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United Travel Credits Giving HBCU Golf Programs Wings, Expanding Range of Traditionally Underfunded Teams

NNPA NEWSWIRE — On Wednesday, some 23 years later, and on her 41st birthday, no less, Levister was at Memorial Park Golf Course to watch three of the players she coaches at Prairie View A&M University play in the pro-am at the Cadence Bank Houston Open. Christian Latham, who is working on his master’s degree in architecture, and seniors Rondarius Walters and Taylor Harvey, a member of the women’s team, would play with Phil Griffith, who is a vice president of operations for United Airlines’ Houston hub, and PGA TOUR pros Stewart Cink and Matthew NeSmith.

Published

3 years ago

November 26, 2022

Oakland Post

Mesha Levister (second from left) was at Memorial Park Golf Course to watch three of the players she coaches at Prairie View A&M University play in the pro-am at the Cadence Bank Houston Open.

By Helen Ross, PGA Tour, Special to NNPA Newswire

James Levister thought it would be a phase.

Sure, he was an avid golfer. A 4 handicap at his best, in fact.

But when he started his 3-year-old daughter, Mesha, playing golf, he figured she would eventually get tired of the game.

He was wrong, though. His daughter loved playing with her dad on weekends — she finally beat him when she was 16 and never lost again — and she thrived on the challenge of the game.

“It was our thing,” Mesha said. “I liked that it was hard, and I continued to play because it was hard. But for me, when I was small, it was about being with him and doing something different.”

She played four years of varsity golf and basketball at her Florida high school, got scholarship offers in both sports, and wanted to turn pro. Eventually, she had to choose between the two.

“I told my dad I would rather play golf because there are fewer people that look like me playing golf,” said Levister, who is African American. “I wanted to be a trendsetter…I felt like I had something to give in the game. I didn’t realize what it was back then as a little 17-year-old.”

On Wednesday, some 23 years later, and on her 41st birthday, no less, Levister was at Memorial Park Golf Course to watch three of the players she coaches at Prairie View A&M University play in the pro-am at the Cadence Bank Houston Open.

Christian Latham, who is working on his master’s degree in architecture, and seniors Rondarius Walters and Taylor Harvey, a member of the women’s team, would play with Phil Griffith, who is a vice president of operations for United Airlines’ Houston hub, and PGA TOUR pros Stewart Cink and Matthew NeSmith.

“I hope that they get an out-of-this-world experience that they may not have ever gotten — ever,” Levister said. “Or that it opens up their eyes to the maximum potential and drives them to be whatever they want to be.”

The pairing with Griffith is no accident. United Airlines, in partnership with the PGA TOUR, has earmarked more than $500,000 in grants to 55 golf teams at HBCUs like Prairie View.

Each school gets $10,000 in travel credits to bolster travel and recruiting budgets and potentially help more than 250 student-athletes compete in places that may have been out of reach.

United and the TOUR recently announced a multi-year extension of their official marketing relationship, extending the annual commitment to HBCUs through 2025.

Griffith also attended a clinic earlier this week in which golfers from another Houston-area HBCU, Texas Southern, worked with youngsters from the First Tee. He’s excited about the impact the grants are having.

“I’m very impressed with these kids and when I look at where I was back then, if you don’t know that something exists, yeah, it’s kind of hard for you to aspire for,” Griffith said. “And a lot of the things that these kids are doing today, I had no aspirations for because I just didn’t know.

“I think as we continue this program,” he added, “just opening their eyes and showing them valuable and effective ways of getting there, it’s going to be a lot of fun over the years. That’s what I’m hoping.”

All in it together

Levister coaches the men’s and women’s teams at Prairie View A&M, which is the second-oldest public university in Texas.

She’s also done double duty at North Carolina Central University (NCCU), as well as at Lincoln University in Jefferson, Missouri.

“It’s interesting to see the dynamic and be able to create a culture here of togetherness and make sure that everybody roots for everybody because we’re all one team,” Levister said.

Forging something of a non-traditional path is second nature to Levister. When the women’s team at her college in Florida disbanded, she was recruited by NCCU to play on its men’s team.

She played No.1 and was the team’s most valuable player as a freshman, also earning Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Rookie of the Year honors.

After 9/11, Levister left school and went home to Wash., D.C. She was the first African American to win the 2004 Virginia Women’s Amateur and was named the state’s female golfer of the year. She turned pro in 2006 and joined the Symetra Tour in 2010.

Life on the road could be lonely, though, particularly for a young woman who was often the only African American entered in an event.

“I’m still a golfer, regardless,” Levister said firmly. And she can’t shake the memory of being pulled over by a policeman in New York.

“The cop came over and asked the other tour player that was in the car, who was a white female, instead of asking the normal stuff, he asked the young lady that was in the passenger seat, ‘Are you OK?’” Levister said.

“So, for me that was a little bit of a traumatic experience…But he let me go. So, he really pulled me over just to check on the person in the car.”

After Levister’s father died in 2014, she decided to quit the tour.

She still competed, winning the 2015 EP Pro Women’s Championship, but began to focus on teaching. She joined the staff at NCCU in 2020 and helped start the women’s program before heading to Prairie View A&M.

She’s only been there about a month, but she already feels accepted by her players, who share her goal of returning the Panthers to dominance in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

And she wants to make it easier for others to follow her path.

“I am definitely all about how I take on life now,” Levister said. “I just want to be a good person, do the right thing and break glass ceilings for the next people behind me so they don’t have it as hard as I did.”

Keeping the program alive

When Prairie View A&M lost its golf coach last fall, Latham had just graduated magna cum laude, finishing his architecture degree in three years, and started working on his master’s.

But the team needed a coach, and Latham stepped up in a big way. “He really held the fort down last year for both of the teams,” Levister said.

Like Levister, Latham was a multi-sport athlete who started playing golf because of his dad. But his favorite sport was baseball — his grandfather Cliff Johnson played 20 years in the major leagues, including two World Series with the New York Yankees.

By the time Latham got to high school, though, he had become disillusioned with baseball. He endured racist taunts, many times from the adults and coaches who flat-out lied to him.

“I lost my passion for baseball,” he said. “I didn’t even want to play anymore. So that’s what really got me stuck into golf because it’s like at the end of the day, no one can else say anything about me as long as I’m shooting a score I need to shoot.

“So that’s how I really got into it. And I just focus on golf only now. That’s what brought me.”

The summer before he entered high school in Katy, Texas, a Houston suburb, Latham spent every day at the golf course.

He shot 111 in his first tournament, but by the end of the summer, he broke 80 for the first time.

With continued improvement, he began to think about playing in college and verbally committed to Prairie View A&M after his sophomore year.

In addition to studying for his master’s, where he’s designing a practice facility for the golf team as a class project, and hitting balls on the range, Latham is getting hands-on experience by working at an architecture firm several days a week.

He also has a 14-month-old son named Kai — who is full of “joy and happiness,” Latham said — half the week.

“He’s like my little twin,” Latham said. “So now I got him a plastic set of golf clubs and seeing him wanting to play with that is pretty cool.”

Just because he’s working on his master’s degree doesn’t mean Latham is giving up on his dream to play golf professionally, though.

He’s already played in one APGA event and hopes to play well enough this year to finish in the top five of its collegiate rankings, which would give him scholarship access to the tour’s events through the remainder of the 2023 season.

“I’m not going to just stop that goal and stop that dream,” he said.

“I’m going to still work hard this semester to try to get to that level or continue to just add on to where I should be.”

Giving players wings

With the travel credits provided by United, schools like Prairie View A&M will be able to compete in higher profile events that might otherwise seem out of reach — quite literally.

Levister, who once rode 11 hours from Durham, N.C. to Port St. Lucie, Florida, for a college tournament, has already started putting those credits to work.

“Even in the short time that I’ve been here, it’s saved us a tremendous amount of time and money just to be able to have access to go over to Houston Airport and to fly,” she said.

“Just to reduce costs of travel helps tremendously because now we can use those funds to give them a better experience as a student-athlete and a college golfer.”

Latham remembers a 15-hour bus ride from Houston to Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, where the Panthers played in — and won — the 2021 PGA Works Championship at TPC Sawgrass.

With two travel days each way and the tournament itself, the Black Panthers were gone nine days.

That’s why on Wednesday Latham planned to thank Griffith for United’s support. That United and organizations like the PGA TOUR are seeing value in HBCU golf has been a big help.

“I want to say it makes us feel more comfortable when we’re not having to travel,” Latham said, “cramped up for 14 hours, 16 hours, when we could just make a two-hour plane ride. And it makes an impact on the team.”

“I mean, we’ve had times to where people didn’t even have enough seats on the bus,” he continued, “and we’re just kind of all locked up or having to make multiple trips to get somewhere because we don’t have enough room to bring everybody.”

“So, it means a lot. Gives us the opportunity to try to feel more like a sports program because we see other sports programs get to travel like that. And we never necessarily got to.”

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EXCLUSIVE OP-ED: President Joe Biden Commemorating Juneteenth

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — “I’ve always believed that we need to be honest about our history, especially in the face of ongoing efforts to erase it. Darkness can hide much, but it erases nothing. Only with truth can come healing, justice, and repair.”

Published

4 days ago

June 20, 2025

admin

By Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
46th President of the United States: 2021—2025

The people of Galveston, Texas, have been commemorating Juneteenth since the Civil War ended. Yesterday, in honor of the 160^th anniversary, I went there to join them.

You can read about the events of Juneteenth, but there’s nothing quite like going to Galveston and seeing where it all happened.

After General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, Union troops marched across the South for two months, freeing enslaved people along the way. Their final stop was Galveston, an island off the Gulf coast of Texas. There, on June 19, 1865, Union troops went to Reedy Chapel, a church founded in 1848 by enslaved people, and posted a document titled simply “General Order #3.”

“The people of Texas are informed,” it said, “that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

We can only imagine the joy that spread through Galveston – and across the state and nation – on that day and those that followed.

Yesterday, there was once again joy in Galveston, with a parade, picnic, and fireworks. There was also great solemnity, because Juneteenth is a sacred day – a day of weight and power.

The Book of Psalms tells us: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Juneteenth marks both the long, hard night of slavery and subjugation, and the promise of that joyful morning to come.

As President, I had the great honor of signing the law declaring Juneteenth a federal holiday. It was our nation’s first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was created in 1983.

Our federal holidays say a lot about who we are as a nation. We have holidays celebrating our independence… the laborers who build this nation… the servicemembers who served and died in its defense.

And now, we also have a national holiday dedicated to the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans.

Signing that law was one of my proudest acts as President.

Yet for 156 years, Juneteenth was not written about in textbooks or taught in classrooms. Still today, there are those who say it does not deserve a holiday. They don’t want to remember the moral stain of slavery and the terrible harm it did to our country.

I’ve always believed that we need to be honest about our history, especially in the face of ongoing efforts to erase it. Darkness can hide much, but it erases nothing. Only with truth can come healing, justice, and repair.

I also believe that it’s not enough to commemorate the past. We must also embrace the obligation we have to the future. As Scripture says, “Faith without works is dead.” And right now, we Americans need to keep the faith and do the work.

In honor of Juneteenth, let’s help people register to vote.

For decades, we fought to expand voting rights in America. Now we’re living in an era when relentless obstacles are being thrown in the way of people trying to vote. We can’t let those tactics defeat us. In America, the power belongs with the people. And the way we show that power is by voting.

So let’s reach out to family, friends and neighbors – especially those who have never voted before. Remind them that with voting, anything is possible. And without it, nothing is possible.

Yesterday in Galveston, we gathered in Reedy Chapel to commemorate Juneteenth, just like people have done for 160 years and counting. We prayed, sang, and read General Order #3 again. The pews were full of families. How many people must have prayed for freedom inside those walls. How many must have sent fervent thanks to God when slavery finally ended.

I remembered the words of my late friend John Lewis. He said, “Freedom is not a state. It is an act.”

Juneteenth did not mark the end of America’s work to deliver on the promise of equality. It only marked the beginning. To honor the true meaning of Juneteenth, we must continue to work toward that promise. For our freedom. For our democracy. And for America itself.

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Cities Across the U.S. Shrink or Cancel Juneteenth Events as DEI Support Wanes

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Across the country, Juneteenth celebrations are being scaled back or eliminated as public funding dries up and corporations withdraw sponsorship.

Published

5 days ago

June 19, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

Across the country, Juneteenth celebrations are being scaled back or eliminated as public funding dries up and corporations withdraw sponsorship. In many communities, the once-growing recognition of the holiday is facing sharp resistance tied to the unraveling of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

In Denver, Colorado, the annual Juneteenth Music Festival, one of the largest in the nation—was cut from two days to one. Organizers said more than a dozen corporate sponsors walked away from commitments, leaving them with a financial gap that almost canceled the event. Norman Harris, the festival’s executive director, said several companies “pulled back their investments or let us know they couldn’t or wouldn’t be in a position to support this year.” Harris credited grassroots donors and small businesses for stepping in when larger backers stepped aside.

In Colorado Springs, the local celebration was relocated to the Citadel Mall parking lot after support from previous sponsors disappeared. Organizers noted that where there were once dozens of corporate partners, only five remained. The downsized event was pieced together with limited resources, but community leaders said they refused to let the holiday go unacknowledged.

Scottsdale, Arizona, canceled its Juneteenth observance after the city council voted to dissolve its diversity, equity, and inclusion office in February. Without the office in place, the city offered no support for planning or funding, leaving residents without an official celebration.

In San Diego, the Cooper Family Foundation lost a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that had been earmarked for Juneteenth programming. Organizers said the decision forced them to personally finance key elements of the event, including cultural exhibits, performances, and youth engagement activities.

Bend, Oregon, called off its Juneteenth event entirely. Organizers cited political tensions and safety concerns, saying they could not secure the partnerships needed to proceed. A public statement from the planning committee described the current climate as “increasingly volatile,” making it difficult to host a safe and inclusive event.

West Virginia, which has recognized Juneteenth as a paid state holiday since 2017, will not sponsor any official events this year. State leaders pointed to budget constraints and recent decisions to eliminate DEI programming across agencies as the reasons for stepping away from public observance.

Austin, Texas, has also reduced its Juneteenth programming. While the city has not canceled events outright, organizers said diminished city support and fewer private contributions forced them to focus only on core activities.

“Thankfully, there was a wide range of support that came when we made the announcement that the celebration is in jeopardy,” said Harris. “But it shows how fragile that support has become.”

Stacy M. Brown

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#NNPA BlackPress

Juneteenth and President Trump

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Juneteenth is a day for African Americans in this nation to connect to their ancestry. It honors the end of slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday. The primary focus is freedom and the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States.

Published

5 days ago

June 19, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan
BlackPressUSA.com Newswire Washington Bureau Chief and White House Correspondent

President Trump is set to proclaim the federal observance of Juneteenth as the White House is open for business on this holiday. The White House says the president will sign a “historic proclamation designating Juneteenth as a National Day of Observance, marking the 160th anniversary of General Order Number 3 in Galveston, Texas.” The declaration was that “all slaves are free.” This Trump proclamation, according to the White House, “will celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation, the Republican Party’s role in passing the 13th Amendment, and reaffirm the administration’s dedication to equal justice and prosperity for all.”

This proclamation comes as President Trump has denounced Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and anything Woke. Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom from the tyranny of 250 years of slavery after the Civil War.

The Juneteenth celebration started when Union troops reached Galveston, Texas, and told the slaves that they were free on June 19, 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was created.

The Emancipation Proclamation, which is on display in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House, was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. It established that all enslaved people in Confederate states in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

Juneteenth is a day for African Americans in this nation to connect to their ancestry. It honors the end of slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday. The primary focus is freedom and the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States.

The Juneteenth federal holiday was signed into law by then-President Joe Biden on June 19, 2021. This Trump White House is in full swing today, with a press briefing by Karoline Leavitt, not taking the federal holiday off. Also, President Trump will receive an intelligence briefing in the morning and participate in a swearing-in ceremony for the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland.