Erika Allen is on a mission to create sustainable communities. Heart Posture For Serving Others Growing up, she had an epiphany that ignited her desire to serve the broader community. And it was her interest in the creative arts that eventually guided her toward a multi-faceted passion project in Chicago, IL. Between 1987 and 1992, Allen transitioned from her family farm to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. During this time, she encountered structural racism and social demarcation that shaped her perspective and mission. “Was literally told during my orientation to not go south of Van Buren, which of course triggered a lot of questions as to why, and that was just sort of something that was shared with me and was indoctrinating me as a new student,” she told AFROTECH™. “And to come to find that south of Van Buren was the south side, primarily black community that I’m part of. That really fired me up, my heart posture around wanting to extend what was a privilege to...

When one typically thinks of farmers, images of white people in Middle America almost immediately come to mind. There’s a variety of reasons why the United States wanted to push the quasi-stereotypical “Dust Bowl” image of the “All American” farmer, but those reasons are all, at their core, rooted in white supremacy and racism. For Angela Dawson, a fourth-generation farmer based in Minnesota and the founder of the 40 Acres cooperative, reclaiming the farming narrative for Black farmers also involves reclaiming the farms that were stripped away from them. “There is so much financial trauma embedded in the Black farming narrative,” she told AfroTech. “Foreclosure, racism, slavery, marginalization — and, of course, the lack of representation. What farmers look like us in the popular narrative? That’s why, whenever Congress passed a farming bill, it never included Black farmers. But that’s what we’re looking to change.” Dawson left her thriving career as a food writer and marketer to...

Akon’s $6 billion plan for a real-life Wakanda on Senegal’s Atlantic Coast “no longer exists,” said Serigne Mamadou Mboup, head of Sapco-Senegal, the state agency overseeing coastal and tourism development. The country has reclaimed most of the land allocated for “Akon City” after the Senegalese-American singer missed payments, according to Bloomberg. As Senegal faces a debt crisis following a state audit under former President Macky Sall, the government will move forward with a scaled-down, privately funded $1.2 billion tourism development featuring hotels, apartments, a marina, and a promenade, the outlet reported. “May this resort serve as a model for success in Senegal, a hub for tourism and a source of economic opportunity,” Mayor Alpha Samb said at a ceremony, according to Bloomberg. In 2020, Senegal granted Akon 136 acres of land for a 10-year project to transform the farming village of Mbodiène into a solar-powered city that would run on the singer’s cryptocurrency and...

Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™. The turmoil over tariffs has taken center stage since President Donald Trump has started to make good on his campaign promise to Make America Great Again. His latest move is leveraging the tactic of tariffs to help bring back manufacturing jobs that he believes have been outsourced to other countries and should be available to people in the United States. However, having the goal of quickly bringing industrialization to a country has been tried elsewhere before. Mao Zedong of China, who formed the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and ran it until his death in 1976, tried what Trump is doing in the U.S. in China. It was called The Great Leap Forward and started in 1958. It aimed to change China from a country that relied on agriculture as its economic center to one that relied on industrialization instead. Similar to Donald Trump’s vision for industrialization, it included a focus on increasing...

If you or someone you love is an immigrant to the United States, you may be experiencing a great deal of trepidation right now. Not only has Donald Trump’s new cabinet been voracious about rounding up and deporting people from all over the world, they have also expressed interest in closing down the border and locking out any immigrants who they nebulously deem undesirable. This process has already begun, leading to an untold number of families being torn apart. While this is quite tragic, there are several American businesses that have maintained their commitment to the inclusion of migrants, meaning there’s still hope for those who plan to enter the country and stay long-term. Many of these companies are even offering highly competitive roles to newly-minted Americans, particularly in the world of finance and tech. Despite the many challenges that immigrants face, these companies may provide a veritable boom of new workers. This is especially true of massive corporations that have...

Though he is a relative newcomer to the world of professional track and field, Botswana’s own Letsile Tebogo shattered records earlier this year by taking home his nation’s very first gold Olympic medal . The runner, who’s affectionately known as School-Boy, is one of several Olympians set to take center stage in the upcoming Netflix docu-series Sprint: The World’s Fastest Humans Part 2 . The series, which premieres today, Nov. 13, will detail Tebogo’s grueling training regiment, unmatched dedication and eventual path to victory at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France. Since his star is on the rise, this seems like the perfect time to do a deep dive on the African speedster. Tebogo is known to stay quite private and refrain from excessive use of social media , though we’ve managed to piece together several inspiring details about his background, career highs and net worth, allowing fans from around the globe a chance to get better acquainted with his story. Letsile Tebogo’s...

It’s hard not to be ecstatic about a $237.75 million donation to any educational organization, especially historically black colleges and universities . Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University (FAMU) president Larry Robinson was gleeful and already picturing the possibilities of what the HBCU could do with those funds. The donor, who initially requested to be anonymous, agreed to distribute 14 million shares of stock of intrinsic value plus an additional $61 million over the course of 10 years. Unfortunately, that donation from what we now know as the (former) Isaac Batterson Family 7th Trust and Batterson Farms CEO Gregory Gerami didn’t hold up. With minimal information about the CEO and even less about the company, FAMU had to pause the donation. “I take full responsibility for this matter and the ensuing fallout,” Robinson told FAMU trustees, according to a Forbes report . “I wanted it to be real and ignored the warning signs along the way. There was no personal gain, but...

A multi-million-dollar investment towards Black farmers is underway. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, the Black Farmer Fund, created by Karen Washington and Olivia Watkins, raised $11 million in September 2023 to support Black-owned agricultural systems through wealth-building opportunities. Since then, the New York-based nonprofit has reached its target goal in a second fund, which will deploy $20 million in capital to improve the Black food system, a press release states . It will specifically target food businesses in the Northeast region and provide support in the form of “low-interest loans and gifts.” The intention is for the awarded businesses to enable Black growers to strengthen their presence in the market and gain greater authority in the supply chain. This is timely when considering Black farmers have been faced with various challenges throughout the decades, which includes discrimination that has led to the denial of low-interest loans, grants, and further assistance,...