• News

by Andrea Blackstone

June 4, 2021

North Carolina City Where Andrew Brown Jr. was killed Backs Black Lives Matter Mural

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Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man, was killed in April by a sheriff’s deputy in Elizabeth City, N.C. The town is now asking artists to pitch ideas for a ‘Black Lives Matter’ street art project.

The project would be painted on the street in front of the Pasquotank County sheriff’s office, WAVY reported. Councilman Darius Horton introduced the idea. He remarked that he hoped the project, which would paint the words “Black Lives Matter” on the length of Colonial Avenue outside City Hall in downtown Elizabeth City, would send a message to the community that “yes all lives matter, but right now black lives matter”.

To start, artists who want to submit their artwork for the pro bono project must uploaded it to Elizabeth City’s  website by midnight June 9. The artist who receives the most votes will have their artwork illustrated on Colonial Avenue.

“Elizabeth City residents will then be able to review each artist’s submission and vote for their favorite rendering. The voting period will be from 6 a.m. June 10 to 6 a.m. June 16,” WAVY also said.

The Associated Press reported that at least one Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed Andrew Brown Jr., while executing a search warrant April 21 in Elizabeth City, NC.

“Authorities wouldn’t provide details of the shooting but an eyewitness said that Andrew Brown Jr. was shot while trying to drive away, and that deputies fired at him multiple times. The car skidded out of Brown’s yard and eventually hit a tree, said Demetria Williams, who lives on the same street,” the Associated Press reported.

At that time, Horton said that  transparency and accountability would be needed. He called for the immediate release of bodycam footage, the search warrant, and a speedy explanation of whatever led to the shooting, the AP wrote.

WNCN recently added that after deputies shot and killed  Brown, dozens of people from Elizabeth City came to Raleigh to meet with Gov. Roy Cooper and other state leaders to call for greater transparency in that investigation and in similar ones. Additionally, WNCN reported that District Attorney Andrew Womble declined to pursue charges against the deputies. Brown, he said, acted recklessly when he used his car as a “deadly weapon” while attempting to get away from the deputies.

According to to the News & Observer, Brown’s attorneys said an autopsy showed that he had a fatal gunshot wound in the back of his head. Brown was killed the day after former police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of charges for killing George Floyd.

• News

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

June 4, 2021

Oregon Votes to Recognize Juneteenth as Official State Holiday

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On Tuesday, a group of Oregon lawmakers unanimously voted to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday starting in 2022.

Oregon joined with other states across the country that have passed legislation honoring June 19 as a day recognizing the Emancipation Proclamation, USA Today reported. The bill was first introduced by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown earlier this year and was passed on the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

The holiday was introduced in Oregon back in 1945 when Clara Peoples (dubbed Portland’s “Mother of Juneteenth”) led a celebration during her work break at the Vanport shipyards, KDRV reported.

“We remember the legacy of Clara Peoples, ‘Mother of Juneteenth,’ and the annual celebrations that kept this tradition alive long before this holiday was officially recognized,” Rep. Janelle Bynum (D- Clackamas), Chair of the BIPOC Caucus said after Oregon’s House of Representatives voted to pass the bill in April.

After House Bill 2168 passed the Senate Tuesday, it was sent back to the House for consideration of Senate amendments. Gov. Brown is expected to sign it into law.

“With House Bill 2168, we can learn from another time,” said Sen. Lew Frederick, said in a statement. “We can change the future now, in real time. We can work towards equality–even without a declaration or official holiday. We must. Celebrating Juneteenth will help each of us remember all that we can and must do to ensure a more just future.”

Juneteenth is slowly making its way to becoming a national holiday. States across the country all honor the day except for Hawaii, North Dakota, and South Dakota, according to the Congressional Research Service. The holiday started in Galveston, TX, where emancipated slaves were informed on June 19, 1865, that President Abraham Lincoln had freed people held in bondage in rebel states two years earlier.

The state of Texas was the first to officially recognize Juneteenth, in 1980 with Florida following in 1991, Oklahoma in 1994 and Minnesota in 1996. By the year 2000, Delaware joined.

• Education

by Andrea Blackstone

June 4, 2021

The Home Depot Foundation Partners With 100 Black Men of America Inc. to Provide Skilled Trades Training for Underserved Youth

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Youth often benefit from gaining more skills to become marketable and find out what strikes their interest, although career exploration may not always require earning a college degree. The Home Depot announced that The Home Depot Foundation and a trade training nonprofit partner called Home Builders Institute (HBI), are launching a strategic partnership with 100 Black Men of America Inc. The goal is to increase skilled trade training for Black youth. Skill-building workshops, work experience, internship opportunities, industry-recognized PACT certifications, and preparation for youth to pursue meaningful careers will be provided, according to the announcement. Home Depot also said that in the fall, the three organizations will launch a pilot trades training program to serve marginalized communities in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. The program will be facilitated through 100 Black Men of America’s existing afterschool programs.

“As we work to fill the nearly 300,000 open career opportunities across the skilled trades industry, we have to continue advocating for the inclusion of diverse talent,” Shannon Gerber, executive director of The Home Depot Foundation, said in a press release. “The Foundation is energized to team up with Home Builders Institute, 100 Black Men of America, Inc. and The Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs to focus on eliminating racial and social inequities through education and workforce development programs.”

Chuck Baker, chairman of the board for 100 Black Men of the Bay Area, stated that the grant from Home Depot will help the organization to expand its youth workforce and career readiness initiatives with a specific focus on the building trades that are vital to the economic recovery.

Additionally, The Home Depot Foundation introduced its $250,000 Path to Pro scholarship program. To celebrate the students of Skills USA’s National Signing Day, $30,000 in scholarships were provided. According to the program’s website, The Foundation pledged to invest $50 million in training the next generation of skilled tradespeople and bridging the opportunity gap through it. The scholarships partially require applicants to be a high school senior, a high school graduate, or possess a GED. The website stated that applicants must focus on carpentry, electrical, HVAC, plumbing, or construction management training.

Specialized jobs that require training often pay more. An HVAC technician, plumber, landscape designer, and  a boilermaker are just a small sampling of jobs Indeed listed as some of the highest-paying trade careers.

• Women

by Derek Major

June 4, 2021

President Biden Taps V.P. Kamala Harris To Take Lead On Voting Rights

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President Joe Biden has tapped Vice President Kamala Harris with the two biggest fights in his administration, immigration and now voting rights.

Biden announced Harris will take the lead days before she’s slated to travel to Guatemala and Mexico to discuss curbing migration to the United States with their leaders. The dual-edged sword puts Harris in a tough spot of dealing with a major foreign issue and a major domestic one, but Biden believes Harris is up to the challenge.

“The president sees the vice president as an important partner and somebody who can work to take on challenging and hard initiatives. That’s the role of the modern-day vice president,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday.

Psaski added that Harris asked to take the lead on voting rights calling it an issue Harris is “personally committed to and passionate about.”

Harris, a Black woman, knows how GOP voting restrictions in the past have hurt Black Americans and is not surprised Republicans have reverted back to suppressing the Black vote after former President Donald Trump was defeated last fall.

Since Trump’s defeat, more than 100 bills restricting voting have been introduced. Florida and Georgia have passed bills restricting mail-in and absentee voting, making it illegal to pass out food and water in voting lines and adding stiff identification requirements. Texas Republicans have also tried to pass their own voting restrictions bill but state Democrats walked out of the session, thwarting the effort. Texas Republicans will keep trying to pass the bill.

According to The Hill progressives and voting rights advocates view Harris taking the lead as a sight the White House is taking the issue seriously.

“She’s the right person and the right level of the administration given how much of a priority this is and how urgent these problems are,” Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice told the Hill.

This month is a crucial one as the drive to pass H.R. 1, also known as the For the People Act of 2021. Harris’ office has not announced her plans, but so far Harris has been involved in talks with NAACP President Derrick Johnson and other voting rights groups.

Because Republicans have refused to vote for the bill as a group, the only path forward would require all 50 Democrats and Harris, who serves as the tie-breaking vote in an evenly divided Senate, to support not only the substance of the bill, but changing the filibuster rule requiring 60 votes to approve major legislation, allowing it to pass with a simple majority instead.

Democrats Joe Manchin III (D-W.V.) and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, (D-AZ) have been adamant in their opposition to end the filibuster.

• Education

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

June 4, 2021

Howard University Set to Introduce Chadwick Boseman Masterclass

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After getting the College of Fine Arts posthumously named after him, actor Chadwick Boseman is also getting his own Masterclass at his alma mater Howard University.

The school is set to introduce a new masterclass on the entertainment industry at the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, TMZ reports. The school’s president, Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick said the curriculum was actually designed and pitched by the Black Panther star two years ago.

A year before his untimely death from colon cancer, Boseman met with school leaders and presented his concept to introduce scholars to the ins and outs of entering the entertainment industry. Now students within Howard’s Fine Arts program will receive an updated curriculum that better prepares them for their course of interest. Classes will now include sessions with professionals with real-life experience in their field of interest.

While Howard is known for having guest lectures by celebrities, industry insiders, and often fellow alums, those taking Boseman’s masterclass will receive a different structured session with the guests being weaved into the day-to-day learning and coursework on campus.

The late actor had intentions of being very hands-on with the program prior to his death. He had already signed the paperwork to get the program started. But actress Phylicia Rashad, who was recently named as the dean of the Chadwick Boseman College of Fine Arts, will help spearhead the new masterclass.

“While he was a student, Boseman led a protest against the College of Fine Arts’ absorption into the College of Arts & Sciences, which he referenced during his powerful commencement address in 2018, where he spoke about challenging the powers that be and finding your purpose,” Rashad previously said of Boseman, via Hypebeast.

The HBCU is making sure that Boseman’s legacy will not just carry on through his film career but also through his alma mater.

• News

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

June 4, 2021

Concrete Barriers and Artwork Removed From Minneapolis’ George Floyd Square

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Last year in May of 2020, the death of an unarmed George Floyd by convicted ex-police officer Derek Chauvin caused the closing of an intersection in Minneapolis that became a memorial for the police killing victim. That site had been closed off to regular traffic for over a year now.

According to The Associated Press, the concrete barriers that have been in place since the memorial was set up, were removed Thursday by the city. After the crews took less than four hours to dismantle the barriers, artwork, flowers, and other items from 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, the exact spot where Floyd was killed by Chauvin, community activists quickly put up makeshift barriers in its place.

Mayor Jacob Frey stated that a phased reopening of the intersection was necessary to help with the healing needed to restore area businesses and to also provide social and city services that haven’t been available for a year. Artwork from the memorial will be preserved, and the city wants to ensure the spot where Floyd died “never has tires run over it again.”

“This intersection will forever be changed and we need to be investing in that transformation,” Frey said at a news conference. “This can be a critical location of gathering, not just for our city but the entire world.”

According to the New York Times, a neighborhood resident, Danielle Fabunmi, 48, who lives about six blocks from the intersection, was standing in front of Cup Foods on Thursday as she viewed city workers taking down the memorial. She felt the city had bowed to pressure from businesses and residents worried about crime.

“I kind of always knew that it wasn’t going to last, but I’m pretty hurt because there needs to be a reminder of what happened here,” Ms. Fabunmi said. “They’re really feeling that a lot of these memorials are kind of getting in the way of business, so that’s to be understood, but also, there’s something larger at hand.”

• News

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

June 3, 2021

Black Residents Reject Reparations Program in Evanston, IL

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Back in March, Evanston, Illinois, became the first city in the U.S. to introduce a reparations program. But nearly three months later, the town’s Black residents are speaking out against what they see as a “racist reparations” initiative.

As part of the first phase of the program, the city would pay $25,000 to Black Evanston residents who experienced housing discrimination, Yahoo News reports. The funds would come in the form of coverage for home improvement costs, down payment and closing cost assistance, and mortgage payments.

While residents like Priscilla Giles, who has lived in the city from 1919 to 1969, qualify for the program, the retired ESL teacher is denouncing the initiative and sharing how “sad and angry” the situation has left her feeling.

“It’s not reparations. And that’s for sure,” she said.

Giles and hundreds of other Black residents have rallied their support behind the online group Evanston Rejects Racist Reparations to demand the program be paused and re-evaluated. One of the first issues residents had was that it was not structured around community input. While locals advocated for cash payments, the city instead responded by promising housing assistance through the Restorative Housing Program.

“This is a housing voucher program, not reparations — and calling it that does more harm than good,” said authors A. Kirsten Mullen and William Darity Jr. in an op-ed for The Washington Post.

Darity, an economist at Duke University, noted that proper reparations can only come from the federal government and would cost upwards of $11 trillion. Local reparations programs like the one in Evanston “cannot meet the bill for Black reparations,” Mullen and Darity said.

Other issues locals have are the control over how the money is spent and the fact only current and future homeowners meet the requirements. Residents also have to work with local banks, which many say have a history of practicing discrimination.

“The beneficiaries of this program would be those who initially did the harm of redlining here in Evanston,” said community organizer Sebastian Nalls. “Black Evanston residents need to be determining their own repair.”

Now eligible residents like Giles are confused by the initiative and don’t know where the $400,000 is going. A local branch of the community platform UpTogether, with the endorsement of the City Council, has started issuing $300 cash payments to some Evanston residents who are eligible for reparations according to the city’s criteria.

“I don’t know where it’s going from here. I don’t think it’s going anyplace. I really don’t,” she said. “I was surprised. But I can’t say that I was any more angry or surprised than when I first heard that the reparations were going to be given for people to buy houses, rather than for something benefiting the whole Black community. Because whoever got the money, it did not benefit me or mine.”

Earlier this week, the National Football League (NFL) announced that it will no longer use the term “race-norming” as it assumed Black players started out with lower cognitive function.

This is a result of a $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims that will review past scores for any potential race-related bias, which made it more difficult for Black retired NFL players to show a deficit and qualify for an award.

The rules were created back in the 1990s in hopes of offering more appropriate treatment to dementia patients, but critics faulted how they were used to determine payouts in NFL concussion cases.

• Entertainment

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

June 3, 2021

Lil Uzi Vert Removes $24 Million Dollar Forehead Diamond

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Rapper Lil Uzi Vert has parted ways with the pricey forehead diamond many joked gave him superpowers.

The “XO TOUR Llif3” hitmaker seemingly removed the pink diamond he had imprinted into his forehead earlier this year, the New York Post‘s Page Six reports. Fans noticed the forehead jewel was missing in recent photos he posted alongside his girlfriend, City Girls member JT.

Lil Uzi Vert and JT kissing on her IG story pic.twitter.com/uETRvwtA6B

— Club Ambition (@ClubAmbition__) June 1, 2021

While the exact date of when he removed the diamond remains unknown, his followers have paid attention to its absence in the Instagram Story photos he posted this week and in a Calvin Klein ad unveiled in April.

Back in January, Uzi tweeted about buying “a natural pink diamond” that he began to show off in a series of videos posted online, HuffPost reported. Claiming the ritzy jewel cost him more than “all of [his] cars together,” the “Money Longer” rapper went on to get the diamond embedded into his forehead in February, Rolling Stone reports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-J1Hf7AssA

When fans asked why he didn’t just get the diamond put into a ring, Uzi explained why he opted to have it etched into his face instead.

“If I lose the ring yeah U will make fun of me more than putting it in my forehead ha ha jokes on you,” he told one of his followers.

He followed that up by telling rapper Fat Joe that he embedded the diamond into his face to avoid losing it.

“I’m Lil Uzi. I’m turnt up. So $24 million on a ring is the stupidest idea because I’m gonna look down and that ring ain’t gon’ be ther …I know me. I wake up in odd places and different sceneries,” he said.

Well, at least he got it safely removed. Here’s hoping he’s keeping it somewhere safe to avoid his big fear of losing the multi-million dollar jewel.

• Education

by Andrea Blackstone

June 3, 2021

Jasmine Arbery Graduates With her Master’s Degree from Albany State University, Dedicates it to Her Late Brother Ahmaud

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Jasmine Arbery—the big sister of Ahmaud Arbery who was killed last year while out jogging and being confronted by two armed white men—dedicated her master’s degree to her late brother.  The graduate of Albany State University is no stranger to adversity. She was seeking to bring more attention to what happened to Ahmaud, while also using the hashtag #AhmaudArbery on Instagram. In May of 2020, ABC News and countless outlets reported that Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34 were ultimately charged with murder in Ahmaud’s case.

His sister told Action News Jax that she was still shocked by her brother’s death. Jasmine and a group of young people from across the country participated in a virtual town hall on social justice and the criminal justice system in the U.S., according to the report. She also stated that she wanted her brother’s voice to shine through her, but Jasmine also mentioned her plan to earn her master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling, while keeping her slain brother in mind.

“Growing up in South Georgia, Brunswick Georgia people believed that we weren’t adequate enough to be well-spoken or graduate in the top of our class. People assumed that we don’t know any better honestly,” Jasmine said in the interview.

Jasmine did not give up. Her educational goal ended in victory.  Weeks ago, she turned to Instagram to post her recent accomplishment.

“Whew! A journey is not great unless you find what you seek. My journey was filled with many challenges that included working two jobs, a natural disaster, the tragic loss of my brother, a pandemic, giving birth, anxiety, grief and issues with my financial aid. But I am proud to say those challenges equal the factors that will make me an excellent therapist. I have the opportunity to offer support based on real life experiences. In just a few days I will be graduating with a Master’s degree specializing in Clinical Mental Health Counseling! 🖤 I ooze #BlackGirlMagic,” Jasmine said on Instagram. “I dedicate this degree to my brother #AhmaudArbery. The ceremony is held on your birthday and you always believed in me! 💙 #BlackLivesMatter.”

The Brunswick News previously reported that the Georgia-based Community Action Youth Leadership Initiative (CAYLI) presented a scholarship created for Jasmine to her, in honor of Ahmaud.

“Last semester was incredibly challenging to me,” Jasmine said in the interview. “I physically lost a loved one. I found out I was pregnant. A pandemic appeared. And I was facing challenges with my financial aid at school.”

According to the article, Jasmine decided to donate the scholarship money which amounted to $16,801, back to Community Action to create an endowment for a scholarship, despite facing her own extreme obstacles. Jasmine’s spirit of perseverance is truly a heartwarming tribute to her brother.