Protesters of all ages, all races, all backgrounds are showing up at Black Lives Matter protests out of love for their fellow human beings. Out of love for George Floyd. Out of love for Breonna Taylor. Out of love for all of the Black people who have lost their lives because of the color of their skin. You can feel this love when you attend a protest. You can see it on the faces of the people all around you. You can hear it in their voices. Sometimes, it flows through the mass of people like a quiet undercurrent. Sometimes, it’s downright joyful. No matter how it’s expressed, it’s always potent, always powerful. And it’s going to change the world for the better. From New York City to Philadelphia, from Amsterdam to Paris, this is what it is like to attend Black Lives Matter protests.
San Francisco memorializes the life of George Floyd and all those who died by the hands of police violence. Organized by Phelicia Jones. Featuring Rev. Thomas Fisher, Second Baptist Church Redwood City, CA. +++ A film by Robert Silver. A Day One Films production. http://www.dayonefilms.net
Matthew McConaughey narrates the story of Trap Kitchen founders Spank and News, rival gang members who used a mutual passion for food to create a successful business in Compton. The episode highlights how the entrepreneurs are rewriting their narrative and what happens when people put their differences aside and come together for the greater good of the community. “The Spirit of Conviction” is a weekly docu-series narrated by Academy Award-winner Matthew McConaugheythat dives into the lives of complex individuals who are constantly creating, disrupting, and challenging norms while remaining authentic to who they are.
Not even Morehouse College administrators knew the announcement was coming.
Addressing
the college’s class of 2019, Robert F. Smith, a man who is richer than
Oprah Winfrey, made a grand gesture straight out of the television
mogul’s playbook.
“My family is going
to create a grant to eliminate your student loans,” he said on Sunday
morning, bringing the approximately 400 students in caps and gowns to
their feet.
“This is my class,” he said.
In January, Mr. Smith, a billionaire, donated $1.5 million to the college to fund student scholarships and a new park on campus. He received an honorary degree at the graduation on Sunday.
The
value of the new gift is unclear because of the varying amounts the
students owe, but the money will be disbursed through Morehouse College
and will apply to “loans students directly have for their college
education,” a representative for Mr. Smith said.
Because
Morehouse was not informed of Mr. Smith’s plans before the ceremony,
details about how the money would be distributed were not immediately
available.
After making a fortune in software, he was named the nation’s richest African-American by Forbes. According to that financial magazine, Mr. Smith’s estimated net worth is $5 billion, making him richer than Ms. Winfrey, who previously held the title of the wealthiest black person.
Mr. Smith studied chemical engineering at Cornell University and finance and marketing at Columbia Business School. Although he shunned the spotlight for many years, Mr. Smith has recently embraced a more public role, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and making major charitable contributions. Cornell named its chemical and biomolecular engineering school for him after he announced a $50 million gift, and he has made major donations to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. He started the Fund II Foundation, which is focused in part on preserving African-American history and culture, and signed the Giving Pledge, a campaign through which wealthy individuals and families commit more than half their wealth to charitable causes, either during their lifetimes or in their wills.
Anand Giridharadas,
the author of “Winners Take All” and a frequent critic of big
philanthropy, said Mr. Smith’s offer was “generous.” But, he added, “a
gift like this can make people believe that billionaires are taking care
of our problems, and distract us from the ways in which others in
finance are working to cause problems like student debt or the subprime
crisis on an epically greater scale.”
Sunday’s
announcement came amid growing calls to address the crushing burden of
student loan debt in the United States, which has more than doubled in the past decade.
Over the past 20 years, average tuition and fees at private four-year colleges rose 58 percent,
after accounting for inflation, while tuition at four-year public
colleges increased even more, by over 100 percent, according to research
from the College Board.
According to federal data, the average federal student loan debt is $32,000. The standard repayment plan
for federal student loans is up to 10 years, but most students,
according to research, take far longer than that to pay off their
balances.
For the students at Morehouse, an all-male, historically black college in Atlanta that costs about $48,500 per year to attend, the gift could be transformative, especially in the unsettled years after graduation.
In an interview with the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
Elijah Dormeus, a 22-year-old business administration major carrying
$90,000 in student debt, said: “If I could do a backflip, I would. I am
deeply ecstatic.”
Mr. Smith’s prepared speech did not include his plan to pay off the students’ debts.
“Now,
I know my class, who will make sure they pay this forward,” Mr. Smith
said on Sunday morning. “And I want my class to look at these alumni,
these beautiful Morehouse brothers — and let’s make sure every class has
the same opportunity moving forward — because we are enough to take
care of our own community.”
LOS ANGELES —
Thousands of mourners are expected to gather in downtown Los Angeles on
Thursday to honor the life of Nipsey Hussle, the Grammy-nominated rapper
who was fatally shot last month and whose success and commitment to
redeveloping South Los Angeles made him a local hero.
The
funeral, billed as a “celebration of life,” will be held at the Staples
Center. All tickets for the event, which were free, were claimed online
within minutes of being made available earlier this week. The arena’s
capacity is 21,000.
Tens of thousands
of fans are expected to gather around the venue, where a public
memorial for Michael Jackson was hosted in 2009. The two-hour service
will begin at 10 a.m. local time and will be followed by a procession
from the Staples Center through South Los Angeles.
Hussle, born Ermias Joseph Asghedom, channeled his upbringing and adolescence as a gang member into music that spoke powerfully to many who live in Los Angeles’ most vulnerable neighborhoods. As his star rose in recent years, Hussle brought investments and attention back to the area, earning the adoration of his neighbors and fans.
Though he developed a following far
beyond Southern California, his death last week struck a particularly
painful chord among residents of the Crenshaw District, where he grew
up. His clothing store on Slauson Avenue in South Los Angeles, The
Marathon Clothing, had become a potent symbol of local success
and black entrepreneurship, a theme he addressed regularly in his
music. His fans clung to lyrics that melded familiar rap bombast with
exaltations about self-discipline and long-term financial planning, a
break from a music culture that often emphasizes flashy spending.
The store transformed into a makeshift memorial on March 31 after Hussle was gunned down there over a “personal dispute,” according to the Los Angeles Police Department. The suspect, Eric Holder, was apprehended by authorities two days after the shooting.
For days outside the store, fans prayed,
lit candles and left hand-written letters addressed to Hussle. One of
the mourners was Candace Cosey, 32, who remembers him as Ermias from
their time attending Hamilton High School together in the early 2000s, a
magnet school on the West Side of Los Angeles. She recalled how Hussle
would sell mix CDs to her and others at school, and how he later started
selling music in the neighborhood out of his trunk.
She
came close to tears as she pulled out a picture of him from the high
school yearbook. “If you grew up here, you either knew him directly or
you knew someone who knew him,” she said.
Even as his career took off, Hussle remained approachable and “big hearted,” she said. As he amassed fame and wealth, he continued living modestly while making investments in businesses in the neighborhood. And he could be very generous. When a colleague passed away several years ago, Ms. Cosey approached Hussle’s team to see if he could help with the funeral expenses. He contributed several thousand dollars, she said.
“He was about
uplifting us. He hired people from the neighborhood who wouldn’t have
had a job otherwise. He took care of so many people, and he invested in
what he believed in, here, because he grew up here,” she said. “We have
to keep that work going. It’s what he was about.”
Hussle’s death has drawn attention far beyond the Crenshaw District. Celebrities and political leaders across the country have offered their condolences to Hussle’s family and friends. In an interview last week, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles praised Hussle’s contributions to South Los Angeles, a community that he acknowledged has been historically overlooked by the city’s political establishment.
Mr. Garcetti
said Hussle embodied the very idea of black entrepreneurship, a critical
component of lifting the community and its residents.
“He
represented redemption and hope. He had come from the world of gangs
and gotten out,” he said. “This is a devastating shock to the stomach.
He was really ambitious — he wanted to get African Americans into tech,
on top of his music game, on top of his businesses.”
“Then to be killed in such a clichéd way, by guns, for a beef in South L.A., it feeds into too many stereotypes,” he said.
Velma Sanders, 60, said she did not listen to Hussle’s music but, as a lifelong resident of South Los Angeles, she felt pride watching his career grow in recent years. His presence, she said, was felt by everyone.
“He would be out
here. He showed you that he didn’t fear where he grew up. He was proud
of it,” she said. “He was building up this community, giving back to
this community. He took that money and instead of buying something
luxurious, a big home or whatever, he put it back in his community so
these would not be vacant buildings. It’s just beautiful.”
Manuel
Pastor, a professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University
of Southern California who has researched the demographics and culture
of South Los Angeles, said Hussle’s killing “felt like a kick in the
stomach.” He described Hussle as “a hometown guy lifting up his
hometown.” Nothing illustrated this more, he said, than when Hussle and
his girlfriend, the actress Lauren London, posed for a photo shoot in GQ
in February at locations around South Los Angeles — not Hollywood, not
downtown Los Angeles, not New York.
“This really hit hard. This was a hometown guy who stayed home,” said Mr. Pastor.
Mr.
Pastor said Hussle had left the gang life but never rejected the
culture of the community. Alienation and the search for identity amid
violence and poverty often feed into gang culture, something Hussle
spoke about openly.
“He did what many
people ask of black celebrities, to come back to their community,” said
Najee Ali, an activist in South Los Angeles who knew Hussle. He said
the community is accustomed to feeling left behind when one of its own
makes it big and finds fame.
“They
all leave,” he said. “Hussle was the only one to stay in the community.
He believed in the slogan, ‘Don’t move, improve.’ That’s what made him
special.”
Hasani Leffall, 35, who
knew Hussle, once worked for the rapper’s stepfather at a South Los
Angeles restaurant called Bayou Grille. To emphasize the depth of
feeling over Hussle’s murder within the black community of Los Angeles,
he mentioned the murders of Tupac, Biggie Smalls, even Malcolm X and the
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Even with his fame, money and the support of the community, Hussle couldn’t escape the violence of the streets he rapped about.
Mr. Holder, the suspect in the killing, is an aspiring rapper who knew Hussle when he was younger. Mr. Holder, Mr. Leffall said, “represents a dark side about L.A., and a dark side about just men in L.A., in Crip life. There’s always somebody that just doesn’t like you, doesn’t like the fact that people love you.”
Boxers, briefs, brassieres and bikinis saw the light of day Sunday (Aug. 5) during the National Underwear Day parade that promenaded around Bayou St. John in Mid-City from Toulouse Street to Esplanade Avenue and back.
The indiscreet procession was organized by Ryan Ballard, the founder of the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus Mardi Gras parading group, which may explain the Star Wars Stormtroopers who strode amidst the Victoria’s Secret shoppers Sunday.
Underwear Day is a celebration cooked up by the underwear industry 15 years ago to lend its little-seen products some extra exposure. But Ballard said, from his point of view, the New Orleans Underwear Day parade is merely meant to present the public with a splash of fleshy fun in the heat of August. Plus, paraders donated fresh packs of underwear to the homeless.
Ballard’s first National Underwear parade in 2016 took place in the Bywater. Back then, Ballard hoped to set a Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of underwear wearers, but he was foiled by the fact that so many paraders added costume accoutrement to their skivvies that the Guinness judges disqualified the event. Such is the nature of parading in the Crescent City, of course, where costuming just comes naturally. Having learned his lesson, Ballard did not attempt to break any records in 2018.
It was past 1 a.m. in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on Memorial Day weekend, on Fulton Street between Throop and Nostrand. A few bodegas and a fried chicken spot were open, supported by gaggles of hungry young people bubbling up from the subway every few minutes. Hip-hop from passing cars with windows open or tops down melted into the night. But for the most part, it was quiet. This strip of Fulton is dominated by 26 storefronts that specialize in black hair, but at this hour, most were dark, their gates down.
One shop, however, was open for business. It was a cavernous salon with a black tile floor and white walls, and its door was propped open. Black chairs ringed the room, and an island of hair dryers took up its center. This was Cherry’s Unisex Salon. Two barbers and four customers lounged in chairs. A short, muscular man wearing a black T-shirt and sweatpants, Cory Parker, took off his do-rag and sat in a barber chair, running a hand over short, curly hair as he consulted a chart of 30 men’s haircuts on a wall.
“I want between a 3, an 18 and a 27,” he said over his shoulder to a barber rummaging in a drawer.
“O.K.”
“You’re not even looking at the chart! What did I say I want?”
The barber turned around and peered at the chart. “You said you want an 18, a 23 …” he started. They both laughed.
In boardrooms and parliaments, on television and the stage, women are increasingly making their presence felt across Africa and on the world stage. The inaugural ARISE 100 list champions just some of the remarkable women shaping modern Africa today. Icons such as Angélique Kidjo, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Charlize Theron sit alongside lesser-known heroines such as scientist Tebello Nyokong, social entrepreneur Wendy Luhabe and political comedian Odile Sankara. We share their stories and record their amazing achievements in the fields of politics, business, campaigning, fashion, science and technology, arts and literature, media and communications, law, sport and entertainment.The African Union has christened this the African Women’s Decade, so what better time to celebrate the women changing the face of Africa on the continent and around the world? This is their time.
To Name A Few
Business + Law
Ayo Obe, Vice Chair, National Crisis Group, Nigeria Bridgette Radebe, President, South African Mining Development Association, SA Cherie Blair, lawyer, UK Dambisa Moyo, economist, Zambia/US Dr Eleni Gabre-Madhin, founder, Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, Ethiopia Eva Muraya, co-founder and CEO, Color Creations Group, Kenya Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor, International Criminal Court, The Gambia Genevieve Sangudi, Managing Director, Carlyle Group Africa, Tanzania Hajia Bola Shagaya, founder and CEO, Bolmus Group International, Nigeria Irene Charnley, CEO, Smile Telecoms, SA Isabel dos Santos, investor and businesswoman, Angola Jonitha Gugu Msibi, Senior Partner, Ernst & Young, SA Maria Ramos, CEO, Absa Group, Portugal/SA Minoush Abdel-Meguid, co-founder, Union Capital, Egypt Monhla Hlahla, Chair, IDC, SA Ngozi Edozien, Director, Actis West Africa, Nigeria Nombulelo ‘Pinky’ Moholi, CEO, Telkom SA LTD, SA Nonkululeko Nyembezi-Heita, CEO, Arcelormittal South Africa, SA Phuti Malabie, CEO, Shanduka Group, SA Rosalind Kainyah, Vice President, External Affairs & CSR, Tullow Oil, Ghana/UK Stella Kilonzo, Chief Executive, Capital Markets Authority, Kenya Susan ‘Santie’ Botha, Chancellor of the Nelson Mandela University, SA Teresa Heinz Kerry, businesswoman and philanthropist, US Thuli Madonsela, public protector, SA Tsega Gebreyes, Managing Partner, Satya Capital, Ethiopia/UK Wendy Ackerman, retail tycoon, SA Wendy Luhabe, social entrepreneur, SA
OAKLAND, CA. Recently the American Business Women’s Association held their 25th Anniversary, presents “Cities in Paris” at Scott’s Seafood Bar & Restaurant. The event was well attended by business women from all over the bay area, also the Mayor of Oakland was in attendance. Dinner was provided by Scott’s Seafood Bar & Restaurant. The celebration had various speakers who spoke about empowerment for women, opening doors to women in the Pacific Rim so employment, financial, mentoring and information can be provided to women who want to break the boundaries of business primarily dominated by men as one of the speakers so eloquently told the audience. The fashion show was an array of eclectic designs from bay area designers. The audience was engaged by the different fashions being shown from evening wear, business, casual wear and hats. To view the highlights of the event check out the pictures at: http://ronfulcher.zenfolio.com/p44844807
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