Insight ::: 08.25.2025

Liberian pastor Dr. Francis Tabla builds in Minnesota and Africa From War to Worship:

By Pulane Choane Contributing Writer

Ebenezer Community Church, 9200 West Broadway Avenue in Brooklyn Park has grown from a Bible study of eight people in 2000 into a 700-member congregation with a $10 million campus that serves as a cornerstone for Minnesota’s Liberian community. For senior pastor Dr. Francis Tabla, the mission has always been about healing and empowerment. “Like you heard, I’m from Liberia and it had always been my desire to do graduate studies…because I wanted to be able to empower my people back in Liberia,” he said. “I went through the first phase of the civil war and then I came to the United States to study and upon completing my studies the civil war erupted again into two different phases, and I could not go back.” What began as a small Bible study has become a thriving congregation. “We just started a Bible study with about eight people,” he recalled. “It was just the desire to bring us Africans together to worship God, to heal from our wounds we experienced during the course of the civil war. We had no idea that this would evolve into a plethora of ministries not just in the Twin Cities, but across the country and even in Africa.”

you’re talking about 300,000 people were killed.” He described how those memories remain raw.

be killed,” the pastor said. “So, it was a difficult time to stand before our congregation to even preach.”

The trauma of Liberia’s brutal conflict continues to shape the lives of many in the diaspora. “Our civil war was one of the most devastating civil wars in the history of mankind,” he said. “Our country was just about three million people. And we lost 10% of the population in that war. So,

“When I came to the United States, when I heard a gunshot, I begin to relive the experience of the Civil War because I went through that. On one occasion, I was driving my professor…we were driving in a part of Virginia where they had these jet bombers flying. When the jet bomber flew over the highway, I swerved from the highway and was going into the ditch. And he says, ‘Francis, what’s going on with you? Do you want to kill me?’ But that was the trauma.”

Events in Minnesota have added new layers of pain.

“When George Floyd got murdered the trauma in our community increased because we felt now our children were at risk and any time they could

Immigration fears compound the challenge.

“Some of our members are afraid to come to church,” he explained. “Some are making arrangement with some friends that if for any reason I’m taken out of the country forcefully you will take care of my children that were born here who are citizens. I mean can you imagine that? This is not anything that we are used to. We come from Africa and we have dignity. Then you come here and then you have to deal with the issue of immigration. It is traumatic.”

Yet Ebenezer has remained focused on opportunity.

“Last month we had our graduation celebration at our church where we had 37 graduates,” he

noted proudly. “Eighteen from high school, 11 from college, seven from graduate schools. We also do professional development…people in our church help people to become professionally developed, writing resumes, putting their curriculum vitae together.”

Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, the church is in a capital campaign to eliminate its remaining $4 million debt. “Our total project cost us a little over $10 million US. We have paid $6 million of that, and we are in a capital campaign to raise funds to get the debt off because we have great ministry opportunities to us here in America and in other parts of Africa,” he said. His vision also extends back to Liberia, where he recently joined the launch of a privately funded smart city in Bentol. “This has never hap-

pened before in the history of Liberia to build a smart city,” he explained. “So, this will be the first. It’s going to be 350 homes on 100 acres of land and it’s going to have all of the amenities you can think about.” He emphasized that the project is African led. “Interestingly, all of the investors are Africans,” he said. “And so, the slogan, the mantra is Africa for Africa. Africa must be able to help develop Africa.”

Looking back at the journey from eight people to a multimillion-dollar campus and now international projects, the pastor reflected: “From the very early part of my walk with the Lord, I’ve always learned to believe God for things to happen. With God, all things are possible.”

The Minneapolis Fire Department (MFD) welcomed its newest class of cadets during a graduation ceremony at Minneapolis Southwest High School on Aug. 4.

By

When Marlee James learned she was pregnant, she was determined to give birth at home. She had heard stories from Black women in her family of being ignored by doctors and needing to advocate for themselves before receiving adequate care. And in her work as a therapist, she had researched institutional racism and understood the harm it could cause in hospital settings.

“My overall feeling about it was just kind of a gen-

eral mistrust,” James said. Based on the statistics, James had reason to be concerned: The maternal mortality rate for women who are Black is more than 50 deaths per 100,000 live births, more than three times the rate for women who are white, Hispanic or Asian, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Minnesota, where the maternal mortality rate is lower than the national average, Black and Indigenous women still make up an outsized proportion of pregnancy-associated deaths, according to the Minnesota Department of

Health. Infants who are Black suffer the effects, too. In 2022, the national mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black infants was nearly 11 deaths per 1,000 live births, nearly double the rate for all infants, according to the CDC.

Overcoming patients’ mistrust is critical, said retired Twin Cities OB-GYN Barbara Toppin. When parents don’t trust providers, they are more likely to avoid essential perinatal care, defined as care during pregnancy and within one year of giving birth. “You walk this funny

line when you have someone who comes in late during their pregnancy and they already have a problem, because it’s harder to treat them,” Toppin said. “And if you can’t treat them, if they still have a bad outcome, they’re going to see you the same way as they see everybody else.”

In recent years, many health care providers and medical schools have amped up efforts to recruit and train more Black physicians. The efforts reflect research showing that a shared racial identity between

Meet House of Representatives members at the Great Minnesota Get-Together

invited to weigh in on hot political topics and meet with legislators during their visit to the House of Representatives’ booth at the

Minnesota State

The booth highlight is the informal, unscientific House opinion poll. Nearly 8,000 votes were

The 18 men and women completed an intense, three-month training program that taught them the cutting-edge skills Minneapolis firefighters need to save lives and protect property in the toughest situations imaginable. The 18 cadets

last year. This year, fairgoers can let their opinions be known on a dozen issues, including: • school starting before Labor Day; undocumented immigrants accessing state programs; firearms in the State Capitol; • a projected state budget deficit; • free fishing licenses; and higher taxes for the wealthiest Minnesotans.

My American Story

By Toni Wellons Black Press USA

In a society that often erases African American narratives, my family has insisted on remembering, on speaking our truth, on ensuring that future generations know they come from greatness. In a moment where the telling of Black history is facing a very real, very direct threat in this country, proudly sharing our stories is an act of both resistance and necessity.

Our history must be preserved. My name is Tonia Wellons, and I am the daughter of Rendell and Carol Wellons, the granddaughter of Ruth and James Lane, the great-granddaughter of St. Paul and Julia Wellons, the great-great-granddaughter of Hack and Maria Holloman, and the third great-granddaughter of Jason and Maria Holloman.

This lineage, which was spoken aloud at our 71st family reunion this month and has been spoken aloud at ev-

Results are scheduled to be on the House website (www.house.mn.gov) Sept. 2, the day after the fair closes. Fairgoers can also talk to House members, stand

behind a replica of the House Speaker’s desk for a photo opportunity, pick up information about the Legislature and don the always-popular Capitol Dome hat.

ery family reunion for seventy years, carries the weight of our collective memory and the power of our shared triumph. When I trace my roots back through eight generations to Temperance Brown, born around 1805 in Ivor, Virginia, I am not just recounting names and dates—I am honoring a legacy of resilience, faith, and unwavering commitment to family and community that defines

President Trump, who typically travels with a full contingent of high-level protection, insinuated that he finally felt safe enough to go to dinner in the District of Columbia. “My wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four years,” said the nation’s 47th president. “Washington, D.C. is safe,” President Trump declared

from the Oval Office today. Those words came while Trump was hosting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During the question-and-answer session, which primarily focused on a peace deal in the Russian-Ukrainian war, Trump explained, “You did that in four days.” He was speaking of how fast the National Guard quelled the violence in what was once called Chocolate City. The President deployed the National Guard to D.C. a week ago, to a city with reduced crime rates over the previous year. Violent crime

who I am today. In a society that often erases African American narratives, my family has insisted on remembering, on speaking our truth, on ensuring that future generations know they come from greatness. In a moment where the telling of Black history is facing a very real, very direct threat in this country,

What Amanda Seales exposed was bigger than politics

By Haley Taylor Schlitz, Esq.

The first text came late in the evening: “Haley, have you seen the latest episode of Surrounded?” I brushed it off at first, but then another message buzzed in. And then another. By the third friend, I knew it was not just about a show. When your friends tell you that you have to watch a political debate, it usually means they do not want you to be entertained, they want you to be prepared. Prepared to be angry, to shake your head, maybe even to feel a little sick.

So I sat down and watched Amanda Seales face off against twenty Black con-

By Chris Lamb Professor of Journalism,

John Rivers, John Bailey, David Middleton, Leroy Major and Buck Godfrey – all teammates from the 1955 Cannon Street YMCA Little League All-Star team – left Charleston, South Carolina, on a bus on Aug. 18, 2025.

After a stop at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, for a couple days – where their story is included in an exhibit on Black baseball that opened in 2024 –they’ll head to Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

There, they’ll be recognized before the Little League World Series championship game on August 24, 2025 – 70 years after the players, then 11 and 12 years old, watched the championship game from the bleachers, wondering why they weren’t on the field living out their own dreams instead of watching other boys live out theirs.

servatives. And what I saw was not just a debate. It was a mirror held up to a larger problem, a problem bigger than party lines, bigger than ideology. It was the problem of what happens when history gets lost, twisted, or abandoned altogether.

There is something heartbreaking about seeing Black people, especially young Black people, speak so boldly while standing on foundations built of half-truths and distortions. Many spoke with confidence but not clarity. Some dismissed systemic racism as if history had expired. Others waved away Jim Crow and redlining as ancient relics irrelevant to our present or never existed at all. At one point, DEI was described as racism “against other races.”

Another declared, without irony, that “Black culture is toxic.”

Let us pause there.

“Black culture is toxic.” That statement is not only ignorant,

When the Cannon Street team registered for a baseball tournament in Charleston in July 1955, it put the team and the forces of integration on a collision course with segregation, bigotry and the Southern way of life.

White teams refused to take the field with the Cannon Street team, who represented the first Black Little League in South Carolina. The team won two tournaments by forfeit. They were supposed to then go to a regional tournament in Rome, Georgia, where, if they won, they’d advance to the Little League World Series.

But Little League officials ruled the team ineligible for the regional tournament because it had advanced by winning on forfeit and not on the field, as the rules stipulated.

A 4-team Black league is born

The Civil Rights Movement is often told in terms of court decisions, bus boycotts and racist demagogues. It’s rarely told from the point of view of children, who suffered in ways

it is a slap in the face to centuries of survival, creativity, and brilliance. To call Black culture toxic is to erase the intellect, music, art, faith, organizing, and joy that carried us through slavery, Jim Crow, and every assault since. It is to reduce the cultural heartbeat of the world to something shameful. What is actually toxic is the idea that you can inherit all that beauty and resilience and still stand before your people to spit contempt back at it. That is not critique. That is indoctrination speaking through you.

Amanda Seales herself put it plainly at one point: “I knew I was going to be surrounded by ignorance, but damn.” That line captured what so many of us felt watching. This was not just disagreement over policy. This was ignorance being dressed up as insight, and broadcast with pride. And honestly, as I watched, it felt

that left physical and emotional scars.

When I was a journalism professor at the College of Charleston, I learned how the presence of a single Black allstar team was enough to cause one of the biggest crises in Little League history. In 2022, I wrote the book “Stolen Dreams: The 1955 Cannon Street All-Stars and Little League Baseball’s Civil War.”

The team’s story begins in 1953. Robert Morrison, president of the Cannon Street YMCA, petitioned Little League Baseball to create a league for Black teams, and Little League Baseball granted the charter. Dozens of Black 11and 12-year-old boys were selected for the four-team league before the 1954 season.

They played on a diamond of grass and gravel at Harmon Field in Charleston, a city with a long history of racial strife. In 1861, the Civil War began in Charleston harbor, where hundreds of thousands of slaves had been brought to the U.S. from the 1600s to the 1800s. The field also wasn’t far from Emanuel AME church, where nine Black parishioners were murdered during a prayer meeting in 2015.

Little League Baseball barred first-year leagues from the postseason tournaments. At some point during the 1955 season, the best players were selected for the league’s All-Star team. Cannon Street YMCA officials then registered the team for the Charleston city tournament, which included allstar teams from the city’s allwhite leagues.

Little League Baseball officially prohibited racial discrimination. But in South Carolina, racial discrimination was still legal.

like many of those participants were not there for genuine discussion at all. They were there for something else. It felt like a performance, a bid for attention, where the goal was not clarity but clout. Where the trauma of our people was reduced to a stage prop to build followers, rack up clips, and monetize controversy. In that light, the ignorance was not just disturbing. It was profitable.

The most chilling moment came when one man, running for Congress in San Diego California, calmly defended the Three-Fifths Compromise. He framed it as clever politics about congressional representation, brushing aside the undeniable fact that it codified Black humanity as a fraction. He argued that, in some twisted way, it protected abolitionists. He said this like it was reasoned analysis, never realizing, or even ignoring, he was justifying the idea

that our ancestors were worth less than whole human beings. This is what happens when historical knowledge is outsourced to those who never saw us as equals in the first place. You do not just lose facts, you lose your footing. You begin to believe that oppression was somehow logical. You begin to call injustice strategy. And that is the real crisis on display. Not that these were conservatives or liberals, but that too many of them were confidently misinformed. Too many of them were comfortable reciting distorted versions of history as if they were truth. When that happens, history is not just forgotten, it is rewritten in real time, by us, against us. As a young Black woman, I cannot watch this and laugh it off as cringe-worthy TV. I see a warning. I see how the deliberate denial of history is producing generations un-

equipped to understand their reality. I see how easy it is for narratives built on falsehoods to sound convincing when the truth is hidden. And I see how this puts us all at risk, because a community that cannot agree on its past will never be able to build its future.

The fight ahead is not about Democrat or Republican. It is not about which side claims Blackness. It is about whether we will defend truth against misinformation. Because when we stop defending the truth, we stop defending ourselves. And when young Black people start calling their own culture toxic, start defending compromises that reduced their ancestors to fractions, we are not just in a battle of ideology. We are in a battle for reality itself.

Dixie fights back The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled a year earlier that segregation in schools was unconstitutional in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, paving the way for racial integration. Few states resisted integration as fiercely as South Carolina, and no politician fought harder against racial equality than the state’s junior U.S. senator, Strom Thurmond. So when the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars registered for Charleston’s citywide tournament in July 1955, all the white teams withdrew. The Cannon Street team won by forfeit and advanced to the state tournament.

Danny Jones, the state’s director of Little League Baseball, petitioned the organization to create a segregated state tournament. Little League Baseball’s president, Peter Mc-

Govern, denied Jones’ request. He said that any team that refused to play the Cannon Street team would be banned from the organization.

Thurmond let it be known to Jones that an integrated tournament could not be permitted. In the end, Jones urged all the white teams to withdraw from the state tournament. He then resigned from Little League Baseball, created the Little Boys League and wrote the league’s charter, which prohibited Black players.

The Little Boys League – which was rebranded as Dixie Youth Baseball –soon replaced Little League in other Southern states; within six years, there were 390 such leagues spanning most of the former Confederacy. It would be decades before Little League Baseball returned to South Carolina.

Having won the South

Carolina tournament by forfeit, the Cannon Street YMCA AllStars prepared for the regional tournament in Rome, Georgia, where the state’s governor, Marvin Griffin, objected to integration. If youth baseball could be integrated, so, too, could schools, swimming pools and municipal parks, he said. Let them play! Little League rules said that teams could advance only by playing and winning, so the Cannon Street’s state championship was ruled invalid because it had come by forfeit. McGovern decided against making an exception for the Cannon Street YMCA AllStars.

Most white-owned newspapers, whether in the South or North, had long stayed silent on the topic of racial discrimination. But the story of the Cannon Street All-Stars broke through. Editors and reporters may have wanted to avoid the topic of racism, but boys being denied the opportunity to play in a baseball tournament was too objectionable to ignore.

On July 31, 1955, New York Daily News columnist Dick Young asked Brooklyn Dodgers star Jackie Robinson, who had broken Major League Baseball’s color barrier eight years earlier, about the white teams that had quit the tournament rather than play against

Trump-Putin summit:

Veteran diplomat explains why putting peace deal before ceasefire wouldn’t end Russia-Ukraine war

By Donald Heflin Executive Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

If you’re confused about the aims, conduct and outcome of the summit meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin held in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025, you’re probably not alone.

As summits go, the meeting broke with many conventions of diplomacy: It was last-minute, it appeared to ignore longstanding protocol and accounts of what happened were conflicting in the days after the early termination of the event.

The Conversation

U.S.’s politics editor Naomi Schalit interviewed Donald Heflin, a veteran diplomat now teaching at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, to help untangle what happened and what could happen next.

It was a hastily planned summit. Trump said they’d accomplish things that they didn’t seem to accomplish. Where do things stand now?

It didn’t surprise me or any experienced diplomat that there wasn’t a concrete result from the summit.

First, the two parties, Russia and Ukraine, weren’t asking to come to the peace table. Neither one of them is ready yet, apparently. Second, the process was flawed. It wasn’t prepared well enough in advance, at the secretary of state and foreign minister level. It wasn’t prepared at the staff level. What was a bit of a

surprise was the last couple days before the summit, the White House started sending out what I thought were kind of realistic signals. They said, “Hopefully we’ll get a ceasefire and then a second set of talks a few weeks in the future, and that’ll be the real set of talks.”

Now, that’s kind of reasonable. That could have happened. That was not a terrible plan. The problem was it didn’t happen. And we don’t know exactly why it didn’t happen.

Reading between the lines, there were a couple problems. The first is the Russians, again, just weren’t ready to do this, and they said, “No ceasefire. We want to go straight to permanent peace talks.” Ukraine doesn’t want that, and neither do its European allies. Why?

When you do a ceasefire, what normally happens is you leave the warring parties in possession of whatever land their military holds right now. That’s just part of the deal. You don’t go into a 60- or 90-day ceasefire and say everybody’s got to pull back to where they were four years ago.

But if you go to a permanent peace plan, which Putin wants, you’ve got to decide that people are going to pull back, right? So that’s problem number one.

Problem number two is it’s clear that Putin is insisting on keeping some of the territory that his troops seized in 2014 and 2022. That’s just a non-starter for the Ukrainians.

Is Putin doing that because that really is his bottom line demand, or did he want to blow up these peace talks, and that was a good way to blow them up? It could be either or both.

Russia has made it clear that it wants to keep parts of Ukraine, based on history and ethnic makeup.

The problem is, the world community has made it clear for decades and decades and decades, you don’t get what you want by invading the country next door.

Remember in Gulf War I, when Saddam Hussein invaded and swallowed Kuwait and made it the 19th province of Iraq? The U.S. and Europe went in there and kicked him out. Then there are also examples where the U.S. and Europe have told countries, “Don’t do this. You do this, it’s going to be bad for you.”

So if Russia learns that it can invade Ukraine and seize territory and be allowed to keep it, what’s to keep them from doing it to some other country? What’s to keep some other country from doing it?

You mean the whole world is watching.

Yes. And the other thing the world is watching is the U.S. gave security guarantees to Ukraine in 1994 when they gave up the nuclear weapons they held, as did Europe. The U.S. has, both diplomatically and in terms of arms, supported Ukraine during this war. If the U.S. lets them down, what kind of message does that send about how reliable a partner the U.S. is?

The U.S. has this whole other thing going on the other side of the world where the country is confronting China on various levels. What if the U.S. sends a signal to the Taiwanese, “Hey, you better make the best deal you can with China, because we’re not going to back your play.”

At least six European leaders are coming to Washing-

ton along with Zelenskyy. What does that tell you?

They’re presenting a united front to Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to say, “Look, we can’t have this. Europe’s composed of a bunch of countries. If we get in the situation where one country invades the other and gets to keep the land they took, we can’t have it.”

President Trump had talked to all of them before the summit, and they probably came away with a strong impression that the U.S. was going for a ceasefire. And then, that didn’t happen.

Instead, Trump took Putin’s position of going straight to peace talks, no ceasefire.

I don’t think they liked it. I think they’re coming in to say to him, “No, we have to go to ceasefire first. Then talks and, PS, taking territory and keeping it is terrible precedent. What’s to keep Russia from just storming into the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – next? The maps of Europe that were drawn 100 years ago have held. If we’re going to let Russia erase a bunch of the borders on the map and incorporate parts, it could really be chaotic.”

Where do you see things going?

Until and unless you hear there’s a ceasefire, nothing’s really happened and the parties are continuing to fight and kill.

What I would look for after the Monday meetings is, does Trump stick to his guns post-Alaska and say, “No, we’re gonna have a big, comprehensive peace agreement, and land for peace is on the table.” Or does he kind of swing back towards the Europe-

an point of view and say, “I really think the first thing we got to have is a ceasefire”?

Even critics of Trump need to acknowledge that he’s never been a warmonger. He doesn’t like war. He thinks it’s too chaotic. He can’t control it. No telling what will happen at the other end of war. I think he sincerely wants for the shooting and the killing to stop above all else.

The way you do that is a ceasefire. You have two parties say, “Look, we still hate each other. We still have this really important issue of who controls these territories, but we both agree it’s in our best interest to stop the fighting for 60, 90 days while we work on this.”

If you don’t hear that coming out of the White House into the Monday meetings, this isn’t going anywhere. There are thousands

of Ukrainian children who have been taken by Russia – essentially kidnapped. Does that enter into any of these negotiations? It should. It was a terror tactic. This could be a place where you can make progress. If Putin said, well, “We still don’t want to give you any land, but, yeah, these kids here, you can have them back,” it’s the kind of thing you throw on the table to show that you’re not a bad guy and you are kind of serious about these talks. Whether they’ll do that or not, I don’t know. It’s really a tragic story. Disclosure statement Donald Heflin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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doctors and patients can lead to improved health outcomes and a reduced infant mortality rate, particularly for infants who are Black.

Minneapolis-based

OB-GYN Elizabeth Alabi knows firsthand the importance of shared experiences between doctors and patients. “I was a Black patient before I was a

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proudly sharing our stories is an act of both resistance and necessity. Our history must be preserved.

Temperance Brown was born into bondage, yet she became the foundation upon which our family’s American story was built. Her daughter, Maria Brown, later known as Martha, married Jason Holloman, and together they exemplified the courage and defiance that would become our family’s hallmark. When Jason, described in our oral history as “a proud and courageous man who refused to be beaten by his master,” was sold away to Alabama, never to be seen again, Maria faced the unimaginable—raising three sons alone while enslaved. The year was around 1830, just one year before Nat Turner’s rebellion would shake the very foundations of Virginia’s plantation system.

What happened next

Washington

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dropped by 26%, marking the lowest level in 30 years. Homicides also fell by 11%.

physician, so I understand what it’s like to go through the health care system,” she said. Now, Alabi uses her experiences to advocate for her patients and meet them wherever they are on their journey to parenthood. She approaches conversations in her exam room as she approaches chats with her girlfriends, rather than reinforcing a physician-patient dynamic that can feel intimidating. In her practice, Alabi has worked alongside birth workers like midwives and dou-

reveals the extraordinary character that runs through our bloodline. After the Civil War ended, Maria’s three sons— Hack Hanson, James Henry, and Julius—did something revolutionary: they purchased the very plantation where they had once lived as slaves. “Overhome ,” as it was known, became more than just land; it became a symbol of transformation, a place where the formerly enslaved became landowners, where the oppressed became community leaders.

The values that sustained our family through these trials were rooted in faith, community, and an unshakeable belief in justice. Hack and James Henry, according to our family historians, were “very outspoken and stood up for the rights of others.” They weren’t politicians, but they stayed informed about political activities, riding their “jumper”—a one-seat buggy—to Courtland whenever issues demanded their attention.

As the first Black landowners in Southampton County and among the first Black voters in the county, they understood that

las who provide an approach to childbirth traditionally associated with fewer medical interventions. Too often, she said, the practices are pitched at odds with each other. “In this field, sometimes it’s almost like the OB versus the midwife versus the doula, and really we should just be working collectively to take care of patients,” she said. Alabi worries social media drives divisions around childbirth and the “right” way for moms to labor. For example, she said, when someone shares

their freedom was meaningless unless they actively participated in shaping their community’s future.

The tradition of family gatherings – first during Thanksgiving and beginning over 70 years ago on the 4th Saturday in July wasn’t just about family fellowship; it was about preserving our story, ensuring that each generation understood where we came from and what we had overcome. In those gatherings, family members shared “reminiscences of the old slavery days” and stories of hardship, but also of triumph. These weren’t just memories— they were lessons in resilience, blueprints for survival, and testimonials to the power of faith and family unity.

This legacy of activism and community leadership flows directly through my veins. The same courage that enabled Jason to resist his master, that drove Maria to raise three sons alone, that inspired Hack and James Henry to become community leaders, lives on in my own commitment to justice and service. When I engage in

an unanticipated outcome from a particular birth setting, it can cause people to think that one setting – say a hospital over a home-birth – is unequivocally better. Alabi’s advice to Black expecting mothers is to understand that their health going into the pregnancy can impact the outcome. And regardless of the chosen birth setting, patients should ask questions rigorously, she said.

Kene Orakwue, who studies reproductive justice and

community work today, I carry forward their understanding that personal success is incomplete without collective progress. Their example teaches me that true freedom requires not just the absence of chains, but the presence of opportunity, dignity, and voice for all. Faith was the cornerstone that held our family together through centuries of struggle. The strict moral teachings of our ancestors, their emphasis on respect and faith, created a foundation strong enough to withstand the storms of slavery, Jim Crow, and beyond. This spiritual grounding didn’t make them passive; instead, it empowered them to act with purpose and conviction. Today, my faith continues to guide my work, providing both the moral compass and the inner strength needed to confront injustice wherever I find it.

The preservation of our family history through oral tradition speaks to another core value: the understanding that our stories matter. For seventy-one years, we have gathered in Ivor, Virginia – the place

health equity at the University of Minnesota, said that many providers, like Alabi, point to social media as a driver of patients’ mistrust. But as a researcher, Orakwue values the opportunity to hear people’s unfiltered experiences. She has observed that patients tend to feel safer when they share an identity with their provider, but it’s not a silver bullet. “From a structural racism standpoint, we understand that you can put someone of a different face into this institutional role and that

where I was born and raised –to honor our past and strengthen our bonds. This commitment to storytelling and memory-keeping influences how I approach my own work—with the understanding that representation matters, that voices need to be heard, and that history must be preserved. What makes our family story particularly powerful is not just that we survived slavery, but how we transformed that experience into strength, leadership, and service. From Temperance Brown’s quiet endurance to Hack and James Henry’s bold land ownership, from their roles as community leaders to their commitment to voting rights, our family has consistently chosen engagement over withdrawal, hope over despair, action over resignation. Today, as I continue their legacy, I understand that my American story is both deeply personal and universally significant. It represents the broader American experience of trauma and triumph, of roots that run deep in American soil watered by both tears and de-

doesn’t take away the power of that institutional role,” she said.

Orakwue believes a key part of the solution is providing Black parents with information about the array of birthing options available and the confidence to choose what’s right for them. “It’s not necessarily that one is better than the other,” she said. “We should let people have access to be able to figure out what’s best.”

termination. The values of activism, community work, faith, and family that sustained my ancestors through slavery and its aftermath continue to guide my steps today.

Standing on the shoulders of eight generations, I carry forward not just their DNA, but their dreams, their courage, and their unwavering belief that this country, for all its flaws, is our home. We helped build it, we fought for it, and we continue to perfect it. That is my American story—one of transformation, resilience, and the unbreakable bonds of family that have sustained us for over two centuries.

Tonia Wellons is the President & CEO of the Greater Washington Community Foundation, the largest public foundation in the region with over $500 million in assets and $70 million in annual grants. This is the second essay in the Public Welfare Foundation’s Legacies Rooted in Resistance and Resilience Series.

they’ve been in a long time.”

Mississippi

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idents in state Supreme Court elections, in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Under the challenged lines, the state’s nine-member Supreme Court has had only four Black justices in its entire history, each one appointed in succession by the governor to the same seat. Mississippi is nearly forty percent Black by population.

The Supreme Court district lines have remained almost entirely unchanged for over a century save for a minor shift of four counties in 1987. They cut the historically Black Mississippi Delta region in half, preventing the candidates preferred by Black voters from being elected.

The Mississippi Legislature will be tasked with implementing the court’s order by drawing new district lines that provide Black voters with a full and fair opportunity to elect candidates of choice.

“This ruling is a historic victory for fairness and

From 4

ed team.

The Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars and their coaches were introduced before the game, and the players recall hearing a loud voice from the bleachers.

“Let them play!” it boomed.

Others in the crowd joined in, the players said.

“Let them play! Let them play!”

John Rivers, who played second base for the team, told me he can still “hear it now.”

After their brief moment on the field, the Cannon Street All-Stars returned to their seats and watched other boys live out their dreams. A photo-

Trump reinforced his claim about the newly acquired safety in D.C. by relaying that a friend’s son is attending dinner in D.C., something he would not have done last year.

After the president finished his comments, a re-

President Trump, who typically travels with a full contingent of high-level protection, insinuated that he finally felt safe enough to go to dinner in the District of Columbia. “My wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four years,” said the nation’s 47th president.

justice in Mississippi,” said Senator Derrick T. Simmons, Plaintiff and Mississippi Senate Minority Leader. “For too long, the lines for our Supreme Court districts diluted the voices of Black voters and denied them a fair opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. The court’s decision affirms what we have long known—that our democracy works best when every community has equal representation. This ruling is not just a win for the other plaintiffs and me, but for every Mississippian who believes in the fundamental promise of equal justice under the law.”

“This win corrects a historic injustice,” said Ari Savitzky, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “All Mississippians will benefit from fair district lines that give Black voters an equal voice — and new generations of Black leaders an equal chance to help shape the state’s future by serving on the state’s highest court.”

“Today’s win is a victory for all Mississippians. Our state succeeds when it embraces its diversity and welcomes all voices. This ruling acknowledges that the current Supreme

graph of the team in the stands reveals the disappointment on their faces.

On the following day – Aug. 28, 1955 – the team boarded its bus to return to Charleston. It was the same date that Emmett Till, not much older than the players on the team, was brutally murdered in Money, Mississippi, for reportedly whistling at a white woman.

The boys and girls who play in the 2025 tournament will forever remember the experience. The surviving members of the Cannon Street All-Stars, who are all in their early 80s, never forgot what they were denied.

Rivers, who went on to become a successful architect, says this is the moral of their story.

“It’s a tragedy to take dreams away from a youngster,” Rivers told The Washington

porter/commentator in the room with close connections to Marjorie Taylor Greene jumped into the high-level conversation to affirm the president’s comments, saying, “I walked around yesterday with MTG. If you can walk around D.C. with MTG and not be attacked, this city is safe.”

That reporter was the same person who chastised President Zelenskyy months

Court district lines silence too many Black Mississippians. Thanks to this federal court’s decision, Black voters will have a more equal say in who serves on our state’s highest court,” said Jarvis Dortch, executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi.

“All Mississippians deserve the right to have their vote counted. This victory is a great leap forward for protecting the most fundamental right in this nation, voting,” said Ahmed Soussi, senior staff attorney at the SPLC. “Black voters will now have an equal voice in shaping and forming the highest court in the Magnolia State. We look forward to the redistricting process and ensuring a fair map is passed.”

“Voting is the cornerstone of a functioning democracy. This decision affirms that principle by recognizing the importance of fair and legal districting. All Mississippi citizens must have a full and fair opportunity to shape the judiciary that serves them,” said Jon Youngwood, Co-Chair of Simpson Thacher’s Litigation Department.

Post in 2022. “I knew it then. I know it now, and I’ve seen to it that no one takes dreams away from me again.”

Now there are some on the political right who want to bury America’s ugly racial history. America has never fully reckoned with slavery or the decades of segregation, Rivers recently told me. “It just decided to move on from that ugly period in its history without any kind of therapy,” he said. “And now they are trying to sweep it all under the rug again.”

Disclosure statement Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ago during his first Oval Office meeting with Trump for not wearing a business suit. Zelenskyy, a wartime President, has been clad in less formal attire to reflect the country’s current war stance against Russia.

Without any sourcing, President Trump also said, “People that haven’t gone out to dinner in Washington, D.C., in two years are going out to dinner, and the restaurants the last two days have been busier than

The increase in policing in Washington, D.C. is because a 19-year-old former Doge employee was carjacked in the early hours of the morning recently.

Exactly what is in the Ivy League deals with the Trump administration – and how they compare

By Brendan Cantwell Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, Michigan State University

The Trump administration and Harvard University are reportedly close to reaching a settlement that would require Harvard to pay US$500 million in exchange for the government releasing frozen federal funding and ending an investigation into antisemitism on campus.

This follows similar deals the White House struck with Columbia University and Brown University in July 2025. Both of those universities agreed to undertake campus reforms and pay a large sum – more than $200 million in the case of Columbia and $50 million for Brown – in order to receive federal funding that the Trump administration was withholding. The White House originally froze funding after saying that these universities had created unsafe environments for Jewish students during Palestinian rights protests on campus in 2024.

As a scholar of higher education politics, I examined the various deals the Trump administration made with some universities. When Harvard announces its deal, it will be informative to see what is different – or the same.

I believe the Columbia and Brown deals can be used as a blueprint for Trump’s plans for higher education. They show how the government wants to drive cultural reform on campus by giving the government more oversight over universities and imposing punishments for what it sees as previous wrongdoing.

Here are four key things to understand about the deals:

1. Antisemitism isn’t a major feature of the agreements

Studying

Ahead of its deal, Columbia in March 2025 adopted a new, broader definition of antisemitism that was created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The United Nations and most European Union countries also use this definition.

Yet the school’s 22page deal mentions antisemitism only once, where it says Columbia is required to hire an additional staff member to support Jewish students’ welfare.

Brown’s deal, meanwhile, did not involve the university adopting a particular definition of antisemitism. But Brown did commit to offering “research and education about Israel, and a robust Program in Judaic Studies.” Brown already hosts a Judaic Studies program, and it is unclear from the agreement’s text what additional measures are required.

The deals also extend well beyond antisemitism concerns and into questions of gender and the composition of student bodies.

Columbia agreed to provide “single-sex” housing and sports facilities, for example. The university has an optional Open Housing program that allows mixed-gender roommates and several gender-neutral restrooms.

This places the school in line with Donald Trump’s January executive order that says a person’s gender is based on their sex as assigned at birth.

Brown’s deal also requires single-sex sports and housing facilities. In addition, Brown committed to using definitions of men and women that match Trump’s executive order.

Columbia, which enrolls about 40% of its stu-

The Trump White House accused Brown and Columbia of tolerating antisemitism during campus protests. But the administration neither followed federal standards for investigating antisemitism, nor did it dictate specific reforms to protect Jewish students.

dents from other countries, also agreed to “decrease financial dependence on international student enrollment.”

The Brown deal says nothing about international education.

2. Both deals are expensive but vague about financial details.

Columbia must pay a fine of more than $200 million to the federal government, while Brown will make $50 million in donations to Rhode Island workforce development programs.

In both cases, it is not clear where the money will go or how it will be used.

Congress passed The Clery Act in 1990, creating a legal framework for fining campuses that failed to protect students’ safety.

Since then, the government has reached different settlements with universities.

Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia, was required to pay the federal government $14 million in 2024, for example, for failing to investigate sexual assault allegations.

But Columbia’s payment is far larger than any previous university and government settlement. Columbia will make three payments of about

$66 million into the Treasury Department over three years, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. But it isn’t clear how the money will exactly be spent and what will happen after those three years, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported in August 2025.

Only Congress can legally decide how to spend Treasury Department funds. But Trump has ignored Congress’ appropriation directives on a number of occasions.

Brown, meanwhile, will not pay the government anything. Instead, its deal will go “to state workforce development organizations operating in compliance with anti-discrimination laws, over the ten years.”

The Brown deal doesn’t say what qualifies as qualified workforce development organizations.

3. Trump wants to influence university admissions.

While the Brown and Columbia deals have several differences, the agreements have nearly identical language giving the Trump administration oversight of the way they admit students.

The deals say that the universities must provide the government with detailed information about who applied

to the schools and was admitted, broken down by grades and test scores, as well as race and ethnicity. The government could then conduct a “comprehensive audit” of the schools, based on this information.

This information could also be used to determine if universities are showing a preferences for students of color. Without providing evidence, conservative activists have alleged that selective colleges discriminate against white people and that this is a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Experts have said that these reporting requirements appear to be intended to increase the number of white students admitted to Ivy League schools.

4. The deals could open more doors to federal intrusion.

Claire Shipman, Columbia’s acting president, said in July that the deal would allow the university’s “research partnership with the federal government to get back on track.”

Christina Paxson, Brown’s president, also defended the agreement in a statement, writing that it “enables us as a community to move forward after a period of considerable uncertainty in a way that ensures Brown will continue to be the

Brown that our students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents and friends have known for generations.”

But the deals could invite more scrutiny from the federal government.

Both deals spell out the government’s right to open new investigations against Brown and Columbia, or to reopen old complaints if the administration is not satisfied with how the universities are implementing the agreement.

Trump is now pressuring Harvard, UCLA and other universities to strike deals, also based on similar antisemitism allegations.

The White House announced on Aug. 8 that it could seize the research patents, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, that Harvard holds. Since 1980, universities have been able to legally hold, and profit from, patents resulting from federally funded research.

The federal government has long influenced higher education through funding and regulation. But the government has never tried to dictate what happens on campus before now.

Higher education experts like me believe that political goals now drive the way the government approaches higher education. Some of Trump’s conservative allies are now urging the president to go even further, saying “we have every right to renegotiate the terms of the compact with the universities.”

Given these and other pressure tactics, academics who study the law and government warn that the university deals indicate encroaching authoritarianism.

Disclosure statement Brendan Cantwell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

By Michael Vazquez Teaching Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Michael Prinzing Research and Assessment Scholar, Wake Forest University

Philosophy majors rank higher than all other majors on verbal and logical reasoning, according to our new study published in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association. They also tend to display more intellectual virtues such as curiosity and open-mindedness. Philosophers have long claimed that studying philosophy sharpens one’s mind. What sets philosophy apart from other fields is that it is not so much a body of knowledge as an activity – a form of inquiry. Doing philosophy involves trying to answer fundamental questions about humanity and the world we live in and subjecting proposed answers to critical scrutiny: constructing logical arguments, drawing subtle distinctions and following ideas to their ultimate – often surprising – conclusions. It makes sense, then, that studying philosophy might make people better thinkers. But as philosophers ourselves, we wondered whether there is strong evidence for that claim. Students who major in philosophy perform very well on tests such as the Graduate Record Examination and Law School Admission Test.

Studies, including our own, have found that people who

have studied philosophy are, on average, more reflective and more open-minded than those who haven’t. Yet this doesn’t necessarily show that studying philosophy makes people better thinkers. Philosophy may just attract good thinkers.

Our latest study aimed to address that problem by comparing students who majored in philosophy and those who didn’t at the end of their senior year, while adjusting for differences present at the start of their freshman year. For example, we examined students’ performance on the GRE, which they take toward the end of college, while controlling for scores on the SAT, which they take before college.

We did the same when analyzing survey data collected by the Higher Education Research Institute at the start and end of college. These surveys asked students to, for example, rate their abilities to engage with new ideas or have their own ideas challenged, and how often they explored topics rai

All told, we looked at test and survey data from over 600,000 students. Our analysis found that philosophy majors scored higher than students in all other majors on standardized tests of verbal and logical reasoning, as well as on self-reports of good habits of mind, even after accounting for freshman-year differences. This suggests that their intellectual abilities and traits are due, in part, to what they learned in college.

Why it matters

Public trust in higher education has hit record lows

in recent years, according to polling by the Lumina Foundation and Gallup. Meanwhile, the rapid advance of generative AI has threatened the perceived value of a traditional college degree, as many previously vaunted white-collar skills are at risk of being automated.

Yet now more than ever, students must learn to think clearly and critically. AI promises efficiency, but its algorithms are only as good as the people who steer them and scrutinize their output. The stakes are more than personal. Without citizens who can reason through complex issues and discern good information from bad, democracy and civic life are at risk. What still isn’t known While our results point to real growth in students’ intellectual abilities and dispositions, they do not capture everything philosophers mean by “intellectual virtue.” Intellectual virtue is not just a matter of possessing certain abilities but of using those abilities well: at the right times, for the right reasons, and in the right ways. Our measures do not tell us whether philosophy majors go on to apply their newfound abilities in the service of truth and justice or, conversely, for personal gain and glory. Settling that question would require gathering a different kind of evidence.

Disclosure statement The research described in this article was supported by a grant from

Congress moves to Block Trump’s social security assault

By Stacy M. Brown Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

In its nonstop assault on the most vulnerable Americans, the Trump administration is preparing to impose sweeping cuts to Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a program that provides a lifeline for the nation’s poorest seniors, children, and severely disabled adults. The proposed rule would strip eligibility from hundreds of thousands and slash monthly payments by as much as one-third, even as new data confirms Social Security’s trust funds are facing insolvency within the next decade.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), nearly 400,000 people stand to lose critical income. That includes more than 275,000 who would see cuts of about $300 a month, and over 100,000 who could lose their benefits entirely. The changes target families already under strain, specifically SSI recipients living with relatives who receive SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Reversing Protections for Struggling Families

The Biden administration had expanded the definition of “public assistance household,” shielding recipients

from the harshest penalties. That safeguard ensured that low-income families receiving food assistance would not be punished for offering shelter to an elderly parent or disabled child. Trump’s rollback would erase that protection, returning to outdated rules from 1980.

“Receiving food assistance from SNAP would no longer be enough to qualify a family as a ‘public assistance household,” CBPP analysts warned. “The resulting SSI benefit cuts would be felt in low-income households with disabled family members or older relatives across the country”. The typical multi-person SNAP household with an SSI recipient survives on about $17,000 annually— well below the poverty line. Under the new rule, a woman with Down Syndrome living with low-income parents could see her benefits plunge from $967 to less than $700 a month, with families forced to track and report household expenses line by line.

Fallout Across the States

Every state would be affected. California could lose benefits for 57,600 people, New York 35,900, Florida 30,800, and Texas 23,600. Even small states like Vermont, Wyoming, and Alaska face losses. Advocates warn that the proposal would drive more disabled people into institutions, increase

homelessness, and add crushing red tape. The cuts come as Social Security marked its 90th anniversary. Nearly 70 million Americans depend on the program, but the latest Trustees’ report projects its trust funds will be depleted by 2034, triggering an automatic 23% cut to monthly checks unless Congress acts. Unions and Lawmakers Push Back Unions and community groups are mobilizing. The AFL-CIO’s “It’s Better in a Union” bus tour stopped in Bakersfield, California, where California Nurses Association president Sandy Reding blasted the Trump budget bill as “a cruel piece of legislation that will have disastrous consequences for the most vulnerable in our

communities, including the patients I care for in Bakersfield.”

In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)

President Everett Kelley pledged to fight Social Security staffing cuts. “Across the country, we are using our voice—as workers, as parents, as people who care about our communities—to demand that this administration and Congress do whatever it takes to protect Social Security,” Kelley asserted.

“The American people deserve nothing less.”

Democratic leaders are also taking action. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is preparing a September bill

he calls the “Keep Billionaires Out of Social Security Act,” aimed at reversing Trump’s cuts, reopening shuttered field offices, and restoring staffing. “Social Security to me means my life,” said Ellen Carter, a New York recipient. “It means medicine gets paid; it means that I have a place to sleep at night.” Sen. Ron Wyden (DOR) introduced a companion bill in the Senate that would add $5 billion in funding, restore staff, safeguard data, and launch an investigation into the Department of Government Efficiency, which has overseen the Trump administration’s Social Security cutbacks. “Trump and his Republican allies have made it crystal clear—holding on to earned benefits requires vigilant defense,” Wyden said. The Stakes for Millions For the 7.5 million Americans who rely on SSI each month, including many with severe disabilities, the stakes are life and death. “For 90 years, we’ve kept America’s greatest anti-poverty success story alive,” Jessica Lapointe, president of AFGE Council 220, told reporters. “We serve widows, orphans, the elderly, disabled, every vulnerable soul in your families and your communities, and they deserve respect and dignity when they come for their earned benefits.”

Facial recognition expands in airports as Congress eyes new limits

By Stacy M. Brown Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

The system allows enrolled TSA PreCheck travelers with valid passports to verify their identity with a quick photo instead of a physical ID.

Facial recognition technology is now in use for security screening at some of the nation’s busiest airports, with TSA’s PreCheck Touchless ID available at 15 locations including Chicago O’Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Las Vegas, Atlanta, New York’s JFK and LaGuardia, Los Angeles, Newark, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Ronald Reagan Washington National. The system

allows enrolled TSA PreCheck travelers with valid passports to verify their identity with a quick photo instead of a physical ID.

TSA says the images are deleted within 24 hours of a flight and are not used for law enforcement or surveillance. If biometric matching fails, passengers must present a physical ID, and those who opt out receive the same screening position. CBP is also expanding its use of biometric processing. This month, the agency launched Enhanced Passenger Processing (EPP) at Nashville International Airport, which photographs travelers using auto-capture technology before they reach an officer to confirm identity, check eligibility, and conduct enforcement screening. CBP says the system speeds inspection for most travelers

while allowing officers to focus on higher-risk passengers, and participation is optional. Critics have long raised privacy con-

cerns. In 2019, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that traveler photos had been stolen in a breach involv-

ing a subcontractor’s network, The Washington Post reported.

TSA says its systems are encrypted, but lawmakers from

both parties are seeking stricter protections. The Traveler Privacy Protection Act of 2025 would require affirmative consent before any biometric data is collected, bar passive surveillance, and set deadlines for deleting stored images. It also calls for annual Government Accountability Office reviews on accuracy and potential bias by race, age, and gender. “By leveraging advanced technologies and mobile applications, we are transforming inspections at airports into a seamless, touchless process, enabling faster risk identification and efficient processing of legitimate visitors,” said Steven Stavinoha, CBP’s New Orleans Director of Field Operations.

Rising energy costs weigh heaviest on Black households

By Michelle L.D. Hanlon Professor of Air and Space Law, University of Mississippi

For many African American families, the cost of keeping the lights on and homes heated or cooled is not just a monthly bill — it’s a crushing financial burden. A new national study from Binghamton University and California State University, San Bernardino, finds that Black households spend a far larger share of their income on energy compared to white households, even when income levels are the same. “We often say that African Americans suffer more, but we often blame it just on income. And the reality is, there is something more there,” study author George Homsy, associate professor at Binghamton University, wrote.

“It’s not just because they tend to be poor. There is something that’s putting them at a disadvantage. I think what happened is it happens to be where they live.” The study, published in Energy Research & Social Science, analyzed 65,000 census tracts across the United States.

It found that while the average American household spends about 3.2% of income on energy

bills, households in the majority African American census tracts spend an average of 5.1%. Homsy and researcher Ki Eun Kang point to the age and condition of housing stock, along with lower homeownership rates, as key drivers. Their research concludes that “energy burden is not simply a matter of income or energy cost but also race, which might be driven by place.” Older, less energy-efficient housing and high rental rates in Black communities mean residents often cannot make upgrades like improved insulation or new appliances, locking families into higher bills.

Tradeoffs and Health

Risks

The consequences go beyond money. Families forced to spend 10% or more of their income on energy — what experts classify as “unmanageable” — may cut back on food, medicine, or other essentials. More than 12 million U.S. households report leaving their homes at unsafe temperatures to reduce costs, while millions more fall behind on utility bills. The health effects are severe. High energy burdens increase risks of asthma, depression, poor sleep, pneumonia, and even premature death. The issue is especially acute for African Americans, who are disproportionately exposed to housing

and environmental conditions that amplify these risks. Washington, D.C.: A Case Study In Washington, D.C., the problem is particularly stark. A recent analysis by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) shows that SNAP-eligible households spend more than 20% of their income on energy bills. Across the metro area, nearly twothirds of low-income house-

holds devote over 6% of their income to energy, and 40% face what researchers call a “severe financial strain,” paying more than 10%. Pepco, the District’s primary electricity provider, has implemented three consecutive annual rate hikes, pushing the average household bill to $114 per month as of January 2025. Shutoffs have followed — nearly 12,000 customers lost service in 2024, with disconnections doubling after a summer rate

hike. Washington Gas has also sought a 12% rate increase and pushed a controversial $215 million pipeline replacement project, rebranded as “District SAFE.” The plan could ultimately cost D.C. households an additional $45,000 each over several decades, or nearly $1,000 annually added to bills. Historical Roots Researchers argue that these inequities are

Insight 2 Health

RFK Jr.’s plans to overhaul ‘vaccine court’ system would face legal and scientific challenges

By Anna Kirkland Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Michigan

For almost 40 years, people who suspect they’ve been harmed by a vaccine have been able to turn to a little-known system called the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program – often simply called the vaccine court.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been a critic of the vaccine court, calling it “biased” against compensating people, slow and unfair. He has said that he wants to “revolutionize” or “fix” this system.

I’m a scholar of law, health and medicine. I investigated the history, politics and debates about the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in my book “Vaccine Court: The Law and Politics of Injury.”

Although vaccines are extensively tested and monitored, and are both overwhelmingly safe for the vast majority of people and extremely cost-effective, some people will experience a harmful reaction to a vaccine. The vaccine court establishes a way to figure out who those people are and to provide justice to them.

Having studied the vaccine court for 15 years, I agree that it could use some fixing. But changing it dramatically will be difficult and potentially damaging to public health.

Deciphering vaccine injuries

The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is essentially a process that enables doctors, lawyers, patients, parents and government officials to determine who deserves compensation for a legitimate vaccine injury.

It was established in 1986 by an act of Congress to solve a specific social problem: possible vaccine injuries to children from the whole-cell pertussis vaccine. That vaccine, which

was discontinued in the U.S. in the 1990s, could cause alarming side effects like prolonged crying and convulsions. Parents sued vaccine manufacturers, and some stopped producing vaccines.

Congress was worried that lawsuits would collapse the country’s vaccine supply, allowing diseases to make a comeback. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 created the vaccine court process and shielded vaccine manufacturers from these lawsuits.

Here’s how it works:

A person who feels they have experienced a vaccine-related injury files a claim to be heard by a legal official called a special master in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The Health and Human Services secretary is named as the defendant and is represented by Department of Justice attorneys.

Doctors who work for HHS evaluate the medical records and make a recommendation about whether they think the vaccine caused the person’s medical problem. Some agreed-upon vaccine injuries are listed for automatic compensation, while other outcomes that are scientifically contested go through a hearing to determine if the vaccine caused the problem.

Awards come from a trust fund, built up through a 75cent excise tax on each dose of covered vaccine sold. Petitioners’ attorneys who specialize in vaccine injury claims are paid by the trust fund, whether they win or lose.

Some updates are needed

Much has changed in the decades since Congress wrote the law, but Congress has not enacted updates to keep up.

For instance, the law supplies only eight special masters to hear all the cases, but the caseload has risen dramatically as more vaccines have been covered by the law. It set a damages cap of US$250,000 in 1986 but did not account for inflation. The statute of limitations for

an injury is three years, but in my research, I found many people file too late and miss their chance.

When the law was written, it only covered vaccines recommended for children. In 2023, the program expanded to include vaccines for pregnant women. Vaccines just for adults, like shingles, are not covered. COVID-19 vaccine claims go to another system for emergency countermeasures vaccines that has been widely criticized. These vaccines could be added to the program, as lawyers who bring claims there have advocated.

These reform ideas are “friendly amendments” with bipartisan support. Kennedy has mentioned some of them, too.

A complex system is hard to revolutionize

Kennedy hasn’t publicly stated enough details about his plan for the vaccine court to reveal the changes he intends to make. The first and least disruptive course of action would be to ask Congress to pass the bipartisan reforms noted above.

But some of his comments suggest he may seek to dismantle it, not fix it. None of his options are straightforward, however, and consequences are hard to predict.

Straight up changing the vaccine court’s structure

would probably be the most difficult path. It requires Congress to amend the 1986 law that set it up and President Donald Trump to sign the legislation. Passing the bill to dismantle it requires the same process. Either direction involves all the difficulties of getting a contentious bill through Congress. Even the “friendly amendments” are hard – a 2021 bill to fix the vaccine court was introduced but failed to advance.

However, there are several less direct possibilities.

Adding autism to the injuries list

Kennedy has long supported discredited claims about harms from vaccines, but the vaccine court has been a bulwark against claims that lack mainstream scientific support. For example, the vaccine court held a yearslong court process from 2002 to 2010 and found that autism was not a vaccine injury. The autism trials drew on 50 expert reports, 939 medical articles and 28 experts testifying on the record. The special masters deciding the cases found that none of the causation hypotheses put forward to connect autism and vaccines were reliable as medical or scientific theories.

Much of Kennedy’s ire is directed at the special masters, who he claims “priori-

tize the solvency” of the system “over their duty to compensate victims.” But the special masters do not work for him. Rather, they are appointed by a majority of the judges in the Court of Federal Claims for four-year terms – and those judges themselves have 15-year terms. Kennedy cannot legally remove any of them in the middle of their service to install new judges who share his views.

Given that, he may seek to put conditions like autism on the list of presumed vaccine injuries, in effect overturning the special masters’ decisions. Revising the list of recognized injuries to add ones without medical evidence is within Kennedy’s powers, but it would still be difficult. It requires a long administrative process with feedback from an advisory committee and the public. Such revisions have historically been controversial, and are usually linked to major scientific reviews of their validity.

Public health and medical groups are already mobilized against Kennedy’s vaccine policy moves. If he failed to follow legally required procedures while adding new injuries to the list, he could be sued to stop the changes.

Targeting vaccine manufacturers Kennedy could also

lean on his newly reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to withdraw recommendations for certain vaccines, which would also remove them from eligibility in the vaccine compensation court. Lawsuits against manufacturers could then go straight to regular courts. On Aug. 14, 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services may have taken a step in this direction by announcing the revival of a childhood vaccine safety task force in response to a lawsuit by anti-vaccine activists.

Kennedy has also supported legislation that would allow claims currently heard in vaccine court to go to regular courts. These drastic reforms could essentially dismantle the vaccine court.

People claiming vaccine injuries could hope to win damages through personal injury lawsuits in the civil justice system instead of vaccine court, perhaps by convincing a jury or getting a settlement. These types of settlements were what prompted the creation of the vaccine court in the first place. But these lawsuits could be hard to win. There is a higher bar for scientific evidence in regular courts than in vaccine court, and plaintiffs would have to sue large corporations rather than file a government claim. Raising the idea of reforming the vaccine court has provoked strong reactions across the many groups with a stake in the program. It is a complex system with multiple constituents, and Kennedy’s approaches so far pull in different directions. The push to revolutionize it will test the strength of its complex design, but the vaccine court may yet hold up. Disclosure statement Anna Kirkland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The growing fad of ‘microdosing’ mushrooms is leading to an uptick in poison control center calls and emergency room visits

By David B. Sarwer Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Temple University

Imagine you purchase a bag of gummies labeled nootropic – a term used to describe substances that claim to enhance mental ability and function, or “smart drugs.” However, within hours of consuming them, your heart starts racing, you’re nauseated and vomiting. Then you begin convulsing and have a seizure, resulting in a trip to the hospital.

You certainly did not expect to have such a severe reaction to an over-the-counter edible product, which is available online and in herbal and vape shops nationwide. What happened?

So-called “microdosing” of mushrooms has been on the rise over the past few years, accompanying a shift in local policy in some areas and increasing research into its potential benefits for mood and mental health. Microdosing involves the ingestion of small quantities of psychoactive mushrooms, less than a regular dose and not in sufficient quantities to induce a “trip” or psychedelic experience, but to boost mood, creativity, concentration or productivity.

Psychedelic mushrooms are illegal at the federal level, restricted as a “Schedule 1” substance by the Food and Drug Administration, though some states and local municipalities have begun the process of decriminalizing the possession of these mushrooms.

This greater acceptance of mushrooms and psychedelics has led to a growing market for edible products containing non-hallucinogenic mushroom species that are appearing on the shelf at grocery stores, vape shops, even gas stations, with claims that these products improve mental function.

To meet demand, manufacturers are also turning to other types of mushrooms – including both psychoactive and non-psychedelic – some of which are potentially more toxic. But key pieces of information are often missing for consumers to make informed decisions about which products to consume.

I am a natural product scientist at Pennsylvania State University, where my lab specializes in understanding the molecules found in plants, mushrooms and other natural resources and how they can benefit or harm human health. Our team actively researches these small molecules to uncover how they can address infectious and chronic diseases, but also monitors them for toxic or adverse effects on human health.

While nootropic products have potential to boost health, there can be little transparency surrounding many commercial mushroom products, which can have dangerous consequences.

Chemistry and toxicology of psychoactive mushrooms

The main psychoactive components of traditional “magic” mushrooms, found in

the genus Psilocybe, are psilocybin and psilocin. These two small molecules are alkaloids that activate receptors in the brain to trigger the main psychoactive effects of magic mushrooms.

Both psilocybin and psilocin have a high therapeutic index – meaning they are generally nontoxic in humans because the amount that must be ingested to be fatal or dangerous is more than 500 times the dose at which it has been shown to be therapeutically effective. Therefore, psilocybin-containing mushrooms are generally considered to have a low potential for acute toxicity in humans, to the point where it is believed to be nearly impossible to achieve a toxic dose from oral consumption.

Demand breeds diversification in mushroom sourcing

With the growth in popularity of psychedelic mushrooms, companies have been looking for ways to meet consumer demand. And in some cases, this has meant finding mushrooms that do not contain psilocybin and are therefore not restricted by the FDA. The result has been an increase in products that come without legal entanglements, which means there are products that can contain other types of mushrooms, including lions mane, chaga, reishi, maitake and a genus of mushrooms called Amanita, which can be hallucinogenic.

Amanita mushrooms are the quintessential white-flecked, red-capped toadstools – the stereotypical image of a mushroom. These fungi

contain very different compounds compared to the Psilocybe mushrooms, such as muscarine and ibotenic acid. These compounds function differently in the brain and, while also capable of producing psychedelic experiences, are generally considered to be more toxic.

Nootropic and other mushroom products are often found as edibles, including chocolates and gummies. However, there is little enforcement surrounding the ingredient labeling of such dietary supplements; products that have a proprietary blend of ingredients generally do not have to report individual ingredients to the species level. This protects trade secrets regarding unique blends of ingredients, but it can also obscure the actual composition of some edible nootropic and microdosing products. And this can have dangerous consequences.

Increasing adverse effects The explosion of nootropic mushroom products has led to a wide variety of products on the market that potentially contain wildly differing levels of mushrooms, many times containing blends of multiple mushroom species. And with little reporting guidelines in effect, it can be hard to know exactly what you’re taking.

One case study in Virginia involved five people who were hospitalized after they ingested gummies from different nootropic brands that were labeled to contain muscarine, muscimol and ibotenic acid, all compounds found in Amanita

mushrooms. A follow-up analysis of locally available gummy brands that contained “mushroom nootropic” ingredients revealed the presence of psilocybin, but also caffeine, the stimulant ephedrine and mitragynin, a potential painkiller found in Southeast Asian plant products like kratom. None of these ingredients were listed on the product label. Therefore, the cocktail of mushrooms and substances that these people were exposed to was not necessarily reflected on the label at the time of purchase. The increase in use of other, potentially toxic, mushrooms in over-the-counter products has been reflected in reported poisoning cases in the United States. In 2016, out of more than 6,400 mushroom-related poisoning cases in the U.S., only 45 were Amanita mushrooms. In the past few years since certain states began decriminalizing psilocybin, the U.S. has seen an increase in calls and reports to poison control centers of people feeling nauseous and experiencing vomiting, seizures, cardiovascular symptoms and other adverse effects after ingesting edible mushroom products such as chocolates and gummies. This prompted a multistate investigation beginning in 2023 that uncovered over 180 cases in 34 states of people who had ingested a particular brand of mushroom-based edibles, Diamond Shruumz.

A 2024 recall required that stores remove these products from their shelves. And in

late 2024, the FDA put out a letter to warn consumers and manufacturers of the dangers associated with Amanita mushrooms, saying they “do not meet the Generally Recognized As Safe, or GRAS, standard and that Amanita mushrooms are unapproved food additives.” Despite this warning, such products are still available from producers. Even when a product is labeled with the relevant ingredients, mushrooms are notoriously easy to misidentify when collected. Numerous mushroom species have similar shapes, colors and habits. But, despite their visual similarities, these different mushrooms can have drastically different chemistry and toxicity. This even plagues foragers of culinary mushrooms, with hundreds of emergency department visits due to fungal misidentification every year in the U.S. There is little current regulation or oversight for species identification in dietary supplements or over-the-counter mushroom edible products, leaving consumers at the mercy of producers to accurately list all raw products and ingredients on the product label.

Disclosure statement Joshua Kellogg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Former NFL player, community leader Ben Williams awarded President’s Lifetime Achievement Award at Howard University

Ben Williams, former NFL defensive lineman, University of Minnesota standout, and President of the Minnesota Chapter of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), was honored with the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday, August 9, 2025, at Howard University’s Armour J. Blackburn Center in Washington, D.C.

The award honors not only success, but lifelong service and the power of purpose-driven leadership.

This prestigious national award recognizes individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to their communities through a lifetime of service, civic leadership, and impact. Williams was honored alongside other distinguished recipients including Super Bowl champion Doug Williams, former NFL defensive lineman Michael Bankston, and philanthropist Dwyane Wade Sr.

A native of Belzoni, Mississippi, Williams rose from humble beginnings to become a dominant force in collegiate and professional football. At the University of Minnesota, he

earned All-Big Ten honors and left the program as its career sack leader, a record that reflected both his physical dominance and unwavering dedication. His professional football career spanned the Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles, NFL Europe, and the Canadian Football League. Today, Williams

channels the lessons of the gridiron into a life of leadership and service. As President of the NFLPA Minnesota Chapter, he founded the Ben Williams Legacy Fund—a community initiative empowering former players to actively serve in underserved neighborhoods. Under his leadership, player engagement in charitable outreach has grown significantly.

One of Williams’ most defining chapters began in 2019, when he underwent a life-saving kidney transplant. The experience profoundly reshaped his outlook. “That transplant saved my life,” Williams says. “It reminded me that strength isn’t just physical—it’s about how deeply we commit to

Slow Roll Season Finale: Magic Memory Route

Slow Roll Season Finale is the most adventurous route of the season, touching favorite locations and rolling through the magic memories of Summer 2025. This event promises to treat Slow Roll riders to the best food on the planet, made with LOVE and the freshest ingredients.

The ride leaves 2834 10th Ave South, down the Midtown Greenway between 10th Ave and 11th Ave, at 6:30pm. Riders who need to borrow a bike should arrive between 6:00/6:30 . The roll starts at 6:30 pm and features sunset on one of the lakes before heading back to Greenway for dinner. This slow roll is not recommended for Children under 10. Slow roll

“I came from a place with very few resources. So, when God gives you success and a platform, you don’t hoard it—you multiply it for others. To whom much is given, much is required.”

- Ben Williams-

lifting others.”

Since then, he has emerged as a national voice in kidney disease awareness and organ donation, partnering with LifeSource to promote donor registration, particularly among men of color. His Ben Williams Foundation supports individuals living with chronic kidney disease and hypertension, two conditions disproportionately impacting communities of color.

“This award isn’t a

finish line—it’s a charge to go further. As a former player, I know the highs of glory and the lows of silence. I’m committed to ensuring that former athletes are supported, that underserved youth are uplifted, and that health disparities in our communities are challenged head-on. That’s the legacy I’m building—and it’s only just beginning.” — Ben Williams, MBA, JD Candidate

Books, Art & Culture

Captain Candiss and the Earth Challenge

Sharing Our Stories

By W.D. Foster-Graham Book Review Editor

Science, action, adventure—in a children’s book, this combination brings about discovery. It also shows us what we’re made of when put to the test. And when we see a main character who looks like us, it’s even better. As a child, I was wishing to read books like this one. Now, they are reality, and

I give a hat tip to Darryl Harvey, founder of the Black Child Book Fair, for this installment in his Sunflower Series: Captain Candiss and the Earth Challenge.

Our story opens with a meeting between Mr. President and Madam Vice President of the U.S. To get more young people involved in the study of the Earth, they created The Earth Challenge and proceeded to search for a cross-section of middle school students to research and study the extreme regions of the Earth’s environment.

Madam Vice President’s search produced six candidates: Stevie, Scott, Lee, Jaun, Anthony, and Candiss (the only

girl in the group). After rigorous training, a captain and co-captain would be chosen, but the boys didn’t believe a girl could be a captain. In the midst of her anger at their attitude, Candiss begins to doubt herself and her ability to be a captain. And it isn’t any easier when Stevie and Scott are made captain and co-captain.

As the group navigates their mission to such places as Death Valley, Antarctica, and the Mariana Trench, will Candiss persevere through the dangers that lay ahead of them? Will she break through the selfdoubt to become a leader when push comes to shove?

In addition to the scientific knowledge shared in

the story, Harvey addresses the sexism displayed by the boys toward Candiss. He includes questions for the reader about this issue and about self-confidence, and he shows us that everything Candiss needed was inside her all along.

Hat tip to Derrell Spicy for the wonderful illustrations that give vision to Harvey’s words and teachings. Captain Candiss and the Earth Challenge is available through his website, blackchildbookfair.com.

Thank you, Darryl, for showing children there are no limitations to being what they want to be!