Owner of Black-Owned Cannabis Wellness Brand Launches Platform to Help Other Startup Entrepreneurs
Cory Holmes, Founder and CEO of Holmes Organics, an online Cannabis wellness brand, has unveiled his latest venture called Holmes Organics Services, an online resource for other startup entrepreneurs in the industry.
As Cannabis use becomes more mainstream, demand for these products continues to grow. With a projected value of $70 billion+ by 2030 in the U.S. alone, this industry presents an exciting opportunity for startups.
Holmes Organics Services was developed for other business owners to learn to leverage data, artificial intelligence, and other technologies to rapidly start and grow their brands in the multi-billion dollar Cannabis industry. The platform will feature articles and free training on Business Funding, Ecommerce, Email Marketing, SEO, and other growth strategies for startups.
“Cannabis is a multi-billion-dollar industry that offers a plethora of opportunities… but there’s, unfortunately, less than 2% of African American business owners in the space currently,” says Cory. “If we want a larger piece of the pie in this ultra-competitive industry, we’re going to have to fight for it. I believe the fight becomes easier if we leverage technology, data, and analytics.”
Cory believes that legalization at the federal level is about another 5 to 7 years away. “It’s imperative that minority Cannabis business owners, both plant touching or ancillary focused, learn to leverage technology to get in position NOW!” Holmes states.
Founded in January 2019, Holmes Organics is a Black-owned, online cannabis and wellness brand. Offering organic and high-quality products, including gummies, soft gel tablets, CBD oil, and topicals. To learn more about their products, visit HolmesOrganics.com. For press inquiries, contact info@holmesorganics.com.
Senators Ask Billionaire for List of Gifts to Supreme Court Justice Thomas
The Senate Judiciary Committee has asked Texas billionaire Harlan Crow to detail gifts he or his companies have made to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the panel said on Tuesday.
“Recent investigative reporting has identified multiple instances in which you or entities you own or control have made payments, purchased real estate, or provided gifts, travel, or other items of value to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and members of his family,” read the letter from committee Democrats including its chairman, Senator Dick Durbin.
“Many of these gifts, transactions, and items of value had not been previously disclosed by Justice Thomas,” it said.
Similar letters, dated Monday, were sent to the holding companies that own Crow’s private jet and private yacht.
Representatives for Crow did not return requests for comment.
The Democratic-led Senate panel last week explored the possibility of pursuing legislation to impose ethics standards on the Supreme Court amid revelations about luxury trips and real estate transactions by conservative justices, but the panel’s Republican members voiced stern opposition.
The news outlet ProPublica has detailed ties between Thomas, a conservative who is the court’s longest-tenured member, and wealthy Republican donor Crow, including real estate purchases and luxury travel paid for by the Dallas businessman.
The letter said Crow has acknowledged items of value given to Thomas and his family in public statements.
It asked him to provide the information to the committee by May 22 as the panel works to craft legislation strengthening ethics rules and standards for Supreme Court justices.
Meet The Two Best Friends Behind Maryland’s Black-Owned Vegan Pizza Chain, BurnBox Pizza
Meet Shawndell Pullam and Ryan Whitfield, two best friends who are the founders and owners of BurnBox Pizza, a Black-owned Maryland-based vegan pizza restaurant chain that is designed to give guests an inspirational and healthy experience. Using the highest quality ingredients, they offer brick oven pizzas with 25 toppings including vegan and vegetarian options, fresh salads, and baked buffalo wings.
Shawndell and Ryan, who are also the owners of six Smoothie King franchises, say that they are using their fast-casual pizza restaurants to inspire positivity and provide humanitarian needs in communities by combating the hunger crisis.
Shawndell comments, “In our hometown of PG County, Maryland alone there are over half a million people struggling with hunger.” This has inspired them to donate a free pizza back to the community for every one sold.
“We’re more than just your neighborhood pizza shop,” he says. “We’re a pizza eatery with a mission: Fight hunger in the community through customer donations. The more people we feed, the happier we are. Not just as a company, but as a society.”
Their restaurants are located in the cities of Waldorf and Kettering, Maryland, and they are planning to open new locations soon. Franchise opportunities are available.
About the founders Since 1991, Shawndell Pullam and Ryan Whitfield have been best friends and business partners. From playing basketball as teenagers to running multiple businesses together, they have always shared a passion for entrepreneurship, especially in the fashion industry. After high school, they started their first business designing graphic t-shirts. In 2016, they opened their first Smoothie King location. Today, they are the successful owners of six Smoothie King franchises across the DC Metro area.
Jordan Neely’s Family Said Daniel Penny’s Press Release Is Not An Apology
The family of Jordan Neely, a homeless man who was killed by white Marine Corps veteran Daniel Penny on a New York City subway, has spoken out in response to Penny’s statement about his actions.
In a statement released by their attorneys, Neely’s family said Penny’s announcement proves that he felt entitled to take Neely’s life, NBC News reported.
“Daniel Penny’s press release is not an apology nor an expression of regret,” the statement read.
“It is a character assassination and a clear example of why he believed he was entitled to take Jordan’s life.”
On May 1, Neely, 30, boarded New York City’s F train at Manhattan’s Broadway-Lafayette station and began yelling that he was hungry, tired of not having anything, and he doesn’t care if he spent the rest of his life in jail. Penny, an ex-Marine, placed Neely, known throughout the city as a Michael Jackson impersonator, in a chokehold until he was unconscious, NBC News reported.
Neely was taken to Lenox Health Hospital, where medical examiners announced that he was dead by homicide, according to The New York Times.
Representatives for Neely’s family said Penny couldn’t have known about Neely’s health issues or his criminal history.
“The truth is he knew nothing about Jordan’s history when he intentionally wrapped his arms around Jordan’s neck, and squeezed and kept squeezing,” attorneys Donte Mills and Lennon Edwards said. “He never attempted to help him at all. In short, his actions on the train, and now his words, show why he needs to be in prison.”
Police questioned Penny, who was released the same day and has not been charged with any crime. The case is expected to go to a grand jury later this month.
Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Over Block’s ‘Terrible’ Purchase of Jay-Z’s Tidal
A Delaware judge on Tuesday dismissed a shareholder class action seeking to hold Jack Dorsey and other board members at Block Inc liable for approving the payments company’s purchase of Jay-Z’s streaming service Tidal.
Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick in Delaware Chancery Court said the Florida pension fund leading the case did not show that Block’s directors acted in bad faith though the purchase it “seemed, by all accounts, a terrible business decision.”
Once known as Square, Block agreed in March 2021 to pay $306 million for an 87.5% stake in Tidal. After adjustments, it paid $237.3 million for an 86.2% stake.
Block’s board was faulted for approving the purchase though Tidal was losing money, had lost major contracts, faced a Norwegian criminal probe into its streaming numbers, and had accepted a $50 million loan from Jay-Z to shore up its finances.
The pension fund also said Dorsey, a co-founder of Block and Twitter, was Block’s only top executive who supported the purchase, and bought Tidal because he and Jay-Z were friends.
Its complaint quoted a New York University business professor who called the purchase “a $300 million bar tab to hang out with Jay-Z.”
But in concluding that Block directors did not breach their fiduciary duties, McCormick said she could not “presume bad faith based on the merits of the deal alone.”
Lawyers for the plaintiff, the City of Coral Springs Police Officers’ Pension Plan, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The defendants’ lawyers did not immediately respond to similar requests.
Jay-Z, the rapper and music mogul whose real name is Shawn Carter, joined San Francisco-based Block’s board after the Tidal purchase and remains a director.
Tidal was known as Aspiro before Jay-Z and other recording artists purchased it in 2015.
By 2020, Tidal had signed up 2.1 million paying subscribers, compared with Spotify’s 138 million, Apple Music’s 60 million and Amazon Music’s 55 million.
The Delaware case was a derivative lawsuit that sought to have Block’s directors or their insurers pay damages to the company for shareholders’ benefit.
The case is City of Coral Springs Police Officers’ Pension Plan v Dorsey et al, Delaware Chancery Court, No. 2022-0091.
LSU Apologizes On Behalf Of Guard Flau’jae Johnson After 9/11 Reference
The LSU Women’s basketball team has had quite a year. From taking home the national championship to a highly-publicized critique of first lady Jill Biden, the players have shown maturity in the public eye. Flau’jae Johnson is adding to that attention, good and bad.
An athlete and rapper, Johnson, referred to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in a now-deleted video for her take on Latto‘s hit “Put It On Da Floor.” Johnson rapped, “In this 911 blowing smoke just like them towers.” In a twist on words, the Georgia native compared the tragic day to a Porsche, before referring to the smoke emitted from the towers following the plane crashes that claimed the lives of over 2,000 people.
It was a dark day in American history that Johnson, who was not born until two years later, may not fully grasp the enormity of.
The university, however, issued a public statement to Fox News. “While she never intended to offend or upset anyone with her lyrics, she expressed sincere remorse for any possibility of a misunderstanding and immediately took the video down,” the statement read.
“We will learn and grow from this experience together.” Johnson has not spoken out yet but did take the video down once the controversial lyrics began to circulate. The newly minted Roc Nation artist seems to have a bright future ahead of her in the music industry. She has already caught the attention of rap great Lil Wayne, who has expressed interest in collaborating with the newcomer. When announcing her commitment to LSU, she rapped alongside Boosie, confirming that she’d be a Lady Tiger. Johnson also appeared on America’s Got Talent in 2018, receiving a golden buzzer from the judges for her heartfelt performance and returning to the show this year as part of an All-Star season.
Hopefully, this will just be a small part of Flau’jae Johnson‘s story.
Biographer Says MLK’s Criticism of Malcolm X In ‘Playboy’ Interview Was ‘Just Not True’
An author researching for his upcoming biography on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was surprised to learn the famed civil rights activist’s criticism of Malcolm X was allegedly fabricated.
For nearly six decades, it’s been believed that MLK had reservations about Malcolm X’s approach to the Black community’s fight for racial and social equality. MLK sat down with a Black journalist for a Playboy interview published in January 1965, where he accused his fellow civil rights leader of “fiery, demagogic oratory.”
However, according to Jonathan Eig, a writer working on a new MLK biography, he’s done enough research on the interview to realize that King’s alleged judgment of Malcolm X was extremely exaggerated.
“I think its historic reverberations are huge,” Eig toldThe Washington Post.
“We’ve been teaching people for decades, for generations, that King had this harsh criticism of Malcolm X, and it’s just not true.”
What’s long believed to have been a divide between MLK and X’s fight for justice “shows that King was much more open-minded about Malcolm than we’ve tended to portray him,” Eig said.
While conducting research at Duke University for his MLK biography King: A Life, out May 16, Eig found a possible unedited transcript of King’s full interview with then-43-year-old journalist Alex Haley. The transcript was likely typed by a secretary straight from a recording, Eig believes.
On page 60 of the 84-page document, Haley asks, “Dr. King, would you care to comment upon the articulate former Black Muslim, Malcolm X?”
To which King responded.
“I have met Malcolm X, but circumstances didn’t enable me to talk with him for more than a minute,” the civil rights leader said at the time.
“I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views, as I understand them. He is very articulate, as you say. I don’t want to seem to sound as if I feel so self-righteous, or absolutist, that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. But I know that I have so often felt that I wished that he would talk less of violence, because I don’t think that violence can solve our problem. And in his litany of expressing the despair of the Negro, without offering a positive, creative approach, I think that he falls into a rut sometimes.”
However, when reviewing the final version of the interview published in Playboy, King’s last sentence drastically differed from what was included in the original transcript.
“And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice,” Playboy claimed King said. “Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.”
Alex Haley, the journalist behind the original interview, was accused of plagiarism and historical inaccuracy in his most famous book, Roots. The latest findings could further tarnish Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley, which was released nine months after Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965.
Black Special-Needs Student Handcuffed and Kept From His Mother After Mental Health Crisis
Questions are being asked after a Black special-needs student was placed in handcuffs in a Walpole, MA classroom following a mental health crisis.
WBURreported the third grader had a mental health episode, and the staff called a school resource officer. The student was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), post-traumatic stress, and learning delays and had a tantrum. Since school staff described the boy as “big for his age,” the resource officer called for backup, and two more officers arrived.
Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based firm, acquired police records showing the nine-year-old was forcibly handcuffed, restrained by his arms and legs, and taken to a local hospital in an ambulance. There, he was kept in an adult unit and restricted from his mother for hours until he released, after it was determined he wasn’t a danger to himself or others.
Erika Richmond, a lawyer with the group, said in a statement that “the January incident exemplifies the ‘adultification’ of Black children, a form of discrimination where Black children are treated as older than they are,” with this child also being described as “stronger than he looks.”
“Because of this bias, a situation that could easily have been de-escalated instead led to a young Black boy being handcuffed and held in adult custody,” Richmond said, according to WHDH Boston. “We see white children being given the benefit of the doubt and treated like children, whereas this Black child was treated like a criminal.”
A report from 2018 showed Massachusetts has a history of publicly restraining public school students — more than 9,000, according to data from 2016–2017. Restraint includes physical holds like bear hugs, straps, or belts, but not necessarily handcuffing by an officer. The law recommends school resource officers not use police powers to address traditional school discipline issues, including “non-violent disruptive behavior.”
Federal data shows students with disabilities are more likely to face restraint.
Bridget Gough, Walpole School superintendent, didn’t address the issue directly but said, “Walpole Schools are committed to the safety and education of all of our students, regardless of race or other protected characteristics.”
HBCU Step Teams Talk Staging A Comeback At NCPA Step Championships
iStep, the all-female squad from Delaware State University, one of the nation’s oldest historical Black colleges (HBCU), was crowned a national champion.
In April, the 2023 National Collegiate Performing Arts (NCPA) Championship’s talented step teams from DSU, Lincoln University, and Howard University set the Apollo stage ablaze with pure determination. It was no easy task. Before the competition started, the teams spoke to BLACK ENTERPRISE about their journeys from the pandemic to now.
Delaware University’s iStep Team
DSU won the $5,000 grand prize. Twenty percent was donated to Graham Windham, a Harlem-based charter with a mission to make a life-altering difference with children, youth and families. (Photo provided)
“I Step Towards Exceptional Performance,” or iStep, the powerful all-women team, celebrated its 10-year anniversary this year. BLACK ENTERPRISE sat down with team member and freshman Morgan Rose and founder Ariel Brooks Porter to talk about their community-oriented team.
BLACK ENTERPRISE: How do you feel about stepping at the Apollo?
Rose: As soon as I heard Apollo, I thought, Michael Jackson, what? Not only that, like people like Jamie Foxx have been here, just Black, talented people. When we go up there, we act, we dance, we step, we’re having fun together. So, I feel like to be here together as a family… we deserve this one.
How does your team get support?
Rose: Essentially, the school provides a small stipend to each organization.
Brooks Porter: As a performer, like costumes, lodging, travel, all of that costs money. And so a lot of it comes from the members’ pocket.
What do you plan to do with the winnings?
Rose: It’ll probably help support the [annual] banquet. But more importantly, it’s going to go back into the account. Help support some of the other performances we do because this is big.
Brooks Porter: So many organizations fell during COVID. For us to come out and be at The Apollo, I can’t stop saying that and I’m so proud of this team, particularly because they work so well together. They are courageous. They try new things. They’re innovative, creative.
DSU won $500 in Round 2 of the national championships. (Photo provided)
Lincoln University’s Reconstruction Step Team
Reconstruction won Round 4 at the national championships. (Photo provided)
Graduating seniors Tyra Mitchell and Taylor Richardson of the Reconstruction Step Team spoke with BLACK ENTERPRISE to spotlight their journey back to the stage. While facing COVID-induced conditions and a lack of resources, the determined team funded themselves to do so.
Out of 16 steppers, 13 steppers traveled to the Apollo and took home $500 during an explosive round.
How has the journey been thus far?
Mitchell: Our journey for competition, it hasn’t been easy. We’ve had to also maintain school and work-life balance, along with on-campus performances as well. So we’re doing all these things simultaneously. And I applaud my group and my team because we work as a team.
Richardson: After COVID, we had to grow again. Going back into the swing of things with school and working, maintaining our personal lives, and just being here for the team is been a journey.
What does it mean to perform at the Apollo?
Mitchell: We appreciate being able to have this platform and being able to come back after troubling times and to perform and just regroup as Reconstruction and just showcase what we can do.
How does your team get support?
Mitchell: We attend the first degree-granting HBCU in the nation and I feel like we lack funding and we lack resources. As much as our student life tries to help out where they can, we can still use a little bit of muscle just to help get us where we wanna be, where we need to be. So we can put our name out there.
Reconstruction (Photo provided)
Howard University Step Team
Howard University Step Team (Photo provided(
From community service and navigating their studies to coping with family losses, passionate Howard University Step team members Quentin Price and Natalyna Perez sat down with BLACK ENTERPRISE to express just how much love and support they’ve received from the beginning of competition in January to now.
How does it feel to be at the Apollo?
Perez: Hearing that Howard University Step Team was coming back, I couldn’t be any more excited. I love this team with absolutely everything within me. Things have been tough getting to this point. But this team has stuck it out.
Price: After the pandemic, we were inactive. So, coming back and being revitalized is definitely something I want to help write this chapter.
What challenges did you face as a team?
Perez: Being on a step team is almost equivalent to being a student-athlete completely. That time commitment is definitely a lot.
At Howard, what changes would you like to see for your team?
Price: In general, just increasing visibility and ultimately support from our school. It’s definitely been hard as a student organization just to get revitalized and then having that disconnect from the organization. We had our ups and downs.
Ludacris Partners With Kellogg’s to Support Boys & Girls Clubs of America
Family game night just got a little sweeter! Ludacris has teamed up with Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Treats brand to introduce “Treat. Eat. Compete.,” a limited-edition game-set centered around the Rice Krispies Treats bar.
According to a press release from Kellogg’s, the set features five games packed with special items fans can use to complete each activity, such as custom score sheets, markers, and instruction cards. No matter the ranking in each game, all players will enjoy a sweet snack at the end.
“As a girl dad and a busy parent, spending that quality time with my kids in the spirit of having fun and getting creative—maybe even a little competitive—is so important to me, so playing games is a huge part of how we spend our time together,” said Ludacris.
According to the press release, sales from the partnership will support the Boys & Girls Clubs of America to foster moments of IRL connection and to provide safe spaces for kids nationwide. Rice Krispies Treats brand and Ludacris have donated more than $100,000.
The collaboration, according to the rapper, “was the perfect way for me to share our traditions with the world and help inspire more families to get playing, creating, and connecting, plus give back to a cause close to my heart, Boys & Girls Clubs of America.”
The “Treat. Eat. Compete.” game set includes Wrapper Rhymes, a mini “wrap” battle using the brand’s writable wrappers; Stick the Landing, where players try to get the Kellogg’s signature sticky bar to land upright; a head-to-head Unicorn Duel; Treat Mitts; Krispie Cannon; and Your Own Snack-Inspired Game.
The exclusive game-set is available now for purchase and will continue to restock daily through May 20.
