May 04, 2023

By Tanu Henry and Antonio Ray Harvey

California Black Media

 

Assemblymember Mike Gipson Demands Sac County Remove Foster Children From Former Jail

Last week, Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson) demanded Sacramento County officials stop housing foster children in a former juvenile correction center.

The lawmaker, who authored Assembly Bill (AB) 175 that expanded and clarified the Foster Youth Bill of Rights, says what Sacramento County is doing is “unacceptable” and is in violation of state law.

“This is heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking,” said Gipson, who explained that sex traffickers have access to the facility.

“We can find shelters for dogs, and people take those animals and roll out the red carpet," Gipson told KCRA TV in Sacramento. "Are you telling me we can't find placement for children in this county?"

Sacramento County officials say the decision to place 15 “high needs” foster children aged 13 to 17 years old at the Warren E.

Thornton Juvenile facility is a temporary measure while the county seeks a legal and permanent solution.

 

Gipson Also Pushes Two Tax Bills

Last week, at a rally at the State Capitol, Gipson also discussed AB 1498, legislation he authored that would establish an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) minimum of $300. According to the California Budget and Policy Center, 78% of people who qualify for EITC are people of color.

Gipson also expressed his support for another EITC-related legislation, AB 1128, at the rally. AB 1128 would “remove the requirement that a qualifying child has to be younger than 6 years of age as of the last day of the taxable year.”

California Elected Officials Among Black Leaders Mourning Harry Belafonte

Black actors, musicians, businesspeople, politicians and more wrote heartfelt tributes and messages of condolences last week after news broke that Harry Belafonte had passed.

Belafonte, singer, actor, activist, philanthropist, civil rights leader and first Black person to win an Emmy Award, died of congestive heart failure April 25 at his home in New York City.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA-43) paid tribute to her friend on Twitter.

“Another superstar has just passed. My dear friend, Harry Belafonte, was an extraordinarily talented singer and performer,” she tweeted. “More than that, he was a civil rights activist who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King and worked with President Nelson Mandela to end Apartheid in South Africa. We will all miss his wisdom, his advice, and his huge giving spirit.”

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA-12) also honored Belafonte’s life and work in a tweet.

“Sad to hear of the passing of my friend Harry Belafonte,” Lee wrote. “The world has lost not only a great musician and actor, but a civil rights activist and warrior for justice whose voice helped change America for the better. Thank you for your work, your courage, and your service.”

 

Democrats Shoot Down GOP-Backed Fentanyl Bills

Democrats on the Assembly Public Safety Committee last week voted down several bills aimed at addressing California’s Fentanyl crisis.

The measures would have strengthened penalties for Fentanyl dealers who possess large quantities of the drug -- or kill or injure people they sell the drug to.

“Californians will continue to die, victims of drug dealers profiting off poisoning our communities,” Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher said in a statement. “These bills were not criminalizing addiction, returning to the ‘war on drugs,’ or any other lie told by the pro-fentanyl lobbyists. They were reasonable, bipartisan proposals to save lives.”

Assemblymembers Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), who chairs the Public Safety Committee and Mia Bonta (D-Alameda) pointed to “harm reduction programs,” which experts say are more effective tools to fight the Fentanyl crisis than the punitive measures being proposed by lawmakers.

Jones-Sawyer says more arrests do not solve the problem in the long-term.

“As soon as you arrest somebody, unfortunately they may get replaced by somebody else and then there is even more drugs on the street,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s a lucrative business. We’ve got to get to what the Governor is doing, for example, getting to the supply side. Which is stopping the drugs from getting across the border.”

Bonta pointed to the major criminal justice reform efforts the state is undertaking, as well a $61 billion investment in harm reduction programs, including distribution of test trips and drug overdose medication.

 

Biden Highlights Importance of the Black Press at White House Correspondents’ Dinner

At the 2023 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, President Joe Biden spoke about the importance of the Black press and the tragic death of Emmett Till, an event that helped galvanize the civil rights movement in the 1950s.

Biden told the roomful of journalists that during Black History Month this year he hosted the screening of the film “Till.”

On Aug. 28, 1955, while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American teen from Chicago, was lynched for allegedly flirting with a White woman a few days earlier.

The story of Till and his mother Mamie Till-Mobly is a “story of a family’s promise and loss” and the country’s “reckoning with hate, violence, and the abuse of power,” Biden said.

“It’s a story that was seared into our memory and our conscience — the nation’s conscience — when Mrs. Till insisted that an open casket for her murdered and maimed 14-year-old son be the means by which he was transported,” Biden said. “She said, ‘Let the people see what I’ve seen.’”

Biden also commended Black publications for their reporting on the lynching and its aftermath, Till’s funeral, and the ensuing trial that freed the perpetrators.

“The reason the world saw what she saw was because of another hero in this story: the Black press,” Biden said “That’s a fact. JET Magazine, the Chicago Defender, and other Black radio and newspapers were unflinching and brave in making sure America saw what she saw. “And I mean it.”

 

Two Black Women Among New Appointees to Emerge California Board

Two Black women are among four new appointees to the board of Emerge California, an Oakland-based body that describes itself as “the state’s premier organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office.”

Brittni Chicuata and Alana D. Matthews are the two new Black women members of the 9-member board.

The organization had a 70%-win rate out of the 125 candidates it supported in last November’s general election.

“I’m excited to welcome these powerful and accomplished women leaders to the Board of Directors to help lead Emerge California forward and build on our success in 2023 and beyond,” said Board Chair Rhodesia Ransom.

“Since our founding more than twenty years ago, Emerge California has trained over 850 Democratic women to run for office, and we’re just getting started. These four women have valuable expertise and skills that will help us grow our movement to even greater heights.”

The other two new board members are Stacey Owens and Marina A. Torres.

Chicuata is Director of Economic Rights at the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.

Matthews, an Emerge alumna, is an Assistant District Attorney and Policy Director for the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office.

 

She is also an Adjunct Professor at McGeorge School of Law where she founded the Racial Equity and Justice Summer Practicum program.

April 27, 2023

LAWT News Service

 

The Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee voted 15 to 1 on April 25 to approve SB 823, authored by Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), that helps low-income residents have equal access to discounted electric vehicle (EV) charging rates. The bill, as passed by the committee, would establish a grant program at the California Energy Commission to support low and moderate-income EV drivers with discounted rates at public charging stations.

“One of the cornerstones of our fight against climate change has been the conversion of Californians’ fossil fuel vehicles to zero-emission electric vehicles,” said Senator Smallwood-Cuevas.  “We have a responsibility to make affordable vehicle charging accessible to all Californians.”

California’s utilities currently incentivize EV drivers by offering them energy at lower costs. These discount programs provide strong incentives for consumers to switch to more environmentally friendly EVs and install charging infrastructure in their homes.

Unfortunately, these discount programs are often inaccessible to the very communities that stand to gain the most from EV adoption: low-income communities of color. These residents tend to live in closer proximity to highways and busy roads, increasing their exposure to harmful pollutants from tailpipe emissions. Despite the clear environmental and health benefits for these residents, many either cannot afford to install charging infrastructure or face insurmountable barriers to do so if they live in multi-unit dwellings.

“Because many low-income residents don’t have access to charge EVs at their places of residence, they must rely on public charging infrastructure, where the cost of charging can be two to three times as much,” said Senator Smallwood-Cuevas. “SB 823 will address this inequity in EV charging options for underserved Californians at a time when the burden of fossil fuels is disproportionately impacting low-income communities of color.”

The bill will next move to the Senate Appropriations Committee for consideration of its fiscal impact.

Senator Smallwood Cuevas represents the 28th Senate District, which includes the communities of South Los Angeles, Culver City, West Los Angeles, Century City and Downtown Los Angeles. She spent more than two decades serving as a labor organizer, civil rights activist and community advocate before her election to the State Senate. She resides in the View Park community of Los Angeles with her family.

April 27, 2023

By Kenneth Miller

Inglewood Today

 

“Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise”—I Rise (last verse) Maya Angelou

Everett K. Sands, the Chief Executive Officer of Lendistry, life began as a small child with a brain that imagined a lot of what ifs.

 

What if his grandfather had the money to keep his tailor shop open? What if his parents did not start college at Howard University in Washington, DC when they were older?

And so, when a young Everett set off on a path to solve complicated financial puzzles that drive most people crazy, it tuned his competitive mind similar to the way a Michael Jordan or a LeBron James trained their body to become the greatest basketball players in history.

The wisdom he accumulated would lead this son of a doctor to earn a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school in the Washington DC area where he met the heir twin granddaughters of the Walmart Family, the richest family in America. The by chance meeting was enough for him to realize that he belonged.

His mother prayed for him to become a trailblazer and while he admitted that he does sometimes think about what causes him to think the way he does, he has not fully embraced pioneer status.

On Zoom, he sat isolated on a multicolored striped couch, wearing a purple polo with Lendistry stitched across his heart and a white Nike check on the left sleeve, expanding on how he became arguably one of the most impactful men in finance and lending for 58 minutes.

His laser eyes adjusted the computer for better concentration and his mind races to perfect his illustration of the next question.

Where does the foundation of Everett K. Sands begin?

“I don’t think there is a single thing. Like anybody else. We are all a series of events. The way I best describe it which is probably not perfect, but is what’s in my mind. I grew up as a kid with a lot of what ifs. I have parents that went to Howard, but they went late. They went to undergrad on time and went to graduate school kind of late. But you see your parents go late and you say oh that’s interesting, and then we drive past buildings and my mom would say that was your grandfather’s shop. The question is why isn’t it the shop now. And then you start to kind of just put the pieces together.”

He started to assemble the puzzle when he attended that boarding school and met really affluent people which also included the Walton granddaughters with whom he had a casual acquaintance.

They came to school in a limo, Sands did not show up in a limousine. When his friend asked if he knew who the twins were, he did not. He wasn’t poor, but certainly not as wealthy as his classmates. It didn’t take long for him to discover their grandfather is the founder of Walmart.

Sands got close enough to the twins to ask questions and discovered their grandfather got a loan for $30,000, but his grandfather did not gain access to capital and theirs did.

“I then started to put the pieces together. My parents went to school late because the money wasn’t there. We don’t have that building anymore because something happened with the business. Those moments and thoughts led me to ponder what if they had the access to capital?”

Sands contemplated what if he was there and what could he have done, his competitive juices flowing.

Lendistry, which he founded in 2015, is a byproduct of Sands looking at every business as if it was his grandfather’s, and it didn’t matter whether you were Black or white.

“I am a scientist by nature. I grew up Premed, my dad’s a doctor and so in science what you learn is A B testing. You learn how to look at a problem with multiple solutions because most scientist are trying to discover a cure for something, but I brought that into lending and that’s my process policy conversation,” he elaborated

Sands genius is a rare combination of renown scientist George Washington Carver and historical financier Maggie Lena Walker who was the first Black woman to establish and serve as president of a bank in the United States in 1903.

“I am a scientist and I am an individual who is extremely competitive and when you push all three of those together and you have me focus on underserved and undercapitalized communities that’s what you get. You get this guy that’s extremely determined to figure it out.” he said.

From the boarding school, Sands went on to University of Pennsylvania where he served as a board member for the Penn Institute for Urban Research and the Center for Strategic Economic Studies and Institutional Development.

While at Penn he met a mentor who tasked him to create a mortgage company. He was the person who did all of the research and did all of the things to figure it out. Although he and his mentor went their separate ways, Sands joined forces with a fraternity brother and the two of them developed one of the top 10 mortgage companies in America. Eventually, they earned a board seat on the first Black-owned bank in Maryland, Ideal Federal Savings.

That’s was at just 26-years of age and the two frat brothers have remained business partners since 1999.

The Ideal Federal Savings experience sparked something in him. He understood financing and subsequently sold the mortgage company and went to another Black bank as a leader.

“Those two experiences of sitting on the board of the bank are real life experiences that teach you things you don’t learn at Penn.”

By the time he went to Wells Fargo he was like an outlier because he could do almost everything.

“I ended up becoming the top one percent at Wells in terms of revenue and you name the stat from profitability which matters most to all of the other stuff.”

Although he was in the top one percent, he was just a token. Nonetheless what he managed to obtain levels of knowledge at Wells that he could not at the community bank.

The light bulb went on when he was introduced Corresponding banking which is the group that lends money to community banks.

He defined National Financial Literacy Month by merely prescribing solutions to the community it plagues.

“I think it means a couple of things. How do we think about deploying education and resources out to those who are looking to either expand their future, somewhat get a hold of their future and our lay the foundation,” he stated eloquently.

Sands is motivated to do more than just get the word out; “One of the things that’s been part of my career is thinking about access to capital as skill and thinking about access to capital that for underserved communities. I think about it in three different ways. I think about it as Product, a process and a policy question, and those are the three things that I am typically working on.”

When he thinks about financial literacy as a whole, process is the one that comes up.

“We’ve all said, hey… I wish would have learned more about credit in high school or how to balance my check book when I was a kid. I think where we have a challenge is we don’t always meet the user where they are at. The average kid is spending about two hours on Tic Toc right now, so are we creating a financial literacy that’s on Tic Toc? or, are we saying hey you should read this book? I am not saying there is anything wrong with reading, I am a reader, but I am also saying you have to have multiple ways to reach an audience and you have find ways to reach an audience where they are at.”

Sands admits that there are some structural issues, particularly legislatively, that seems to be stacked against Blacks and minorities.

“I think the first thing we need to look at is, have there been a higher number of Black politicians, and I think the answer to that question is yes. Are we, people on the ground helping them execute. At an eye level it’s about voting, but on a secondary level it’s about having conversations no different than if you were as going to address your neighborhood,” Sands added.

He educates politicians when he meets with them, and ask what the goal is from a legislative stand point and then he shares with them what’s happening from the street to bring about a resolution that benefits both the public servant and the community they serve.

Sands believes reason that Black communities suffer is because we are behind in the steps; “That doesn’t mean you don’t go through the evolution of the steps, that means you’re behind in the race, those are two separate things.”

The first step was to get our voices heard, then to elect officials who served our best interest and now, the responsibility of this generation is execution, which is what Lendistry did during the COVID pandemic.

“When it came time for the pandemic, we raised our hand and said let us be in the ball game of programming so that we could be the deployers of capital.”

That wasn’t easy because Lendistry had to assemble themselves very quickly and do all of the things the government required.

Lendistry became a one of the stars for the SBA during the pandemic, granting loans up to $10 million nationwide, and then because of determination and client focus, Lendistry lent upwards of $8 billion to more than half a million businesses across all 50 states.

Additionally, he was instrumental in the State of California non-profits receiving funding, the only state to do so.

Family is super important for Sands, most of them are here in Southern California but his mother is still in D.C.

“I work hard for them so that they don’t have to work as hard as I have to work,” he concluded. 

Sands is very sensitive and protective of his family, especially his twin daughters.

“Like any parent I feel most helpless when they are sick or not feeling well.”

At his core he is a revolutionary teacher who has the uncanny ability to elucidate complicated financial widgets so the everyday consumer can comprehend.

Lendistry has mega clients as Amazon on its roster in addition to the myriad of banks and other financial institutions that relies on their services.

Everett K. Sands is a renaissance man, a revolutionary responsible for billions of dollars, also lives and futures of people like his grandfather.

Paving the way for perhaps another likeminded genius to evolve.