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Dr. Andre Perry, author of the upcoming book, ‘Know Your Price,’ talks race, equity, education, economic inclusion

NEW TRI-STATE DEFENDER — Dr. Andre Perry of the Brookings Institute and the Hechinger Report delved into his research on race and structural inequality, education and economic inclusion during a visit to LeMoyne-Owen College last week. Perry’s visit to Memphis’ only HBCU (historically black college and university) included an interview with Brian Clay of “The Brian Clay Chronicles” for an upcoming podcast of the Big Business of Poverty. The New Tri-State Defender’s media partnership with the developers of “The Brian Clay Chronicles” netted this Q&A.

Published

7 years ago

August 30, 2019

Oakland Post

Dr. Andre Perry’s most recent scholarship involves an analysis of “majority black places and institutions in America, focusing on highlighting valuable assets worthy of increased investment.” (Photo: Dr. Sybil C. Mitchell)

By TSD Newsdesk

Dr. Andre Perry of the Brookings Institute and the Hechinger Report delved into his research on race and structural inequality, education and economic inclusion during a visit to LeMoyne-Owen College last week.

Perry’s visit to Memphis’ only HBCU (historically black college and university) included an interview with Brian Clay of “The Brian Clay Chronicles” for an upcoming podcast of the Big Business of Poverty. The New Tri-State Defender’s media partnership with the developers of “The Brian Clay Chronicles” netted this Q&A.

In this conversation, Perry touched upon his most recent scholarship – an analysis of “majority black places and institutions in America, focusing on highlighting valuable assets worthy of increased investment.”

Brian Clay – In the book, “The Mis-Education of a City,” which is pretty much an anthology of when you served as the CEO of the Capital One school in New Orleans, … basically what you’ve said in there is when it comes to each case, and especially with your work in New Orleans, it was about changing thought there. Where a city after Katrina and the storms there had to re-engineer their thought process about education. Tell me a little bit about that.

Dr. Andre Perry – This actually is one of the reasons why I do my current work on economic development. I often say kids don’t live in the schools, they live in the communities, and we have got to recognize the breadth of the experiences that kids go through that manifests itself at school. …

And you’re not going to fix those things in a child, per se. And that’s what we attempt to do; we try to fix children through punishment, typically. We try to punish problems out of them. But the reality is that if you want to change children and behaviors that are not conducive for academic success, you have to change the root causes. And a lot of that is the structural inequality that persists in majority black places. …

I’m presenting…this evening, and you’ll hear me use the refrain, “There’s nothing wrong with black people that ending racism can’t solve.” It’s my belief, predicated on data, that if you move policy, behaviors will change. …

Likewise, many of the successes we see in many populations are not the result of bootstrapping and individual effort. But it is the result of the direct investment in the people who do policy. And that’s what I’m trying to do. When I worked in schools, we did everything to fix children; we did everything to fix parents. We did little to change the overall setting that they lived in. So my work now is about changing the setting that people live in.

B.C. – … Do you think 1954, Brown vs (Topeka) Board of Education (case that outlawed public school segregation)…do you think we were trying to fix people then? Or was it a policy effort?

Dr. A.P. – I think, in the main, what we wanted to do is get to the source of inequality, and that was segregation. Now, what we did do is assume that white schools are better, and that’s a mistake. What they were, they were better resourced. So the problem of moving kids out of their communities and into others led to a whole other level of divestment. … But busing was not the solution that they thought it would be; primarily because you’re not trusting the assets that you had.

B.C. – …We’re so glad that you’re here at LeMoyne-Owen College. … Do you think that’s one of the things that we do value in the African-American community, our HBCUs?

Dr. A. P. – Well, black folk appreciate and value, but society does not. …When you look at the overall number of grants, federal grants they’ve received, when you look at the attention they receive relative to the production, they’re not getting the level of investment.

I did a study recently that looked at the number of STEM graduates and business graduates coming out of HBCUs. If employers really wanted to fill that sector, they could look to HBCUs in doing so. HBCU grads, particularly in the STEM field and the business field, are achieving at high levels. … particularly in the south, but they’re not being absorbed in the high growth sectors of the economy.

We know that people will cut their noses to spite their faces in terms of racism, but I think it’s more, in this regard, a level of evaluation. They don’t see the value that HBCUs add to society. If you were standing in a room with successful, whatever that means, black people, and you asked them where they went to school, and you asked did they go to an HBCU, invariably, most (in) the room will raise their hand.

It’s because they were nurtured in a caring environment, one that believed in them, one that addressed relevant issues in a diverse environment. When you go to an HBCU, we’re actually dealing with a diversity of black folk. … These are great places and they need to be rewarded.

B.C. – … (Your upcoming book) “Know Your Price” is a fascinating study because you take housing as your premise and you go into a certain comparison in where you live. …Tell us a little bit about that.

Dr. A.P. – So in the study, I looked at homes in majority black places, meaning the communities where the black population is greater than 50 percent and I compared those prices to homes and communities where the share of the population is less than 1 percent. …All majority black places, Memphis included. …

Most people understand that there are price differences, but most people will say, hey, that’s because education is worse and there’s more crime and the housing stock is worse. …I measured those things. …We control for them to get to an apples-for-apples comparison. So we found a black home that’s equivalent in certain conditions to a white home in certain conditions.

B.C. – What did you find?

Dr. A. P. – We found that homes in black neighborhoods are devalued by 23 percent, about $48,000 per home, about $156 billion of lost equity across the country. … (P)ut that in perspective, that would have paid for about 4.4 million startup, black-owned businesses based on the amount of startup capital that we open up businesses with. It would have funded eight million four-year degrees. …

It’s an incredible number. Those dollars are typically used for communities to pay for schools, better policing. It goes to people to deal with the invariable and inevitable shocks that occur. …

(W)hat racism does is robbing people of the opportunity to lift themselves. Whenever something goes wrong in our communities, we talk about there’s something wrong, there’s something broken in the home, that this person doesn’t have home training. We look at the commentary from our President, talking about rat-infested communities, projecting a negative air that there’s something going wrong with our leadership. No, we have strong assets in the community, they’re just devalued, taking away our opportunity to lift ourselves.

Remember, whites were in similar position, and they still are in places. … In the Great Depression they were so in mass, but we used federal policy to bail people out. …Federal policy gave people an opportunity to own a home, to build one. It wasn’t this miraculous bootstrapping …

But my study essentially looks at assets in majority black places. And I’m not going to stop with housing. I’m looking at businesses. I’m looking at education and other critical areas… Folks need to see that they have value; they have assets that we should be able to build upon.

B.C. – … What is the answer? How do we fix this?

Dr. A. P. – We have to bring value back to the community. You can do that in several ways, either encouraging micro loans to current homeowners so that they can fix up their properties and improve those conditions. I’m obviously encouraging long-term renters to become homeowners. We certainly need to give down payment assistance….

I’m also advocating for individual level resource development. … I’m also an advocate of making sure business owners and entrepreneurs get the kind of low interest loans to start business and trying to take risks.

But most importantly…we need to advocate for federal policy that will enable communities at a large scale to do all of these things.

So, I’m an advocate for federal policy…and…encouraging people to do all they can to leverage their own assets so that we can bring attention to the lack of federal and state investment in black communities.

This article originally appeared in the New Tri-State Defender

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

2 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

5 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

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PRESS ROOM: NBA Hall of Fame Nominee Terry Cummings Joins 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to Launch Victory & Values Initiative

NNPA NEWSWIRE — NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th.

Published

5 days ago

February 27, 2026

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Cummings becomes an honorary member, joining other role model sports stars

NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings has officially become an honorary member of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County, marking a powerful new chapter for the 100 Black Men and youth development across the region.

Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th. The moment signified more than membership — it marked the launch of the organization’s transformative new platform, the Victory & Values Initiative.

The Victory & Values Initiative is a groundbreaking youth development program designed to empower elementary and middle school students through a dynamic blend of sports, mentorship, and STEM exposure. The initiative focuses on building health, discipline, character, leadership, and access to opportunity — creating pathways for long-term academic and personal success.

“This is about more than sports,” said Cummings during the ceremony. “It’s about using the platform of athletics to teach life lessons, create access, and build the next generation of leaders.”

The induction ceremony also featured notable guests including NASCAR’s newest Star Driver, Lavar Scott and NASCAR Director of Athletic Performance, Phil Horton, who joined Cummings for a powerful Victory & Values Town Hall discussion. The Town Hall was moderated by renowned Sports Emcee John Hollins and focused on leadership, resilience, discipline, and the importance of mentorship in shaping young lives.

A “Day at NASCAR” for 75+ Youth

Cummings wasted no time getting to work. On his first full day as an honorary member, he joined his new brothers of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to host a “Day at NASCAR,” escorting more than 75 youth to a once-in-a-lifetime experience at EchoPark Motor Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).

The youth participants received behind-the-scenes access including: an exclusive tour of Pit Row, access to the Garage Area and exploration of the interactive Fan Zone.

The experience culminated with a surprise meet-and-greet and Q&A session with NASCAR Superstar Bubba Wallace, who shared insights on perseverance, preparation, and breaking barriers in professional sports.

The day served as a living example of the ‘Victory & Values’ Initiative in action — exposing youth to new industries, expanding their vision for the future, and connecting them directly with high- level mentors and role models.

Building Leaders Through Access and Mentorship

The 100 Black Men of DeKalb County – a chapter of the largest, national mentoring organization in the county – continues to expand its footprint with programs focused on academic excellence, economic empowerment, leadership development, and health & wellness.

The launch of ‘Victory & Values’ represents a strategic expansion of the organization’s impact

intentionally integrating athletics and STEM to engage youth at an early age while reinforcing core principles such as integrity, accountability, teamwork, and perseverance.

“Our mission has always been to mentor the next generation,” said Vaughn Irons, President-Elect of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County. “With Terry Cummings joining the brotherhood, along with partners in NASCAR and professional sports, we are creating unprecedented access and exposure for our youth. Victory & Values is about turning inspiration into structured opportunity.”

By connecting elementary and middle school students to professional athletes, executives, STEM professionals, and community leaders, the initiative aims to:

Increase youth exposure to careers in sports business, engineering, and performance science
Strengthen mentorship pipelines
Promote physical wellness and mental resilience
Build character-driven leadership at an early age

Open Invitation to Youth and Families

All youth are invited to participate in the Victory & Values Initiative, along with the other countless, impactful programs offered by the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County.

Parents and guardians seeking mentorship, leadership development, academic enrichment, and transformative exposure opportunities for their children are encouraged to connect with the organization.

As NBA Legend Terry Cummings’ induction demonstrates, Victory & Values is more than a program — it is a movement designed to build champions in life, not just in sports.

For more information about the Victory & Values Initiative or to enroll a student, contact: 100 Black Men of DeKalb County at Phone at 404.241.1338, info@100bmod.org or Tee Foxx at 404.791.6525,