Joyel Crawford, fairygodmentor, contributor

by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors

October 13, 2025

Ask Your Fairygodmentor: Emotional Intelligence Beats IQ In Leadership Every Time

What to do when you’ve already made your first steps to strengthening your leadership skills by stepping back and realizing that you want to develop your emotional intelligence skills.

Dear Fairygodmentor,

I want to strengthen my leadership skills by developing emotional intelligence. What steps can I take to get there?
– Leading with Heart

Dear Leading with Heart,

My dear, you’ve already made your first steps to strengthening your leadership skills by stepping back and realizing that you want to develop your emotional intelligence skills.

What is emotional intelligence? Since 1990, Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer have been the leading researchers on emotional intelligence. They defined emotional intelligence (EI) as “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.” Having high emotional intelligence is linked to better decision-making, improved communication, stronger business relationships, and effective leadership.

American Psychologist Daniel Goleman developed a four-part model for emotional intelligence. Each aspect can give you insights that can translate into skills to help you listen more effectively and then respond in a way that can enhance your own life and be of value to those you’re trying to lead.

Self-Awareness

Each day we bring our emotional carry-on to work, and more and more emotional clothes get stuffed into our carry-on throughout the day at work until it explodes! Understanding your emotions and how they affect others is called self-awareness. If you know how to tap into your emotions well enough to understand how they impact you and other folks, it’s like having a really cool superpower.

Self-Management

Self-management is knowing what to do with your emotions before taking action. I like to call self-management the “Check yourself before you wreck yourself” EI skill. This skill also helps us understand how and why we get triggered. Knowing how to navigate through certain situations is also key to understanding the behavior of others and knowing how to deal with that.

Social Awareness (Empathy)

Having strong social awareness and empathy will help you so much with problem-solving. I like to call this the “Read the room” EI skill. As a leader, you’re interacting with your team on a daily basis.

As you lead, it’s important to communicate by telling, but it’s also stepping back and listening with empathy. The key is to seek to understand. Active listening plays a huge part in social awareness. Once you’ve heard them and really understand what they’re sharing with you, this is where you leverage the problem-solving part of what you do. Active listening leads you to be able to better understand your team and also de-escalate situations when tempers are running high. Empathy also builds trust. Trust is the foundation of any relationship, especially when leading teams.

Relationship Management

This last EI skill is all about using your awareness of your emotions and that of others to develop solid relationships, manage conflict, and communicate effectively. Sometimes we get so lost in the sauce of the management part of our role that we may lose sight of the relationship part. Relationship management is the leadership piece.

Be intentional in developing solid relationships with your team. Get to know them. Understand how they like to be coached. How do they like to communicate? Set up one-on-one meetings to level-set on the business end, learn more about their career aspirations, and hold space for them. Holding space will help them feel like their opinions and voicing their needs are welcome. One way I liked to strengthen my relationship with team members was to also ask for feedback. Yes, it may be scary to Show Your Ask in that way, but how will you know how to better support your team if you don’t ask?

Like with any skills, you need to practice using them. In time, you will strengthen your EI muscles and become the leader you aspire to be.

You got this!

Yours truly,

Your Fairygodmentor®

About Joyel Crawford:

Joyel Crawford is an award-winning career and leadership development professional and founder of Crawford Leadership Strategies, a consultancy that empowers results-driven leaders through coaching, training, and facilitation. She’s the best-selling author of Show Your Ask: Using Your Voice to Advocate for Yourself and Your Career.

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In 1925, Zora Neale Hurston wrote a short story titled “Spunk,” and a decade later she turned it into a play. However, because the play went unproduced, it was sent to the U.S. Copyright Office, where it languished for decades until it was sent to the Library of Congress’s drama collection, where it sat until it was unearthed in 1997.

Now, the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, CT, is bringing “Spunk” to the stage through Oct. 25. The production, which opened on Oct. 3, features new songs and arrangements. Music supervision is by Nehemiah Luckett, with choreography by OBIE Award–winner nicHi douglas. The play is directed by Tamilla Woodard, chair of the acting program at the David Geffen School of Drama and a resident director at Yale Repertory Theatre.

According to The New York Times, “Spunk” exists in a similar vein as Hurston’s masterpiece, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” and features Black Southern wit as well as a Black female protagonist who is free to be herself despite the social restrictions and taboos of the day. Indeed, similarly to Janie Crawford, this protagonist, Evalina, is engaged in a love affair that others look at with derision, and, like Crawford, she doesn’t concern herself with their opinions either.

Zora Neale Hurston was born on this day (Jan. 7) in 1891. The anthropologist and author is vital to our comprehension of the Black American South. pic.twitter.com/SiiT4thGA4
— Brooklyn White-Grier (@brooklynrwhite) January 7, 2024

Yale Repertory Theatre presents Zora Neale Hurston's "Spunk" through Oct. 25. https://t.co/tjKPNaG9qn
— CT Insider (@insider_ct) October 5, 2025

Hurston, an anthropologist by both trade and training, turned her eye toward comedy when she redeveloped the script for the stage, but she also used folk songs, sermons, and sacred practices to flesh out the story in the gap between her original rendition of Spunk and its reincarnation as a play.

As Tamilla Woodard, the director of “Spunk” at the Yale Repository Theater, told the New York Times, “You can feel Zora trying to get at what it means to have agency and liberty in your life, and mean not to be bound by what people tell you you’re supposed to do and how you’re supposed to do it.”

Woodard was actually a second-year MFA student at Yale when Catherine Sheehy, a dramaturg and professor at Yale, heard about Hurston’s unpublished works in 2001 through an NPR story, and after requesting a copy, she read it and began telling everyone in her orbit about it, typically by passing her copy to them.

According to Sheehy, Hurston wrote 10 plays that were rediscovered after the Library of Congress reviewed its files in the late ‘90s to see exactly what it had in its collection. Before Hurston became a novelist, she was a dramatist; however, during her lifetime, only one play reached Broadway: 1931’s “Fast and Furious.”

Hurston was ahead of her time, celebrating the common Black folks of the South, and even among her theater contemporaries, her work stands apart as unique to her. In some ways, as Daphne Brooks, a scholar of music and Black Studies at Yale University, told the outlet, we’re still trying to catch up to Hurston.

“Hurston’s deft ability to weave together humor and melodrama, music and movement, and bold statements about the vibrancy and complexities of Black life despite Jim Crow tyranny are utterly distinctive and set her apart. Her work exists outside the standard ways in which critics have defined ‘Black drama’ since the Harlem Renaissance. American theater critics and audiences largely weren’t ready for her then, and I’m not sure if they are now,” Brooks noted.

Dr. Wendy Osefo, arrested, Wife Swap, RHOP

by Daniel Johnson

October 12, 2025

RHOP’s Wendy Osefo Crossover Episode Of ‘Wife Swap’ Delayed After Fraud Indictment

Wendy Osefo and her husband, Eddie, were indicted on multiple fraud charges in Maryland’s Carroll County.

“Real Housewives of Potomac” star Wendy Osefo and her husband, Eddie Osefo, were originally slated to appear in the premiere episode of a crossover between the Real Housewives franchise and “Wife Swap.” The episode, which was set to feature the couple, has now been postponed following their indictment on multiple fraud charges in Maryland’s Carroll County.

According to Variety, the crossover series was slated to air on Bravo on Oct. 14, but the network pushed it back to Oct. 21 and also bumped the episode featuring the Osefos back to later in the season. In their place on the debut episode will be an episode featuring “Real Housewives of Salt Lake” star Angie Katsanevas.

Osefo’s spokesperson sent a statement to the outlet that indicated that both she and her husband are in good spirits, despite their legal troubles.

“Dr. Wendy Osefo and her husband, Edward Osefo, are back home safely with their family and in good spirits. They are grateful for the outpouring of concern and support from friends, fans, and colleagues. The Osefos, alongside their legal team, look forward to their day in court. At this time, they respectfully ask for privacy as they focus on their family and the legal process ahead,” the statement reads.

Per court documents obtained by Variety, the Osefos are accused of falsely stating that their home was burglarized in April 2024, claiming that designer bags and jewelry had been taken from their residence. Finally, they submitted a claim to their insurance company for $450,000 in stolen belongings.

Wendy faces seven counts of insurance fraud, eight counts of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, and one count of false statement to a police officer; that’s 16 counts in all, while Eddie faces 18 total counts, with one extra count of insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. The maximum for most of the felonies they are facing is 15 years.

It is doubtful that investigators bought their story about their home being ransacked in the first place. Although they claimed to have been vacationing in Jamaica and returned to a home in disrepair, neither their ADT alarm was tripped nor did their Ring camera detect any movement. It was only later that the investigators would find that “numerous items that the Osefos claimed were stolen had been purchased then returned to the store where a full refund was provided prior to the alleged burglary.”

Furthermore, Wendy Osefo allegedly posted a photo on April 27, 2024, in which she wore a ring that she’d claimed had been stolen in the robbery.

On Oct. 10, Carroll County Sheriff James T. DeWees noted in a press conference that her status as a reality television star would not affect his investigation. “I don’t care if she’s a real housewife, a fake housewife, or whatever she is — we would handle it the same way, regardless of who she was,” DeWees stated.

According to State’s Attorney Haven N. Shoemaker Jr., the pair is tentatively scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 7.

As ABC News reported, deputies indicated in bail memos that Edward Osefo allegedly asked Wendy Osefo if there was a way to increase the value of the insurance claim, he allegedly wanted to know if there were “additional high-value items we can add to this inventory listing (i.e., Chanel shoes, etc.). I’m trying to get the total to exceed $423,000, which is our policy maximum,” he allegedly wrote.

Before joining the cast in Season 5, Wendy Osefo was previously a professor at Johns Hopkins University, where she taught in the Doctor of Education program. She has also appeared as a political commentator in several national news broadcasts and publications.

According to The Washington Post, the scandal for the Osefos follows that of Karen Huger, who was released from the Montgomery County Detention Center in September after she served six months for drunken driving. Currently, Huger’s status on the show is to be determined, while Wendy Osefo is still considered a cast member.

by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman

October 12, 2025

Back On Broadway: Kandi Burruss Joins ‘& Juliet’

Burruss has already made her mark in the theater world as a Broadway producer.

Kandi Burruss is expanding her talents from the reality screen to the Broadway stage.

The former “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star is diving back into theater-acting with her new role in “& Juliet.” Burruss will return to Broadway, this time outside of producing, with a limited run starting Dec. 11.

According to Playbill, Burruss will take over the role of Angelique, currently held by TikToker Cheryl Porter. “& Juliet” is a pop musical that reimagines Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” Its retelling focuses on what if its famed female protagonist never died. As for Burruss’ new character, she plays a maternal figure and confidante for the universe’s Juliet.

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A post shared by & Juliet Broadway (@andjulietbway)

The Grammy winner released a statement on her inclusion in the Broadway breakout hit. Known for her own songwriting chops, the 49-year-old mentioned the play’s use of modern and timeless hits by Max Martin to engage audiences.

“I could not be more thrilled to return to the Broadway stage in this incredible musical,” shared Burruss in a statement. “As a songwriter myself, I am such a fan of Max Martin’s genius mind, and to get to come back to Broadway in this joyful musical that celebrates his catalog is a dream come true.”

However, Burruss is no novice to the Broadway world. Her first Broadway role was as Matron “Mama” Morton in “Chicago” in 2018. Since then, she has embraced the theater scene primarily as a producer.

She has lent her behind-the-scenes talents for works such as “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” “The Piano Lesson,” “The Wiz,” “Othello,” and the upcoming revival of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” Now, she returns to the spotlight as she forges a new path in entertainment since ending her stint on the Real Housewives franchise.

Burruss will fulfill her duties for the 9x-Tony Award-nominated musical through March 8 of next year.

by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman

October 12, 2025

NFL WAG Stands Up To Plus-Size Hate, Celebrates Body Positivity

Bagsby is using her platform to promote fashion for all body types.

This NFL girlfriend is bringing more than glamorous living to this side of sports; she is also promoting body positivity.

Kalani Bagsby, the significant other of Dallas Cowboys offensive guard Tyler Booker, made headlines after she began appearing on the sidelines at NFL games. However, Bagsby began receiving online hate for her growing spotlight, especially as a plus-sized WAG —a term for the wives and girlfriends of professional athletes.

She met Booker as a fellow freshman at the University of Alabama. While Bagsby graduated from the school with a burgeoning career in communications, her relationship became a main focus as her beau became an NFL player.

“I’ve always loved public relations and managing social media and sports,” Bagsby explained to People. “I always wanted to be a sports reporter — well, that’s what I thought I wanted to be — but then I quickly realized I didn’t really like being in front of the camera.”

She soon became immersed in the NFL Wag community, taking over the Women of the NFL Instagram account during the league’s preseason. However, her post garnered criticism for her body image.

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A post shared by Women of the NFL (@womenofthenfl)

“Oh my gosh, the amount of hate I got on that one post, like for the Women of the NFL, the takeover post is just crazy,” Bagsby shared.

Instead of letting the haters get to her, Bagsby focuses on uplifting all body types.

“I know how to handle [the hate] and I don’t mind putting myself out there if that means I know I’m helping someone else, and I know that I’m showing someone else ‘Girl, you can do this,’” she added. “You’re perfect, how you look.”

However, Bagsby wants to embrace other parts of herself besides her silhouette. The sports communications enthusiast also has an eye for fashion, with her own clothing brand “First and Fine,” which features custom game apparel.

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A post shared by First and Fine by Kalani 🛍️ (@firstandfinebykalani)

With her growing platform, she hopes more women feel good in their skin and celebrate WAGS of all sizes.

“My whole thing is I just really want to let everyone know that, that you’re beautiful in your own body,” she says. “You don’t have to fit a certain standard, because clearly I don’t, and I love myself and it may take time to be confident and love yourself, but trust, like it will come.”

by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman

October 12, 2025

Mississippi HBCU Homecomings Marred By Shootings; Child Injured, Woman Killed

HBCUs have been grappling with rising incidences of gun violence during homecoming season.

Two Mississippi HBCUs had their homecomings shaken up by shootouts, with one child left shot.

Alcorn State and Jackson State University both had individual instances of gunfire during their respective homecoming festivities. According to HBCU Gameday, the shootout surrounding the Alcorn community occurred the night of Oct. 11 near a gas station. One woman died during the shooting, with two others hospitalized.

The scene prompted the University to call for a shelter-in-place on campus, with an investigation into the shooting ongoing. Around 72 miles away, Jackson State had its own incident of gun violence that struck a child.

The shooting happened at a tailgate surrounding the Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium. The child was taken by police to a local hospital, with no current updates on their well-being. Law enforcement has yet to reveal a suspect in the shootout.

The sheriff of Hinds County, where Jackson State is located, released a statement on the shooting. Sheriff Tyree Jones encourages anyone with information to contact the authorities.

Gun violence at homecomings has become a growing concern for HBCUs in the past few years. Significant shootouts have even led to the cancellation of the celebrated tradition entirely, as in one instance at Morgan State in 2023. In light of past gun violence, the Baltimore school heightened security measures by closing the campus early during this year’s festivities.

Outside of Mississippi, another HBCU has suffered from gun violence overshadowing its homecoming. South Carolina State recently dealt with the loss of a student, 19-year-old Jaliyah Butler, during its annual celebration. All schools and the local law enforcement continue to investigate the shootouts that have shaken their communities.

As many schools deal with increasing threats of gun violence, they remain vigilant in providing safety and security for the thousands that flock to their campuses during homecoming season.

Kamala Harris, book tour, Gaza, Pro-Palestine protests

by Daniel Johnson

October 12, 2025

‘I Am Not President Of The United States!’: Kamala Harris Finally Claps Back At Pro-Palestinian Protesters In D.C.

The crowd erupted in applause as Harris made her frustrations known to the protestors in the crowd.

As former Vice President Kamala Harris continues the book tour for her recent memoir detailing her loss to Donald Trump, “107 Days,” protesters are not shy about letting her know how they feel about the Biden-Harris administration’s failure to act decisively regarding the genocide in Gaza. However, for at least one moment, Harris let her frustration with being protested show, according to a report from Mediaite.

As she was being interviewed in Washington, D.C., Harris responded to someone in the crowd who was yelling, among other things, that the former vice president’s legacy regarding Gaza would always be genocide.

Harris responded, noting that essentially she can’t really do anything now since she’s not the president of the United States.

“YOUR LEGACY WILL ALWAYS BE GENOCIDE”

Last night, multiple protestors disrupted Kamala Harris during her book tour stop in DC.

Kamala Harris says she isn’t the president, but she was vice president while bombs rained on Gaza & tens of thousands were killed with US weapons. pic.twitter.com/z4IXaXQxOr
— CODEPINK (@codepink) October 10, 2025

“You know what, I am not president of the United States! You want to go to the White House? And talk to him? Then go on and do that,” Harris responded.

The exchange shows that while her book acknowledges her awareness that not taking a clearer stance on Israel’s actions in Gaza may have affected her election outcome, she has expressed frustration with protesters interrupting her book tour to voice their views, a dynamic she has faced before.

The crowd was solidly pro-Harris and erupted in applause as Harris made her frustrations known to the protesters in the crowd.

The protests, as Newsweek notes, are not occurring in a vacuum. Similar protests popped up as Harris was campaigning for president over what is perceived as the refusal of the Biden administration to impose an arms embargo on Israel, as well as Palestinian groups withholding support of Harris because she continued to express support for Israel while its military continued to bomb Palestinian children, among other vulnerable populations.

On the first night of her book tour in New York City, Harris did express compassion for the Palestinian people and condemned Trump for giving the Israeli government and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a blank check.

“What’s happening to the Palestinian people is outrageous and it breaks my heart,” she told a packed New York City performance center on Sept. 25 after she was interrupted by the first of four pro-Palestinian protesters. “Donald Trump has given (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu a blank check to do whatever he wants.”

She told the third protester, “I understand your concern and how you feel — I think I do. And the reality of it is, where we are right now didn’t have to be this way — in terms of the blank check that this president has given.”

Nearly no political issue has been more contentious than the outsized response of the Israeli government to the deaths of 1,200 of its citizens on Oct. 7, 2023, which has been blamed on Hamas. A tragedy to be sure, but the starvation of Gazans, and the deaths of at least 60,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, have been sharply condemned by the international community, save, of course, the United States.

In her book, despite noting that “The war in Gaza is not a binary issue, but too often the conversation about it is. I wanted to acknowledge the complexity, nuance and history of the region, but it seemed very few people had the appetite for that or the willingness to hold two tragic narratives in their mind at the same time, to grieve for human suffering both Israeli and Palestinian.” Harris questioned why protests followed her and not Donald Trump on the campaign trail, and the answer, as Jeet Heer writes in a review for The Nation, might lie in the subtext of her positions on Gaza she expresses in the book, even though she privately tried to sway Biden.

“Private pleas for Biden to show some heart were simply an inadequate response to the killing fields of Gaza, which anyone with eyes could recognize as a genocide,” Heer writes.

CODEPINK activists disrupted Trump, Vance, Hegseth, Rubio, and other cabinet members’ dinner.

They feast while Gaza starves.
Trump is the Hitler of our time.
Free DC. Free Palestine!
Stop terrorizing communities all over the world!! pic.twitter.com/dPLeWIwHLH
— CODEPINK (@codepink) September 10, 2025

As it concerns Harris’ remarks to protest Trump, the same group responsible for protesting her, CodePink, did the same right to his face when he showed up to a dinner inside Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak and Stone Crab restaurant in Washington, D.C., with Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and members of his security detail.

According to Time Magazine, protesters can be heard on videos of the protest saying “Trump, you are not welcome here,” which was followed by “free D.C., free Palestine, Trump is the Hitler of our time.”

“He is terrorizing communities all over the world, from Puerto Rico… from Palestine… to Venezuela, he is terrorizing communities. He is not welcome to D.C., he is not welcome to Palestine. Palestine is not for sale,” one protester shouted while they were being escorted out by Trump’s security detail. “Shame on you all!”

by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman

October 12, 2025

Tuskegee Alums Launch Clothing Collection Dedicated To HBCU’s Timeless Campus Fashion

The company was founded by alum born and raised in the Tuskegee community.

Three Tuskegee alums have launched a new clothing collection focusing on the HBCU’s timeless campus fashions.

The clothing line, Taliaferro Union Apparel Company, has released an “Archive Revival Collection” that brings a contemporary lens to vintage looks. With an emphasis on “Golden Tiger heritage,” the assortment features sweaters, sweatpants, and cardigans that have an elevated yet classic uniform feel.

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A post shared by Taliaferro Union (@taliaferrounion)

The pieces hold special significance to the HBCU alums, drawing inspiration from old photographs of students on campus. Now, they hope to symbolize the Tigers that came before them with this new collection, right in time for homecoming.

“Each piece in the Archive Revival was inspired by photographs of students from different eras of Tuskegee University’s past,” detailed the website’s collection description. “Pieces that spoke to us. Garments that deserved to be resurrected and given the dignity they’re due. We made sure to honor them by diligently poring over every detail.”

The collection includes four designs, including the Archive Cardigan, featuring Tuskegee’s colors of crimson and old gold. The item also boasts the school’s founding year of 1881 and the renowned “T Club.” While dating back to the 1920s and 30s, the school organization included scholars and athletes within the Tuskegee community.

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A post shared by Taliaferro Union (@taliaferrounion)

The brand itself remains steeped in Tuskegee Pride. Its namesake even honors the university’s founder and first president, Booker Taliaferro Washington. The founders of the apparel line were also born and raised in this historic Black community. Now, they use this name to symbolize their efforts, providing expert craftsmanship to each item they create.

The website added, “Heritage, hard work, craftsmanship, and the pride of American labor and trade unions of days past, united with the proud heritage of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, are the core values of Taliaferro Union.”

In celebration of the homecoming festivities underway, the brand is also currently hosting a site-wide sale. Taliaferro Union hopes to encourage Tuskegee alumni and supporters alike in reclaiming their fashion-forward past for future generations.

by Daniel Johnson

October 12, 2025

Rev. Jesse L. Douglas, Martin Luther King Jr. Aide, Confirmed Dead Four Years After Passing

Douglas played a pivotal role in planning several civil rights marches, including the infamous Bloody Sunday March in Selma, Alabama.

Rev. Jesse L. Douglas, a close aide to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., died in 2021 at age 90, though his death only recently came to light. According to his daughter, Adrienne Douglas Vaulx, he died in a nursing home in Charlotte, North Carolina.

As The New York Times reports, Douglas’ death was not widely known at the time, and the outlet only learned of it during the week of Oct. 10. Douglas played a pivotal role in planning several civil rights marches, including two in Selma, Alabama — one of which became known as the infamous Bloody Sunday March. He worked closely with King as part of the Montgomery Improvement Association, serving as the group’s president from 1963 to 1966.

That group was founded in 1955 to plan the response to the arrest of Rosa Parks for the “crime” of refusing to give up her seat and move to the Black section of a Montgomery city bus. The group helped promote a prolonged citywide bus boycott led by Dr. King, which eventually led to a Supreme Court ruling that ended segregation on public transportation.

Douglas also sat on the national board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for over 30 years. The SCLC, a group dedicated to civil rights and founded by King, began in 1957. Douglas was well-respected in leadership circles for his ability to keep a cool head while organizing voting rights marches born in Selma.

According to the National Park Service, the marches in Selma were organized in response to the killing of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) youth leader Jimmie Lee Jackson in Marion, Alabama, by police officers.

There were three marches in Selma, the first, the most well-known of the three, Bloody Sunday, held on March 7, 1965, ended after police officers brutally attacked protesters who attempted to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge after firing tear gas canisters and ordering the crowd to disperse.

The second, held two days later, was ended early by King. The third, which accomplished the goal of reaching the State Capitol in Montgomery, due in part to the accompaniment of 25,000 protestors by the Alabama National Guard, F.B.I. agents, and federal marshals, lasted four days, from March 21-25.

In observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we share this photo captured at a march in Selma, Alabama in 1965 that features Dr. King alongside colleague and personal friend with albinism, Rev. Jesse L. Douglas. #AlbinismInHistory #MLKDay pic.twitter.com/6UY4CvUNnS
— NOAH (@NOAHAlbinism) January 20, 2025

Douglas, who had albinism, was sometimes referred to in newspapers of the day as an “unidentified white man,” an ironic development, because aside from a lack of melanin, Black albino people typically do not share the same facial features as white men.

Furthermore, Douglas enrolled in HBCUs, first attending his hometown university, Dillard University in New Orleans, before eventually transferring to Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, where he graduated in 1959.

Three years later, Douglas graduated from Atlanta’s Interdenominational Theological Center, but before his graduation, in 1960, he met King in the school’s library, which propelled him to get involved in the civil rights movement. That same year, he joined to desegregate the cafeteria of the Georgia State Capitol.

He played an integral part in the protest, placing a call to the Southern Christian Leadership Council’s legal affairs office, which led to a lawsuit and a ruling in the resulting case, Douglas and Reynolds v. Vandenberg, which desegregated all facilities at the Capitol building in Atlanta.

R.I.P. Jesse L. Douglas, Aide to King in Marches From Selma, Is Dead at 90
A lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr. and a fellow preacher, he played a vital role in organizing voting-rights protests in 1965 that began with “Bloody Sunday.”https://t.co/5ae90OphJi
— Stuart Falk (@stufalk) October 12, 2025

In an interview with the New York Times in 2018, he referred to himself as a reverse Oreo cookie, “white on the outside, Black on the inside.”

The late Rep. John Lewis, who is also featured in arguably one of the most famous photographs of the civil rights era alongside King and Douglas, noted in a 2015 interview with The Charlotte Observer that King had great trust in Douglas’s ability to coordinate the movement’s logistics.

“Dr. King had a great deal of faith in him,” Lewis said. “He would say, ‘Jesse was taking care of this’ and ‘Jesse was taking care of that.’ And he could lead a song, creating a real sense of solidarity.”

His singing even earned him high praise. Charles Steele Jr., a longtime president and chief executive of the SCLC, indicated that he sometimes served the same role as Mahalia Jackson, another King confidant who often set the table for his sermons in Black churches.

“He really set the church on fire and got people motivated, pretty much like Mahalia Jackson,” Steele recalled.

He continued, noting, like the late Rep. Lewis, that the role Douglas occupied was a vital one. “He had a beautiful personality, was very outgoing, and everyone knew that if Dr. King or the national office needed something, he would do it. You needed people like that — part of the inner circle, but someone willing to do whatever was needed to support the movement.”

However, as Douglas told the New York Times, sometimes his pale skin was a Catch-22.

“They (white segregationists) always considered me a sympathizer with Black people, but not one of them. You know, that’s how I became ‘unidentified white man.’ They didn’t want to arouse friction from their own kind for killing another white man.”

He continued, “I had Black people make fun of me, call me ‘old white boy,’ ‘old albino.’ I never paid it any attention. I said, ‘If they’re dissatisfied with the way I look, go see God.’”

Douglas was preceded in death by his longtime wife, Blanche Gordon, in 2015. In addition to his daughter, he is also survived by two sons, Winston and Jesse Jr.; a brother, Collins; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman

October 12, 2025

‘Family Matters’ Star Darius McCrary Arrested Near Mexican Border

The '90s star was arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego for an out-of-state felony warrant.

Darius McCrary, the actor known for his role as Eddie Winslow on “Family Matters,” has a new legal matter of his own.

The ’90s star was arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego for an out-of-state felony warrant. According to People, McCrary is being held under a fugitive arrest, signaling that McCrary was trying to flee the area to avoid persecution.

Records obtained by the news outlet confirmed the 49-year-old was detained near the U.S.-Mexico border on Oct. 5. He remains held in the San Diego jail without bail.

While the jail records did not specify the exact charge, a rep for McCrary provided additional details. The rep told TMZ that the warrant stemmed from the actor missing a court appearance over failing to pay child support.

However, his legal issues surrounding child support go back to 2015. At the time, McCrary was arrested for back support debt, paying a $5,500 sum to prompt his release from custody. Upon his 2017 divorce from ex-wife Tammy Brawner, with whom he shares one daughter, Zoe, McCrary was ordered to pay $1,366 a month as part of their agreement, finalized two years later. Brawner was granted sole legal and physical custody of the then three-year-old.

In the meantime, McCrary was ordered to attend alcohol/drug abuse and batterers’ intervention classes. He also only had professional monitored visitation with the child. Reports showed that Brawner alleged that her ex-husband “partially dislocated” the young girl’s arm, a claim the father denied as ill-intentioned.

In November 2023, McCrary was arrested a second time for failure to pay child support. He reported owing over $52,000 as of March 2019 and pleaded not guilty to the felony charges.

McCrary starred on the classic ’90s sitcom, which ran for nine seasons from 1989 to 1998. The show centered on the Winslows, a middle-class Black family in Chicago, and their nerdy neighbor, Steve Urkel, who would eventually become the series’ main character.

Now, McCrary must contend with the recurring case against him for unpaid child support. His court appearance remains set for Oct. 15.