NYC Mayor Eric Adams and leadership of the NYC Council today announced a historic joint effort to strengthen early childhood education across the five boroughs. Including the address longstanding systemic issues, while boosting enrollment and connecting families with more Pre-K and 3-K seats. The strategic plan — developed by an unprecedented joint Adams administration-Council working…
In recent years, the workplace landscape inside the Philippines has gone through a great transformation, reflecting broader worldwide developments whilst adapting to local needs. Modern places of work within the Philippines are not simply spaces where work receives accomplished; they’re vibrant environments designed to foster collaboration, creativity, and well-being. This shift is redefining the paintings…
Selecting the right floating dock model will help in getting the most out of the waterfront property that is available. Since there are many models out there, knowing more about them will assist in making the right choice. This article describes different models of floating docks to assist you in choosing the right one. Modular…
Why do some new businesses thrive while others falter? Success as an entrepreneur requires more than just a great idea; it demands a strategic approach and a keen understanding of the market. In South Carolina, a state known for its robust economic growth, aspiring entrepreneurs find a welcoming environment that nurtures innovation and development. Last…
Employees are the backbone of a company. Their productivity defines the growth and future of an agency. This is the reason why most of the companies are paying more attention to the recruitment process of their workforce. Introducing new trends and technologies like predictive index behavioral assessment or online job-seeking websites, while getting rid of…
New York State Senator Cordell Cleare, Chair of the Senate Committee on Aging, and the AARP are calling on Governor Hochul to sign into law Senate Bill 8760A. Which will automatically identify and enroll participants in the State’s Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage Program (EPIC) into the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP). The bill passed both…
In September, the great trumpet will sound its horn for the last dance when Pluto transits back into Capricorn at 29 degrees on the evening of September 1, 2024 until November 19, 2024. Level up on your mission to transform your life. Nas has a song called “I Can” — believe in yourself and that everything you see around you has been built by someone’s imagination. During the new moon in Virgo on September 2 at 11 degrees, plant your seeds, speak love into your work and life, and purge things and people as needed. Uranus will retrograde on September 1, 2024. That’s a lot of big mama energy shaking things up with Pluto, Uranus, the Moon, Venus and Sun all in Earth—signs transforming the structures, systems, and operations of America’s agenda since 1776. “Change is inevitable, but transformation is a choice.” -HeatherAsh Amara
Capricorn: September is filled with supernatural guidance via visual, audio, conversational, tactile, and feeling modes. Relax, retreat, and rejuvenate to allow your mind to explore and complete the journey you are passionate about. Pluto in Capricorn will assist you when you apply yourself to see it through. A Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto conjunction occurred in 2020, leaving you a special gift, yet Pluto takes longer to issue or distribute out his gifts. Cappy, Pluto knows you are long overdue; so when Pluto leaves, he leaves you with something, as Pluto has transformed you throughout the years. Reflect on your life back as early as January 27, 2008 to see your progression.
Aquarius: Breathe for a moment as Pluto transits back into Capricorn to ground you before fully entering your sign for the next 20 years. Pluto in Aquarius put on a great teaser and test drive, gathering with the afterparty for another celebration of a good, funky time. September numerically speaks on self-improvement in areas in your life where you reach a higher divinity about yourself. Speak or utter the words, and believe what you say will happen like magic, because you are magic. Self-attunement is essential especially when the spirits or your ancestors speak to you or use people as agents to relate a message.
Pisces: September may feel a little rocky, like a boat rocking with back-and-forth motion. This motion is there to give you insight into an already laid-out foundation. Saturn in Pisces helps when you apply the footwork as you release yourself to keep moving forward with your agenda. This is the last call, like the title of Traci Braxton song. What are you willing to invest to make it happen and what are you willing to give up to make it happen either in the short or long term?
Aries: OK, Aries, you have seven months remaining before the north node in Aries transits into the next signs. Bring it on in September, as you began something in September of last year. What did you discover about yourself? The last 11 months were building blocks until the north node reached a certain degree in your chart to crystallize a situation in your life. Investments, advancement, separation, divorce, marriage, gains and transformation of a new addition to the family, or an increase in your finances are all possible. Growth is vital in September.
Taurus: Mighty Uranus transiting in Taurus is due for retrograde on September 1, 2024 until January 20, 2025. Are you ready for a major recap of your life? The Uranus transit in Taurus recaps old and new affairs in your life along with the events that occurred recently both in your life and on the global scale. The Uranus retrograde at 27 degrees is a powerful moment to see and accept the changes that occurred in your life and how they have shaped and formed it. September numerically speaks of a new direction and letting go to follow your passion at your own risk, knowing your ancestors are walking with you.
Gemini: Jupiter and Mars are traveling in your sign, giving you all the ammo to initiate your plan before Jupiter retrogrades on October 9, 2024 through Feb 4, 2025 back to 11 degrees. September is a month filled with unexpected tugs, pulls, and steps forward. Then you can take a step backward to catch the details and acknowledge what you see, feel and hear. Jupiter in Gemini is the great direct messenger, where news is coming from all angles through the grapevine, and highlights the ability to channel accurately. Seek within and ask yourself what it is that you’d like to create in life and capitalize on it.
Cancer: September brings an opportunity to position yourself strategically around the wise elders who can teach and share their stories of their success. What Americans call success is an everyday process toward your goals until it becomes natural to you. It’s a good cycle to choose a new direction emotionally and spiritually while opening your heart to something new. To move forward, we must deal with the self and with the experiences of others in life that the body emotionally holds onto, in order to progress forward. The new enhanced version of you is waiting.
Leo: September is a born-ready month of acknowledging what you had to do and grow through to be where you are today. Take a moment to reflect on your life. There are changes occurring internally for your spiritual purpose. Relationships are key in this cycle to address or create new alliances within your life or business affairs. While the same people you begin with may not be in your circle today, remember that everyone you encounter plays a role in your life, be it in the spiritual or physical realm. End, terminate, cancel subscriptions or let go of whatever seems to recycle back into your life like a revolving door. It’s time to close the cycle.
Virgo: September is a challenging cycle like dealing with your opposite sign. You know what you can carry and do in life. It’s time to balance out your energy like a scale to utilize your skills a bit more with your opposite sign of Pisces. Time to learn to be more adaptable, creative, and trusting to allow yourself to transform soulfully and not run from what you can learn. Studying until you know it is great; applying what you know is better. When you seek and ask questions, the results show up when you are ready to receive them.
Libra: The south and north nodes are on an 18-month transit axis, with the South node in Libra at 8 degrees with seven remaining months to show its card, both on a global scale and within your affairs. September indicates a change of profession or in the operation of your profession or employment. The changes occurring in your life are for a more purposeful spiritual journey. The soul needs to be fed, and not just externally; it needs internal supportive nourishment to thrive.
There is a message that is replaying in your mind along with a plan or new concepts of operating. Put it to the test and see what results you will receive.
Scorpio: September is about dedication, rewards, investments, advancement, and separation, as well as new and old affairs entering your life. Internally, you are yearning for a new beginning, as you’ve positioned yourself since last year in September to do so. Progress has been made due to remaining grounded and being consistent in your affairs; as tough as things have gotten, you never fold. Continue to follow your heart, as faith and destiny played a role in your life this year.
Sagittarius: September reminds you things are always happening both in your life and globally. September is all slow-motion and up-in-the-air energy, with things or people not confirming with a “yes” or “no.” You do realize it’s the details in the story that need attention, like a person who has something to say but instead expresses their feelings though cooking, eating, singing, writing, dancing, reading, watching TV, etc. The key is that what they are cooking, eating, singing, dancing, watching and reading is what they truly want to express. What is it that you want to express? Pay attention to the signs in the detours, and you will receive clarity.
During the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Michelle Obama’s braids and Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson’s afro were celebrated nationwide as symbols of Black pride, cultural identity, and resistance.
Given that the former First Lady once said America wasn’t ready to see a Black woman with anything but straight hair in the White House, their hairstyles symbolize a growing acceptance and recognition of natural hair in political spaces.
However, while Black hairstyles are becoming more accepted in politics, there is a stark contrast in America’s public schools. Black hair may be embraced in some places, but it remains heavily policed and criminalized in classrooms.
Hair dress code policies in schools disproportionately affect Black students, leading to higher rates of negative perceptions about their identity, severe psychological effects, and students being shoved into the school-to-prison pipeline.
Just weeks before the DNC, a judge dismissed a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by Darryl George, a Black student in Texas, after it was ruled that he was lawfully punished for wearing locs, a hairstyle rooted in African culture and spirituality. The school cited “its dress code” as the reason for the suspension.
A national issue for Black students
Savannah Walker, an Andrew Jackson High School senior in Jacksonville, Fla., told Word In Black that when schools enforce such policies, they are “not only policing hair but identity as well.”
“They’re basically telling us that we as our natural selves are unacceptable and that we must conform to white norms to be seen as respectable and worthy,” said Walker. “This is hurtful, especially for young people like me who are still figuring out their sense of self and identity.”
In 2017, 17-year-old Jenesis Johnson was sent to in-school suspension for wearing her natural afro to school. The school’s dress code mandated that hair be “kept neat and out of the face,” and administrators claimed her afro was a distraction.
In 2018, Faith Fennidy, an 11-year-old from Louisiana, was sent home because her braided hairstyle allegedly violated the school’s dress code. Fennidy’s case garnered national attention and sparked outrage over discriminatory hair policies in schools.
In 2019, Tyler House, a high school wrestler in Kentucky, was forced to cut his locs on the spot or forfeit his match. The referee insisted that his locs were not compliant with the sport’s regulations, despite other athletes with similar hairstyles not being asked to make changes.
These incidents, and many others like them, highlight the ongoing struggle Black students face in schools across the country.
According to a 2020 report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Black students, who make up only 15% of the U.S. public school student population, account for 45% of all school suspensions related to hair being cited as a dress code violation. In addition, 25% of Black students reported being penalized for wearing their natural hair, compared to just 5% of white students.
Does the CROWN Act protect Black students?
As of 2024, 25 states have passed the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN Act), which protects against hair-based discrimination in workplaces and schools.
The act first became law in California in 2019 and is designed to ban discrimination based on hair texture and protective hairstyles, including locs, braids, twists, and afros. In March 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the federal version of the CROWN Act.
The Biden Administration has voiced its support for the legislation. However, the bill stalled in the Senate, leaving millions nationwide without protection against hair-based discrimination.
In states without the CROWN Act, 67% of Black students report experiencing discrimination or bias related to their natural hair in school. States with the CROWN Act have seen a 25% decrease in reported incidents of hair discrimination.
Where do we go from here?
In May 2024, Democrats reintroduced the CROWN Act at the federal level. “This is not a partisan issue,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a leading voice in the fight for the act. “The federal government would simply be following the lead of our states. This is an issue of justice. This is an issue of fairness. This isn’t just an issue of ending discrimination that has existed for too long. Enough is enough.”
Meanwhile, in Jacksonville, Walker’s father, Kadeem Walker, said he believes a potential federal ban on discrimination against Black hair will ensure all students are free to express their cultural hair identity without fear of punishment.
“We must implement federal protections like the CROWN Act and hold schools accountable for discriminatory dress code policies,” he said. “It will be a giant step in ending these discriminatory practices on natural hair across the nation.”
Katrell Lewis, principal in the Public Strategies subsidiary of the Cozen O’Connor law firm, is a highly regarded public policy strategist and lobbyist who advocates on behalf of the firm’s clients in Albany and New York. The law firm was established in 1970 and broadly represents global corporations; its Public Strategies subsidiary works to build local and national government relations, provide policy analysis, advocate for legislation, and secure funding for programs in multiple areas.
“A lobbyist is essentially someone who is working with an organization to get the resources that they need for their constituency. Sometimes that’s corporate, sometimes that’s nonprofit, and sometimes that’s trade organizations,” said Lewis. “It is someone that’s your eyes, your ears, and your feet on the ground to every level of government you need to talk to to get the resources you need.”
Lewis’s biggest clients have included the Apollo Theater in Harlem, Harlem YMCA, and Brooklyn United Marching Band. He was a government relations fellow with the William J. Clinton Foundation (Clinton Global Initiative). Most recently, Lewis served as vice president of government and community partnerships at Habitat for Humanity New York City and Westchester County. He joined Cozen in 2023.
A Brooklyn native, Lewis grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in the 1990s, the youngest of three raised by a single working mother. He attended public schools in Bed-Stuy throughout his adolescent years and always had an interest in politics. He was most directly inspired by former President Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in 2004. Obama, at the time, was a state senator from Illinois and keynote speaker at the convention.
“He talked about [being] a young kid with a funny name and that really connected with me,” Lewis said. “At that time, I would’ve been 13, going into high school with a funny name. He talked about a Black kid who talks ‘white.’ Everything he was saying I connected with and since then, I was interested in politics and I knew I wanted to be in politics. I just didn’t know what that meant.”
Lewis earned his M.P.A. at the City University of New York (CUNY) Baruch College Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, and his B.A. in political science at the CUNY College of Staten Island. He said that attending school in a borough that was predominantly white and Republican was a real departure from his upbringing. While in college, he was vice chair of the CUNY CIS Association, a nonprofit affiliated with the school.
“I’d say generally that in most of the rooms I’m in, I am the only Black man, but that also allows me to talk about issues that are affecting Black communities from my client side, my team, and then the State Legislature as well,” Lewis said about his experience.During his tenure at Habitat for Humanity, Lewis helped to create hundreds of affordable homeownership units and affordable LGBTQ senior housing, advanced bipartisan state legislation to reform the state’s affordable homeownership program, and advocated for the addition of $400 million in affordable homeownership funding for the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal. In recognition of his leadership, Crain’s New York Business honored Lewis with their annual 40 under 40 recognition in 2022.
