Comedian Kevin Hart, KIPP schools and the United Negro College Fund have teamed up to give scholarships to 18 students at historically black colleges and universities.
Hart’s “Help From The Hart Charity” and KIPP Public Schools each donated $300,000 in scholarships administered by the fund. Hart also gave $100,000 to the fund in 2015.
KIPP is a national network of charter schools.
The 18 students from eight cities who were chosen for the scholarships all attended KIPP schools. They are attending 11 different colleges across the country.
The recipients were selected based on academic and personal accomplishments.
Hart said in a statement that he wanted to do his part to provide opportunities for future leaders.
The students hail from Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, D.C.
People are praying for Aretha Franklin in the Detroit church where her father was once a pastor.
The special vigil at New Bethel Baptist Church began before dawn Wednesday.
The prayers come one day after Stevie Wonder visited the ailing Queen of Soul at her home. Franklin’s ex-husband, actor Glynn Turman, also visited Franklin, who is seriously ill.
A person close to Franklin, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed to publicly talk about the topic, told The Associated Press on Monday that the singer is ill. No more details were provided.
The 76-year-old canceled planned concerts earlier this year after she was ordered by her doctor to stay off the road and rest.
Across social media, people are remembering the “Queen of Soul” and her impact and legacy.
Prayers going up for the Queen of Soul tonight. Music just wouldn’t be same if not for Aretha Franklin. pic.twitter.com/oHHO5Kvfah
Sending my prayers to Aretha Franklin and her family! Let us all pray that she overcomes this illness and return back to a healthy condition. Miracles happen everyday! Much R.E.S.P.E.C.T. to the Queen of Soul! 🙏🏽❤️ pic.twitter.com/bO0CqQZ2lb
Sometimes Alfred Wilson still has to take a moment to collect himself after he pulls open files at the law firm where he works and sees Heather Heyer’s handwriting.
“I get choked up and have to gather myself before I talk to the client,” said Wilson, who hired Heyer, the 32-year-old paralegal killed nearly a year ago in a car attack during a violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The rally that left Heyer dead and dozens more injured proved to be a watershed moment, both for the racist, fringe “alt-right” movement, and for the city itself. In the year since, many residents like Wilson say the wounds haven’t healed. Others say the violence has laid bare divisions over deeper issues of race and economic inequality and what should be done to move forward.
“One of my hugest gripes with last year with the people of this town was that people, mostly white folks, kept saying, ‘This isn’t Charlottesville,'” said Brenda Brown-Grooms, a local pastor and activist. “I wonder what planet they live on. This is exactly who we are.”
A Charlottesville native, born in the segregated basement of the University of Virginia hospital, Brown-Grooms said white supremacy was present in Charlottesville long before the rally and is the “elephant in the room” the city now must deal with.
Activists have pushed leadersto address the city’s legacies of racism and slavery, its affordable housing crunch and the police department’s relationship with the black community, among other issues, since the Aug. 12 rally.
The event was one of the largest gatherings of white nationalists and far-right extremists in a decade. Many participants dressed as if they were headed to battle, shouted racist slurs and clashed violently with counterprotesters. Meanwhile, authorities largely stood by on the fringes of the action near a downtown park with a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that the city wanted to remove.
The crowd was eventually forced to disperse but a car that authorities say was driven by a man fascinated with Adolf Hitler later plowed into a crowd of peaceful counterprotesters. The day’s death toll rose to three when a state police helicopter that had been monitoring the event and assisting with the governor’s motorcade crashed, killing two troopers.
In this Sept. 16, 2017, file photo, State Police keep a handful of Confederate protesters separated from counter-demonstrators in front of the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va. Pressure to take down America’s monuments honoring slain Confederate soldiers and the generals who led them didn’t start with Charlottesville. But the deadly violence that rocked the Virginia college town a year ago gave the issue an explosive momentum. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)
Responding in part to calls for a closer look at stop-and-frisk policies that disproportionately affect black residents, the city established a new Police Civilian Review Board. The city also has approved funds for affordable housing and workforce development.
Meanwhile, there’s been a churn in leadership. The city attorney took a new job, the city manager’s contract was not renewed, a spokeswoman quit and the police chief, 50 at the time, retired after less than two years on the job.
The five-person city council has two new faces, and the group picked a different mayor, Nikuyah Walker, a black woman who ran as an independent in the staunchly Democratic town and was previously one of the council’s strongest critics.
Walker has clashed publicly with other council members on multiple issues, such as hiring an interim city manager. She recently took to social media to criticize the candidate, the way he was selected and her fellow councilors’ behavior.
The council’s drama doesn’t seem to affect most residents, who “just go on with our lives and watch with quiet amusement,” said Charles “Buddy” Weber, an attorney and longtime resident involved in a lawsuit seeking to stop the city from removing the Lee monument. Weber emphasized that not everyone in Charlottesville agrees on the extent and nature of the city’s problems.
While the city’s been struggling to find its footing, some alt-right leaders are faltering. The rally violence proved a costly debacle for leading figures such as white nationalist Richard Spencer and others who are fighting lawsuits. Many in the movement have been booted from mainstream internet platforms. A few have dropped out altogether.
Only one organizer of last summer’s rally seems intent on publicly marking the anniversary. Jason Kessler, a Charlottesville resident and UVA graduate, sued the city after it denied him a permit for an anniversary event. Kessler recently abandoned his lawsuit, but he vowed to press ahead with plans for an Aug. 12 rally in Washington, D.C.
During an interview this summer, Kessler said he was still “coming to terms” with what happened last year and said he apologized to Heyer’s family.
But he struck a far more defiant tone when a city attorney questioned him last month. Kessler said during a deposition that he had no regrets or remorse about his role and takes no responsibility for the violence.
While Kessler’s plans for the anniversary weekend have shifted, many residents say they’re bracing for some sort of white nationalist presence. Officials and law enforcement authorities insist that whatever happens, they will be better prepared. An investigation by a former U.S. attorney found a lack of planning, poor communication and a passive response by law enforcement added to last year’s chaos.
Michael Rodi, owner of a downtown restaurant-nightclub, told city and law enforcement officials at a forum for the business community that “if we can make this thing fizzle, the rest of the world looks at us and goes, ‘Oh, you’re not Nazi Central.'”
Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, who’s spent much of the past year working with Wilson on a foundation named for her daughter, said she plans to place flowers Sunday at the site of the attack that claimed Heyer’s life. But the day should be about more than just Heyer, Bro said.
“I just would like people to focus on the anniversary, not on Heather, but on the issues that she died for — Black Lives Matter, overpolicing, affordable housing, for more truth and the telling of the history of Charlottesville — and to focus on where they need to go as a community,” Bro said.
— Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland, and AP photographer Steve Helber in Charlottesville contributed to this report. Rankin reported from Richmond and Charlottesville.
In 1979, a man named Ron Stallworth who was the first African-American police officer and detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department also became a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan and the leader of the local chapter. He would send a white co-worker to play him for in-person meetings as part of the wild undercover operation, but Stallworth was the one on the phone, insisting his hatred for non-white races with everyone from the local chapter members to the KKK’s “grand wizard” David Duke himself.
It’s Stallworth’s story that provides the framework for Spike Lee’s blistering new film, “BlacKkKlansman ,” but hardly the full picture. Deceptively epic in scope, in “BlacKkKlansman” Lee has made an immensely entertaining film about everything — love, friendship, ambition, civil rights, the power of words and images to uplift and destroy and the various shades and ideologies of racism and revolution that will leave you craving another viewing.
John David Washington (Denzel Washington’s son) plays Ron Stallworth, a composed and deliberate man who isn’t afraid to ask for what he wants, whether it’s a job or a quick promotion out of the dreaded records room and into undercover work.
Many around him are quick to throw labels and make assumptions about what he can and can’t do. His co-worker calls him a toad, because of his race. His black student union girlfriend, Patrice, asks if he’s a pig (i.e. a cop). At work, he seems extreme — a rookie suggesting a dangerous undercover operation to infiltrate the KKK. In life, he seems compliant. As Patrice (a brilliant Laura Harrier) tells him, meaningful change is impossible when working within the structures of a racist system.
But Ron has a plan to infiltrate The Organization, and a few around him like the police chief (Robert John Burke), and two detectives, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) and Jimmy Creek (Michael Buscemi) are at least willing to go along with it for a while. Flip draws the card to be in-person Ron, which turns out to be a headache of its own when one of The Organization’s members, Felix (Jasper Paakkonen), starts to suspect that he might actually be Jewish.
These scenes are riveting to watch, infused with a perfectly executed tension as Flip carefully navigates his way through meetings and interactions with the group, including the docile chapter leader Walter (Ryan Eggold), the maniacally sinister Felix and the perpetually drunk and dumb Ivanhoe (Paul Walter Hauser). They are, on the whole, dopes used for comedic effect, but there is something else going on below the surface. You’re always keenly aware that these shadowy, back bar racists could with the right leader become the mainstream.
The acting is expert throughout with standout performances by Washington and Driver, especially, who gets a powerful arc. The supporting cast is also notably strong, including Harrier and Topher Grace as David Duke, who is attempting to take The Organization into the mainstream with a gentlemanly demeanor, polished suits and a politician’s smile.
Mind you, “BlacKkKlansman” is not a subtle film and is often repetitive where it least needs it. Stallworth’s “white voice” and racist musings over the phone are perfectly used a few times, until the effect eventually begins to dull.
But it is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years, from composer Terence Blanchard. Every frame is packed with meaning and metaphor from the opening, the famous crane shot from Victor Fleming’s “Gone With the Wind,” onward to the sins of the present day. It’s a Spike Lee joint that is not to be missed.
“BlacKklansman,” a Focus Features release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for “language throughout, including racial epithets, and for disturbing/violent material and some sexual references.” Running time: 135 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
In this photo taken on Thursday Aug. 2, 2018, Aaron Rodewald, an operations and finance manager at St. John’s Church, demonstrates a device that allows churchgoers to donate money using contactless payments, in Hoxton, London. Thousands of Christian churches across the world are now using portable card readers or apps to take donations as people increasingly stop carrying cash on them. The Church of England says 16,000 religious sites now have access to portable card readers. In the U.S., hundreds of churches have installed kiosks where the faithful can swipe a card to donate. (AP Photo/Robert Stevens)
Thousands of Christian churches across the world are now using portable card readers or apps to take donations as people increasingly stop carrying cash on them.
The Church of England says 16,000 religious sites now have access to portable card readers. In the U.S., hundreds of churches have installed kiosks where the faithful can swipe a card to donate. Others are popularizing smartphone apps where money can be sent over at any time.
“How we pay for things is changing fast, especially for younger church-goers, who no longer carry cash, and we want all generations to be able to make the most of their place of worship,” said John Preston, the Church of England’s national stewardship officer.
The technologies vary from donations via a website to apps and physical screens set up at the church. The contactless card reader, which can be passed around the pews like the traditional offerings plate, is a newer evolution that the Church of England, in particular, has been adopting.
It struck a deal with contactless payment companies iZettle and SumUp to create a system that all its religious sites can install. It takes Apple Pay and Google Pay but can also be used with a PIN code if needed.
The innovation seems to be yielding good results.
A startup that makes donation apps for churches in France says that the average contribution is two to six times higher than cash donations. Obole Digitale’s smartphone app is used by 34 dioceses that represent over 5,000 churches in the country.
That may also be due to the fact that electronic donations tend to be worth more than the small change people carry in their pockets.
St. John’s church in London has a contactless card reader with preset donation sums ranging from 5 to 50 pounds ($6.50 to $65.50).
Graham Hunter, the vicar for St. John’s, says about a quarter of all voluntary donations are now via contactless payments.
He adopted the new technology after noticing open-air market traders in London using contactless readers for payments.
“In everyday life, people go into cafes and into supermarkets and they’re used to paying with contactless all the time,” he said.
His congregation includes 23-year-old Zoe Mathias, who rarely carries cash unless she’s lost her debit card.
“I’m very glad that our church has entered into the 21st century with contactless payment,” she said.
The money raised is used for building upkeep, children’s activities and to stage events for the local community.
Hunter said the church realized it had to make up for a drop in cash donations and that technology is helping to do that.
He hopes embracing innovations like contactless card payments will show churches can be modern, forward-thinking places. St. John’s once installed a free public wi-fi zone in its garden, so passersby could surf the web while on their lunch break.
“The Bible describes God as the chief technical officer, the CTO, a chief technician, an architect of all that is to come. So, God is creative and produces new technologies and so should we,” said Hunter.
