[Photo: Zaila Avant-Garde via Instagram | @basketballasart)]
According to wafb.com, 13 year-oldZaila Avant-Garde, a 7th grader from Harvey, LA, beat out 88 of the best young spellers in the country to win the first-ever Kaplan Online Spelling Bee, hosted in association with Hexco Academic.
Garde, who was the 2019 New Orleans regional spelling champion, won with the word “Qashqai” (definition: a migratory Turkic-speaking people of the Zagros mountains), after a hard-fought back-and-forth with runner-up Harini Logan, a 6th grader from San Antonio, TX. Chaitra Thummala, a 5th grader from San Ramon, CA, placed third.
The Carters are working their empowerment game on all ends. Just days after Beyoncé drops her “Black Is King” visual album on Disney+, Jay Z continues his commitment to Black and Brown people by employing his global entertainment company, Roc Nation, to teach the new generation the politics of the business.
According to a press release, Roc Nation and Long Island University, a nationally-ranked university, have engaged in a historic collaboration to form the Roc Nation School of Music, Sports & Entertainment, enrolling students at LIU Brooklyn beginning fall 2021.
The Roc Nation School of Music, Sports & Entertainment will prepare students for a wide range of careers in performance, entrepreneurship, all aspects of music, and sports business management.
Students will engage with university professors, alongside visiting guest artists and lecturers, while participating in immersive internships, ensuring they graduate with both hands-on experience and a network of professional contacts.
Located in JAY-Z’s hometown of Brooklyn, the Roc Nation School of Music, Sports & Entertainment will provide Roc Nation Hope Scholarships for 25 percent of enrolled students. These scholars will graduate from the Roc Nation School of Music, Sports & Entertainment debt-free, and will receive individualized support and mentorship.
The Roc Nation Hope Scholars will be selected from a pool of academically competitive, New York-based first-time freshmen with the highest need.
The Roc Nation School of Music, Sports & Entertainment will offer undergraduate degrees in music; music technology, entrepreneurship & production; and sports management.
“Pursuing higher education is an investment in one’s future. This partnership, envisioned alongside LIU President Dr. Cline, is a true investment in our community and young people in Brooklyn, in New York City and beyond,” said Desiree Perez, CEO of Roc Nation. “We’re excited that the Roc Nation School of Music, Sports & Entertainment will provide unique insight, knowledge, and experiences for students and introduce the world to the next generation of unmatched talent.”
“Our proximity in and around New York City’s epicenter of music and sports clearly positions us to offer unparalleled experiential learning and access to professional opportunities that will launch students to success,” said LIU President Dr. Kimberly Cline. “We look forward to joining with Roc Nation to offer an unprecedented educational resource that opens up the entertainment and sports world to a new and eager generation.”
The Roc Nation School of Music, Sports & Entertainment will begin accepting applicants for the Fall 2021 semester this fall.
In addition to the college program, the School will offer camps for aspiring students. Young talent will be developed through summer residential camps for high school students and year-round Saturday programs for ages 10-18 in music and sports management, starting in the spring of 2021. Need-based scholarships will also be available for the camps.
A county school board in Virginia voted Thursday to rename Springfield, VA’s Robert E. Lee High School after recently deceased Civil Rights activist and U.S. Congress Member John R. Lewis. The new name will be effective for the 2020-21 school year.
According to the Fairfax County Public Schools press release, the Fairfax County School Board voted to change the name of the school and then held a one-month period of public comment on possible new names. A virtual town hall meeting was held on July 15 and a public hearing was held on July 22.
“The Board heard from students, teachers and staff members, families, and the community about the old name,” said School Board Chair Ricardy Anderson. “It was important for us to be mindful of these comments and to select a name that reflected the diversity and multiculturalism that currently exists at the school and in our community.
Rep. Lewis was a champion of the Civil Rights movement, and our Board strongly believes this is an appropriate tribute to an individual who is a true American hero. We will also honor his life’s work by continuing to promote equity, justice, tolerance and service in the work that we do.”
Lewis, a leading figure of the Civil Rights Movement and the Freedom Rides, represented Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives for 33 years. He was one of the original organizers of the 1963 March on Washington to draw attention to inequalities faced by African Americans.
He also led the Selma to Montgomery march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965. Known as “Bloody Sunday,” the demonstrators were marching to the state capital to demand voting rights for African Americans when they were met by armed police who attacked them.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law later that year and is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. Congressman Lewis was the recipient of many awards throughout his lifetime, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. He passed away on July 17, 2020, after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
[Photo via Fairfax County Public Schools leehs.fcps.edu]
According to the Los Angeles Times, all 430,000 undergraduates attending California State Universities will be required to take an ethnic studies or social justice course, a curriculum change approved by CSU trustees today.
The board of trustees voted in favor of the requirement, which will take effect starting in 2023 in the nation’s largest four-year public university system. Five members voted against it, including State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and social justice activists Lateefah Simon and Hugo Morales. One trustee abstained.
Two questions dominated their debate: How should ethnic studies be defined? And who gets to decide: faculty, trustees or state lawmakers?
The new requirement, advanced by the office of the chancellor, creates a three-unit, lower-division course requirement in “ethnic studies and social justice.” The requirement could be met by a traditional ethnic studies course or by courses focused on social justice or social movements.
The measure was opposed by some faculty and students who argued it was too broad and developed without appropriate consultation with ethnic studies faculty.
They contended that adding the social justice option diluted the core mission of ethnic studies, which focuses on the history and experiences of four oppressed groups in the U.S.: African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and indigenous people.
California Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), has drafted an alternative plan that is currently making its way to the governor’s office, which would more strictly define how the requirement could be fulfilled.
Dr. Billy C. Hawkins (photo courtesy Talledega College)
Talladega College will hold a naming ceremony for the Dr. Billy C. Hawkins Student Activity Center on August 14, 2020. The newly constructed 47,000-square-foot student center/arena will be the first-ever campus facility to be named in honor of one of the institution’s African American presidents.
In 2008, when Dr. Billy C. Hawkins became the 20th president of Talladega College, the HBCU was struggling to survive. Dr. Hawkins implemented rigorous plans for renovation and growth that transformed the college.
As a result of his vision, enrollment doubled from just over 300 students to 601 students in one semester; athletic programs were reinstated for the first time in ten years; and major campus beautification projects were undertaken.
The College enjoyed record-high enrollment in both the 2018-2019 academic year and the 2019-2020 academic year. Talladega College now has over 1200 students.
Under the leadership of Dr. Hawkins, Talladega College is listed among Princeton Review’s best colleges in the Southeast, U.S. News and World Report’s most innovative colleges, and Kiplinger’s Best Value Colleges. Talladega recently launched its first-ever graduate program, an online Master of Science in Computer Information Systems. In addition, the campus is undergoing a major physical transformation.
New construction on campus includes a 45,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art residence hall, which opened in 2019, and the Dr. William R. Harvey Museum of Art, which opened in 2020. The Dr. William R. Harvey Museum of Art houses six critically-acclaimed Hale Woodruff murals, including the renowned Amistad Murals.
Lewis’ discussions center on the voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama, his friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the relationship between Southern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), his view on the philosophy of nonviolence and his involvement in the March on Washington.
Vivian and his interviewer discuss in detail over the course of an hour the Nashville sit-in campaign, the Freedom Rides, the Selma campaign and more.
Eyes on the Prize is the groundbreaking 1987 PBS documentary series that tells the definitive story of the civil rights movement.
These interviews are part of a collection of 127 raw interviews from Eyes on the Prize available to stream via AAPB due to a collaboration between Boston public media producer WGBH and the Library of Congress to preserve and make accessible culturally significant public media from across the country.
The AAPB also contains a two-part raw interview conducted with Vivian in 2011 from American Experience’s Freedom Riders. Part 1, Part 2.
Malone Mukwende, a second-year medical student at St. George’s, University of London, was motivated to create “Mind the Gap” after he noticed a lack of diversity in his learning materials.
So Mukwende created a handbook to teach physicians how physical symptoms appear on differing skin tones.
“On arrival at medical school I noticed the lack of teaching in darker skin. We were often being taught to look for symptoms such as red rashes which I was aware would not appear as described in my own skin,” he told BME Medics. “When flagging this to tutors it was clear that they didn’t know of any other way to describe these conditions on patients of darker skin tones and I knew that I had to make a change to that.”
Mukwende’s school backed the project and he joined forces with Margot Turner, a lecturer in diversity and medical education and Peter Tamony, clinical lecturer in clinical skills to complete it. The team will use the booklet to host trainings for medical tutors this month.
“The booklet addresses many issues that have been further exacerbated during the Covid-19 pandemic, such as families being asked if potential Covid patients are ‘pale’ or if their lips ‘turned blue,’” he said in a statement.
“These are not useful descriptors for a Black patient and, as a result, their care is compromised from the first point of contact,” Mukwende added. “It is essential we begin to educate others so they are aware of such differences and the power of the clinical language we currently use.”
City University of New York‘s board of trustees recently voted to appoint two African American scholars to lead colleges in the university system, according to jbhe.com.
Berenecea Johnson Eanes was appointed president of York College of the City University of New York. She has worked as interim president there since last fall.
York College, located in Jamaica, Queens, enrolls nearly 8,500 undergraduate students, according to the latest data supplied to the U.S. Department of Education. African Americans make up 38 percent of the student body.
Dr. Eanes has previously served as vice president for the Division of Student Affairs at California State University, Fullerton and had been on the staff at Cal State Fullerton for seven years.
Dr. Eanes is a graduate of Dillard University in New Orleans. She earned a master’s degree at Boston University and a Ph.D. in social work at Clark Atlanta University.
Anthony E. Munroe will be president of Borough of Manhattan Community College, effective October 1.
Since 2017, Dr. Munroe has been president of Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey. He was previously president of Malcolm X College, part of the City Colleges of Chicago system.
Borough of Manhattan Community College is the largest in the CUNY system with more than 25,000 students, according to the latest U.S. Department of Education statistics. African Americans make up 27 percent of the student body.
Dr. Munroe is a graduate of Regents College of New York. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and earned an MA in public health and a Ph.D in health education from Columbia University in New York.
Photo Credit: Oprah (Harpo Inc./Ruven Afanador) / Nikole (James Estrin/The New York Times )
Pulitzer Prize®-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times have chosen Lionsgate Studios to be the home for a wide-ranging partnership to develop Ms. Hannah-Jones’ landmark issue of The New York Times Magazine, The 1619 Project, and hit New York Times podcast, 1619, into an expansive portfolio of feature films, television series and other content for a global audience.
As part of the ground-breaking venture, Lionsgate has partnered with Oprah Winfrey as a producer who will provide stewardship and guidance to the development and production of The 1619 Project.
Lionsgate, The Times and Ms. Winfrey will join forces with Ms. Hannah-Jones, who will serve as the creative leader and producer in developing feature films, television series, documentaries, unscripted programming and other forms of entertainment enlisting world-class Black creative voices to help adapt her celebrated series chronicling the ways that the original sin of slavery in America still permeates all aspects of our society today.
Jones’ colleague at The Times Magazine, Caitlin Roper, an editor of The 1619 Project and head of scripted entertainment at The Times, will also produce.
One of the most impactful and thought-provoking works of journalism of the past decade, The Times Magazine’s 1619 Project was a landmark undertaking that connected the centrality of slavery in history with an unflinching account of the brutal racism that endures in so many aspects of American life today.
It was launched in August 2019 on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colonies that would become the United States, and it examines the legacy of slavery in America and how it shaped all aspects of society, from music and law to education and the arts, including the principles of our democracy itself.
Ms. Hannah-Jones created and was the architect of the initiative at The Times Magazine with contributions from Black authors, essayists, poets, playwrights, and scholars comprising a special issue of the magazine and a special section in the print edition of The New York Times produced in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History & Culture, as well as a five-part podcast that topped the Apple Podcast charts.
One of The Times’ most widely read pieces of journalism last year, The 1619 Project has been discussed in the Senate, is being adapted into a series of books with One World, a division of Penguin Random House, and is already changing the way that American history is being taught in schools.
“We took very seriously our duty to find TV and film partners that would respect and honor the work and mission of The 1619 Project, that understood our vision and deep moral obligation to doing justice to these stories. Through every step of the process, Lionsgate and its leadership have shown themselves to be that partner and it is a dream to be able to produce this work with Ms. Oprah Winfrey, a trailblazer and beacon to so many Black journalists,” said Ms. Hannah-Jones. “I am excited for this opportunity to extend the breadth and reach of The 1619 Project and to introduce these stories of Black resistance and resilience to even more American households.”
“From the first moment I read The 1619 Project and immersed myself in Nikole Hannah-Jones’s transformative work, I was moved, deepened and strengthened by her empowering historical analysis,” said Oprah Winfrey. “I am honored to be a part of Nikole’s vision to bring this project to a global audience.”
Please see a link to The 1619 Project essays here and podcasts here.
Robert F. Smith—the billionaire who pledged during a commencement speech last year to pay off the student debt of the Morehouse College class of 2019—is, according to time.com, launching a new initiative to help ease the burden of student loans at all HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities).
The Student Freedom Initiative, a nonprofit organization, will launch in 2021 at up to 11 HBCUS and will offer juniors and seniors who are science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors a flexible, lower-risk alternative to high-interest private student loans.
The list of HBCUs participating in the initial rollout has not been finalized. SFI will target the disproportionate loan burden on Black students while creating more choices for students whose career options or further educational opportunities might be limited by heavy student debt.
The aims of the Initiative is to help 5,000 new students each year via a $50 million grant from Fund II Foundation, a charitable organization of which Smith is founding director and president.
Fund II has set a goal of raising at least $500 million by October to make the program “self-sustaining” through investments and graduates’ income-based repayments. Fund II will partner with Michael Lomax, CEO of the United Negro College Fund; Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the Hutchins Center for African and African-American Research at Harvard; the Jain Family Institute and the Education Finance Institute.
“You think about these students graduating and then plowing so much of their wealth opportunity into supporting this student debt, that’s a travesty in and of itself,” Smith, chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, said Tuesday during a TIME100 Talks discussion with Editor-in-Chief Edward Felsenthal.
[To see Robert Smith speak on the need for this initiative, watch here]
Smith—the wealthiest Black man in the United States, according to Forbes—donated $34 million last year that covered the student debt of about 400 Morehouse graduates, including the educational debt incurred by their families. He says his new initiative is an effort to create a more sustainable model for thousands more students.
“I think it’s important that we do these things at scale and en masse because that’s how you lift up entire communities,” he says. “Of course, we all like the great one story, but I want thousands of these stories. And I want thousands of Robert Smiths out there who are actually looking to do some things in fields that are exciting to them and are giving back.”
California Assemblymember Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), has drafted an alternative plan that is currently making its way to the governor’s office, which would more strictly define how the requirement could be fulfilled.
