“The WHO is,” says Oyewale Tomori, “well, I know the W stands for World, but sometimes I think it stands for White.”

Tomori is a virologist at Redeemer’s University and the past president of the Nigerian Academy of Sciences. I had asked whether he was surprised that high-income countries were buying up monkeypox vaccine supplies and WHO was sharing its vaccines with 30 non-African countries, leaving the continent without access.

“Are you surprised when the sun rises every morning?” Tomori retorts.

He tries not to get too upset about global health inequities because he thinks they’re inevitable. The real issue, he says, is that African countries rely too much on the West — which is not exactly a formula for success. For one, Tomori says, Western aid always comes too little, too late. But more important, he stresses, “your help is not helping us. It’s making us more dependent.”

Fed up with their countries’ inadequate responses to Ebola, COVID-19 and now monkeypox, a growing movement of African scientists is advocating for improved biosecurity on the continent – that is, protection against pathogens.

To better understand their grassroots effort, I spoke with Tomori; Jean-Vivien Mombouli, director of research and production at the Congolese National Public Health Laboratory; and Christian Happi, director of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in Nigeria. I wanted to learn, more specifically, what they think Africa should be doing to contain infectious diseases. They offered three key ideas: developing community-based disease surveillance; building capacity to produce protective gear, vaccines, and other pandemic-busting tools; and investing more in health-care workers.

The elephant in the room is whether achieving all this is even possible since African public health systems have long been underfunded. As one example, African Union member states pledged to spend 15% of their national budgets on health in the 2001 Abuja Declaration. Two decades later, that’s happened in only five countries: Ethiopia, Gambia, Malawi, Rwanda and South Africa.

Nonetheless, Tomori rejects the notion that Western philanthropy is the answer. “Don’t buy the story that Africa is poor,” he says. “We’re not poor; it is that we’re not making good use of what we have.”

But change is possible. And in fact, it’s already begun.

Teach communities to keep an eye out

One of the primary steps toward biosecurity is comprehensive disease surveillance to help rapidly identify and contain novel pathogens — this includes the health-care system treating patients, public health labs conducting tests and epidemiologists coordinating the response. While the World Bank has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Africa for this purpose, Mombouli says the continent still doesn’t have sufficient surveillance in its more rural regions, enabling viruses to spread undetected throughout.

Perhaps the most infamous example was during the West African Ebola epidemic when it took nearly three months to identify the virus in Guinea. WHO reported that the country took so long because “Clinicians had never managed cases. No laboratory had ever diagnosed a patient specimen. No government had ever witnessed the social and economic upheaval that can accompany an outbreak of this disease.” So when the virus was finally identified as Ebola, it was already “primed to explode.”

Mombouli also gives the example of Likouala Prefecture, a swampy area in northern Congo and one of the poorest, least developed regions in the country. He calls Likouala a “paradise for pathogens,” rife with everything from the disease-causing bacteria treponema to the viral disease Rift Valley Fever. “You know something terrible is going to come out of that area,” he says. Without proper pathogen monitoring, it’s only a matter of time.

Correspondingly, Tomori thinks African countries should revamp their centralized disease surveillance systems. Surveillance shouldn’t be concentrated in the national headquarters of public health agencies, he says, “1,000 miles away from where disease is occurring.” He instead advocates for a decentralized, bottom-up approach where every individual stands watch over their community’s health — and knows how to get help if they suspect something’s wrong .

Public health agencies will still have an important role to play, empowering locals with educational programs and coordinating the response, Tomori adds. Indeed, the best early warning system might come from those living on the frontlines of novel diseases. “If you take care of that first case, you can prevent an epidemic,” he says.

Mombouli has seen this work firsthand in the Republic of Congo where his team of education and health specialists have been visiting villages across the country for decades. In 2009, they conducted monkeypox outreach in Likouala Prefecture over 90 days, reaching 24,000 rural individuals. After these visits, the ability of locals to recognize at least one of the symptoms of monkeypox increased from 49% to 95% while their willingness to take a family member with monkeypox to the hospital increased from 45% to 87%, as reported in a study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Mombouli’s team similarly visited 268 villages in northern Republic of Congo between 2008 and 2018; they were trying to establish community-based surveillance system for Ebola. They educated locals about the virus and how it could spread through infected wildlife carcasses, emphasizing the core message: “Do not touch, move or bury the carcass and contact the surveillance network immediately.”

With trust built over repeated visits, local hunters began to report the carcasses they found so that the network could test them for Ebola. The end product was a surveillance system that covered 50,000 square kilometers of the most rural regions in the Republic of Congo.

“It’s not like they swallow whatever ‘truths’ you tell them. They ask tough questions,” Mombouli says about his fellow Congolese. “But once they get it, they transmit the information and really have proper behavior.” According to Mombouli, enlisting the active support and vigilance of community members can enable early disease detection and containment.

Build a ‘value chain’ to create needed epidemic resources

Beyond detecting pathogens early, African countries need the resources to mount a robust response against infectious diseases, from personal protective equipment to antivirals to vaccines. Unfortunately, “the medical equipment and supplies needed,” the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted in a press release, “are largely manufactured outside Africa.”

As such, Mombouli thinks the continent should develop its own epidemic “value chain,” a term referring to the entire manufacturing process from acquiring raw materials to distributing finished products. Presently, a few African manufacturers have experience making vaccines from start to finish, including the Biovac Institute in South Africa, which produces a hepatitis B vaccine, and the Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal, which produces a yellow fever vaccine.

But building the value chain for novel health threats has proved more elusive. In the case of COVID-19, for instance, mRNA vaccine technology is a closely guarded secret.

Nonetheless, the Biovac Institute and Institut Pasteur de Dakar have begun to produce COVID-19 vaccines in Africa with fill-and-finish plants. In other words, given all the ingredients from Pfizer-BioNTech, these manufacturers fill up vials with vaccine doses and package them for distribution. Since Africa currently imports 99% of all its vaccines, this is an important step toward domestic production, says Mombouli, but he emphasizes that this model is inherently vulnerable since it’s only the last step in the value chain.

“If the company decides to move out,” he says, “then we go back to square one.” As one concrete example, Johnson & Johnson partner Aspen Pharmacare may soon shut down its South African plant making COVID-19 vaccines because of insufficient demand due to hesitancy and difficulties distributing the vaccine (among other reasons ).

What’s the solution? There’s something called the hub-and-spoke model, where one “hub” aggressively develops novel vaccine technology and then freely transfers it to the “spokes,” local manufacturers that can scale up production. Currently under development, this strategy adopts the philosophy that Africa’s value chain must be independent of high-income countries.

Last year, WHO chose South African biotech company Afrigen to be the hub for mRNA technology transfer, and 15 spokes have since been identified across various low- and middle-income countries, including six in Africa. Although Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech refused to share their technology and expertise, Afrigen used publicly available information to make their own version of the mRNA vaccine — one that doesn’t require cold storage — and already started training the spokes. The ultimate promise, Mombouli suggests, will be African countries using novel vaccine technology to contain diseases that are spreading on the continent in particular.

Undoubtedly, this will take time, with Afrigen expected to enter clinical trials later this year and vaccine approval coming in 2024, but much can be done in the interim. Beyond fill-and-finish operations, Tomori says that African countries can identify other aspects of the value chain where they can start contributing immediately. For instance, one might manufacture glass vials, another rubber stoppers, another testing swabs and so on. Each country doesn’t need to produce everything end-to-end, but Tomori says they should all be starting somewhere instead of patiently waiting for international aid.

“It is not talking; it is doing. It is not consuming; it is contributing,” he adds. “If you bring nothing to the table, you get the foolish deal.”

Invest in health-care workers

While community-based surveillance and building the value chain might allow some epidemic independence, Happi believes that biosecurity can only be sustained by investing in public health professionals. African countries should thus aggressively train field epidemiologists, Ph.D. scientists and frontline health-care workers — such as doctors, nurses, and midwives — “to build capacity on the ground,” he says.

According to WHO’s latest available data on 47 African countries, in 44 there is not even 1 physician per 1,000 people, with Niger the lowest at 0.035 physicians per 1,000. If you include nurses and midwives in the estimate, Africa’s density increases slightly but only to 1.55 health-care workers per 1,000.

By comparison, the United States has 26.1 physicians per 1,000 people.

Part of the problem is that, of the 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, six of them don’t even have a single medical school while 20 countries only have one. By 2030, WHO estimates that Africa will be short 6.1 million health-care workers, relative to the Sustainable Development Goal threshold of 4.45 health-care workers per 1,000 people.

But things are beginning to change. Namibia, for instance, is one of four African countries that has surpassed the WHO threshold — with 10.28 workers per 1,000.

This fledgling success stems from government prioritization. In a recent paper in World Health and Population, authors from Namibia’s Ministry of Health and Social Services described how they used a WHO tool to diagnose the country’s staffing shortcomings. With this data, they made evidence-based decisions about expanding nurses’ scope of practice and redeploying health-care workers to the regions of most need.

Admittedly, this policy helps improve only the efficiency of Namibia’s health-care system without increasing the number of providers. But in 2010, the University of Namibia established the country’s first school of medicine and has since trained hundreds of practicing doctors “who can respond to the healthcare needs of the Namibian people and are advocates for the poor, underserved and marginalised in our society,” according to associate dean Felicia Christians. A call from Namibia’s founding president to invest 50% of the national budget in education and health care emphasizes the country’s steadfast commitment to progress.

While it’s critical to continue building more medical institutions, such as the Kenyan General Electric (GE) Healthcare Skills and Training Institute and the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda, there must also be a focus on retention.

In a 2011 study in the British Medical Journal, it was estimated that sub-Saharan African countries lost $2 billion (in terms of returns on educational investment) because doctors trained on the continent moved abroad. “Africa has to look inward and start paying people the salary they deserve,” Happi asserts, “so that they don’t leave the continent for elsewhere.” As one example, the Zimbabwean Nurses Association says that most nurses in the country earn only $53 a month, a salary lower than the World Bank’s international poverty line.

While better pay might be the lynchpin, other incentives could include a mix of personal benefits and career improvements: housing, land ownership, modern equipment and pathways for professional growth, according to Kasonde Bowa, dean of Copperbelt University School of Medicine in Zambia. And if the brain drain still persists, Happi thinks that Western countries should start reimbursing the continent for its educational expenses, given that it costs African countries between $21,000 to $59,000 to train one doctor.

This wouldn’t necessarily stop the exportation of health-care workers, but having the West fork over the money could help African countries replenish their workforce. “People should be honest enough to say that you cannot deplete a continent of its own resources,” Happi says.

A new goal: collaboration, not just donation

Tomori sees cause for optimism in building African biosecurity: the continent already has the community leadership, natural resources and intellectual capital for change, he says. Yet these ingredients are not enough on their own: “Good governance is what we need to create an enabling environment for our people.”

That’s not to say African-Western partnerships shouldn’t be pursued. After all, it was Sikhulile Moyo, the laboratory director at the Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership and a research associate with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who first identified the omicron variant. Similarly, Happi collaborates with Broad Institute computational geneticist Pardis Sabeti, and together they deployed COVID-19 tests in hospitals in Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone well before any U.S. hospital had them. Partners in Health also recently announced plans for the $200 million Paul E. Farmer Scholarship Fund, which will support students at the University of Global Health Equity in order to “educate future health care leaders in Africa.”

Collaboration, not donation, is what pushes the needle forward, Tomori stressed – echoing other scientists interviewed for this story.

“There is a need for us to take those pathogens, harness the novel technologies and then translate knowledge into tools that can help not only Africa but the globe,” Happi says. “Africa should be in the driver’s seat when it comes to pandemic preparedness and preemption.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/11/04/1133319628/african-scientists-say-western-aid-to-fight-pandemic-is-backfiring-heres-their-p

Derrick “D’MAR” Martin’s is standing between two worlds where the gap grows by the day and D’MAR is the epicenter .He is simply a force of nature.  D’MAR is a musician, producer, songwriter, singer, educator, entertainer and motivational speaker. He has been traveling the world and spent 17 years as the lead drummer for the legendary Little Richard. D’MAR has also worked with a number of other artists such as: Dorothy Moore, Bobby Rush, Vastie Jackson, Ali Woodson (The Temptations), Big Jack Johnson, Billy Preston, Roy Gaines, Mitch Woods, Mark Hummel, Jackie Payne, Kid Andersen, Syl Johnson, Bob Margolin, Carla Thomas, Wendy Moten and Tutu Jones just to name a few. 

His career started when most of us were still playing with skateboards and riding Big Wheels. From the moment he beat on his mother’s couch at the age of five to the present, D’MAR has done what he loves to do: perform and play the drums. It was natural for him to be “All-City Band”, first chair in the percussion section and section leader before he was an upper classman in high school. What is more amazing is after working at a local record store for a couple of months while in college, he decided to fulfill a childhood dream and goal: he would play drums for a living and work for himself. As it would happen, D’MAR had an opportunity to audition for the living legend, Little Richard in which he got the drummer spot in the band! 

Within three years, he was the lead drummer and the youngest member of the Little Richard band. Even though he was young and surrounded by fame and fortune, the lifestyle he lived was not one of great jet setting. He took the time to learn the craft from one of the founding fathers of Rock and Roll. He began to develop his Berry Gordy business acumen and learned to identify business opportunities, which led him to open several businesses, which are still active today. 

17 years later, D’MAR has traveled globally, entertained amongst the hottest stars, and served as co-owner of Airtight Productions for twenty years and put together one of the most innovative music education programs ever seen. Not only is D’MAR in the business of producing, being an artist, teacher and musician, in 2009, he landed a role in the movie Chess: Who do You Love in which he plays Muddy Waters’ drummer, “Elgin Evans”. He is currently a member of the award winning band, Rick Estrin & The Nightcats and continues to release his own solo records. Despite his full schedule and full life, D’MAR gives back to his community through volunteering with the youth arts programs. He has also created music education program called Drums & More, which he performs for schools throughout the world. D’MAR is currently a member of the prestigious arts organization, Young Audiences of Northern California, based in San Francisco, CA. 

 Drums & More is a clinic and lecture series of unique caliber. Whereas some people speak from either an educational or a practical perspective, D’MAR’s program offers the best of both worlds. Drums & More is an informative and energetic program that is covers the history of the drum set and helps inspire students to embrace arts & education. 

This program goes hand in and with a new venture called Building A Better You that focuses on arts, education and health. 

D’MAR is continuing to grow and refine his craft. As he does so, he is always finding ways to share his lessons whether it is from the stage, in the studio or in the classroom.

https://dmarmusic.com/bio

Frederick McKinley Jones was a prolific early 20th century black inventor who helped to revolutionize both the cinema and refrigeration industries.  Between 1919 and 1945 he patented more than sixty inventions in divergent fields with forty of those patents in refrigeration. He is best known for inventing the first automatic refrigeration system for trucks.

Jones was born on May 17, 1893 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  His mother died when he was nine, and he was forced to drop out of school.  A priest in Covington, Kentucky, raised him until he was sixteen.

Upon leaving the rectory, Jones began working as a mechanic’s helper at the R.C. Crothers Garage in Cincinnati.  Jones would spend much of his time observing the mechanics as they worked on cars, taking in as much information as possible.  These observations, along with an insatiable appetite for learning through reading helped Jones develop an incredible base of knowledge about automobiles and their inner workings. Within three years his skills and love for cars had netted him a promotion to shop foreman.  By nineteen, he had built and driven several cars in racing exhibitions and soon became one of the most well know racers in the Great Lakes region.

During World War I, Jones was a sergeant in the U.S. Army and served in France as an electrician. While serving, he rewired his camp for electricity, telephone, and telegraph service.  In 1919, after being discharged by the Army, he moved to Hallock, Minnesota where he began his study of electronics, eventually building a transmitter for a local radio station.  To make ends meet, Jones often aided local doctors by driving them around for house calls during the winter season. When navigation through the snow proved difficult, Jones attached skis to the undercarriage of an old airplane body and attached an airplane propeller to a motor.  He was soon whisking doctors around town at high speeds in his new “snow machine.”

Over the next few years he would invent more and more innovative machines.  When one of the doctors he worked for complained that he had to wait for patients to come into his office for x-ray exams, Jones created a portable x-ray machine that could be taken to the patient. Unfortunately, like many of his early inventions, Jones never thought to apply for a patent.  He watched helplessly as other men made fortunes off of their versions of the same device. Impervious, Jones began new projects including a radio transmitter, personal radio sets, and eventually motion picture devices.

In 1927, Joseph Numero, the head of Ultraphone Sound Systems, hired Jones as an electrical engineer.  Numero’s company made sound equipment that was used in movie houses throughout the Midwest.  Always the innovator, Jones converted silent-movie projectors into talking projectors by using scrap metal for parts.  In addition, he devised ways to stabilize and improve the picture quality.

In 1939, Jones invented and received a patent for an automatic ticket-dispensing machine to be used at movie theaters. He later sold the patent rights to RCA.

Eventually, Numero and Jones formed a partnership called the U.S. Thermo Control Company, with Jones as vice president.  He was given the task of developing a device that would allow large trucks to transport perishable products without spoiling. Jones set to work and his automatic refrigeration system, the Thermo King, was born.  Eventually, he modified the original design so it could be outfitted for trains, boats, and ships.

The Thermo King transformed the shipping and grocery businesses. Grocery chains were now able to import and export products that previously could only have been shipped as canned goods. As a result, the frozen food industry was born and for the first time consumers could enjoy fresh foods from around the globe and U.S. Thermo became a multimillion-dollar company.

During World War II, a need for a unit for storing blood serum for transfusions and medicines led Jones into further refrigeration research.  For this, he created an air-conditioning unit for military field hospitals and a refrigerator for military field kitchens.  As a result, may lives were saved.  A modified form of his device is still in use today.

In 1944, Jones became the first African American to be elected into the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers.  During the 1950s, he was a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Bureau of Standards.

When he died on February 21, 1961, Jones had more than sixty patents.  In honor of his tremendous achievements as an inventor, he was posthumously awarded the National Medal of Technology.  Jones was the first black inventor to ever receive such an honor.

Frederick McKinley Jones (1893-1961)

Birthdate: 2/4/2005
Program: Women’s Artistic
Level: Senior
Current Residence: Frisco, TX
Club: WOGA Gymnastics
Head Coach: Yevgeny Marchenko
Other Coaches: Haiou Sun and Emmanuel Domingues

Career Highlights

• 2022 Winter Cup all-around & floor exercise silver medalist and balance beam bronze medalist
• 2021 Winter Cup balance beam champion

About Skye Blakely

Birthplace: Dallas, TX
Hometown: Frisco, TX
Twitter:@skyeblakely_
Instagram:Instagram.com/skyeblakely
Name of High School: N/A
High School Graduation Year: 2023
Name of College: University of Florida
College Graduation Year: 2027
Degree/Major: N/A
Year you began gymnastics: 2008
Favorite Event: Bars!
How did you get involved in gymnastics: My mother wanted to add another activity in addition to ballet and tap.
Favorite thing about gymnastics: I like being able to show the skills that I’ve been working on and I like that it challenges me.
What are your goals for gymnastics?: To compete at the 2024 Olympics and in the NCAA
Names of parents/guardians/spouse: Steven and Stephanie Blakely
Names of sibling(s): Sloane Blakely
Family members in sports: Sloane Blakely

Interests Outside the Gym

Favorite school subject: Math and Science
Hobbies or favorite activities: listening to music, buying shoes, and hanging with friends
Favorite music: Hip Hop, R&B, Gospel
Favorite book(s): The Hate U Give
Favorite movie(s): Black Panther
Favorite TV show(s): Stranger Things
Favorite Food: Chicken and Waffles
Charity Involvement: N/A
Other sports involvement: N/A

National Competition Results

• 2022 OOFOS U.S. Gymnastics Championships, Tampa, Fla. – 5th-UB; 6th-AA, FX
• 2022 Winter Cup, Frisco, Texas – 2nd-AA, FX; 3rd-BB(T); 7th-UB
• 2021 U.S. Gymnastics Championships, Fort Worth, Texas – 7th-AA(T); 8th-BB
• 2021 GK U.S. Classic, Indianapolis, Ind. – 3rd-UB; 7th-AA, FX(T)
• 2021 American Classic, Indianapolis, Ind. – 1st-AA; 2nd-BB; 4th-VT, UB, FX
• 2021 2021 Winter Cup, Indianapolis, Ind. – 1st-BB; 8th-FX(T)
• 2019 U.S. Gymnastics Championships, Kansas City, Mo. – 2nd-BB(T); 3rd-FX; 4th-AA; 6th-VT(T); 8th-UB (Jr. Div.)
• 2019 GK U.S. Classic, Louisville, Ky. – 1st-FX; 2nd-VT; 4th-AA (Jr. Div.)
• 2018 U.S. Gymnastics Championships, Boston, Mass. – 2nd-FX; 3rd-VT; 4th-AA; 5th-UB; 8th-BB (Jr. Div.)
• 2018 GK U.S. Classic, Columbus, Ohio – 3rd-VT; 6th-AA (Jr. Div.)
• 2018 American Classic, Salt Lake City, Utah – 2nd-UB; 3rd-AA, VT; 5th-FX(T) (Jr. Div.)

International Competition Results

• 2022 Pan American Championships, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 2nd-Team; 3rd-AA, FX; 4th-UB; 7th-BB
• 2022 DTB Pokal Cup, Stuttgart, Germany – 1st-Team
• 2020 Gymnix International, Montreal, Canada – 1st-Team, AA; 2nd-VT, UB, BB; 3rd-FX (Jr. Div.)
• 2019 Junior World Championships, Gyor, Hungary – 3rd-Team; 4th-UB; 5th-FX
• 2019 Gymnix International, Montreal, Canada – 1st-Team, VT, UB; 3rd-AA (Jr. Div.)

https://usagym.org/pages/athletes/athleteListDetail.html?id=496577

Albert Irvin Cassell (1895–1969) was a prominent mid-twentieth-century African-American architect in Washington, D.C., whose work shaped many academic communities in the United States. He designed buildings for Howard University in Washington D.C., Morgan State University in Baltimore, and Virginia Union University in Richmond. Cassell also designed and built civic structures for the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia.

Early life

Albert Irvin Cassell was born in Towson, Maryland, on June 25, 1895, the third child of Albert Truman Cassell and Charlotte Cassell. His father Albert T. Cassell was a coal truck driver and his mother Charlotte Cassell aka “Lottie” was a laundress. Albert Cassell began his education in the segregated Baltimore public school system, but moved to New York in 1909 where he began attending Douglas High School. At Douglas High, Cassell studied drafting under Ralph Victor Cook. With Cook’s assistance, Cassell was admitted to the Cornell University architecture program in 1915, where he was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha.^[1]

After completing two years at Cornell, Cassell’s studies were interrupted by service in the US Army in World War I. He served in France, but not in combat, and was honorably discharged in 1919 as a second lieutenant in the 351st Heavy Field Artillery Regiment. In 1919 Cassell was awarded his degree from Cornell University, and began his career working with architect William A. Hazel. In 1920, Mr. Cassell joined in the Architecture Department of Howard University as assistant professor. Just two years later, in 1922, Cassell had become University Architect and head of the Architecture Department at Howard.

Career

Cassell worked at Howard University for eighteen years, serving as an instructor, land manager, surveyor, and architect. Cassell’s vision and work helped shape the campus through his “Twenty Year Plan”, through which he designed numerous campus buildings. His most important design at Howard, was the Founders Library, a building which evoked both the Georgian architecture revival style and Independence Hall in Philadelphia. This building would become an architectural and educational symbol for the university.

While at Howard, Cassell also designed buildings for other institutional clients. His work included buildings at Virginia Union University, Provident Hospital in Baltimore, various Masonic temples, as well as smaller works for select commercial and residential clients.

Following his time at Howard University, Cassell went on to design several buildings for Morgan State College (now Morgan State University) in Baltimore. In his later years he joined with other African-American architects to form the firm of Cassell, Gray & Sutton. He went on to work for several other large clients such as the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington and the government of the District of Columbia.

As his final project, Cassell sought to develop Chesapeake Heights on the Bay, a 520-acre (2.1 km²) summer resort community for African-Americans in Prince Frederick, Calvert County, Maryland. The project was to feature houses, a motel, shopping centers, a pier, a marina, beaches, and a clubhouse fronting the Chesapeake Bay. Roads and a few homes were built by 1969, but the project ended with Cassell’s death in that same year.

Legacy

At a young age Albert Cassell determined that his children would all go to Cornell and all become architects.^[2] Cassell had 8 children.^[3] Four children would attended Cornell; Charles Cassell (’46), Martha Cassell (’47) Alberta Jeannette Cassell (’48) Paula Cassell (’76).^[2] Of the Cornell graduates, all but Paula became architects.

Works

• Campbell Ave Church, Washington, DC, 1917
• Carver War Public Housing, Arlington, VA, 1942
• Catholic Diocese, Washington, DC
• Corinthian Baptist Church, Washington, DC
• Crownsville Hospital Housing & Recreation Center, Crownsville, MD, 1950
• Glenarden City Hall, Glenarden, Maryland
• Howard University Armory, Washington, DC, 1925
• Howard University Baldwin Hall, Washington, DC, 1951
• Howard University Chemistry Building, Washington, DC, 1936
• Howard University College of Medicine, Washington, DC, 1927
• Howard University Crandall Women’s Dormitory, Washington, DC, 1931
• Howard University Dining Hall, Washington, DC, 1922
• Howard University Douglas Men’s Dormitory, Washington, DC, 1936
• Howard University Founders Library, Washington, DC, 1937
• Howard University Frazier Women’s Dormitory, Washington, DC
• Howard University Greene Stadium and Football Field, Washington, DC, 1926
• Howard University President’s Home, Washington, DC
• Howard University Truth Women’s Dormitory, Washington, DC
• Howard University Wheatley Hall, Washington, DC
• Howard University Women’s Gym, Washington, DC
• James Creek Public Housing, Washington, DC
• Mayfair Garden, Washington, DC
• Mayfair Mansions Apartments, (built 1938), 3819 Jay St., NE., Washington, DC, NRHP-listed
• Morgan State College (various buildings), Baltimore, MD
  • Morgan State University Memorial Chapel (1941)
• Odd Fellows Temple, Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD, 1932
• Prince Hall Masonic Temple, 1000 U St., NW, Washington, DC, NRHP-listed
• Provident Hospital, Baltimore, MD, 1928
• Seaton Elementary School, Washington, DC
• Soller’s Point War Housing, Dundalk, MD
• St. Paul’s Baptist Church, Baltimore, MD
• Tuskegee Institute Trade Buildings, Tuskegee, AL
• Virginia Union Hartshorn Dormitory, Richmond, VA, 1928
• Wheatley YMCA, Washington, DC

Two of Cassell’s Washington, DC works, the Mayfair Mansions Apartments and the Prince Hall Masonic Temple, are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.^[4]

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

Khara C Gresham, DMD, MPH  

Dr. Gresham received her Bachelors of Science from Brown University in 2010. She received her Doctorate in Medical Dentistry at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in 2014, followed by her Masters in Public Health in 2015 from Tufts University School of Medicine. She has been a practicing clinician incorporating public health practice into dental care since her graduation in 2014. Dr. Gresham is a member of the American Dental Association, Massachusetts Dental Society, and the National Dental Association.

Dr. Gresham focus is providing comprehensive dental care to her patients through a variety of services as well as including patients in the decision making process. Outside of dentistry she enjoys spending time with family and friends, travel and running.

https://www.trinitydentalboston.com/meet-us/dr-khara-gresham/

Dennis Mathews is co-founder and CEO of Revelation Interactive and CTO at Codicast Interactive. He was mentioned as 1 of the top 10 African American game developers by Black Enterprise. He is an avid programmer and has been programming for over 15+ years for games, websites, hardware, and custom business applications. His expertise has been composed of evaluating and integrating new technologies and platforms which include AR/VR, for the casino, entertainment, game design, and oil & gas industries.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennis-mathews-6284401

Billy Porter calls out Vogue after featuring Harry Styles on cover in dress: ‘I changed the whole game’

The Emmy, Grammy and Tony-winning actor/singer says ‘I was the first one doing it and now everybody is doing it.’

Billy Porter has been slaying red carpets for years in provocative dresses and gowns, advancing the taboo conversation of forward-facing non-binary fashion in Hollywood. However, when Vogue Magazine decided to finally put a man in a dress on its front cover last year, they chose British musician Harry Styles.

Porter noticed, and for the first time, he’s speaking about it.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, the Pose actor says he should be credited for changing perceptions.

“I changed the whole game,” Porter said. “I. Personally. Changed. The. Whole. Game. And that is not ego, that is just fact. I was the first one doing it and now everybody is doing it.”

Styles was featured on the December 2020 issue of Vogue wearing a Gucci dress, with the headline, ‘Harry Styles Makes His Own Rules.’ The “Watermelon Sugar” singer made headlines after wearing dresses at outings, something he discussed in the cover story.

.@harry_styles is our December issue cover star!

Read how the star is making and playing by his own rules: https://t.co/tQPLi5OEtj pic.twitter.com/AxZgxE68Rx— Vogue Magazine (@voguemagazine) November 13, 2020

“Clothes are there to have fun with and experiment with and play with. What’s really exciting is that all of these lines are just kind of crumbling away,” Styles said during his Vogue interview. “When you take away ‘There’s clothes for men and there’s clothes for women,’ once you remove any barriers, obviously you open up the arena in which you can play.”

Porter, 52, also commented on the reasoning behind Styles’ new fashion sense. He stated that his decision to wear gowns was more of a social statement.

“He doesn’t care, he’s just doing it because it’s the thing to do,” Porter said. “This is politics for me. This is my life. I had to fight my entire life to get to the place where I could wear a dress to the Oscars and not be gunned down. All he has to do is be white and straight.”

In 2019, Porter talked to Vogue about his decision to wear a gown instead of a tuxedo to the Academy Awards that year. He explained the political and personal implications behind it and subsequent events in which he wore gowns.

“I grew up loving fashion, but there was a limit to the ways in which I could express myself. When you’re Black and you’re gay, one’s masculinity is in question. I dealt with a lot of homophobia in relation to my clothing choices.”

He continued, “My goal is to be a walking piece of political art every time I show up. To challenge expectations. What is masculinity? What does that mean? Women show up every day in pants, but the minute a man wears a dress, the seas part.”

Billy Porter calls out Vogue after featuring Harry Styles on cover in dress: ‘I changed the whole game’

Ahead of election, Louisiana activists know abortion ban is staying; but they’re still fighting

A group of four phone-bankers sat around a conference table at the offices of Women With A Vision in New Orleans, a group that advocates for abortion rights, about a month before the midterm elections, dialing up voters across Louisiana to ask them about reproductive rights.

They didn’t use the word abortion — it tends to make people hang up on them. Instead, they said they were calling about “Louisiana’s statewide decision in regards to family planning” and “women’s reproductive rights,” euphemisms for Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Then they asked whether the voter wanted more information about family planning. Oftentimes, the answer was “yes.” In that case, they took down an email address to add to Women With A Vision listserv.

The group’s phone banking efforts are part of a push to send out 100 phone bankers and canvassers ahead of the election, organized by the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, a group dedicated to increasing voter turnout especially among Black people and people of color in Louisiana. It’s also one way abortion rights groups are trying to raise awareness about the impact of Louisiana’s abortion bans and mobilize voters across the state.

Nationally, the midterms are set to be a referendum on abortion rights — and a chance in some states to protect abortion rights at the state level.

But that’s not on the table in Louisiana, where the anti-abortion movement holds a political monopoly. And that leaves abortion rights supporters faced with the question of how to fight back when they’ve already lost so much.

“We’re not going to get Roe back right away,” said Deon Haywood, the executive director of Women With A Vision.

But when Women With A Vision volunteers knock on doors ahead of November, Haywood hopes the conversation will move beyond the need to vote. She wants people to start seeing abortion rights as deeply entwined with every other issue that might motivate them to get to the polls — and she sees an opportunity to galvanize Louisianans who did not want Roe v. Wade overturned.

“[Abortion] has to be a part of the larger narrative,” Haywood said. “It can no longer be in a silo over there called ‘abortion land.’ It has to be included in every oppression that people are feeling.”

For Haywood and Erenberg, the strategy is to make abortion part of a larger political agenda for a more equal society, from housing and education to policing. It’s a framework developed by Black women called reproductive justice — a way of combining reproductive rights with the conditions that actually help families thrive.

“It is the right to have children, the right to not have children. It is the right to raise our children and our families, both chosen and biological, in communities that are safe,” Haywood said, “And I should have a job that allows me to afford to give my family what they need, right? We should have education.”

Both Women With A Vision and Lift Louisiana, a group that lobbies and litigates for abortion rights, are building partnerships with progressive groups that might not have seen a need to join forces around reproductive rights in the past, including groups that advocate for better housing and criminal justice reforms.

Haywood believes that reproductive justice is the framework needed to get more people who support abortion rights in Louisiana to vote like it.

The state’s abortion rights supporters have long believed more people in Louisiana agree with them than the Capitol’s politics would suggest.

The Republican Party controls the state house; a number of prominent Democrats oppose abortion rights, including Gov. John Bel Edwards, who signed Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban into law, and State Sen. Katrina Jackson (D-Monroe), who wrote it. The ban passed with the bipartisan support of more than 70% of the legislature.

Then there’s the constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2020 which declares that there can be no right to an abortion found within the Louisiana Constitution. Roughly 62% of voters supported the amendment and 38% voted against it. (The amendment is similar in language to the Kansas abortion amendment voted down over the summer, though Louisiana’s vote occurred when many believed Roe v. Wade was safe, and even Louisiana Right to Life, which helped author the amendment, argued the vote wouldn’t ban abortion in Louisiana.)

But more recent polling paints a more divided state. An LSU survey released in April — as speculation was growing that the U.S. Supreme Court might overturn Roe v. Wade — found support for abortion rights has grown in the last six years in Louisiana; the public is now split 46% in support of legal abortion in all or most cases, compared to 49% against legal abortion in all or most cases.

For Haywood and Erenberg, tying abortion rights to other urgent problems could turn some of those 46% who support legal abortion into abortion-rights voters.

Erenberg will also be watching to see if the elections show evidence of opposition to the ban that abortion-rights groups can build upon.

“I’m definitely going to be looking at voter turnout — I think that that will be a big indicator,” Erenberg said.

Democrats who support abortion rights are running for a number of seats on the state and national level, and they’re making abortion a key issue in their campaigns. Those races could be a barometer for how Louisianans feel about banning nearly all abortions.

But it likely won’t be because pro-choice candidates upset the well-funded, anti-abortion Republican incumbents, such as Sen. John Kennedy and House Whip Steve Scalise.

Instead, John Couvillon, founder of JMC Analytics and Polling, said the question will be just how much of the vote Democratic candidates manage to win in those races, especially in parishes with high percentages of white-collar and professional women.

“I’m thinking about East Baton Rouge, St Tammany, Jefferson, places like that,” Couvillion said.

National polls show women of reproductive age in particular are motivated to vote in the midterms because of the Supreme Court decision.

Couvillon said one race to watch is the Sixth Congressional District, to see if there’s an “abnormally high” vote for Libertarian Rufus Craig, who’s running against incumbent Garret Graves in one of two congressional seats where the Democrats didn’t field a candidate this election cycle.

And Couvillon said to look for whether Katie Darling gets a higher-than-expected share of the vote against Scalise, who won with 72% of the vote in 2020.

Darling, a mother of two, went viral last week with an abortion rights campaign ad featuring video footage of her giving birth to her new son, part of a trend of abortion rights campaign ads released in recent months by Louisiana Democrats, including Gary Chambers, Luke Mixon and State Rep. Royce Duplessis.

Meanwhile, Louisiana Republicans — like many in the GOP across the country — have been relatively quiet on abortion since the Dobbs decision. Scalise has focused on the economy; Kennedy released his own viral ad on crime, telling critics of police brutality to “call a crackhead” next time they need help; and Congressman Clay Higgins has touted his support for the oil and gas industry.

That could leave a void for Democrats to speak to voters who think Louisiana’s abortion ban, which has no exceptions for rape or incest, goes too far.

“The lane is open” for Democrats, Couvillon said. “The key is, what else can you present to the voters to show that, ‘Hey, I have a coherent alternative platform relative to what the other guys are proposing, which is burying this issue in the sand.’”

Despite the political landscape that makes abortion rights all but impossible to win back anytime soon, Erenberg said voters who support abortion rights still need to show up to every election.

“Every election should be considered the most important election to restore abortion access,” Erenberg said.

“And if we don’t start voting like that, if we don’t start voting on this issue, and really scrutinizing the candidates on this issue,” she added, “then we really don’t have any chance of restoring access in Louisiana ever.”

Beyond the midterm elections, Erenberg sees one opportunity to make substantial, immediate changes to what awaits pregnant women in Louisiana: the upcoming legislative session.

There might be a slim chance to enhance abortion access at the margins, she said, by adding an exception to the near-total ban for survivors of rape and incest.

Louisiana Right to Life, which helped draft the law, opposes exceptions for rape or incest. But polling suggests those exceptions are likely supported by a majority of people in Louisiana.

A 2022 national survey by the Pew Research Center found that among those who oppose legal abortion in all or most cases nationally, over half support some kind of exception for rape, and a poll released this week by the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies and SurveyMonkey found that 76% of Republicans support rape and incest exceptions.

But Erenberg said the biggest avenue for change could come in the areas around abortion.

There could be a chance to expand comprehensive sex education in schools, she said. Louisiana doesn’t require sex education in schools, and when sex is addressed, schools must emphasize abstinence.

Lift Louisiana also wants to increase access to reproductive health care services, including expanding access to contraception, investing more in family planning services and prenatal care, and focusing on addressing the maternal mortality crisis in Louisiana, where Black women who give birth are more likely than White women.

The impact of Louisiana’s near-total ban could aid these efforts. Between 8,000 and 10,000 abortions a year took place in Louisiana in recent years. With most abortions now banned, the state is potentially facing many more babies born each year, more women needing prenatal and postnatal care and more families needing support.

“If people are going to be forced to carry pregnancies to term in Louisiana,” Erenberg said, “then we really need to be pushing to make the conditions better for them so that they can actually take care of those children and have fulfilling lives.”

https://www.wwno.org/public-health/2022-10-27/ahead-of-election-louisiana-activists-know-abortion-ban-is-staying-but-theyre-still-fighting

Tara Roberts is a National Geographic Storytelling Fellow and the host and executive producer of the “Into the Depths” podcast. She spent the last few years following, diving with and telling stories about Black scuba divers as they search for and help document slave shipwrecks around the world. Her goal is to reimagine and reframe the origin story of Africans in the Americas and to tell stories that humanize and bring empathy, nuance and complexity to their human journey.

Tara was a Fellow at MIT’s Open Documentary Lab. She has also worked as an editor for CosmoGirl, Essence, AOL, EBONY and Heart & Soul and edited several books for girls. She founded her own magazine for women ‘too bold for boundaries.’ And she spent an amazing and fulfilling year backpacking around the world to find and tell stories about women social entrepreneurs. This journey led to the creation of a social enterprise that supported and funded the big ideas of those female change agents, a stint running communications for Ashoka and time coaching social entrepreneurs for Red Bull’s Amaphiko Academy. 

https://www.tararoberts.me/about