The unemployment rate for black Americans fell below 10 percent in April, for the first time since the economic downfall in 2008.
During the recession, black unemployment had peaked at 16.8 percent in March 2010, while unemployment for whites was almost half that rate. This past April, the unemployment rate for African Americans dipped into the single digits category at 9.6 percent. While the latest data shows signs of improvement, it’s clear that an employment gap still exist between races. Despite the national unemployment rate falling to 5.4 percent, blacks in states like Illinois, Michigan, California and Pennsylvania face unemployment rates above 12 percent.
[Related: U.S. Applications for Unemployment Aid Hit 15-Year Low]
While some reports view education as the reason for the employment gap, data shows that 12.4 percent of black college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 faced unemployment in 2013 whereas the national unemployment rate for college graduates in the same age range was 5.6 percent. The median weekly paycheck for a white college graduate last year was $1,132, versus $895 for a black college graduate.
With factors such as discrimination and workplace bias coming into play when considering the road to employment for blacks, the latest unemployment numbers are not only signs of progression but also proof that more work needs to be done.
article by Courtney Connley via blackenterprise.com
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To all the mothers, grandmothers, daughters and sons – may you have a wonderful day celebrating or being celebrated as the most important women in our lives. It may not always be easy, but it’s always worth it. Happy Mother’s Day!
In its fifth year, Strong Families, an organization dedicated to supporting families that may not fall within traditional definitions, is offering free e-cards for Mother’s Day via mamasday.org. As the website states:
We know that mamahood is not one size fits all. But most popular images of mothers exclude mamas based on their sexual orientation, race, income, immigration status and more. And Mothers Day, one of the biggest commercial holidays in the United States, often reinforces traditional ideas of family and motherhood that there’s only one way to be a family.
Each year, Strong Families commissions artists to create original art that reflects the various ways mamas and families look. The result is a collection of beautiful and unique cards that better reflect the families that exist in the 21st century.
Click the link above or here to send one!
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)
If violations are found, the investigation will result in a “court-enforceable agreement” to change the practices of the Baltimore Police Department.
Attorneys and investigators with the Justice Department’s civil rights division will meet with Baltimore law enforcement officials and community members in the coming days and weeks, Lynch said.
Lynch said the protests in Baltimore in recent weeks revealed that the trust between the community and Baltimore police officers “is even worse and has been severed” and said she hopes the investigation can lead to reforms to “create a stronger, a safer and a more unified city.”
She also emphasized that the turmoil in Baltimore — from Gray’s death in police custody to the ensuing protests and rioting — should not define the city.
“Earlier this week I visited with members of the community who took to the streets in the days following the unrest to pick up trash to clear the debris and they are Baltimore,” Lynch said, adding that youth leaders and tireless police officers focused on protecting the community “they too are Baltimore.”
Four NYPD parole officers have filed a civil lawsuit against the Ramapo Police Department after claiming they were racially profiled during a recent traffic stop, CNN reports. The officers were stopped on April 21 while attempting to carry out an arrest warrant and wearing their badges, bulletproof vests, and a placard on their truck’s dashboard.
The force claims they received a 911 call about “four big people” with “bulletproof vests on” riding in an unmarked car. According to CNN:
Mario Alexandre and his colleagues — Sheila Penister, Annette Thomas-Prince and Samuel Washington — are all black New York State Parole officers. The parole officers have filed a civil lawsuit, alleging that they were racially profiled by the white officers and that their detainment was unnecessarily malicious and reckless.
In addition to being punched by a lieutenant, Alexandre says he showed his badge but was ignored by the rest of the officers.
Penister said that when she attempted to show her New York State ID to a police sergeant, he “became enraged and approached her in a threatening manner with his hand held on the butt of his gun,” court documents state. When all parole officers were identified, they allege they were still forcibly detained and not permitted to leave.
Penister later told reporters she still suffers anxiety towards other officers. All of the parole officers have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Ramapo Town Assistant Attorney Dennis Lynch says the police officers acted accordingly.
Lynch said called the actions of the police officers “reasonable under the circumstances” and that the “parole officers had not notified the town that they would be in town.”
The officers have not been placed on suspension, despite demands from the victims.
article by Desire Thompson via newsone.com
A Michigan senior is going to spend one of high school’s most important nights doing something special for, and with, his mother.
One afternoon last month, Belinda Hunt-Smith asked her 18-year-old son Danotiss Smith — whom she lovingly calls Stump, a nickname his great-grandfather gave him two days after he was born — about who he was taking to prom.
Unexpectedly, Stump told his mom he didn’t want to take anyone but her.
“He explained it to me like, ‘You’re always there, you do everything for me. I want you to go,” Hunt-Smith, who lives in Pontiac, told The Huffington Post. “For him to want to share that moment with me… I’m at a loss for words.”
The invitation was particularly meaningful to Hunt-Smith because, as her son knew, she didn’t go to her own prom. She turned down several dates because she couldn’t afford to buy a dress or get her hair done.
“It tore me up inside, because I really wanted to go. I think I cried every night up until prom,” Hunt-Smith said. She told classmates who asked why she wasn’t there that she hadn’t wanted to attend.
“I didn’t want people to know that I was in a bad situation,” she explained. “I [told myself] ‘If I ever have kids I’ll make sure they can go.'”
When Hunt-Smith was 11, her mom died of leukemia. Her dad decided he couldn’t take care of her and her siblings two years later, she said, and she moved in with her grandmother and helped raise her two younger brothers. She felt like she was on her own in life.
“It didn’t change my way of thinking, because I wanted to make my momma proud of me,” Hunt-Smith said. “She told me before she died, ‘You are my strongest kid.’ And I never understood it until now, but everything I went through, I came out of.”
Hunt-Smith is now filled with pride for her own son. She fondly remembers when he was a 4-year-old water boy for her older son’s third grade baseball team and ended up filling in as third baseman. “Do you know, my baby got on that base, and not one ball got past him?” she gushed.
Stump eventually switched to football and track. Next year he will go off to college in Iowa. But first, he and his mom will spend Friday evening at the Waterford Kettering High School prom — watch Hunt-Smith show off her dress and teach her son to dance in a video from Click on Detroit by clicking here.
“This is the best Mother’s Day gift I ever could have wanted,” she said.
article by Kate Abbey-Lambertz via huffingtonpost.com
Sam’s Club and the Sam’s Club Giving Program recently announced the Small Business Economic Mobility Initiative, a five-year, multimillion-dollar philanthropic investment in small business growth through increased access to affordable capital and better borrower education. The first round of grants totaling $13.6 million went to eight national nonprofit organizations that provide access to capital and education to underserved U.S. small businesses including women, minorities and veterans. The announcement was made in celebration of National Small Business Week (May 4-8).
”Our founder Sam Walton started Sam’s Club to help small businesses get access to big business savings, save money and grow their businesses as a result,” Rosalind Brewer, president and CEO of Sam’s Club, said in a released statement. “Through this philanthropic investment, our founders’ legacy is carried forward by fortifying our communities’ lending resources to increase access to capital and borrower education for small business owners. In collaboration with dedicated nonprofits, we are proud to open doors for small business and strengthen the backbone of the U.S. economy.”
Through 2019, Sam’s Club’s Small Business Economic Mobility initiative aims to enable nonprofit Community Development Financial Institutions to make 5,000 loans to underserved small businesses with focus on women, minority and veteran-owned businesses with fewer than 20 employees; unlock $100 million in new capital from non-bank, community lending resources to low- and moderate-income small business owners; support 28,000 jobs in the small business community; and, reach one million underserved small business owners with education on responsible lending and better borrower practices.
Sam’s Club launched the philanthropic initiative to respond to the national struggle for small business owners in low-to-moderate income communities to attain affordable loans and navigate the lending process. By bringing together expertise, business initiatives such as the recently announced Business Lending Center and philanthropic investments, Sam’s Club and Sam’s Club Giving Program are uniquely positioned to help small business owners access affordable capital.
Across the country, small businesses and entrepreneurs report that access to capital is a major barrier to growth. According to The State of Small Business Lending report published by Harvard Business School fellow and former SBA Administrator Karen Mills, the share of small business loans provided by banks 20 years ago was about 50%, compared to only 30% in 2012. Specifically, minority owned businesses typically encounter higher borrowing costs, receive smaller loans and see their loan applications rejected more often by banks, according to a Minority Entrepreneurship Report published by UC-Berkeley and Wayne State University.
article by Carolyn M. Brown via blackenterprise.com
A protest song was not enough.
Days after announcing his song “Baltimore,” a tribute to Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old who suffered a fatal spinal-cord injury while in police custody, Prince has announced a surprise “Rally 4 Peace” concert in Baltimore. It will be held Sunday at Royal Farms Arena.
“In a spirit of healing, the event is meant to be a catalyst for pause and reflection following the outpouring of violence that has gripped Baltimore and areas throughout the U.S.,” Live Nation, the concert promoter, said in a statement. “As a symbolic message of our shared humanity and love for one another, attendees are invited to wear something gray in tribute to all those recently lost in the violence.”
Tickets go on sale today at 5 p.m. EST at LiveNation.com. Part of the proceeds will benefit Baltimore youth charities, organizers said.
While “Baltimore” has yet to be released — Prince said he was considering streaming the track on Jay Z’s Tidal service — its lyrics were made available online. The song begins:
Nobody got in nobody’s way
So I guess you could say
It was a good day
At least a little better than the day in Baltimore
Does anybody hear us pray?
For Michael Brown or Freddie Gray
Peace is more than the absence of war
Absence of war
article by Joe Coscarelli via nytimes.com
In just 36 hours, following shocking television images of youths rioting in the streets, the Baltimore chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has received the largest surge in mentor applicants in the organization’s history — a whopping 3,000 percent increase.
That spike in interest is unprecedented, President and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Chesapeake Terry Hickey told NBC News.
“To have people reach out and say, ‘I want to make a commitment for the next year of my life spending every week with a young man or woman,’ is blowing my mind actually,” said Hickey.
The organization has received over 500 mentor inquiries in the past few days, compared to the usual four to five inquiries a day.
“I was worried people would see the images on TV of young people looting… you don’t know how people are going to react to the image of young teens running through the streets,” Hickey said. “But people are having their own epiphany, they are saying, ‘It just dawned on me that by being an adult in one kid’s life I can make a real difference.'”
Hickey attributes this realization to all of the young people he has seen interviewed in the media expressing that they do not have adults in their lives who they feel listen to them and who they can trust.
“I’m hoping this means people aren’t about blaming kids for what’s happened, but are recognizing that mentoring needs to be right up there at the top of the list when you talk about building communities,” he said.
Interest in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program surged after protests erupted in Baltimore in response to the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray who was killed in police custody.
Baltimore City State’s Attorney, Marilyn Mosby, announced Friday that Gray’s death was ruled a homicide and other charges would be brought against the six Baltimore police who had contact with Gray.
In the past, Hickey said, it has been hard to recruit a significant number of volunteers, leaving more than 600 children in Baltimore city on the organization’s waiting list. The increase in mentors will help remove some of these children from the waiting list.
According to a press release from Big Brothers Big Sisters, national research found that after 18 months of spending time with their “Bigs,” Little Brothers and Little Sisters were 46 percent less likely to use illegal drugs, 27 percent less likely to begin using alcohol, 52 percent less likely to skip school and 33 percent less likely to hit someone, as compared to those children not in the program.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Chesapeake — which includes Baltimore — founded in 1952, is the oldest and largest youth mentoring organization in the State of Maryland.
article by Tracy Jarrett via nbcnews.com
According to comedyhype.com, legendary comedian and actor Richard Pryor finally had his statue placed and presented in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois. Yesterday, with his son Richard Pryor Jr. and many fans in attendance, the 7-foot 1/2 statue of Pryor holding a microphone was unveiled. In September of 2014, the now members of the Black And Brown Comedy Get Down tour helped raised the final funds to complete the new statue. To see video of the unveiling, click here.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)