When we launched The Truth Seekers Journal (TSJ), our mission was simple: to restore trust in local journalism by focusing on verified facts, transparency, and the stories that truly shape our community.
Today, I am proud to share that the “pulse” of this journal is stronger than ever. This past week, we reached a significant turning point in our growth. Our page views have tripled, and most importantly, our Returning Visits have grown by over 1,000%. This tells me that TSJ isn’t just a site you stumble upon. It is becoming a trusted resource you rely on.
National Recognition
I am also honored to announce that The Truth Seekers Journal has been awarded a prestigious rural reporting grant from Grist, following a highly competitive national selection process. Grist is a national leader in environmental and justice journalism.
Furthermore, to ensure we maintain the highest ethical standards, we have been formally accepted as members of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the Online News Association (ONA), the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), and the Atlanta Press Club. These affiliations are our “gold standard” promise to you that our reporting is independent, ethical, and professional.
Expanding Our Expertise
Growth isn’t just about numbers; it’s about the depth of the stories we can tell. I am thrilled to highlight two key pillars of our expanded editorial team:
Dr. Florita Bell Griffin has joined us as a Contributing Writer and Systems Analyst. Dr. Griffin will lead our coverage in the AI, Science, and Technology sectors. Her expertise allows us to move beyond the headlines, providing our readers with deep-dive analysis on how emerging technologies and infrastructure projects impact our local economy and daily lives..
Ted Knorr, our resident historian, continues to bridge the gap between our past and present through his twice-monthly column, “Shadow Ball: Learning More About Negro League History.” Many of you have already engaged with Ted by submitting questions and sharing family stories, making “Shadow Ball” a true cornerstone of our community dialogue.
The Road Ahead
We are no longer just a news site; we are a growing civic institution. Whether we are investigating DeKalb data centers or documenting the rich history of the South, our goal remains the same: to give you the information you need to understand your community and shape your future.
Thank you for being the most important part of this journey. We are just getting started.
Atlanta and MARTA reached a $52 million settlement ending their More MARTA funding dispute, shifting attention from competing audits to promised transit improvements.
By Milton Kirby | Atlanta, GA | August 28, 2026
The City of Atlanta and MARTA have reached a $52 million settlement ending a years-long dispute over how money collected through the voter-approved More MARTA Atlanta sales tax was allocated for enhanced bus service.
The agreement resolves a disagreement that produced dramatically different conclusions about how much money should have been returned to the More MARTA account.
A city-commissioned audit concluded that MARTA had overcharged the program by approximately $70 million. MARTA disputed that finding, and a later assessment by accounting firm KPMG calculated the amount at approximately $865,630.
The final settlement landed between those figures, but considerably closer to the city’s calculation.
MARTA has already transferred $19.37 million from the MARTA Reserve Account to the More MARTA Atlanta Reserve Account. Under the settlement, MARTA will transfer another $32.63 million in monthly installments, with the full amount transferred no later than Aug. 31, 2028.
The $52 million represents the full and final resolution of the disputed amounts involving More MARTA sales-tax proceeds used for enhanced bus service.
“This agreement puts a long-running dispute behind us and allows us to put our full focus where it belongs, delivering the transit investments Atlantans voted for,” Mayor Andre Dickens said in announcing the agreement.
Dickens credited MARTA General Manager and CEO Jonathan Hunt, MARTA Board Chair Jennifer Ide, Atlanta City Council Transportation Committee Chair Alex Wan and the staffs of both organizations with reaching the settlement.
“We can disagree, work through difficult issues and still find a way forward,” Dickens said. “This resolution protects Atlanta’s investment and gives us a stronger foundation to work together on the transit system our residents and region deserve.”
How Did $70 Million Become $865,630?
At the center of the dispute was not an allegation that MARTA spent More MARTA money on something unrelated to transit.
It was an accounting disagreement over how much of Atlanta’s More MARTA sales-tax revenue should have been charged for operating enhanced bus service and how much should have remained available for capital projects.
Atlanta voters approved an additional half-penny sales tax in 2016 to expand and improve transit within the city. Collections began supporting enhanced service in 2017.
As the program developed, MARTA charged More MARTA for service improvements above an established baseline, including increased frequency on bus routes.
Questions about those calculations eventually led the Atlanta City Council in 2023 to seek an audit of the program.
Accounting firm Mauldin & Jenkins examined More MARTA from its inception through June 30, 2023. Its report concluded that MARTA had charged approximately $70 million more than it should have for enhanced bus service.
MARTA strongly disputed the finding.
The transit agency argued that the methodology used to reach the $70 million figure failed to properly account for changes in transit service, particularly when MARTA reduced service throughout the system during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A subsequent KPMG assessment examined the competing methodology.
KPMG concluded that the original approach to allocating enhanced-service costs worked during the program’s early years, when service was primarily being added in Atlanta. But that methodology became less appropriate after service reductions occurred throughout MARTA’s larger system.
Under the earlier approach, reductions elsewhere in the MARTA system could affect calculations involving Atlanta’s More MARTA operating fund even when those reductions were not caused by changes to Atlanta service.
KPMG recommended a proportional methodology designed to distribute service changes more broadly across the transit system.
Using that approach, the amount calculated as due to the More MARTA capital fund was approximately $865,630.
That left Atlanta and MARTA tens of millions of dollars apart.
City officials continued to stand behind the original audit.
MARTA maintained that the city’s calculation was based on a flawed methodology.
The settlement announced Thursday resolves that argument at $52 million.
No Declaration of a Winner
The numbers make the agreement noteworthy.
The settlement is approximately $18 million below the nearly $70 million identified in Atlanta’s audit.
But it is more than $51 million above the approximately $866,000 calculated under the later KPMG methodology.
The agreement does not say MARTA admitted that Atlanta’s audit was correct.
Nor does the settlement erase the competing conclusions reached during the dispute.
Instead, the city and MARTA describe the $52 million as the full and final resolution of all disputed amounts related to More MARTA sales-tax proceeds allocated for enhanced bus service.
That distinction is important.
The settlement resolves what MARTA will transfer to the More MARTA account. It does not necessarily resolve which accounting methodology should be considered correct.
Disagreement Spilled Into Public View
What began as an accounting dispute eventually contributed to broader tension between Atlanta City Hall and MARTA.
One of the most visible flashpoints involved the planned transformation of Five Points Station, the downtown hub connecting MARTA’s north-south and east-west rail lines.
In June 2024, Dickens asked MARTA to pause work on the approximately $230 million Five Points project while questions surrounding More MARTA and other concerns were being addressed.
Although MARTA and the city later announced plans to move the project forward, disagreement developed over permits needed for construction.
Records later reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution showed city officials telling MARTA representatives that resolving the More MARTA audit and moving the permits forward were linked. Dickens publicly denied that his administration was withholding permits because of the audit.
By March 2025, the disagreement had become unusually public.
Dickens appeared before MARTA’s board as city and transit officials offered conflicting accounts about permits, meetings and communications between the organizations.
The new settlement provides an opportunity to change that relationship.
“Resolving this matter provides greater certainty for both MARTA and the City and allows us to continue moving the More MARTA Atlanta program forward,” Hunt said.
Hunt was named MARTA’s permanent general manager and CEO earlier this month after serving approximately a year in the position on an interim basis.
“Our customers are best served when MARTA and the City are working together in a collaborative fashion,” Hunt said. “This agreement gives us an opportunity to turn the page, strengthen that partnership and focus on making meaningful improvements to our system while delivering safe and reliable transit for the people of Atlanta.”
Where Does the $52 Million Go?
Despite the size of the settlement, MARTA is not writing Atlanta a $52 million check for the city’s general budget.
The money is being transferred between MARTA-administered accounts.
MARTA previously moved $19.37 million from the MARTA Reserve Account into the More MARTA Atlanta Reserve Account. The remaining $32.63 million will be transferred through monthly installments by Aug. 31, 2028.
Those funds will then be available for future More MARTA projects and other program priorities.
The distinction matters because the settlement is ultimately about transit money and where within MARTA’s financial structure that money belongs.
It also raises a broader question.
Moving $52 million into More MARTA means those dollars will not be available for other MARTA purposes.
MARTA officials have indicated the agreement is not expected to affect the agency’s operating expenses, but it could reduce money available for systemwide state-of-good-repair projects. The agency could have to defer or reduce some projects, identify savings or consider financing alternatives.
Those decisions have not been finalized.
A Promise Made by Voters
For Atlanta residents, the larger issue extends beyond the accounting disagreement.
In 2016, voters approved the half-penny More MARTA sales tax to make a substantial long-term investment in the city’s transit system.
The program was envisioned as a way to expand transit and improve mobility throughout Atlanta. An initial collection of dozens of possibilities was eventually narrowed to 17 projects approved by MARTA’s board in 2018.
Those plans have changed over time as construction costs increased, priorities shifted and projects were reconsidered.
Progress has also been uneven.
The Summerhill Bus Rapid Transit project and the NextGen Bus Network have been among the most visible More MARTA initiatives moving toward delivery, while several other projects originally envisioned under the program remain years away or have changed significantly from their original concepts.
That history makes Atlanta City Council Transportation Committee Chair Alex Wan’s emphasis on accountability particularly relevant.
“Atlanta voters made a significant investment in the future of transit when they approved More MARTA, and we have a responsibility to make sure those dollars are accounted for and deliver the improvements residents were promised,” Wan said.
“This settlement provides needed resolution and allows all of us to move forward with greater accountability, transparency and focus on delivering projects.”
MARTA Board Chair Jennifer Ide similarly described the settlement as an opportunity to rebuild the working relationship between MARTA and the city.
“This settlement reflects the kind of responsible governance our customers and taxpayers should expect,” Ide said.
“The Board appreciates the work by both parties to reach a resolution that provides clarity, closes this chapter and creates an opportunity for a stronger working relationship between MARTA and the City of Atlanta.”
From Accounting to Accountability
The settlement answers a question that has followed MARTA and Atlanta for more than two years.
The amount is $52 million.
But resolving the accounting dispute creates another test for both organizations.
The settlement announcement does not specify which More MARTA projects will receive the additional money now being committed to the program.
That means the next phase of the story will not be decided by auditors.
It will be measured by what gets built.
Nearly a decade after Atlanta voters approved an additional sales tax to expand and improve transit, MARTA and the city have agreed on how much money will resolve their dispute.
Now they must show Atlantans what that $52 million will deliver.
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A lung cancer summit taught Jacqui and Donel King about biomarker testing, helping them
By Milton Kirby | Old Hickory, TN | August 25, 2026
Jacqui and Donel King were attending a lung cancer summit in New Orleans when, near the end of the event, Jacqui stopped at an information table.
One card remained on the table.
It looked ordinary, about the size of a business card, folded like a small tent. There was nothing about its appearance to suggest that the information inside would soon become worth its weight in gold to the Kings.
Inside was information about biomarkers associated with lung cancer and questions patients could take to their doctors to get answers.
Jacqui picked up the last card brought it home and then took it to her husband’s next appointment with his oncologist.
What happened next helped change the conversation surrounding Donel King’s Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis.
The Kings walked into the appointment prepared to ask whether biomarker testing had been performed.
It had.
They just didn’t know it.
The testing had identified a KRAS G12C mutation in Donel’s cancer, a molecular characteristic for which a targeted treatment was available.
For Jacqui, the moment demonstrated something she now believes every patient and caregiver needs to know and understand.
“You don’t know how to advocate for yourself if you don’t know what it is that you’re looking for,” she said.
Before Cancer Took Center Stage
Cancer is now part of the Kings’ daily lives.
But that’s not where their story began.
Donel and Jacqui met in Houston more than three decades ago. Both were single parents, and their marriage brought together a blended family.
Jacqui’s life became increasingly centered on ministry and leadership in the United Methodist Church. Donel describes his role throughout much of their marriage as supporting that calling while pursuing his own entrepreneurial interests.
Their life together took them through Texas, Tennessee and Illinois.
They also endured major events long before lung cancer entered their lives.
While serving in Port Arthur, Texas, the Kings experienced the devastating 2005 hurricane season. Their church and community dealt with families displaced by Hurricane Katrina and then faced hurricanes that affected their own area.
Jacqui remembers the period as one of ministry, survival, rebuilding and prayer.
Donel brought another life experience to the marriage.
He is an Air Force veteran who served in air traffic control.
Donel would learn much later in life that he was dyslexic, finally putting a name to difficulties he had experienced years earlier. Decades later, cancer would confront him with another lesson about the power of knowing exactly what you are dealing with.
He also spent years as an entrepreneur and describes himself as someone who enjoys technology, business, gardening and community service.
He calls himself a “Renaissance man.”
And cancer was not completely new to him.
Donel was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009 and underwent removal of his prostate.
They were unaware that years later, another cancer was growing inside him.
A Fall Changes Everything
By 2025, Donel had experienced pain in his shoulder and hip. A simple X-ray had not revealed the cause.
He underwent regular physical examinations and was frustrated that nothing had identified the cancer earlier.
Then, in October 2025, while the Kings were living in Springfield, Illinois, Donel’s leg gave way while walking down a flight of stairs.
He fell. The fall fractured his femur and badly damaged his hip.
Further medical evaluation revealed something far more serious.
Stage 4 lung cancer.
The cancer had spread beyond his lung, metastasizing to his hip and shoulder. Donel could no longer walk.
Their lives changed almost immediately.
Physicians in Illinois told the couple Donel needed specialized orthopedic oncology care that was not available locally. They worked to get him back to the Nashville area, where he could receive care through the VA and other specialists.
After returning home, Donel entered rehabilitation while doctors simultaneously confronted the cancer and the severe damage to his hip.
The first biopsy in Illinois failed to provide enough tissue for all of the testing doctors needed, Jacqui said.
Then came major surgery.
Rebuilding a Hip While Fighting Cancer
On February 18, 2026, Donel underwent an operation to reconstruct his hip and pelvis.
He remembers an eight-hour surgery that would begin rebuilding the structure of an extensively damaged hip that might allow him to walk again.
Doctors also obtained additional tissue. That tissue would later become important to Donel’s cancer story
Meanwhile, Donel begin cancer treatment that consisted of radiation, chemotherapy and infusion therapy. Donel remembers what chemotherapy did to him physically.
His hair disappeared.
So did the black beard he loved.
Jacqui looked at him during the interview and offered a reminder of what mattered more.
“But he’s still here.”
Donel responded:
“I’m still here.”
But the treatments were difficult the cancer was not responding as they had hoped.
Jacqui was began her search for treatment options, something she knows how to do.
Jacqui Starts Looking for Answers
Jacqui had previously researched lung cancer resources after the wife of a colleague was diagnosed with lung cancer.
When Donel was diagnosed, she returned to that research.
This time, she searched specifically for organizations working with African Americans and lung cancer.
HEAL focuses on health education and advocacy, including efforts to provide patients and caregivers with information they can use to navigate cancer care. Its lung cancer resources include information about screening, treatment, clinical trials, biomarker testing and self-advocacy.
Jacqui contacted the organization and learned about HEAL’s annual Lung Cancer Patient & Caregiver Summit.
The Kings registered and began planning their trip to attend HEAL’s 2026 3rd Annual Summit in New Orleans.
The 2026 gathering was designed specifically to address the needs of Black communities affected by lung cancer. HEAL brought patients and caregivers together with healthcare professionals, researchers, advocates and community leaders for discussions about early detection, personalized treatment, clinical trials and patient advocacy.
For Donel and Jacqui, those subjects were not theoretical.
They were living them.
Getting to New Orleans was not automatic.
Donel had recently undergone major surgery and needed medical clearance to travel.
They got it.
And they went.
That trip would introduce the Kings to a word that would become central to their cancer journey:
Biomarker testing.
What Is a Biomarker?
Cancer is not necessarily the same disease in every person who receives the same broad diagnosis.
A biomarker is a biological characteristic that can provide doctors with information about a cancer. In some cancers, testing can identify specific molecular changes that may help physicians determine whether a targeted treatment is appropriate.
For a patient, the distinction can be simplified.
Biomarker Individual Results
A cancer diagnosis identifies the disease.
Biomarker testing tells doctors more about the particular characteristics of that patient’s cancer.
And targeted therapy acts against a particular target or characteristic.
The Kings did not understand that distinction before New Orleans.
The Last Card on the Table
At the Summit, the Kings attended a breakout session about biomarker testing.
The message they carried away was direct: patients with lung cancer should ask for a biomarker test that will provide information about the specific characteristics of their cancer, so their doctor can consider more personalized treatment options.
That was what sent Jacqui to the Amgen table, one of the pharmaceutical companies supporting the Summit.
There she found the wallet-sized card containing information about biomarkers associated with non-small cell lung cancer. Jacqui took the last one on the table.
She decided that when they returned home, the card was going with them to Donel’s next oncology appointment.
They were going to ask questions.
But the story took an unexpected turn.
The Kings did not return home, request biomarker testing and then wait for a laboratory to perform it.
The testing had apparently already been done.
They simply did not know it.
“An Awakening on Both Sides”
Additional tissue obtained during Donel’s hip surgery had been sent for laboratory analysis.
By the time the Kings walked into the oncology appointment with their card, biomarker testing had identified KRAS G12C in Donel’s cancer.
Jacqui remembers putting the card into the conversation and learning that the result was already there.
She called the moment “an awakening on both sides.”
NSCLC – Results
The Kings had arrived intending to ask whether the test should be performed.
Instead, the conversation became about what the completed test had found and what could be done with that information.
The KRAS gene helps regulate cell growth. Some cancers carry a particular alteration known as KRAS G12C.
That distinction mattered because medicines have been developed to target KRAS G12C.
One of those targeted treatments is Lumakras, or sotorasib, manufactured by Amgen.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Lumakras in 2021 for certain adults with KRAS G12C-mutated locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer who have received at least one prior systemic therapy. The FDA labeling calls for patients to be selected based on the presence of the KRAS G12C mutation determined by an FDA-approved test.
That is the type of targeted treatment Donel’s biomarker result made possible for his physicians to consider.
The medication is not a cure.
Donel understands that.
But to him, it represented another option.
The “Silver Bullet”
Donel has his own name for the treatment.
He calls it his “silver bullet.”
He is quick to explain what he means.
He does not believe the pill simply makes Stage 4 cancer disappear.
His hope is that the therapy can stop the cancer from progressing or cause tumors to shrink.
Donel says he feels much better since moving away from chemotherapy and beginning the targeted treatment.
He is also being monitored.
Blood work is part of his routine. CT scans will help his physicians determine whether the tumors are shrinking, remaining stable or progressing.
Asked what he wants those scans to show, Donel did not give a complicated answer.
“My hope is that it’s not moving,” he said. “That’s my goal.”
Caregiving Wasn’t in the Retirement Plan
The story is not Donel’s alone.
Cancer changed Jacqui’s life too.
Her retirement was supposed to begin a different season.
Instead, she became caregiver, researcher, medical navigator, household manager and advocate while simultaneously dealing with grief and a major move.
Her mother had been ill and died during the same larger period of upheaval.
The Kings were also moving back from Illinois to Tennessee.
Donel was in hospitals and rehabilitation facilities.
Jacqui dealt with packing, moving, selling a house, setting up their Tennessee home, arranging medical equipment and keeping track of appointments.
“Caregiving wasn’t on my retirement,” she said.
At another point she summed up the experience even more simply:
“There’s no script for this.”
Yet sitting with the Kings revealed something that a list of caregiving responsibilities could not.
After more than 30 years of marriage and 33 years as a couple, Donel and Jacqui still displayed the easy affection of people discovering each other. They finished each other’s sentences and sometimes started the same thought at the same time. They gazed at one another as the other spoke. More than once, Jacqui looked at Donel, smiled and seemed, for a moment, almost giddy.
It was an unexpected sight in an interview about Stage 4 lung cancer.
Their story was about biomarker testing, targeted therapy and caregiving. But sitting across from the Kings, another story was unfolding in plain sight.
This was also a love story.
The couple learned to accept help.
Friends and colleagues organized meals.
Neighbors helped with equipment.
The VA helped with transportation to medical appointments.
Their church and broader community prayed.
And Jacqui learned something caregivers sometimes resist.
“You can’t do it by yourself,” she said.
Information Is Only Half the Job
The Kings credit HEAL Collaborative with putting information in front of them that they did not previously understand and how to be your own advocate.
But Jacqui believes attending a conference is not enough.
“If you get the information, that’s half of the game because then you’ve got to follow through,” she said.
In the Kings’ case, the chain is unusually clear.
HEAL created the setting where they learned why biomarker testing mattered.
At an Amgen table, Jacqui picked up the last card explaining what they should ask about.
Back home, that question led them into a conversation about a KRAS G12C result already in Donel’s medical record.
And that result helped identify a targeted treatment option.
But none of those steps happened in isolation.
Information had to reach the patient.
The patient and caregiver had to understand why it mattered.
They had to take that information back to the people providing Donel’s medical care.
And physicians had to determine the appropriate treatment.
That may be the central lesson of the Kings’ experience.
The laboratory had information about Donel’s cancer.
His medical team had access to that information.
The Kings had attended appointments.
What changed after New Orleans was their ability to participate in the conversation differently.
They knew the word biomarker.
They had a card.
They had questions.
And they knew they were supposed to ask them.
There is an important nuance.
The Kings’ account does not establish that Donel’s physicians had overlooked the biomarker result or would not have discussed targeted therapy without the card. Jacqui said the medical team appeared to be preparing to talk with them about what could come next.
What the Summit and the card clearly changed was the Kings’ understanding of the conversation.
They arrived knowing what to ask.
Tennessee Expands Biomarker Coverage
The Kings’ experience comes as Tennessee is changing its insurance rules surrounding biomarker testing.
Tennessee enacted legislation in 2026 requiring specified health plans to provide biomarker-testing coverage beginning with plans issued, amended or renewed on or after January 1, 2027. The law includes TennCare coverage when biomarker testing is medically necessary.
The law does not mandate biomarker testing to screen people without symptoms. Its coverage provisions address testing used for diagnosis, treatment, disease management or monitoring when applicable requirements are met.
The distinction is important.
Lung cancer screening and biomarker testing are not the same thing.
Screening is intended to identify lung cancer in people who meet established eligibility criteria before symptoms develop.
Biomarker testing can help physicians make treatment decisions after cancer is identified.
For the Kings, understanding those differences has become part of learning to navigate cancer.
The Losses Cancer Creates
Stage 4 cancer has taken more from Donel than hair.
It took mobility.
For months he could not walk.
It interrupted his businesses.
It pulled him away from volunteer work, gardening and the other activities of a man who describes himself as hands-on.
Donel calls those losses a form of grief.
He had been an active man.
Suddenly, much of his life required other people to do things for him.
“For the moment, I just said, well, I just got to step back and take my hands off of them and just kind of go with the flow,” he said.
Still, optimism comes easily to him.
He calls himself a “perpetual optimist.”
“When I see manure, I’m looking for the pony,” he said.
That optimism now has specific goals.
One is walking again.
Donel continues physical therapy and believes he is getting closer.
Another is traveling.
During one appointment, someone asked him a question he was not expecting:
What are you going to do with the time you have?
It stopped him.
Now he has answers.
He wants to take a train across the country.
He wants to travel.
He talks about Egypt.
Cancer has forced him to think about time differently.
Faith, Medicine and the Road Ahead
Faith runs through nearly every chapter of the Kings’ story.
Jacqui is a minister.
Donel speaks openly about God.
They describe prayer surrounding his surgery, treatment and recovery.
But their faith has not meant waiting passively.
Jacqui searched.
They traveled.
They listened.
They carried information home.
They asked questions.
Donel continued treatment.
Jacqui continued caregiving.
And both continued learning.
They see no contradiction between prayer and medicine.
For Jacqui, vulnerability also became part of the lesson.
When people ask how things are going, caregivers do not always have to say everything is fine.
Sometimes, she said, the answer needs to be:
Not great today.
I need help today.
Healing, she believes, sometimes requires letting other people into the struggle.
For Donel, the future remains uncertain.
Stage 4 lung cancer is still Stage 4 lung cancer.
The next CT scan matters.
So does the next physical therapy session.
So does the possibility of taking another step without assistance.
But he is no longer talking only about treatment.
He is talking about where he wants to go.
What he wants to see.
What he wants to do with the days in front of him.
Cancer has forced Donel King to surrender control over much of his life.
It has not taken his sense of possibility.
“I’m alive,” he said. “God has spared me another day. And I’m just going to get up and do the best I can with that day.”
And for now, he is waiting for the next scan with one straightforward hope:
“My hope is that it’s not moving.”
The HEAL Collaborative is based in Atlanta, GA. To learn more, please visit: www.healcollaborative.org.
This column exists for one reason: to answer your questions about Negro League baseball history. To fulfill that mission, we need your help.
If you read and enjoy this column, want it to continue, and haven’t already mastered every corner of Negro League history, we invite you to send us your questions. Your questions are the lifeblood of Shadow Ball—they determine where we go next—from players and teams to memorable games, historic events, and everything in between.
By submitting a question, you help shape the future direction of this column. Your participation is both important and greatly appreciated. In many ways, the continued existence of Shadow Ball depends on readers like you.
Joe Pomrenke, Harrisburg, PA posted: “I’d like to learn more about the famous 1933 East-West Classic.” Accordingly, today’s Shadowball column will endeavor to satisfy Joe’s curiosity/interest. Much of my knowledge on this subject comes from the research/writings of Lyle Spatz, Larry Lester, and Bob Lemoine. Lastly, I need to thank former APBA Game Company President Fritz Light, current President John Herson, and the late Negro League historian James A. Riley.
Major League Baseball hosted its initial all-star game on July 6, 1933, in Chicago’s Comiskey Park very much in conjunction with the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. It was that international fair’s desire to incorporate some sort of athletic event into international exposition that sparked the imagination of Chicago Tribune Sports Editor Arch Ward. Due to his flamboyant promotional style Ward was known as ‘the Cecil B. DeMille of Sports”. In addition to the Major League Baseball All-Star game, Mr. Ward was instrumental in the creation of Golden Glove boxing (1928), the annual College All Star Football Game (1934), the initial professional World Basketball Tournament (1939), the All-American Football Conference (1946), as well as lesser events such as speed skating competitions, bowling tournaments and charity horse racing events.
The MLB game attracted a bigger crowd than the Negro League game but that was not always the case as Negro League attendance topped 40,000 on 8 separate occasions and outdrawing the Majors on several instances.
Willie Foster is the only pitcher to hurl a complete game in any all-star game on either side of the color line
Hall of Famers Babe Ruth and Mule Suttles hit the first HR in each of these inaugural events
Finally, 21 Hall of Fame players, two Hall of Fame managers, and two Hall of Fame umpires appeared in the July 6th NL/AL matchup. In contrast, only 12 Hall of Fame players (including East Manager Pop Lloyd appeared in the Negro League game underscoring my recurring theme of all Shadow ball articles – in order to properly represent the history of the National Pastime prior to 1947 the National Baseball Hall of Fame must induct more Negro League players. A good starting point would be the five Negro Leaguers that appeared in the September 10 game that have been on one or more Hall of Fame ballots and appeared in this first game: Rap Dixon, Dick Lundy, Fats Jenkins, Alex Radclif, and Vic Harris.
To finish this topic, utilizing the computer version – Baseball for Windows – of the APBA Major League Baseball Game I simulated several hundred All Star games between Major League Hall of Fame teams circa 1933 versus a team of Negro League Hall of Famers from that same era. The below line score provides some detail of a representative game that, in my imagination, took place in the afterglow of the July 6 and September 10th game. Of the 600 games that I simulated — the traditional Major League team won 301 times (50.2%) but was outscored by 72 runs over the 600-game schedule. In other words, the level of talent was identical on both sides of the color line just as I believe it actually was during baseball’s segregated era (1876-1946).
October 8, 1933
123 456 789 RHE
NeL 300 011 020 713 0 LP –William Bell
MLB 000 322 02 9 12 0 WP –Carl Hubbell
HR Gibson, NeL, Gehrig, Foxx, Klein
Attendance: 32, 634, 734 imagined
The Negro League out hit the traditional Majors 13 to 12 but left 7 baserunners on base whereas the trads left only 3
Rap Dixon threw out the Fordham Flash – Frankie Frisch – at home for the last out in the 8th.
The two squads hit for combined .262 batting average over the 600 simulated games … Babe Ruth out homered Josh Gibson 132 (34 per 154g) to 104 (27 per 154g)
Cool Papa Bell led the way with 28 steals beating out Oscar Charleston, 18, and Rap Dixon, 15.
Satchel Paige won the most games 73 and posted the highest winning percentage 55% while leading the way in shutouts 8 and strike outs 903
Readers can expect to see more use of the APBA/BBW simulator in upcoming articles.
Last Week’s Shadow Ball Significa Question of the Week
Who was Jackie Robinson’s Manager on April 15, 1947? No one offered at this query … it was Burt Shotton who led the Dodgers to pennants in ’47 and ’49.
Ted Knorr
This Week’s Shadow Ball Significa Question of the Week
What was the name of Atlanta’s most prolific franchise (in terms of years in the league) in the Negro Leagues?
Ted Knorr is a Negro League baseball historian, longtime member of the Society for American Baseball Research’s Negro League Committee, and founder of the Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference and several local Negro League Commemorative Nights in central Pennsylvania. You can send questions for Knorr on Negro League topics as well as your answers to the week’s Significa question to shadowball@truthseekersjournal.com or Shadow Ball, 3904 N Druid Hills Rd, Ste 179, Decatur, GA 30033
By Florita Bell Griffin, Ph.D. | Houston, TX | August 25, 2026
One of the biggest promises of artificial intelligence is time. AI can draft a letter in seconds, summarize a long document, explain an unfamiliar subject, create a travel plan, organize notes, compare products, and generate ideas almost instantly. Tasks that once required an hour may take only a few minutes.
That efficiency is real, and for many people it is one of the most valuable benefits of the technology. The more difficult question is what happens when people begin using AI not only to save time, but to avoid thinking.
There is an important difference between assistance and substitution. A calculator can help a person solve a difficult equation, but someone who never learns basic arithmetic becomes dependent on the calculator. GPS can help a driver reach an unfamiliar destination, but constant reliance on navigation may weaken the ability to remember routes. AI can help a person write more clearly, but if it begins producing every message, report, and idea, the user may gradually stop developing a personal voice.
This does not mean AI makes people less intelligent. Used well, it can do the opposite. A student can ask for a simpler explanation of a difficult concept. A reader can request examples that make an unfamiliar idea easier to understand. A business owner can use AI to organize scattered thoughts before making a decision. A traveler can compare several options quickly and spend more time considering which one actually fits.
The difference lies in how the technology is used. Asking AI to explain something is different from asking it to think in your place. A person who reads an AI summary and then examines the original material is using the tool to accelerate learning. A person who reads only the summary may be trading understanding for convenience.
The same issue appears in writing. AI can help someone organize ideas, improve grammar, or find a clearer way to express a thought. That can be especially useful for people who struggle with writing or who have strong ideas but difficulty putting them into words. The danger comes when the final result sounds polished but does not reflect what the person actually knows or believes.
A useful way to think about AI is as a very capable assistant who can work quickly but still needs direction. The user must decide what matters, what is accurate, what fits the situation, and what should be rejected. Those decisions require judgment, and judgment grows through use.
People can make AI more intellectually useful by asking better questions. Instead of saying, “Give me the answer,” try asking, “Explain this in a way I can understand,” “Show me the strongest arguments on both sides,” or “What am I missing?” Instead of asking AI to write an entire opinion, ask it to help organize your own ideas. Instead of accepting the first explanation, ask for examples, evidence, and alternative interpretations.
AI can also help people learn faster because it allows immediate follow-up. A person reading about economics can ask what a term means. Someone learning history can request a timeline. A homeowner can ask for an explanation of a contractor’s estimate. A patient can ask for help understanding unfamiliar medical vocabulary before speaking with a doctor. In each case, the technology can reduce confusion and make information more accessible.
The most important thing is to remain mentally present. Read what the AI produces. Question it. Change it. Compare it with other information. Decide whether it makes sense. The more actively a person engages with the answer, the more likely the technology will support thinking instead of replacing it.
There is also value in occasionally doing things without assistance. Write a paragraph before asking AI to improve it. Try to remember the route before opening navigation. Work through a problem before requesting the solution. Read the article before asking for the summary. These small practices help preserve the skills that technology is designed to support.
Artificial intelligence is likely to become more capable and more deeply integrated into everyday life. It will continue saving time, reducing routine work, and making information easier to access. The people who benefit most may not be those who ask AI to do everything for them. They may be those who learn how to combine the speed of the machine with the judgment of the human mind.
AI can make information faster. It can make tasks easier. It can make complex subjects more understandable. Whether it makes us smarter depends largely on what we choose to do after the answer appears.
The Atlanta Dream is headed back to the WNBA playoffs.
Behind a career-high 31 points and 14 rebounds from Angel Reese, the Dream defeated the Phoenix Mercury 99-89 Saturday at Mortgage Matchup Center to clinch a postseason berth for the fourth consecutive season.
For Reese, it will be her first trip to the WNBA playoffs.
“It feels good to finally get here,” Reese said. “I want more than the playoffs. I want to walk away a champ and that’s why I came to Atlanta.”
The victory was Atlanta’s third straight and improved the Dream to 24-13 with seven games remaining in the regular season.
Atlanta has secured a place in the postseason, but the remaining games could determine whether the Dream opens the playoffs at home.
“You don’t want to peak too early and we are right where we want to be right now,” Reese said.
Reese Sets a Career High
Reese’s 31 points surpassed her previous career high of 27, set against Seattle in 2024.
She added 14 rebounds, four steals and two assists while recording her 25th double-double of the season and her third consecutive double-double.
Atlanta Dream – Angel Reese drills a jump shot – Dream courtesy photo
Reese has also produced at least 20 points, 10 rebounds and three steals in three consecutive games. She became the third player in WNBA history to accomplish that feat, joining A’ja Wilson and Nneka Ogwumike.
“She keeps getting better,” Dream Head Coach Karl Smesko said. “She was scoring in a multitude of ways.”
Reese was not Atlanta’s only scoring threat.
Rhyne Howard finished with 20 points, five assists, three rebounds and two steals. It was Howard’s 15th game this season with at least 20 points.
Allisha Gray scored 17 points and added five rebounds and four assists.
Jordin Canada finished with 12 points, five assists, two steals and a season-high two blocks.
Isobel Borlase contributed a career-high six assists.
Canada, Gray, Howard and Reese all scored in double figures.
Atlanta is now 24-8 with a starting lineup of Canada, Gray, Howard, Naz Hillmon and Reese.
Dream Comes Out Firing
Atlanta established control early.
The Dream built a 29-18 first-quarter lead behind six 3-pointers and eight assists.
Howard was especially aggressive from outside. All seven of her first-quarter field goal attempts came from behind the 3-point line, and she made four.
Atlanta’s defense was just as effective.
The Dream held Phoenix to 26.7% shooting in the opening quarter.
“Today the way we started, and the last two games, the way we came out, we came out with a lot of aggression on the defensive end, which got our offense going, and we were able to maintain that throughout the last two games,” Canada said.
The Dream’s 3-point shooting cooled considerably in the second quarter. Atlanta made only one of eight attempts from beyond the arc.
But the Dream found another way to score.
Atlanta attacked inside and extended its lead to 50-35 by halftime.
The Dream eventually finished with 48 points in the paint and shot 87.5% from the free-throw line.
Phoenix Erases Most of the Lead
A game that Atlanta appeared to have under control changed quickly in the third quarter.
Phoenix shot 59.1% from the field during the period and made five of seven shots from 3-point range.
With 45 seconds remaining in the quarter, the Mercury had cut Atlanta’s lead to one.
Madina Okot made two free throws to give the Dream a 71-68 advantage. Howard then ended the quarter with a bank shot that sent Atlanta into the fourth leading 73-68.
The Dream still had the lead.
Smesko, however, saw a stretch of basketball that could prove much more costly in the postseason.
He said Atlanta cannot afford another five-minute stretch like the one it had to begin the third quarter. The Dream failed to run sets correctly, did not get back on defense and allowed too many layups.
“It’s hard to play great for 40 minutes but that’s the goal,” Smesko said.
Atlanta Responds
The Dream did not allow Phoenix’s third-quarter momentum to carry into the fourth.
Atlanta opened the final period with a 6-2 run to rebuild its advantage to 79-70.
This time, Phoenix did not come back.
Atlanta maintained control through the remainder of the fourth quarter and closed out the 99-89 victory.
“It was good to see us regroup, get the win, and qualify for the playoffs,” Smesko said.
The Dream forced 16 Phoenix turnovers and turned them into 18 points. Atlanta also recorded 12 steals.
Those numbers help explain how Atlanta survived a night when Phoenix nearly erased a 15-point halftime deficit.
But Smesko’s concern about the third quarter also provides a glimpse at what comes next.
The Dream has accomplished one goal.
It has reached the playoffs.
Now Atlanta has seven regular-season games to improve its postseason position and eliminate the stretches that could turn a playoff game in the wrong direction.
The Goal Gets Bigger
For a team that has now qualified for the postseason four consecutive years, simply getting there does not have to be the final measure of success.
The Dream still has an opportunity to earn home-court advantage in the opening round.
Atlanta also enters the final portion of the regular season with Reese producing some of the best numbers of her career and Howard, Gray and Canada providing additional scoring.
The win in Phoenix demonstrated why the Dream can be dangerous.
Atlanta defended, forced turnovers, scored inside and had four starters finish in double figures.
It also demonstrated what still needs work.
A 15-point halftime lead nearly disappeared during one quarter.
Atlanta responded before it cost the Dream the game.
That response allowed the Dream to leave Phoenix with its third consecutive victory and, more importantly, a guaranteed place in the postseason.
The four-game road trip concludes Monday in Los Angeles.
The question facing Atlanta is no longer whether it will reach the playoffs.
It is what the Dream will do once it gets there.
Reese has already made clear what she wants.
“I want more than the playoffs,” Reese said. “I want to walk away a champ.”
BronzeLens opened with Love, Patrick: Nothing is Impossible, introducing a new generation to fashion pioneer Patrick Kelly’s extraordinary journey from Mississippi to Paris.
By Milton Kirby | Atlanta, GA | August 22, 2026
Opening night of the BronzeLens Film Festival belonged to Patrick Kelly.
Hours before Love, Patrick: Nothing is Impossible was scheduled to make its world premiere, however, co-director Ryon Horne was worried.
His phone had been buzzing with messages from people telling him they could not make it.
After helping bring the story of the Mississippi-born fashion designer to the screen, Horne found himself confronting one of a filmmaker’s most basic opening-night fears.
Would anybody show up?
“I don’t even know how to explain it,” Horne said later. “You get nervous about these things, because, like, is anybody going to come?”
He got his answer when he arrived at the Tara Atlanta Theatre.
The house was packed.
“And then when you come, you realize the most important people in your life that needed to support this film on this day are here,” Horne said.
They came for opening night of the 17th annual BronzeLens Film Festival and the world premiere of Love, Patrick: Nothing is Impossible, a documentary about a Black designer from Mississippi whose journey took him from the American South to the highest levels of Paris fashion. BronzeLens listed the film as its 6:45 p.m. opening-night world premiere. (BronzeLens Atlanta Film Festival, Inc)
Before the film began, BronzeLens founder and executive producer Kathleen Bertrand welcomed the audience and introduced Jason Gregory, interim director of programming.
Festival organizers had encouraged opening-night guests to arrive “Runway Ready,” and many accepted the invitation. Before the theater lights dimmed, the Tara lobby had become a fashion showcase of its own, a fitting prelude to a film about a designer who believed clothes should bring joy.
But by the time the film ended and the conversation inside the theater began, opening night had become about something larger than a movie premiere.
It was about remembering Patrick Kelly.
And for some people in the audience, it was about discovering him for the first time.
From Mississippi to Paris
Patrick Kelly grew up in Mississippi surrounded by women who helped shape both his personality and his fashion.
His grandmother, Ethel Rainey, was especially influential.
She gave him old copies of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar when he was a child. She took him to Black Baptist church, where Kelly noticed the women dressed from head to toe in their Sunday best.
Even one of Kelly’s most recognizable design signatures had roots in his Mississippi childhood.
His grandmother mended his shirts with mismatched buttons.
Kelly moved to Atlanta in 1974, where he volunteered to design window displays for Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche. Atlanta became another stop on a journey that eventually took him to New York and then Paris. (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
New York proved difficult.
Paris changed everything.
Kelly moved to France in late 1979. His skinny, body-conscious dresses decorated with colorful buttons eventually attracted the attention of French Elle, which featured his first commercial collection in February 1985. (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
His designs were bold, playful and unmistakably his.
Buttons became a signature.
So did bright colors, bows, body-hugging dresses and humor.
Kelly’s runways featured Black models and women whose bodies did not always conform to the narrow image traditionally associated with high fashion.
He was not merely putting Black models on a runway.
He was putting a broader vision of Black beauty there.
Then came history.
In 1988, Kelly became thefirst American and first Black designer voted into the prestigious Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode. His admission was sponsored by Pierre Bergé, cofounder of Yves Saint Laurent, and designer Sonia Rykiel. (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
For a Black man from Mississippi, it was an extraordinary ascent.
More than three decades later, his clothes remain in museum collections and have been the subject of major exhibitions. (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Yet his name is unfamiliar to many Americans.
That contradiction sits near the heart of Love, Patrick.
“I Had No Knowledge of Patrick Kelly”
Stephanie Proctor Johnson, an executive producer of the documentary and operations manager for the Horne Brothers, made a striking admission after the premiere.
“I had no knowledge of Patrick Kelly,” she said.
Johnson said she first learned about him when the film project came to the Horne Brothers.
Even after becoming involved, she said the filmmaking team had to learn the magnitude of what Kelly had accomplished.
“I don’t think as a designer, none of us realized the essence of what he had done,” she said.
That experience was reflected in the audience.
Some people at the Tara knew Kelly’s story.
Yolanda Durbin was one of them.
Durbin attended fashion school after Kelly’s death and remembers professors discussing him.
“I’m glad he is getting the notoriety that he deserves,” she said.
Others were meeting Patrick Kelly for the first time.
That raises an uncomfortable question.
How does an American designer become the first American and first Black designer voted into one of the most important organizations in French fashion, attract international attention and work with some of the world’s most recognizable models, yet become unfamiliar to another generation?
Love, Patrick does not merely celebrate Kelly’s success.
It attempts to put his name back into circulation.
Bringing Patrick Kelly’s Story to the Screen
The Patrick Kelly project had been developing for years.
Johnson said executive producers Ray Cornelius and Jessica Manning met with Ryon Horne in early 2025. By that summer, the larger Horne Brothers team had committed to the production.
The filmmakers traveled to Paris, following Kelly’s path and speaking with people connected to his life and work.
The project also had an important connection to Kelly himself through Bjorn Guil Amelan, Kelly’s former life and business partner. The Philadelphia Museum of Art identifies Amelan and Bill T. Jones as the donors behind a promised gift of approximately 80 Kelly ensembles featured in its Runway of Love retrospective. (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Making the documentary required the kind of resourcefulness familiar to independent filmmakers.
“We did it on a bootstrap,” Johnson said.
For Latrisha Horne, Ryon’s wife, the project meant watching a familiar transformation at home.
When Ryon becomes immersed in a film, she said, he goes into “work mode.”
“He works in the studio and we may not see him months at a time because he’s so dedicated to the project,” she said.
Latrisha traveled to Paris during production and, for the first time, watched her husband working on location.
“I was like a little kid,” she recalled.
Now that the film has premiered, she wants its reach to grow.
“It needs to get on Netflix or a streaming platform so that more people can be exposed,” she said. “It needs to be seen by so many people.”
The Smile
For all the history contained in the documentary, one characteristic of Patrick Kelly repeatedly commanded attention.
His smile.
It turns out the smile was also part of his design philosophy.
Kelly often expressed a simple goal: he wanted his clothes to make people smile. (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
His life was hardly free from struggle.
Kelly grew up in Mississippi during the 1950s and 1960s. He later navigated race as a Black man in the international fashion industry. His career required leaving the United States before he found his greatest professional success.
And his life ended during the devastation of the AIDS epidemic.
Yet on screen, Kelly repeatedly smiled.
Johnson noticed it.
So did Dr. Courtney A. Hammonds, who participated in the documentary.
Kelly’s personality, Johnson said, seemed “contagious.”
She remembered another sentiment expressed by Kelly in the film:
“I just want to have fun.”
The joy was reflected in his clothes.
Kelly used bright colors, buttons, bows and humor. He brought his Southern roots into Paris fashion and mixed them with influences from Black culture, fashion history and the club scenes of New York and Paris. (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Hammonds saw something larger in Kelly’s smile.
“The smile can transcend everything,” Hammonds said.
More Than a Documentary
For Hammonds, Love, Patrick is ultimately about storytelling.
Hammonds credited the Horne Brothers, Manning, Cornelius and the larger production team with bringing together people who could contribute different pieces to Kelly’s story.
But Hammonds also challenged the audience to think about what happens after a story has been recovered.
“We can excavate a story, but now it’s up to the next generation to do something with that,” Hammonds said.
That may be one of the central questions Love, Patrick leaves behind.
What do people do once they know?
Hammonds believes Kelly’s story can resonate even with people who had never heard his name.
He was a Southerner.
He came from a small Mississippi city.
And he reached one of the biggest stages imaginable in his profession.
“We have a cousin in Vicksburg,” Hammonds said. “We have a cousin in Alabama. We have a cousin in Atlanta.”
Kelly’s journey, in that sense, becomes more than fashion history.
It becomes a story about possibility.
Hammonds suggested there is still much more for audiences to discover.
“Patrick Kelly is more than a monolith,” Hammonds said. “He’s really an encyclopedia that’s yet to be read.”
Why BronzeLens Matters
That story found an appropriate stage at BronzeLens.
Founded in 2009, the nonprofit festival is dedicated to promoting Atlanta as a film center for people of color, showcasing films created by people of color and providing networking opportunities to develop future filmmakers. BronzeLens is also an Oscar-qualifying festival in the short-film category. (BronzeLens Atlanta Film Festival, Inc)
Atlanta-based filmmaker Adelin Gasana sees the festival as more than a screening opportunity.
Gasana, whose documentary Brannu was also screening during the festival, said this is his third year participating in BronzeLens. He said the experience has helped him learn about film marketing, meet people and see strong independent films.
That kind of infrastructure matters at a time when independent filmmakers increasingly must find creative ways to finance, market and distribute their work.
Gasana particularly welcomed BronzeLens’ expanded emphasis on Georgia filmmakers this year.
For him, local filmmaking does not necessarily mean telling small stories.
His own documentary examines land, agriculture, development pressure and questions about what happens when competing visions of progress collide.
Love, Patrick likewise stretches far beyond Atlanta.
But its connections to the city run deep.
Kelly spent formative years here before Paris. The Horne Brothers are Atlanta filmmakers. And now Atlanta has hosted the documentary’s world premiere.
The result is a story that can travel internationally while remaining rooted in the South.
“Nothing Is Impossible”
The title of the documentary carries its own story.
Patrick Kelly is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
AI can sound convincing even when wrong. Learn essential AI literacy skills to verify facts, question sources, and distinguish evidence from interpretation.
By Florita Bell Griffin, Ph.D. | Houston, TX | August 18, 2026
Artificial intelligence has a remarkable ability to sound confident. Ask an AI system a question about history, medicine, money, technology, travel, politics, or even your favorite television show, and it may respond in polished sentences with dates, names, explanations, and conclusions that seem completely authoritative. The grammar may be excellent, the reasoning may appear organized, and the answer may include details you did not know enough to ask about. Yet there is something every everyday AI user should understand: confidence in the wording of an AI response is not the same thing as certainty about the facts. That distinction may be one of the most important forms of AI literacy we can learn.
Artificial intelligence does not necessarily become visibly cautious when it is unsure. It may not announce, “I am guessing,” before giving an uncertain answer. In fact, a weak answer can sometimes be delivered in exactly the same polished tone as a strong one. This means that people cannot judge the reliability of an AI response merely by how intelligent, detailed, or convincing it sounds. Fortunately, you do not have to become a computer scientist to recognize when more verification is needed. You simply have to develop the habit of asking better questions about the information AI gives you.
Modern generative AI systems are extraordinarily sophisticated language systems. They can analyze information, explain complicated subjects, compare ideas, help write documents, summarize material, reason through problems, and interact conversationally. However, generating a convincing response and establishing that every statement in that response is factually correct are two different things. An AI system may encounter incomplete information, misunderstand exactly what you are asking, combine details about two similar people or events, rely on information that has changed, or make an inference that seems reasonable without having enough evidence to support it.
This problem is often described as an AI “hallucination,” but for everyday users, there may be an easier way to understand it: sometimes AI fills in a gap. The difficulty is that the filled-in gap may sound exactly like a fact. Imagine asking AI about a little-known author. The system correctly identifies the author’s first book, writing style, and general period of publication, then provides the name of an award the author supposedly received. Because everything surrounding that statement is accurate, you naturally assume that the award is accurate too. It may not be. One incorrect detail can hide comfortably inside ten correct ones, which is why responsible AI use requires more than simply deciding whether an answer sounds right.
Some questions are much safer to ask casually than others. If you ask AI to explain the difference between a metaphor and a simile, help organize your grocery list, suggest questions for a family interview, rewrite a paragraph, brainstorm birthday party themes, or explain a difficult concept in simpler language, a small factual error may have little consequence. Other questions deserve far greater scrutiny. Questions about medications, legal obligations, retirement money, government benefits, taxes, medical symptoms, or statements attributed to political leaders can carry real consequences if the information is wrong.
A useful rule is that the greater the consequence of being wrong, the greater the need for verification. Timeliness matters as well. An AI answer about a long-established historical fact may remain useful for years, while an answer about current mortgage rates, an election, a recently changed law, a company executive, an airline policy, a product recall, or breaking news can become outdated very quickly. Whenever your question depends heavily on words such as “current,” “latest,” “today,” “recently,” “still,” or “now,” it is wise to make sure the information has been checked against current sources.
One of the easiest ways to use AI more intelligently is to stop asking only for answers and begin asking about the quality of those answers. After receiving an important response, you can ask which parts are established facts and which parts are interpretation. You can ask what information the AI is least certain about, what should be independently verified before you rely on it, or which sources would be most authoritative for confirming the answer. Those questions transform AI from something that simply delivers conclusions into something that can help you investigate them.
Source quality is particularly important. If you are asking about taxes, an official tax agency is generally more authoritative than a random financial blog. If the question concerns a medication, regulatory agencies, respected medical institutions, and peer-reviewed research may deserve more weight than social media commentary. If you are investigating a law, court decision, corporate announcement, or government policy, the original source often matters more than dozens of websites repeating someone else’s description of it. Ten websites repeating the same inaccurate claim do not make the claim true.
You can also ask AI to look for credible evidence that contradicts its first answer. This can be especially useful when dealing with controversial subjects, historical claims, scientific debates, political assertions, consumer products, or popular stories that have been repeated so often that people assume they must be true. AI can be particularly valuable when you ask it to help you investigate an issue rather than simply telling you what to believe.
Another important habit is learning to recognize suspicious specificity. False information can become more convincing when it contains precise details. A statement saying that “a study found this” may make you somewhat skeptical. A statement claiming that “a 2019 study involving 2,417 participants found a 37.8 percent improvement” suddenly feels much more authoritative. Yet specificity itself is not evidence. Names, percentages, dates, quotations, court cases, scientific papers, statistics, titles, organizations, laws, and historical events should be verified precisely because they are specific.
If AI gives you the title of a study, ask it to locate the study. If it provides a quotation, ask for the original source. If it describes a law, examine the actual statute or information from the responsible government agency. If it claims that a company made an announcement, look for the company’s own announcement. If it attributes a statement to a public figure, look for the speech, interview, transcript, video, or other primary record. When a claim is important, the question should move from “Does this sound believable?” to “Can this be confirmed?”
It is also useful to notice what happens when you challenge an answer. If you ask the same factual question from a slightly different angle and names, dates, numbers, or explanations begin changing significantly, the subject deserves closer examination. AI correcting itself is not necessarily a problem. Correction is a useful part of inquiry. However, repeated factual instability can indicate that the system does not have a firm basis for the answer it initially supplied.
Truth seeking also becomes easier when we learn to separate facts from interpretation. Consider the statement that a company eliminated 5,000 jobs. That is a factual claim that can potentially be verified. Now consider the statement that the layoffs prove the company is failing. That is an interpretation. The company may be failing, but it could also be restructuring, automating certain functions, eliminating duplicate positions after an acquisition, responding to investor pressure, or changing its business strategy. The fact and the explanation are not the same thing.
AI can move smoothly between facts and interpretation because human conversation does the same thing. The transition can be so natural that we barely notice it. One useful approach is to ask AI to present verifiable facts first and its interpretation separately. Doing this can make the conversation much clearer because it prevents an AI-generated interpretation from quietly taking on the appearance of an established fact.
Perhaps the most important change we can make in our relationship with artificial intelligence is to stop treating it like an electronic oracle that possesses an invisible vault containing every correct answer. AI is far more useful when approached as a powerful collaborator in inquiry. It can help us ask better questions, identify possibilities we have not considered, explain terminology that makes difficult sources easier to understand, compare competing claims, locate inconsistencies, summarize complicated documents, distinguish evidence from speculation, and identify what additional information would be needed before reaching a conclusion.
That kind of collaboration is very different from surrendering our judgment to a machine. Human beings have always had to evaluate information. Long before artificial intelligence, newspapers, television programs, books, websites, experts, teachers, politicians, corporations, advertisers, neighbors, friends, relatives, and strangers all told us things they believed were true. Some were correct, some were mistaken, some were biased, some were poorly informed, and some intentionally misled others. Artificial intelligence did not invent the problem of unreliable information. It introduced a new kind of messenger capable of communicating with unusual speed, fluency, patience, and apparent authority.
One of the most powerful questions we can bring into any important AI conversation is also one of the oldest: How do we know? What is the evidence? Where did the information originate? Is the source authoritative? Is the information current? Can the claim be independently confirmed? Are we looking at a documented fact, a reasonable inference, a disputed interpretation, an estimate, or a guess? These questions matter far more than whether an answer sounds sophisticated or agrees with what we already believe.
The people who benefit most from artificial intelligence may not ultimately be those who learn the most complicated prompts. They may be the people who learn when an answer is sufficient, when it deserves another question, when it requires outside verification, and when they need to examine the evidence for themselves. AI can make information easier to reach, easier to understand, and easier to analyze, but the human ability to question, compare, investigate, and judge remains essential.
In an age when machines can generate convincing language almost instantly, knowing how to distinguish a good answer from a merely good-sounding answer may become one of the most important everyday skills of all. That does not make artificial intelligence less useful. It makes the person using it more capable of using its extraordinary power wisely.
Keisha Lance Bottoms brought confidence and candor to NABJ 2026, but Rick Jackson’s $87 million advertising campaign presents a formidable challenge.
By Milton Kirby | Atlanta, GA | August 18, 2026
Keisha Lance Bottoms walked onto the stage at the 2026 National Association of Black Journalists Convention Friday looking and sounding like a candidate comfortable with who she is.
The Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia spoke about politics, race, election security and the challenge of campaigning across a state where voters may share concerns even when they do not share political labels.
But some of the most revealing moments came when Bottoms stopped talking about the campaign and talked about herself.
During a fireside chat with Dateline NBC correspondent Blayne Alexander, Bottoms discussed painful chapters of her life that she revealed in her recently published memoir, The Rough Side of the Mountain: A Memoir.
She spoke about her father’s incarceration. Infertility. An eating disorder. Being molested as a child. Therapy.
“I’ve laid it all out,” Bottoms told the audience.
It was a strikingly personal conversation for a candidate less than three months from Election Day.
Yet Bottoms appeared confident and at ease as she moved between the personal and political, making the case that the experiences that shaped her life also shaped the public servant she has become.
From the Back Door to the Front Door
Before Bottoms talked about becoming governor, she talked about her grandfather.
She recalled how he and relatives started a business and came into what the family called “uptown,” now downtown Atlanta, to haul paper and trash from buildings and recycle it.
Eventually, she said, her grandfather bought a truck and traveled along Peachtree Street.
For Bottoms, walking into a downtown Atlanta hotel carries a meaning that goes beyond attending another political event.
She said she thinks about how her grandfather once came downtown to work and how she now has the opportunity to “walk in the front door.”
That history, she said, is always present with her.
Generations later, his granddaughter was sitting onstage at a national gathering of Black journalists as the Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia.
Bottoms did not dwell on the historic nature of her candidacy.
Instead, she pointed to the sacrifices that made it possible.
“My Message Doesn’t Change”
Alexander pressed Bottoms on one of the central questions facing any Democrat seeking statewide office in Georgia: How does a former Atlanta mayor connect with voters far beyond metro Atlanta?
Bottoms rejected the idea that she becomes a different candidate depending on where she campaigns.
“My message doesn’t change,” she said. “The landscape, the geography may be different.”
Whether she is speaking in Macon, Albany, Jesup or Atlanta, Bottoms said voters want many of the same things: strong communities, good schools, access to health care and opportunities for economic prosperity.
The starting points may be different, she said, but the needs often are not.
Bottoms also challenged the notion that she is known only in Atlanta, saying her campaign has been doing the work statewide.
Campaigning outside metro Atlanta can actually make it easier to break through, she argued. In smaller media markets, a gubernatorial candidate’s visit may become one of the biggest local stories of the day.
“You can’t run for a statewide office with fear, or apprehension,” Bottoms said.
She said face-to-face encounters also can break down assumptions. When people sit together one-on-one, they begin to see one another as human beings and sometimes discover that their concerns and beliefs overlap.
For Bottoms, the strategy comes back to authenticity.
“It’s about being who I am, wherever I am, speaking the truth, in whatever room I am in.”
The Rough Side of the Mountain
That theme of authenticity became even more pronounced when Alexander asked what voters might not know about Bottoms.
Her answer was essentially: read the book.
The Rough Side of the Mountain: A Memoir was published in April.
Bottoms told the NABJ audience that she wrote the book while outside public life, after leaving the mayor’s office and the White House, when she had no intention of running for office again.
That mattered.
She suggested she may have been more forthcoming because she was not writing while viewing every revelation through the lens of a future campaign.
Bottoms said she wrote about her father’s incarceration, her infertility, her eating disorder, being molested as a child and her therapy sessions.
The memoir, she explained, was not initially supposed to become the book that ultimately reached stores.
She envisioned something closer to a collection of essays and a love letter to her family, particularly the people and experiences she sometimes felt she had to tuck away as she climbed professionally.
Writing it became cathartic.
The response from readers also surprised her.
Bottoms said people have approached her and shared experiences they had rarely, if ever, discussed publicly. Her willingness to talk about subjects such as incarceration, infertility and childhood sexual abuse opened a door for others to talk about their own lives.
For a gubernatorial candidate, those disclosures carry political risk.
On Friday, Bottoms did not appear burdened by them.
She appeared to have incorporated them into the story she now tells about herself.
Martha’s Vineyard and an Attack From Jackson
The conversation eventually moved directly into the general-election campaign.
Alexander gave Bottoms an opportunity to respond to an attack from Republican nominee Rick Jackson criticizing her travel to Martha’s Vineyard.
Bottoms did not retreat.
She noted Martha’s Vineyard’s long history as a destination for Black families and described it as a place of refuge, community and renewal.
She also connected her ownership of property there to her family’s history and economic progress.
“I find it as a badge of honor that I own land in Martha’s Vineyard and in Georgia,” Bottoms said.
The exchange offered a preview of what Georgians are likely to see much more of before November: Jackson attempting to define Bottoms, and Bottoms trying to prevent him from doing so.
And Jackson has extraordinary resources with which to make that attempt.
The $87 Million Challenge
One subject received surprisingly little examination during the fireside chat: money.
Jackson has committed $87 million to television and digital advertising in the general election after spending more than $100 million of his own money pursuing the Republican nomination.
That financial advantage presents Bottoms with a challenge unlike anything she faced in her campaigns for Atlanta mayor.
It raises a fundamental question:
How does Bottoms prevent Jackson from defining her when he can spend tens of millions of dollars delivering his version of her record to Georgia voters?
Alexander covered considerable territory during the limited conversation, including Bottoms’ personal life, campaigning outside metro Atlanta, Martha’s Vineyard, election security and the state of American democracy.
But the financial disparity between the candidates received little examination.
The issue is particularly significant because the race remains competitive.
A recent Quantus Insights survey of 815 likely Georgia voters, sponsored by the Natural Gas Association of Georgia, put Bottoms at 46.4% and Jackson at 44.9%, with 7.7% undecided.
The poll should be viewed for what it is: one snapshot of the electorate, commissioned by an organization with its own policy interests.
Still, its narrow margin illustrates what is at stake.
If the race remains close, the ability to reach undecided and persuadable voters repeatedly could become decisive.
Jackson can buy an extraordinary amount of that communication.
Bottoms will have to find other ways to compete.
Concerns About Georgia’s Elections
Bottoms also used the NABJ stage to express concern about Georgia’s election system.
Asked whether she believes Georgia’s elections are safe and secure, Bottoms said they are as safe and secure as elections can be in America right now, but she remains concerned about interference and restrictions on voting access.
Her answer quickly moved from concern to strategy.
“We’ve got to show up in the millions,” she said.
Bottoms called for making Election Day a state holiday and expanding early voting opportunities and hours.
Her message was that voters should not wait until Election Day.
Vote early. Vote in large numbers. Create margins large enough that the outcome cannot easily be questioned.
Alexander also asked Bottoms about the possibility of federal intervention surrounding Georgia’s election.
Bottoms said candidates and voters have to be prepared for the unexpected.
She then invoked Atlanta’s civil rights history and argued that Georgia has an opportunity to lead.
Who Does the Governor Work For?
Near the conclusion, Bottoms brought the conversation back to the distinction she wants voters to see between herself and Jackson.
She pointed to her experience as a judge, Atlanta City Council member, mayor and senior White House adviser.
Then she described the people she wants to represent.
The single mother working in the city.
The father trying to pay his rent.
The person struggling to pay for a parent’s medical treatment.
People who need someone in government to speak for them.
Jackson, Bottoms argued, can focus on distractions.
She wants to focus on people’s lives.
It was the campaign message she carried throughout the conversation: biography, hardship and public service presented not as separate chapters, but as parts of the same story.
Confidence Is Not the Question
Bottoms did not look like a candidate searching for her identity Friday.
She appeared confident.
She was willing to discuss the painful parts of her childhood, her family and deeply personal experiences. She defended her success rather than apologizing for it. And she insisted that she can walk into communities across Georgia without changing who she is or what she believes.
The question confronting her campaign is whether that confidence can translate into enough votes to win statewide.
Jackson has the money to make his case again and again.
Bottoms has a different proposition.
She is asking Georgians to look at the whole of her life, including the rough side of the mountain, and decide whether the journey qualifies her to lead the state.
Between now and November, she will have to make sure enough of them hear that story.
MARTA names Jonathan Hunt permanent CEO after a national search, placing safety, transparency, accountability and his promise of “routine excellence” at center stage.
By Milton Kirby | Atlanta, GA | August 14, 2026
Jonathan Hunt did not initially want the job.
When Hunt stepped into the role of interim general manager and CEO of MARTA in August 2025, following the departure of Collie Greenwood, he said he was not interested in becoming the permanent leader of one of the nation’s largest public transit systems.
A year later, Hunt had changed his mind.
After a national search that reached across the transportation industry and identified and contacted more than 250 candidates, the MARTA Board of Directors narrowed the field to three finalists. On Thursday, Aug. 13, it selected the man who had spent the previous year doing the job.
Jonathan Hunt – General Manager & CEO – Photo by Milton Kirby
Hunt is now MARTA’s permanent general manager and chief executive officer.
“To be named general manager and CEO of MARTA is an incredible, incredible honor,” Hunt said following the decision.
But neither Hunt nor MARTA Board Chair Jennifer N. Ide used the occasion simply to celebrate.
Both acknowledged that MARTA still has work to do.
“I think that we are in a much better place than we were a year, 18 months ago,” Hunt said. “But we still have, you know, a ways to go.”
Ide was even more direct.
“How MARTA is operating today is good,” Ide said. “What we expect with Jonathan as the permanent CEO is we expect great. We expect exceptional.”
Then she raised the bar higher.
“Where we are today isn’t good enough for the city of Atlanta.”
For Hunt, the year-long audition is over. The challenge now is turning the accomplishments of his interim tenure into the everyday service riders expect from MARTA.
A National Search Ends at Home
Hunt’s selection followed what MARTA described as an extensive national search.
The Board retained Diversified Search Group following a competitive selection process. According to Ide, the firm and MARTA’s search committee cast a wide net across public transit, airports and airlines, freight and passenger rail, port authorities and logistics.
More than 250 potential candidates were identified and contacted.
Board members representing MARTA’s major jurisdictions participated in the process, developing the position description, screening and vetting candidates and conducting structured interviews.
Three finalists emerged.
Hunt was joined by Cleveland Ferguson III of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority and Leroy Jones of Washington’s Metro system.
The candidates brought different experiences to the competition.
Jones came from one of the nation’s largest transit systems, with extensive bus and rail operations in the Washington metropolitan area.
Ferguson came from Jacksonville, a smaller transit operation without a heavy-rail system comparable to MARTA.
Hunt brought something neither outside candidate could offer: more than a decade inside MARTA and nearly a year already sitting in the chief executive’s chair.
Ide emphasized that the selection was not an indictment of the other finalists.
“The process gave us three exceptional finalists, and I didn’t say that lightly,” she told the Board. “Cleveland Ferguson, Leroy Jones, and Jonathan Hunt each brought something real to the table, and any one of them could have led MARTA well.”
But after final interviews and deliberations, the Board chose Hunt.
Jennifer Ide – MARTA Board Chair – Courtesy Photo
Ide explained why.
“What ultimately made Jonathan the most qualified candidate was not a single credential,” she said.
Instead, she pointed to Hunt’s leadership and the Board’s belief that MARTA is moving in the right direction under him.
Over the past year, Ide said, Hunt strengthened relationships with MARTA’s jurisdictional partners, business community, employees, stakeholders and riders.
His knowledge of the agency also mattered.
“He understands our operations, our finances, our capital program, and the complicated web of government and community interests that we answer to,” Ide said.
The Candidate Who Initially Didn’t Want the Job
Hunt’s path to the permanent position was unusual because he initially indicated he wasn’t seeking it.
But something changed during his year at the top.
Hunt has described the interim assignment as the most rewarding and purposeful experience of his professional career. He also said people within and around MARTA encouraged him after watching his leadership.
Eventually, the reluctant interim leader became a candidate for the permanent position.
The Board’s decision suggests his year in the job became something few outside candidates could duplicate: a real-world audition.
Hunt took over MARTA during a period of significant change.
During his interim tenure, the agency launched a redesigned bus network, replaced its Breeze fare-payment system and implemented Atlanta’s first bus rapid transit line.
He also oversaw MARTA’s operations, safety and customer experience during the FIFA World Cup, when the region’s transit system faced extraordinary demand.
Ide pointed specifically to the World Cup as evidence of Hunt’s leadership.
“For those few months, all eyes were on MARTA and on Jonathan, and he met the moment and delivered,” she said.
But Hunt’s permanent tenure will not be judged solely by how MARTA performed during a global sporting event.
The more difficult test may be what happens on an ordinary Monday morning.
From World Cup Success to “Routine Excellence”
Hunt has repeatedly used a phrase to describe what he wants MARTA to become: “routine excellence.”
His goal, he says, is a transit system that is safe, clean and reliable every day.
That distinction matters.
Moving huge crowds successfully during the World Cup demonstrated what MARTA can do when the system, its employees and the region are focused on a major event.
The challenge now is delivering that level of reliability when there are no international television cameras and no global event underway.
Ide made clear that the Board shares that expectation.
“We have a unique opportunity to carry the momentum of the World Cup into our everyday routine excellence of service,” she said.
Then she added an important promise.
The Board, she said, will hold Hunt to that standard.
That standard comes as MARTA continues to manage major projects and challenges.
The agency is rolling out a redesigned bus system, transitioning riders to a new Breeze fare system, implementing bus rapid transit and preparing new rail cars for passenger service.
At the same time, riders judge MARTA by more immediate concerns: whether the bus arrives, whether the train is on time, whether stations and vehicles are clean and whether they feel safe while using the system.
Those everyday experiences may ultimately determine whether Hunt’s “routine excellence” becomes more than a phrase.
Safety and Trust Remain Challenges
Safety remains particularly important.
During coverage of the CEO search, riders repeatedly raised security as one of their concerns for MARTA’s next leader.
That concern exists alongside MARTA statistics showing improvements in overall crime.
The distinction between statistics and perception is important.
An agency can report declining crime while riders still feel unsafe. A new CEO must address both.
Hunt appears to recognize that rebuilding confidence will require more than operational improvements.
In his remarks following his selection, he repeatedly returned to three ideas: transparency, accountability and trust.
He pledged greater collaboration across MARTA’s jurisdictions, with businesses and with community leaders.
He also called for “additional transparency as much as we possibly can in order to build back trust.”
“We started doing that in a major way this year,” Hunt said, “but we still have a long way to go.”
He described accountability as good for MARTA and good for rebuilding regional trust.
That acknowledgment may prove important.
Hunt is not taking over an agency that he describes as having completed its transformation. He is taking permanent responsibility for an agency whose shortcomings he openly acknowledges.
From Lawyer to Transit CEO
Hunt’s route to MARTA’s top job differs from the traditional image of a transit executive who spent an entire career running buses and trains.
He joined MARTA in 2014 and spent more than a decade in its legal department, serving as Chief of Corporate Law and Real Estate, Deputy Chief Counsel and ultimately Chief Legal Counsel.
But his professional background extends beyond law.
Earlier in his career, Hunt served as a Senior Assistant City Attorney for the City of Atlanta, handling aviation matters involving Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. He practiced law at Dentons and BakerHostetler and previously worked as a project engineer with Gilbane Building Company.
He also serves on the national board of the American Public Transportation Association and chairs its Legal Affairs Committee.
Hunt holds a bachelor’s degree from Hampton University and a Juris Doctor from Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Ide emphasized that Hunt’s years inside MARTA have given him an understanding that extends well beyond the legal department.
“He understands our operations, our finances, our capital program, and the complicated web of government and community interests that we answer to,” Ide said.
“He has been in the ring for all of it.”
A Leadership Transition MARTA Did Not Expect
Hunt’s rise began with an unexpected leadership transition.
Greenwood, originally from Canada, joined MARTA in 2019 and became CEO in 2022. He left the agency in 2025 in what MARTA described as an early retirement connected to immigration and personal matters.
MARTA said at the time that the immigration process had affected Greenwood’s personal and professional progress. Greenwood said he and his wife had decided it was a good opportunity to retire early and spend more time with family and friends.
His departure created the opening that eventually placed Hunt in the interim role.
There is also a historical similarity.
Greenwood served as interim CEO before receiving the permanent job. Hunt has now traveled a similar path.
But MARTA’s Board stressed that Hunt did not simply inherit the permanent position.
He had to compete for it.
The national search ultimately brought MARTA back to the executive already inside the building.
The Patron Experience
Perhaps the clearest indication of where Hunt intends to place his attention came near the end of his Board remarks.
He promised to work with MARTA’s leadership team to improve the agency and, “most importantly,” improve the experience MARTA provides its patrons.
That is where the Board’s decision will eventually be judged.
Not in the executive suite.
Not in a press release.
Not simply by the successful handling of one major international event.
But on buses, trains and station platforms across the region.
Can MARTA improve reliability?
Can it increase ridership?
Can riders feel safer?
Can major projects be delivered successfully?
Can the agency become more transparent and accountable?
And can the system provide the safe, clean and reliable service Hunt says riders deserve every day?
Ide has already made clear that “good” will not be enough.
Hunt appears to agree.
“I truly believe we do have the best transit agency in the nation,” he said, “and we need to live up to that mantra.”
For the past year, Jonathan Hunt had the opportunity to show MARTA’s Board what he could do as an interim leader.
The Board liked what it saw enough to give him the job permanently.
Now comes the harder part.
Delivering what Hunt calls “routine excellence,” not for a few extraordinary weeks, but every day.
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For 16 years, the BronzeLens Film Festival has served as a cultural cornerstone for filmmakers of color, bringing together artists, auFor more than a decade, the BronzeLens Film Festival has served as a cultural cornerstone for filmmakers of color, bringing together artists, audiences and industry professionals in Atlanta to celebrate stories that are often overlooked by mainstream Hollywood. This year, the Oscar-qualifying festival enters a new chapter—one marked by growth, transition and an expanded vision for the future.
Kathleen Bertrand – Courtesy Photo
At the center of that continued growth is Executive Producer Kathleen Bertrand, one of the driving forces behind the festival’s mission to celebrate stories created by and about people of color. Based in Atlanta, BronzeLens was founded to share and applaud the many stories of people of color told through digital moving images. Since its founding, the organization has screened films from creators across the African diaspora and beyond, building a reputation as both a cultural institution and an advocate for diverse storytelling. Bertrand has emphasized BronzeLens’ commitment to educating, enlightening and entertaining audiences while providing a platform for filmmakers whose voices deserve greater visibility.
For the first time in its history, BronzeLens will unfold across two weekends, providing festivalgoers with additional opportunities to experience screenings, professional development workshops, networking events and special programs. The expanded format reflects the festival’s continued evolution and growing impact within Atlanta’s thriving film community.
The festival also enters a period of transition. The 2026 event marks the first since the retirement of Founding Artistic Director Deidre McDonald, whose curatorial vision helped shape BronzeLens into one of the nation’s premier showcases for diverse storytelling. Under McDonald’s leadership, the festival became known for presenting films that explored culture, identity, social justice and the shared experiences of communities around the world.
As BronzeLens moves forward, Jason Gregoryassumes the role of Interim Director of Programming, helping guide the festival through its next phase while maintaining the organization’s commitment to elevating underrepresented voices.
A Fashion Icon Takes Center Stage
The festival opens with the world premiere of “Love, Patrick: Nothing is Impossible,” directed byThe Horne Brothers. The documentary chronicles the extraordinary life of fashion designer Patrick Kelly, the first American admitted to the prestigious Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter in Paris.
The film explores Kelly’s groundbreaking impact on the fashion industry while examining themes of race, identity and perseverance. In tribute to the celebrated designer, festival organizers are encouraging attendees to arrive “Runway Ready” for opening night, creating a fitting celebration of a man whose bold creative vision reshaped the fashion world.
Spotlighting Emerging Voices
While marquee premieres help attract attention, BronzeLens has long built its reputation on supporting independent filmmakers and emerging talent.
Among this year’s notable selections is “The Text,” a short film written and directed by Kareemah, founder of Rare Maven Media. The film follows Tanya, an aspiring DJ who returns home for her best friend’s engagement party and finds herself facing a life-altering decision: remain in a troubled relationship or pursue the future she truly desires.
Produced by Rare Maven Media, “The Text” stars Zora Imani as Tanya and Cameron Bhola as Taj. The film is scheduled to screen Aug. 23 at the Tara Theatre, where audiences will have an opportunity to experience one of the independent projects representing the next generation of storytellers.
Projects such as “The Text” exemplify the role BronzeLens continues to play as a launchpad for creatives seeking visibility, industry access and meaningful audience engagement.
Building Careers Behind the Camera
BronzeLens has long distinguished itself by investing not only in completed films but also in the professional development of the people who make them. That commitment is reflected in this year’s Craft Day programming, designed to equip creatives with practical tools and industry knowledge.
Among the highlights is an Acting Master Class and Workshop led by acclaimed actress, director and producer Jasmine Guy.
Additional sessions include:
Get Funded: Producing, Financing and Crowdfunding
Blindsides, a blind table read presented by Black Script
Below the Line: Careers That Build Black Cinema
The ATL Effect: Capital, Culture and Craft
From Page to Screen: The Writers and the Crew Who Build Black Cinema
Together, the programs emphasize the collaborative nature of filmmaking while exploring everything from financing and production to writing, acting and crew development.
Looking Ahead
As BronzeLens embraces its first two-weekend format and navigates a significant leadership transition, its core mission remains unchanged. Under the continued leadership of Executive Producer Kathleen Bertrand, and with new programming leadership in place, the festival remains dedicated to creating opportunities for filmmakers of color to tell stories that inspire, challenge and connect audiences.
In a city that has emerged as a major center for film and television production, BronzeLens continues to offer something unique: a space where culture, creativity and community intersect. With expanded programming, industry-focused workshops, major premieres and emerging voices all sharing the spotlight, the festival appears poised to begin its next chapter while remaining true to the vision that has sustained it for years.
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Ninety years after Jesse Owens won four gold medals in Berlin, his triumphs and treatment at home reveal a powerful American contradiction.
On August 9, 1936, Jesse Owens completed one of the greatest performances in Olympic history. What happened before Berlin made him a champion. What happened afterward tells a larger American story.
Ninety years ago, on August 9, 1936, Jesse Owens stepped onto the track inside Berlin’s Olympic Stadium for one final race.
He had already won three gold medals.
The 100 meters.
The long jump.
The 200 meters.
Now came the 4×100-meter relay.
Owens joined Ralph Metcalfe, Foy Draper and Frank Wykoff on the American team. They crossed the finish line in 39.8 seconds, setting a world record and giving Owens his fourth gold medal of the 1936 Olympic Games.
Four events.
Four gold medals.
All accomplished by a 22-year-old Black American competing in Nazi Germany.
Owens became the most successful athlete of the Berlin Games and the first American track and field athlete to win four gold medals at a single Olympics. His feat would not be matched in the same four events until Carl Lewis accomplished it at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
But 90 years later, Jesse Owens deserves to be remembered for more than what happened during those seven remarkable days in Berlin.
His story began in a sharecropping family in Alabama. It carried him through segregation, poverty and discrimination. It took him to Ohio State University, where he became one of the greatest college athletes in history while being denied some of the basic privileges available to his white teammates.
Then it took him to Berlin, where his performance offered a powerful answer to Adolf Hitler’s theories of racial superiority.
And finally, it brought him home to an America that celebrated his victories while still denying him equality.
That part of the story deserves remembering, too.
Jesse Owens – Photo courtesy of Britannica
From Alabama to Cleveland
James Cleveland Owens was born September 12, 1913, in Oakville, Alabama. He was the youngest of 10 children and the grandson of an enslaved person.
His father was a sharecropper.
When Owens was nine years old, his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, as part of the Great Migration, the movement of millions of Black Americans out of the rural South in search of greater opportunity elsewhere.
He arrived in Cleveland known as “J.C.”
According to the familiar story, when a teacher asked his name, Owens answered “J.C.” His Southern accent led her to believe he had said “Jesse.”
The name stayed with him for the rest of his life.
So did something else that was becoming increasingly clear.
Jesse Owens could run.
Coach Charles Riley recognized the youngster’s talent and helped develop it. Because Owens worked after school, Riley allowed him to practice before school.
By high school, Owens was becoming a national sensation.
At the 1933 National High School Championships, he tied the world record in the 100-yard dash at 9.4 seconds and established a national high school record in the 220-yard dash.
Colleges noticed.
Owens eventually chose Ohio State University.
The Buckeye Bullet
At Ohio State, Owens became known as the “Buckeye Bullet.”
His performances were extraordinary.
He won eight individual NCAA championships, four in 1935 and four in 1936. During his 1936 season, Owens reportedly won all 42 events he entered.
But athletic greatness did not erase race.
Owens received no athletic scholarship. He worked several jobs to support himself and his family while attending school and training.
He operated an elevator at night. He waited tables. He worked in library stacks. He pumped gas. He also served as a page at the Ohio Statehouse.
And although he competed for Ohio State, Owens could not live on campus with white athletes.
When the team traveled, segregation followed him. He sometimes had to order food rather than eat with his teammates and stay in hotels that accepted Black guests.
The contradiction was already taking shape.
Ohio State could put Jesse Owens in its uniform.
It could depend upon his speed to win championships.
But the racial customs of the time still determined where he could sleep and eat.
Then came May 25, 1935.
Perhaps the Greatest 45 Minutes in Sports
Owens arrived at the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with an injured back after falling down a flight of stairs.
He was not certain he could compete.
Owens reportedly persuaded his coach to let him try the 100-yard dash as a test.
He ran it in 9.4 seconds, tying the world record.
He kept going.
Over roughly the next 45 minutes, Owens set records in event after event.
He broke the world record in the long jump with a leap of 26 feet, 8 1/4 inches. He set records in the 220-yard dash and the 220-yard low hurdles.
His performances in the longer races also bettered the corresponding metric records.
His long jump world record would stand for 25 years.
What Owens accomplished that afternoon has often been described as one of the greatest single-day performances in sports history.
He had proven himself ready for the Olympic Games.
The setting awaiting him would make those Olympics unlike almost any before or since.
Berlin
The 1936 Summer Olympics opened in Berlin under the rule of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.
The Nazi government intended the Games to showcase a powerful Germany before an international audience.
Race was impossible to separate from that presentation.
Nazi ideology promoted the supposed racial superiority of Aryan people while persecuting Jews and other groups the regime considered inferior.
Into that environment walked Jesse Owens.
On August 3, he won the 100 meters in 10.3 seconds.
On August 4, Owens won the long jump with a leap of 26 feet, 5 inches.
On August 5, he captured the 200 meters in 20.7 seconds.
Then, on August 9, Owens and his teammates won the 4×100-meter relay in a world-record 39.8 seconds.
Owens had entered four events.
He won four gold medals.
The symbolism was impossible to ignore.
A Black American had become the dominant athlete at an Olympic Games hosted by a regime preaching racial hierarchy.
Yet one part of the story commonly told about Berlin deserves a closer examination.
What Really Happened With Hitler?
Generations of Americans learned that Hitler personally refused to shake Jesse Owens’ hand after the Black athlete defeated Germany’s competitors.
The historical record is more complicated.
Early in the Olympics, Hitler congratulated selected winners. Olympic officials then told him he would have to greet every medalist or none of them.
Hitler chose not to greet medalists.
Owens himself later disputed the simple version of the story that Hitler had personally singled him out for a snub. He recalled Hitler waving toward him and said he waved back.
None of that changes the racial ideology of Nazi Germany or the significance of Owens’ victories.
But it does change where Owens himself placed responsibility when discussing how he had been treated.
His most pointed complaint was not about Hitler.
It was about his own president.
“It Was Our President Who Snubbed Me”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt never received Jesse Owens at the White House following his four Olympic victories.
He did not send Owens a congratulatory telegram.
And Owens remembered.
Later that year, while speaking at a Republican political event, he said:
“Hitler didn’t snub me. It was our president who snubbed me.”
Owens added that the president had not even sent him a telegram.
The statement becomes even more significant when viewed against records preserved by the National Archives.
While Owens was still competing in Berlin, Americans were already writing to Roosevelt about how the returning Olympians should be treated.
The Rev. Ernest Hall of Cleveland specifically urged Roosevelt to officially receive the successful Olympic competitors upon their return without regard to their race or color.
The White House did not do so.
Owens was not the only Black American representing the country in Berlin. Eighteen Black athletes competed for the United States during the 1936 Olympics.
None received the kind of presidential reception that might seem routine for American Olympic heroes today.
Why Roosevelt made that decision has been debated for decades.
It came during an election year. Roosevelt’s political coalition included growing numbers of Black voters in Northern cities while also relying heavily on powerful white Southern Democrats. Many of those Southern politicians defended segregation and opposed federal action on civil rights.
Those political realities are part of the historical record.
So is another fact.
The president of the United States had an opportunity to publicly receive Jesse Owens and the other Black Olympians.
People asked him to do it.
He did not.
Readers can decide for themselves what that meant.
Celebrated on Broadway, Segregated at the Hotel
America did celebrate Owens when he returned.
New York City welcomed him with a ticker-tape parade through Manhattan’s Canyon of Heroes.
Crowds cheered.
The young man from Oakville, Alabama, had returned home as one of the most famous athletes in the world.
Then came a reminder of the America to which he had returned.
A reception was held in Owens’ honor at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
Yet the guest of honor was reportedly not permitted to enter through the hotel’s main entrance.
Owens had to use a freight elevator to reach the reception honoring him.
The scene almost requires no commentary.
A Black man could represent the United States before the world.
He could win four Olympic gold medals.
He could stand beneath the American flag while the national anthem played.
He could receive a parade down Broadway.
But he still could not necessarily walk through the front door.
Four Gold Medals Could Not Feed a Family
Olympic fame did not make Owens wealthy.
The modern world of multimillion-dollar shoe contracts, television advertising and corporate sponsorships did not exist for athletes in 1936.
For Black athletes, opportunities were more limited still.
Owens’ competitive career also ended quickly after Berlin. After leaving a demanding European exhibition tour, he lost his amateur eligibility.
He had a wife and children to support.
So Jesse Owens worked.
Over the years, he held jobs, promoted sporting events and operated businesses. At times he participated in exhibition races against motorcycles, automobiles and even horses.
People later questioned why one of history’s greatest runners would race a horse for money.
Owens had an answer.
He had four gold medals.
But, as he explained, you could not eat them.
The remark captured another side of American sports history.
The nation could cheer a Black champion without necessarily creating a path for that champion to turn accomplishment into economic security.
More Than an Athlete
But reducing Jesse Owens’ post-Olympic life to struggle would also be incomplete.
He built another life.
Owens became a businessman, public speaker, corporate representative and advocate for young people.
His work as a playground director in Cleveland helped begin a lifelong commitment to youth. After moving to Chicago, he continued working with organizations serving young people, including the Chicago Boys’ Club.
In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower enlisted Owens as a goodwill ambassador. He traveled overseas promoting sports and representing the United States.
Owens eventually became a highly sought-after speaker, addressing schools, churches, civic groups, business organizations and young people.
The man once denied equal treatment while representing America increasingly became one of America’s representatives to the world.
Official recognition eventually followed.
The White House, Four Decades Later
On August 5, 1976, President Gerald Ford presented Jesse Owens with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Forty years had passed since Berlin.
In 1979, Owens returned to the White House again, where President Jimmy Carter honored him as a Living Legend.
The recognition arrived late in Owens’ life.
He died from lung cancer on March 31, 1980, in Tucson, Arizona.
He was 66.
After his death, Carter remembered Owens as far more than a runner. He described him as a symbol of the struggle against tyranny, poverty and racial bigotry.
Ten years later, Owens was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
His name now appears on schools, roads, parks and athletic facilities.
USA Track & Field’s annual award honoring leading athletes bears the Jesse Owens name.
And the Jesse Owens Foundation continues the family’s work of helping young people develop their talents, broaden their horizons and reach their potential.
Four Gold Medals, Two Americas
It would be easy to end Jesse Owens’ story in Berlin.
Four races.
Four gold medals.
A Black athlete standing victorious in Adolf Hitler’s Germany.
That story is inspiring.
It is also incomplete.
Jesse Owens’ life asks us to remember what happened before Berlin and what happened when he returned home.
He grew up in a sharecropping family.
He became one of America’s greatest college athletes without receiving an athletic scholarship.
He represented a university whose racial customs prevented him from living with his teammates.
He represented the United States in Germany and became the greatest athlete of the Olympic Games.
He returned to a ticker-tape parade but still encountered segregation.
And despite four gold medals, the president of the country he represented never invited him to the White House.
Those are facts.
Why America could celebrate Jesse Owens abroad while denying him equality at home is a larger question.
Ninety years later, perhaps we do not need to answer it for our readers.
Perhaps Jesse Owens’ life provides enough evidence for them to answer it themselves.
On August 9, 1936, Owens crossed his final Olympic finish line and secured his fourth gold medal.
Ninety years later, we remember the speed.
We remember the records.
We remember the medals.
But we should also remember the man.
Jesse Owens did more than run against a stopwatch.
He ran through barriers that his country had placed before him.
And history is still catching up.
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This column exists for one reason: to answer your questions about Negro League baseball history. To fulfill that mission, we need your help.
If you read and enjoy this column, want it to continue, and haven’t already mastered every corner of Negro League history, we invite you to send us your questions. Your questions are the lifeblood of Shadow Ball—they determine where we go next—from players and teams to memorable games, historic events, and everything in between.
By submitting a question, you help shape the future direction of this column. Your participation is both important and greatly appreciated. In many ways, the continued existence of Shadow Ball depends on readers like you.
This week’s query is submitted by reader George Schuyler, Topeka, KS, which “Major” Negro League lasted the longest?
Let me begin with, thank you George … I very much appreciate this question, I don’t think – even I – can get this one wrong. Here are the seven leagues (and spans) designated as “major” by Major League Baseball on December 16, 2020:
LEAGUE SPAN YEARS
Negro National League 1 1920-1931 12
Eastern Colored League 1923-1928 6
American Negro League 1929 1
Negro Southern League 1932 1
East-West League 1932 1
Negro National League 2 1933-1948 16
Negro American League 1937-1948 12
The list answers the question – the 2nd Negro National League, founded by Gus Greenlee, January 1933, lasted longer than any other Major Negro League and stands behind only the National and American League (now in its 151st season) and the American League (in its 126th season) among all thirteen leagues designated as Major.
Shadow Ball Significa Questions for the past two issues
July 21 Significa “What former Memphis Red Sox player worked at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis after his retirement from baseball?” was incorrectly reported last issue as not having been answered by anyone … turns out that Kevin Johnson, Broken Arrow, OK, submitted the correct answer, Nat Rogers, just minutes after the issue dropped. Sorry about that KJOK.
July 28 Significa “What pitcher won the last Negro League World Series game?” also provided some controversy. A reader offered Wilmer Fields, as the winner, which is confirmed as such at Retrosheet Negro League game files. However, there is no box score but there as a line score showing that R.T. Walker pitched 9 innings before being relieved in the bottom of the 10thwith his team – after a four spot in the top of the 10th– up by four. Further, in Irv Goldfarb’s SABR biography of R.T. Walker he states that Walker “was awarded the victory.” My current reading of MLB rule 10.19 a, b indicates to me that Walker is the winner having pitched 9 innings and being relieved with the lead. In addition, I asked a local Minor League official scorer and he told me that he would credit the win to Walker. Finally, it turns out that the 10.19 rule that is currently in effect was not in effect in 1948 Major League Baseball let alone the Negro National or American Leagues. Prior to 1950 victories were awarded by the official scorer and usually in accordance with today’s current rules.
Ted Knorr
This Week’s Shadow Ball Significa Question of the Week
Who was Jackie Robinson’s Manager on April 15, 1947?Send your answer, along with your comments/questions about the Negro Leagues, to shadowball@truthseekersjournal.com
or mail them to:
Shadow Ball 3904 N. Druid Hills Road
Suite 179 Decatur, GA 30033
Ted Knorr is a Negro League baseball historian, longtime member of the Society for American Baseball Research’s Negro League Committee, and founder of the Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference and several local Negro League Commemorative Nights in central Pennsylvania.
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Artificial intelligence already shapes everyday life, influencing smartphones, banking, healthcare, employment and online choices while raising important questions about privacy, fairness and human judgment.
By Florita Bell Griffin | Houston, TX | August 11, 2026
Artificial intelligence is often presented as a technology that belongs to the future. News reports show humanoid robots, self-driving vehicles, powerful computers, and machines capable of producing art or carrying on remarkably human-sounding conversations. These images make AI appear distant from ordinary life, as though it exists mainly inside research laboratories, major technology companies, and science-fiction stories. In reality, artificial intelligence has already entered many of the most routine parts of daily life. It may help determine what appears on a person’s telephone screen, which route a driver takes, whether a banking transaction is approved, which job applicant receives further consideration, and which news story reaches a particular reader.
Most people interact with AI without consciously deciding to do so. It operates within smartphones, websites, vehicles, medical systems, stores, workplaces, schools, banks, and entertainment services. It can recommend a movie, identify a face in a photograph, filter unwanted email, translate a message, answer a customer-service question, or alert a credit-card company to suspicious activity. These functions are often convenient, and many have become so familiar that they no longer feel remarkable. Yet each one involves a computer system analyzing information, identifying patterns, and producing a recommendation, prediction, classification, or response.
This quiet integration of artificial intelligence into everyday life deserves attention. Technology is most powerful when it becomes ordinary enough that people stop noticing it. Once a system feels routine, users may no longer ask what information it is collecting, how it reached a conclusion, whether its recommendation is fair, or what happens when it makes a mistake. Understanding everyday AI does not require technical training. It begins with recognizing when a machine is influencing a choice and remembering that automated decisions are still human creations with human purposes, limitations, and consequences.
The Invisible Intelligence Inside Ordinary Devices
A smartphone is one of the clearest examples of artificial intelligence becoming an ordinary companion. When a person unlocks a telephone using facial recognition, the device compares the user’s features with stored information. When the camera automatically improves lighting, reduces blur, sharpens details, or identifies faces, AI-assisted systems are working behind the scenes. A photograph application may allow someone to search thousands of images using words such as “birthday,” “dog,” “beach,” or “car,” even though no one manually labeled each picture. The software has learned to recognize visual patterns and associate them with familiar objects and settings.
The keyboard on a telephone also uses forms of artificial intelligence. Predictive text attempts to anticipate the next word. Autocorrect compares what was typed with common language patterns. Voice-recognition tools turn spoken language into written text, while translation programs convert messages from one language into another. Accessibility features may read text aloud, describe images, create captions, or help people operate devices through speech. These functions can be especially valuable for older adults, people with disabilities, travelers, students, and workers who must communicate quickly.
The usefulness of these systems can make their presence easy to accept without question. Every convenience, however, may require information. A navigation application needs location data. A voice assistant may process spoken commands. A photo service may analyze faces and places. A personalized application may study what the user searches for, watches, purchases, or ignores. The question is not whether all collection of information is harmful. The more important question is whether people understand what is being collected, why it is needed, how long it is retained, and whether it may be used for purposes beyond the service they originally requested.
Artificial intelligence also shapes what people see online. Social-media platforms do not simply present information in the order it was posted. Their systems continually decide which videos, photographs, advertisements, opinions, and news stories are most likely to hold a person’s attention. Every pause, click, search, reaction, share, and repeated viewing may become part of the platform’s understanding of that user. Over time, the system learns which subjects attract interest and which emotions are most likely to produce engagement.
This explains why two people can open the same application and encounter completely different versions of the world. One may see cooking demonstrations, local events, family photographs, and gardening advice. Another may see political conflict, frightening health claims, celebrity rumors, or stories designed to provoke anger. Each person may begin to believe that the information appearing repeatedly on the screen represents what everyone is discussing. In fact, the content has been selected partly because an automated system believes that particular person is likely to respond to it.
A personalized feed can be enjoyable and useful, but it is not a neutral picture of reality. It is a constructed environment shaped by technology, advertising, business priorities, and the user’s own behavior. When a person repeatedly watches angry or fearful content, the system may provide more of it because emotional material often keeps people engaged. The platform does not necessarily ask whether the information is healthy, balanced, or true. Its immediate concern may be whether the user continues watching.
How AI Influences Choices, Opportunities, and Access
Artificial intelligence does more than recommend entertainment. It increasingly participates in decisions that affect money, employment, healthcare, transportation, education, and access to services. Online retailers use AI to recommend products, predict demand, adjust advertisements, and estimate what a customer may be willing to purchase. A product displayed prominently may appear to be the best choice, even when its position results from advertising agreements, sales patterns, or the retailer’s desire to increase profit.
Consumers should therefore distinguish between a recommendation and independent advice. When an online store says, “You may also like,” the system is attempting to predict what the customer may buy. It is not necessarily deciding what the customer needs, what provides the best value, or what fits the person’s budget. AI can make shopping faster, but it cannot replace comparison, financial judgment, or the discipline to avoid unnecessary purchases.
Banks and credit-card companies use AI to detect unusual transactions and possible fraud. If a card is suddenly used in another country or for a purchase far outside the customer’s normal spending pattern, an automated system may temporarily block the transaction or request confirmation. This can prevent theft and allow financial institutions to examine far more activity than human employees could review manually.
The same ability to identify patterns can also influence loan decisions, credit evaluations, insurance rates, and account reviews. These decisions may appear objective because they are produced by a computer, but computers do not create fairness automatically. AI systems are designed by people and trained on information produced by human societies. If past data reflects unequal treatment, inaccurate records, or long-standing discrimination, an automated system may repeat those patterns. A machine can process information consistently and still produce an unfair result.
Employment systems present similar concerns. Companies may use AI to screen résumés, identify promising candidates, schedule interviews, measure productivity, summarize meetings, or evaluate employee performance. A résumé system may reject an applicant because certain words, employment gaps, or educational experiences do not match patterns found among previously successful employees. Yet the pattern may fail to recognize talent that appears in a different form.
When an automated system influences employment, lending, insurance, education, or healthcare, people should be able to ask how the decision was made and how to challenge an error. “The computer decided” is not an acceptable end to the conversation. Organizations choose the systems they use, decide which information enters them, and determine how heavily to rely on their conclusions. Human responsibility does not disappear merely because a decision has been automated.
Healthcare is another area in which AI may provide both meaningful benefits and serious concerns. Medical systems can help analyze scans, organize records, identify possible drug interactions, predict which patients may require additional monitoring, and reduce administrative work. Consumer devices can track heart rate, sleep, activity, and other health-related information. These tools may help patients notice patterns and prepare more informed questions for medical professionals.
However, a health application does not know a person in the same way a qualified clinician does. It may lack the full medical history, family circumstances, environmental conditions, medication details, and personal observations needed to understand a symptom. AI may assist healthcare, but it should not create the illusion that a quick automated answer is equal to a careful professional evaluation. The greater the possible harm from an incorrect answer, the more important human review becomes.
Convenience Without Surrendering Judgment
The most serious long-term concern may not be that artificial intelligence suddenly takes control of everyday life. It may be that people gradually give away small acts of judgment because automated assistance feels easier. Navigation systems can weaken a person’s awareness of direction. Recommendation systems can reduce independent discovery. Writing tools can encourage people to submit language they have not carefully considered. Summaries can replace reading. Search results can become substitutes for investigation, and personalized feeds can become substitutes for understanding the wider world.
Using a tool does not automatically weaken human ability. A calculator can support mathematics, and a map can support travel. The problem begins when assistance becomes dependence and convenience becomes unquestioned authority. A navigation application may recommend the fastest route, but the driver must still notice weather, safety, construction, and local conditions. A writing system may produce a polished message, but the sender remains responsible for its meaning. A medical tool may suggest a possibility, but a patient should still seek qualified care when the situation requires it.
The same principle applies to generative AI systems that write, summarize, create images, answer questions, or hold conversations. Their fluent language can make them appear more knowledgeable than they are. A system may provide a useful explanation one moment and an inaccurate statement the next. It may generate a confident answer without reliable evidence. Users should therefore treat AI as a powerful assistant rather than an unquestionable authority.
Everyday readers can protect themselves by developing a few simple habits. When an automated system makes an important recommendation, consider who operates it, what information it may be using, what outcome it is designed to produce, and who benefits from that outcome. When the decision affects employment, healthcare, money, education, or legal rights, seek an explanation and verify the information through reliable human or official sources. Review privacy settings, limit unnecessary permissions, and remember that accepting convenience does not require abandoning caution.
Artificial intelligence is neither a magical solution nor an independent force that appeared without human direction. It is created, funded, trained, purchased, and deployed by people and institutions. Some applications improve safety, accessibility, communication, and efficiency. Others may increase surveillance, manipulation, inequality, misinformation, or dependence. The same technology can produce benefit or harm depending on who controls it and how it is used.
Becoming an informed AI user does not mean learning to program or understanding every technical process. It means recognizing when a machine is influencing what you see, what you are offered, and how you are evaluated. It means understanding that a recommendation is not a command, a prediction is not a certainty, and an automated answer is not necessarily the truth.
Artificial intelligence is already in the pocket, home, workplace, vehicle, and institutions of the average person. It is helping to organize daily life in ways that are often useful and sometimes invisible. The task before ordinary citizens is not to fear every use of AI or accept every use without question. It is to remain aware, ask who is responsible, protect personal information, and preserve human judgment in a world increasingly shaped by intelligent machines.
Kween Jacqueline Merrill wins the Soul Country Music Star Atlanta Regional, advancing to Los Angeles after four Black country artists compete at the Georgia International Horse Park.
Four distinct voices competed at the Georgia International Horse Park as Soul Country Music Star brought its search for emerging Black country artists at the BPIR rodeo
By Milton Kirby | Conyers, GA | August 9, 2026
Four artists entered the Soul Country Music Star Atlanta Regional carrying different sounds, stories and interpretations of what Soul country music can be.
By the end of the opening round, Reggie Stacy and Kween Jacqueline Merrill remained. Each returned to the stage at the Georgia International Horse Park on August 1 to perform one final song before the judges made their decision.
Jacqueline Merrill – Photo by Milton Kirby
Merrill was named the 2026 Atlanta Regional champion, earning a place in the national finals in Los Angeles and moving one step closer to the competition’s $10,000 grand prize.
For an artist who had spoken with The Truth Seekers Journal days earlier about faith, motherhood, personal loss, health struggles and perseverance, the victory marked another chapter in a journey that began in church when she was a child.
“It feels like I listened to God and it all worked out,” Merrill said after winning.
Now, the Road from Atlanta to Hollywood belongs to her.
Four Artists, Four Different Sounds
Presented as part of the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo’s Soul Country Rodeo Experience, the Atlanta SCMS Regional featured Angela Roundtree, Bernard “OG Nard” Stephens, Stacy and Jacqueline Merrill.
Roundtree brought gospel-rooted expression and a belief in performing with authenticity, emotion and meaning. OG Nard introduced what he calls “Trapp Kountry,” blending country storytelling, Southern Soul and contemporary urban influences. Stacy arrived with years of performance experience and an appreciation for country music shaped by artists including Charley Pride and Chris Stapleton.
Merrill brought perhaps the most difficult sound to categorize. She is a singer, songwriter, rapper, country artist and gospel performer, but she has never viewed those descriptions as competing identities. To her, they are all parts of the same artist.
Her relationship with music began in church. At five years old, she led her first song in the Church of God in Christ, and music remained part of her life through motherhood, hardship, health challenges and loss. Rather than separating those experiences from her artistry, she incorporated them into it.
In Atlanta, Merrill also performed an original song written specifically for the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo. Before the competition, she told TSJ what she wanted audiences to take away from her music.
“If I made you feel something,” Merrill said, “then I’ve done my job.”
On August 1, she also convinced the judges.
SCMS Atlanta Judges L to R Debonair DJ PNUT, Dr, Acynthia Villery & Rickey Davis Scott – Photo by Richard DuCree
Down to the Final Two
After the opening round, Stacy and Merrill performed again before three judges; Dr. Acynthia Villery, the BPIR rodeo announcer and influencer, Music Producer and Talent Scout Rickey Davis Scott and V-103FM Debonair DJ Pnut.
Their comments throughout the competition revealed that strong vocals alone were not enough. Stage presence, song selection and artistic identity also mattered, as did understanding the distinction between Southern Soul and the Soul Country sound the competition was seeking.
OG Nard, for example, was praised for his energy and ability to command attention. The judges also noted that some of his song choices leaned more toward Southern Soul and encouraged him to build a stronger connection to Soul Country.
Reggie Stacey – Photo by Milton Kirby
The critique highlighted a challenge for artists working in a musical space that is still defining itself. Soul Country does not require performers to abandon gospel, blues, Southern Soul, hip-hop or the other influences that shaped them. Instead, artists are challenged to show how those influences can live within country music while preserving the storytelling at the heart of the genre. That’s the goal.
In that context, song selection becomes more than a showcase for a performer’s voice. It becomes a statement about who the artist is.
Bringing Soul Country into the Rodeo
The Atlanta event marked a new approach for Soul Country Music Star and the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo. Margo Wade LaDrew, founder and creator of Soul Country Music Star, told the audience that the competition had traditionally been presented as a separate Friday night event. In Atlanta, organizers brought it directly into the rodeo experience.
When Wade LaDrew asked whether the audience enjoyed seeing Soul Country Music Star incorporated into the rodeo, the response came in cheers.
“This was something we wanted to try and do here at the rodeo,” she told the crowd, explaining that organizers could consider incorporating the competition into future rodeo programming.
The pairing is a natural one. For more than four decades, the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo has celebrated the often-overlooked history of Black cowboys and cowgirls while providing a national platform for Black Western culture. Soul Country Music Star extends that mission into music.
Black musicians have been part of country music since its earliest development, even when their contributions were overlooked or separated from the genre’s mainstream story. Although Black country artists are receiving greater visibility today, Wade LaDrew reminded the Atlanta audience that the work is not finished.
“As you know, the genre is just starting to open up, but we still have a long way to go,” she said.
Her request was straightforward: support the artists, follow them, share their music and help build the audiences their careers need to grow.
Wade LaDrew also recognized Valeria Howard Cunningham, president and CEO of the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, for supporting opportunities for Black country artists. She thanked Soul Country Music Star producer Michelle Johnson, the judges, SCMS show host Kirk Jay, DJ Tiffany Guess and others who helped bring the competition into the Atlanta rodeo.
L – R – Reggie Stacey, Kirk Jay, season 1 winner, Angela Roundtree, Jacqueline Merrill, Nathaniel “Mr. Bowleggs” Dansby, season 2 winner & Bernard “OG Nard” Stephens – Photo by Milton Kirby
The Road to Hollywood
Merrill’s victory placed her alongside Brenda Guy, Dallas-Fort Worth Regional winner; Silas Reed IV, Memphis Regional winner; and Glenn Stanton, Los Angeles Regional winner.
One regional competition remains before the national finals. The Washington, D.C./Maryland Regional is scheduled for September 18 at The Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.
The regional champions will then travel to Los Angeles for the Soul Country Music Festival and National Finals on October 31 and November 1, where they will compete for the $10,000 grand prize and the Soul Country Music Star national title.
Only one artist could become Atlanta’s regional champion, but something larger also happened at the Georgia International Horse Park. Four Black artists were given a stage to present four different visions of where country music can go, and another audience heard performers who might not have received the same opportunity a generation ago.
For Merrill, Atlanta was not the finish line. It was another door.
Black farmers across the South confront climate change, shifting growing seasons, drought, flooding and rising costs while fighting to protect land and livelihoods.
By Milton Kirby | Atlanta, GA | August 8, 2026
This reporting was made possible thanks to a grant from Grist.
For generations, farming required knowing the land and learning the seasons.
Farmers knew when the ground was usually ready. They knew when to plant, when rain normally came, when temperatures should begin to fall and how much grass cattle could expect from a pasture.
Weather was never completely predictable. Farming has always required risk.
But Black farmers interviewed across Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia describe something different happening now.
The old assumptions are becoming less dependable.
They describe warmer temperatures, shifting planting dates, drought, intense rainfall, flooding, unexpected freezes and changing growing conditions. Some have altered what they plant. Others have changed when they plant. Cattle producers are watching pastures and hay supplies more carefully. Crop farmers are investing in irrigation, drainage, high tunnels and soil conservation.
And sometimes, after making all those adjustments, they still lose the crop.
Taken together, their experiences reveal something larger than a collection of bad weather events.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Southeast Climate Hub describes agriculture in the region as operating under “increasing weather variability.” The Hub identifies drought, heat stress, excessive moisture and changing pest pressures among the risks confronting Southeastern producers.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency similarly identifies changing temperature and precipitation patterns, changes in extreme weather and shifts in growing seasons among the evidence of a changing climate.
For the farmers visited, those scientific descriptions have practical meanings.
Climate change is a decision about whether to put seed in the ground.
It is a field planted twice.
It is a pasture without enough grass.
It is hay that has to be purchased.
It is soil washed away by heavy rain.
It is produce that never reaches market.
And for Black farmers, those pressures are landing on top of a much older struggle over land, capital and survival in American agriculture.
The Calendar Is Moving
Bobby Wilson has spent decades working in Georgia agriculture.
Long before Metro Atlanta Urban Farm took root in College Park, Wilson spent years in agricultural extension, learning how to help farmers succeed. Today, he and his wife, Margarett, are reshaping five acres into an urban agricultural campus, producing food, training families, and cultivating a new generation of growers.
The farm grows more than two dozen crops across warm and cool seasons and is Certified Naturally Grown.
Wilson has watched something fundamental change over the course of his agricultural career.
The planting calendar.
Dates farmers once regarded as relatively safe are no longer necessarily the dates they use today. Warmer conditions can tempt a farmer to plant earlier, creating the possibility of getting produce to market ahead of competitors.
But warmth in early spring does not guarantee that winter is finished.
A late cold snap can turn that advantage into a loss.
USDA says growing seasons are changing as temperatures rise. Earlier spring conditions and later first frosts can lengthen growing periods, but earlier plant development can also leave crops vulnerable when damaging cold arrives after growth has begun.
That is the contradiction farmers are learning to manage.
Dennis Dahmer Sr. has confronted it in Mississippi.
An unexpected freeze damaged sugarcane on his farm, forcing him to reconsider when he should plant.
But changing a planting date after one bad season does not eliminate the risk.
Next year may be different.
That uncertainty is becoming part of farming itself.
In New Orleans, Ashley Webb and her husband, Andres Barcelo-Sanchez, have learned a similar lesson.
They operate Barcelo Gardens in the Ninth Ward, where what began as a community garden grew into an urban farm, farmers market and fresh-produce operation serving an area with limited access to fresh food.
Webb teaches gardening according to growing zones and seasons, but New Orleans presents another complication: the city’s heat-island effect can create conditions different from surrounding areas.
The couple also learned quickly that crops they had grown in Los Angeles did not necessarily perform the same way in Louisiana. Corn and carrots struggled. They adjusted, turning toward crops including okra, long beans, cucumbers and hot peppers.
Adaptation began with paying attention.
Crate of vegetable from the Barcelo Gardens – Photo by Milton Kirby
Too Little Water. Then Too Much.
Water may be the clearest example of the contradictions farmers described.
Harry McCoy raises cattle at McCoy Ranch in Pell City, Alabama.
When rainfall declines, pasture suffers.
Cattle still have to eat.
When the pasture no longer supplies enough grass, it must be replaced with purchased feed or hay, turning a weather problem into an economic one.
Anson County, North Carolina, cattle farmer Keith Crawford understands that equation.
Crawford raises Black Angus and Hereford-cross cattle. He has watched the availability and cost of hay become a critical issue for livestock producers.
Crawford cuts hay and watches weather forecasts closely because producing feed requires its own set of weather calculations. Hay needs the right window for cutting, drying and baling. Rain arriving at the wrong time can damage what a farmer has already spent time and money producing.
Crawford described neighboring cattle producers selling animals when hay became difficult or too expensive to obtain.
For a cattle farmer, drought doesn’t just strike once. It can strike two or even three times. It begins with shrinking ponds and water sources, leaving livestock without reliable drinking water. Then it hits again when pastures wither, forcing farmers to buy hay or feed at inflated prices and driving up the cost of keeping cattle alive. By the time the third blow lands, through reduced weight and lower market value, the damage is already deep.
USDA’s Southeast Climate Hub notes that climate conditions can weaken both pasture and feed resources, pushing feed costs higher. Heat stress can also reduce livestock productivity.
Shawn Harris, a cattle farmer in Rockmart, Georgia, has built a sophisticated underground maze of pipes to keep water flowing to his herd when the pond runs low, a climate adaptation strategy born from necessity.
But several hundred miles away, other farmers are confronting the opposite problem.
Too much water.
At Belle’s Barn & Garden in Mississippi, the Rev. D’Andre Miles described periods of dry conditions followed by intense rainfall.
When large amounts of rain fall quickly, the water does not always soak gently into the soil.
It moves.
And when it moves, soil can move with it.
Miles’ approach is to work with the landscape. Vegetation around vulnerable areas can slow water and help hold soil in place rather than leaving the ground exposed.
That philosophy reflects Belle’s broader approach to agriculture: working with natural systems instead of constantly trying to overpower them.
Jesse Buie of Ole Brook Organics in Brookhaven, Mississippi, has also had to think carefully about water.
Buie has more than three decades of farming experience and grows certified organic vegetables, melons, ginger, turmeric, wheatgrass and microgreens.
Heavy rain can saturate growing areas and threaten crops.
His response has included changing how growing areas are configured so water can move more effectively through the farm.
USDA’s research helps explain how both stories can be true at once.
The Southeast can experience substantial rainfall and still suffer drought. Rainfall variability, heat and increased water loss through evaporation and plants can produce dry conditions, while rainfall concentrated into fewer, heavier events can create flooding and runoff.
For farmers, the question is not simply how much rain falls.
It is when it falls, where it falls and how quickly it arrives.
Foot Print Farm vegetables – Photo by Milton Kirby
When One Planting Becomes Two
Few interviews illustrate the economics of climate risk more clearly than Kara Boyd’s.
Boyd Farms operates about 1,500 acres across three farms in Virginia, giving this investigation a view of climate pressures on a substantially larger Black farming operation.
Boyd described having to replant roughly 200 to 300 acres after conditions contributed to poor germination.
Consider what that means economically.
The farmer pays for seed.
The farmer pays for fuel.
The farmer pays for equipment.
The farmer pays for labor.
The crop goes into the ground.
Then enough of it fails to emerge.
The farmer starts again.
But the second planting does not merely repeat the first expense. It also begins later, potentially shortening the crop’s growing window and affecting eventual yield.
Crop insurance can soften the loss.
It does not necessarily erase it.
USDA’s Southeast Climate Hub says changes in the timing and amount of precipitation can contribute to short-term crop failures and longer-term declines in production. Higher temperatures can also reduce yields, while climate variability can expose crops to damaging temperature fluctuations.
Boyd’s experience turns those scientific findings into a balance-sheet problem.
A failed planting has a price.
Metro Atlanta Urban Farm – Photo by Milton Kirby
The Same Storm Does Not Mean the Same Loss
Boyd’s operation also exposes one of the central questions in this investigation.
Climate does not distinguish between a Black farmer and a white farmer.
But farmers do not encounter climate risk with equal resources.
A large operation may have more acreage over which to spread costs, greater access to equipment, stronger cash flow and more ability to absorb a failed field.
For a small farmer, one failed crop can represent a much larger percentage of annual production.
Boyd described that difference vividly, saying an event that feels like a relatively small storm to a large operation can feel like a hurricane and an earthquake to a smaller Black farmer.
That is where a climate story becomes an economic story.
And where an economic story becomes a story about history.
A Crisis Built on an Older Loss
Black farmers did not enter today’s climate challenges on equal footing.
In 1920, USDA recorded more than 925,000 Black farm operators, representing roughly 14 percent of the nation’s farmers.
What followed was one of the most dramatic agricultural declines in American history.
Over subsequent generations, Black farmers lost millions of acres of farmland while the number of Black farmers fell sharply.
A USDA historical review, Black Farmers in America, 1865-2000, documents the racial discrimination and social and institutional barriers that restricted Black farmers’ ability to acquire land, operate independently and retain farms.
Discriminatory lending was part of that history.
So were foreclosures, unequal access to agricultural institutions and land passed between generations without clear title.
The consequences of that history remain part of today’s agricultural landscape. In a 2026 policy resolution, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators noted that Black farmers held more than 16 million acres of farmland in 1910, but just 4.7 million acres by 2017, a loss of more than 70 percent of Black-owned agricultural land.
The resolution identifies discriminatory lending, unequal access to credit and crop insurance, exclusion from grant opportunities and inequities in agricultural subsidies and assistance as continuing barriers facing Black farmers. NBCSL called on Congress, state legislatures and USDA to expand access to grants and loans, strengthen civil rights enforcement, provide legal assistance to protect inherited farmland and invest in food infrastructure and markets that can help Black producers remain economically viable.
Heirs’ property remains part of the discussion today.
When land passes to multiple descendants without a will or clear title, ownership can become fragmented. That can make property vulnerable and complicate efforts to borrow against the land or participate in programs requiring proof of control.
But Boyd cautions against making heirs’ property the entire story.
From her perspective, access to capital, participation in federal crop insurance and the ability to navigate agricultural programs can be equally important, if not more important, to the survival of Black farms.
Her argument adds an important complication.
The problem is not simply whether Black families own land.
It is whether they possess the financial tools needed to keep farming it.
Foot Print Farms – Photo by Milton Kirby
Who Can Afford to Adapt?
Dennis Dahmer knows irrigation could help protect crops during dry periods.
But knowing what would help and being able to justify the investment are different things.
For a farmer working a relatively small number of acres, a major irrigation system may never generate enough additional farm income to recover its cost.
For a producer farming hundreds or thousands of acres, the same investment can produce an entirely different calculation.
That exposes one of the most important climate-justice questions raised by this reporting.
Adaptation costs money.
Irrigation costs money.
Wells cost money.
High tunnels cost money.
Drainage costs money.
Replacing seed costs money.
Buying hay costs money.
Even participation in crop insurance requires farmers to understand the system, maintain records, meet reporting requirements and pay premiums.
Boyd said those requirements can become barriers for smaller producers unfamiliar with federal crop insurance or reluctant to enter a system they may not trust.
That distrust did not emerge from nowhere.
It exists against the historical record of discrimination Black farmers experienced within American agricultural institutions.
Learning to Work the System
Dr. Cindy Ayers-Elliott has taken a different approach.
At Foot Print Farms in Jackson, Mississippi, Ayers-Elliott operates a 68-acre farm producing specialty crops, vegetables and livestock while using agriculture as a tool for community and economic development.
Her farm trains young people and adults.
It also works with USDA and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Ayers-Elliott believes farmers must learn how the system works.
That means obtaining a USDA farm number, understanding conservation programs, keeping records and identifying resources that can help pay for infrastructure or improve production.
Her farm uses adaptation and conservation tools that include irrigation and protected growing. But her larger contribution may be education.
A federal program is of little value to a farmer who does not know it exists, does not understand the paperwork or cannot determine whether the farm qualifies.
That gap between the existence of assistance and the ability to access it remains one of the central policy questions raised by this investigation.
One proposal before Congress attempts to address some of those structural barriers.
The Black Farmers and Socially Disadvantaged Farmers Increased Market Share Act, introduced in the U.S. House by the late Georgia Rep. David Scott and other lawmakers, would create a USDA grant program supporting food hubs designed to increase market access for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. The legislation would authorize $100 million for the program in fiscal year 2026, with grants available for infrastructure, processing, storage, transportation, equipment and marketing. Recipients would not be required to provide federal matching funds.
The bill would also direct USDA to prioritize purchases from socially disadvantaged producers for domestic food assistance programs and strengthen accountability for discrimination and other civil rights violations within the department.
The legislation does not solve the climate problem confronting farmers. But it speaks directly to another question raised repeatedly during this reporting: whether farmers already absorbing greater weather risk will have the capital, markets, infrastructure and institutional support necessary to adapt.
Rev. D’Andre Miles – Bells Barn & Garden – Photo by Milton Kirby
Building Resilience From the Ground Up
The farmers interviewed are not waiting passively for someone to rescue them.
They are experimenting.
They are adapting.
And in many cases, the techniques they are using mirror practices recommended by USDA.
At Metro Atlanta Urban Farm, Wilson emphasizes the soil itself.
Cover crops, compost and organic matter help restore nutrients and improve the ground rather than simply extracting from it season after season.
At Belle’s Barn & Garden, Miles emphasizes natural systems and protecting the landscape.
At Ole Brook Organics, Buie adapts drainage and production methods to conditions on his particular farm.
At Foot Print Farms, Ayers-Elliott combines infrastructure, conservation and education.
Ricky Davis, founder of Sowing Seeds Farms in Bessemer, Alabama, incorporates water conservation, controlled growing systems and agricultural education into the operation.
The operation was established not simply to grow food but to create a community gathering place for farmers and entrepreneurs, promote economic development and teach healthier and more sustainable ways of living.
USDA identifies many of the same approaches, including cover crops, conservation tillage, efficient irrigation, improved soil-water retention, erosion control and water-management infrastructure.
The important lesson is that adaptation is not one machine, one crop or one federal program.
It is local.
What works on one farm may not work five miles away.
Boyd sees that even across her own acreage. Rain can fall on one section of a farm while missing another.
A county line cannot tell a farmer whether enough rain fell on a particular field.
The land itself decides.
When Farming Is the Paycheck
At Fountain Heights Farms in the Birmingham area, climate risk carries another dimension.
Farming is not supplemental income.
It is the livelihood.
That distinction matters.
Many small farmers maintain outside employment because the farm alone cannot consistently support the household. Fountain Heights does not have that secondary income cushion.
A lost crop is therefore not merely a disappointing harvest.
It is lost household income.
The operation also exists within a larger community food system, making affordability and access part of the farm’s mission.
That means climate pressure can travel beyond the property line.
When a community farm produces less food, the people depending on that farm can feel the loss too.
Climate Change Does Not Stop at the Farm Gate
Barcelo Gardens demonstrates that connection particularly clearly.
Webb and Barcelo-Sanchez began growing food after realizing their Ninth Ward neighborhood lacked convenient access to fresh produce.
Their garden eventually grew into a market that also obtains food from other producers.
Among them is Jubilee Justice, a Black-led agricultural organization based near Alexandria, Louisiana, that works on sustainable farming practices.
Ricky Davis – Sowing Seeds Farm – Photo by Milton Kirby
That creates a chain.
A farmer loses a crop.
A market has less produce.
A neighborhood already lacking grocery options has fewer sources of fresh food.
The climate event may happen in a field miles away.
Its consequences arrive in the city.
The same principle applies elsewhere in this investigation.
Metro Atlanta Urban Farm teaches families how to produce food.
Foot Print Farms trains future farmers and entrepreneurs.
Sowing Seeds combines food production with community education.
Fountain Heights works to keep food available and affordable.
These operations are more than businesses occupying acreage.
They are pieces of community infrastructure.
Protecting the farm can therefore mean protecting more than the farmer.
Science Catches Up With What Farmers See
The experiences documented across these farms are consistent with risks identified by the USDA Southeast Climate Hub.
When I described the farmers’ observations to Dr. Mac Callaham Jr., director of the Hub, including warmer conditions, changing growing seasons, flooding and precipitation problems, his initial response was direct.
“Yeah, absolutely.”
Callaham pointed specifically to shifting growing seasons, variability in precipitation and increasing temperatures among the issues agricultural producers are confronting.
His program’s public materials go further.
The Southeast Climate Hub says farmers and land managers are dealing with drought, heat stress, excessive moisture, changing pest pressures and increasing weather variability.
Its crop research warns that changes in temperature and the timing and amount of precipitation can affect yields and contribute to crop failure.
Its livestock research identifies heat stress and changes in pasture and feed resources as risks to producers.
Its growing-season research describes earlier spring conditions, later frosts and the possibility that earlier plant development can leave crops exposed to damaging cold.
The science does not mean every failed crop, flooded field or expensive roll of hay can individually be blamed on climate change.
Weather still varies naturally.
But taken across regions and over time, the conditions farmers described fit a larger pattern agricultural scientists are already studying.
Callaham also acknowledged that the language surrounding the federal government’s work has changed.
He said his program previously focused more explicitly on climate literacy and climate education, but priorities shift between presidential administrations.
The current emphasis, he said, remains on helping farmers, forest landowners and grazing-land managers improve productivity and resilience to risk.
The terminology may change.
The farmer still has to plant.
Mother Nature Has the Final Say
Kara Boyd summed up the limits of adaptation in a few words.
“We’re trying to adapt to Mother Nature,” she said. “But she has the final say.”
That may be the central truth running through every farm visited.
Farmers can move planting dates.
They can build high tunnels.
They can improve drainage.
They can install irrigation.
They can rebuild soil.
They can capture rainwater.
They can buy crop insurance.
They can change crops.
They can study forecasts.
They can learn government programs.
But none of those decisions gives them control over the weather.
For Black farmers, the question is not whether they know how to adapt.
They have been adapting for generations.
The harder question is how many additional costs, failed plantings, droughts, floods, freezes and changing seasons a farmer can absorb before adaptation is no longer enough.
Across the South, the farmers interviewed are still planting.
Still raising cattle.
Still rebuilding soil.
Still feeding communities.
Still teaching the next generation.
But they are doing so while some of the seasonal assumptions inherited from previous generations become less dependable.
Climate change is altering the conditions under which they farm.
History has shaped the resources they have available to respond.
The future of Black farming may depend on whether the institutions surrounding these farmers can adapt as quickly as the farmers themselves already have.
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With 99 days until Election Day, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms urged Georgia voters, especially Black men, to deliver record turnout during a town hall at Atlanta’s Gathering Spot.
At Atlanta’s “Mandate” town hall, the Democratic nominee made a direct appeal to Georgia voters, particularly Black men, arguing that grassroots organizing, not campaign spending, will determine who becomes the state’s next governor.
By Milton Kirby | Atlanta, GA | July 28, 2026
With just 99 days remaining before Georgians choose their next governor, Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms walked onto the stage at The Gathering Spot Monday evening carrying a message that has become the foundation of her general election campaign.
She isn’t asking voters to be impressed by campaign spending.
She isn’t asking them to be persuaded by carefully choreographed social media moments.
Instead, she is asking them to participate.
Speaking before a packed audience at “The Mandate,” a town hall organized by The Gathering Spot and moderated by co-founder Ryan Wilson, Bottoms repeatedly returned to one central theme: Georgia’s next governor will not be chosen by the candidate with the biggest advertising budget or the most viral campaign photographs. The election, she argued, will ultimately be decided by ordinary Georgians willing to organize their communities, encourage their neighbors and show up to vote in record numbers.
“Turnout is key. Turnout is key. Turnout is key,” Bottoms told the audience, emphasizing that participation—not complacency—will determine whether Democrats can reclaim Georgia’s highest office for the first time in more than a quarter century.
The message came at a pivotal moment in one of the nation’s most closely watched gubernatorial races.
Earlier Monday, Republican nominee Rick Jackson’s campaign announced an $87 million statewide advertising buy, underscoring the enormous financial resources fueling his campaign. Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive who has already poured more than $100 million into the race, has paired that media strategy with a series of highly publicized visits to Black-owned businesses, churches and community gathering places throughout metro Atlanta.
Bottoms acknowledged the financial disparity but dismissed the notion that money alone will determine the outcome.
“We’re going to do what we need to do with what we have,” she told reporters after the event. “Whatever that amount is, we are still going to take our case directly to the people of this state.”
A Race That Could Reshape Georgia Politics
The stakes extend well beyond the two candidates.
No Democrat has won Georgia’s governor’s race since Roy Barnes was elected in 1998. Yet the state’s political landscape has shifted dramatically over the past decade. Georgia has twice elected Democratic U.S. senators, and razor-thin statewide contests have transformed the state into one of America’s premier political battlegrounds.
Those changes have elevated turnout from a campaign tactic to a governing strategy.
Political analysts from both parties agree that victory in November will depend less on persuading large numbers of undecided voters than on motivating reliable supporters to cast ballots. That reality has placed Black voters and particularly Black men at the center of both campaigns, although the candidates are pursuing markedly different approaches.
Monday night’s town hall reflected Bottoms’ strategy.
Rather than delivering a traditional stump speech, she spent nearly two hours answering questions about affordability, education, healthcare, economic opportunity and voting rights while repeatedly encouraging attendees to become ambassadors for civic participation within their own families and neighborhoods.
Answering a Personal Call to Serve
Bottoms told the audience that seeking the governor’s office was never part of a carefully crafted political roadmap.
After completing her four-year term as mayor of Atlanta, she said life had become comfortable. Returning to elected office was not part of her immediate plans.
That changed after the 2024 presidential election.
“The day after the presidential election, I cursed and then I prayed,” she recalled, explaining that she spent considerable time reflecting on whether she was being called back into public service. The decision, she said, required conversations with her husband and children because campaigns demand sacrifices from entire families, not just the candidates themselves.
“It was really about what am I called to do?” Bottoms said. “What can I offer? And is it worth me getting out of my comfort zone? Because life was comfortable. And the answer was yes.”
That sense of purpose shaped much of the evening’s discussion.
Rather than focusing primarily on partisan attacks, Bottoms framed her candidacy as an effort to build on opportunities created by previous generations while creating new ones for the next.
“I want to be able to look at my kids in their faces and say in this moment I did everything that I could do on behalf of us,” she said.
The Issues She Says Georgians Raise Everywhere
As Bottoms has campaigned from metropolitan Atlanta to rural South Georgia, she said the conversations have remained remarkably consistent.
Whether speaking in barbershops, churches, community centers or small-town gathering places, Georgians repeatedly raise the same concerns.
Unidentified Black men listen with intensity – Photo Milton Kirby
The rising cost of groceries.
Housing affordability.
Gas prices.
Healthcare expenses.
Mental health services.
Support for small businesses.
Educational opportunity.
“These are some of the issues that have been generations long,” Bottoms said. “And they are coming up everywhere I go.”
Healthcare emerged as one of the evening’s most frequently discussed topics.
Bottoms argued that many Georgians are facing increasing insurance costs while others have lost coverage altogether. She connected those concerns to broader questions about affordability, describing healthcare as inseparable from the financial pressures confronting working families across the state.
Education also occupied a prominent place in the discussion.
Bottoms criticized Georgia’s long-running struggles to fully fund public education, she stated that the last time the state consistently met its funding commitments she was still a member of the marching band at Frederick Douglass High School.
Her point drew laughter.
It also underscored her broader argument that many of Georgia’s biggest challenges did not emerge overnight but have persisted across generations.
A Direct Conversation With Black Men
Although “The Mandate” welcomed a broad audience, organizers intentionally focused much of the evening on Black men, a voting bloc both political parties increasingly recognize as critical to statewide success.
Wilson challenged the narrative that Black men have become disengaged from politics, noting that conversations inside barbershops and neighborhoods often center on the same economic and quality-of-life concerns shared by other Georgians.
Bottoms agreed.
Drawing from conversations with her own sons and young men she has met while traveling the state, she said Black men are asking practical questions about employment, housing, public safety and whether higher education still guarantees economic opportunity.
“They’re concerned there won’t be jobs,” she said. “They’re concerned whether they’ll be able to afford a home. They’re concerned about interactions with public safety. They’re concerned with mental health.”
At the same time, she rejected suggestions that Black men alone bear responsibility for civic participation.
“I think it’s an unfair burden for Black men to have to carry,” Bottoms said. “This democracy is about all of us.”
Instead of singling out one demographic, she encouraged every eligible voter to recognize that participation extends beyond casting a ballot. It also includes helping neighbors verify voter registration, reminding family members about Election Day and serving as trusted voices within their communities.
That appeal to transform supporters into organizers became the thread connecting nearly every answer she gave throughout the evening.
Policy Versus Political Theater
One of the evening’s sharpest exchanges centered not on taxes, healthcare or education, but on a series of campaign photographs that have fueled debate across social media in recent days.
Republican nominee Rick Jackson has made highly publicized visits to several minority-owned businesses throughout metro Atlanta, including Toast on Lenox, Big Daddy’s Dish on Old National Highway and a Mexican-owned restaurant in Doraville. The visits generated widespread online discussion, with some business owners finding themselves unexpectedly drawn into Georgia’s increasingly heated gubernatorial campaign.
Bottoms said she takes no issue with candidates supporting local businesses. What she questioned was whether highly publicized campaign stops accurately reflect a candidate’s policies.
“I support small businesses. It’s what I do,” she said in a video posted before Monday’s town hall. “What I take exception with is when we let ‘a thing become the thing.’ The theatrics are nice, but what is the real worth? What are you actually doing?”
For Bottoms, the issue is also personal.
She traced her family’s entrepreneurial roots back more than a century, recalling that her great-grandmother operated a business on Atlanta’s west side during the 1920s. Her grandfather and aunt later owned businesses in Vine City and English Avenue, while her mother spent more than three decades operating a beauty salon that served neighborhoods across southwest Atlanta.
Those experiences, she said, shaped her understanding of what neighborhood businesses mean to families and communities.
“I live in southwest Atlanta, and I am surrounded by Black businesses,” Bottoms said during the town hall. “I don’t have to have a camera crew with me every time I walk into one.”
She also questioned what she described as contradictions between Jackson’s outreach and his policy positions, pointing to his criticism of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and his support for stricter immigration policies while simultaneously visiting minority-owned businesses.
Her closing line in the Instagram video became one of the week’s most widely shared political remarks.
“Don’t allow people to piss on us and then tell us that it’s raining.”
Defending Her Record as Mayor
Keisha Lance Bottoms – Photo by Milton Kirby
Jackson has frequently criticized Bottoms’ four-year tenure leading Atlanta, particularly on crime and public safety.
Monday night, she answered those criticisms directly.
Bottoms reminded the audience that she served the full four-year term voters elected her to complete despite receiving multiple invitations to join the Biden administration before leaving office.
“I served every single day,” she said. “I was asked three times to join the Biden-Harris Administration, and I said no because I wanted to complete my time.”
She then walked through what she considers some of her administration’s defining accomplishments.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Atlanta maintained balanced budgets without laying off employees or furloughing city workers. The city increased financial support for police officers and other frontline employees while continuing major economic development initiatives, including the redevelopment of the Gulch and expanding opportunities for minority-owned businesses to compete for city contracts.
Rather than arguing she governed during easy circumstances, Bottoms suggested her administration demonstrated stability during one of the most difficult periods in the city’s history.
“If you want to say something about me, fine,” she said. “But don’t lie on my name.”
Competing Against a Billionaire
Bottoms acknowledged that this campaign presents challenges unlike any she has previously faced.
Jackson, a wealthy healthcare executive making his first bid for elected office, has already invested more than $100 million of his own money into the race. His campaign’s announcement Monday of an additional $87 million statewide advertising buy underscored the financial gulf separating the two candidates.
Bottoms said she is less concerned about Jackson’s wealth than about how it is being used.
“I’m not mad about him being a billionaire,” she told the audience. “What I am mad about is the way that he is manipulating the narrative with money.”
She added that one friend’s advice continues to resonate throughout the campaign.
“If you can be bought,” she said, “you can be sold.”
Her response reflected a broader strategy that has become increasingly central to her campaign—meeting voters directly rather than attempting to match Jackson’s advertising dollar for dollar.
Looking Beyond Metro Atlanta
Although much of the discussion focused on metropolitan Atlanta, Bottoms repeatedly returned to the importance of rural Georgia.
She described communities where factories have disappeared, broadband access remains limited and young people often leave after graduating from high school because economic opportunities are scarce.
“Some communities look like time has forgotten them,” she said.
Bottoms noted that while residents across Georgia want many of the same things, good schools, quality healthcare, stable jobs and safe neighborhoods. The path toward achieving those goals differs dramatically between urban and rural communities.
Bottoms also addressed the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence data centers across Georgia, calling for a deliberate review of their long-term impact on utility costs, environmental resources and economic development before embracing additional growth.
Rather than opposing the projects outright, she said state leaders should ensure communities receive tangible benefits while avoiding unintended burdens on residents.
Building a Campaign One Conversation at a Time
Perhaps the evening’s most consistent message had little to do with campaign advertising or partisan politics.
Bottoms repeatedly encouraged supporters to become what she called “trusted voices.”
She acknowledged that some people may have time only to cast a ballot on Election Day.
Others, she said, can do more.
Call ten friends.
Help a neighbor verify voter registration.
Knock on doors.
Volunteer.
Encourage family members to vote.
“Put your oxygen mask on first,” she said. “For some people, the most you can do is show up and vote. For others, it’s calling ten people in your phone. Whatever you can do—do it.”
She also warned that misinformation and confusion surrounding elections have become significant obstacles to civic participation, particularly among younger voters trying to distinguish fact from political rhetoric.
Her challenge to supporters was simple: become reliable sources of information inside their own communities.
The Road to November
As the formal program concluded, the campaign did not end.
Bottoms remained inside The Gathering Spot well after the town hall was over, moving deliberately through the room as supporters waited for photographs and reporters gathered for follow-up interviews. She answered questions from members of the media one by one before turning her attention to attendees, posing for photographs and greeting everyone who wanted a moment with her.
There was no rush toward the exit.
No effort to shorten conversations.
The evening closed much the way it had begun; with Bottoms engaging voters one person at a time.
Only after every reporter’s questions had been answered and every attendee seeking a photograph had the opportunity to take one did she leave the venue.
The scene reflected the strategy she had described throughout the evening.
Rather than measuring success by advertising dollars or viral campaign moments, Bottoms repeatedly argued that elections are won through personal relationships, neighborhood organizing and direct conversations with voters.
Before stepping away from the stage earlier that evening, she had summarized her confidence in a single sentence.
“I don’t have to introduce myself to people,” she said. “I just have to earn their vote.”
Whether that strategy can overcome a billionaire opponent’s unprecedented advertising campaign will be answered in November.
The outcome will determine more than who occupies the Governor’s Mansion. It will also test two competing theories of modern campaigning.
One relies on extraordinary financial resources, saturation advertising and carefully orchestrated public appearances. The other is built on conversations, community relationships and the belief that ordinary Georgians, especially if they turn out in record numbers, still possess the greatest power to shape the state’s political future
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