When people say America is “bad,” it’s not really about one person or one moment. It’s deeper than that. As teens, we’re growing up in a time where we’re starting to ask real questions, and one of those questions is how did things get like this? America didn’t just become this way overnight. It was built on decisions, systems, and choices that go all the way back to the beginning. And if we’re being honest, some parts of history are easier for people to talk about than others, especially when it comes to African American history.
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The Westside community continues to celebrate a remarkable display of academic excellence as National Achievers students delivered outstanding performances at this year’s Brain Bowl Competition. From team victories to individual honors, these young scholars demonstrated that preparation, discipline, and talent remain the foundation of success.
When I think about what truly shaped me, I don’t start with accomplishments or milestones. I start with covering. I start with my grandmothers, my aunts, my godmother, my mother, and the many women who loved me as if I were their own. They carried more than responsibility, they carried me. And whether I realized it at the time or not, their strength was rooted in faith and reinforced by the Black church.
The ground-breaking one-woman show Black Girl Speaks returns to the stage for its 20th Anniversary performance on Friday, May 15, 2026 at 7:00 PM at the Miramar Cultural Center (2400 Civic Center Place, Miramar, FL 33025).
Broward County Library (BCL) received three awards from the Florida Library Association (FLA), including the 2026 FLA Library of the Year. Additional honors include the 2026 FLA Intellectual Freedom Award and the 2026 FLA Communications Excellence Award. Additionally, the Westside Gazette newspaper, nominated by Broward County Library, received the FLA Library Media/Business Partner of the Year Award.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump has helped drive nearly $2 million in sales to Black-owned bookstores through his best-selling novel, “Worse Than a Lie,” using his national platform to direct readers and attention to independent shops that serve as cultural and economic anchors in communities across the country.
If you look at the world today, it can feel like everything is happening all at once. From wars and politics to technology and culture, change is constant—and fast. For young people, especially, it can be overwhelming trying to figure out where we fit into it all. But at the same time, this moment in history is also full of opportunity.
If you look at the world today, it can feel like everything is happening all at once. From wars and politics to technology and culture, change is constant—and fast. For young people, especially, it can be overwhelming trying to figure out where we fit into it all. But at the same time, this moment in history is also full of opportunity.
There are some songs that stay with you, even when life pulls you in different directions. “It Is Well With My Soul” is one of those songs for me. I’ve heard it growing up in church, but I’ve also returned to it later in life, during seasons when I needed something steady, something familiar, something honest. This song has met me in moments of faith, and it has met me in moments of doubt. Either way, it always seemed to know what I needed.
She was a tall, skinny, bespeckled Black girl that walked up to me back sometime in 2016, I recall. We were in the Community Room of the building I’ve lived in since 2004 and she was a member of a health screening crew belonging to some state or local non-profit group. She knew my involvement in environmental justice and conservation. She also knew my involvement with the South Florida Water Management District. I didn’t know who she was, but, clearly, she had done her homework.
A cane once carried by Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune in her later years soon will take its place in history again. Curators from the Barack Obama Presidential Center recently visited Bethune-Cookman University to prepare the artifact for transport to Chicago, where it will be displayed as part of an exhibit highlighting historically Black colleges and universities and the broader civil rights movement. Opening in June 2026, Dr. Bethune’s cane will remain on display through 2028 before returning home to Daytona Beach’s B-CU campus.