Bernice King, the youngest child of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, is setting the record straight after Sen. Ted Cruz took to social media and called the NAACP’S travel advisory “bizarre” and “utterly dishonest.”

The NAACP issued the travel advisory, warning Black people to steer clear of traveling to Florida as a direct response to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s efforts to eliminate African American history and programs implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). “Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals,” the NAACP said in a press statement released on May 20. “Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”

Cruz tweeted his perspective on the NAACP’S warning, saying, “Today, Dr. King would be ashamed of how profoundly they’ve lost their way,” insinuating today’s leaders are not upholding the “good” that NAACP leaders in the 1950s and 1960s did.

This is bizarre. And utterly dishonest.

In the 1950s & 1960s, the NAACP did extraordinary good helping lead the civil rights movement.

Today, Dr. King would be ashamed of how profoundly they’ve lost their way. https://t.co/F9EAiEfDP6

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 21, 2023

The NAACP calls for supporters of the effort to visit the NAACP website and join forces to “defeat the regressive policies of this Governor and this state legislature.”

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Steve Harvey is sharing the crucial role his wife, Marjorie Harvey, played in securing their $15 million mansion during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2020, he television personality purchased the Buckhead mansion formally owned by Tyler Perry. There were rumors at the time about who purchased the lavish 35,000-square-foot French Provincial estate, via Buckhead.

It didn’t take too long for details of the deed to leak online and reveal Steve and Marjorie were listed as the new rightful property owners. Three years later, the comedian/businessman is shared how the home might not have been his had it not been for his determined wife.

According to the Original Kings of Comedy star, he was hesitant to purchase the home at the time due to how the pandemic was impacting his income. But it was Marjorie who had to remind Steve, who was once homeless, about who he is and why he shouldn’t worry about shelling out a few million for a new home.

“She said, ‘Steve, you don’t know how much money you got. You make it. I watch it,’” Steve shared on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast.

It was Marjorie, whom Steve has been married to since 2007, who decided to take the lead in securing the deal.

“She said, ‘I can put this whole deal together.’”

“She told me how much she put an offer in for,” Steve continued. “The real estate agent said [the owner] will never, ever sign for that much. He’ll never take that amount. It’s impossible. ‘Ms. Harvey, you’re wasting your time.’”

But Marjorie’s faith and confidence couldn’t be deterred. The designer and stylist made a final call that ended up closing the deal.

“She wrote him a long letter, too. She said, ‘This is not a negotiation,'” Steve recalled.

“‘I am offering you this. My husband loves the house… We’ll buy it sight unseen. If you don’t want this amount, it’s OK I’m not trying to insult you.’”

Steve and Marjorie have been enjoying life in the 17-acre estate that includes 7 lavish bedrooms, 14 bathrooms and resort-like amenities like a 70,000-gallon infinity pool and an underground ballroom with a separate catering kitchen.

RELATED CONTENT: Steve Harvey Recalls Divorce From Ex-Wife Left Him With $1,700 After Losing $30M

Meet Kunda Kids! The award-winning, Black family-owned children’s publishing, ed-tech, and media company has launching a new animated YouTube series, Kunda & Friends!

The Kunda Kids expansion comes thanks in part to the $700,000 in pre-seed funding led by Zrosk Investment Management.

Founded by the mother-and-father duo, Oladele and Louisa Olafuyi, the parents launched their children’s publishing company after struggling to find an educational animated show during the COVID-19 lockdown for their son that portrayed African culture.

The happily married couple, who met in London while working as experienced marketers with top companies, modeled their series of children’s content around their mission to infuse African culture into modern storylines and integrate Black excellence into media and literature.

The music-led, 3D animated series is set in an African landscape and tells the story of Kunda, a 4-year-old boy of mixed African heritage, who takes viewers on his adventures exploring the world around him with his friends, Sana, a girl of mixed African and Indian heritage; Fela, a boy from Nigeria; and Leo the lion and Ella the elephant.

Through books, music, gifts, accessories, and an app, Kunda Kids is engaging kids of all ages in new and inclusive ways.

 

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The Kunda & Friends soundtrack takes inspiration from African culture, with influences from genres like Afrobeats and Amapiano. With a storyline anchored on friendship and prosocial life lessons, Kunda & Friends provides parents and educators with an opportunity to teach and play with their children as they watch together.

Now after closing a $700,000 pre-seed funding round, Kunda Kids wants to create more opportunities for African artists, writers, producers, and business leaders in an inclusive, learning environment.

“This new infusion of capital not only shows that people continue to believe in Kunda Kids and what we’re building, but that our mission is resonating with audiences,” Louisa Olafuyi tells BLACK ENTERPRISE.

“The funds will be utilized to further build out the Kunda Kids mobile app and continue working with fantastic creative talent from across the African diaspora. We’re also thrilled to be launching our new Kunda & Friends YouTube series, our flagship animation series, on May 29, 2023. As we continue to expand and bring on new talent, we aim to inspire a sense of pride in one’s culture for the individuals who interact with our programming.”

To learn more, visit kundakids.com or download the Kunda Kids app on iOS and Google Play.

RELATED CONTENT: First-Ever Black-Owned Animation Network Set to Launch in Summer 2022

Ice Cube is addressing the decades-old conspiracy theory accusing Suge Knight of injecting the late rapper Eazy E with an HIV needle.

Since Eazy’s death in 1995 from AIDS, there has been speculation as to how the then-31-year-old rapper contracted the virus during the height of his career. Suge Knight put the attention on himself back in 2003 when he appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! following his release from jail and made a disturbing reference to Eazy’s AIDS-related death, via Highsnobiety.

“See, technology is so high. So, if you shoot somebody, you go to jail forever. You don’t want to go to jail forever,” Suge said at the time.

“They have a new thing out. They have this stuff they called—they get blood from somebody with AIDS, and they shoot you with it. That’s a slow death. The Eazy-E thing. You know what I mean?”

Ice Cube hasn’t said too much about the conspiracy theory about his old NWA group member but decided to address it when asked by YouTuber Logn Paul in a recent interview.

“How would [Suge Knight] do that?” Ice Cube asked Paul. “And Eazy would never tell anybody?”

“Maybe Eazy didn’t even know,” Paul’s co-host, Mike Majlak, responded. “‘Cause you just poke somebody and they don’t even know. Maybe they were at a club or some shit.”

“Nah, I think if somebody poked you with one of them goddamn needles, you’d know,” Cube declared. “You’d know. I mean, I’m just saying, just say this happened, Eazy would tell somebody, ‘This motherf*ck*r poked me with some sh*t.’”

Cube continued, “Now, if he was unconscious and—I don’t know. … If Eazy would have known he got poked, he would’ve said something. If he didn’t know he got poked, then the conspiracy lives on.”

As to whether Ice Cube believes Suge would ever have it in him to do such a gruesome thing to a former friend and collaborator, the rapper-turned-actor declared, “I don’t put sh*t past nobody.”

RELATED CONTENT: Ice Cube Says He Will Sue Anyone Who Uses His A.I. Generated Voice Without Permission

One of BLACK ENTERPRISE’s ‘Top Women Executives in Advertising,’ Marissa Nance, is leading one of the first and only female- and minority-certified media agencies to greater heights and deeper levels.

The revolutionary marketing executive and CEO of Native Tongue Communications devoted over 25 years of award-winning service at Omnicom to build the first-to-market MWBE-certified, media-led marketing agency in 2019. With women and people of color in mind, Nance credits empathy as the secret sauce to where success comes from.

According to the Market Insider Group, empathy-based marketing is the way forward. It is built on trust and involves seeing through the eyes of your customers. The Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: In Brands We Trust reported consumers ranked trust as a critical factor in making a purchase decision.

Before leaving Omnicom, Nance was recognized as an entrepreneur, integral for her unique approach to marketing brands and shows like Survivor and Top Chef. She makes it her business to understand consumers at the micro-level and authentically connect brands to diverse and growing populations. Data shows that companies that make this type of effort yield better results.

“People dismiss marketing and advertising; they don’t realize it’s a resource. Marketing helps people grow, helps communities grow,” Nance told Ad Age.

“It touches everyone, and for me to be able to take it and bring it to the communities that it’s been missing and dismissing all these years is an honor, but it is truly the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.”

In 2020, Native Tongue Communications served as an integral contributor to the $1 million investment in Black female entrepreneurs through the annual Essence Magazine and Pine-Sol “Build Your Legacy” program. The agency is also the creator of Clorox-owned Burt’s Bees’ first campaign. She helped launch The Armstrong Project, inspired by Peanuts’ first Black character, a Peanuts Worldwide initiative, and a four-year endowed scholarship to support up-and-coming Black animators’ work.

The absence of women and people of color from the slate of potential Morgan Stanley CEO successors underscores the importance of cultivating and keeping diverse talent, corporate governance experts say.

Morgan Stanley co-presidents Ted Pick and Andy Saperstein, and head of investment management Dan Simkowitz, are the front-runners to succeed James Gorman, who said on Friday he plans to step down as chief executive within a year.

The most recent U.S. workforce diversity data comprehensively reported by the Wall Street banks shows women were less represented in leadership positions at Morgan Stanley than at other top U.S. banks as of 2021.

Morgan Stanley said 25% of those holding “executive/senior officials/manager” roles in the U.S. were women, versus 29% for JPMorgan Chase & Co, 36% for Bank of America Corp and 38% for Citigroup Inc. Among major peers, only Morgan Stanley‘s arch rival Goldman Sachs Group Inc had less female representation, at 23%.

Moreover, 80% of Morgan Stanley‘s top leaders in the U.S. were white, more than the others, that reported such representation at between 67% and 78%.

A Morgan Stanley representative declined to comment.

Mary Beth Gallagher, director of engagement for Domini Impact Investments LLC, which invests with environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations, said firms need to have a pipeline of diverse talent if they want to find diverse leaders, which would involve recruiting and career-building efforts.

“The logic is to ensure you have the right people with the skills sets and decision-making authority. You need to have cultivated those leaders,” said Gallagher.

To be sure, Morgan Stanley has several women in top roles, including Chief Financial Officer Sharon Yeshaya. She is one of three women on its 14-member operating committee. There are four women on its 14-member board of directors and four directors who identify themselves as ethnically diverse.

Across the financial industry, women held just 21% of services board seats, 19% of C-suite roles, and 5% of CEO jobs in 2021, according to a Deloitte study published last year.

Wall Street has struggled to shake off its image as an “old boys’ club”. In recent years, however, banks have made strides on diversity as they seek to appeal to millennial workers, and under pressure from social movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter.

A major milestone came in 2021, when Citigroup named Jane Fraser, formerly its president, as its CEO.

Doug Chia, president of consulting firm Soundboard Governance, called the lack of diverse senior leaders at Morgan Stanley and other firms “a classic pipeline problem” because it limits the pool of candidates that companies could promote to higher jobs.

“If there’s a dearth of candidates, then you have got to try harder” to attract them, he said.

• Health and Wellness

by Derek Major

May 22, 2023

NFL Announces Expansion Of Its Initiative Increasing Diversity In Sports Medicine

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The National Football League has announced the league-wide expansion of its Diversity in Sports Medicine Pipeline Initiative.

According to an NFL release, the NFL, the NFL Physicians Society (NFLPS), and the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society (PFATS) have collaborated on the effort. The initiative allows medical students across the U.S. to complete one-month clinical rotations with one of the NFL’s 32 medical staff. The initiative, which started last year, aims to increase the number and diversity of students interested in sports medicine.

Last year’s inaugural class comprised 14 students from four HBCU medical schools, including the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Howard University College of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Meharry Medical College. Students in the program completed rotations with eight NFL teams. This year’s program will be expanded to pair students from 19 medical schools with NFL clubs.

“Working toward diverse representation across all roles in our league continues to be a top priority and this program helps us make a tangible impact to grow and bolster a pipeline of diverse sports medicine professionals,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “We know that diversity makes us stronger at every level, and we look forward to welcoming the 2023 class to our player care teams at clubs across the league.”

Diversity in sports medicine-focused physicians is historically underrepresented; however, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), diversity in sports medicine is increasing, and during the 2022-23 academic year, “the number of Black or African American matriculants increased by 9%,” and “matriculants who are Hispanic, Latino, or of Spanish origin increased by 4%.”

Participating schools in this year’s program include Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Michigan State University School of Human Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Sidney Kimmel Medical College-Jefferson Medical, Stanford University Medical School, University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Kansas School of Medicine, the University of Minnesota Medical School, University of Nevada Las Vegas School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, University of Washington School of Medicine, and Wake Forest School of Medicine.

“I am so grateful I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in this program. I learned something valuable from everyone on the medical team of physicians, athletic trainers, strength & conditioning coaches, psychologists, and nutritionists,” said Dr. Kayla Thomas, a 2022 Pipeline Initiative participant who worked with the New York Giants. “I hope the NFL continues to incorporate more schools and teams to allow students to experience the intricacies of sports medicine.”

Future expansion plans for the program include adding more medical disciplines such as physician assistants, certified athletic trainers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, nutritionists, and behavioral health clinicians.

• News

by Iman Milner

May 22, 2023

Damola Adamolekun, CEO of P.F. Chang’s, Says ‘My Work Is My Life’

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Damola Adamolekun is among only a handful of Black CEOs, and we may know the secrets to his success.

“My life is my work. My work is my life”, he said in an interview with Fortune. Happily welcoming the lack of separation between business and personal in his every day, Adamolekun says he’s always found pleasure in dedicating himself to what he loves. And those feelings predate his appointment at P.F. Chang’s, going back to his career in private equity. “I thought it was fun. So it wasn’t like I had to go in on a Saturday,” he said. “It was like ‘I got stuff to do, and I want to knock it out, or I want to look at something.’”

Some of his ability to see his grueling work duties as extensions of his personal life may be due to his dedication to a daily routine.

Adamolekun starts each day at 4 a.m. with a seven to eight-mile run to maintain his “calm, relaxed, autonomous nervous system,” according to Fortune. For the 34-year-old, an early morning exercise helps him show up to work at P.F. Chang’s headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, with a shaped mind and natural energy. His work day begins at 7 a.m. with meetings with both the COO and CFO of the Asian chain restaurant before delving into a day full of external and internal conversations that lead him to a 6 p.m. departure. If he doesn’t have to do the business of hosting dinners after-hours as CEO, he prefers to head home and relax with a cigar on the patio; thereby ending his day in the same way he starts it by activating his parasympathetic nervous system, according to Fortune.

It all seems to be working for Adamolekun as last year, shortly after taking over as CEO, he announced that he and his team had already overseen the remodeling of over 80% of P.F. Chang’s locations.

As Megan Thee Stallion’s superstardom continues to skyrocket, the certified Houston hottie is celebrating the release of two wax figures made in her honor.

The Grammy award-winning rapper took to Instagram on Sunday to share photos she took alongside her Madame Tussauds wax figures that will be on display in Las Vegas and New York City.

“I honestly wanted to kiss myself 😍🤤😂 hotties we are officially legendary 😝 go see me at @madametussaudsusa,” she captioned her post.

 

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Fans applauded the wax figures with City Girls rapper, noting how humanlike the new wax figures appear.

“I couldn’t tell which one was you! Both perfect dolls,” JT wrote.

“First slide I dead ass couldn’t tell which was a doll,” SZA wrote in the comments.

“This is so iconic,” added someone else.

The new wax figures were unveiled Saturday in Sin City; the figure for the NYC location is set to be unveiled on June 1, Billboard reports. The figure that will be on display at the Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas showcases Megan the newsprint catsuit and matching cowboy hat she sported on the cover of her 2020 debut album, Good News.

Her New York City wax figure shows the “Savage” rapper donning a studded bikini and matching cowboy hat, paired with gauntlets and a choker that represent the Houston native’s signature cowgirl stage persona.

The wax figures took about six months for a team of 20 artists to create and over 200 measurements to model the mannequins after the chart-topping rapper, News 3LV reports.

“I feel like people always ask me when was the moment you knew you were famous? This is the moment!,” Megan said in a statement.

“There are two versions of me in the most famous wax museum on the planet. Like who am I?!? Them!”

RELATED CONTENT: She’s Back! Megan Thee Stallion In Talks To Join New Adam Sandler Netflix Movie

• News

by Iman Milner

May 22, 2023

Slutty Vegan Continues Growing Empire With New Dallas Location

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Slutty Vegan CEO Pinky Cole made a move to expand her rapidly growing empire when she opened a new location of the popular cheekily-titled restaurant in Dallas this past weekend.

Since its launch in 2018, the plant-based fast food chain has rooted most of its eateries in the eastern region; the Dallas location marks the first brick-and-mortar to debut in the Southwest. However, it also marks the fourth opening of 2023 for the brand so far, according to VegWorldMag. Dallas residents can travel to the historically Black area of Deep Ellum to take in some of the Slutty Vegan fan favorites. Cole has spoken openly about an investment into Black communities, including being intentional about where her restaurant’s plant roots are, as accessibility to healthy food options can still create hurdles for those in urban areas. Her brand shows people that “you don’t have to make a certain amount of money or live in a certain area to be vegan,” she said in an interview with The New Yorker.

Though Cole relishes in the “Black-owned” label her brand wears with pride, she knows it’s moved on to have crossover appeal. The locations now host people from all over who show up for the experience at any of her 10 sites. “This ain’t a Black thing,” Cole said. “There’s people who are Black, white, yellow, blue, Asian, green. We’re trying to reach them all.”

Along with dominance in the plant-based lane, Cole has expanded into the literary world. Last year, her cookbook featuring 91 vegan recipes, Eat Plants, B*tch, was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Instructional Literary Work. The 35-year-old also celebrated a major $100 million valuation after a $25 million Series A fundraising round in 2022.

If you’re not in any of the three states home to various Slutty Vegan locations, there is no need to book a trip. The brand’s “Big Ol’ Slut” food trucks are known to pop up nationwide.