Category: Black Excellence

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

Mary Edmonia Lewis, also known as “Wildfire” (c. July 4, 1844 – September 17, 1907), was an American sculptor, of mixed African-American and Native American (Mississauga Ojibwe) heritage. Born free in Upstate New York, she worked for most of her career in Rome, Italy. She was the first African-American and Native American sculptor to achieve national and then international prominence.^[1] She began to gain prominence in the United States during the Civil War; at the end of the 19th century, she remained the only Black woman artist who had participated in and been recognized to any extent by the American artistic mainstream.^[2] In 2002, the scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Edmonia Lewis on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.^[3]

Her work is known for incorporating themes relating to Black people and indigenous peoples of the Americas into Neoclassical-style sculpture.

Life and career

Early life

Hiawatha, 1868, by Edmonia Lewis, inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow‘s 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha.

According to the American National Biography, reliable information about her early life is limited, and Lewis “was often inconsistent in interviews even with basic facts about her origins, preferring to present herself as the exotic product of a childhood spent roaming the forests with her mother’s people.”^[4] On official documents she variously gave 1842, 1844, and 1854 as her birth year.^[5] She was born near Albany, New York.^[4] Most of her girlhood was apparently spent in Newark, New Jersey.^[6][7]

Her mother, Catherine Mike Lewis, was African-Native American, of Mississauga Ojibwe and African-American descent.^[8][9] She was an excellent weaver and craftswoman. Two different African-American men are mentioned in different sources as being her father. The first is Samuel Lewis,^[4] who was Afro-Haitian and worked as a valet (gentleman’s servant).^[10][11] Other sources say her father was the writer on African Americans, Robert Benjamin Lewis.^[12] Her half-brother Samuel, who is treated at some length in a history of Montana,^[13] said that their father was “a West Indian Frenchman”, and his mother “part African and partly a descendant of the educated Narragansett Indians of New York state.”^[14] (the Narragansett people are originally from Rhode Island.)

By the time Lewis reached the age of nine, both of her parents had died; Samuel Lewis died in 1847^[15] and Robert Benjamin Lewis in 1853. Her two maternal aunts adopted her and her older half-brother Samuel.^[8] Samuel was born in 1835 to his father of the same name, and his first wife, in Haiti. The family came to the United States when Samuel was a young child.^[15] Samuel became a barber at age 12 after their father died.^[15]

The children lived with their aunts near Niagara Falls, New York, for about four years. Lewis and her aunts sold Ojibwe baskets and other items, such as moccasins and embroidered blouses, to tourists visiting Niagara Falls, Toronto, and Buffalo. During this time, Lewis went by her Native American name, Wildfire, while her brother was called Sunshine. In 1852, Samuel left for San Francisco, California, leaving Lewis in the care of a Captain S. R. Mills.

By the time she got to college, Lewis was economically privileged, because her older brother Samuel had made a fortune in the California gold rush and “supplied her every want anticipating her wishes after the style and manner of a person of ample income”.^[14]

In 1856, Lewis enrolled in a pre-college program at New York Central College, a Baptist abolitionist school.^[8] At McGrawville, Lewis met many of the leading activists who would become mentors, patrons, and possible subjects for her work as her artistic career developed.^[16] In a later interview, Lewis said that she left the school after three years, having been “declared to be wild.”^[17]

Until I was twelve years old I led this wandering life, fishing and swimming…and making moccasins. I was then sent to school for three years in [McGrawville], but was declared to be wild—they could do nothing with me.

— Edmonia Lewis^[18]

However, her academic record at Central College (1856–fall 1858) has been located, and her grades, “conduct”, and attendance were all exemplary. Her classes included Latin, French, “grammar”, arithmetic, drawing, composition, and declamation (public speaking).^[19]

Education

In 1859, when Edmonia Lewis was about 15 years old, her brother Samuel and abolitionists sent her to Oberlin, Ohio, where she attended the secondary Oberlin Academy Preparatory School for the full, three-year course,^[20] before entering Oberlin Collegiate Institute (since 1866, Oberlin College),^[21] one of the first U.S. higher-learning institutions to admit women and people of differing ethnicities.^[22] The Ladies’ Department was designed “to give Young Ladies facilities for the thorough mental discipline, and the special training which will qualify them for teaching and other duties of their sphere.”^[23] She changed her name to Mary Edmonia Lewis^[24] and began to study art.^[25] Lewis boarded with Reverend John Keep and his wife from 1859 until she was forced from the college in 1863. At Oberlin, with a student population of one thousand, Lewis was one of only 30 students of color.^[26] Reverend Keep was white, a member of the board of trustees, an avid abolitionist, and a spokesperson for coeducation.^[17]

Mary said later that she was subject to daily racism and discrimination. She, and other female students, were rarely given the opportunity to participate in the classroom or speak at public meetings.^[27]

During the winter of 1862, several months after the start of the US Civil War, an incident occurred between Lewis and two Oberlin classmates, Maria Miles and Christina Ennes. The three women, all boarding in Keep’s home, planned to go sleigh riding with some young men later that day. Before the sleighing, Lewis served her friends a drink of spiced wine. Shortly after, Miles and Ennes fell severely ill. Doctors examined them and concluded that the two women had some sort of poison in their system, supposedly cantharides, a reputed aphrodisiac. For a time it was not certain that they would survive. Days later, it became apparent that the two women would recover from the incident. Authorities initially took no action.

News of the controversial incident rapidly spread throughout Ohio. In the town of Oberlin, where the general population was not as progressive as at the college, while Lewis was walking home alone one night she was dragged into an open field by unknown assailants, badly beaten, and left for dead.^[28] After the attack, local authorities arrested Lewis, charging her with poisoning her friends. John Mercer Langston, an Oberlin College alumnus and the first African-American lawyer in Ohio, represented Lewis during her trial. Although most witnesses spoke against her and she did not testify, Chapman moved successfully to have the charges dismissed: the contents of the victims’ stomachs had not been analyzed and there was, therefore, no evidence of poisoning, no corpus delicti.^[29][30][6]

The remainder of Lewis’ time at Oberlin was marked by isolation and prejudice. About a year after the poisoning trial, Lewis was accused of stealing artists’ materials from the college. She was acquitted due to lack of evidence. Only a few months later she was charged with aiding and abetting a burglary. At this point she had had enough, and left.^[6] Another report says that she was forbidden from registering for her last term, leaving her unable to graduate.^[31]

In 2022, she was awarded a degree posthumously by Oberlin College.^[32][33]

Art career

Boston

After college, Lewis moved to Boston in early 1864, where she began to pursue her career as a sculptor. She repeatedly told a story about encountering in Boston a statue of Benjamin Franklin, not knowing what it was or what to call it, but concluding she could make a “stone man” herself.^[34]

The Keeps wrote a letter of introduction on Lewis’ behalf to abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison in Boston, as did Henry Highland Garnet.^[35] He introduced her to already established sculptors in the area, as well as writers who publicized Lewis in the abolitionist press.^[36] Finding an instructor, however, was not easy for her. Three male sculptors refused to instruct her before she was introduced to the moderately successful sculptor, Edward Augustus Brackett (1818–1908), who specialized in marble portrait busts.^[37][38][39] His clients were some of the most important abolitionists of the day, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Charles Sumner, and John Brown.^[38]

To instruct her, he lent her fragments of sculptures to copy in clay, which he critiqued.^[39] Under his tutelage, she crafted her own sculpting tools and sold her first piece, a sculpture of a woman’s hand, for $8.^[40] Anne Whitney, a fellow sculptor and friend of Lewis’, wrote in an 1864 letter to her sister that Lewis’s relationship with her instructor did not end amicably, but did not disclose the reason for the split.^[38] Lewis opened her studio to the public in her first solo exhibition in 1864.^[41]

Lewis was inspired by the lives of abolitionists and Civil War heroes. Her subjects in 1863 and 1864 included some of the most famous abolitionists of her day: John Brown and Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.^[42] When she met Union Colonel Shaw, the commander of an African-American Civil War regiment from Massachusetts, she was inspired to create a bust of his likeness, which impressed the Shaw family, who purchased it.^[43] Lewis then made plaster-cast reproductions of the bust; she sold one hundred at 15 dollars apiece.^[44] This was her most famous work to date and the money she earned from the busts allowed her to eventually move to Rome.^[45][46] Anna Quincy Waterston, a poet, then wrote a poem about both Lewis and Shaw.^[47]

From 1864 to 1871, Lewis was written about or interviewed by Lydia Maria Child, Elizabeth Peabody, Anna Quincy Waterston, and Laura Curtis Bullard: all important women in Boston and New York abolitionist circles.^[38] Because of these women, articles about Lewis appeared in important abolitionist journals, including Broken Fetter, the Christian Register, and the Independent, as well as many others.^[42] Lewis was aware of her reception in Boston. She was not opposed to the coverage she received in the abolitionist press, and she was not known to turn down monetary aid, but she could not tolerate the false praise. She knew that some did not really appreciate her art, but saw her as an opportunity to express and show their support for human rights.^[48]

Early works that proved highly popular included medallion portraits of the abolitionists John Brown, described as “her hero”,^[35] and Wm. Lloyd Garrison. Lewis also drew inspiration from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his work, particularly his epic poem The Song of Hiawatha. She made several busts of its leading characters, which he drew from Ojibwe legend.^[49]

Rome

While in Rome, Lewis adopted the neoclassical style of sculpture, as seen in Bust of Dr. Dio Lewis (1868).^[50]

I was practically driven to Rome in order to obtain the opportunities for art culture, and to find a social atmosphere where I was not constantly reminded of my color. The land of liberty had no room for a colored sculptor.^[35]

The success and popularity of these works in Boston allowed Lewis to bear the cost of a trip to Rome in 1866.^[51] On her 1865 passport is written, “M. Edmonia Lewis is a Black girl sent by subscription to Italy having displayed great talents as a sculptor”.^[52] The established sculptor Hiram Powers gave her space to work in his studio.^[53] She entered a circle of expatriate artists and established her own space within the former studio of 18th-century Italian sculptor Antonio Canova,^[54] just off the Piazza Barberini.^[46] She received professional support from both Charlotte Cushman, a Boston actress and a pivotal figure for expatriate sculptors in Rome, and Maria Weston Chapman, a dedicated worker for the anti-slavery cause.^[55]

Lewis spent most of her adult career in Rome, where Italy’s less pronounced racism allowed increased opportunity to a black artist.^[2] There Lewis enjoyed more social, spiritual, and artistic freedom than what she had had in the United States. She was Catholic and Rome allowed her both spiritual and physical closeness to her faith. In America, Lewis would have had to continue relying on abolitionist patronage; but Italy allowed her to make her own in the international art world.^[56] She began sculpting in marble, working within the neoclassical manner, but focusing on naturalism within themes and images relating to black and American Indian people.^[57] The surroundings of the classical world greatly inspired her and influenced her work, in which she recreated the classical art style—such as presenting people in her sculptures as draped in robes rather than in contemporary clothing.^[58]

She wears a red cap in her studio, which is very picturesque and effective; her face is a bright, intelligent, and expressive one. Her manners are child-like, simple and most winning and pleasing…. There is something in human nature…which makes everyone admire a brave and heroic spirit; and if people are not always ready to lend a helping hand to struggling genius, they are all eager to applaud when those struggles are drowned with success. The hour of applause has come to Edmonia Lewis.^[59]

Lewis was unique in the way she approached sculpting abroad. She insisted on enlarging her clay and wax models in marble herself, rather than hire native Italian sculptors to do it for her – the common practice at the time. Male sculptors were largely skeptical of the talent of female sculptors, and often accused them of not doing their own work.^[56] Harriet Hosmer, a fellow sculptor and expatriate, also did this. Lewis also was known to make sculptures before receiving commissions for them, or sent unsolicited works to Boston patrons requesting that they raise funds for materials and shipping.^[57]

While in Rome, Lewis continued to express her African-American and Native American heritage. One of her more famous works, “Forever Free“, depicted a powerful image of an African-American man and women emerging from the bonds of slavery. Another sculpture Lewis created was called “The Arrow Maker”, which showed a Native American father teaching his daughter how to make an arrow.^[45]

Her work sold for large sums of money. In 1873 an article in the New Orleans Picayune stated: “Edmonia Lewis had snared two 50,000-dollar commissions.” Her new-found popularity made her studio a tourist destination.^[60] Lewis had many major exhibitions during her rise to fame, including one in Chicago, Illinois, in 1870, and in Rome in 1871.^[25]

In 1872, Edmonia was summoned to Peterboro, New York, to sculpt wealthy abolitionist Gerrit Smith, a project conceived by his friends. Smith was not pleased and what Lewis completed was a sculpture of the clasped hands of Gerrit and his beloved wife Ann.^[61]

The Death of Cleopatra

A major coup in her career was participating in the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.^[62] For this, she created a monumental 3,015-pound marble sculpture, The Death of Cleopatra, portraying the queen in the throes of death.^[63] This piece depicts the moment popularized by Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra, in which Cleopatra had allowed herself to be bitten by a poisonous asp following the loss of her crown.^[26] Of the piece, J. S. Ingraham wrote that Cleopatra was “the most remarkable piece of sculpture in the American section” of the Exposition.^[64] Much of the viewing public was shocked by Lewis’s frank portrayal of death, but the statue drew thousands of viewers nonetheless.^[65] Cleopatra was considered a woman of both sensuous beauty and demonic power, and^[66] her self-annihilation has been portrayed numerously in art, literature and cinema. In Death of Cleopatra, Edmonia Lewis added an innovative flair by portraying the Egyptian queen in a disheveled, inelegant manner, a departure from the refined, composed Victorian approach of representing death.^[67] Considering Lewis’s interest in emancipation imagery as seen in her work Forever Free, it is not surprising that Lewis eliminated Cleopatra’s usual companion figures of loyal slaves from her work. Lewis’s The Death of Cleopatra may have been a response to the culture of the Centennial Exposition, which celebrated one hundred years of the United States being built around the principles of liberty and freedom, a celebration of unity despite centuries of slavery, the recent Civil War, and the failing attempts and efforts of Reconstruction. In order to avoid any acknowledgement of black empowerment by the Centennial, Lewis’s sculpture could not have directly addressed the subject of Emancipation.^[26] Although her white contemporaries were also sculpting Cleopatra and other comparable subject matter (such as Harriet Hosmer’s Zenobia), Lewis was more prone to scrutiny on the premise of race and gender due to the fact that she, like Cleopatra, was female:

The associations between Cleopatra and a black Africa were so profound that…any depiction of the ancient Egyptian queen had to contend with the issue of her race and the potential expectation of her blackness. Lewis’ white queen gained the aura of historical accuracy through primary research without sacrificing its symbolic links to abolitionism, black Africa, or black diaspora. But what it refused to facilitate was the racial objectification of the artist’s body. Lewis could not so readily become the subject of her own representation if her subject was corporeally white.^[68]

After being placed in storage, the statue was moved to the 1878 Chicago Interstate Exposition, where it remained unsold. Then the sculpture was acquired by a gambler by the name of “Blind John” Condon, who purchased it from a saloon on Clark Street to mark the grave of a Racehorse named “Cleopatra”.^[69] The grave was in front of the grandstand of his Harlem race track in the Chicago suburb of Forest Park, where the sculpture remained for nearly a century until the land was bought by the U.S. Postal Service^[70] and the sculpture was moved to a construction storage yard in Cicero, Illinois.^[71][70] While at the storage yard, The Death of Cleopatra sustained extensive damage at the hands of well-meaning Boy Scouts who painted and caused other damage to the sculpture. Dr. James Orland, a dentist in Forest Park and member of the Forest Park Historical Society, acquired the sculpture and held it in private storage at the Forest Park Mall.

Later, Marilyn Richardson, an assistant professor in the erstwhile The Writing Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and later curator and scholar of African-American art, went searching for The Death of Cleopatra for her biography of Lewis. Richardson was directed to the Forest Park Historical Society and Dr. Orland by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who had earlier been contacted by the historical society regarding the sculpture. Richardson, after confirming the sculpture’s location, contacted African-American bibliographer Dorothy Porter Wesley, and the two gained the attention of NMAA‘s George Gurney.^[72] According to Gurney, Curator Emeritus at the Smithsonian American Art Museum,^[73] the sculpture was in a race track in Forest Park, Illinois, during World War II. Finally, the sculpture came under the purview of the Forest Park Historical Society, who donated it to Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1994.^[71] Chicago-based Andrezej Dajnowski, in conjunction with the Smithsonian, spent $30,000 to restore it to its near-original state. The repairs were extensive, including the nose, sandals, hands, chin, and extensive “sugaring” (disintegration.)^[72]

Later career

A testament to Lewis’s renown as an artist came in 1877, when former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant commissioned her to do his portrait. He sat for her as a model and was pleased with her finished piece.^[74] She also contributed a bust of Massachusetts abolitionist senator Charles Sumner to the 1895 Atlanta Exposition.^[75]

In the late 1880s, neoclassicism declined in popularity, as did the popularity of Lewis’s artwork. She continued sculpting in marble, increasingly creating altarpieces and other works for Catholic patrons. A bust of Christ, created in her Rome studio in 1870, was rediscovered in Scotland in 2015.^[46] In the art world, she became eclipsed by history, and lost fame. By 1901 she had moved to London.^[76][a]

The events of her later years are not known.^[25]

Death

From 1896 to 1901 Lewis lived in Paris.^[46] She then relocated to the Hammersmith area of London, England, before her death on September 17, 1907, in the Hammersmith Borough Infirmary.^[77] According to her death certificate, the cause of her death was chronic kidney failure (Bright’s disease).^[27] She is buried in St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery, in London.^[78]

There were earlier theories that Lewis died in Rome in 1907 or, alternatively, that she had died in Marin County, California, and was buried in an unmarked grave in San Francisco.^[79]

In 2017, a GoFundMe by East Greenbush, New York, town historian Bobbie Reno was successful, and Edmonia Lewis’s grave was restored.^[80] The work was done by the E M Lander Co. in London.

Reception

As a black artist, Edmonia Lewis had to be conscious of her stylistic choices, as her largely white audience often gravely misread her work as self-portraiture. In order to avoid this, her female figures typically possess European features.^[2] Lewis had to balance her own personal identity with her artistic, social, and national identity, a tiring activity that affected her art.^[81]

In her 2007 work, Charmaine Nelson wrote of Lewis:

It is hard to overstate the visual incongruity of the black-Native female body, let alone that identity in a sculptor, within the Roman colony. As the first black-Native sculptor of either sex to achieve international recognition within a western sculptural tradition, Lewis was a symbolic and social anomaly within a dominantly white bourgeois and aristocratic community.^[2]

Personal life

Lewis never married and had no known children.^[82] According to her biographer, Dr. Marilyn Richardson, there is no definite information about her romantic involvement with anyone.^[83] However, in 1873 her engagement was announced,^[84] and in 1875, her fiance’s skin color was revealed to be the same as hers, although his name is not given.^[85] There is no further reference to this engagement.

Her half-brother Samuel became a barber in San Francisco, eventually moving to mining camps in Idaho and Montana. In 1868, he settled in the city of Bozeman, Montana, where he set up a barber shop on Main Street. He prospered, eventually investing in commercial real estate, and subsequently built his own home which still stands at 308 South Bozeman Avenue. In 1999 the Samuel Lewis House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1884, he married Mrs. Melissa Railey Bruce, a widow with six children. The couple had one son, Samuel E. Lewis (1886–1914), who married but died childless. The elder Lewis died after “a short illness” in 1896 and is buried in Sunset Hills Cemetery in Bozeman.^[15] The mayor of Bozeman was a pallbearer.^[15]

Popular works

Old Arrow-Maker and his Daughter (1866)

This sculpture was inspired by Lewis’s Native American heritage. An arrow-maker and his daughter sit on a round base, dressed in traditional Native American clothes. The male figure has recognizable Native American facial features, but not the daughter. As white audiences’ misread her work as self-portraiture, she often removed all facial features associated with “colored” races in female portrayal.^[86]

Forever Free (1867)

Main article: Forever Free (sculpture)

Forever Free, 1867

The words “forever free” are taken from President Lincoln‘s Emancipation Proclamation.

This white marble sculpture represents a man standing, staring up, and raising his left arm into the air. Wrapped around his left wrist is a chain; however, this chain is not restraining him. To his right is a woman kneeling with her hands held in a prayer position. The man’s right hand is gently placed on her right shoulder. Forever Free is a celebration of black liberation, salvation, and redemption, and represents the emancipation of African-American slaves. Lewis attempted to break stereotypes of African-American women with this sculpture. For example, she portrayed the woman as completely dressed while the man was partially dressed. This drew attention away from the notion of African-American women being sexual figures. This sculpture also symbolizes the end of the Civil War. While African Americans were legally free, they continued to be restrained, shown by the fact that the couple had chains wrapped around their bodies. The representation of race and gender has been critiqued by modern scholars, particularly the Eurocentric features of the female figure. This piece is held by Howard University Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.^[87]

Hagar (1868)

Lewis had a tendency to sculpt historically strong women, as demonstrated not just in Hagar but also in Lewis’s Cleopatra piece. Lewis also depicted ordinary women in extreme situations, emphasizing their strength.^[82] Hagar is inspired by a character from the Old Testament, the handmaid or slave of Abraham’s wife Sarah. Being unable to conceive a child, Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, in order to bear him a son. Hagar gave birth to Abraham’s firstborn son Ishmael, and after Sarah gave birth to her own son Isaac, she resented Hagar and made Abraham “cast her into the wilderness”. The piece was made of white marble, and Hagar is standing as if about to walk on, with her hands clasped in prayer and staring slightly up but not straight across. Lewis uses Hagar to symbolize the African mother in the United States, and the frequent sexual abuse of African women by white men.

The Death of Cleopatra (1876)

Discussed above.

In popular media

• Namesake of the Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Transgender People at Oberlin College.^[88]
• Written about in Olio, which is a book of poetry written by Tyehimba Jess that was released in 2016.^[89][90] That book won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.^[91]
• Honored with a Google Doodle on February 1, 2017.^[92]
• Stone Mirrors: The Sculpture and Silence of Edmonia Lewis, by Jeannine Atkins (2017), is a juvenile biographical novel in verse.^[93]
• A belated obituary was published in The New York Times in 2018 as part of their Overlooked series.^[94]
• The best-selling novel, La linea del colori: Il Grand Tour di Lafanu Brown, by Somalian Igiaba Scelgo (Florence: Giunti, 2020), in Italian, combines the characters of Edmonia Lewis and Sarah Parker Remond and is dedicated to Rome and to these two figures.
• She features as a “Great Artist” in the video game Civilization VI.
• Lewis is the subject of a stage play entitled “Edmonia” by Barry M. Putt, Jr., presented by Beacon Theatre Productions in Philadelphia, PA in 2021. “Edmonia” stage play.
• Lewis had a U.S. postal stamp unveiled in her honor on January 26, 2022.^[95][96]

List of major works

• John Brown medallions, 1864–65
• Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (plaster), 1864
• Anne Quincy Waterston, 1866
• A Freed Woman and Her Child, 1866
• The Old Arrow-Maker and His Daughter, 1866
• The Marriage of Hiawatha, 1866–67^[97]
• Forever Free, 1867
• Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (marble), 1867–68
• Hagar in the Wilderness, 1868
• Madonna Holding the Christ Child, 1869^[97]
• Hiawatha, collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1868^[b]
• Minnehaha, collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1868^[b]
• Indian Combat, Carrara marble, 30″ high, collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1868^[98]
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1869–71
• Bust of Abraham Lincoln, 1870^[c]22,
• Asleep, 1872^[c]
• Awake, 1872^[c]
• Poor Cupid, 1873
• Moses, 1873
• Bust of James Peck Thomas, 1874, collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, her only known portrait of a freed slave^[100]
• Hygieia, 1874
• Hagar, 1875
• The Death of Cleopatra, marble, 1876, collection of Smithsonian American Art Museum
• John Brown, 1876, Rome, plaster bust
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1876, Rome, plaster bust
• General Ulysses S. Grant, 1877–78
• Veiled Bride of Spring, 1878
• John Brown, 1878–79
• The Adoration of the Magi, 1883^[101]
• Charles Sumner, 1895

https://jones.house.gov/about

Mondaire Jones is serving his first term as the Congressman from New York’s 17th District, encompassing all of Rockland County and parts of central and northern Westchester County.

A product of East Ramapo public schools, Rep. Jones was raised in Section 8 housing and on food stamps in the Village of Spring Valley by a single mother who worked multiple jobs to provide for their family.

After graduating from Stanford University, Rep. Jones worked in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy, where he vetted candidates for federal judgeships and worked to reform our criminal legal system to make it more fair and equitable. He later graduated from Harvard Law School.

Prior to running for Congress, Rep. Jones worked as a litigator in private practice, where was awarded by The Legal Aid Society of New York for his pro bono service investigating claims of employment discrimination and helping families defrauded during the Great Recession recover funds. Subsequently, he served as a litigator in the Westchester County Law Department.

Rep. Jones began his activism in high school through the Spring Valley NAACP Youth Council. He would go on to serve on the NAACP’s National Board of Directors. Rep. Jones is a co-founder of the nonprofit Rising Leaders, Inc., which teaches professional skills to underserved middle-school students in three American cities, and has previously served on the board of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jones continues his lifelong advocacy for civil rights and civil liberties, and the strengthening of our democracy. In Congress, Rep. Jones is fighting for COVID-19 relief, a living wage for all, universal health care, racial justice, climate action, and restoration of the SALT deduction.

Rep. Jones serves as the Freshman Representative to Leadership in the 117th Congress, making him the youngest member of the Democratic House leadership team. He also serves as a Deputy Whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus and as a Co-Chair of the LGBTQ Equality Caucus.

Rep. Jones was raised in Rockland County and resides in Westchester County.

https://www.runningfatchef.com/home.html

Multi Sport Ultra Endurance Athlete. Writer. Body Politics Activist. William, Jr.’s Mama.

Noted by The Root 100 as one of the most influential African Americans ages 25 to 45, Latoya Shauntay Snell is a sponsored endurance athlete, content creator, body politics activist, motivational speaker and the food and fitness blogger of Running Fat Chef. Featured on multiple platforms such as 3rd Hour Today, Good Morning America, Huffington Post, The Cut and SELF, Snell is quickly making a name for herself by changing the narrative of ideal body types and fitness stereotypes. She is a contributing writer for several notable platforms, a Runners Alliance ambassador in partnership with Runner’s World about runner safety, collaborated with over 20 brands and a well versed content creator.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/11/26/1134432335/climate-change-gave-a-kenyan-youth-a-crazy-idea-become-a-world-class-ice-sculpto

Climate change gave a Kenyan youth a ‘crazy’ idea: Become a world-class ice sculptor

Michael Kaloki

I still remember a headline in one of Kenya’s daily newspapers from 2002: “Climate Change Threatens the Snow and Ice Caps of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya.” Mount Kilimanjaro, next door in Tanzania, is Africa’s tallest mountain, followed in height by Mount Kenya, my country’s pride and glory.

Even the word “Kenya” is said to have come about when a German explorer, Johann Ludwig Krapf, asked local Chief Kivoi about a mountain he’d seen. Kivoi described the mountain as “kiinya,” in reference to it looking like an ostrich – with the snow resembling the white patches of the flightless bird. So, my country’s name is linked to snow and ice, yet we were in danger of losing it.

From our village in eastern Kenya, in the bright early morning you could look in one direction and see Mount Kilimanjaro and in the other see Mount Kenya. I had often wondered what snow felt like and how lucky we were to be able to wake up and see it. When we sang Jingle Bells at church over Christmas, I would think of the snow on those mountains – the only glimpse I had of what snow looked like — while holding the hem of my mum’s skirt in the pew. As I grew older, I heard that people would ski on snow in Europe. I dreamed of skiing on Mount Kenya one day, and at one point even asked my pops for skis.

Those thoughts all came rushing back to me when I saw the newspaper article. Now I was an adult and understood what climate change meant.

In 2002, I had just returned to Kenya after finishing a radio and television arts degree course at a university in Toronto. I was not sure what I wanted to do with my life. My parents thought I was taking too much time to think about it. “You are spending too much time in the house, Michael,” my dad would say.

While studying in Canada, I had seen some ethereal and majestic ice and snow carvings at the Quebec Winter Carnival. This world-famous festival had even been dubbed the “Ice and Snow Carving Olympics.” The teams taking part in event were from North America, Europe and Asia. There were no carvers from Africa. While still a student in Canada, I worked for a travel agency, which gave me a trip back to the Carnival as a parting gift when I left for Kenya.

So when I read the article about our mountains’ disappearing snow, I thought, “Now is the time to do something, Michael. You need to show the effects of climate change in East Africa.” I decided Africa should be represented at the Quebec Winter Carnival and that I would form an ice and snow carving team. I had never done any carving before, but I could always learn.

So I set out to find some teammates.

I spoke to my buddy, television producer Robert Bresson, about what I was thinking of doing. He agreed to ask around. “Everyone I have spoken to thinks you are crazy, Michael,” was his report. But we didn’t give up.

Robert took me to the Nairobi National Museum. At that time, there were some sculptors who worked on the museum grounds. I approached the first one I saw, introduced myself and asked, “Would you want to form an ice-carving team?”

“Ice?” he said.

“Yes, ice,” I said.

“Sure, why not? By the way, my name is Peter Walala.”

I now had one team member. The teams I’d seen in Quebec had three or four members. So I needed to find at least one more.

I approached the “Miss Tourism Kenya” pageant holders and told them about my idea. I felt having a title holder on the team would make it more visible. Winnie Omwakwe, who was “Miss Earth Kenya,” was glad to join in. So we had three team members and one with carving skills. However, Peter had never worked with ice before, only wood and stone.

First, we needed to gel as a team. After all, we were total strangers. So we met for a couple of teas and coffees and decided that we were all OK to work with each other.

Now we needed somewhere to practice. As we deemed it impossible to get to the top of Mount Kiliminjaro or Mount Kenya, we decided try to find a big hotel freezer. I requested to meet with a director of one of the country’s premier hotel chains, and he agreed. I told him about our team and our plan to take part in one of the world’s top ice and snow carving events. He looked shocked at first, but seemed to warm up to the idea.

About a week later, he asked to see me. “A chef at one of our hotels is really thrilled about the plan you have and he would be glad to help you,” he said. The chef gave us a place that fit about six people and left us to it. For weeks, we spent most of our days in a cold room at one of the city’s top hotels, learning to carve. We froze water in the hotel’s big urns and Peter would try to figure out the best way to carve it. Then he would teach us what to do. Winnie felt that sitting in 39 degrees was a bit cold and she also had a lot of pageant obligations to attend to. So most of the time it was just me and Peter carving away.

Then there was the matter of applying for the 2003 Quebec Winter Carnival. I found the details online. “It is just like carving ice shavings,” I remember telling Peter and Winnie. “We will figure it out as we go along.”

I sent in our application. At the back of my mind, I thought it was a crazy, uncalculated move. This was like applying to run the 100-meter race at the Summer Olympics, but never having run 100 meters before. But, it was worth a try. After all, there was a first time for Carl Lewis, too.

After several weeks, I received a response from the Carnival. We had been accepted! I showed Peter and Winnie the document – we could not believe it! We were going to take part in a major global event!

But there were more hurdles: getting flight tickets and visas. Visas turned out to be no problem. We sent in our applications and were approved. It seemed the Canadians were giving us a chance to prove ourselves to the world!

But what about flight tickets? At that time, Peter was a member of a local arts trust. They offered him a ticket under one of their grants. He left for Canada, while Winnie and I tried to figure out what to do. I had done some freelance video work for a local production company and they owed me a bit of money. It wasn’t enough, but I would try to figure out where to get more. While waiting at the production company to pick up my check, the company’s owner, Moses Nderitu, happened to see me.

“Michael, you had told me about wanting to start an ice-carving team. Whatever happened to that idea?” he asked. I told him I had started the team and had been accepted into the Quebec Winter Carnival, but did not have enough money for a flight. “Let me take care of the rest of the money for a ticket,” he said.

I could not believe it! Here was someone who believed in me! My parents and many of my friends had thought what I was trying to do was absurd. Moses arranged for me to get my ticket, and we decided that Winnie would see what she could do to get a ticket. Sadly, she never made it to the event.

Arriving in Quebec was like arriving for the premier of a Hollywood movie, starring Peter and me. The Canadian press had heard about us and had decided that our story was something their audience would be interested in.

When I got to our working area of the Carnival, Peter had already started on the snow sculpture we’d decided on: a mother rhino shielding her baby. Before his arrival at the Carnival, Peter had never touched snow. We had practiced in the cold room using ice, now here we were facing a large mound of snow. We had a few days to work on it. We did the best we could, learning also by watching other snow sculptors use their carving tools, many which we had never seen before.

In the meantime, during our press interviews, we talked about the impact climate change was having on Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. On the last day of carving, we finally saw that we had done, well, an amazing job. To our delight, we were informed that the Kenyan government was sending a team from the embassy in Ottawa to attend the final day of the event. We felt like VIPs!

On that final day, it was announced that we had won a prize. “The Volunteers Award” went to Team Kenya! As we walked across the snow field to receive our prize while members from the Kenyan embassy shouted in jubilation, I looked across at Peter and saw that tears were freely flowing down his face. We had done what many thought was unachievable. The first Kenyan ice and snow carving team had been recognized by the world on their very first try – and we were also getting our message out about our beloved East African mountains.

In the years that followed, Peter and I participated in a number of other international ice and snow carving events. After a few years, Peter took a hiatus. I decided to try my luck for a bit longer with the goal of winning a major global event before taking a break. In 2011, I teamed up with Finnish sculptor Timo Koivisto at that year’s Helsinki Zoo International Ice Carving Festival. Our team won first prize. I then decided to take a break. Kenya was finally on the ice and snow carving global scene, and the message about the impact of climate change in East Africa had been passed on.

Michael Kaloki lives in Nairobi, Kenya. He is a freelance reporter with a keen interest in matters related to community development and climate change.

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/20/1124142614/how-hbcus-are-spending-their-covid-19-relief-money

After a couple of difficult semesters during the pandemic, Elijah Love, a computer science major at North Carolina A&T State University (N.C. A&T), was determined to graduate on time.

“Whatever came with that — summer classes, double-load courses — I was willing to do it,” Love says.

This summer, that meant continuing to take classes on top of teaching computer science to middle school girls and enrolling in a summer learning program at IBM.

He was prepared to pay for the extra summer credits, but then he got the bill: The classes were free. His school, a historically Black university, had used federal COVID relief funding to pay for the summer courses.

“I got right back on track,” Love says. “I thought it was great. It was a great opportunity for the people struggling right now.”

HBCUs have long been underfunded by federal and state governments. But this time, because of the way federal COVID relief money was allocated, these schools got a lot of it. For one thing, much of the funding targeted schools that serve more low-income students, which HBCUs do. And there was a whole other pot of money — $5.2 billion — just for HBCUs.

“By far, it’s the most amount of money we’ve ever received,” says Kenny Spayd, the business director of Fayetteville State University, a small public HBCU also in North Carolina.

Spayd says the nearly $80 million his university received is equal to more than half of Fayetteville State’s annual operating budget.

“So it’s been incredibly helpful and transformative, not only for us, but for our students as we navigate this continuing pandemic.”

It’s been incredibly helpful and transformative, not only for us, but for our students.

Kenny Spayd, Fayetteville State University

The federal money did come with rules on how it could be spent, but some schools got more than enough to cover those requirements, pay for COVID safety precautions and still have plenty left over.

The money also came with a deadline: It needs to be spent by the end of this school year, June 2023.

HBCUs around the country told NPR they’re using the funds in ways that will affect students for years to come, including canceling student debt, upgrading campus infrastructure and helping retain students who struggle because of financial barriers.

Paying for students’ housing, food and textbooks

N.C. A&T is the nation’s largest HBCU, and it received one of the largest federal relief packages of all HBCUs: $188.6 million, more than the university’s current endowment.

It wasn’t the only HBCU to offer free summer courses — in fact, all five public HBCUs in the UNC system paid for their students’ summer classes this year using federal relief funds.

N.C. A&T also used the funds to grant housing and dining discounts to residential students, and give free iPads to freshmen and free textbooks to all students.

Robert Pompey is vice chancellor for business and finance at N.C. A&T, the nation’s largest HBCU. The school received one of the largest federal relief packages of all HBCUs.

Liz Schlemmer/WUNC

Robert Pompey, N.C. A&T’s vice chancellor for business and finance, says these aid programs are helping students start out the school year on the right foot.

“Imagine going to the first day of class, and you not only have textbooks, but you have the iPad with you. Imagine going to your first day of class and your cost of dining and housing has been reduced by $500. That is significant,” Pompey says.

According to the school, some students have received more than $4,000 worth of benefits a year.

By reducing the overall cost of attendance, Pompey says, the university is helping students recover both academically and financially.

“When you have the students that are from the most challenging economic circumstances, they’re the ones who are the most impacted.”

HBCUs weren’t the only schools to target students who were struggling financially during the pandemic. In fact, the CARES Act required all schools to put a portion of their aid money directly into the pockets of students who faced financial stress due to COVID.

Giving students a clean financial slate so they can enroll in classes again

Another popular HBCU spending item was canceling students’ outstanding balances for tuition, fees, room and board, and other miscellaneous charges they owed their universities. That’s because when a student’s balance gets too high, they can’t enroll in classes again until it’s cleared.

At Florida A&M University, students can’t enroll if their balance is above $500. The school spent a big chunk of its relief money — more than $60 million of its $195 million relief package — on giving those students a clean slate.

“Those students, you know, thousands of them, were able to stay with us,” says Florida A&M University President Larry Robinson. “And that’s going to pay off big time.”

Fayetteville State, N.C. A&T and Morgan State University in Baltimore also canceled some level of student debt to help current students reenroll. Robinson says, as a result, Florida A&M has already seen a significant increase in its freshman to sophomore year retention rate.

Updating campus buildings and technology

Multiple HBCUs said they used the money to update technology and building infrastructure.

Morgan State University spent about $10 million to upgrade its technology and pivot quickly to online learning. The university outfitted more than 200 classrooms with cameras so students could get a better view of their classes remotely.

“And because we have invested in this technology, we are expanding our online delivery of degree programs,” says Sidney Evans, Morgan State’s executive vice president for finance.

He says that will help grow the university in the future.

Morgan State also spent more than $25 million to address mold and mildew damage in buildings that were closed for months early in the pandemic. And Fayetteville State is using federal aid to upgrade the HVAC systems in some of its residence halls for better air quality.

Construction projects like these have been popular avenues for relief spending. While most of the federal aid money expires in summer 2023, the federal government is allowing some schools, including HBCUs, to finish approved construction projects beyond that expiration date.

After the relief money runs out, the work continues

Eventually, the federal funding will run out, or hit the spending deadline. Fayetteville State & N.C. A&T are already looking for ways to continue some of these initiatives on a smaller scale, such as giving discounts on summer school and textbooks. Both schools say they see it as an investment that will help uplift students, families and their communities.

“We wake up thinking about, every day, what can we do to make a difference in the lives of our students?” says Pompey of N.C. A&T. “We consider these funds that we’ve received investments, and we’ve invested in our students.”

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/20/1124142614/how-hbcus-are-spending-their-covid-19-relief-money

Pharoah Sanders (born Ferrell Lee Sanders; October 13, 1940 – September 24, 2022) was an American jazz saxophonist.

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

The 14-year-old superstar chef shares his desire to bring people together 

https://www.vegansociety.com/news/blog/meet-omari-mcqueen

How a triumphant anthem for ‘The Woman King’ brought Jessy Wilson back to music

The Woman King — director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s historical epic starring Viola Davis about a mighty army of West African warrior women protecting their kingdom — is only the second film with a Black woman director to open at number one at the box office. The film’s renown means that millions have had a chance to hear the song that plays over its closing credits, but what’s received considerably less attention is the story of life-altering triumph tied to that undaunted pop anthem, “Keep Rising.”

Jessy Wilson wrote and recorded it with producer Jeremy Lutito in the studio behind his East Nashville, Tenn. home during the summer of 2020. She barely touched a microphone after that, soon stepping away from songwriting altogether. What drew her back one day in early October to that same, small studio space — and to music — was the chance to truly embrace the song’s role in a powerful piece of filmmaking. Without a label budget behind her, she’d decided to lay down a regally deliberate, acoustic version for a simple, live-looking music video. “After all this time, I hope I’m like a pro, that it’s like riding a bike,” Wilson shared after arriving on site and stowing her bag.

She certainly seemed in her element that day on the shoot, not only the lead performer who knew her instrument and how to apply it to the supple insistence of the verses and the chorus’ more inflamed exhortation, but the one steering the backing vocal trio’s arrangement, too. Once she got the vocal takes she was looking for, finished lip syncing for the videographers and took a seat on the same couch where she’d come up with “Keep Rising,” she was a compelling narrator.

The decision to briefly give up music was a consequential one for Wilson. She’s no dabbler. At age 8, she’d already convinced her mom and an agent that she had the vocal ability, stage presence and drive to begin auditioning for off-Broadway roles. While attending LaGuardia, the Fame-famous Manhattan performing arts high school, she lied about her age to land a regular café gig. “They all thought it was weird,” she recalled, “like, ‘Why does she come with her mom every weekend?’ Eventually I told them the truth, but for a while, I just told them that I was a student at NYU, because I really wanted that experience.”

She was hungry to learn the studio side of her craft when John Legend hired her as a backup vocalist right after high school. “I think I had only been singing with him for, like, four weeks. And I said, ‘Can I come with you to the studio, please? I’ll be a fly on the wall. I won’t make a sound. I just wanna come,’ ” Wilson said. “He was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ “

That’s Wilson supplying some resplendent, cooing echoes on Legend’s bossa nova-tinged 2006 track “Maxine.” She got into songwriting with his encouragement, eventually supplying cuts to other major R&B stars. Wilson thought she might become one of those herself, but kept coming up against colorism in the industry: “Being a dark-skinned Black woman, you know, being told that that wasn’t marketable, being told that that’s not worldwide, being told that no one would really be able to relate to me because of my complexion.”

“That was a concept that was very new to me, because in my home, my mother and my father taught me to love my complexion, to love my Blackness, to love my features that look like African features,” she went on. “It was a rude awakening when I realized that that isn’t the worldview and that somehow Black people are true victims of white supremacy when it comes to how we view ourselves, even in the mirror. When you have so much inside of you, that’s very painful as well, because you’re waiting for someone to give you that [professional] shot, and you’re waiting for someone to see you in that way [as an artist].”

After accompanying Legend to Nashville on a songwriting expedition, Wilson decided to give the city a try, relocating in 2013. In writing circles there Wilson was introduced to white musical partner Kallie North, and their soul-steeped, roots rock duo Muddy Magnolias was a revelation to a country-adjacent scene that made more room for Black musical influence than Black music-makers. “Those first two months of living here,” said Wilson, “I circled Music Row over and over, and I said, ‘God make me a pioneer.’ “

With Muddy Magnolias, Wilson finally got the record deal she’d been working for, a success she thinks was twofold. “The [vocal] blend was unmatched. It does something to the heart when you see a Black girl and a white girl up there singing in harmony, what it means to the spirit,” Wilson said. “But then also, you’ve got to think about the business side. It wasn’t a gimmick to us, but I think the industry found it easy to latch on to.”

Country singer-songwriter Brittney Spencer took note of the mark made by her Black predecessor back when she was a health food store employee who routinely filled Wilson’s juice orders, and recently called her to tell her so. “The opportunities that a lot of artists like me are able to get right now, I think, is because little by little people have been sowing seeds,” Spencer observed during a separate interview. “And even if this space wasn’t necessarily ready five, seven years ago, man, I was there and I watched it and I didn’t forget.”

When Muddy Magnolias broke up, Wilson started finding her voice as a solo artist on the sensually sophisticated, atmospheric side of rock and soul with the Patrick Carney-produced album Phase. She wanted to complicate the perception of her as “just this big singer.” “Phase gave me an opportunity to get quiet,” Wilson reflected. “People underestimate the power in getting quiet. I made an intentional decision to never open up my voice past a certain place on my album, because I had been singing full out my whole life and I wanted to hear the subtleties in my voice on record. … I wanted people to hear what I had to say.”

Around that same time, Tyler, the Creator tracked Wilson down on social media, urging her to sing on his album IGOR; he hadn’t been able to get her voice out of his head since he heard it billowing through “Maxine.” But those professional landmarks gave way to a string of personal losses. Wilson’s beloved grandmother died, and her New York healthcare worker dad barely survived COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic. Then she and her husband lost a pregnancy.

“Unfortunately, after four months, we lost our child,” said Wilson. “It felt like I was just down in a hole. I kept looking for things to grab on to, but nothing was pulling me out. It’s even hard to really communicate or even think about those times, because the despair was just…” She trailed off, unable to find sufficient words.

In her compounded grief, it grew difficult for Wilson to deliver the songs she owed her publisher. One that she did submit was “Keep Rising.” “When I wrote the song, I was talking to Black people,” she explained. “There’s a part of the lyrics that I’m also talking to myself about myself: ‘Been marching so long. How far is it to get to where we’re going?’ Like, how long do we have to wait in America? How long does Jessy have to wait? When will we be seen as enough? When will I be seen as enough?”

At the time, Wilson didn’t have much hope that anything would come of that song, or any others she wrote. She lost her publishing deal in early 2021, and turned to making visual art. But on what would’ve been her baby’s 2022 due date she received big news. The director of The Woman King, Prince-Bythewood, had initially envisioned Terence Blanchard‘s score soundtracking the entire film, but her search for just the right music to carry the audience out of the closing scene had led her to “Keep Rising.”

Sent a collection of unreleased tracks to listen to, Prince-Bythewood found in Wilson’s “exactly what I wanted the audience to feel. It makes you stand up and move. It was as if it was written for the movie.”

“When I wrote the song, I was talking to Black people,” Wilson says of “Keep Rising.”

“One of the things I’m most excited by,” she added, “is I love hearing Jessy’s story and who she is as an artist, where she was at the moment that this call came. I love that we have the power to elevate artists who deserve it. And Jessy, her voice, the depth that she brings to her work, absolutely deserves this opportunity.”

Prince-Bythewood asked Wilson to adapt two lyrics to the film’s time period and agree to a feature from legendary singer Angélique Kidjo, who’s from the region where the film takes place, then known as the kingdom of Dahomey. “She is the first lady of Benin, essentially,” the director notes, “so important to the empowerment of girls in Africa, an incredible activist. I wanted her voice and I wanted to kind of bridge the two, America and Africa.”

Wilson didn’t at all mind making those adjustments. “I feel so connected to the intention in their mission for what they want this movie to accomplish in our industries,” she said with serene conviction. “I want to see more opportunities for women who have a message, who are dark-skinned. And so if I can somehow open any doors, then I feel like I can hold on to that, the possibility of that, as my newfound purpose.”

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/05/1134296014/jessy-wilson-the-woman-king-keep-rising-interview

Nnenna Lynch is the New NYRR Chairwoman Nominee

Nnenna Lynch is having a full-circle moment: She has been nominated to take the post of chairwoman of the New York Road Runners (NYRR) board of directors, the organization announced earlier this morning. 

Lynch has been on the NYRR board since 2014 and currently serves as the chair of the NYRR Youth and Community Impact committee. 

Lynch’s appointment is historic: She becomes the first woman and the first Black American at the helm of the board. It’s a watershed moment for NYRR, whose roots start with Ted Corbitt, a Black Olympic marathoner and the organization’s first president.

“There’s a wealth of very deep talent among women; there’s a wealth of incredibly talented African Americans, and certainly there’s a wealth of very talented African American women. It’s really exciting to be one of them and to have the opportunity to lend my experience and talent to a phenomenal organization to the extent to which it inspires others,” Lynch told Women’s Running during a recent interview on a bench in Central Park. “I’m still getting my head around this piece of it, that I represent more than just who I am.”

As chairwoman, Lynch will help set high-level strategy and ensure that the organization continues to work toward its mission of inspiring people to run and building up communities through running. 

In addition to serving on NYRR’s board, Lynch is the founder and CEO of Xylem Projects, a mission-driven real estate and development firm focused on creating sustainable and affordable housing and developing mixed-use projects in transitioning neighborhoods. She started her career in developing affordable housing and served on the board of the New York City Housing Authority. Prior to Xylem, Lynch worked for former Mayor Mike Bloomberg to set economic development and policy.

“I think it’s such a happy fit because so much of what we do [at NYRR] really ties in with what I’ve done prior to Xylem when I was working in government, doing affordable housing, and working in communities. It draws so much of my experiences. It’s the intersection of impact and business,” she says.

Lynch will succeed George Hirsch, who has been chairman of the board since 2004. She officially takes the position in June 2023, after the board approves her nomination at the annual board meeting. 

RELATED: New NYRR Historian Fellowship Highlights the Need for Sharing Untold Stories of the Sport

A Lifelong Love of Running

Lynch’s ties to running go back to childhood. Lynch, who went to school in the Upper East Side, started running at the age of 10 in Central Park, which she lovingly calls her childhood track.

“It was a classic sort of schoolyard experience where I realized I could beat all the boys in my grade. I always knew I was fast,” Lynch says.

“I have an older sister who started running and the father of a friend of hers wanted to get them into a running program. He found a coach who worked with youth. My sister first joined the team, and I would follow her to practice but wasn’t signed up so I waited around. The coach noticed me and said, ‘Hey, you’re able-bodied. Get out there.’” 

At first, Lynch’s parents and sister were adamantly against her joining the team and even encouraged her to do ballet and tennis instead. Although she had given them both a try, she knew her place wasn’t on the court or on stage, but out on the track. 

“The way they saw it was that this was my sister’s thing. But I had a taste of what it was—the team, the coach—and knew this is what I wanted to do, and eventually, everyone accepted it,” Lynch says. 

Lynch thrived on the track and that “schoolyard experience” quickly flourished into a decorated collegiate running career. Lynch attended Villanova University, where she won five NCAA titles in track and field and was a seven-time All-American distance runner. Lynch went on to compete in the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Trials and was a finalist for the 3,000-meter and semifinalist for the 1,500-meter. 

Running remains a big part of Lynch’s life. As a busy mom of two and CEO, Lynch manages to pound the ground five to six days a week. Except she isn’t focused on time or distance during this season in her life. 

“Honestly, it’s not about performance. It’s mostly about health and well-being. My favorite runs are ones that are long and slow,” Lynch says. “What I love most about running is the experience of being outside. I find it incredibly relaxing and meditative.”

That’s not to say that Lynch hasn’t had some harder-effort runs under her belt, too. She recently ran the NYRR Brooklyn Half Marathon in May and the New York Mini 10K—the first official women-only road race—which celebrated its 50th anniversary earlier this month. 

Serving on the Board of New York Road Runners

Lynch became involved with NYRR through Mary Wittenberg, former president and CEO of NYRR and race director of the New York City Marathon, who recruited her to join the board. Although the organization’s deeply rich history in running and the iconic New York City marathon were major selling points to get involved, Lynch says it was their youth programs was what cinched it for her. 

“One of the things that I wasn’t aware of when I originally sat down with Mary and what really pulled me in was this focus they had on youth and community. As someone who started running as a youngster, that was the appealing piece of getting involved in an organization that had that community and wanted to foster youth,” Lynch says. “So over the time I’ve been on the board and as chair, we’ve been focused on deepening and furthering our impact.”

During her time as chair of the youth and community impact committee, Lynch helped lead the transition of the Mighty Milers program, in which kids had a goal of running a total of 26.2 miles throughout the school year, to Rising NYRR, a nationwide program that helps kids from Pre-K to 12th grade become lifelong athletes. The Rising program provides age-appropriate education to help kids build physical literacy.

“You don’t have to start with running. When you look at what kids do, some of it is running-based, but it’s really games like tag. So we created curriculum that teachers and parents can use that help kids develop physical literacy but doing it in fun ways,” Lynch says. 

RELATED: 360 YOU: How to Serve the Running Community

Looking Ahead: What’s Next for NYRR

When Lynch becomes chairwoman next June, she plans to take that same forward thinking into all of NYRR’s programs and events, which includes 37 races. In addition to overseeing executive management and high-level strategy, Lynch’s job is to ensure that the organization continues to stay true to its core mission of inspiring all runners and building up communities through running. 

But more importantly, Lynch is thinking more broadly on how NYRR can improve accessibility and inclusivity.

“When you think of the overall history of the organization—[it] started in 1958 and the marathon started in 1971—it took a while for the marathon to become this iconic event, so if I think about where we are in the evolution of our community events, I would say we’re still pretty early on,” Lynch says. 

“The larger goal is to broaden and deepen our impact, so it’s about thinking through that lens for every event we do. How can we deepen our impact with youth, with seniors, with otherly abled athletes? That’s something as chairwoman, I will continue to beat the drum on.”

For example, one area of focus for Lynch is expanding NYRR’s Open Run program, which are community-led runs and walks held at parks in all five boroughs, and how they can widen their reach within different communities in New York City and elsewhere. 

“We’re always thinking about what is New York? Who is New York? How can we broaden our reach to New Yorkers and beyond,” says Lynch. “We’ve had interest from other cities about replicating Open Run. Our youth programs are national. We’re cultivating relationships here, but we have mechanisms to support remotely.”

The pandemic has also forced the organization to innovate ways of building community. NYRR partnered with the running app, Strava, in 2018 to allow runners from all over the world to take part in their races wherever they are. Creating and cultivating a community through technology is an area Lynch is also hoping to grow. 

“As the world’s premier running organization, there’s a lot of work that goes into maintaining that status. So we are always looking for new ways of reaching people, new ways of expanding our efforts. I think we’ve done quite a good job of embracing technology, so continuing to leverage what’s out there is one of the ways we want to connect and build a community,” Lynch says.

Lynch’s nomination signifies a period of rebirth for NYRR, which has received criticism in recent years for failing to address diversity issues within the organization and the running community. 

When former CEO and president Michael Capiraso was forced to resign in 2020, it brought a reckoning within the organization to take a closer look at ways its events and programs can do a better job of promoting diversity and representation. This is also top of mind for Lynch when she becomes chairwoman. 

“I think it starts with listening and making sure we have strong, deep ties with organizations and people within the community. Some of the feedback really was a wake-up call that we need to reinforce those efforts and deepen those efforts with various run clubs. It was an opportunity to reflect on how we can do better. There’s no doubt that there’s a commitment—from me personally and the board,” Lynch says. 

NYRR started taking some steps to create a more diverse and inclusive environment for their staff and the broader running community before Capiraso’s exit. It hired Erica Edwards-O’Neal as the senior vice president of diversity, equity, and inclusion in 2020. In early 2021, the organization put in place a new diversity, equity, inclusion, and social responsibility framework. It’s also launching a community council for staff and community members who can weigh in on how to make its platforms a more inclusive environment, particularly reaching the Black running community.

“We’re going to be doing more listening and more acting, and the greater infrastructure we’ve created with both the committee on the board and the SVP role will help further those efforts,” Lynch says.

While Lynch is 12 months out from her official start date, she is already working closely with Hirsch and the rest of the board to hire a new CEO to replace Kerin Hempel, who became interim chief executive and president in 2020. They hope to select someone in the next few months and have a new CEO by the end of the year. 

“We’re looking for a really energetic individual who can build on the amazing strength of the organization and take us to the next level,” Lynch says.

As the gatekeeper of NYRR’s mission, Lynch doesn’t see the organization’s fundamental mission changing in any way, but looking at what it can do better. 

“The question is how we can continue to grow, amplify, and deepen the work we do.”

When Uganda’s very first satellite was launched into space last week on Nov. 7, Bonny Omara, the lead engineer on the satellite development team, was filled with emotion.

“I was watching it on TV, together with my Honourable Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation,” he says. “It was really amazing and we hugged each other! To see my baby takeoff from the ground headed for the International Space Station — it’s really a great feeling of my life.”

The satellite developed by Omara and his team, named PearlAfricaSat-1, was launched aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply spacecraft, which lifted off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. In addition, the rocket was also carrying ZimSat-1, Zimbabwe’s first satellite.

Both satellites were developed through the Joint Global Multi-Nation Birds Project 5, BIRDS-5, in collaboration with the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan. Omara, when asked about collaborating with engineers from Zimbabwe and Japan, says, “I feel really great to work with our neighbors in Africa … to have a team of engineers and great men joining hands to work together towards attaining a common goal.”

Uganda and Zimbabwe join an ever growing number of African countries that are building up their space technology capabilities. To date, 52 satellites have been launched by 14 African countries, including the two launched last week.

The satellites, which have by now reached the International Space Station, are set to be deployed over the next few weeks, depending upon environmental conditions.

It is a historic moment for the two countries, who now hope the data collected by the satellites will help improve life on the ground.

Big things come in small packages

Many of the modern devices we use every day function because of satellite technology — something that’s often taken for granted.

“Space technologies are essentially the backbone of the modern economy,” says Kwaku Sumah, founder of SpaceHubs Africa, a service company that helps stimulate the African space ecosystem. “You sometimes don’t even know that you’re using them. But for example, if you’re using Google Maps … or even things like Zoom, or broadband communication, that’s all powered by satellite services.”

Sumah and SpaceHubs Africa were not involved in the development of the recently launched satellites.

However, Uganda and Zimbabwe’s satellites won’t be providing wireless services to anyone. Instead, they’ve been developed for the purposes of earth observation.

“[The satellites] have a multispectral camera, which allows the satellite to essentially take pictures of the Earth,” says Sumah. Multispectral cameras can take pictures that capture information from wavelengths of light not visible to the human eye.

What this does is provide data that can help determine the health of land for the agricultural sector, among other things. Omara says the multispectral camera will be used to “perform analysis of water quality, land use cover, and soil fertility.” That information will then be provided to citizens so that they can make the best use of the natural resources in their countries.

But there are still possibilities to do even more with the satellites. Sumah says that one of the main purposes of a satellite Ghana launched in 2019 was to “monitor illegal mining that was occurring in the north of Ghana.”

And all of those capabilities are made possible by a satellite that only measures 10cm in each direction. They’re called CubeSats — and their small size and low cost to develop makes them perfect first satellites for nations developing their space technology sectors. But don’t let their size fool you. While small – only a bit larger than a Rubik’s cube — CubeSats can still pack a big punch.

However, there is one downside to CubeSats. Their lifetime of operation is only about 24 to 30 months. So unless Uganda and Zimbabwe commit to building and launching more of these satellites, the benefits will be short-lived.

One small step for Africa, but giant leaps still needed

The satellites launched by Uganda and Zimbabwe aren’t the first satellites launched by African nations, and they won’t be the last. According to Sumah, “Ethiopia is looking to launch a new satellite, as well as Nigeria and Ghana,” all hopefully within the next year.

Despite plans for future launches by African nations, Sumah is a bit hesitant to suggest bigger things are unquestionably on the way. “I’m hoping that these are not just one-off events that are just used for PR, but that there’s a sustained momentum that helps lead the charge for Africa to really maximize the use of these new technologies,” he says.

At least with respect to Uganda, Omara believes one thing will help make sure this new foray into space will be sustainable. “A couple of countries have launched their first satellite, or even many, by paying money to other institutions who then give them the satellite,” he says. “But Uganda is unique in the sense that we participated, we have now got three engineers who are fully grounded in the process of developing satellites.”

Even though the human capital is there to provide sustainable development of satellites, Omara thinks there’s still more political and social investment needed before space technologies in Africa can fully mature.

“In the field of science and technology on the African continent, we are still limping,” he says. “The reason is very simple — it’s because we do not believe in ourselves. I always tell everyone that we can make it, we have every single resource that we need. The only thing is us believing in ourselves.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/11/20/1137657845/the-first-satellites-launched-by-uganda-and-zimbabwe-aim-to-improve-life-on-the-