Jayla Jackson, 16 and Emani Stanton, 17, made history last week as the first Black female duo to win the Harvard Debate Council‘s international annual summer competition.
Jackson and Stanton secured the fourth consecutive championship for their Atlanta-based team, which has an undefeated 10-0 record. The topic of debate was, “Resolved: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization should substantially increase its defense commitments in the Baltic States.”
Each summer, the Harvard Debate Council, one of the oldest campus organizations at Harvard University, hosts a summer residential program for hundreds of gifted youths from over 15 countries around the world who converge on campus for two weeks of intensive study, which culminates in a program-wide debate tournament.
This year’s residency and competition were held virtually due to COVID-19 protocols.
Victors Jackson and Stanton are current members of the Atlanta-based Harvard Diversity Project, an initiative founded by award-winning debate coach and author Brandon P. Fleming.
To hear Jackson and Stanton talk about their triumph on npr.org, click below:
[Photo: Killer Mike, Andrew Young, Ryan Glover via bankgreenwood.com]
Greenwood, the digital banking platform introduced last year by co-founders activist/rapper Michael “Killer Mike” Render and Bounce TV President Ryan Glover, has raised almost $40 million in Series A funding since its website launched in October 2020, according to a joint announcement last week.
The burgeoning financial startup — named for the Black business district in Tulsa, Oklahoma that existed in the early 20th century (before the 1921 Tulsa Massacre) and earned the nickname “Black Wall Street” — received investments from Truist Bank, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, PNC, Wells Fargo,Mastercard, Visa, and SoftBank, six of the seven biggest banks among others on a growing list of major financial institutions now invested in Greenwood.
https://youtu.be/xVbXaP-zHlE
“The net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family and eight times greater than that of a Latino family. This wealth gap is a curable injustice that requires collaboration,” said Greenwood Chairman Glover.
“I am elated that many of the world’s top fintech companies have invested in Greenwood and join us in this mission. The backing of six of the top seven banks and the two largest payment technology companies is a testament to the contemporary influence of the Black and Latino community. We now are even better positioned to deliver the world-class services our customers deserve.”
Greenwood delayed its planned January 2021 launch date because of overwhelming demand after more than 500,000 people signed up for an account before launch.
To learn more and join the Greenwood community and product waitlist, visit www.bankgreenwood.com.
According to nytimes.com, Pope Francis announced that Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, would be elevated to cardinal, one of 13 new cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church.
This promotion will make Gregory the first African-American man to hold such a position.
Gregory was part of a select group of Catholic leaders that criticized Donald Trump for staging a photo op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House earlier this year, amid protests about the death of George Floyd.
Archbishop Gregory, who served for years in the diocese of Atlanta, is also a former president of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference and considered in line with Francis’ most pastoral and welcoming approach in the church.
The ceremony to install the new cardinals is set for Nov. 28. Nine of the 13 men named, including Archbishop Gregory, are under age 80 and therefore eligible to participate in the next conclave to elect Francis’ successor. The new cardinals chosen by Francis reflect his priorities, making it more likely that the college will elect someone like him.
Not even death can stop John Lewis from giving his heart and soul to the fight for equality and justice for all.
Civil Rights titan and Congressmember Lewis wrote an essay for the New York Times entitled “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation,” meant to be published today, the day of his funeral.
As Lewis’s body is being laid to rest at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA, the spirited words in his essay urge us all to “answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.”
Lewis also writes about what and who ignited his journey into protest against injustice:
Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.
Lewis also shares the moment he first encountered the teachings and mission of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and how it affected him:
Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.
Rep. John Lewis, an iconic pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement and Freedom Rider who literally shed his blood in the fight for Black voting rights and went on to become a 17-term Democratic member of Congress, died yesterday from pancreatic cancer. He was 80 years old.
Regardless of his health issues, Lewis took to the streets again in early June to join protests for racial justice near the White House that were in response to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks, among others.
Lewis was born in Troy, Alabama and attended segregated schools before earning his college degree at Fisk University in Nashville.
While a student there, Lewis organized his first sit-in demonstration at a lunch counter and was soon arrested for what he started to call “good trouble, necessary trouble.”
Rev. C.T. Vivian receives 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama (photo: commons.wikipedia.org)
According to nytimes. com, the Rev. C.T. Vivian, a civil rights organizer and adviser for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the struggle for racial justice a half-century ago, died at the age of 95 today at his home in Atlanta. Kira Vivian and Denise Morse, two of Vivian’s daughters, confirmed his passing.
C.T. Vivian was a Baptist minister and member of MLK’s inner circle of advisers, alongside the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy and other civil rights luminaries such as Julian Bond and Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Vivian was the national director of some 85 local affiliate chapters of the S.C.L.C. from 1963 to 1966, directing protest activities and training in nonviolence as well as coordinating voter registration and community development projects.
In Selma and Birmingham, Ala.; St. Augustine, Fla.; Jackson, Miss.; and other segregated cities, Mr. Vivian led sit-ins at lunch counters, boycotts of businesses, and marches that continued for weeks or months, raising tensions that often led to mass arrests and harsh repression.
Televised scenes of marchers attacked by police officers and firefighters with cattle prods, snarling dogs, fire hoses and nightsticks shocked the national conscience, legitimized the civil rights movement and led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“Nonviolence is the only honorable way of dealing with social change, because if we are wrong, nobody gets hurt but us,” Mr. Vivian said in an address to civil rights workers, as recounted in “At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68” (2006), by Taylor Branch. “And if we are right, more people will participate in determining their own destinies than ever before.”
Cordy Tindell Vivian was born in Boonville, Mo., on July 30, 1924, the only child of Robert and Euzetta Tindell Vivian. His family moved to Macomb, Ill., when he was 6, and he later graduated from Macomb High School in 1942. He studied history at Western Illinois University in Macomb, but he dropped out and became a recreation worker in Peoria, Ill., where he joined his first protest, in 1947, helping to desegregate a cafeteria.
In 1945, Mr. Vivian married Jane Teague, who worked at a hardware store, and they had one daughter, Jo Anna Walker, who survives him. The couple separated amicably in the late 1940s and divorced later so that Mr. Vivian could marry Octavia Geans, in 1952. She was the author of “Coretta” (1970), the first biography of Dr. King’s wife, Coretta Scott King. She died in 2011.
In addition to his daughters Kira, Denise and Jo Anna, Mr. Vivian is survived by another daughter, Anita Charisse Thornton; two sons, Mark Evans Vivian and Albert Louis Vivian; nine grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; 28 great-great-grandchildren; and two great-great-great-grandchildren. Another son, Cordy Jr., died in 2010.
Filmmaker and entrepreneur Tyler Perry told Gayle King on CBS This Morning this week that his eponymous film studio in Atlanta will soon provide a safe haven for homeless women, displaced LGBTQ youth, and sex trafficking victims.
Perry is the first African American man to own a major movie studio, a 330-acre property that was once a Confederate Army base. But he is most excited about the aspect of helping those in need. “You know, the studio’s gonna be what it is,” Perry said.
“I’ll tell you what I’m most excited about next is pulling this next phase off, is building a compound for trafficked women, girls, homeless women, LGBTQ youth who are put out and displaced … somewhere on these 330 acres, where they’re trained in the business and they become self-sufficient.”
“They live in nice apartments. There’s day care. There’s all of these wonderful things that allows them to reenter society. And then pay it forward again,” Perry continued. “So that’s what I hope to do soon.”
The land for Tyler Perry Studios was acquired by Perry in 2015 and is located on the historic grounds of the former Fort McPherson army base in Atlanta, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Think about the poetic justice in that,” Perry said. “The Confederate Army is fighting to keep Negroes enslaved in America, fighting, strategy, planning on this very ground. And now this very ground is owned by me.”
The major motion picture studio includes 40 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, 12 purpose-built sound stages named after African-American luminaries such as Oprah Winfrey, Diahann Carroll, and Harry Belafonte, 200 acres of green space, and a diverse backlot.
Oprah Winfrey at Morehouse (photo via twitter.com)
According to cnn.com, Oprah Winfrey now has the largest endowment ever at all-male HBCU Morehouse College in Atlanta after donating $13 million.
Winfrey visited Morehouse on Monday for the 30th anniversary of the Oprah Winfrey Scholars Program, the release said. The program started in 1989 and the fund stands at $12 million. Monday’s donation of $13 million pushed her total investment to $25 million.
“Seeing you young Oprah Winfrey scholars here today has moved me deeply,” Winfrey said Monday before announcing her donation. “I am so proud of you, I’m proud of everybody in attendance at this school who is seeking to know more clearly who you are, the value you hold and how you will share that value with the rest of the world.”
Oprah Winfrey returned to Morehouse College to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Oprah Winfrey Scholars Program. Her $12 million donation to the scholarship program over the years has paid for the education of nearly 600 scholars. A portrait was unveiled in her honor today. pic.twitter.com/AE3Qell0Mk
Winfrey’s donation comes after billionaire Robert Smith promised to pay off the student loan debt of the 2019 Morehouse graduates in May. Smith donated $34 million to the school last month, making good on his promise.
“I’m grateful to Oprah Winfrey for her generosity,” said Morehouse President David A. Thomas. “I am also feeling hopeful for Morehouse and what it has garnered in terms of philanthropic support with gifts like Oprah’s and Robert Smith’s. I am hopeful that this will also get others to step up with their support of Morehouse, but even more broadly, historically black colleges and universities.”
According to hbcubuzz.com, Atlanta’s Spelman College recently received a $2 million grant from the Department of Defense to support its continued growth in STEM education.
The Center of Excellence for Minority Women in STEM, which will be affiliated with the Office of Research, Innovation and Collaboration, is the first center of its kind and will serve as the hub for all STEM undergraduate research and training activities at the women’s college.
“The Center aligns with the College’s strategic priorities and ensures that our students are empowered and equipped to enter competitive STEM fields,” said Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D., Spelman president. “We are honored to be awarded this grant, and to have the support of the Department of Defense in assisting Spelman in fulfilling its mission to diversify STEM.”
To quote the article:
Spelman is one of six “model institutions for excellence” designated by the National Science Foundation for its significant track record of recruiting, retaining and graduating minority women in the sciences.
Over the past three academic years, the percentage of students pursuing STEM majors at Spelman has grown significantly. In 2017, 26 percent of Spelman students received degrees in STEM compared to 16 percent at other HBCUs and 17 percent at other liberal arts colleges.
The Center seeks to address minority under-representation in the sciences, particularly in computer science, mathematics and physics, explained Tasha Inniss, Ph.D., associate provost for research.
The Center will offer three main access points for students and faculty, including research support, academic enrichment and professional development through mentorship opportunities. In addition, the grant will allow the College to introduce an annual Women in STEM Speaker Series, designed to increase knowledge among faculty, staff, and students about emerging areas, including artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science.
The Center also will encourage year-round research collaborations between faculty, students and DoD personnel, which is expected to increase the capacity of faculty to do research, said Dr. Inniss.
Good Black News just learned from Hip Hop Wired that rapper Future is working to support students trying to advance their education with college scholarships via his FreeWishes Foundation.
Last week the Atlanta hip hop artist visited his alma mater, Columbia High School, in Atlanta, GA. He and his artist Guap Tarantino surprised undergraduates with an unscheduled performance, specially designed merchandise and a check for $10,000 in the school’s name. Future will continue to pay it forward with a new initiative coinciding with his new “Legendary Nights” tour.
“Prospective students around the country can now enter to win a college scholarship in the amount of $2,000.00 via his FreeWishes College Scholarship. 17 scholarships will be awarded in total and gifted at each tour stop. Along with the scholarship, lucky recipients will also receive 2 tickets to the Legendary Nights Tour and an exclusive “I Am A Dreamer” sweatshirt.
Students interested in applying for the grant must follow FreeWishes’ social media feed (@freewishesfoundation) and submit a 500- word essay detailing “How Receiving This Scholarship Would Be A Dream Come True” to info@freewishes.org by noon of each tour date.”
