Civil rights leader and former presidential candidate Rev. Al Sharpton is joining CNBC as a political commentator. He is expected to provide network coverage on the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Sharpton will share his views on Capital Report and Dennis Miller, among other CNBC shows. The 49-year-old New York native was ordained a minister at age 10 and has long been a social activist.
Almost five decades after Emmett Till’s racially motivated killing, the Justice Department is reopening the case. The announcement by the office of the assistant attorney general for civil rights came following a long campaign waged by the NAACP; members of Congress; and Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, who died in Chicago last year at age 81. Till, a black 14-year-old from Chicago, was killed while visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955, apparently because he whistled at a white woman.
Alphonse “Buddy” Fletcher Jr., a BE Wall Street All-Star, is donating $50 million to further the cause of African American students. The chairman of New York-based Fletcher Asset Management plans to award 50 fellowships in the amount of $50,000 each to scholars, writers, and artists. Other portions of his donation will provide environmental justice scholarships to Yale University’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, where Fletcher, 38, is a graduate student.