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GBN’s Daily Drop: Dr. Saint Elmo Brady, the 1st African American Person to Earn a Chemistry Ph.D. in the U.S. (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Dr. Saint Elmo Brady, the 1st African American Person to Earn a Chemistry Ph.D. in the U.S. (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 14, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is about Dr. Saint Elmo Brady, the first African American person in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry, based on the Monday, March 14 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022:

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 Monday, March 14th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Dr. Saint Elmo Brady was fired up in 1916 when he became the first African American person in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry.

Dr. Brady was published three times in Science magazine, taught at Tuskegee Institute, then taught at Howard University – where he built and chaired the Chemistry department.

He took that same position as Chemistry chair at HBCU Fisk University and was there for 25 years. In 2019, Dr. Brady was honored with a National Historic Chemical Landmark at his alma mater, the University of Illinois.

To learn more about Dr. Brady, you can watch the short documentary Twenty Whites and One ‘Other’, read about his contributions to chemistry on the American Chemical Society website, ACS.org, or if you are science-minded or just totally brave and curious, check out Dr. Brady’s work entitled The Scale Influence of Substituents in Paraffine Monobasic Acids, the Divalent Oxygen Atom: Thesis… available on Amazon.

Links to these and 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. 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. 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:

[photo: Saint Elmo Brady circa 1910 via chemistry.illiois.edu]

GBN’s Daily Drop (Bonus): Learn About Erma Franklin, Grammy Nominee and Original “Piece of My Heart” Singer (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop (Bonus): Learn About Erma Franklin, Grammy Nominee and Original “Piece of My Heart” Singer (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 13, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is a bonus episode for Sunday, March 13 and based on the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 format.

It’s about Grammy-nominated R&B and gospel singer Erma Franklin, who was born #OnThisDay in 1938 and grew up in Detroit, Michigan. Yes, she’s one of those Franklins:

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 bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, March 13th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Today we’re going to celebrate R&B and gospel singer Erma Franklin, eldest daughter of Barbara Siggers and the Reverend C.L. Franklin, and she was born #OnThisDay in 1938.

Though known chiefly for touring with and singing backup for her younger sister (you might have heard of her – Aretha Franklin?) on songs such as “Respect” and “Jump To It,” Erma was a recording artist in her own right. When Aretha Franklin was signed early in her career to Columbia Records, Erma in kind was signed to Epic and released her one and only album for that label in 1962 entitled Her Name is Erma. The music was basically jazz standards and R&B covers and didn’t perform well.

Erma toured for a time as a featured vocalist with Lloyd Price until in 1967, she signed to a new label and scored a Top 10 R&B hit and Grammy nomination with her original recording of “Piece of My Heart”:

[Excerpt of “Piece of My Heart” by Erma Franklin]

A few years later, that song would become a rock n roll staple when remade by Janis Joplin. Erma Franklin also recorded another Top 40 R&B hit “Gotta Find Me A Lover (24 Hours A Day)”:

[Excerpt of “Gotta Find Me A Lover (24 Hours A Day)” by Erma Franklin] She also covered “Son of a Preacher Man” on her Soul Sister album before her sister Aretha did on the same on her This Girl’s In Love With You album:

[Excerpt of “Son of A Preacher Man” by Erma Franklin]

Erma also recorded a stand-out version of the Doors’ song “Light My Fire”:

[Excerpt of “Light My Fire” by Erma Franklin]

And not to be outdone by her songwriting sisters, Erma even wrote some of her own material, such as the could-have-been-a-hit with-proper-promotion song “You’ve Been Cancelled”:

[Excerpt of “You’ve Been Cancelled” by Erma Franklin]

Although Erma’s singing career had its peaks and valleys, her career in public service in her home state was steady.

Erma devoted most of her time and energy to Boysville of Michigan Inc., the largest childcare agency in the state, and acted as the liaison for twenty-five or more similar agencies in Michigan for decades.

In 1992, Erma Franklin’s singing career experienced a resurgence when in Great Britain, her original version of “Piece of My Heart” was re-released after its use in a popular Levi’s Jeans commercial.

It hit number nine in the UK, and Erma made her first and only solo music video, which is available on YouTube.

To learn more about Erma Franklin, check out the sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org. And of course, you can stream or buy her music online.

This has been a bonus 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 of music by Erma Franklin were included in today’s episode 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 of 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:

(paid links)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Mary Fields aka “Stagecoach Mary” – 1st Black Woman Contracted to Deliver U.S. Mail

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Mary Fields aka “Stagecoach Mary” – 1st Black Woman Contracted to Deliver U.S. Mail

By goodblacknews on March 12, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Saturday, March 12 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about Mary Fields aka “Stagecoach Mary” the formerly enslaved woman who delivered mail for the U.S. Postal Service in the Old West:

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 Saturday, March 12th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Nicknames in the Old West had to be earned, not given. “Stagecoach Mary” was no exception. After the Civil War, the newly freed Mary Fields worked as a groundskeeper at a convent.

After clashing with several nuns who objected to her smoking, drinking and gun-toting gruffness, Fields accepted a donated stagecoach from a sympathetic Mother Superior and used it to pursue a new line of work.

In 1895, Fields became the first Black woman to get a postal service contract to deliver the U.S. mail. With her guns and tough demeanor, “Stagecoach Mary” unfailingly protected her route from bandits and became beloved by locals in Cascade, Montana.
To learn more about Stagecoach Mary, you can read Deliverance Mary Fields, First African American Woman Star Route Mail Carrier in the United States: A Montana History by Miantae Metcalf McConnell from 2016, the 2019 children’s picture book Fearless Mary: Mary Fields, American Stagecoach Driver written by Tami Charles and illustrated by Claire Almon, or the 2007 book African American Women of the Old West by Tricia Wagner on which Mary graces the cover.

You can also watch 2016’s True First: African American Legends and their Untold Stories documentary on her on AllBlk via Amazon, or listen to the very informative 2021 episode about Mary on the podcast Black Cowboys.

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 permitted under Public Domain license: “Maple Leaf Rag” composed 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:

(paid links)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Black Lexicon – What “Sadiddy” Means (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Black Lexicon – What “Sadiddy” Means (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 11, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast looks at our Black Lexicon category “Lemme Break It Down” from the Friday,  March 11 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 where we explain the term “Sadiddy”:

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 Friday, March 11th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

It’s in the category we call “Lemme Break It Down,” where we explore the origins and meanings of words and phrases rooted in the Black Lexicon and Black culture. Today’s word? “Sadiddy.”

“Sadiddy” —  s-a-d-i-d-d-y — is a term meaning stuck-up, snobby, arrogant, conceited or superior- acting. What Brandy says she ain’t in her 2004 song of the same name:

[Excerpt from “Sadiddy” by Brandy]

Alternate spellings include “s-e-d-i-t-ty-,” “s-a-d-d-i-t-y,” “s-a-d-i-t-t-y” or basically any two words put together that sound like “suh” and “ditty.” The word is traceable in written form to the 1940s, where it was employed in several African American newspaper columns.

Example usage: “She used to be cool, but ever since she bought that used Mercedes, she’s acting all sadiddy.”

To learn more about sadiddy, there are two great segments on the A Way With Words show on Soundcloud, that discuss the etymology of “sadiddy” in more detail, and I’ll provide the links to both in today’s show notes as well embed them in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

GBN’s Daily Drop: Quote on Women’s Rights from Abolitionist and Activist Sojourner Truth (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Quote on Women’s Rights from Abolitionist and Activist Sojourner Truth (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 10, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Thursday, March 10 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 and features a quote from abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth:

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 Thursday, March 10th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Today we offer a quote from Sojourner Truth, the first Black woman in America to obtain national fame for her activism and protesting, and who was featured in our March 2nd Daily Drop. Here’s the quote:

“That…man…says women can’t have as much rights as man, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman. Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him.”

This quote from the formerly enslaved Truth comes from a speech she gave in 1851 at a women’s rights convention.

To learn more about Truth, I’ll include the link to our March 2nd Daily Drop, as it contains more details on her life and work, as well as providing links to sources for further exploration and research. Enjoy.

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. 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 can give a positive 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.

Pharrell Williams, Mariah Carey, Isley Brothers to be Inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame in June

Pharrell Williams, Mariah Carey, Isley Brothers to be Inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame in June

By goodblacknews on March 9, 2022

Third time is the charm. The twice-pandemic delayed Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala will take place on June 16, 2022, at the Marriott Marquis New York’s Times Square, according to Variety.com.

Originally set for June 10, 2020, the June 16 ceremony will celebrate previously announced songwriters Mariah Carey, Pharrell Williams / Chad Hugo (the Neptunes), Ernie Isley / Marvin Isley / O’Kelly Isley / Ronald Isley / Rudolph Isley / Chris Jasper (the Isley Brothers), Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), Steve Miller, , Rick Nowels and William “Mickey” Stevenson.

Paul Williams will receive the prestigious Johnny Mercer Award and Universal Music Publishing Chairman-CEO Jody Gerson will receive the Abe Olman Publisher Award.

Full biographies and a complete list of inductees are available on the Songwriters Hall of Fame website at https://www.songhall.org.

Read more: https://variety.com/2022/music/news/songwriters-hall-of-fame-2022-mariah-carey-pharrell-1235199336/

[photo via theneptunes.org]

GBN’s Daily Drop: Groundbreaking Comedy “House Party” Released in Theaters Thirty Two Years Ago #OnThisDay (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Groundbreaking Comedy “House Party” Released in Theaters Thirty Two Years Ago #OnThisDay (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 9, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Wednesday, March 9 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 celebrating the groundbreaking 1990 feature film House Party, directed and produced by Reginald Hudlin and Warrington Hudlin, and starring Kid ‘N Play, Full Force, Tisha Campbell, AJ Johnson, Martin Lawrence, Robin Harris and John Witherspoon:

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 Wednesday, March 9th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Shape up your high-top fade because Reginald Hudlin and Warrington Hudlin’s groundbreaking comedy film House Party was released 32 years ago today!

House Party exploded on the scene and ignited the careers of rappers Kid ‘N Play; actors Tisha Campbell, AJ Johnson, and John Witherspoon; comedians Martin Lawrence and Robin Harris; and R&B producers and performers Full Force.

A surprise success at the box office, House Party spawned several sequels and reboots, most recently one produced by LeBron James that will debut on HBO Max this July. Still, the original teen comedy remains a beloved 1990s classic that still manages to kick-step itself across the generations. 

We celebrate House Party not only for the depth of talented actors, comedians and musicians it featured, but also because it was one of the first movies to portray Black teenagers as teenagers out to have a good time, which in 1990, was revolutionary.

It also literally contains one of the best dance battle scenes in movie history – that scene alone has almost eight million views on YouTube – and it also introduced the world to the iconic Kid ‘N Play kick step:

You can watch the movie in its entirety on HBO Max, but there is a content warning – homophobic language is used in one scene, that even when I saw it in the theatre in 1990 was bothersome and not at all humorous as intended.

For me, it doesn’t ruin the whole movie, but it does, in my opinion, hold it back from being as smart and as undeniably entertaining as it should be.

To learn more about House Party and its significance to cinematic history, check out the links to 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.

Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.  Additional music included under fair use was “Ain’t My Type of Hype” the House Party mix by Full Force.

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: 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:

 

MUSIC MONDAY: “Calypso” – a Collection in Celebration of Artist and Activist Harry Belafonte’s 95th Birthday (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: “Calypso” – a Collection in Celebration of Artist and Activist Harry Belafonte’s 95th Birthday (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 7, 2022

words by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson); art and music by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

This week’s Music Monday share is in tribute to the one and only Harry Belafonte, who turned 95 on March 1st. We celebrate the renowned singer, actor and activist by sharing refreshed and updated list of Calypso music, a genre that Belafonte popularized worldwide with his recordings (his Calypso album from 1956 became the first by a solo performer to sell a million copies) and contributions to the style.

Not only is the refreshed playlist the creation of GBN contributor Marlon West (his original post on calypso can be read here), but he also created the artwork that honors Belafonte as the superhero and champion for civil rights and human rights that he has been for decades (which includes marching on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., funding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, fighting against apartheid, organizing USA for Africa for famine relief and acting as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador) and still is.

Luminaries such as Spike Lee, Alicia Keys, Laurence Fishburne, Whoopi Goldberg and Cornel West turned out to celebrate Belafonte’s milestone last week at The Town Hall Theater in Manhattan for the first Harry Belafonte Social Justice Awards given by Sankofa.org, a social justice organization founded 10 years ago by Belafonte, his daughter Gina Belafonte and the music executive Raoul Roach.

You can celebrate Belafonte by listening to his own words about his life and activism by checking out the unabridged audiobook of his autobiography, My Song: A Memoir:

Also included in today’s post is a conversation with Belafonte from 2012 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. 

Sankofa.org is a social justice organization founded by Harry Belafonte that enlists the support of today’s most celebrated artists and influential individuals in collaboration with grassroots partners to elevate the voices of the disenfranchised and promote justice, peace, and equality.

University of Michigan Economist Susan M. Collins to Become President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

University of Michigan Economist Susan M. Collins to Become President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

By goodblacknews on March 7, 2022

University of Michigan economist and executive vice president of academic affairs Susan M. Collins will be the next president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, taking office on July 1.

Collins will be only the second Black president and first Black woman to head one of the 12 Federal Reserve banks in the century-plus history of the institution. Raphael Bostic, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta president, was the first Black person ever to lead a reserve bank.

“It is an honor and an inspiration to serve as the Boston Fed’s next president,” Professor Collins said. “Throughout my career, I have been driven by a commitment to leveraging research, education, and public service to improve lives. I look forward to helping the Bank and System pursue the Fed’s dual mandate from Congress – achieving price stability and maximum employment.”

Dr. Collins added that “I am also inspired by the portfolio of important and innovative work underway at the Boston Fed,” Collins said. “I am delighted with the opportunity to lead such a dynamic organization, engage with its talented staff, and work with its constituents – to understand their economic challenges and help explain the work of the Fed in the economy. It will also be a pleasure to return to Greater Boston and New England.”