Author: Carma Henry

      The significance of historically Black colleges and universities throughout the country spans far beyond the realm of education. The institutions serve as cornerstones of Black culture and have produced scholars who have been at the forefront of transformative change. President Joe Biden’s administration recently unveiled an initiative centered on celebrating the rich legacies of HBCUs.

      World Suicide Prevention Day is a hard day to commemorate, especially if you have personally lost someone from suicide. Last year during the pandemic, medical officials worried that COVID-19 would have a serious impact on people’s mental health. With months of isolation, millions of deaths and economic hardship resulting in a heartbreaking number of job losses, experts warned of suicide rates skyrocketing.

Sen. Booker, who served two terms as Newark mayor before his election to the Senate, will receive the 2021 National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) National Leadership Award for excellence and innovative leadership in Black America. Drs. James Hildreth and Ebony Hilton, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Missouri), and Olympic record-setter Allyson Felix also will receive National Leadership Awards from the NNPA, the trade association of more than 230 African American-owned newspapers and media companies.

     As a practicing physician at the University of Virginia – Charlottesville, Dr. Hilton has continued advocating for underserved and marginalized populations. Her efforts have received recognition from the National Medical Association and the National Minority Quality Forum as one of the top 40 under 40 Leaders in Health Care award recipients.

      When walking around, many people place their phones in a coat breast pocket, a shirt pocket or in a pants pocket. Now, a new study confirms that you should keep the newer iPhones away from your heart area if you’ve had specific heart issues.

According to data from the CDC, those states are Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Furthermore, these states also have the least amount of Covid-19 cases in the US at this time. Based upon information from the US Department of Health and Human Services, over 43% of Florida’s ICU beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients. Additionally, there have been about 31% of ICU beds taken up by Covid-19 patients. Getting vaccinated is so important, not only for you but the people around you.

     Lighthouse of Broward recently hosted a Back-to-School event for more than 85 blind or visually impaired children who participate in the Lighthouse of Broward children’s program.  The super-fun event  included hands-on STEM activities hosted by the Museum of Discovery and Science, Build Your Own Bear, snow cone treats, lunch and more.

      Seen in isolation, recent problems at HBCUs, Medgar Evers College in New York City and Barber-Scotia College in North Carolina can be easily viewed within the context of the problems all higher education students are having with see-sawing enrollment and continuing pandemic problems. And if you wanted to add the conflict that Nikole Hannah-Jones had with the Board of Trustees at the predominately white University of North Carolina, that could be just seen as a rogue board controlled by political conservatives. So, it can be easy to write race out of this dialogue, or at least downplay it.

     October 1-31, 2021, will be the Tenth Annual Month of Families, Non-Violence and Opportunities (Month of Non-Violence), sponsored by Black Women for Positive Change, a national multi-cultural, interfaith and inter-generational organization. The Month of Non-Violence is dedicated to promoting violence prevention, de-escalation of violence, stopping law enforcement violence against communities of color, family violence, gang violence and community violence. Over the past ten (10) years members of Black Women for Positive Change have helped to organize over 162 events, in 27 U.S. cities, the United Kingdom and Republic of Congo and their efforts have reached over 162,000 people.

*The Florida Department of Health has suspended daily case and vaccine reports. The department will instead post weekly updates. The numbers reported here reflect the number of new cases and deaths for the previous week, September 3 – September 9.