Category: News & Updates OLD

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

Michael W. Twitty (born 1977) is an African-American Jewish writer, culinary historian,^[1] and educator. He is the author of The Cooking Gene, published by HarperCollins/Amistad, which won the 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award for Book of the Year as well as the category for writing. The book was also a finalist for The Kirkus Prize in nonfiction, the Art of Eating Prize and a Barnes and Noble New Discoveries finalist in nonfiction.

Michael Twitty was born in Washington, D.C. in 1977. He is of Mende, Akan and Irish descent. His Irish ancestors were enslavers; Twitty wrote an article for the Guardian explaining how he discovered his Irish ancestry through a combination of genetic testing and historical records.^[2][3] Twitty’s great-great grandfather, Elijah Mitchell, was on a nearby street when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House, ending the American Civil War.^[4]

Twitty first became interested in traditional cooking as a child when he went on a trip to Colonial Williamsburg. He majored in African-American studies and anthropology at Howard University, but did not finish due to financial constraints.^[5]

In 2010, he launched Afroculinaria, a culinary history blog that covers African and African-American foodways.^[6] In 2010, Twitty worked with the D. Landreth Seed Company to compile the African American Heritage Collection of heirloom seeds for the company’s 225th anniversary. The collection features roughly 30 plants, including the long-handled dipper gourd and the fish pepper, showcasing how instrumental they were to African-American survival and independence.^[7][8] In 2011, he began his “Cooking Gene” project, which would form the basis for his 2017 James Beard Award-winning book The Cooking Gene.^[9] He is writing another book slated to come out in 2020, titled Kosher Soul.^[10]

Twitty founded and oversees the Southern Discomfort Tour, a journey through the American South designed to raise awareness about the impact racism had on Southern cuisine.^[11] As part of this project, Twitty recreates the experiences of his slave ancestors, picking cotton, chopping wood, working in fields, and cooking in plantation kitchens.^[4]

In 2013, Twitty gained greater media attention when he published an open letter to Paula Deen after she was fired from the Food Network.^[12] That same year he spoke at the MAD symposium in Copenhagen after being invited by Rene Redzepi, owner of NOMA. In 2016, he traveled to Vancouver to give a TED talk entitled “Gastronomy and the social justice reality of food”.^[13] In 2016, Twitty received the inaugural Culinary Pioneer Award from Tastetalks and won both readers choice and editors choice for his letter to chef Sean Brock on Afroculinaria from Saveur. In January 2017, Colonial Williamsburg named Twitty its first Revolutionary in Residence.^[14][15]

Twitty has become an icon in his efforts to change food and culinary injustices that have been a prevalent problem in African American communities and traces to African roots to help the public understand how African-American food shaped American cuisine.^[4]

Twitty is openly gay.^[16] He was raised nominally Christian and converted to Judaism at age 25.^[17] He married Taylor Keith on October 1, 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_W._Twitty

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Elle Lett, MBiostat, MA, PhD, is a Black transgender woman, statistician-epidemiologist and MD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in statistical epidemiology at the Penn Medicine Palliative and Advanced Illness and Research (PAIR) Center. She has three active research arms: 1) intersectional approaches to health for ethnoracial minoritized subpopulations within the transgender community 2) structural racism and the health impacts of state-sanctioned violence and the carceral system on Black Americans and 3) statistical methods for missing data, evidence synthesis, and prediction modeling. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Harvard College, master’s degrees in Biostatistics and Statistics from Duke University and the Wharton School, respectively, and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania. She plans to pursue residency training in Emergency Medicine and use health services research and social epidemiology to motivate policy changes that help achieve health equity in the United States.

https://ldi.upenn.edu/fellows/fellows-directory/elle-lett-mbiostat/

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Akiea “Ki” Gross (they/them) is an abolitionist early educator, consultant, cultural organizer and creative entrepreneur currently innovating ways to resist, heal, liberate and create with their pedagogy, Woke Kindergarten. Woke Kindergarten is a global, abolitionist early learning community, creative expanse and consultancy supporting children, families, educators and organizations in their commitment to abolitionist early education and pro-Black and LGBTQIA+ liberation.

A former instructional coach and infant/toddler, preschool and Kindergarten teacher, Ki was recently selected as the Early Childhood Education Assembly’s 2020 Social Justice Award Recipient and has received grants from Abolitionist Teaching Network and VELA fund to create an early childhood curricular zine to support young children and their families as they learn from home.

It was their experiences with the carceral state of schooling and the trauma enacted upon Black children in these systems, that galvanized them to create #BlackTeachersMatter, Black Teachers Mentor and Equitable Schools years ago. As their ideologies and experiences with abolition evolved, they dissolved Equitable Schools and created @WhyAbolition.

Their commitment to creating safe, inclusive and liberatory spaces for BIPOC queer & trans artists also led them to create Sisters Unsigned, an intimate concert series that amplifies the voices of independent queer, trans, gender and genre expansive BIPOC artists and creators.

https://mentorwashington.org/blog/uncategorized/keynote-speaker-announcement

https://www.wokekindergarten.org/

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

Exploring Food & Culture Through a Black Lens

At BLACK FOODIE, we’re focused on telling diverse Black stories through showcasing and celebrating the people, places, and plates that represent the diaspora.

Whether we’re creating social content or developing a TV show, you can be sure that our content is engaging, informative, and above all, authentic. Join us!

https://www.blackfoodie.co/

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

Brittney Yevette Griner (born October 18, 1990) is an American professional basketball player for the Phoenix Mercury of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).^[1] She played college basketball for the Baylor Lady Bears in Waco, Texas.^[2][3] She is the only NCAA basketball player to both score 2,000 points and block 500 shots.^[4] In 2012, the three-time All-American was named the AP Player of the Year and the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.

In 2009, Griner was named the nation’s No. 1 high school women’s basketball player by Rivals.com.^[5] She was selected to the 2009 Phoenix Mercury All-American basketball team.^[6] In 2012, she received the Best Female Athlete ESPY Award. In 2013, Griner signed an endorsement deal with Nike.^[7] Standing 6 ft 9 in (206 cm) tall, Griner wears a men’s US size 17 shoe and has an arm span of 87.5 in (222 cm).^[8][5]

Griner was on the United States women’s Olympic team in 2016, and led them to victory at the Rio Olympics.^[9] In 2021, Griner was named to the United States women’s national team for the 2020 Olympics, where she won her second gold medal.^[10]

On February 17, 2022, Griner was detained for allegedly bringing vape cartridges containing hashish oil into Sheremetyevo International Airport and is currently in Russian custody.^[11] Some US officials have expressed concern that Russia may be using her as leverage in response to the Western sanctions imposed against Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.^[12][13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittney_Griner

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

Demarre McGill has gained international recognition as a soloist, recitalist, chamber and orchestral musician. Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, he has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Seattle, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Grant Park, San Diego and Baltimore symphony orchestras and, at age 15, the Chicago Symphony.

Now principal flute of the Seattle Symphony, he previously served as principal flute of the Dallas Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Florida Orchestra, and Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. He recently served as acting principal flute of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and earlier with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

As an educator, Demarre has performed, coached and presented master classes in South Africa, Korea, Japan, Quebec and throughout the United States. With his brother Anthony, he was a speaker and performer at the 2018 League of American Orchestras Conference. He has also served on the faculties of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States, the National Orchestral Institute (NOI) at the University of Maryland, the Orford Music Festival, and participated in Summerfests at the Curtis Institute of Music. In August of 2019, he was named Associate Professor of Flute at Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and is an artist-faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School.

A founding member of The Myriad Trio, and former member of Chamber Music Society Two, Demarre has participated in the Santa Fe, Marlboro, Seattle and Stellenbosch chamber music festivals, to name a few. He is the co-founder of The Art of Élan and, along with clarinetist Anthony McGill and pianist Michael McHale, founded the McGill/McHale Trio in 2014. Their first CD, “Portraits,” released in August 2017, has received rave reviews, as has “Winged Creatures,”his recording with Anthony McGill and the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra. In 2019-20 the McGill/McHale Trio performs at New York City’s 92nd Street Y, as well as in Washington D.C. and on chamber music series throughout the Midwest.

Media credits include appearances on PBS’s Live from Lincoln Center, A & E Network’s The Gifted Ones, NBC’s Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and, with his brother Anthony when they were teenagers, on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

A native of Chicago, Demarre McGill began studying the flute at age 7 and attended the Merit School of Music. In the years that followed, until he left Chicago, he studied with Susan Levitin. Demarre received his Bachelor’s degree from The Curtis Institute of Music and a Master’s degree at The Juilliard School.

https://www.demarremcgill.com/?fbclid=IwAR0MuYq8_wrIO_HFwTDJ0CWfSnYDRpKF8cHxNyxVoEvxMp2m-Mw8NUzORPM

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

Paulana Lamonier is the founder of Black People Will Swim, a purpose-driven organization working to smash the stereotype that Black people don’t swim. 

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After learning how to swim with the help of coaches in 2009 at CUNY York College, Paulana nurtured her love for swimming and became inspired to teach others how to conquer their fear of water. For over a decade, she has shared her passion for swimming by working with swim clubs, teams, and gyms to build a community with her students.

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She’s also a multimedia journalist who has made a career out of telling compelling stories. She’s written for Fast Company, Forbes, Complex Magazine, and interviewed the likes of Queen Latifah, Loni Love, Venus Williams, and more. 

https://www.blackpeoplewillswim.com/meet-the-team

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

Diébédo Francis Kéré appears on a Zoom screen in a loose white Oxford shirt and an enormous, slightly flabbergasted smile.

“Can you imagine?” the newest Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate exclaims. “I was born in Burkina Faso, in this little village where there was no school. And my father wanted me to learn how to read and write very simply because then I could then translate or read him his letters.”

Kéré spoke to NPR from Porto-Novo, the capital of Benin, where Kéré Architecture is currently working a new parliamentary building inspired by the palaver tree. It is, he says, a West African symbol of consensus building, and he hopes the building will reflect a commitment both to tradition and democratic process. “Literally speaking, it is a tree under which people come together to make decisions, to celebrate,” Kéré explains. “You know, you get to think together and everyone can be part of the debate or the discussion.”

The first Black winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize had already received numerous accolades in his field, including the Aga Khan Award and the Thomas Jefferson medal, but Kéré was as surprised as anyone else to be selected for the field’s most famous prize. Many architects and critics had openly supposed that 2022 would be Sir David Adjaye’s year. The most prominent Black “starchitect” is best known for designing such notable buildings as the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Kéré, who is based in Berlin but centers much of his practice in Africa, has been – until now — far lesser known, with signature buildings that include primary schools and a health care clinic.

“Francis Kéré is pioneering architecture — sustainable to the earth and its inhabitants — in lands of extreme scarcity,” said committee chair, Tom Pritzker, in a statement. “He is equally architect and servant, improving upon the lives and experiences of countless citizens in a region of the world that is at times forgotten. Through buildings that demonstrate beauty, modesty, boldness and invention, and by the integrity of his architecture and geste, Kéré gracefully upholds the mission of this Prize.”

Kéré says his architectural practice was inspired by his own experience attending school with around 100 other children in a region where temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. “You will sit and it’s very hot inside,” he told NPR. “And there was no light, while outside, the sunlight was abundant and in my head, I think, the idea one day grew [that] as an adult, I should make it better. I was thinking about space, about room, about how I can feel better.”

In his designs for Gando Primary School and Naaba Belem Goumma Secondary School in Burkina Faso, Kéré drew on traditional building materials such as local clay mixed with concrete, and emphasized shade and shadows with well-ventilated spaces that reduce the need for air conditioning. He wanted the buildings to evoke the sense of an oasis. “I am creating a huge canopy for many, many children, to be happy and learn how to read and write,” he says.

When he was twenty, in 1985, Kéré earned a vocational scholarship to study carpentry in Berlin. But while immersed in the practicality of roofing and furniture making, he also attended night school and was admitted to Technische Universität Berlin, from which he graduated in 2004 with an advanced degree in architecture. He was still a student when he designed and built the innovative Gando Primary School. The recognition it earned helped Kéré establish his own practice in Berlin.

“He knows, from within, that architecture is not about the object but the objective; not the product, but the process,” says the 2022 Jury Citation, in part. “Francis Kéré’s entire body of work shows us the power of materiality rooted in place. His buildings, for and with communities, are directly of those communities – in their making, their materials, their programs and their unique characters.”

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/15/1085457169/pritzker-architecture-prize-2022-diebedo-francis-kere

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

I’m Tiffy, the voice behind Fidgets and Fries. I’m an Autistic mother, advocate, and storyteller who uses my personal experiences with Autism and parenting two Autistic boys to guid others on their journey. My activism is rooted in challenging the current perception of Autism as a lifelong burden, cultivating a community that explores the concept of Intersectionality, and inspiring thought leaders through storytelling, education, and critical discourse. 

I am a dreamer by day and writer by night. I don’t often like to write about myself but can be persuaded to do so every once in a while. I live in Texas with my husband, Hammy, our two boys, Aidan and Josiah, and our cats. 

https://lnk.bio/fidgets.and.fries

We are highlighting examples of Black excellence throughout the year! Feel free to send us suggestions!

Ron Finley is a rebel with a green thumb. In 2010 Ron set out to fix a problem in his South Central neighborhood parkways; those often neglected dirt patches next to our streets. He planted some vegetables there. Soon after he was cited for gardening without a permit by the apparent owners of those dirt patches: the City of Los Angeles. Queue the beginning of a horticulture revolution. 

Ron fought back, and won. He started a petition with fellow green activists, and demanded the right to garden and grow food in his neighborhood. Having grown up in the South Central Los Angeles food prison, Ron is familiar with the area’s lack of fresh produce. He knew what it was like to drive 45 minutes just to get a fresh tomato. Boldly and tenderly, Ron’s vision to rejuvenate communities around the world through gardening, knowledge, and togetherness has taken root. 

https://ronfinley.com/pages/about