobs,” Gasman said. “If I were in Florida, I would probably be concerned as well.”

FAMU has not seen upheaval anywhere near the scale of New College of Florida, a progressive campus where DeSantis and his allies overhauled the Board of Trustees and installed a majority of conservative figures. But many on the FAMU campus are wary.

Asked about the impact of the new law, a university spokesperson referred to a comment Florida A&M President Larry Robinson made in June.

“There are more than 30 pieces of legislation passed this legislative session that have some impact on educational institutions in Florida, including FAMU, and we take them all seriously,” Robinson said. “But our commitment to ‘Excellence With Caring’ remains strong, and remains unchanged.”

In early December, the board overseeing Florida’s state university system released proposed regulations outlining programs that would be prohibited from receiving state or federal money under the new law. 

Programs on the outs would include any that promote “differential or preferential treatment of individuals, or classifies such individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”

The FAMU Democrats have been taking steps to ensure the messages of speakers they invite to campus are moderate, said Jovan Mickens, a senior and president of the student political group.

“With my organization, there are certain things I can’t do like bring certain people on campus for a panel discussion. We’re tip-toeing around this university,” he said.

Historically Black colleges and universities often receive less funding than predominantly White public colleges. A group of students at FAMU have filed a lawsuit against the state, saying it has underfunded their school by nearly $1.3 billion.

But for leaders of public colleges, pushing back on policies they disagree with could put them at odds with the same officials deciding on their budgets, said Abul Pitre, chair of the Department of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University.

“It requires a certain kind of balance that does not allow them to have too much of an Afrocentric social justice perspective, because they have to go to the same politicians for money who are advocating to eliminate it,” he said.

Raghan Pickett, a senior at FAMU, traces her lineage back to Rosewood, Florida, where hundreds of Black people were killed or driven out in 1923 by a mob of White men who then destroyed their neighborhoods. She fears the new law could stop instructors from teaching about such atrocities.

“Back then, it was afraid of being lynched,” Pickett said. “Today, Black people are still struggling. We’re still fighting to learn basic history.”

___

The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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By Megan Sayles 
AFRO Business Writer
msayles@afro.com

Progressive Insurance and Hello Alice, a small business resource platform based in Houston, are in the midst of a legal battle with America First Legal (AFL) over a grant program that targeted Black businesses. The conservative nonprofit law organization filed a class-action lawsuit against the pair regarding the Driving Small Business Forward grant, which awarded $25,000 to 10 Black entrepreneurs in August, alleging that the program was racially discriminatory. 

On Dec. 13, Hello Alice filed a motion to dismiss the case. In it, Hello Alice contended that the lawsuit is “wrong in every relevant respect.”

“Hello Alice’s mission is to help small businesses throughout this country, and Hello Alice vehemently opposes racial discrimination. Indeed, Hello Alice’s core mission is to combat the effects that generations of pernicious racism have had on America’s capital infrastructure. Federal law does not compel purely private actors like Hello Alice, when choosing how and to whom they will donate money, to blind themselves to the centuries of invidious racism that have produced substantial existing racial inequities in access to capital.” 

On Dec. 20, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Hispanic National Bar Association and Asian Americans Advancing Justice filed an amicus brief supporting the dismissal of the case.

This is not the first time AFL has lodged a class-action lawsuit against a company earmarking grants for underrepresented entrepreneurs. In July 2022, it sued Amazon for a diversity grant that deployed $10,000 to Black, LatinX and Native American business owners to cover startup costs. 

Nathan Roberts, owner of an Ohio trucking company, is at the center of AFL’s suit against Hello Alice and Progressive. Roberts, who’s White, allegedly received an email about the Driving Small Business Forward grant program and began filling out an application before realizing it was exclusive to Black entrepreneurs, according to the complaint. Once he did, he closed the application. 

“All Americans deserve to be free from racial discrimination, yet major corporations across the United States inject racial considerations into every aspect of their business operations, employment practices and so much more. As alleged in our complaint, our client—who is a small business owner fighting to create a better life for himself and his family—was denied a contract with Progressive that would have provided him with $25,000 toward the purchase of a new truck solely because of the amount of pigment in his skin,” said Gene Hamilton, vice president and general counsel for AFL, in a statement. “Progressive’s racially discriminatory arrangement is offensive to the American ideal, and we will fight to vindicate his rights and the rights of all similarly situated Americans.” 

In a statement on X, Hello Alice executives, Elizabeth Gore, Carolyn Rodz and Kelsey Rudger, called the case baseless, saying it sets the nation and small businesses back.

“This lawsuit alleges that Hello Alice engaged in unlawful racial discrimination by helping Progressive Insurance award grants to 10 Black-owned small businesses,” wrote the Hello Alice executives in the post. “Hello Alice strongly disagrees with the legal theory of this lawsuit, which is part of a larger strategy to attack voluntary, private-sector efforts to combat the lingering effects of racism on the American economy.” 

In response to the suit, Hello Alice has initiated a new grant program enabling individuals to nominate small businesses they believe to be “American Dream” visionaries. The winners will receive $1,000 in funding, access to a small business accelerator and media coverage. 

“Hello Alice has administered over $40 million in grants to entrepreneurs who are job creators of all races, industries, genders and geographies. Our technology has connected 1.4 million of you with loans, credit, grants or resources to grow your business,” wrote the Hello Alice executives in the statement. “Now that AFL has poked the small business bear, we are doubling down, and doing so, as always, in a lawful way that holds true to America’s core values.”

Megan Sayles is a Report For America corps member. 

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By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Political Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com

As 2024 kicks off, the AFRO takes a look back at the person who truly stood out in 2023, making a difference in the lives of others and affecting actual change in the communities they serve. This year’s honoree, U.S. Army Col. (Ret.) Edna W. Cummings, has contributed much to veterans in Maryland and throughout the United States. 

Cummings was vital in getting legislation passed in 2023 to establish a day recognizing the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, a majority African-American women’s battalion from World War II.

The battalion reported to Birmingham, England, in 1945, where they worked in eight-hour shifts, seven days a week, to eliminate two years worth of backlogged mail. The 6888th were given six months to send all the accumulated mail— they did it in three.

“I’m just grateful for the opportunity to share the story and thankful for the community of supporters, that includes descendants,” said Cummings.

Her years of contributions to educating people about the 6888th and the overall service of Black women in the military make her an excellent fit for the “AFRO Person of the Year” title. 

In the past, Cummings has received several awards and accolades for her work in honoring the women of the 6888th. She won the NAACP’s Jesse Brown Leadership Award in 2022 and became a Military Officers Association of America Changemaker on the national level in 2023.

Cummings has a vast armed forces background, from being raised on military bases by her mother, Jessie Cummings, and father, Sgt. (Ret.) Willie Cummings. 

“I was born on a military base at Fort Bragg, which is now Fort Liberty, in North Carolina. Bases are my childhood,” said Cummings.

She eventually found herself entering the “family business.” Upon graduating high school, she joined an Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program at Appalachian State University in 1974.

Unbeknownst to her at the time, she became the first African-American female to enroll in the program and receive a commission as an officer.

“My first assignment was at a school in Fort Lee, Va. After I graduated from that course, I became a quartermaster officer. I was then assigned to Fort Novosel, Ala. I was in charge of refueling helicopters for the students going through flight school,” said Cummings. “I did that for a while, and then I worked as an executive officer for a unit of air traffic controllers.”

Cummings said being a woman in the military was the most challenging aspect of her 25-year career with the armed forces.

“The Army wasn’t accustomed to women when I first came in. I came in on the tail end of the Women’s Army Corps,” said Cummings. “The Army, I think, was unclear about how to integrate women in the ranks. Then to add race – it became even more challenging.”

“Sometimes I was the only Black person and the only woman, and I just felt that I had to be so thorough and detailed because no matter what I did, I would be challenged,” she continued.

Cummings said women were often put in units where combat was not probable, leaving them to get fewer promotions. Still, she was able to climb the ranks and became a colonel in 2001.

Sometime after her military career ended, Cummings discovered the story of the 6888th Battalion.

“I started working on the 6888th project in 2018,” said Cummings. “I was so impressed because of the commander, Charity E. Adams. Some of her experiences were similar to mine— like not being saluted and people not believing I was an officer when I came on active duty. Even though hers was from 1945 – there were many parallels. I took it upon myself to be part of a community to uplift these Black women.”

In 2023, she helped make a day of recognition for the 6888th in Maryland. The 6888th will be commemorated every year in the state on March 9 moving forward. 

“Col. Edna Cummings has been a staunch advocate for telling the 6888th story and advocating for women Veterans,” said Del. Mike Rogers (D-Md.-32), who sponsored the legislation for the 6888th Battalion Day.

In 2023, Cummings also worked to bring the 6888th Broadway musical production to fruition.

“I’m honored to work with actor Blair Underwood on the musical. It embraces how the AFRO told the story of the 6888th. Had it not been for the Black press sending reporters overseas to cover the war – these stories would be lost.”

Cummings said they are hoping to bring the musical to the stage and tour in 2025. 

“Musicals can take up to ten years, but we’re ahead of schedule now,” she said. 

Cummings explained what’s next for her.

“My personal goal is to stay healthy enough to participate in the activities because we plan to tour the musical. We’re going to start in Birmingham, England,” she said. “I also want to stay healthy to continue elevating this narrative and making people aware of the contributions of these phenomenal women.” 

For all of her work in the state of Maryland and beyond, the AFRO commends Col. (Ret.) Edna Cummings, and names her AFRO Person of the Year. 

Tashi McQueen is a Report for America corps member.

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BY Ayanna Alexander and Gary Fields
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — This year’s elections in Louisiana didn’t go the way that voting rights advocate Ashley Shelton had hoped, with the far-right conservative attorney general replacing a term-limited Democratic governor and consolidating Republican control in the state.

Turnout was just 37 percent, despite the efforts of activists like her.

“Even when you work hard and you do all the things you’re supposed to, you get an unfortunate outcome, which was these statewide elections,” said Shelton, the executive director of Power Coalition for Equity & Justice in Louisiana.

She said it will be a challenge to regain trust from the communities of color she typically focuses on, mostly because of a constant drumbeat of disappointments in recent years, from attacks on voting rights to the failure of a sweeping student loan forgiveness plan. While Louisiana is not a battleground for national races, Shelton’s experience in the state serves as a window into some of the challenges President Joe Biden faces as his reelection campaign plans strategies to engage the diverse communities that helped him win in 2020.

Shelton and other activists say they already are looking for messages that will resonate with voters, despite fighting through their own fatigue. That follows recent polling showing that adults in the United States are broadly unenthusiastic about a rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump at the top of the ticket.

“I don’t have the luxury of being tired or frustrated or exasperated,” she said. “I have to just get back in the community with folks and understand how to reconnect them to the power in their voice.”

Voting advocacy groups that were essential to Biden’s victory are coming into the new year expecting to have a difficult time rebuilding the same level of support, especially among voters of color and younger voters.

Just 33 percent of non-White adults under age 45 approve of Biden’s job performance, according to the most recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs research poll. Just as concerning for the Biden camp is the precipitous drop he has seen overall among Black and Hispanic adults from his first months in office, when his approval rating was 86 percent among Black adults, 63 percent among Hispanic adults and 49 percent among White adults. Now those approval rates stand at 50 percent, 36 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

Democratic campaign strategists say they are encouraging more robust outreach to Black voters in key states. Biden’s campaign said it already is laying the groundwork for just such an effort.

Voting activists said they know voters of color are essential for Biden and cited myriad reasons for the drop in support. Among them is the failure to pass a law that would have strengthened voting rights, after numerous Republican-controlled states passed restrictions in the past few years, and Biden’s promise about student loan forgiveness, only to see the Supreme Court kill it.

The Rev. Frederick Haynes, president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Chicago-based civil rights group founded more than 50 years ago by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, said the Democratic Party needs to tell voters what it has accomplished and what it plans to do beyond next year’s election.

“Rainbow PUSH will be challenging the administration: What are you doing to get the message through the appropriate mediums to the communities that you say you’re serving?” he said.

The Biden campaign agrees and said it is highlighting gains that include delivering on broadband internet access, especially in communities of color, reducing unemployment rates and diversifying the federal judiciary, said Quentin Fulks, the principal deputy campaign manager.

“There’s a lot at stake here, and our job as a campaign is to communicate that. But it has to be mixed with also, ‘What have you done for me and what has the administration done and what will this administration continue to do to try to improve the lives of people?'” Fulks said.

The Trump campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The Georgia Black Republican Council is planning a radio and billboard campaign highlighting issues it thinks are pertinent to Black voters in a state expected to be closely contested. Among the topics are school choice, immigration and abortion.

Other voting advocates say their messages to communities of color will range from successes, such as continued low unemployment, to explanations about why priorities such as federal voting and police overhaul legislation failed. Statewide issues will be a critical part of their messaging, highlighting book bans, gerrymandered districts and abortion.

Yterenickia Bell, senior director of the And Still I Vote Program at the Leadership Conference Education Fund, will be targeting women of color between age 18 and 35 in 11 states.

“We have to remind them when we go to that door that the country is only as successful as the young people who are engaged,” she said, pointing out that many of the front-line civil rights activists of the 1960s were their age at the time.

Student debt, climate change, health care, abortion and reproductive care will be the selling points to that targeted group, Bell said.

“Black voters are pragmatic voters” and the younger ones are less party-centric and more focused on issues, said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. “At the end of the day, this cannot be an election just around the candidates. It can’t be just Trump. It can’t be just about Biden. It really has to be, ‘How does democracy protect us?'”

As long as the messaging is tailored to meet the needs of a diverse audience and prioritizes the issues they care most about — rather than focusing on personalities and candidates — it will be successful, said Rev. William Barber, co-founder of the Poor People’s Campaign.

The questions should be about who supports health care, higher wages, voting rights and bodily autonomy, he said.

The ground troops might be worn down, Barber said, but “there’s two kinds of tired: There’s a tired when I’m going to quit, and there’s a sick-and-tired but I’m not going to quit because I know I have the power to change this.”

___

AP Director of Public Opinion Research Emily Swanson contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press coverage of race and voting receives support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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By Claire Rush
The Associated Press

A Washington state law aimed at improving police accountability is in the spotlight after three Tacoma officers were acquitted in the 2020 death of Manuel Ellis, a Black man who was shocked, beaten and restrained face-down on a sidewalk as he pleaded for breath.

The measure approved by voters in 2018 was designed to make it easier to prosecute police accused of wrongfully using deadly force. Initiative 940, referred to as I-940, removed a requirement that prosecutors prove an officer acted with actual malice in order to bring a case — a requirement no other state had — and established that an independent investigation should be conducted after use of force results in death or great bodily harm, among other things.

The nearly three-month trial of the three police officers — Matthew Collins, 40; Christopher Burbank, 38; and Timothy Rankine, 34 — was the first to be held under the 5-year-old law. The trial over Ellis’ death in Tacoma, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Seattle, ended Dec. 21 with their acquittal on various murder and manslaughter charges.

The acquittal came a day before a jury in Colorado convicted two paramedics in the death of Elijah McClain, another Black man whose case drew national scrutiny.

Matthew Ericksen, a lawyer for the Ellis family, said Washington’s 2018 police accountability law failed in certain regards in a trial that amounted to a test case for the measure, resulting in a verdict that devastated the family.

“One of the big reforms that I-940 was meant to bring was completely independent investigations of in-custody deaths like Mr. Ellis,” Ericksen said. “And that just didn’t happen. The law was violated, and in many ways, there really haven’t been any consequences for that.”

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office botched the initial probe into the death by failing to disclose for three months that one of its deputies had been involved in restraining Ellis, despite the state law requiring independent investigations. The Washington State Patrol took over, and the Attorney General’s Office conducted its review based on evidence gathered by the patrol as well as its own additional investigation before charging the officers.

How effective I-940 can be will come down to how it is enforced, according to Ericksen. While the Ellis case highlighted gaps in the measure, he said it remained one of the “necessary building blocks to hopefully get to some police accountability.”

“We’re better off having I-940 than not,” he said. “I sincerely hope this one verdict does not deter future investigations and prosecutions, and I know the Ellis family feels the same way.”

Other police reform advocates also were disappointed by the verdict but said the fact the case went to trial at all — due to the law dropping the requirement that prosecutors prove officers acted with malice — already marked a significant change. Another Washington state officer, Jeff Nelson in Auburn, south of Seattle, is awaiting trial on a murder charge brought after I-940.

“We made it possible for them to know that you can be charged if you do something wrong,” said Tonya Isabell, cousin of Charleena Lyles, a pregnant mother who was fatally shot by Seattle police in 2017. “We’re all hurting, we’re devastated and we’re mad. But again, we have to look at the overall outcome of this.”

Lawyers for the three Tacoma officers said their clients acted in good faith and were relieved by the verdict. The Pierce County medical examiner ruled Ellis’ death was a homicide caused by oxygen deprivation, but the defense argued at trial that methamphetamine in his system and a heart irregularity were to blame.

Anne Bremner, who represented Rankine, said dropping the malice requirement for prosecution was generally viewed as unwelcome by law enforcement officers because of the potential for exposure to criminal liability.

“We’ve seen a lot of attrition and folks not wanting to become involved in law enforcement careers,” she said. “The vast majority of the officers that we have everywhere do excellent work and want to do their jobs in a way that they can help people and protect the community.”

State Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, a Tacoma Democrat who previously worked in the Attorney General’s Office on the implementation of I-940, said the law on its own does not guarantee accountability but rather “the opportunity to make the case for accountability” in court.

The measure has since been bolstered, she said, by 2021 laws creating an independent state office to review cases involving police use of deadly force and banning chokeholds and neck restraints.

“We do have a framework moving forward that is much more robust,” she said. “My hope as a bigger picture is that we may be able to realize that changes in the culture of policing and the laws around policing are meant to engender public trust. And I hope that we’ll be able to work together.”

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Since the 1800s, Black folks have used Christmas to resist racial violence and oppression. Here are some social justice organizations to support this holiday season.

By Nadira Jamerson
Word in  Black

For many of us, Christmas is a time to exchange gifts, indulge in slices of sweet potato pie, and binge-watch movies like “This Christmas” and “Best Man Holiday” with family. But for Black Americans, spreading holiday cheer has also meant reflecting on the injustices in our society and actively working to do something about them.

Historically, Christmas was one of the only times when some enslaved Black folks were given time off from the grueling work of plantation life. In the 1830s, the large slaveholding states of Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas became the first in the United States to declare Christmas a state holiday.

As Solomon Northup wrote in his memoir “Twelve Years a Slave,” Christmas was “the time of feasting, and frolicking, and fiddling — the carnival season with the children of bondage. They are the only days when they are allowed a little restricted liberty, and heartily indeed do they enjoy it.” 

During the holiday season, some enslaved Black folks used their “little restricted liberty” to resist the atrocities of slavery by enjoying rest that was otherwise seldom afforded to them, while some traveled to nearby relatives to strengthen family bonds that slaveholders worked tirelessly to break.

For others, Christmas was an ideal time to plan their escapes to freedom. In fact, icon and leader of the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, used Christmas Eve, 1854, to lead her three brothers to freedom in Philadelphia. And Ellen Craft disguised herself as a White man to help her and her husband escape enslavement on Christmas day, 1848. 

Today, resistance may look a little different — but it’s still a strong Black tradition. According to a joint study from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, nearly two-thirds of Black households donate to community-based organizations and causes, totaling roughly $11 billion each year.

Despite having a lower net worth, Black households, on average, give away 25 percent more of their income per year than their White counterparts. Outside of financial contributions, Black Americans have taken charge of facilitating some of the most influential protests in the United States, from the 1963 March on Washington to the Summer of George Floyd in 2020. 

If you want to make a meaningful change in your community this Christmas, support these Black-led organizations to help you get in the holiday spirit.

Five social justice organizations to support this holiday season: 

1. Black Women For Wellness: This Black-women-led organization promotes health and well-being among Black women and girls through health education, empowerment and advocacy. You can support their mission by making a donation. 

2. Black Male Voter Project: BMVP directly engages Black male voters in their 17 priority states to increase civic engagement and voter participation and ensure the needs of Black male voters are heard. You can support their mission by making a donation. 

3. H.O.P.E.: Through counseling, success coaching and financial assistance for housing and childcare, H.O.P.E empowers Black single parents in Atlanta. Learn more about this organization in our interview with founder Kenita Smith, and support their work by volunteering at their next event.

4. Black and Pink National: A prison abolitionist organization dedicated to abolishing the criminal punishment system and liberating Black LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS. You can volunteer to support one of their programs or make a donation. 

5. The National Coalition for the Homeless: Building a movement to end homelessness. This organization uses an advocacy-based approach to prevent homelessness for those at risk, provide resources for the immediate needs of those experiencing homelessness, and ensure their civil rights are respected and protected. Get involved by volunteering or making a donation.

This article was originally published by WordinBlack.

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By Jim Salter
The Associated Press

O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) — A conservative-led Missouri school board has voted to drop elective courses on Black history and literature, five months after the same board rescinded an anti-discrimination policy adopted in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd.

The Francis Howell School Board voted 5-2 Dec. 21 to stop offering Black History and Black Literature, courses that had been offered at the district’s three high schools since 2021. A little over 100 students took the courses this semester in the predominantly White suburban area of St. Louis.

In July, the board revoked an anti-racism resolution and ordered copies removed from school buildings. The resolution was adopted in August 2020 amid the national turmoil after a police officer killed Floyd in Minneapolis.

The resolution pledged that the Francis Howell community would “speak firmly against any racism, discrimination, and senseless violence against people regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or ability.”

The resolution and course offerings were targeted by five new members who have taken control of the board since being elected last year and in April, all with the backing of the conservative political action committee Francis Howell Families. All seven board members are White.

The PAC’s website expresses strong opposition to the courses, saying they involve principles of critical race theory, though many experts say the scholarly theory centered on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions is not taught in K-12 schools.

The decision to drop the courses was met with protests outside the board meeting. Several parents and students chanted, “Let them learn!” Inside, speakers questioned the decision.

“You’ve certainly taught me to not underestimate how low you will go to show your disdain toward the Black and brown communities’ experiences and existence,” Harry Harris, a Black father, told the board.

Another speaker, Tom Ferri, urged the board to focus on bigger issues such as high turnover among teachers.

“Tapping into a diverse talent pipeline would be a great way to slow attrition, but what diverse staff wants to work in a district waging culture wars?” he asked.

Board Vice President Randy Cook Jr., who was elected in 2022, said the Francis Howell courses to which he and others objected used “Social Justice Standards” developed by the Southern Poverty Law Center with a bent toward activism.

“I do not object to teaching black history and black literature; but I do object to teaching black history and black literature through a social justice framework,” Cook said in an email on Friday. “I do not believe it is the public school’s responsibility to teach social justice and activism.”

District spokesperson Jennifer Jolls said in an email that new Black history and literature courses “could be redeveloped and brought to the Board for approval in the future.”

This semester, 60 students at the three schools combined enrolled in the Black History course, and 42 took Black Literature, the district said.

Francis Howell is among Missouri’s largest school districts, with 16,647 students, 7.7 percent of whom are Black. The district is on the far western edge of the St. Louis area, in St. Charles County.

The county’s dramatic growth has coincided with the equally dramatic population decline in St. Louis city. In 1960, St. Louis had 750,000 residents and St. Charles County had 53,000. St. Louis’ population is now 293,000, nearly evenly split between Black and White residents. St. Charles County has grown to about 415,000 residents, 6 percent of whom are Black.

Racial issues remain especially sensitive in the St. Louis region, more than nine years after a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown during a street confrontation. Officer Darren Wilson was not charged and the shooting led to months of often violent protests, becoming a catalyst for the national Black Lives Matter movement.

Cook, in July, defended rescinding the anti-racism resolution, saying the board “doesn’t need to be in the business of dividing the community.”

“We just need to stick to the business of educating students here and stay out of the national politics,” he said.

The district’s description of the Black Literature course says it focuses “on contemporary and multi-genre literary works of Black authors and will celebrate the dignity and identity of Black voices.”

For the Black History course, the description reads, “Students understand the present more thoroughly when they understand the roots of today’s world in light of their knowledge of the past. This Black History course tells the history of Blacks from the beginning Ancient Civilizations of Africa through the present day accomplishments and achievements of Black individuals today.”

School board elections across the U.S. have become intense political battlegrounds since 2020, when some groups began pushing back against policies aimed at stemming the spread of COVID-19.

PACs in many local districts have successfully elected candidates who promised to take action against teachings on race and sexuality, remove books deemed offensive and stop transgender-inclusive sports teams.

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By Ashleigh Fields
AFRO Assistant Editor
afields@afro.com

Approximately 75 years ago, President Harry S. Truman desegregated the United States military, forever changing the landscape of defense by blurring racial lines and unblocking life changing opportunities for service members of color. 

This year, local non-profit Leave No Veteran Behind, invited everyone from soldiers from the front lines to high-ranking White House officials to discuss Truman’s transformative decision over seven decades later. Anthony Woods, secretary of Maryland Department of Veteran Affairs, Dr. James Dula, USAF Retired and Mieia Edmonds, a representative, Navy Federal Credit Union in addition to several others spoke during the “Impact Panel.” The topic of discussion was “Creating Veteran Pipelines Into Civic Solutions” with a heavy focus on veteran employment.

Featured speakers included Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18), Edna W. Cummings from the U.S. Army and a champion of the Six Triple Eight Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2021 and Dr. William Rowe, Chairman of the 75th EO9981 Ad Hoc Committee EO9981 which was established as the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services.

 Photos courtesy of Leave No Veteran Behind

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By Julie Carr Smyth
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio was in the throes of a bitter debate over abortion rights this fall when Brittany Watts, 21 weeks and 5 days pregnant, began passing thick blood clots.

The 33-year-old Watts, who had not shared the news of her pregnancy even with her family, made her first prenatal visit to a doctor’s office behind Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren, a working-class city about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Cleveland.

The doctor said that, while a fetal heartbeat was still present, Watts’ water had broken prematurely and the fetus she was carrying would not survive. He advised heading to the hospital to have her labor induced, so she could have what amounted to an abortion to deliver the nonviable fetus. Otherwise, she would face “significant risk” of death, according to records of her case.

That was a Tuesday in September. What followed was a harrowing three days entailing: multiple trips to the hospital; Watts miscarrying into, and then flushing and plunging, a toilet at her home; a police investigation of those actions; and Watts, who is Black, being charged with abuse of a corpse. That’s a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.

Her case was sent last week to a grand jury. It has touched off a national firestorm over the treatment of pregnant women, and especially Black women, in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump elevated Watts’ plight in a post to X, formerly Twitter, and supporters have donated more than $100,000 through GoFundMe for her legal defense, medical bills and trauma counseling.

Whether abortion-seekers should face criminal charges is a matter of debate within the anti-abortion community, but, post-Dobbs, pregnant women like Watts, who was not even trying to get an abortion, have increasingly found themselves charged with “crimes against their own pregnancies,” said Grace Howard, assistant justice studies professor at San José State University.

“Roe was a clear legal roadblock to charging felonies for unintentionally harming pregnancies, when women were legally allowed to end their pregnancies through abortion,” she said. “Now that Roe is gone, that roadblock is entirely gone.”

Michele Goodwin, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and author of “Policing The Womb,” said those efforts have long overwhelmingly targeted Black and brown women.

Even before Roe was overturned, studies show that Black women who visited hospitals for prenatal care were 10 times more likely than White women to have child protective services and law enforcement called on them, even when their cases were similar, she said.

“Post-Dobbs, what we see is kind of a wild, wild West,” said Goodwin. “You see this kind of muscle-flexing by district attorneys and prosecutors wanting to show that they are going to be vigilant, they’re going to take down women who violate the ethos coming out of the state’s legislature.” She called Black women “canaries in the coal mine” for the “hyper-vigilant type of policing” women of all races might expect from the nation’s network of health-care providers, law enforcers and courts now that abortion isn’t federally protected.

In Texas, for example, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton mounted an aggressive and successful defense against a White Texas mother, Kate Cox, who sued for permission to skirt the state’s restrictive abortion law because her fetus had a fatal condition.

At the time of Watts’ miscarriage, abortion was legal in Ohio through 21 weeks, six days of pregnancy. Her lawyer, Traci Timko, said Watts left the hospital on the Wednesday when, coincidentally, her pregnancy arrived at that date — after sitting for eight hours awaiting care.

It turned out the delay was because hospital officials were deliberating over the legalities, Timko said. “It was the fear of, is this going to constitute an abortion and are we able to do that,” she said.

At the time, vigorous campaigning was taking place across Ohio over Issue 1, a proposed amendment to enshrine a right to abortion in Ohio’s constitution. Some of the ads were harshly attacking abortions later in pregnancy, with opponents arguing the issue would allow the return of so-called “partial-birth abortions” and pregnancy terminations “until birth.”

The hospital did not return calls seeking confirmation and comment, but B. Jessie Hill, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, said Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s was in a bind.

“These are the razor’s edge decisions that health care providers are being forced to make,” she said. “And all the incentives are pushing hospitals to be conservative, because on the other side of this is criminal liability. That’s the impact of Dobbs.”

Watts had been admitted to the Catholic hospital twice that week with vaginal bleeding, but she left without being treated. A nurse told the 911 dispatcher that Watts returned no longer pregnant on that Friday. She said Watts told her, “the baby’s in her backyard in a bucket,” and that she didn’t want to have a child.

Timko said Watts insists she doesn’t recall saying the pregnancy was unwanted; it was unintended, but she had always wanted to give her mother a grandchild. Her lawyer believes Watts may have meant that she didn’t want to fish what she knew was a dead fetus from the bucket of blood, tissue and feces that she’d scooped from her overflowing toilet.

“This 33-year-old girl with no criminal record is demonized for something that goes on every day,” she told Warren Municipal Court Judge Terry Ivanchak during Watts’ recent preliminary hearing.

Warren Assistant Prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri told Ivanchak that Watts left home for a hair appointment after miscarrying, leaving the toilet clogged. Police would later find the fetus wedged in the pipes.

“The issue isn’t how the child died, when the child died,” Guarnieri told the judge, according to TV station WKBN. “It’s the fact the baby was put into a toilet, was large enough to clog up the toilet, left in that toilet, and she went on (with) her day.”

In court, Timko bristled at Guarnieri’s suggestion.

“You cannot be broadcasting any clearer that you just don’t get it,” she said in an interview, suggesting Watts was scared, anxious and traumatized by the experience. “She’s trying to protect Mama. She doesn’t want to get her hair done. She wants to stop bleeding like crazy and start grieving her fetus, what she’s just been through.”

As chief counsel to the county’s child assault protection unit, Assistant Trumbull County Prosecutor Diane Barber is the lead prosecutor on Watts’ case.

Barber said she couldn’t speak specifically about the case other than to note that the county was compelled to move forward with it once it was bound over from municipal court. She said she doesn’t expect a grand jury finding this month.

“About 20 percent of the cases get no-billed, (as in) they do not get indicted and the case does not proceed,” she said.

The size and stage of development of Watts’ fetus — precisely the point when abortion crossed from legal to illegal without exceptions — became an issue during her preliminary hearing.

A county forensic investigator reported feeling “what appeared to be a small foot with toes” inside Watts’ toilet. Police seized the toilet and broke it apart to retrieve the intact fetus as evidence.

Testimony and an autopsy confirmed that the fetus died in utero before passing through the birth canal. 

In regard to abuse, the examination identified “no recent injuries.”

Ivanchak acknowledged the case’s complexities.

“There are better scholars than I am to determine the exact legal status of this fetus, corpse, body, birthing tissue, whatever it is,” he said from the bench. “Matter of fact, I’m assuming that’s what … Issue 1’s all about: at what point something becomes viable.”

Timko, a former prosecutor, said Ohio’s abuse-of-corpse statute is vague. It prohibits treating “a human corpse” in a way that would “outrage” reasonable family or community sensibilities.

“From a legal perspective, there’s no definition of ‘corpse,'” she said. “Can you be a corpse if you never took a breath?”

Howard said clarity on what about Watts’ behavior constituted a crime is essential.

“For rights of people with the capacity for pregnancy, this is huge,” she said. “Her miscarriage was entirely ordinary. So I just want to know what (the prosecutor) thinks she should have done. If we are going to require people to collect and bring used menstrual products to hospitals so that they can make sure it is indeed a miscarriage, it’s as ridiculous and invasive as it is cruel.”

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By Stacy M. Brown
NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

A group of current and former Alabama prisoners have filed a federal lawsuit, alleging that they were trapped in a “modern-day form of slavery” by being forced to work at fast-food chains for meager or no compensation. The comprehensive 129-page complaint, seeking class-action status, contends that the prisoners were victims of a “convict leasing” system, compelling them to work under exploitative conditions while the state of Alabama and its corporate partners reaped substantial profits.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama and first reported by the website Law & Crime, implicates over two dozen state officials, including Gov. Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall, alongside numerous government agencies and private employers, including the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC). The plaintiffs argue that these entities have violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

The complaint notes that while 26.8 percent of Alabama’s population identifies as Black or African American, double that percentage constitutes the Black incarcerated population. Drawing historical parallels, the group compares the alleged labor-trafficking scheme to the enslavement of individuals in Alabama’s cotton fields and subsequent sharecropping and convict leasing practices post-Civil War.

In a video statement, jailed activist Robert Earl Council, also known as Kinetik Justice, asserts that Alabama’s work programs are a continuation of pre-Civil War slavery. He accuses corporations and fast-food companies involved in these programs as complicit “slave masters,” condemning their participation in the alleged exploitation.

The complaint alleges that Alabama generates an annual $450 million from forced labor, with inmates compelled to work against their will. At the same time, the ADOC claims 40 percent of gross earnings purportedly for the cost of incarceration. In a recent finding, the U.S. Department of Justice announced significant deficiencies in ADOC facilities, prompting a 2020 lawsuit against Alabama, citing widespread violence among prisoners and guards.

Individual plaintiff stories further underscore the harsh realities. Lakiera Walker, incarcerated from 2007 to 2023, recounted years of uncompensated work, including housekeeping, floor stripping and employment at Burger King for a paltry $2 per day. Walker details enduring sexual harassment, being forced to work while unwell, and the intimidation preventing many women from speaking out.

The lawsuit contends that the work programs create a paradoxical situation where inmates are denied parole for public safety reasons while simultaneously working without supervision at local businesses. The plaintiffs demand justice for what they describe as forced labor and aim to expose and rectify systemic exploitation within Alabama’s prison system.

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By Lindsay Whitehurst and Alanna Durkin Richer
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A jury awarded $148 million in damages on Dec. 15 to two former Georgia election workers who sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation over lies he spread about them in 2020 that upended their lives with racist threats and harassment.

The damages verdict follows emotional testimony from Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, who tearfully described becoming the target of a false conspiracy theory pushed by Giuliani and other Republicans as they tried to keep then-President Donald Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

There was an audible gasp in the courtroom when the jury foreperson read aloud the $75 million award in punitive damages for the women. Moss and Freeman were each awarded another roughly $36 million in other damages.

“Money will never solve all my problems,” Freeman told reporters outside Washington’s federal courthouse after the verdict. “I can never move back into the house that I call home. I will always have to be careful about where I go and who I choose to share my name with. I miss my home. I miss my neighbors and I miss my name.”

Giuliani didn’t appear to show any emotion as the verdict was read after about 10 hours of deliberations. Moss and Freeman hugged their attorneys after the jury left the courtroom and didn’t look at Giuliani as he left with his lawyer.

The former New York City mayor vowed to appeal, telling reporters that the “absurdity of the number merely underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding.”

“It will be reversed so quickly it will make your head spin, and the absurd number that just came in will help that actually,” he said.

It’s not clear whether Giuliani will ever be able to pay the staggering amount. He had already been showing signs of financial strain as he defends himself against costly lawsuits and investigations stemming from his representation of Trump. In September, his former lawyer sued him, alleging Giuliani had paid only a fraction of nearly $1.6 million in legal fees he racked up.

His attorney in the defamation case told jurors that the damages the women were seeking “would be the end of Mr. Giuliani.”

Giuliani had already been found liable in the case and previously conceded in court documents that he falsely accused the women of ballot fraud. Even so, the former mayor continued to repeat his baseless allegations about the women in comments to reporters outside the Washington, D.C., courthouse this week.

Giuliani’s lawyer acknowledged that his client was wrong but insisted that Giuliani was not fully responsible for the vitriol the women faced. The defense sought to largely pin the blame on a right-wing website that published the surveillance video of the two women counting ballots.

Giuliani’s defense rested Dec. 14 without calling a single witness after the former mayor reversed course and decided not to take the stand. Giuliani’s lawyer had told jurors in his opening statement that they would hear from his client. But after Giuliani’s comments outside court, the judge barred him from claiming in testimony that his conspiracy theories were right.

The judgment adds to growing financial and legal peril for Giuliani, who was among the loudest proponents of Trump’s false claims of election fraud that are now a key part of the criminal cases against the former president.

Giuliani is still facing his biggest test yet: fighting criminal charges in the Georgia case accusing Trump and 18 others of working to subvert the results of the 2020 election, won by Democrat Joe Biden, in that state. Giuliani has pleaded not guilty and characterized the case as politically motivated.

Jurors in the defamation case heard recordings of Giuliani falsely accusing the election workers of sneaking in ballots in suitcases, counting ballots multiple times and tampering with voting machines. 

Trump also repeated the conspiracy theories through his social media accounts. Lawyers for Moss and Freeman, who are Black, also played for jurors audio recordings of the graphic and racist threats the women received.

On the witness stand, Moss and Freeman described fearing for their lives as hateful messages poured in. Freeman described strangers banging on her door and recounted fleeing her home after people came with bullhorns and the FBI told her she wasn’t safe. Moss told jurors she tried to change her appearance, seldom leaves her home and suffers from panic attacks.

“Our greatest wish is that no one, no election worker, or voter or school board member or anyone else ever experiences anything like what we went through,” Moss told reporters after the verdict. “You all matter, and you are all important.”

Defense attorney Joseph Sibley had told jurors they should compensate the women for what they are owed, but he urged them to “remember this is a great man.”

An attorney for Moss and Freeman, in his closing argument, highlighted how Giuliani has not stopped repeating the false conspiracy theory asserting the workers interfered in the November 2020 presidential election. Attorney Michael Gottlieb played a video of Giuliani outside the courthouse on Dec. 11, in which Giuliani falsely claimed the women were “engaged in changing votes.” Giuliani kept pressing false election claims even after the verdict, telling reporters, “I know my country had a president imposed on it by fraud.”

“Mr. Giuliani has shown over and over again he will not take our client’s names out of his mouth,” Gottlieb said. “Facts will not stop him. He says he isn’t sorry and he’s telegraphing he will do this again. Believe him.”

The judge overseeing the election workers’ lawsuit had already ordered Giuliani and his business entities to pay tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees. In holding Giuliani liable, the judge ruled that the former mayor gave “only lip service” to complying with his legal obligations while trying to portray himself as the victim in the case.

___

Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press reporter Michael Kunzelman contributed from Washington.

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The Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta police have arrested a woman who’s accused of trying to burn down the birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta.

Officers arrested the 26-year-old woman around 5:45 p.m. Dec. 7 after responding to a report of vandalism in process at the two-story home in the historic Auburn Avenue Historic District, according to a police statement. Police say a preliminary investigation shows the woman had poured gasoline on the property before people at the site stopped her.

“We believe at this time she was pouring gasoline on the porch and the door of the home. Their quick action saved a jewel of our city, something very important to Atlanta,” Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum told WXIA-TV.

Video shot by a witness and broadcast by local television stations shows a young woman dressed in black pants, a black shirt and a black knit cap holding a large red gas canister standing on the front porch of the house and dousing the home with a liquid. A police report says she was not wearing any shoes.

Two men from Utah, who were in Atlanta for work, decided to visit the historic home and noticed the woman pouring a liquid on the bushes, according to the police report. They became suspicious when she did not respond when they asked if she was watering the plants and other questions.

Once they realized it was gasoline that she was pouring, they pleaded with her to stop and then “saw no other option but to try to apprehend her” with the help of other bystanders, the report says. As they tried to detain her, “she was actively trying to spark the lighter to the property and bushes so they had to remove it out of her hands and get her under control until police responded.”

“It was a little scary there for a minute because we didn’t know who she was,” one of the men, Zach Kempf, told WSB-TV. “We didn’t know if she had weapons on her, we didn’t know anything.”

The police report says the woman was taken to a hospital for a psychological evaluation. She’s charged with second-degree attempted arson and interference with government property. The historic site is now a museum owned and operated by the National Park Service.

“Tonight, an unfortunate incident occurred at the birth home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as an individual attempted to set fire to this historic property,” The King Center said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter. “Fortunately, the attempt was unsuccessful, thanks to the brave intervention of good samaritans and the quick response of law enforcement.”

The statement from the nonprofit organization, which is dedicated to preserving the legacy of King and his wife Coretta Scott King, also said, “Our prayers are with the individual who allegedly committed this criminal act.”

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The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit that accused a south Louisiana parish of using land use policies to guide industries that pollute into communities with majority-Black populations.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana tossed the lawsuit on procedural grounds, saying that it was filed by community groups several years too late, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.

“Although plaintiffs’ claims are procedurally deficient, this court cannot say that their claims lack a basis in fact or rely on a meritless legal theory,” Barbier wrote in his Nov. 16 decision.

In March, Rise St. James, Inclusive Louisiana and Mt. Triumph Baptist Church of Chatman Town filed the lawsuit calling for the state’s first ban on new petrochemical plants to halt a decades-long trend in St. James of concentrating petrochemical plants in areas with large minority populations “while explicitly sparing White residents from the risk of environmental harm.”

The groups will likely appeal Barbier’s decision, said attorney Bill Quigley, who helped the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic and the Center for Constitutional Rights in representing the groups.

“We felt that the judge really respected the concerns of our clients,” Quigley said. “He never said what folks are saying isn’t true, and the decision makes that clear. It’s essentially saying we were too late.”

The groups’ claims were based on the parish’s adoption in 2014 of a land-use plan that allowed plants to be built in some predominantly Black areas of St. James, resulting in reduced property values and increased health risks. While those claims may have merit, Louisiana’s one-year statute of limitations would have required the groups to file their legal challenge in 2015, Barbier wrote.

Rise and other groups have repeatedly asked for a halt to new plants in their communities, which include small towns and rural areas along the Mississippi River. But the only significant action parish officials have taken to limit the siting of industries has been against solar farms that were proposed in majority-White areas.

Last year, the parish banned large solar complexes after a proposed 3,900-acre project upset those living in the mostly White neighborhoods of Vacherie. Residents cited concerns over lower property values and the potential for flying debris during storms. Similar concerns were ignored when raised by Black residents about petrochemical plants, according to the lawsuit.

Parish officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Activists have had some success stemming the tide of plants in St. James. Rise and other groups helped block the development of the $1.9 billion Wanhua plastics complex and put a temporary halt on the $9.4 billion Formosa plastics complex planned near the Sunshine Bridge.

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By Ericka Alston Buck

In the heart of Baltimore, a grassroots think tank organization known as Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS) has been making waves, championing the rights of the Black community. Founded by a group of college friends, LBS has evolved from a small collective to a powerful force pushing for legislative changes that support, defend and champion the interests of Black individuals.

In a recent interview with Adam Jackson, one of the founders of LBS, he delved into the organization’s origins, its current priorities and an exciting event on the horizon. 

Jackson spoke passionately about the organization’s journey and how it has successfully influenced legislative decisions. LBS’s commitment to justice and equity is evident in their multifaceted approach, combining activism, policy advocacy, and community engagement to create lasting change.

With Maryland’s upcoming legislative cycle, LBS is focusing on crucial issues, especially those legislative efforts associated with criminal justice reform, notably ensuring that minors who have been incarcerated have access to legal representation; and addressing the reparations owed as a consequence of the “war on drugs,” with a particular emphasis on redirecting funds from legal cannabis sales.

A significant portion of the conversation was focused on the 2023 Asante Celebration, an upcoming fundraising event organized by LBS. Scheduled for Dec. 10 at The Sinclair, a Black-owned event space, the celebration is more than just a fundraiser,” Jackson said. It’s a heartfelt “thank you” to the supporters who have stood by LBS over the years. “Asante,” the Swahili word for “thank you,” encapsulates the gratitude the organization feels towards its community.

The event promises an unforgettable evening, with every detail carefully curated to celebrate Black excellence. The Asante Celebration is Black-powered.  From the entertainment – DJ 5-Star and a live performance by Black Assets, a local jazz, soul and R&B band – to the delectable cuisine, provided by renowned Black-owned caterer The Heirloom, every aspect reflects the essence of Black culture. The AFRO is the event’s exclusive media partner, further emphasizing the community-centric nature of the celebration. Attendees are encouraged to embrace the theme by – what else? – dressing in all black, adding yet another touch of greatness to this formal event.  

Jackson highlighted the importance of community support in driving the organization’s success. He said buying tickets for the Asante Celebration is one way to continue showing that support, but he also outlined another way for individuals to contribute: becoming a sustainer. On the organization’s website, a dedicated “Sustainer” tab allows supporters to subscribe and contribute on a regular basis, much like supporting a favorite streaming service. With subscriptions starting as low as $5 a month, becoming a sustainer is an accessible and meaningful way for individuals to ensure the continued success of LBS’s crucial, ongoing fight for a more just and beautiful Baltimore.

Tickets are available through eventbrite.

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(Black PR Wire) WASHINGTON, D.C. – National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial and National Action Network Founder and President Rev. Al Sharpton today (Nov. 26) issued the following statement in response to the Federal Communication Commission’s vote to adopt rules to prevent and eliminate digital discrimination of access to broadband services based on income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin:

“Two years ago, Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which makes significant investments to close the digital divide and aligns with many of the recommendations outlined in the National Urban League’s Lewis Latimer Plan for Digital Equity and Inclusion. Congress said that ‘the digital divide disproportionately affects communities of color, lower-income areas, and rural areas, and the benefits of broadband should be broadly enjoyed by all’ and the FCC’s rules to prevent and eliminate digital discrimination move the nation closer to the goal of equitably closing digital divide in America.

“As legacy civil rights organizations who represent Black and other historically underserved communities, we have seen how the lack of inclusive and equitable policies have created barriers to accessing broadband which have hindered our communities’ ability to fully participate in an increasingly interconnected world. This vote by the FCC will place us on the course of ensuring all experience the social and economic benefits of high-speed internet access.

“Our organizations tirelessly advocated for both disparate impact and disparate treatment to be included in the definition of digital discrimination, for the Commission to explore paths for ISPs to create an internal compliance process to ensure that nondiscrimination principles are at the core of their business practices, and for the complaint process to be accessible so that it benefits consumers and not just well-resourced institutions, all of which were ultimately reflected in the FCC’s Report and Order and 

Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Wednesday.

“We commend FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel for her continued engagement and thoughtful partnership with the civil rights community in the fight for digital equity. We are also thankful for the leadership of FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks who has been a consistent leader, including in this proceeding, on issues that matter to communities of color and who made recommendations that the Commission extend deliberations about the establishment of an Office of Civil Rights, which has been a longtime advocacy goal for our community.”

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Davis shares insights into the futuristic approach that breathes new life into the timeless narrative of Malcolm X.

By Ericka Alston Buck
Special to the AFRO

In the realm of operatic innovation, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis stands as a trailblazer. His groundbreaking opera, “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” which initially premiered in 1986, has finally found its place on the illustrious stage of the Metropolitan Opera. This production lands Davis as only the second Black composer to have their work presented by the premier opera house.

The Met’s latest staging, under the direction of Tony-nominated Robert O’Hara, takes a daring leap, envisioning Malcolm X as an ordinary man whose story transcends the constraints of time and space. A stellar cast, featuring the remarkable baritone Will Liverman as Malcolm X, soprano Leah Hawkins as his mother Louise, mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis as his sister Ella, bass-baritone Michael Sumuel as his brother Reginald, and tenor Victor Ryan Robertson as Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, brings the operatic retelling to vivid life.

Davis revealed that a significant portion of the opera’s backstory originates from a rather unconventional source. “A lot of the backstory of the opera and Malcolm’s life comes from a spaceship,” Davis said. He elaborated, “We initially see Malcolm like an everyman, and the spaceship projects all the information and details of Malcolm’s life.”

Distinguishing this production from the original 1986 rendition, Davis emphasized the shift from spare and stark aesthetics to an Afrofuturistic perspective. “It’s about Malcolm’s legacy, not just his past story but what his legacy means to us today and in the future. That’s really what’s remarkable about this production,” he said.

One standout element for Davis was the incorporation of dance, masterfully choreographed by Ricky Tripp. The 12 dancers play a crucial role in interpreting the psychological torment and inner thoughts of the characters, especially during intense moments like the riots in Boston and Malcolm’s pilgrimage to Mecca.

Davis noted the production’s relevance to contemporary issues, such as police brutality, which is seamlessly woven into the narrative. 

“The opera is also a lot about Malcolm’s spiritual evolution, his transformation that takes place over each chapter,” Davis reflected, tracing Malcolm’s journey from Malcolm Little to Detroit Redd and ultimately to Malcolm X, concluding with his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964 as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.

As the opera unfolds, audiences can expect a poignant exploration of Malcolm’s spiritual growth and the stark contrast between dynamic dance sequences, like the riots in Boston, and moments of stillness during Malcolm’s pilgrimage in Mecca. Davis hopes the audience will be able to connect emotionally with these contrasting elements and reflect on the broader themes presented in the opera.

For national audiences who plan on attending the performance at a local theater, they are in for an immersive cinematic experience with the HD streaming of the Metropolitan Opera House’s production of “X: The Life & Times of Malcolm X.” The high-definition streaming delivers the powerful narrative of Malcolm X’s life with unparalleled clarity and detail.

Viewers can expect a visual feast as every nuance of the production, from the intricate set designs to the expressive performances, is captured in stunning high definition. The vivid colors, dynamic lighting, and meticulous costumes are showcased with exceptional precision, allowing audiences to feel the energy and authenticity of the live performance.

Davis encourages audiences to “be open to a new kind of artistic expression that has music reflecting history from the 1940s to the 1960s and beyond.”

The HD streaming technology enhances the auditory experience as well, ensuring that every note of the powerful musical score and every nuanced line of dialogue is delivered with crystal-clear precision. The advanced audio quality contributes to a sense of being right in the heart of the performance, creating a connection between the audience and the profound story of Malcolm X.

Whether viewers are seasoned opera enthusiasts or newcomers to the genre, the HD streaming of “X: The Life & Times of Malcolm X” at the Metropolitan Opera House promises a transformative and visually captivating experience that transcends the traditional boundaries of cinema. Audiences will be transported into the heart of this iconic production, immersing themselves in the life and legacy of Malcolm X like never before.

The production’s premiere on Nov. 18 was, indeed, a surreal experience. Angela Bassett hosted the debut, and conducted interviews with the cast, including Davis, during the intermission.

The venue itself added to the transformative experience. Stepping into the Metropolitan Opera House for the first time is like entering a realm where art and grandeur collide. Ascending the regal staircase, adorned with plush red carpeting and golden railings, builds a sense of anticipation and offers a glimpse of what lies ahead. The opulent surroundings, from the glittering chandeliers overhead to the richly decorated walls, evoke a feeling of stepping into a bygone era of elegance.

The vast auditorium stunned with its sheer scale, while the hushed whispers of fellow patrons created an atmosphere of shared excitement. As the lights dim, a collective hush descends, and the curtain rises to reveal a stage bathed in an otherworldly glow of a spaceship. 

The orchestra, positioned in the pit below, begins to play, and the sound fills the auditorium with a richness and depth that is unexpected. The overture, a majestic prelude, heightens the sense of anticipation, and palpable energy stirs the air.  This energy was heightened by a full cast of African- American artists who took to the stage from beginning to end. 

As the performers took the stage in their costumes, true to each era from the 1940s to the 1960s, one is immediately and continuously drawn into the story. The power of their voices resonates through the hall. The elaborate sets, the sweeping melodies, and the dynamic interplay of light and shadow create a visual and auditory feast that sweeps away attendees into the narrative.

As the final notes of the opera reverberate, the entire theater turns blood red as Macolm X is assassinated on stage. The curtain falls, and the applause, thunderous and heartfelt, fills the auditorium. 

“X: The Life & Times of Malcolm X,” at the Metropolitan Opera House is truly more than a performance; it’s a journey into a world of beauty, emotion and artistic mastery.

In closing, Davis urged those who plan on attending a showing to expect “new musical expressions and plan to hear something that we’ve never experienced before.” 

“X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” runs through Dec. 2 at Metropolitan Opera House. Check your local  theaters for showtimes to this invitation into a revolutionary fusion of music, history and futuristic storytelling that promises to leave an indelible mark on the world of opera.

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The Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — The city of Boston has paid $2.6 million to several Black police officers to settle a longstanding federal discrimination lawsuit over a hair test used to identify drug use, lawyers for the officers said Nov. 16.

The city eliminated the test in 2021 and has now paid damages to three Black officers and a cadet who lost their jobs or were disciplined as a result of the test, their attorneys said in a news release.

The case file noted that a settlement had been reached, but the details had not been filed yet. Messages seeking comment were left with the Boston Police Department and the lead attorney representing them.

The officers sued the city in 2005, claiming its hair test is discriminatory because Black people’s hair is more susceptible to false positives. The city and the company that performed testing for Boston police rejected any suggestion that the tests are racially biased.

The case was twice considered by the First Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2014, the court agreed that the hair test fell disproportionately on Black officers. Two years later, the court found evidence sufficient to show that the city had continued to use the hair test even after having been informed of a less discriminatory alternative.

The case went to trial in 2018, and the parties subsequently entered into mediation, resulting in the settlement.

“This settlement puts an end to a long, ugly chapter in Boston’s history,” said Oren Sellstrom of Lawyers for Civil Rights, a nonprofit that has represented the officers. “As a result of this flawed test, our clients’ lives and careers were completely derailed. The city has finally compensated them for this grave injustice.”

The Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers also was a plaintiff.

“The city is still trying to make up for the loss of diversity on the police force that resulted from use of the hair test,” Jeffrey Lopes, association president, said in a statement.

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By Patrick Orsagos
The Associated Press

CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio (AP) — As Jadarrius Rose drove his 18-wheeler through rural Ohio, a simple missing mudflap caught the highway patrol’s eye. The trip ended with a police dog’s powerful jaws clamping down on Rose even as he tried to surrender.

As he stood with his hands up beside the highway on July 4, at least six law enforcement officers surrounded him at a distance, one calling forcefully to the K-9 handler: “Do not release the dog,” highway patrol video shows.

Nevertheless, a Belgian Malinois is seen on the video either breaking free or being set loose. At first, the animal seems confused, racing past Rose toward officers at the far end of the truck, then turning back and running for Rose, then 23.

By then the trucker is on his knees, hands still high, as an officer shouts, “Get the dog off of him!”

That day, Rose joined a long list of Black Americans attacked by police dogs, a history well documented by journalists, academics and filmmakers. Investigations into such cases have been launched regularly in recent years. For some, the scenes harken back to the Civil Rights Movement, when authorities often turned dogs and firehoses on peaceful Black protesters marching for equality.

The Associated Press captured one such attack in a photograph from Birmingham, Ala., taken in the spring of 1963. It shows two police officers setting a pair of K-9s on 15-year-old Walter Gadsden. One of the dogs lunges straight for the teenager’s belly as the other strains against his leash, panting.

Over the past five years, controversial police K-9 attacks have made headlines across the U.S. Records reviewed by the AP in 2018 showed the Ohio State Highway Patrol used drug dogs in 28 percent of its stops involving Black motorists from 2013 through 2017, although the Black population accounts for only about 11.5 percent of people old enough to have a driver’s permit or license in the state.

The Salt Lake City police department suspended its dog apprehension program in 2020 after a Black man was bitten and an audit found 27 dog bite cases during the previous two years.

The FBI opened an investigation into the police department in Woodson Terrace, Mo., in 2021 after cellphone video showed three officers allowing a dog to repeatedly bite a Black man. And in 2020, a Black man in Lafayette, Ind., was placed in a medically induced coma after police dogs mauled him as he was arrested in a battery case.

A TROUBLED HISTORY

Circleville, located about 25 miles (40 km) south of Columbus, Ohio, resembles many rural towns across the country. The city’s downtown is filled with restaurants, law offices and a bakery. Flags honoring fallen servicemen and women hang from lampposts lining Main Street.

While the picture may be idyllic to some of the town’s 14,000 residents, the Rev. Derrick Holmes, longtime leader of the Second Baptist Church, said Black and White residents describe their lives very differently.

“Everyone doesn’t have the same experience, even though they’re all in the same town,” Holmes said. “And I think those divisions exist around the realities of bigotry, the realities of racism.”

At church services the day after the video of Rose’s arrest aired, Holmes said the congregation was appalled, but not entirely surprised.

“People were horrified by it,” he said. “Angered by it. Frustrated by it. And also there was a feeling of, ‘Well, here we go again.'”

This isn’t the first time Circleville police have grappled with uncomfortable questions about how they train and use police dogs. Nearly 20 years ago, a founder of the K-9 unit sued the department after he was fired for insubordination. Officer David Haynes had publicly opposed cutting training hours for dogs and their handlers to 172 hours annually from 500 hours, according to court documents.

Haynes warned in a 2003 memo that “words like ‘deliberate indifference,’ ‘negligence’ and ‘failure to train’ will someday be brought up.”

Today, Circleville’s K-9s train 16 hours per month, or 192 hours a year, according to the department.

Police Chief Shawn Baer did not respond to numerous messages seeking comment.

Employing dogs to dominate a population can be traced back at least to European settlers colonizing the Americas, when the animals were used against Indigenous people. They were introduced in Southern U.S. states to capture — and sometimes kill — enslaved Black people who escaped, said Madalyn Wasilczuk, a University of South Carolina professor and author of a law journal article titled, ” The Racialized Violence of Police Canine Force.”

Wasilczuk found data on K-9 police attacks sparse, but said the animals are often used in nonviolent situations and their presence can lead to serious injury.

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Stories behind the Trail of Tears for every state it passed through

Markers and remnants of the Trail of Tears stretch as a series of scars across the American landscape. The trail’s facilitators stand as a representation of America at her worst; its captives as a mark of stunning resiliency in the face of indescribable cruelty and terror.

Despite massive encroachment by white settlers on North American lands throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, the sovereign Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole nations in the early 1800s accounted for significant swaths of land stretching from northwest Georgia into Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

The Cherokee were particularly adept at pursuing signed documentation protecting their native lands; a dozen treaties were signed between the United States federal government and the Cherokee between 1785 and 1819. As white settlers continued advancing on native lands, tribes sought mitigation in Washington courts to little or no avail. Gradually, other major tribes throughout the young United States acquiesced with treaties that forced their migration west to the other side of the Mississippi River.

Gold was discovered in Georgia in 1828; by 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. The law granted the president the authority to offer Indigenous groups, numbering around 125,000 people at the time, 16,000 acres west of the Mississippi River in Oklahoma Territory in exchange for tribal lands within state boundaries. The removal of these Indigenous groups would free up millions of acres across the American Southeast for mineral extraction, cotton farming, and the growing white population.

The Indian Removal Act had the immediate effect of many groups moving west beginning in the early 1830s, following roads and rivers out to “Indian Territory” in present-day Oklahoma. The Trail of Tears is the shorthand used for the series of forced displacements of more than 60,000 Indigenous people of the five tribes between 1830 and 1850 and extending up through the 1870s. The Choctaw Nation’s forced removal began in 1831; Seminoles in 1832; Creek in 1834; Chickasaw in 1837; and the Cherokee in 1838—the largest forced removal of all. Illini Confederation, Osage, and Quapaw tribes were also displaced.

In honor of National Trail of Tears Commemoration Day Sept. 16, Stacker compiled a list of stories behind the Trail of Tears for each of the nine states it passed through, based on archived personal accounts and historical records and largely focusing on the most significant removal—that of the Cherokee—in 1838 and 1839. Much of the history has been lost due to the destruction of Indigenous lands and settlements following the forced removal of these people from their homes and, later, structured education systems that did not acknowledge these individuals, their languages, or their histories.

During the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839, tribal communities numbering in excess of 17,000 (16,000 of whom were Cherokee) were met by more than 7,000 troops deployed by President Martin Van Buren. Homes were looted, people were rounded up in camps, others were killed, and thousands at a time were marched west, often at gunpoint. Routes—not one but a tangle of trails—forced people from North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, and Illinois to Oklahoma by foot, train, and boat.

The main route stretched from nearby present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee, through Nashville and Clarksville then through Hopkinsville, Kentucky, into Illinois via an Ohio River crossing, then on to “Indian Territory” in present-day Oklahoma. Along the way, a lack of food, horses, supplies, and other provisions—including so much as shoes for many travelers—made the trek challenging for all and impossible for thousands. Deaths accumulated quickly due to severe exposure, famine, and contagious diseases such as cholera, influenza, malaria, measles, dysentery, syphilis, tuberculosis, typhus, whooping cough, and yellow fever.

Those who survived the march were met in Indian Territory with insufficient supplies necessary for survival and a harsh landscape inhospitable to hunting, farming, or gathering. In total, between 1830 and 1850, roughly 100,000 Indigenous people east of the Mississippi River were relocated against their will to Indian Territory.

More than 4,000 people died along the way, representing as many as one of every four Cherokee. Survivors remade the Cherokee Nation, which exists today as a still-sovereign nation based out of Oklahoma with more than 330,000 citizens across the United States.

The Trail of Tears was designated by Congress in 1987 as a national historic trail. Keep reading to discover numerous stories and significant markers along the trail.

North Carolina

Western North Carolina’s mountains stood as the centerpiece of Cherokee civilization long before the arrival of Europeans. Valleys within the Hiwassee, Little Tennessee, Tuckasegee, and other rivers served as ideal farming communities for the Cherokee.

Around 3,500 Cherokee were living in North Carolina at the time of the Trail of Tears. As government officials estimated headcounts and assessed roadways for the forced removal of Indigenous communities, the Unicoi Turnpike (now a historic trail) was selected as the main route, as it ran through northern Georgia into western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. The Old Army Road between Andrews and Robbinsville was expanded in just 10 days in the spring of 1838 to accommodate wagons and the thousands of travelers who would be coming by foot.

As the vast majority of Cherokee were rounded up, held in internment camps, and then marched from their homes across multiple states, a small group stayed hidden in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina. These Cherokee eventually earned the right to stay and their rights were recognized. Today, that group is known as the Oconaluftee Cherokee.

Georgia

As cultures blended in the early 19th century, a number of Cherokee assimilated into the white settler culture: putting up English-style housing, adopting white settler farming techniques, and in some cases establishing plantations.

Georgia in 1802 became the last colony to cede its western land to the United States government. The Cherokee maintained the occupation of their lands that were promised by treaty—but white residents in the state were increasingly unhappy that Cherokee communities should continue to govern themselves and maintain rights to land that settlers sought to occupy.

The state passed legislation in 1828 nullifying all Cherokee Nation laws; and in 1829, when gold was found on Cherokee land in Georgia, pressure mounted on the government to remove the Indigenous communities entirely. This pressure came at the same time President Andrew Jackson was actively destroying land titles and treaties with the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

When the Trail of Tears commenced, all properties owned by Cherokee were forfeited.

Today, numerous Georgia historic sites—from the Cedartown Cherokee Removal Camp and New Echota State Historic Site to the Funk Heritage Center—commemorate this period in American and Indigenous history.

Tennessee

Roughly 2,800 people spread across three detachments traveled by a mix of steamboats, keelboats, and towing flatboats, down the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi, White, and Arkansas rivers from present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Fort Coffee, Oklahoma. The first detachment, which included as many as 800 people, departed on June 6, 1838.

The river routes along the Trail of Tears were not much safer than land trails, as the rations and supplies were equally as scarce and the elements just as brutal. The first detachment made it from Chattanooga to Fort Coffee within two weeks. Another detachment traversed the Arkansas River during an extreme drought that made boat passage impossible and forced the travelers to finish the journey by foot in extreme heat. More than 70 people died during the nearly two-month trek. Later passages were even more dangerous with some death tolls estimated as high as 2,000.

Alabama

About a quarter of the Cherokee Nation in the 1820s lived in present-day Cherokee, Etowah, and DeKalb counties in Alabama. Cherokee living in northern Alabama at the time were part of the sovereign Cherokee Nation headquartered in New Echota.

When the May 1838 deadline arrived for native communities to leave on their own accord, eight companies of the U.S. Army marched into northeast Alabama along with militia from Alabama and Tennessee to remove Cherokee and Creek communities by force. Posts and stockades in forts Payne, Lovell, Likens, and Turkeytown were built to house the troops, store supplies, and imprison Indigenous communities—including roughly 16,000 Cherokee—before the trek began toward Indian Territory in October 1838.

Major Trail of Tears locations in Alabama include Waterloo Landing, Tuscumbia Landing, and Little River Canyon Center.

Waterloo Landing, where a historical marker stands citing its significance, was the last point of departure for Indigenous people from the South and earned the location its nickname as the “End of the Trail.” An annual event at the site memorializes the Trail of Tears and the perseverance of the Indigenous community.

Numerous Indigenous individuals and families were transported to Tuscumbia Landing by train for transport to Oklahoma. People in the Little River region were rounded up and marched along the Trail of Tears’ Benge Route, so-named for John Benge, who led the detachment of soldiers leading the march. At Lake Guntersville State Park, the Trail of Tears is remembered annually with storytelling, a variety of ritual dances, memorial walks, and displays. Blevins Gap Preserve is home to the Smokerise Trail, where visitors can retrace more than a mile of the Trail of Tears.

Arkansas

Hundreds of miles of the Trail of Tears winds through Arkansas. The state is distinct in that each of the land and river routes passed through it, bearing witness to all five of the southeastern tribes that were forcibly removed.

Today, five Arkansas State Parks sit along these routes: Lake Dardanelle, Mount Nebo, Petit Jean, Pinnacle Mountain, and Village Creek. The largest unbroken section of the trail can be found in Village Creek State Park in Wynne; from Mount Nebo, visitors can see sections of the Arkansas River all five tribes were transported across.

Kentucky

The Cherokee crossed into southern Illinois from Kentucky via the Ohio River in present-day Smithland.

More than 1,700 Cherokee from the Peter Hildebrand Detachment were forced to spend two weeks camped out in the Mantle Rock area in Kentucky in the middle of winter while waiting for the Ohio River to thaw for water passage to Illinois.

When passage became possible, the travelers were required to pay $1 each for a ferry ride that typically charged 12.5 cents for the passage of a wagon. That winter, Berry’s Ferry made more than $10,000 on the backs of the Indigenous people who were forced to surrender their homes.

Missouri

The water route of the Trail of Tears passes through southeastern Missouri along the Mississippi River; the state is also home to three removal land routes, the Benge, Hildebrand, and Northern. The routes passed through parts of present-day Missouri counties Barry, Bollinger, Butler, Cape Girardeau, Christian, Crawford, Dent, Green, Iron, Laclede, Madison, Ozark, Phelps, Pulaski, Reynolds, Ripley, Saint Francois, Scott, Stone, Texas, Wayne, Webster, Wright, and Washington. All the land routes go through present-day Mark Twain National Forest.

Numerous historic sites in Missouri commemorate this voyage, including the Trail of Tears State Park in Jackson, the Snelson-Brinker House in Steelville, and the Star City Ranch trail segment in Barry County.

Illinois

It was early December 1838 when five detachments of Cherokee arrived in Golconda, Illinois, a city founded almost 23 years prior in the southern part of the state. Illinois represented the most difficult passage of the trail, with frigid temperatures that brought rain and snow. It took three months for more than 15,000 Cherokee to make the 60-mile journey across the state where a previous group took a week. The Mississippi River’s banks were frozen, with large chunks of ice visible and audible as they crashed their way downstream. Travelers were restricted by many landowners from camping or building fires to stay warm or prepare hot food with.

Paths stretched east to west between the Ohio River at Golconda to the Mississippi River just west of present-day Ware, along sections of today’s State Highway 146 and various rural roadways. Other lengths of the trail in the state have been lost and overtaken by forest.

While staying in Golconda after crossing the Ohio River, several Cherokee were murdered by local white residents who then sued the federal government for $35 per Cherokee burial. They lost the suit and abandoned the bodies in shallow, unmarked graves near present-day Brownfield. Today, a Trail of Tears monument marks the site.

By mid-December 1838, Cherokee travelers were stuck in the present-day Trail of Tears State Forest waiting for the floating ice in the Mississippi River to melt. During that wait, some people were sold into slavery. A small number escaped. Many succumbed to the elements and died.

Oklahoma

Throughout the 1830s, as thousands of people arrived in the Oklahoma Territory, communities began adapting to the new surroundings, forging new relationships, and reestablishing a government that was modeled after the United States. The Cherokee tribal headquarters remain in present-day Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

In the last 200 years alone, Cherokee who resettled in Oklahoma have endured countless additional hardships: from missionaries who frequented Indian Territory as early as the 1820s to save Indigenous souls; to the Civil War and Reconstruction, which further impeded on Cherokee’s newly resettled land; to the Dawes Act of 1887; and the Great Depression in the 1930s. By 1970, the western Cherokee had lost more than 19 million acres of land in Oklahoma.

The post Stories behind the Trail of Tears for every state it passed through appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

Written by Taneasha White-Gibson

James Baldwin: The life story you may not know

James Baldwin was a prolific writer, poet, essayist, and civil rights activist. Though he spent much of his life abroad, he is undoubtedly an American writer, whose works serve as a prism through which to view Black American life. Apart from being an esteemed literary talent, Baldwin routinely participated in the necessary criticism of both the U.S. and Europe’s mistreatment of Black people and broached the then-taboo issue of same-gender love and sensuality long before any widespread queer liberation movement.

Even in death, Baldwin’s unabashed critique and truth-telling made him not only a guiding light for his time but for this generation and those to come. Several of his prescient works—”The Fire Next Time,” “Notes of a Native Son”—were as vital during the Civil Rights Movement as they are now, a legacy carried on through the incantation of Black Lives Matter protests in the streets to the Black American lexicon proliferating college classrooms today.

Some may know the author’s interest in the arts started in childhood, but surprisingly, his journey to becoming a luminary originated in the pulpit. Fueled by humble beginnings and a desire to speak truth to power even amid an era of unthinkable violence and injustice against Black Americans, the Harlem-born literary giant traversed the world—from Switzerland, Paris, and Istanbul—with his name seen on the cover of playbills, memoirs, and photo essays, hoping to gain enough distance from his homeland to write about it. “Once you find yourself in another civilization,” he once told an interviewer, “you’re forced to examine your own.”

In his honor, Stacker compiled 25 facts and moments about the author, activist, and intellectual James Baldwin, using Biography.com, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and various other sources.

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Born in 1924

James Arthur Baldwin was born to Emma Berdis Jones in Harlem, New York, on Aug. 2, 1924.

According to various accounts, his mother never shared details about his birth father—including his name. Jones later married David Baldwin, a minister, when young Baldwin was 3 years old.

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1938: Baldwin becomes a teen preacher

When he turned 14, the writer followed in his stepfather’s footsteps and became a teen preacher at Fireside Pentecostal Assembly during what he called a “prolonged religious crisis” in his 1963 nonfiction book “The Fire Next Time.”

Baldwin later left behind his adherence to Christianity, but his experiences at the church would inspire his 1953 novel “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”

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Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen was his middle school teacher

During his middle school years, Baldwin was a student of Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen. The poet worked as a French teacher at Frederick Douglass Junior High, where Baldwin was a student, ultimately opening Baldwin’s eyes to Black literature. Baldwin later became the editor of his school’s newspaper and eventually wrote a profile of Harlem from the point of view of multiple generations.

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Mentored by Harlem Renaissance painter Beauford Delaney

At 16, Baldwin met painter Beauford Delaney, whom he regarded as a “spiritual father.” The artist would change Baldwin’s early conception that jazz was sinful, introducing him to the songs of Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith. Delaney would also move to Paris five years after Baldwin, continuing their relationship. He later wrote that Delaney “was the first walking, living proof for me that a Black man could be an artist.”

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1942: Baldwin worked on a railroad after graduating high school

Despite an early interest in arts and literature, Baldwin was tasked with helping provide for his seven younger siblings, taking a job laying railroad tracks for the Army in New Jersey. While working, Baldwin experienced being refused service at restaurants and bars because of the color of his skin. He was soon fired, which led him to move to Greenwich Village.

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1944: Meets mentor Richard Wright by knocking on his door

Baldwin was introduced to his “literary father,” the late writer Richard Wright, after arriving unannounced at his front door. By this time, Wright had published “Native Son,” a tale of a Black man who accidentally kills a white woman and eventually rapes and murders his girlfriend while being pursued.

Wright read early versions of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and helped secure a fellowship for Baldwin, which kick-started his career. About four years later, however, Baldwin would write critical reviews of Wright’s “Native Son” for the literary magazine Zero while in Paris.

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1948: Leaves for Paris after his best friend’s suicide

According to a 1984 interview with The Paris Review, Baldwin feared for his survival as a Black man in the U.S. “My luck was running out,” he said. “I was going to go to jail, I was going to kill somebody or be killed. My best friend had committed suicide two years earlier, jumping off the George Washington Bridge.”

Baldwin shared with The New York Times that this move enabled him to write more freely about his experience as a Black man in America, saying: “Once I found myself on the other side of the ocean, I could see where I came from very clearly. … I am the grandson of a slave, and I am a writer. I must deal with both.”

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1953: Releases ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain’

One of Baldwin’s first and more notable books, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” is a semi-autobiographical work about John Grimes, who grows up in 1930s Harlem under the influence of his Pentecostal minister stepfather. The novel covers the intersections of race, religion, and spirituality, paving the way for important conversations for which Baldwin’s later novels and essays would become synonymous.

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1954: Receives Guggenheim Fellowship

To aid in writing a new novel, Baldwin participated in the MacDowell writer’s colony residence in New England. During this time, he also won a Guggenheim Fellowship, both of which supported his later works.

Two years after accepting the Guggenheim Award, Baldwin published his second novel, “Giovanni’s Room,” which chronicles the struggle between race and sexuality and shows a character grappling between the love of a man and a woman all while navigating a white-dominated society.

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1955: Publishes ‘Notes of a Native Son’

Baldwin spoke about his admiration for Richard Wright’s 1940 book “Native Son,” which centers around race and the life of a Black man.

Following the success of his debut novel, Baldwin wrote “Notes of a Native Son”as an homage to the work. The collection of essays is a compilation of experiences surrounding race and social issues during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement.

In a New York Times review, esteemed Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes wrote of “Notes”: “Few American writers handle words more effectively in the essay form than James Baldwin. To my way of thinking, he is much better at provoking thought in the essay than he is arousing emotion in fiction.”

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1956: Publishes ‘Giovanni’s Room’

“Giovanni’s Room” received widespread acclaim and positive reception for exploring gay experiences, and many of Baldwin’s characters are within the LGBTQ+ community. This was years before the movement for queer liberation, and it proved groundbreaking. The book was a finalist for the 1957 National Book Award for fiction.

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1957: Baldwin makes a trip to the South

After almost a decade out of the country, Baldwin returned to the United States amid the height of the Civil Rights struggle. He made a trip to the Deep South in 1957, which he later captured in “Letter from the South: Nobody Knows My Name” with the words, “Everywhere he turns … the revenant finds himself reflected.”

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1961: Releases ‘Nobody Knows My Name’

While Baldwin was heavily involved in on-the-ground, behind-the-scenes efforts within the Civil Rights Movement, he utilized his literary talents and notoriety to speak on issues of Black folks in both the U.S. and in Europe. His book of essays, “Nobody Knows My Name,” compiles 23 works and earned the writer a spot on the shortlist for nonfiction at the 1962 National Book Awards.

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1962: Baldwin’s feature in The New Yorker prints

The New Yorker published an essay from the writer on Nov. 9, 1962, entitled “Letter from a Region in My Mind.” The essay, which begins from his musings as a 14-year-old in Harlem and traverses through his experiences in his stepfather’s church and the Nation of Islam, was later expanded into a book.

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1963: Publishes ‘The Fire Next Time’

Originally a long-form article in The New Yorker, “The Fire Next Time”was published in 1963. Baldwin uses the two essays, “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation” and “Down At The Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind,” to speak candidly about the state of racism within the U.S. and Christianity’s role in American society.

The work became a bestseller and has remained a staple within African American literature. American author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates called it “basically the finest essay I’ve ever read.”

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1964: Makes Broadway debut with ‘Blues for Mister Charlie’

Baldwin’s first Broadway production, this play presented an honest depiction of oppression loosely based on the murder of Emmett Till in 1955. In its preface, Baldwin wrote: “What is ghastly and really almost hopeless in our racial situation now is that the crimes we have committed are so great and so unspeakable that the acceptance of this knowledge would lead, literally, to madness.”

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Collaborates with Richard Avedon on ‘Nothing Personal’

Written as a tribute to his murdered friend, Civil Rights Movement leader Medgar Evers, Baldwin and his boyhood friend, American photographer Richard Avedon, created “Nothing Personal,” released in 1964.

Baldwin met Avedon while attending DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. Avedon was one of the school’s literary magazine editors. The two fell out of touch after high school but reconnected when Avedon was commissioned to photograph Baldwin for Harper’s Bazaar and Life magazine. That shoot inspired “Nothing Personal,” which features photos from Avedon and 20,000 words from Baldwin.

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Baldwin attends 1965 Selma to Montgomery march

Baldwin was largely involved in social justice throughout the 1960s and participated in the March on Washington and the following Selma to Montgomery march and actions in 1965.

He was close friends with Bayard Rustin, another openly gay Black man in the movement, and both were active behind the scenes due to the ongoing prejudices surrounding the LGBTQ+ communities.

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1965: ‘The Amen Corner’ opens on Broadway

Apart from authoring books, Baldwin was a talented playwright and used the stage to discuss racial issues. “The Amen Corner,” about a woman evangelist, was heavily influenced by Baldwin’s religious upbringing and first performed in New York City.

While New York Times reviewer Howard Taubman noted the play’s slow pace, he wrote that the production “has something to say. It throws some light on the barrenness of the lives of impoverished Negroes who seek surcease from their woes in religion.”

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1968: Begins drafting Malcolm X screenplay

Baldwin moved to Los Angeles after being hired to write the screenplay for a movie about Malcolm X. According to writer David Leeming’s 1994 book “James Baldwin: A Biography,” “The first treatment he composed was a manuscript of more than 200 pages that read more like a novel than a screenplay. Furthermore, his presence was disruptive, his working habits deplorable, and his lifestyle expensive.” To Baldwin, however, he was subjected to 16 months in a foreign land called Hollywood, where people did not speak his language.

Baldwin eventually left the project, though he published his script under “One Day When I Was Lost” years later. In 1992, Spike Lee adapted the script that Baldwin and, later, Arnold Perl worked on, which became the film “Malcolm X,” starring Denzel Washington.

Jack Sotomayor/New York Times Co. // Getty Images

Baldwin helped Maya Angelou get her first autobiography published

Depressed by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Maya Angelou was invited to a dinner by her friend Baldwin. Her storytelling skills impressed cartoonist Jules Feiffer and his wife, Judy, which resulted in an introduction to his editor, Robert Loomis. This, with a little behind-the-scenes counseling from Baldwin that got Angelou to agree to an autobiography, led to the release of her seminal 1969 book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”

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1976: Releases ‘The Devil Finds Work’

Baldwin is known for his poetry and creative nonfiction, but he was also a renowned film critic. His book-length essay “The Devil Finds Work,” which The Atlantic called “the most powerful piece of film criticism ever written” in 2014, juxtaposes race within the U.S. and cinema, covering such films as “The Heat of the Night,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” and “The Exorcist.”

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1983: Begins teaching at universities

While Baldwin continued to write until later in life, he also divided his time between teaching at the collegiate level—first at Hampshire College in 1983, then at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst—before returning to France in 1986.

At school, he became well known for his late-night discussions and drinks. He frequently remained awake even as his colleagues drifted to sleep, earning him his own time zone, called “Jimmy Time.”

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1985: Investigates ‘The Evidence of Things Not Seen’

Between 1979 and 1981, at least 28 children, adolescents, and adults were killed in Atlanta. On assignment for Playboy, Baldwin wrote about these killings, known as the Atlanta child murders, in “The Evidence of Things Not Seen.” He writes about the racial aspect of the murders, for both the victims and the convicted assailant.

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Death

On Dec. 1, 1987, Baldwin died of stomach cancer at his home in southern France.

Before his passing, Baldwin was working on a piece called “Remember This House.” This unfinished memoir was a collection of his personal experiences with civil rights leaders, including his friends Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Nearly four decades later, this manuscript would serve as the basis for Raoul Peck’s 2016 documentary film “I Am Not Your Negro,” which took home the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Academy Awards.

Story editing by Carren Jao. Copy editing by Paris Close.

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World War II revealed that African Americans are just as patriotic as the rest of America despite the types of treatment they were subjected to in every aspect of American life. The Jim Crow system of discriminatory practices had not prevented African Americans from defending their nation during wartime.

At the outbreak of World War II, 2.5 million Black men registered for the draft and one million served as draftees, or volunteers, in all of the branches of the of the Armed Forces during the actual conflict. Outside of replacing their male counterparts in industrial jobs at home, over 8,000 African American women served in roles in the Cadet Nurse Corps, Women’s Army Corps and the Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency). With all of these African American men and women serving their country, the AFRO played a key role communicating roles African American played in the fight for freedom and the fight going on right at home.

Black newspapers circulation and distribution both did very well during wartime. The AFRO provided eyewitness accounts from the paper’s reporters stationed overseas. The AFRO editors and reporters back home were describing the social conditions back home for the troops overseas. This information is what African American men and women returning home from the war decided that they would not put up with any more social inequality and discrimination after just risking their lives for their country.

Shortly after the end of the war, President Truman’s Executive Order 9981 abolished discrimination within armed forces and it soon became evident that if they fought hard, protested long enough and some cases died for equal rights, true equality would come to them.

Some troops were not lucky enough to make it home, they were killed in combat. An unfortunate few were convicted and even executed for a crime. Louis Till, father of Emmett Till, met a fate eerily similar to his son. The senior Till would be hanged on July 2, 1945 in Italy for reportedly violating and killing White women. Contemporary researchers are not convinced of Louis Till’s guilt just as in the case of his son who certainly did not deserve the fate given to him.

The AFRO American Newspaper made sure to communicate the travesty of Emmett Till’s murder to its readers. Sending its reporters to Money, Mississippi to interview the Emmett Till family and the subsequent trial where Till’s murderers were tried and set free.

The Till coverage would set the tone for the AFRO during this period. The AFRO would publish press releases, pleas and open letters from concerned citizen committees about the violence perpetrated by police, teachers exhausted by overcrowding of Black schools and civil right leaders, local and national, needing to get the word out about their causes.

From Emmett Till, through the integration of Little Rock Central High School, University of Mississippi, and the breaking down of the segregation barriers in the interstate commerce of the southern states by the Freedom Riders, the civil rights battles of the 1950’s and 60’s were a series of violent wars that redefined the culture of these United States. As the age of Jim Crow was drawing to a close, the AFRO was there to report on its demise, as well as shed light on the next round of new tactical challenges confronting the Black community’s continuing quest for equality and justice.

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – “it was really pleasant and everyone was extra nice today.”

That was the reaction of Miss Melba Patillo, pretty and vivacious junior, after her first day of integrated classes at Central High School.

She was one of the pioneering pupils at the school, four of whom held a brief press conference after school, with Mrs. L.C. Bates, president of the Arkansas NAACP, as chaperone.

One young man, Terrance Roberts, one of the three boys attending the not integrated school under protection of Federal Troops, confirmed Miss Patillo’s statement that their reception at the school was good.

“THERE WAS ONLY one thing unpleasant,” said Miss Patillo, 15, who plans to become a professional dancer and a singer. “In English class one boy stood up and tried to get other pupils to leave with him.”

The other pupils ignored him, according to Miss Patillo, and the teacher told him to “Go ahead and leave.” He then asked something like “You mean you’re chicken? Nobody going with me? She said.

The children denied emphatically reports that each of them had been assigned a personal guard of paratroopers in the corridors and classrooms of the school.

“Of course there were soldiers all through the building,” explained Miss Minnie Jean Brown, also a 15-year-old junior, who says she hopes someday to be national NAACP secretary.

***

ALL OF THE children expressed a strong belief that the troopers would remain long enough to make certain that there would be no repeat of Monday’s performance after the troops are gone.

Young Roberts said non-chalantly that he tried to look upon his first day there as just another school day in spite of the fact that it followed by two days a previous appearance at the school when he was badly treated.

Miss Brown, stating proudly that she had already learned one of the school’s yells, gave a ringing demonstration, then waxed serious, sizing up her white classmates in these words:

“THEY DON’T HAVE anything against us. They are torn between what their parents think and what they think themselves. They just want to find out what we are like and when they discover we are nice people everyone will get along wonderfully.”

The group of nine pupils was supposed to have been swelled to 10 on Thursday when Miss June Hill, 15, was scheduled to complete her transfer from Horace Mann High to Central.

Showing an eagerness to get away from the news conference, held at a community center a short distance from the school near the dinner hour, was Miss Thelma Mothershed, 16, also a junior, who said she had homework to do.

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Barack Obama made history when he defeated Senator John MCain in 2008 and became the first African-American president. The following article explores what his election meant to the country.

Nov. 8, 2008

Barack Obama, the son of a Black man from Kenya and a White woman from Kansas, has been elected President of the United States, a country whose Constitution had to be amended nearly 200 years ago in order for African Americans to vote.

“I had to pinch myself,” said U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), a national co-chairman of the Obama campaign. “When we started this race, people laughed at us. Now, we see Barack Obama, a man of color, become the President of the United States.”

Obama won a lopsided victory in the Electoral College Tuesday, defeating an older and more experienced John McCain by a 2 to 1 margin en route to becoming the first Democrat to win a majority of the popular vote since 1976. Obama became President-Elect by winning 95 percent of the Black vote, 68 percent of Latino ballots and 59 percent of voters 18 to 34 years old, according to a survey conducted by NBC and the Wall Street Journal.

Obama won as large a share of the White vote as any Democrat in the past two decades. He won 43 percent, compared to John F. Kerry, who won 41 percent in 2004 and Al Gore, who captured 42 percent in 2000.

Although the Constitution was amended in 1870 to allow Blacks to vote, it wasn’t until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that African Americans, especially those in the South, could vote without trickery or fear of retaliation.

With some election returns still trickling in Wednesday, Obama held a 338-161 lead over McCain in electoral votes.

McCain, in is concession speech before supporters in Phoenix, Ariz., summed up the results best. “The American people have spoken. And they have spoken clearly,” he said.

The first indication that McCain would have difficulty making inroads into Obama’s lead came at around 8:30 p.m. when Pennsylvania was called for the Democratic candidate by a 10-percentage point margin. The McCain campaign had said earlier that they had to win the state to have a viable chance at victory.

Ohio, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and other states won by President Bush in 2004 were added to the Obama column, making McCain’s defeat inevitable.

As soon as the polls closed in California, Oregon and Washington State – 11 p.m., EST – all of the television networks projected Obama as the winner, causing thousands of supporters to erupt in cheers at an outdoor rally at Grant Park in Chicago.

For Obama, 47, the victory ended a journey that began nearly two years ago as he defeated some of the biggest names in politics along the way, including Hillary Clinton and McCain, a lionized Vietnam War hero.

According to exit interviews, nearly one in five voters who backed Bush in 2004 said they went for Obama.

That swing reflected a general discontent with the Republican Party, a brand tarnished under the last eight years of the Bush administration.

“After eight years of Bush and the Republican Party, there’s no way I’d vote for a Republican again,” said Keith Parrish, 51, as he walked into his polling station in Northeast Baltimore.

Even among Republicans that disgruntlement was palpable. Democrats outpaced the GOP in voter registration. According to polls, the number of voters who identified themselves as Republican dropped to 31 percent compared to 40 percent Democrats. And despite the appeal of McCain’s vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, two in 10 conservatives backed Obama.

“I’m a born-again Christian and I believe the Republican Party supports issues that are important to us like pro-life,” said Ged Valatis, 52, a White, evangelical missionary of his reasons for supporting McCain as he walked into Brehms Lane Elementary School in Baltimore. But, he added, “It was a struggle. I like Obama too.”

Perhaps a little too late in the race, McCain tried to distance himself from Bush, asserting in his final debate with Obama: “I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”

But, by his own admission, McCain had voted with Bush 90 percent of time in the most recent session of Congress. And when exit pollsters asked voters whether McCain would represent a change from Bush, half of them replied no. Of those voters, nine of 10 voted for Obama.

Among younger voters ages 18-25, Obama was a fresh new face and voice that drew them out in record numbers. According to CIRCLE, a non-partisan organization that researches the civic engagement of American youth, young voters sided 68-30 percent with Obama – the largest share of the youth vote obtained by any candidate since exit polls began reporting results by age in 1976.

For African Americans, Obama’s election became a source of pride.

“I was in the voting booth crying because it hit me so hard that a Black man could become our President,” said Jackson, the public relations consultant. “I had to continuously wipe my eyes to finish my ballot but when I walked out that door I had my head held high and my fist higher, yelling ‘O for Change! O for Change!’”

Obama’s calm assurance and intellectual approach – qualities that many pundits decried – also seemed to give him the edge in voters’ opinions of who would best bolster the economy.

For example, in Ohio, a state that was crippled by the loss of manufacturing jobs, 61 percent of voters said the economy was the most important issue and of those, 55 percent voted for Obama.

“He seems to be a very thoughtful, confident and centered person,” said Bill Millen, 63, a Presbyterian minister, who voted for Obama at his Waverly polling place. “While his opponent was all over the place grasping at straws, he was very consistent. I feel very good with him.”

For many voters, that was not always the case. Throughout the primaries and even in the general election, some seemed skittish about entrusting their future to a little-known, first-term Senator with a funny name. And many naysayers doubted Obama’s ability to overcome those reservations, given this country’s racial history. But he proved them wrong.

“This campaign is one people are going to be studying for a long time,” said Dianne Pinderhughes, professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. “His campaign is evidence of his ability to build infrastructure from the ground up and manage it without conflict. It’s not what you see in administrative agencies in Washington.”

Obama’s campaign was built on a model of grassroots organizing, with which he was familiar from his days working with jobless factory workers on the South Side of Chicago.

Even as the former Illinois Senator employed old-fashioned organization, he twinned it with 21^st century technology.

“He’s reinvented the use of the Internet when it comes to campaign organizing,” Congressman Cummings said.

Obama capitalized on his Web hub to raise what some analysts predict will total more than $700 million in campaign donations, which allowed him to pursue his 50 state strategy – setting up numerous field offices, running ads and deploying an army of volunteers to locales where Democrats didn’t usually campaign.

The website also served as a “central switchboard” that helped maintain organization, unity and message discipline within the campaign, Pinderhughes said.

Former Maryland State Sen. Larry Young can be forgiven if he looks sleepy this week.

“I just couldn’t go to sleep last night,” he said. “I’m just so happy we’ll be able to send Bush back to Texas I don’t know what to do. Now that Bush has to go back to Texas, Obama can go to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. on the backs of Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. I have no apology to make. If some of us cry , it will be alright.”

The post Barack Obama Makes History appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

Thousands poured into Baltimore’s New Psalmist Baptist Church to celebrate the legacies of both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Barack Hussein Obama on the evening of Jan. 15.

Hundreds packed New Psalmist Baptist Church to celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Photo by Alexis Taylor)

Led by Bishop Walters S. Thomas, Sr., the ceremony honored Dr. King’s push for human and civil rights through dramatic performance, stunning arrangements from the New Psalmist Baptist Church Choir, and words from Congressman Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland’s seventh congressional district.

Cummings’ opened his remarks with a strong reminder to live out Kings’ dream of all humans showing compassion, concern, and care regardless of skin color.

“I drop a tear because of the things that Martin Luther King taught us. You do not judge a person by the color of their skin. You judge them by the content of their character- that’s what King talked about! That’s what he preached,” said Cummings, who’s speech riled the crowd even after it was announced that President Obama would not be in attendance as some had hoped.

Cummings spoke of the hard times that the African Americans have faced since King’s death in 1968, saying, “There have been times where we fell down- but we got back up.” He also commended President Obama’s calm, cool, and collected nature during his presidency in the face of visceral hatred and “maximum opposition.”

“It was mean, it was mean spirited, but “No Drama, Obama!” said Cummings, bringing laughs with the catchy moniker. “As we step into this new arena…don’t be scared. We’ve come this far by faith and now we have to run on and see what the end is going to be.”

Audience members were brought to their feet by Bishop Thomas’ sermon, which also praised King for laying down the bricks needed for President Barack Obama’s path to the White House.

“We didn’t see being able to vote. We didn’t see being able to live where we wanted to live. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was supposed to last one day. One 24-hour period span was all it was supposed to last,” Thomas said.

Thomas applauded the works of King, who was once just a “26-year-old preacher” with the ability to see victory even as others were doubtful- much like President Barack Obama.

“I was one of those in the early days that said ‘I don’t see this,’ said Thomas, recalling his misgivings about the presidential campaign of a “little lanky, skinny dude from Illinois who won the senatorial race on a fluke.”

“He saw victory and sometimes you have to believe in yourself when nobody else around you sees it. You have to be willing to overcome paranoid pessimists and say ‘You don’t see it- but I believe it!’”

Ten-year-old Antonio Clayhardy told the AFRO that seeing an African-American president leading the country for most of his life inspires him to “become one of those presidents that helps this country along the way.”

“It’s very sad,” Clayhardy said. “I feel like he was a good president. I feel like he’s accomplished a lot of things since he was elected president. It’s really sad to see him go.

Clayhardy’s sentiments were shared by other crowd members like 73-year-old Clarice Bryant, who said she considered the election of a Black American president “a miracle.”

“It was something that I thought would never happen,” said Bryant. “What it said to me is that no matter what we feel or what we think there is a way for everything.”

The post New Psalmist Remembers King, Honors President Obama appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

Barack Hussein Obama, 55, departs the White House with a legacy of sweeping change and political controversy. He was not only the first Black President of the United States; he was a change agent in the lives of Americans and people worldwide with accomplishments that far outweighed his defeats.

The President-elect and Vice President-elect walk through the hallway of the Supreme Court with eight of the nine Justices in 2009. (Courtesy photo)

In 2009, I stood among a million people in frigid temperatures awaiting the swearing-in of a community organizer turned law professor and then politician. Then Sen. Obama promised to bridge a divided in Washington. Few recall how much rested on his relatively young shoulders. He campaigned on making change. It was symbolic that the Supreme Court’s conservative Chief Justice John Roberts bungled the oath of office at the swearing-in. In unprecedented fashion, it would have to be repeated later that evening.

Within his first months in office, President Obama signed economic recovery laws that saved the automotive industry and supported the failing housing industry. The Justice Department led by Eric Holder attacked Wall Street and housing for discriminatory practices by large banks that had forced homebuyers, especially people of color, into risky subprime loans with balloon payments resulting in millions of foreclosures. Keeping people in their homes and employed was the mission of President Obama’s first term.

President Obama is the child of a White mother from Kansas and Kenyan father. He was also raised by her White parents in Hawaii. Childhood challenges, as an outsider, gave him insights that led him to champion immigration reform. He signed Executive Orders protecting the children of undocumented parents brought to America and facing deportation. The Dreamers Act would allow young undocumented children to remain in the United States.

As a constitutional law professor, President Obama’s legacy is marked by high profile cases before the Supreme Court. He nominated two female justices, including the first Latino, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagen. Since the President’s mother had struggled with cancer and failed attempts to gain insurance coverage, the Affordable Care Act became his hallmark legislation.

The Affordable Care Act became America’s first national health plan. It met numerous attacks by conservatives but was found constitutional in a surprising Supreme Court victory. However, his Dreamers Act was defeated in the Supreme Court and his nominee to replace a deceased conservative was never given a hearing by a Republican controlled Senate. The Voting Rights Act which protected voters from discrimination was gutted by the high Court and civil rights laws for people of color came under attack.

However, President Obama successfully advocated for the civil rights of gays and lesbians. The Supreme Court upheld marriage equality and defeated any legislation that defined marriage as only between a man and a woman. The President pushed for climate change as a national policy and supported environmental laws to increase research for clean air products and resisted building a new oil pipeline across America.

President Obama will be remembered for removing the threat of Osama Bin Laden. When he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, the judges made clear his prize was given not because of what he had done but for the world peace he could bring. In his speech, however, President Obama made clear that he would protect American interests with force if diplomacy did not work. America’s political divisions were evident when some conservatives grudgingly accepted Bin Laden was dead; but, they refused to give the Obama Administration credit.

Despite his efforts, President Obama did not close the prison on Guantanamo Bay. Nor did he deliver immigration reform. Although the economy is much improved for most there are pockets of working-class who remain under-employed while some Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans are still struggling with unemployment rates over twice that of Whites. He could not pass legislation to stem gun violence in the form of mass shootings and urban homicides. He leaves a more divided Congress and country. In renewing relations with Cuba, he distanced himself from the Cold War era without forgetting the harm Russia can cause to global stability.

President Obama was a 21st century statesman. He leaves the White House with a generational legacy of intelligence, compassion and perseverance. He leaves us all with the audacity of hope.

The post How Obama Used the Law to Bring About Change appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

Ashley Turner has experienced ups and downs with the Affordable Care Act, but says she and other Americans have benefited overall. She doesn’t believe that Republicans should try to dismantle the ACA, also known as Obamacare.

“That would be a mistake on their end,” said Turner, who lives in Hyattsville, Md. “People who are currently insured with the different plans that fall under the Obamacare law, they will no longer be insured and there will be a ripple effect with debt with hospitals not being paid, the doctors not being paid, and with more and more people not being covered.”

President Barack Obama’s signature on the health insurance reform bill at the White House, March 23, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

If the Affordable Care Act is even partially dismantled, 18 million people could become uninsured within a year, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office.

That number could nearly double to 32 million by 2026, the CBO estimated, if the Medicaid expansion is rolled back and subsidies cut to those who paid for insurance through the marketplaces set up under the ACA.

I’m healthy, but I have glaucoma in one of my eyes,” Turner says. She was able to use Obamacare from 2015 to 2016 to cover treatments and visits to specialists.

Economist Julianne Malveaux and journalist Michael Days agreed that the Affordable Care Act was President Obama’s signature achievement, during a recent signing and discussion of their books assessing his legacy at Busboys and Poets in the heart of the U Street Corridor.

“With the Affordable Care Act, he expanded the social contract for the first time in several decades,” said Malveaux, author Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy in her mixed assessment of the president’s overall track record during his eight years in the Oval Office.

The lives saved under the Affordable Care Act are “incalculable,” said Days, author of Obama’s Legacy: What He Accomplished as President and Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of the Philadelphia Daily News.

Here are a few ways that Americans have benefited under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which President Obama signed in 2010 and was rolled out in late 2013:

• The number of uninsured people declined. When open enrollment began for Obamacare in 2013, census figures indicated that 50 million people were uninsured in the United States, an increase of 5 million from 2007 to 2009, the height of the recession. Since the rollout, about 20 million people ended up with health insurance, according to the White House. This includes 3 million African-American adults, whose uninsured rate dropped 53 percent since 2013.
• Young people were able to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26. This was one of the earlier provisions of the ACA with 6.1 million being covered dating back before 2013. Since then, the uninsured rate for young people has dropped 47 percent.
• Women gained more comprehensive services for reproductive health care. This included well-woman visits, mammograms, contraceptive coverage, breast cancer tests for women at high risk, prenatal services and breastfeeding support.
• People with pre-existing conditions were able to obtain coverage. Under the ACA, coverage can’t be denied nor benefits reduced if someone has a history of heart disease, for example.
• A wider pool of people saved on out-of-pocket costs for health care. This ranged from savings on immunizations to annual physicals for Medicare recipients.
• Medicaid was expanded to reach more low-income adults under the age of 65. Even though at least two dozen states opted out the Medicaid expansion, more than 4 million people with average individual incomes of roughly $16,000 gained coverage.

Republicans have vowed to kill Obamacare. With control of the three branches of government under Donald Trump, they have the potential to do serious damage, ACA supporters claim.

Newly elected U.S. Senator Kamala Harris warned of hidden consequences during a recent rally in California.

“If you’re a victim of domestic violence,” Harris said, “you can be denied access to health care because being a victim of domestic violence is considered a pre-existing condition. That ain’t right.”

Linda Goler Blount, president and CEO of the National Black Women’s Health Imperative in Washington, D.C., has offered to work with the Trump administration to find ways to preserve health-care gains.

“We are extremely concerned that a Trump presidency and its resulting policies will mean increased mortality from avoidable chronic diseases, rising rates of poverty and, frankly, the weakening of black communities across the U.S.,” Blount said in a statement.

A key and controversial component of the health plan is the “individual mandate,” requiring citizens who can afford insurance to maintain basic coverage or pay a penalty through the Internal Revenue Service. People could keep or obtain insurance through their employers or go through state exchanges being set up to provide subsidized coverage.

The mandate is also intended to reduce overall health-care costs to taxpayers across the board. It provides an incentive for insurance companies to cover the sickest and poorest patients by gaining a wider pool of healthy people to offset the cost of chronic illness. In addition, the ACA offers tax credits to help small businesses provide health insurance for their employees.

The downside of the Affordable Care Act for Ashley Turner is that she’s unexpectedly on the receiving end of the penalty after attempting to adjust her premiums and deductibles through a health exchange in Maryland.

“Somebody messed up the policies,” Turner said. “I wasn’t insured between January and May, because of their miscommunications.”

“My issue, for reasons that are not my fault, is that I’m going to be charged this tax fee, because I had a period of being uninsured,” said Turner, who now has coverage on her own

Nevertheless, Turner remains an Obamacare optimist.

“From my experience, I think Obamacare Is a good policy,” she said, “but it works better for people who are sick or people who are poor and can’t afford individual insurance outside an employer.”

With the last day for open enrollment approaching on Jan. 31 for coverage under the hallmark of President Obama’s legacy, he too remains optimistic and throws down a challenge.

“If anyone can put together a plan that is demonstrably better than the improvements we’ve made to our health-care system and that covers as many people at less cost,” President Obama said last week in his farewell address, “I will publicly support it.”

Yanick Rice Lamb, co-founder of the health website FierceforBlackWomen.com, is chair of the Department of Media, Journalism and Film at Howard University. This article was written/produced with the support of a journalism fellowship from New America Media, the Gerontological Society of America and the Silver Century Foundation.

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Eight years ago, the Rev. Derrick Harkins could hardly contain his joy when President-elect Barack Obama and the first family worshipped at the 19^th Street Baptist Church in Northwest D.C. on the Sunday before his inauguration. “It was a lifetime moment,” Harkins told the AFRO. “Undeniably, I recognized the history of the moment, the joy of the money and opportunity of the moment because it allowed us to give the president and his family a worship service.”

The Rev. Derrick Harkins worshipped with the Obama family over the last eight years. He, along with other area clergymen, will have to find ways to unite the country under the next administration. (Courtesy photo)

For the last eight years Harkin was part of a group of faith leaders with close ties to President Obama. He became the director of faith outreach for the Democratic National Committee and even though he moved on to Union Theological Seminary in New York he has maintained close ties with the White House.

From Harkins to the Rev. Delman Coates, pastor of Mount Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, Md., the last two months have been a time for soul searching because they are part of a group of pastors who now face the reality of having President-Elect Donald Trump and people with a much different ideology in the White House. “I am a veteran of political campaigns and this is completely different than anything that I have ever seen,” Harkins said. “These are people who show complete contempt for justice, equality and fairness for people whether they are women, immigrants or Muslims.”

For the last eight years Coates worked with President Obama to rally the church on a range of issues from criminal justice reform to supporting Maryland’s marriage equality bill. Coates said it is not the time to give up the fight. “We have to remain on the wall, we have to challenge the presidential appointments and not allow Donald Trump and regressive politics to turn back the hands of time,” said Coates, speaking across the country with other ministers to keep people of color and others engaged.

The Rev. Lionel Edmonds, president of the Washington Interfaith Network, said in the wake of the Trump election that there must be an awakening and “The historical ties between the Civil Rights community, the Black community, labor and the African-American church must be resurrected, rekindled and renewed.”

Edmonds, pastor at Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church in Northwest D.C., rejects the view that Obama is partly responsible for Hillary Clinton’s defeat because he didn’t do enough for the Bernie Saunders wing of the party. “His hands were tied by the Republicans in Congress, we had unrealistic hopes and expectations, and he thought that he would be able to do more and that he would have longer coat tails,” he said.

Rev. Jerome Stephens, an associate pastor at the New Shiloh Baptist Church in Baltimore, said “I believed that he was confounded by the resistance of his presidency from the beginning to end. Because of such, it stopped him for doing more. He was the President for all people and did what he could with the resistance.”

In terms of going forward, the Rev. Grainger Browning, pastor of the Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church in Fort Washington, Md. said that despite calls to keep an open mind about Trump it is not going to be easy. “Our people are so anti-Trump, even those who allude to him are crucified,” said Browning, referencing former NFL greats Jim Brown and Ray Lewis who were criticized after they met with Trump in New York. But Browning and the ministers said they hope new partnerships can be forged among Whites and Blacks on economic issues.

“I believe there are more similarities that unite us between the working class of Blacks and Whites,” Browning said. “Our greatest challenge is the affront to voting rights and voter suppression. The reality is, is president and we have to find common ground for the betterment of our communities.”

Despite the loss of the White House, Harkins said Clinton supporters are not giving up. “A lot of young people that I talked to are capable and talented. My word to them is to stay on the field and fight for the things that we have believed in for the last eight years.”

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After an earnest exchange of sharp queries and careful answers on Russian interference in the 2016 election, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd threw in a question that visibly caught segment guests Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) off guard.

“President Obama’s going to be giving his farewell address. The most positive part of his legacy, most negative part of his legacy. I’ll start with you Sen. McCain.”

President Obama meets with members of the Congressional Black Caucus right before the Affordable Care Act is signed in 2010. (Courtesy photo)

“I would say the most positive part of his legacy is that the very fact that the first African American as president of the United States is a signal that in America anybody can rise to the highest level. And I think that that’s a very important landmark and is historic,” McCain said.

“He and the First Lady need to be complimented for representing our nation well as a first family. It’s historic. He’s the first African-American president,” added Graham, equally if not more cautious and measured. “But it just wasn’t that. I think the family represented us in a fashion we can all be proud of.”

Notably, and not so surprising to Obama presidency supporters, neither Republican senator could provide one single policy accomplishment that stood out positively after eight-years – including the president’s re-election. Both, instead, focused on the racial cosmetics of the moment, as if that “first Black president” existed mostly in theory rather than exercise or implementation. Indeed, both senators – noted foreign policy hawks and among many rather prolific GOP opponents to the Obama White House – could only highlight what they perceived as a weakness on foreign policy.

And, yet, even with foreign policy, President Obama seemed to accomplish what he meticulously laid out as a first-time candidate in 2008 and running again in 2012. On both occasions, most of the American public with turnout among eligible voters historically up in both elections) seemed to agree: significant reduction of U.S. troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan; carefully avoiding any additional entanglements through smart, surgical use of special forces; re-establishing frayed relations with old allies; gaining global consensus on the world climate change response; and, ultimately, avoiding any large scale, foreign entity-planned, mass casualty attack on American soil similar to what occurred on September 11, 2001, under his Republican predecessor.

If one wanted to add a cherry to the top of that list, the successful discovery and elimination of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden would do it.

Any casual observer of the Obama presidency would admit that it was by no means perfect – which is not unlike any other presidency in U.S. history. Still, it was definitely more than simple “first Black president” salutations and fond memories of the first Black family residing in a White House built by slaves.

But, because of the rather sensitive, and once unprecedented, nature of this outgoing presidency, the ability to scrupulously articulate the policy accomplishments of President Obama is a crucial and ongoing exercise for Black Americans as much as any other population group.

“Any evaluation of the Obama administration must first recognize that he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, and was faced with Congressional opposition unprecedented in its intensity and sinister nature,” said National Urban League President Marc Morial in a recent note announcing the organization’s scorecard of the Obama presidency.

“Both his accomplishments and his failures must be evaluated against those conditions.”

Indeed, racial perception gaps complicate that question as much as the reality. And the understandable cultural pride most Blacks share in celebrating the first Black president can, at times, shroud more thoughtful conversation on the subject. As President Obama exits office, he enjoys combined Black favorability ratings of 82 percent, compared to White favorability ratings of just 42 percent.

The impact of his presidency explains that. When entering office, the young president faced a global financial meltdown that was on the cusp of metastasizing fast into an economic apocalypse. Through crisis management and adroit policy, President Obama was able to avoid a Second Great Depression. Despite resistance from Congressional Republicans, financial sector reforms were passed, specific industries were pulled back from destruction and millions of jobs lost were restored. The direct impact of those moves for Black America was immediate: official Black unemployment fell from a peak of 17 percent in March 2010 (at the height of the financial crisis) to a current low of 8 percent.

While riddled with flaws, 12 percent of homes saved from foreclosure were Black due to an aligned Home Affordable Modification Program, a number almost proportional to the overall national Black population.

But, as former senior White House aide Heather Foster notes, no one can walk away from a top to bottom assessment of the Obama presidency without acknowledging the dramatic increase in the number of insured Blacks due to the president’s signature health care reform law. “The uninsured rates for elderly African Americans has been cut in half since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and over 3 million Blacks now have healthcare,” says Foster.

As Gallup tracking surveys find, Black uninsured rates declined by nearly 10 percentage points since 2013. More dramatic reductions in the uninsured are, proportionally, more pronounced for Blacks and Latinos. But the speed at which those declines occurred is due almost exclusively to the Affordable Care Act (politically derided or fondly known, depending on partisan affiliation, as “ObamaCare”).

In addition, Black incarceration rates fell each year Obama was in office and are the lowest they have been in two decades. As that happened, Pell Grant funding for HBCU students grew from $523 million to $824 million from 2007 to 2014, while at the same time changes to credit standards for Parents PLUS loans caused a decline in HBCUs. High school completion rates are at the highest ever (75 percent) for Black seniors.

The Center for American Progress’ Danyelle Solomon, who also served as legislative counsel at the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, emphasizes “that more African Americans than ever are owning their own businesses. That increase in Black entrepreneurship occurred under President Obama’s watch.”

Despite constant obstruction from Republicans in the Senate, President Obama was able to confirm more Black judges than both President Bush and President Clinton. That’s important considering a loaded docket of key issues in federal court districts across the country.

Still, as a recent Brookings Institution report notes, inequities among Black Americans were still significant in relation to their White and, even, Latino counterparts. More than 1 in 5 Black families live in “food insecure” households – compared to only 1 in 10 White families. Four in 10 Black children live in poverty, double other racial groups. Among prime-age adults (ages 25 to 54), 1 in 5 Black men are not in the labor force, nearly twice that of others.

“ I think on a number of levels the Obama presidency still helped significantly improve the Black American condition,” argues Dayna Bowen Matthew, a visiting fellow at the Brookings’ Center for Health Policy. “Millions of African Americans got access to healthcare, along with the Medicaid expansion, was no less than transformational. There’s 62 provisions in the Affordable Care Act dealing with disparity.”

The post Obama’s Impact on Black America appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

When Barack Hussein Obama took the oath of office to become the 44th President of the United States on Jan. 20, 2009, perhaps the most durable symbolic barrier to the full citizenship of Black Americans was shattered.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Please note: a classified document seen in this photograph has been obscured. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama and his national security team watch as the operation that lead to the killing of Osama Bin Laden, architect of 9/11, takes place from the White House Situation Room.

On that day, for the first time in the country’s 233 year history, the White House, the home of the most powerful man on the planet, would not be occupied by a White man.

Two million Americans (an attendance record for any event in Washington, D.C.) braved frigid conditions to celebrate the inauguration of the first Black President of the United States and the feeling of goodwill in the nation’s capital permeated the icy air on that sparkling day.

“Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents. So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans,” said President Obama on Jan. 20, 2009.

But, even while millions of Americans (and billions around the world) revelled in the hope of that significantly historic day, at least 11 GOP lawmakers, as well as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Republican pollster Frank Luntz, among others gathered in the Caucus Room, a glitzy Washington, D.C. restaurant. The group, according to Robert Draper’s book, Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives conspired for hours on how they would derail the legislative platform of the nation’s first Black president. Thus, began Republican foment, which propelled perhaps the most obstructionist legislative agenda against any U.S. president in modern history. Later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (curiously absent from the Caucus Room meeting) bolstered the clandestine machinations of his colleagues by publicly proclaiming during an interview with the National Journal, October 23, 2010, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Against this toxic backdrop, President Obama began his eight-year odyssey.

When he entered the Oval Office, the U.S. economy was hemorrhaging about 700,000 jobs a month, in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and the unemployment rate was nearly 8 percent (it rose to 10 percent in October 2009). Obama supported the massive $700 billion bank bailout initiated by President Bush, following the subprime mortgage crisis and the crash of global financial markets in 2008. Obama also backed Bush’s plan to inject almost $20 billion in loans into the faltering U.S. auto industry, which many believed was on the brink of collapse.

He pushed for the 2009 Recovery Act and signed it into law in February 2009. The bank bailout, the auto bailout and the Recovery Act were all unpopular politically. Yet, as a result of Obama’s actions during his first few months as president, the country has experienced 75 consecutive months of job growth (as of January 2017), adding between nine and 11 million jobs during the Obama years, with a current unemployment rate of 4.7 percent. As for the U.S. auto industry (the lifeblood of American manufacturing), it experienced record sales in 2015, a seemingly implausible turnaround, after staring at economic catastrophe in 2009.

The acrimony in wake of the various attempts (proved successful) at reviving the U.S. economy, unleashed the often virulent anti-government backlash known as The Tea Party (which many believe is rooted in racial animus against Obama). Undeterred, the president spent the vast majority of the political capital and goodwill he accumulated with his election, on implementing the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, and providing health insurance for millions of Americans.

The massive Tea Party rallies, which began in February 2009, were typically filled with snarling White faces and incendiary signs proclaiming President Obama was a Communist and/or Socialist and/or Fascist, treasonous, secret Muslim, or born in Kenya, among other things. The rise of the Tea Party seemed to end all notions of the mythic, “post racial America,” allegedly ushered in by the election of Barack Obama.

The president immersed himself into America’s always volatile and treacherous racial waters publicly for the first time as president after Harvard University professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates was arrested by a White police officer in July of 2009 for essentially breaking into his own home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The president argued the officer who arrested Gates, “acted stupidly,” and took the opportunity to rail against, “the long history,” of racial profiling primarily against Blacks and Latinos in America. Obama’s comments sparked a firestorm of outrage among many White Americans and law enforcement.

The country’s unresolved an ubiquitous race polemic erupted with deadly and tragic consequences with the murder of Trayvon Martin in Feb. of 2012. The 17-year old Martin was gunned down by George Zimmerman, a gun-toting, neighborhood watchmen or vigilante (depending upon one’s perspective), as he walked to his father’s home in Sanford, Florida, armed with only a bag of Skittles and an Arizona Iced Tea.

Again, President Obama raised the ire of many Whites in the wake of Martin’s murder when he said, “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.” After Martin’s murder, the president seemed much more trepidatious when issues of race rose in the nation’s public forum, much to the consternation of many Black Americans who believe Obama didn’t do enough, specifically for Black people, during his eight years in office. It’s a debate that will probably rage for generations to come.

Beyond Obama’s domestic battles, his foreign policy record, particularly his efforts to navigate the quagmire of the Middle East (the rise of ISIS, Iran nuclear deal, drone warfare, Benghazi, war in Syria) is mixed at best, while his detractors would declare Obama’s Middle East doctrine a disaster.

However, there was at least one unequivocal victory in the Middle East and the United States ongoing war against terror; the death of Osama bin Laden. The alleged mastermind of the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 in New York City and Washington, D.C. (as well as the thwarted attack on a Flight 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania), was killed by an elite team of U.S. Navy Seals,  on May 2, 2011 in Pakistan. Obama’s announcement of bin Laden’s death on national television, triggered a wave of patriotic euphoria in the United States.

The Obama years produced many more accomplishments, controversies and narratives yet to be concluded; the legalization of gay marriage, the re-initiation of political relations with Cuba, Guantanamo Bay remains open, immigration reform.

And in a staggering twist of fate, Donald John Trump, the man who attempted to delegitimize the first Black president of the United States, as king of the so-called, “birther,” movement is now poised to replace Obama as the 45th President of the United States. And Trump says he will dismantle Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, leaving up to 20 million Americans without health insurance.

Yet, perhaps the most important and lasting chapter of the Obama legacy may not be revealed for generations to come and that is the impact of his ascension on the collective psyche of America. Specifically, there are millions of elementary school-age children, of all races and sexes who only know what life is like with a Black man occupying the most powerful office on earth. What does that mean for little Black boys and Black girls who have watched Obama and his wife Michelle (one of the most transcendent First Ladies in U.S. history) parent their two beautiful and brilliant daughters in the White House and run the country for the last eight years, and do so with unparalleled grace, dignity and morale clarity?

That element of the Obama legacy alone has probably altered the trajectory of our country.

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