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Howard Phillip Venable, by all accounts, lived a remarkable life. Born in Windsor, Ontario, by 1918, he earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from nearby Wayne State University in Detroit. Clearly a gifted physician, in 1943 Venable became the first African American to receive a master’s in ophthalmology from New York University. A year later, he recorded the highest score to that point on the American Board of Ophthalmology exam. Despite his impressive resume, there were few positions for Black doctors in Detroit, prompting Venable to join the acclaimed staff of Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis. Here, Venable developed a reputation as an expert medical administrator, leading him to not only head the ophthalmology department at Homer G. Phillips, but also at Peoples Hospital of St. Louis and St. Mary’s Infirmary.  Given his unique expertise in glaucoma research, Venable became the first Black faculty member at Washington University and first Black clinical faculty member at Saint Louis University.  Yet for all of his achievements, and all of his accolades, Venable’s most trying task was the simple act of purchasing a home.      In the 1950s, Venable and his family were displaced, like many African Americans, by the construction of Interstate 64. Thus, Venable joined the national suburban exodus and purchased two lots in the newly developed Spoede Meadows subdivision in Creve Coeur.  Venable remembered Creve Coeur as “almost entirely Anglo Saxon, no Jews were living in Creve Coeur in those days and no Blacks either.”  The white residents of the suburb were intent on keeping it that way. Although twenty-two other African Americans also bought land in Creve Coeur, they were quickly dissuaded and bought out. However, the ophthalmologist, who was no stranger to trailblazing, remained resolute.  Undeterred, white Creve Coeur residents, who Venable thought would be his neighbors, pooled their resources and created a collective fund to buy Venable’s property on several occasions. Venable refused every time.  In such an environment, financial pressure quickly turned to legal coercion. The ad hoc investment group quickly transformed into the “Citizens Advisory Committee on Parks.”  Yet, the word “parks” is a misnomer. The group was not interested in parks in a plural sense. In fact, Creve Coeur did not even have a public park at the time. They were only interested in building one park, and that park would be where Venable planned to build his home.  According to their scheme, the citizens of Creve Coeur would pay one-half of the cost to build a park. The city of Creve Coeur would provide the other half, but more importantly, use eminent domain to seize Venable’s property. Creve Coeur was not even a decade old at this point, having been incorporated in 1949. Thus, mayor E.R. Goodard, opposed the eminent domain measure, not because of its racism, but because such a policy could bankrupt the newly created municipality. Clearly in the minority, Goddard was subsequently replaced by John Beirne, a member of the “Citizens Advisory Committee on Parks.” With their backing, the city council approved the eminent domain proposal and gave Venable two weeks to sell his property. Yet, Venable was unmoved, literally. The city subsequently sued the doctor, commencing a multiyear legal struggle over the land. In 1959, the Missouri Court of Appeals ruled that Creve Coeur could in fact seize Venable’s property even though it acknowledged the role of racism in motivating the city’s actions. After Venable’s attempt to move the case to the Missouri Supreme Court was denied, he eventually sold his property and moved to Baldwin.  Adding salt to the wound, the park was named after mayor Beirne who was synonymous with the effort to deprive Venable of his property. Even portions of Venable’s unfinished home were turned into a clubhouse for the new park. In some ways, the exclusionary intent of white Creve Coeur residents has endured. In 2020, of the suburb’s more than 18,000 residents, only 1,690 were Black. The numbers are paltry when compared to the nearby suburb of University City, which has a Black population of more than 36%. In 2019, the city of Creve Coeur passed Resolution 1847, which acknowledging the racist history of Beirne Park, renamed it to Dr. H. Philip Venerable Park.  However, Venable was not present at the rededication ceremony. He passed two decades earlier in 1998.  In recognizing the bittersweet moment, Allen Venable, Howard’s nephew noted, "It is sad and you're happy, happy that it is finally getting the recognition that someone is pulling the cover off and letting the light shine."

This month, specifically June 15th, marked the birth of Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu, a national educational consultant, publisher and the author of over 30 books that address effective means by which to counter the negative impact of white supremacy on the development of black youth. He passed away at the age of 71 last year on April 25.

Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, wife of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, has died at the age of 90.  A message posted to the Final Call website from Student Minister Ishmael R. Muhammad, On Behalf of The Executive Council of the Nation of Islam read as follows: The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan with deep sadness yet with profound gratitude to Allah informs you that his beloved wife of 72 years, the First Lady of the Nation of Islam, Mother Khadijah has returned to Allah (may Allah be pleased). We thank Allah for the precious life of a loving wife, mother, a faithful devoted follower of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Mother Khadijah will forever be cherished and remembered. May Allah give His unequaled comfort to the family as we mourn this tremendous loss and lift the family in our prayers and thoughts. Allah, there is no God but He, He gives life and to Him is our eventual return. Funeral (Janazah) services will be sent as soon as it’s available. The Farrakhans married in 1953 at St. Cyrpian’s Episcopal Church in Boston, and they had 9 children together, including Louis Farrakhan Jr., who preceded his mother in death in 2018; Mustapha; Joshua Nasir; Abnar; Donna; Hanan; Maria; Fatimah; and Khallada. The Farrakhans were celebrated last year in a “sacred celebration” at The Salaam Restaurant in Chicago, which marked the 92nd birthday of Minister Farrakhan and “the unwavering strength and grace of his wife, Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, on the occasion of Mother’s Day.” More from the Final Call: Throughout the night, expressions of love and gratitude for Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, known as the First Lady and Mother of the Faithful, rang out with reverence. Her quiet strength, dignity, and commitment to her husband’s divine mission were repeatedly honored. “She is the wind beneath his wings,” said Student Minister Abdul Rasul Muhammad, general manager of The Final Call and the evening’s emcee, quoting Minister Farrakhan. “She provides support, encouragement, and strength—often behind the scenes—that enables another to soar.” He added, “She is one of the most beautiful women on the earth and will be remembered for generations to come for her sacrifices—known and unknown.”    

"Artificial Intelligence runs on electricity. Ancestral Intelligence runs on spiritual power that is connected to 300,000 years of historical and cultural wisdom." — Anthony Browder These days with AI (artificial intelligence), it's easy to become accustomed to using and relying upon it instead of using your own brain, feeling, intuition. It's very convenient, almost too convenient. But there’s another kind of AI that we can all access. It’s called Ancestral Intelligence. According to Anthony Browder, Professor Browder, author of the Browder Files one, two, and three, Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization and the director of IKG Cultural Resources, and the ASA Restoration Project, “ancestral intelligence” is the inherited spiritual and cultural wisdom of African people — hundreds of thousands of years deep, carried in the bloodline, and accessed through ritual and connection to the ancestors.  But when your first response or go-to tool is artificial intelligence, your access and use of ancestral intelligence tends to weaken or not be as strong as it could be. You tend to rely less on your own AI (that is to say feeling, wisdom, thought, etc.) originating from your ancestors and instead opt-in for the other AI.  Though both concepts may clash, they are complementary. They can support and build off of each other. What’s Artificial Intelligence? What’s Artificial Intelligence?Artificial Intelligence is based upon pattern recognition. It is composed of predictive pattern recognition which is basically looking at a pattern and then a set of words. It looks at the pattern of words and predicts the most likely word. In fact, cell phones and word processing apps have been doing it for many years now. It doesn't know, it doesn't remember, it doesn't believe.  The advantages of artificial intelligence lie in its speed, scale, and that it doesn't get tired. Its recall capabilities, assuming that you set up the recall correctly and don't overwhelm it, lends itself to automation, doing things without human intervention. It can calculate large amounts of data incredibly fast, analyze it (see the patterns) then perform some actions on it (like build a report of profitable products to sell). Anyone with a computer or mobile device can use it. There are free plans, but like most matters in the western world, the more money you spend on it, the more you can enjoy and/or use it. What’s Ancestral Intelligence? Ancestral intelligence (the original AI), as mentioned above, is what we literally carry in our blood, the genes of all those who came before us. We carry our mothers and fathers, grandparents, great grand parents, great great grandparents, and so on going back to the first human. Since we have it already, it doesn’t cost us any money to fully enjoy and/or use. At an operations level ancestral intelligence is the spiritual and cultural continuity of African people across time. African identity and ancestral wisdom are inherited and carried within — uniting past, present, and future.  "You're not an African because you're born in Africa. You're an African because Africa is born in you. It's in your genes… your DNA." - Marimba Ani, Anthropologist and author of Yurugu There are several documented instances in which notable figures from the African world have drawn from this ancestral knowledge. For example, Harriet Tubman would suddenly pass out, then wake knowing exactly which paths were safe for escape. George Washington Carver communicated with plants to learn their medicinal properties, developing over 300 agricultural products at Tuskegee. Queen Nanny of Jamaica used deep knowledge of plants and poisons to heal her warriors and sabotage the British. Professor Anthony Browder, nearly out of funds, asked Karakhamun, a priest of the 25th Dynasty, where to dig to find his 2,700-year-old tomb and was led directly to it. On a more broader and higher level Ancestral Intelligence in an African cosmology of continuity. According to Professor Browder, "We are born, then live our lives. We die, then become ancestors. And then we are born again. The circle of life is actually a cycle of rites of passage: Birth, life, death, ancestorhood and rebirth." Browder ties this to the Kemetic concept of Whm Msw ("the repetition of the birth"). Ancestral intelligence is related to, whereas artificial intelligence is queried. There appear to be many ways to relate to it. They include study; meditation and visualization; ancestor veneration; and learning the ancestor’s own languages and texts.  The 40 Day Ascension celebration of Dr. Charles S. Finch III (aka Wagaan Faye), a physician, director of Morehouse School of Medicine, Egyptologist, Ourstorian  (not historian) of African science, and author who became one of the most respected scholars in the Pan-African and Kemetic studies movement.  The 40-day ascension is an African rite of passage practiced in Washington DC and New York City marking the soul's transition from death into ancestorhood and eventual rebirth — part of a cycle of birth, life, death, ancestorhood, and return. Tradition holds that for those 40 days you don't speak the person's name, so as not to distract the soul as it reviews its life; only after ascension can the community again say the name, celebrate the life, and ask the new ancestor for guidance and protection. This is only one of many ways to implement Ancestral Intelligence. Artificial intelligence, by contrast, is accessed through a query prompt. You ask it a question or instruct it to perform a task, and it responds. It can even predict what you might want by noticing patterns across your queries and others', offering suggestions before you ask. This makes it especially helpful when you don't yet know enough about a subject to ask the right questions. Where could they meet? There are many ways that we can and probably should use artificial intelligence but only as a tool. If one develops their ancestral intelligence, they can easily intuit what to do with artificial intelligence and what not to do; what to trust and what not to trust. “Ancestral Intelligence is a source of meaning, identity, and discernment — a compass. Without the compass, the tool becomes "a machine for manufacturing ignorance." With it, technology stays in service of truth instead of the reverse.” - Anthony Browder Artificial intelligence certainly has its place. It can analyze, make predictions, do things in seconds that would normally take a human hours days or weeks. It’s great! Technology scholar Sabelo Mhlambi advocates applying Ubuntu's relational worldview to govern and correct artificial intelligence; ancestral philosophy as an active ethical tool. Likewise, politician and University of South Africa Professor Mathole Motshekga advocates treating African/ancestral intelligence and artificial intelligence as "dynamic and complementary," integrating ancestral knowledge into technology. We all have Ancestral Intelligence with us. The most important thing that we should develop is the skill of listening to it inside of us.  

Following a trial that lasted just one week from jury selection to verdict, a Collin county, Texas, jury found Karmelo Anthony, now 19, guilty of murder in the fatal stabbing of Austin Metcalf last year. The closely watched trial drew national attention, with viral social media posts that highlighted the racial composition of the case: Anthony is Black; Austin was white. Attorneys selected 12 jurors and six alternates for the trial; none of the jurors was Black. Anthony was sentenced to 35 years in prison later on Tuesday. Anthony, of Centennial high school, and Austin, of Memorial high school, were both 17 when they met during a Frisco independent school district track meet in April 2025. A rain shower started and led to confusion – some athletes stayed on the field, while others ran for cover under team tents. Centennial did not have a tent that day, and when Anthony sought shelter under Memorial’s tent, a confrontation occurred resulting in Anthony stabbing Austin, who was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at a local hospital. Anthony’s legal team argued that he’d acted in self-defense after he was confronted by members of the Memorial high school team. The defense said Austin and his twin brother, who are about 6ft 1in and 213lb, confronted Anthony, who is 5ft 8in and about 130lb. The defense claimed that Anthony reacted to “fear and chaos”, while a prosecutor said that Austin was stabbed in a “sneak, surprise attack”. Prosecuting attorney Bill Wirskye said that Anthony threatened Austin, quoting a trial witness who said that the teen had told Austin: “Touch me and find out.” Wirskye said that video evidence shown during the trial supported the argument that other people in the tent had not turned on Anthony, and that the incident was one-on-one. A Texas law allowed Anthony to be tried as an adult, despite his being a minor at the time of the stabbing. Austin’s twin brother, Hunter, was in the courtroom for the first time during the trial, as Texas district court judge John Roach Jr read the verdict. As he was on the witness list, Hunter Metcalf had not been allowed in the courtroom. When the verdict was read, Hunter Metcalf leaned forward, while Anthony’s mother wept. Anthony broke down in tears, and his parents left the courtroom; Anthony has been remanded into the custody of the Collin county sheriff’s office.

Pope Leo XIV made a historic apology on Monday for the Catholic Church’s role in legitimizing slavery and for having failed to condemn it for centuries, calling the Vatican’s record a “wound in Christian memory.”