Woodruff’s Café & Pie Shop first opened in 1952 and its founder, 103-year-old Mary Woodruff, still helps run the business. In the 1950s, she and her husband, James, constructed the building and then lived in the apartment upstairs while operating the café in the space below, according to Today.com. After three decades of operation, the shop briefly closed in 1982 until Woodruff’s daughter, Angela Scott, reopened the eatery with her husband in 1998.

“I just really do think it was a God thing. It was the legacy that I wanted to carry on. This is what I’m supposed to do,” said Scott.

Scott, who now runs the Monroe, VA-based shop alongside her mother and two sisters, Darnelle and Darnette, remembers spending a lot of time in the café when she was a small child. “My mom had a little playpen and she’d keep me in here while she was running the business,” she said.

When the shop initially reopened, business was very slow. “It was off the beaten path. It had been closed for so many years. There were days that we didn’t have a customer, maybe one or two,” the business owner admitted. “But Mama just kept going, ‘Angie, you gotta have faith, it’s gonna be fine.’ I think if it hadn’t been for her, I probably would’ve closed.”

That’s when Scott decided to start selling pies from her grandmother’s recipe. Business started booming. She estimates the shop sells an estimated 75 pies (all of which are handmade daily) on any given Saturday.

It is very impressive for this black-owned shop to be open for so long. According to the Small Business Administration, roughly 80% of small businesses survive the first year. However, from there the number falls sharply. Only about half of small businesses survive past the five-year mark. Beyond that, only about one in three small businesses get to the 10-year mark and live to tell the tale.

by michelr

February 23, 2020

Black Woman Becomes the First Doctor to Cure Cancer in Mice Using Nanoparticles

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Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green has become the first person to successfully cure cancer in mice using laser-activated nanoparticles, according to Black Culture News.

Unlike traditional cancer treatments, Green’s revolutionary and unique nanoparticle technology, which was found to successfully cure cancer after testing on mice within 15 days, does not require chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery. Green received a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to expand her nanoparticle cancer treatment research.

Green’s interest in cancer treatment stems from witnessing the death of her aunt, Ora Lee, who suffered from cancer, and her uncle, General Lee Smith, who also was diagnosed with cancer and experienced the negative side effects of chemotherapy treatment.

Green is, not surprisingly, highly educated. In her pursuit to fight cancer she obtained her bachelor’s degree in physics and optics from Alabama A&M University and later earned her master of science in physics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, both of which she received full scholarships for. After earning her degrees, she transitioned to the Comprehensive Cancer Center for five years and the Department of Pathology for one year, according to afrotech.com.

Currently, Green’s Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation, the nonprofit she founded in memory of her aunt, is continuing to fight cancer using laser-activated nanoparticles and focusing on its mission to make cancer treatment accessible, affordable, and effective. She devotes time to helping young black students as well.

Strides in cancer treatments/cures are very important. According to the American Cancer Society, in the U.S. alone, an estimated 606,520 people will die from cancer in 2020. This equates to 1,660 people dying of cancer each day in 2020. Approximately 69% of people diagnosed with cancer between the years 2009 and 2015 were alive five years after their diagnosis. This is higher than people who were diagnosed with cancer between the years 1975 and 1977. Between these years, 49 out of 100 people, or 49%, were alive five years later.

Three brothers are planning to launch their own Kentucky bourbon through their company Brough Brothers Distillery in honor of their surname.

According to BlackBusiness.com, it will be one of the only black-owned distilleries in the country and the first black-owned business of its kind in the state of Kentucky. The trio of brothers—Victor, Christian, and Bryson Yarbrough—went on their own separate paths as they progressed through life but came back together to start this business venture. Their goal was to create their own products to make an impact locally and globally.

Victor, who has been abroad in England for the last 10 years, initially came up with the idea of bottling wines and other drinks in the U.K. He and his brothers are hoping to expand their reach to other areas by exporting their products while also making them available locally.

The distillery, which will be built on 2,200 square feet, will house the Kentucky bourbon production as well as a taste-testing room. They have chosen to establish it on the West End as it has shown great potential for revitalization.

“Realistically we’re going to be producing gin and vodka as well as bourbon,” Victor, the CEO of Brough Brothers Bourbon, told WHAS11. “We’re doing our job to help promote Kentucky outside of the U.S.”

“It’s a fantastic feeling but for us, it’s all about giving back to the community,” he continued. “We want to give back to the city just from our knowledge of pretty much going around the world. We wanted to be able to focus all that knowledge back into the city and give back.”

The company, whose bourbon is currently distributed through Amazon in the United Kingdom, expects to officially launch in Louisville next month, according to Louisville Business First. The brothers say they hope to hire four people at the distillery once it’s up and running.

Tyla-Simone Crayton is a 16-year-old home-schooled teen entrepreneur from Houston. She is the CEO of Sienna Sauce, which started in April 2017. Crayton created the recipe for her special secret sauce when she was just 8 years old. Now, she is selling the award-winning sauce in over 60 retail stores, online, and through 90 distributors across the U.S. and earns an estimated $8,000 a month, according to BlackNews.com.

Crayton grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and then relocated to the Sienna Plantation area of Texas, hence the brand name Sienna Sauce. In an attempt to recreate the flavor of sauce she missed from back home, she replicated a similar sauce. This home-based company offers three flavors, which are Sweet & Tangy, Spicy, and Lemon Pepper.

Since launching, Sienna Sauce has already been recognized for its rich taste and quality. The brand participated, and won “Best Sauce,” in the 2018 and 2019 Sauce-A-Holic Fest, competing against 15 other brands.

Crayton joins a long list of Generation Z (those 25 and younger) entrepreneurs, investors, and inventors in the U.S. According to Business.org, unlike previous age groups, Generation Z has grown up with the internet, and they inherently know how to market themselves through social media. They also grew up through the recession of the 2000s, which has made them wary of the “security” of working for a major corporation. A majority of Generation Z are not asking for handouts, considering that 77% of people aged 14 to 21 are already earning their own money.

As Crayton’s business rapidly expands, she already has many accolades under her belt. She has won two pitch competitions: $25,000 in the Side Hustle Showdown on GMA: Strahan, Sara & Keke and $10,000 in the REVOLT Pitch Competition for young entrepreneurs. And she also received a Pinnacle Award from the Greater Houston Black Chamber of Commerce as the first-ever recipient to receive an award for Youth Entrepreneurship.

Actress, writer, and producer Issa Rae says the key to success is having multiple streams of income, in a recent interview with Billboard.

The interview delves into Rae’s newest venture, a recording company called Raedio, that she and her business partner Benoni Tagoe launched in October. Tagoe describes it as an audio content company comprising publishing, live events, music supervision, a music library, and a label that’s a joint venture with Atlantic Records.

“I always say that I model myself after Diddy, Ellen, and Oprah: Oprah for being able to diversify her businesses and being a major influencer in that way; Ellen for being able to make a business out of being herself; and Diddy for his business acumen in expanding beyond hip-hop. I’ve looked to them in terms of ways to make my own imprint,” Rae says.

During the interview Rae was asked where she got her business acumen from; the Insecure actress responded by saying “it comes from being on the internet. When I just wanted to put out some s**t that I had written, and then being forced to market it and then build a team around it and then having ideas about promoting it.”

“Even from a young age, my mom used to call me bossy. Only now do I realize that I wanted to be that,” she continued. “I wanted to be a boss because, why the f**k not? I liked feeling like I was working or in business. I liked feeling like a leader. And it is not always fun, by any means, but there’s an element of accomplishment that I feel in executing projects.”

Along with the record label, Rae has also recently partnered with Los Angeles-based creatives on a coffee shop in Inglewood and invested in a streaming analytics business, according to Moguldom. “South L.A. is my home and joining Ajay and Yonnie as owners of this community-driven endeavor is a dream come true,” she said about the coffee shop. “Hilltop’s mission to uplift our communities through food and fellowship falls right in line with my passions and I’m proud to highlight and amplify such a meaningful business.”

• Lifestyle

by michelr

February 20, 2020

National Museum of African American Music Is Set to Open This Summer in Nashville

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The National Museum of African American Music is on track to open in Nashville later this year. When it does, it will be the only institution dedicated to showcasing music genres created and inspired by black Americans.

In 2015, Karl Dean, who was the mayor of Nashville at the time, announced that plans would move forward to redevelop the old convention center on Fifth and Broadway into a brand-new space. In 2017, demolition started to make way for the construction of apartments, offices, retail, and the NMAAM. Nearly three years from the start of the project, the museum is nearly finished and it is expected to be completed by this summer, WRKN reports.

“The perception nationally, I think, is that Nashville is just country music. And while we love country music, I think it’s important to touch base on all the other musical genres African Americans have helped to influence,” Tamar Smithers, director of Education and Public Programs​​, said, adding it’s a story that needs to be told.

The museum will consist of more than 1,400 artifacts, seven galleries, a theater, and live music. NMAAM will educate and celebrate the influence African Americans have made on America’s music. R&B, hip-hop, soul, funk, Jazz, and Gospel are just a few of more than 50 genres and sub-genres of music that will be showcased and highlighted in the museum, integrating history and interactive technology to bring musicians of the past into the present.

African American music has a very rich history and originated from slaves during the 1600s who used songs to communicate amongst each other. In its basic form, the music was a simple rhythm, beaten out on rudimentary drums and percussion instruments fashioned from materials gathered by slaves. Back in Africa, rhythm was part of daily life and was incorporated into labor, rituals, and celebrations within the community, according to questia.com.

“We thought it was very important for us to establish having robust educational programs and initiatives well in place for the community to engage them and increase that investment well before we open,” Smithers said. “We’re still committed to ensuring we’re engaging the community and making sure we’re taking our programs outside of the museum to Nashville, middle Tennessee, and across the nation.”

Two black elementary school students took home the first-place trophy at a national invention competition for their innovative and creative way to clean their hands.

Chicago second-graders Kailey McGuire and Jaiah Gosa partnered up to solve an issue McGuire noticed after playing in the sand at the beach, which was how to wash your hands without a bathroom around. “I had just finished playing in the sand but there was nowhere to wash my hands nearby,” McGuire told ABC 7 Chicago.

The Lenart Regional Gifted Center students soon created a blueprint and prototype for a portable sink that won first place at the school’s invention competition last year. After winning their school convention, the two students took their new invention to the regional level. Student inventors from across the Chicago region in grades K-8 competed for top honors at the 7th annual Chicago Student Invention Convention. The event was the culmination of a 10-week invention curriculum that was delivered to 3,500 students at 45 schools, according to chicagoinnovation.com.

At an event attended by more than 1,000 people at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Hermann Hall, finalists were identified to compete at the National Invention Convention and Entrepreneurship Expo, held at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Michigan. After winning at the regional level for grades kindergarten to second grade, the pair traveled to Detroit to compete in the National Invention Convention in which they also won.

“The kids did a really good job,” said Karin McGuire, Kailey’s mom. “It was really hard. They’re 7-year-olds staying focused for that long a period of time. So we had to have play breaks, food breaks, and a lot of patience.”

To make their concept a reality, the girls came up with three prototypes, documenting their extensive research in a binder. Finally, they designed a portable, collapsible sink that can be attached to a water bottle.

McGuire, now 8-years-old, is getting ready for another invention convention but this time, she stated, her invention will be in robotics.

• Lifestyle

by michelr

February 20, 2020

Whitney Houston Is Set To Go On a European Hologram Tour

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Whitney Houston is set to appear on the concert stage once again. Eight years after her death, a holographic Houston will go on a European tour that starts in England on Feb. 25 and runs through early April, with additional stops in Europe, Mexico, and North America to be announced at a later date, according to Billboard.

The tour will be brought to the fans by the late singer’s estate and BASE Hologram. The concert set includes a majority of her biggest hits: “How Will I Know,” “Saving All My Love For You,” “I Will Always Love You,” along with some unexpected songs, including a cover of Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” that Houston first recorded three decades prior. The show, which was first conceived five years ago, used a body double along with hundreds of hours of Houston performances and extensive CGI synthesizing.

“We created the hologram the same way they did Carrie Fisher in the Star Wars movie Rogue One,” said Marty Tudor, CEO of BASE Hologram, which has previously revived performing versions of dead singers including Roy Orbison and Maria Callas. “It’s lengthy, it’s tedious, it’s a big, complicated process, but I think it worked.”

The concept of the performance is the brainchild of Houston herself, in at least one aspect. While on her final European tour, she had an “unplugged” section of her show, with a stripped-down band and minimal fanfare. Houston liked that so much that shortly before her death at age 48 on the eve of the 2012 Grammy Awards, she expressed a desire to one day do an entire tour that way, according to CNN.

Houston joins a list of music artists whose estates still earn money even after death. Michael Jackson, Prince, Bob Marley, and John Lennon (just to name a few) are all musicians who have earned big bucks posthumously. According to Forbes, Jackson, the King of Pop, earned an estimated $287 million from the sale of his estate’s stake in EMI Music Publishing to Sony in 2018, more than nine years after his untimely demise. Lennon, between his solo work and his Beatles oeuvre, still sells nearly 2 million albums annually.

A Suffolk, Virginia, school teacher is getting creative this Black History Month!

LaToya McGriff is a first-grade teacher at Creekside Elementary School. She has been teaching there for six years and has been an educator for 12. McGriff is part of the school’s Black History Month committee and decided to dress up every day as a historic African American figure according to WAVY, a local TV website.

“It’s kind of bringing history alive for the kids and it sparks curiosity. Once they’re curious about something that sparks learning. So, they can ask me stuff throughout the day or see me in the hall walking because I’ll stay dressed up all day. They’ll say ‘Oh, you’re the teacher that’s dressed up.’ And they may tell me some facts that I didn’t know about that person or they may ask me something about that person,” said McGriff.  McGriff says she also wanted to do it because of the school’s population. “I work at a majority-black school, so with having so many children of color, I wanted them to see that people who look like them contribute. They made contributions to the world,” she said.

There are countless African American inventors, political activists, musicians, and educators, who have made significant contributions in the world.

Civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X are easily recognizable, but it is also important for the youth to be knowledgeable of the lesser-known names of black history. For instance, Mack Benn Jr., who was the first African American superintendent in Suffolk Public Schools for example.

“I’m hoping they have more confidence in themselves that I, too, can be great, that I can contribute to the world. That’s the biggest takeaway for me,” she stated.

McGriff is going above and beyond as an educator for her class and she hopes that her students not only learn more about those in history but also about themselves.

• Lifestyle

by michelr

February 19, 2020

The ‘Green Grocer’ Providing Fresh Food to Black Neighborhoods

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The “Green Grocer” is a mobile produce market that brings many fresh fruits and vegetables in the Pittsburgh area right to many African Americans’ doorstep. Part of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, “Green Grocer” aims to bring fresh food to areas that are typically known as “food deserts.” With the closing of Shop ‘n Save on Centre Avenue in the Hill District last March, most of the Hill District is considered a food desert, where fresh fruits and other foods are not readily available in the neighborhood, according to the New Pittsburgh Courier.

The Green Grocer truck is operational thanks to a partnership with the Urban Redevelopment Authority of the City of Pittsburgh. Diamonte Walker, the deputy executive director for the URA and a Hill District resident, led the efforts in getting the Green Grocer truck into its new location in the Centre Heldman Plaza, where Shop ‘n Save was located. The URA late last year purchased the Shop ‘n Save building and some of the parking lot for $1.6 million.

“We believe that everybody has the right to access fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh food, and have a choice about it,” said Josh Anderegg, mobile markets coordinator for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. “The Green Grocer is an attempt to try to make that situation better in neighborhoods that have been denied that opportunity of access.”

Poor eating habits and a high intake of salty and greasy foods can lead to high blood pressure, which is why the Green Grocer is such a necessity. Extremely high blood pressure can lead to strokes, heart attacks and acute kidney damage, classified as a hypertensive emergency, is five times higher in inner-city African American patients than the national average, according to a recent study co-led by a Rutgers researcher. The study, which is the largest one of its kind to compare the development of hypertensive emergency in U.S. inner-cities, appears in the journal Blood Pressure. One in three adults has high blood pressure known as hypertension, with the highest rates among African Americans, according to ScienceDaily.com. High blood pressure can potentially be fatal but you may be able to lower your blood pressure by improving your diet. A diet high in vegetables and fruits may help lower your blood pressure, and eating a wide variety will provide multiple nutrients to support a healthy blood pressure according to LiveStrong.com.