By Stacy Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent

Reggae legend Ziggy Marley will receive the National Newspaper Publishers Association’s (NNPA) 2020 Global Icon Achievement Award during the NNPA’s Annual Convention scheduled for Wednesday, July 8, and Thursday, July 9.

The two-day international broadcast marks the first virtual convention in the 80-year history of the NNPA and the 193-year history of the Black Press of America.

Marley, the oldest son of Reggae Icon Bob Marley, recently appeared on a livestream interview with the Black Press that overnight reached more than 1.7 million people around the globe. The socially conscious singer is being honored for his outstanding achievements in the entertainment industry and for representing the best of the love of all humanity in the cause of freedom, justice, peace, and equality. The will be a pre-recording of Ziggy Marley at the convention.

“I thank the National Newspaper Publishers Association for this award,” said Marley, whose team will also select a special recorded performance for convention attendees. “The Black Press is very vital to our culture, our communities throughout the world, and for all our people who affirm the oneness of humanity and the oneness of freedom, and the oneness of love for all. My music and my voice will continue to help make a positive difference in the world in which we now live. One love. God bless all.”

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. emphasized, “On behalf of the NNPA, we are honored to have Ziggy Marley receive the 2020 Global Icon Achievement Award during our Annual Convention. Ziggy is a cultural genius who continues to excel in music and the cause of freedom and human rights worldwide.”

In addition to Marley, the Black Press will present Trailblazer Awards to Chuck D of Public Enemy, Attorney Benjamin Crump, MC Lyte, and Supremes legend Mary Wilson, who also plans a performance for the Black Press.

Registration for the 2020 NNPA Virtual Convention is free. All can register at http://www.virtualnnpa2020.com.

By Jerome Love, Special to the Houston Forward Times

For the past four hundred years, and most recently after the brutal killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and other Black citizens by police forces in America, Black people and progressive Whites in America have protested that “the system” is racist, broken, and needs to be fixed.

By the system, I mean the machinery of daily life that we as individuals use to work, play, raise our families, worship in our churches, educate ourselves, and stay healthy. The police are part of the system. The schools are part of the system, as is health care, and politics.

As President of the Texas Black Expo (TBE), my primary interest is the economic part of the system—the creation and growth of Black-owned business enterprises. You’d think that such an effort would be greeted with universal approval from everybody, regardless of ethnicity. What could possibly be wrong with strengthening the economic position of Black businesses—and therefore Black families? Don’t we believe in capitalism, free markets, and the positive power of entrepreneurship, regardless of the color of the entrepreneur?

By building businesses, you create jobs; and with jobs comes greater community stability, lower crime rates, better health, and overall prosperity.

We believe in taking action. During the COVID-19 pandemic, TBE had the goal to support 100 businesses by providing 1,000 grants to help them. To announce the program, we put out a press release. You would think this would have been celebrated—and it was, but not universally. Immediately we were bombarded with complaints from various White people who called us racist. They said, “What if there was a White Expo? Wouldn’t that be terrible? So why is there a Black Expo?”

I found myself wondering, what’s the problem?

The “problem” is that every Black entrepreneur is bucking the system. Over the past four hundred years, our economic system has been deliberately designed to perpetuate the material interests of White Americans by subjugating Blacks—first when we were slaves, and then after we became citizens. The police are simply one piece of the apparatus designed to enforce the economic system and interests of Whites. According to Dr. Gary Potter, professor at the Eastern Kentucky University School of Justice, the first centralized police departments were formed in the 1830s as a direct response to “disorder” as defined by commercial elites. In other words, wealthy White Americans formed police departments to protect their economic interests, and anything they deemed a threat was considered “disorderly” or criminal. Today, as far as many white people are concerned—not all of them, but many—the current economic system works just fine. It accomplishes what it’s been designed to do, which is to ensure the protection of the economic interests of White Americans and the long-term suppression of Black wealth.

Welcome to the Casino

Here’s a story that illustrates how the system works.

A busload of people from a Black organization take a day trip to the local casino. They are eager to enjoy themselves playing the slots. They walk into the casino, filled with the whirring of slot machines and the bright flashing lights and sirens from the jackpot payouts. The group members sit at the slot machines and play. Sure enough, as the hours pass, a few of them win jackpots—a few dollars here and there. One or two might even win enough money to come out ahead. When their friends see they’ve won, it makes them think they could win too, so they pump more tokens into the machines. But as a group they’re losing money. At the end of the day, while a few of them will walk out of the casino with more money than when they came in, the overall result is that the wealth of the group has been diminished and transferred to the owner of the casino.

A few members of the group complain to the owner. They knock on his door and demand the system be changed. He listens and smiles politely.

“I appreciate how you feel,” he might tell them. “We will take action to adjust our machines to be more generous. Thank you, and please come again.”

The group, poorer but wiser, has no choice but to go home.

Of course, the owner does nothing. The casino stays the same. From the owner’s perspective—the person who has the power to enact change—the system is working fine! It is perpetuating his interests. The system was designed for the casino to make money. He will promote the fact that you can win big, and encourage you to participate; but ultimately, the owner will not change a thing, as he created the system to build his wealth. He knows that while a few individual players will make money, the group as a whole will lose money.

If you were a member of that group, appealing to the owner would be ludicrous. In your mind the system is broken because you lost. In his mind, the system is functioning properly. He won’t tell you that the system is designed to take your money; he’ll just smile and be polite as he shows you the door.

For Many, the System Works Perfectly

In this same respect, our economic system is not broken at all. It is operating quite well. It is only broken and in need of repair in the minds of those who are taking a loss.

All the components of the system—the police, the schools, the healthcare system, the government—continue to play an integral role in ensuring that this overall mission is accomplished. The numbers prove it.

In America, more than half a century after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Black households have far less wealth than their White counterparts. As the Brookings Institute reported, in 2016 the net worth of a typical White family was $171,000, while the average Black family’s wealth was $17,150—roughly one-tenth as much. This figure includes wealth in the form of home ownership; in 2016 only 41.7 percent of Black families owned their own homes, as opposed to 72.2 percent of non-Hispanic Whites.

So, what’s the problem? Why do we see this disparity?

The truth is that for generations, the system has either violently or subtly suppressed Black wealth. From 1619 until 1865, we were in bondage. After the Civil War and emancipation, Reconstruction became nothing more than “reconstruction of oppression.”

Discriminatory policies throughout the 20th century included the New Deal’s Fair Labor Standards Act’s exemption of domestic agricultural and service occupations, allowing Black workers to be paid low wages. The G.I. Bill of 1944 was designed to accommodate Jim Crow laws and benefited few Black veterans. Redlining ensured that Black families could not get mortgages. The net result is that 150 years after emancipation, Blacks are still denied full access to the tools for building wealth.

Know the Author

Once we come to the realization that the system is not broken and is working to perfection to perpetuate wealth inequality, we can begin to ask more critical questions, such as, “Who designed the system? Why was it designed?”

As hip-hop legend KRS One once said, “If you don’t know the history of the author, then you don’t know what you have read.”

In America, too many of us don’t know the history of the author—the owners of the casino, or wealthy White men. We’ve been taught false narratives of peaceful men who believed in liberty and justice for all. The history has been intentionally distorted, and thus we assume that something is wrong when we see blatant inequality. From our perspective the system is broken, but from the perspective of the wealthy elites, who are disproportionately White, the system is working just fine.

Thus, it is understandable how New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees could say, in regard to Colin Kaepernick and many others taking a knee during the national anthem, “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country.”

He’s on the side for whom the system works well.

Economic Empowerment is the Only Cure for Wealth Inequality

In 2004, I started the Texas Black Expo, Inc. Then and today, the goal is to create wealth within the Black community. Our methodology is to build strong businesses. And yet we encounter opposition from people who believe that economics is a zero-sum game. They believe the economic pie is of a finite size and cannot be increased.

Therefore, if Black people earn a larger slice of the pie, then the portion received by White people will be reduced. This has long been the argument for the continued suppression of Black wealth. The ruling class says that if “they” get more, then “we” get less. This argument is absurd.

Wealth can be created, and the size of the pie can increase. Over the long term, our national economy steadily grows, creating more wealth. But since the 1980s, the biggest share of new wealth has gone to the people who are already wealthy. The top one percent—almost exclusively White—has gobbled up a bigger slice of the growing pie. And yet people object to efforts by African American entrepreneurs to build Black wealth.

What they say reminds me of the story of the two houses.

Once there were two homes next to each other. One was a beautiful two-story red brick home with a three-car garage and a pretty flowerbed out front. The other was a modest one-story home with a white picket fence and an old garage. One day, the one-story home caught fire. The firefighters arrived, pulled out their hoses, and began to spray water on the one-story house to contain the fire. As the firefighters were spraying water, the owner of the big two-story house came out of his front door and yelled, “That’s not fair! Why are you pouring water on their home and not on mine? I pay taxes, and I should get some of that water!”

Sounds ludicrous, right?

But that’s exactly what it’s like when White Americans complain about programs such as Affirmative Action, or organizations like Texas Black Expo that are focused on solving an existing problem. It is the epitome of selfishness to ask a firefighter to douse your home with water when your home is perfectly fine. With the understanding that the economic system was created to benefit wealthy, White Americans while oppressing minorities, including African Americans, by locking them out, then expecting those who benefit from the system to change it would be as silly as asking the casino owner to change the rules so that you have a better chance at winning. It’s not going to happen, which leads to two conclusions.

1. Protest is good, but it’s no substitute for political action. I strongly applaud the millions of peaceful protestors who have raised their voices in support of change. Thanks to them, we have seen some positive results. Minneapolis banned use of choke holds; Dallas adopted a “duty to intervene” rule that requires officers to stop other cops who are engaging in inappropriate use of force; in Maryland, a bipartisan work group of state lawmakers announced a police reform work group. All of this is wonderful and is to be commended, but while the overt brutality may be reduced you still have a system that is not functioning on behalf of all people. Many entrenched white politicians are immune to protests. They simply don’t care how many people take to the streets, because demonstrations eventually fade. We need to use the power of the ballot—from the local city councils up to the presidency of the United States—to remove regressive politicians and elect people who understand, and want to fix, the inequalities that deprive Black families of wealth.
2. African Americans need to take action and build our own economic base. We know it is unlikely that those who benefit from our oppression will do anything to help unless it benefits them economically. So, while Black people can lobby and do our best to work the system in our favor, it’s an uphill battle, and ultimately we are not in control.

What do we control?

We control how we spend our money. We need to be strategic in supporting our own businesses and building our own communities independent of the current system. This will allow us to create and control our own economic destinies, as well as provide resources needed to influence the overarching racist system that still exists.

Let us remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who in 1965, at the Sermon at Temple Israel of Hollywood, said, “We’ve been in the mountain of hatred long enough. It is necessary to move on now, but only by moving out of this mountain can we move to the promised land of justice and brotherhood and the Kingdom of God. It all boils down to the fact that we must never allow ourselves to become satisfied with unattained goals. We must always maintain a kind of divine discontent.”

As a nation, we have many unattained goals, but by keeping a spirit of divine discontent and working together, we can create prosperity and justice for all.

By Natalie Jackson, Special to the Houston Forward Times

Momentous events can occur in an instant, but more often they emerge after a long build-up.

The explosion of protests all over the world was such a moment following the George Floyd killing. And Ben Crump who has been called the African American family emergency plan received yet another call from an African American family who was devastated unexpectedly by an unjustifiable killing at the hands of the police.

This is not out of the ordinary for the North Carolina native Ben Crump who moved to South Florida when he was 12 years old. He first received national recognition when he represented 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson who was killed at the Bay County Sheriff’s Boot Camp in 2006. Crump advocated for the family and received the largest settlement from the state of Florida for wrongful death. He worked with the Black Conference of State Legislators to close boot camps in the state.

Crump rose to international prominence when he represented the family of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old child who was killed by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in 2012.

Most recently, Crump has represented three of the most high-profile cases in America today in his representation of the families of Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot while jogging in Brunswick, Georgia, and Breonna Taylor, gunned down in her bed by Louisville police in Kentucky. But his role in the movement stretches back more than a decade and includes the cases of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, as well as Corey Jones, Pamela Turner, Botham Jean, Stephon Clark and others.

His face and voice are everywhere – from rallies to funerals, from cable news to a recent profile in the Washington Post. At Floyd’s Houston funeral, the former President of the National Bar Association was introduced by the Rev. Al Sharpton as “Black America’s attorney general.”

Ben Crump’s passion for civil rights and justice goes back to his childhood in small Lumberton, NC, where he attended his first integrated school in fourth grade and came to idolize Thurgood Marshall. His family moved to Florida when he was in middle school and he got his undergraduate and law degrees from Florida State University. The 50-year-old Crump is the founder and principal of Ben Crump Law, which has grown to over eight offices across the country, but he never forgot his Lumberton, North Carolina, roots.

He began his law practice handling personal injury cases, but his determination to right wrongs and achieve justice spans the spectrum from fighting for Black Americans killed by police to ensuring restitution for poor residents, subject to environmental toxins. His current workload includes cases accusing Flint, MI, of poisoning Black residents though a tainted public water supply, and Johnson & Johnson of targeting Black women with talcum powder that causes ovarian cancer.

Crump is widely known as the go-to attorney when police violate the rights of Black men and women. And, sadly, those cases abound.

Even though they make up less than 13% of the U.S. population, Blacks are more than twice as likely as Whites to be shot and killed by law enforcement.

In an era when cell phone videos and bodycams are capturing acts of police misconduct and keeping the cases front and center, there is no end in sight for Ben Crump’s work on behalf of victims. He is simultaneously encouraged and concerned about the necessary shift in public opinion in the wake of the 8 minutes and 46 seconds that took George Floyd’s life.

“I’m not stunned that this is happening in 2020. It takes extraordinary effort in America for Black people to get simple justice,” Crump, said in that Washington Post profile. “I feel like I’m running out of time.”

Lisa Olivia Fitch, Editor in Chief, Our Weekly News

If a Tsunami happens on the other side of the world, some may be unaware and unaffected. Others may hear the news and be aware of the disaster, but still be unaffected. Still others may be aware and only inconvenienced by the tsunami, cancelling plans to visit that part of the world.

But then there are those affected by the crisis and those who are deeply impacted. Relatives are lost, homes are lost, friends are lost, income is lost. During the coronavirus crisis, essentially everyone in the entire world has been affected.

Blacks in the U.S. have been disproportionately affected during the pandemic. Although African Americans only compose 6 percent of the population in the state of California, Blacks comprise 10.6 percent of the COVID-19 deaths. This has been attributed to the fact that a number of Blacks have underlying and sometimes untreated conditions — cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, etc. — which compound problems, when paired with the coronavirus.

“Some of us are only two degrees away from a COVID death — we know someone who knows someone,” said Dr. Erica Holmes, executive director of the Champion Counseling Center at Faithful Central Bible Church. “The church is now being called back into the role of meeting the needs of the entire church body.”

During a recent meeting organized by Anchor of Hope Ministries, a local, faith-based nonprofit assisting the formerly incarcerated, Holmes stated that the Black church has historically been centered to meet the community’s needs in a variety of ways.

“Often, Blacks could not access governmental services,” Holmes said. “The church was the entity in the black community that met the needs of the oppressed.”

After slavery and during the civil rights era and beyond, Black churches gave rise to community businesses, schools, banks insurance companies and the like.

“Black churches were ‘one-stop shops’ because other means of access to community services were off limits,” Holmes said.

Holmes pointed to a recent Pew Research Center study that concluded that Blacks still have close ties to churches, as 47 percent of Black adults surveyed said that they attended religious services, compared to 39 percent of Latinx and 34 percent of Whites.

An additional Pew poll showed that 43 percent of Black adults say they look to their religion for guidance on right and wrong.

“It speaks to the power of the pulpit,” Holmes said. “It’s important for the church to have accurate information to keep their congregations safe. How are those individuals who visit the pews one, two, or three times a week impacted?”

“They are looking to you to help them understand,” Holmes said. “Maybe they need to hear that the governor of California said it’s not safe yet, so sit back. You must be able to address the realities of life right now.”

Holmes also noted a silver lining, in that the crisis brought technology to some churches.

“With this pandemic, there has been a major reorganization, but we must see the opportunities as well,” she said. “Like being able to use things like zoom, Facebook and telephone trees, where members are calling at least two other members per day. Those people are interacting with people they hadn’t interacted with in the sanctuary.”

Additionally, persons who already had difficulties surviving day-to-day before the crisis, may have those difficulties exacerbated, Holmes explained.

“Because their equilibrium is thrown off, they can’t usually find a way of coping and dealing with these new feelings,” she said. “It’s important for us in the faith community to pay attention to things we might see.”

Holmes explained that even though church leaders are not face-to-face with members, they should still be on the watch — via phone calls or internet services — for any signs of abuse that may be triggered by the current stay-at-home order.

“Does the child have on a turtleneck shirt when it’s 80 degrees outside?” Holmes asked. “Are the parents yelling at the kids in the background? These individuals don’t feel that the safer at home order accurately describes their situation.”

Holmes attends debriefing meetings with the County Department of Public Health each Thursday.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has guidelines for faith-based communities at http://ph.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/GuidanceFaithBasedOrgsEnglish.pdf.

Limited attendance at funerals and weddings is allowed following the guidelines. All other in-person gatherings are prohibited. Worship service must be live-streamed, recorded, or taped. Baptisms, infant dedications, bar and bat mitzvahs, and confirmations must be postponed. When feasible, ceremonial gatherings can be conducted virtually.

Cemeteries and crematoriums are able to provide direct burials and cremation services but without a gathering of people. Immediate family members who live together and a faith leader may gather in person at a cemetery but are encouraged to reach out directly to the funeral home to understand specific protocols and whether they provide livestream services. Memorial services should be postponed and can be scheduled for a later date.

“Faith leaders clearly have a key role to play in offering comfort and care to Los Angeles County at a time when illness, isolation and economic hardship come together to burden so many residents and communities,” the department writes in its “Guidance for Faith-Based Organizations” piece. “We ask for your support and leadership in helping us mitigate those burdens by reducing the spread of COVID-19, assuring optimal care for those who become ill, and speeding community recovery.”

Holmes encouraged her fellow church leaders to speak life into the current situation.

“The parishioners need to hear how the church is planning for the future,” Holmes said. “What is our next step? How are we going to address the ‘new normal.’”

By Nsenga K. Burton, Ph.D., NNPA Newswire Entertainment and Culture Editor

The fifth and final season premiere of OWN’s hit megachurch drama “Greenleaf” (6/23/20) delivered 1.9 million viewers and ranked as Tuesday night’s #1 cable telecast in OWN’s key demographic of women 25-54, which is up +2% from last season’s premiere. The acclaimed drama from Lionsgate, award-winning writer/executive producer Craig Wright (“Lost,” “Six Feet Under”), and executive producers Clement Virgo (“Empire”), Kriss Turner Towner (“Black Monday”), and Oprah Winfrey was also the night’s #1 telecast across all broadcast and cable for African-American women.

Greenleaf stars Merle Dandridge as Grace Greenleaf; Keith David as Bishop James Greenleaf; Lynn Whitfield as Lady Mae Greenleaf; Kim Hawthorne as Kerissa Greenleaf; Lamman Rucker as Jacob Greenleaf; and Deborah Joy Winans as Charity Greenleaf-Satterjee.

In addition, the season premiere of “Greenleaf” ranked as the #1 most social scripted series across all of broadcast and cable, including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, on Tuesday night (non-sports).

OWN was Tuesday night’s #2 cable network among women 25-54 with “Greenleaf” the #1 cable telecast in the key demo. OWN was Tuesday night’s #1 network on all of television, including broadcast and cable, for African American women and total viewers.

Currently, OWN has four of the Top 20 original scripted series (“The Haves and the Have Nots,” “Greenleaf,” “If Loving You Is Wrong,” “Cherish the Day”) on ad-supported cable among women 25-54, which is more than any other network.

In the second episode of the fifth and final season of “Greenleaf” tomorrow night (Tuesday June 30 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT), Noah (Benjamin Patterson) returns to Memphis to help Grace (Merle Dandridge) with A.J (Jacob Gibson), offering her stability in a world that’s upside-down and spinning out of her control. Bishop (Keith David) and Lady Mae (Lynn Whitfield) take a walk through their history when they visit Mavis’s club as a potential venue for their future. Jacob (Lamman Rucker) continues to dig into the past and uncovers a shocking revelation about the history of the Greenleaf family home.

Source: The Nielsen Company; Nielsen Social Content Ratings. Ranked by total interactions.

“Greenleaf” has garnered ten NAACP Image Award nominations, including wins for Outstanding Drama Series in 2020, and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2019 and 2020 (Lynn Whitfield). The “Greenleaf” Soundtrack Volume Two was named Outstanding Gospel/Christian Album (Traditional or Contemporary) by the NAACP Image Awards in 2018. The series has also been recognized by the Alliance for Women in Media’s Gracie Allen Awards and by the Black Reel Awards for Television.

“Greenleaf” is produced for OWN by Lionsgate in association with Harpo Films and Pine City. Executive producers are Oprah Winfrey, Craig Wright, Kriss Turner Towner, and Clement Virgo.

A “Greenleaf” spinoff, currently in development with Lionsgate, was announced in May 2020.

Viewers can now catch up on the show’s complete four seasons on Netflix.

A GDN Student Engagement Exclusive

By Cash Michaels and Peter Grear, Greater Diversity News

If preliminary data estimates on the recent 2020 primaries in North Carolina are accurate, student voters on HBCU campuses must raise their turnout game come the general election this November.

So says Dr. William Busa, founder of EQV Analytics, a ‘North Carolina-focused campaign consulting firm serving Democratic candidates with advanced campaign analytics.

Dr. Busa served as digital director to NC Associate Justice Anita Earls 2018 campaign to the state’s high court.

Cautioning that his numbers right now are “95% accurate” because all of the 2020 primary data has not been released yet by the NC Board of Elections, Dr. Busa says they are close enough to being conclusive for him to draw worthy conclusions.

Busa analyzed student voter turnout from ten North Carolina campuses, three of them HBCUs – N.C. A&T University, in Greensboro, Winston-Salem State University and North Carolina Central University in Durham. All of the campuses analyzed were in precincts dominated by undergraduate students, generally 18 to 22.

Dr. Busa broke his analysis of college voting into early voting (February 13-29th) and voting on Primary Day (March 3rd). Traditionally, the bulk of college student voting occurs during the two-week early voting period.

According to the data, statewide early voting was at 11.4%. At least seven of the ten NC universities tracked for student early voting did much better, with six of the top schools coming in with two to three times the state’s overall voter turnout (Duke was at 34%, for instance).

Winston-Salem State University yielded only an 11.7 student voter turnout, .3% more than the state turnout.

North Carolina Central University, however, could only muster 7.9% student voter turnout.

When the numbers are crunched for Primary Day, Dr. Busa noted that student voting dramatically drops because college students generally find it more difficult to vote then and prefer the more flexible 15-day early voting period.

As a result, because 66% of North Carolina voters vote on Primary day, and college students don’t, they effectively caught up percentage-wise with the high college voting, leaving only Duke University (34.3%) to exceed both groups (NC was at 30.6%) in total voter turnout percentages, Busa says.

NCCU came in at the end of the university list at just 8%. NC A&T came in fourth overall at 20.6%. WSSU was at 13.4%.

Busa says his analysis proves several things – college students are early voters. Either they vote early, or not at all.

Second, the analysis also shows why Republican lawmakers try to keep polling places off university campuses, hoping that by making getting to a polling place more difficult, it would dissuade students from voting.

“It’s a very potent voter suppression tool,” Dr. Busa says. All ten of the campuses analyzed had a campus polling place.

Busa says ultimately, college and university administrations must put more resources behind their campus GOTV (get out the vote) efforts, like Duke University, to get the same stellar results that Duke is getting.

However, students are not sitting still. They’re fighting back against the agents of voter suppression and they are being helped by the NC NAACP, offering guidance and resources and Greater Diversity News, offering publicity.

The results of Busa’s analysis reveals a failure to effectively mobilize Black students to educate, organized and mobilize as voters. However, blame for this failure must be borne by Black leaders and leadership organizations. The leaders and organizations include HBCU Alumni Associations, elected officials, Divine Nine and the always present Black church community. Also, to be included, are Black civil rights leaders and organizations of the past and present.

Also, we must recognize leaders and organizations that are stepping up and trying to make a difference. There are many that recognize that the failed status quo cannot and must not be accepted.

One response that is in the works, is a series of conference calls with student leaders on HBCU and Primarily White campuses (SGAs and BSUs). This call is being coordinated by the NC NAACP and Greater Diversity News. Its purpose is to give the student leaders an opportunity to discuss voting rights and their efforts to resist voter suppression.

The students at NCCU have developed a voter mobilization model and are offering it as a guide to other campuses, while at the same time seeking feedback and ideas on strategies that other students are using. It is important to note that the efforts of the NCCU students are fully supported by the NCCU National Alumni Association. A student/alumni collaborative is being urged as a consideration for all HBCUs.

Here are the updated college turnout numbers (through election night). Final analysis is due any day now.

TURNOUT                                      (%)

DUKE UNIV                                     34.3

UNC CHAPEL HILL                        24.7

NC STATE UNIV                              21.2

NC A&T STATE UNIV                     20.6

UNC CHARLOTTE                          18.5

APPALACHIAN STATE UNIV       14.9

WINSTON-SALEM STATE UNIV 13.4

UNC GREENSBORO                       10.2

EAST CAROLINA UNIV                 8.0

NC CENTRAL UNIV                       8.0

Follow the growing activism of student leaders and ACTC developments by signing-up for GDN’s free eNews publication at GreaterDiversity.com. For additional information email – colors@greaterdiversity.com.