National News - Page 148

Black Entrepreneurs Drive Eco Innovation and Earth Day Action

By Curtis Bunn As a child growing up in Richmond, California, the future held one of two possibilities in Darrell Jobe’s young mind: play for the NFL or become a microbiologist. But at 13, everything changed when he became homeless, dropped out of school and joined a gang. That he celebrates Earth Day on Friday as the owner of Vericool, which produces environmentally safe packaging products, speaks to his unpredictable journey. He says it also speaks to his never-wavering interest in protecting the earth, even after he’s served short stints in prison. “I love animals and if you do, you care

Jessica Watkins Becomes First Black Woman on ISS Crew

By Char Adams and Donna M. Owens NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins will join a small yet groundbreaking list Saturday when she becomes the fifth Black woman to go to space and the first Black woman to serve aboard the International Space Station. Watkins’ mission has drawn praise from diversity and inclusion experts, but it shows just how far Black women still have to go in the white, male-dominated profession. “You know there’s not enough of us. Women are underrepresented in science, although it’s getting better in some ways,” said Mae Jemison, who made her own headlines in 1992 when she became the first Black

Nashville Declares Juneteenth a Paid Holiday for Workers

By Rashad Grove Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced plans to sign an executive order to make Juneteenth a paid holiday for city employees, the Associated Press reports. On Tuesday, the Metro Civil Service Commission (CSC) approved the measure to recognize Juneteenth as “a formal Metro holiday for all civil service status employees,”  according to a press release. Cooper’s signed executive order will extend the holiday to all Metro employees as well as non-civil service status employees. Earlier this year, a bi-partisan effort proposal to make Juneteenth an official statewide paid holiday was shot down in the GOP-controlled General Assembly. To offset the cost

Pew Study: 76% of Black Americans Say Race Shapes Identity

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By Associated Press A majority of Black Americans say being Black is central to how they think about themselves and shape their identities, even as many have diverse experiences and come from various backgrounds, according to a new report by Pew Research Center. About three-quarters of Black people said so despite where they come from, their economic status or educational backgrounds. Overall, 14 percent say being Black is only somewhat important to their identity and 9 percent say it has little to no impact, highlighting the diversity of thought among Black Americans, which include U.S.-born Black people and Black immigrants,

VP Harris Champions Black Maternal Health Equity

By Donna M. Owens In December, Vice President Kamala Harris hosted the first federal Maternal Health Day of Action at the White House, where she issued a call to improve health outcomes for parents and infants in the U.S. Months later, she is still using the vice presidential bully pulpit to push for policy and structural changes aimed at saving lives. “In our nation, we are looking at the fact that more women are facing death because of childbirth than in any other developed nation,” Harris told journalists during a call on Thursday during Black Maternal Health Week. “We are looking

BLM Leaders Defend $6M Home Purchase Amid Fund Scrutiny

By Char Adams Patrisse Cullors and Melina Abdullah defended BLM’s decision to buy a $6 million home in California amid concerns about the organization’s finances. Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement are dismissing  allegations that they mismanaged millions of dollars after a scathing New York Magazine report revealed that they had purchased a $6 million home in Southern California with donated funds. Patrisse Cullors, co-founder and former executive director of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, and Melina Abdullah, co-founder of BLM Los Angeles and co-director of BLM Grassroots, spoke to reporters Monday during a closed roundtable discussion, dismissing recent

Urban League: Black Americans Face Deepening Inequality

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By The Associated Press The National Urban League released its annual report on the State of Black America on Tuesday, and its findings are grim. This year’s Equality Index shows Black people still get only 73.9 percent of the American pie white people enjoy. While Black people have made economic and health gains, they’ve slipped farther behind whites in education, social justice and civic engagement since this index was launched in 2005. A compendium of average outcomes by race in many aspects of life, it shows just how hard it is for people of color to overcome systemic racism, the

Black Appraisers Tackle Bias in Home Valuations

By Curtis Burn After 21 years as a residential appraiser, Sanedria Potter still gets incredulous looks when she shows up at a home to do her job. “You’re the appraiser?” she’s asked. Potter smiles to herself, understanding she’s an anomaly in her industry. Ninety-eight percent of home appraisers are white, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As far as Potter is concerned, the lack of people of color in the industry is at the very root of home appraisal bias, which a Brookings Institution report last year said created a 23 percent devaluation of homes in Black neighborhoods, adding up to $156 billion

Bernice King Claps Back at Senate Candidate Over MLK Ad

By Ashley Banks Martin Luther King Jr.’s youngest daughter had a fiery exchange with a far-right senate candidate who made false claims about the Civil Rights Leader on social media. Last week, Republican Josh Mandel who is running for U.S. Senate in Ohio, stated that MLK inspired him to make his latest anti-critical race theory campaign ad. The 30-second advertisement used MLK imagery and at some point used a voiceover that said, “There’s nothing racist about stopping critical race theory and loving America.” Many people, including Bernice King were not happy that the senate candidate was insinuating that MLK was against critical

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson: A Historic Supreme Court Moment

Only the BLACK WOMAN can say “when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole. . . race enters with me.” – Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South, 1892 Historically, African American women have stood at the crossroads of oppression and liberation. In her book, The Habit of Surviving, Kesho Yvonne Scott writes: “black women both shape the world and are shaped by it.” Today, Tougaloo College is proud to bear witness to this profound moment as Katanji Brown Jackson is

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