By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia An honest and comprehensive reckoning with America’s racial history and enacting solutions to address it is perhaps the transcendent issue of our time, argues Janet Murguia, the president of UnidosUS, a D.C.-based advocacy organization. “The path forward may be difficult, complicated, and contested, but it is essential to pursue,” Murguia remarked in a news release where she and other advocates form the Racial Equity Anchor Collaborative. The collaborative is the foremost diverse coalition of national, racial justice, and civil rights organizations representing and serving more than 53 million people in the…
Author: Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire
By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent WASHINGTON, DC — Protests and unrest in 2020 sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, shined an even brighter spotlight on police brutality against African Americans. The actions led to renewed calls to remove Confederate statutes and other racially insensitive structures. Professional sports teams, including the Washington Football Team (formerly the Redskins) and Cleveland Indians announced they would change the monikers that many said are offensive to Native Americans. Despite incremental progress, many still argue that unless much more is done to show that Black lives matter, removing racist…
By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire The disparities in health care treatment for African Americans extend not only to the millions of underserved patients in U.S. hospitals and medical facilities but also, sadly, to frontline healthcare professionals. Just weeks after Dr. Susan Moore, an African American physician, posted a video that showed the world how her doctor, who is White, downplayed her complaints of pain and discomfort, she died of complications from COVID-19. Many say that Moore’s plight illustrates the healthcare industry’s institutional biases and inherent systemic racism: A pattern of operation, care and treatment that has only exacerbated the…
By Stacy M. Brown Mellody Hobson, a Princeton graduate who in 2019 earned the Woodrow Wilson Award, the university’s highest honor, was named Chairwoman of the Board of Starbucks. With the promotion, Hobson becomes the only African American woman to chair a Fortune 500 company. “I am thrilled and honored to take on the role of chair,” Hobson exclaimed. “Over nearly two decades, I have seen the company continue to elevate and transform its business – adapting to various market environments and evolving consumer trends. “I look forward to working with the Board and talented leadership team on accelerating our…
By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent WASHINGTON, DC — President-Elect Joe Biden’s administration plans to support legislation offered by District of Columbia Democratic Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton that would ensure federal agencies advertise with minority-owned businesses, including the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). “From the racial equity plan – at the direction of the President-Elect, the Director of Minority Business Development Agency will coordinate all federal offices to reduce barriers to procurement for underrepresented groups, including all types of minority-owned businesses,” a Biden transition spokesperson told Black Press USA. “This is good news for the Black Press…
By Stacy M. Brown Before this year, no federal execution had taken place since 2003. However, in July, Attorney General William Barr, at the behest of President Donald Trump, resumed federal executions. Since then, eight people have been executed. Before Trump leaves office next month, five more death row inmates are set to be executed. Four of the five are African Americans. If the remaining executions move forward as planned, Trump will leave office with the distinct legacy of being the most lethally prolific president (in terms of federal executions) in more than 130 years. While many have surmised that the current…
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia The first wave of coronavirus vaccines should reach the public this week, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommending that all adults receive the vaccination in 2021. While the CDC said there should be enough doses for as many as 20 million people to receive vaccination by the end of December, health officials expect a much larger supply in the coming months. Still, with a justified distrust of unproven vaccines, and a perceived limited participation by African Americans in clinical the trials that lead to the development…
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent For comedian Bill Cosby, freedom and possible exoneration comes down to his attorneys’ oral arguments before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday, December 1. Cosby has served more than two years of a 3-to-10-year prison sentence after a jury convicted him of aggravated indecent assault. His longtime spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, will join the Black Press beginning at 9:30 a.m. on the morning of the hearings. Wyatt will help dissect the proceedings as they are happening and provide exclusive thoughts and commentary throughout the hearing. All Cosby supporters hope the proceedings will…
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia Rafer Johnson, the first Black captain of a United States Olympic team, has died. He was 86. Johnson, a renown athlete, and humanitarian carried the American flag into Rome’s Olympic Stadium in 1960. He went on to win gold in the decathlon and became a close associate of the Kennedy family. In 1968, Johnson, NFL star Rosey Grier and journalist George Plimpton, apprehended Sirhan Sirhan immediately after Robert F. Kennedy was shot and killed. “America lost a sports icon with the passing of Rafer Johnson,” ESPN’s Michael Eaves tweeted. “At…
By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire A lot of past cruelties can underscore America’s history of hate. Today, one could capture that hate through the lens of at least some of the more than 74 million people casting a vote for President Donald Trump. Often described as a racist, chauvinist, and one whose policies separated immigrant children from their parents and put them in cages along the Southern U.S. border, Trump supposedly embodies the very qualities that much of America — including many of its major corporations and our next-door neighbors — protested against when they stood with Black Lives…