Spotlighting the Future of Us...
Fisk University, made history after launching its gymnastics program — the first for a HBCU
(2/2024)
Forty-one years since the first NCAA women's gymnastics championship, an HBCU has a team of its own. Fisk announced the formation of its first-of-a-kind program more than a year ago (2022). Corrinne Tarver, who serves as Fisk's athletics director and head coach of the gymnastics team, is no stranger to making history herself. She was the first Black gymnast at the University of Georgia and went on to become the first Black gymnast to win the NCAA all-around national title in 1989. Tarver said many gymnasts started to reach out to Fisk before she was hired and they wanted to know more about Fisk's program. "When I was recruiting them, they had a lot of questions. I had no answers to give them. I basically just said, we're going to all take a leap of faith together and we're going to make history," Tarver said.
It took her four months to put together the inaugural team.
Sha’Carri Richardson
(1/2024)
Sha’Carri Richardson won the women’s 100-meter world title, outsprinting a star-studded field to take a gold medal in legendary fashion.Running on the far outside in Lane 9, Richardson finished in 10.65 seconds to match the year’s best time and set the world-championship record, according to AP News. Sha’Carri Richardson beat Jamaicans Shericka Jackson by .07 seconds and five-time champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce by .12.After making the “improbable” look easy on the grandest stage, Richardson walked past members of the traditional media until she found Black media members. AP News reports this was Richardson’s first major competition on the world stage and she was listed as a 5-1 underdog even though she came in as the American champion and had bested Jackson, who also has run 10.65 this year, the previous two times they met in 2023.
The race featured four of the eight fastest runners of all time, including Marie-Josée Ta Lou, who finished fourth.
Though it was clear Richardson had finished ahead of all those runners to her left in the gold-medal race, the 23-year-old looked stunned when she crossed the line.
Coco Gauff
(12/2023)
From an early age, her elders identified her natural gifts and uncommon maturity and deemed her a student with unlimited potential. She was given specialized tutoring and pursued her goals with the older girls. Coco applied herself diligently, and, as expected, excelled. Gauff turned pro at just 14 years old. She's since been pushed and primed to take center stage in American women’s tennis, the new answer to sisters Venus and Serena Williams, both Coco’s idols growing up.
At 15 Gauff became the youngest player in Wimbledon’s history to qualify for the main draw–and promptly upset five-time Wimbledon champion Venus en route to the fourth round. Gauff won her first WTA title months later in Linz, Austria. And now, to cap it all off, Gauff has the crowning achievement: the US Open championship. Her first major title.
Kamala Harris
(11/2023)
On January 20, 2021, Kamala Harris was sworn in as Vice President – the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected to this position. Vice President Harris was born in Oakland, California. As the daughter of immigrants, she grew up surrounded by a diverse community and a loving extended family. She and her sister, Maya, were inspired by their mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a breast cancer scientist and pioneer in her own right who came to the United States from India at the age of 19 and then received her doctorate the same year that Kamala was born. Both of the Vice President’s parents were active in the civil rights movement, and instilled in her a commitment to build strong coalitions that fight for the rights and freedoms of all people. They brought her to civil rights marches in a stroller and taught her about heroes like Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and civil rights leader Constance Baker Motley. Vice President Harris went on to graduate from. In 2004, Vice President Harris was elected District Attorney of San Francisco where she was a national leader in the movement for LGBTQ+ rights, officiating the first same-sex wedding after Proposition 8 was overturned. In 2010, Vice President Harris was elected Attorney General of California where she oversaw the largest state justice department in the country.
Tamia Potter
(10/2023)
After close to a century, Vanderbilt University’s neurosurgery residency program will have its first Black woman resident. Tamia Potter is the first Black woman to accept a spot in the neurosurgery position at the university’s medical center in Nashville, Tennessee.
The 26-year-old received the news on March 17 – better known to medical students as National Match Day, when thousands of graduate medical students learn where they will do their residency training for the next several years. Potter told CNN that she was incredulous when she first saw the match, and very relieved and excited to be entering the next chapter of her life after so many years of schooling. “Everything that I’m doing, everything that I’m learning, everything that I experience is for the betterment of someone else,” Potter said. Only about 5.7% of physicians in the United States identify as Black or African American, according to the the latest data from the Association of American Medical Colleges. And a 2019 report by the association found there were only 33 Black women in the neurosurgical field in the United States in 2018. Vanderbilt trained its first neurosurgery resident in 1932, making Potter the first Black woman to join in 91 years, according to Dr. Reid Thompson, a professor and chair of the university’s Department of Neurological Surgery. Thompson told CNN in a statement that he and his colleagues were immediately impressed by Potter’s “brilliance and passion for neurosurgery” when she visited the school last summer.
Potter graduated summa cum laude in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. The school was the highest-ranked public historically Black college or university in US News & World Report’s 2022-23 ranking.
She told CNN that being a FAMU alumna proves that it’s possible to go to an HBCU and “attain every single thing that you want to and make your dreams come true.”
Fawn Weaver
(09/2023)
Uncle Nearest CEO, Fawn Weaver isn't the type to back down from a challenge or destined opportunity. Weaver has been a serial entrepreneur for 25 years but is a storyteller at her core, which led her to create Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey in 2016. While traveling abroad in Singapore with her husband, she saw a photo of Jack Daniel and George Green, the son of a previously unknown master whiskey distiller, Uncle Nearest. Uncle Nearest, was a formerly enslaved man who taught Jack Daniel how to make Tennessee whiskey. After learning about Uncle Nearest and Jack Daniel's interconnected history, Weaver followed the story down to Tennessee, which led her to purchase the 300-acre farm in Lynchburg, Tennessee, where Nearest taught Jack how to distill. Without any experience in distilling, she decided to open up the Nearest Green Distillery in Shelbyville, Tennessee. Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey is the fastest-growing American whiskey brand in U.S. history, the best-selling African American-founded spirit brand of all time, and was the most award-winning American whiskey (including bourbon) of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
NFL makes history with all-Black officiating crew for Monday Night Football (2020-2021)
(08/2023)
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — An all-Black officiating crew worked an NFL game for the first time in league history when the Los Angeles Rams faced the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night. Referee Jerome Boger led the crew, which also included umpire Barry Anderson, down judge Julian Mapp, line judge Carl Johnson, side judge Dale Shaw, field judge Anthony Jeffries and back judge Greg Steed. When the NFL announced the crew was being assembled last week, league executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent hailed the move a “a testament to the countless and immeasurable contributions of Black officials to the game, their exemplary performance, and to the power of inclusion that is the hallmark of this great game.” Five members of the crew work together regularly. Johnson and Steed joined the group for Monday night’s matchup between NFC playoff contenders.
The members of the crew have a combined 89 seasons of NFL experience and have worked six Super Bowls.
Bucs coach Bruce Arians, who’s been supportive of diversity in hiring throughout the league, applauded the decision.
“Way too long coming,” Arians said. “I know a lot of those guys. They’re great officials. … It’s a historic night, and I think it’s fantastic.
The first Black official in any major sport was Burl Toler, hired by the NFL in 1965.
Rosalind Brewer
(07/2023)
Rosalind Brewer will become the only Black woman currently leading a Fortune 500 company in the U.S. when she takes on the role of chief executive officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) on March 15. Brewer is the third Black female to serve as CEO at a Fortune 500 company. Ursula Burns was CEO of Xerox Co. from 2010-16, and Mary Winston was interim CEO at Bed Bath & Beyond in 2019. There has been a push in recent years to increase the number of women in the top executive ranks, including recruiting them as members of boards of directors.
Brewer most recently served as chief operating officer, group president and member of Starbucks' board of directors. She is a former director of Amazon, Lockheed Martin and Molson Coors Brewing Co.
Brewer's move to Walgreens means she will resign from Amazon's board, since it is becoming a competitor to Walgreens with its expansion into health care. Brewer succeeds Stefano Pessina, who will transition to the role of executive chairman of the board of WBA, Walgreens announced Jan. 26.
There are few Black top executive officers of Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. in general. Only three Black men currently run Fortune 500 companies—Kenneth Frazier of pharmaceutical company Merck & Co.; Marvin Ellison of home improvement retailer Lowe's; and Roger W. Ferguson Jr. of insurance company TIAA.
Barack Obama
(06/2023)
Barack Obama (born August 4, 1961, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.) 44th president of the United States (2009–17) and the first African American to hold the office. Before winning the presidency, Obama represented Illinois in the U.S. Senate (2005–08). He was the third African American to be elected to that body since the end of Reconstruction (1877). In 2009 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” Obama’s father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a teenage goatherd in rural Kenya, won a scholarship to study in the United States, and eventually became a senior economist in the Kenyan government. Obama’s mother, S. Ann Dunham, grew up in Kansas, Texas, and Washington state before her family settled in Honolulu. In 1960 she and Barack Sr. met in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaiiand married less than a year later.
Wes Moore
(05/2023)
On January 18, 2022, Governor Wes Moore became Maryland’s first Black Governor, and only the third Black governor elected in American history. He is the Finance Chair of the Democratic Governors Association. As a combat veteran, small business owner, Rhodes Scholar, and former CEO of one of the nation’s largest anti-poverty organizations, Governor Moore has devoted his life’s work to the same basic principle he learned on Day 1 in the Army: Leave no one behind. Governor Moore was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, to Joy and Westley Moore. When Wes Moore was just three years old, his father died of a rare, but treatable virus. His father’s untimely death created instability in young Wes’ life, causing his mom to move the family to the Bronx, where Wes’ grandparents lived.The family returned to Maryland when Moore was 14, when his mom found a job in Baltimore — the first job that paid her benefits. Governor Moore graduated with an Associate’s Degree from Valley Forge Military College in 1998 and then Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University in 2001. As a teenager, he interned for former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke and then went on to earn a Rhodes Scholarship, which took him to Oxford University.
Clarice Phelps
(04/2023)
The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) recognizes her as the first African-American woman to be involved with the discovery of a chemical element. Phelps was formerly in the US Navy Nuclear Power Program. At ORNL, Phelps manages programs in the Department of Energy’s Isotope & Fuel Cycle Technology Division investigating industrial uses of nickel-63 and selenium-75. Clarice Phelps, who was raised in Tennessee, United States became interested in chemistry during her childhood when she was given a microscope and encyclopedia-based science kit by her mother. Her interest was further nurtured by her secondary school science teachers. Although Phelps completed a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Tennessee State University in 2003, Phelps struggled academically in college. Unable to find employment after graduating, she joined the United States Navy. There, Phelps enrolled in the Navy’s Nuclear Power School, which she credits with teaching her “how to study.” Phelps studied nuclear power, reactor theory, and thermodynamics and graduated in the top 10% of her class of 300–400 students. In 2019, Phelps told an interviewer that she pursued nuclear chemistry in part because of the lack of black women in the field, commenting: “They needed to see somebody like me sitting in the same spaces that they were at, and excelling in that same space.”
Maurice Ashley
(03/2023)
Maurice Ashley is an American chess grandmaster and commentator. The first African-American grandmaster, he became a member of the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 2016.Born in Jamaica in 1966, Ashley moved with his family to the United States in the late 1970s, and he went to high school in Brooklyn, New York. He didn’t learn to play chess until he was 14; nonetheless, he developed into quite a strong player during the 1980s. By age 25 Ashley was teaching and coaching chess to kids in Brooklyn. He told Sports Illustratedhe wanted to become the first Black chess grandmaster. He was certainly strong enough, as the positional queen sacrifice below from 1991 demonstrates (against FM Sunil Weeramantry, who would soon be training a young future GM, Hikaru Nakamura). After achieving the feat of becoming a GM, Ashley told the U.S. Chess Federation that Tiger Woods’ 1997 victory at the Masters golf tournament also inspired him.
Shelia Johnson
(02/2023)
Sheila Crump Johnson (born January 25, 1949) is an American businesswoman, co-founder of BET, CEO of Salamander Hotels and Resorts, and the first billionaire African-American woman.[1]
Johnson is team president, managing partner, and governor of the WNBA's Washington Mystics, a position she earned before the 2005 season. On May 24, 2005, Washington Sports and Entertainment Chairman, Abe Pollin, sold the Mystics to Lincoln Holdings LLC, where Johnson served as president. She is the first African-American woman to be an owner or partner in three professional sports franchises: the Washington Capitals (NHL), the Washington Wizards (NBA), and the Washington Mystics (WNBA). Johnson is CEO of Salamander Hospitality, a company she founded in 2005. Salamander's portfolio includes: Reunion Resort located in Reunion, Florida; The Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club, a 900-acre (3.6 km2), 72 hole PGA tour golf course in Palm Harbor, FL; Hotel Bennett in Charleston, South Carolina; Half Moon in Montego Bay, Jamaica; Aurora Anguilla in British West Indies; and The Salamander Resort & Spa in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Middleburg, Virginia.[2]
Sharon Bown
(01/2023)
She was nominated in 2013 by President Obama to serve on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the first African American commissioner to ever sit on the CFTC. Then, on Dec. 6, 2021, Bowen was announced as the next chair of the New York Stock Exchange, one of the world’s most modern yet enduring symbols of capitalism. She would be the first woman or person of color to hold that position in the exchange’s 229-year history. Bowen recalls that day well.
Both Bowen and the NYSE have come a long way. For Bowen, the story began in Chesapeake, Virginia, where she was born in the summer of 1956 as the youngest of five children. Her father was an electrician at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Sheila Bowen Taylor, a sister, was the first Black woman to serve as a nuclear engineer there, working on submarines and aircraft carriers. Bowen also had a brother who worked on carriers at Norfolk.
Maxwell Frost
(12/2022)
Representing Florida’s 10th Congressional District, the 25-year-old is the youngest legislative body member, taking on his colleagues, who are more than twice his age on average. However, his first battle will be finding a place to live. ABC News reported that while Frost makes $174,000 a year as a member of Congress, he is struggling to find an apartment due to bad credit.
Frost stepped on the scene during the Florida midterm elections, looking to fill the seat of Rep. Val Demings and outrun his Republican opponent, Calvin Wimbish, almost 50 years his senior. He campaigned heavily on his Gen Z identity, arguing that a younger perspective would add value on Capitol Hill.
The Queen Strings
(11/2022)
Praised for its authentic, soulful, and orchestral sound, The String Queens (TSQ) is a dynamic trio that creates stimulating musical experiences that inspire diverse audiences to love, hope, feel, and imagine! With an array of repertoire spanning from the Baroque era to the Jazz Age to today’s Billboard Hot 100 Chart, TSQ performs versatile programs that take listeners on a rousing musical journey through time and a multitude of musical genres.
Based in Washington, D.C., TSQ has been featured in performances at renowned concert halls and venues across America, including Carnegie Hall in New York City and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the nation’s capital. Notable appearances include a special performance dedicated to Vice President Kamala Harris at the “We Are One” Presidential Inauguration Concert in January 2021 and rendering a spotlight presentation of TSQ’s electrifying arrangement of Harry Styles’s hit song “Golden” for the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament “The Championships, Wimbledon” in June 2021. As an ensemble who frequents the D.C. jazz scene, other headlining performances include multiple appearances at the DC Jazz Festival and the Capital Jazz Fest.
Black Violin
(10/2022)
Black Violin is composed of both classically trained violist Wil Baptiste, and violinist Kev Marcus. The duo, from South Florida, began playing together in their high school orchestra class. After attending separate colleges Kev and Wil reunited and decided to combine their classical training and love for hip-hop music; establishing a distinguished, genre-bending sound that has often been described as “classical boom”. Black Violin are advocates for educational outreach and were announced as Turnaround Artists for Mary B. Bethune Elementary School in their hometown of Broward County, FL. Turnaround Arts, a national education program of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, infuses arts into struggling schools to support overall reform efforts.
Raphael Warnock
(09/2022)
Warnock is the first African American to represent Georgia in the Senate and the first Black Democrat to be elected to the Senate by a former state of the Confederacy.[8]
Warnock was born in Savannah, Georgia, on July 23, 1969.[9] He grew up in public housing as the eleventh of twelve children born to Verlene and Jonathan Warnock, both Pentecostal pastors.[10] His father served in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he learned automobile mechanics and welding, and subsequently opened a small car restoration business where he restored junked cars for resale.[11]
Warnock graduated from Sol C. Johnson High School in 1987,[12] and, having wanted to follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr., attended Morehouse College, from which he graduated cum laude in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology.[13][14] He credits his participation in the Upward Bound program for making him college-ready, as he was able to enroll in early college courses through Savannah State University.[12][14] He then earned Master of Divinity, Master of Philosophy, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Union Theological Seminary, a school affiliated with Columbia University.[15][16][11]
John Chaney
(08/2022)
John Chaney, the famously combative Hall of Fame coach who took Temple University to 17 N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments, largely recruiting high school players from poor neighborhoods who were overlooked by the college game’s national powers. Having grown up poor in the segregated Depression-era South and in Philadelphia, Chaney viewed himself as a mentor to young men who often came from broken homes. Always outspoken, he railed against what he perceived as culturally biased and racist standardized academic testing requirements imposed by the N.C.A.A. for basketball eligibility. He expressed disdain for the administration of President George W. Bush and spoke out against the Iraq war. John Chaney was born on Jan. 21, 1932, in Jacksonville, Fla., and grew up in a low-lying house that often flooded. His father left the family when he was young, and his mother, Early, who worked as a domestic, remarried. His stepfather, Sylvester Chaney, brought the family to the Philadelphia area during World War II, seeking work in a defense plant.
Erin Jackson
(07/2022)
Erin Jackson (born September 19, 1992)[1] is an American speed skater, roller derby player, and Olympic gold medalist. Jackson is the first Black woman to win a Winter Olympic gold medal in an individual sport.[2] She qualified for The World Games 2017 in Wroclaw, Poland, where she competed in inline speed skating in various distances on road and track. She also qualified to compete in the 500 meters long track speed skating event at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
In November 2021 she won her first 500 meters Speedskating World Cup races in Poland with two track records, making her the first Black American woman to win in the World Cup.[3][4][5][6]
On February 13, 2022, Jackson won the gold medal in the Women's 500m speed skating event at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. She is the first Black American woman to medal in speed skating.[7]
LeBron James
(06/2022)
LeBron James—18-time NBA All-Star, four-time NBA champion, two-time Olympic gold medalist—has hit yet another milestone, this time doing something no other NBA player has ever done.
After another monster year of earnings, totaling $121.2 million before taxes and agents’ fees over the last 12 months, Forbes estimates that James has officially become a billionaire while still playing hoops.
The 37-year-old superstar has a net worth of $1 billion, by Forbes’ count. James, who missed the playoffs this year for just the fourth time in 19 seasons, is the first active NBA player to make the billionaires list. (Michael Jordan, the only other basketball billionaire, didn’t hit ten figures until 2014, more than a decade after he retired, thanks to a well-timed investment in the Charlotte Hornets basketball team.)
Byron Allen
(05/2022)
Byron Allen was born in Detroit but spent the majority of his youth in Los Angeles. His mother worked as a publicist at NBC Studios, and it was while accompanying her to work that he was bitten by the fame bug.
By the age of 14, Allen had assembled a tight five and started putting in work at various comedy clubs around the city. His act caught the attention of celebrated sitcom actor and comedian Jimmie Walker, who invited the young Allen to join his writing team, which included a few promising young stars by the names of Jay Leno and David Letterman.
The entertainer turned CEO confirmed he’s moving to buy the Denver Broncos. Let’s explore his path to being selected by Roger Goodell for a chance to become the NFL’s first Black majority owner.
Jennifer King
(04/2022)
Jennifer King stepped in as the running backs coach of the Washington Football Team on Tuesday (12/21/2021), making her the first Black woman to be a lead position coach in an NFL game.
Having been promoted from coaching intern to the team's assistant running back coach in January, a Covid-19 outbreak saw King promoted to lead -- deputizing for Randy Jordan -- at Washington's rescheduled visit to the Philadelphia Eagles.
King received a glowing appraisal from Washington head coach Ron Rivera following her promotion, who said that the "sky is the limit" for the former seven-time All-American tackle football quarterback.
Ayanna Howard, PhD
(03/2022)
Accomplished roboticist, entrepreneur and educator Ayanna Howard, PhD, became dean of The Ohio State University College of Engineering on March 1, 2021. Previously she was chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing, as well as founder and director of the Human-Automation Systems Lab (HumAnS).
Her career spans higher education, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the private sector. Dr. Howard is the founder and president of the board of directors of Zyrobotics, a Georgia Tech spin-off company that develops mobile therapy and educational products for children with special needs. Zyrobotics products are based on Dr. Howard’s research.
Mablean Ephriam
(02/2022)
Judge Mablean Ephriam is one of the most recognized jurists in America. She attributes her success to God, her family and close friends. Her faith, religion and trust in God keeps this mother of four and grandmother of ten, meek and humble.
Born to Robert and Mable Ephriam in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, Judge Mablean has called California home from a very young age. She is no stranger to achievement. Since a child, she has always had that “spirit” of excellence and liberality about her. At the age of 13 years, she knew she wanted to become a lawyer. She attended Thomas Jefferson High School in South Central Los Angeles, graduating with honors. She received a four year academic scholarship to Pitzer College, Claremont, California, for her undergraduate studies. Becoming married and mother of four, she took a break from school holding many jobs before receiving her Juris Doctor degree from Whittier College school of Law in 1978. She was admitted to the state Bar of California in November, 1978, having successfully passed the State Bar examination the first time.
Tyler Perry
(01/2022)
Tyler Perry was born in New Orleans to Willie Maxine (Campbell) and Emmitt Perry, Sr. His mother would take him to church once a week and his father was a carpenter and their relationship was strained and abusive. Tyler started play writing in the 90's and it would soon start his journey of plays that he would write, direct, produce, and star in. In 2019 Tyler Perry became the first black to open up his own studio in Atlanta, Georgia.
Giving Back - Lebron James
(11/2021)
In 2018, basketball superstar LeBron James helped open a new public school in an Akron, Ohio, school district, designed to provide academics as well as social and emotional supports to at-risk students. Now he’s adding to that investment, partnering with a hotel chain to build transitional housing for families whose children attend the I Promise school but are experiencing homelessness or struggle to have stable, safe housing.
Discovering How to Use Lasers to Kill Cancer Cells - Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green
(10/2021)
Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green, one of the first African American women in the nation to earn a Ph.D. in physics, holds the distinction of being only the second African American woman and the fourth American American to receive a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Green specializes in developing targeted cancer therapies using lasers and nanoparticles. She is noted for the development of several patent-pending cancer treatments that have had no observable side effects in laboratory mice, which is an preliminary study to testing with human subjects. The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) recently awarded Dr. Green a $1.1 million grant for the ongoing research of her 4-in-1 system for early detection, imaging, targeting, and selective treatment of head and neck cancers. More importantly, it supports the further development of a platform cancer therapy that uses laser-activated nanoparticles to completely eliminate tumors after a single treatment.
(09/2021) Rebounding - Robert Sherrill
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — President Donald Trump has granted pardons to dozens of people before leaving office, including a man from North Nashville.
Robert Sherrill was pardoned by former Governor Bill Haslam before he left office. Sherrill also applied for a federal pardon in an effort to restore his rights and remove some limitations he's experienced since his release from federal prison in 2013.
Back in 2002, Sherrill escaped from a department of children’s services home. He also had a simple marijuana possession charge and a 2003 drug possession with the intent to sell charge. Sherill was hoping the president would pardon him for a 2007 drug possession charge.
Since being released from prison in 2013, Sherrill has turned his life around by starting his own business and working with disadvantaged youth.
Sherrill gave a lot of credit to his late grandmother, Hattie Fletcher for always believing in him, and motivating him to turn his life around.
"I just know shes looking down and she's proud," Sherrill said. "That's the first person I'm going to see when i get to heaven. Seriously, I got to go talk to her and see what she's got to say."
(08/2021) Rihanna's Billionaire Status
When Robyn Fenty, known to the world as Rihanna, launched Fenty Beauty in 2017, she sought to create a cosmetics company that made “women everywhere (feel) included.” A perhaps unintended consequence: The beauty line has helped her enter one of the world’s most exclusive ranks: Billionaire. Rihanna is now worth $1.7 billion, Forbes estimates—making her the wealthiest female musician in the world and second only to Oprah Winfrey as the richest female entertainer. But it’s not her music that’s made her so wealthy. The bulk of her fortune (an estimated $1.4 billion) comes from the value of Fenty Beauty, of which Forbes can now confirm she owns 50%. Much of the rest lies in her stake in her lingerie company, Savage x Fenty, worth an estimated $270 million, and her earnings from her career as a chart-topping musician and actress.