Author: Carma Henry

     More than 120 million people have been displaced from their homes due to war, climate change, political instability, and oppression in the past few years, a figure that has doubled in the last decade. Millions more are living in vulnerable situations as stateless individuals, frequently unable to exercise even their most basic rights.

     The disconcerting speeches of Hegseth and Trump to an assembly of silent, stone-faced military leaders at Quantico on September 30, 2025, revealed three intertwined visions of how armed force should be used to ensure security in our moment. All are familiar, but all three are becoming obsolete. Hardly extinct, but completely outmoded by current and future conditions. A fourth vision of what the mission could be for both our own and our adversaries’ militaries includes a radical consideration of looming climate effects upon military mission and strategy.

     During some of the large anti-war demonstrations during the 1960s some of the protesters gave flowers to the troops faced off against them. In the 1967 March on the Pentagon it was the 503rd Military Police Battalion, and elsewhere the National Guard was deployed. An iconic photo from 1967 shows a young man placing a flower into a soldier’s gun barrel during the protest. Let’s bring that custom back when the US military occupies your town in 2025, but this time let’s include a note along with the flower.  

      Words fail me – but they’re all I have, or so it seems as I sit here at a table in my new apartment. They ain’t enough! Not as I read the news and feel . . . something . . . rise, politically and socially, and presume to be the American future.

Darrell Hunter has been officially sworn in as the new Chief of Police for the Delray Beach Police Department.      

Joseph Williams, an African American World War II veteran from Tallahassee, Florida, has recently turned 106 years old. His long life reflects a century of service to his country and devotion to his community.

The New Era Masonic Lodge No. 69 Prince Hall (National Compact) where R.W Ederick E. Johnson serves as Worshipful Master, Ujima Men Collective where Lorenzo Robertson serves as the Executive Director , and the NAACP Broward Chapter where Marsha Ellison serves as President  are proud to present “Where Do We Go From Here?” a congressional update and community conversation addressing pressing issues affecting South Florida’s Black and Marginalized communities.

The Our Fund Foundation announced it will award a total of $370,00 in grants through its 2025 Arts & Culture Fund to support 19 organizations and LGBTQ+-specific projects in Broward and Miami-Dade counties that inspire creativity, foster belonging and strengthen community through shared experiences.

Black Alphabet and South Florida Black Pride announced today the Shades of Black Film Showcase, featuring an unforgettable evening of films that highlight powerful stories of identity, resilience, and joy in the Black LGBTQ+ community. The event will take place on Friday, October 10, 2025, from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Victory Black Box Theater at L.A. Lee YMCA/Mizell Community Center (1409 Sistrunk Blvd., Ft. Lauderdale) as part of South Florida Black Pride. A live post-screening conversation will dive deeper into themes of representation and healing.

       The ancestors are speaking, and this time, they are not whispering. They are roaring through the corridors of power, rattling the bones of empires, and calling the world to account. On September 25, 2025, at the United Nations General Assembly, the earth itself seemed to pause as African leaders stood together, not as beggars, not as former colonies, but as the original stewards of civilization, demanding justice. Ghana’s President, John Dramani Mahama, declared that the Transatlantic Slave Trade was “the greatest crime against humanity,” and announced a formal motion for reparative justice on behalf of Africans and their descendants around the world. He said it plainly and powerfully: “Reparatory justice is not about pity. It is about recognition, responsibility, and restitution.” And in that moment, you could almost hear the applause of the ancestors, the ones who were stolen, silenced, and buried in unmarked graves, rising to bear witness. Because this was not just a speech it was a summoning.