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Urban One Honors 2021: “Women Leading the Change”

“These women aren’t the Real Housewives of you name the city. These women are working on improving the lives of Black folk,” media mogul and entrepreneur Cathy Hughes said in a recent interview. Please encourage your young women to watch this show. We don’t know who the next Kamala Harris will be, a Black woman who became the nation’s first woman vice president or someone who changes the voting structure like Stacey Abrams.”

Published

4 years ago

May 10, 2021

Oakland Post

And while many might consider those individuals able to spend more than seven decades with their mother as fortunate, Hughes said such longevity also created a startling realization. “The longer God blesses you with having your mother in your life, the more difficult it is to adjust to life without her,” she said.

By Keith L. Alexander for the NNPA

For media mogul and entrepreneur Cathy Hughes, this year’s Mother’s Day was going to be difficult.

Last July, Hughes’s mother, Helen Jones Woods, 96, died from complications of Covid-19. For the 74-year-old Hughes, multi-millionaire and founder and chairperson of Urban One Inc., this year marks Hughes’s first Mother’s Day without her mother present.

It was during Hughes’s mourning, that she birthed an idea to not only celebrate her mother’s life with a national TV program, but to also celebrate and honor the lives of other African American women who -specifically during the pandemic – worked at protecting and spotlighting Black Americans.

On Sunday, May 16, 2012 at 9 p.m. (EST) Hughes’s cable TV networks, TV One and its sister network CLEO-TV, will air the network’s annual “Urban One Honors” celebration. The two-hour program this year will be a first; all honorees are African American women. The show is themed “Women Leading the Change.”

Hughes said the women honored left an indelible mark on the country last year, one of this nation’s darkest and most challenging periods in American history due to the deadly pandemic.

The show is co-hosted by Grammy-award winning singer and syndicated gospel radio show host Erica Campbell and award-wining journalist and news commentator Roland Martin. The recorded, virtual awards show will feature live performances by R&B saangers, Avery Sunshine and Jazmine Sullivan, gospel powerhouse Le’Andria Johnson and legendary rapper, Da Brat.

The program will honor six Black female leaders in business, politics, journalism and humanitarian efforts including Atlanta’s political powerhouse and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stacey Abrams and Rosaline “Roz” Brewer, chief executive officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance and the nation’s third Fortune 500 company ever led by a Black female executive. The program will also honor the four African American, Greek sororities; Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc., Delta Sigma Theta, Inc., Sigma Gamma Rho, Inc. and Zeta Phi Beta, Inc.

The show will also pay tribute to Hughes’s mother, who before becoming a wife and mother, was a famed trombone player who played with an all-girl, integrated swing music band called the International Sweethearts of Rhythm in the 1930s and 1940’s. Hughes called her mother’s group, “the original Freedom Fighters” who traveled by bus through the South playing for audiences and even played clubs overseas. At one point, white and Hispanic band members had to wear dark makeup to look like their Black bandmates to avoid being stopped by police for promoting integration, Hughes recalled. The segment will be introduced by a longtime fan of the group, political activist, author and college professor Angela Davis.

Hughes’s excitement about the upcoming evening is electric. An hour before “Urban One Honors” airs, TV One will broadcast an exclusive, hour-long interview with legendary rapper DMX. The interview was recorded for the network’s weekly show “Uncensored” about three weeks before DMX’s sudden death April 9 at age 50. The show’s producers said DMX spoke, at times through tears, about his life, his music and his legacy. The producers said hearing DMX’s commentary just weeks before his death, is more sobering and haunting today.

After the celebration of one of the kings of rap music with “Uncensored,” the TV network will then celebrate its queens with the “Urban One Honors.”

“I think it’s going to be the biggest night in TV One’s history,” Hughes exclaimed.

Hughes, along with a group of Urban One executives chose the honorees because they wanted viewers, especially young girls, to see Black women who were not celebrated singers, dancers or actresses, but instead who were ideological firebrands, making differences in their communities and around the nation.

“These women aren’t the Real Housewives of you name the city. These women are working on improving the lives of Black folk,” Hughes said in a recent interview. Please encourage your young women to watch this show. We don’t know who the next Kamala Harris will be, a Black woman who became the nation’s first woman vice president or someone who changes the voting structure like Stacey Abrams.”

Hughes described Abrams as “voting rights champion” who not only changed the political landscape of Atlanta, but also helped ensure all voters were recognized on behalf of two U.S. Senate Democratic candidates and helped flip Georgia from majority Republican to majority Democrat.

When Walgreen’s selected Spelman College graduate Roz Brewer as its newest CEO in January, Brewer became the nation’s second Black female executive to ever lead a Fortune 500 company. Before being tapped by Walgreen’s, Brewer served as chief operating officer for Starbucks. Prior to that, she served as CEO of Sam’s Club which is owned by Walmart. In 2009, Ursula Burns, became the nation’s first Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company when Xerox Holdings selected her as its CEO. Burns retired in 2017. The third Black woman CEO to lead a Fortune 500 company, Thasunda Brown Duckett, was named president and CEO of the retirement and investment managing company TIAA in February, a month after Brewer.

The TV One program is also honoring Ala Stanford, a Philadelphia-based physician and surgeon who last year founded the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium and used her own funds to ensure Black residents of the city – a group that was quickly becoming Philadelphia’s hardest hit by the pandemic – were able to be tested for the coronavirus.

Urban One, is based in Silver Spring, Md. about 30 minutes from downtown Washington, D.C. Last year, Hughes and other Urban One executives watched as Kim Ford, president and chief executive of Martha’s Table, provided healthy meals and fresh produce to needy residents in the nation’s capital during the pandemic.

For more than 40 years, Martha’s Table has ensured the neediest of Washington residents had healthy meals and clothing. Martha’s Table was named after the Biblical figure Martha who offered food to Jesus when he visited the home she shared with her sister Mary.

As a youth growing up in Washington, Ford volunteered serving and handing out meals with the non-profit organization. Then in 2019, she was chosen as the company’s president and chief executive. Prior to being named Martha’s Table chief executive, Ford served as deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education where she oversaw management of more than $2 billion in career and technical education, adult education, correctional and re-entry education and community college initiatives for more than 25 million students a year. Ford previously served as a member of President Obama’s Recovery Implementation Office, which was responsible for implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Last year, Martha’s Table reported a 400 percent increase in need from users, as thousands of residents sought assistance for themselves and their families enabling the program to feed as many as 2,200 residents a day, Martha’s Table reported recently.

Another honoree, Robin Rue Simmons, is an alderman in Evanston’s fifth ward in Louisiana. A champion of Black residents in the city, Simmons was elected alderman in 2017. Simmons then led Evanston to becoming the first U.S. city to approve a reparations program. Since taking office, Simmons led the passing of the nation’s first reparations program, which will be funded by the first $10 million of Adult Use Cannabis sales tax revenue. Simmons is also the director of the city’s innovation and outreach at Sunshine Enterprises, which has supported more than 1000 neighborhood entrepreneurs – 98 percent of whom are African American and 74 percent of whom are women – in starting or growing their own business ventures.

Also being honored is New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. Hannah-Jones covered racial injustice for the Times’s magazine before convincing the paper’s top editors to create an entire investigative series tied to the U.S. slave trade. The enterprise was called the 1619 Project which was published by the magazine in 2019. Last year the project won Jones the coveted Pulitzer Prize. The series is now the subject of a documentary produced by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films and Lionsgate and is scheduled to air on Hulu.

“We wanted to spotlight Sisters who were getting the change accentuated and making sure the change occurs,” Hughes said.

The show will also feature several noted Black men honoring the sisters. Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson makes his debut appearance on TV One. Also providing commentary on the honorees include Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Urban One CEO and Hughes’s son Alfred C. Liggins III and former Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond.

As co-host of the evening’s program, Campell said she hoped families with young daughters and young sons watch the program together and discuss the awardees and their work.

“I can have a conversation with my daughters to show them there is more to do than just look cute and wear nice makeup,” Campbell said. “They can literally shake up the world. Far too many of our girls look up to one dimensional type of celebrities or influencers. There is so much more than what we can be or what we can do. Offer this wide range of women who are changing the world.”

That was the impotence of the show, says Hughes. “Young people are so focused on celebrities. I wanted to focus this awards’ show on actions. The entertainment industry was shut down for the year. But these individuals we are honoring continued to work during the year,” Hughes said. “During the pandemic, these women were actively engaged.”

And while this year was for the ladies, what about the men? “Who knows maybe next year it will be brothers only,” Hughes said.

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Post News Group to Host Second Town Hall on Racism, Hate Crimes

The mission of CRD is to protect the people of California from unlawful discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations (businesses) and from hate violence and human trafficking in accordance with the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), Unruh Civil Rights Act, Disabled Persons Act, and Ralph Civil Rights Act. The employment anti-discrimination provisions of the FEHA apply to public and private employers, labor organizations and employment agencies. “Housing providers” includes public and private owners, real estate agents and brokers, banks, mortgage companies, and financial institutions.

Published

2 days ago

December 10, 2024

Oakland Post

By Oakland Post Staff

On Tuesday, Dec. 10, from 5-6:30 p.m. PT, Post News Group Global Features Journalist Carla Thomas will host a second Virtual Town Hall on Racism.

Guests will include community builders Trevor Parham of Oakstop and Shawn Granberry of Hip Hop TV.

“There’s been an uptick of blatant racist acts going on in the community and it’s important for communities to have a forum, an outlet, and to be educated on the California Vs. Hate initiative that has resources available for victims and witnesses,” said Thomas. People like Trevor Parham and Shawn Granberry have found a multitude of ways to strengthen, heal, and protect the community through their entrepreneurial networks, special events, and mentoring.”

While community leaders step up, the state has added extra support with the CA vs. Hate, initiative, a non-emergency hate incident and hate crime reporting system to support individuals and communities targeted for hate.

“We are committed to making California a safer and inclusive place for all,” said James Williams, Jr. of the California Civil Rights Department.

In partnership with organizations across the state, the network is designed to support and protect diverse and underserved communities.

“Through CA vs. Hate, we support individuals and communities targeted for hate, identify options for next steps after an act of hate, and connect people with culturally competent resources and care coordination services,” said Williams.

“It’s important to report these incidents in order for us to use the data to enhance prevention and response services,” said Williams.

Funded by the California State Legislature, the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) received funding and authorization from the State Legislature to establish the non-emergency, CA vs. Hate Resource Line and Network to support individuals and communities targeted for hate.

CRD began in 1959 with the creation of the Fair Employment Practices Commission to implement California’s first state-wide protections against discrimination in the workplace. In 1980, the 1959 Fair Employment Practices Act, and the 1963 Rumford Fair Housing Act were combined and rebranded FEHA. The Fair Employment Practices Commission became a department-level agency named the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) to enforce that law.

In July 2022, DFEH’s name changed to CRD to more accurately reflect the Department’s powers and duties, which include enforcement of laws prohibiting hate violence, human trafficking, discrimination in business establishments, and discrimination in government-funded programs and activities, among others.

For more information visit the PostNewsGroup.com and CAvsHATE.ORG.

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Butler, Lee Celebrate Passage of Bill to Honor Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm with Congressional Gold Medal

“Shirley Chisholm lived an honorable life of service and was a trailblazer who opened doors for generations of Black women and opened the imagination of what leadership looked like for our entire nation,” said Butler. “Her extraordinary contributions to American history and progress deserve recognition, and today I am proud to stand with my colleagues in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle to have taken this step to celebrate her legacy, ensuring that future generation of leaders never forget her courage, sacrifice, and patriotism.

Published

2 days ago

December 10, 2024

Oakland Post

By U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler
Special to The Post

U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) and U.S. Representative Barbara Lee (D-Calif.-12) celebrated the passage of bipartisan legislation to honor the life and work of the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress in 1968.

The Shirley Chisholm Congressional Gold Medal Act would instruct Congress to posthumously endow Chisholm with a Congressional Gold Medal – the highest award Congress can bestow – in commemoration of her accomplishments, activism, and legacy.

The Shirley Chisholm Congressional Gold Medal Act was led in the House by Congresswoman Lee, Congressman Byron Donalds, Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and Congresswoman Yvette Clarke. The Senate companion to the bill was introduced by Butler and Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock.

The Congressional Gold Medal serves as the nation’s highest expression of gratitude for distinguished service and achievements, and I see no one more deserving than Shirley Chisholm,” said Lee. “It is critical for the next generation of leaders to see the first Black woman elected to Congress get the recognition that she deserves.

“Congresswoman Chisholm made history as the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress and the first Black woman to run for President of the United States. To Mrs. C, thank you for being unbought and unbossed, for paving the way, and for being a catalyst for change,” Lee said.

During her seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, “Fighting Shirley” introduced 50 pieces of legislation and was a champion for racial and gender equity, low-income communities, and the end of the Vietnam War.

In 1972, Chisholm became the first woman and Black candidate to seek the nomination for president of the United States from one of the two major political parties.

After a lifetime of service, Shirley Chisholm died at the age of 80 in Ormond Beach, Florida, on New Year’s Day 2005. Nov. 30, 2024, would have marked Chisholm’s 100th birthday. Chisholm’s motto, “Unbought and Unbossed,” embodies her unwavering advocacy for women and minorities, which defined her remarkable career and inspired future generations of leaders.

After passing the House and Senate with significant bipartisan support, the Shirley Chisholm Congressional Gold Medal Act will head to President Biden’s desk for a signature.

“Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm broke barriers for Black women, Black Americans, and anyone who refuses to be confined by injustice. As an educator, trailblazing public servant, and presidential candidate, she fought for an inclusive democracy that lives up to our nation’s highest ideals of equity and justice under law,” said Warnock. “I am proud to have passed this bill alongside Senator Butler to honor Chisholm’s legacy with a Congressional Gold Medal, and I will continue working to carry on her fight through my work in the Senate.”

“Shirley Chisholm was a pioneering figure in American politics, serving as a source of inspiration for millions throughout our country,” said Senator Susan Collins. “I am proud to join this effort to recognize her historic contributions to our nation.”

“Shirley Chisholm broke barriers as the first African American woman elected to Congress, paving the way for future generations of women leaders,” said Nevada Senator Cortez Masto. “I’m proud I helped pass this bill in the Senate to honor her legacy and continue the fight for representation and opportunity for everyone across the country.”

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Landlords Are Using AI to Raise Rents — And California Cities Are Leading the Pushback

Federal prosecutors say the practice amounts to “an unlawful information-sharing scheme” and some lawmakers throughout California are moving to curb it. San Diego’s City Council president is the latest to do so, proposing to prevent local apartment owners from using the pricing software, which he maintains is driving up housing costs.

Published

2 days ago

December 10, 2024

Oakland Post

Gopixa for iStock.

By Wendy Fry, CalMatters

If you’ve hunted for apartments recently and felt like all the rents were equally high, you’re not crazy: Many landlords now use a single company’s software — which uses an algorithm based on proprietary lease information — to help set rent prices.

San Diego’s proposed ordinance, now being drafted by the city attorney, comes after San Francisco supervisors in July enacted a similar, first-in-the-nation ban on “the sale or use of algorithmic devices to set rents or manage occupancy levels” for residences. San Jose is considering a similar approach.

And California and seven other states have also joined the federal prosecutors’ antitrust suit, which targets the leading rent-pricing platform, Texas-based RealPage. The complaint alleges that “RealPage is an algorithmic intermediary that collects, combines, and exploits landlords’ competitively sensitive information. And in so doing, it enriches itself and compliant landlords at the expense of renters who pay inflated prices…”

But state lawmakers this year failed to advance legislation by Bakersfield Democratic Sen. Melissa Hurtado that would have banned the use of any pricing algorithms based on nonpublic data provided by competing companies. She said she plans to bring the bill back during the next legislative session because of what she described as ongoing harms from such algorithms.

“We’ve got to make sure the economy is fair and … that every individual who wants a shot at creating a business has a shot without being destroyed along the way, and that we’re also protecting consumers because it is hurting the pocketbooks of everybody in one way or another,” said Hurtado.

RealPage has been a major impetus for all of the actions. The company counts as its customers landlords with thousands of apartment units across California. Some officials accuse the company of thwarting competition that would otherwise drive rents down, exacerbating the state’s housing shortage and driving up rents in the process.

“Every day, millions of Californians worry about keeping a roof over their head and RealPage has directly made it more difficult to do so,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a written statement.

A RealPage spokesperson, Jennifer Bowcock, told CalMatters that a lack of housing supply, not the company’s technology, is the real problem — and that its technology benefits residents, property managers, and others associated with the rental market. The spokesperson later wrote that a “misplaced focus on nonpublic information is a distraction… that will only make San Francisco and San Diego’s historical problems worse.”

As for the federal lawsuit, the company called the claims in it “devoid of merit” and said it plans to “vigorously defend ourselves against these accusations.”

“We are disappointed that, after multiple years of education and cooperation on the antitrust matters concerning RealPage, the (Justice Department) has chosen this moment to pursue a lawsuit that seeks to scapegoat pro-competitive technology that has been used responsibly for years,” the company’s statement read in part. “RealPage’s revenue management software is purposely built to be legally compliant, and we have a long history of working constructively with the (department) to show that.””

The company’s challenges will only grow if pricing software becomes another instance in which California lawmakers lead the nation. Following San Francisco’s ban, the Philadelphia City Council passed a ban on algorithmic rental price-fixing with a veto-proof vote last month. New Jersey has been considering its own ban.

Is It Price-fixing — or Coaching Landlords?

According to federal prosecutors, RealPage controls 80% of the market for commercial revenue management software. Its product is called YieldStar, and its successor is AI Revenue Management, which uses much of the same codebase as YieldStar, but has more precise forecasting. RealPage told CalMatters it serves only 10% of the rental markets in both San Francisco and San Diego, across its three revenue management software products.

Here’s how it works:

In order to use YieldStar and AIRM, landlords have historically provided RealPage with their own private data from their rental applications, rent prices, executed new leases, renewal offers and acceptances, and estimates of future occupancy, although a recent change allows landlords to choose to share only public data.

This information from all participating landlords in an area is then pooled and run through mathematical forecasting to generate pricing recommendations for the landlords and for their competitors.

San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, explained it like this:

“In the simplest terms, what this platform is doing is providing what we think of as that dark, smoky room for big companies to get together and set prices,” he said. “The technology is being used as a way of keeping an arm’s length from one big company to the other. But that’s an illusion.”

In the company’s own words, from company documents included in the lawsuit, RealPage “ensures that (landlords) are driving every possible opportunity to increase price even in the most downward trending or unexpected conditions.” The company also said in the documents that it “helps curb (landlords’) instincts to respond to down-market conditions by either dramatically lowering price or by holding price.”

Providing rent guidance isn’t the only service RealPage has offered landlords. In 2020, a Markup and New York Times investigation found that RealPage, alongside other companies, used faulty computer algorithms to do automated background checks on tenants. As a result, tenants were associated with criminal charges they never faced, and denied homes.

Impact on Tenants

The attorneys general of eight states, including California, joined the Justice Department’s antitrust suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.

The California Justice Department contends RealPage artificially inflated prices to keep them above a certain minimum level, said department spokesperson Elissa Perez. This was particularly harmful given the high cost of housing in the state, she added. “The illegally maintained profits that result from these price alignment schemes come out of the pockets of the people that can least afford it.”

Renters make up a larger share of households in California than in the rest of the country — 44% here compared to 35% nationwide. The Golden State also has a higher percentage of renters than any state other than New York, according to the latest U.S. Census data.

The recent ranks of California legislators, however, have included few renters: As of 2019, CalMatters could find only one state lawmaker who did not own a home — and found that more than a quarter of legislators at the time were landlords.

The State Has Invested in RealPage

Private equity giant Thoma Bravo acquired RealPage in January 2021 through two funds that have hundreds of millions of dollars in investments from California public pension funds, including the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the Regents of the University of California and the Los Angeles police and fire pension funds, according to Private Equity Stakeholder Project.

“They’re invested in things that are directly hurting their pensioners,” said K Agbebiyi, a senior housing campaign coordinator with the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit private equity watchdog that produced a report about corporate landlords’ impact on rental hikes in San Diego.

RealPage argues that landlords are free to reject the price recommendations generated by its software.

RealPage argues that landlords are free to reject the price recommendations generated by its software. But the U.S. Justice Department alleges that trying to do so requires a series of steps, including a conversation with a RealPage pricing adviser. The advisers try to “stop property managers from acting on emotions,” according to the department’s lawsuit.

If a property manager disagrees with the price the algorithm suggests and wants to decrease rent rather than increase it, a pricing advisor will “escalate the dispute to the manager’s superior,” prosecutors allege in the suit.