• News

by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors

June 21, 2023

20-Year-Old Black Woman Graduates College, Named HBCU Entrepreneur Of The Year

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Aaliyah Duah, a recent graduate of Virginia State University, has been named HBCU Entrepreneur of the Year in recognition of her outstanding work in promoting financial literacy and entrepreneurship in the black community. At just 20 years old, Aaliyah has already made a significant impact, founding Financial Revolutionn, a social media platform that uses entertaining and relatable content to educate her peers on the importance of financial literacy and entrepreneurship.

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York City, Aaliyah witnessed firsthand the negative impact that poor financial decisions can have on individuals and communities. But it was during the pandemic that she had a revelation, realizing that she had been valuing materialistic things over what truly matters.

From that moment on, Aaliyah knew she wanted to start a financial revolution in the Black community, and she has been working tirelessly to achieve that goal ever since.

As a sophomore in college, Aaliyah published her first book, The Blueprint for Investing, which provides readers with a step-by-step guide to investing in the stock market. In just two weeks, she was able to break statistics and sell over 100 copies. She has also developed a financial literacy game called “Rap Cards,” which uses rap lyrics to teach young people about money management. Aaliyah has a financial planner called “The Billion Dollar Plan,” which helps individuals map out their financial goals.

In addition to her entrepreneurial endeavors, Aaliyah is also deeply committed to community service. As Vice President of the Student Government Association at VSU, she advocated for an annual funded trip to Ghana, West Africa for students and faculty to learn about their African history. Aaliyah has also hosted numerous back-to-school drives, free events, and webinars.

McDonald’s has recognized Aaliyah’s work by selecting her as one of the 2023 Black & Positively Golden Change Leaders. Each change leader receives a $20,000 grant to use for their business and a media campaign that exposes their platform. Aaliyah plans on using these resources to continue developing creative and fun ways for people of color of all ages to become financially literate through music, films, courses, books, podcasts, and many more.

This news first appeared on blacknews.com.

Carolina students are catching a big financial break.

Duke University recently announced that undergraduate students from the Carolinas could qualify for grants that cover tuition costs; this applies to current and future students, Forbes reported.

In the fall of 2023, North and South Carolina students can expect to receive grants if their household income is less than $150,000. Admitted undergraduate students from the Carolinas whose household income is at or under $65,000 can expect more assistance. The university will offer grants for full tuition, housing assistance, food, some course materials, and other miscellaneous expenses for students with a household income of $65,000 or less.

University President Vincent Price said, “This additional financial support for undergraduates reflects Duke’s commitment to our students from the Carolinas. By providing even more equitable access to a Duke education and ensuring students have the resources they need to truly thrive while here at Duke, we will also make our campus community stronger.” Gary Bennett, dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, believes increasing grant assistance this academic year will benefit Carolina communities. Bennett said in a statement, “Retaining talent is critical to our region’s success; Duke’s commitment to these students is also a commitment to the North and South Carolina communities they call home.”

Duke’s new financial assistance package will funnel out around $2 million more in grant assistance than the previous year. Financial assistance for Carolina students is not a one-year commitment, Forbes reported. Duke plans to increase financial assistance by $6 million or $7 million yearly for the next five years.

Duke’s new financial assistance will be a relief for many students. U.S. News & World Reports reported that tuition had increased significantly in the U.S. Private universities have seen an increase of 134% in tuition and 141% in public and state university tuition.

The university will fund the grants through its own resources, and roughly 340 Carolina students are expected to receive the full-tuition grants during the fall of 2023.

• News

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

June 21, 2023

15 Black Sailors Exonerated After Being Dishonorably Discharged For ‘Bad Conduct’ 83 Years Ago

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Officials from the Navy formally apologized to the family of two of the 15 Black sailors who were expelled from the Navy over 80 years ago after they exposed racism.

According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, on June 16, 2023, the Navy formally apologized for expelling 15 Black sailors. It issued honorable discharges for all of the men, all deceased.

The Black sailors were kicked out of the Navy after they signed a letter and sent it to a Black newspaper that revealed the racist treatment they endured. They were named the ‘Philadelphia 15’ since all the sailors were stationed on the USS Philadelphia at that time. The incident occurred in 1940.

The Navy invited several family members of two of the soldiers who were part of the ‘Philadelphia 15,’ including James and John Ponder. Larry Ponder, the son of John, attended the ceremony with three additional family members at the Pentagon. In an interview with the Chatanooga Times Free Press, Larry said his father and uncle were around 20 years old when the discharges were issued.

“We were told that what they did started a movement throughout the service,” Ponder said. “But they were the first ones to be disciplined and kicked out.”

Ponder’s father died in 1997, and he found paperwork detailing his “undesirable” discharge from the Navy. Due to the actions of the Navy, his father, and uncle were denied veterans’ benefits. He told the newspaper that even after what transpired, his father encouraged several family members to enlist, and he served in the Vietnam War.

Years after his father died, Ponder came across news of another Black veteran who was granted an honorable discharge 75 years after he was kicked out. He decided to contact the attorney who handled that case, and after speaking to her, she agreed to help him without charging him.

Initially, they were rejected, yet, after gathering the proper evidence, the Navy agreed to pardon the soldiers.

One week before the ceremony, Ponder was told by Navy officials to gather family members. Navy officials sent him a flight confirmation the night before he flew to Washington, D.C., where they received a tour of the Pentagon and attended the ceremony that gave his uncle and father an honorable discharge. The Ponders were the only descendants of the ‘Philadelphia 15’ in attendance, but he said Navy officials are also tracking down family members from the other sailors. 

Devlin Carter started his company, SIA Collective, in 2019, and it has grown into a multimillion-dollar brand. Years earlier, after realizing he could use social media to sell his product, the decision to start the company was a no-brainer, according to an interview Carter did with NBC News.

SIA Collective (which stands for Somewhere In America) received massive publicity after the saga and suspension of former Brooklyn Nets player Kyrie Irving. While embroiled in a controversy that started when the New Jersey-bred basketball player tweeted a link to Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America! There was an outcry about the controversial film, deemed anti-Semitic. Nike decided to cut ties with Irving because of everything surrounding the suspension that arose from Irving’s initial refusal to apologize for tweeting the documentary.

After the sportswear company announced it had terminated the endorsement contract with Irving, there was talk of Irving meeting with Carter to discuss a partnership to produce a signature sneaker.

At the time, Carter said that a potential deal between Irving and a Black-owned company like SIA Collective could change “how young Black athletes look at endorsement deals moving forward. It would show they don’t have to be locked into a deal and not feel like they are property. They can take ownership of their off-the-court game.”

But many years before that, Carter had the chance to make his own footwear since his mother was a seamstress. However, because society didn’t see a man using a sewing machine as a masculine trait, Carter allowed that thought to prevent him from utilizing the sewing machine at a younger age.

However, instead of allowing that form of thinking to direct his trajectory, he chose to tap Augusto Cerrone (born in Italy before making his way to America in his younger years), who owns American Shoe Repair in Queens, New York, to mentor him in using the sewing machine.

“I learned a lot from him,” Carter said. “He gave me access, taught me. It was what I needed.”

Being stationed (as a member of the US Coast Guard) in New York in 2011, Carter grew his social media following as he worked daily at producing new shoe concepts.

“The way to stand out was to produce more than anyone else,” he said about competing with other independent brands seeking to break through. “So, when my competition was doing one shoe a month or every week, I was creating new shoes every day, sewing materials on shoes, something no one else was doing.”

After leaving the Coast Guard in 2014, he went to the Fashion Institute for Design and Merchandising in San Francisco to hone his skills. After he recreated the Curry 6 shoe (after Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry), Under Armour offered him a sneaker designer job. He became a consultant while running a retail store in Oakland.

After receiving an email from another Black man who also attended the Fashion Institute for Design and Merchandising, they decided to work together, and SIA Collective was born.

Presently, the company brings in at least $25 million annually, and Carter states there is no money spent on advertising. The company receives sales through social media and word of mouth.

Rapper J. Cole is now a minority owner in the Charlotte Hornets after Michael Jordan sold his majority stake to a buyer group.

On June 16, 2023, J. Cole became a part of the buyer group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall, according to NBA.com, which also includes Chris Shumway, Dan Sundheim, and Ian Loring. 

As of 2023, according to Sportskeeda, the rapper has an estimated net worth of $60 million. In 2007, J. Cole founded Dreamville Records, and according to Dreamville’s website, the label keeps “a pulse on [its] community while exploring new sounds, new visuals, and new ways to authentically and genuinely connect with all people around the world.” 

ABC 11 reported that in 2022, Dreamville’s festival raked in $6.7 million in revenue. 

However, J. Cole’s fortune is not solely from recorded music. In October 2020, Variety reported Dreamville formed Dreamville Ventures and Dreamville Studios, serving as subsidiaries of Dreamville. According to the outlet Dreamville Ventures is a multi-disciplinary media company, and Dreamville Studios is a content studio.

At the time, J. Cole said, “Dreamville has always been a mom-and-pop operation with grand ambitions and ideas that extend far beyond music.”

Michael Jordan, chairman of Hornets Sports & Entertainment (HSE) will keep minority ownership of the Hornets, according to NBA.com, once the NBA’s Board of Governors finalizes the sale. The NBA legend purchased the team in 2010 for $275 million, when the team was known as the Bobcats, according to the Associated Press.

“In the same way that it’s wonderful that one of our greatest, Michael Jordan, could become the principal governor of a team, he has the absolute right to sell at the same time,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said. “Values have gone up a lot since he bought that team, so that is his decision.”

According to the AP, the Charlotte Hornets now has no Black majority ownership.

Former The Daily Show host Trevor Noah is set to invade the podcast world.

Noah, who left Comedy Central in 2022 after hosting The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for seven years, “let the cat out of the bag” on his Instagram account on June 20, 2023 that he is joining Spotify to host his own podcast.

 

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A post shared by Trevor Noah (@trevornoah)

“It’s really exciting to be joining Spotify on a fun new adventure where we’ll engage in interesting and meaningful conversations with some of the world’s most fascinating people,” says Noah in a written statement. “We’ll also probably fix every single issue humankind has ever faced, so you definitely want to join us for every episode.”

Spotify saids the weekly show that will debut later in 2023. Although no release date was mentioned, the streaming platform promised Noah’s “signature humor and razor-sharp wit” will be displayed. 

Since the deal is not exclusive to the streaming platform, the podcast will also be seen and heard on other platforms. 

“Spotify is the ultimate audio destination, and partnering with Trevor Noah, one of the world’s most brilliant and distinctive voices, will make for captivating storytelling that will delight our more than 100 million podcast listeners around the world,” says Julie McNamara, Spotify vice president, head of global podcast studios. “We are excited to collaborate with Trevor to create an original podcast that seamlessly combines his unique humor, insightful commentary, and consummate interview skills on a global scale.”

Noah told Variety that doing a podcast allows him to do more as he is not as restricted in format and time as he was on television. He also mentioned that he can do his show “anywhere in the world.”

In 2022, when Noah decided to leave Comedy Central after seven years, he said he wanted to dedicate more time to stand-up comedy.

A Memphis non-profit that booked Saucy Santana for an LGBTQ Pride event is calling out the rapper for allegedly scamming them out of thousands.

The Memphis-based non-profit One Memphis One Vision took to Instagram over the week to put Santana on blast after booking the rapper for a show he never showed up to. According to a series of scathing posts captured by The Neighborhood Talk, Santana was booked for a Juneteenth Pride event scheduled on June 18.

The non-profit agreed to pay the “Material Gworl” rapper a total of $25k to host the event and perform two songs. The contract also states that if Santana failed to show up to the event, “100% of the show money is guaranteed back to the Purchaser.”

However, Santana never showed up after missing his flight, and instead of returning the funds already given to him, Santana’s team reportedly demanded the non-profit “find him another place to perform” and pay him the backend of $10k that he was owed.”

 

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A post shared by The Neighborhood Talk (@theneighborhoodtalk)

It’s also worth noting that Santana only missed his flight because he reportedly “forgot his wallet.”

The non-profit also took issue with Santana staying inside his hotel room and leaving his team to rectify his late appearance at the event that had already ended.

“OMOV says he told Santana’s team that they needed to at least pay them back $5k to cover the money that was spent that day: $2k in travel fees and $2k for Santana’s rider, which included tequila bottles and Popeyes chicken,” THNT reports.

Santana’s team reportedly denied returning the funds and OMOV says it would take the loss but the funds paid to Santana came from the city of Memphis and is taxpayer funded.  Now the non-profit is demanding a public apology from Santana as well as a payment plan to receive the $25k owed to them— $15k for the initial booking and $10k for the other expenses.

• News

by Iman Milner

June 21, 2023

Chicago Officials To Dedicate $6.8M To Build Monuments, Including One To Honor Police Torture Victims

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Newly elected Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to use a $6.8 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to build eight new monuments, including one intended to honor the more than 100 Black men who were tortured by Chicago police officers.

The city agreed to build a memorial to the victims of brutal attacks orchestrated by disgraced chief of police Jon Burge and many officers who trained under him in 2015.

The monument is part of a broader package of “reparations” that includes payouts totaling $5.5 million to over 118 people, mostly innocent, who were beaten, electrocuted, or suffocated with plastic bags. The city also made a commitment to include this dark piece of the Chicago Police Department’s history in the curriculum for 8th through 10th graders, according to WTTW News.

Johnson believesthe monument, aptly named The Chicago Torture Justice Memorial, will act as a reminder of the “tremendous harm” done not just not to “a generation but generations of people” by the “brutality of police” and help heal the wounds many city residents carry from the attacks.

“It is important that we capture that history in a physical way,” Johnson said. “The impact that it is going to have—it is not only educating a generation of how these systems fail and harm people, but we also have the ability to tell our stories with our art. See, when oppressors look to dominate people, they go after their history, their art and their culture. We’re not going to do that in Chicago.”

The other planned monuments include an honor for Mahalia Jackson, a commemoration of the Chicago Race Riots of 1919, a memorial for missing and murdered Black girls as well as a series of monuments that explore the settling of Chicago by Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable and the Native Americans who welcomed him to their land, according to ABC 7 Chicago.

John Amos’ “Good Times” co-star BernNadette Stanis is speaking out amid the “tug of war” between Amos’ two children, with one being blamed for elder abuse.

Stanis is hoping to see the Amos family come to a resolution following Shannon Amos’ claims of elder abuse in a June 8 Instagram post, and a more recent video post showing John Amos accusing his daughter of elder abuse.

“It just happened so that when you have a parent that you have to take care of or they’re aging, there’s a lot of fear amongst the siblings because you don’t know — it’s the first time and maybe the only parent. It hurts,” Stanis told People.

Her statements come after John Amos was most recently seen speaking on the phone from a hospital bed alongside his son K.C., where he accused his daughter Shannon of elder abuse.

“She would be the primary suspect — if you would,” John claimed in the video clip K.C. shared online.

“I don’t know if that’s the right term to use or not. But she’s the one that I would attribute my elderly abuse to. It’s definitely a case of elderly abuse.”

 

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A post shared by K.C. Amos (@k.c.amos)

The video came a few weeks after Shannon asked for donations for her father’s care after he was allegedly a victim of “elder abuse and financial exploitation.”

“We are collaborating with the Colorado Bureau of Investigations and local authorities, determined to bring the perpetrators to justice,” she wrote in her post.

 

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A post shared by S H A N N O N A M O S (@officialshannonamos)

But now, John is accusing his daughter of elder abuse and financial exploitation and wants every donation returned to the donors.

“To all of my fans, I want to share this video with you to show you that I am not in the distressed condition as described in the GoFundMe page,” John told People. “As a matter of fact, I am doing well.”

“Nor was I ever fighting for my life,” he said.

“First, I want the GoFundMe campaign about me to stop immediately and the funds subsequently returned to those who made donations,” he added. “My son and I will reveal more information at the appropriate time.”

Stanis is crediting the different stories among the family as a “tug of war” between siblings.

“I don’t understand the Shannon thing or what’s going on with it, but she’s the oldest and sometimes the oldest feels like they should be in control,” Stanis said. “But K.C. is the boy, so it could be a tug of war, a little bit like that.”

According to John, he was in the hospital due to water retention and is in no dire need of financial assistance for his care.

• News

by Iman Milner

June 21, 2023

‘Pay Us!’: Rep. Cori Bush Makes A $97 Trillion Case For Reparations

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Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri took time to commemorate Juneteenth by strengthening the case for reparations for descendants of enslaved Black people. A $97 trillion case, to be exact.

Bush introduced legislation in May, “The Reparations Now Resolution,” a 23-page document calling on the United States to address the “enslavement of Africans and its lasting harm” on millions of Black Americans, according to CBS News.

Using the holiday as a platform to draw attention to the sobering experience of being Black in this country and the stain left behind by slavery, Bush’s efforts—as well as those of lawmakers in  Evanston, Boston, and San Francisco—are crucial first steps in closing the wealth gap that exists between white and Black families in America.

According to the Harvard Gazette, the average Black family’s wealth in the United States is only one-tenth of the average White family’s. It’s a difference that can be directly attributed to slavery.

Though the initial ask from Bush’s resolution was a $14 trillion payout to descendants of those who endured chattel slavery, the St. Louis native cited findings from scholars who estimate that the U.S. benefitted from over 222 million hours of free labor between 1619 and 1865; totaling over $97 trillion in value today.

For Bush, the only equitable way forward for the country must include reparations, according to MSNBC. “America must provide reparations if we desire a prosperous future for all,” she said. “This country thrived and grew through the planting and harvesting of tobacco, sugar, rice and cotton, all from chattel slavery, and that hasn’t been compensated.”

It is not clear what the ultimate plan for “The Reparations Now Resolution” will mean for Black Americans, as it does not explicitly ask for direct payments to be made out to individuals. However, there is clear language about the need to address growing wealth disparities.