Black Press

Bill Cosby: The Fight, The Legacy, The Flowers He’s Earned

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Six years ago this month, Bill Cosby was sentenced to prison. For some, it was the spectacle of a fallen idol. For others, it was the raw proof that this nation, still drunk on its own lies, can summon racism from the judge’s bench, let it seep into the prosecutor’s chair, and finally stain the jury box.

Published

1 year ago

September 17, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

Bill Crosby

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

Six years ago this month, Bill Cosby was sentenced to prison. For some, it was the spectacle of a fallen idol. For others, it was the raw proof that this nation, still drunk on its own lies, can summon racism from the judge’s bench, let it seep into the prosecutor’s chair, and finally stain the jury box. What was lost, what was deliberately hidden, is that Cosby—blind, wealthy, eighty years old—could have walked out untouched if he had only bent his back, signed a paper, confessed to a sin he swore he did not commit. He refused. He chose prison over surrender, isolation over capitulation. That act alone, in a country that has always demanded Black men bow their heads, ought to have been recognized as a radical declaration of dignity.

Refusing the Easy Way Out

Cosby remembered, on Let It Be Known, how they dangled freedom like meat before a starving man. “My lawyer came to me and said, the district attorney is offering you to sign a paper saying you did it… and that you wouldn’t have to do prison time,” he said. “I told my lawyer to continue with the trial… I wasn’t signing any papers or anything.” Even when caged, blind, and stripped of freedom, they offered him release if only he would renounce himself. “Sign the paper and go to these classes, and then we will let you go. Well, my signature would be in a sealed envelope, and nobody could open it.” Again, he refused. He could have chosen the coward’s path. He could have lived out his days in comfort. Instead, he chose to carry innocence as a burden, fully believing that he might never walk free again.

A Courtroom Steeped in Racism

Bill and Camille Cosby, at right, arrive at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., on June 12, 2017. Cosby is on trial for sexual assault. (POOL PHOTO)

And in those courtrooms, the poison was naked. Black jurors were denied with cynical ease. A Black woman police officer was struck from service, not because she was unfit, but because she had once beaten back a false charge laid against her. At the retrial, when one Black juror was finally seated, a prosecutor spat, “You got your one.” Another juror declared Cosby guilty before hearing a single word and was still allowed to sit in judgment. And the judge—who should have been the steward of justice—was said to have whistled the theme from Kill Bill outside the jury room before the verdict in the retrial was returned.

The first trial ended in a mistrial, the jury grinding nearly 60 hours before breaking. They had leaned toward acquittal, but the judge forced them back. After the second trial ended in conviction, and when prosecutors argued he might flee because “he has a plane,” Cosby exploded once jurors left the room: “He doesn’t have a plane, you a–hole! I’m sick of him!” Never forget that prosecutors across jurisdictions passed on every other accusation. Only one case was carried forward—and even that was not about rape. The alleged victim admitted to bitterness when Valentine’s Day passed without a call. She later dialed Cosby to ask for tickets to his show for her parents. But facts were never the point. The performance of guilt was the only script the court was willing to stage.

With the Media, The Lie had No Rival.

Camille Cosby walked through those halls like a prophetess, entering a place fouled with racial contempt. She smiled, spoke softly to her husband, and left. That smile, quiet yet defiant, seemed to say: I know exactly what is happening here. And the media, hungry and complicit, huddled with the prosecutor’s mouthpiece to make certain every headline sang the same hymn of untruth. With no cameras in the room, the lie had no rival. The mention of Quaaludes covered newspapers and flooded television news, but the case was about Benadryl, 1 and a half tablets. Fiction and made-up lies were the norm at Cosby’s trials. Mainstream media pushed the narrative that Cosby “slipped” drugs into an unsuspecting woman’s beverage. However, no evidence of such was presented at trial.

Not discussed was how prevalent Quaalude use was among both sexes. The pill they called a disco biscuit was never just a drug but a mirror of America’s hunger for escape, a hunger dressed in sequins and sweat beneath the lights of Studio 54. Hugh Hefner reportedly handed them out like candy in his mansion; a promise wrapped in velvet but steeped in surrender. Andy Warhol scribbled about them in his diaries; the artist turned witness to a culture stumbling between decadence and decay. Later, Jordan Belfort made them infamous in a Wall Street gone wild, his intoxication filmed and sold as entertainment. Notably, during the second trial, when the judge stunningly allowed as many as 20 women to testify, an accuser swore she had already ingested a Quaalude before she visited Cosby with a friend in the 1970s. Another witness testified that she left her boyfriend on an exotic island after Cosby called with a job offer in Nevada, only to be miffed about Cosby’s indifference.

Still another wrote glowing words about Cosby in her autobiography, yet completely changed the story on the witness stand. When Cosby’s team wanted to put forth a witness who allegedly was with the primary accuser when the woman had come up with a ruse to “set Cosby up,” the judge refused to allow her to tell the jury. Striking was the one person who seemed, by far, the most credible witness. A chef who worked for Cosby was present on the night of the alleged incident. That chef, a meticulous older man, testified that the visit by the accuser for which Cosby was on trial occurred on his last night in Cosby’s employ. Significantly, it proved that even if something nefarious took place, which Cosby vehemently denied, it happened well outside the statute of limitations. Among other things, the state Supreme Court agreed. The justices said the trial was illegal, should never have taken place, and the verdict was wrong. The justices ordered that prosecutors refrain from going after Cosby again.

Inside Prison Walls

Behind walls meant to break him, Cosby spoke to men the world had abandoned. At SCI–Phoenix, he joined Man Up, blind, in a wheelchair, addressing those whose bodies bore chains. After speaking of his heroes, one inmate told him, “I will be your hero, Mr. Cosby.” He spoke to Men of Valor, too. “I noticed that in the Bible, the parts about Jesus, Jesus never smiled. And I want you, if you are going to do what you say you are going to do in your turnaround, make Jesus smile.”

Pound Cake Then and Now

In 2004, Cosby thundered about a boy shot dead for stealing pound cake. “And then we all run out and are outraged, the cops shouldn’t have shot him. What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?” He called out the rot of absent parenting. Now, with years and prison behind him, he said again: “They are putting us under siege.” At Phoenix, sagging pants and untied laces were forbidden. To him, these were not fashion, but chains disguised as choice. “They would rather have a picture of a youth doing nothing, not studying, and have his pants lowered.”

Camille’s Strength

It was Camille who preserved him. “My wife, Camille, is not only a very intelligent woman, but she is a woman who saved my mother’s life, and she has saved my life by continuously saying, it’s what you put in your mouth,” he said. “She makes sure that we eat like that, and that’s why, at age 88, I’m cancer-free, and I don’t have any ailments of forgetting things.” From prison, when he phoned, Camille silenced his weakness. “Whenever I called her, I just badly wanted to tell her how I felt,” Cosby said. “And she would say, ‘Just be quiet.’” He had called her strength “love and the strength of womanhood. And you could reverse it, the strength of womanhood and love.”

Giving Back

Cosby and Camille poured more than $200 million into higher education, including $20 million to Spelman College, at that time the largest gift ever given to an HBCU. Those gifts were not simply donations. They were lifelines—scholarships, endowments, futures carved from generosity.

Television and Film Legacy

Cosby broke into I Spy, the first Black co-lead in a drama. He created Fat Albert, a mirror for Black children. He built The Cosby Show, which for five years reigned supreme, showing Cliff and Clair Huxtable as what America insisted could not exist: a Black family whole, professional, and loving. A Different World sent young people surging toward HBCUs. And with Sidney Poitier, he made Uptown Saturday Night, Let’s Do It Again, A Piece of the Action—comedies still treasured in Black homes, still testaments to resilience and wit when Hollywood offered little but caricature. Cosby demanded truth on screen. When told to strip a poster from Theo’s wall—one that read “Abolish Apartheid”—he warned them: “If you do, you can take the show with it.”

The Black Press

Unlike so many others who rose to fame, Cosby never turned his back on the Black Press. His only prison interview was with the Black Press. His first long interview after release was again with the Black Press. In 2014, he said, “I only expect the black media to uphold the standards of excellence in journalism, and when you do that, you have to go in with a neutral mind.”

Deserving a Parade

Cosby’s path has been strewn with glory, grief, and betrayal. Yet what remains is a record that cannot be erased. He shattered television’s barriers, poured hundreds of millions into education, gave film and television back to his people, and stood on innocence when it would have been so easy to surrender. Through it all, he was held by Camille, and he never abandoned the Black Press. We say, give flowers to the living. Bill Cosby has earned more than flowers. For what he has given Black culture, he deserves a parade. And somewhere, the ticker tape waits.

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Stacy M. Brown

A Little About Me: I'm the co-author of Blind Faith: The Miraculous Journey of Lula Hardaway and her son, Stevie Wonder (Simon & Schuster) and Michael Jackson: The Man Behind The Mask, An Insider's Account of the King of Pop (Select Books Publishing, Inc.) My work can often be found in the Washington Informer, Baltimore Times, Philadelphia Tribune, Pocono Record, the New York Post, and Black Press USA.

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Art

Houston’s ‘call Me Mother’ Exhibit Opens Today, Spotlighting Black Maternal Health

AFRICAN-AMERICAN NEWS AND ISSUES – DALLAS — The Health Museum in Houston today opens “The Call Me Mother Experience,” an exhibition spotlighting Black maternal health through art and personal storytelling. Curated by Houston’s first Black poet laureate, Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton, the project originated from her own poem written during a miscarriage.

Published

1 day ago

October 7, 2026

BlackPressUSA Newswire

Image Credit: African American News & Issues

HOUSTON — A new exhibition opening Sunday, Oct. 4, at The Health Museum is bringing Black maternal health into public view through art and personal storytelling.

The Call Me Mother Experience will be on display through Feb. 28, 2027. The museum lists a preview reception today from 3 to 5 p.m. at 1515 Hermann Drive, with tickets priced at $5 for members and $15 for nonmembers.

A personal story becomes a community conversation

According to the museum, founder, curator and lead artist Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton developed the project from a poem she wrote during a miscarriage. The installation combines films, recorded interviews, visual artwork and contributions created with community members.

Mouton, Houston’s first Black poet laureate, discussed the exhibition and her connection to its subject in an Oct. 1 appearance on KPRC’s Houston Life. The station described the project as addressing the unequal burden of pregnancy-related illness and death faced by Black women in Harris County.

An announcement distributed by the Call Me Mother Experience says the initiative will also reach community locations and faith-based organizations across Greater Houston. Those additional settings are intended to extend the conversation beyond a museum visit.

What visitors can expect

The museum says reception guests can explore the exhibit, hear the curator and meet participating artists. Reception admission includes general museum entry; refreshments are available while supplies last.

The featured image accompanying this article is an original illustrative concept, not a photograph of the exhibition or its artwork.

Sources and visitor information:The Health Museum exhibition listing; preview reception details and tickets; KPRC Houston Life; organizer announcement.

The post Houston’s ‘Call Me Mother’ Exhibit Opens Today, Spotlighting Black Maternal Health appeared first on African American News and Issues.

Based on reporting by African-American News and Issues – Dallas.

Black Press

Should You Have to Pay to Hear the Gospel?

ST. LOUIS AMERICAN — Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell of Atlanta’s 2819 CHURCH and Tim Timberlake of Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida, are at the center of a social media debate. The controversy stems from ticket prices for their “Street Preachers” podcast tour, with general admission tickets reportedly costing around $60 and VIP options up to $200.

Published

1 day ago

October 7, 2026

BlackPressUSA Newswire

A sold-out podcast tour featuring Pastors Philip Anthony Mitchell, left, and Tim Timberlake has sparked debate over the boundary between spreading the Gospel and selling an experience. Critics question whether ministers should charge admission to hear the Gospel, with tickets including a $200 VIP package. — Photo courtesy of Street Preachers Podcast

For generations, the Black church has passed the offering plate to keep the lights on, pay the preacher, help the poor and carry the Gospel beyond its walls. But what happens when the preacher leaves the sanctuary, takes a popular Christian podcast on tour — and charges admission?

That question has placed Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell, founder and lead pastor of Atlanta’s fast-growing 2819 CHURCH, at the center of a heated social media debate.

Mitchell and Tim Timberlake, senior pastor of Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida, host “Street Preachers,” which its official website describes as a “raw, unfiltered podcast” committed to spreading the Gospel.

‘A brood of vipers’

The controversy began after ticket prices for the podcast’s 2026 tour circulated online. General admission tickets reportedly cost about $60 before fees, with premium options, including a VIP meet-and-greet package, priced at $200. Critics questioned whether ministers should charge people to hear the Gospel.

Others defended the pastors, arguing that Christian events require venues, transportation, security, equipment and staff.

Mitchell answered critics from the pulpit last month, calling them “a brood of vipers.” He said the podcast is a separate, personal project and that neither his church nor Timberlake’s is bankrolling it.

“Now we have decided to go on a tour to take the gospel to cities, and because that’s not funded by 2819, and it’s not funded by Celebration Church, Tim and I gotta do that with our own pockets,” Mitchell said. “It’s why there is tickets. We have to pay for venues and security and productions and staff from our own pockets.”

Mitchell called some critics “ignorant” and said they did not know that a child was healed through faith during one of the events.

“And you want to complain about a 60 ticket?” he said. “So hate on!”

Worship service vs. media event

Mitchell maintains that “Street Preachers” is an independently produced podcast tour, not a worship service, and that ticket revenue helps cover production costs.

Yet the presence of pastors, Scripture and Gospel language makes the distinction less clear to some believers.

The official tour website lists all eight 2026 stops as sold out. Promotional material announcing additional dates promised, “Better ticket options. Same Gospel. Same move of God.”

Corporate prayer gathering

The language gets to the heart of the dispute. Some Christians argue that no one should be kept outside because they cannot afford a ticket. Others say the Gospel remains free even when people pay for the venue and experience surrounding its presentation.

The paid podcast tour, however, is not Mitchell’s only large-scale gathering. On Oct. 10, 2819 CHURCH will host “ACCESS — That Powerful Hour of Prayer” at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Admission is free.

2819 CHURCH has said 80,000 free tickets were claimed before registration reopened.

The contrast raises another question: What makes one Gospel-centered event a ministry supported by donors and another a production supported by customers?

Unfiltered preaching, youth appeal

Mitchell’s congregation, composed largely of young Black adults, grew from fewer than 200 weekly worshippers in 2023 to about 6,000, according to the church. Some worshippers arrive before sunrise to secure a place inside.

His appeal rests partly in an intense, vulnerable and raw preaching style.

“I’m preaching without watering that down, without filtering out things that we think might be too controversial,” Mitchell told The Associated Press.

That visibility has also brought scrutiny of his theology, associations, travel, security and the businesses surrounding his ministry.

But the controversy reaches beyond Mitchell and Timberlake. Christian music concerts charge admission. Seminaries charge tuition. Religious publishers sell Bibles, books and devotionals. Churches pay musicians, media teams and guest preachers. Money becomes particularly uncomfortable, however, when an event is presented simultaneously as ministry and entertainment.

Ministry vs. entertainment

Supporters should not assume every dollar collected becomes personal profit. Critics, however, question whether lower-cost seats, sponsored tickets or free admission for people who cannot pay should be part of a Gospel-centered event.

The Black church always has required resources for ministry. It also has carried a sacred responsibility to make room for people with little or nothing to give.

The sold-out “Street Preachers” tour shows people are willing to pay to attend. The free ACCESS gathering offers a different model. The challenge is preserving that open door as Christian ministry increasingly adopts the machinery — and economics — of popular entertainment.

The post Should you have to pay to hear the Gospel? appeared first on St. Louis American.

Based on reporting by St. Louis American.

Black Press

NCCU Ramping up for the 89th Ultimate Homecoming Experience

NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY – CAMPUS ECHO — N.C. Central University is preparing for its 89th Ultimate Homecoming Experience, a week-long celebration. Thousands of students, family, friends, and alumni are expected to gather on campus for festivities including the Homecoming Countdown, parade, Miss and Mister NCCU Coronation, concerts, and the football game.

Published

1 day ago

October 7, 2026

BlackPressUSA Newswire

NCCU's gospel choir, WPI performs at the 2025 Ultimate Homecoming gospel concert. — Photo by Morgan McNeil.

This Saturday N.C. Central University will kick off its 89th Ultimate Homecoming Experience — a week-long celebration bringing thousands of students, family, friends and alumni to campus.

This year’s festivities include the Homecoming Countdown, parade, Miss and Mister NCCU Coronation, concerts and the football game.

The number of visitors to the football game on Saturday, Oct. 10 is expected to reach at least 10,000 — O’Kelly Riddick Stadium’s capacity, with NCCU’s recent enrollment increase of more than 10,000 students.

The Eagles will face William & Mary after playing against the Campbell University’s Fighting Camels on Oct 3.

Students are already expressing excitement for the upcoming festivities.

“I’m excited for homecoming because I can meet alumni and go outside and party with my fellow eagles,” Digital Filmmaking junior Rhese Gardner said. “I’m also really looking forward to the Greek Bowl because there’s a lot going on.”

He added that even though he’s disappointed this semester’s Oil Spill was canceled, he’s still excited for the other events like the parade and concerts.

Here is a list of the week’s on-campus events:

Oct. 3 – Homecoming Countdown

Oct. 4 – Gospel Concert

Oct. 5 – Coronation of Miss and Mister NCCU

Oct. 6 – 10:40 Break

Oct. 6 – Homecoming Experience Showcase

Oct. 7 – Fried Chicken Wednesday

Oct. 7 – Festival Block Party

Oct. 7 – Late Night Breakfast

Oct. 8 – Back to the Nest Young Alumni Mixer

Oct. 8 – Old School Greek Stroll Off

Oct. 8 – Hip-Hop Concert

Oct. 9 – Step Show

Oct. 10 – Football Game

The post NCCU ramping up for the 89th Ultimate Homecoming Experience first appeared on Campus Echo Online.

Based on reporting by North Carolina Central University – Campus Echo.

Black Press

Botham Jean’s Killer Granted Parole 7 Years After His Murder

MICHIGAN CHRONICLE — Former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger has been granted parole, seven years after her conviction for murdering Botham Jean inside his Dallas apartment. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles approved her release on October 1, seven years to the day after her murder conviction. Guyger was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for Jean’s 2018 death.

Published

1 day ago

October 7, 2026

BlackPressUSA Newswire

Botham Jean’s Killer Granted Parole 7 Years After His Murder

Former Dallas police officerAmber Guyger has been granted parole seven years after she was convicted of murdering her neighbor,Botham Jean, inside his Dallas apartment.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles approved Guyger’s release Thursday (October 1), seven years to the day after Guyger was convicted of Jean’s murder, according to NBC News.

In 2019, a jury convicted Guyger of murder and she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for Jean’s 2018 death. Her conviction and 10-year sentence were upheld on appeal in 2022.

Geyger’s first parole request was denied in 2024, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported.

The Dallas Police Department fired her after the shooting. During her trial, Guyger testified that she mistakenly entered Jean’s apartment after returning home from work, believing it was her own apartment one floor below.

She said she saw Jean inside and fired her weapon because she believed he was an intruder, according to NBC News.

Jean was a 26-year-old Black man from St. Lucia who worked as an accountant. He was inside his home eating ice cream when Guyger entered and shot him, NBC DFW reported.

The parole board cited Guyger’s prison record in approving her release. According to NBC DFW, officials said she did not have a documented pattern of violent or assaultive arrests or convictions, maintained a satisfactory adjustment while incarcerated, and completed programs intended to help her obtain and maintain employment.

Jean’s family opposed the parole decision and had asked that Guyger serve her full 10-year sentence, according to NBC DFW.

Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who represents the family, told NBC DFW that the decision was deeply disappointing.

“They stood up again and again to ask that the full sentence be served,” Merritt said.

The Dallas Police Department told NBC DFW that the parole decision was outside its authority and that the department had no role in determining whether Guyger would be released. The department said its thoughts remained with Jean’s family and others affected by his death.

Guyger’s conviction and 10-year sentence were upheld on appeal in 2022.

A civil jury ordered Guyger to pay Jean’s family $98.6 million in damages in 2024, according to NBC DFW.

Guyger’s release date has not been announced. NBC News reported that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will determine when she is released.

The Black Information Network is your source for Black News! Get the latest news 24/7 on The Black Information Network. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app or click HEREto tune in live.

Based on reporting by Michigan Chronicle.

Black History

Morehouse School of Medicine Fall Convocation Has Strong Ties to Nashville

TENNESSEE TRIBUNE — Morehouse School of Medicine recently held its 42nd Fall Convocation and White Coat and Pinning Ceremony, which highlighted strong connections to Nashville. Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, in her 12th year as president and CEO, leads the institution, which welcomed 355 new students.

Published

1 day ago

October 7, 2026

BlackPressUSA Newswire

Morehouse School of Medicine held its 42nd Fall Convocation and White Coat and Pinning Ceremony on September 18, and it featured strong ties to Nashville. Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice is completing her 12th year as president and CEO of Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM). The school boasts 355 students seeking degrees and certificates in the medical field.

“This entering class represents the future of medicine, science, public health and health care leadership,” said Valerie Montgomery Rice, MD, and FACOG. “As these students begin their journeys at Morehouse School of Medicine, they join a community grounded in excellence, service and our shared commitment to advancing health equity. We look forward to supporting their development as leaders who will transform the health and well-being of the communities they serve.”

Infectious diseases physician and scientist Dr. Barney S. Graham, MD, and PhD, served as the keynote speaker. He serves as the director of the David Satcher Global Health Equity Institute, professor of Medicine and Microbiology, Biochemistry and Immunology at Morehouse School of Medicine. He is an inventor of vaccines and monoclonal antibodies approved for human use to prevent or treat RSV, COVID-19 and Ebola. He joined MSM in 2022. He served in various positions at Vanderbilt University for 21 years.

Dr. Graham told the audience to “Embrace the Unseen” and focused on three points: Do the Best You can with what’s in front of you, Do what makes you come alive and Do the right thing even when no one is looking. He added, “Anything you do to improve mental and physical wellness and promote disease prevention will reduce health disparity by reducing the resources needed for treatment.”

His remarks commanded a roaring applause from the audience, which included his wife, Dr. Cynthia Turner Graham, and the former First Lady of Tennessee State University, Mrs. Edwina Hefner, a close friend to the family.

Based on reporting by Tennessee Tribune.

Black History

Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Publishes Global Circle’s Vatican Reparations Call in Special Edition Alongside Heads of State

GLOBAL CIRCLE FOR REPARATIONS AND HEALING — Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has published the Global Circle for Reparations and Healing’s submission, “From Accra to the Vatican,” in a special edition of The Ghanaian Envoy. This marks the first time a sovereign state has incorporated the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See into its official record. The 175-page edition, titled “Creating A New World,” also documents Ghana’s campaign that led to UN Resolution A/RES/80/250, which recognized the trafficking and enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.

Published

1 day ago

October 7, 2026

BlackPressUSA Newswire

International responses to Ghana-led UN resolutions declaring the transatlantic enslavemen the gravest crime against humanity

Special Reparations Edition of the Ghanian Envoy - Official Newsletter of the Minisrty of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Ghana

“From Accra to the Vatican” appears in The Ghanaian Envoy Special Edition on UN Resolution A/RES/80/250 — the first time a sovereign state has carried the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See into its official record

ACCRA, Ghana / CHICAGO, Illinois — October 7, 2026 — The Global Circle for Reparations and Healing today announced that its submission to Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “From Accra to the Vatican: A Call for a Global Plan of Action on Catholic Church Redress”, has been published in the Special Edition of The Ghanaian Envoy, the official newsletter of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Ghana. The 175-page edition, titled “Creating A New World,” documents the Ghana-led campaign that culminated on March 25, 2026, in United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/80/250, which declared the trafficking of enslaved Africans and the racialized chattel enslavement of Africans the gravest crime against humanity.

The Global Circle’s submission, authored by Co-Convener Kamm Howard, appears in Part V of the edition, “What Repair Must Now Mean,” at page 161. It shares the volume with statements by President John Dramani Mahama of Ghana, President Joseph Nyuma Boakai Sr. of Liberia, President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah of Namibia, President Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye of Senegal, President Carlos Manuel Vila Nova of São Tomé and Príncipe, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley of Barbados, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, African Union Commissioner Amma Twum-Amoah, CARICOM Reparations Commission Chair Sir Hilary Beckles, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, Dr. Julius Garvey, and Congressional Black Caucus Executive Director Vincent Evans, among others.

The submission traces the Global Circle’s delivery of the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See in Vatican City on July 18, 2022, the document’s subsequent use by the former Vice President of Costa Rica and the Vice President of Colombia in their engagements with Pope Francis, and the partial response contained in Pope Leo XIV’s May 2026 encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. It argues that while three of the Presentment’s seven demands have entered the Church’s official language in diluted form, four remain wholly unmet: rescission of the papal bulls that authorized African enslavement, the Church’s call upon other offending Western nations to make redress, the establishment of a joint Vatican–African Diaspora–African Papal Commission on Reparations and Healing, and a substantial financial commitment to repair. The submission asks Ghana to adopt the Presentment as the reference instrument for a Vatican track within the Accra Next Steps Commitments and to convene a first meeting of Global African reparationists toward a collective response.

“For four years the Presentment has been a civil society document carried by civil society hands,” said Kamm Howard, Co-Convener of the Global Circle and Commissioner of the National African American Reparations Commission. “Ghana has now placed it in the official record of a sovereign state, in a volume that opens with a President’s address to the General Assembly and closes by asking what repair must mean. That is not a courtesy. It is a signal to every government, every reparations commission, and every African Catholic that the claim against the Holy See belongs on the state agenda, and that the state which broke the deadlock at the United Nations is prepared to see it there.”

The significance of the publication extends beyond the Vatican file. The Presentment was created as a legal claims instrument by Howard in 2014 and first delivered to corporations and institutions in the United States, where it secured significant concessions. Its appearance in a foreign ministry’s official publication, translated and distributed in English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, establishes the reparations presentment as a recognized instrument of international reparatory diplomacy, one that other states and descendant communities can adopt without drafting a new framework of their own. The Global Circle has described this catalytic potential as the “N’namba Effect,” after the Evanston, Illinois, reparations initiative – led by N’nanba Robin Rue Simmons – that gave municipalities across the United States the model, permission, and courage to act.

“The Vatican told us in 2022 that it moves in fifteen-year increments,” Howard added. “Ghana has just demonstrated at the United Nations that a determined state can compress that timeline to a single vote. We are asking Ghana to do for the Church what it did for the General Assembly, and we are asking Global Africa to organize behind that ask with one document, one voice, and one set of demands.”

The Global Circle has written to President Mahama and Foreign Minister Ablakwa to express its gratitude and to propose that its Vatican and Interreligious Actors Working Group lead the first meeting on a collective Vatican response under the auspices of the Government of Ghana. The Global Circle has also formally advised the Congressional Black Caucus of the publication in connection with its pending request that the Caucus recognize the Presentment as the foundational document for reparations engagement with the Roman Catholic Church and join the Government of Ghana in this global call to action.

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About the Global Circle for Reparations and Healing

The Global Circle for Reparations and Healing was convened in 2022 to help build united global reparations front across Africa and its worldwide diaspora. In July 2022 the Global Circle delivered the Reparations Presentment to the Holy See in Vatican City. It co-organized Accra Summit I in August 2022 with the Government of Ghana and the Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund, and led the organization of Accra Summit II: Centering Healing Across Global Africa in March 2025 in partnership with the African Union. The Reparations Presentment to the Holy See is available in English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish at gcrh.org.

Media Contact

Global Circle for Reparations and Healing

Kamm Howard, Co-Convenor

[email protected] 773 520 0369

gcrh.org