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PRESS ROOM: Strengthening Community: Nissan’s Record Year of Grant Support

NNPA NEWSWIRE — In the 32 years since its founding, the Nissan Foundation has been awarding grants to nonprofits – big and small – that work to educate and inspire people to embrace diversity. More than 150 nonprofits have received grants during the Foundation’s lifetime, and more than $17 million has been awarded.

Published

8 months ago

August 7, 2024

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Forty-four nonprofits continue the Nissan Foundation’s mission of fostering connection and embracing diversity

The year was 1992. Civil unrest had gripped South Central Los Angeles in the wake of the Rodney King trial verdict. Employees at Nissan’s then-U.S. sales headquarters watched it unfold out their office windows just blocks from the riot’s epicenter. In the days and weeks that followed, Nissan employees resolved to do something.

Together, they created the Nissan Foundation.

In the 32 years since its founding, the Nissan Foundation has been awarding grants to nonprofits – big and small – that work to educate and inspire people to embrace diversity. More than 150 nonprofits have received grants during the Foundation’s lifetime, and more than $17 million has been awarded.

And this year, Nissan will award its most grants ever in a single grant cycle.

“The Nissan Foundation is unique in its laser-sharp focus on just one thing: embracing our diversity,” said Chandra Vassar, Nissan Foundation president. “Everything we do and every organization we support does this in some way, shape or form.”

Grantees in action

School children visit the Two Mississippi Museums, a Nissan Foundation grantee, in Jackson. Photo courtesy the Nissan Foundation.

The Foundation for Mississippi History, which operates the interconnected Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, is a four-time Nissan Foundation grantee. A centerpiece of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, Mississippi has many complicated stories of tragedy and triumph to tell, and the Two Mississippi Museums create an immersive space for sharing them.

The Nissan Foundation’s support of these museums helps ensure that each K-12 student in Mississippi has at least one chance to visit the museums before they graduate – regardless of their family’s ability to pay.

During the museum tours, students can meet Hezekiah Watkins, who was arrested over 100 times as a member of the Freedom Riders, a group of activists who participated in “Freedom Rides” in the early 1960s to protest segregated bus terminals.

“In our heads, the Freedom Riders and those pushing the movement forward feel so far away but seeing such an accomplished person give his firsthand account really made everything we had been learning feel so much more real,” wrote Jax and Max, two eighth grade students who visited the museum and heard Watkins share his story of being the youngest Freedom Rider in Jackson.

Participants in the Zekelman Holocaust Center’s teacher education program view Holocaust artifacts up close during a museum tour. Photo courtesy the Nissan Foundation.

A six-time Nissan Foundation grantee, the Zekelman Holocaust Center. in Farmington Hills, Michigan, has used its grants over the years to train teachers in Holocaust education. The center will use its 2024 grant to train English Language Arts educators in the use of memoirs for their classroom Holocaust instruction.

“Many students’ first experience with the Holocaust is through literature,” explained Ruth Bergman, the Zekelman Holocaust Center’s director of education. “A lot of teachers are nervous about teaching the Holocaust – it’s a huge subject. We help them bring the Holocaust into the classroom to give students the historical and cultural context they need to understand the literature and the history that surrounds it.”

Students explore Japanese culture through music during a Midori Foundation Celebrate! Music event. Photo courtesy the Nissan Foundation.

One of the Nissan Foundation’s newest grantees is the Midori Foundation, which provides a tuition-free music education program for underserved youth. The Foundation’s Celebrate! Music program brings live performances by diverse ensembles to New York City classrooms. With a front row seat, students experience different cultures through music.

“Through interactive live concerts and artist-led workshops, students are exposed to diverse cultures, fostering empathy and understanding,” said Luz MacManus, the Midori Foundation’s vice president, development. “This exposure promotes a sense of global citizenship and community cohesion, celebrating cultural diversity and promoting the values of acceptance and unity.”

More need than ever

Three decades after the Nissan Foundation’s first grants were awarded, the number of applicants continues to rise. In fact, the number of organizations applying for a 2024 grant tripled from 2023. Ali Tonn, Nissan Foundation executive director, thinks this has something to do with a deep need for connection.

“Coming out of the pandemic, there’s a lot of need for a sense of belonging,” Tonn said. “Many people felt unseen, unheard and isolated. We get connection from perspective sharing, which is at the heart of the work the Nissan Foundation supports. It’s not surprising, then, that so many nonprofits are coming forward to create spaces for people to be seen, be heard and be understood, and to seek the Nissan Foundation’s support in this endeavor.”

Meeting this increase in programming, the Nissan Foundation awarded its most grants ever in a single grant cycle this year. Forty-four grantee organizations will initiate or continue programs grounded in the idea that diversity fosters connection and is an enhancing factor of society.

“I’m thrilled that we’re able to further the innovative programming of 44 grantees this year,” Tonn said. “These organizations are continually coming up with ways to reach new audiences and share the benefits of living and working together in a diverse society. Our grantees do really important work, and it’s a privilege to be a part of supporting their efforts.”

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Fighting to Keep Blackness

BlackPressUSA NEWSWIRE — Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 7, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

As this nation observes the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, the words of President Trump reverberate. “This country will be WOKE no longer”, an emboldened Trump offered during his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. Since then, Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell posted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter this morning that “Elon Musk and his DOGE bros have ordered GSA to sell off the site of the historic Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery.” Her post of little words went on to say, “This is outrageous and we will not let it stand! I am demanding an immediate reversal. Our civil rights history is not for sale!” DOGE trying to sell Freedom Rider Museum

Also, in the news today, the Associated Press is reporting they have a file of names and descriptions of more than 26,000 military images flagged for removal because of connections to women, minorities, culture, or DEI. In more attempts to downplay Blackness, a word that is interchanged with woke, Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C. Mayor Morial Bowser is allowing the name change to keep millions of federal dollars flowing there. Black Lives Matter Plaza was named in 2020 after a tense exchange between President Trump and George Floyd protesters in front of the White House. There are more reports about cuts to equity initiatives that impact HBCU students. Programs that recruited top HBCU students into the military and the pipeline for Department of Defense contracts have been canceled.

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing back against this second-term Trump administration’s anti-DEI and Anti-woke message. In the wake of the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, several Congressional Black Caucus leaders are reintroducing the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina Democratic Congressman James Clyburn and Alabama Congresswoman Terry Sewell are sponsoring H.R. 14, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Six decades ago, Lewis was hit with a billy club by police as he marched for the right to vote for African Americans. The right for Black people to vote became law with the 1965 Voting Rights Act that has since been gutted, leaving the nation to vote without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. Reflecting on the late Congressman Lewis, March 1, 2020, a few months before his death, Lewis said, “We need more than ever in these times many more someones to make good trouble- to make their own dent in the wall of injustice.”

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Rep. Al Green is Censured by The U.S. House After Protesting Trump on Medicaid

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 6, 2025

Oakland Post

By Lauren Burke

In one of the quickest punishments of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the modern era, Congressman Al Green (D-TX) was censured by a 224-198 vote today in the House. His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question. Of the last three censures of members of the U.S. House, two have been members of the Congressional Black Caucus under GOP control. In 2023, Rep. Jamal Bowman was censured.

On the night of March 4, as President Trump delivered a Joint Address to Congress, Rep. Green interrupted him twice. Rep. Green shouted, “You don’t have a mandate to cut Medicare, and you need to raise the cap on social security,” to President Trump. In another rare event, Rep. Green was escorted off the House floor by security shortly after yelling at the President by order of GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson. Over the last four years, members of Congress have yelled at President Biden during the State of the Union. Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor-Greene was joined by Republican Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-CO) in 2022 in yelling at President Biden. In 2023, Rep. Greene, Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), and Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) yelled at Biden, interrupting his speech. In 2024, wearing a red MAGA hat, a violation of the rules of the U.S. House, Greene interrupted Biden again. She was never censured for her behavior. Rep. Green voted “present” on his censure and was joined by freshman Democrat Congressman Shomari Figures of Alabama who also voted “present”.

All other members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted against censuring Green. Republicans hold a four-seat advantage in the U.S. House after the death of Texas Democrat and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner yesterday. Ten Democrats voted along with Republicans to censure Rep. Green, including Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who is in the leadership as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “I respect them but, I would do it again,” and “it is a matter of conscience,” Rep. Green told Black Press USA’s April Ryan in an exclusive interview on March 5. After the vote, a group of Democrats sang “We Shall Overcome” in the well at the front of the House chamber. Several Republican members attempted to shout down the singing. House Speaker Mike Johnson gaveled the House out of session and into a recess. During the brief recess members moved back to their seats and out of the well of the House. Shortly after the vote to censor Rep. Green, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee quickly filed legislation to punish members who participated in the singing of “We Shall Overcome.” Earlier this year, Rep. Ogles filed legislation to allow President Donald Trump to serve a third term, which is currently unconstitutional. As the debate started, the stock market dove down over one-point hours from close. The jobs report will be made public tomorrow.

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Trump Moves to Dismantle Education Department

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 6, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

The Trump administration is preparing to issue an executive order directing newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the Department of Education. While the president lacks the authority to unilaterally shut down the agency—requiring congressional approval—McMahon has been tasked with taking “all necessary steps” to reduce its role “to the maximum extent permitted by law.” The administration justifies the move by claiming the department has spent over $1 trillion since its 1979 founding without improving student achievement. However, data from The Nation’s Report Card shows math scores have improved significantly since the 1990s, though reading levels have remained stagnant. The pandemic further widened achievement gaps, leaving many students behind.

The Education Department provides about 10% of public-school funding, primarily targeting low-income students, rural districts, and children with disabilities. A recent Data for Progress poll found that 61% of voters oppose Trump’s efforts to abolish the agency, while just 34% support it. In Washington, D.C., where student proficiency rates remain low—22% in math and 34% in English—federal funding is crucial. Serenity Brooker, an elementary education major, warned that cutting the department would worsen conditions in underfunded schools.

“D.C. testing scores aren’t very high right now, so cutting the Department of Education isn’t going to help that at all,” she told Hilltop News. A report from the Education Trust found that low-income schools in D.C. receive $2,200 less per student than wealthier districts, leading to shortages in essential classroom materials. The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.

The Office for Civil Rights also plays a key role in enforcing laws that protect students from discrimination. Moving it to the Department of Justice, as proposed in Project 2025, would make it harder for families to file complaints, leaving vulnerable students with fewer protections. Federal student aid programs, including Pell Grants and loan repayment plans, could face disruption if the department is dismantled. Experts warn this could worsen the student debt crisis, pushing more borrowers into default. “With funding cuts, they don’t have the materials they need, like books or things to help with math,” Brooker said. “It makes learning less fun for them.”