By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

There are moments in American life when truth steps forward and refuses to be convenient. MacKenzie Scott has chosen such a moment. As political forces move to strip diversity from classrooms, silence Black scholarship, and erase equity from public life, she has gone in the opposite direction. She has invested her wealth in the communities this country has spent centuries trying to marginalize.

Her most recent gifts to historically Black colleges and universities have surpassed $400 million this year alone. These are not gestures. They are declarations. They say that the education of Black students is not optional, not expendable, and not dependent on the approval of those who fear what an educated Black citizenry represents.

And she is not the only woman doing what America’s institutions have refused to do. Melinda French Gates has invested billions in supporting women and girls worldwide, ensuring that those whose rights are most fragile receive the most assistance. At a time when this nation tries to erase Black history and restrict the rights of women, two white women, once married to two of the richest white men in the world, have made clear where they stand. They have said, through their giving, that marginalized people deserve not just acknowledgment but investment.

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At Prairie View A and M University, Scott’s $63 million gift became the largest in the institution’s 149-year history. “This gift is more than generous. It is defining and affirming,” President Tomikia P. LeGrande said. “MacKenzie Scott’s investment amplifies the power and promise of Prairie View A and M University.” The university said it plans to strengthen scholarships, expand faculty research, and support critical programs in artificial intelligence, public health, agricultural sustainability, and cybersecurity.

Howard University received an $80 million donation that leaders described as transformative. “On behalf of the entire Howard University community, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to Ms. MacKenzie Scott for her extraordinary generosity and steadfast belief in Howard University’s mission,” Wayne A. I. Frederick said. The gift will support student aid, infrastructure, and key expansions in academic and medical research.

Elsewhere, the impact ripples outward. Voorhees University received the most significant gift in its 128-year history. Norfolk State, Morgan State, Spelman, Winston-Salem State, Virginia State, Alcorn State, and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore all confirmed contributions that will reshape their futures. Bowie State University received $50 million, also a historic mark. “We are profoundly grateful to MacKenzie Scott for her visionary commitment to education and equity,” President Aminta Breaux said. “The gift empowers us to expand access and uplift generations of students who will lead, serve, and innovate.”

These gifts arrive at a moment when America attempts to revise its own memory. Curriculum bans seek to remove Black history from classrooms. Political movements claim that diversity is dangerous. Women’s contributions are minimized. And institutions that have served Black communities for more than a century must withstand both political hostility and financial neglect.

Scott’s philanthropy does not simply counter these forces. It exposes them. It asserts that Black students, Black institutions, and Black futures deserve resources commensurate with their brilliance. It declares that women’s leadership is not marginal but central to the fight for justice.

This is where the mission of the Black Press becomes intertwined with the story unfolding. For nearly two centuries, the Black Press of America has chronicled the truth of Black life. It has told the stories that others refused to tell, preserved the history that others attempted to bury, and spoken truths that others feared. The National Newspaper Publishers Association, representing more than 200 Black and women-owned newspapers and media companies, continues that mission today despite financial threats that jeopardize independent Black journalism.

Like the HBCUs Scott uplifts, the Black Press has always been more than a collection of institutions. It is a safeguard. It is a mirror. It is the memory of a people whose presence in this nation has been met with both hostility and unimaginable strength. It survives not because it is funded but because it is essential.

Scott’s giving suggests an understanding of this. She has aligned herself with institutions that protect truth, expand opportunity, and preserve the stories this country tries to erase. She has chosen the side of history that refuses to be silent.

“When Bowie State thrives,” declared Brent Swinton, the university’s vice president of Philanthropic Engagement, “our tight-knit community of alumni, families, and partners across the region and beyond thrives with us.”

Stacy M. Brown

Posts by Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

They had the audacity, the gall, the hypocrisy to condemn Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City, while opening the White House to a man their own government once called a terrorist. It was not long ago that the U.S. Embassy in Syria published a “Rewards for Justice” notice for Muhammad al-Jawlani, offering ten million dollars for his capture. His face, his name, and his crimes were displayed for the world to see. That poster remains online even now, an unaltered monument to America’s selective memory.

Yet this month, that same man, now known as Ahmad al-Sharaa, was greeted in the Oval Office as a partner and friend. The president who bans Muslims, mocks immigrants, and threatens to deport an elected official of color, smiled warmly for the cameras beside a man once sworn to jihad. He called their meeting “friendly and forward-looking” and praised al-Sharaa’s “vision for peace.” The irony was suffocating.

Al-Sharaa, who once commanded al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, now leads the very nation he once helped destroy. His journey from fugitive to head of state may astonish the world, but America’s acceptance of him reveals something far more telling. Trump’s government, which once condemned Syria’s militants as the scourge of civilization, now celebrates their leader as an ally. Perfume was sprayed, hands were clasped, and jokes about wives filled the air where solemnity should have stood.

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Meanwhile, in the same breath, the same government seeks to strip Zohran Mamdani of his citizenship. They accuse him of deceit, of sympathizing with terrorists, of bringing danger into America’s heart. His only crime is being Muslim and refusing to bow. Born in Uganda, raised in New York, and dedicated to serving its people, Mamdani ran a campaign focused on housing and affordability. For that, he was branded a threat. His opponents called him a “communist,” a “jihadist,” and worse. They moved to bar him from office, claiming he lied on his citizenship papers, though no such proof exists.

To his supporters, Mamdani stands for the very ideals this nation claims to defend. Yet the same leaders who cheer for a man with blood on his hands work tirelessly to silence a man with none. When Mamdani spoke of the cruel normalcy of Islamophobia, he described not just prejudice, but policy. It has become acceptable, even expected, for power in this nation to punish the devout and uplift the dangerous, to vilify the righteous and sanctify the reformed militant.

How easily the American conscience bends when profit, politics, or spectacle call. They will weep for victims of terror while shaking hands with its architects. They will warn of radicalism while applauding those who once preached it. And they will condemn the faithful who dare to lead in peace, because their peace threatens the myth of superiority.

A nation that once vowed to bring terrorists to justice now protects them in the halls of its highest office. The president who vowed to protect America from Islam now embraces a man who once led its enemies in battle. Yet a Muslim mayor, chosen by the people, is told he does not belong.

Such contradictions do not mark strength, but moral decay. A country that rewards violence and punishes virtue stands stripped of its own credibility. This is not the land of freedom it claims to be. It is a land that kneels before its own hypocrisy.

“To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity. But indignity does not make us distinct; there are many New Yorkers who face it,” Mamdani stated. “It is the tolerance of that indignity that does. No more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election.”

Oakland Post

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By Constance Carter
Wealth Advocate

Einstein called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world. Those who understand it earn it. Those who do not pay it. That is why the Trump administration is floating a 50-year mortgage. They are betting that we will not see the true cost.

He, him, and they are framing this as a path to affordability. But let me show you what it really is.

Let’s look at the math for a $420,000 home at 7 percent interest.

30-year mortgage:
Payment: $2,792 per month
Total interest: $586,332

50-year mortgage:
Payment: $2,527 per month
Total interest: $1,095,029

You save about $265 a month but pay an extra $508,697 in interest.
Half a million dollars.

That’s not a discount. It is a trap. Stretching a loan across five decades hands banks hundreds of thousands of dollars that will never circulate through our families or build our wealth.

The numbers don’t lie.

The median age of a first-time homebuyer in 2025 is 40, according to the National Association of Realtors. If a 40-year-old signs a 50-year mortgage, they will not own their home until they are 90.

Ninety years old.

You will be renting from a bank for half a century. This is not what the 30-year mortgage was designed to do.

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When the 30-year mortgage gained popularity in the 1950s, the average home was priced around $7,354, and the typical interest rate was about 4 percent. One income could support a family and pay a mortgage. The mortgage system we are being asked to trust today was never designed with our interests in mind.

From 1934 to the 1960s, the Federal Housing Administration refused to insure mortgages for Black families, calling it an “economically sound” policy. This helped establish the red lines on maps that labeled Black neighborhoods as “too risky.” Even Black veterans who served in World War II were denied access to GI Bill home loans that helped white families build generational wealth.

Black families were just as qualified to buy those affordable homes but were denied access.

White families purchased homes for $7,000 in the 1950s that are now worth $300,000 to $400,000. That appreciation built the white middle class. Black families were locked out by design.

If they move forward with the 50-year mortgage plan, working-class Black families in particular will feel the impact first, depleting the wealth we have accumulated despite all the barriers we’ve faced.

Prices are high. Rates are high. Affordability is at its lowest point in decades. We need two incomes, side hustles, credit stacking, and divine intervention to compete with institutional investors and inflated housing prices.

A 50-year mortgage does not solve this. It expands the burden by creating the illusion of affordability and traps people in a cycle of debt for life.

Think about retirement.

The average Social Security check is about $1,900 a month. Even if the program still exists in its current form by the time today’s buyers reach retirement age, how will they manage a $2,500 to $3,000 mortgage and still afford food, medicine, and basic living costs?

A 50-year mortgage pushes Black homeowners into a future where retirement is impossible, which is its own form of bondage. Bondage is debt you cannot escape. Bondage is owing a bank money until the day you die.

The data on Black wealth is already alarming. A report from Prosperity Now and the Institute for Policy Studies predicts that by 2053, the median wealth of Black Americans will fall to zero if trends do not change. A 50-year mortgage moves us closer to that outcome.

The legacy of housing discrimination still shapes today’s wealth divide. What we need is access, not more years added to a loan.

The real solutions are clear:

• Affordable housing construction.
• Lower interest rates.
• Higher wages.
• Down payment assistance.
• Regulation on hedge funds buying entire neighborhoods.
• Stronger consumer protections against products disguised as opportunities.

A 50-year mortgage solves none of this. It solves one thing for banks. Profit.

Family, do not make decisions today that will bankrupt your future. Before you sign a 50-year mortgage, ask yourself:

Will I still be paying this when I am supposed to be retired?
Will this help me build equity or delay it?
Will this protect or drain my family’s wealth?

A mortgage should be a path to ownership.
We cannot build generational wealth on a foundation of generational debt.

Oakland Post

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