Entertainment
Michael Vick voted for the first time in 2020. Now he encourages others to get involved.
Growing up in Newport News, Virginia, in the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, Michael Vick didn’t know much about elections or voter rights.
Thanks to his parents, Vick understood the scale of electing leaders in this country, especially the president, but the former NFL quarterback was surrounded by violence and poverty in his hometown (nicknamed “Bad News” because “a lot of bad things happen there,” compatriot Allen Iverson once said). As a youth, Vick’s only concern was entering into the NFL and getting over his illness, so things like voting and laws took a backseat.
A federal dogfighting conviction in 2007 sent him to 21 months in prison, further alienating Vick from the electoral process and his desire to exercise his right to vote.
“At a young age, I lost the right to be involved,” Vick told Andscape. “So for an extended time I used to be distant from it, I didn’t concentrate to it since it didn’t mean anything.
“It had no effect on me.”
While in prison, Vick made a listing of things he wanted to achieve after his release, which included: voting for the first time. In 2020, greater than a decade after his release, Vick’s voting rights were restored, allowing the 40-year-old to solid his first ballot this yr.
On the eve of Tuesday’s presidential election, the former dynamic quarterback is recommending that others register to vote in order that their voices may also be heard. He partnered with the Vote or Else campaign to engage more Black communities in the political process to improve their social standing after the four-year election cycle.
“People didn’t do this for us when we were growing up,” Vick said. “So this is a campaign where I felt like if someone watches me and idealizes me in a way, they can look at everything I do outside of playing football.”
After a two-year collegiate profession at Virginia Tech that included a national championship berth and a third-place finish in Heisman Trophy voting in 1999, Vick was chosen No. 1 overall in the 2001 NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons, making him first, the Black quarterback can be chosen with the top pick. It only took one season for Vick to turn into one in every of the most fun and unique players in league history, combining a sprinter’s speed with the elusiveness of a kick return and a cannon for a throwing arm.
His Jump 46 meters during a game against the Minnesota Vikings during his sophomore season in which Vick’s lightning speed caused two defenders to run into one another trying to attack him, it felt like something out of a movie. At the start of the 2002 playoffs, he traveled to Lambeau Field to face the Green Bay Packers, who had not lost a house playoff game since 1933. At 31 degrees Celsius Vick made something out of nothing in almost every performanceleading the Falcons to a 27-7 loss.
From there, Vick became a cultural icon. Nike gave him his own signature line of shoes, a first for an NFL quarterback. His cover of the 2004 video game Madden and its almost indestructible gameplay of the game’s characters is one in every of the most significant covers of a whole generation of gamers and continues to be talked about today. In each his game and appearance (dark skin, cornrows hairstyle, streetwear), Vick displayed a coolness that was more present in the NBA than the NFL at the time. Wearing a Falcons jersey backwards with Vick’s name and No. 7 on the back was a trend, and although in 2004 he was principally just standing in the music video for Atlanta rapper T.I.’s single “Rubber Band Man,” his mere presence was a moment. itself.
“Michael Vick was the Michael Jordan of our football,” said Marvin Bing, founding father of Mobilize Justice in Philadelphia, which organized the “Vote or Else” events. “It was Jesus on the gridiron.”
Vick signed a 10-year, $130 million contract with the Falcons in 2004, a then-record amount, but by April 2007 he was under investigation for running a dogfighting ring out of several of his Virginia homes for six years. In July 2007, Vick was indicted by a federal grand jury and on December 10, 2007, he was sentenced to 23 months in prison. (In September 2007, Vick was also indicted in reference to two state dogfights in Virginia; in that case, Vick pleaded guilty and received a three-year suspended sentence.)
After serving 19 months in prison – where he refused to eat for the first three days of his stay, missed his grandmother’s funeral and witnessed various things, – he told an ESPN reporter things that “should have stayed in prison” at the time – Vick was released in July 2009. Within weeks of his firing and after consulting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Vick signed with the Philadelphia Eagles as Donovan McNabb’s backup last season, becoming the starter for the 2010 season. Vick resumed his great play – in 2010 he had a historic 400-yard game and 6 touchdowns against the Washington Redskins – and later signed one other $100 million contract with the Eagles in 2011.
Ryan Hunt/Getty Images
While serving his sentence from 2007 to 2009, Vick didn’t participate in the election of then senator. Barack Obama for president. He knew who Obama was because he had examine the election and watched the debates, but witnessing the historic election of the nation’s first black president made him feel more misplaced in prison. So he finally decided to vote when he was free.
“I felt like on a small scale this was something that would be the most important thing at some point,” he said. “It’s about having your rights to do certain things in life.
“I screwed it up and I wanted to at least fight for it, and if I missed then at least I gave it a chance.”
But when Vick tried to vote in Florida with family and friends in 2011, they found he was ineligible due to his felony conviction. Before 2018, the Florida Constitution permanently prohibited individuals with felony convictions from voting. (Vick owned a house in Broward County, Florida). But in November 2018, Florida voters passed Amendment 4, restoring voting rights to 1.4 million returning residents like Vick. Months later, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis added a requirement in 2019 that those affected by Amendment 4 first repay any fines, fees and restitution before they’ll regain the right to vote.
Although Vick paid nearly $1 million in restitution for his conviction, he still had not registered to vote as of early 2020. He partnered with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which works to restore voting rights to individuals who have served their sentences for crimes, and led the effort to pass Amendment 4 to each regain his rights and lift funds to help other returning residents pay court fees. During that time, the coalition raised greater than $4 million to cover the fees, with some support from the More Than a Vote campaign backed by Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James.
“(If) people can call you a criminal, it means they can treat you differently” – Desmond Meade, executive director of the coalition, he said in a 2020 documentary about Vick’s electoral journey. “We deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and the best way to achieve that is to make our voices heard.”
Vick voted for the first time in November 2020, filling out a Florida absentee ballot from his home in California. “I felt that younger generations, seeing me do this, whether they were white, black or indifferent, would strive to do the same,” he said.
Across the country, in Philadelphia, Bing was mounting a campaign for Tuesday’s upcoming presidential election that relied on people like Vick for support.
In addition to founding Mobilize Justice, Bing also served as national artistic director for the human rights organization Amnesty International USA and is co-founder of Justice League NYC, which advocates for criminal and social justice reform. Bing’s father, Malik Aziz, was a Philadelphia civil rights activist who in 2000 successfully challenged a state law barring residents with returning felonies from voting.
AP Photo/Rob Carr, file
“He was one of the first people to actually engage in advocacy for this organization and partner with it to actually challenge the legal system in the states to gain voting rights after he got out of prison,” Bing said of his father.
For the Vote or Else campaign, Bing invited athletes and entertainers to connect with Black communities who may feel forgotten between election cycles and support collective change to improve their social standing. That list includes Vick and Iverson, rappers Beanie Sigel, Freeway, Jadakiss and Killer Mike, and actor Woody McClain.
Bing said he selected these stars because their upbringing and background made them credible messengers.
“They come from what I consider ‘mud,’” Bing said. “They know what it’s like to fight, they know what it’s like to just play this sport to get out of a bad situation and change their family and (their) circumstances.”
Vick walked through neighborhoods in Philadelphia and Atlanta, knocking on doors, talking to residents, hugging them and taking photos to educate them about their right to vote and the importance of getting their voices heard. A girl Vick met in Atlanta told him her father was an enormous fan and hung his Falcons jersey on the wall.
“It makes me persevere and achieve more in life,” said Vick. “I’m not a young man, but I still have a lot of life ahead of me, God willing, so I continue to set goals for myself. People like that encourage me to hear stories like that and people appreciating what I did in the time I spent there.”
Bing said Vick brings a novel perspective as a talented black athlete, entrepreneur, husband and father who managed to escape Virginia and the criminal justice system. Vick, who retired in 2017 after 13 seasons, speaks the languages of the Black community and the resilience he has shown over the past twenty years is an indication of hope.
So much in order that, according to Bing, Vick inspired no less than one person in Philadelphia to fulfill his civic duty.
“One woman said, ‘S— I could go vote early now,’” Bing said.
Pastor John Gray raised greater than just a few eyebrows, with his last performance in Podcastie “Road Future Wifey”, where he shared surprisingly intimate details about his marriage.
A special episode of the fifth anniversary, hosted by Laterras R. Whitfield at Love Story Church in Greenville, South Carolina, gathered a guest list to speak about love and relationships, including Pastor Gray and Aventter Gray, actors KJ Smith and Skyh Black, artist David Banner and experts Tiara Walton, Arian Simone and Dr. Rick Applewite.
The celebration combined these influential voices to find the topics of affection, healing and faith through personal stories and reflections on the evolution of their understanding of relationships.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfgohwwyydu
The episode included cordial letters to future spouses, unexpected guests’ performances and tribute to unforgettable moments that shaped the heritage of susceptibility, reconstruction and hopes of the podcast.
He also assured the controversial pastor John Gray to speak about his life, profession and relationship.
At some point Gray put all of it on the table.
“I did badly. I ran against marriage. But more than I sinned against my upbringing. I ran against my own weddings, my personal moral code,” Gray admitted in the course of the podcast. “Black women raised me who were hurt by black men and I became what I hated.”
The preacher continued his emotional revelation, dividing the hopes for the longer term of his son.
“My son will be a better person than me. He will be all. He will be free. He will be a faithful husband who will not be verbally or sexually infidel in his marriage,” he said before he pays attention to his wife with a press release that can soon ignite social media.
Instagram ITS_ONSITE published a clip during which he said: “This woman is the only woman in which I was inside. And when I am thirsty. I drink her. I stopped trying things that did not belong to me.”
The pastor confirmed his ongoing internal struggles, stating that “it will always be the basis”, that he must proceed to fight, describing it as a part of himself, which can not disappear.
Gray later explained that this “basic nature” was a “tactic of survival”, which he developed as a baby, which he’s now learning to manage through counseling.
ITS_ONSITE observers weighed In the intimate declaration of Gray.
“Sorry, I’m begging your damn pasting passt? Things that we didn’t have to know … It’s !!!” He wrote one shocked commentator.
Another admitted: “I have a second hand shame”, while the third felt that the pastor “should have been gathered immediately.”
Some Gray weapons, with one supporter noticing: “You have to understand the pastor, they are real people who have the same thought that yes.”
Another simply commented: “I bless you, Lord, because I can’t judge !!”
Gray, who gained importance as an associate pastor within the church of Joel Osteen Lakewood in Houston, maintained a major public profile through his television performances in his own reality show “The Book of John Gray” and his role because the principal pastor Brentless Church in Greenville from 2018.
His sincere discussions on faith, masculinity and mental well -being on various media platforms put him as a related voice in relation to some in religious and cultural space.
Although he has many awards, this isn’t the primary time Gray faced public control.
In March 2019, he referred to the accusations of infidelity, admitting to “emotional romance”, while denying any physical commitment.
“I did not sleep with anyone. There is no child, none of this,” he said during a sermon in a tenacious church, although many expressed skepticism online.
The situation intensified when Gray’s friend allegedly threatened with journalists in Greenville News for reporting a scandal, saying “Cuta of people.”
Gray later distanced himself from these threats, stating that he didn’t accept intimidation and that the person didn’t have an official role in his church.
In July 2022, Gray faced a health crisis when he was hospitalized with the life -threatening of pulmonary embolism and lots of blood clots.
Initially treated on the ICU in Alabama, before he was transferred to Atlanta, serious fear of health prompted her wife Aventter, to demand prayers from followers, declaring “without premature death” and generated significant support from fans and other leaders of religion.
Pastor John Gray and his wife clearly went through the hearth – and lived to explain him. In Podcastie they kept him real, sharing their truth with harsh honesty. He still has this hearth, as Jeremiah locked himself in his bones – not just for the Lord, but for his wife. While the critics invaded one in every of his daring remarks, Aventter didn’t blink. Smiling gently, stood strongly – indefinite and constant – still next to him.
(Tagstransate) Pastor John Gray
Philadelphia Eagles escaping Saquon Barkley recently found himself under fire after his photos and President Donald Trump spread on social media. The couple was photographed before the Eagles’ visit to the White House to have a good time the team’s victory in Super Bowl.
“LOL, some people are really nervous because I played (golf) and flew with the president to the White House,” Barkley wrote on x. “Maybe I just respect the office, not a difficult concept to understand.”
Barkley, the Rushing NFL champion in 2024, mentioned that he played golf with former president Barack Obama and was looking forward to the top of the round with Trump.
“Now you got out of all this policy and you have an amazing day,” he concluded.
Despite the indisputable fact that he doesn’t need to discuss politics, spending time with a sitting president sends a deeply political statement – but like a alternative to do the alternative. The power is addictive, and being in consultation with power will be blinding. And even though it is the appropriate to Barkley to play a golf with anyone who likes it, he doesn’t release him from criticism regardless of accomplishment. Many colleagues from the Barkley team made a special alternative. On Monday, a minimum of 12 Eagles players decided to not take part in the White House ceremony, particularly the playmaker and the Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts.
The journey of Philadelphia Eagles to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was not direct. Initially, there have been questions on whether the team would hand over the chance – they omitted the White House visit after winning the Super Bowl in 2018. Then the team modified the course, allowing him to be known They will take part in the ceremony in the event that they are invited. This week, About half of the eaglesStarters appeared, and players similar to Jalen Carter, Brandon Graham, Zack Baun, Oakobe Dean, Aj Brown and Devonta Smith resolve to not participate. He asked if he would participate within the ceremony in Times 100 most influential people from 2025, seemingly concerned hurts He didn’t provide a solution.
Trump Closeness of sport dates BackLong before his political aspirations have change into a reality. But over the past decade, sometimes his cordial, sometimes tense relationships with black athletes painted a posh picture and provided lots of historical bookmarks.
Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
The Visit of the White House of Orłów takes place after the weekend weekend. Asset Weighs on Shedeur Sanders“Slide in the NFL draft, calling the owners of the band” silly “and demanding immediate pickup of the former playmaker in Colorado and Jackson State. Shortly afterwards, Cleveland Browns chose Sanders in the fifth round, leaving the press secretary of the White House Karoline Leavitt to tell Trump well -deserved loans for managing the trouble.
Black men within the pursuit of power in a rustic that historically excluded them is a nuance conversation. Barkley is now in a box with names similar to Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross and Soulja Boy – who performed on the inauguration in January – and notoriously approaching duo Antonio Brown and Leveon Bella. They are all different levels of noteworthy black men who’ve received intensive criticism for Trump’s allegation.
There is a victim who comes with the president standing next to him, who recently said that “runs the country and the world” and openly flirts with an idea never to depart the office. Barkley doesn’t sign executive orders and doesn’t create a politician. However, simply standing next to Trump or posing for photos in an oval office (just like the star of Los Angeles Dodgers Shohei Ohtani I did earlier this month), the optics of a public performance breaks all the way down to many when the country deals with the consequences of Trump’s policy. Barkley could maintain democracy and equality thoroughly, but apparently it isn’t enough to provide up associating with someone who wages war.
On AP VOTECAST24 percent of black men and rare nine percent of black women voted for Trump in 2024 this week, ABC News survey He stated that the president’s approval assessment was only 39 percent. This means the bottom in 80 years. In the context of President Trump is 78 years old. Public presentation of Barkley’s attachment to the president doesn’t must reflect the sentiment of the country. But doing this when the National African American Museum History and Culture and other institutions of Smithsonians are threatenedIN voting rights to face the best threat in a minimum of 60 years, several programs geared toward diversity is cut and The economy is shrinkingHe says volumes, even when Barkley would never turn to these items. His alternative has already change into a shutter of history by an abnormal association.
Sport may often escape. After appropriately, they represent emotional shelter and provide experience outside the body, which Barkley provided greater than the honest participation of Eagles fans last season. (.) This variety of fantasyland is usually faraway from context and weapons. In the history of sport in America, they never happened in a vacuum. The games were played under Absolute regimeseconomical tails and National tragedies. They at the moment are while society is attempting to survive with every audible call of the present administration. Secondly, audits will not be an accurate or honest date. They are called on the fight line. These are telephones which have never been hidden on last 12 months’s campaign trail. They never lied about who they were and what they intended to do. Apparently Saquon Barkley is effective with this truth.
What Barkley dropped at Eagles last season won’t ever be removed. Similarly, what he did for runners’ lifePerceived as a dying position in football, you can’t forget. Philly won’t be the dominance of Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 59, which ended for all purposes and goals before Kendrick Lamar honored the scene throughout the break. Come to a training camp, focus again on who raised the Lombardi trophy in Santa Clara, California in Super Bowl LX. Barkley weekend with Trump will likely be a distant memory – but it surely continues to be a memory.
Part of the story of Barkley stands next to Trump in some of the dividing times within the history of America – quite a feat of the country with out a lack of times and problems. And vice versa, that is why Jalen Hurts’s Choice also says. How they each moved in times like those, don’t prevent the appointment of the Sław Pro Football Fame gallery. And each men stand within the Eagles’ Cloakroom to make them protected. Football teams are equally unique and a muted community in American culture. Barkley is after all among the best in his work and directly contributes to the success of his team. And although he was removed from the one eagle player who visited the White House, the celebs have different advantages because they bring about different duties. Even if the connection within the workplace isn’t affecting, some on this locker room may not forget concerning the symbolism of the moment.
“Most guys in the cloakroom understand that guys have different views. So this will not affect how they go to work,” said the previous NFL and Scape player. “But if I was his close friend and I do not agree with the views of administration, what I do, I do not know if we could be friends. Colleagues who do work, yes. Friends, no.”
Barkley was clearly joyful that he was within the presence of Trump. It isn’t clear, nevertheless, whether he thought it was necessary to be there. In 1991, the previous Chicago Bulls election scorer is legendary provided a handwritten note To the then President George HW Bush and his administration, they turn to the centuries, inhuman treatment of Black Americans. It was not waiting for Barkley, but with the withdrawal of the present administration, proposals for transforming gauze right into a tourist trap, an economic fusing wave brought on by tariffs, weapons of education and growing fears of national security due to unacceptable group chats, the entire world has questions for Trump. Barkley must have a minimum of one.
Barkley isn’t an activist or a number one voice in a black community. However, when an individual willingly placed in scenarios that require activism and changing agents, so criticisms appear. Capitulation for administration, which has not demonstrated care or respect for individuals who appear like Saquon Barkley and other marginalized communities, won’t bring the NFL star to Utopia where racism and injustice stop to existNo matter what number of teeth show in the images next to Trump. Or perhaps yes, but definitely not for the masses – lots of which support Barkley every week.
Barkley probably had the sport of the season when he splendidly reversed the Jacksonville Jaguars fleet. Everyone could ask how he did it. But in terms of canodling with Trump, the query isn’t.
It’s more, why should it do it in any respect?
Jim Dyson/Getty Images for ABA
This week, Celebrity Beauty honored Spring Equinox: Sun-Promsed Skin, Shades of Blonde and Rosa Glam. Although winter favorites haven’t been completely lost (Enter: Frostbitten Blush), in the approaching season more full of aesthetic moments.
Serena Williams gave the tone, wearing pine curls barrels, applying it WARNING MATTE LIPSTICKWhile Alicia Keys puts the skin on a very powerful mug and face braids. JT, in a platinum wig and massive French suggestions, obtained a van for her morning music video. Meanwhile, FKA Twigs opened its Eusexua trip in a half -shaved skull with braids from the back.
Jourdan Dunn reported to Pixie cuts, while Uche Natori overthrown his whole grain bean, but they each marked this season as the very best time for brief hair. As for Lizzo and Justine Skye? The talented two are ready to indicate the skin when the temperature heats up.
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