Motown Records Launches ‘New Legends’ Internship Program For HBCU Students
The iconic label is launching a new internship initiative designed to help HBCU students who aspire to work in the music business.
Motown Records is investing in the next generation of Black music industry leaders through a new internship initiative designed specifically for students attending historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
The legendary record label recently announced the launch of its New Legends Internship Program, a 10-week immersive experience that provides students with hands-on exposure to the inner workings of the music business. The inaugural cohort began June 8 and will run through Aug. 14, giving participants experience across several departments, including marketing, creative services, digital strategy, and artist and repertoire (A&R), reports Complex.
The program arrives during Black Music Month and aims to create a direct pathway for HBCU students seeking careers in an industry where access and professional networks can often be difficult to obtain. Participants will contribute to active projects, learn day-to-day business operations, and receive mentorship from music executives and industry professionals.
“Motown has always been committed to discovering and developing talent that shapes culture,” said Dante Smith, senior vice president of marketing and head of Motown Digital, according to Complex. “With New Legends, we’re extending that legacy beyond artists and into the future executives, creatives, marketers and innovators who will help define the next era of the music industry.”
The first New Legends class includes students from Howard University, Morgan State University, North Carolina A&T State University, and Spelman College. According to Motown, the students represent a new generation of creative and business talent poised to enter the entertainment industry.
The initiative aligns with Motown’s long-standing legacy of discovering and cultivating talent. Founded in 1959 by Berry Gordy, the label helped launch the careers of iconic artists, including Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and The Jackson 5. Now, rather than focusing solely on artists, Motown is turning its attention to the executives, strategists, marketers, and innovators behind the scenes. Through New Legends, the company hopes to ensure that the future of the music business includes a stronger pipeline of Black talent equipped to lead the industry for years to come.
Alabama State And Morris Brown Forge New Graduate School Pipeline
The agreement is designed to increase access to graduate education and strengthen collaboration between HBCUs
Alabama State University and Morris Brown College signed a memorandum of understanding that will create a direct pathway for Morris Brown graduates to pursue master’s degrees at Alabama State, HBCU Gameday reports.
The agreement, announced June 16 during a signing ceremony at Alabama State’s campus in Montgomery, is designed to increase access to graduate education and strengthen collaboration between historically Black colleges and universities, according to statements from both institutions.
Under the partnership, eligible Morris Brown graduates will have streamlined access to several graduate programs at Alabama State, including business administration, cybersecurity, data analytics, health care administration, information technology, biotechnology, and education.
Alabama State President Quinton T. Ross Jr. said the initiative reflects both institutions’ shared commitment to expanding educational opportunities for HBCU students.
“This historic collaboration is a testament to the commitment of both institutions in fostering educational opportunities and supporting student success,” Ross said to the outlet. “We are prepared to receive you.”
Morris Brown President Kevin E. James said Alabama State’s flexible program offerings were a key factor in establishing the partnership.
“What’s attractive about the partnership is that ASU has in-person and online options,” James said. “This gives our students access and opportunities to complete their graduate degrees.”
The memorandum also establishes certification pathways through Alabama State’s College of Education for Morris Brown graduates interested in teaching careers, including those who did not complete an undergraduate teacher preparation program.
The agreement comes as Morris Brown continues to expand academic opportunities following its reaccreditation by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools in April 2022 after losing accreditation in 2002.
Administrators from both institutions attended the June 16 signing ceremony, including Alabama State Provost Carl Pettis; Morris Brown Provost Jamie Jamison; and Anthony Broughton, dean of Alabama State’s College of Education.
It’s Time To Address The Strategic Starvation Of Modern Leadership In The Workplace
Today’s executives are drowning in tactical work while starving for strategic space.
Written by Dr. Nicole Yeldell Butts
We are halfway through the year, and many executive teams are quietly confronting the same uncomfortable reality: the organization is moving fast, but not necessarily forward.
Revenue may still be holding. Deadlines may still be getting met. Work may still be getting done. But beneath the surface, something more dangerous is happening: organizations are systematically eroding the reflective capacity leadership requires.
According to decades-old research from Harvard Business School and Finnish researchers, reflective capacity is the organizational space leaders need to step back from constant action, examine assumptions, interpret patterns, learn from experience, and make better decisions before simply moving faster. It is not just “time to think.” It is the protected mental and organizational space leaders need to notice what is changing, connect decisions to long-term strategy, and consider the cultural consequences of what they model and reward.
That capacity is not being eroded because leaders lack capability or vision. It is being eroded because many organizations have built cultures where interruption, responsiveness, and constant availability are treated as evidence of commitment. Calendars are stacked with back-to-back meetings. Decisions are pushed upward because escalation feels safer than distributed ownership. Messaging platforms reward speed over thoughtfulness. Leaders are copied into conversations that do not require their judgment, but do demand their attention.
This erosion is measurable. Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index found that employees are interrupted every two minutes during core work hours—275 interruptions a day through meetings, emails, and chats. Asana’s Anatomy of Work Index found that employees spend 58% of their time on “work about work,” including coordination, status updates, and administrative activities, rather than on skilled or strategic contributions. And a classic Harvard Business Review analysis found that senior executives in the typical company spend only about three hours per month discussing strategy.
In other words, this is not merely an individual discipline problem. It is a cultural and structural problem. Organizations say they want strategic leaders while designing work environments that reward immediate response, visible busyness, and operational endurance over reflection, discernment, and strategic clarity.
Today’s executives are drowning in tactical work while starving for strategic space. Tactical work includes the activities required to keep the organization running day-to-day: status updates, project reviews, operational problem-solving, approvals, reporting, scheduling, budget reviews, staffing decisions, email management, meeting attendance, and issue escalation. These activities matter. But they are fundamentally different from the work of leadership.
Tactical work keeps the organization running. Strategic leadership determines whether it is running in the right direction.
The roots of this article trace back to a pattern that emerged during my doctoral dissertation research. While my study focused on executive leadership and organizational culture, one finding stayed with me: many participants described executive leadership teams as having limited capacity to engage in philosophical or strategic discussion. They observed that C-suite leadership had shifted from strategic to operative, focused more on the “how” of doing than on the “why” and “what” of direction.
That observation became one of my recommendations for future research. What struck me then was how consistently participants described the same tension: leadership teams consumed by execution yet hungry for strategic conversation. Two years later, I continue to see that same pattern in organizations across industries.
The Modern Executive Has Become A Professional Reactor
I saw this reflected in a conversation with a senior executive at a large, mission-driven institution. She was an experienced leader responsible for a complex division with multiple teams, competing stakeholder demands, and significant operational responsibility. Her role required her to move between strategy, people leadership, budgets, urgent decisions, and organizational politics, often in the same day.
She proudly showed me her color-coded calendar. Every hour was optimized. Every minute accounted for. Meetings filled her days from morning until evening. But when I asked when she had last spent uninterrupted time thinking deeply about the future of the organization—its strategy, culture, and long-term direction—she went silent. Finally, she said, “I honestly can’t remember.”
She was not describing a personal failing. She was describing a leadership system consumed by execution.
What struck me was not simply her answer. It was the fact that her calendar reflected exactly the behaviors her organization rewarded: responsiveness, accessibility, and constant availability. The very behaviors celebrated as effective leadership were leaving little room for the strategic reflection leadership requires.
Many leaders are no longer practicing strategic leadership. They are performing organizational responsiveness. The issue is not that leaders have stopped valuing strategy. It is that many organizations have created operating environments that make sustained strategic thinking extraordinarily difficult.
The result is strategic starvation: the chronic deprivation of uninterrupted time, cognitive space, and reflective capacity required for effective leadership. Unlike burnout, strategic starvation often masquerades as productivity.
Organizations Are Culturally Engineering Reactive Leadership
The most dangerous part of this problem is that organizations unintentionally reward it. Many organizations say they want visionary leaders while systematically rewarding operational hyper-responsiveness.
Culture is not built primarily through mission statements or executive speeches. It is built through reinforcement. What gets rewarded gets repeated. And in many organizations, leaders are being rewarded not for strategic clarity, thoughtful decision-making, or cultural stewardship, but for constant responsiveness, operational endurance, and visible busyness.
Over time, these behaviors stop feeling excessive and start feeling normal. That is how dysfunctional leadership cultures become institutionalized.
In my work, I have observed executive teams that prided themselves on responsiveness. Messages sent late at night were answered within minutes. Leaders joined calls from airports, on vacation, and even from hospital waiting rooms. Over time, the behavior was no longer seen as excessive. It was celebrated as commitment.
But beneath that culture of constant availability was exhaustion, fragmented thinking, and a complete inability to sustain strategic focus. The organization had normalized urgency so completely that dysfunction started feeling like commitment.
Deloitte’s 2024 Global Human Capital Trends report names a related problem: leaders overwhelmed by data, workers caught in “productivity theater,” and organizations still relying on outdated measures of work that reward visible activity more than meaningful contribution.
Leadership has not escaped this trap. It has become consumed by it.
AI Is Exposing The Culture Problem—Not Creating It
Artificial intelligence is often framed as the great disruption to leadership. But the real disruption began long before AI arrived. For years, organizations quietly redefined leadership around responsiveness, operational oversight, and constant availability. AI did not create this dysfunction. It exposed it.
Research from McKinsey & Company estimates that technologies available today could automate up to 25% of a CEO’s tasks. In theory, that should create more space for strategic leadership. In practice, many leaders feel busier than ever. Why?
Because most organizations adopted AI tools without redesigning their leadership culture.
Instead of using automation to create strategic capacity, many organizations simply accelerated the pace of tactical work. Efficiency gains became opportunities to increase meeting volume, compress response times, and expand operational expectations.
The result is a dangerous paradox: leaders now have more technological support than ever, while feeling less capable of leading strategically.
AI can summarize information, optimize workflows, and generate content. But it cannot create meaning, build trust, or cast vision.
The organizations that benefit most from AI in the second half of this year will not be the ones that automate the fastest. They will be the ones that intentionally reinvest reclaimed time into the deeply human work of leadership: thinking critically, developing people, shaping culture, and creating strategic clarity in environments increasingly dominated by noise.
How Leaders Interrupt Strategic Starvation
Strategic starvation will not resolve itself. Leaders must intentionally interrupt the cultural patterns reinforcing it. That starts with rejecting one of the most dangerous assumptions in modern work culture: that accessibility is the same as effectiveness.
The leaders who create the greatest long-term impact are not necessarily the most responsive. They are the most deliberate about where they place their attention.
Three shifts matter most:
• Protect uninterrupted strategic thinking time as aggressively as operational priorities. • Redesign leadership around decision quality, not decision volume. • Use AI to reclaim time for human leadership: coaching, vision-setting, culture-building, and long-range thinking.
Because the organizations that thrive in the second half of this year will not be the busiest, they will be the ones that intentionally build cultures where reflection, strategic thinking, and alignment are protected, not sacrificed to urgency.
Black Enterprise pays homage to two of the nation's literary GOATS on June 22nd
On this day, June 22, BLACK ENTERPRISE pays homage to two of the nation’s literary goats: W. E. B Du Bois, the author and scholar who wrote the seminal text, The Souls of Black Folk, and Octavia Butler, the brilliant author who penned Kindred, the tale of a Black woman who time travel back to the horrors of slavery.
Corporate filings indicate the automaker withdrew its claim three days after seeking repossession of the former college football player's $135,000 vehicle due to $9,170 in missed payments.
This marks the second time Mercedes-Benz has sought to repossess Sanders’ vehicle. In April 2025, the automaker initiated a similar action after a previous payment default. Sanders’ father, Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders, attributed the issue to “disruptions in the payment process.” That dispute was resolved within six days.
Why This Story Matters to the Sports and Business Community
This development underscores the complex relationship among collegiate NIL valuations, professional contract stability, and long-term asset management. College athletes now secure significant corporate endorsements, and their personal finances often resemble those of major corporations.
Sanders’ ongoing financial challenges highlight the instability young athletes often face after college. He went undrafted in April 2025 and was later waived by the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Without a professional contract, he quickly encountered financial difficulties as expected income disappeared. Such volatility is common among former college and professional athletes, many of whom struggle with cash-flow issues, sudden income fluctuations, and the challenge of managing new wealth after their sports careers end.
These legal actions demonstrate how automatic bankruptcy stays affect major consumer brands. Under Chapter 7, an automatic stay halts asset liquidation. For luxury brands like Mercedes-Benz, prolonged litigation can be costly as high-value collateral depreciates. Brands cannot reclaim assets without court approval.
Intersecting Legal Troubles
The car dispute is only part of Sanders’ financial difficulties. The defensive back filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in October 2023, listing debts exceeding $11 million.
Most of that debt arises from a 2015 incident at a Dallas high school. In 2016, John Darjean, a school security guard, filed a personal injury lawsuit, claiming that during a phone confiscation in 2015, a 15-year-old Sanders assaulted him, causing severe, permanent spinal injuries. Sanders missed the 2022 trial, after which a Texas court entered an $11.89 million default judgment against him.
Sanders’ attorneys state the Chapter 7 filing is necessary to give the athlete a “fresh start.” Sanders maintains he acted in self-defense. In bankruptcy, a debt discharge eliminates qualifying debts and prevents creditors from seeking payment, but not all debts are cleared automatically. Darjean is contesting the discharge, claiming the judgment against Sanders should not be eliminated. The court will decide after a trial whether the debt will be discharged or if Sanders remains responsible. A federal trial is scheduled for Aug. 31 to determine if the multimillion-dollar judgment can be cleared.
Additionally, the resolution of the Mercedes-Benz claim follows a recent legal victory for Sanders.
The firm withdrew its lawsuit after U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater ordered its lawyers to show good cause and questioned why they had not properly served Sanders.
Mother of 1-Year-Old Killed in Mississippi Police Shooting Speaks Out, Calls for Justice
The mother of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley is sharing her account of the moments that led to her son's death
The mother of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley is speaking publicly for the first time following the fatal police shooting that claimed her son’s life in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Mississippi.
In a video released by civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Van Turner, Vellesiya Wiley recounted the events leading up to the June 14 shooting that left her son dead and her friend critically injured. According to Wiley, she and her friend were leaving Walmart when police approached them over a suspected shoplifting incident. Wiley said she initially continued walking because the situation did not involve her.
Wiley alleged that she and her son got into her friend’s vehicle, and when her friend began driving away, officers drew their weapons. Fearing for her son’s safety, she said she lifted Kohen in an attempt to make officers aware that a child was inside the vehicle.
“By the time I sat my baby back down, it was like three or four shots,” Wiley said in the video. She stated that one bullet struck Kohen in the ribcage, while additional rounds hit her friend in the arm and thigh.
She also disputed claims that her friend intentionally tried to hit one of the officers with her vehicle.
“They tried to say that she forcefully was trying to drive and hit them, but they were all on the right side, and she was driving to the left. They just personally shot into the car,” Wiley said.
A 1-year-old in Mississippi was shot and killed by police after a cop opened fire on a vehicle involved in an alleged shoplifting incident at a Walmart. An adult was also critically wounded.
A witness says they saw 2 women leaving the store with an infant, Kohen Kartier Wiley,… pic.twitter.com/9WZBkn3kj7
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) June 16, 2026
The shooting has sparked outrage across Mississippi and beyond, with community members gathering outside the Senatobia Walmart this week to demand accountability. Demonstrators called for the release of body camera footage and additional evidence related to the incident. Protesters clashed with law enforcement Tuesday evening, when authorities deployed tear gas outside the store, reports Action News 5.
Meanwhile, attorneys representing the family have questioned why officers discharged their weapons after allegedly seeing a child inside the vehicle and are calling for the release of body camera footage and Walmart surveillance video.
The officer who fired the fatal shots has not been publicly identified. Senatobia officials confirmed that the officer has been placed on administrative leave. The Mississippi Department of Public Safety is leading the investigation.
As the investigation continues, Wiley says she is focused on seeking justice for her son and ensuring that his death does not go unanswered.
30,000 Borrowers Will Have Federal Student Loans Forgiven
Emails confirming borrowers are eligible for relief under the settlement, began going out on June 12.
The U.S. Department of Education has begun notifying roughly 30,000 federal student loan borrowers that their debt will be canceled under a court-approved settlement tied to borrower defense claims alleging school misconduct, according to Forbes.
Emails began going out June 12, confirming borrowers are eligible for relief under the settlement in Sweet v. McMahon, formerly Sweet v. Cardona. The agreement covers borrowers whose applications were not processed by an April 15 court-ordered deadline.
🚨 We're hearing that some Post-Class Applicants who attended a non-Exhibit C school and are entitled to full settlement relief have started receiving notices from @usedgov.
The Department has until June 15 to send these notices.
— Project on Predatory Student Lending (@EdDebtJustice) June 12, 2026
Under settlement terms, the Education Department must discharge eligible federal student loans, issue refunds for qualifying payments made directly to the government, and remove associated negative credit reporting within one year of notification.
The relief follows a March 26 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which rejected the department’s request to delay implementation. The decision allowed broader discharge efforts affecting about 205,000 borrowers whose borrower defense applications had remained unresolved for years.
Borrower defense rules allow federal loan borrowers to seek cancellation if they can demonstrate their school misled them or engaged in substantial misconduct related to educational programs.
The underlying lawsuit, filed in 2019, accused the Education Department of failing to act on hundreds of thousands of pending claims. A 2022 settlement established more than $6 billion in potential relief for eligible borrowers tied to specific institutions or long-delayed applications.
According to the outlet, the Education Department said: “Despite its best efforts, ED could not respond to your application on or before Apr. 15, 2026.” It added that relief will be processed within one year unless further court action intervenes.
Officials have not announced a timeline for additional discharge waves beyond the approximately 30,000 borrowers currently receiving notices.
Advocates for student loan borrowers have said the settlement represents one of the largest borrower defense relief efforts in recent years. However, implementation timelines continue to depend on court oversight and the Education Department’s administrative processing capacity.
Pastor Dr. Jamal Bryant Drops The Blueprint For ‘BLACKGROUND’ And Breaks Ground On ‘New Birth Village’
The moment embodied the spirit of Juneteenth
On June 21, during Sunday morning church service at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Pastor Dr. Jamal Bryant announced “BLACKGROUND,” a massive economic ecosystem designed to build tangible, generational wealth within the Black community. The crown jewel of the launch? New Birth Village, a 304-residence housing development engineered to turn lifetime renters into property owners.
“We’re building this while Kemp is still governor,” Bryant preached. “We’re building this before Keisha goes into the governor’s mansion. We’re building all of this!”
After a two-hour service on Juneteenth weekend, Bryant and first lady Dr. Karri Bryant led the church congregation in a processional ceremony to break ground at the site where New Birth Village will be located.
“Bryant used the analogy of a butterfly’s plight to express the initiative’s determination and flight in a video voiceover posted to Instagram.
“Today, we operate out of the broken psychosis of a butterfly,” Bryant said. “A butterfly, anatomically, should not be able to fly. Its wings are too big, and its body is too heavy that it should never be able to get off the ground … Nobody told the butterfly they weren’t supposed to fly … we have butterfly faith at New Birth. Everything they said we wouldn’t be able to do, we’ve been able to do it.”
“This, ladies and gentlemen, is single-handedly disfiguring and dismantling the spirit of gentrification.”
New Birth Village isn’t your typical community housing project. In a move that defines absolute economic intentionality, New Birth is executing this development with a 100% all-Black team: Black developers, Black construction planners, and Black-owned construction crews, keeping Black dollars circulating right where they belong.
The market response proves that the consumer hunger for high-quality, accessible real estate assets is at an all-time high. Before developers even broke ground or hosted a formal launch event, over 3,000 eager buyers flooded the waiting list for the 390 available units. This massive demand underscores an urgent reality: Black families are ready to invest; they just need the inventory and the access.
Home Ground (New Birth Village | Homeownership): Expanding direct access to real estate assets as the literal foundation of family equity and generational wealth.
Common Ground (The King’s Table | Food Security):Combating regional food insecurity with precision. Through bi-weekly distributions every first and third Saturday, the church ensures the community’s physical health matches its economic growth.
Higher Ground (Education | Civic Engagement): Creating multiple dimensions of opportunity—spanning academic scholarships, skilled trades training, voter education, and civic leadership development. The directive here is clear: protecting civil rights is inseparable from building financial independence.
Economic Ground (Business & Entrepreneurship): The macro-play. BLACKGROUND has set an aggressive mandate to help launch one million new Black-owned businesses by 2030 by providing entrepreneurs with critical marketplace networks, mentorship, and scaling resources.
Firm Ground (Financial Literacy): Delivering the tactical, high-level tools and wealth-management strategies required to build credit, master investments, and protect capital for generations.
Holy Ground (New Birth Missionary Baptist Church): The spiritual center and strategic corporate engine powering the entire movement, operating far beyond the sanctuary doors.
The Top of the Bottom Line
When it comes to closing the racial wealth gap, teaching financial literacy is no longer enough. The real game is equity, asset control, and enterprise infrastructure—and New Birth Missionary Baptist Church is putting on a masterclass in economic self-reliance. By leveraging its own institutional capital and land to build accessible real estate, New Birth is shifting the paradigm from charity to true asset ownership. This is the ultimate blueprint for how the modern Black church can weaponize its infrastructure to buy back the block and secure generational prosperity.
According to a study released in May by Catalyst and New York University School of Law’s Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, 80% of U.S. organizations remain committed to workplace inclusion despite growing legal and political pressure surrounding DEI initiatives. The report, titled “A New Path to Inclusion: How to Overcome Legal and Cultural Constraints on Building Fair Workplaces,” surveyed more than 2,000 employees and leaders and found that many companies still value and implement DEI.
The findings arrive as many corporations face increased scrutiny following President Donald Trump’s executive actions targeting DEI programs and the continued fallout from the Supreme Court’s 2023 affirmative action ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
“Despite a high-risk legal environment, our research shows that DEI is not dying—it is evolving,” said Joy Ohm, vice president at Catalyst, in a press release. “We see a majority of organizations adjusting their strategies, so this is a story of adaptation, not a broad rollback.”
The report found that 77% of organizations have altered their DEI investments over the past three years. However, those changes have not been uniform. Among federal contractors, who are subject to heightened government oversight, 51% reported reducing their inclusion efforts, while only 32% increased them. In contrast, 52% of organizations that are not federal contractors reported increasing their inclusion efforts, compared with just 20% that reported decreases.
“Even in the face of a concerted assault on the values of inclusion and fairness, many organizations remain deeply committed to this work,” Ohm added.
David Glasgow, the executive director of the Meltzer Center, said the data illustrates how companies are adapting based on their legal exposure rather than abandoning inclusion altogether.
“It’s been extremely challenging for organizations of all kinds to navigate the legal environment for DEI work over the past few years,” Glasgow said. “Yet we are seeing companies adopt nuanced approaches to inclusion based on their specific risk exposure.”
The report also suggests that many companies are rebranding or reframing DEI efforts around broader concepts such as workplace fairness, belonging, and opportunity while continuing to pursue inclusion goals internally. Researchers argue that the shift reflects a changing landscape rather than the end of corporate diversity efforts.
While companies may be changing the language surrounding DEI, the demand for fair and inclusive workplaces remains firmly in place.
“What organizations say publicly about their inclusion initiatives doesn’t always tell the full story,” said Christina Thomas, who serves as project director at the Meltzer Center.
“Organizations are responding to real legal and political pressure by changing their language and public posture. But the internal work is harder to undo,” Thomas added. “It’s embedded in people, processes, and culture in ways that don’t shift as quickly as a public statement. These findings indicate that the reality inside organizations is more complicated than the headlines suggest, and that matters for understanding where DEI actually stands.”
