Losing legends, Fearless Fund drops grant program, Super Bowl halftime show
Friday, September 13, 2024.
What I’m Reading
Kamala Harris’ Campaign Works To Reach Black Men With Voter Engagement Events, HuffPost
New story from me: Kamala Harris’ campaign hosted several events targeting Black men in Wisconsin this past week, part of an effort to drive turnout and prevent defections among a key voting bloc.
Kendrick Lamar to perform at the Super Bowl
In a reminder to never get on Kendrick Lamar’s bad side, the rapper will perform at the 2025 Super Bowl Halftime show…The news was not well received by many fans of Lil Wayne, who believe he was snubbed as a performer because the big game is in New Orleans. Nicki Minaj let her feelings be known, and Lil Wayne also responded to the news, which he admitted “broke” him…
For Rolling Stone, Andre Gee offered a critique of Kendrick Lamar’s decision to perform at the Super Bowl for the NFL, “a corporation that ran to Black music when they needed to distract the country from their racial biases”...
How Tennessee Keeps Nearly Half a Million People From Voting, The New York Times
Tennessee strips nearly half a million people of their right to vote through felon disenfranchisement, and Black residents are disproportionately affected. “[An] astonishing 21 percent of Black adults barred from voting — the highest rate in the country.”
What’s In The News
Across America
Illinois: Before killing Sonya Massey, Sean Grayson had a case thrown out in Kincaid after bringing charges with no evidence. Departments kept hiring him anyway…
Louisiana: NBA legend Charles Barkley is delivering on a promise he made to donate $1 million to a New Orleans school where two students “incredibly solved the Pythagorean Theorem”…
Michigan: Michigan judge Kathleen Ryan was recorded calling Black Americans “f****** lazy pieces of s***” and using homophobic slurs. She is no longer handling cases…
Mississippi: Several Mississippi universities have taken steps to remove “diversity” language from their programs as Republican efforts targeting DEI initiatives continue…
Missouri: A St. Louis County judge has rejected an attempt to free Marcellus Williams, who prosecutors now believe is innocent of a 1998 murder…
New York: City lawmakers have approved legislation to study the city’s role in slavery and consider reparations for descendants of enslaved people…
North Carolina: Civil rights activist Pauli Murray’s childhood home in Durham has been restored and opened to the public…
Oklahoma: The state Supreme Court won’t reconsider its ruling to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the last two known living survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre…
Tennessee: My colleague Phillip Jackson is in Memphis covering the federal trial of the killing of Tyre Nichols…
Wyoming: A Gillette man who beat and threw a 14-year-old girl’s sexual abuser in a car trunk last year was given between 9 and 10 years in prison…
What’s Happening
NPR: The debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump wasn’t close — and 4 other takeaways…Harris’s campaign website has added an “issues” section titled “A New Way Forward”, outlining her platform…Harris also talked on “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show” about the economic proposals she hopes to enact...The National Association of Black Journalists said it is in talks with the Harris-Walz campaign to conduct an interview before its members soon…
A Trump-appointed federal judge in Louisiana has blocked the federal government from “investigating whether race should be considered as a factor in the enforcement of environmental laws”…
New body camera footage shows police quickly escalating their confrontation with Miami Dolphins star Tyreek Hill during a traffic stop…
From Kenya Hunter, for The Associated Press: Hundreds of places in the US said racism was a public health crisis. What’s changed?...
“Healthy Black women with low risk factors were far more likely to get C-sections than white women with similar medical histories,” according to a new study. It also suggested there’s “racial bias and financial incentive” at play…
For the Emancipator, Cara Anthony spent the years reporting on racist violence in Sikeston, Missouri. She says talking with the Black families there helped her process her own family’s painful past…
Fearless Fund, the venture capital firm that invests in women of color, agreed to end its small business grant contest for Black women business owners, ending a discrimination lawsuit…
New from AP’s Matt Brown: The Congressional Black Caucus has “issued new guidelines on the best practices to adopt to advance DEI policies in the workplace and calls on companies to recommit to advance racial justice in the workplace”…
Federal, state and local governments are searching for ways to reduce maternal mortality rates across the United States and eliminate the race gap…During the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference, experts tackled the challenges facing Black women and reproductive health…
In the last edition of the newsletter, I shared stats on declining enrollment of Black freshmen after the Supreme Court banned race-based affirmative action. More: The share of Black students in the freshman class dropped 40 percent at Brown University, the first Ivy League to report a significant drop in Black first-years…Harvard University also reported a drop in Black freshman enrollment…
A recent study found that nearly 95% of appraisers in Michigan are white, which may explain why Black homeowners in Detroit have long faced discrimination in home valuations…
Media moves: After CNN cut her role as a Race & Equality reporter, Chandelis Duster is now a reporter at NPR…Skylar Woodhouse announced that she is joining the White House reporting team at Bloomberg News…
Meharry Medical College received a $20 million anonymous donation this week…
Entertainment News
I broke this news on X earlier this week: A team of sports culture obsessives and leaders from across sports have launched a new homepage-driven platform called OffBall. Read more about the venture in Semafor…
Beyoncé is back in the headlines this week: She was shut out of the Country Music Association Awards after receiving no nominations for her 2024 album “Cowboy Carter”...For the Nashville Tennessean, Andrea Williams wrote an op-ed on how the snub proves Black women are still unwelcome in country music…
For GQ, Frazier Tharpe talked (OK, emailed — when is Beyoncé going to do in-person interviews again?) with Beyoncé about her businesses, art, family and more as the artist takes the October cover…
It’s about time! Angela Bassett has won her first Emmy Award after nine(!) nominations…
Finally, some good news: According to Raphael Saadiq, D’Angelo is working hard on the follow-up to his long-delayed, but critically acclaimed “Black Messiah”...
Danity Kane singer Dawn Richard sued Sean Combs, accusing him of sexual assault and inhumane treatment…Michigan prisoner Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith won a $100 million default judgment against Combs in a sexual assault case…
There’s a nine-hour documentary about Prince that may change how we think about the late star. But due to an intense battle between the Prince estate and Netflix, you’ll probably never get to see it…
Learn about what gymnastics coach James Jones is doing for underserved boys in Atlanta…
Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles opened up in her first public comments since she was stripped of her bronze medal, stating she’s searching for “peace”...
LL Cool J is rapping again. “The FORCE,” which stands for Frequencies of Real Creative Energy, is his first album in over a decade…
Michael B. Jordan is reportedly set to direct and star in a remake of the “Thomas Crown Affair”...
Tyrese Gibson was arrested this week after a judge found him in contempt of court in connection with a dispute about child support payment with his ex-wife…
You may not know her name, but you know who she’s styled. Zerina Akers, stylist to Beyoncé and Megan Thee Stallion, talked with the Los Angeles Times about how she found success…
Halle Berry remains the only Black woman to ever win the Academy Award for best actress. She’s still disappointed to this day…
NFL Hall of Famer and ESPN analyst Shannon Sharpe went viral after mistakenly livestreaming himself having sex on Instagram. He won’t face discipline as the network “considers the matter closed”...
Obituaries
James Earl Jones, the legendary actor who voiced some of the most iconic characters of the 20th century, including Darth Vader and Mufasa, has died. He was 93…Denzel Washington: “Jones was who I wanted to be”...Here are 12 of his greatest films, courtesy of the New York Times…
Frankie Beverly, the notable frontman for the soul band Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly, has died. He was 77…Beyoncé gave a tribute to Beverly: “We will never forget you”...
Tina McElroy Ansa, an acclaimed writer, author and journalist from Macon, Georgia whose books focused on the Black experience in the South, has died. She was 74…
For Andscape, Justin Tinsley wrote about the late rapper Rich Homie Quan and how we’ve lost a generation of ATLiens who didn’t make it to 35…
Tiffany Harris, a lifestyle influencer and the wife of Pennsylvania State Rep. Jordan A. Harris, has died…
Don’t Miss
Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 57 seconds!...
As a proud member of The Washington Association of Black Journalists, I’m excited to announce that the organization is accepting scholarship applications from journalism students in the D.C. metro area…
The trailer for “Luther: Never Too Much,” a new documentary on the life of the late Luther Vandross, is out…
Roy Wood’s CNN show, “Have I Got News For You,” will premiere Saturday, Sept. 14 at 9pm ET/PT on the network…
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund published a “Black Farmers FAQ” to provide information about the history of discrimination they’ve faced and policy initatives to help fix it…
ICYMI: The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture unveiled a curriculum series drawing from their iconic archives for middle and high school students…
Hi, re: Tyreke, I want to stress the role cars play in police discrimination. Traffic stops are inherently dangerous, and completely gray and open to interpretation in practice. We reduce car dependency, we reduce these flawed interactions, we double the wealth of black communities, i’d guess.