Opal Lee will soon receive her eighth honorary doctorate in recognition of her legacy of activism and unwavering commitment to civil rights.

According to People MagazineSouthern Methodist University will present the 97-year-old “Grandma of Juneteenth” with an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree at a commencement ceremony on May 11.

“For Ms. Lee to join us at the commencement and share her work during the symposium is a signal of honor for our university” – SMU President R. Gerald Turner – wrote within the statement. “Her life’s work is most deserving of this recognition, and our students will be inspired by her.”

In 2016, Lee, 89, made a symbolic 2,500-kilometer walk from her home in Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., to urge Congress and then-President Barack Obama’s administration to declare June 11 a federal holiday honoring the tip of slavery. after the civil war. She stood nearby when President Joe Biden formally signed the bill into law five years in a while June 17, 2021.

“I must tell you that I have only been president for a few months, but I think this will go down as one of the greatest honors that I will experience as president – not because I did it, but because you did it, Democrats and Republicans.” Biden told her on the time, People magazine reported. “It’s a huge, huge honor.”

Lee’s dream of rebuilding her childhood home, destroyed by a racist mob in 1939, got here true in December when she purchased the land where the home once stood. After years of trying to buy the land, Lee discovered that Trinity Habitat for Humanity had purchased it. The organization’s CEO, Gage Yager, informed her that a plot of land in Fort Worth was available, Washington Post. she got here forward, sold it to her for just $10, and offered to construct her a house. Last month, she helped construct its first wall.

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According to SMU, Lee will achieve one other of her goals with the planned opening of the $70 million, 50,000-square-foot National Juneteenth Museum on south Fort Worth, where she operated her own modest Juneteenth museum.

The latest constructing will function a museum, cultural center and business incubator, and will be home to a mixed-income housing community. Lee is the museum’s honorary chairwoman and, together with her granddaughter, is a current board member.

Among the notable nods, as well as to seven other Ph.D.s, the Dallas Morning News editorial board named Lee its 2021 Texan of the Year, and he or she is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. In 2023, she became the second African-American woman, after the late Republican Barbara Jordan, to be honored with a portrait in chamber of the Texas State Senate, SMU reports.

According to reports, the subsequent stop on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s world tour will be Nigeria.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will arrive within the country in May on the invitation of the Nigerian Chief of Defense Staff. During their visit to the African country, the couple will take part in native cultural events and meet with various service members.

The invitation to visit was reportedly initiated by Harry Invictus games, a sporting event he designed after discovering how “sports can help wounded servicemen and women recover—physically, mentally and socially.” Considered one in all the prince’s few ties with the royal family, 500 athletes from 21 countries took part last yr in Germany, where Nigeria was supported by the duchess herself. Although the 2025 Invictus Games are scheduled to be held in Canada, Nigeria has expressed interest in hosting a future event.

“The visit is intended to strengthen Nigeria’s position at the match and enable it to host the event in later years,” Brigadier General Tukur Gusau, Nigeria’s acting director of defense information, said in an announcement, according to People Magazine.

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During last yr’s event, the couple took a specific liking to the Nigerian team. In 2022, after learning she was 43% Nigerian during a genealogy test, Markle revealed her newfound heritage on her award-winning podcast, Archetypes.

“I’m going to start digging into all this because everyone I’ve told, especially Nigerian women, is like, ‘What!’” she said on the show.

In light of this revelation, Markle and her husband reportedly frolicked with the Nigerian national team on the 2023 Invictus Games, where the Duchess of Sussex was given a brand new nickname. Like her royal title, her Nigerian name “Amira Ngozi Lolo” has a royal meaning, with “Amira” meaning warrior princess of legend, “Ngozi” meaning blessed one, and Lolo meaning “royal wife”.

“I’m not saying we’re playing favorites in our house, but since my wife discovered she’s of Nigerian descent, it’s probably going to be a little more competitive this year,” Prince Harry said in his 2023 commencement speech, teasing that one in all them a team that the duchess will support.

The Seventies were marked by the “second wave” of feminism the starting of the breast cancer awareness movement, in which several distinguished public figures drew attention to the need for education, research and support for this disease. Since then, great strides have been made in stopping, detecting and treating breast cancer, and significantly fewer women are actually dying from the disease. However, this progress has not benefited everyone equally; Black women are 40% more likely to die from breast cancer compared to white women. The difference amongst younger women is much more stark: Black women under the age of 50 are twice as likely to die from breast cancer as white women of the same age.

As a physician and scientist – and as an individual of African descent – ​​I’m acutely aware of the devastating impact breast cancer has on our community. In my greater than twenty years of clinical practice, I’m conversant in the proven fact that the same disease affects people in alternative ways, regardless of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic background.

I’m committed not only to eliminating health disparities, but in addition to higher understanding those that experience them. Who they’re? Where do they live? When they get the life-changing news that they’ve cancer? And when will they find out how to navigate the health care system to receive appropriate and optimal care?

The sad reality is that this Black men and women have lower rates of cancer screening overall. In black women, breast cancer is more likely to be diagnosed in advanced stages, when the disease is more complicated to treat, and it’s triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive form for which there are fewer treatment options, is twice as likely to be diagnosed. Furthermore, black women have lowest 5-year relative survival rate for every stage of breast cancer at diagnosis. This indicates significant gaps in access to quality care and treatment after diagnosis.

At the heart of these inequalities is a particularly complex history of discrimination, prejudice and distrust in the health care system. This history, combined with the lived experiences of many Black women today, often limit and even prevent them from accessing cancer screening opportunities and in search of care and support after diagnosis. This discrepancy also applies to participation in clinical trials aimed toward developing latest, potentially breakthrough drugs. It is well-known that racial and ethnic minorities proceed to be underrepresented in clinical trials, with recently published data estimating that only roughly 4-7% of participants in cancer clinical trials are Black. Even this small percentage is believed to be an underestimate, on condition that only about one-third of cancer clinical trials take race into consideration. In addition to lack of trust in physicians, aspects contributing to low participation in clinical trials include study design (e.g., lack of diverse recruitment), healthcare skilled bias, recruitment requirements (e.g., exclusion of individuals with other diseases), and barriers to access.

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To achieve true health equity for all and enable Black women to profit from scientific advances in breast cancer screening, diagnosis and care, these disparities should be addressed. Despite the many barriers, I consider that by working together we will find ways to make progress. No one person or organization can address these challenges alone; this can require cooperation and partnership towards a standard mission.

To that end, Pfizer has partnered with the American Cancer Society to start making changes where they’re most urgently needed: in communities which are disproportionately affected by breast and prostate cancer and underserved. By latest “Change the odds” Through this initiative, we are going to raise awareness of free and low-cost screening, increase access to support and patient navigation services, and supply general details about clinical trials.

As a black woman, I understand how necessary it’s to take care of my very own health to get the care I deserve – and I encourage every woman over the age of 40 or younger: If you could have risk aspects, corresponding to family history, seek regular breast screenings towards cancer. However, as a physician and advocate, I do know that the health care community simply needs to do a greater job of advocating for women of color. Every life lost to breast cancer is a life we ​​cannot afford to lose.

As Pfizer’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Aida Habtezion leads Pfizer’s global medical and safety organization, chargeable for providing patients, physicians and regulators with details about the protected and appropriate use of Pfizer medicines. He also directs Pfizer’s Translational Medicine Equity Institute, an initiative to achieve health equity. Prior to joining Pfizer, Dr. Habtezion was a practicing physician and scientist at Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.