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Business Journals
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Journals
Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis marks record fundraising and historic milestones at 107th Annual Dinner
The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis capped off a historic year with its 107th Annual Dinner Meeting, held Tuesday, April 22, 2025, at the Marriott St. Louis Grand Hotel. The sold-out event brought together business leaders, public officials and community advocates for an evening that celebrated leadership, community impact and a record-breaking fundraising total that surpassed all previous Urban League dinner events. The occasion reflected on a pivotal year of growth, honored outstanding partners and inspired continued investment in the Urban League's mission to empower communities and change lives. expand Celebrating local champions Two major awards highlighted the evening's focus on leadership and legacy. Anthony 'Tony' Thompson, founder and CEO of Kwame Building Group, received the Lifetime Achievement Award for his impact in both business and philanthropy. Thompson built one of the largest African American-owned construction management firms in the country and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars through his Kwame Foundation to support scholarships and youth development. His work has left a lasting imprint on the city's civic and economic landscape. The Corporate Citizen of the Year Award went to Emerson, led by president and CEO Lal Karsanbhai. The company has demonstrated strong corporate responsibility, investing in equity, education and housing initiatives. Its partnership with the Urban League has strengthened efforts to close opportunity gaps and expand services across St. Louis. expand Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis A year of breakthroughs The 107th Annual Dinner also served as a platform to highlight 2024, a year described by Urban League leadership as the most transformative in its 107-year history. The Urban League scaled up major programs and secured unprecedented investments that expanded its capacity to serve. Public safety initiatives like Clean Up Build Up, Grill to Glory and Urban Opioid Triage mobilized churches, residents and law enforcement to build trust and reduce violence. Meanwhile, the Reroute program supported individuals in the justice system with mentorship and employment resources. Workforce development remained central. Save Our Sons and Save Our Sisters trained hundreds of men and women for high-demand careers, while the Energy Sector Training Initiative created job pathways in partnership with local utilities. Additional programs in digital literacy, small business development and Boeing Bootcamps broadened access to opportunity. A major milestone came when the Centene Corporation donated a $25 million building marking the largest gift in the 115-year history of the National Urban League. Now called the Centene Connected Community, the North County site houses the Urban League's Head Start division and serves as a shared space for nonprofits and entrepreneurs. The Urban League also broke ground on the Urban League Plaza, a mixed-use campus in the Ferguson-Dellwood corridor designed as a hub for advancement in education, economic opportunity and health. expand A record fundraising night In addition to celebrating these milestones, the event shattered past fundraising records. It drew strong support from corporate sponsors, philanthropic leaders and individual donors all dedicated to sustaining the Urban League's vital work. Michael P. McMillan, president and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, emphasized collective effort in his remarks. 'The Urban League was born out of crisis in 1917, and here we are, 107 years later, still rising to meet every challenge,' McMillan said. 'This work is about more than programs — it's about people. This record-breaking night proves that when the community believes in the mission, we can do extraordinary things together.' The evening also included program testimonials, a multimedia recap of 2024 and a reminder that the work ahead remains urgent. Looking ahead With more than 60 programs and a strong network of partners, the Urban League is set to expand its impact in 2025. As it enters its 108th year, the focus remains on innovation, inclusion and investment in underserved communities. Sustaining and growing strategic partnerships is essential to that vision. By working with corporate, grassroots and regional collaborators, the Urban League continues to deliver meaningful, lasting solutions. The 107th Annual Dinner was more than a celebration — it was a powerful reminder of what's possible when equity and leadership unite. With continued support, the Urban League is ready to build on this momentum and drive even greater progress ahead. The Urban League extends its deepest gratitude to the generous sponsors who made the evening possible. Chairman Sponsors included World Wide Technology, Inc.; the Centene Charitable Foundation; Ameren; Emerson; and the Steward Family Foundation. President Sponsors were Dowd Bennett LLP, the Anheuser-Busch Foundation, the William F. Siedhoff Foundation, and Edward Jones. Advocate Sponsors included BJC HealthCare, Clayco, Jeff & Nancy Jensen, and JuVee and Nike. Thanks to their unwavering support, the Urban League's mission remains not only alive but thriving. The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, Inc. provides a roadmap to equality for African Americans and others through partnerships with corporations, community leaders and governmental and civic institutions. Since its founding, the Urban League has continuously worked to diffuse racial tensions and improve living conditions for African Americans in St. Louis. The St. Louis Urban League is the largest in the nation, the first to earn a five-star rating, and one of only two providing services in both Illinois and Missouri. It serves over 200,000 individuals annually through 25 facilities and 65 different programs.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Decatur approves reparations task force, apologizes to Black residents
The Brief The Decatur City Commission unanimously adopted a resolution on Monday to create the Decatur Reparations Task Force. The task force, which will have 11 members, will develop recommendations that will be presented in a final report in around three years. The city also formally apologized for its role "in perpetuating discrimination, oppression, subjugation and the resulting harms, profiting from policies rooted in the system of white supremacy." DECATUR, Ga. - The city of Decatur has taken a big step toward reparations for African-American residents who suffered historical discrimination in the area. At a meeting on Monday, the Decatur City Commission unanimously adopted a resolution to create the Decatur Reparations Task Force to begin compiling records and develop policy recommendations. The backstory Last year, city leaders unanimously approved a contract with the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights for reparations research work, which officials said helped to "uncover the legacy of racial harm in the City of Decatur." In the time since the contact was authorized, officials say the group has held community gatherings and listening sessions to hear directly from residents of the Beacon Hill community. In the new resolution, the city pointed to the area's history of slavery, segregation, redlining, and property seizures. The resolution also pointed to Confederate monuments formerly located near the DeKalb County Courthouse and other parts of the city. What we know In the next 60 days, the city commission will appoint 11 members recommended by the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights to take part in the task force. These members will include historians, legal experts, youth representatives, and more. The group will then compile records of Black land and property loss, examine economic displacement and legalized discrimination, and interview descendants affected by the city's policies. While doing the research, the task force will also begin developing recommendations on how to address the harm and "propose city-sponsored memorialization projects, economic equity tools, and investment strategies, and support community-based initiatives to address the racial disparities," the resolution says. What they're saying As part of the resolution, the city formally acknowledged its history. "The City of Decatur formally acknowledges its past role in the systemic oppression of people of African descent through enslavement, human trafficking, convict-labor, discriminatory zoning and development, underinvestment in African American communities, school segregation, racially biased policing, the destruction of African American-owned property, businesses, and institutions and the displacement and erasure of the Beacon Hill community, people and culture," the resolution reads. City officials also apologized for its role in enslaving, trafficking, and oppressing Black residents. "The City extends a full and public apology to the Black residents of Decatur—past and present— and their descendants, for its role in perpetuating discrimination, oppression, subjugation and the resulting harms, profiting from policies rooted in the system of white supremacy." Dig deeper Decatur is not the only part of metro Atlanta examining reparations for some descendants of enslaved people. In Fulton County, a Reparations Task Force has been working since the Fulton County Board of Commissioners approved a measure in 2023. That task force has temporarily paused meetings while members work on a report about the impact of slavery and Jim Crow laws on residents, but officials say meetings are expected to resume some time in 2025. What's next The task force will hold its first meeting within 60 days after seven to nine members of the group are confirmed. It will then issue reports annually with the final report coming within three years. The Source Information for this story came from a resoution by the City of Decatur and previous FOX 5 reporting.
The Guardian
15-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
‘They're on. They're off. We can't plan' – bourbon makers dazed by Trump tariffs
Brough Brothers Distillery is in the midst of a big expansion. A fifteen minutes' drive from its small distillery in the West End neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky, workers are toiling away on its new site, seven times the size of the old one, in the heart of Bourbon City. This has been a long time coming for Brough Brothers, which opened its first location in 2020 and had drawn up ambitious plans for international growth in 2025. Then Donald Trump returned to power. The Trump administration is conducting a sweeping overhaul of the US economy, using tariffs – levies on foreign goods, paid for by importers – in an effort to reset the country's trade ties with the world, revive its industrial heartlands and force its neighbors to address illegal immigration and drug trafficking. 'Tariffs are easy, they're fast, they're efficient, and they bring fairness,' Trump said earlier this month. The reality has proven more complex, and confusing, than the bold rhetoric. Threats have been leveled and then dropped; deadlines declared and delayed; tariffs imposed and postponed. Chaos reigns. Victor Yarbrough, CEO of Brough Brothers, does not want tariffs. But he would take the certainty of tariffs over the current racket emanating from the White House around whether they will, or won't, be imposed; when; and on which markets. 'They're happening. They're not happening. They're on. They're off. It doesn't allow us the timeframe we need,' Yarbrough said in an interview. 'We can't plan.' Yarbrough spoke to the Guardian the week after Trump declared there to be 'no room left' for an economic peace deal with Canada; imposed sweeping 25% tariffs on US exports from the country; and accused its prime minister of using the dispute to cling to power; only to offer a one-month reprieve. During the interview, the president lashed out against Ontario's decision to retaliate against his tariffs with a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the states of New York, Michigan and Minnesota, announcing that tariffs on Canada's steel and aluminum exports to the US would be doubled. Hours later, the threat was revoked. Brough Brothers, Kentucky's first African American-owned distillery, was 'in the middle of getting a deal done' to start selling its spirits in New Brunswick when Trump took aim at Canada, straining economic ties with a typically reliable market for US exporters. 'We've effectively had to put the deal on hold indefinitely,' said Yarbrough. Tensions are flaring worldwide. The day after the interview, the EU unveiled a €26bn ($28bn/£22bn) list of US targets – including bourbon – that it plans to hit with retaliatory tariffs, after Trump hiked US tariffs on steel and aluminum. In response, the US president threatened a 200% US tariff on European alcohol. Several Canadian provinces meanwhile removed US liquor from store shelves as part of the dispute between Washington and Ottawa; a move that some American producers said was worse than a tariff. The question of how much it might cost to sell a product into a market was supplanted by whether it could be sold there at all. 'Having all US alcohol pulled from the shelves in Canada is a huge blow for the industry,' said Yarbrough, who just a few months ago had planned to start selling into markets including Canada, the UK, Germany, France and South Africa. 'Now we're Plan B. 'It's Canada today. It's the UK, it's the European Union, in a couple of weeks. It's China now. Is there another country [on which] they're going to implement tariffs?' he said. 'Can we pivot to a Brazil? Can we pivot to a Colombia? Can we pivot to a Panama? Or are they going to have tariffs the next month? It's just difficult to facilitate any kind of plan, just because there's so much uncertainty.' A day after we spoke, the EU vowed to impose steep tariffs on a carefully targeted list of US exports after Trump hiked US duties on steel and aluminium. Bourbon whiskey was among them. Yarbrough knows trade, having previously imported bourbon from the US and exported English cider while based in the UK. He knows tariffs, too. 'Ultimately it's a tax,' he said, noting that the real increase in costs is likely to be higher than the official rate, as the duty twists each link of the supply chain. A 25% tariff, for example, would probably prompt both the importer and the retailer to adjust their costs, according to Yarbrough. 'You're not just speaking about that 25%. That's just the baseline,' he said. 'These incremental costs add up. It's beyond just the 25%.' The tariffs mess is rattling this deep red state. Louisville has so many bourbon production plants that locals say they can often smell the whiskey in the air. A vast bottle of Old Forester towers over the headquarters of Brown-Forman, the drinks conglomerate. Kentucky Republicans have urged Trump to dial down his tariff threats. The Republican senator Rand Paul has warned duties would 'inevitably' raise prices and invite retaliation that would reduce bourbon exports. As a stock market sell-off took hold, he wrote on social media: 'When the markets tumble like this in response to tariffs, it pays to listen.' Lobbyists insist the spirits sector is a model of the 'fair and reciprocal' approach on trade that Trump claims to be seeking. In the two decades after the US and EU eliminated tariffs on most spirits in 1997, bilateral trade grew by 450%, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the US. 'Tariffs back and forth would be catastrophic for the industry,' Chris Swonger, president and CEO of the council, told the Guardian. Sure, he said, the US does have a trade deficit with key markets on spirits – importing more from markets like the EU, UK, Canada and Mexico than it exports to them. 'But it's not because of trade barriers. It's because American consumers love scotch. They love Irish whiskey … American consumers love tequila, and Canadian whiskey.' Within these global markets, however, free trade – without tariffs, or barriers – has set the stage for the US industry's rapid growth, Swonger claimed, with the number of distilleries surging from 60 to about 3,100 in about two decades. 'It's a great American success story,' he said. Trump, who rarely speaks in minimal terms, has conceded his grand economic reset might cause 'a little disturbance' for companies and consumers. The spirits sector, so often caught in the crossfire of trade disputes, fears the turbulence may well be bigger than billed. Operators are calling on the White House to prioritize talking over tariffs. 'I get it. Two brothers are fighting,' said Yarbrough. 'Let's go have a drink and figure this out. Let's go have a bourbon and figure this out.'
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Roanoke Tribune reflects on 86 years of print journalism
ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR) – Stanley Hale was truly born to be an editor at the Roanoke Tribune. He is the son of current Tribune publisher Claudia Whitworth, who took things over in 1971 from her own father, and founder of the paper, Reverend F.E. Alexander. Hale helped his mother out from the time he was 11 or 12 years old, but it took a little while for the significance of his family's paper to sink in as an adult. 'I had certain friends that kept stressing the importance of the paper to me and I was like, 'Wait a minute. What am I missing?'' said Hale, who has now been with the paper for around 40 years. In his youth, Hale explored other passions before ultimately being drawn back to the family business. The oldest and most successful African American-owned newspaper celebrates over 80 years of history Years later, he said the decision was immensely fulfilling. 'I get a little bummed out because I'm in the news and I'm inundated with it,' he said. 'But I keep thinking, 'It's going to be alright because goodness always rises.'' Hale's grandfather founded the paper in 1939, along with several other publications throughout southwest Virginia. More than eight decades later, only The Roanoke Tribune remains, and the family's commitment deserves the credit. 'I love these people,' said Hale. 'I mean I do. Because I need them and they are my subsistence. You can't do anything on your own.' More 'Black History Month' stories on In an increasingly negative world, the Tribune provides a fresh perspective for its readers by highlighting the region's positive moments. 'That's what we do,' said Hale. 'We try to inspire through our little paper with a purpose.' 'We put news that's important as well, but it's mostly good news,' said Tribune volunteer Lee Pierre. 'Positive things that are going on in this area and we need that.' Pierre interned with the paper while a student at Roanoke College and returned in a volunteer capacity after finishing a career in education. She believes the paper has survived the test of time because it hasn't lost touch with the area it serves. TAP honoring Black History Month with return of celebration in Roanoke 'I think that's why this paper's lasted so long,' she said. 'It reaches out to churches, it reaches out to schools, it reaches out to the elderly who are stuck at home and want to know what's going on with their friends down the street.' Hale and the Tribune know the world is becoming more digital by the day, and they intend to expand their online footprint. But the Tribune's roots are firmly planted in paper and ink, and the paper has no intention of abandoning that. 'I know it's a dot com world we're living in,' said Hale. 'But people still call in here when they don't get their paper.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Black History Moment: February 12, Major Richard R. Wright
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) – I am Dr. Jamal Toure of Geechee Kunda and Day Clean Journeys with today's Black History Moment. Major Richard R. Wright, Sr. is known as an educator, historian, civil rights activist, college president and veteran. Many do not know that Wright was a bank president. When his daughter experienced a racist incident at the Citizens & Southern Bank he fought back legally and by forming a bank of the same name in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the only African American-owned and operated bank in the North. It was also the first African American Trust Company. For more information contact Dr. Jamal Toure' at: (912) 220 –5966 or daycleanhhi@ or visit: Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
