By Reginald Stuart TALLAHASSEE, FL — The assault on Florida’s state controlled higher education by southern conservative advocates got a major political boost this month when the University of Florida said it was eliminating all positions focused on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a move hailed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The decision was among a variety of state actions championed by Gov. DeSantis who again voiced his support for challenging long established higher education governing boards, such as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SASCOC) in Atlanta. That higher education standards organization, in the past few…
Author: Reginald Stuart
By Reginald Stuart NASHVILLE, TN — Nathaniel Harris was fond of engineering and creativity since his childhood. By the time he finished Pearl High School and headed to engineering school at Tennessee A & I State University, his thinking was clear. He would start an adventure in business on Jefferson Street, creating a treasure from so-called scraps left behind in the form of dilapidated and abandoned buildings. That decision propelled him to establishing Woodcuts Galley and Framing, a Nashville treasure trove of greeting cards and outstanding art in the aisles of his family run store. With the strong backing and…
By Reginald Stuart WASHINGTON, DC — President Biden sprinkled a dose of holiday cheer upon a few households across the nation this past holiday season with a surprise announcement he was using his executive powers to commute the federal prison sentences of nearly a dozen non-violent federal drug law offenders and to pardon the convictions of hundreds more for marijuana possession and use on federal lands. Details of Biden’s actions were expected over the coming months and was hailed this week by activists in the calling for reversal of the mandatory minimums, highlighted by a screening of a new movie…
By Reginald Stuart One of the nation’s leading behind-the-scenes advocates for Historically Black Colleges and Universities in recent times, passed this fall, leaving a path for successors to follow in the years to come. Hugh C. Burroughs, a long-time New York City philanthropic ambassador for the now defunct John Hay Whitney Foundation, helped steer thousands of dollars for research into the funding of state-controlled Black Higher education and to grants to supplement post-graduate studies for hundreds of aspiring higher education leaders. Burroughs, son of a shoemaker and shoe repairman and a homemaker in Trinidad & Tobago was the eldest of…
By Reginald Stuart The political elections last week in Virginia began a dramatic new chapter in history with voters awarding Democrats control of the state’s House of Delegates for the first time in the state’s 400-year history. With political control of the 100 -seat House legislative body shifting in the November elections to Democrats from Republicans, the new House leadership is set to be run by Representative Donald L. Scott, Jr. a Houston-born son of a single mother who went from the schools in Houston and proceeded to climb a tough ladder to professional and public political leadership. His nomination…
By Reginald Stuart WASHINGTON, DC — A Baptist minister with a 24-year career of work in the National Park Service was unanimously confirmed this week by local political leaders to head the local law enforcement ranks of the nation’s Capitol. Pamela Smith, a D.C. native who has long lived in the city, went to work this summer as interim Chief -of-Police amid rising incidents of crime of all sorts in the nation’s capitol and its suburbs. She has promised local citizens to energize the city’s under-staffed Police Force and combat the surge of car jackings, retail store thefts by sporadic…
By Reginald Stuart NASHVILLE, TN — Christine Tran, a student at the James Lawson High School in South Nashville, has been appointed student member of the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools Board, the board announced late last month. Student board members hold non-voting positions but can weigh in during Board discussions and debates, the public school system said. Tran’s first meeting will be in September. Tran was appointed after selection committee members of the school system reviewed applications and interviewed rising juniors from across the district for the position, the board said in a statement. Tran, a rising junior at James…
By Reginald Stuart Greater Nashville’s new Fifth Congressional District started 2023 with a bumpy landing as the arrival in Congress of Middle Tennessee’s new U.S. Representative was anything but smooth. Victory celebrations had to be rearranged and welcomes postponed, in some cases. The hiring and placement of staff was continuing well into this month, with key staffers still to be appointed. The rough start of Congress came after 15 votes into last weekend among members in the House of Representatives for the Speaker of the House, causing a week’s delay of political infighting before a narrow majority vote of victory…
By Reginald Stuart There are myriad ways to help fix the so-called ‘racial wealth gap’ in America, says financial journalist Rodney Brooks, a Washington-area writer for USA Today, The Washington Post, the U.S. News and World Report and other outstanding publications. Brooks, author of the recently published book by the same name, “Fixing the Racial Wealth Gap,” has spent much of the past year talking with audiences around the country about what his reporting found to give credence to the claims of a racial wealth gap. He discovered how many gaps are based on government policies and local and state…
By Reginald Stuart Progressive Democrats in a special election in Virginia last week, selected, Jennifer L. McClellan, a black state senator as their candidate for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, to replace Rep. Donald McEachin, her late husband who died at age 61 of prostate cancer in November, a week after winning re-election. McClellan, who garnered more than 82 percent of the votes cast in the special contest that ran a week, is essentially assured election when the general contest is held in late February, she would become the first black woman to serve in Congress from…