All posts by Terry Howard

ADR Advisor Terry Howard is an award-winning writer and storyteller. He is a contributing writer with the Chattanooga News Chronicle, The American Diversity Report, The Douglas County Sentinel, Blackmarket.com, co-founder of the “26 Tiny Paint Brushes” writers guild, recipient of the 2019 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award, and third place winner of the 2022 Georgia Press Award.

September: National Hispanic Heritage Month – Terry Howard

Welcome to Hispanic Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the history, diversity, achievements and contributions of Latinos whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. This year’s recognition theme, Together, We Are More, pays tribute to community strength, shared values and the collective impact of Hispanic and Latino Americans.

September 15 marks Independence Day for five Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. Mexico celebrates its independence on September 16 and Chile on September 18.  

To be clear, the word Hispanic is generally a linguistic category, referring to people from the 21 Spanish-speaking countries and territories, including Spain. Latino is more of an ethnic and cultural category, describing people descended from Latin America, including Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and Central and South America. Which term people use to describe themselves is a personal choice.

Continue reading September: National Hispanic Heritage Month – Terry Howard →

 Threats to the future of the Black Press – by Terry Howard

I’m anxious, on edge and worried, readers. 

“Oh, c’mon man what is it about this time for crying out loud,” you may be asking.

Well, by the time you get around to reading this I will have stood before an audience of 200 people having just delivered a “call to action” at the end of the 37th celebration of the African American-owned Chattanooga News Chronicle. 

Now although I have no idea how I’ll leave that stage emotionally, the one thing I do know is how I feel at this moment …on pins and needles about how my message may impact in some small way the survival of the Black press. 

Hey, talk about a tall order.

Continue reading  Threats to the future of the Black Press – by Terry Howard →

9/11, Twenty-Five Years Later – by Terry Howard

Twenty-five years ago, on September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon while passengers and crew members fought back aboard United Airlines Flight 93 before it crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. The date remains etched in our collective memory—and in our worst nightmares.

Whenever I revisit that morning, I return to the gift that keeps on giving, the genius of Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. His nationally circulated column, published on September 12, 2001, gave voice to a country struggling to comprehend what had happened. Five years later, he reflected on the ordinary day that came before the attack: “On September 10, 2001, we went to bed. We slept in innocence. And then the morning came.”

Continue reading 9/11, Twenty-Five Years Later – by Terry Howard →

Legacy of 16-year-old Barbara Johns – by Terry Howard

Exhausted enough for change

pastedGraphic.pngBabara Johns
Note: Not long ago, this author co-sponsored a trip from central Virginia to Farmville, Virginia for a visit to the R. R. Moton Museum . Mounted prominently on the wall in the museum’s auditorium is a picture of 16-year-old Barbara Johns, who led a protest that changed trajectory of history. Here’s her story.

20 years ago, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. penned words that have held their meaning and significance to this day….“Few forces are more compelling than a soul grown exhausted enough for change.”

Continue reading Legacy of 16-year-old Barbara Johns – by Terry Howard →

The genius of Oscar and Frank – by Terry Howard

Sorry to disappoint readers – well, maybe some readers anyway – but today’s narrative is not about Tiger Wood’s “driving” (ahem, Land Rovers, not golf balls) skills, Pam Bondi’s firing, the war in Iran, or the Epstein files. It is about my lifelong infatuation with language and how it manifests itself in common types of prose used to educate, criticize, hyperbolize, or just annoy. 

Continue reading The genius of Oscar and Frank – by Terry Howard →

Threats to the future of the Black Press – by Terry Howard

As a lifetime reader of Black newspapers – among them the Baltimore Afro-American, Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, New York Amsterdam News – I woke up to the headline, “The Richmond Free Press ceased publication,” a Black newspaper and held onto the fragile hope that someone had played cruel AI hoax on me. I wish I could sit here and say that was the case, but I can’t. Lord knows I can’t. 

Continue reading Threats to the future of the Black Press – by Terry Howard →

Random thoughts on No Kings Day protests – by Terry Howard

“Sorry, but I don’t remember seeing many white faces during civil rights protests and marches in the sixties.
So, I’ll take a pass.”

That was one of the “no thanks” responses I got from “Fernando,” one of several Black folks I invited to attend the recent No Kings Day protest with me. Hold that for now because I want to leave with a full-throated response to “Fernando” in closing.  

Now in case you didn’t know, cared to know, or reside on another planet (and much to the chagrin of “someone” who is obsessed with crowd size), in the largest single day of protest in American history, over 8,000,000 people took part in some 3,300 “No Kings” rallies recently spanning every continent on Earth while millions more participated remotely by watching coverage on television or online.

pastedGraphic.pngpastedGraphic_1.png

       Georgia protesters                       Virginia protester

So, despite temperatures in the mid-forties, I made the short drive to a local No Kings Day protest.  It seemed that the only difference between that protest compared to the one I attended last year was a much bigger turnout, more young people in attendance and more creative posters, some with graphic images and language way too inappropriate to include in this narrative. Plus, given that this an election year a few politicians were there deftly working the crowd. And from what I could glean from some conversations, many protesters were there not necessarily to protest for themselves but for generations to come. 

Continue reading Random thoughts on No Kings Day protests – by Terry Howard →

Women’s History Month: Remember Viola Liuzzo – by Terry Howard

Hard to believe that a little over a year ago – April 25, 2025, to be exact – a white woman by the name of Mrs. Viola Liuzzo, if we were blessed to have had her still alive last year, would have been 100 years old. 

So, on March 25, 2026, it will be sixty-one years since an assassin’s bullet in 1965 snuffed out her life on an Alabama highway; sixty-one years since, during the interim, the passage of the Voting Rights Act four months after her death; sixty-one years, during the interim, Dr. King was also felled by an assassin’s bullet; and sixty-one years since, during the interim, that the hard earned right to vote was instrumental in the election of the first African American president of the United States. One could make a compelling argument that Liuzzo’s assassination was a factor in the fight for civil rights.

Continue reading Women’s History Month: Remember Viola Liuzzo – by Terry Howard →

Bombing innocent children – Terry Howard

Okay, I’ll take my licks and apologize if anyone finds my headline repulsive; Sorry… Lo siento …Je suis désolé(e) …Es tut mir leid …or Entschuldigung …. 对不起 . …..Now if I missed a sorry in another language, well here’s my blanket apology; I’m sorry about that too.

So, with that said and out of the way, how about we consider our “repulsiveness” in a historical context. Let’s talk about the lingering power of images that are burnt into our subconscious and remain buried there sometimes for a lifetime. 

Continue reading Bombing innocent children – Terry Howard →

An African American in Women’s History Month – by Terry Howard

To kick off March, Women’s History Month, I decided to write about Unita Blackwell and her place in both African American and women’s histories. Among so many great women of all backgrounds, among them Eleanor Roosevelt, Viola Liuzzo and Susan B. Anthony who advocated for civil and voting rights, I wish that Unita Blackwell was alive and with us today. More than ever, we need her out on the battlefield leading protests and knocking on doors extolling the urgency of exercising our right to vote. Lord knows we need her (and them).

Continue reading An African American in Women’s History Month – by Terry Howard →