#NNPA BlackPress
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.

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.”
#NNPA BlackPress
Black Feminist Movement Mobilizes in Response to National Threats
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — More than 500 Black feminists will convene in New Orleans from June 5 through 7 for what organizers are calling the largest Black feminist gathering in the United States.

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
More than 500 Black feminists will convene in New Orleans from June 5 through 7 for what organizers are calling the largest Black feminist gathering in the United States. The event, led by the organization Black Feminist Future, is headlined by activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis. Paris Hatcher, executive director of Black Feminist Future, joined Black Press USA’s Let It Be Known to outline the mission and urgency behind the gathering, titled “Get Free.” “This is not just a conference to dress up and have a good time,” Hatcher said. “We’re building power to address the conditions that are putting our lives at risk—whether that’s policing, reproductive injustice, or economic inequality.” Hatcher pointed to issues such as rising evictions among Black families, the rollback of bodily autonomy laws, and the high cost of living as key drivers of the event’s agenda. “Our communities are facing premature death,” she said.
Workshops and plenaries will focus on direct action, policy advocacy, and practical organizing skills. Attendees will participate in training sessions that include how to resist evictions, organize around immigration enforcement, and disrupt systemic policies contributing to poverty and incarceration. “This is about fighting back,” Hatcher said. “We’re not conceding anything.” Hatcher addressed the persistent misconceptions about Black feminism, including the idea that it is a movement against men or families. “Black feminism is not a rejection of men,” she said. “It’s a rejection of patriarchy. Black men must be part of this struggle because patriarchy harms them too.” She also responded to claims that organizing around Black women’s issues weakens broader coalitions. “We don’t live single-issue lives,” Hatcher said. “Our blueprint is one that lifts all Black people.”
The conference will not be streamed virtually, but recaps and updates will be posted daily on Black Feminist Future’s YouTube channel and Instagram account. The event includes performances by Tank and the Bangas and honors longtime activists including Billy Avery, Erica Huggins, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs. When asked how Black feminism helps families, Hatcher said the real threat to family stability is systemic oppression. “If we want to talk about strong Black families, we have to talk about mass incarceration, the income gap, and the systems that tear our families apart,” Hatcher said. “Black feminism gives us the tools to build and sustain healthy families—not just survive but thrive.”
#NNPA BlackPress
Hoover’s Commutation Divides Chicago as State Sentence Remains
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Hoover was convicted of murder and running a criminal enterprise. Although some supporters describe him as a political prisoner, the legal and public safety concerns associated with his name remain substantial.

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
The federal sentence for Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover has been commuted, but he remains incarcerated under a 200-year state sentence in Illinois. The decision by Donald Trump to reduce Hoover’s federal time has reignited longstanding debates over his legacy and whether rehabilitation or continued punishment is warranted. The commutation drew immediate public attention after music executive Jay Prince and artist Chance the Rapper publicly praised Trump’s decision. “I’m glad that Larry Hoover is home,” said Chance the Rapper. “He was a political prisoner set up by the federal government. He created Chicago Votes, mobilized our people, and was targeted for that.”
But Hoover, the founder of the Gangster Disciples, is not home—not yet. Now in federal custody at the Florence Supermax in Colorado, Hoover was convicted of murder and running a criminal enterprise. Although some supporters describe him as a political prisoner, the legal and public safety concerns associated with his name remain substantial. “There is a divide in the Black community here,” said Chicago journalist Jason Palmer during an appearance on the Let It Be Known morning program. “Some view Hoover as someone who brought structure and leadership. Others remember the violence that came with his organization.” Palmer explained that while Hoover’s gang originally formed for protection, it grew into a criminal network responsible for extensive harm in Chicago. He also noted that Hoover continued to run his organization from state prison using coded messages passed through visitors, prompting his transfer to federal custody.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is widely considered a potential 2028 presidential contender, has not issued a statement. Palmer suggested that silence is strategic. “Releasing Hoover would create enormous political consequences,” Palmer said. “The governor’s in a difficult spot—he either resists pressure from supporters or risks national backlash if he acts.” According to Palmer, Hoover’s federal commutation does not make him a free man. “The federal sentence may be commuted, but he still has a 200-year state sentence,” he said. “And Illinois officials have already made it clear they don’t want to house him in state facilities again. They prefer he remains in federal custody, just somewhere outside of Colorado.”
Palmer also raised concerns about what Hoover’s case could signal for others. “When R. Kelly was convicted federally, state prosecutors in Illinois and Minnesota dropped their charges. If a president can commute federal sentences based on public pressure or celebrity support, others like R. Kelly or Sean Combs could be next,” Palmer said. “Meanwhile, there are thousands of incarcerated people without fame or access to public platforms who will never get that consideration.” “There are people who are not here today because of the violence connected to these organizations,” Palmer said. “That has to be part of this conversation.”
#NNPA BlackPress
WATCH: Five Years After George Floyd: Full Panel Discussion | Tracey’s Keepin’ It Real | Live Podcast Event
Join us as we return to the city where it happened and speak with a voice from the heart of the community – Tracey Williams-Dillard, CEO/Publisher of the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=OsNLWTz6jU0&feature=oembed
May 25, 2020. The world stopped and watched as a life was taken.
But what has happened since?
Join us as we return to the city where it happened and speak with a voice from the heart of the community – Tracey Williams-Dillard, CEO/Publisher of the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.
She shares reflections, insights, and the story of a community forever changed. What has a year truly meant, and where do we go from here?
This is more than just a date; it’s a moment in history. See what one leader in the Black press has to say about it.
Recorded live at UROC in Minneapolis, this powerful discussion features:
Panelists:
- Medaria Arradondo – Former Minneapolis Police Chief
- Nekima Levy Armstrong – Civil Rights Activist & Attorney
- Dr. Yohuru Williams – Racial Justice Initiative,
- UST Mary Moriarty – Hennepin County Attorney
- Fireside Chat with Andre Locke – Father of Amir Locke
Special Guests:
- Kennedy Pounds – Spoken Word Artist
- Known MPLS – Youth Choir bringing purpose through song
This podcast episode looks at the past five years through the lens of grief, truth, and hope—and challenges us all to do more.
Subscribe to Tracey’s Keepin’ It Real wherever you get your podcasts or follow @mnspokesmanrecorder for more.
Visit https://spokesman-recorder.com for more coverage and stories from Minnesota’s trusted Black news source.
#GeorgeFloyd #BlackPress #SpokesmanRecorder #Minneapolis #BlackHistory
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