In this episode, Brigitte Jones and Julia Dudley Najieb discuss the breaking news regarding the vicious storms hitting Texas and the Midwest.  

NOAA National Weather Service forecasters at the Climate Prediction Center predict above-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin this year. NOAA’s outlook for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which spans from June 1 to November 30, predicts an 85% chance of an above-normal season, a 10% chance of a near-normal season and a 5% chance of a below-normal season.

While many American towns claim to have held the earliest celebrations of the holiday, U.S. officials declared Waterloo, New York the “birthplace” of Memorial Day. Historians say residents closed businesses, flew flags at half-staff, and held a ceremony to remember local Civil War soldiers on May 5, 1866 — three years after the bloody conflict ended.

In Blight’s 2001 book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, the event unfolded at a former planter’s racetrack where Confederates held captured Union soldiers during the last year of the war. Over 250 prisoners died, most of them from disease, and were buried in unmarked graves. Black Charlestonians decided to give them a proper burial by reorganizing the graves and erecting a fence around them, TIME cites from the book. They named the burial site “Martyrs of the Race Course.”

Then came May 1, when thousands of Black residents and schoolchildren showed up to sing patriotic songs, listen to religious sermons and speeches, and hold picnics in honor of the fallen Union troops. Black Union regiments concluded the event by marching around the graves. According to Blight, nearly 10,000 people, mostly Black, attended the massive tribute.

This week's BHN Spotlight focuses on five women-veteran basketball players who are hopping it up.  With only 144 available roster spots currently in the WNBA, it’s one of the hardest leagues to find a place in. That just means every player is extremely elite, and the competition to stick around is fierce.
Meanwhile, Julia and Brigitte discuss the latest news with the Biden-Harris Administration who announced a new record in Federal funding and investments in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) totaling more than $16 billion from Fiscal Years (FY) 2021 through current available data for FY 2024. This new reported total is up from the previously announced over $7 billion, and captures significant additional actions already undertaken. 

The two publishers also discuss the latest concerning the 2024 Presidential Campaign.
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With news publishers, Cheryl Smith, Julia Ann Dudley Najieb and Brigitte Jones, get the latest breaking, political and other news from a Black perspective, new episodes live on Tuesdays: 2:00 PM PST/4:00CST/5:00ST.  Encores at 10:00 PM PST/12:00AM CST/1:00AM EST.  Listen on demand here or watch shows live here.