February 2021

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Black Lives Matter.

I can’t count how many times I’ve seen the hashtags or witnessed debates about it in the past year.

We saw many things in the year 2020 – the birth of the Coronavirus pandemic, a stock market crash, wildfires in the west and a big wave in a movement that’s been decades in the making.

So what does Black Lives Matter mean to you?

We’ve wrestled with this question here at Hearst and taken a deeper look at what we offer for our communities of color both internally and externally.

Our company has made strides by more closely examining where we’ve let down the people of color and people of other oppressed groups within our company. We’re also looking at more ways to extend those actions to you, our readers and news consumers.

The events of the past, especially the more recent events of 2020, are what inspired us to gather and tell the stories of the people you’ll read about on the following pages as a cap to Black History Month.

Beaumont and southeast Texas can be described as a melting pot of culture and one of our richest is within the Black community.

The latest available Census data f rom 2019 shows the population of Beaumont to be an estimated 46.9% Black or African American making that demographic the largest in the city.

Keep that in mind as you browse through the profiles of outstanding locals who contributed significantly to the Black Lives Matter movement before it was so.

You will see profiles on Charles “Bubba” Smith, an outstanding Beaumont native who made his mark in football. You’ll read about Mack Hannah, Jr., a Black businessman recognized as one of the country’s outstanding citizens. There’s also a profile of Velma Jeter, a local educator and civic leader who fought for the rights of all people.

It’s a great honor to be able to share the profiles of these individuals on such a public platform. These movers and shakers are just a handful of the many lives that represent why Black lives matter.

GETTY IMAGES Jesse Owens American track athlete Jesse Owens makes the long jump that set an Olympic record in Berlin at the 1936 Olympic Games. His performance at the Games in several events was one of the major upsets to German dictator Adolf Hitler's hopes that German athletes would prove their superiority in athletic endeavors.