Early voting in Maryland will take place May 2 to May 9A5 October 22, 2022 - October 28, 2022 The Afro-American
Volume 123 No. 20–22 Volume 132 No. 40
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THE BLACKwww.afro.com MEDIA AUTHORITY • AFRO.COM
MAY 4, 2024 - MAY 10, 2024
An AFRO salute: Black moms speak ahead of Mother’s Day 2024
Photo courtesy of Meta (Facebook) / Takeia Hinton
Courtesy photo
This week the AFRO spoke with Black moms about raising children in America. From dealing with gun violence to police brutality– Black women handle the challenges of motherhood with grace. Shown here on the left, Ashley Thompson, 39, with her husband Jeff Thompson, and children Titus (front, left) Armani, Judah and Simeon (top, right); And Takeia Hinton (right photo), enjoying the 2024 AFRO High Tea with her daughters Kyé (left), Karley and Kimora Stewart. By Alexis Taylor AFRO Managing Editor
afro.com
Mother’s Day is just around the corner and this week, in honor of the holiday, the AFRO spoke with moms about being a Black mother in America. Takeia Hinton was just 21 when she first entered motherhood.
“I was shocked,” she recalls. “I was happy and I was definitely excited when I found out I was having a girl.” Next, Hinton had a boy, and tried five more times- unsuccessfully- to duplicate the act. Today, she is mother to seven: a 25 year old, a 21 year old and a 19 and 18 year old she considers her “first set of kids” because they all arrived while she was in her 20s. Nine
years passed before she began on her “second set,” delivered in her late 30s and early 40s, now ages nine, five and three. Hinton said having such a large family was different for her, as she was an only child. She told the AFRO that– contrary to popular belief– she had an easier time with her pregnancies that came later in life.
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45.9 percent were to women ages 3039, and 3.6 percent were to women ages 40 and older.” Hinton said age does make a difference– but not always in a negative way. “When my older kids were younger, I was younger. I was a different type of mother,” she recalls. Continued on A3
Biden-Harris administration scrubs $6.1 billion in student loans for former art students By Megan Sayles AFRO Business Writer msayles@afro.com
AP Photo / Susan Walsh
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“I think after 35, honestly, is the best time to have children because you’re more mature, you have more wisdom and life experience,” she said. According to information released by the March of Dimes, “of all live births in the United States during 2020-2022, 4.2 percent were to women under the age of 20, 46.2 percent were to women ages 20-29,
President Joe Biden is providing more than $6 billion in student debt relief to former students of The Art Institutes following an investigation that discovered the school system intentionally misled students about post-graduate employment, salaries and career services.
The Biden-Harris administration is canceling more than $6.1 billion in student loans for nearly 317,000 individuals who attended The Art Institutes, a private, for-profit system of art schools that permanently closed in 2023. The announcement came on May 1 after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education (USED) revealed that the institutes and its parent company, Education Management Corporation (EDMC), fabricated postgraduation employment rates, salaries and career services to prospective students. “This institution falsified data, knowingly misled students and
cheated borrowers into taking on mountains of debt without leading to promising career prospects at the end of their studies,” wrote President Joe Biden in a statement. Students who attended an Art Institutes school on or after Jan. 1, 2004 through Oct. 16, 2017 will receive automatic relief. In total, the BidenHarris administration said it has approved $160 billion in student debt relief to nearly 4.6 million borrowers—$29 billion of which has been deployed to students who were deceived by their colleges or whose colleges closed suddenly. “For more than a decade, hundreds of thousands of hopeful students borrowed billions to attend The Art Institutes and got little but lies in return. That ends today—
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thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration’s work with the attorneys general offices of Iowa, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania,” wrote U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in a statement. “We must continue to protect borrowers from predatory institutions and work toward a higher education system that is Continued on A3
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