Black History

Five Hundred Years Later, Are we still Slaves?

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) has launched a global news feature series on the history, contemporary realities and implications of the transatlantic slave trade. This is Part 5 in the ongoing series.

Published

6 years ago

February 25, 2021

Stacy M. Brown

The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) has launched a global news feature series on the history, contemporary realities and implications of the transatlantic slave trade.
(Read the entire series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11)

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others. Rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.” — Frederick Douglass

“Ignorance is the greatest slave master in the universe… The greatest prison anyone can escape from is ignorance.” — Matshona Dhliwayo

“These negroes aren’t asking for no nation. They wanna crawl back on the plantation.” — Malcolm X

Five Centuries ago – on August 18, 1518 to be exact – the King of Spain, Charles I, issued a charter authorizing the transportation of slaves direct from Africa to the Americas, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.

Five hundred years later, the devastating effects remain.

Some argue, however, that slavery continues to exist – in that far too many African Americans possess a slave’s mentality. Books on the topic are a plenty.

Harvard psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint wrote extensively about the high suicide rates among black males which doubled over a 15-year period beginning in 1980. “African-American young men may see the afterlife as a better place,” Poussaint wrote in his book, “Lay My Burden Down: Suicide and the Mental Health Crisis among African-Americans.”

In her book, “Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting,” famed author and social worker, Terrie M. Williams, writes about the “high toll of hiding the pain associated with the black experience” on mental health.

Portland State University scholar Joy DeGruy also tried explaining the slave mentality in her controversial theory, “Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome.”

The Urban Dictionary and other works says that a slave mentality is one of feeling inferior or of feeling lost without hope, a feeling that we do not have the power to significantly alter our own circumstances.

“Another sad symptom of having a slave mentality is believing that white people are superior,” writes Kuuleme T. Stephens noted in her blog. “A person conditioned to quietly, and without objection, accept harmful circumstances for themselves as the natural order of things. …They’re also conditioned to accept their master’s view and beliefs, about themselves, and strive to get others, within their group, to accept their master’s view.

“I often hear people make the claim that blacks were better off when they were slaves. I myself have been known to say such things when people piss me off and respond out of ignorance to a posting or article. My reason for making such an argument is if black Americans are not going to stop living in the past and blaming other for their problems, we will never move forward as a people. …To maintain a belief that you are owed something and entitled to things when you are doing nothing to help yourself is absurd.

“To stay ignorant as a lifestyle choice and have others (the government) take care of you and tell you what to do is exactly what the slaves did, and some continued to do even after they were freed. …My great grandmother, whose father and grandfather were slaves, has a slavery mentality because they were raised by slaves and their opinions and beliefs were passed down as such.”

Even now, millions of Americans of recognizably African descent languish in societal backwaters, according to historians and experts on slavery. And, the dichotomy that exists between those who view living in America as a struggle to survive and those that see it as a land of opportunity has driven a wedge between many in the African American community.

“We’re absolutely still slaves today,” said Sean XG Mitchell, a Hip-Hop activist and author of several books on the black experience, including “The African American Spiritual Practice of Seven.”

“We’re the only race of people who do not have a cultural orientation regarding our identity. Every powerful and successful race and/or ethnic group of people have an orientation that centers around language, education, religion, names and customs which is where their unity, self-respect, pride and dignity-the prerequisite of power- comes from,” he said.

As a result of slavery, African Americans do not have a cultural orientation that centers around their historical experience as a people. “We see the outcome in the deficiency of our social and economic development. To a certain extent, we’ve been fighting racism and injustice all wrong which is why it’s been an ongoing issue for over [500] years. Real empowerment comes from culture and until we understand and embrace what it means to be an African people will always be slaves,” Mitchell said.

“I believe there is a dividing legacy of slavery that have pitted certain segments of the black community against each other,” Mitchell continues. “We have an obvious color barrier between light skin and dark skin, creating somewhat of a caste system that gives privilege to the lighter shade in most cases whether we’re referring to employment opportunities or relationships.

“It’s all a fallout of slavery because slaves often were pitted against each other as a means of preventing unity.”

During slavery, the dark-skinned blacks worked in the fields while light-skinned blacks worked in the house, hence the terms “field Negroes” and “house Negroes.”

“It got so bad, that not only did the slave owner, who was often responsible for the lighter shade of brown his slaves had, give lighter-skinned blacks more respect, but so did the dark-skinned blacks,” blogger Jasmyne Cannick writes in an opinion column for NPR.

This was best illustrated in Spike Lee’s 1988 film “School Daze” in the scene set in a beauty salon between the “jiggaboos,” the darker-skinned blacks with “nappy” hair, and the “wannabes,” the lighter-skinned blacks with “straight” and often weaved hair.

“You know, I can’t think of one time that I witnessed or heard of white children taunting each other for being paler than the next, but I can think of numerous occasions where I have seen black children teasing each other for being ‘too black,’” Cannick said.

“And while our lighter skin shades can be attributed to the Massuh’s preference for his female black slaves over his own wife, we can’t blame the Massuh for us continuing to feed into the hype that light is good and dark is bad,” she said.

Post-slavery, post-Jim Crow, and post-Civil Rights, African Americans haven’t reached their full potential in part because of an acute lack of effort with too many wallowing in self-pity, say those who’ve argued against reparations.

Walter Williams, an economics professor at George Mason University in Washington, D.C. and an opponent of reparations, suggested that African-Americans have actually benefited from the legacy of slavery.

“Almost every black American’s income is higher as a result of being born in the United States than any country in Africa,” Williams, who is black, told ABC News.

“Most black Americans are middle-class,” Williams said, claiming that the U.S. has made “significant” investments in African Americans since the slave trade ended.

“The American people have spent $6.1 trillion in the name of fighting poverty,” he said. “We’ve had all kinds of programs trying to address the problems of discrimination. America has gone a long way.”

Countering that argument, others said America has continued to do a disservice to black Americans, prolifically using the criminal justice system as tool akin to slavery that almost assures a lifetime of dependency on taxpayers.

“My expertise is the criminal justice system, which has long been used to intimidate, oppress, and abuse African-Americans. While officially our laws today are color-blind, which is different from the time of slavery, as implemented and used they aren’t,” said Roy L. Steinheimer Jr., a professor of Law at Washington and Lee University in Virginia.

What about black on black crime?

According to an evidence brief from the Vera Institute of Justice, titled, “An Unjust Burden: The Disparate Treatment of Black Americans in the Criminal Justice System,” and a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that most violence occurs between victims and offenders of the same race, regardless of race.

The rate of both black-on-black and white-on-white nonfatal violence declined 79 percent between 1993 and 2015. The number of homicides involving both a black victim and black perpetrator fell from 7,361 in 1991 to 2,570 in 2016.

The issue isn’t the crime, it’s the selective disproportionately harsher punishment and sentencing of African Americans.

“Some of the laws, such as those disenfranchising convicted felons, have their origin, if not in the immediate aftermath of the civil war, then in the era that saw the emergence of the KKK and white supremacy. They were clearly intended to keep African-Americans and likely, though to a lesser extent poor whites, from the ballot box,” Steinheimer said.

Meanwhile, some of the newer laws that have negatively affected African-Americans still appear to result from some underlying beliefs that go back to the times of slavery.

“Interestingly that thinking has survived even during times of mass migration, which is presumably indicative of how deep-seated it is in American culture and law,” the professor continued.

The “broad scope of the criminal justice system reinforces the wealth disparity between white and black by making those caught up in it ever poorer and serves to drive even some of the better-of people caught up in it into poverty,” Steinheimer said.

“The economic impact resulting from slavery therefore gets magnified and reinforced by our criminal justice system, which increasingly stacks fines and fees,” he said.

In a dissertation for the Brookings Institute, Glenn C. Loury wrote that the dream that race might someday become an insignificant category in our civic life now seems naively utopian.

In cities across the country, and in rural areas of the Old South, the situation of the black underclass and, increasingly, of the black lower working classes is bad and getting worse. Simply put, the playing field has never been level for black Americans and that has only worsened the mental health of the community. “No well-informed person denies this, though there is debate over what can and should be done about it,” Loury said.

“Nor do serious people deny that the crime, drug addiction, family breakdown, unemployment, poor school performance, welfare dependency, and general decay in these communities constitute a blight on our society virtually unrivaled in scale and severity by anything to be found elsewhere in the industrial West,” he said.

“Slavery is one of the foundational pillars of American society, propping up the nation starting in the earliest days of the Republic and touching the lives of everyone in America. And its legacy has been long lasting,” said Hasan Jeffries, a James Madison Montpelier historian and history professor at Ohio State University who specializes in contemporary black politics.

“The deeply rooted belief in white supremacy that justified slavery survived its abolition in 1865 and undergird the new systems of African American labor exploitation and social control, namely Jim Crow, that sought to replace what had been lost as a result of emancipation,” Jeffries said.

As a result, slavery has caused certain symptoms of dysfunction in the African community, which has been reinforced in each generation, according to historians at the African Holocaust Network.

The legacy of slavery has promoted and nursed the direct association between being African and being inferior. Being African and being unequal. Being African and being incapable and less worthy.

It also promotes ways of thinking which continue to impede growth and development, such as cultivating dependence and reactive behaviors, and more content to be at best an observer complaining about the world, instead of being a change agent in the world.

“The deterioration of the black American family is staggering,” Stephens said.

“If you ask a young black American what they want to be when they grow up, most will say they want to be a rapper/singer, football player, basketball player, or baseball player, and that is if they can tell you what they would like to be at all,” she said.

“No one tells them that only 0.03 percent make it to pro basketball, 0.08 percent make it pro football, and 0.45 percent make it pro baseball.

“We have a 40 percent dropout rate, for every 100,000 black men in the U.S., 4,777 are in prison or jail; for every 100,000 black American women, there are 743 in jail or prison, and 72 percent of black American women, and teens are unwed mothers.”

Historians at the James Madison Montpelier in Virginia said that it’s no accident that the U.S. Constitution opens with a message of inclusivity, establishing “justice” and ensuring “domestic tranquility” for the people.

However, it’s what that most famous preamble – and, indeed, the rest of the document – doesn’t address that’s more telling: The Constitution’s authors omit the vital distinction between their view of the differences between persons and property and, in doing so, ultimately protect one of history’s most oppressive institutions: Slavery.

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

2 days 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 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

2 days 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

2 days 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.

###

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

Black History

Annika Ashton First Black Woman and Jamaican Broward County Attorney

SOUTH FLORIDA TIMES — Annika E. Ashton is the new Broward County Attorney, becoming the first Black woman and Jamaican American to hold the position. Ashton, 42, was sworn in last month, replacing Andrew Meyers who retired after eight years.

Published

2 days ago

October 6, 2026

BlackPressUSA Newswire

Photo courtesy of Broward County

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Annika E. Ashton is the new Broward County Attorney, becoming the first Black woman and Jamaican American to assume the role.

Ashton, 42, was sworn in last month to replace Andrew Meyers who retired after eight years at the helm.

The Broward County Commission unanimously appointed Ashton, who was the Deputy Broward County attorney, in April 2026 and she took over on September 10, 2026 the official last day of Meyers’ tenure.

She will oversee more than 50 attorneys and a support staff.

Ashton’s appointment reflects overcoming racial and gender barriers to become the chief legal advisor for the county.

The Coral Springs resident thanked the commission and Broward County legal department for their support.
“I’m very excited to work with a really great office of people and have the support of the Broward County Commission,” Ashton said.

Broward County Commissioner Nan Rich called Ashton “the most qualified person to lead the County Attorney’s Office,” noting the county attorney position is one of only three the board is responsible for appointing

Ashton has worked for Broward County since 2014, starting as an assistant county attorney and rose to senior assistant county attorney before becoming deputy county attorney in 2019.

She graduated from Princeton University and Columbia Law School and clerked for the Hon. Adalberto Jordan on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Ashton’s county work has included litigating federal court cases, drafting ordinances and contributing to the $1 billion expansion of the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale.

She previously did private practice in New York and Miami.

According to her bio, Ashton was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica and raised with deepy family roots in Clarendon, particularly Palmer Cross.

She migrated to the U.S. and graduated from Ft. Lauderdale Boyd Anderson High School, earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and law degree from Columbia Law School.

As the new chief attorney for Broward County, Ashton will provide legal counsel for commissioners and administrators, represent the county in litigation, drafting legal documents including preparing ordinances, government contracts and oversight of zoning issues.

Ashton will also advise commissioners on legal aspects of county projects, developments and public services, including environmental, transportation, and consumer protection issues in Broward County.

She is also a Past President of the Caribbean Bar Association.

Ashton credits her Jamaican upbringing for a stellar legal career.

She said women leadership in Jamaica helped her thrive, studying successful women in business and public service, as well as community figures like Cathy Levy, founder of the iconic Little People and Teen Players Club, who has been a stalwart of youth arts education in Jamaica for decades.

These early influences, along with the cultural ethos of resilience captured in the popular Jamaican refrain, “Wi likkle but wi tallawah,” she notes, helped shape her ambition and belief that she could make a meaningful impact on the world around her.

The post Annika Ashton first Black woman and Jamaican Broward County Attorney appeared first on South Florida Times.

Based on reporting by South Florida Times.

Black History

Cuts and Conversations Turns Barber Chairs into Space for Lifesaving Dialogue

ALABAMA STATE UNIVERSITY – THE HORNET TRIBUNE — Alabama State University recently hosted “Cuts and Conversations,” an event that transformed barber chairs into a venue for vital dialogue about prostate cancer, a disease disproportionately affecting Black men.

Published

2 days ago

October 6, 2026

BlackPressUSA Newswire

Photo courtesy The Hornet Tribune

The sound of clippers buzzed with a different kind of conversation Monday at 11 a.m. as Alabama State University students and staff listened to barbers, cancer survivors and health professionals discuss a disease that disproportionately affects Black men.

Cuts and Conversations, held Sept. 28 in the John Garrick Hardy Center Ballroom, used free haircuts and the familiarity of the barbershop to open conversations about prostate cancer, early detection, family history and men’s health.

Tanjula Petty, Ed.D., vice president for Institutional Effectiveness, Strategic Initiatives and Transformation, and Willie S. Rockward, Ph.D., dean of the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, opened the forum and welcomed those in attendance.

For Petty, the message came from experience.

“I’m not just speaking to you based on research,” she said. “I’m talking to you from a place of experience.”

Petty said she exercised regularly, ate well and considered herself healthy when a doctor told her she had cancer. She challenged students to take what they learned back to their fathers, grandfathers and uncles.

“It’s not all about genetics; you may be the first in your family to experience it,” Petty said. “People ask me all the time, ‘Who in your family was diagnosed?’ Nobody. I’m the first.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black men are more likely to develop prostate cancer than other men and are more than twice as likely to die from the disease. The American Cancer Society recommends that Black men begin discussing prostate cancer screening with a health care provider at age 45 or at 40 for men at higher risk because of family history.

Three prostate cancer survivors were recognized during the event: Andy Maxwell, Leroy Huffman and Dandrea Evans Sr. Evans and Huffman shared their experiences with those in attendance.

Evans was 44 when a routine doctor’s visit led to his prostate cancer diagnosis. He had no symptoms.

“Initially it was the worst news you could ever hear because I didn’t feel like I had cancer. I felt great,” he said.

Evans said he turned to his faith and made the decision “to trust God through the process and to live.” Four years later, he said he is cancer-free.

“The more you know, the more you’ll be prepared to deal with it and understand it a little bit better,” Evans said.

The five-year survival rate is greater than 99% for prostate cancer diagnosed at a localized or regional stage, according to the American Cancer Society. That rate falls to 38% when the cancer has spread to distant parts of the body.

Huffman has worked at Heritage Barber & Style Shop for about 26 years, has cut hair for 63 years.

“Awareness about prostate cancer is the best thing that Black men should do,” Huffman said.

His advice was simple.

“Age is not the key here. Life is,” Huffman said.

Dawna Nelson, Ph.D., an associate professor of social work, licensed master social worker, and principal investigator for the Cuts and Conversations research project, said the project grew from years of community health work and conversations with Heritage about the role barbershops already play in Black communities. When funding became available, the partnership trained barbers to speak with clients about prostate cancer, early detection, and family history.

Heritage owner Vladimir “Boo Man” Averett said the shop wanted to be part of that work, particularly because of Huffman’s experience.

“He gives conversation all the time to us younger barbers as well as our clients about get checked, get checked, get checked,” Averett said.

For Averett, the message comes down to five words.

“It’s not about wealth. It’s about health,” Averett said.

The partnership extended to student barbers.

Brittany Hollins, planning and evaluation specialist in the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, Strategic Initiatives, and Transformation, said organizers worked with Student Life and athletics to identify student barbers who were trained at Heritage to carry those conversations to their peers.

“They’re cutting hair, and they’re having these conversations,” Hollins said. “And so it’s Cuts and Conversations today.”

Hollins’ grandfather died a little more than a year ago after his prostate cancer progressed to Stage 4.

“It is not an easy task to have that loved one at home on hospice, and you are being tasked to give them that last dose of morphine, and then you realize there’s no pulse,” Hollins said.

Beyond the personal stories, the event connected students with cancer research and health resources.

Manoj K. Mishra, Ph.D., director of the university’s Cancer Research Center and professor of biology, said the center supports cancer research, trains students, and works to increase cancer awareness in the community.

Pastor Lee B. Walker Jr. and Terrance “Wolfgang” Baldwin hosted a live recording of the “Off the Cuff” podcast, continuing the discussion about prostate cancer awareness and Black men’s health.

Five Horizons Health Services, the Alabama Department of Public Health, the university’s Cancer Research Center and Health Services were represented. Five Horizons also provided free HIV and sexually transmitted infection testing.

For the students in the barber chairs, the conversations made the message immediate.

Freshman Jonathan Alexandre said events such as Cuts and Conversations can make it easier for young Black men to begin talking about their health.

Freshman Elijah Kidd, a computer engineering major from Pensacola, Florida, said cancer has already touched his family through his uncle.

“Really just cherish every moment you have, because you never know when it might end,” Kidd said.

Senior Xavier Moore, a double major in music education and music performance, said the setting allowed younger and older Black men to learn from one another.

“Your health comes first,” Moore said.

Student barber Mark Coaxum II, a biology major who plans to become a doctor, brought the message back to action.

“Knowing the probability is good, but getting tested is best, because whether you’re probable or not, you never know,” Coaxum said. “It could be you.”

Nelson said she hopes those conversations continue long after the barber chairs are gone.

“The barbershop is where these conversations start, but then the next day they’re in the gym, and then the day after that on the golf course, and in the boardroom, and most importantly, at a family dinner table amongst the father and the son,” Nelson said.

For students who may think prostate cancer is years away, Nelson left them with a reason to start talking now.

“You are a son. You are a nephew. You are a grandson,” she said. “And if you take the time to talk to your fathers and your uncles and all of the men in your life about this, you are potentially saving their life, and you’re also at the same time empowering yourself so that when your time does come, you have all the information you need to be able to make good health choices.”

Based on reporting by Alabama State University – The Hornet Tribune.

Black History

National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award Honors the Relentless Fight for Equality

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — The National Civil Rights Museum’s 35th annual Freedom Award ceremony, held on Thursday, October 1, at the Orpheum Theatre, recognized a diverse group of civil rights leaders. Honorees included Fred Gray Sr., a legal strategist who represented Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Published

2 days ago

October 6, 2026

BlackPressUSA Newswire

Members of Gary Goin Freedom Award House Band perform at the 35th Freedom Award ceremony on Thursday, Oct. 1 at the Orpheum Theatre. (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender) — (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender)

The honorees at the National Civil Rights Museum’s 35th annual Freedom Award ceremony held at the Orpheum Theatre on Thursday, Oct. 1, reflected a changing era of civil rights leadership.

Fred Gray Sr., one of the last surviving legal strategists of the Civil Rights Movement, helped dismantle segregation in America as the lawyer who represented Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Gray’s pioneering legacy now rests with the generations he helped empower, including fellow award recipients Rev. Shavon Arline-Bradley, Nneka Ogwumike and Bakari Sellers.

Arline-Bradley, an ordained minister, public health advocate, and president and CEO of the National Council of Negro Women since 2023, credits the women and civil rights legends who preceded her and built the organizations she now leads with making her work possible.

Nneka Ogwumike, WNBA champion and four-term president of the league’s players association, and Bakari Sellers, a lawyer, author, CNN political correspondent and former South Carolina legislator, represent a younger generation of human and civil rights activists. They are taking the fight into new arenas, from women’s sports and economic opportunity to voting rights, education and social justice.

Together, their stories shaped the event’s overall theme and mood, which celebrated the courage of freedom fighters of the past while embracing what civil rights leadership looks like now — and what it may become.

Before the ceremony, hundreds of guests gathered for photographs and interviews on the red carpet and hors d’oeuvres at the Halloran Centre for Performing Arts & Education next door to the Orpheum. Actor Larenz Tate hosted the event for the second consecutive year. Grammy Award-winning gospel artist Tamela Mann brought the audience to its feet with her performance of the hit song “Take Me to the King.” And local artist Garry Goin and the Freedom Award House Band performed a mix of R&B and liberation songs.

Fred Gray Jr. accepted the Freedom Award on behalf of his father, civil rights attorney Fred Gray Sr., who was unable to attend the ceremony. (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender)
Rev. Shavon Arline-Bradley, president and CEO of the National Council of Negro Women, was among the honorees at the National Civil Rights Museum’s 35th annual Freedom Award. (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender)
Nneka Ogwumike, WNBA champion and four-term president of the league’s players association, was honored at the National Civil Rights Museum’s 35th annual Freedom Award. (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender)
Bakari Sellers, lawyer, author, CNN political correspondent and former South Carolina legislator, was honored at the National Civil Rights Museum’s 35th annual Freedom Award. (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender)

Taking the stage to accept the first award was Arline-Bradley, who reflected on the legacy that shaped her path to leadership.

“This honor means more to me than you can ever imagine,” Arline-Bradley said, describing the moment as the culmination of what she believes God had in store for her.

She paid tribute to Dorothy Height, whose leadership helped secure the headquarters for the women’s advocacy nonprofit on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. Arline-Bradley described the building, located on the same street as the White House, as a representation of Black women’s history, power and resilience.

“NCNW stands as the only Black and women-owned building on Pennsylvania Ave,” she continued.

During her speech, Arline-Bradley outlined what she believes it will take to achieve freedom and equality today.

“If America wants to get her healing, we’ve got to climb to the rooftop of justice,” she said.

And justice includes using Black economic power to support companies with compatible values, she continued.

Fred Gray Jr. accepted the award on behalf of his father, who was unable to attend the ceremony. Gray, who practices law alongside his father and brother, recalled his father’s decision to become a lawyer and return to Montgomery, Alabama, determined to challenge segregation.

freedom26_GSW1988-2 — Actor Larenz Tate hosted the National Civil Rights Museum’s 35th annual Freedom Award ceremony for the second consecutive year. (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender)

Gray connected his father’s legal work to Memphis’ sanitation workers, whose 1968 strike became a defining moment in the city’s civil rights history. “At 95, if he was here, he would say to you, ‘I have done what I can do. The rest is up to you,’” Gray Jr. said.

Ogwumike used her acceptance speech to connect the growing visibility of women’s sports to a broader conversation about opportunity and equality.

“In this moment, there are greater and more opportunities for girls and women in sports,” Ogwumike said, pointing to the example provided by the WNBA’s professional athletes who serve as role models for young girls.

She also addressed what she described as threats to women’s rights and access, including debates surrounding Title IX, voting rights, reproductive healthcare and gender violence. “We refuse to be bullied and we refuse to be silenced and made to disappear,” Ogwumike said.

Her remarks were followed by a surprise video message from former Vice President Kamala Harris, who thanked Ogwumike for “being a fighter for the people” and congratulated the evening’s other honorees.

The final honoree, Bakari Sellers, has family ties to Memphis. His mother grew up in the city. His grandfather, the Rev. E.W. Williamson, once served as pastor of Middle Baptist Church and Olivet Baptist Church.

freedom26_GSW1954-2 — Grammy Award-winning gospel artist Tamela Mann performs at the National Civil Rights Museum’s 35th annual Freedom Award ceremony. (Gary S. Whitlow/Tri-State Defender)

Sellers wrapped his remarks in light humor as he reflected on his conversations with other advocates and his own social justice journey. At one point, he paused, overcome with emotion, as he recalled visiting the National Civil Rights Museum earlier in the day and standing on the balcony where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

“The victories they won are being torn down all around us,” Sellers said.

To illustrate the cost and cruelty of social injustice, he asked the audience to imagine a 10-year-old student who might one day cure cancer but is struggling in school because of hunger.

“Somewhere we have forgotten that we come from a people of dreamers,” Sellers said. “We have forgotten the price that was paid.

“I am only 42 years old. I don’t really deserve this thing,” Sellers said. “But I will promise you this: Tomorrow I will work harder than I did yesterday.”

A video montage at the black-tie ceremony paid tribute to influential figures who died this year, including civil rights organizer Bernard Lafayette, a leader in the Nashville Movement, Freedom Rides and the Selma voting rights campaign; Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights icon, minister and founder of Operation PUS;, Memphis civil rights activist Clara Ester; feminist leader and journalist Gloria Steinem; and country music legend and philanthropist Dolly Parton.

Museum President Russ Wigginton commented ahead of the program on the generational evolution of Freedom Award honorees. He noted that earlier generations of civil rights leaders often could measure progress through changes in laws, court decisions and government policy. Marches, sit-ins and other forms of direct action helped produce the landmark legal changes achieved during the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 1960s.

But today, he said, the work can be more difficult to measure because much of it involves changing hearts and minds, increasing empathy and encouraging people to understand cultural differences.

“It is a delicate balancing act that requires patience and commitment,” Wigginton said.

He added, however, the fundamental goal remains unchanged: equal rights for everyone.

Based on reporting by Tri-State Defender.