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.
Sports

The Deion Effect! (Part One) – by Terry Howard

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Fine, go ahead. Write off football coach Deion Sanders as an aberration, the latest fad or distraction from stuff that really matters in the world today. 

And while you’re at it, for reasons of curiosity if nothing else, read about the “Deion effect” on the city of Boulder’s revenue bumps ($18 million from the team’s first home game) and sold-out games at home and away. And if you decide to replay recent games, good luck because your attention may get sidetracked by starstruck, sunglass wearing celebrities strutting up and down the sidelines snapping selfies while chortling …. “Primetime,” “Primetime,” “Primetime!”  

Love him or loath him, over a short period of time, Sanders has managed to jettison national disasters, an auto workers’ strike, political finger-pointing and the latest on an ex-president from front page news and dinnertime conversations.  

Continue reading The Deion Effect! (Part One) – by Terry Howard →

ADR Advisors, Authors A-H

Again, cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face – by Terry Howard

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I chuckled at the news a few years ago about farmers who whined and bellyached about those “illegals” flooding the borders – southern borders, of course. Well, those tax-paying “illegals” apparently got the message because over a relatively short period of time their numbers of crossings plummeted. 

Well, to the surprise of those forward-looking farmers, that summer much of their crops rotted in the sun because “illegals” were no longer available to pick them, and “real Americans” took a pass on those jobs.

Continue reading Again, cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face – by Terry Howard →

ADR Advisors, Sports

Black college athletes: Listen to the NAACP – by Terry Howard

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That’s the headline of a column in a recent issue of USA Today. It was written in the form of an open letter to Black athletes and extensively quoted NAACP Board director and Chairman Leon Russell and President and CEO Derrick Johnson in their letter to Charlie Baker, head of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

Now since it appeared just a few days after I’d started developing the piece you’re now reading, of course it got my immediate attention and, like a mosquito in a nudist colony, it provided me with lots and lots of stuff to cherry pick from. 

Continue reading Black college athletes: Listen to the NAACP – by Terry Howard →

ADR Advisors, Politics

Governor “King on Steroids” Mark Robinson – by Terry Howard

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on steroids“Martin Luther King on steroids!”

Huh? Did I hear that right? No wait. Maybe it was a buildup of wax in my ears. Did I see that right? Or perhaps it was a coffee smudge on my eyeglasses. 

But no, as much as I’d like to blame it on my lying eyes or deceitful ears, I heard and read that right. Those were the exact words from the mouth of former president Trump in endorsing Republican Mark Robinson for governor of North Carolina. But he didn’t leave it at that – “I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you’re Martin Luther King times two.”

Okay readers, calm down and take a deep breath. We’ll get through this. I promise.

Continue reading Governor “King on Steroids” Mark Robinson – by Terry Howard →

ADR Advisors, Authors A-H, Generational, Politics

Why not a “Sully” Sullenberger for President? – by Terry Howard

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“Some voters are burned out on outrage!” 

That’s the recent headline in a national publication. That outrage? The eyebrow raising rancor, silliness and general awfulness surrounding the upcoming presidential election.

And the truth is that if we strike out the first four letters in the word “outrage” what’s left are three letters many voters are particularly burned out on…. age…as in President Joe Biden’s age! Count yours truly among them. Shucks, if I had a dollar for every time Biden’s age is cited in the news, I could purchase a luxurious mansion in Miami, Malibu (or, eh, Mar-a-Lago). 

Continue reading Why not a “Sully” Sullenberger for President? – by Terry Howard →

ADR Advisors, Race & Ethnicity, Social Issues

“Mrs. Good Trouble”: Amelia Boynton Robinson – by Terry Howard

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Some people are just made to cause, as the late Congressman John Lewis called it, “good trouble.” They’re contrarian by nature. It’s in their DNA. It ignites their fury. It explains their courage to put life and limb at risk for what they believe in.

Which brings us to African American History Month 2024 and to “Mrs. Good Trouble” herself, the late civil rights pioneer Amelia Boynton Robinson, inarguably the matriarch of the voting rights movement. Now if you subscribe to that familiar saying, “behind every great man is a woman,” then I’ll say, “behind every great movement is a woman.” Many of them in fact.

Continue reading “Mrs. Good Trouble”: Amelia Boynton Robinson – by Terry Howard →

ADR Advisors, Authors A-H, Black-Jewish Dialogue

Jewish Allies in African-American History – by Terry Howard

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Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Medgar Eversand Fannie Lou Hamer are some of the many leaders who paved the way through the rocky history of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. But the movement would not have succeeded without the contributions of people from all races, among them philanthropist Julius P. Rosenwald, whose name is associated with hundreds of schools for Black students throughout the south.

But first, we should remember the many largely unreported Black/Jewish American partnerships in that history. Case in point is the relationship between Dr. King and close friend and advisor Stanley Levinson, a Jewish American.

Continue reading Jewish Allies in African-American History – by Terry Howard →

ADR Advisors, Authors A-H

The Power of Words: the “said” and the “unsaid” – by Terry Howard

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I came across the following quote in the Writers & Poets magazine recently:
                               “Where words prevail not, violence prevails.”

Please pause and sit on that one momentarily. In case you’re wondering, it’s a phrase from Thomas Kyd, a playwright and contemporary of William Shakespeare.

I then squared that quote against another familiar one, “words have power,” meaning that words have energy and power with the ability to help, motivate, demotivate, heal, harm, humiliate and devastate.

With all that said, I also thought about the title of this narrative and its message about the undeniable power of words within the context of the dangers of silence and how silence is sometimes complicit in the spread of hate and violence.

Continue reading The Power of Words: the “said” and the “unsaid” – by Terry Howard →

ADR Advisors, Authors A-H

“Race” Remains a Four-letter Word – by Terry Howard  

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“Just as I thought Howard, you’re a racist,” was “Karen’s” message. My initial suspicion was that she fitted the description of the “Karen” caricature that’s become synonymous with white woman these days who call the cops on innocent Black folks who are caught walking in the “wrong” neighborhood, barbequing burgers in “our park,” or otherwise just being Black in the U.S.

As is the usual tactic with people like “Karen,” she slammed the door on an opportunity for me to respond with: “I have nothing else to say to you Howard, so goodbye.”

Continue reading “Race” Remains a Four-letter Word – by Terry Howard   →

ADR Advisors, Authors A-H

Dr. Carlos Cortés – The Gift That Keeps on Giving (Part 3) – by Terry Howard

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Carlos Cortes
ADR Advisor Dr. Carlos Cortes

If you’ve been following this series, you’ll recall that in Part One we highlighted the incredible career of Dr. Carlos Cortés. In Part Two, we shared several questions with his answers as a follow up. We now conclude the series with his answers to a few more questions we posed to Carlos.

Long history short, Carlos is currently the Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professor of History and co-director of the Health Equity, Social Justice, and Anti-Racism curriculum of the School of Medicine at the University of California, Riverside. As admitted to earlier, this is just a miniscule snapshot of his extensive curriculum vitae, let alone the books he’s authored and awards he’s earned over the decades.

Continue reading Dr. Carlos Cortés – The Gift That Keeps on Giving (Part 3) – by Terry Howard →