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Meet Joseph Winters: From Inmate to CEO of a Birmingham Road Builders Company

By Sym Posey The Birmingham Times Joseph Winters describes himself as a “lifelong learner and a student at heart,” and the lessons he’s learned have included a 62-year prison sentence—as well as the recent purchase of the Birmingham, Alabama-based Kelly Road Builders (KRB). Along the way, Winters, an experienced land development manager with a history […]
The post Meet Joseph Winters: From Inmate to CEO of a Birmingham Road Builders Company first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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2 years ago

December 5, 2023

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Joseph Winters, CEO and president of Kelly Road Builders. (Desiree Greenwood, For The Birmingham Times).

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By Sym Posey

The Birmingham Times

Joseph Winters describes himself as a “lifelong learner and a student at heart,” and the lessons he’s learned have included a 62-year prison sentence—as well as the recent purchase of the Birmingham, Alabama-based Kelly Road Builders (KRB).

Along the way, Winters, an experienced land development manager with a history of working in the construction industry, has earned a Master of Real Estate Development (MRED) degree from Auburn University, and helped create two Alabama-based businesses: TWO Oaks Development and TWO Oaks Construction, a homebuilding development and construction company with projects in Birmingham and Huntsville, AL.

After his purchase of KRB last month, Winters said, “I am elated about the opportunity. … I have a long-term vision to increase our presence in the markets we’re in already, in addition to new markets.”

As the new CEO and president of KRB, Winters is taking over a company from someone who has helped him by providing professional direction—Robert Earl Kelly, founder of KRB, one of the largest road milling companies in the Southeast. Milling is a process through which the surface of a paved area (road, bridge, parking lot, etc.) is removed to help restore it to a uniform texture or prepare it for repaving.

“[Kelly] is a servant leader in the Birmingham area with a prominent Black-owned business and a great rep for performing quality work and leading a great competent crew,” said the 50-year-old Winters. “I thought he would be someone who would be a good mentor to me as an aspiring construction business owner.”

Growing up in the drug trade on the west side of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Winters never imagined that he would become a highly successful figure in the construction industry.

Getting Into Trouble

Winters remembers his parents divorcing when he was around age 11. As a result, he became angry, resentful, and defiant.

“My father was actually my best friend. When he and my mother divorced, I didn’t have any immediate male role models that I clung to. I was a little lost when he left, so I turned to my friends and peers in the streets for leadership. Throughout the course of that, I found myself dealing with some criminality,” said Winters.

Although he remained studious, he started fighting and getting into trouble with his peers.

Around the age of 14, Winters found himself incarcerated for stealing. “I would steal purses, belts, and clothes, … boosting with my friends or people from school. It made me a little money and gave me a taste of money and independence. It escalated, and before I knew it, I was selling drugs, … selling crack cocaine,” he said.

Things worsened from there. By the time he turned 18, Winters was “one of the largest dealers in the city,” he said.

Despite his life outside of school, Winters always excelled in his classes at Tuscaloosa’s Central High School. He went to class every day, was an A and B student, took advanced classes, and shined in math and science.

“Because of my lifestyle, I kind of had a spotlight on me,” he said. “My senior year in school, … I had a Mercedes[-Benz] and BMWs, all the toys drug dealers buy at a young age.”

But it would all come crashing down.

On Nov. 1, 1991, Winters’ friends planned for him a what was supposed to be a surprise party for his 18th birthday.

“They tricked me,” he recalled. “They took me bowling and to a high school football game. We left the game because people repeatedly asked me what time my party was. I didn’t even know I was having a birthday party. More than 100, 200 people were in attendance. It was a big to-do.”

Around midnight, a fight ensued. In an attempt to disperse the crowd, Winters fired a gun into the air. At the same time, a police officer pulled up and shot Winters. After shooting Winters, the police officer instructed Winters to put the gun down and get on the ground. Winters said he promptly followed the police officer commands. Pandemonium immediately broke out and Winters found himself in the hospital. “They patched me up, and I was free to go home,” Winters remembered.

Four months later, he was charged with attempted murder of an officer: “They said I was trying to kill a cop that night,” Winters said. But even before those charges, he was arrested for drug sale and unlawful distribution.

Sentenced

By March 1993, Winters was convicted in the attempted murder case and found guilty of three other drug offenses. He was sentenced to serve a combined 62 years behind bars: 30 years for attempted murder, 20 years for drug trafficking, 10 years for unlawful distribution, and another two years for unlawful distribution.

At just 19 years old, Winters was sent to Draper Correctional Center in Elmore, Alabama. Immediately after arriving, he earned his GED. Still, he found himself with his “back against the wall,” he said.

“When I first went in, I didn’t just go in and become a saint,” Winters recalled. “I was smuggling drugs into the prison and things of that nature, and I found myself facing additional charges [because] some fellow inmates implicated me in a drug transaction they got caught in.”

The warden gave Winters an option to straighten up, and in November 1995 he was sent to Ventress Correctional Facility in Clayton, Alabama. After serving approximately eight years behind bars, he found himself in front of a parole board.

“[They were] compassionate and gracious enough to give me parole after I’d served eight years and nine months,” he recalled.

In October 2001, he was released and reunited with his family. “I came home, … got my [commercial driver’s license (CDL)], and worked for an asphalt pavement company. It was my first job, and I worked with them for little less than a year. I went on to work for an oil field company for almost two years. … Then I found myself back in prison again with a fresh 130-month sentence for drug conspiracy,” Winters said.

Once again, Winters was behind bars. His parole was revoked, and he was sent to the ADOC Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore, AL. Eventually, he was transferred to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and did stints in Yazoo City, MS and Fort Dix, NJ.

Making a Living

Going from state prison directly to federal prison, Winters served an additional seven years, but this time he approached his incarceration differently, he said.

“The first time I went to prison, I learned how to live because all I did was [participate in] drug- and behavior-modification programs and study religion,” he said. “The second time I went to prison, I learned how to make a living.”

While serving his second prison sentence, Winters pursued becoming a certified fitness trainer, a fiber optic installer, and a solar panel installer, in addition to earning two associate degrees: one in construction management and one in computer-aided drafting and design (CADD).

In June 2015, he was released from federal prison and worked as a state highway road and bridge inspector in Birmingham. By 2016, he made plans to return to college to pursue a bachelor’s degree in construction management. Before earning that bachelor’s degree from Everglades University online, he also enrolled in Auburn University’s MRED program. He eventually earned his bachelor’s degree in construction management in 2018 and his MRED degree in 2020. In January 2018, Winters moved to Tennessee, where he worked as a land developer. And in March 2020, he returned to Alabama.

“My daughter was entering her senior year in high school and, because I had been away for so long, I wanted to be closer to her, so I looked for something closer to her,” he said of his move back to Birmingham.

While working for a Birmingham-based homebuilder, Winters gained more construction experience from managing Birmingham-based construction firm Tortorigi Construction. Over the next one-and-half years, Winters bonded with its owner, Joseph Tortorigi, who gave Winters the opportunity to start his own business.

By March 2021, Winters would help found TWO Oaks Development, followed by TWO Oaks Construction in November of the same year. All of that would lead him to purchase KRB and continue the work of his mentor, Robert Earl Kelly.

“I’m looking forward to getting the employees more engaged, helping to strengthen their commitment to KRB, and continuing to share the vision that was set by [the previous owners],” he said.

Winters, a father of two young adults, is currently engaged and is in the process of planning his wedding. In his free time, he enjoys swimming, working out, and reading history and religious texts.

This article originally appeared in The Birmingham Times.

The post Meet Joseph Winters: From Inmate to CEO of a Birmingham Road Builders Company first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

1 week ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

2 weeks ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

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PRESS ROOM: NBA Hall of Fame Nominee Terry Cummings Joins 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to Launch Victory & Values Initiative

NNPA NEWSWIRE — NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th.

Published

2 weeks ago

February 27, 2026

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Cummings becomes an honorary member, joining other role model sports stars

NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings has officially become an honorary member of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County, marking a powerful new chapter for the 100 Black Men and youth development across the region.

Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th. The moment signified more than membership — it marked the launch of the organization’s transformative new platform, the Victory & Values Initiative.

The Victory & Values Initiative is a groundbreaking youth development program designed to empower elementary and middle school students through a dynamic blend of sports, mentorship, and STEM exposure. The initiative focuses on building health, discipline, character, leadership, and access to opportunity — creating pathways for long-term academic and personal success.

“This is about more than sports,” said Cummings during the ceremony. “It’s about using the platform of athletics to teach life lessons, create access, and build the next generation of leaders.”

The induction ceremony also featured notable guests including NASCAR’s newest Star Driver, Lavar Scott and NASCAR Director of Athletic Performance, Phil Horton, who joined Cummings for a powerful Victory & Values Town Hall discussion. The Town Hall was moderated by renowned Sports Emcee John Hollins and focused on leadership, resilience, discipline, and the importance of mentorship in shaping young lives.

A “Day at NASCAR” for 75+ Youth

Cummings wasted no time getting to work. On his first full day as an honorary member, he joined his new brothers of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to host a “Day at NASCAR,” escorting more than 75 youth to a once-in-a-lifetime experience at EchoPark Motor Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).

The youth participants received behind-the-scenes access including: an exclusive tour of Pit Row, access to the Garage Area and exploration of the interactive Fan Zone.

The experience culminated with a surprise meet-and-greet and Q&A session with NASCAR Superstar Bubba Wallace, who shared insights on perseverance, preparation, and breaking barriers in professional sports.

The day served as a living example of the ‘Victory & Values’ Initiative in action — exposing youth to new industries, expanding their vision for the future, and connecting them directly with high- level mentors and role models.

Building Leaders Through Access and Mentorship

The 100 Black Men of DeKalb County – a chapter of the largest, national mentoring organization in the county – continues to expand its footprint with programs focused on academic excellence, economic empowerment, leadership development, and health & wellness.

The launch of ‘Victory & Values’ represents a strategic expansion of the organization’s impact

intentionally integrating athletics and STEM to engage youth at an early age while reinforcing core principles such as integrity, accountability, teamwork, and perseverance.

“Our mission has always been to mentor the next generation,” said Vaughn Irons, President-Elect of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County. “With Terry Cummings joining the brotherhood, along with partners in NASCAR and professional sports, we are creating unprecedented access and exposure for our youth. Victory & Values is about turning inspiration into structured opportunity.”

By connecting elementary and middle school students to professional athletes, executives, STEM professionals, and community leaders, the initiative aims to:

Increase youth exposure to careers in sports business, engineering, and performance science
Strengthen mentorship pipelines
Promote physical wellness and mental resilience
Build character-driven leadership at an early age

Open Invitation to Youth and Families

All youth are invited to participate in the Victory & Values Initiative, along with the other countless, impactful programs offered by the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County.

Parents and guardians seeking mentorship, leadership development, academic enrichment, and transformative exposure opportunities for their children are encouraged to connect with the organization.

As NBA Legend Terry Cummings’ induction demonstrates, Victory & Values is more than a program — it is a movement designed to build champions in life, not just in sports.

For more information about the Victory & Values Initiative or to enroll a student, contact: 100 Black Men of DeKalb County at Phone at 404.241.1338, info@100bmod.org or Tee Foxx at 404.791.6525,