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Tulsa Juneteenth Event Features Native Carmen Fields Her Love Of Journalism Began At The Oklahoma Eagle

OKLAHOMA EAGLE — OKPOP, a project of the Oklahoma Historical Society, is planning a special event to mark Juneteenth on Monday, June 17, from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Rudisill Regional Library, located at 1520 N. Hartford Ave. in Tulsa. The event will include an interview with award-winning journalist Carmen Fields by former Senator Judy Eason McIntyre, followed by a question-and-answer portion with the audience.

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By Eagle Newswire

OKPOP, a project of the Oklahoma Historical Society, is planning a special event to mark Juneteenth on Monday, June 17, from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Rudisill Regional Library, located at 1520 N. Hartford Ave. in Tulsa.

The event will include an interview with award-winning journalist Carmen Fields by former Senator Judy Eason McIntyre, followed by a question-and-answer portion with the audience.

The program will focus on Fields’s experience growing up in segregated Tulsa and her prominent journalism career, including the PBS documentary she wrote and produced, “Goin’ Back to T-Town,” about race relations in the city.

“What an honor to be a part of recognizing the rich heritage of North Tulsa, and to share some of my varied professional experiences! This community has helped launch me, my brother and so many others. It will be a joy to be back home,” stated Fields.

Doors will open at 6:30 p.m., and the event is free and open to the public, but donations will be accepted to support the Shirley Ballard Nero Endowment Fund.

Fields, who resides in Massachusetts, is an alumna of Tulsa’s Booker T. Washington High School and earned her Bachelor of Arts (BA) in journalism from Lincoln University. She went on to receive a Master of Science (MS) in broadcast journalism from at Boston University and received the Nieman Fellowship for Journalists from Harvard University, the only American broadcaster of the 25 American and foreign fellows.

Fields’ interest in journalism was sparked by English teacher Juanita Lewis Hopkins, who submitted her stories to The Oklahoma Eagle.  Later, columnist Jeanne O. Goodwin, known professionally as “Ann Brown” invited Fields to be a guest columnist before she began her journalism studies at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo.

She was part of the Boston Globe team that won a Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for coverage of Boston’s school desegregation efforts. Fields has been nominated for six regional Emmy awards and has won two. Additionally, she received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Salem State University in Massachusetts.

She is currently both producer and host of a monthly public affairs program on Boston’s Channel 7 called “Higher Ground” in addition to running her own media and public relations consulting firm. Fields is the daughter of famous big band leader Ernie Fields, Sr. and Bernice (Copeland) Fields, who was a Tulsa elementary school teacher, and the sister of musician Ernie Fields, Jr.

Juneteenth is the Texas and Oklahoma regional celebration of the emancipation from slavery following the US Civil War. US General Gordon Granger proclaimed the end of slavery in Texas at Galveston on June 19, 1865. This news and celebration spread to Indian Territory slaves that summer.

For more information about the Oklahoma HOKPOP, please visit www.okhistory.org.

The Shirley Ballard Nero Endowment provides funds to conduct research, programming, exhibitions and events related to the historic All-Black towns of Oklahoma. You can donate to this fund at the Oklahoma History Center or by contacting Angela Spindle at 405-522-0317 or aspindle@okhistory.org.

This article originally appeared in the Oklahoma Eagle

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Oakland Post: Week of March 15 – 21, 2023

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 15 – 21, 2023

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 15 - 21, 2023

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Oakland Post: Week of March 8 – 14, 2023

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 8 – 14, 2023

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 8 - 14, 2023

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Internet Pioneer Lisa Gelobter Helped Create Technologies for Web Animation

Many Black women have made significant strides within technology, yet they remain significantly underrepresented across the computer sciences spectrum. According to the United Negro College Fund, Black women make up only 3% of the tech workforce, and less than 0.5% have leadership roles in Silicon Valley. These statistics did not keep Lisa Gelobter (b. 1971) from living her dream. As a computer scientist, technologist, and chief executive, she has spent 25 years in the software industry.

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Lisa Gelobter is the CEO and co-founder of tEQuitable, which promotes fairness in the workplace. tEQuitable web site photo.
Lisa Gelobter is the CEO and co-founder of tEQuitable, which promotes fairness in the workplace. tEQuitable web site photo.

By Tamara Shiloh

Many Black women have made significant strides within technology, yet they remain significantly underrepresented across the computer sciences spectrum.

According to the United Negro College Fund, Black women make up only 3% of the tech workforce, and less than 0.5% have leadership roles in Silicon Valley.

These statistics did not keep Lisa Gelobter (b. 1971) from living her dream. As a computer scientist, technologist, and chief executive, she has spent 25 years in the software industry.

By working on several pioneering internet technologies and creating web animation and online video (Brightcove and Joost), she has designed products used by millions of people.

Gelobter was instrumental in the creation of Shockwave, a technology that formed the beginning of web animation, and oversaw its product release cycle. She coded the ActiveX control for the player and coordinated the engineering transition.

A Brown University graduate (at age 20), Gelobter’s degree in computer science with a concentration in artificial intelligence and machine learning was instrumental in launching her career. She served as chief digital service officer for the U.S. Department of Education during Barack Obama’s presidency and led the team that built the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard.

This is an online tool, created by the federal. government, for consumers to compare the cost and value of higher education institutions in the U.S. At launch, it displayed data in five areas: cost, graduation rate, employment rate, average amount borrowed, and loan default rate.

Gelobter’s background in strategy development, business operations, user-centered design, product management, and engineering is expansive. She served as chief digital officer for BET Networks and was a member of the senior management team for the launch of Hulu.

Little is known about Gelobter’s childhood. Her father was Jewish and from Poland, and her mother was Black and from the Caribbean. There is no public information available about where Lisa Gelobter was born or raised.

In 2019, Gelobter was named one of Inc’s 100 Women Building America’s Most Innovative and Ambitious Businesses. Serving on boards for the Obama Foundation, Time’s Up, and the Education Trust, she is proud to be a Black woman with a degree in computer science.

Today, Gelobter runs her own company, tEQuitable (2006), an independent, confidential platform to address issues of bias, discrimination, and harassment in the workplace, according to its website. She raised more than $2 million for the start-up, making her one of the first 40 Black women ever to have raised more than $1 million in venture capital funding.

She is also a former member of the New York Urban League STEM Advisory Board and was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People.

Encourage young girls by helping them learn about pioneering women in STEM with faces like theirs who shaped the world. Read with them T.M. Moody’s “African American Women Pioneers in STEM Activity Book.” It’s part activity book, part educational workbook

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