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Vice President Kamala Harris Announces Bid for Presidency; Win With Black Women Raises over $1.5M in 3 Hours

Vice President Kamala Harris Announces Bid for Presidency; Win With Black Women Raises over $1.5M in 3 Hours

By goodblacknews on July 22, 2024

After President Joe Biden‘s graceful exit yesterday morning from the race for re-election as the Democratic Presidential nominee, he quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his pick for the top of the ticket.

Yesterday evening, over 44,000 Black women and allies joined a Zoom hosted by winwithblackwomen.org founder and organizer Jotaka Eaddy and raised over $1.5 million for Harris’ newly-minted campaign to secure the nomination.

It took several tries for the majority of participants from all over the U.S. and overseas to join as the Zoom webinar was initially capped at 1,000. Eaddy and other #wwbw organizers made a point to thank Zoom COO Aparna Bawa for stepping in to increase the participant capacity from 1K to over 40K in real time as the overwhelming desire to join this word-of-mouth call to action quickly spread.

Speakers scheduled to appear were Rep. Joyce Beatty (OH), Rep. Jasmine Crockett (TX) and political strategist Donna Brazile. Others who spoke included former Spelman College President Dr. Johnnetta Cole, journalist and commentator Star Jones, author and influencer Luvvie Ajayi along with reps for HBCUS & the Divine Nine Black sororities and fraternities.

Appreciation for the accomplishments of President Biden during his term (e.g. the $35 price limit on insulin; Ketanji Jackson‘s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, protection and expansion of the Affordable Care Act) was voiced, along with forward-looking strategies for coalitions (Ana Navarro offered energetic support as a Latina ally), fundraising, and turning out the vote.

Within 3 hours #winwithblackwomen raised over $1.5M for the Presidential candidacy of @kamalaharris via a special link shared in the chat that tracked donations generated via this grassroots community.

Let’s go!

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson, GBN Editor-in-Chief
Kendrick Lamar’s pgLang and Global Citizen Partner to Establish 1st Major Touring Circuit Across African Continent

Kendrick Lamar’s pgLang and Global Citizen Partner to Establish 1st Major Touring Circuit Across African Continent

By goodblacknews on November 3, 2023

K Dot is making his mark on the world of music yet again.

According to Variety.com, Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free‘s company, pgLang, is teaming up with philanthropic organization Global Citizen to create a major music touring circuit across the continent of Africa.

The initiative’s kickoff event Move Afrika: Rwanda,  is slated to take place Dec. 6 with Lamar as the headliner.

Additionally, over the next five years, pgLang has committed to curating more “Move Africa” shows, with an expansion to producing shows in Rwanda’s neighboring countries by 2025.

To quote from Variety.com:

“Global Citizen has been operating on the continent since our very inception,” says Global Citizen co-founder and CEO Hugh Evans, whose organization is renowned for its all-star consciousness-raiser concerts. “We were honored to be there to celebrate Mandela’s 100th anniversary in 2018, alongside Beyonce and Jay Z and so many incredible artists.

The CEO noted that Lamar has a history with his org that goes back to first performing at a Global Citizen Festival back in 2016. “I sat down recently with Kendrick and the pgLang team, and whether it’s Kendrick, Dave Free, Anthony or their entire team, they all share this massive passion to see that touring across the entire continent would become as prolific as it has become across Latin America, across North America, across Europe, across Australasia and across so many other continents.

“pgLang are going to be involved in every aspect of this initiative. They’re going to be involved from a musical curation point of view, helping to determine which artists are involved following in Kendrick’s footsteps. But they’re also going to be involved creatively as well, thinking through the creative rollout of the campaigns over the years, the look and feel, and the global broadcast. They really have become partners in this endeavor. And personally, I can’t think of anyone better on the planet than Kendrick Lamar and pgLang to be the curator. Kendrick has spent so much time on the continent himself; he’s so passionate about it. So when they said that the first performance that he does on the continent will be with Move Afrika, it’s a huge honor for this initiative.”

“The most exciting thing, honestly, is the hunger I see from the artist community to achieve this dream. I don’t think this is Global Citizen’s dream per se; I think this is the world’s dream,” he says. “I think everyone has dreamed of doing this, and we’re just working to modestly try to create some scaffolding around it. In fact, probably not a week goes by when I don’t speak to an artist about their dream to do more across Africa.”

To learn more about Move Afrika, including how to obtain tickets for the December show, go to this Global Citizen page, or via text on WhatsApp at +250 790 008 555.

Apple Adds $25 Million to Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, Increasing Financial Commitment to over $200M since 2020

By goodblacknews on June 16, 2023

This week, Apple announced its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI), a long-term global effort to advance equity and expand opportunities for Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Indigenous communities, has more than doubled its initial financial commitment to total more than $200 million over the last three years.

Since launching REJI in June 2020, Apple has supported education, economic empowerment, and criminal justice reform work across the U.S., with recent expansion to Australia, the U.K., and Mexico.

Apple launched REJI at a pivotal moment in the U.S., as protests against racial injustice in the wake of the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor swept the nation.

“Building a more just and equitable world is urgent work that demands collaboration, commitment, and a common sense of purpose,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are proud to partner with many extraordinary organizations that are dedicated to addressing injustice and eliminating barriers to opportunity. And we’ll continue to lead with our values as we expand our efforts to create opportunities, lift up communities, and help build a better future for all.”

Apple has reported that REJI’s education grants have reached more than 160,000 learners through in-person courses and out-of-school offerings, while committing over $50 million to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) to support science, technology, engineering, arts, and math opportunities.

With a focus on economic empowerment, REJI funds financial institutions — including venture capital firms, Community Development Financial Institutions, and Minority Depository Institutions — that support Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Indigenous entrepreneurs and businesses.

As part of its expanding work, Apple also announced a new partnership with the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance (MBKA), a program of the Obama Foundation. Through this strategic partnership and funding, Apple aims to help close opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color by supporting training for community leaders and MBKA staff, expanding programming for boys and young men of color, and strengthening the MBKA network through targeted community impact microgrants. The program plans to train more than 500 leaders and engage over 50,000 youth across the U.S.

“Apple’s continued support of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance empowers the foundation to develop and implement new initiatives that create opportunities for our young people,” said Valerie Jarrett, the Obama Foundation’s CEO. “Together, we are building a more inclusive educational system that nurtures creativity, fosters innovation, and transforms the lives of boys and young men of color across the country. We are grateful for their partnership and look forward to our continued collective efforts to ensure all youth can reach their full potential.”

REJI’s criminal justice reform grants are reported to have supported providing legal services, safe housing, identification services, healthcare access, and other vital reentry services for more than 19,000 justice-impacted individuals.

To combat systemic racism, REJI and Apple have partnered with several community colleges — including the Los Angeles Community College District, Delgado Community College in New Orleans, and Houston Community College — to implement programs to help incarcerated and paroled individuals learn new skills, prevent recidivism, and create economic opportunity for parolees and probationers.

Apple has also made meaningful contributions to various nonprofit organizations that advance equity and justice, including the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Defy Ventures, Vera Institute of Justice, and The Last Mile.

To learn and read more about Apple’s Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, check out its REJI Impact Overview.

Learn about Brad Lomax, Black Panther and Disability Rights Activist Who Co-Lead the “504 Sit-In” (LISTEN)

Learn about Brad Lomax, Black Panther and Disability Rights Activist Who Co-Lead the “504 Sit-In” (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 28, 2022

[Photo credit: HolLynn D’Lil. Brad Lomax, center, next to activist Judy Heumann at a rally in 1977 at Lafayette Square in Washington.]

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today, GBN celebrates Brad Lomax, the Black Panther Party member and disability activist who helped lead the “504 Sit In” to demand the federal government provide accessibility in a federal buildings and institutions.

To read about Lomax, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:

[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, April 28th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

As a young adult, Black Panther Party member Brad Lomax was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. When he started using a wheelchair every day, Lomax began to notice an often unseen “ism” — ableism.

Public buildings and transit without ramps. Inaccessible schools, housing, and workplaces. Lomax joined the Center for Independent Living, the Bay Area group which successfully lobbied for curb cuts on street corners.

In 1977, Lomax helped lead a protest that became known as the “504 Sit-In” in the San Francisco Federal Building, where disabled activists took the federal government to task for not implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which required accessibility in all federal programs and institutions.

The protest lasted longer than any other sit in in United States history. The protestors were assisted by Lomax’s fellow Black Panthers, who delivered provisions to the activists daily.

After a month, the government finally began to implement Section 504 in all federal programs and institutions and this action helped pave the way for the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.

To learn more about Brad Lomax, the 504 sit in and the disability rights movement, read the 2020 New York Times feature article on Lomax from its Overlooked No More series, read The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation by Doris Fleischer and Frieda James from 2011, and watch the 2020 documentary Crip Camp, now on Netflix.

Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episodes full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

Remembering Activist Hazel M. Johnson, the “Mother of Environmental Justice,” on #EarthDay

Remembering Activist Hazel M. Johnson, the “Mother of Environmental Justice,” on #EarthDay

By goodblacknews on April 22, 2022

[Photo: Hazel M. Johnson via peopleforcommunityrecovery.org]

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today, GBN celebrates Hazel M. Johnson, the community activist who sought to clean up the “Toxic Doughnut” that encircled her community on the South Side of Chicago, and in the process became known as the “Mother of Environmental Justice.”

To read about Johnson, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:

[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Friday, April 22nd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Known as the “Mother of Environmental Justice,” Hazel M. Johnson did not choose the path that lead her to her title, but rather was called to it when her husband died of cancer in 1969 and her world was turned upside down.

Soon after his passing, the widowed mother of seven learned from a local TV program that people who lived on the South Side of Chicago had the highest cancer rates in the city. Hazel was determined to find out why.

Johnson discovered that chemical companies, refineries, and steel mills nearby were shooting toxins into the air and dumping industrial waste into the local river, which locals fished in, making Altgeld Gardens where she lived a perfect storm of air, water and land contamination which Johnson herself would later call the “Toxic Doughnut.”

She also found out that Altgeld Gardens had a toxic past that went even deeper.

Originally established as a federal housing project for World War II African American veterans, Altgeld Gardens was built atop land that had been an industrial sludge dump for the Pullman Motor Company from 1863 until the early 20th century.

Altgeld Gardens, it turned out, had the highest concentration of hazardous waste sites in the entire nation.

Hazel Johnson went door-to-door collecting data from friends and neighbors and started calling city and state health departments to investigate the industrial pollution in her community.

In 1982, she founded an organization called People for Community Recovery to fight environmental racism at the grassroots level.

PCR, made up mainly of mothers and local residents who were volunteers, pushed for city and state officials to do epidemiological studies of Altgeld Gardens because before Hazel started pushing and organizing, no legislative mandate existed to address how industrial pollution was affecting the quality of life for low-income and minority communities.

Hazel and PCR also worked to get rid of the toxins in their physical living spaces and put pressure on the Chicago Housing Authority to remove asbestos from Altgeld Gardens.

Johnson was equally instrumental in convincing city health officials to test the drinking water at Maryland Manor, a South Side neighborhood dependent on well water. Hazel convinced city and state officials to meet her in Altgeld Gardens and she took them on a “toxic tour” so they could see the problems first-hand.

After this tour, tests were conducted in 1984, which revealed cyanide and toxins in the water, and that lead to the installation of new water and sewer lines.

Born On This Day in 1973: Producer and Philanthropist Pharrell Williams (LISTEN)

Born On This Day in 1973: Producer and Philanthropist Pharrell Williams (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 5, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

As Pharrell Williams takes his 49th orbit around the sun today, GBN celebrates the music and contributions to the culture and community made by this prolific and inventive force of nature.

To read about him, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:

(You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website.) Full transcript below:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, April 5th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Born April 5, 1973 in Virginia Beach, VA, prolific music producer, composer and artist Pharrell Williams (“Drop It Like It’s Hot,” “Get Lucky,” “Hollaback Girl”) has also excelled as a fashion designer (Billionaire Boys Club, G Star Raw, Adidas) as a film and television producer (Dope, Hidden Figures, the Amazon Prime series Harlem) …and, importantly, as a philanthropist.

In 2019 Williams offered “A-List internships” to 114 college-bound high school students to help set them on their career paths.

More recently, Williams co-founded the Black Ambition Initiative to fund Black and Latinx entrepreneurs in tech, design, healthcare and consumer products and services start-ups. So, let’s wish a “Happy” birthday to this “Beautiful” Neptune on his 49th trip around the sun.

To learn more about Pharrell, read his books, Places and Spaces I’ve Been and Pharrell: A Fish Doesn’t Know It’s Wet, as well as his 2016 children’s board book Happy, check out the 2016 documentary Pharrell Williams: Happy Go Lucky on Amazon Prime Video or Free Movies on YouTube, Pharrell’s interview on The Breakfast Club, his 2019 conversation with Rick Rubin on GQ’s YouTube channel, or his 2021 appearance on PBS’s Finding Your Roots.You can also check out the 2020 Netflix series Voices of Fire, Pharrell’s interview with Mark Ronson on The FADER Uncovered podcast, and Pharrell’ own podcast, OTHERtone.

And, it goes without saying, stream or buy any and/or all of the innovative, industry-changing music he’s produced and performed over the decades.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

Excerpts from “Frontin’”, “Happy,” “Beautiful” and “Brand New” by Pharrell Williams permitted under fair use.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(amazon links are paid)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Quote from Journalist and Anti-Lynching Activist Ida B. Wells on Virtue and Respect (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Quote from Journalist and Anti-Lynching Activist Ida B. Wells on Virtue and Respect (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 8, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Tuesday, March 8 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 that features a quote from formidable journalist, anti-lynching and women’s rights activist Ida B. Wells Barnett:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, March 8th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Today we offer a quote from formidable journalist, anti-lynching and women’s rights activist Ida B. Wells Barnett, from her landmark 1895 book The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States. Here’s the quote:

“Virtue knows no color line, and the chivalry which depends upon complexion of skin and texture of hair can command no honest respect.”

In 2020, Wells received a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for journalism, and her face honored the centennial of the U.S. Suffragist Movement in a mosaic art installation in Washington D.C.’s Union Station. And in 2022, Mattel added a tribute doll of Wells to their Barbie Inspiring Women Series.

In her hometown of Holly Springs, Mississippi, the Ida B.Wells-Barnett Museum acts as a cultural center of African American history. Awards have been established in Wells’s name by the National Association of Black Journalists, the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and the New York County Lawyers Assn., among others.

Wells is a helluva historical figure who, even with recent documentaries and accolades, is still not known well enough. Her whole life is fascinating, and worth learning about extensively, and I shortly will point you to several resources. But if you don’t have time for it now, here is a great quote summing up Wells’ importance in the fight for equality and justice from the New York Times review of the 1999 biography on Wells. And here’s the quote:

“Linda O. McMurry‘s important new biography, To Keep the Waters Troubled, tells the story of an extraordinary American who would have been at the very summit of our national pantheon except for two things: her sex and her race. But then again, being born into a society that promised individual freedom and personal power — just not to blacks, not to women and above all not to black women — was the source of Ida B. Wells’s remarkable story.”

To learn more about Wells, read her pamphlet published in 1892 titled Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, 1895’s The Red Record, which covered Black people’s struggles in the South since the Civil War and explored the alarmingly high rates of lynchings in the U.S.

You can also check out her autobiography, Crusade for Justice which Wells started in 1928 but left unfinished when she died of kidney failure in 1931. Her youngest daughter, she worked for 40 years to get it into print. There are also the biographies Ida: A Sword Among Lions from 2009 by Paula J. Giddings, To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells by Linda O. McMurry from 2000 and To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells by Mia Bay from 2010, and there’s also a visual documentary by WTTW Chicago available on YouTube.

Links to these and other sources are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing. Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot. Additional music included and permitted under Public Domain license was “Gladiolus Rag” cmposed by Scott Joplin.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or
go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

 

GBN’s Daily Drop: Professor and Former Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver – Quote on Women Freedom Fighters (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Professor and Former Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver – Quote on Women Freedom Fighters (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 3, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Thursday, March 3 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 that features a quote from professor, author and former Black Panther Party member Kathleen Cleaver about the lineage of women freedom fighters in America:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, March 3rd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

It’s a quote from professor, author and former Black Panther Party member Kathleen Cleaver from her 1998 essay, “Women, Power and Revolution”:

“I think it is important to place the women who fought oppression as Black Panthers within the longer tradition of freedom fighters like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ida Wells-Barnett, who took on an entirely oppressive world and insisted that their race, their gender, and their humanity be respected all at the same time.”

To learn more about Kathleen Cleaver and to read more of her work, check out the 2001 book Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Panthers and Their Legacy, Cleaver’s personal papers that now reside at Emory University, where she was once a law professor, and links to other sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation Donates $15M to Black, POC, LGBTQ+ and Women-Led Nonprofits Focused on Environmental Justice

Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation Donates $15M to Black, POC, LGBTQ+ and Women-Led Nonprofits Focused on Environmental Justice

By goodblacknews on January 30, 2022

Music superstar and cosmetics entrepreneur Rihanna‘s Clara Lionel Foundation (CLF) recently committed $15 million to eighteen organizations working on climate change justice across the U.S. and Caribbean in partnership with #StartSmall, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey‘s philanthropic initiative.

The grants from the Barbados native’s foundation will support entities focused on and led by women, youth, Black, Indigenous, people of color and LGBTQIA+ communities.

Climate disasters, which are growing in frequency and intensity, do not impact all communities equally. Under-resourced countries, communities of color, and island nations are facing the brunt. To combat this inequity, funders like CLF are building partnerships with organizations, acknowledging their deep understanding of what is necessary to achieve climate justice in their own communities.

The announcement of this multi-million dollar donation comes barely two months after Rihanna was named a National Hero in Barbados. In the recent past, Ms. Fenty has donated $11 million to social justice organizations and gifted 4,000 tablets to youth in her native country to address the digital divide during the pandemic.

The entities supported by CLF’s latest philanthropic outlay are listed below:

Black Feminist Fund

Serving as the first global hub for Black feminist philanthropy and led by activists from across the African and Caribbean diaspora, the Black Feminist Fund (BFF) significantly increases the resources available to Black feminist movements globally, contributing to strengthening their sustainability and resilience and supporting Black women’s claim and access to resources, including land, food, water, shelter, work and income. 

Black Visions Collective

Black Visions Collective is a Black-led, Queer and Trans centering organization whose mission is to organize powerful, connected, Black communities and dismantle systems of violence. Black Visions Collective is led by the guiding belief that all Black people deserve autonomy, that safety is community-led, and we are in the right relationship within our ecosystems.

Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN)

CYEN is dedicated to improving the quality of life of Caribbean young people by facilitating their personal development and full involvement in environment and sustainable development. CYEN’s work spans addressing youth unemployment, enriching climate resiliency, water resource management, notably their “Stay Alive and Thrive” Climate Action campaign to raise public awareness about the urgent need to mitigate and adapt to climate change across the Caribbean and around the globe.

Lillian E. Benson, ACE, to Receive Career Achievement Award for Her Outstanding Contributions to Film Editing from American Cinema Editors (ACE)

Lillian E. Benson, ACE, to Receive Career Achievement Award for Her Outstanding Contributions to Film Editing from American Cinema Editors (ACE)

By goodblacknews on January 25, 2022

American Cinema Editors (ACE) announced today that film editor Lillian E. Benson, ACE the first woman of color invited to join ACE, will receive the institution’s Career Achievement Award for her outstanding contributions to film editing at the 72nd Annual ACE Eddie Awards on March 5.

Benson has been an integral part of the organization and its growth. She has served on its Board of Directors for over two decades and has been instrumental in helping ACE expand and diversify its reach.

An Emmy® nominee for the Peabody, Dupont and Emmy® Award-winning PBS documentary series “Eyes on the Prize,” which chronicled the civil rights movement from 1952-1985, Benson is currently editing the highly successful procedural “Chicago Med,” which she has been working on for six seasons.

Other notable documentary projects Benson has edited include “Beyond the Steps: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater,” “Motown 40: The Music is Forever,” “A Century of Living,” “Conscience and the Constitution,” “Smothered: The Censorship Struggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” “Craft in America” and “All Our Sons: Fallen Heroes of 9/11.”

In 2016 Benson edited “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise” about the American poet’s resiliency in life and her impact on America.

Other credits include “Greenleaf” for OWN, Debbie Allen’s “Old Settler,” and “Life is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story,” the Showtime series “Soul Food” and the feature film “All About You.”

Benson’s personal favorite in her rich career was editing “John Lewis: Get in the Way.” Benson said, “This documentary is the thing I love the most of anything I’ve ever done. I feel I was born to cut it. It was released a couple of years before he died and was the first documentary done about his life. I love Lewis because he was a warrior his entire life. He never wavered. He did what he could. He forgave people; people I couldn’t forgive. He always had the bigger picture in mind.”

Richard Chew, ACE (photo courtesy ACE)

Richard Chew, ACE will also be receiving the Career Achievement Award at the 2022 ceremony. Chew’s body of work includes“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Star Wars” (for which he won the Oscar® for Best Film Editing with his co-editors Marcia Lucas and Paul Hirsch, ACE), “Risky Business, “Mi Vida Loca, “Waiting to Exhale,” “Hope Floats,” “That Thing You Do!” and “Shanghai Noon.”

“Lillian and Richard are rock star editors and represent the very best of our craft and profession,” stated ACE president Kevin Tent, ACE. “Just look at those credits! Not only have they had incredibly prolific careers, but they’ve given back to our community in many ways, not the least of which by mentoring the next generation of editors. We are thrilled to honor these two special editors and look back at their amazing careers.”

About American Cinema Editors
American Cinema Editors (ACE) is an honorary society of motion picture editors founded in 1950.  Film editors are voted into membership on the basis of their professional achievements, their dedication to the education of others and their commitment to the craft of editing.

The objectives and purposes of the AMERICAN CINEMA EDITORS are to advance the art and science of the editing profession; to increase the entertainment value of motion pictures by attaining artistic preeminence and scientific achievement in the creative art of editing; to bring into close alliance those editors who desire to advance the prestige and dignity of the editing profession.