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FAMU, a questionable donor and a $237 million gift that isn’t what it seemed

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NEW YORK (AP) – It could be the largest-ever private gift to a historically black college or university: $237 million – far beyond the recipient’s means. The money was promised by the 30-year-old, who shared his journey from a childhood spent in foster care to becoming, as he put it, “the youngest African-American industrial hemp producer in Texas.”

And so, on the primary weekend of May, Florida A&M University celebrated Gregory Gerami’s extraordinary contributions with all of the mandatory pomp. He spoke at first. Administrators wearing regalia posed with a large check. Gerami even assured listeners that “the money is in the bank.”

This has not been the case and may never be the case.

In response to public backlash over the apparent failure to properly vet Gerami and the donation, FAMU said the donation had been suspended, dashing expectations for increased financial stability for the 137-year-old institution and its 9,000 students. Gerami maintains that all the pieces will work out ultimately, but other small universities he has approached with offers of larger donations have never received any money.

An eye-catching gift from a little-known company

According to Shawnta Friday-Stroud, then vp for university advancement, Gerami contacted Florida A&M’s advancement office in regards to the donation last fall. Shortly thereafter, university officials, including President Larry Robinson and Athletic Director Tiffani-Dawn Sykes, began meeting with him.

Lee Hall atop a hill on the campus of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida, Thursday, June 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Wallheiser)

In January, Spelman College in Atlanta announced a $100 million gift, which was considered on the time the most important single donation to any HBCU. FAMU officials say Gerami desired to exceed that number. Ultimately, they agreed this might be through 14 million shares of his fledgling industrial hemp company.

However, the worth of the corporate – and these shares – stays unclear.

Gerami founded Batterson Farms Corp in 2021 with aspirations of becoming a leading producer of hemp-based plastics. While Texas Department of Agriculture records confirm that the corporate is licensed to grow hemp, there’s little else to point that that is the case.

The company’s website is poor. Affiliate links to buy HempWood products were severed and the checkout cart function was not working when an Associated Press reporter visited the positioning in late May and early June. The confusing message to investors also warned of late fees for missing monthly payments.

Kimberly Sue Abbott, a founding board member who told the AP she was incorrectly listed as co-CEO, forged doubt on Gerami’s stated stake value and said Batterson Farms “does not grow hemp anywhere that I am aware of.”

She and Gerami met around 2013 when she was a member of the Birmingham, Alabama City Council. She felt she needed guidance on how one can “do something good with her money”. Since then, he has invited her to take part in various ventures, but none of them last, she said.

“He never sticks to a schedule. The information he has is always wrong in some way. Technical issues are always a problem,” she said.

Greg Wilson, founding father of HempWood, confirmed that Gerami is a customer, but said he doesn’t buy much. High rates of interest have reduced each home sales and interest in remodeling with products like his, Wilson said, making it a bad time for wood alternative corporations.

Gerami called Abbott’s characterization “inaccurate” and outdated. Without answering whether Batterson Farms grows hemp, he said his company acts as an intermediary between farmers and consumers. He declined to supply details in regards to the company’s contracts, revenue and staff.

He also claimed that the corporate’s website was created by a third-party developer, which he said was never intended to be a place where people could buy flooring directly.

NDAs, ‘misrepresentation’ and lack of due diligence?

Florida A&M officials have shared little about Gerami and the vetting process.

Last month, Friday-Strroud told FAMU Foundation board members that an “extensive review” of Gerami’s past yielded the identical information that ended up “on social media,” an apparent reference to online upset over his previous reported donation attempts and the anomaly of his corporations.

Still, she said, they moved forward after Robinson’s loop. According to a recent report, Friday-Strud signed a confidentiality agreement on behalf of the inspiration’s board on April 26 at Gerami’s request. copy obtained by AP.

They also announced the donation pending a still-independent estimate of the worth of the private shares, which Gerami said he assessed based on existing but undisclosed sales agreements.

Officials admitted that the appraisal could end in a much lower valuation.

Stock donations and NDAs aren’t unusual for university development offices. But based on some higher education fundraisers, such donations typically come from wealthy shareholders of high-profile public corporations, and NDAs should involve the complete foundation’s board.

“Before you announce that decision, you always want to make sure those resources will be available,” said W. Anthony Neal, a longtime HBCU fundraiser who has worked with the Gers previously. “Because you don’t want to come back with egg on your face.”

Before making a gift of stock, corporations typically obtain a so-called 409A valuation from an independent third party, said Bob Musumeci, a business professor at Indiana University with a background in corporate finance.

The value of equity, variety of employees, financial projects and other details are taken into consideration within the assessment. Outside investment, resembling a family trust, may also increase a company’s value beyond what sales numbers and public data, when available, may suggest.

Gerami didn’t break any law by flouting this standard, Musumeci said, but the very fact that the gift was not properly assessed before publication raises questions.

“I would definitely be cautiously pessimistic about this. But I can not say whether that’s the case or not,” he said in regards to the accuracy of the valuation.

Both FAMU and Gerami said the transfer of share certificates between their accounts took place in April.

A spokesman for Carta, the capital management company that they are saying accomplished the exchange, only confirmed that the platform notified Gerami on May 14 that his contract had been terminated on account of “misrepresentation.” They declined to comment on FAMU’s claims that it had an account with Carta and Gerami’s claim that the corporate sent documentation confirming the transfer.

Small schools with little funding

Florida A&M just isn’t the primary school to receive a suggestion from Gerami.

Neal, an HBCU fundraiser, was overseeing a $3.4 million fundraising campaign in 2023 to have a good time the a hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Wiley University in Marshall, Texas, when Gerami reached out to us. Neal said they discussed funding for brand spanking new campus facilities within the range of $1 million to $2 million, and he began the “normal review process” as then-senior vp for institutional advancement.

However, not much information has emerged. After at the very least seven interviews, Neal requested a one-on-one meeting to personally confirm Gerami’s legitimacy. Communication then broke down.

“Sometimes donors just pull out,” Neal said. “It doesn’t mean anything bad.”

This photo, taken from video provided by WCTV, shows Gregory Gerami, a 30-year-old who called himself “the youngest African-American industrial hemp producer in Texas,” third from left, and Florida A&M University President Larry Robinson pose with a ceremonial check while surrounded by others university officials in the course of the commencement ceremony on May 4, 2024, in Tallahassee, Florida (WCTV via AP)

But three years earlier, Coastal Carolina University also withdrew a $95 million contribution from an anonymous donor because it “failed to meet prior expectations of the deal,” a news release said.

Although CCU declined to discover the anonymous donor in an email to the AP, Gerami was identified as a benefactor last spring. The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Gerami told the AP that he has “considered” as many as 15 colleges and universities lately as a part of a strategy to determine research partnerships that he believes will make his company eligible for grants. Although Gerami didn’t reveal the names of those schools, all those documented are small institutions with modest funding. He said he’s institutions that need funding and have capabilities in hydroponics, a approach to growing plants without soil.

The transformative gift was gone

The consequences at FAMU are tangible.

The school ended its cooperation with the Gers. Friday-Strud resigned. University trustees – surprised that they were kept at the hours of darkness throughout the six-month process – approved a third-party investigation involving government officials He joined.

In a May 15 speech to trustees, Robinson called the announcement of the Gerami gift “premature at best.”

“I saw the potential in this unprecedented gift to serve our students and our athletic programs in ways unimaginable at the time,” Robinson said. “I wanted it all to really happen, and I ignored the warning signs along the way.”

Days after announcing the donation, Robinson reportedly withdrew a $15 million request to the local economic development board to upgrade FAMU’s soccer stadium. documents obtained by AP.

Although he didn’t provide a reason and the university refused to comment, amongst other things: gift agreement shows a one-time allocation of $24 million from the Gerami gift to athletics facilities.

Millions a 12 months would also fund scholarships, a nursing school and a student business incubator over the subsequent decade.

The public embarrassment has apprehensive some HBCU supporters who hope a lot negative attention won’t dampen the resurgent fundraising atmosphere.

“For someone who wants HBCUs to always be successful, it’s really heartbreaking because there was so much emotion,” said Marybeth Gasman, an education researcher at Rutgers University and a three-time HBCU board member. “Just real, real excitement for a transformative gift of this magnitude.”

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There was a time when HBCUs needed to depend on an unknown miracle donor, but Gasman said that’s less common lately. Long missed by foundations and underfunded by some states, these schools have gained renewed interest from corporations lately.

However, disparities in public financing persist. Historically, Black land-grant universities in 16 states have lost $12.6 billion over the past three many years — including $1.9 billion that must have gone to FAMU, based on a 2023 Biden administration evaluation.

For his part, Gerami believes that questions on his donation are unnecessary. He admitted that the donation amount was his own estimate, but he expected an independent valuation to verify the worth of the shares inside a month. He said he also believes FAMU will accept the gift after an independent investigation is accomplished.

“Until a third-party valuation is done, this is purely speculation,” Gerami said.

“We want to act very carefully because we don’t want to play games that lead to speculation without actual, fact-based information,” he added.

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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Houston’s Trills On Wheels Expands With Brunch Tour

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Houston, Trill on wheels, hip hop


A well-liked interactive Houston attraction that continues to attract visitors and showcase the town’s wealthy history and black business scene has expanded its offerings.

Trill On Wheels is a national prime minister a hip-hop bike experience that celebrates Houston culture and contributions to hip-hop. Launched in 2021, the party bike offers a two-hour cruise around Houston with stops at various black-owned businesses while guests enjoy cocktails and shisha.

Designed to rejoice the Houston lifestyle, each bike is designed to spotlight the town’s automobile culture with a “Candy Paint” mural featuring hip-hop heroes and the neighborhoods they represent. The bikes also feature Swang’s rims wrapped in trendy tires and Houston’s signature bass pumping out of the speakers.

The exuberant experience has made Trill On Wheels a tourist attraction that visitors put at the highest of their lists. Now, the brand new EADO Hip-Hop Brunch Tour offers guests a fun-filled approach to experience popular brunch stops in Houston.

Trill On Wheels is currently based in Houston’s historic Third Ward neighborhood, EADO, and plans to expand to the Fourth Ward. The tour experience combines the talent of Houston-born artists with a splash of sunshine fitness. Featuring Beatking, Slim Thug, and Lil Keke.

What began as a single bike delivered in a shipping container to the resort “is a testament to our team’s commitment to meeting high expectations and delivering a world-class experience to our riders,” he said. business stated on its website.

“Team Trill” is run by a married couple with two babies.

“As true fans of hip-hop culture, hosting epic game nights and being ‘out there,’ we wanted to create an experience that we could enjoy ourselves and one day pass on to our son,” the couple said. “After a year of prayer, research and pure, unfiltered hustle, Trill On Wheels was born and we couldn’t be more proud!”

Trill On Wheels has served over 30,000 tourists who’ve donated over $700,000 to local black-owned businesses, helping to spice up Houston’s economy. Be sure to examine out Trill On Wheels in your next visit to Houston, and don’t forget to bring your personal booze!


This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
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Fear of sitting in crowded, black spaces

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There are two types of black people in the world: 1.) those that can walk right into a church on Easter Sunday, “sit” the highest five seats, and take a look at the ushers to just accept that those seats are taken; or 2.) me.

I’m the kind of person, and I represent the kind of black people, who hate being asked to sit down anywhere. I almost never feel anxious in public and I’m rarely nervous or concerned about who’s around me. But after I am in a public place and someone who just isn’t there and is not going to be there for some time asks me to sit down, I get anxious. I sweat. I stress. I fade quickly after which hand over. I don’t like to sit down for other people and I don’t ask people to sit down for me. I don’t prefer to put my burdens on the riverbank of the one who was on time.

But unfortunately, in the black community, “holding seats” is a thing—a sport, even. I’ve seen (and I mean this with dead seriousness; “without a hat,” as the children would say) an elderly black woman tell an usher in church that she was holding seats, and get mad on the ushers who suggested she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t consider they thought she couldn’t hold a row of seats, and so they couldn’t consider she couldn’t consider she couldn’t do it. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. My wife is one of those individuals who will hold all of the requested seats and risk a public demonstration of “Who’s going to break first, loudly?” over said seats. She’ll even be very mad at me after I can’t do it. Marriage, right?

If I’ll, I would really like to share with you all a recent experience I had attempting to get a seat that not only threw me out of the constructing, but threw me into an overcrowded room where I could now not see anything on account of the stress of attempting to get a seat for somebody. Also, as you may see, I failed this task with flying colours.

Just a few weeks ago, a famous friend of mine was giving a speak about books at a famous Washington landmark. I had been to that bookstore before—persistently—and had attended many of that friend’s talks. A math problem was about to pop into my head; there was absolutely no way that store could accommodate the number of individuals who would show up for that talk. Spoiler alert: I used to be right.

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Since I consider myself a forward-thinking person, I anticipated this math problem and got to the shop early enough to get a seat, but late enough to get one of, for example, three remaining seats. Many people should have been pondering the identical thing I used to be occupied with math, not math, given the space constraints of the shop. Anyway, I went in and sat down on a stool, then watched the parade of people, mostly black, who got here in after me, attempting to determine where to sit down. As an increasing number of people, especially older blacks, entered, I prepared to present up my seat and use my younger legs to face for your entire show.

And then I got a text from a friend asking me to avoid wasting a spot for her. Now that friend cannot stand for long, I had to avoid wasting her a spot (which I used to be already willing to present up) or we’d have to depart together; that wasn’t an option; we were there to see our friend be amazing and do her own thing.

But here’s the issue: My friend who asked for a seat was a minimum of quarter-hour away, and the stream of people coming in was growing. On top of that, my seat was in the aisle where people were coming in, which meant that everybody, including women who looked like my grandmother, could see that I used to be NOT giving up my seat. I looked like a young kid on a subway automotive not giving up her seat to seniors or pregnant women. The thing is, I knew why I wasn’t getting up, but they didn’t, and I couldn’t look my grandmother in the face and say, “Hey, I would give up my seat for you, but I would save it for a woman younger than you but older than me who potentially has a leg problem and wouldn’t care if you didn’t get it.” No one asked, they simply watched.

I used to be sweating an increasing number of with every passing minute and an increasing number of people were observing me. I do not know if that truly happened or not but that is the way it felt and I felt uncomfortable and judged. I used to be texting my mate with my ETA and he kept saying “I’ll be there in 5 minutes” for over 5 minutes. I let her know I didn’t think I could sit any longer because I used to be beginning to seem like I hadn’t been raised properly.

Then the book event organizer took the microphone and identified that there have been issues with the seating and that those of us who could should hand over our seats to those that were older than us or might need to sit down down, and I felt like she was talking on to me when she said that. She mentioned the overflow situation outside on the back patio instead for all of us who either needed a seat or had to present up our seats. At this point, my stress and anxiety were at their peak; my heart was beating fast and my palms were sweaty. I could not take it anymore. I stood up from my seat and without anyone, said, “The seat is free,” and quickly ran to the overflow spot while texting my friend that I could not hold on to my seat any longer.

It’s been weeks since that night and I still remember how I felt attempting to keep the place going. I felt really uncomfortable and I knew my wife could be high quality. Oh, and concerning the overbooking situation – it was awful. The place had no idea what they were doing and arrange a projector TV during sunset so nobody could see what was happening. Cool idea, terrible execution, but a minimum of I wasn’t stressed anymore. I used to be briefly annoyed that the place hadn’t thought to order a bigger space for the lecture considering who that they had brought, but that is in the past now.

Now it’s OK; thanks for asking. But one thing is obviously, and two things are obviously: next time I’m going right into a place that I do know can be crowded, I’ll just skip the entire sitting thing and prepare to face in the front, back, or side. Sure, my back might hurt and my legs might ache, but a minimum of I won’t feel stressed or judged.

If you’ve gotten a friend who cannot hold seats, please don’t force them to. It’s an excessive amount of.

Thank you for coming to my talk in Panama.


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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White woman calls 911 about her racist and uncompromising mother for shaving her 3-year-old mixed-race child’s hair without permission

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In a now-viral Reddit post, a woman shared why she called the police on her mother after she shaved her biracial daughter’s curly hair.

This fastingWritten on the r/AITAH forum by user OrneryExchange8001, it has since been faraway from the platform’s moderator list, but received over 17,000 votes after being posted on September 8.

A Reddit user wrote about her 3-year-old mixed-race daughter, Zoe.

Stock photo
A well-liked Reddit post describes a grandma pushing her limits. (Stock photo/Pexels)

“Zoe is biracial – I am white and my husband Tyler is black,” she said. he wrotein response to the New York Post. “Zoe has the most stunning curly hair, and I’ve always taken great care of it. She absolutely loves her curls, and we’ve made it a fun, bonding activity to style her hair together.”

Unlike Zoe’s parents, the little girl’s grandmother was not a fan of the 3-year-old’s hair and made disparaging comments about it, similar to, “It looks so wild,” “That’s just too much hair for a little girl,” and “Wouldn’t it be easier if it was straight?”

Zoe’s mother said she all the time ignored the comments as “harmless” until a childcare incident involving Zoe’s grandmother led to disaster.

Zoe’s mother said she left the 3-year-old girl in her mother’s care for a couple of hours a couple of weeks ago as a consequence of a piece emergency.

“When I arrived to pick up Zoe, I was horrified – Zoe’s beautiful curls were completely gone,” Zoe’s mother wrote. “My mum cut my daughter’s hair without my consent – ​​she did it halfway through.”

Zoe’s head was “shaved bald.” When her mother asked her grandmother what had happened, her grandmother “just shrugged and said, ‘I did her a favor. Now she looks neat and tidy. And her hair will grow back straight.'”

The child’s mother said she was “angry” and near tears, adding that she felt her mother had “violated my daughter’s self-esteem” and “did not respect my boundaries as a parent.”

The incident prompted Zoe’s mother to call police and report the hair cutting as an assault.

“They came and gave statements to both me and my mum and she was later brought in for questioning. Then my dad, who I have always loved and respected, called me and was furious,” Zoe’s mother wrote. “He said I had gone too far, that my mum was just trying to help and that calling the police was a huge overreaction.”

Thousands of Reddit users sided with the child’s mother, expressing similar contempt and disgust on the grandmother’s behavior, noting the racist connotations surrounding the incident.

“This is terrifying,” one other commenter added. “There is a long, racist history against black women wearing their hair natural, I can’t help but feel like this is somehow stemming from that. Not to mention her ignorance that her hair will ‘grow back straight.’”

“NTA your mom attacked your child because he’s black. That’s a hate crime,” one person added.

“Her comments and inflicting physical harm on a minor are more reminiscent of a hate crime than a haircut,” one other comment echoed.

This article was originally published on : atlantablackstar.com
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