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.
Advisors, Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity

Near Medgar Evers’ Chair: Mound Bayou (Part 1) – by Terry Howard

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pastedGraphic.pngIn unfairness to them both, while Hermon Johnson, Jr. Museum director, and Darryl Johnson, Sr. CEO, Mound Bayou Movement, provided a captivating history of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, I couldn’t shake an image nearby. I mean, never in my life could I imagine sitting less than ten feet from the wooden desk and tattered leather chair where once sat the late civil rights activist Medgar Evers cranking out letters on a black typewriter. I walked over to the desk, inhaled, and  fought back a desire to touch either it or the chair.

So, what brought me to this indelible moment in my life, one that evoked such an incompatible mix of emotions, among them shock, anger, pride and above all…. inspiration?

Continue reading Near Medgar Evers’ Chair: Mound Bayou (Part 1) – by Terry Howard →

Authors A-H, Politics

The Jamaican Connection – by Terry Howard

This column is about Jamaica, a nation slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut. And at a contextual level, it’s about the prominent role native or U.S. born Jamaicans have played in history past and present. 

Now to bring it into today’s news cycles, it’s about the powerful roles being played by Vice President Kamala Harris and Tanya Chutkan, the presiding judge over the criminal trial of former U.S. president Trump over his alleged attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, including the events leading up to the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Continue reading The Jamaican Connection – by Terry Howard →

Politics

National Daughters Day and the Election – by Terry Howard

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In sort of a nonchalant yawner – at least for me – September 25th, National Daughter’s Day came and went with nary a thought; understandable I guess if one isn’t blessed with having a daughter. 

But suddenly, like swift kick in the groin, this coming November 5th, Election Day, a relevant September 25th piece by John Pavlovitz, and a piece I wrote a dozen years ago led to a dot-connecting, “oh wow,” pause by me.  

Continue reading National Daughters Day and the Election – by Terry Howard →

Advisors, Authors A-H

Did Tyreek forget the “talk”? – by Terry Howard

“In that moment, (Tyreek) Hill thought he was a member of the Miami Dolphins. He wasn’t. Hill was a Black man in America, and the rules are different,” opined The USA Today’s columnist Mike Freeman. “That’s one of the main points of the talk. Police, I was always told, will try to put you in your place, or put you on the ground.”

Déjà vu all over again? Did we just experience George “I can’t breathe” Floyd 2.0. …..Or 3.0? …..Or 4.0? I’ve lost count.

Like those meddlesome dandelions in the front lawn, here we go with still another police/African American interaction that quickly went south, a storyline that conjures up the late Marvin Gaye’s lyric, “It makes you wanna holler and throw up both your hands!”

Continue reading Did Tyreek forget the “talk”? – by Terry Howard →

Advisors, Sports

The Deion Effect: Part Two – by Terry Howard

As Deion Sanders continues to hold the fascination of college football, even when his team loses, something else is happening wrote USA TODAY’s Mike Freeman:

“It may not make headlines, but it’s happening all across the country. In Black homes. In Black businesses. Black fathers and sons, Black moms and daughters, Black friends and workmates – so many in the Black community are talking about Sanders. They are saying that Colorado is Black America’s team.”

With that jaw-dropper segue from Part One of “The Deion Effect,” we turn to views from several sports enthusiasts who I asked to weigh in on this issue. And weigh in they did.

Continue reading The Deion Effect: Part Two – by Terry Howard →

Advisors, Sports

The Deion Effect: Part One – by Terry Howard

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 →

Advisors, Authors A-H

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

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 →

Advisors, Sports

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

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 →

Advisors, Politics

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

 

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 →

Advisors, Authors A-H, Generational, Politics

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

“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 →