One of first African-American Marines celebrates 100th birthday

Lee Newby Jr. of Detroit, one of the first African-American Marines, was honored by state lawmakers during a celebration of his 100th birthday on Saturday.

The ceremony at the Detroit Marriott in the Renaissance Center was hosted by State Rep. Donavan McKinney, D-Detroit, and Joe Tate of Detroit, who became the first African-American elected Michigan's speaker of the House in November 2022.

Tate, a former National Football League player and Michigan State University offensive lineman, also served in the Marines.

“I can’t thank Mr. Newby enough for his service to our country. He is a true hero and trailblazer,” Tate said in a statement. “As a veteran of the Marine Corps myself, I am aware of the responsibilities he has carried and the sacrifices he has endured."

Newby, who resides in McKinney's district in Detroit, served during World War II. The first African-Americans joined the Marine Corps in 1942.

“This ceremony not only celebrates the life of a brave serviceman, but also truly honors Black Marines, their dedication through World War II and all their service to this country,” McKinney said in a statement.

[SOURCE: DETROIT NEWS]

NAACP Supports Lawmakers Now Reinstated to Tennessee House of Representatives

On Thursday, April 6, Tennessee State Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives for their participation in a demonstration in support of gun reform. Following widespread public outcry calling for the reappointment of the two young Black politicians, Rep. Jones was temporarily reinstated to his position on April 10th and Rep. Pearson was temporarily reinstated on April 12th. NAACP President & CEO, Derrick Johnson released this statement in response:

"This is America - where you receive more legislative 'action' for calling out the need for gun control than for actually addressing the loss of life as a result of gun violence. It is disappointing, but not surprising, to know that some lawmakers in Tennessee would rather spend precious time removing these brave young Black men from their duly elected positions than take a stance against inadequate gun policies. Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson have demonstrated incredible leadership and commitment to protecting their constituents and our democracy through their unwavering support of gun reform in the absence of action from their state-level peers and legislative colleagues at the federal level."

National Reparations Organization Requests Designation for the Descendants of Persons Enslaved in the United States

The National Assembly of American Slavery Descendants (NAASD) has formally requested that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) designate the classification “African American” exclusively for the "Descendants of Persons Enslaved in the United States". Since 2021, NAASD has met directly with Biden Administration officials on this issue since President Biden has made equitable data collection a priority with the signing of the Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. The OMB’s revised Statistical Policy Directive (SPD) 15 recommendation must conform to this Executive Order.

For the first time since 1997, the Office of Management and Budget is now accepting public comments on their initial proposal from the Federal Interagency Technical Working Group on Race and Ethnic Standards which was released in January 2023. The final proposal set to be unveiled by the end of this year, will revise the OMB’s Statistical Policy Directive which sets the “standards for maintaining, collecting and presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity”. The OMB’s current definition of Black or African-American is “a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa”. This current definition does not denote any specific ethnic group and does not reflect that a distinct ethnic group emerged from U.S. Slavery.

Because of the present flawed definition of Black/African-American, in addition to the growing diversity of the Black community, current data collection on our community is not accurately providing insight to the well being of African Americans.

California's AB3121 has set precedence with specificity for Descendants of Persons Enslaved in the United States. California Governor Gavin Newsom also signed into law SB189; Section 14 which disaggregates Black Americans and provides a category for data collection specifically for “African Americans who are descendants of persons enslaved in the United States.”

It is time for the OMB to follow suit. It is the recommendation of NAASD that the OMB’s revised SPD 15 definition of “African American” means: “a person having origins in the United States with ancestors historically classified as African, Negro, Black or Colored who were either born free or enslaved in the United States and emancipated nationally by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution”.

We urge the public to give public comment to the OMB and share this point of view through April 27, 2023 in support of our position here. If you need guidance, we have also prepared a toolkit to be shared with family, friends, and organizations within the African American Community. Now is the time for the largest Black population in the United States to unite for the disaggregation of data that will support accurate data collection and billions of dollars coming directly into our community.

The National Assembly of American Slavery Descendants was founded in 2019 to advance reparative policy and legislation for Black American Descendants of U. S. Chattel Slavery .

Congressional Black Caucus swears in its largest caucus ever

The Congressional Black Caucus of the 118th Congress was officially sworn in at a ceremony on Tuesday. The new class is the largest in CBC history.

Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) is replacing outgoing Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) as chairman.

Horsford said the new CBC will have the opportunity to advance the vision of the first CBC from 50 years ago — one that had only 13 members, including Rep. Shirley Chisholm (D-N.Y.) as the only woman.

“The laws and policies of our nation did not always favor Black Americans, from the earliest slaves brought across the ocean to the Black soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. To those who braved the earliest fights through Jim Crow & Reconstruction, from the Tuskegee Airmen and Henrietta Lacks to the brave front-line workers in the COVID pandemic,” Horsford said. “In the work we do, we honor our history, like the many Black members that served before there was even a Congressional Black Caucus.”

In total, 58 members — nine of them new members — were sworn in, including Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the first Gen Z member and the only Afro-Cuban in Congress, as well as Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.), the first Black woman elected to the House from Pennsylvania.

[SOURCE: THE HILL]

The Martin Luther King “We Won’t Go Back” March To Be Held In Newark

The People’s Organization For Progress is sponsoring The Martin Luther King “We Won’t Go Back” March that will be held on Martin Luther King's actual birthday, Sunday, January 15, 2023.

The organization will be marching to protest racism, sexism, facism, and war.

The march will begin at 2:00pm at the Martin Luther King Statue, 495 Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Newark, NJ.

For more information call POP at (973) 801-0001. Contact POP if your organization would like to co-sponsor this event. Please wear masks and practice social distancing.

The People's Organization for Progress works to empower communities and fight for their needs. P.O.P. confronts issues about equality, justice, poverty, racism, umemployment, affordable housing and education, violence(of any sort), etc., as well as local, national, and international issues.

African American Graduate Finishes College Education 50 Years After Starting

A University of Arkansas Little Rock history student is celebrating the completion of his lifelong dream of finishing his college education, a dream that is 50 years in the making.

By all measures, Ellis “Gene” Thompson of Little Rock has led a very successful life. He has a loving family and had a very successful career in media sales spanning more than four decades.

“After leaving KATV as the local sales manager here, I finished that career and was faced with what I want to do,” Thompson said. “Something that had always been nagging me was to get my degree. Life had taken that opportunity away from me earlier when I was in Washington, D.C.”

A native of Joliet, Illinois, Thompson joined the U.S. Navy and worked in an experimental surgery unit and then enrolled at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in 1973.

“There I really started to mature and find my sea legs, as you will,” he said. “The doctors were very supportive of me going to college. That is why I went to Georgetown, but I was married and had a child and work. I couldn’t sustain a decent lifestyle and go to Georgetown, which was very demanding.”

In 1975, Thompson left Georgetown with an associate degree and a strong desire to one day finish his college education. His career took him from Washington, D.C., to Chicago, to Dayton, Ohio, to Orlando and New York City. His final stop brought him to Little Rock in 2010 to work at KATV.

“I had a great run in TV, but I’m done,” Thompson said. “I had a deep love of history, and I got that while I was at Georgetown. One of my instructors was the department head, and I fell in love with history after taking her class. I decided to come to UA Little Rock as a history major.”

Thompson joined UA Little Rock in 2017 and graduated with his bachelor’s degree in history in 2019. He graduated this semester with a master’s degree in public history, which brings his journey to complete his college education to an end 50 years after he started.

“It’s something that I feel I should have done a long time ago,” he said. “It’s basically been unfinished business as far as my life is concerned. So, getting this degree is a culmination of a lifelong search for my own comfort with myself. It’s a culmination of something that I felt I should have done a long time ago and should have been determined earlier in my life. However, it feels just as good now. This is who I should have been all my life, a person with a master’s degree.”

One of his favorite experiences in graduate school was participating in a class taught by Dr. John Kirk, George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History, which examined the criminal cases of Robert Bell and Grady Swain, two African American teenagers who were convicted of the first-degree murder of Julius McCollum and sentenced to death. Bell and Swain confessed to the crime, but later said their confessions were forced. The class wrote a paper about the case that received the Lucille Westbrook Award from the Arkansas Historical Association for the best article manuscript on an aspect of local history.

“That class really grabbed me, and I learned so much about going through archives and dusty, old records,” he said.

Thompson wrote his thesis, “The Fight for Freedmen’s Minds in Arkansas,” about the development of educational programs for African Americans in the state in the 1860s and 1870s.

“Arkansas was one of the last states to develop a public primary and secondary school system for African American students,” Thompson wrote. “While education was for the most part privatized, an important philosophy for educating African Americans was developed early by the Free African Society and the AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church that influenced Arkansas public and private Freedman education.”

In the 1860s and 70s, there were millions of newly freed formerly enslaved people who needed an education with competing methods of how that should work. Samuel Armstrong, founder of the Hampton Institute, created an educational model called the Hampton-Tuskegee Model, which emphasized character building through manual labor and learning occupational skills. The AME church strongly contested the Hampton-Tuskegee Model.

“The AME church put forth the philosophy that they wanted Freedman taught in the classical manner, emphasizing subjects like English, literature, and algebra,” Thompson said. “They wanted to train a middle-class population with doctors, teachers, and lawyers. The Hampton model emphasized teaching people manual labor skills – how to be a blacksmith, how to sew. They taught young girls how to work in houses as maids. It was being put out there that this was necessary because industrialists needed a large workforce.”

Thompson dedicated his thesis to his mother, who was the daughter of an AME preacher and an inspiration for him to complete college.

“I also did this for my mom who always believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself,” Thompson said. “She used to sit in the kitchen with me to do my homework when I was a child. She instilled in me that desire to get it done, and that was one of the real drivers in writing my thesis.”

With graduation approaching, Thompson is thankful to history professors James Ross, Barclay Key, Jess Porter, Edward Anson, Carl Moneyhon, and Marta Cieslak for inspiring him to succeed.

“My experience here has been absolutely magnificent,” he said. “I can’t say enough good things about the history department and the professors. These people are first rate, and I know because I came from one of those fancy east schools. I had a very successful career, but this is something different that I needed to do and I’m so glad I did it. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that I would end up living in Arkansas and getting a master’s degree at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. I believe it’s a top-rate education.”

Connecticut Democrat Jahana Hayes wins reelection to US House seat in state's 5th Congressional District

The Associated Press projects that Democratic Rep. Jahana Hayes will win re-election in Connecticut's 5th Congressional District, defeating the GOP nominee George Logan in the state's tightest congressional race.

Hayes, the first Black woman to be elected to Congress from Connecticut, won her last two campaigns by double-digits in the district that extends along Connecticut's western border with New York.

Hayes said she was "tired but excited" on Wednesday night, adding she hadn't slept the night before and had endured a gruelling campaign. She knew the race would be close, but didn't think it would be this close, she said.

“I had to work twice as hard and really fight to hold this seat," she said during her press conference. "And at the end of the day, I think that was the message that resonated with the people of my community, that I’m one of them, that I'm going to continue to fight for them. And listen, a win is a win so I'm excited, I’ll take it.”

Austin Davis to be Pennsylvania’s first African American Lt. Governor

Austin Davis will be Pennsylvania’s first African American Lieutenant Governor after Josh Shapiro declared victory Tuesday night.

Davis, who was endorsed by gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro in the primary, received 63% support among the three-candidate primary race.

The son of a union bus driver and a hairdresser, Davis is in his third term in the state House of Representatives.

As outlined by his campaign website, Davis serves as chair of the Allegheny County House Democratic Delegation and vice-chair of the House Democratic Policy Committee, as well as serving on the House Appropriations Committee, House Consumer Affairs Committee, House Insurance Committee, and House Transportation Committee. Plus, he is also a member of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, Climate Caucus, and PA SAFE Caucus.

Davis and his wife reside in McKeesport where Davis began his career. In high school Davis founded and served as chairman of McKeesport Mayor Jim Brewster’s Youth Advisory Council. After graduation from the University of Pittsburgh, Davis joined the Allegheny County Executive’s office and ran for the State House in 2018.

Davis will be sworn in as Lieutenant Governor on January 17, 2023, and a special election will be called to fill his seat in the State House.

Democrat Emilia Sykes wins Ohio 13th district congressional race

Democratic Ohio Rep. Emilia Sykes of Akron on Tuesday defeated Republican North Canton attorney Madison Gesiotto Gilbert in a newly reconfigured congressional district that includes all of Summit County, a sliver of Portage County, and northern Stark County.

Unofficial results from the Ohio Secretary of State’s office showed Sykes with 146,621 votes, compared to 132,181 for Gesiotto Gilbert. The Associated Press called the race for Sykes at 1:54 a.m. on Wednesday, hours after statements began rolling in to tout a Sykes victory.

Pack your bags, #OH13… We’re going to Congress!!! pic.twitter.com/uCUBpD3Tdx

— Emilia Sykes (@EmiliaSykesOH) November 9, 2022

Anthony Brown becomes Maryland's first Black attorney general

Anthony Brown, an outgoing three-term congressman and former two-term lieutenant governor, made history in 2022 by becoming Maryland's first African American attorney general when he defeated former Anne Arundel County Councilman Michael Peroutka.

With early voting, mail-in ballots and more than 90% of precincts reporting, Brown had almost 60% of the vote — a lead of more than 285,000 votes.

A Republican has not been elected attorney general in Maryland since 1919. Edward D.E. Rollins was the last Republican to serve in the office, after being appointed to it in 1952.

New Book: The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century

One of our preeminent historians of race and democracy argues that the period since 2008 has marked nothing less than America’s Third Reconstruction.

In The Third Reconstruction, distinguished historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a powerful and personal new interpretation of recent history. The racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020, he argues, marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new struggle for citizenship and dignity for Black Americans, just as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the civil rights era. Joseph draws revealing connections and insights across centuries as he traces this Third Reconstruction from the election of Barack Obama to the rise of Black Lives Matter to the failed assault on the Capitol.

America’s first and second Reconstructions fell tragically short of their grand aims. Our Third Reconstruction offers a new chance to achieve Black dignity and citizenship at last—an opportunity to choose hope over fear.

BUY THE BOOK

Hardcover ******* Kindle Edition

Barack Obama endorses Cherri Beasley in North Carolina Senate race

In a video shared on Twitter former President Obama endorsed Democrat Cheri Beasley in North Carolina’s Senate race.

Watch the video below:

“Cheri works hard. She’s honest. And most importantly, she always puts the people first… This is going to be a close race, and we can’t afford to get it wrong.”

I’m honored to receive @BarackObama’s endorsement for U.S. Senate. Let’s do this. pic.twitter.com/CJ6hxrAZVj

— Cheri Beasley (@CheriBeasleyNC) October 25, 2022

Gladys E. Blount : Member of All-Black, All-Female WWII Unit Honored by NJ Hometown

A 100-year-old veteran of the country's only all-Black, all-female WWII unit was honored in her New Jersey hometown with a street-naming ceremony to recognize all her contributions.

Friends and family of Gladys E. Blount gathered in East Orange on Wednesday — 80 years after she left her home to help serve her country.

Raymond K. Boseman’s new book “Things Black People Aren't Taught” a tool to help Black Americans financially prepare for retirement

Raymond K. Boseman, a US army veteran with over three decades worth of service and a bachelor’s degree in business with an associate degree in criminal justice, has completed his new book “Things Black People Aren't Taught”: an eye-opening look at the world of financial planning and investing for Black Americans who have not been taught how to do so.

“As we grow up as Afro Americans, we are taught to go to school, work hard, get a degree, then get a good job, and put your money in the bank,” writes Boseman. “Well, that is fine, but most twenty-one-year-olds don’t even know the rate of inflation. They cannot understand how interest is compounded daily on a vehicle loan, or that an income tax refund is their own money that has been invested then given back to them after the government has used it all year and refunded it back at 0 percent interest.

“This is the reason I felt this book needed to be written for all people, no matter your age bracket, no matter your race or sex or who may not have learned the basics of investing, not living beyond their means, or just have maybe had unfortunate life situations happen to them. I heard this once, and it stuck. (You will get punched in the face during your life; it’s how you handle it is what matters.) You can sit there and take the hard life jab, or you can roll with the punches. I have also heard that when you get knocked down, you want to fall face up so you can get back up.”

Published by Page Publishing, Raymond K. Boseman’s informative guide demystifies the world of investing and takes the confusion out of understanding how to use one’s money to generate more capital. Through his well-paced and thorough advice, Boseman shows how to network and work with what one has access to move up in the world and create a better life for oneself despite the failures and temporary setbacks that might lie in wait along the way.

Readers who wish to experience this informative work can purchase “Things Black People Aren't Taught” at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes Store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.

CHECK OUT THE BOOK ON AMAZON

Joseph C. Phillips Joins Clark Atlanta University’s Faculty

Clark Atlanta University (CAU) has announced that actor, author, columnist, commentator, and sought-after speaker Joseph C. Phillips has joined the University as a professor in Theatre and Communication Studies.

Phillips-Headshot.jpg“Joseph brings a wealth of awe-inspiring talent, meaningful engagement in the community, and a portfolio of informed, decisive commentary to the University,” said President Dr. George T. French Jr. “We anticipate that he will inspire independent thinking, civic responsibility, and a passion for interdisciplinary learning in our students—which aligns perfectly with our mantra to “lift our community by lifting our voices.”

Phillips received the BFA in acting in 1983 from the acting conservatory at New York University after transferring from the University of the Pacific as a communications major. He has served as a fellow at the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian College; the Abraham Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute; and the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas, where he designed, wrote the curriculum, and taught a seven-week course titled “Black Conservatism in America.”

A prolific actor perhaps best known for his role as Lt. Martin Kendall (the husband of Lisa Bonet’s character) on the hit series “The Cosby Show,” Phillips played Col. Greg Davis in four seasons of the Netflix award-winning series “13 Reasons Why,” which concluded in 2020. He is a three-time NAACP Image Award nominee for his portrayal of Attorney Justus Ward on “General Hospital” and has had guest starring roles on several television dramas, including “How to Get Away with Murder,” “NCIS” and “Good Trouble.”

His feature film credits include starring roles in “Strictly Business,” “Let’s Talk About Sex,” and “Midnight Blue.” Among his theatrical credits are starring roles in the Broadway production of “Six Degrees of Separation” and the Kennedy Center and American Playhouse productions of “A Raisin in the Sun.” He created the title role in “Dreaming Emmett,” Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison’s only theatrical play.

Phillips is the author of “He Talk Like a White Boy” and for eight years, wrote a widely syndicated weekly column titled “The Way I See It” that promoted conservative views such as traditional family, limited government, and a return to America's founding principles. He was also a regular commentator for NPR and American Urban Radio Network.

For ten years, he served as a director on the State Board of the California African American Museum, where he chaired the accessions committee, which was responsible for approving all art or artifacts for the museum’s collection.

On Phillips’s extensive roster of civic engagements are his work as a motivational speaker with the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s “VIDA” program designed to redirect the lives of at-risk youth; the Special Olympics, and The Green Chimneys Foundation, of which he was an advisory board member; The Red Cross; Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles; the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America; the San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission; and Project Alpha, a partnership of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., and the March of Dimes designed to address teenage pregnancy, sexual and physical abuse, and sexually transmitted disease.

The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research Announces its Tenth Class of W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellows

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, has announced the 2022-2023 class of fellows.

“We are happy to welcome our next cohort of distinguished and dynamic W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellows,” says Gates. “We look forward to an extraordinary range of artistic and scholarly work next academic year. A poetry collection, a musical, a transnational history of the Seminoles, belonging and justice in Caribbean visual and literary cultures, an album on Hiphop as an educational tool, a study of the slave market of colonial Guadalajara, artistic representations of Black grief, amateur ministrelsy, and the 1866 cholera epidemic and origin of public health as a field are among the innovative projects which the 2022-2023 Class of Fellows will be pursuing at the W. E. B Du Bois Research Institute, housed in the Hutchins Center.”

The twenty-three 2022-2023 W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellows and their projects are as follows:

• Aabid Allibhai is a Doctoral Candidate in African & African American Studies at Harvard University. In residence as a Dorothy Porter & Charles Harris Wesley Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Allibhai will be at work on the dissertation Belinda Sutton’s World: Slavery, Legal Activism, and Abolition in Revolutionary New England.

• David Augustine is a Hiphop Artist in New Orleans, Louisiana. In residence as a Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Augustine will be at work on the album Hip Hop Saved My Life – Examining Hip Hop as a Teaching Tool Inside the Black Community.

• Rhae Lynn Barnes is Assistant Professor of American Cultural History at Princeton University. In residence as a Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Barnes will be at work on the book Darkology: When the American Dream Wore Blackface, about amateur blackface in the U.S., and Fugitive Sounds, a digital database of the descriptions of voices and music of enslaved and self-emancipated Americans recorded for use by blackface performers.

• Celeste-Marie Bernier is Professor in American Cultural History and Atlantic Studies at the University of Edinburgh. In residence as a Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow for the Spring 2023 semester, Bernier will be at work on the book “Why not we endure hardship that our race may be free? The Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass Family Papers and Douglass Family Lives: The Biography.

• David Bindman is the Emeritus Durning-LawrenceProfessor of the History of Art at University College London.  In residence as the Image of the Black Archive & Library Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Bindman will be at work on the volumes The Image of the Black in Latin America and Caribbean Art and The Image of the European in African Art.

• Kimberly Juanita Brown is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. In residence as the Richard D. Cohen Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Brown will be at work on Black Elegies, a book-length study of artistic representations of Black grief within and beyond the genre of poetry.

• Panashe Chigumadzi is a Doctoral Candidate in African & African American Studies at Harvard University.  In residence as a Dorothy Porter & Charles Harris Wesley Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Chigumadzi will be at work on the dissertation The Israelites and the Ethiopians: Dylann Roof, the AME Church and the Transatlantic Apartheid.

• John J. Clegg is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Economic History at Lund University. In residence as a Hutchins Family Fellow for the Fall 2022 semester, Clegg will be at work on the book From Plantation to Prison, co-authored with Adaner Usmani, which situates American mass incarceration in comparative and historical contexts. 

• Jorge Delgadillo Núñez is a Chancellor’s Advance Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Irvine.  In residence as a SlaveVoyages Postdoctoral Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Delgadillo will contribute information on the slave market of colonial Guadalajara to the Slave Voyages Database and be at work on a study of the internal slave trade in the Spanish Empire.

• Jim Downs is the Gilder Lehrman-National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Civil War Era Studies and History at Gettysburg College. In residence as a Shelia Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Downs will be at work on a history of the field of public health and the 1866 cholera epidemic, Deadly Water: A New Origin of Story of Public Health.

• Reighan Gillam is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. In residence as a Mark Claster Mamolen Fellow for the Fall 2022 semester, Gillam will be at work on the book Diasporic Agency: Transnational Racial Leverage and Challenges to Exceptionalism which examines Afro-Brazilian engagement with African American culture, performance, and community.

• Mandy Izadi is a Broadbent Junior Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute & St. Edmund Hall at the University of Oxford. In residence as a Hutchins Family Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Izadi will be at work on the book Born of War: Seminoles and the Making of America, a transnational history of the Seminoles from the mid-18th century to the 21st century.

• Nancy Jacobs is Professor of History at Brown University. In residence as a Hutchins Family Fellow for the Spring 2023 semester, Jacobs will be at work on The Global Grey Parrot, a book-length study at the nexus of African, environmental, economic, and Animal-Human histories.  

• Rashauna R. Johnson is Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago. In residence as a Hutchins Family Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Johnson will be at work on the book Strange Roots: Black Intimacies in the Global Plantation South, which weaves together family and regional stories to reveal a history of global assemblage in the rural plantation South.

• Stevie Johnson is a Hiphop artist and scholar. In residence as a Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow for the Spring 2023 semester, Johnson will be at work on Little Africa on Fire, Still, a scholarly and personal study which situates the album Fire in Little Africa as an intervention in post-Civil Rights Black identity and discourse around the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

• Tamary Kudita is a fine art photographer. In residence as a J. M. D. Manyika Fellow for Spring 2023, Kudita will be at work on the project Locating the Self Within the Black Photographic Archive Whilst Mapping the Postcolonial Terrain Across Different Geographies.

• Shirley Moody-Turner is Associate Professor of English and African American Studies, Penn State University. In residence as a Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow for the Spring 2023 semester, Moody-Turner will be at work on the book “Courageous Revolt”: Anna Julia Cooper, An Interpretive Biography.

• Jeffrey Murray is Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Cape Town. In residence as a Mandela Fellow for the Fall 2022 semester, Murray will be at work on a history of classical scholarship and education in Natal, Classics in Natal, 1843-2000.

• Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a writer, editor, and Royal Literary Fund Fellow at University West London, Brentford. In residence as a Hutchins Family Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Parkes will be at work on a new approach to African and Diaspora studies called The Remainder Project. His primary output will be a collection of poems entitled s(ang'st)ill.

• Antonia Gabriela Pereira is a Coordinator at "Biblioteca e Centro Cultural Preto Casa Futuro," Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In residence as a Mark Claster Mamolen Fellow for the Spring 2023 semester, Pereira will be at work on the book Being Strong in Black Diaspora: Black Women's Bodies, Racial Violence, and Community Activism of Black Fighter Boxer Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean.

• Faith Smith is Associate Professor of African and African American Studies, and English, Brandeis University. In residence as a Hutchins Family Fellow for the Fall 2022 semester, Smith will be at work on DreadKin, a book-length study of literary and visual cultures that map belonging and justice in the context of the Caribbean’s complex experiences with sovereignty in the global present.

• K’Naan Warsame is a poet, writer, and musician. In residence as a Nasir Jones Hiphop  Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Warsame will be at work on the musical The Storyteller and the novel Frog Legs.

• Paul Tiyambe Zeleza is Associate Provost and North Star Distinguished Professor at Case Western Reserve University. In residence as a W. E. B. Du Bois Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year, Zeleza will be at work on the book The Long Transition to the 21st Century: A Global History of the Present and the memoir Navigating the Ivory Tower: A Transatlantic Memoir.

HHS Awards $3 Million for Initiative to Promote Black Youth Mental Health

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Minority Health (OMH) announced more than $3 million in grants to eight organizations for a new initiative to demonstrate policy effectiveness to promote Black youth mental health (BYMH). This three-year initiative will help identify health and wellness policies that are successful in improving BYMH, including suicide prevention.

“Over the past decade, Black children under age 13 years are twice as likely to die by suicide compared to their White peers,” said RDML Felicia Collins, M.D., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health. “With this new initiative, we intend to identify specific policies that exhibit a meaningful impact on mental health for Black youth and to spread the word about these effective policy efforts.”

Awardees are expected to use a policy assessment framework to identify existing policies that they expect to promote mental health in Black youth.  Awardees subsequently will test the impact of these policies on Black youth mental health in varied settings, such as schools, faith-based organizations, community centers, health centers, or other community agency settings.

In October 2020, HHS released a report to Congress on African American Youth Suicide. The report analyzed National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) data between 2014–2017, to examine the risk and precipitating factors in non-Hispanic Black children and non-Hispanic White children aged 10 to 17, who died by suicide. The report also examined youth suicide demographics and epidemiology, risk factors associated with higher suicide rates among Black compared to White youth, and evidence-based interventions to prevent youth suicide ideation and behavior.

The eight new BYMH awardees will conduct their projects across eight states, including Arizona, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, and Rhode Island. The project period for the Demonstrating Policy Effectiveness to Promote Black Youth Mental Health initiative begins on September 30, 2022.

The awardees are:

Award Recipient	Award Amount
The Alcohol, Drug Addiction, and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS) Board for Montgomery County	$400,000
The Amelia Ann Adams Whole Life Center	$350,201
Arizona Board of Regents, University of Arizona	$350,000
Board of Regents, Nevada System of Higher Education, on behalf of The University of Nevada, Reno	$350,000
Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies	$400,000
Minnesota Department of Health	$400,000
Morehouse School of Medicine, Inc.	$399,799
Rhode Island Department of Health	$350,000
Total:	$3,000,000

For more information about OMH, visit www.minorityhealth.hhs.gov.

The HHS Office of Minority Health (OMH) is dedicated to improving the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that will help eliminate health disparities. Through its demonstration projects, OMH supports the identification of effective approaches for improving health outcomes with the goal of promoting the dissemination and sustainability of these approaches.

Help make The Woman King a boxoffice success this weekend!

By George L. Cook III African American Reports

The Woman King starring Viola Davis opens this Friday and is expected to open #1 at the box office, but only with a $15 million opening per Variety.

That is simply not good enough if we wish to see different African American or Black stories told on the big screen. Black people, we need to show up at the theater this weekend and support this movie!

I read all the time on social media how many in the Black community love Viola Davis. I read how great of an actor many believe she is. I read how everyone is proud and supports her work to support women and Black people in the entertainment industry.

 I read how many African Americans are tired of comedies and "gangsta" movies featuring a majority Black cast. I read how you want to see different stories featuring Black people! I read how you would love to support different and something that was a quality motion picture.

If all of that is true then those same people who love Viola Davis on social media should show up to the movie theater this weekend and help The Woman King gross over $25 million.

Don't just show up because the cast is majority Black (although if that's your reason I ain't mad at you), show up because the reviews are excellent and The woman King currently holds a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Go see it because many reviews say that it's a rousing action adventure.

Most importantly go see it if you truly want to see different Black stories told!

Support The Woman King!

Coco Gauff advances to U.S. Open quarterfinals for 1st time

Coco Gauff reached the quarter-finals of the US Open for the first time on Sunday with a 7-5, 7-5 victory over China's Zhang Shuai.

The 18-year-old 12th seed from Atlanta advanced to a last eight meeting with France's Caroline Garcia after prevailing in 1hr 57minutes.

Prior to this season, Gauff had never gone further than the third round at the US Open.

In the last eight she will face one of the most in-form players in the draw in 28-year-old Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia.

Coco ➡️ #USOpen Quarterfinals pic.twitter.com/dt79TzYLSI

— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 4, 2022

Nala Diop Thomas Is Missing

BRONX NY - Nala Diop Thomas is missing.

It was reported to police that the missing was last seen on Saturday, August 13, 2022, at approximately 1100 hours, leaving her residence.

The missing is described as a 15-year-old female, Black, approximately 5’05” tall, weighing 120 lbs., with dark skin complexion, brown eyes and black hair.

She was last seen wearing a black shirt, black shorts and a black hat.

Anyone with information related to this incident is asked to call the NYPD‘s Crime Stoppers hotline at 1–800–577–TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1–888–57–PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers‘ website or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577.