Alpha Rho Chapter Alumni's Late-Summer 2022 Digest
This Edition of the APCAA Digest features updates on 28 Alumni Brothers from the Alpha Rho Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and their professional developments, industry projects, awards and recognitions.
Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael Defeated as City Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon (Fall 1976) Wins Highly Contested Race
Memphis City Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon upset Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael Thursday, Aug. 4, in one of several upsets in the long slate of judicial races.
The victory by Sugarmon in the nonpartisan race breaks a chain of Juvenile Court judges that stretches more than 50 years to the late Kenneth Turner and his handpicked successor, Curtis Person Jr., and Michael, who was first hired to work at the court by Turner.
Sugarmon beat Michael in a rematch of the 2014 election that Michael won as the hand-picked successor to Person. The race also included attorneys Dee Shawn Peoples and William Ray Glasgow.
Michael, who inherited a 2012 agreement for U.S. Justice Department oversight of Juvenile Court following findings of due process violations and disproportionately harsher treatment of Black children than white children, portrayed himself as a reformer of the court from within.
That was despite Michael’s vocal opposition to the federal oversight and him seeking an end to the oversight with Trump administration officials who granted the wish.
With all 142 precincts reporting, the totals were:
Sugarmon 52,360
Michael 39,974
Glasgow 16,139
Peoples 10,916
Sugarmon said the talk of reform by Michael wasn’t sincere and campaigned as he did eight years ago on changes in the way the court works without advocating a wholesale house- cleaning at the court.
Brother Ibert G. Schultz (Fall 2002) Joins Black College Success
Initiative as Executive Director -- Leads Program Launch at L.A.'s Getty Museum
A new initiative, the Black College Success Initiative, held its kick-off event on September 19, 2022 at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. Ibert Schultz is the inaugural Executive Director of organization, a college-access and career success initiative dedicated to increasing opportunities for African American students in South Los Angeles through higher education. The project will cultivate strategic partnerships with key partners and universities that coordinate to successfully transition students to college and that support their persistence to degree attainment and preparation for job readiness.
This includes the potential of partnering with employers, corporations and firms across health, bioscience, technology and other industries to actively hire Black students for apprenticeship and internship opportunities.
The Black College Success Initiative will focus on calling on colleges and universities, various groups within each campus, and numerous outside agencies as partners in this work. A robust data tracking system and ongoing evaluation will be integral elements of the comprehensive college success initiative.
Schultz brings more than a decade of experience from the public and private sectors to this initiative. Previously, he has held senior roles at the Los Angeles City Council and Los Angeles Board of Supervisors where he focused on a diversity of policy issues and strategic matters. Schultz has also worked at a fast-growing venture-backed Silicon Beach start-up.
After beginning his career as an associate at Hughes, Hubbard & Reed LLP in New York, Schultz served in the Obama Administration at The White House, United States Department of Homeland Security, and the United States Department of Transportation. He received his Juris Doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School and Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse College where he graduated cum laude. He is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, serving in Nicaragua, Central America.
An avid art collector and consumer of culture, he leads and lives by the principle of “empowerment through academic opportunity.”
Julie Bowen and Chad Sanders (Spring 2008) on New Podcast ‘Quitters’
By Jim Ryan, www.forbes.com
Amidst pandemic, Americans famously quit their jobs in droves last year. While the word “quit” has often carried a negative connotation in the U.S., more than half of the 47 million who moved forth in 2021 went on to earn a greater income.
The new podcast, co-hosted by actress and director Julie Bowen and writer, director, actor and musician Chad Sanders, seeks to destigmatize the word. Focusing on a wide array of topics, like marriage, addiction or career, Quitters shines a light on the positives that can be found when people move on from often self-defining things that become toxic over time.
The podcast hosts come from radically different backgrounds. Bowen is a successful white TV star who’s appeared in series like Modern Family and Boston Legalwhile Sanders is a Black author who examines race in the revelatory book Black Magic. Candid conversations move fast during each episode of the Quitters podcast, now available for streaming via platforms like Apple, Spotify and Audacy, with bells occasionally forcing the hosts to pause and reflect.
“When Julie and I started to have a friendship, there is a dynamic,” explained Sanders. “When we started to do these interviews… I brought these bells. So that I, or Julie, could ring the bell if ever one of us felt microaggressed or macroagressed or hurt - if one of us had done something that pained the other,” he continued. “Because the conversations move so quickly. And there’s moments where we need to stop and re-calibrate and talk about our human feelings. It really is important to the show.”
Bowen is candid about the end of a marriage and quitting an early eating disorder, destigmatizing the idea of therapy throughout the course of bold Quitters conversations. Sanders focuses more directly on the workplace, breaking down his experience out of college as an employee at Google. The hosts examine the human condition during conversations with guests like actor Lamorne Morris, Modern Family co-stars Ty Burrell, Sarah Hyland and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, musician Meghan Trainor and late night host Jimmy Kimmel.
“Being candid about it was really scary and painful. But I was so tired of carrying around the whole, ‘You have to be perfect in public. You can’t share your messy, dirty secrets’ thing,” said Bowen. “That was one of the big things I wanted to quit - to quit having the shame of talking about it. Just say it. We’re all just humans trying to do our best.”
I spoke with Chad Sanders and Julie Bowen about the dichotomy that informs the Quitters podcast, the importance of curiosity and storytelling and creating a safe podcast space where people can share. A transcript of our video call, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows below.
Chad, the podcast was your idea, right? What made Julie the right partner?
CHAD SANDERS: Julie and I were talking about a bunch of stuff. We were actually just talking about life really more than anything. And I think we both probably had the light bulb moment around the same time - that our conversations had sort of an electricity and a tension and a curiosity to them that I thought would do well as the voice of this show concept that I was already developing. And Julie was like, “What?! Yeah!” She was really into it. I pitched her two concepts actually. And this was the one that she really hooked onto.
JULIE BOWEN: We spent a bunch of hours just talking and talking, thinking, “Is there something there?” We couldn’t stop talking to each other - but we couldn’t figure out if there was anything anybody would want to listen to. When he came with this idea, I was like, “Yeah. That’s it! Everybody wants to quit something - or they have.” And there’s a freedom in talking about it. I liked that. Chad and I come from very different places, different points of view. But we have this intersection of not being straight, white men. And it felt like that was always a way that we looked at problems and it was always a way that we were able to talk. And we sort of thought, “This allows us to talk to almost anyone.”
Brother CEO Justin Q. Croxton's (Fall 2003) Propellant Media Makes 3rd Consecutive Showing on INC Magazine's 2021 List of Fast Growing Companies in the U.S.
