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Essence Court Order Shuts Down New Orleans Bookstore Event for Black Authors

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Essence Court Order Shuts Down New Orleans Bookstore Event for Black Authors

By Associated Press 

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A New Orleans bookstore’s event to promote Black authors was
abruptly shut down after the Essence Festival of Culture alleged it violated a
new city law against competition in some of the city’s tourist-heavy areas.

Lawyers representing the festival issued a cease-and-desist letter Thursday to
Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned coffee and bookstore business, and the author event
organizers, Lit Diaries LLC, saying it used its trademark to mislead customers.

Store owner Dernell “DJ” Johnson called the temporary restraining order
demanding the scheduled Friday event closure ironic and troubling.

“Such actions are not only unjust but also tarnish the reputation of Essence and
raise questions about its commitment to supporting the Black community as a
whole,” Johnson said.

Friday morning a Baldwin & Co. post on Instagram announced “All Lit-House Events
happening on June 30th” at the bookstore were canceled. The festival said they
used the Essence name illegally and violated New Orleans’ “clean zone” law.
Civil District Judge Richard Perque signed the restraining order, The Times-
Picayune/The New Orleans Advocatereported.

Clean Zones are areas around Essence festival events where other events and
vendors are banned unless permitted through the city. The clean zone measure
says from June 26 at 6 a.m. until Monday at midnight, no one except those
approved by City Hall and Essence may advertise or sell merchandise associated
with the festival in an area that includes the Caesars Superdome, the Central
Business District, Warehouse District, French Quarter and parts of Faubourg
Marigny, the 7th Ward and Treme. The law also forbids other outdoor events and
festivals in the area during that time period.

Johnson, whose store falls within the protected zone, called such designations
unconstitutional.

“Essence and the city of New Orleans should not be engaged in shutting down
local businesses and protected constitutional expression in our community and
should cease targeting Baldwin & Co., a local business that contributes to the
true essence of Black excellence,” he said.

City Council President JP Morrell, in a statement Friday, said his office was
looking into “how this occurred and how to prevent it from ever happening again.
”

“It is completely inappropriate for any large-scale event visiting the city of
New Orleans to negatively impact our local businesses with something akin to a
non-compete clause. It’s especially concerning that the canceled event was
organized by a Black-owned business and would have showcased Black female
authors on a weekend that is supposed to be dedicated to Black culture,” Morrell
said.

He said it was never the intent of the council for any ordinance, much less the
clean zone ordinance, to impact private businesses hosting private events that
happened to coincide with the timing of the Essence festival.

However, the festival stands by its actions, calling the store event and ones
like it “unfair competition and infringement.”

“Essence has suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable harm as a result
of continued publications unlawfully utilizing its name and trademarks,” its
lawsuit reads.

James Williams, an attorney representing Essence, told WWL-TV that while clean
zones play a role in the cease-and-desist order his client’s concerns are bigger
than that.

“This event by this particular promoter at this bookstore falsely advertised to
the public that they were an official Essence festival event,” Williams said.
“They falsely advertised that they were partnering with Essence to put this
event on.”

According to Williams, Essence was made aware of the event when they tried to
book authors for Essence programming who thought they were already participating.

“What’s much much worse is that the promoter in this case, Lit Diaries, … were
charging authors to be a part of this event. Essence festival doesn’t stand for
that,” he said.

Essence filed a similar lawsuit a week ago against the music streaming service
Spotify and New Orleans real estate developer Sean Cummings for allegedly
violating the 2022 clean zone law during last year’s festival. That suit says
the defendants improperly used the Essence name in what Williams called “yet
another example of the historic, intentional exploitation of Black culture,
Black (intellectual property) Black creators, Black businesses and Black equity.
”

A lawyer representing Baldwin & Co. told the television station they plan to
file pleadings in the case next week.

France Sees Itself as Blind to Race. After a Teen is Killed by Police, How Does one Discuss Racism?

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France Sees Itself as Blind to Race. After a Teen is Killed by Police, How Does one Discuss Racism?

By CARA ANNA, Associated Press

NANTERRE, France (AP) — The race of the police officer who fatally shot a French teenager during a traffic stop last week hasn’t been disclosed, and there’s no reason why it would be. Officially, race doesn’t exist in France.

But the death of the French-born 17-year-old with North African roots, which sent rioters into the streets, has again exposed deep feelings about systemic racism that lies under the surface of the country’s ideal of colorblind equality.

With his killing captured on video, what could be seen as France’s George Floyd moment has produced a very French national discussion that leaves out what many Americans would consider the essential point: color.

One can’t address race, much less racism, if it doesn’t exist, according to French policy. The Paris police chief, Laurent Nunez, said Sunday he was shocked by the U.N. human rights office’s use of the term “racism” in its criticism of French law enforcement. The police have none of it, he said.

France, especially white France, doesn’t tend to frame discussion of discrimination and inequality in black-and-white terms. Some French consider it racist to even discuss skin color. No one knows how many people of various races live in the country, as such data is not recorded.

“They say we are all French … so for them, it’s racist to do something like that,” said Iman Essaifi, a 25-year-old resident of Nanterre, the Paris suburb where the teen, Nahel, was killed.

While the subject of race remains taboo, Essaifi believes the events of the past week were a step toward speaking more openly about it. She noted that the people who marched in the streets of Nanterre after Nahel’s death were “not necessarily Arabs, not necessarily Blacks. There were whites, there were the ‘vrai Francais,’” – the “real French.”

France’s Constitution says the French Republic and its values are considered universal, meaning that all citizens have the same rights regardless of origin, race or religion.

Trying to discuss racial inequality without mentioning race leads to some linguistic gymnastics. Instead of terms like Black or mixed-race neighborhoods, French people instead often speak of “communities” or “banlieues” (suburbs) and “quartiers” (neighborhoods). They’re widely understood to mean often disadvantaged urban areas of housing projects and large immigrant populations.

Amid the unrest after Nahel’s death, such nonspecific language has ranged from supportive to insulting. Nanterre’s mayor, Patrick Jarry, spoke on Monday of the suburb “in all its diversity.” A statement last week by a large police union, the Alliance Police Nationale, described the rioters as “vermin.”

Of course there’s racism in France, some people said.

“For example, if your parents come from another country, even you are poorly accepted,” said Stella Assi, a 17-year-old born in Paris who was passing by the city hall in Nanterre. “If I were white, that wouldn’t happen.”

France’s legacy of colonialism, largely in Africa and the Caribbean, plays out in some attitudes that continue generations later. More recently, migration has caused debate and division. The result is a government that openly addresses certain issues around race, but not necessarily in relation to its citizens’ daily lives.

On Wednesday, for example, a court in France is scheduled to review a request for reparations for the descendants of enslaved people. And on a notice board in Nanterre, now scrawled with graffiti saying “Cops, get out of our lives,” a city hall announcement from May advertised a ceremony commemorating the abolition of slavery.

Ahmed Djamai, 58, the president of an organization in Nanterre that connects youth with work opportunities, recalled being stopped by police recently and asked for his residence permit. He was born in France.

“Our second-, third- and fourth-generation children face the same problem when they go out to get a job,” he said. “People lump them together with things that happen in the suburbs. They’re not accepted. So, to date, the problem is social, but it’s also one of identity.”

The stunning procession of hundreds of men who walked from a mosque in Nanterre to the cemetery for Nahel’s burial stood out in France not only because many were Black or Arab, but because even the demonstration of religious identity can be sensitive. In addition to being officially colorblind, France is officially secular, too.

Some people with immigrant roots fear that France’s success stories of generations of assimilation under that policy are being lost amid the rioting and criticism.

Gilles Djeyaramane is a municipal councilor in Poissy, a town west of Paris. His French-born wife is of Madagascan origin. He was born in French Guiana, of parents from India, and moved to France when he was 18.

“I’m always saying to my children, ‘Your mom and dad would never have met if France didn’t exist,” he said. “I’m not at all utopian. I know there’s work to do in some areas. But we are on the right path.”

Those who knew Nahel, and some who identify with him, said it’s not fair to pretend that differences, and discrimination, don’t exist. With anger, some pointed out that a funding campaign for the family of the police officer accused of shooting Nahel already topped 1 million euros ($1.09 million).

The frustration and violence in many communities come from other issues as well, including the rising cost of living and policing in general. In 2021, Amnesty International and five other rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit against the French state alleging ethnic profiling by police during ID checks.

Police officers reject accusations that some single out people because of their color. Officer Walid Hrar, who is of Moroccan descent and Muslim, said that if it sometimes seems that people of color are stopped more than others, it’s a reflection of the mixed-race density of populations in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods.

In rural France, with fewer people with immigrant backgrounds, police also stop people but “they are called François, Paul and Pierre and Jacques,” Hrar said.

But Mariam Lambert, a 39-year-old who said Nahel was a friend of her son, stressed the pressure of feeling that she and others, including fellow Muslims, had to muffle their identity.

“If I put a scarf on my head … they would see me as from another world, and everything would change for me,” said Lambert, who thinks she would be insulted in the streets. She spoke on the margins of a gathering at Nanterre city hall as events were held there and across France on Monday in support of authorities and a return to calm.

Lambert mused about moving to Morocco if France doesn’t change. “There are plenty of people leaving,” she said. “Because who protects us from the police?”

“Reparation Is Due”: California Task Force Delivers 115 Recommendations in Final Report

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“Reparation Is Due”: California Task Force Delivers 115 Recommendations in Final Report

By Antonio Ray Harvey, California Black Media

The California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans delivered its final report to the California Legislature two days before the July 1 deadline.

The nine-member committee submitted a 1075-page, brown-and-gold hardcover book with a comprehensive reparations plan that includes more than 115 recommendations and a survey. Published by the California Department of Justice, the report documents the harms enslaved ancestors of Black Californians experienced during chattel slavery and due to the Jim Crow laws that followed. It also details the history of discriminatory state policies in California.

Attorney Kamilah V. Moore, the task force chairperson, provided a summary of the group’s activities over the last two years leading up to the compilation of the first-in-the nation report addressing the effects of slavery.

Atty. Lisa Holder: Lisa Holder, Oakland-based attorney and member of the California Reparations Task Force, holds up the 1075-page final report. The nine-member panel submitted 115 recommendations to the California legislature two days before the June 30 deadline. June 29, 2023. CBM photo by Antonio Ray Harvey.

“As you all know, this illustrious nine-member California reparations task Force has been working diligently over a course of two years, not only to study the enumerable atrocities against the African American community with special considerations for those who are descendants of persons in slavery in the United States,” Moore said.

“Obviously, we’ve been working diligently to develop on numerous policy prescriptions to end what we consider to be lingering badges of slavery in California as well,” Moore added.

Ironically, the Task Force’s last meeting happened the day the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited the use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions. A couple of task force members addressed the decision before the meeting but stayed focused on the release of the report.

Each page of the report offers an explanation of reparations, evidence of past aggressions and systemic racism, and recommendations for restitution and atonement.

The report is 40 chapters, beginning with an Introduction; followed by evidence of Enslavement; Racial Terror; Political Disenfranchisement; Housing Segregation; Separate and Unequal Education; Racism in the Environment and Infrastructure; Pathologizing the African American Family; Control Over Creative, Cultural, and Intellectual Life; Stolen Labor; and Hindered Opportunity.

“I would like to commend Governor Gavin Newsom for making this Task Force a reality, Secretary of State Shirley Weber for authoring the legislation creating this Task Force, and each and every Member of the Reparations Task Force who have worked tirelessly over the past two years,” said Assemblywoman Lori D. Wilson, Chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus in a statement.

“The findings are clear. Lawmakers must take direct and determinative action to address the vast racial inequality which exists in California today. The California Legislative Black Caucus looks forward to partnering with the Newsom administration and our colleagues in the Legislature as we look towards the coming Legislative Session.”

Additionally, recommendations made by the task force include a request for a formal apology from the state and acknowledgment of discrimination against the descendants of enslaved Blacks.

“This work has been relentless, has been meticulous (and) it is unsaleable,” Oakland-based civil rights attorney and task force member Lisa Holder said. “It has been a work of a collective. We partnered with the Department of Justice, we partnered with hundreds of scholars, and we partnered with the community. Public commenters and participants in listening sessions who poured out their hearts and souls told us some of the most devastating stories of racial discrimination. They shared their pain and made themselves vulnerable during this process.”

The task force decided on March 30, 2022, that lineage will determine who will be eligible for compensation, specifically, individuals who are Black descendants of enslaved people in the United States. If reparations become law, a proposed California American Freedmen Affairs Agency would be responsible for identifying past harms and preventing future occurrences.

The specialized office, with additional branches across the state, would facilitate claims for restitution, process claims with the state, and assist claimants in proving eligibility through a “genealogy” department.

Marcus Champion, a board member of the National

Sec. of State Shirley N. Weber: Secretary of State Dr. Shirley N. Weber makes a statement about the California Reparations Task Force final report. Weber authored AB 3121, the legislation that created the nine-member panel when she was a member of the state Assembly. June 29, 2023. CBM photo by Antonio Ray Harvey.

Assembly of American Slavery Descendants Los Angeles (NAASDLA) and the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California (CJEC), is a longtime reparations supporter and one of the activists who worked with Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber when she was an Assemblymember to make Assembly Bill (AB) 3121, the law that established the task force, a reality.

Speaking at a CJEC gathering in North Sacramento after the final task force meeting, Champion said now is the time to persuade the legislature to make reparations law.

“For us, on the ground as grassroots (organizations), we are about to start putting the pressure on the legislators to make sure that the words are right,” Champion told California Black Media. “We’re about to make sure the community’s eligibility is right, make sure that there are cash payments, and make sure that this is not watered down and that this is real reparations.”

The 16th and final Task Force meeting was held in the First Floor Auditorium of the March Fong Eu Secretary of State Building in Sacramento on June 29. The facility was filled with an overflow of people waiting in the lobby and outside of the building.

All nine members of the task force were present as well as some of the speakers who testified before the panel over the last two years. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, members of the California Legislative Black Caucus, and Weber also spoke during the three-hour event.

“The policies and laws of this nation have affected every state and many instances beyond the state. It’s important to let people know that reparation is due whether you’re in Mississippi or you’re in California,” Weber said. “Reparation is due because the harm has been done. And we need to begin to repair the harm and stop patching it up as we’ve done for many years.”

Ja Morant Shows How a ‘Good Guy with a Gun’ can Never be Black

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Ja Morant Shows How a ‘Good Guy with a Gun’ can Never be Black

ByA. Joseph Dial, Purdue University

“Man enough to pull a gun, be man enough to squeeze it,” rapped NBA superstar Allen Iverson on his song “40 Bars.”

This was two weeks prior to the 2000-01 NBA season, one in which Iverson would be named league MVP. Ja Morant, the 23-year-old star point guard for the Memphis Grizzlies, was barely 1 year old.

Today, Morant’s game conjures that of the electrifying Iverson. With colorfully dyed dreadlocks, an infectious smile and a signature sneaker, Ja represents the next generation of NBA superstars.

But his bursting athletic brilliance, so evocative of Iverson, comes with a cost: the perceived menace of the Black gangster.

On March 4, 2023, Morant posted an Instagram Live video of him displaying a gun at a Denver strip club. Colorado is an open carry state, but it’s illegal to carry a firearm while under the influence of alcohol. Though Morant was never charged for a crime, the NBA suspended him eight games for “conduct detrimental to the league.”

Then, on May 14, 2023, another Instagram Live video surfaced of Morant holding a gun in a parked car with his friends while dancing to rap music. In response, the NBA suspended Morant for 25 games to start this upcoming season for “engaging in reckless and irresponsible behavior with guns.”

I’m not looking to defend Morant’s behavior. It was careless, and he could have harmed himself and others.

But as a scholar of Black popular culture, I can’t help but wonder what the reaction would have been if Morant were white.

To many politicians and activists in the gun-obsessed U.S., the freedom to own and flaunt firearms is a sacred right. And yet throughout the nation’s history, gun ownership among Black Americans has elicited fear and recrimination. Even when folks who look like Morant innocuously and legally possess a gun, they find themselves too easily typecast as villains.

Disciplining ‘thugs’ and ‘children’

The NBA has long had a fraught relationship with its Black superstars.

When global sports icon Michael Jordan retired from basketball in 2003, the league found itself in a period of transition.

How would it continue to fill arenas, satisfy advertisers and spread its vision of a global game without its brightest star?

Not only did the NBA need a new crop of superstars to mitigate Jordan’s exit, but it also needed a fresh attitude. In response, the league turned to the marketing juggernaut of hip-hop and Black culture.

Players openly professed their love for rap music, with stars like Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, Iverson and others recording and releasing music. Players wore oversized T-shirts, baggy jeans and New Era fitted caps as they traveled. You’d see durags and iced-out diamond chains during postgame interviews.

At first, the league saw opportunity – an opening to usher in a new post-Jordan audience.

However, in 2004, two events prompted a backlash.

First, there was the notorious “Malice at the Palace,” during which players for the Indiana Pacers went into the stands to fight fans who had provoked them at Detroit’s Palace of Auburn Hills stadium.

A year later, there was an infamous Team USA dinner in Serbia. As The Washington Post reported, “Iverson and some of his fellow National Basketball Association professionals arrived wearing an assortment of sweat suits, oversize jeans, shimmering diamond earrings and platinum chains … Larry Brown, the Hall of Fame coach of the U.S. team, was appalled and embarrassed.”

Former commissioner David Stern went on to institute a controversial dress code for NBA players, banning, among other things, baggy clothing, along with the display of gaudy jewelry. But Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson exposed the ban’s quiet truth.

“The players have been dressing in prison garb the last five or six years,” he said. “All the stuff that goes on, it’s like gangster, thuggery stuff.”

The NBA decided its foray into the marketing of hip-hop with basketball required a paternalist brand of discipline to keep its players’ “street cool” in line and avoid the poisonous image of Black criminality.

And like Jackson all those years ago, ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, on the network’s Lowe Post basketball podcast, criticized Morant with not so subtle racial undertones.

“Ja Morant is a child,” he announced. “This guy is so worried about being cool: ‘Look at me, man: Life is like a rap video.’”

The NBA’s gun culture

Ja Morant isn’t the first NBA player to find himself in trouble for wielding firearms.

In 2006, Stephen Jackson was suspended just seven games for firing a gun after an altercation at an Indianapolis strip club. In 2010, Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton were suspended for 50 and 38 games, respectively, after pulling guns on each other in the Washington Wizards team facilities. And in 2014, Raymond Felton was suspended four games after pleading guilty to charges stemming from an incident where he threatened his estranged wife with a gun.

Like Ja, all these players are Black. But unlike his situation, these incidents were violent, criminal offenses.

The closest analogues to Morant are Chris Kaman and Draymond Green. Kaman, a former center who is white, posted pictures of his arsenal to social media in 2012, 2013 and 2016. In 2018, during a trip to Israel, Golden State Warriors star forward Draymond Green posed with an assault weapon. Neither Kaman nor Green was suspended for their posts.

The metaphor of guns also saturates the league in ways that reflect the country’s obsession with firearms.

The alias of Andrei Kirilenko, a former All-Star for the Utah Jazz, was “AK- 47.” Fans anointed Lakers guard Austin Reaves with the nickname “AR-15” until he denounced it after the tragic mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. NBA superstar Kevin Durant’s Instagram handle is “easymoneysniper.” Watch Hall of Fame broadcaster Mike Breen announce a game, and you’ll inevitably hear his famous catch phrase, “BANG.”

Was this ever about guns?

After Morant’s most recent incident, Adam Silver, league commissioner, said, “I’m assuming the worst.”

But why is Morant, according to Silver, all of a sudden a poor role model to “millions of kids, globally,” especially when former and current athletes have done the same without punishment?

To me, the answer is simple: In America, armed Black folks conjures pathological criminality.

Guns, since the nation’s inception, have fortified a uniquely American masculine fantasy: the revolutionary and the cowboy, the cop and the soldier, the spy, the hunter, the gangster – all coalesce around the presumed thrill of the trigger. These fantasies reflect the National Rifle Association’s most pernicious and oddly patriotic lie: “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

At the same time, Historian Carol Anderson’s book “The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America” explores how the imagined danger of armed Black people has long pervaded the national psyche.

In her telling, this story begins in Morant’s home state of South Carolina, where the Negro Act of 1722 and the Negro Slave Act of 1740 argued Blacks were “instinctually criminal” and abolished their access to weapons and right to self-defense.

So if people are so sure of Morant’s villainy, I ask without a hint of snark: What does responsible Black gun ownership look like?

Does it look like Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and the Black Panther Party, whose armed protests were the impetus behind California’s stricter gun laws – legislation that was backed by the NRA?

Does it look like Philando Castile? Do we see it in Marissa Alexander, who was sent to prison after she fired a warning shot at her husband, who had threatened to kill her?

To me, this was never about guns – just as, back in the early 2000s, it was never about rap music or baggy clothing.

It’s about white paternalism. It’s about how Black people can’t be trusted with weapons. It’s about how the country’s veneration of gun ownership as an inalienable right is seconded only by its commitment to rendering armed Blacks an existential danger to the civility and structure of America.

Blackness seems to disavow any possibility of being a “good guy,” gun or not. Kyle Rittenhouse was a “good guy with a gun.” So, too, was George Zimmerman. Both meted out extrajudicial killings, and both emerged unpunished.

According to this warped, uniquely American fantasy, “good guys with guns” can never look like Ja Morant – and good guys can always kill bad guys.

____The Conversation

A. Joseph Dial, DISCO Network Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Purdue University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Black Girl Budget Wants to Change How You Think About Money

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Black Girl Budget Wants to Change How You Think About Money

By Bria Overs, Word in Black 

As a young prosecutor in 2016, Nicole “Nikki” Donnell had a starting salary of $43,000 a year. Along with a low wage, Donnell was paid once a month.

She had to stretch her money over 30 to 31 days — something that, as of 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found less than 5% of Americans experience.

“Right off the bat, I immediately knew, ‘Girl, you gotta budget because you have to make your money last for the entire month,’” Donnell says.

Beyond paying monthly bills and expenses, her budget served a larger purpose. She wanted to pay down $150,000 in student loan debt, build an emergency fund, start investing, travel, and move out of her parent’s house.

All of these goals come with a price. And for most of them — a hefty one.

Budgeting allowed Donnell to accomplish many of the goals she set for herself. Within a few years, she bought a house, got a dog, and paid down more than $20,000 in student loans, just to name a few. She even traveled to Cuba, England, and other destinations.

“I budget in order to live the lifestyle I want,” Donnell says, “not to be super restrictive and not be able to do anything.”

Donnell seemed to have the answer everyone was looking for: How do you live the life you want without putting yourself in a bad financial situation?

Instead of keeping her tips to herself, in 2018, she officially created Black Girl Budget.

Black Girl Budget is a passion turned full-time job. Donnell offers budget reviews and coaching, financial resources, and runs an accompanying podcast, The Black Girl Budget Podcast. She also amassed over 13,600 followers on Instagram and 30,600 followers on TikTok.

“I wanted to make sure there was a platform and a space for Black women, specifically, to ask questions, to get information, and to get it from a place of empowerment and not shame or guilt,” she says.

Changing How We Think About Budgets

While some people love them and others hate them, everyone needs a budget. A strong, thought-out budget provides a solid foundation for a prosperous financial future.

A 2023 NerdWallet report found around 74% of Americans have a monthly budget, with millennials being the most likely. However, most need help using it consistently and correctly.

Working with a CFP, an accountant, a tax consultant, or other certified financial professionals is a great idea, but that help is not accessible to everyone. Their services are an investment; one most people can’t afford to make.

Because Donnell is not a certified professional, she offers affordable alternatives with financial coaching and personalized budget reviews. Traditional financial planning services can cost between $2,500 and $4,000, if not more, depending on the service.

“My main focus is teaching people how to budget, which is coming up with a strategy on how they’re going to use their money as a tool to reach the goals they have.”

NICOLE DONNELL, BLACK GIRL BUDGET

Donnell’s approach to coaching mixes financial literacy and planning with therapy. Finances are personal; she can be objective with her clients and help them change their mindset and relationship with money.

Some common problems Donnell sees in her work with creating budgets are overspending on eating out, too many subscriptions, high credit card utilization, and debts from buy now, pay later platforms like Klarna and Afterpay.

The missing piece of her client’s financial puzzles is a strategy that tackles their existing issues and leads to achieving future goals.

“One thing that I thought was always missing from the budgeting conversation is you can travel on a budget, you can save on a budget, and you can invest on a budget,” she says.

Black Girl Budget as a Business

All over social media there are photos of glamorous, fun trips. But what we don’t see is what it took to make it happen. The same was true for Donnell, but instead of keeping it a secret, she decided to share how she made her travel plans possible.

“I started to answer people’s questions, and by people, I mean literally friends and family,” Donnell tells Word In Black. “Then people on Instagram were like, ‘How were you able to pull off this trip?’ So I just started answering questions, and I really enjoyed it. And I really loved to see people’s light kind of go off and then to be empowered to take control of their finances.”

Her coaching service is a three-month subscription that includes a personalized budget and multiple conversations with Donnell as a form of accountability. On the other hand, the budget review service is a faster, short-term solution that includes a personalized budget to get clients on the right track.

Word in Black

For Donnell, financial literacy, ensuring her clients understand finance, and the tools available are essential to her services.

Bills and savings are common focuses with budgeting, but she also believes it should have room for the fun parts of life like travel or investing.

“I’m going to make sure that I’m empowering my clients as opposed to shaming or guilting them into saving, investing, or budgeting,” she says. “It’s more so going to be how can we adjust what you’re doing right now so that it benefits your budget in the end.”

Viola Ford Fletcher, Oldest Living Tulsa Race Massacre Victim, Publishes Memoir

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Viola Ford Fletcher, Oldest Living Tulsa Race Massacre Victim, Publishes Memoir

By AARON MORRISON, AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Being a centenarian hasn’t slowed down Viola Ford Fletcher’s pursuit of justice.

In the last couple of years, Fletcher has traveled internationally, testified before Congress and supported a lawsuit for reparations — all part of a campaign for accountability over the massacre that destroyed Tulsa, Oklahoma’s original “Black Wall Street” in 1921, when she was a child.

Now, at age 109, Fletcher is releasing a memoir about the life she lived in the shadow of the massacre, after a white mob laid waste to the once-thriving Black enclave known as Greenwood. The book will be published by Mocha Media Inc. on Tuesday and becomes widely available for purchase on Aug. 15.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, she said fear of reprisal for speaking out had influenced years of near-silence about the massacre.

“Now that I’m an old lady, there’s nothing else to talk about,” Fletcher said. “We decided to do a book about it and maybe that would help.”

Her memoir, “Don’t Let Them Bury My Story,” is a call to action for readers to pursue truth, justice and reconciliation no matter how long it takes. Written with graphic details of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that she witnessed at age seven, Fletcher said she hoped to preserve a narrative of events that was nearly lost to a lack of acknowledgement from mainstream historians and political leaders.

“The questions I had then remain to this day,” Fletcher writes in the book. “How could you just give a mob of violent, crazed, racist people a bunch of deadly weapons and allow them — no, encourage them — to go out and kill innocent Black folks and demolish a whole community?”

“As it turns out, we were victims of a lie,” she writes.

Tensions between Tulsa’s Black and white residents inflamed when, on May 31, 1921, the white-owned Tulsa Tribune published a sensationalized news report of an alleged assault by a 19-year-old Black shoeshine on a 17-year-old white girl working as an elevator operator.

With the shoeshine under arrest, a Black militia gathered at a local jail to prevent a lynch mob from kidnapping and murdering him. Then, a separate violent clash between Black and white residents sparked an all-out war.

Over 18 hours, between May 31 and June 1, the enlarged mob carried out a scorched-earth campaign against Greenwood. The death toll has been estimated to be as high as 300. More than 35 city blocks were leveled, an estimated 191 businesses were destroyed, and roughly 10,000 Black residents were displaced.

In her memoir, Fletcher writes of the bumpy ride out of town in a horse-drawn buggy, as her family escaped the chaos. She witnessed a Black man being executed, his head exploded like “a watermelon dropped off the rooftop of a barn.”

The shooter had also fired his shotgun at her family’s buggy.

“We passed piles of dead bodies heaped in the streets,” she writes in the book. “Some of them had their eyes open, as though they were still alive, but they weren’t.”

Victims’ descendants believed that, once the conspiracy of silence around it was pierced decades later, justice and reparations for Tulsa’s Black community would follow. That hasn’t happened just yet — Fletcher and two other centenarian survivors are currently plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the city of Tulsa.

Ike Howard, Fletcher’s grandson and co-author of the memoir, said systemic racism has prevented Tulsa’s Black community from fully recovering from the massacre.

“They want to be made whole,” Howard said. “We speak for everybody that went through a similar situation, who are not here to tell their stories.”

“You can learn a lot from ‘Don’t Let Them Bury My Story.’ And we know that history can repeat itself if you don’t correct and reconcile issues,” he added.

Fletcher notes in her memoir just how much history she has lived through — from several virus outbreaks preceding the coronavirus pandemic, to the Great Depression of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2008 to every war and international conflict of the last seven decades. She has watched the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. lead the national Civil Rights Movement, seen the historic election of former President Barack Obama and witnessed the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

In 2020, Howard purchased his grandmother a brand new color TV for her birthday. Several months later, on Jan. 6, the images of the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol following the historic election of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris retraumatized her.

“With that horrific scene, all of what occurred back in 1921 in Greenwood came flooding back into my mind,” Fletcher writes in the book.

In the AP interview, Fletcher attributed her active lifestyle at an advanced age to her reliance on faith and family. While in New York last month to publicize the book with Howard and her younger brother, 102-year-old Hughes Van Ellis, Fletcher saw the cover of her memoir advertised on jumbo screens in Times Square.

Van Ellis, a massacre survivor and World War II veteran whose words from his 2021 testimony to Congress serve as the foreword to his sister’s memoir, said he believes justice is possible in his lifetime.

“We’re getting pretty close (to justice), but we aren’t close enough,” he said. “We’ve got a lot more work to do. I have to keep on battling. I’m fighting for myself and my people.”

Virginia High School Admissions Case Could be Legal Follow-Up to Affirmative Action Ruling

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Virginia High School Admissions Case Could be Legal Follow-Up to Affirmative Action Ruling

By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court’s ruling last month about the admissions policy at an elite public high school in Virginia may provide a vehicle for the U.S. Supreme Court to flesh out the intended scope of its ruling Thursday banning affirmative action in college admissions.

The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, outside the nation’s capital, routinely ranks as one of the best public schools in America; admission is highly competitive.

A coalition of parents, backed by a conservative legal foundation, filed a lawsuit in 2021 challenging the admissions policy at TJ, and the foundation is asking the Supreme Court to take up the case. The suit raises similar but not identical issues to those addressed by the high court’s ruling rejecting admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina as unconstitutional.

The colleges’ admissions rules took an applicant’s race into account as one of many factors to be considered. In the TJ case, though, all sides agree the admissions polices are race-neutral on their face.

But the coalition that filed the lawsuit says the admissions criteria amount to “race-based proxies” implemented to achieve racial balancing. They say the policy discriminates against Asian Americans, who had constituted 70% of the student body.

The coalition also cites the debate among Fairfax County School Board members when they implemented their new policy in 2020. Board members and administrators expressed frustration that Black and Hispanic students had been woefully underrepresented at TJ for decades. The coalition argues the new policies are intended to boost Black and Hispanic representation at the expense of Asians.

The first freshman class admitted under the new rules saw a significantly different racial makeup. Black students increased from 1% to 7%; Hispanic representation increased from 3% to 11%. Asian American representation decreased from 73% to 54%.

The new policies replaced a standardized test with a process that allocates a percentage of seats on a geographic basis and takes a student’s “experience factors” into account, like whether they come from a low-income household or speak English as a second language.

Last year, a federal judge found the admissions policy unconstitutional, saying “the discussion of admissions changes was infected with talk of racial balancing from its inception.”

But in May, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond reversed that ruling. In a 2-1 decision, the judges said the school board had a legitimate interest in increasing diversity and that labeling those efforts as discrimination against Asian Americans “simply runs counter to common sense.”

The Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the parents claiming anti-Asian discrimination, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.

“We think it presents a really strong vehicle and the time is right. And we’re certainly hopeful the court will take it up,” said Joshua Thompson, a senior attorney at the foundation.

Eugene Kontorovich, a law professor at George Mason University, said there will be years of follow-up cases to Thursday’s ruling, as is typical with major Supreme Court cases, as colleges drag their feet and look for ways to salvage policies to which they are ideologically committed.

He was less certain, though, that the TJ case will be significant. He said the debate over the constitutionality of TJ’s policies will be fact-intensive and center on what can be proved about the school board’s motivations in implementing the policy.

More likely, he said, is debate over how colleges use essay questions on topics like diversity to achieve the same results as the now-banned affirmative action programs.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion left a little bit of wiggle room on that front when he wrote that colleges can consider an individual’s application essay and “how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise.”

But Roberts also noted that colleges “may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.”

Kontorovich said colleges will ask essay questions about topics like diversity “that will give them the latitude to quietly take race into consideration in ways that will be more subtle.” Ultimately, though, he thinks the court, at least as it’s currently constituted, will reject those sorts of end-around attempts.

Fairfax County Public Schools said Friday it is reviewing the Supreme Court ruling.

Thompson said Pacific Legal expects to formally submit its petition to the Supreme Court in August and will likely know by the end of the year whether the case will be heard.

California Black Media Political Playback: News You Might Have Missed

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California Black Media Political Playback: News You Might Have Missed

Joe W. Bowers Jr. and Edward Henderson | California Black Media

Gov. Newsom, Legislature Agree on $310.8 Billion Budget

Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature reached an agreement on a state budget totaling $310.8 billion for the 2023-24 fiscal year. It came into effect July 1.

The agreement includes provisions for trailer bills that support clean transportation, expanded Medi-Cal coverage, expedited judicial review, advanced mitigation by Caltrans, the conversion of San Quentin into a rehabilitation center and wildlife crossings on I-15, among other initiatives.

“In the face of continued global economic uncertainty, this budget increases our fiscal discipline by growing our budget reserves to a record $38 billion, while preserving historic investments in public education, health care, climate, and public safety,” said Newsom.

Negotiations had been delayed because the of the Governor’s demands, including an infrastructure proposal that lawmakers opposed. A compromise was reached by limiting the types of projects eligible for expedited approval permits and excluding a proposed water conveyance tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.


Gov. Gavin Newsom at the swearing-in for Assemblymember Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) on June 30, 2023, at the state capitol in Sacramento. CBM photo by Robert Maryland.

“We started our budget process this time around with tough economic challenges, but one overarching goal: to protect California’s progress,” said Senate President pro Tempore Toni G. Atkins (D-San Diego).

On July 1, California Officially Recognized Juneteenth as a State Holiday

This past weekend, on July 1, Assembly Bill (AB) 1655, which declares Juneteenth an official California state holiday took effect.

AB 1655, introduced by Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), a member of the California Legislative Black Caucus, was signed into law by Gov. Newsom last September.

On June 19 of next year, California state employees can elect to take the day off work to commemorate the holiday celebrating the emancipation of formerly enslaved Black Americans.

California “Renters Caucus” Announces Pro-Tenant Bills

On June 29, The California Legislative Renters Caucus – a group of five lawmakers who are all renters — held a press conference to announce a package of bills aimed to protect the rights of tenants in California.

The Renters’ Caucus was formed in 2022 in response to the state’s dire housing crisis. This unique caucus is committed to ensuring that the interests of California’s 17 million renters are represented in state government.

Each member of the caucus is responsible for introducing a bill for consideration. Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), Chair of the Caucus, hosted the press conference and introduced Senate Bill (SB) 555. The bill aims cap limit security deposits to no more than one month’s rent.

“Each of the pieces of our legislative agenda is addressing a different challenge that renters are facing,” said Haney. “

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (D- Ladera Heights), Vice Chair of the Caucus, introduced AB 1248. This bill limits independent redistricting to fight gerrymandering.

Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San Jose) introduced AB 309. The bill would set eligibility criteria for residents of social housing and establish a lottery system for selecting residents.

Assemblymember Tasha Boerner (D-Encinitas) introduced AB 548, which protects renters by giving more authority to inspectors to insure safe living conditions.

Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward) introduced SB 555 which creates a practical data driven masterplan that outlines a plan to produce 1.2 million affordable housing units over the next 10 years.

Attorney General Bonta Releases 2022 Hate Crime Report: Blacks Still Most Targeted Group

California Attorney General Rob Bonta on June 27 released the 2022 Hate Crime in California Report. The document also highlighted resources to support ongoing efforts across the state to combat hate.

In California, hate crime events rose by 20.2% from 1,763 in 2021 to 2,120 in 2022. Reported hate crimes targeting Black people remain the most prevalent and increased 27.1% from 513 in 2021 to 652 in 2022, while reported anti-Asian hate crime events decreased by 43.3% from 247 in 2021 to 140 in 2022. Hate crimes involving sexual orientation bias rose by 29% from 303 in 2021 to 391 in 2022.

“This report is a stark reminder that there is still much work to be done to combat hate in our state. I urge local partners and law enforcement to review these findings and recommit to taking action,” said Bonta. “The alarming increases in crimes committed against Black, LGBTQ+ and Jewish people for the second year in a row illustrates the need for our communities to join together unified against hate.”

Controller Malia Cohen Updated her Office’s Compensation in Government

State Controller Malia M. Cohen published 2022 self-reported payroll data for cities and counties on the Government Compensation in California website. The data cover 688,912 positions and a total of more than $54.65 billion in 2022 wages.

Users of the site can view compensation levels on maps and search by region, narrow results by name of the entity or by job title and export raw data or custom reports

The data covers 459 cities and 53 counties. The City of Hayward had the highest average city employee wage, followed by Pleasant Hill, Atherton, and Hillsborough. Topping the list for highest average county employee wage were Alameda, Los Angeles, San Mateo, Monterey, and Sacramento counties. The highest-salaried city employee in California was the City Manager for the City of Montebello. The top 25 highest-paid county employees work in health care.

With Words of Encouragement and a Resolution, Assemblymember Mike Gipson Uplifts Fatherhood

In recognition of Father’s Day this year, Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson) introduced House Resolution (HR) 36, legislation declaring June “Fatherhood Well-Being Month.

Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D- Gardena) photo by Robert Maryland CBM

Last week, at Ted Watkins Park in South Los Angeles, Gipson joined residents in his community to highlight the importance of fathers and father figures in collaboration with a South Los Angeles community initiative called Project Fatherhood.

“This elevates the work of Project Fatherhood that is originally from this Watts community; that goes out and provides skill building for fathers, giving them experiences they need to be great fathers in this community,” said Gipson. “It’s a great blessing for me.”

Black Men Are Shifting the Mental Health Narrative

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Black Men Are Shifting the Mental Health Narrative

By Anissa Durham, Word In Black

Men are told to be tough. If they cry, they are labeled as crybabies. Black men are expected not to express their feelings. But what happens when this cycle of toxic masculinity prevents Black men from getting mental health help?

According to the American Psychological Association, only 26.4% of Black and Hispanic men between the ages of 18 to 44 who experienced daily feelings of depression or anxiety accessed mental health services.

A few factors contribute to the low rates of Black men getting mental health services. For example, when Black men seek help, they prefer a Black psychologist — but only 4% of psychologists are Black. And due to the history of this country, mistrust toward the medical and mental health systems influences Black men’s reluctance.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Fernando Branch, 41, says he had a difficult time navigating the isolation. His family encouraged him to see a doctor, but he disagreed. Then, that’s when his 12-year-old daughter said, ‘dad, you’re a little on edge, maybe you should get checked out’. He took his daughter’s advice and went to see a Black doctor who diagnosed him with depression.

NNPA Welcomes New Chair, Executive Board

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NNPA Welcomes New Chair, Executive Board

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

Bobby Henry, the publisher of the Westside Gazette in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., won the election as chair of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) during the organization’s 2023 convention in Nashville, Tenn.

The NNPA is the trade association of more than 200 African American-owned newspapers and media companies in the United States.

Dr. Frances Draper, publisher of The Afro-American newspaper in Baltimore and Washington, will serve as 1st Vice Chair, while Jackie Hampton, publisher of The Mississippi Link, earned election as 2nd Vice Chair.

Fran Farrer, the publisher of The County News in Charlotte, N.C., was elected Secretary, and Cheryl Smith, publisher of The Texas Metro News and CEO of IMessenger Media, will serve as Treasurer.

Denise Rolark Barnes, publisher of The Washington Informer, and Walter L. White of The Cincinnati Herald will serve as At-Large Board Members.

Henry, whose Westside Gazette has been published continuously since 1971 when his father, Levi, started the newspaper, takes over for Houston Forward Times Publisher Karen Carter Richards who served as chair for the past four years.

Richards will join Brenda Andrews of The New Journal & Guide in Norfolk, Va., Rod Doss of the New Pittsburgh Courier, Carl Anderson of The New Tri-State Defender in Memphis, and Sonny Messiah-Jiles of the Defender Network in Houston, as members of the NNPA Fund Board, the nonprofit division of the NNPA.

Levi Henry was in attendance at the NNPA’s Legacy Awards Gala when Bobby Henry was announced as the new chair, bringing the elder to tears.

Bobby Henry demanded that the NNPA continue to work together and to ensure that the Black Press remains the trusted voice of the African American community.

He waxed poetic about his new role and what he expects going forward.

“It is not always a pleasurable chore to serve and to be a servant,” Henry proclaimed in preparing to lead the Black Press of America.

“What appears to be a joyful moment of basking in bliss quickly fades away faster than a snowflake over an open campfire. Be that as it may, I am honored to be in the business of ‘Pleading our own cause’ as ‘Soldiers without swords.’”

As a team, Henry said the NNPA’s new executive board would “continue to be a preeminent example of the Black Press of America no matter how ‘Stony the road we trod’ or having feet no less beautiful than those who preach or print the gospel.”

Activists Spurred by Affirmative Action Ruling Challenge Legacy Admissions at Harvard

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Activists Spurred by Affirmative Action Ruling Challenge Legacy Admissions at Harvard

By COLLIN BINKLEY, AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A civil rights group is challenging legacy admissions at Harvard University, saying the practice discriminates against students of color by giving an unfair boost to the mostly white children of alumni.

It’s the latest effort in a growing push against legacy admissions, the practice of giving admissions priority to the children of alumni. Backlash against the practice has been building in the wake of last week’s Supreme Court’s decision ending affirmative action in college admissions.

Lawyers for Civil Rights, a nonprofit based in Boston, filed the civil rights complaint Monday on behalf of Black and Latino community groups in New England, alleging that Harvard’s admissions system violates the Civil Rights Act.

“Why are we rewarding children for privileges and advantages accrued by prior generations?” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the group’s executive director. “Your family’s last name and the size of your bank account are not a measure of merit, and should have no bearing on the college admissions process.”

Opponents say the practice is no longer defensible without affirmative action providing a counterbalance. The court’s ruling says colleges must ignore the race of applicants, activists point out, but schools can still give a boost to the children of alumni and donors.

A separate campaign is urging the alumni of 30 prestigious colleges to withhold donations until their schools end legacy admissions. That initiative, led by Ed Mobilizer, also targets Harvard and other Ivy League schools.

President Joe Biden suggested last week that universities should rethink the practice, saying legacy admissions “expand privilege instead of opportunity.”

Several Democrats in Congress demanded an end to the policy in light of the court’s decision, along with Republicans including Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is vying for the GOP presidential nomination.

The new complaint, submitted with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, draws on Harvard data that came to light amid the affirmative action case that landed before the Supreme Court. The records revealed that 70% of Harvard’s donor-related and legacy applicants are white, and being a legacy student makes an applicant roughly six times more likely to be admitted.

It draws attention to other colleges that have abandoned the practice amid questions about its fairness, including Amherst College and Johns Hopkins University.

The complaint alleges that Harvard’s legacy preference has nothing to do with merit and takes away slots from qualified students of color. It asks the U.S. Education Department to declare the practice illegal and force Harvard to abandon it as long as the university receives federal funding.

Harvard said it would not comment on the complaint.

“Last week, the University reaffirmed its commitment to the fundamental principle that deep and transformative teaching, learning, and research depend upon a community comprising people of many backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences,” the university said in a prepared statement. “As we said, in the weeks and months ahead, the University will determine how to preserve our essential values, consistent with the Court’s new precedent.”

The complaint was filed on behalf of Chica Project, African Community Economic Development of New England, and the Greater Boston Latino Network.

“A spot given to a legacy or donor-related applicant is a spot that becomes unavailable to an applicant who meets the admissions criteria based purely on his or her own merit,” according to the complaint. If legacy and donor preferences were removed, it adds, “more students of color would be admitted to Harvard.”

It’s unclear exactly which schools provide a legacy boost and how much it helps. In California, where state law requires schools to disclose the practice, the University of Southern California reported that 14% of last year’s admitted students had family ties to alumni or donors. Stanford reported a similar rate.

An Associated Press survey of the nation’s most selective colleges last year found that legacy students in the freshman class ranged from 4% to 23%. At four schools — Notre Dame, USC, Cornell and Dartmouth — legacy students outnumbered Black students.

Supporters of the policy say it builds an alumni community and encourages donations. A 2022 study of an undisclosed college in the Northeast found that legacy students were more likely to make donations, but at a cost to diversity — the vast majority were white.

US Maternal Deaths more than Doubled Over Two Decades in Unequal Proportions for Race and Geography

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US Maternal Deaths more than Doubled Over Two Decades in Unequal Proportions for Race and Geography

By LAURA UNGAR, AP Science Writer

Maternal deaths across the U.S. more than doubled over the course of two decades, and the tragedy unfolded unequally.

Black mothers died at the nation’s highest rates, while the largest increases in deaths were found in American Indian and Native Alaskan mothers. And some states — and racial or ethnic groups within them – fared worse than others.

The findings were laid out in a new study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers looked at maternal deaths between 1999 and 2019 — but not the pandemic spike — for every state and five racial and ethnic groups.

“It’s a call to action to all of us to understand the root causes — to understand that some of it is about health care and access to health care, but a lot of it is about structural racism and the policies and procedures and things that we have in place that may keep people from being healthy,” said Dr. Allison Bryant, one of the study’s authors and a senior medical director for health equity at Mass General Brigham.

Among wealthy nations, the U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality, which is defined as a death during pregnancy or up to a year afterward. Common causes include excessive bleeding, infection, heart disease, suicide and drug overdose.

Bryant and her colleagues at Mass General Brigham and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington started with national vital statistics data on deaths and live births. They then used a modeling process to estimate maternal mortality out of every 100,000 live births.

Overall, they found rampant, widening disparities. The study showed high rates of maternal mortality aren’t confined to the South but also extend to regions like the Midwest and states such as Wyoming and Montana, which had high rates for multiple racial and ethnic groups in 2019.

Researchers also found dramatic jumps when they compared maternal mortality in the first decade of the study to the second, and identified the five states with the largest increases between those decades. Those increases exceeded:

— 162% for American Indian and Alaska Native mothers in Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Rhode Island and Wisconsin;

— 135% for white mothers in Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri and Tennessee;

— 105% for Hispanic mothers in Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Tennessee;

— 93% for Black mothers in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and Texas;

— 83% for Asian and Pacific Islander mothers in Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan and Missouri.

“I hate to say it, but I was not surprised by the findings. We’ve certainly seen enough anecdotal evidence in a single state or a group of states to suggest that maternal mortality is rising,” said Dr. Karen Joynt Maddox, a health services and policy researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who wasn’t involved in the study. “It’s certainly alarming, and just more evidence we have got to figure out what’s going on and try to find ways to do something about this.”

Maddox pointed to how, compared with other wealthy nations, the U.S. underinvests in things like social services, primary care and mental health. She also said Missouri hasn’t funded public health adequately and, during the years of the study, hadn’t expanded Medicaid. They’ve since expanded Medicaid — and lawmakers passed a bill giving new mothers a full year of Medicaid health coverage. Last week, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed budget bills that included $4.4 million for a maternal mortality prevention plan.

In neighboring Arkansas, Black women are twice as likely to have pregnancy-associated deaths as white women, according to a 2021 state report.

Dr. William Greenfield, the medical director for family health at the Arkansas Department of Health, said the disparity is significant and has “persisted over time,” and that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why there was an increase in the state’s maternal mortality rate for Black mothers.

Rates among Black women have long been the worst in the nation, and the problem affects people of all socioeconomic backgrounds. For example, U.S. Olympic champion sprinter Tori Bowie, 32, died from complications of childbirth in May.

The pandemic likely exacerbated all of the demographic and geographic trends, Bryant said, and “that’s absolutely an area for future study.” According to preliminary federal data, maternal mortality fell in 2022 after rising to a six-decade high in 2021 — a spike experts attributed mainly to COVID-19. Officials said the final 2022 rate is on track to get close to the pre-pandemic level, which was still the highest in decades.

Bryant said it’s crucial to understand more about these disparities to help focus on community-based solutions and understand what resources are needed to tackle the problem.

Arkansas already is using telemedicine and is working on several other ways to increase access to care, said Greenfield, who is also a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Arkansas Medical Center in Little Rock and was not involved in the study.

The state also has a “perinatal quality collaborative,” a network to help health care providers understand best practices for things like reducing cesarean sections, managing complications with hypertensive disorders and curbing injuries or severe complications related to childbirth.

“Most of the deaths we reviewed and other places have reviewed … were preventable,” Greenfield said.

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