SHOPPE BLACK, Author at SHOPPE BLACK

These Entrepreneurs Open The First Breast Cancer Boutique in the D.C. Area

December 30, 2018

5 mins read

Cherry Blossom Intimates offers intimate-wear for breast cancer survivors and women who seek proper bra fit in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is the region’s first medical custom prosthetics and lingerie store of its kind.

Jasmine Jones, chief operating officer for Cherry Blossom Intimates and former Miss D.C. USA 2016, said this store “would not only help women with breast cancer, but females all over.”

“I lost my grandmother to breast cancer my sophomore year in college,” Jones said. “I remember her having to go and shop for prosthetic pieces that didn’t properly fit and only came in one color while store employees stuffed her behind a curtain to try them on.”

“It got to the point where after a while, my grandmother just stopped wearing them all together…They didn’t fit or make her feel beautiful. I wanted to do something to change that. Something that would allow all women going through this same journey to be able to do it with dignity and comfort and that’s what Cherry Blossom Intimates is all about.”

Dr. Regina Hampton and Jasmine Jones champion breast cancer. (Photo credit: Cherry Blossom Intimates)

To better accommodate women of all ethnic backgrounds, the breast care store will offer each client chest wall graphs, in order to mimic natural breast for prosthetics, nude nipple coverings in an array of skin tones and varied bra sizes from AA to size Q.

In addition to the items available for breast cancer survivors, the store will also provide other high quality styled bras, lingerie and shapeware for everyday women, that Jones says “will for the first time, allow girlfriends with or without breast cancer to laugh and shop together.”

“When Dr. Regina Hampton, the originator of Cherry Blossom Intimates and one of the founders of Southeast D.C.’s Breast Care for Washington came up with this vision, I was completely on board,” Jones said. “What a wonderful way to bring women together. What’s more, is that Regina took so much pride in her work from just understanding the female body to how important it is to feel beautiful.”

Hampton, a Howard University alumna, with more than 10 years in practice and one of the few breast care surgeons in Prince George’s County, said starting this next venture, was “a dream come true.”

“In places like Europe, beautiful undergarments are worn daily, just for the purpose of making the woman feel her most beautiful. In the United States however, lingerie is often worn to make somebody else feel good… it’s time to change that.”

“Women should be able to feel empowered every day by what they have on, from outer garments to lingerie—and breast cancer survivors are no exception,” Hampton continued. “I mean at our store we have shapeware, push up bras, wireless bras, lace and everything in between.”

Those who attend the weeklong celebration can look forward to complimentary teas, desserts, finger foods, musical guests, rose gold and champagne pink accents, plush dressing rooms, pink moss walls and a special section for young girls, coming of age.

Breast Cancer Boutique

“This store is for everybody” Hampton said. “While preparing for our breast cancer survivors and our every day women, we also thought to remember our girls. Pubescence is such a special time for young girls and so we wanted to provide a special line of training bras as well.”

“Being able to help other people is so important and it makes you feel so good,” Hampton continued. “I just want to show women that they are all beautiful no matter the package and make them believe it. I am so excited for Cherry Blossom Intimates.”

The facility plans to have medical in-house billing for all types of insurance for all their products and will also provide an alternative to those without appropriate coverage.

Cherry Blossom Intimates is located at 9201 Woodmore Center Drive Suite 426 Glenarden, Md.

Source: AFRO

11 Top Black Billionaires of 2018

December 28, 2018December 28, 2018

7 mins read

Of the 2,043 people who made it to the 2018 FORBES list of the World’s Billionaires, 11 of them are Black.

The Nigerians take the lead. Cement tycoon Aliko Dangote retains his position as the richest black person in the world, with a fortune estimated at $14.1 billion. He is followed by Nigerian oil and telecoms mogul Mike Adenuga who is the second richest black man in the world with a fortune FORBES currently estimates at $5.3 billion.

This year, Saudi-Ethiopian construction magnate Mohammed Al-Amoudi who was worth $8.4 billion last year fell off the ranking as FORBES decided to leave all Saudis off the billionaires list this year.

Zimbabwean telecom tycoon and philanthropist Strive Masiyiwa joins the black billionaires club and becomes the first person from the Southern African country to lay claim to a ten-figure fortune. Angolan investor Isabel dos Santos, American media mogul Oprah Winfrey and Nigerian oil woman Folorunsho Alakija are still the only Black female billionaires on the FORBES billionaires list.

Black Billionaires

Aliko Dangote, $14.1 billion

Nigerian, Sugar, Cement, Flour

Aliko Dangote is the richest black person in the world and Africa’s richest person. He founded and chairs Dangote Cement, Africa’s largest cement manufacturer. He also owns sugar, salt and four milling businesses that are all listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Dangote is making an audacious foray into oil. His Dangote Group is constructing an integrated refinery and petrochemical complex in the Lekki Free Zone near Lagos, Nigeria. Upon completion in 2019, the refinery is expected to be the world’s biggest single-train facility, and will cost an estimated $9bn.

Mike Adenuga, $5.3 billion

Nigerian, Oil

The ‘Guru’ as he is referred to in Nigerian business and social circles built his fortune on oil, telecoms, real estate and banking. His mobile telecom company, Globacom, is the second largest operator after MTN in Nigeria with more than 30 million subscribers today. His Conoil Producing is one of the largest indigenous oil exploration and producing companies in Nigeria today. Adenuga is also the largest individual owner of property in Nigeria and Ghana, and he owns a significant stake in construction giant, Julius Berger.

Robert Smith, $4.4 billion

American, Private Equity

The former Goldman Sachs executive started an Austin, Texas-based private equity and venture capital firm Vista Equity Partners in 2000. It now has over $30 billion in assets under management, and is one of the world’s most successful hedge funds. In 2016 he pledged $50 million to Cornell University, his alma mater.

Oprah Winfrey, $2.7 billion

American, Television

Oprah is no longer the richest African American. The former queen of daytime TV will begin work as a special contributor on 60 Minutes in the fall of 2017. Her once struggling cable channel, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) is now cash flow positive and is enjoying soaring ratings on the back of a series of successful sitcom and drama collaborations. She owns a 10% stake in Weight Watchers and acts as a brand ambassador.

Isabel Dos Santos, $2.6 billion

Angolan, Investments

Africa’s richest woman has had better days: Her father was President and she was Chairperson of Sonangol, the state-owned oil company. In November last year, Angola’s new President João Lourenço removed her from the role. Angolan authorities are now probing her tenure as chief of the oil giant and alleging financial impropriety. She denies the allegations. Isabel dos Santos owns a lucrative stake in Unitel, the country’s largest mobile phone network, and a stake in Banco BIC. Outside Angola, she owns nearly 6% of oil and gas firm Galp Energia (alongside Portuguese billionaire Americo Amorim), and nearly 19% of Banco BPI, the country’s fourth-largest bank. She is also a controlling shareholder of Portuguese cable TV and telecom firm Nos SGPS (formerly called Zon).

Patrice Motsepe, $2.5 billion

South African, Mining

Patrice Motsepe is the founder and CEO of African Rainbow Minerals, a listed mining company that owns ferrous and base metals, platinum and coal operations in South Africa. He is also the founder of African Rainbow Capital, an investment firm that acquires stakes in financial services companies. He owns the Mamelodi Sundowns Soccer club.

Folorunsho Alakija, $1.7 billion

Nigerian, Oil

Nigeria’s richest woman is vice chair of Famfa Oil, a Nigerian oil exploration company than owns a stake in Agbami oil field, a prolific offshore asset. Alakija started off as a secretary in a Nigerian merchant bank in the 1970s, then quit her job to study fashion design in England. Upon her return, she founded a Nigerian fashion label that catered to upscale clientele, including Maryam Babangida, wife to Nigeria’s former military president Ibrahim Babangida.

Michael Jordan, $1.65 billion

American, Basketball

Basketball’s greatest player is the majority shareholder of Charlotte Bobcats and enjoys lucrative deals with the likes of Gatorade, Hanes and Upper Deck. His biggest pile comes from Brand Jordan, a $1 billion (sales) sportswear partnership with Nike.

Strive Masiyiwa, $1.39 billion

Zimbabwean, Telecoms

Telecom tycoon Strive Masiyiwa is Zimbabwe’s first billionaire. Masiyiwa, 57, is the founder of Econet Group, a Zimbabwe-listed mobile phone company that also has investments in financial services, insurance, e-commerce, renewable energy, education, Coca-Cola bottling, hospitality and payment gateway solutions. Econet also has a Pay television outfit, Kwesé TV, which is already competing favorably across Africa with Naspers’ DSTV.

Michael Lee-Chin, $1.19 billion

Canadian, Investments

Lee-Chin, a Canadian of Jamaican origin, owns a 65% stake in National Commercial Bank Jamaica.

Mohammed Ibrahim, $1.18 billion

British, Mobile Telecoms, Investments

Mo Ibrahim, 71, made his initial fortune as the founder of Celtel, an African mobile phone company, which he sold to MTC of Kuwait for $3.4 billion in 2005. He pocketed $1.4 billion. He now reinvests through Satya Capital, a U.K-based, African focused private equity firm.

by @MfonobongNsehe for FORBES

World’s Largest Museum dedicated to Black Civilizations opens in Senegal

December 27, 2018May 24, 2020

4 mins read

After 52 years of waiting, Senegal is finally opening what has been described as the largest museum of Black civilization in the capital, Dakar.

With close to 14,000 square metres of floor space and capacity for 18,000 exhibits, the new Museums of Black Civilizations is already capable of competing with the National Museum of African American History in Washington.

The exhibition halls include Africa Now, showcasing contemporary African art and The Caravan and the Caravel, which tells the story of the trade in human beings – across the Atlantic and through the Sahara – that gave rise to new communities of Africans in the Americas.

“Kachireme” by Cuban artist Leandro Soto finds parallels between Nigerian ancestral spirits and Native American beliefs

These diaspora communities – such as in Brazil, the United States and the Caribbean – are recognized as African civilizations in their own right.

Since the museum could contain works owned by France since colonization, Senegal’s culture minister has called for the restitution by France of all Senegalese artwork on the back of a French report urging the return of African art treasures.

Apart from suffering from the negative consequences of colonialism, Africans have had to negotiate for the return of valuable historical cultural artifacts that were smuggled out of their countries.

These priceless monuments, which symbolize African identity are currently scattered across the world, with an impressive number in British and French Museums.

This striated kifwebe mask hails from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Many African countries have called for the return of these treasures but are yet to receive any positive response from these western countries, which are making huge sums of money from these objects, with some even insisting that they were obtained legally.

The museum has a pan-African focus with pieces from across Africa and the Caribbean

French President Emmanuel Macron recently announced that his country will return 26 artifacts taken from Benin in 1892. The thrones and statues, currently on display at the Quai Branly museum in Paris, were taken during a colonial war against the then Kingdom of Dahomey.

Senegal’s late president Leopold Sedar Senghor was the first to propose the idea of a museum about the civilizations of black Africa during a world festival of black artists in Dakar in 1966.

In December 2011, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade laid the foundation stone in the capital Dakar but works were suspended during a political change until the subsequent leader, Macky Sall set the project rolling between December 2013 and December 2015.

The museum was built in part to a $34.6 million donation from China.

Source: BBC

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This Family Owned Business Closed over $500 Million in Real Estate Deals In One Year

December 20, 2018January 31, 2023

8 mins read

National Standard Abstract is a family owned title insurance company located in Floral Park, NY. In 2018 they closed more than $500 million in commercial real estate transactions and have since closed over $1billion in transactions.

In June 2018, NSA closed a total of $432 million in faith-based and affordable-housing development transactions. The non-faith-based deals include the $189 million Archer Green in Jamaica, Queens; the $47 million Regina Pacis Housing in Gravesend, Brooklyn; and a $42 million project in Harlem.

We spoke with NSA founder and CEO, Osei Rubie to learn more about him, his background, and future plans.

What led you to get involved in the title insurance industry?

14 years ago, I was refinancing my personal residence and once I realized that title insurance was required; I did not want to pay for this cost, perceiving it as optional. The bank attorney then explained that this was a mandatory cost that the bank required to confirm that they were no current defects in title, violations, liens, or outstanding judgments.

I then asked the bank attorney, who happened to be a friend of mine, if he had a business relationship with the title insurance company; which led to him setting up a meeting for me to speak with them after the closing. After meeting with the company, I learned that they were not only publicly traded, but the largest underwriter of title insurance in the country.

At the time I was working with a pharmaceutical company, so when a permanent position to begin as a sales executive 2 weeks after we met was offered, I accepted thus beginning my career in the title insurance industry.

NSA focuses on faith-based affordable housing development projects. Why did you decide to focus on this niche?

New York City’s independent churches represent a significant portion of land ownership. As a result of Mayor de Blasio’s housing initiative, developers are constantly looking for new opportunities to create development projects, leading to the partnering of the two entities to create a faith-based affordable housing market.

This opportunity allowed us at National Standard Abstract to achieve our business mission in conjunction with our social mission. Here at National Standard Abstract, we strive to identify new sources of transactions to provide title insurance; as well as focusing on underdeveloped communities and advancing the growth of affordable housing.

Your father is an entrepreneur. Briefly describe his influence on your professional life.

My grandfather (Costa Rican), as well as my mother and father, were all entrepreneurs, in addition to numerous other family members.

We lived in Liberia, West Africa for several years during my childhood, during which my mother and father started multiple businesses that included, 3 clothing retail stores for men and women, a clothing manufacturing facility for school and military uniforms, as well as a restaurant.

Upon our return to the United States, my parents were driven by the void of representation for black children within the toy industry. The passion to fill this void gave birth to one of the first mass-produced black toy lines in the country, Huggy Bean Doll. This product was in all major retailers on a national basis that sold toys (Toys R US, Walmart, Kmart, Target, etc.).

I was directly involved in this process at the end of my high-school career, by actively presenting new toy product lines to these retailers. This intense exposure to entrepreneurship both domestically and internationally was the ultimate training ground.

In the past 5 years, what new belief, behavior or habit has most improved your life?

The Power of Faith and Overcoming Doubt.

When I started in title insurance, they were many comments made to me that it was unlikely that I would be able to succeed as an entrepreneur in title insurance. So much so that people would tell me that my aspirations of owning my own firm were time not well spent.

In October 2017 I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. This potentially terminal illness also has another layer of complexity in that there has been a significant advancement in technology for this procedure (laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP)). In the past, 10-12 years ago, this procedure could have a variety of results including impotence, but with new laparoscopic radical prostatectomy, this risk has been substantially minimized.

I had the surgery in February of this year and when first diagnosed I was told that because of my aggressive and intense schedule with my business, I would need to adjust my schedule accordingly and to expect my business revenue and sales goals to be reduced. Mental and physical conditioning has always been a major part of my business and life prep toolbox.

I’m happy to say that I defeated cancer this year making a complete recovery; while simultaneously having my best year in title insurance in my 14-year career.

Where do you see this business in 5 years?

Our goal within the next 5 years is to be the premier provider of title insurance nationally. We have provided title insurance for 2 multi-million-dollar commercial transactions in the state of New Jersey since we have begun in 2015, one for $15 million and the other for $35 million.

Our pipeline is filled with new out of state multi-million-dollar commercial transactions. Our focus on continuing to strengthen our position of leadership in the state of New York on multi-million-dollar commercial transactions will grow from this year’s banner accomplishment of over $600 million dollars closed and $274 million in Faith-Based development

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?

First, assemble an informal team and then transition to a formal advisory team, including but not limited to legal, accounting, financing, and expert or experts within the field that you have an interest in.

By surrounding yourself with these individuals to give feedback and technical instruction on processes and procedures in your industry of interest, you can maximize your ability to bypass traditional problems and errors in a startup environment, and also maximize your ability to accomplish “stretch goals” in a short period of time.

-Tony O. Lawson

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The Brownies’ Book is a Black Children’s Magazine from almost 100 years ago

December 17, 2018

6 mins read

Every revolutionary magazine needs a striking cover, and in January 1920, one appeared. It was a photograph of an African-American girl donning a fairy costume and crown. The title page of that issue contained an even bolder statement: “This is The Brownies’ Book,” it proclaimed in large font, “A Monthly Magazine For the Children of the Sun. Designed for All Children, But Especially For Ours.”

When The Brownies’ Book first hit presses in 1920, stories for or about Black children were largely missing from the landscape of children’s literature. And what did exist, from The Story of Little Black Sambo to poems like Ten Little Niggers that could be found in popular children’s magazines like St. Nicholas, was riddled with grotesque caricatures and stereotypes. As the creators of The Brownies’ Book, including the scholar and visionary W.E.B. Du Bois, put it: “All of the Negro child’s idealism, all his sense of the good, the great and the beautiful is associated with White people … He unconsciously gets the impression that the Negro has little chance to be great, heroic or beautiful.”

The Brownies’ Book, which cost 15 cents per copy, set out to do just that: to give the “Children of the Sun” the chance to see positive, heroic and beautiful impressions of themselves — and to help build up an armor of pride to protect them from the racism they were sure to encounter in their lives. And in doing that, the magazine not only helped alter the perspectives of its young readers but also lay the foundation for a century of Black children’s literature to follow.

The magazine featured stories, fairy tales, poems, games, songs, African folktales, and illustrated images of all types of Black girls and boys. It featured letters from the young readers themselves and a section entitled “As the Crow Flies,” which reported significant news and events from all over the world. The features were both entertaining and instructive. In “Dolly’s Dream,” for example, a 6-year-old girl wishes to have blonde curls just like her favorite doll, and she is given them by a fairy godmother in a dream, only to realize that nobody recognizes her as a result. When she awakens, she is happy to discover that she still has her black curls.

The Brownies’ Book also provided a forum for showcasing the art of aspiring Black writers and illustrators, including works from a 19-year-old Langston Hughes. Message books that are not also good literature do not work nearly as well, argues Dianne Johnson-Feelings, a professor of African-American literature at the University of South Carolina and editor of The Best of The Brownies’ Book. “It did start focusing people at creating literature aimed primarily at a Black audience,” says Johnson-Feelings, “but it was not only for Black readers. Good literature is for everybody.”

The Brownies’ Book

The Brownies’ Book ran from just January 1920 to December 1921 before encountering financial difficulties and ceasing to publish, but it helped foster a much longer lasting sense of pride and self-identity in its young readers and played a key part in sparking the development of African-American children’s literature. Du Bois claimed in his autobiography that The Brownies’ Book was one of the most satisfying efforts of his life.

The magazine was in many ways ahead of its time — and even our own, in which stories for Black children and by Black authors and illustrators continue to be underrepresented in children’s literature. But it was nonetheless an important and impactful effort. “If you wait until you think society is ready, then strides would never be taken,” says Johnson-Feelings. “If you wait for everyone’s hearts to change, then nothing ever changes on a big scale. So big thinkers do their thing and hope that everyone else catches up.”

Source: OZY

Silent film of Black couple kissing discovered, added to National Film Registry

December 17, 2018December 17, 2018

6 mins read

They are on screen for less than 30 seconds, a couple in simple embrace. The man, dressed in a suit and bowtie, and the woman in a frilled dress. They hug and kiss, swing wide their clasped hands, and kiss again.

Titled Something Good-Negro Kiss, the newly discovered silent film from 1898 is believed to be the earliest cinematic depiction of African-American affection. Thanks to scholars at the University of Chicago and the University of Southern California, the footage is prompting a rethinking of early film history.

The film was announced Dec. 12 as a new addition to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry—one of 25 selected for their enduring importance to American culture, along with Jurassic Park, Brokeback Mountain and The Shining. The 29-second clip is free of stereotypes and racist caricatures, a stark contrast from the majority of black performances at the turn of the century.

The film was announced Dec. 12 as a new addition to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, one of 25 selected for their enduring importance to American culture. The 29-second clip is free of stereotypes and racist caricatures, a stark contrast from the majority of black performances at the turn of the century.

“It was remarkable to me how well the film was preserved, and also what the actors were doing,” said UChicago’s Allyson Nadia Field, an expert on African-American cinema who helped identify the film and its historical significance. “There’s a performance there because they’re dancing with one another, but their kissing has an unmistakable sense of naturalness, pleasure, and amusement as well.

“It is really striking to me, as a historian who works on race and cinema, to think that this kind of artifact could have existed in 1898. It’s really a remarkable artifact and discovery.”

An associate professor in UChicago’s Department of Cinema and Media Studies, Field first saw scanned frames of the film in January 2017. The footage was discovered by USC archivist Dino Everett, who found the 19th-century nitrate print within a batch of silent films he had acquired from a Louisiana collector nearly three years earlier.

In examining the film, Everett noticed physical characteristics that led him to believe the film was made prior to 1903.

“I told students, ‘I think this is one of the most important films I’ve come across,’” Everett said. “But my expertise is not in African-American cinema. I didn’t know if something like this was already out there.”

To find out, Everett reached out to Field, whom he had worked with when she was faculty at UCLA.

A scholar who specializes in both silent and contemporary African-American film, Field is the author of Uplift Cinema: The Emergence of African American Film & The Possibility of Black Modernity. Her 2015 book examined archival materials, such as memos and publicity materials, to explore how black filmmakers used cinema as a method of civic engagement in the 1910s.

To uncover the origins of Everett’s footage, Field relied on inventory and distribution catalogs, tracing the film to Chicago. This was where William Selig—a vaudeville performer turned film producer—had shot it on his knockoff of a Lumière Cinématographe. That camera produced the telltale perforation marks which had tipped Everett off to the print’s age.

With help from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Field identified Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown, who in the clip are dressed in stage costumes common for minstrel performers.

Their performance is a reinterpretation of Thomas Edison’s “The Kiss,” featuring May Irwin and John Rice. Added to the National Film Registry nearly two decades ago, the 1896 film contained the very first on-screen kiss, and was also one of the first films to be publicly shown.

But less discussed is the fact that Irwin herself was a well-known minstrel performer—a fact that, Field argues, would have shaped how viewers understood both the Irwin-Rice kiss and Something Good-Negro Kiss. Indeed, the discovery of Something Good-Negro Kiss could prompt scholars to reevaluate their perceptions of the time period.

“This artifact helps us think more critically about the relationship between race and performance in early cinema,” Field said. “It’s not a corrective to all the racialized misrepresentation, but it shows us that that’s not the only thing that was going on.”

The discovery also offers a reminder to archivists and film scholars that cinematic knowledge is based on an incomplete record—and the hope that other significant pieces live on, tucked away in basements and storage units.

“I’m optimistic that lost films are just currently lost,” Everett said. “They’re not necessarily wiped off planet Earth. We can still make a lot of important finds.”

Source: UChicago News

Shea Moisture CEO could Turn Madam C.J. Walker’s Mansion into a Training Center for Black Women Entrepreneurs

December 17, 2018December 18, 2018

6 mins read

The actual sale of Irvington’s Villa Lewaro, home more than a century ago to Madam C. J. Walker, the Black entrepreneur who made a fortune selling skin and hair care products to African-American women, took place last summer, but the identity of the new owner—and his plans for use of the 34-room mansion—are emerging only just this month.

Richelieu Dennis, 48, founder and CEO of Sundial Brands, manufacturer and marketer of cosmetics for women of color, is the new owner of the estate on North Broadway, having purchased it from Harold and Helena Doley, who lived there for the past 25 years.

Mr. Dennis is scheduled to appear at the regular meeting of Irvington’s board of trustees on Monday, December 17, when he is expected to outline his plans to use the estate as a training center/retreat, designed to support black women entrepreneurs in their efforts to turn their ideas into flourishing enterprises. The 7:00 p.m. meeting is open to the public.

Madam CJ Walker’s Mansion

His timing couldn’t be better. Irvington has only just passed a new zoning law that permits adaptive reuse of registered historical buildings for non-residential purposes, including schools, tours and certain kinds of events. The purpose of the new law, which grew out of the recent Comprehensive Plan update even before the sale of the estate, is to give the owners of such properties some relief from the high upkeep and tax expenses that burden ownership. At present, only three such properties meet the criteria for the new law: Villa Nuits in Ardsley Park, the Octagon House and Villa Lewaro.

The previous owners, Ambassador Harold Doley and his wife Helena had worked with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to create an easement on Villa Lewaro that would allow it to operate as a museum as well as their residence.

Doley, who had served as Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to the Ivory Coast, envisioned something like the Barnes Foundation, on whose board he sat, which once housed one of the world’s great collections of Impressionist art in an elegant home in a residential neighborhood of Philadelphia that is not unlike Irvington.

While using Villa Lewaro as a museum is one of Mr. Dennis’s options, the entrepreneurial center concept better meshes with his ongoing commitment to promote African-American women’s business opportunities and a logical extension of his business. Sundial, now a subsidiary of Unilever, already includes a Madam C.J. Walker line of hair care products.

More to the point, last year, he launched the New Voices Fund, seeding it with $100 million to support black women entrepreneurs through training, mentorship and networking. Other supporters include Chase Bank, Goldman Sachs, Bank of American, Harvard and Amos Tuck graduate business schools and Babson College, from which Dennis graduated. Villa Lewaro would seem a natural venue for New Voices development programs.

Some of the estate’s immediate neighbors have expressed concern about the potential for noise and traffic under the new zoning guidelines. Village officials have assured them that the language of the new law gives the trustees full authority to limit the numbers of vehicles coming in and out of the property, the types of events held there and any changes in the property itself. Whatever Mr. Dennis proposes must first meet with their approval.

Source: The Hudson Independent

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The Mobile Good Food Market Brings Fresh Produce To Low-Income Neighborhoods

December 16, 2018

1 min read

Urban areas are difficult for someone who wants to maintain a fresh diet. The main reason is money: fresh vegetables and fruits are expensive, because the produce has to be shipped and you end up paying for the delivery cost more than for the quality of the product itself.

With the Mobile Good Food Market, you can have your fresh veggies and greens without traveling. Thanks to a collaboration between FoodShare Toronto, the City of Toronto, and United Way Toronto, an old bus was converted into what is a mobile food market. Everything from broccoli and lettuce, to apples and onions or other fruits and vegetables are available when the bus comes to town, twice per week.

Mobile Good Food Market

The price isn’t that much lower, because they have to take care of the costs involved by the bus, but all in all, the idea behind such a conversion is easy to praise and be impressed by. You can find more details in the video below…

Source: Good Home Design

Black Wedding Dress Designers You Should Know

December 16, 2018February 1, 2023

1 min read

No matter what your personal style, these Black wedding dress designers from the U.S. and across the world, will make you look amazing on your special day.

Black Wedding Dress Designers

Jean-Ralph Thurin

black wedding dress designers

MEJEANNE COUTURE

Andrea Pitter Campbell

Black Wedding Dress Designers

Shukri Hashi Bridal

Black Wedding Dress Designers

Brides by NoNA

Black Wedding Dress Designers

Kosibah

AMSALE

Nene L.A. Shiro

Black Wedding Dress Designers

Andrea Iyamah

Deola Sagoe

Also, check out our list of wedding photographers!

Tony O. Lawson

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Daughters of the Diaspora is teaching young Black women about Reproductive Health

December 15, 2018June 26, 2022

12 mins read

When Shanaye Jeffers was in fourth grade, she often skipped touch football and double-dutch jump rope at recess to read a book on puberty. In fifth grade, she jumped at the chance to do a school project on childbirth.

By the time Jeffers got her period in sixth grade, she was already well-versed in reproductive health. She knew that women are most fertile when they’re ovulating. That wearing tight, synthetic clothing can increase the risk of a yeast infection. That it’s important to wash private parts but not with heavily scented products.

And she also knew her dedication to understanding reproductive health was unusual.

Daughters of the Diaspora

Most girls don’t know about the inner workings of their bodies, sexual-health experts say — especially black teenage girls, who often face stigma against asking questions at home and are poorly served by sex-education school curriculums tailored for a white majority.

“Sex ed is not serving young black women really at all,” said Jeffers, now a 28-year-old obstetrics and gynecology resident at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

She’s trying to change that. As Philadelphia site director for Daughters of the Diaspora, a nonprofit founded in 2012 to teach black teenage girls about reproductive health and self-esteem, Jeffers is working to give other girls the same knowledge and passion to take charge of their health that she had as a child.

The information is often hard to come by, Jeffers said. If girls ask family members about sex or development, they’ll likely be accused of “trying to be grown.” Many parents fear discussing sex is the first step toward having it. For immigrant families from Africa, there can be additional stigma around the topic of HIV, which is widespread among young women there and causes more than half a million deaths on the continent each year.

In U.S. schools, black students are more likely to receive abstinence-only education than white students, according to a Washington University study. And even when they receive a comprehensive curriculum, it is rarely tailored to their lives and culture, experts say.

DAUGHTERS OF THE DIASPORA Shanaye Jeffers (center, front) with girls at a Philadelphia summit held by Daughters of the Diaspora.

The problem is not just about satisfying girls’ curiosity. Studies show that receiving comprehensive sex ed can delay the initiation of sex, increase contraceptive use, and reduce teenage pregnancies.

Though birth rates for black teens have dropped significantly in recent decades, they are still more than twice as likely as white girls to become pregnant. They have a higher risk of facing sexual violence and contracting a sexually transmitted disease, especially in Philadelphia, where rates of transmission are three to five times higher than the national average.

“I really want to break the cycle,” Jeffers said.

Daughters of the Diaspora (DoD) recruits medical students to lead groups of three to five teenage girls, typically from West or Southwest Philadelphia, in lessons on female anatomy, contraception, and goal-setting over a three-month period. The teens are recruited through local schools and community connections.

Though the curriculum is heavy on medical information — describing how different hormones interact with the brain, ovaries and uterus — it’s meant to be relatable. A SEPTA map is used as an analogy for the endocrine system. Quotes from Maya Angelou and Zora Neale Hurston are scattered throughout.

The medical students, as young black women themselves, act as role models, often sharing their own experiences in the hopes of boosting girls’ self-esteem and helping them envision new futures.

“We try to get these young ladies to see themselves in a way they probably haven’t before,” Jeffers said. “As agents of their own health.”

Not just a Philly problem

Joy Cooper can still remember sitting in a health class at Philadelphia High School for Girls, listening to her middle-aged, male volleyball coach recite textbook passages on contraception to an all-female class.

Students were too uncomfortable to answer questions, let alone ask any, said Cooper, a co-founder of DoD and now a 34-year-old ob-gyn in Oakland, Calif. “I realized who’s delivering the information makes a difference,” she said.

Nenna Nwazota (left) and Joy Cooper are co-founders of Daughters of the Diaspora.

But this isn’t a Girls’ High problem. Or even a Philadelphia problem. Across the nation, research shows, black girls are poorly served by sex ed, if they’re getting any at all.

In Pennsylvania, schools are required only to provide education on HIV and AIDS, with a focus on abstinence. The Philadelphia School District provides teachers with additional information on contraception and dating violence, but it does not require any specific curriculum. What students learn can vary greatly depending on the teacher.

At Horace Furness High School in South Philadelphia, health and physical education teacher Colleen Hanna supplements the district-provided textbook with song lyrics that discuss sexual stereotypes of women. She is working to include more information on gender identity and sexual violence, too, but it’s a slow process. While the district provides guidance, “a lot of the research comes down to me,” Hanna said.

Though it isn’t the case in Philadelphia, research shows that, nationally, black students are more likely to receive abstinence-only education because they are often in poorer school districts that rely on federal funding. “Schools with few resources can hardly afford to turn away these offers of outside help,” a report in the Berkeley Journal of African-American Law & Policy states.

But abstinence-only curriculums can reinforce harmful stereotypes of black people, said Tracie Gilbert, an independent sex educator with a doctorate in human sexuality education from Widener University. “The narrative is that, without restriction, black girls will be the most amoral sexual beings of society,” she said. Rather than teaching them to make informed decisions about their sex lives, many curriculums suggest they must be abstinent to avoid harming themselves or others.

Even more expansive curriculums, though — often created by white educators and based on research of white subjects — can be tone-deaf for students of color, said Laura McGuire, a certified sexuality educator and founder of the National Center for Equity & Agency. They often tell students to use birth control, but “there might not be easy access to any of those things,” she said. Similarly, telling someone to delay pregnancy because it will help her get to college ignores students who don’t plan to take that path.

Some early, but slow, progress

Daughters of the Diaspora tries to supplement the shortcomings of school-based sex ed by creating a cycle of education within the black community. The idea is to make learning fun and show that it’s not confined to a classroom, Cooper said. The goal is that girls who participate in the curriculum will pass on that knowledge to their friends.

“How we educate people [in schools] is about the majority,” she said. “So when you’re in the minority, it’s left up to people in your community to try to make things better.”

About 40 girls in Philadelphia have gone through the curriculum in the last two years, Cooper said, and there are smaller chapters in New York, Oakland, and Apam, Ghana. Some of the students have started spreading the message.

Chaloub, from Southwest Philly, gave her cousin and her best friend recaps after every DoD class. She’d recount for them the different ways someone can contract an STD, the difference between bacterial and viral infections, and how to treat them.

Fatme Chaloub completed the Daughters of the Diaspora curriculum as a student.

Efforts similar to DoD are underway around the country, with organizations such as In Our Own Voice and Women of Color Sexual Health Networ k (WOCSHN) pushing for more culturally inclusive sex ed.

“There’s a recognition that the way it’s always worked hasn’t worked well,” said Mariotta Gary-Smith, co-founder of WOCSHN. “These communities are going to continue to find ways to make sure their voices are heard.”

But it’s unclear whether educational efforts will impact the larger health disparities faced by black women in America. Research shows that even highly educated and high-income black people experience higher rates of hypertension, preterm birth, and other negative health outcomes compared with their white peers.

Education is only one piece in addressing this systemic issue, Jeffers said. “I can only hope this program makes women feel more inclined to seek help if there’s something abnormal or off in the future.”

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

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