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GODWIN HEIGHTS, Mich. At Godwin Heights Middle School, 7 girls are part of a group called "Girls for Change."

7th Grader at the school, Arianna Mckuhen tells us, "Girls for Change means to me like, girls can change the world! Girls can do anything a guy can do."

These empowered girls meet once a week to learn about social issues.

In 2020 some of the students took their education to the streets, attending Black Lives Matter protests and community clean ups in Downtown Grand Rapids.

While some of the girls were helping to clean up in May, their principal Bradley Tarrance noticed an artist on the street corner painting an exhilarating mural.

The name of that artist is Jamari Taylor, and together they hatched a plan to bring students' summer experience on the streets, to winter work in the hallways.

"So we linked her up with our girls for change group," explains principal Tarrance."Then we just started brainstorming... how can we tie art into history? Into writing, into reading, all of these pieces... Then the girls came up with the idea of the mural."

The girls have been enamored with the process of creating a mural in their middle school hallways depicting diversity.

6th grader, Amahria Dillard tell us, "I've always wanted to be an artist, and I've always wanted to paint like her (Jamari)."

It took Jamari six weeks to teach the girls how to paint like her, and more importantly how to paint the women they look up to.

Their teacher and the artist Jamari Taylor says; "So students, during the brainstorming process, they kind of pitched their idea of different things they wanted the community to be aware of."

She continues; "Right now, a lot of the Black Lives Matter Movement is going on, and one student wanted to talk a little bit about immigration, while one student wanted to support the LGBTQ community. So then we all just did a little bit of research, to find those women who are out here and empowering the community, and and that's how we chose the faces."

The faces featured on the mural at Godwin Heights include Alicia Garza, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, and Marielena Hincapie, an immigration lawyer from Colombia.

There's also Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Marsha P. Johnson, all diverse, powerful women.

Diverse women, for a school full of diverse kids.

About 60% of students at Godwin Heights Middle School are Hispanic, 30% African American, and the rest a mixture of white and refugees.

"We need more pictures like this in schools and the community because it makes them just feel appreciated here. Nobody's gonna judge me or anything. So it feels like a safe place to a lot of people," says Amahria.

Physically seeing diversity in their own hallways is creating a sense of pride at Godwin Heights Middle School.

So Jamari and the girls encourage you to really think about this project.

How can you demonstrate the strengths of diversity in your community too?

Jamari leaves us with this, "It's very, very empowering. It really pushes me to do more. I'm hoping that this will inspire other schools to maybe be considerate of Okay, what are other ways that we can help students here?."

Principal Tarrance beams with pride and concludes, "Our future's bright, our future is darn bright with these girls in charge of it!"

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Godwin Heights "Girls for Change" create diversity mural with BLM artist - Fox17

The Union Square rally was organized to form solidarity between the two communities, which share similar sufferings but have had a complex relationship that presented itself clearly at the event, according to Sing Tao Daily.

Photos courtesy of Sing Tao Daily

This story was originally published by Sing Tao Daily on March 22, and has been slightly condensed. Translated by Rong Xiaoqing.

A rally against anti-Asian hate crimes drew close to a thousand people to Union Square on Sunday. Among the many protests held in response to the shootings in Atlanta that caused eight deaths, including those of six Asian women, this one was jointly organized by young Black and Asian activists to form solidarity between the two communities, which share similar sufferings but have had a complex relationship that presented itself clearly at the rally.

The balmy weather helped draw a huge crowd of participants from all racial groups, with Black and Asian attendees making up the majority. Signs with words like Say no to anti-Asian hate and Hate is the virus were ubiquitous, and many held boards on which Asian lives matter and Black lives matter were written side by side.

Speakers from both communities emphasized that racism and white supremacism are their common enemies. One of the organizers of the event, a Black actor and screenwriter who goes by the name COFFEY, led the crowd to chant together in rhythm: Asian lives matter. Black lives matter. Your life matters. Our lives matter.

A lot of people dont believe in coming together. The first thing they do is the label out Blacks, and Asians too, as criminals. When [a] white supremist did this, they say he has a mental illness. Hell no! said COFFEY. We want you guys to live because we want to live. Thats why we are here.

Power Malu, an organizer and partner of Running to Protest, called for participants to stay together to keep fighting against stereotypes, even when the media attention wanes. He quoted Grace Lee Boggs, the Chinese American civil rights leader who married Black activist James Boggs and fought for equal rights for Black people until she passed away in 2015. The time has come to grow our souls, to grow our relationships with one another, to create families that are loving and communities that are loving, to bring the neighbor back into the hood, Malu quoted.

In a candid and powerful speech, Dao-Yi Chow, a Chinese American designer and one of the organizers of the rally, directly addressed anti-Black racism in the Asian community. The institutions that led to the murders highlighted by the BLM movement are the same that led to the shootings in Atlanta, said Chow.

We have to recognize our own anti-Black racism for decades, Chow added. We cannot be safe until everybody is safe.

The speeches received roaring cheers and reactions. Yuyi Jin, president of the Association of Guizhou, a township organization for Chinese from Guizhou province, said Black Americans have richer experience in civil rights protests and that the Black Lives Matter movement has offered a demonstration for Asian activists to follow. The most important thing is not the conflicts between different communities but the challenges of living in the U.S. for all, Jin said.

To Jie Li and Hang Chen, app-based taxi drivers from Fujian Province, anti-Black racism exists in the Chinese community but is not widespread. But they did notice that the Chinese community didnt stand up in large numbers during the BLM protests last year, either. Thats because the protests then were accompanied by some riots, and many Chinese didnt want to be seen as they were supporting violence, said Chen. Both vowed to support causes of the Black community more often. (City Limits note: While there were serious incidents of violence in a few areas of the city during last summers protests, the majority of protests were peaceful).

But not everyone feels the chasm between the two communities will disappear overnight. I have never seen a real solidarity. Its always that Black people lay the ground and others come to grab the spotlight, said Darryal Dashiell, who is Black and works in the movie and TV industry. Asians have achieved success in this country. What Ive seen more often is that Asians open shops in the Black neighborhoods and treat Black customers badly. If these protests can help us to put aside our differences and focus on our common interest, its going to be great. But I cannot see the hope now.

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In Wake of Atlanta Shooting, Black and Asian New Yorkers Rally Together Against Hate - City Limits

Aisha Ahmad-Post, executive director of the Newman Center for the Performing Arts, poses for a portrait at the University of Denver on Dec. 15, 2020. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)

My first (job) interview was the week the pandemic shut down the world, said Aisha Ahmad-Post during a Zoom call, an I-know-I-know smile punctuating the seeming absurdity of that fact. She got the job, and her start date as executive director of Newman Center for the Performing Arts was Aug. 3.

Playwright and director Idris Goodwin, too, began his job as the pandemic surged and waned, surged and waned (sort of) and the streets were populated with citizens reiterating what should have been a no-brainer, that Black Lives Matter. He now directs the Fine Arts Center at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.

Hired in 2018, Caitlin Lowans had a little more time under her belt as the artistic director of Theatreworks before the pandemic changed everything. The notable Colorado Springs company was on the eve of staging An Iliad, its sixth show in her first full season of programming, when all hell broke loose.

This month marks the year anniversary of the moment when the gathering arts began to crumple under the weight of COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, under the stewardship of Ahmad-Post, Goodwin and Lowans, the Newman Center, Theatreworks and the Fine Arts Center have stayed the course sharing performances, almost entirely in virtual fashion even as they have course-corrected. Each has been doing the work she/he embraced when they undertook their gigs: building community even in the midst of a community-bedeviling pandemic.

One of the highpoints of the Newman Centers 2010-21 season was supposed to be a visit by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. It still was a highlight, as the March 5 virtual performance of Marsalis Democracy! Suite, by the famed jazzman and a septet gamely proved. Was it live? Not quite, but it was memorable.

This fall I started having some conversations with the Jazz at Lincoln Center team about a virtual performance, Ahmad-Post wrote in an email. At the time, we were gearing up for the election season and the Democracy! Suite was particularly fitting. As Wynton will tell you, jazz is all about listening, responding, harmonizing, point and counterpoint. Maybe we could all use a reminder about how to be in dialogue, in conversation.

Ahmad-Post, a classically trained musician turned arts honcho, has known of the Newman Center since her time in New York City, when she was producing the New York Public Library systems Live! artists series.

It has all the things that are exciting to me when I think about the role of a performing arts center, when I think about the arts in a regional metropolitan center, she said. Ahmad-Posts goals go beyond maintaining the high-profile tug of the acoustically impressive Gates Auditorium that lure artists of Marsalis caliber, but also support homegrown but globally known creatives like choreographer Cleo Parker Robinson and her dance ensemble. It really has its own thing going on, so what should that look like and what should our conversation with the national and international community look like?

The pandemic has given her room unasked for, to be sure, but valuable just the same to start answering those questions.

Before grabbing the reins at Newman Center, Ahmad-Post had proven she could guide an arts organizations grandest designs while nurturing its deepest values, helming the opening of the Ent Center at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. The Ent is home to an art gallery, Theaterworks and an Artists Series.

The ambition of that project was enormous, says Ahmad-Post, who asked, How the Center could be part of the Colorado Springs resurgence and renaissance, especially in the arts.

That Ahmad-Post, Goodwin and Lowans share a relationship to the states second-largest city isnt lost on any of them. And the work theyve done has forced arts-loving Denverites to rethink any aversion to that drive south down Interstate 25. I think Colorado Springs is on the precipice of something really big with the arts and culture sector, Ahmad-Post said.

As for the Newman Center, beyond maintaining the high-profile tug of the acoustically impressive Gates Auditorium, Ahmad-Post intends on deepening the conversations between audience, venue and artists: giving local audiences more of a sense of their role in that equation.

I think theres a unique role for an arts center. How do you shape what a community is? How do you build empathy? How do you share stories that are highly specific and also universal?

Goodwin is no stranger to the Rocky Mountain West. He had been a professor at Colorado College for six years. During that time, his reach extended beyond the classroom: As a playwright and director, hed helmed productions at Curious Theatre Company and had his work performed at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

When the Black Actors Guild mounted a socially distanced but also virtual production of his hip-hop drama Hype Man last September, it was one of the few plays to be staged for an in-person audience during the 2020 fall season.

Being a professor was a great launch pad and foundation, he said of his time at CC. But I developed a real appetite for doing things in the civic space.

In 2018, he took a job as the producing artistic director of StageOne Family Theatre in Louisville, Ky. The organization introduces youngsters to the arts.

Goodwin and his family were living in Louisville when Breonna Taylor was killed by police. Being there this summer, during that (shooting) and also working in the cultural and civic space for two years its been a very surreal set of months, he said.

This American moment and his role in influencing the direction of a well-regarded multidisciplinary arts organization challenge him in ways he feels hes been moving toward his whole and varied career.

To be in the arts is really advantageous because were in the humanity business, were in the empathy business, the storytelling business, said Goodwin.

I came into my (job) interview basically saying, Are we just a building with some objects in it? Or are we more than that? Are we a conversation? Are we a lifestyle? Are we a cultural engine? Thats what I came in with. So then when we had to shut things down, it was a great opportunity to dig into that conversation.

An Iliad had been scheduled as the sixth show of Lowans first full season of programming, and was to open on March 12.

I was excited about it, said Lowans. Especially for the Springs, because of telling a story of war in a community, many of it comes from the military and veteran community.Lowans has become even more keen on expanding the communities that Theatreworks speaks and listens to.

In the intervening months, Lowans and Theatreworks juked and tweaked. In October, they presented monologist Anna Deavere Smiths House Arrest: A Search for Character In and Around the White House, past and present, having paired eight directors with eight performers for Zoom rehearsals.

For the last two weekends of February, Theatreworks experienced the fruits of all that pivoting. The Mitten: a Midwinter Puppetry Fable, created by JParker Arts and Katy Williams Designs, brought together a lovely, diverse group of puppeteers (across the race, gender, theatre discipline, level of experience spectrums), Lowans wrote in an email. And the warm response from the audience made me hopeful for the interdisciplinary adventurousness of audiences to come. The show sold out.

An Iliad is back on the companys slate for a late spring/early summer production in 2021. Whether it will unfold indoors, outdoors or virtually has yet to be confirmed. Before that, Theatreworks is providing two more pieces in its Sunday series of free virtual readings: Kate Hamills adaptation of Little Women, (April 11) and Aubergine by Julia Cho (May 16).

Lisa Kennedy (lkennedywriter@gmail.com) is a former film and theater critic for The Denver Post.

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Is Colorado Springs' theater scene on the cusp of something big? - The Know

LEWIS HAMILTON will be allowed to continue his anti-racism campaign ahead of F1 races this season.

Last year, the reigning world champion used the moments ahead of the national anthems to highlight causes, such as the Black Lives Matter movement.

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Hamilton also wore a t-shirt bearing the words "arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor" at the Tuscan Grand Prix to raise awareness of the woman who was shot by police in her own home.

Hamilton also chose to take a knee before the races but his decision was not universally copied, with six of the 20 drivers choosing to remain standing.

There was some criticism that it diluted F1's We Race As One campaign, used to promote anti-racism and equality.

The issue was raised by F1's new CEO Stefano Domenicali during testing earlier this month in Bahrain and the sport will make some tweaks to its pre-race procedure.

The rainbow will be dropped from their message and the sport will use time on the grid to raise awareness to a number of issues, such as sustainability and diversity.

However, drivers have been told they are free to express themselves during the message.

That means Hamilton can again take a knee if he wishes to do so.

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An F1 spokesman said: "The whole of Formula 1 is united in its support for #WeRaceAsOne and the drivers will all show their own support for the initiative ahead of the grand prix.

"The drivers will be free to show their commitment in their own way before the race and there will be no requirement for them to make a specific gesture.

"The important thing is all of them being together in full support of our initiatives on sustainability, diversity and inclusion and community."

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Lewis Hamilton will be allowed to continue anti-racism stance and highlight Black Lives Matter by F1 chiefs... - The Irish Sun

Social media users are wrongly claiming that an official Black Lives Matter organization was charged with committing wire fraud, laundering money and misusing donation money.

The reality is different: a lone Ohio activist was indicted on similar charges after he allegedly created a Facebook page that he passed off as a Black Lives Matter charity.

The facts havent stopped the spread of misleading claims about what happened.

"Black Lives Matter of Atlanta Charged with Wire Fraud, Money Laundering and Allegedly Using almost 500k in Donations For Personal Use," said conservative commentator Chuck Callesto, a former Republican congressional candidate, in one such tweet posted March 16.

Screenshots of Callestos tweet were shared on Facebook, along with other posts that repeated versions of the same claim. They were flagged as part of the platforms efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

The posts give the misleading impression that the wire fraud and money laundering charges were filed against an official chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement formed in 2013 after the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager, in Florida.

But Black Lives Matter was not charged.

The charges are actually against a 32-year-old activist named Sir Maejor Page, or Tyree Conyers-Page, according to the Justice Department. Page is accused of using a Facebook page called "Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta," an illegitimate nonprofit, to defraud donors on the platform who thought they were supporting a legitimate social justice organization.

Page created the Facebook account and registered "Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta" as a nonprofit organization in 2016, and he continued soliciting donations through Facebook after the groups tax-exempt status was revoked for failure to submit required IRS forms for three years, according to the indictment against him.

Prosecutors say Page misled Facebook users into believing their donations would be used to back protests in support of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. He received donations from more than 100 people through the Facebook page. He put thousands of dollars toward personal items, entertainment, hotel rooms and a house, the indictment says.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, a charity created as an outgrowth of the Black Lives Matter movement, said in September that it was not affiliated with Page and that it rejected "the extreme misleading behaviors of people who utilize our name for their own personal wealth and gain."

"Our stance remains that Mr. Page is not affiliated with Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, nor is he an activist for the movement," the foundation told PolitiFact.

Fox 5 Atlanta, a local TV station, reported in 2016 that Page had "parted ways" with the Black Lives Matter movement in Atlanta before starting his Facebook page.

A Twitter account for "Black Lives Matter Atlanta" posted two tweets that same year saying Pages group was "not a real chapter" and "not aligned w/ principles of BLM." The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation confirmed that the Twitter account is legitimate.

Using Facebook, PolitiFact messaged Callesto, who created the tweet that appeared on Facebook as a screenshot. After we reached out, he acknowledged that his tweet "could mislead" and posted a follow-up tweet in a thread under the original.

"This tweet is missing CONTEXT," Callesto wrote in the March 18 update. "It should read.. Black Lives Matter of GREATER Atlanta Charged with Wire Fraud, Money Laundering... Black Lives Matter of GREATER Atlanta refers to a(n) illegitimate nonprofit organization."

Callesto cited a Toledo Blade article about Pages indictment. He said he had copied the original claim from a headline on a news site. But PolitiFact searched Google and the Nexis news database and did not find a headline that matched the language in his tweet.

Conservative activist Jack Posobiec tweeted a similar claim while sharing a Daily Caller story about Pages indictment. Posobiec wrote, misleadingly, "Black Lives Matter of Atlanta Charged with Money Laundering, Wire Fraud, Allegedly Used $450,000 in Donations for Personal use."

Our ruling

A tweet reposted to Facebook said, "Black Lives Matter of Atlanta Charged with Wire Fraud, Money Laundering and Allegedly Using almost 500k in Donations For Personal Use."

Thats misleading. Black Lives Matter was not charged. The charges are against one person accused of misusing donations to what the Justice Department says was an illegitimate nonprofit posing as a Black Lives Matter charity.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation said in a September statement that it was not affiliated with that person. A local news report from 2016 said he had "parted ways" with the Black Lives Matter of Atlanta movement.

We rate this tweet False.

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No, Black Lives Matter wasn't charged with fraudulently spending donation money - PolitiFact