Dee Henry Williams: The Healer GRAND DEEVA
a porch in Omaha, Nebraska.
Dee Henry Williams, known to Twin Cities radio audiences as the “Grand Deeva,” has spent nearly four decades using music as a bridge across generations and as a balm for the soul. “The intention is healing and celebration,” she said. “We want to celebrate our healing and then we want to heal as we celebrate.” Henry Williams shared her story and philosophy during a recent edition of The Conversation With Al McFarlane on Radio KFAI 90.3 FM, streamed live through the Insight News MN YouTube channel.
Henry Williams
traced her beginnings to a call for volunteers and a push from her late husband. “He says, you’ve always wanted to be on radio,” she recalled with a laugh. “I said, really, when did
that revelation come to you?” She answered that call, attended orientation at Walker Church, and soon found herself on-air at a small space above Butler Drug at Lake and Bloomington. From those humble beginnings came a co-hosted Saturday morning show with Bonnie V. “There’s a spot open from 6:00am to 9:00am,” she remembered telling her cohost. When Bonnie worried about losing Friday nights party time, Henry Williams replied, “That’s not our conversation, darling.” The show, first called Watercolors, blended styles but eventually grew into Henry Williams’ own creation: R&B for Healing and Celebration.
“To me watercolors meant a blend,” she explained. “It’s purple, it’s blue, sometimes it’s red, and most definitely it’s got to be Black.”
Raised on the Blues
Henry Williams’ musical foundation was laid on
“On a weekly basis my mother and her sister got together on our front porch and played the blues on a record player with that little arm on it,” she said.
“I kept Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland going, and B. B. King, Lord have mercy. These were my very first Blues artists that remember.”
She rattled off the canon of her life: “Buddy Guy, Johnny Taylor, Latimore,” she said, before placing one artist at the top. “Koko Taylor number one as far as I’m concerned.”
For Henry Williams, the Blues is not to be confused with jazz.
“We call the Blues by many different names, but we never call it jazz,” she said. “Jack McDuff told me personally; I don’t play jazz. I play the Blues.”
Ownership and Roots
The discussion turned to B. B. King’s lament that Black audiences were abandoning the bBlues as white crowds filled arenas. Henry Williams
pushed back. “I still like the music. I’m still listening,” she said. Instead, she pointed to co-opting in the 1960s. “Maybe it was the Beatles, the Rolling Stones,” she reflected. She recalled King’s own words after his trip to Africa. “He came back and said, this is Black folks’ music. We created this out of that enslavement period. And that indeed is where gospel also came from, the Blues.”
On Robert Johnson, Henry Williams dismissed myths of The Devil’s bargain at The Crossroads. “Robert Johnson was a genius. All these other artists leaned on his style,” she said. “Practice, practice, practice, and mor practice… sheer determination.
Music and Spirit as One
McFarlane described the moment when artist and instrument merge, changing the room. Henry Williams nodded. “Are you one with yourself,” she asked. “The music is the spirit, and the spirit is the music.” She listed Aretha Franklin, Bettye LaVette, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, and Prince
Credit: James Fortune/Rex Shutterstock
1976: Bobby Blue Bland and B.B. King embrace after recording Bobby Bland and B.B. King Together Again...Live at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles
By Pulane Choane Contributing Writer
Walz seeks 3rd term
“I’m running to continue serving as Governor of Minnesota,” said Tim Walz in a pre-announcement email to campaign supprters.
Walz said, “Here in Minnesota, we’ve cut child poverty, expanded labor rights, invested in education, made sure every student gets free breakfast and lunch at school, and so much more.”
“We’re putting people first — and giving folks the freedom to live their own lives
the way they want to live them,” he said.
Walz waned, “everything we’re building is under attack. Donald Trump and his fellow extremists are dismantling basic services like Social Security and Medicare, leaving working families behind, and threatening our freedoms.
“That’s why I’m running — because we’ve got a lot more work to do, and I’m sure as hell not going to let MAGA extremists flip this state red,
Xp Lee last week won a special election to Minnesota’s House District 34B, replacing the former Minnesota House Speaker Emeritus Melissa Hortman following her tragic assassination in June. Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin, said, “Across Minnesota, our hearts are still broken by the horrific assassination that stole Melissa and her husband
Mark. Political violence is a scourge that has taken far too many lives. Enough is enough. It must end now. And in every case, each of us has a responsibility to condemn and reject political violence wherever it rears its head.
Martin said, “I offer a heartfelt congratulations to Xp Lee on his victory. Xp's commitment to expanding access to education, affordable health
Walz said. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was among the first to support Governor Tim Walz's decision to run for reelection:
“Tim Walz is an outstanding governor, and I am glad he’s running for re-election. Tim banished hunger from Minnesota classrooms, defended reproductive rights, passed paid family leave, and so much more. That’s a hell of a record. Tim also stands up for people
who need it most - from the LGBTQ+ community to working-class families to teachers, farmers, first responders, and more. Minnesotans know they can count on Tim to put people first. Tim led Minnesota through some of the greatest challenges faced by any governor in living memory, and he did so with the courage of a
It wasn’t someone from “the radical left.” It wasn’t an “illegal immigrant,” and it wasn’t a person of color. The suspect in the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk is 22-yearold Tyler Robinson, a white Salt Lake City man whose father, according to reports, is a law enforcement officer who helped convince his son to surrender.
The Arrest and Evidence
Federal investigators and Utah officials released images and videos of the person believed responsible. The suspect appeared wearing a
hat, sunglasses, a long-sleeved black shirt, and a backpack. Investigators also recovered a Mauser .30-caliber bolt-action rifle wrapped in a towel in nearby woods. A spent cartridge was still in the chamber, with three more rounds loaded in the magazine. The weapon and ammunition are now undergoing forensic analysis at a federal lab. Bullet casings discovered at the scene carried cryptic and mocking engravings. Utah Governor Spencer Cox said the fired casing read: “notices bulges OWO what’s this?” while three unfired cas
care, and good-paying jobs honors the legacy of our dear friend, Speaker Emeritus Melissa Hortman.
“The sacred duty of an elected representative is to work tirelessly for the interests of their constituents. I’ve seen Rep-elect Lee’s leadership up close while he was a Brooklyn Park City Councilmember and I have no doubt he’ll continue
that leadership as a statehouse member. Rep-elect Lee will be a champion for the constituents of his district, and through that work, proudly carry the legacy of a leader who worked tirelessly for all Minnesotans — my friend, the great Melissa Hortman,” Martin said.
Due to urgent safety and health concerns, including a shooting that injured seven people last Monday night, Minneapolis is closing the encampment on privately owned property at S. 28th Avenue and Lake Street, Minneapolis officials announced in a press statement Tuesday. Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) investigators are working to determine the events leading up to the shooting. It is unknown if this shooting is related to the shooting earlier on Monday that injured five people near Lake Street and Stevens Avenue. Minneapolis officials said the city is committed to proactively providing resources to those impacted by ongoing
violence in the area and in the unsheltered community.
“We are also working with organizations that serve unhoused community members to help communicate the resources available to them, such as connections to victim services and Hennepin County shelter services,” the press statement said. “We are also working to provide a neighborhood assistance center. This will be a physical location where anyone from the community dealing with this incident and the recent violence in Minneapolis can access services and information, such as mental
Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, and Carol Robertson. Shavon Arline-Bradley of the National Council of Negro Women says we are commemorating one of the most gruesome acts of violence in our country’s history, where 4 Black girls from Birmingham, AL lost their lives at the hands of white supremacists.”
Dr. Amos Brown, pastor of the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco, says of the heinous, deadly bombXp Lee wins House seat formerly held by slain Rep. Melissa Hortman
Twelve years ago, the four children received the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously: Addie Mae Collins,
It is 62 years later after the death of the four little girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, just weeks after the August 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Democratic, Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell said this anniversary reminds us to reflect on issues our forefathers fought for during the most powerful movement in this nation: civil rights, voting rights, and civil liberties.
The Trump administration has intensified its campaign to rewrite how America tells its history, ordering federal agencies to remove exhibits and materials that emphasize slavery and racial injustice by September 17. The directive, issued by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, has set off a wave of protests, most prominently in Philadelphia, where activists gathered this weekend to defend the President’s House site. That outdoor memorial, located steps from Independence Hall, docu-
ments the reality that George Washington enslaved nine people while serving as the nation’s first president. The President’s House exhibit, formally titled “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,” includes multimedia displays and detailed accounts of individuals such as Ona Judge, who escaped to freedom. Panels such as “The Dirty Business of Slavery,” which describe the economics and human cost of bondage, are now targeted for removal under the administration’s order. Community leaders warn that the directive is designed to sanitize history
Credit: AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, Fle
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at the California Democratic Party's 2025 State Convention at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif., on May, 31, 2025.
Credit: Nathaniel Minor | The Minnesota Star Tribune
Democrat Xp Lee, who is running for the House District 34B seat, poses for a portrait outside of his Brooklyn Park home.
Credit: Wikipedia.org
Rep. Melissa Hortman 61st Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives
Encampment site
Who Charlie Kirk’s killer wasn’t
By April Ryan
Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Photo by Gage Skidmore Charlie Kirk speaking with attendees at the 2025 Young Women's Leadership Summit at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas.
By Stacy M. Brown
By Haley Taylor Schlitz,
I remember sitting in front of my screen on Inauguration Day 2021, listening as Amanda Gorman’s words carried across the nation.
“If only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.” For my generation, those words felt like a charge, a reminder that even in a nation scarred by injustice, there was still light to claim and still hills to climb. Gorman’s poem gave voice to what so many of us believed: that America was unfinished, but it was not beyond redemption.
Four years later, the landscape feels far darker. Donald Trump has returned to the White House. The Supreme Court, dominated by his appoin-
By Chuck Hobbs
President Donald Trump, per his March 27th Executive Order that's dubiously entitled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," is preparing to have the Department of Interior remove "information that reflects a ‘corrosive ideology’ that disparages historic Americans.”
According to several sources, first up on the chopping block is the infamous 1863 photo of an escaped enslaved man named Gordon that's titled “The Scourged Back,” one that shows horrific scars on his back from a lifetime of brutal mistreatment by slave masters and overseers.
Separately, the Washington Post reports that Trump intends to restore a 20 foot por-
tees, seems intent on unraveling protections from the Voting Rights Act to reproductive freedom that were won through generations of sacrifice. Black unemployment has surged above seven percent. In just three months, 300,000 Black women lost their jobs. The light that felt so near in 2021 can feel swallowed now by the shadows of regression.
That is why Governor Tim Walz’s decision to seek a third term is not just another campaign announcement. It is a call to remember that leadership grounded in courage and community still matters. Walz has stood with us before, most visibly when he accepted the call to join Kamala Harris on the 2024 presidential ticket, standing with a Black woman at a time when racism and misogyny made her candidacy a lightning rod. He did not shrink from that partnership. He embraced it. And here in Minnesota, his record shows that he has not only stood beside our community, but fought for us. Walz’s legacy is one of action. He signed into law the single largest investment in public education in Minnesota’s history, a $2.3 billion budget that created thousands of new pre-K seats, expanded access to mental health resources for students, and made significant investments to improve child literacy. As a former teacher, I know how much these investments matter for children, families, and the future of our state. He restored voting rights to Minnesotans who had paid their debt to society, ensuring that voices long silenced could finally be heard. He created paid family leave and sick days that recognize the reality of caregivers, most often women and disproportionately Black women. He signed protections for workers in warehouses, meat plants, and schools, standing with labor in a way that speaks to my own upbringing in a union household. He codified reproductive rights in Minnesota law, making
clear that women here will not be at the mercy of an extremist Court. These are not abstract policies. For Black Minnesotans, they are matters of survival and dignity. They mean children starting school with strong foundations and families having access to the literacy resources they need to thrive. They mean grandmothers raising grandchildren can breathe a little easier. They mean neighbors returning from incarceration can step back into democracy as full citizens. They mean Black men working hard to provide for their families can finally count on fair wages, safer workplaces, and the respect their labor deserves. They mean Black women, too often forced to choose between work and family, can finally have their labor respected. I write this as someone who lives at the intersection of Blackness, womanhood, Gen Z, an educator, and an attorney. The attacks on DEI we are witnessing today are not
policy debates. They are blatant attacks on the very existence of our community. And the erasure goes deeper. When President Trump directs the removal of “negative” slavery exhibits from museums, it is not just a rewriting of history. It is an attack on the truth of our American experience, an attempt to silence the pain and resilience that define who we are. I see how economic policies that claim to serve everyone end up pushing Black families further behind. I see how stripping away reproductive freedom is a direct assault on the futures of my generation. My perspective as an attorney, an educator, and a Black woman reminds me every day of the ways these struggles are connected and why they demand our full attention.
That is why I say plainly that this election is about our community. Do not let anyone tell you differently. We are not voting in ordinary times. We are voting in a moment when the right to vote itself hangs in the balance. We are voting in a moment when the economy is once again rigged to cast us aside. We are voting in a moment when truth is under assault and our history is being erased. In that reality, Governor Walz’s third term is not just about continuing Minnesota’s progress. It is about defending Black Minnesotans from being erased altogether. Amanda Gorman reminded us that America is “unfinished.” The hill we climb today in Minnesota is steep, but it is climbable if we are brave enough. We cannot march back to what was. We must move toward what shall be. And in this election, that means standing with Governor Walz, because he has shown that he will stand with us. The stakes could not be higher. If we do not stand up and vote now, the future we lose will not just be our own, but that of the generations who come after us. The hill is before us, and history has its eyes on us.
A tale of two historic pictures
trait of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, a slaveowner and slavery defender, to a wall at the United States Military Acad-
emy (West Point). For those unaware, Lee was a West Point graduate and former superintendent before gaining fame as the leader of the Confederate armies during the Civil War. The portrait was moved several years ago per a Congressional Act that led to the renaming of military bases named for Confederate leaders.
Folks, Trump has never hidden his affinity for a Confederacy that was formed specifically to preserve and expand the enslavement of Black people, this despite the fact that his German ancestors didn't immigrate to America until over three decades after the Civil War ended. But one needn't have a direct tie to America's slavery past to glorify in it, all one needs to be is a racist, at worse, or indifferent to systemic racism, at best, to glorify a rebellion against the Constitution
that left over 700,000 people dead—and still haunts this nation 160 years after the last muskets and cannon fired in that conflict. Not trying to brag, but I probably have forgotten more about Civil War era history than Trump ever learned—and I haven't forgotten much because it remains my favorite period to read about during my free time. Which is why I often aver that studying history or knowing the great actors in history is one thing, but honoring bad actors and pretending that what they meant and did for evil was somehow "good" and worthy to be praised is something altogether different! Trump isn't the first; the entire "Lost Cause" movement in historical scholarship sprang forth towards the turn of the 20th Century as a way to explain the Confederacy, slavery, and the War Between the States as some melodramatic, honorable crusade wrapped in the existential American need for freedom. The “Lost Cause” movement was complete poppycock, mind you, but back then—like now—too many people were led by white supremacist passion on this subject instead of deliberate reason and because of that, the very traitorous leaders of the movement, like Generals Robert E. Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, were hailed as heroes while the victims—enslaved Black people like Gordon and my Williams ancestors in Georgia—were falsely deemed to be "Happy Darkeys" who were "too childlike" to fend for themselves as free people. Even writing these words makes me sick to my stomach, but there are volumes of factual and/or fictional books, like Margaret Mitchell's classic Gone with the Wind, that propagate Confederate glory instead of recognizing it for what it was— an inhumane government that was run by selfish, twisted men who saw Black people as chattel no different than horses, mules, and cattle!
Trump is not a well read man, as evidenced by his ignorance on any number of academic subjects, but he is bright enough to know exactly what he is doing by pillorying Black history and praising Confederate history, which is throwing red meat to his ravenously racist base by restoring Confederate heroes to the public square— while removing references to Slavery and Jim Crow out of his belief that such subjects "discriminate against white people." Which is an idiotic take, no doubt, but again, when we
realize that the Department of Education reports that nearly 60 percent of all present day American adults read below a fifth grade level, well, it doesn't take much to fool folks who are literally illiterate and incapable of reading and comprehending for themselves; this cuts both ways across the ideological divide as there are some liberals who lack knowledge, wisdom, and common sense on certain subjects as well!
But again, as a lover of history, I can appreciate ALL of the nuances of Robert E. Lee's life as a Union officer who switched to the Confederacy only because his home state of Virginia seceded and as he often said, could "never raise his sword against Virginia."
And still, I can opine that Lee, as one who raised his sword against the United States and helped put nearly a half million U.S. soldiers in the ground over four years, deserves to be studied, but does NOT deserve to be honored with a 20 foot portrait at the U.S. Military Academy— one that depicts an enslaved Black man holding his horse, to boot!
Similarly, I can look at a picture of a truly helpless victim, the enslaved man Gor-
don and his striped back, and realize that those who tore his flesh off the bone are long since dead! Their deaths mean that while it's illogical to apply the physical sins of masters and overseers to their descendants, we can still recognize where the American economy grew strong and remains strong due to slavery, Jim Crow, and the continuing undervaluing of blue collar and menial labor workers to this very day. By so
New CBCF policy playbook targets racial wealth and justice gaps
By Stacy M. Brown Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) has released Forward Together: The Black Policy Playbook for an Equitable America, a sweeping set of recommendations designed to dismantle systemic barriers and chart a course toward racial equity in the United States. Published in 2025, the playbook arrives at a critical moment, with Black communities confronting deep disparities in wealth, health, education, and criminal justice.
Authored by Jonathan Cox, Vice President of the CBCF’s Center for Policy Analysis and Research, and his team, the playbook outlines a bold
agenda that ties equity directly to America’s long-term prosperity and democratic stability. It argues that structural racism remains a defining obstacle to national progress, and it sets out specific strategies to close the racial wealth gap, expand access to quality education, achieve health equity, and reform the criminal justice system. “Equity is not just a moral imperative — it is a national necessity,” the playbook declares, calling on lawmakers, business leaders, and civic institutions to work in concert to ensure Black Americans can fully participate in and benefit from the nation’s economic and social fabric.
Among its central recommendations are investments in affordable housing, protections for voting rights, universal access to health care, and targeted support for Black-
owned businesses. The playbook also warns that without deliberate policy shifts, the wealth gap between Black and white households will continue to widen, with generational
consequences for families and communities. The report is also forward-looking, connecting today’s struggles to the future of democracy itself. It stresses that attacks on voting rights, book
bans in schools, and the rollback of diversity and inclusion efforts represent not only threats to Black progress but to the country’s core democratic principles. The CBCF plans to
America dragged back to Jim Crow as Trump’s Project 2025
By Stacy M. Brown
America is no longer drifting toward authoritarianism. It is living it. Project 2025 has been instituted, and the results are clear. Donald Trump has put forth racist policies that strip away protections, empower white supremacists, and turn Washington, D.C., into a militarized zone. His followers have taken the flag of racism and run wild with it, building whites-only communities and terrorizing Black neighborhoods under the cover of his administration.
The Thurgood Marshall Institute at the Legal Defense Fund warned last year that Project 2025 was “a direct, boundless, pregnant threat to the interests and well-being of Black people and our democracy.” The Institute detailed how the plan would consolidate executive power, dismantle civil rights enforcement, suppress the Black vote, gut public education, and eliminate safeguards against discrimination. “Our de-
mocracy stands at a crossroads, a path of infinite promise towards a more inclusive, equitable, and durable democracy on the one hand, and one of immeasurable and irretrievable demise on the other,” Janai S. Nelson, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said in 2024. “The assault on Black communities envisioned by Project 2025 will almost certainly condemn us to demise.”
Trump’s Militarized State
Since his return to office, Trump has turned the nation’s capital into what residents describe as an occupied city. Military vehicles patrol neighborhoods, checkpoints dominate downtown, and police with expanded immunity operate with near total control. Trump has threatened to “clean out” cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, targeting majority-Black communities as justification for federal crackdowns. Immigration raids have surged, ripping apart families across Black and Latino neighborhoods. The atmosphere exploded this week when Code-
Pink protestors confronted Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Cabinet members Marco Rubio and others. Standing within inches of Trump, they shouted “Free D.C. Free Palestine, Trump is the Hitler of our time” before being hauled away by security.
Signs of Jim Crow Across the country, the evidence of regression is mounting. In Rockdale County, Georgia, children walked
into Honey Creek Elementary School to find “Whites Only” and “Colored Only” signs taped over water fountains and posted in the cafeteria. Officials claimed it was part of a history lesson about Ruby Bridges. Parents said their children were traumatized. One mother recalled her son being mocked by classmates when he drank beneath a sign reading “For Colored Only” and said, “to me that’s not a history lesson.”
Building a White Nation Trump’s policies have also emboldened groups openly constructing whites-only settlements. In Arkansas, a compound called Return to the Land has built a 160-acre enclave restricted to people of European ancestry. Its leaders praise Adolf Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan while raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to expand into Missouri. “You want
spotlight the playbook during its Annual Legislative Conference, scheduled for September 24–28, 2025, in Washington, D.C. The conference theme, From Vision to Victory: Amplifying Black Voices, aligns closely with the playbook’s roadmap for action. Policymakers, advocates, and grassroots leaders will use the document as a touchstone for discussions on how to transform vision into measurable outcomes. Cox and his team insist that accountability will be key. The playbook is not meant to sit on a shelf, but to be used as a guide for legislation, executive action, and community organizing. “We must hold institutions accountable,” the document states, urging that progress be tracked not only in policy language but in lived realities for Black Americans.
a white nation? Build a white town? It can be done. We’re doing it,” Eric Orwoll, Return to the Land co-founder, said. “We don’t need to get back to the Jim Crow era,” countered Barry Jefferson, NAACP Arkansas State Conference President. “We’ve been through that before. I think no one should be discriminated against because of their skin color.”
A Nation Pushed Backward
From the militarization of Washington to racist raids in Black cities, from schoolchildren forced to relive segregation to whites-only communities legally testing America’s civil rights laws, the consequences of Project 2025 are undeniable. Trump has institutionalized racism at the highest levels of government, and his supporters are enforcing it on the ground. “This organization wants to return us to sundown town, and we are not that,” said Susan Schmalzbauer, pastor of the United Methodist Church in Missouri. “There’s really no place for hate. Hate divides, but love unites.”
3 states push to put the Ten Commandments back into school – banking on new guidance at the Supreme Court
By Claire B. Wofford Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Charleston
As disputes rage on over religion’s place in public schools, the Ten Commandments have become a focal point. At least a dozen states have considered proposals that would require classrooms to post the biblical laws, and three passed laws mandating their display in 2024-2025: Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas.
All three laws have been at least partially blocked –most recently Texas’ law – after federal trial court rulings. But the ongoing cases seem aimed at overturning a 45-year-old U.S. Supreme Court precedent prohibiting the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. As religion and education law researchers, we believe this situation is especially noteworthy because of its timing. The Supreme Court has been using a new standard to assess religious freedom cases –and its judgments on religion’s role in public education are perhaps the most religion-friendly they have ever been.
The Ten Commandments and the courts Litigation over the Ten Commandments is not new. More than a dozen early cases generally upheld laws and policies mandating their recitation in schools. These enactments survived because the Supreme Court did not extend the First Amendment to the states until 1940.
However, the issue of posting the commandments in schools first surfaced in 1980. In a case called Stone v. Graham,
the Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky statute requiring displays of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. The court reasoned that the law violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
At the time, the court used three criteria, known as the “Lemon test,” to evaluate whether a government action violated the establishment clause. According to this test –which developed from a 1971 Supreme Court decision – governmental actions must have a secular legislative purpose, and their main effect may neither advance nor inhibit religion. In addition, they must avoid excessive entanglement with religion.
When Kentucky’s case came before the court, justices rejected its argument that the displays served a secular educational purpose. The majority did not think that a small notation on posters describing the Ten Commandments as the “fundamental legal code of Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States” was sufficient, and wrote that the posters were “plainly religious in nature.”
Twenty-five years later, in 2005, disputes over public displays of the Ten Commandments reached the Supreme Court once more. This time, the displays were not in schools. But the first controversy arose, again, in Kentucky. Officials in two counties had erected displays at courthouses that included the Ten Commandments, Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence. The justices limited their order to one dispute, in McCreary County, invalidating the display for violating the establishment clause – largely
because it lacked a secular legislative purpose.
On the same day, though, the Supreme Court reached the opposite result in another case, Van Orden v. Perry. The court permitted a display including the Ten Commandments to remain on the grounds of the Texas Capitol in Austin, where it was one of 17 monuments and 21 historical markers.
Unlike the fairly new displays in Kentucky, the long-standing one in Texas, with the first monument erected in 1891, was built using private funds. The court left the Ten Commandments monument in place because it was a more passive display. The Capitol grounds are spread out over 22 acres, meaning the display was not as readily apparent as if it had been posted in classrooms for children to see every day.
‘Follow God’s law’
In 2024, a federal trial court in Louisiana blocked a state law mandating that the Ten Commandments be posted in public schools. Undeterred, Arkansas and Texas passed similar legislation the following year.
Arkansas Act 573, signed into law in April 2025,
obligated officials to display a “durable poster or framed copy” of the Ten Commandments in all state and local government buildings, including public school and college classrooms.
Republican Rep. Alyssa Brown, one of the Arkansas bill’s sponsors, described it as an effort to educate students on how the United States was founded and how the founders framed the Constitution.
“We’re not telling every student they have to believe in this God,” she told a legislative committee, “but we are upholding what those historical documents mean and that historical national motto.”
Texas, meanwhile, adopted a similar law in June 2025.
“It is incumbent on all of us to follow God’s law, and I think we would all be better off if we did,” the bill’s sponsor in the Texas House, Republican Rep. Candy Noble, said during debate. Shift at SCOTUS Supporters of these laws have claimed that they are constitutional because of an important shift at the Supreme Court. In 2022, the court adopted a new “history and tradition
test” to assess religion in public places, including classrooms.
The “history and tradition test” originated in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, a case about a public high school football coach who prayed on the field at the end of games. The Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that school officials could not prevent him from doing so, because it was personal religious observance protected by the First Amendment’s other religion clause: that the government shall not prohibit the “free exercise” of religion.
Kennedy charted a new course on religion’s place in public life. Acknowledging that it “long ago abandoned Lemon and its endorsement test offshoot,” the justices explained that “the Establishment Clause must be interpreted by ‘reference to historical practices and understandings.‘” It remains to be seen how this vague standard plays out in later cases.
Blocked – for now
Opponents quickly challenged Arkansas’ law. Seven families from various religious traditions filed suit, arguing that it was a direct violation of both the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.
On Aug. 4, a federal trial court judge ruled in the families’ favor. The court found that the required display would have “forced [students] to engage with” the Ten Commandments, and “perhaps to venerate and obey” them. The trial court also applied the new historical practices and understandings test, holding that there was no evidence of a tradition to display the Ten Commandments in public schools permanently.
The court thus temporarily barred school boards from enforcing Act 573, pending any
further appeals.
Two weeks later, a federal trial court in Texas temporarily blocked the law on the ground that it likely violated the First Amendment, though the judge’s order only applies to 11 districts.
Religion’s role Controversy over the Ten Commandments continues to raise larger questions over the role of religion in public education.
Supporters of such bills seemingly fail to recognize that they cannot impose their religious values in the public sphere. At the same time, some opponents – including Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist, Hindu and nonreligious plaintiffs – do not necessarily wish to remove religion entirely from educational institutions. These critics want to uphold the principle, as the Supreme Court announced, that the government must demonstrate “neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.” In other words, critics do not want one religion or religion generally to dominate.
Today’s challenge is to find the balance in public life. We believe the courts and legislatures must avoid sending the message that religion has no place in a free and open society – just as they must not permit one set of values to dominate, as the bills in Arkansas and Texas seem to aspire to do. How the courts and legislatures balance the rights of the majority and minority in these disputes over the place of the Ten Commandments in public life may go a long way toward shaping the future of religious freedom in American public education.
Credit: Black Press USA
Credit: AP Photo/Andrew DeMillo
Arkansas representatives convene in the House chamber at the state Capitol in Little Rock on June 17, 2024.
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
Credit: Ahmad Bilal
Project 2025, Presidential Transition Project. Project 2025 with American flag in the background
Walz
From 3
Kirk From 3
row symbols, “oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao,” and “if you read this you are gay lmao.” Cox said Robinson is believed to have acted alone but described the killing as “an attack on the American experiment.” Security Questions The assassination has ramped up concerns over vulnerabilities in political event security. Experts interviewed by the Associated Press said the shooting was an example of how ordinary precautions can
health support and assistance from the Department of Public Safety’s Office of Justice Programs.”
The city’s press statement said for much of the summer, the City has worked to provide shelter, services, and support to people at this encampment on private property, while also addressing safety and health concerns to prevent violence. Despite previous efforts by Minneapolis to close the encampment and a series of public health notices for issues like the presence of drug paraphernalia, open fires, excessive debris, unsafe temporary structures, lack of water and restroom access, and more, the property owner has continued to allow the encampment to remain.
veteran, the kindness of a teacher, and the grit of a football coach. Minnesota has already
Minnesota DFL Chair Richard Carlbom said, “Xp Lee’s victory is proof of the positive momentum Democrats are creating across Minnesota and across the country, and we
ing that there was “no respect for our humanity,” feeling the crime emphasizes “they don’t see us as being human.”
Bradley said,” Their sacrifice sparked the nation to
be bypassed in an era of escalating political violence. They questioned whether Kirk’s campus event had sufficient staffing but noted the limitations of university police forces and openair venues.
Kirk’s Views and Polarization
Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was on a college debate tour when he was shot. He often dared students to “prove me wrong” in public debates and argued that when “people stop talking, that’s when you get violence.” But his career was defined by a stream of incendiary remarks about race, gender, immigration, and religion that drew fierce
benefited immensely from the compassion and determination he brought to his decades of
couldn’t be prouder to stand with him. Our party is committed to uplifting those who continue Melissa Hortman’s legacy of public service, leadership, and compassion – Xp Lee’s win
come to grips with the harsh realities of what it meant to be Black in America.”
In church during the Sunday School hour, “These innocent young girls sought to
criticism and loyalty in equal measure. On race, Kirk said in January 2024, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.” He asked in December 2022, “If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States Marine?” And in May 2023, he declared, “Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.”
On gender and reproductive rights, Kirk said in August 2025, “Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.” Asked about a 10-year-old victim of
(HRT) has been to the site every weekday since July 2 to help with making calls to shelters and offering resources.
• July 21: Property owner
Basim Sabri was served with the first public health nuisance letter and was given until July 23 to correct the problems listed in the letter.
public service, and I am confident we will continue to do so. I have had the privilege of
is a clear testament to that dedication. “In nearly every election since Trump took office – including two special elections in Minnesota earlier this
learn more about their faith and how to love thy neighbor as themselves,” when the deadly explosion occurred, said Bradley.
“Today, as we cele-
rape seeking an abortion, he answered, “The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.” On his show in April 2024, he demanded “a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor.” On guns, Kirk defended firearm access even at the cost of lives. “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” he said at a Turning Point USA Faith event in April 2023.
On immigration, Kirk lamented that America is “less white,” saying in March 2024 that Democrats “love it when
against Sabri related to the encampment, which includes a complaint and a motion for a temporary restraining order prohibiting Mr. Sabri from maintaining the encampment on the property.
o Sabri has been served with 12 public health nuisance citations totaling nearly $20,000 in fines.
serving Minnesotans alongside Tim for almost 20 years, first in Congress and then in statewide office. Tim is a colleague, a confidant, and a friend, and he has my full support.”
year – Democrats have been more energized, engaged, and ready to win elections than ever before. Nationwide, our candidates have either outperformed their 2024 margins or won in
brate their contribution to the freedoms we enjoy today, let us be reminded that we shall overcome and victory belongs to those of us that fight for liberty and justice for all,” sh said.
America becomes less white.”
He promoted the “great replacement” conspiracy theory and, in August 2025, praised America’s early 20th-century decision to halt immigration for 40 years.
On Islam, Kirk insisted, “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” in a September 2025 social media post. And on religion, he repeatedly rejected the principle of church-state separation, calling it “a fabrication” on his show in July 2022.
A Nation on Edge
42 out of 43 key elections this year. We’re fired up and ready to build on this success all the way through 2026,” Carlbom said.
Almost immediately after Kirk’s assassination, several HBCUs received threats, fights broke out in city streets, politicians spewed more hate and tension by blaming the “radical left,” with at least a couple of MAGA congressmembers claiming that the Democrats must “own this,” while denying any culpability in the deaths of Democratic lawmakers earlier this year, the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and the continued tragedy of school shootings. However, Robinson has been identified as a white nationalist, with anti-minority views. Cox said Robinson had become “more political” but opposed Kirk’s views. “This was an attack on the American experiment,” Cox said, urging young people to “choose a different path.”
ment at least three times a week since July, offering a variety of services to the changing population of people there, including connecting them to emergency shelter, housing, treatment and more. Staff is making plans to reconnect with people to continue working toward their housing goals.
o Hennepin County's Streets to Housing team has been at the encamp-
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has requested additional resources from the state
History
From 3
rather than confront it. “Black history is American history, and we won’t be silenced,” said Rev. Carolyn C. Cavaness of Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, speaking to supporters at Saturday’s rally.
Attorney Michael Coard, representing the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, told attendees that federal officials set the deadline after months of pressure from Trump and congressional allies. “This place could be shut down,” he warned, while outlining legal, political, and activist strategies to keep the memorial intact. The fight over the Philadelphia site has become a flashpoint in a larger national battle over who controls the narrative of American history. In March, Trump signed an executive order claiming the Smithsonian Institution was being influenced by a “divisive, race-centered ideology.” The order specifically named the National Museum of African American History and Culture, once praised by Trump early in his first term, as “oppressive.” It also empowered Vice President JD Vance to review Smithsonian programming and remove what the president has called “improper ideology.” Historians and curators say the move represents a direct attempt to censor scholarship and erase evidence of systemic racism.
Other federal agencies have already scrambled to comply. Earlier this year, the National Park Service briefly altered its Underground Railroad webpage to minimize the role of Harriet Tubman before restoring it under public pressure. The Department of Defense removed, then reinstated,
Minneapolis efforts to abate the public health nuisances and provide resources to encampment residents include:
Since July 2: The City’s Homeless Response Team
Now, the property is being cleaned of trash, debris, and other abandoned items and is secured by MPD as an active crime scene. Minneapolis said it has filed a lawsuit relating to the encampment, which includes a motion for a temporary restraining order prohibiting the encampment from reforming on the property.
information about baseball legend Jackie Robinson’s military service and the Medal of Honor earned by Maj. Gen. Charles C. Rogers, one of the highest-ranking Black servicemembers in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the mural at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington was demolished in March, in what critics say was another symbolic effort to erase visible reminders of the struggle for racial justice.
Trump’s rhetoric has only sharpened. In recent weeks, he referred to museums as remnants of a “woke country” that dwell on slavery and racial injustice rather than celebrating national achievements.
At a White House event, he declared that Smithsonian institutions were filled with “divisive propaganda” and threatened to cut funding if changes were not made. His remarks represented an about-face from 2017, when he called his tour of the African American History Museum “a meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance, and hatred.”
Historians warn that the shift is part of a coordinated effort to control the country’s historical narrative. Chad Williams, a professor at Boston University, compared the administration’s approach to the “Lost Cause” ideology promoted after the Civil War, when southern states sought to glorify the Confederacy while downplaying slavery as the cause of
July 27-Aug. 19: Sabri was served with five citations fr for public health issues, including the presence of drug paraphernalia, lack of water access, improperly stored food, accumulated solid waste, evidence of open fires, unsafe makeshift structures, and excessive debris.
o Sabri was served with a second public health nuisance letter and was given until Aug. 25 to rectify the issues stated in the letter, or the City will do it for him, at his expense.
o City files lawsuit
the conflict. “It sends a very dangerous message about how the government is seeking to control this country’s narrative with a very narrow and propagandistic version of American history,” Williams told a local news outlet.
For community leaders in Philadelphia, the danger appears immediate. The President’s House exhibit opened in 2010 after years of advocacy and archaeological work confirmed that Washington enslaved people on the site. Its panels and digital displays have since served as an educational tool for millions of visitors.
“The first time enslaved Africans were brought here, it was a ripping away of their history, a taking away of their names and their culture,” said Jo Banner, co-founder of the Descendants Project in Louisiana, connecting the federal order to broader patterns of erasure. “If we want our own liberation, we have to own telling our true history.”
Alan Spears, senior director at the National Parks Conservation Association, expressed similar concern. “When you start to fiddle around with history, that isn’t what makes a country great. It makes us weaker. And it makes us meaner, because we’re going to be much less informed about the broad sweep of U.S. history and all the people who have contributed to making this country a good country,” he said.
With the approaching deadline, activists in Philadelphia are pressing for urgent meetings with the National Park Service. They say the stakes are larger than a single site, representing a test of whether Americans will allow federal power to strip away the unvarnished truth of the nation’s past. “We will not allow our history to be erased,” Rev. Cavaness told the rally.
to support MPD’s enforcement efforts in South Minneapolis. The Minnesota Department of Public Safety (DPS) says it remains committed to supporting Minneapolis with specific support from the State Patrol and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). The agencies said they will continue their work initiated earlier this summer, including high-visibility patrols by State Troopers and key investigatory work from BCA agents.
A a fifth child, survivor Sara Collins Rudolph, Addie Mae’s sister, lost her eyes and lives with additional scars from the bombing.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey
Close up blank old vintage yellow paper sheets and scroll on cotton embroidered US national flag background, symbol of American history, elevated high angle view
among those who embodied that wholeness. “Bettye can hone in and then bring you in with her. You feel it.” Henry Williams sees her visual art in the same way. “When I teach photography, I teach how to see,” she said. “The sky is not always blue. Go get purple or orange or gold. Look beyond the subject and around it.”
Healing Recipes
Henry Williams’ credo of healing grew sharper after the death of her husband. “After Lin Williams died in 2003, devastation,” she said softly. “I needed to gather myself and maintain equilibrium.” She began to build what she calls “healing recipes.” “Rituals. Candles. Mantras. Music always. Reading. Journaling,” she said.
“Meditation is critical. Make space even if it’s five minutes.” Even small gestures matter. “A half smile. You don’t always have to grin or frown.
Part your lips, open your eyes, just a little lift,” she said. Her sign-off has be-
Shango Spirit: A mixedmedia portrait by Dee Henry Williams, created with denim, pearls, and patterned fabric (2010). The work echoes her philosophy of “healing and celebration,” blending everyday materials into a soulful face that reflects resilience and creativity. As she told Al McFarlane, her art—whether on canvas, through photography, or over the airwaves—is about “learning how to see” and transforming ordinary fragments into something whole, spirited, and healing.
Credit: YouTube (@InsightNewsMN) Host Al McFarlane (left) speaks with KFAI’s “Grand Deeva”, Dee Henry Williams (right), on Insight News MN’s “The Conversation With Al McFarlane,” where Williams reflects on her 37-year journey in radio, the legacy of the blues, and the power of healing through music
come both mantra and mission: “Cherish The Good Times. Don’t linger in the gray.”
The Business of the Blues
Henry Williams calls her crate “Music from the Black Diaspora.” Every Saturday morning, she opens it for listeners. “The Blues is my business and business is good,” she said. “Be willing to celebrate yourself. And then do it. That in itself is healing.”
Catch the full interview with Dee Henry Williams on The Conversation With Al McFarlane, streaming via the Insight News MN YouTube channel: https://www.youtube. com/watch/PRL6M4ZeuGs Or scan the QR code below to go directly to the video:
The Black Press: Two centuries of truth— but who will save it?
By Stacy M. Brown Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
The Black Press is two years away from its 200th anniversary. Two centuries of carrying our story when others denied us a voice. Two centuries of fighting mobs, resisting Jim Crow, surviving fire, and standing against lies. And now, in its hour of need, as corporate America cuts ties and Washington turns away, the silence of Black America’s billionaires is as loud as the betrayals of history.
We know their names. David Steward, Robert F. Smith, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Jay-Z, Rihanna, LeBron James, Magic Johnson, Tyler Perry, Tope Awotona, Sheila Johnson, and Tiger Woods. Add to them Aliko Dangote, Mike Adenuga, Patrice Motsepe, Strive Masiyiwa, Abdulsamad Rabiu—giants whose fortunes shape na-
tions. Together, they command nearly $100 billion in wealth. Yet the institution that once defended its very humanity now struggles to keep its doors open. We are not begging for handouts; we are asking you to stand with the very press that once stood for you. When you unveil a new film or a book, when you seek to raise a cause, when your friends or your ventures deserve the light, do not look only to the white press. Bring your ads here, bring your stories here. Share us as you share yourselves, for the truth is simple: if the Black Press falls, the story of who we are falls with it.
White men like Mark Cuban have reached into their pockets. Organizations like the New York Islanders have stepped forward. But the very institution that gave this nation Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells, Ethel Payne and Daisy Bates, the Chicago Defender, the New Pittsburgh Courier, the Baltimore AFRO, EBONY, and
the Amsterdam News—now gasps for breath without the lifeline it deserves. The Black Press has never been an abstraction. It has always been the frontline. In 1921, when white supremacists torched Tulsa, they burned down Black-owned newspapers to silence the truth. During Jim Crow, it was the Black Press that funneled guidance to families navigating terror. When Mamie Till thrust her son’s mutilated body before the world, it was the Black Press that carried the pictures. When Dr. King and Malcolm X needed their words to reach their people, when the white press dismissed them as agitators, it was the Black Press that published their vision. And today, it is still more than 200 family-owned newspapers, many of them run by Black women. These women carry the weight of history, fighting to keep their presses alive. Yet in Trump’s America, while policies drive Black
women’s unemployment to the highest levels in modern history, their institutions are being starved of the resources that sustain them. That double assault—on their livelihoods and their legacies—should haunt this nation.
To our billionaires: this is not a call to shame, but a call to conscience. You rose from the communities that these pages sustained. Your names and fortunes live because the Black Press fought to keep the truth alive when no one else
What Is Montessori Education?
By American Montessori Association (AMA)
Dr. Maria Montessori, the Italian educator and scientist who, more than 100 years ago, developed the system of education that bears her name, knew that during the period from birth to age 3, your child’s brain develops more rapidly than at any other time, and more learning takes place than at any other stage of development. Yet many parents don’t seek out formal education until their children have passed the toddler age. Recognizing the importance of these formative years, the Montessori approach to infants and toddlers supports starting earlier than that. In a Montessori environment, your infant or toddler will be with teachers—loving, nurturing, and rigorously trained in child development— who create peaceful, supportive, and safe environments for our youngest children. In these spaces, a child’s natural passion for wonder, curiosity, exploration, independence, and discovery comes alive.
Montessori Infant & Toddler programs offer so much more than childcare. The classroom design fosters your young child’s emerging independence and desire for exploration. The environments are designed to promote your child’s growth in all areas of development. Additionally, Montessori Infant & Toddler programs provide support and guidance for families through programs that may include parent education and parent/child group experiences. Key underpinnings: Honors the human spirit and the development of the whole child-physical, social, emotional, and cognitive.
Encompasses a view of the child as one who is naturally eager for knowledge. It is based on ideals of equity, inclusion, and social justice.
Also focuses on care of self, others, and the environment.
Additional distinctive features: Classes are multi-age (typically 3-year age span).
Individual students follow their own interests while also learning from others.
Time is given to enable students to explore and internalize concepts and ideas at their own pace while working toward individualized learning goals.
Teachers serve as guides and mentors, systematically observing and assessing students’ progress and providing them with support/tools so that they may take ownership of their own learning and growth. Learning takes place across a variety of modalities: visual, auditory, tactile, etc. Given the freedom and support to question, probe deeply, and make connections,
would. And while some may ask, “Where are you?”—we instead ask, “Will you stand with us now?” Because if the Black Press falls, so too falls the memory of our people. This is not charity. It is survival. It is legacy. It is standing on the right side of history.
Those who wish to answer this call can do so today—through our sponsorship opportunities as the Black Press prepares for its 200th anniversary, or directly through a GoFundMe at https://gofund.
me/240152783. The door remains open. The need is urgent. If the Black Press dies, no tribute, no hashtag, no brand campaign will erase the record: that when the institution that carried Black America for two centuries cried out, those with the power to save it stayed silent. And so, the question remains: Who among you will step forward? Or will the flowers laid on the Black Press’s grave be bought with the coins of indifference?
Montessori students grow up to be critical thinkers, confident, enthusiastic, and self-directed learners and citizens, accountable to themselves, their community, and the world.
Core Components of Quality Montessori
AMS recognizes 5 components as essential to high-quality programs. While not all Montessori schools incorporate them–any school can call itself Montessori, regardless of its fidelity to the philosophy and practice—they are a vital part of any school accredited by the American Montessori Society. Currently, about 15% of our member schools fall into this elite group.
Properly trained Montessori teachers – Teachers hold credentials for the level at which they teach. They have a rigorous command of Montessori philosophy, Montessori curriculum, classroom management, and child development.
Multi-age classrooms
Use of specially designed Montessori learning materials – Hands-on, interactive, and engaging, they enable students to learn through discovery.
Student-directed work – Students are intrinsically motivated, and learn about their personal strengths and ability to improve.
Uninterrupted work periods – Working freely and at their own pace on self-selected activities, students develop concentration, time-management skills, and a love for learning.
More school districts are including Montessori programs as a parent choice. Currently, more than 500 public schools nationwide offer Montessori programs. Public Montessori education is a popular option for preschool through high school students attending all types of publicly funded schools—neighborhood, magnet, and charter. Because they are publicly funded, public Montessori schools are open to all children. They do not generally require incoming students to have prior Montessori experience; however, some restrict the admission of children without Montessori experience to lower Elementary levels only. Students are often admitted to public Montessori programs by lottery because there tend to be more applicants than openings.
While public Montessori programs are tuition-free, tuition may be charged for 3to 4-year-olds in public school pre-kindergarten classes that are not fully covered by state funding. If required, pre-kindergarten tuition is usually paid on a sliding scale, depending upon the family’s eligibility for the National School Lunch Program (free, reduced, or full-pay). Additional details are available at the Black Montessori Fund at http://www.blackmontessori.org.
– Students benefit from differentiated learning based on abilities, not age. Self-esteem is built on personal accomplishments rather than comparison with same-age peers.
Dee Marian HIgh School Omaha
By Stacy M. Brown Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
The U.S. Department of Education has announced the cancellation of $350 million in federal grants that had been designated for historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon stated that the department will “no longer award Minority-Serving Institution grants that discriminate by restricting eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas.” She added that the administration intends to redirect the money toward programs “that advance Administration priorities.” The funding has supported initiatives including laboratory equipment purchases, class-
room improvements, student tutoring services, and endowment growth. The cuts immediately drew criticism from leaders of colleges and universities who said the loss would harm students and damage institutions that depend on the resources.
“Without this funding, students will lose the critical support they need to succeed in the classroom, complete their degrees on time, and achieve social mobility for themselves and their families,” said Mildred García, chancellor of the
California State University system. “These funds strengthen entire campuses, creating opportunities and resources that benefit all students, especially those pursuing STEM fields, as well as enhancing the communities where these colleges and
universities are located,” said David Mendez, interim CEO of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities.
University of Hawaiʻi president Wendy Hensel added that the cuts will affect “all of our students, the programs that support them, and the dedicated staff who carry out this work.” The department’s announcement follows a lawsuit filed in June by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, which argued the programs were discriminatory because of enrollment eligibility requirements. In July, the Department of Justice said it would not defend the grants, with Solicitor General D. John Sauer writing that they violated the constitutional right to equal protection.
According to HBCU Buzz, the decision has sent shockwaves across campuses, with advocates warning that
programs supporting mentorship, STEM pipelines, and scholarships are at risk. Lawmakers, including Senator Patty Murray, have said the Education Department acted unilaterally without consulting Congress. The debate over funding arrives as HBCUs continue to face historic underfunding. CNN fact-checkers reported that while the Biden-Harris administration had directed $16 billion to HBCUs from 2021 to 2024, Trump previously proposed more than $100 million in cuts to HBCU programs during his term, despite later claiming he had been uniquely responsible for funding the schools. The Education Department confirmed that roughly $132 million in mandatory congressional allocations for fiscal 2025 will still be distributed, though officials said they are continuing to review the legal questions surrounding those funds.
Even professional economists can’t escape political bias
By Aeimit Lakdawala Associate Professor of Economics, Wake Forest University
Republican-leaning economists tend to predict stronger economic growth when a Republican is president than Democrats do – and because of this partisan optimism, their forecasts end up being less accurate.
I’m an economist, and my colleagues and I found this by analyzing nearly 40 years of responses to The Wall Street Journal’s Economic Forecasting Survey. Unlike most such surveys, the Journal publishes each forecaster’s name, allowing us to link their predictions to their political affiliations.
The respondents were professional economists at major banks, consulting firms and universities whose forecasts help guide financial markets and business decisions. Out of more than 300 economists in our sample, we could identify the political affiliations of 122. We did this by looking at the forecasters’ political donation records, voter registration data and work histories with partisan groups.
The pattern was strik-
ing: Republican forecasters systematically predicted higher gross domestic product growth when their party controlled the presidency, representing roughly 10% to 15% of average growth rates during our study period.
When we examined forecast accuracy using real-time GDP data, Republican forecasters made larger errors when their preferred party held office. This suggests partisan optimism makes their professional judgment worse. What makes this finding particularly notable is its asymmetry. The partisan gap emerged specifically during Republican presidencies. Under Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Republican and Democratic forecasters made virtually identical predictions. That wasn’t the case when George W. Bush, and later Donald Trump, occupied the White House. cInterestingly, this bias appears only in GDP forecasts. When we analyzed predictions for inflation, unemployment and interest rates, we found no systematic differences between Republican and Democratic forecasters.
That makes sense,
because GDP forecasts are inherently more uncertain than other economic predictions. Professional forecasters tend to disagree more and make more mistakes when predicting GDP compared to inflation or unemployment rates. This creates opportunities for partisan ideologies to sneak in. We traced the bias to different views about the effectiveness of tax policies. Using Google Trends data to measure when tax cuts were in the news, we found Republican forecasters become systematically more optimistic precisely when tax policy discussions heat up.
Why it matters Previous research has found that most people have a strong partisan bias when they make economic predictions. Our work is the first to show that professional economists can also succumb to such influences – despite their training and market incentives to be accurate. Their errors can come at a high price. Financial markets, policymakers and businesses rely on economists’ forecasts to make major decisions. When the Federal Reserve sets interest rates, when companies plan investments and when in-
vestors allocate portfolios, they often reference these professional consensus forecasts. Our research challenges a common assumption in economics: that aggregating diverse expert forecasts eliminates individual biases and improves accuracy. This doesn’t mean professional forecasters are incompetent or dishonest. These are highly trained economists with strong financial incentives for accuracy. Rather, our findings reveal how even experts with the best intentions can be unconsciously influenced by their own ideological beliefs –
especially when dealing with inherently uncertain data.
What still isn’t known
Several important questions remain unanswered.
It’s unclear how this bias might be reduced. Would making forecasters more aware of their political leanings help reduce the effect? Or would developing new forecasting methods that weight predictions based on historical accuracy during different political regimes improve consensus forecasts?
We’re also curious whether institutional factors matter. Might forecasters at institutions with explicit politi-
cal diversity policies show less bias? How do international forecasters viewing the U.S. economy compare to domestic ones?
Finally, our research focuses on U.S. forecasters during a period of increasing political polarization. Whether similar patterns emerge in other countries with different political systems, or during less polarized times, remains an open question.
Disclosure statement
Aeimit Lakdawala has previously received funding from NSF.
Estate planning seen as survival for Black families
By Stacy M. Brown Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
Constance Carter, the founder of California’s largest independent Black-owned real estate firm and bestselling author, put the spotlight on the basics that protect Black wealth: life in-
surance, wills, and living trusts. “Estate planning isn’t just paperwork. It’s survival. It’s power. And it’s how we make sure that our children inherit more than just debt,” Carter said during an appearance on Black Press USA’s Let It Be Known. She spoke about how Black families continue to build assets, yet often leave those assets exposed because planning is delayed or skipped. “We are already behind the eight ball when it comes to building wealth,” Carter said. “Historically, we were shut out of opportunities through redlining, predatory lending, and systemic barriers. Ninety percent of wealth in this country is passed intergenerationally, and 80 percent of that is through real estate. Yet while we are trying to
get our piece of the pie, we are not planning to pass it on like other communities.”
Carter explained the difference between a will and a living trust, describing a will as instructions that can be contested in probate court. In contrast, a trust provides binding directives that transfer property clearly and efficiently. “A will is just instructions,” she said. “There’s a saying that a will, will be contested. With a trust, these are the directives. This is your legally binding instrument to pass property generationally.” She called on families at every income level to act. Trusts can cost between $1,500 and $3,000, but the protection, she said, is worth it even if there is only one property. To make planning more accessible, she
created a $25 eBook that walks through drafting a living trust, notarization, and state-by-state recording requirements. “I try to make it as simple as possible,” Carter said. “I see problems that Black people face, and I try to find solutions.” For new families, Carter listed life insurance as the first step. “It is a sin before God for you to be having chicken dinners and GoFundMe accounts to bury your loved ones,” she said. “A good man leaves an inheritance for his children and his children’s children.” She added that avoiding conversations about death often leaves families divided. “Two things make people act funny: death and money,” Carter said. Without beneficiaries and directives, loved ones are left scrambling for account access and arguing
over wishes that were never written down. Carter also described her work with the Net 7 Collective, a nationwide and international community of Black women building seven-figure net worths. “When you teach a man, you teach an individual. This is no diss to men, but when you teach a woman, you teach a nation,” she said. “Black women, you give us something, we are going to multiply it.” She dismissed predictions that Black household wealth could hit zero by 2053 if nothing changes. “They did F around and they gave us the internet. They gave us the internet, AI, and we have each other,” Carter said. “Nobody is coming to save us; we have got to be the ones. And the only way we can do it is together.”
Credit: Greggory DiSalvo
Credit: Black Press USA
Insight 2 Health
Gambling is more than a man’s game: women speak out on hidden addictions
By Pulane Choane Contributing Writer
Gambling addiction is often seen as a vice confined to men in smoky card rooms or sports bars. But in reality, women are living and surviving the devastating consequences of gambling addiction.
That truth came into sharp focus on a recent Healing Circle edition of KFAI’s The Conversation with Al McFarlane, where two Minnesota women, Christina Cook and Tara Carver, shared unflinching testimonies of how gambling harmed their lives, families, and communities.
The discussion, guided by Susan Sheridan Tucker, executive director of the Minnesota Alliance on Problem Gambling, peeled back the myths that gambling is “entertainment” without consequence. It revealed how addiction grows quietly, fueled by grief, trauma, and social isolation.
Cook began gambling at 28, newly divorced and searching for connection. At first, the casino felt like a safe alternative to bars. But what started as occasional fun spiraled into a 15-year cycle of financial devastation, broken relationships, and emotional collapse. "I thought I was just bad with money," she admitted. "I never once thought it was an addiction."
Her lowest point came
in 2020 when she lost everything financially. "I really didn’t want to be here anymore," she said. The turning point was recognizing gambling for what it was :an addiction as well as then seeking help through Gamblers Anonymous and therapy. Today, she is in recovery and co-leads The Broke Girl Society, a community of over 3,000 women impacted by gambling. For Carver, gambling was normalized from childhood. Her grandfather taught her poker strategy before she could read at grade level. Trips to racetracks and casinos reinforced the idea that gambling was “fun” and harmless. But as an adult, grief and loss fueled her own descent into addiction. After the deaths of her mother and grandmother, she turned to casinos for comfort and connection.
By the time her father passed away, gambling had consumed her life. "I was high functioning on the outside,"
she said. "But I was completely disengaged from my community, my purpose, my spirit." Her recovery began in 2016 after a moment of despair that echoed the death by suicide of her biological father. Choosing life, she placed her last bet that year.
Both women emphasized that gambling addiction is never a private matter. The ripple effects extend to families, workplaces, and entire communities. Borrowed money, broken trust, and financial collapse strain relationships far beyond the gambler. “It’s estimated that one person’s gambling can impact 8 to 10 others,” Tucker explained.
And yet, recovery also ripples outward. By sharing their stories, Cook and Carver are not only healing themselves but also creating safe spaces for others to seek help.
Dr. Bravada Garrett-Akinsanya, clinical psychologist and co-host of the Healing Circle, added that in
Healing means breaking stereotypes. In this Healing Circle on The Conversation with Al McFarlane, guests revealed how gambling harm often hides in plain sight, among women, professionals, and families and not just men. Recovery, they stressed, is an act of defiance and community rebuilding.
African American communities gambling often intersects with trauma, depression, and cultural barriers to mental health support. “We gamble when we can’t pay our rent and hope to fix it at the casino. We gamble with our lives when we feel trapped in unsafe jobs or systems. Addiction is a reflection of deeper wounds,” she said. Stigma remains a major barrier in many societies grappling with gambling addiction. Many families avoid mental health services, believing faith alone should deliver them. Others dismiss gambling as harmless until harm explodes.
As Garrett-Akinsanya noted, “It’s an act of defiance to heal. Saying ‘hell no, I won’t keep doing this’ is revolutionary.” Nationally, 2-4% of Americans struggle with problem gambling. In Minnesota, that number translates
to 250,000 people, including 7,100 high school students who already show signs of gambling problems. Yet prevention programs are scarce, and conversations in schools are almost non-existent.
The rise of sports betting apps, online gambling, and fantasy leagues has made access easier than ever. Tucker warned that without early conversations and culturally responsive recovery spaces, communities risk losing more lives to an addiction that hides in plain sight.
Despite the pain, Cook and Carver embody hope. Both women are proof that recovery is possible and that healing multiplies when shared. Their voices challenge stereotypes and spotlight the need for gender-specific and culturally grounded recovery programs.
“The house is always designed to win,” Garrett-Akin-
sanya reminded listeners. “But when people recover, they break stereotypes and reclaim power. That’s the message our communities need to hear.”
The conversation was not just about gambling but about survival, resilience, and the courage to say enough. If you or someone you know is struggling with gambling, resources are available. Free treatment is offered in Minnesota for individuals and family members affected by problem gambling. The Minnesota Alliance on Problem Gambling also provides support, education, and referrals.
Watch the full conversation on The Healing Circle via KFAI’s The Conversation with Al McFarlane here: www.youtube.com/live/7qQVQIfSU40?si=2_AxseX5eYfgab4E
Proposed cuts to NIH funding would have ripple effects on research that could hamper the US for decades
By Mohammad S. Jalali Associate Professor, Systems Science and Policy, Harvard University
Zeynep Hasgül Research Associate, Data and Systems Science, Harvard University
In May 2025, the White House proposed reducing the budget of the National Institutes of Health by roughly 40% – from about US$48 billion to $27 billion. Such a move would return NIH funding to levels last seen in 2007. Since NIH budget records began in 1938, NIH has seen only one previous double-digit cut: a 12% reduction in 1952.
Congress is now tasked with finalizing the budget ahead of the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. In July, the Senate rejected the White House’s proposed cuts and instead advanced a modest increase. And in early September, the House of Representatives also supported a budget that maintains the agency’s current funding levels.
However, talk of cutting NIH funding is not a new development. Such proposals tend to resurface from time to time, and the ongoing discussion has created uncertainty about the stability of research overall and prompted concern among scientists about the future of their work.
As researchers studying complex health policy systems – and specifically, science funding policy – we see the NIH as one node in an interconnected system that supports the discovery of new knowledge, trains the biomedical workforce and makes possible medical and public health advances across the U.S.
Our research shows that while cutting NIH funding may appear to save money in the short term, it can trigger a chain of effects that increase long-term health care costs and slow the development of new treatments and public health solutions over time.
Seeing the bigger picture of NIH funding
NIH funding does not just support the work of individual researchers and laboratories. It shapes the foundation of American science and health care by training scientists, supporting preventive health research and creating the knowledge that biomedical companies can later build into new products.
To understand how funding cuts may affect scientific progress, the training of new researchers and the availability of new treatments, we took a broad look at existing evidence. We reviewed studies and data that connect NIH funding, or biomedical research more generally, to outcomes such as innovation, workforce development and public health.
In a study published in July 2025, we built a simple framework to show how changes in one part of the system – research grants, for example – can lead to changes in others, like fewer training opportunities or slower development of new therapies.
Eroding the basic research foundation
The NIH funds early-stage research that lacks immediate commercial value but provides the building blocks for future innovations. This includes projects that map disease pathways, develop new laboratory methods or collect large datasets that researchers use for decades.
For example, NIH-supported research in the 1950s identified cholesterol and its role in disease pathways for heart disease, helping to lay the groundwork for the later discovery of statins used by millions of people to lower cholesterol levels. Cancer biology research in the 1960s led to the discovery of cisplatin, a chemotherapy prescribed to 10% to 20% of cancer patients. Basic research in the 1980s on how the kidneys handle sugar helped pave the way for a new class of drugs for Type 2 diabetes, some of which are also used for weight management. Diabetes affects about
38 million Americans, and obesity affects more than 40% of the adults in the U.S. Without this kind of public, taxpayer-funded investment, many foundational projects would never begin, because private firms rarely take on work with long timelines or unclear profits. Our study did not estimate dollar amounts, but the evidence we reviewed shows that when public research slows, downstream innovation and economic benefits are also delayed. That can mean fewer new treatments, slower adoption of cost-saving technologies and reduced growth in industries that depend on scientific advances.
Reducing the scientific workforce
By providing grants that support students, postdoctoral researchers and early-career investigators, along with the labs and facilities where they train, the NIH also plays a central role in preparing up-andcoming scientists. When funding is cut, fewer positions are available and some labs face closure. This can discourage young researchers from entering or staying in the field. The effect extends beyond academic research. Some NIH-trained scientists later move into biotechnology, medical device companies and data science roles. A weaker training system today means fewer skilled professionals across the
broader economy tomorrow.
For example, NIH programs have produced not only academic researchers but also engineers and analysts who now work on immune therapies, brain-computer interfaces, diagnostics and AI-driven tools, as well as other technologies in startups and in more established biotech and pharmaceutical companies. If those training opportunities shrink, biotech and pharmaceutical industries may have less access to talent. A weakened NIH-supported workforce may also risk eroding U.S. global competitiveness, even in the private sector.
Innovation shifts toward narrow markets
Public and private investment serve different purposes. NIH funding often reduces scientific risk by advancing projects to a stage where companies can invest with greater confidence. Past examples include support for imaging physics that led to MRI and PET scans and early materials science research that enabled modern prosthetics.
Our research highlights the fact that when public investment recedes, companies tend to focus on products with clearer near-term returns. That may tilt innovation toward specialty drugs or technologies with high launch prices and away from improvements that serve broader needs, such as
more effective use of existing therapies or widely accessible diagnostics.
Some cancer drugs, for instance, relied heavily on NIH-supported basic science discoveries in cell biology and clinical trial design. Independent studies have documented that without this early publicly supported work, development timelines lengthen and costs increase, which can translate into higher prices for patients and health systems. When public funding shrinks and companies shift toward expensive products instead of lower-cost improvements, overall health spending can rise.
What looks like a budget saving in the near term can therefore have the opposite effect, with government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid ultimately shouldering higher costs.
Prevention and public health are sidelined
NIH is also a major funder of research aimed at promoting health and preventing disease. This includes studies on nutrition, chronic diseases, maternal health and environmental exposures such as lead or air pollution.
These projects often improve health long before disease becomes severe, but they rarely attract private investment because their benefits unfold gradually and do not translate into direct profits.
Delaying or canceling prevention research can result in higher costs later, as more people require intensive treatment for conditions that could have been avoided or managed earlier. For example, decades of observation in the Framingham Heart Study shaped treatment guidelines for risk factors such as high blood pressure and heart rhythm disorders. Now this cornerstone of prevention helps to avert heart attacks and strokes, which are far more risky and costly to treat.
A broader shift in direction?
Beyond these specific areas, the larger issue is how the U.S. will choose to support science and medical research going forward. For decades, public investment has enabled researchers to take on difficult questions and conduct decades-long studies. This support has contributed to advances ranging from psychosocial therapies for depression to surgical methods for liver transplants that do not fit neatly into market priorities, unlike drugs or devices. If government support weakens, medical and health research may become more dependent on commercial markets and philanthropic donors. That can narrow the kinds of problems studied and limit flexibility to respond to urgent needs such as emerging infections or climate-related health risks.
Countries that sustain public investment may also gain an edge by attracting top researchers and setting global standards for new technologies. On the other hand, once opportunities are lost and talent is dispersed, rebuilding takes far more time and resources.
Disclosure statement
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The NIH is a node in an interconnected system producing health and medical advances.
Credit: frafreezeforum.com
Susan Sheridan Tucker
Credit: LinkedIn Christina Cook
Techno-utopians like Musk are treading old ground: The futurism of early 20th-century Europe
By Sonja Fritzsche Senior Associate Dean and Professor of German Studies, Michigan State University
In “The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI,” the futurist Ray Kurzweil imagines the point in 2045 when rapid technological progress crosses a threshold as humans merge with machines, an event he calls “the singularity.”
Although Kurzweil’s predictions may sound more like science fiction than factbased forecasting, his brand of thinking goes well beyond the usual sci-fi crowd. It has provided inspiration for American technology industry elites for some time, chief among them Elon Musk.
With Neuralink, his company that is developing computer interfaces implanted in people’s brains, Musk says he intends to “unlock new dimensions of human potential.” This fusion of human and machine echoes Kurzweil’s singularity. Musk also cites apocalyptic scenarios and points to transformative technologies that can save humanity.
Ideas like those of Kurzweil and Musk, among others, can seem as if they are charting paths into a brave new world. But as a humanities scholar who studies utopianism and dystopianism, I’ve encountered this type of thinking in the futurist and techno-utopian art and writings of the early 20th century.
Techno-utopianism’s origins
Techno-utopianism emerged in its modern form in the 1800s, when the Industrial
Revolution ushered in a set of popular ideas that combined technological progress with social reform or transformation.
Kurzweil’s singularity parallels ideas from Italian and Russian futurists amid the electrical and mechanical revolutions that took place at the turn of the 20th century. Enthralled by inventions like the telephone, automobile, airplane and rocket, those futurists found inspiration in the concept of a “New Human,” a being who they imagined would be transformed by speed, power and energy.
A century ahead of Musk, Italian futurists imagined the destruction of one world, so that it might be replaced by a new one, reflecting a common Western techno-utopian belief in a coming apocalypse that would be followed by the rebirth of a changed society.
One especially influential figure of the time was Filippo Marinetti, whose 1909 “Founding and Manifesto of Futurism” offered a nationalistic vision of a modern, urban Italy. It glorified the tumultuous transformation caused by the Industrial Revolution. The document describes workers becoming one with their fiery machines. It encourages “aggressive action” coupled with an “eternal” speed designed to break things and bring about a new world order.
The overtly patriarchal text glorifies war as “hygiene” and promotes “scorn for woman.” The manifesto also calls for the destruction of museums, libraries and universities and supports the power of the rioting crowd.
Marinetti’s vision later drove him to support and even influence the early fascism of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. However, the rela-
tionship between the futurism movement and Mussolini’s increasingly anti-modern regime was an uneasy one, as Italian studies scholar Katia Pizzi wrote in “Italian Futurism and the Machine.”
Further east, the Russian revolutionaries of 1917 adopted a utopian faith in material progress and science. They combined a “belief in the ease with which culture could be destroyed” with the benefits of “spreading scientific ideas to the masses of Russia,” historian Richard Stites wrote in “Revolutionary Dreams.”
For the Russian left, an “immediate and complete remaking” of the soul was taking place. This new proletarian culture was personified in the ideal of the New Soviet Man. This “master of nature by means of machines and tools” received a polytechnical education instead of the traditional middle-class pursuit of the liberal arts, humanities scholar George Young wrote in “The Russian Cosmists.” The first Soviet People’s Commissar of Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, supported these movements.
Although their political ideologies took different forms, these 20th-century fu-
turists all focused their efforts on technological advancement as an ultimate objective. Techno-utopians were convinced that the dirt and pollution of real-world factories would automatically lead to a future of “perfect cleanliness, efficiency, quiet, and harmony,” historian Howard Segal wrote in “Technology and Utopia.”
Myths of efficiency and everyday tech
Despite the remarkable technological advances of that time, and since, the vision of those techno-utopians largely has not come to pass. In the 21st century, it can seem as if we live in a world of near-perfect efficiency and plenitude thanks to the rapid development of technology and the proliferation of global supply chains. But the toll that these systems take on the natural environment – and on the people whose labor ensures their success – presents a dramatically different picture.
Today, some of the people who espouse techno-utopian and apocalyptic visions have amassed the power to influence, if not determine, the future. At the start of 2025, through the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, Musk introduced a fast-
paced, tech-driven approach to government that has led to major cutbacks in federal agencies. He’s also influenced the administration’s huge investments in artificial intelligence , a class of technological tools that public officials are only beginning to understand.
The futurists of the 20th century influenced the po-
litical sphere, but their movements were ultimately artistic and literary. By contrast, contemporary techno-futurists like Musk lead powerful multinational corporations that influence economies and cultures across the globe.
Does this make
Musk’s dreams of human transformation and societal apocalypse more likely to become reality? If not, these elements of Musk’s project are likely to remain more theoretical, just as the dreams of last century’s techno-utopians did.
Disclosure statement
Sonja Fritzsche does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Credit: Davide Mauro/Wikimedia CC BY-SA
Twentieth-century futurists celebrated flight, communications and manufacturing. Today, they’re inspired by space, AI and biotechnology.
Sharing Our Stories
Books, Art & Culture
By W.D. Foster-Graham Book Review Editor
Recently, I rewatched the movie Hidden Figures, which told the story of Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, and the pivotal role these unsung sistahs played in NASA’s Space Race of the 1960s. People who reacted to this movie on YouTube, hands down, were surprised that they never knew of these women, and impressed by them as trailblazers in science and empowerment.
Knowledge of our history as African Americans and African-born is ever-increasing, and it cannot, must not, be allowed to be erased or rewritten. The role of Black
Charlotte Ray
women has always been key to our history, from Phillis Wheatley to Harriet Tubman to Mae Jemison to Kamala Harris. For my review this week, I present to you a trailblazer in the legal field--Charlotte Ray: Trailblazing Lawyer, by Nancy Loewen.
Born in 1850 in New York City, Charlotte Ray was the daughter of Charles Bennett Ray, a leader in the Black community, and Charlotte Augusta Burroughs. By 1863, when Charlotte was 13, the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, and Charles Ray was working in the community to help families affected by the riots that broke out the city.
Charlotte was blessed to have a family who believed education was important to both boys and girls. She graduated from the Institute for the Education of Colored Youth in Washington, D.C. in 1869. Seeing the
example her parents set in community engagement and service, she set her mind on becoming a lawyer. Although the 15th Amendment had been ratified in 1870, giving African Americans the right to vote, that only extended to African American men. The 19th Amendment wouldn’t come until 1920, and the Voting Rights Act didn’t go into law until 1965, when all women had the right to vote. Despite these challenges, she entered law school. Two white women, Ada H. Kepley and Arabella Mansfield, had graduated from law school and passed the bar exam, but they never practiced law. Charlotte Ray did, entering Howard University Law School. In 1872, at the age of 22, she passed the bar exam and became our country’s first Black lawyer. Her most famous case
was for Martha Gadley, a Black woman who wanted a divorce from her abusive husband, arguing the case all the way to the D.C. Supreme Court—and won it. However, her practice as a lawyer didn’t last long because of the reluctance of people to trust a Black woman to handle their concerns. That didn’t stop her commitment to service. She continued a teaching career in Brooklyn’s public schools and advocated for women’s rights. She died in 1911, but her legacy lives on in the number of women who subsequently entered law school and the legal profession, thanks to her overcoming the prevailing obstacles of her time.
Loewen makes note of the Black women who stood/ stand on the shoulders of Ray’s legacy, such as Jane Matilda Bolin (the first Black female judge); Constance Baker Motley (the first Black female federal judge); Paulette Brown (the first Black female president of the American Bar Association); Loretta Lynch (the first Black female U.S. attorney general); Kamala Harris (the first Black/ Asian female U.S. vice president); and Ketanji Brown Jackson (the first Black female U.S.
People Growing Justice website (www.ppgli.org). Thank you, Nancy, for bringing another powerful chapter in the ongoing saga of Difference Makers.
Broadway Across America and Black Theatre Coalition announce fifth annual regional apprenticeship
By Black Press of America
NEW YORK – Broadway
Across America (BAA) and Black Theatre Coalition (BTC) announce the launch of applications for their fifth annual regional apprenticeship program. This nationwide, educational paid apprenticeship takes place over 14 weeks from January-April 2026, offering college students and early career professionals across North America the opportunity to receive first-hand experience with the inner workings of the commercial theater business and Broadway touring. “We are proud to see the continued impact of our partnership with BTC, as alumni of the program go on to build meaningful careers across the Broadway industry, not just in
New York, but across America,” said Lauren Reid, president of the John Gore Organization (JGO). “This initiative both prepares the next generation of theater professionals and enriches our industry with fresh perspectives.”
“Five years in, our partnership with JGO continues to create real access points for early-career professionals. We’ve seen firsthand how this program can help them build connections, with a national reach, and take meaningful steps toward furthering their careers in the industry,” said T. Oliver Reid and Warren Adams, BTC co-founders. The intensive educational program will feature 13 weeks of in-depth learning in one of the following Broadway Across America offices: New York City, Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Louisville, Minneap-
olis, Ottawa, and Seattle, where apprentices learn about topics including presenting, ticketing, marketing strategy, operations, and more. To close out the semester, the apprentices will collectively travel to New York City for a week of networking, on-the-job learning, and to see Broadway shows. The BAA BTC Regional Apprenticeship works to equip participants with the tools necessary to be successful in the industry. It also provides a foundation of mentors and colleagues to whom they can turn for support as they pursue a career beyond the stage. Several apprenticeship alums hail from HBCUs, including Albany State University, Coppin State University, Howard University, and Spelman College. Past alumni of the BAA BTC Regional Apprenticeship program have gone on to work at Tony Award
Productions, Foresight Theatrical, Daryl Roth Productions, Situation Group, Disney Theatrical Productions, Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, Broadway Across America/John Gore Organization, and more. Students pursuing degrees in fields including Arts Administration, Business Administration, Marketing, Public Relations/Communications, Theatre Studies, Finance/Accounting, Human Resources, Pre-Law, Arts Ticketing/Sales/Operations, and other fields of study that relate to commercial theater presenting are welcome in the program. A variety of perspectives, backgrounds, abilities, and opinions are encouraged to apply. Take a look at the 2025 apprentices’ testimonial video here. For more information, including application details for the Spring 2026 apprenticeship,
visit http://www.broadwayregionalapprenticeship.com. Media Contacts Shin-Jung Hong –ShinJung@nicholaslence.com
‘Let’s go’ beyond the mound Joe Black’s legacy of brotherhood and resistance
By Stacy M. Brown Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
As the Trump administration and its disciples try to strip the nation of its memory, legendary comedian Bill Cosby said Black media cannot bend, cannot be silent, but must remind Black America that every inch of the nation’s 249 years was built with our sweat, our brilliance, our survival. Joe Black’s story is only one, yet if we allow it to vanish, we risk losing the truth of who we are.
There are men whose names ring louder than the game they played, men who carried history on their backs as if it were stitched into the uniform. Joe Black was one such man. He was a boy from Plainfield who became the first Black pitcher to win a World Series game, who walked onto the mound in Dodger blue with the eyes of the country fixed upon him, and who later carried himself into classrooms, corporate suites, and pulpits with the same quiet force.
Bill Cosby remembers him not as a figure in the record books, but as the brother he never had. “Joe Black pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the time Jackie Robinson was on the team, and so was Roy Campanella,” Cosby recalled. “His daughter asked me to write a preface about him; I wrote it, and then all these accusers came up and, I was told, they no longer wanted to use my preface in the story.” That daughter is Martha Jo Black,
who wrote “Joe Black: More Than a Dodger.”
Cosby told how their bond began. “He came on the Dodgers and became known as a relief pitcher, but my entertaining the Black baseball players in Las Vegas during a convention, and he made himself known to me,” Cosby stated. “I found him to be a strong guy with a great sense of humor. I took him on as a big brother. When Rachel Robinson asked me to be the emcee for the Jackie Robinson Foundation, Joe was then working for Greyhound, and he made sure that he had a table.” Cosby spoke of their brotherhood in the language of fraternity and blood. “Joe also is a Q. In terms of fraternity, he’s my brother, but in my soul also; nobody else but nobody else had the humor and my feeling is that if I ever had a big brother, Joe Black was.”
The bond deepened near the end of Joe’s life, when his daughter called Cosby. “We talked on the phone. He had a house, and his daughter was taking care of him because he had problems with his prostate,” the comedian recalled. “She called me one day and she said, ‘Daddy was on the ladder, and he fell. He’s in the hospital. He’s on, I believe, morphine, a drug they give you that can cause the patient to hallucinate, and sometimes drug addicts get hooked on it. She said, ‘I’m in the hospital with Daddy, and it doesn’t look good for him. You want to talk to him?’ My heart dropped. I knew he was going, but when you get the notification, certain things happen.” Cosby remembered
that even then, Joe carried humor like a shield. “Joe had a great sense of humor and had control of it. Meaning he didn’t throw things out just to see if he was funny,” Cosby reminisced. “So she says, ‘Daddy, it’s Bill on the phone, he wants to say something to you.’ He said (in a very faint voice), ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘how you doing. I know it’s a stupid question, but how you doing?’ he said, ‘they’re trying to make it easier for me to go wherever I’m going.’ I said, ok, I said, your daughter told me you wanted to talk to me. He said, ‘Yeah. How are you doing?’ I said, this is getting stupid. He said, ‘really?’ I said, yeah, because she said you fell down on the ladder and you’ve been ripping the IVs out of your arm and misbehaving. He said it’s just the sign that I’m going. I
said nothing, just let the silence sit. And he said, ‘I want you to do me a favor.’” Cosby tried to answer the call with laughter. “I said before I do you a favor I’m out at your house and I got the map you gave me – something I was making up to humor him – I said I got the map you gave me and I walked it in the backyard and I found the tree you’re talking about and I started to dig, and I dig and I dig and I dig and my back hurts. The money is not there! And he said, ‘wrong house!’” The faint laughter in that hospital room turned into a covenant between two men. “He said, ‘I want you to do me a favor.’ I said OK,” Cosby recalled. “He said, ‘I’m on the mound, I want you on the hot corner.’ And I said now before you put me on the hot
corner, I’m going to go, but I want you to know I played sandlot baseball and I played second base and I want you to know that I was always afraid of a hot ground ball coming to me and as I bend over to catch it, it hits something and jumped up and hit me in the face. I never wanted that, I always turned my head; I understand from coaches you are supposed to look it into the glove, but I’m not about to put my face down there and look it in. I said but Joe, for you I’m on the hot base, and if anything comes to me, I don’t care who hits it, I’m going to look it in. he said, ‘Let’s go!’ that was the last words from him.” Cosby carried those words into his own storm. “Sitting through the trial, the hatred, sitting through all of that, and when that judge read all of Dante’s Inferno, and I’m
listening, and he says you have any regrets? I shook my head because Joe’s voice said, ‘Let’s go!’ Joe passed that same day,” Cosby sadly recounted. There was more to Joe Black than statistics and more than the World Series victory that newspapers still cite. He had been an officer in the Army, a teacher in Plainfield, a Greyhound executive who opened doors for Black workers and students, a columnist who urged young people to value education, and a man who carried his daughter Martha Jo through childhood with devotion when courts seldom granted fathers custody. He was also the man who told Jackie Robinson’s story in ways the white press did not record. He spoke of teammates holding Jackie back from fights, of players forming a wall to keep him from stepping into violence, of the toll carried by those chosen to be symbols.
“Because it’s always about them,” Cosby said. “What does that do to us?” What it did to Joe Black was give him the conviction that history must be guarded. Cosby spoke passionately of Josh Gibson, of the Negro Leagues, and of Dunbar High School in Washington. The Cosby Show icon insisted that these stories must be kept with a clenched fist, placed in the hands of the next generation, stored in HBCUs where young people could know the truth of who they were. At 88, Cosby holds fast to Black’s last words. Not a farewell, not resignation, but a command.
“Let’s go.”
Supreme Court justice). Charlotte Ray: Trailblazing Lawyer is available through Amazon and the Planting
Joe Black
Credit: Wikipedia.org
A drawing of Charlotte E. Ray, the first African American female lawyer in the United States.
