Acclaimed Artist & Philanthropist Kwanza Jones Expands Access to Education

Acclaimed artist, investor, philanthropist, and SUPERCHARGED® CEO, Kwanza Jones, advances access to education and elevates culture through landmark institutional commitments over the past year, reinforcing a long-term approach to impact across education, culture, and community. An upcoming Year In Review video will reflect on the work behind these efforts and the vision that shaped them.

Advancing access to education remained a central focus throughout the year. Among the most significant commitments was a $6 million investment in Cardozo School of Law by Kwanza Jones and José E. Feliciano, her partner in life and business, supporting clinical education and expanding access to real-world legal training. Designed to connect more students directly to community-centered practice, the commitment reflects a focus on building long-term pathways that prepare future leaders through experience, rather than theory alone.

That commitment to educational access and institutional resilience extended to Bennett College with a philanthropic investment of $1.5 million, supporting the college's mission to educate and empower women leaders while preserving the legacy of historically significant institutions.

For Jones, 2025 marked a significant expansion of cultural leadership through the launch of the Kwanza Jones & José E. Feliciano Initiative's Producing Partners Program, an initiative designed to deepen collaboration with select cultural institutions by pairing capital with creative partnership, strategic support, and long-term engagement. The Apollo was selected as the Producing Partner for 2025, reflecting a shared commitment to advancing culture as a force for access, influence, and belonging.

The partnership between Jones and The Apollo led to the announcement of Culture In Motion™ on December 2, a new National Roadshow launching in January 2026 that expands The Apollo's nearly 100-year legacy into communities across the United States. The initiative brings creativity, community, and cultural stewardship into a broader national conversation. More details at https://boostbus.com

Throughout 2025, strategic guidance, creative collaboration, and long-term partnership were woven into every commitment, reflecting an approach rooted in alignment and sustainability.

The upcoming Year In Review video will offer a closer look at how Jones approaches leadership and impact, capturing a year shaped by resilience, disciplined commitment, and the belief that enduring change is built through design, not urgency.

To get notified and watch the video on launch, subscribe to Jones' YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/kwanzajones.

PEOPLE’S ORGANIZATION FOR PROGRESS PRESS CONFERENCE TO DECLARE OPPOSITION TO TRUMP BOMBING AND WAR ON VENEZUELA

The People’s Organization For Progress will have a press conference to announce opposition to U.S. bombing and war with Venezuela tomorrow, Tuesday, December 30, 2025, 11:00amin front of the Rodino Federal Building, 970 Broad Street in Newark, New Jersey.

“We are having this press conference to publicly state our absolute opposition to war with Venezuela, and to demand that the Trump administration and the U.S. military stop their attacks and lift the blockade against Venezuela,” Lawrence Hamm, Chairman, People’s Organization For Progress stated.

“It is clear to us from both his actions and rhetoric that President Trump is at war with Venezuela. This is an illegal war and it must stop,” Hamm said.  

“The constitution clearly states that only Congress can declare war. There has not been a declaration of war by Congress against Venezuela,” he said. 

“We call upon Congress to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent the President from taking us down the road to war, regional conflagration and possible destabilization of the southern hemisphere,” he said.

“No justifiable reason has been given thus far to merit the United States

going to war with that country. The government of Venezuela has not attacked nor declared war on the United States,” he said.

“In fact, it is the U.S. that is bullying Venezuela. It is our country that is the aggressor,” he said. 

“It is the U.S. military under the direction of President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that has closed off Venezuelan airspace, bombed boats in the Caribbean carrying Venezuelan civilians, seized a Venezuelan tanker with two million barrels of oil, and announced the possibility of a land invasion,” he said.

He went on to say the bombing of the boats and killing of civilians are violations of domestic and international law, and possibly a violation of the laws of war.

Trump and Hegseth have claimed the U.S. is at war with Venezuela to stop the flow of illegal drugs into this country.

“Drug interdiction is not a mission of the U.S. military. That is the work of U.S. law enforcement and the Coast Guard. In addition, no evidence has been produced to prove that the boats bombed by the military were carrying drugs,” he said. 

“In addition, our country has placed extensive sanctions on Venezuela’s oil, financial, and government sectors that are hurting the economy and people there,” he said.

“Our military attacks and economic blockade are wrong. It is imperialist aggression plain and simple,” Hamm, a former U.S. Senate candidate, stated.

“Trump’s efforts to provoke war with Venezuela must be stopped. Polls show that the majority of Americans do not want a U.S. war with Venezuela. They don’t want U.S. soldiers dying in Venezuela for oil or regime change,” he said.

For more information contact the People’s Organization For Progress at (973)801-0001.

100 Black Men of America, Inc. Joins National HOPE AI Initiative to Advance Inclusive Financial and AI Literacy Across Underserved Communities

100 Black Men of America, Inc., the nation's preeminent African American mentoring and leadership development organization, today announced its partnership with Operation HOPE's newly launched HOPE AI initiative, a national strategy designed to transform financial literacy and expand equitable access to artificial intelligence education and tools.

As a founding partner in this unprecedented collaboration, The 100 will help drive community-based engagement, outreach, and education that empowers youth, families, and adults with the knowledge and digital readiness required to thrive in an increasingly AI-driven economy. The partnership directly supports the organization's Economic Empowerment program pillar, which equips individuals from underserved and at-risk communities with the skills, tools, and resources needed to build financial stability and long-term economic mobility. It also connects with the work and strategy of the 100 Black Men of America's Technology Committee

"The rapid emergence of artificial intelligence represents both extraordinary opportunity and significant risk for our communities," said Milton H. Jones, Jr., Chairman of 100 Black Men of America, Inc. "For over 40 years, The 100 has worked to close opportunity gaps through leadership in mentoring, health and wellness ,education, and economic empowerment. Partnering with Operation HOPE to launch HOPE AI strengthens our commitment to ensuring that Black youth and families are not merely included in the future economy--but fully prepared to lead within it."

Launched by Operation HOPE and Chairman, Founder and CEO John Hope Bryant, the HOPE AI initiative brings together several of the nation's most influential nonprofit organizations to build a national blueprint that expands financial literacy, digital competency, and responsible AI readiness.

"This partnership with 100 Black Men of America represents the best of what is possible when mission-driven organizations come together to create lasting change," said John Hope Bryant. "The 100 has a decades-long legacy of uplifting communities and cultivating leaders. Their engagement in the HOPE AI initiative ensures that millions more Americans—especially those historically left behind—gain access to the knowledge, technology, and economic opportunity they deserve."

Through this partnership, 100 Black Men of America, Inc. will collaborate with Operation HOPE to implement educational content, experiential learning opportunities, and community outreach programs that help individuals:

• Understand the role of AI in the modern financial landscape
• Strengthen digital and economic decision-making skills
• Build pathways to entrepreneurship, workforce readiness, and wealth creation

This joint initiative is expected to mobilize mentors, educators, and volunteers across 100 Black Men of America, Inc.'s national network of chapters, amplifying impact at the local and national levels.

About 100 Black Men of America, Inc.

The 100 Black Men of America is the world's largest volunteer network of Black men focused on mentoring minority youth. The national organization began with nine chapters in 1986. The first chapter was founded in New York City in 1963. The 100 Black Men of America, Inc. is a national alliance of leading African American men in business, public affairs, and government. Their mission is to improve the quality of life for African Americans, with a specific focus on African American youth. Since its inception, the organization has grown to more than 5,000 members, with 102 chapters that impact more than 100,000 underserved and underrepresented minority youth every year. Visit www.100blackmen.org for more information on the programs and initiatives of 100 Black Men of America, Inc. and their global network of chapters.

About Operation HOPE, Inc.
Since 1992, Operation HOPE has been moving America from civil rights to "silver rights" with the mission of making free enterprise and capitalism work for the underserved—disrupting poverty for millions of low and moderate-income youth and adults across the nation. Through its community uplift model, HOPE Inside, which received the 2016 Innovator of the Year recognition by American Banker magazine, Operation HOPE has served more than 4 million individuals and directed more than $3.2 billion in economic activity into disenfranchised communities—turning check-cashing customers into banking customers, renters into homeowners, small business dreamers into small business owners, minimum wage workers into living wage consumers, and uncertain disaster victims into financially empowered disaster survivors. For more information: OperationHOPE.org. Follow the HOPE conversation on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.

Annual Founder’s Kwanzaa Message: Practicing the Seven Principles in Dimly-Lit Times

Practicing the Seven Principles in Dimly-Lit Times:

Lifting up the Light, Hurrying the Dawn

By Dr. Maulana Karenga

 

This year, as always, we wish for Africans everywhere throughout the world African community, “Heri za Kwanzaa. Happy Kwanzaa”. And we bring and send greetings of celebration, solidarity and continued struggle for an inclusive and shared good in the world. Moreover, we wish, especially for our people and all other oppressed and struggling peoples of the world, the shared and indivisible goods of freedom, justice and peace, achieved and enjoyed and passed on to future generations. Also, in the Kawaida Ma’atian harvest celebration tradition of our honored ancestors, we wish for African peoples and all the peoples of the world, all the good that heaven grants, the earth produces and the waters bring forth from their depths. Hotep. Ase. Heri.

This year’s Annual Kwanzaa Theme is: “Practicing the Seven Principles in Dimly-Lit Times: Lifting Up the Light, Hurrying the Dawn”. To speak of dimly-lit times is to talk of the thick fog of falsehood, fear, chaos, confusion and uncertainty that has emerged in this historical moment and settled heavily over the land. Indeed, it is to speak of the rise of authoritarian and antidemocratic governments and practices, and increased levels of mean spiritedness, human alienation from others and official and unofficial violence of varied kinds, including live-streamed genocide.

And it is to speak too of the dimming of the light and life of the heart and mind. That is to say, the cultivation of the narrow and uncritical mind and the constricted heart which embrace illusions as real life and have a diminished capacity to fight through the fog, to rightfully reason and consciously demonstrate moral sensitivity for others, especially those different and vulnerable. And to speak of hurrying the dawn is to stress Nana Dr. Martin King’s assertion that “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now”. And this calls, not for delay or indecision, but rather for immediate and sustained “vigorous and positive action.”

Yes, we are living and celebrating Kwanzaa this year again in difficult, dangerous, demanding and dimly-lit times. But as the sun sets, it also rises, drives away the shadows, dimness and darkness and lights up the world. And the best of our culture tells and teaches us that we must be the light that drives away the shadows, dimness and darkness and opens the way to the good world we all want and deserve. Indeed, the lessons of our history and our sense of our own humanity tell us we must defy the darkness and darkness makers that seek to dispirit and diminish us and demonstrate a radical refusal to be defeated or dispirited in any way. Following in the footsteps of our honored ancestors, we must, in the midst of the deepest darkness hanging over us, lift up the light and dare to hurry the dawn, only achieved in righteous and relentless struggle for an inclusive and shared good in the world.

Indeed, the sacred teachings of our ancestors tell us in the Husia that “it is wrong to walk upside down in darkness and we must come forth today and bring forth the Ma’at, (the light of truth, justice, righteousness and good) within us. For surely it is within us”. And this teaching of the light and good within us finds its voice and practice in every place and period of our history. Thus, Nana W.E.B. DuBois relates in the sacred narrative of our people, that even during the Holocaust of enslavement, in the darkest of days, nights and centuries, they “sang to sunshine”. They embraced and evidenced a radical refusal to be dispirited or defeated. Indeed, they became the sunshine they sang to each day, regardless of the weather and the evil and inhuman ways of their oppressors. They sensed and saw a great light lifted up within them and they lifted it up and called it freedom. They taught their children to remember, reimagine and cherish  freedom, and together they moved and marched irresistibly and irreversibly towards it.

And if we are to honor our tradition as a living, uplifting and liberating tradition, then we too must “sing to sunshine” irregardless. Indeed, we too must embody and be the sunshine that calls forth the day and hurries the dawn, a new dawn and day of inclusive freedom, justice and other shared human goods through our continuing and expanded work, our service and sacrifice and our righteous and relentless struggle.

Also clearly, during the Black Freedom Movement, our people dared to drive away the darkness and darkness makers and lift up the light. This is overwhelmingly evident in the life and struggle history of Nana Fannie Lou Hamer and her co-combatants in our liberation struggle. One of her favorite songs was “This Little Light of Mine”. And she sang to sunshine and for freedom, singing, “This little light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine. I’ve got the light of freedom. I’m gonna to let it shine. Everywhere I go”. This was a resilient and audacious defiance of the darkness and the darkness makers, singing and being sunshine in the midst of the darkness around them, and audaciously bearing witness to their steadfast faith, undiminishing hope and relentless resistance to evil, injustice and oppression.

And let us remember the teachings of Nana Haji Malcolm X who emphasized the importance of the light of self-knowledge, knowledge of ourselves and each other as we also study and learn the ways and wisdom of the world. He tells and teaches us, “We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity”, a unity we need to repair, renew and remake the world.

In the practice of Kwanzaa, in the candle lighting ceremony, then, we follow in the footsteps of our ancestors and we lift up the lasting light of the Nguzo Saba. Born in and out of the Black Freedom Movement, Kwanzaa stresses our ongoing struggle to be ourselves and free ourselves and achieve a shared African and human good and the well-being of the world and all in it. Therefore, in lighting each candle, we are committing to lifting up the light and hurrying the dawn by practicing the Nguzo Saba, as our freedom songs say, everywhere we are and everywhere we go and in liberating and uplifting ways. In this way, we honor the ancient African imperative to “bear witness to truth and set the scales of justice in their proper place, especially among the voiceless and vulnerable, the downtrodden, devalued and oppressed.

Our awesome task in the world changing assignment that Nana Dr. Mary Mcleod Bethune has given us “to remake the world” is to be a source of sunlight that gives the shared goodness of light, life and warmth in the world. And it calls for Umoja (Unity), the sacred togetherness of our people in the small and large circles of our lives, the solidarity of humanity and a profound sense of oneness with the world and all in it; Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), the right of every people to be free, control their destiny and daily lives and make their own unique contribution to history and humanity, whether in Haiti, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Palestine, and anywhere else in the world; and Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), our self-conscious shared efforts and obligation to conceive, build and sustain  the good world we all want and deserve to live in.

And the task calls for and requires Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), shared work and shared wealth based on kinship with and concern for the well-being of each other and the world, especially the most vulnerable and on our right to share equitably and responsibly in the natural and created good of the world; Nia (Purpose), the liberation and upliftment of our people and our shared fundamental meaning and mission of human life to create and increase good in the world and for the world and not let any good be lost; Kuumba (Creativity), our shared obligation to do all we can to constantly repair, renew and remake the world, making it more beautiful and beneficial than when we inherited it; and Imani (Faith), a shared belief and confidence in ourselves rooted in the sacred teachings of our honored ancestors Nanas Howard Thurman, Gwen Books and Nannie Burroughs that we are a people who “ride the storms and remain intact”, “conduct our blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind” and “specialize in the wholly impossible”.

Given this, what dark or dimly-lit times can truly dispirit us, what makers and demons of the dark can defeat us or divert us from our commitment if we continue the struggle, keep the faith and hold the line regardless and irreversibly?

Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University Long Beach; Executive Director, African American Cultural Center (Us); Creator of Kwanzaa; and author of Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture, The Message and Meaning of Kwanzaa: Bringing Good Into the World and Essays on Struggle: Position and Analysis, www.OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org; www.MaulanaKarenga.org. www.AfricanAmericanCulturalCenter-LA.org

Congressional Black Caucus Urges Federal Reserve to Address Rise in Black Unemployment

Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette D. Clarke (NY-09) and members of the Congressional Black Caucus issued the following statement about the concerning rise in Black unemployment rates across the country:

“Black workers across our country are once again bearing the brunt of an uncertain economy. In recent months, unemployment among Black workers has risen sharply under the economic conditions shaped by policies of the Trump Administration. In November, Black unemployment reached 8.3 percent—the highest level we have seen since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Behind this number are families struggling to make ends meet and communities facing unbearable economic hardship.

“The Congressional Black Caucus believes this moment demands urgent action. To better understand how the Federal Reserve is responding to this crisis, we request a briefing for Members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The Federal Reserve must step in to address this growing unemployment crisis and confront the deep-rooted inequities that continue to leave Black workers behind. Black workers earn about 20 percent less than white workers, a gap that has contributed to a stark racial wealth divide. Today, the median Black family holds just $24,520 in net worth, compared to $250,400 for the median white family. This inequality did not happen by accident and cannot be ignored.

“We are calling on the Federal Reserve to address the crisis impacting Black workers and to develop a clear strategy to reverse these trends and ensure that Black workers and families are not left behind.”