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Broward County's Oldest and Largest African American Owned and Operated Newspaper
The issue of school choice is about children, Jussie Smollett: An activist to the core not political parties By Tamara E. Holmes
By Keisha Knight Pulliam I think every person that walks the face of the earth has a Calling and Passion that they are meant to maximize to make our world a better place. For me, my Passion and Calling comes through acting, but it also shows up through my nonprofit Kamp Kizzy. Kamp Kizzy gives young people the opportunity to learn, share, explore and expand their horizons through workshops, candid discussions and the opportunity to meet and “pick” the brains of some of the top individuals in their given professions. Now that we have been doing Kamp Kizzy for nearly a decade now, there are some undeniable Truths that have been reinforced through this work. The first Truth is that when children are exposed to careers, opportunities and people that inspire, they become more determined about pursuing their Life’s work. The second great Truth that has been cemented through this work is that education is the great equalizer for children who might come from underserved communities and cities and because the second Truth is so near and dear to my heart, I have joined forces with a great organization, American Federation for Children, and its mission is to make sure that all children have access to a quality education. An unfortunate reality for far too many families in our great country is that they are limited in their ability to access the best education for their children. Oftentimes, these barriers are due to lack of financial resources or their zip code and/or address is in a part of town that relegates them to inferior edu-
cational opportunities. Our country is founded and thrives on opportunity and the mere fact that so many of our children are not getting the educational opportunities that they so richly deserve is one of the reasons that I unabashedly lend my name and voice to the issue of school choice. Disproportionately, children of color and lesser financial means are the ones who are subjected to poor schools that have been underperforming for decades and giving their families more quality options when it comes to their children’s education is one of the ways that we can proactively solve this mammoth of an issue. Finally, I just want to explicitly and emphatically state that, for me, the issue of school choice is about children. It is not about political party, affiliation or any other motive that does not derive itself from doing what is best for our children. I will humbly ask that you, like
KNIGHT PULLMAN I, add your voice and support to American Federation for Children and the work that it continues to do for our children especially those who are lowincome and working-class and deserving the opportunity to access great schools. For more information on American Federation for Children, please visit…. www.federationforchildren.org or www.championsforchoice.com
Jussie Smollett, currently starring as Jamal Lyon in the Fox music-industry primetime soap opera “Empire” When Jussie Smollett was growing up, there were two things over which his mother gave him and his siblings no choice: “We weren’t allowed to choose whether we loved each other,” he says. “We also had no choice whether we were activists or not.” That dedication to activism is a trait that the 31-year-old actor continues to nurture, and one of the causes he is most passionate about is easing the grip of HIV/AIDS on the Black community. “I think there is a certain level of complacency that we have as a generation as far as HIV/AIDS goes,” he says. “It almost feels like it’s the last generation’s issue, but it’s so not. It’s right here. We’ve got to keep fighting, we’ve got to keep talking about it. We’ve got to keep protecting ourselves and protecting each other.” Smollett is riding high these days as one of the stars of Fox’s breakout television hit Empire.
Apple just made this man a billionaire by buying his app (Cont'd from FP) HotStop.com had often been compared to the Waze map application in terms of the services it offers. Echeruo reportedly founded the site back in 2005 as a result of the difficulties he used to have navigating through New York City while he was working on Wall Street. This led him to create the innovative mapping service which provides directions and assists people in finding nearby bus stops and subway stations. HotStop.com has applications for iOS and Android mobile devices and covers over 300 cities across the world, including San Francisco, Toronto, London and Paris. HotStop.com enables Apple to provide mass transit directions — an aspect that the com-
pany’s map application was not covering previously. The Cupertino, California-based company had in fact been relying on Google for map data since 2007. Echeruo, who grew up in the eastern part of Nigeria, had worked as an analyst at several hedge funds and investment banks before starting HotStop.com. The Syracuse University and Harvard Business School graduate worked for a number of years in J.P. Morgan Chase’s Mergers & Acquisitions and Leveraged Finance groups. He also worked with AM Investment Partners, a $500 million bond arbitrage hedge fund. Black Enterprise’s 2007 Small Business Innovator of the Year started another U.S.-based Internet company called Tripology.com in 2010, ac-
cording to BET Global News. African Leadership Magazine reported that the company was sold to Rand McNally, a U.S.based travel and navigation information company. Echeruo is now a partner and principal investing group chief at a West Africa-based investment bank, Constant Capital. His new mission is to help small businesses in Africa grow through his latest solutionbased project. “There is no reason why every entrepreneur should have to reinvent the wheel every single time in all the countries in Africa,” Echeruo said in a 2012 TED Talk. “My idea is to essentially have one place where a budding entrepreneur can access a template for starting a business, and then customize it to suit their own situation; essentially, a business-in-a-box.”
His character, Jamal Lyon, is the middle son of hip-hop moguls Lucious and Cookie Lyon, played by Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson. Smollett’s character, Jamal, has shed light on many of the challenges of being a Black gay man as he has struggled to overcome his father’s disapproval of his homosexuality. In March, Smollett announced to Ellen DeGeneres that he, like the character he plays, is openly gay. Although it might seem that Smollett’s star has taken off in the last six months with Empire’s success, the actor is really a veteran in Hollywood terms. In 1993 he landed a role in the miniseries Queen, starring Halle Berry. He and his five siblings starred together in the ABC television series On Our Own in 1994. His sister actress Jurnee Smollett-Bell has been an AIDS activist, too. Other films he’s appeared in include The Mighty Ducks and North.
are interested in what he has to say now. “Whether you’re talking to two people or 2 million people, you can change the world by being you,” he says. “But if millions of people are listening, shouldn’t you speak on the subjects that make the world a little bit better?”
Art Imitating Life His work as an actor has been entertaining, but much of it has also served to educate and inspire. In 2012 he starred in the movie The Skinny, a film that peeks into the lives of five friends who reunite at New York Pride weekend. One of the storylines features a character getting tested for HIV and undergoing a regimen of postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) after having unprotected sex. When the movie premiered, Smollett and other members of the cast participated in a public service announcement produced by the Black AIDS Institute and the film’s director, PatrikIan Polk, titled “The Skinny Is Greater Than AIDS.” Offscreen, Smollett has been working with the Black AIDS Institute since he was 15. He’s passionate about taking the stigma out of HIV. On Feb. 7, in honor of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Smollett participated in a panel discussion about that stigma at an AIDS Healthcare Foundation event. While he has always stressed the importance of giving back, he recognizes that thanks to his celebrity status, more people
Committed to the Cause As a Black AIDS Institute board member, Smollett has used his platform to speak out about the importance of getting tested for HIV and understanding ways to prevent it. For example, in February, Smollett appeared at the Black AIDS Institute booth at the CIAA Basketball Tournament, the largest HBCU basketball tournament in the country, which takes place every year in Charlotte, N.C. Smollett is inspired by all the people who have taken part in the fight against HIV/AIDS from the beginning and is committed to doing his part to take up the torch. “We can’t allow this movement to die with the people who have died,” he says. If we forget, we “disrespect their memory and their legacy,” he adds. The bottom line for Smollett is that anyone can make a difference, but collectively we can do much more to eradicate the threat of HIV/AIDS. “It’s so important that we know that Black lives matter and Brown lives matter and LGBT lives matter,” he says. “They say one is a minority, but if minorities came together, we would become a strikingly unbelievable majority.”
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