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SAN BERNARDINO, CA—- Founded in San Bernardino, California in 2002, and expanded into the Bay Area in 2018, Time for Change Foundation’s (TFCF) mission is to empower disenfranchised low-income individuals and families by building leadership through evidence-based programs, and housing to create self-sufficient, and thriving communities.

Academy Award winner Taraji P. Henson will direct Academy Award Winner Jennifer Hudson in ‘Pepcy & Kim,’ a part of Iervolino Entertainment’s star-studded anthology project ‘Tell It Like a Woman’.

This project is seen by the non-profit as a means to expand on their mission. “If Kim could do it, so can other women,” says Time for Change Foundation Executive Director Vanessa Perez, “Kim Carter’s life story will inspire women as it speaks to our mantra, ‘we call it home, others call it hope.'”

As told by Variety Magazine, Hudson, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Effie White in 2006’s ‘Dreamgirls,’ will take on the role of both Pepcy and Kim in the piece, which is inspired by Kim Carter, a former addict who rebuilt her life, founded Time for Change Foundation, and has helped over 1,700 homeless women achieve self-sufficiency, while reuniting over 300 children with their mothers.

Andrea Iervolino, who founded the production company, said: ?”This trio is a marvelous compliment to the spirited filmmakers and talent banding together for this one-of-a-kind film, and their sincerity in delivering a ‘must see’ segment is simply moving. “We can’t wait to show this film to the world.”

Catherine Hardwicke, best known for her directorial efforts ‘Thirteen,’ and ‘Twilight’ has penned the segment—one of seven made by and about women that will make up one film, featuring the likes of Eva Longoria, Cara Delevingne, Margherita Buy, and Marcia Gay Harden.

‘Tell it Like a Woman’ producer Chiara Tilesi—founder of non-profit film production company We Do It Together—added: “‘Tell It Like A Woman’ has been a very long journey, almost six years producing this film, and we couldn’t have asked for a better ending segment in ‘Pepcy & Kim’….”

“I’m still amazed how God could take my pain and use it for my purpose to help so many others,” says TFCF Founder Kim Carter, “It’s a blessing!”

SAN BERNARDINO, CA—- Each Sunday morning Wallace Allen and Guest host Tammy Martin Riles discuss hot topics on KCAA 1050 AM Radio during the “Empire Talks Back” (ETB) broadcast. This coming Sunday they will celebrate the 4th of July with hot pizza slices!

“We will give free pizza slices from 10 AM to 11:30 AM to the first fifty listeners who stop by the KCAA Radio Station! Says Allen, the host of the 30-year-old ETB radio show.  We are featuring slices from Chef Raheem’s “Pies On The Flyy” Food Truck!  He and his family can quickly produce a variety of both Vegan and non-vegan pizzas in their portable clay oven. “  

The KCAA radio station is at 1378 Industrial Park Ave. in the Burlington Mall east of Alabama street, one block south of the 10 freeway. You are encouraged to “Begin the 4th of July with a slice of pizza pie!

By Stephanie Fox, Navy Office of Community Outreach

NEWPORT, R.I. – Lt. Ruben Gutierrez, a native of San Bernardino, California, joined the Navy as a way to gain valuable life experiences around the world and continue the family tradition of military service.  

“I come from a family of veterans,” said Gutierrez. “A Navy recruiter had come to my school and asked if I’d thought about joining the Navy. He told me they had a really cool rate that were like military police officers who could drive small, fast boats and shoot guns.”

Now, 18 years later, Gutierrez serves as the security officer for Naval Station (NAVSTA) Newport, located in Newport, Rhode Island.

“I’m in charge of force protection and protecting the installation,” Gutierrez said. “I make sure we are properly manned, trained and equipped to defend the installation.”

Growing up in San Bernardino, Gutierrez attended San Gorgonio High School and graduated in 2003. Today, he uses the same skills and values learned in San Bernardino to succeed in the military.

“Growing up, I learned to appreciate loyalty and resiliency and that’s what got me through my younger years,” Gutierrez said.

Those lessons have helped Gutierrez while serving at NAVSTA Newport.

Home to 50 Navy, Marine Corps Coast Guard and U.S. Army Reserve commands and activities, NAVSTA Newport’s mission is to fulfill the diverse requirements of its tenant commands by providing the facilities and infrastructure that are essential to their optimum performance. 

Thousands of students pass through NAVSTA Newport’s on-base schools from all parts of the United States and many free nations around the world. These schools include the Navy Supply Corps School, the Center for Service Support, the U.S. Marine Corps Aviation Logistics School and the prestigious Naval War College. For this reason, the base is the Navy’s premier site for training officers, officer candidates, senior enlisted personnel and midshipman candidates, as well as testing and evaluating advanced undersea warfare and development systems. 

With more than 90 percent of all trade traveling by sea, and 95 percent of the world’s international phone and internet traffic carried through fiber optic cables lying on the ocean floor, Navy officials continue to emphasize that the prosperity and security of the United States is directly linked to a strong and ready Navy.

According to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, four priorities will focus efforts on sailors, readiness, capabilities and capacity.

“For 245 years, in both calm and rough waters, our Navy has stood the watch to protect the homeland, preserve freedom of the seas, and defend our way of life,” said Gilday. “The decisions and investments we make this decade will set the maritime balance of power for the rest of this century. We can accept nothing less than success.”

Serving as a sailor and contributing to the Navy the Nation needs requires a combination of dedication and sacrifice, but Gutierrez believes the accomplishments achieved along the way make the hard work worth it.

“It makes me proud every time I’m able to re-enlist one of our outstanding sailors,” said Gutierrez. “It’s a highlight of my career every time.”

As Gutierrez and his fellow sailors continue to train and carry out their assigned duties, they take pride in serving their country in the United States Navy.

“It’s an opportunity to do my part to make a better future for both my family and my country,” added Gutierrez. 

By Bo Tefu | California Black Media

Watching your tax dollars, elected officials and legislation that affects you.

June is Pride Month and lawmakers in California are advancing a number of bills to make life safer and less difficult for people who are LGBTQ+.

Some of the proposed laws aim to address challenges that impact various segments of the African American LGBTQ+ community — either directly or circumstantially.

The first is Senate Bill (SB) 357. If the Legislature approves it, the law will repeal California Penal Code Section 653.22, which penalizes loitering with the intent to engage in sex work. This particular bill, if approved, supporters say will significantly reduce the risks and dangers many LGBTQ+ people at the lowest ends of the socioeconomic ladder face. Many of them are young people who turn to sex work because of a number of reasons, including being unsupported by their families or the social structure because of their sexuality; trauma brought about by sexual or physical abuse; drug addiction; unemployment, among other factors.

Based on English Elizabethan “poor laws,” loitering laws in America were developed as a part of the Black Codes in the late 1800s as a means to arrest Black people in order to sell their labor in a practice called convict leasing.

“These laws were created to eradicate us,” said Dr. Jon Paul Higgins, a California-based social justice advocate and writer who is African American.

“So, when you talk about the importance of repealing these laws, it’s not even just about the law, it’s about getting to the root of what’s creating these laws,” Higgins explained.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, “many persons who exchange sex may have a history of homelessness, unemployment, incarceration, mental health issues, violence, emotional/physical/sexual abuse, and drug use.”

In California – and across the United States — a disproportionate number of African Americans are impacted by those challenges — all of them considered social determinants of good health by Public Health professionals.

Because of the vagueness of these loitering laws, many critics have noted that they gave police a wide range of arresting powers to target “undesirables” like Black people and people in the LGBTQ+ community,” Higgins explained.

California State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), author of this bill, says it would help make the streets safer for sex workers who are a part of a marginalized community.

“Sex workers are workers, and they deserve respect and safety,” Wiener said. “We must work toward a future where people — especially the most marginalized — aren’t criminalized because of who they are and what they look like. Anti-sex workers loitering laws are deeply pernicious, and they need to be repealed.”

SB 357 also allows those convicted of California Penal Code Section 653.22 to seal their records.

SB 357 was passed by the Senate Public Safety Committee 4-1 and has now been referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Another bill concerned with safety is Assembly Bill (AB) 1094 which would require the State Department of Public Health to establish a 3-year pilot program in up to 6 participating counties to collect gender identity and sexual orientation data in violent death cases in order to get more accurate data about hate crimes.

According to the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations 2019 Hate Crime Report, Black people accounted for 9% of the county’s population but 47% of the total racial hate crimes.

The report also stated that 2019 saw a 64% increase in hate crimes targeting trans people, many of which were Black or Brown, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

“Yet another year with alarming levels of bias-motivated crimes underscores just how urgent it is to address this hate crimes epidemic,” said Alphonso David, Human Rights Campaign President. David is the first African American to lead the organization, the largest advocacy body for LGBTQ+ people and issues in the United States.

“This year, we saw a tragic new record of fatal violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people in this country, particularly against Black and Brown transgender women,” he said.

Following the Stonewall riots in New York, Black trans women like Marsha P. Johnson and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy became influential figures in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights at the time when discrimination and hate crimes against people like them were much more commonplace.

Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula (D-Fresno), author of AB 1094, explained why he feels the bill is crucial.

“I deeply appreciate the overwhelming support that my Assembly colleagues gave today to AB 1094,” Arambula said in a statement. “This legislation may be centered on data, but its purpose encompasses compassion and empathy to better understand what is happening in our LGTBQ+ community — particularly among the youth — when it comes to violent deaths, including homicide and suicide. AB 1094 is an important and humane step in ultimately preventing these deaths.”

AB 1094 has passed in the Assembly and is now on its way to the State Senate for consideration.

Senate Bill (SB) 379, which has now been referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee, would ensure the University of California Health System [UC Health] only contracts with healthcare facilities that provide LGBTQ-inclusive healthcare services, such as gender-affirming and reproductive care.

According to Blue Cross Blue Shield, Black mothers have a 3 times higher maternal mortality rate and a 2 times higher morbidity rate than white mothers while Black men are 70% more likely to die from a stroke as compared to non-Hispanic White men.

People in the LGBTQ+ community are less likely to have access to competent healthcare, largely due to issues with discrimination, according to Cigna.

Higgins spoke from personal experience about the intersectional nature of being both Black and in the LGBTQ+ community.

“For me, being a Black nonbinary person and meeting a provider who has all of these bias ideologies or stereotypes about Black people… there are all of these preconceived notions about who I am as a Black person and then you add on the nonbinary-slash-trans part of it, there’s just a lot of underlying stereotypes and bias,” Higgins said.

Jasmyne Cannick, founder and CEO of Empowerment Justice Strategies, praised this bill for moving with the tides of progress.

“In 2021, it makes absolute sense for UC Health to contract with healthcare facilities that provide LGBTQ-inclusive healthcare services given the population that it serves,” Cannick said.

“We are moving towards a more inclusive society and these are the types of bills that will ensure that members of the LGBTQ+ community can receive healthcare they need,” she continued.

Higgins, Cannick and other advocates say it means a great deal that California lawmakers are making an effort to ensure that these “warriors” can continue to do so safely, and that those who just wish to live their lives without fear for being who they are may do so more boldly.

CRAFTON HILLS, CA—- Recent Crafton Hills College (CHC) grad Alexander Manjarrez has been awarded a $5,000 scholarship from Southern California Gas Company. 

Manjarrez is one of the 2021 scholarship recipients of Southern California Gas Company, which selects high achieving graduating high school seniors and transferring community college students with scholarships from $1,000 to $5,000. To qualify, students must live within the SoCalGas service area, maintain a GPA of at least a 3.0 and demonstrate strong community involvement, among other criteria.

“SoCalGas believes that a well-educated workforce makes good business sense and is essential for a vital and economically healthy Southern California,” said Regional Affairs Manager Robert Visconti, who also serves on the College’s Foundation Board of Directors.

In his scholarship application, Manjarrez outlined his future educational and career plans and the need for the scholarship to continue his education. He said the pandemic had significantly impacted his family, slashing their collective income by 25 percent. Manjarrez put his studies first, although doing so interfered with his ability to continue helping his father manage Rainbow Board and Care, an assisted living facility that was also impacted by COVID-19.

“I stopped working with him so I could focus more on my studies,” Manjarrez said. “It will be tough for me to go back and help him run his business since I will be focusing on my upper division course work at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) in Fall 2021.”

Manjarrez is goal-oriented when it comes to mapping out a plan for his studies. His long-term goal is to earn a Master’s degree in computer science at UCR and work as a software developer while continuing to do research on tech-related topics. He also wants to work in a field where he can construct large software systems, something that drew him to his major.

“Research is something that has resonated with me ever since I enrolled at CHC,” Manjarrez said. “I conducted research on image blurs for DEKA, company that specializes in complex problem-solving, and I learned how to run algorithms on MATLAB and met the company’s expectations.”

“Research has taught me that being an effective researcher means being passionate, knowledgeable and prepared,” he said.

Southern California Gas Company is focused on promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Energy Education to improve and support educational opportunities and workforce development in their communities. 

To learn more about the company’s work, visit www.socalgas.com/our-community/promoting-education-workforce-development.

To learn more about how Crafton Hills College can help you reach your goals, visit craftonhills.edu.

By the Rev. Reginald Bachus

The Black experience in America has always been a story of struggle. From the plantation to the project block, from Emmett Till to Ahmaud Arbery, and from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Minneapolis, Minnesota, we have constantly fought for equality and fair treatment under the law, only to have those same laws be used against us.

The past year has been particularly challenging — with the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others becoming indelibly etched into our collective memory and millions of people taking to the streets to protest these crimes against the Black community. As we prepare to celebrate Juneteenth, we must look back on all the events of the past year with clear eyes to examine both the tragedies and triumphs our community has witnessed.

There have been moments of hope that the system is finally edging toward equality, like the recent conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd by knelling on his neck for nine minutes while Floyd called out “I can’t breathe.” Chauvin’s conviction and sentencing marks one of the few times in the painful history of Black people in American when law enforcement was held accountable for the wanton acts of violence they perpetrate against our community.

But for every conviction like Chauvin’s, there is a long, tragic history of innocent Black men and women being murdered – their deaths generating little more than a passing mention on the local news and their killers going unpunished. From Medgar Evers to Breonna Taylor, our country’s history is filled with these injustices that the powers-at-be try to sweep under the rug.

Floyd’s death, which was captured in brutal clarity on a bystander’s cellphone, along with those of Arbery, Taylor and so many more challenged the status quo of racial injustice like never before. Millions of Americans of every race, color and creed stood up, spoke out and made Black Lives Matter the largest social movement in country’s history.

Starting last summer, “Say Their Names” became a rallying cry for millions of Americans across the country tired of police brutality and racial injustice. From Minneapolis to Manhattan, Atlanta to Los Angeles, we took to the streets of America’s biggest cities and smallest towns under a blazing summer sun to voice our anger. All races, colors, and creeds marched on Washington D.C. to let leaders know that it was time to stop fanning the flames of racism and to declare that we would remember who was guilty.

We will continue to organize. We will continue to march. We will continue to “say their names” until their justice – not just for Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, but for every Black and Brown person in America who has experienced systemic racism, police brutality and political indifference to these injustices.

While our voices were seen on television sets and computer screens across the world, and we applaud the tireless work on the ground of leaders like Rev. Al Sharpton and National Action Network, our voices were also heard through our online activism – which for many was the only way to speak out during the COVID-19 pandemic – as we demanded politicians take notice and take action at both the state and local level.

A new report released earlier this year by The 400 Foundation, The BLK+Cross and Marathon Strategies reveals how our new era of digital demonstrations and online organization is driving real change on social justice issues. The analysis found that states with the most online conversations about social justice in 2020 also saw the most legislative action on police reform. In fact, the four states most mentioned in social justice conversations — Minnesota, Georgia, New York, and Washington, D.C. — saw 110 police reform measures introduced.

Overall, our report found that the names Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were shared online nearly 50 million times from last June to September — making it clear that saying the names of the victims of racial injustice was essential for political action.

In the coming weeks and months, we must say their names again as we remember their lives and the injustices they suffered. We must say their names during public demonstrations in city streets. We must say them on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and throughout the digital universe. And we must keep saying them until we achieve justice for them, their families, and the countless Black lives lost to racial violence.

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Rev. Reginald Bachus is a former pastor at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and the president of the 400 Foundation.

INLAND EMPIRE, CA—- – Every year, millions of Americans from all racial and ethnic backgrounds struggle with mental health illnesses. While African Americans experience mental health illnesses at about the same rate as White Americans, they are far less likely to receive mental health care services and disproportionately endure a higher burden of disability from mental health disorders according to the American Psychiatric Association.  In fact, only one in three African Americans who need mental health services receive it.

Phyllis Clark, Executive Director and Founder of the Healthy Heritage Movement, is working to address the mental health disparities within the African American community in the Inland Empire. The organization has partnered with five predominately black churches in honor of African American Mental Health Awareness Month in June to launch Mental Health Resource Stations at each church to provide easier access to mental health information and services.

The installation of the Resource Stations will be completed by the end of June and participating churches include Castle Rock Christian Fellowship, Living Way Christian Fellowship, Cathedral of Praise International Ministries, Ecclesia Christian Fellowship, and Rubidoux Missionary Baptist Church. Phyllis commends and honors the five churches for leading the way to reduce the stigma in the African American community and welcomes other churches to join the effort.

There are many reasons why African Americans face barriers when it comes to accessing and receiving treatment including poor physician-patient communication resulting in misdiagnosis, discrimination resulting in services not being offered and/or inadequate information provided, mistrust for the healthcare system, a lack of diverse providers, a lack of inclusion in mental health research, underinsurance, and cultural stigmas.

Healthy Heritage Movement is committed to launching several initiatives over the next few months to reduce the barriers preventing African Americans from accessing mental health services, and to help the community heal from what has been a most traumatic year. Key initiatives include a Summer Series of Healing, these events will feature black psychologists and wellness coaches discussing mental wellness, healing and self-care.  The second initiative is to produce a detailed African American Mental Health Resource Guide which will be available in the fall.

Another key initiative underway is the organization’s most recognized program, Broken Crayons Still Color Project, which has served 240 African American women in the I.E., since its inception in 2018. The 8-week program written by Dr. Gloria Morrow and currently taught by Dr. Candance Elaine, a Certified Clinical Therapist and Personal Transformation Coach, teaches women effective strategies to cope with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and substance use disorder. In addition, participants learn about prevention, early detection, and intervention.  The program is being hosted virtually due to COVID-19 and is currently being offered now through July 10, 2021. Visit www.BrokenCrayonsProject.com to sign-up for future classes!

Healthy Heritage Movement is sponsored by the California Reducing Disparities Project, Inland SoCal United Way, Nurturing You Women’s Health & Wellness, J.W. Vines Medical Foundation, and the City of Riverside. 

If you need mental health referrals or for more information about Healthy Heritage Movement, please contact (951)293-4240 or (951)682-1717 or visit them on the web www.healthyheritage.org.