Can we finally get past race?
Yes. Soon. Not quite yet. It's complicated, say 1776 Unites scholars Glenn Loury and John McWhorter.

From CBS Boston: "Since the city is not doing it officially, community leaders are now calling their own state of emergency, after a string of violence. 'People are in fear here and people are dying here,' said Rev. Kevin Peterson Friday.

He's been begging Boston's police commissioner for the official emergency designation that could funnel money and resources to affected neighborhoods...

While violent crimes in Boston are down over last year, deadly shootings are up, and hitting people in communities of color more than anywhere else. Over 75% of shooting victims since 2015 are black, and nearly 75% happened in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan.

On Friday, community leaders gathered in front of the barbershop where a beloved barber named Max was shot to death. 'We call on members of the community,' said Peterson, explaining they will work on their own public safety plan to police their own neighborhoods." Watch and read more here.

1776 Unites scholar Wilfred Reilly, along with University of Arkansas researchers Robert Maranto and Patrick Wolf, examine whether #BLM actually prevented unjustified police shootings—and look carefully at what kinds of police reforms have been shown to work. Writing in Commentary: 

"[W]e suggest that the best way to assess the reforms and ideas pushed by Black Lives Matter is to consider them against a backdrop of hard numbers. If you do, you’ll find a record of failure that tragically undermines the movement’s chief goal of saving black lives. This explains why, until now, data-driven scholarship on the topic has been virtually nonexistent. For many in liberal-leaning academia, Black Lives Matter, as a passion and a cause, felt too just to fact-check. But this unquestioned sense of righteousness has come at a steep cost, and social scientists have abnegated their roles. Police departments across this great country certainly could do more to protect black—and all—lives, and scholars should help them do better." Read the whole piece here.

"The Woodson Center is continuing to open doors of opportunity for us - sharing our meaningful work with their supporters. Recently, a foundation within their network blessed us with another major grant that will allow us to serve even more students next year." ~ Karmia Berry

Karmia Berry is a second-year mini grant recipient and founder of I AM C.U.L.T.U.R.E.D. (Confident, Unique, Leading, Tenacious, Unstoppable, Regal, Educated, Daring), an innovative mentoring organization that promotes self-empowerment and appreciation for cultural richness and diversity among youth of color ages 15-18 from underserved communities. Most of the youth they serve have experienced trauma, have an incarcerated parent, and are in need of emotional, social, and behavioral support.

"I am truly grateful that I AM C.U.L.T.U.R.E.D. is a 2022 mini grant recipient," said Karmia. "We appreciate the seeds of financial support, personal and professional development training that we have received from the Woodson Center. They have enabled us to grow more as an organization, and expand our outreach from serving four students in 2017, to sixty-three students, who are currently enrolled in our mentoring and travel abroad program."

Karmia is giving these youth a global education where she provides cultural travel and now work abroad experiences for many students who have never traveled outside of the United States, and for some beyond their city. It is only through your support of our mini grant program that we were able to award Karmia with an additional grant of $10,000 this year that will help her continue the organization’s Summer Cultural Series, an annual trip where she will take 40 students to Ghana in 2023. Karmia describes travel as the heartbeat of her organization, that builds confidence and cultural awareness—where youth develop compassion and a desire for change based on the exposure.

When you support the Woodson Center, you enable us to elevate organizations like I AM C.U.L.T.U.R.E.D. to become self-sufficient, so they can help their communities thrive well into the future!

However you vote next week, always bet on grassroots leaders. These are the unsung American heroes, restoring communities and uplifting the least of us in parts of the nation too often forgotten.

This year's mini grant awardees were selected from nearly 200 applications. CAN affiliates have the established relationships and moral authority to heal their neighborhoods and keep the peace that larger, lavishly-funded activist groups will never have. 

Thank you for making their work possible.