What Does The Future Have In Store For This Little Drummer Boy?
December 03, 2019
You probably saw him in this viral video drumming it up with the best of them.
Jeremiah Travis is only five years old, but he’s playing with teenagers three times his age. And if he keeps it up, he has a bright future ahead of him - because of one generous offer.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-1512094833018-0"); });
Travis apparently “started out beating on his ABC blocks as a baby,” according to his mother, and has been drumming since he was only two years old.
His cousin Kenya Brooks, who is on the drumline at St. Helena Academy in Greensburg, Louisiana, first brought him into the practice room when he was just two, and taught him the basics. The rest is history.
Little Jeremiah is now the smallest drummer on St. Helena’s drumline, and his instructor is all praise: "He's 5 years old but he's always working on his skills,” said Brandon Dorsey, band director at St. Helena.
But that’s not all.
Chesteron Frye, student director at Alcorn State University, just informed Jeremiah and his family that, if he chooses, he has a full-ride scholarship to Alcorn State!
It’ll be about 10 more years before he’s deciding where to go to college, but if the scholarships are already coming in, he’s surely going to be able to study wherever he wants - and keep wowing audiences out on the field.
Richard Sherman is one of the realest in the NFL, from publicly criticizing the NFL’s hypocrisy, to standing up for Colin Kaepernick, to doing a press conference in the days before Halloween in costume.
But what he’s been doing outside of the NFL system is the best thing yet.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-1512094833018-0"); });
He quietly founded and helps run a charitable foundation, Blanket Coverage, which aims to “provide students in low-income communities with school supplies and clothing so they can more adequately achieve their goals.”
His foundation has raised over $1.5 million since 2013 to support low-income students. He’s donated the money to food banks, youth football leagues, and more. But that’s not all.
His most recent donations tackle a sometimes hidden problem: student lunch debt. He donated over $27,000 to two middle schools to erase it.
“The last thing any child should have to worry about is being able to afford eating breakfast and lunch at school,” his foundation wrote.
School lunch debt plagues low-income families across the country - and has many serious impacts, even including preventing students from graduating!
Sherman’s excellence on the field is only surpassed by his excellence in giving back to the community. His generosity is an inspiration to us all!
Like many Black mothers, Rozalynn Goodwin grew steadily impatient - not with the carefree joy of her daughter Gabrielle, but with how all of her meticulously placed hair accessories could never stay fastened for long.
The frustrating incident turned into the business lesson of a lifetime.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-1512094833018-0"); });
The Goodwin mother-daughter duo developed a solution to vanishing hair bows by creating, then patenting the FIRST double-face, double-snap barrettes also known as GaBBY Bows!
But as it turned out, inventing the anti-slip clip was only the beginning...
Five years later, this tween entrepreneur continues to brand the accessory line selling in 50 states, 10 countries, and 74 Target stores, using a personal story that’s ultra-relatable to the customer demographic GaBBY Bows serves best - little Black girls.
Best of all, Gabby and Rozalynn are helping girls and their moms start their own businesses through their Mommy and Me Entrepreneurship Academy and micro franchising opportunities.
Of course, young Black girls are loving how this company explicitly addresses their hair care needs, but the Goodwins’ business model passes on valuable lessons in creativity, innovation, and ownership across generations.
Gabby shared a similar perspective with Black Enterprise, saying “this dream coming true helps girls know that whatever they put their minds and hard work to, they can achieve.” That’s the kind of foundation we know unshakeable confidence will soar from.
As a child, Sacha Antonetty-Lebrón combed through the coveted copies of Essence and Ebony magazines her father brought across the ocean to bring his beautiful Afro-Latina daughter. As she grew older, she was inspired to shake things up.
Because the absence of darker-complexioned Black faces was starkly evident across television shows, beauty pageants, and even news broadcasts, Antonetty-Lebrón created Revista étnica (Ethnic Magazine) to fill a void.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-1512094833018-0"); });
Using a two-year NoVo Foundation grant, Antonetty-Lebrón launched the publication in December 2018. It’s designed to give Afro-Latinx Puerto Ricans space to celebrate their beauty, comment on Afrocentric traditions, and profile remarkable achievements from the once-disregarded community.
So far its very existence is causing quite a stir.
Some believe Revista étnica is divisive. But Puerto Rican professor Yvonne Denis is thankful the magazine covers social issues which she uses as an example for progress:
“It was a good moment to find the magazine was analyzing a situation that was happening in my own family,” Denis told The Oprah Magazine, after using an article on natural hair discrimination to stage an intervention against racist dress codes at her grandson’s school.
Revista étnica intentionally hires Afro-Latinx writers and photographers, which helps preserve and validate the importance of African heritage with every profile throughout its 60 pages.
“We are here. We count—and we are powerful,” is Antonetty-Lebrón rallying cry, and we second that emotion!
You may recognize the bright smiles and kind welcoming spirits of Ron and Natalie Daise from the ‘90s children’s program, Gullah Gullah Island.
For many Black children, the Daise family’s work to help Gullah-Geechee culture come to life to the delight of a national television audience was a special honor.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-1512094833018-0"); });
Ron and Natalie reflect fondly on their four proud years preserving the distinctly West African traditions of the Gullah Geechee descendants of West African enslaved people, who settled in the Lowcountry off the coastal shores of Georgia and South Carolina.
Gullah Gullah Island featured beautiful wardrobes, Creole language lessons, traditional instruments, song, and dance.
Their longevity in this work speaks volumes for the respect this sadly-deteriorating culture deserves.
Both find it no trouble at all to navigate a speaking circuit, where their well-rehearsed Gullah-Geechee storytelling practices unfold.
Today, Ron is a vice president for creative education at Brookgreen Gardens, while Natalie uses painting to open a portal to worlds where Black subjects dance among dietary staples like colored greens or exhibit stoic beauty within portraits made with textured sweetgrass native to the Lowcountry.
The Daise’s portfolio of community and culture-focused projects is an example of enduring advocates for preservation efforts with a gift for translating sacred history into a format young people can respect and enjoy.
19 years ago, Sheriff Sidney Dorsey was running for re-election in Dekalb County, GA. But he was under investigation for corruption, and his rival, Derwin Brown, promised to reform the department.
When Brown won the election, Dorsey started plotting. And what he decided to do makes us wonder: who are the criminals again, exactly?
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-1512094833018-0"); });
Dorsey hired a crew of COPS to ASSASSINATE Brown, promising them promotions. They ambushed Brown in his driveway days before he was to begin his job as sheriff, and gunned him down.
Brown was shot while clutching a bouquet of red roses - it was his wife’s birthday. His wife and five children were left to mourn his death - and seek justice.
The trial, one of the highest-profile cases in Georgia history, was a mess. Everyone suspected Dorsey, but the members of the crew that killed Brown were untrustworthy. Two were granted immunity to testify, but Dorsey’s defense said they were pointing fingers to save themselves.
Dorsey claimed innocence. That is, until a few years later, when he confessed while in prison.
R.I.P Derwin Brown. This wild story seems like fiction - but it’s a true example of the corruption and bad behavior that police officers are capable of.
NYPD is making headlines in the subways of New York City. This time it’s because of their heavy-handed policing, and video shows just how bad police harassment is for subway goers - both young and old!
Over-policing in the subways isn’t a new thing. Now that the NYPD is getting more funding and more police in the subway, everyone is feeling it.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-1512094833018-0"); });
That includes food vendors, who police have been seen arresting in several viral videos that have caused outrage.
There’s also been harassment over fare evasion. The city is going to spend $249 million on police to save $200 million it says it’s losing because of fare evasion. Make that make sense!
Don’t forget the fact that this is all happening while the subway is deteriorating and becoming increasingly unreliable for those who depend on it.
New York’s Governor Cuomo announced “an additional 500 police officers to curb ‘quality of life issues’ in the transit system and enhance cleanliness and safety” in September. However, the quality of many people’s lives directly relates to the subway functioning.
If New York City wants to make the subways better, it will have to focus on the core issues, like the trains themselves and how accessible they are for everyone. Instead, they’re making an age-old mistake by sending the police to do a job that does nothing more than target vulnerable people.