SYDNEY — As Sydney’s iconic Sirius building is transformed from social housing into multi-million dollar apartments, the New South Wales government has revealed where money from the sale of the harborside icon is going.
The building, at the edge of Sydney Harbor, was sold to private developers in 2019 for AU$150 million ($111.3 million) in the face of a public campaign against removing existing residents.
State Housing Minister Melinda Pavey said on July 3 that 19 regional and suburban areas around New South Wales would benefit from new social housing development approvals.
“The proceeds of the sale of the Sirius Building have funded the construction of over 330 new social housing dwellings throughout NSW,” she said.
“A total of (AU)$150 million is being injected directly into modern social housing for around 630 people, who are some of the most vulnerable in our community.”
Sirius was built in the 1970s to provide 79 apartments for low-income public housing tenants displaced from Sydney’s historic Rocks area.
While the brutalist style of raw concrete and little extraneous detail isn’t always popular outside architecture circles, the building is a familiar landmark to anyone crossing the Sydney Harbor bridge.
For residents inside its distinctive form of stepped boxes, there are spectacular views of Sydney Harbor and the opera house as well as proximity to the city.
But as Sydney’s property values skyrocketed, the government argued the now extremely valuable harborside site could be sold to fund more social housing elsewhere.
Housing Minister Melinda Pavey said “The proceeds of the sale of the Sirius Building have funded the construction of over 330 new social housing dwellings throughout New South Wales.” (Joel Carrett/AAP Image)
Pavey said more than 38 new social homes have already been built with the Sirius funds with another 300 on the way, addressing the social housing gap in regional New South Wales towns such as Dubbo, Wagga Wagga and Gosford.
The largest projects are in Warwick Farm and St Marys (52 and 44) western suburbs of Sydney, Gosford (41) north of Sydney and Tweed Heads (40) south of Gold Coast.
Meanwhile, the Sirius developers are now advertising for buyers for the top end apartments, with prices of up to AU$12 million dollars ($8.9 million). One of the ads in a Sydney-based financial publication was widely criticized by sympathizers of the former social housing residents kicked out of the building, and defenders of the building.
Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Rob Stokes said the approval of the refurbishment and restoration of the Sirius Building would create hundreds of jobs and better public spaces in The Rocks.
“It will also establish a new public forecourt to provide enhanced community access between Cumberland Street and Gloucester Walk, add new street lighting to improve safety and plant more than 75 new trees which will add to the beauty of The Rocks (at Sydney Harbor),” Stokes said.
(Edited by Vaibhav Pawar and Krishna Kakani. Map by Urvashi Makwana)
WASHINGTON — Ray McFarland and his wife, Leslie, have mastered the art of pivoting. They have “remixed” the business model of their 21st Century Expo Group three times since 2001. When 9/11, the 2008 stock market crash and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic struck, the McFarlands altered their company to change with the times.
That’s just one of many lessons they’ve passed on to their daughter, Iman. Though she is a talented basketball player who could have played in the WNBA, she wanted to be a doctor. But her father saw a corporate superstar within. She is now chief operating officer and general manager of The Campus DMV, an athletic training and media production conglomerate that she co-owns with her parents.
Based in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Capitol Heights, Maryland, the minority-owned business has positioned itself as a multifaceted academic, athletic and wellness facility. The new enterprise is building a full TV studio and production facility to accompany a sports complex that features a state-of-the-art sound stage.
If Tyler Perry Studios merged with an IMG Sports training facility, that would describe the direction this family-owned conglomerate has pivoted to this time.
As a national champion basketball player at the University of North Carolina, Iman was projected to be one of the top players selected in the WNBA draft. However, the former All-American chose graduate school to prepare for her role in running the family business on campus.
“It was never about playing pro basketball for me,” Iman said. “I wanted to play college basketball at the highest level, hopefully for free.”
Her parents coached and guided her through their version of business school. Growing up in the family business, she saw firsthand what it was like to struggle. Their recovery from the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the financial hardships of 2008 led to a corporate resilience that served as a blueprint for survival during the pandemic.
“Once she decided that she wanted to join the company, we encouraged her to work for other companies in the industry to learn things,” Leslie said. “She brought back ideas to us that helped make us a better company.”
Like many entrepreneurs who became innovative during the height of the pandemic, Iman’s parents pivoted to remain solvent so that she could inherit the family business. 21st Century Expo Group’s specialty was in event productions. The company had been successful in trade shows and displays and set-ups at conventions, expos and other events around the country. However, as the company pivoted once again, it diversified — and Iman’s ascent became apparent.
“Once the pandemic hit and there were no more trade shows, our company faced a hard pause,” Iman said. “My father, who is very much a visionary, figured out how to empty out our 40,000-square-foot warehouse that held 30 years’ worth of trade show equipment and turn it into a facility like no other.”
As a general services contractor in the trade show industry, 21st Century Expo had been producing more than 120 events annually with many high-profile clients, including Google, Intel, McDonald’s, Major League Baseball and Time Warner.
When lockdowns began, the events industry suffered. Without trade shows, concert, and corporate events, there was no revenue stream. Employees were furloughed.
But while the lights were out, the family made a bold bet to remake their company.
“When all of your clients cancel all of your trade shows for the rest of the year in the first quarter, we knew there was an immediate shift in gears that needed to take place,” Ray said. “Our intent was to first survive the pandemic and figure out what resources we had available to us that could be converted in the lowest amount of time and for the least amount of money.”
The first major project was transitioning the first of the company’s three leased warehouses into the athletic training and competition facility. Three basketball courts, bleachers and a youth boxing ring became a training ground for youth basketball teams. Future Olympic hopefuls replaced the equipment the company had been using at live events.
The facility now serves as home for several nationally ranked AAU basketball programs, including one sponsored by Kevin Durant of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, and will host a women’s semi-professional basketball league this fall.
Another warehouse in the complex has been converted into a state-of-the-art soundstage and practice studio for bands. Many of the area’s local “go-go” bands use the private setting to stay sharp during late weeknight practice sessions. With establishments beginning to loosen COVID-19 restrictions, these bands have resumed with mini concerts playing the “official music” of D.C. throughout the area.
“There were bands that had been practicing in their basements virtually, and we know that isn’t the best way to build a sound,” Iman said. “We partnered with another black-owned business who had the engineering technology in place, so we flipped the space in a matter of a few days.”
Iman has followed in her father’s footsteps when it comes to business acumen. After earning an MBA from Howard University, she developed a proprietary online software for staff and clients that allows them to process orders more efficiently and reduce administrative costs. That helped spawn the development and expansion of the family’s empire, with Iman becoming chief operating officer of her own company at age 29.
Iman is also inspired and influenced by her mother. Leslie is a Howard University basketball hall-of-famer who also played volleyball from 1974-1977. As a child, Iman remembers watching her mother compete in the National Senior Games Association. A more lasting impression was watching her mother operate as a successful minority businesswoman in a male-dominated industry.
“My mom is an absolute baddy,” Iman said. “She has been fighting for us to keep the doors open every single day. I’m in awe of her. She empowers me.”
Frost & Sullivan, a research and consulting firm, said the award was for Uniphore’s innovative approach towards customer needs in the development and support it provides in its conversational service automation platform using Artificial Intelligence.
The award is the result of an independent, non-sponsored evaluation by Frost & Sullivan’s analyst team.
Uniphore is a conversational service automation platform, which allows customer service agents of enterprises to automate tasks, and provides features like virtual assistants and voice biometrics.
“Because of the pandemic, enterprise automation has really accelerated the transformation of enterprise conversations, with a specific focus on customer experience,” said Umesh Sachdev, chief executive officer and co-founder of Uniphore.
“To solve some major challenges and eliminate customer frustration across the board, we know that AI-driven conversational automation is the key.”
“Frost & Sullivan is a leading analyst firm that has expertise and experience in this space to truly understand what businesses need to succeed,” Sachdev said.
“It is an honor to be recognized by them for our innovative solutions and hypergrowth, and we look forward to continuing to change customer service for the better.”
“By leveraging facial emotion recognition and sentiment analysis, Uniphore will be able to enhance video engagements that have become so prevalent in the COVID and WFH-era,” according to thestatement released by the company.
Uniphore acquired Emotion Research Labs in Jan this year to include emotion AI for its products. Emotion Research Lab is a software developer that uses AI and machine learning to identify emotion and engagement levels in real-time.
The company had said the acquisition would expand Uniphore’s global footprint and European-based presence. Uniphore plans to expand into additional European countries in Fiscal Year 2022.
In March, Uniphore raised $40 million as part of its Series D funding round, which U.S.-based investment firm Sorenson Capital Partners led.
“Uniphore has been at the forefront of conversational automation for years and continues to impress,” Nancy Jamison, Industry Director, Information & Communications Technologies at Frost & Sullivan, said.
“Following a challenging year across the board for businesses, customer service, and employee experience, Uniphore has set a stake in the ground with its vision for conversational process automation by honing in on the ways that humans communicate and building solutions to improve that communication.”
(With inputs from ANI)
(Edited by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan and Praveen Pramod Tewari)
WASHINGTON — Fired African American election officials in Georgia have backed U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s move to sue the state over new voting laws Democrats have compared to Jim Crow.
Democratic elections board members told Zenger that they were fired as soon as Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, signed a new law that he said was about “election integrity,” but which opponents have called racial voter suppression.
Garland announced last week that the U.S. Department of Justice was bringing a federal lawsuit against the Georgia Election Integrity Bill.
It contains a series of measures passed by the state House and Senate and signed into law by Kemp on March 25, and which was originally known as Senate Bill (SB) 202.
Among its most high-profile measures are a ban on distributing water to voters waiting in line and stripping Georgia’s secretary of state of many of the office’s powers to oversee elections.
The current secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, certified Joseph R. Biden’s narrow win the November presidential election in the face of claims from then-President Donald J. Trump and his supporters of widespread fraud, none of which have been proven in court.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the lawsuit against Georgia at the Justice Department on June 25, accusing it of suppressing African American voters. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images).
Democrats say the legislation was prompted by those fraud claims and by racial animus after a record turnout in the state by African American voters, thanks to intensive organizing by Stacey Abrams, the party’s failed 2018 gubernatorial candidate. Biden called the act “the new Jim Crow.”
Republicans, including Kemp, say the Jim Crow claims are a smear and that the act is intended to “make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”
Another provision hands control of local boards of election to county commissioners, instead of members being appointed by both parties. It is the part of the act which has had the most immediate effect.
A series of African American elections officials have told Zenger they were fired from local elections boards as soon as the law came into force, and said they believe they were purged for their race and their party affiliation.
“I was the newly elected chair of the Spalding County Board of Elections and I was removed without cause,” said Vera McIntosh, 80, who had served on the board since 2019. McIntosh said she lost her job as soon as Kemp signed the law but did not learn about her removal until the board’s next meeting on April 21.
Vera McIntosh was newly elected to chair the Spalding County Board of Elections but was fired when Georgia’s new election law came into effect. (Courtesy of Vera McIntosh)
Largely rural Spalding County, population 64,073, in west central Georgia, voted for Trump 59.9 percent to 39.1 percent.
“The board was very non-partisan with two members appointed by the Democrats, two appointed by the Republicans and then the four would select the chair,” she said.
“I think what has happened to me is absolutely against my constitutional rights. We tried to function as a non-partisan group. We tried to do the right thing,” said McIntosh, adding that she and other elections officials joined meetings via Zoom to get through the pandemic.
In addition to McIntosh, other Georgia elections officials who have been removed include Helen Butler, who was one of the five members of the Morgan County Board of Elections for more than a decade, said she had been targeted.
Butler, 72, an African American appointed by the Democratic Party to the role, told how she was removed as soon as the new law allowed the county commission to replace its members.
The 19,276-population county in northeast Georgia voted for Trump 70.3 to 28.6 for Biden.
“First they removed my entire board, that had two Blacks and three whites,” Butler said.
“Then they brought back the chairman and one Black. So now there are four whites and one black on the board. Because of SB 202 you can only remove four people at a time.”
Also removed from the board was Avery Jackson, another African American Democratic appointee.
Butler is the executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, which was started by the Civil Rights campaigner Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery. She said regardless of the outcome of the federal lawsuit she is in this battle for the long haul.
Helen Butler was one of the five members of the Morgan County Board of Elections for more than a decade, and fired because, she said, she was an African American appointed by the Democratic Party. (Courtesy of Helen Butler)
“We are going to continue to educate voters and find people to elect who will do the right thing,” she said. “People are making the connection between lawmakers who want to do the right thing versus those who don’t.”
In west central Georgia’s Troup County, population 67,044, Trump won 78 to 22.
Lonnie Hollis, Vice-Chair of the Board of Elections, who is a Black Democratic appointee, will be fired along with the rest of the board by January 1, 2022, and replaced by a new board appointed solely by the Republican-controlled county commissioners.
“I think it is a blow against Black people,” Hollis told Zenger.
“I have been on the elections board since 2013, and I am the only third Democrat to be on the board,” she added. “They want to get rid of me because I talk, and I am outspoken. I was put on the board by the Democratic Party.”
Hollis said she hoped to see the Justice Department lawsuit succeed.
“I just want the lawsuit to get rid of these Jim Crow tactics. I grew up in LaGrange, I moved away but then I came back to Georgia in the early 1970s. These people think that they can do anything, because the Blacks don’t complain,” she said.
Lonnie Hollis, Vice-Chair of the Troup County Board of Elections, said the entire board will be removed on January 1, 2022, and says it is “a blow against Black people.” (Courtesy of Lonnie Hollis)
Garland cast his lawsuit as the first of many he expects to bring to uphold voting rights in the face of what Democrats have said is an attempt to suppress their voters.
“This lawsuit is the first step of many we are taking to ensure that all eligible voters can cast a vote; that all lawful votes are counted; and that every voter has access to accurate information,” said Garland in a statement.
Kemp called the attack “lies” and linked it to the failure of Democrats so far to pass the national Senate Resolution One on voting rights and elections reform which Republicans filibustered earlier this month.
Kemp said: “This lawsuit is born out of the lies and misinformation the Biden administration has pushed against Georgia’s Election Integrity Act from the start.”
“Joe Biden, Stacey Abrams, and their allies tried to force an unconstitutional elections power grab through Congress — and failed. Now, they are weaponizing the U.S. Department of Justice to carry out their far-left agenda that undermines election integrity and empowers federal government overreach in our democracy.”
The decision by Garland to sue Georgia first emphasizes the ferocity of the political battle over the state, which had last voted for a Democrat for the White House in 1992.
For decades the real power base in Georgia was not Atlanta — where a large number of African Americans live — but it in the smaller counties which are heavily white and held by Republicans.
But there was a shift during the 2020 elections because more minorities have moved to counties beyond Metropolitan Atlanta. Democrats and African American voting rights groups see the shifting demographics as one of the reasons for the new Republican electoral law.
Melanie L. Campbell, President of the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation, backed the Justice Department stepping in.
Demonstrators were outside the Georgia Capitol building to oppose the state’s new voting laws in March as they were passed, with the fight now moved to the courts. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
“There are attacks against voting going across the country and what is going on in Georgia is really egregious. Prior to the law there were two Republicans and two Democrats [on each county BOE]. The new law allows one party to control who sits on the board.
“Our voting rights are being attacked by autocracy and not democracy.”
But African American Republicans say Democrats are wrong to attack the electoral law.
Raynard Jackson, a Republican activist who is African American, said that the lawsuit should be thrown out because “there is not one mention of Black folks Georgia it applies to everyone.
“If there was a Beyoncé concert and Pooky and Raheem were picking up tickets, and they received an email that the concert was canceled, don’t you think that they would pick up the phone and verify this information. They can do the same thing in terms of voting,” Jackson said.
“I still support a two-party system, but the Democrats must think that Blacks are too stupid and can’t follow the rules on how to vote. This is insulting.”
The Coca-Cola Co. has pledged to almost double its ad spending with minority-owned media, the latest in a wave of major companies responding to pressure — and a $10 billion lawsuit — over how they allocate such dollars.
Atlanta-based Coca-Cola North America said in June its ad spending with such companies will be five times higher than in 2020, with 8 percent of its total annual media budget will be allocated to black, Hispanic and Asian American and Pacific Islander-owned media by 2024.
Other major corporations have made similar pledges in recent weeks. Twenty companies — including Uber, General Mills, Adidas, Tyson Foods and Target — signed on to GroupM’s Media Inclusion Initiative, pledging in June to commit 2 percent or more of their total annual media budgets to black-owned media.
In addition, McDonald’s Corp. announced in May it would bring its national ad spending with black-owned media up 2 percent to 5 percent between 2021 and 2024, and with black, Hispanic, Asian American and Pacific Islander, LGTBQ and woman-owned media up to 10 percent over that stretch.
And a month earlier, General Motors announced a five-point action plan to alter how it deals with “diverse-owned and diverse-targeted media,” including bringing its ad spending with those companies up to 2 percent by 2021, up to 4 percent by 2024 and up to 8 percent by 2025.
General Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Barra addresses a press conference of corporate leaders speaking out against racism and injustice at City Hall in Detroit, Michigan, on June 3. In her statement, Barra committed to inclusion and condemned intolerance. (John F. Martin/General Motors)
“There are a couple of forces at play right now helping to increase ad spending for black-owned media companies,” Keonte Coleman, assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Strategic Media at Middle Tennessee State University, told Zenger.
“The racial reckoning taking place across this country has made social justice issues a higher priority for Fortune 500 companies. Black-owned businesses have a consumer base that’s paying attention to how these companies are addressing systemic inequities through their social responsibility policies.”
Daphne Dickerson, brand and business communications lead with The Coca-Cola Co., told Zenger it is acting now because “in previous years, we focused more on minority-targeted media companies to reach diverse consumers, but as we learned through a thorough analysis of our media mix, our consumer targets continue to evolve, and to be effective and efficient with our spend, we need to invest in both minority-owned media and minority targeted media.”
Sarah Bobas, head of marketing communications North America for GroupM, told Zenger a 2 plus-percent goal “is significant and an achievable target for our clients based on the inventory available” from private industry. Like Dickerson, Bobas declined to quantify how much that is in dollars because it would reveal confidential budget information.
The pledges come, in some cases, after a public calling-out of companies over their practices. In April, music mogul Sean Combs wrote “If You Love Us, Pay Us: A letter from Sean Combs to Corporate America,” which particularly criticized General Motors for spending only an estimated $10 million of its $3 billion ad budget on black-owned media.
An open letter to General Motors from the leaders of seven black-owned media companies that appeared in major newspapers.
Combs’ essay came after seven leaders of black-owned media companies took out a full-page ad in March in the Detroit Free Press and other newspapers that stated GM spends less than 0.5 percent of its “billions in advertising” with black-owned media, a level GM disputes. The seven executives — Byron Allen of Allen Media Group LLC, Junior Bridgeman of Ebony Media, Todd F. Brown of Urban Edge Networks, Ice Cube of BIG3 and Cubevision, Earl “Butch” Graves of Black Enterprise, Don Jackson of Central City Productions and Roland Martin of Nu Vision Media — distinguished black-owned media from black-targeted media “because minority includes white women, and large corporations like General Motors can hide behind and tout their minority records while continuing not to do business with Black Owned Media Companies.”
The ad called for a Zoom meeting with GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra, and not Chief Marketing Officer Deborah Wahl, owing to her previous tenure at McDonald’s.
A McDonald’s restaurant in St. Petersburg, Florida. (McDonald’s Corp.)
The fast-food giant came under criticism in May over its ad spending with black-owned media in a different newspaper ad that called for a meeting with president and CEO Chris Kempczinski. The same day the ad appeared in the Chicago Tribune and Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Studios and Weather Group LLC, divisions of Allen Media Group, filed a $10 billion lawsuit against McDonald’s.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles, charges racial discrimination in contracting, stating that the company spends less than $5 million of its $1.6 billion TV ad budget with black-owned media. The lawsuit asserts McDonald’s places Allen Media Group’s networks and platforms, including The Weather Channel, Comedy.TV and Cars.TV, outside of its “general market” advertising tier. Instead, according to the lawsuit, the Allen Media channels and platforms are relegated to the much-smaller tier reserved for black-targeted audiences, although many of their offerings are for general-interest audiences and compete with white-owned media.
“This is about economic inclusion of African American-owned businesses in the U.S. economy. McDonald’s takes billions from African American consumers and gives almost nothing back. The biggest trade deficit in America is the trade deficit between White corporate America and Black America, and McDonald’s is guilty of perpetuating this disparity. The economic exclusion must stop immediately,” Allen said in a statement.
The company denies it is being discriminatory when it comes to such spending.
“McDonald’s does not tolerate discrimination in any part of our business, and these unfounded allegations are inconsistent with our values and belied by our actions,” the company told Zenger. “We remain committed to doing our part to advance the growth of diverse-owned media, which is why we joined with our franchisees to increase our spend with diverse-owned partners from 4 percent to 10 percent, and with black-owned media from 2 percent to 5 percent of total national advertising over the next four years. As we defend against this lawsuit, we will continue to collaborate with diverse-owned partners that keep the brand at the center of culture and create deeper relationships with our customers, crew and employees.”
Middle Tennessee State University’s Coleman said “the fact that prominent black media moguls like Byron Allen have taken their concerns public has placed more pressure on Fortune 500 companies to support black-owned businesses and causes through public statements or financial contributions.”
Watching your tax dollars, elected officials and legislation that affects you.
June is Pride Month and lawmakers in California are advancing a number of bills to make life safer and less difficult for people who are LGBTQ+.
Some of the proposed laws aim to address challenges that impact various segments of the African American LGBTQ+ community — either directly or circumstantially.
The first is Senate Bill (SB) 357. If the Legislature approves it, the law will repeal California Penal Code Section 653.22, which penalizes loitering with the intent to engage in sex work. This particular bill, if approved, supporters say will significantly reduce the risks and dangers many LGBTQ+ people at the lowest ends of the socioeconomic ladder face. Many of them are young people who turn to sex work because of a number of reasons, including being unsupported by their families or the social structure because of their sexuality; trauma brought about by sexual or physical abuse; drug addiction; unemployment, among other factors.
Based on English Elizabethan “poor laws,” loitering laws in America were developed as a part of the Black Codes in the late 1800s as a means to arrest Black people in order to sell their labor in a practice called convict leasing.
“These laws were created to eradicate us,” said Dr. Jon Paul Higgins, a California-based social justice advocate and writer who is African American.
“So, when you talk about the importance of repealing these laws, it’s not even just about the law, it’s about getting to the root of what’s creating these laws,” Higgins explained.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “many persons who exchange sex may have a history of homelessness, unemployment, incarceration, mental health issues, violence, emotional/physical/sexual abuse, and drug use.”
In California – and across the United States — a disproportionate number of African Americans are impacted by those challenges — all of them considered social determinants of good health by Public Health professionals.
Because of the vagueness of these loitering laws, many critics have noted that they gave police a wide range of arresting powers to target “undesirables” like Black people and people in the LGBTQ+ community,” Higgins explained.
California State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), author of this bill, says it would help make the streets safer for sex workers who are a part of a marginalized community.
“Sex workers are workers, and they deserve respect and safety,” Wiener said. “We must work toward a future where people — especially the most marginalized — aren’t criminalized because of who they are and what they look like. Anti-sex workers loitering laws are deeply pernicious, and they need to be repealed.”
SB 357 also allows those convicted of California Penal Code Section 653.22 to seal their records.
SB 357 was passed by the Senate Public Safety Committee 4-1 and has now been referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Another bill concerned with safety is Assembly Bill (AB) 1094 which would require the State Department of Public Health to establish a 3-year pilot program in up to 6 participating counties to collect gender identity and sexual orientation data in violent death cases in order to get more accurate data about hate crimes.
According to the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations 2019 Hate Crime Report, Black people accounted for 9% of the county’s population but 47% of the total racial hate crimes.
The report also stated that 2019 saw a 64% increase in hate crimes targeting trans people, many of which were Black or Brown, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
“Yet another year with alarming levels of bias-motivated crimes underscores just how urgent it is to address this hate crimes epidemic,” said Alphonso David, Human Rights Campaign President. David is the first African American to lead the organization, the largest advocacy body for LGBTQ+ people and issues in the United States.
“This year, we saw a tragic new record of fatal violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people in this country, particularly against Black and Brown transgender women,” he said.
Following the Stonewall riots in New York, Black trans women like Marsha P. Johnson and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy became influential figures in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights at the time when discrimination and hate crimes against people like them were much more commonplace.
Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula (D-Fresno), author of AB 1094, explained why he feels the bill is crucial.
“I deeply appreciate the overwhelming support that my Assembly colleagues gave today to AB 1094,” Arambula said in a statement. “This legislation may be centered on data, but its purpose encompasses compassion and empathy to better understand what is happening in our LGTBQ+ community — particularly among the youth — when it comes to violent deaths, including homicide and suicide. AB 1094 is an important and humane step in ultimately preventing these deaths.”
AB 1094 has passed in the Assembly and is now on its way to the State Senate for consideration.
Senate Bill (SB) 379, which has now been referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee, would ensure the University of California Health System [UC Health] only contracts with healthcare facilities that provide LGBTQ-inclusive healthcare services, such as gender-affirming and reproductive care.
According to Blue Cross Blue Shield, Black mothers have a 3 times higher maternal mortality rate and a 2 times higher morbidity rate than white mothers while Black men are 70% more likely to die from a stroke as compared to non-Hispanic White men.
People in the LGBTQ+ community are less likely to have access to competent healthcare, largely due to issues with discrimination, according to Cigna.
Higgins spoke from personal experience about the intersectional nature of being both Black and in the LGBTQ+ community.
“For me, being a Black nonbinary person and meeting a provider who has all of these bias ideologies or stereotypes about Black people… there are all of these preconceived notions about who I am as a Black person and then you add on the nonbinary-slash-trans part of it, there’s just a lot of underlying stereotypes and bias,” Higgins said.
Jasmyne Cannick, founder and CEO of Empowerment Justice Strategies, praised this bill for moving with the tides of progress.
“In 2021, it makes absolute sense for UC Health to contract with healthcare facilities that provide LGBTQ-inclusive healthcare services given the population that it serves,” Cannick said.
“We are moving towards a more inclusive society and these are the types of bills that will ensure that members of the LGBTQ+ community can receive healthcare they need,” she continued.
Higgins, Cannick and other advocates say it means a great deal that California lawmakers are making an effort to ensure that these “warriors” can continue to do so safely, and that those who just wish to live their lives without fear for being who they are may do so more boldly.
When LeBron James won his first NBA championship with the Miami Heat in 2012, a reporter asked, “How do you feel?” James answered, “It’s about damn time.”
Those same words could well have been uttered more recently by Bob “The Greyhound” Dandridge. The former Milwaukee Bucks and Washington Bullets [now Wizards] great had to wait three decades before finally being elected last month to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. His resume was sterling: He won NBA titles in Milwaukee and Washington, and he played with four previous greats whom he helped earn their first or only championships.
“It’s a shame that it took 30 years for Bob Dandridge to be voted into the hall of fame,” said Charlie Neal, the longtime signature voice of Historically Black Colleges and Universities sports for Black Entertainment Television (BET) and ESPN. “I’m glad the veterans committee made up for the sportswriters’ mistakes.”
Dandridge’s omission from the sportswriters’ ballots remains a mystery — why they consistently overlooked the 13-year veteran who was a two-time world champion and an HBCU legend. His distinguished resume also includes four All-Star Game appearances, 15,530 points, 5,715 rebounds, and 2,846 assists.
“For me, it’s more about enjoyment,” said Dandridge, 73, as he counts down to the induction ceremony on Sept. 11, when he will be enshrined along with 15 others. “There has been no point during these 30 years I haven’t felt anything less than being a champion or hall of famer. I have never felt like I didn’t deserve to be in the hall of fame.”
Dandridge was one of the most versatile performers in the history of the game. He averaged 18.5 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.4 assists while playing alongside transcendent performers throughout his career. His teammates in his first seven years in Milwaukee were legends Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He capped his career in Washington playing alongside Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes. All preceded him into the hall of fame.
“Some [basketball experts] have compared him to [Los Angeles Clippers forward] Kawhi Leonard because he was only 6-foot-6-inches and played a mid-range game that was off the charts,” said Carl “Lut” Williams, an HBCU sports historian and publisher of the Black College Sports Page.
If he had been on lesser teams, Dandridge would probably have been a prolific scorer and more of an icon or celebrity. However, he may not have been a two-time champion. That was the motivation from the lessons he learned starting in high school and through his time playing at Norfolk State University.
“I learned to be a champion while playing at Norfolk State from coach Ernie Fears,” said Dandridge, who played for the school from 1965-69. “Championship character was built from running four miles a day for two months and still going into the gym and practicing for two-and-a-half hours every day. That’s where champions are made. They aren’t made through the sport itself but through intangibles such as work ethic, integrity and self-confidence.”
The legend of Bob Dandridge still resonates at the university and throughout the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association. Before integration allowed the best black athletes to compete at majority colleges, the CIAA was arguably the most talented conference in America. Many great players from cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington D.C., migrated south to play college basketball in this segregated intercollegiate crucible of the game because they were denied access from 1940 to 1970.
That conference also produced hall of fame coaches such as John McClendon. Known as the father of fastbreak basketball, and Clarence “Big House” Gaines, who at one time was the winningest coach in the game’s history.
There were hall of fame players such as Sam Jones of the Boston Celtics who was a part of their early NBA dynasty under venerable coach Red Auerbach. Al Attles, coach of the first Golden State Warriors championship team in 1974, played at North Carolina A&T. Harlem Globetrotters clown prince and dribbling wizard Curly Neal from Johnson C. Smith University They are also members of the distinguished basketball alumni from the CIAA.
Dandridge earned his place among the conference of HBCU basketball legends from that league for his performance in the 1968 CIAA Championship Game. NSU defeated North Carolina A&T 134-132 in three overtimes, with Dandridge scoring 50 points, making 20 of his 26 shots and going 10-of-11 from the free-throw line in an era where there was no three-point shot.
“During that time, the competition was great,” Dandridge said. “The CIAA got the best of the best from the high schools up and down the East Coast. It may not have been the best conference in America, but it was certainly in the top 10.”
The CIAA has produced contemporary legends such as Hampton’s Rick Mahorn, who was a part of the Detroit Pistons’ first edition of the “Bad Boys” championship teams in 1989. Then there’s Charles Oakley, who had a storied career with the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks. Dandridge will be joined by Ben Wallace — who also won an NBA Championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004 — and played college basketball at Virginia Union of the CIAA as a member of the 2021 hall of fame class.
“The style of basketball that was played in the CIAA back in the day is the style of play in the NBA today,” said Black College Sports Page’s Williams. “Watching the Duke and North Carolina teams on TV in the ’60s, there was no comparison to me.”
Dandridge was initially drafted by teams from both pro basketball leagues at the time. The battles for prime talent between the fledgling American Basketball Association (ABA) and the NBA were heated, and he was right in the middle of it. However, it was always his dream to play in the NBA and the Bucks made it come true.
“Milwaukee gave me the opportunity and I embraced it — and the city embraced me too,” Dandridge said.
The Black experience in America has always been a story of struggle. From the plantation to the project block, from Emmett Till to Ahmaud Arbery, and from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Minneapolis, Minnesota, we have constantly fought for equality and fair treatment under the law, only to have those same laws be used against us.
The past year has been particularly challenging — with the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others becoming indelibly etched into our collective memory and millions of people taking to the streets to protest these crimes against the Black community. As we prepare to celebrate Juneteenth, we must look back on all the events of the past year with clear eyes to examine both the tragedies and triumphs our community has witnessed.
There have been moments of hope that the system is finally edging toward equality, like the recent conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd by knelling on his neck for nine minutes while Floyd called out “I can’t breathe.” Chauvin’s conviction and sentencing marks one of the few times in the painful history of Black people in American when law enforcement was held accountable for the wanton acts of violence they perpetrate against our community.
But for every conviction like Chauvin’s, there is a long, tragic history of innocent Black men and women being murdered – their deaths generating little more than a passing mention on the local news and their killers going unpunished. From Medgar Evers to Breonna Taylor, our country’s history is filled with these injustices that the powers-at-be try to sweep under the rug.
Floyd’s death, which was captured in brutal clarity on a bystander’s cellphone, along with those of Arbery, Taylor and so many more challenged the status quo of racial injustice like never before. Millions of Americans of every race, color and creed stood up, spoke out and made Black Lives Matter the largest social movement in country’s history.
Starting last summer, “Say Their Names” became a rallying cry for millions of Americans across the country tired of police brutality and racial injustice. From Minneapolis to Manhattan, Atlanta to Los Angeles, we took to the streets of America’s biggest cities and smallest towns under a blazing summer sun to voice our anger. All races, colors, and creeds marched on Washington D.C. to let leaders know that it was time to stop fanning the flames of racism and to declare that we would remember who was guilty.
We will continue to organize. We will continue to march. We will continue to “say their names” until their justice – not just for Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, but for every Black and Brown person in America who has experienced systemic racism, police brutality and political indifference to these injustices.
While our voices were seen on television sets and computer screens across the world, and we applaud the tireless work on the ground of leaders like Rev. Al Sharpton and National Action Network, our voices were also heard through our online activism – which for many was the only way to speak out during the COVID-19 pandemic – as we demanded politicians take notice and take action at both the state and local level.
A new report released earlier this year by The 400 Foundation, The BLK+Cross and Marathon Strategies reveals how our new era of digital demonstrations and online organization is driving real change on social justice issues. The analysis found that states with the most online conversations about social justice in 2020 also saw the most legislative action on police reform. In fact, the four states most mentioned in social justice conversations — Minnesota, Georgia, New York, and Washington, D.C. — saw 110 police reform measures introduced.
Overall, our report found that the names Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were shared online nearly 50 million times from last June to September — making it clear that saying the names of the victims of racial injustice was essential for political action.
In the coming weeks and months, we must say their names again as we remember their lives and the injustices they suffered. We must say their names during public demonstrations in city streets. We must say them on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and throughout the digital universe. And we must keep saying them until we achieve justice for them, their families, and the countless Black lives lost to racial violence.
Rev. Reginald Bachus is a former pastor at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and the president of the 400 Foundation.
WASHINGTON — When Georgia surprised many by choosing both Democratic Party candidates in the dual run-off elections for its two Senate seats on Jan. 5, many of the 500 pastors of the state’s African Methodist Episcopal Church thought their years of organizing had paid off.
Coming two months after Georgia was carried by now-President Joseph R. Biden Jr in the presidential election — making then-President Donald J. Trump the first Republican to lose the state since the country’s last one-term president, George H.W. Bush, in 1992 — it seemed to many that a new golden era of Democratic ascendency in Washington, D.C., was beckoning.
With black voters playing such a pivotal role in the Democrats taking back control of the White House, Senate and House, a long laundry list of legislative change now seemed feasible.
A woman waits with in line with her son at a polling station on January 5 in LaGrange, Georgia. Polls opened across Georgia in the two runoff elections, pitting incumbent Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler against Democratic candidates Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Both Democrats won. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Six months on, though, a new reality has set in, as Biden and congressional Democrats have struggled to make much headway on any of those goals — or even articulate a plan of action.
For many who worked so hard for the 2020 victories, it’s been a disheartening start.
“My hope has always been that we would put all of our best efforts forward in the elections process — by registering people to vote, by turning out the vote — and our hope is for some justice and fairness to be achieved [through that process],” Rev. Gerald Durley, interim Pastor of the historic West Hunter Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, told Zenger News.
“My hope was by this time, with a 50-50 [split] in the Senate with [Vice President] Kamala Harris breaking the tie, that some form of equity would be done. That was just my hope.”
With staunch Republican opposition to the Democrats’ legislative agenda, and Democratic Party moderates like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) and Sen. Kyrsten L. Sinema (D-Ariz.) standing in the way of colleagues altering the GOP’s filibuster powers in the Senate, the Democrats have appeared hamstrung, unable so far to convert slim majorities into legislative change.
Sen. Kyrsten L. Sinema (D-Ariz.), right, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), left, arrive for a meeting on infrastructure in Washington D.C. on June 8. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Rev. William Lamar, who for years preached in Georgia but is now at the Metropolitan AME church in Washington, D.C., told Zenger he had hosted a group of pastors from Georgia who made the trip to the capital last week hoping to see some major legislative bills make headway.
The group, Rev. Lamar said, were hopeful a bill such as S-1, a voting rights protection act opposed by the Republican Party but put forward by the Democrats as their main legislative priority, might nevertheless make some movement through the Senate. With Republicans threatening the filibuster — which presently requires 10 GOP senators to join with the slim Democratic majority to pass anything — the act stalled; instead, the Republicans joined the Democrats to unanimously pass a bill making June 19’s “Juneteenth” celebrations a federal holiday.
Amid the GOP’s opposition to any of the Democrats’ substantive legislative proposals — and the Democrats’ so far ineffective response — it was hard to interpret the unanimous support of the Republicans in the Senate as anything other than a cop-out, the reverend said.
“If anyone has any allusion about the American imperial project after yesterday in the Senate, they have taken leave of sanity,” he said after the Senate declined to consider the S-1 bill but passed the Juneteenth holiday. “They believe that giving us political and economic trinkets will keep us quiet, but we must ask the questions of who we are and what we want to be.”
“It is time for us to be the church of Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman,” he added, referring to abolitionists who eschewed “moderation” for subversion and rebellion in fighting for freedom.
A woman dresses as Harriet Tubman in front of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King Jr.’s home parish, as people prepare for a parade for Juneteenth on June 19, 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia. Juneteenth marks the end of slavery in the United States and the Juneteenth National Independence Day became the 12th legal federal holiday signed in June 17, 2021. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
Yet for others, the recent Senate roadblocks are just the latest in a long line of hurdles that can ultimately be overcome.
Speaking at the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Juneteenth, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) noted that achieving change has always been hard — but ultimately worth it.
“President Abraham Lincoln knew that the Emancipation Proclamation would not be enough — that is why he had to get the 13th Amendment passed,” Rep. Green said, noting that Lincoln had, in the end, even been assassinated before the passage of the slavery-abolishing amendment.
Even that was not the end of the story, he added.
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) speaks in front of the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 19. (Hamil Harris)
“The 13th wasn’t enough: We had to pass the 14th Amendment to acquire citizenship and equality under the law. But the 14th Amendment was not enough: We had to pass the 15th Amendment,” he said, pointing out how hard-won change can be. “The 13th Amendment freed the slaves, the 14th Amendment gave us citizenship, and the 15th Amendment gave us the right to vote.”
Other leaders see enduring lessons in different periods of black struggle.
Bishop Reginald Jackson, the prelate for the 6th Episcopal District of Georgia in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, said that in the absence of effective political power, he is turning to the strategies of Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders from last century.
Though political change may not always be immediately possible, keeping up the fight to ensure things do not go backward, and that change may be possible tomorrow, is just as important.
Bishop Reginald Jackson, left, and Rev. William Lamar, right, in Washington, D.C. on June 19. (Hamil Harris)
“The Black Church again has to provide leadership, because voter suppression not only affects people of color,” Jackson said, arguing that today’s fight was something much bigger. “It affects democracy, especially when you look at what they are trying to do in Georgia.”
Yet that means some important fights will — not for the first time — be postponed.
On June 22, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee heard Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser argue for a bill to make her city the 51st state — a move opposed by the GOP, which fears giving their opponents two more senators in perpetuity.
“There is no legal or constitutional barrier to DC statehood; the prevailing constitutional issue is the civil rights violation of 700,000 DC residents who fulfill all obligations of U.S. citizenship, but are denied any representation in this body,” Bowser said. She noted that the states of Wyoming and Vermont have smaller populations than the District and each get two senators.
Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks during a hearing on “Examining D.C. Statehood” before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on June 22. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“I can say unequivocally that the bill before you today, S-51, the Washington D.C. Admission Act, is constitutional,” the mayor argued before the Senate, largely in vain. “Dozens of America’s most recognized constitutional experts had testified before Congress and penned letters to that effect.”
Wielding the Senate filibuster — and with Sens. Manchin and Sinema holding steadfast in their refusal to amend it — Senate Republicans, comfortable in their minority position in Congress, still barely need to bother to muster an argument against the long-sought Democratic goal.
“Any individual that moves to Washington, D.C., understands that Washington, D.C. is unique,” Sen. James Lankford (D-Okla.) said, denying that any District residents were disenfranchised.
Yet until such a time as the Democrats can win enough votes to break the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate, the reality of the situation is unlikely to change.
For Rev. Durley of the West Hunter Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, that’s the challenge at hand.
“Am I disappointed? Yes. Am I frustrated? Yes!” he said.
Public health experts are warning vaccinated people to not post photos of their vaccine cards on social media or anywhere else online.
“Don’t share it on social media because there is protected health information on it,” said Dr. Jerry Abraham, a physician who works at the Kedran Community Health Center in Los Angeles.
He warned people who get vaccinated to keep the information on the front of the card away from the view of scammers or other bad actors who could compromise their security.
Abraham says, for now, the white CDC vaccine cards are the only proof that an individual has been inoculated against COVID-19.
“Really the only piece of evidence you have right now, that is absolutely your confident verification is that CDC vaccination card for COVID-19 vaccines that lists your first and second dose from Moderna or Pfizer or just that one shot from Johnson & Johnson.”
Usually on the back the series is completed after that. That data is entered and pushed to the California immunization registry, he said.
Abraham made the comment during a news briefing organized by California Black Media in partnership with The Center at the Sierra Health Foundation and the State of California titled “Get Smart on COVID-19.”
Organizers say the “series is designed to equip Black journalists with the information they need to write authoritatively about COVID-19 vaccinations and harm reduction measures.
Some public safety experts have also shared their concerns about people posting their vaccine cards online. They say sometimes criminals work for a long time piecing personal information together about possible victims, including birth dates, when they target them for identity theft.
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