By Mark Scheer

Read the full article from Investigative Post, here.

In 1990, researchers at the University at Buffalo took a comprehensive look at what it was like to be Black and living in Buffalo. They found large numbers of African Americans were out of work, living in poverty, lacked a college degree and were renters rather than homeowners. The report predicted that the “downward trend” for the city’s Black population would continue unless an action plan was put in place to halt the decline. The “portrait of Black Buffalo remains unchanged” more than 30 years later, a follow-up study released this week has found. The report concluded that Black Buffalonians “have not made progress over the past thirty-one years.” The problems are actually getting worse on the city’s predominantly Black East Side, researchers found. “We have to do something different and, if we don’t, 31 years from now it will be the same way,” said Dr. Henry Taylor Jr., the study’s lead researcher and director of UB’s Center for Urban Studies.

By Erik Brady

Read the full article from Buffalo , here.

The arc of his mother’s life tells the story of the African American experience in the 20th century. Granted, it took Kirkland a lifetime to realize. And even when he did understand, it wasn’t easy to get his mother to go along with a movie.

The award-winning result is “100 Years From Mississippi,” a documentary that is playing at film festivals across North America — and this week is coming to Buffalo, where Mamie Kirkland died in 2019 as our oldest citizen, at 111.

The hourlong documentary will be shown at the Buffalo International Film Festival at 1:45 p.m. Sunday at the North Park Theatre. Kirkland will be there for a Q&A. The last time he was in Buffalo was for his mother’s funeral. That was a celebration of her life. So is the movie.

By Jason Beeferman

Read the full article from Chicago Sun Times, here.

Historian and author Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Jacqueline Stewart, who studies the history of cinema, both focus their work on the Black experience and uplifting Black voices. They are among 25 recipients of the no-strings-attached $625,000 fellowships, unofficially dubbed the “genius grants,” announced Tuesday.

Taylor has lived in Chicago for more than a decade. Stewart was born and raised in Hyde Park. Both said their experiences with Chicago’s Black neighborhoods played a pivotal role in their intellectual development.

By Charlie Specht , Sean Mickey

Read the full article from WKBW Buffalo, here.

But this stark disparity did not happen organically. If it seems that people looked at a map and drew lines down Main Street dividing the “haves” from the “have nots,” it’s because they did.

Maps drawn in 1937 for the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation — a federal government agency — were used by the mortgage industry for decades to deny mortgages in areas where poor people and residents of color lived, a practice known as “redlining.”

By Wright Thompson

Read the full article from The Alantic, here.

Emmett till was killed early on the morning of August 28, 1955, one month and three days after his 14th birthday. His mother’s decision to show his body in an open casket, to allow Jet magazine to publish photos—“Let the world see what I’ve seen,” she said—became a call to action. Three months after his murder, Rosa Parks kept her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, and she later told Mamie Till that she’d been thinking of Emmett when she refused to move. Almost 60 years later, after Trayvon Martin was killed, Oprah Winfrey channeled the thoughts of many Americans in evoking the memory and the warning of Emmett Till.

By News Editorial Board

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz plans to spend $300,000 in federal stimulus money to attack the racial disparity in health outcomes. It’s a good start. The challenge for Poloncarz: Ensure the spending actually narrows the gap.

In Erie County, African American children are more than twice as likely to die within a year after birth, according to the County Health Rankings report, and twice as likely to die before they turn 18. African American girls are 2 1/2 times more likely than whites to give birth in their late teens.

Underlying all of that is poverty. Nearly half of African American children in Erie County are living in poverty – five times the rate among white children.

By News Staff Reporter

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

The “guaranteed income” program Mayor Byron W. Brown has proposed for Buffalo shares the traits of other such initiatives around the country with one exception: More people would participate.

The $500 monthly payment is in line with pilot projects proposed or already running in 16 other cities, according to a Buffalo News review of their criteria.

By News Staff Reporter

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

Related plans to invest up to $50,000 per unit on renovations that should begin this fall and take up to 18 months to complete at the Princeton Court Apartments, Parkside Houses Apartments, Brewster Mews Apartments and Oxford Village Townhomes. Current owner M.J. Peterson Corp. will remain a 50% owner and continue to manage the properties.

Amherst Industrial Development Agency officials say the projects preserve roughly 1,000 units of affordable housing in the town for the next 30 to 40 years. The IDA board approved the incentive requests on July 16. Related also is seeking a payment in lieu of taxes agreement from the Town of Amherst.

By News Business Reporter

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

The next phase of work at Elmwood Crossing is poised to begin in just over a month, with a little-noticed conversion project would bring low-income seniors to live in a former hospital buildings.

People Inc., the region’s largest social services nonprofit agency, plans to transform the former Maternity Building at the old Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo into a senior housing facility.