SUBJECT LINE

Four years ago today, I couldn’t move. Today I’m building.

That question is why Melanin Bliss Media exists. Not as a pivot. As a blueprint I was handed in the worst way. MB treats information as care — because the information I had is the only reason I’m here to write this. What you know about hospitals, billing, bias, and policy can decide whether you live, recover, or go broke trying. So we investigate the systems, we translate what they’re doing in plain terms, and we never leave you without a next step.

Four years ago I couldn’t move. Today I’m building the thing I needed when I was lying in that bed. If you’re in the middle of your own fight with a system that won’t see you — I see you. And MB is for you.

Close with a soft next step: “If you’re navigating care and don’t know what to ask, start here → [link to a resource or the Memo signup]. You don’t have to know the system from the inside to deserve to be treated like you do.”

2 — THE MELANIN MEMO (Friday Brief)

Send after the piece is live — announces the anniversary piece + the investigation

SUBJECT LINE

Four years ago today, I couldn’t move. Today I’m building.Four years ago, May 29, 2022 — I was returning home from a girls’ trip. I fell asleep in the back seat of a car, and forty-five minutes later I woke up paralyzed. There had been an accident. I was the only person seriously hurt. The following day, after yelling, crying, being transferred to a more equipped hospital in Maryland, and several rounds of aggressive intravenous antibiotics hoping the inflammation and swelling would subsides. the paralysis begin to travel into my lower extremities and I went into surgery that night. I had a ACDF performed at C6-C7; and I didn’t see it coming, and I couldn’t have stopped it. I went to sleep, and I woke up unable to move my body.

What followed was an intense, complicated surgery — my only option — and then the harder part: the recovery. I was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a rare nerve condition with a poor prognosis. Most people who hear that diagnosis do not beat it. I had a period of paralysis, spontaneous neurological deficits, and agonizing nerve pain. I had spent fifteen years inside the U.S. healthcare system as an administrator — I knew these institutions from the inside, I had served them, I had been proud of them. And then I was the Black woman in the bed, and I learned what too many of us already know: the knowledge, the credentials, the years — none of it guaranteed I’d be believed.

I was dismissed. My pain was minimized. Errors were made. And I had to do the one thing the system never expects the patient to be able to do — I had to take over my own care. I used every piece of clinical and operational knowledge I had ever earned. I reached back into the relationships I’d built over a career and assembled my own team — a pain specialist, a physiatrist, the people I now call my heroes. Between us, I found my way back. I recovered from something the data said I shouldn’t have.

And here is the thing I can’t stop thinking about, four years later: I only made it because I knew the system from the inside. Most people don’t. Most people walk into those rooms without an administrator’s vocabulary, without the relationships, without knowing what they’re owed — and the system treats them accordingly. At one point in my recovery I had a coordinated team, all on the same page, all communicating. And I thought: why doesn’t everyone have this? Why is coordinated, respectful, competent care the exception for people who look like me, instead of the floor?

That question is why Melanin Bliss Media exists. Not as a pivot. As a blueprint I was handed in a humbling way. MB treats information as care — because the information I had is the only reason I’m here to write this. What you know about hospitals, billing, bias, and policy can decide whether you live, recover, or go broke trying. So we investigate the systems, we translate what they’re doing in plain terms, and we never leave you without a next step.

Four years ago I couldn’t move. I honestly felt my life was over and the last four years seemed everything feel apart. My prognosis was poor, My relationship was in challenging, I was very depressed, in severe nerve pain, navigating spontaneous neurologic deficits, suffered a stroke, having palpitations, i feared driving, felt alone, my career was over, was having financial troubles, That question is why Melanin Bliss Media exists. Not as a pivot. As a blueprint I was handed in the worst way. MB treats information as care — because the information I had is the only reason I’m here to write this. What you know about hospitals, billing, bias, and policy can decide whether you live, recover, or go broke trying. So we investigate the systems, we translate what they’re doing in plain terms, and we never leave you without a next step.

Four years ago I couldn’t move. Today I’m building the thing I needed when I was lying in that bed. If you’re in the middle of your own fight with a system that won’t see you — I see you. And MB is for you.

Send after the piece is live — announces the anniversary piece + the investigation

SUBJECT LINE

Four years ago today, I couldn’t move. Today I’m building. I. I did the work. Today I’m building the thing I needed when I was lying in that bed crying because I wads alone and afraid. If you’re in the middle of your own fight with a system

“If you’re navigating care and don’t know what to ask, sign up for our Newsletter. You don’t have to know the system from the inside to deserve to be treated like you do.”

Subscribe now

Today's note is a little different. I want to walk you through what The Memo is becoming, because the publication has changed enough since you first subscribed that you deserve to know what you signed up for.

What Melanin Bliss Is Now

Melanin Bliss Media is an independent cultural digital media platform. Not a newsletter. Not a niche site. A publication built bottom-up starting with the person, the community, the lived experience and working upward through the systems and institutions that shape Black and Brown daily life.

MB covers what the rest of the field doesn't, won't, or can't. The Piedmont Henry doula case during Black Maternal Health Week 2026 was the documented test: a story a friend personally asked me to cover because no other outlet would touch it. MB delivered. The Name Your Price investigation is in development for the same reason. MB is the platform people call when the story has to be told and no one else is willing to tell it.

That work has a frame. I'm reimagining media as public health. Information is care. Truth-telling is healing. What mainstream outlets distort, omit, or sensationalize about our communities isn't just bad journalism it's a documented driver of mortality, morbidity, and economic harm. MB closes that gap.

Five Pillars + Investigations

Going forward, every issue of The Memo lives in one of five pillars:

HEART — Where we feel it. Mental health, maternal health, reproductive justice, family systems.

HUSTLE — No handouts. Just Grind. Economic health, medical debt, employment, financial literacy as a public health issue.

KNOWLEDGE — They didn't tell you. We will. History/Historical facts, Receipts politics, scientific literacy.

CULTURE — Made by us. For us. Black creative production, faith, food, music, and community ritual.

HEALTH — Our health. Our future. Health equity, Health policy, hospital administration, hospital policy, and public health both its own pillar and the lens through everything else.

Plus a sixth space: INVESTIGATIONS. Multi-part work. Sounding the Alarm. The Hospital on Your Block. Name Your Price. MB Rate My Bill. Source-protected, legally reviewed, solutions-first reporting on the systems failing our communities.

If you only want some of those topics, you can now subscribe to specific sections. Click into any section page to manage your preferences.

Free, Paid, and Founding

Three ways to read:

FREE — The Memo. M/W/F. Politics, health policy, culture. Free forever, for everyone.

PAID — The Insider. $7/month or $70/year. Full archive access, MB Exclusives, subscriber-only investigative drops, and the members-only digital community where readers and I talk through the stories.

FOUNDING MEMBER — The Blueprint Circle. $250/year, capped at 100 founding members. Insider tier plus your name on the Founding Members page (if you opt in), early access to investigations, an annual virtual roundtable with me, priority editorial consideration for MB Spotlight, and recognition in MB's annual impact report.

If you've been reading free for a while and you're ready to capitalize the work — every paid subscriber compounds MB's editorial independence. Independent journalism isn't free. The cost of integrity is exactly why MB needs readers who can fund the work.

What MB Doesn't Do

Standards matter. Some of you have asked me to be clearer about them, so here they are in writing:

MB does not cover celebrity drama or gossip.
MB does not exploit pain.
Every claim is fact-checked before publication.
Every problem MB names includes a resource, a tool, or an action step. No trauma porn.
Source protection is absolute.
Editorial independence is non-negotiable. No partner — at any tier — buys coverage.

If those standards are why you're here, you're in the right place.

How to Reach Me

amber@mbmedia.co · 914.497.1480 · melaninblissmedia.com

If you have a story MB should be investigating, reach out. Source protection is absolute. If you want to support the work financially, the Partners page on melaninblissmedia.com walks through every option. If you just want to write back and tell me what you think of The Memo, hit reply. I read everything.

That's it for today. The next regular Memo lands Friday. We're going back to the work.

Thank you for being here.

— Amber

We challenge. We investigate. We restore the truth. Journalism for the culture. Reimagining media as public health. Not a brand. A blueprint.

The Melanin Memo is evolving this week. Same voice. More depth. One structural change you’ll notice, instead of the scattered middle sections we used to have, every Morning Brief now has ONE featured story per issue, explored more deeply. Monday is policy. Friday is finance, wellness, or systems. Wednesday is a shorter check-in and there’s a weekly Deep Memo coming every week now, expanding on what matters most.

Nothing else changes. Same honesty. Same receipts. Same Amber.

Alright. Let’s get into it.

HEADLINES | WEEKEND RECAP — TODAY : POLITICAL/POLICY

White House Correspondents’ Dinner Evacuation & Fed Chair Confirmation

President Trump was evacuated from the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday after gunshots erupted outside the Washington Hilton ballroom. The Secret Service rapidly removed Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and cabinet members from the event, which was cut short as attendees took cover. Meanwhile, Senator Thom Tillis announced support for confirming Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair following the Department of Justice’s decision to conclude its investigation into Jerome Powell. With Tillis’s backing, Warsh is positioned to succeed Powell when his term concludes on May 15, with the Senate Banking Committee scheduled to vote Wednesday. The developments mark a significant shift in GOP obstruction to Trump’s Fed leadership priorities, removing a major confirmation hurdle.cnsmaryland+2

Presidential Health Concerns

President Trump appeared to fall asleep during a televised Oval Office healthcare affordability announcement with Regeneron executives on April 23, with his eyes closing repeatedly and reopening multiple times while Cabinet members and pharmaceutical executives stood behind him. This marks the latest in a series of public incidents: Trump dozed off during a Cabinet meeting last month while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed Iran coverage, and previously at a Memphis Task Force press conference. Trump has addressed similar concerns, telling a Kentucky rally in March that military briefings made him “fall asleep,” and previously attributing closed eyes during December meetings to boredom, stating “I closed them I wanted to get the hell outta here”. News outlets including New Republic have raised questions about Trump’s mental acuity given the frequency of these incidents, though no independent medical evaluation has been made public.newrepublic+1

Virginia Redistricting Vote

Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment on April 21, 2026, that bypasses the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission, with results showing 51.4% voting “yes”. The measure, approved by the Associated Press at 8:49 p.m. Tuesday, would shift Virginia’s congressional maps to favor Democrats significantly, with new maps drawn by the state Legislature giving Democrats advantage in 10 House seats and Republicans in one. Virginia currently has six Democrats and five Republicans; the vote is expected to add up to four more Democratic seats in the midterm elections. The process will face outstanding legal challenges that courts agreed to address after the special election. Voters with higher education levels supported the measure by 37 points above expectations, while rural areas favored “no” votes by a wider margin.nytimes+1

Iraq-Iran Conflict Casualties — PARTIALLY VERIFIED

U.S.-Israeli military operations in the broader Iran conflict have resulted in documented casualties across multiple nations, though casualty figures vary by source and date. As of March 1, 2026, Iraq’s health authorities confirmed at least 118 fatalities, primarily among members of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), with additional injuries reported. The broader regional toll includes 2,076 fatalities in Iran, 1,622 in Lebanon, 26 in Israel, and 13 U.S. military deaths, with over 26,500 individuals injured across Iran alone. Your source’s reference to “138 attacks” could not be independently verified through major news outlets; available reporting focuses on aggregate casualty figures rather than specific attack counts. Iraqi health authorities reported a two-week suspension of operations announced by Iraq’s Islamic Resistance, though detailed tactical analysis remains limited in public reporting.aljazeera

WEEKLY POLICY ROUNDUP

This Week’s Major Developments:

National Security Crisis: Trump evacuated from Correspondents’ Dinner after shots fired; suspect taken into custody amid heightened security reviewcnsmaryland

Federal Reserve Shift: Sen. Tillis backs Warsh for Fed chair confirmation, clearing major GOP obstruction to Trump’s monetary policy prioritiescnbc

Midterm Map-Making: Virginia’s democratic redistricting win signals national trend in 2026 midterm positioning; Dems now expect gains in multiple statesvpm

Health Concerns Escalate: Fourth documented instance of Trump appearing to doze off in public settings raises ongoing questions about presidential fitnessyahoo+1

Regional Conflict Update: Iraq’s PMF reports operational pause in Iran-linked activities; U.S.-Israeli campaign continues with documented regional casualtiesaljazeera

VERIFICATION PENDING MONITORING SECTION

Stories We’re Still Tracking:

Story Status Next Update Trump’s late-night “rants” & confusion claims Unverified — No major outlets documented specific Fox interviews or Truth Social patterns cited Monitoring social media + news clips 56% poll doubting Trump’s mental sharpness Source unclear — Need to locate original polling data and cross-reference with reputable pollsters Checking Gallup, Pew Research, AP-NORC Iraqi Resistance “two-week suspension” announcement Partially reported — Requires direct source verification from Iraq’s Islamic Resistance or credible Middle East correspondents Monitoring Al Jazeera, Reuters Baghdad

AI-Driven Outages in Tech Firms

Major tech companies like Meta, Amazon, and IBM faced widespread AI-related disruptions and layoffs over the April 25-27 weekend, with nearly 80,000 jobs cut in Q1 2026 alone due to automation scaling issues in large deployments. Underreported outages stemmed from AI surges overwhelming infrastructure, exposing reliability gaps as firms raced to integrate tools like Anthropic’s models amid hardware shortages.

Space Setbacks Amid AI Surges

Space exploration encountered major hurdles on April 25, 2026, including Blue Origin’s New Glenn upper stage failure despite first-stage success, delaying reusable rocket timelines. These setbacks contrast booming AI investments, like Google’s $40B in Anthropic and SpaceX’s AI-rocket integration, fueling startup growth in orbital computing.

Investor Bearishness Peaks

Bank of America’s April survey revealed 11-month high bearishness among fund managers, with cash at 4.3% and growth expectations at four-year lows amid Iran conflict oil spikes. A ceasefire dropping oil below $84/barrel could spark contrarian rallies in risk assets, as 70% still see no recession.

Undiscovered Financial Gems

In a U.S. market up roughly 30% yearly, small banks like First Bancorp (FBNC) and Security Federal (SFDL) stand out with strong fundamentals, trading below fair value amid overlooked regional strength. These gems offer stability in volatile times, per April analyses of undervalued stocks.

THE MEMO | This week’s featured story.

Medicaid work requirements take effect December 31. Here’s what that means for your cousin, your auntie, and maybe you.

Congress passed the work requirement provision quietly buried inside the larger budget reconciliation package so it didn’t make headlines. Starting December 31, most Medicaid recipients between 19 and 55 will need to prove 80 hours per month of work, volunteering, education, or caregiving to keep their coverage. Miss the documentation for two consecutive months, and you lose health insurance.

I want to tell you what this actually looks like, because the news coverage won’t.

I spent 13 years working inside hospitals. The people this hurts most are the ones who have LEGITIMATE reasons they’re not working the full 80 hours caregivers for elderly parents who can’t file the paperwork right, part-time workers whose employers don’t document hours cleanly, people between jobs, people with invisible disabilities, people whose kids get sick and whose shifts get cut as a result. These are the people who lose coverage. Not the people the policy was sold as targeting.

The real cost of losing Medicaid coverage isn’t theoretical. The CDC and Kaiser Family Foundation data is clear: Medicaid disenrollment correlates directly with delayed cancer screenings, unmanaged chronic disease, maternal mortality spikes, and deaths from preventable causes. States that have tried work requirements before Arkansas in 2018, Georgia’s limited 2023 pilot saw 20-25% of affected enrollees lose coverage within the first 6 months. Most of them still qualified they just couldn’t navigate the documentation.

If you’re on Medicaid right now, here’s what you need to do between now and December 31:

One. Find out if your state has opted into the work requirement (not all states are participating 14 are, as of April). Go to medicaid.gov and search your state.

Two. If your state is participating, identify which exemption category you qualify for caregiver, student, disability, pregnancy, etc. Get the documentation in order NOW, not in November.

Three. If you’re working, make sure your employer documents your hours correctly every month. Keep your own records too pay stubs, emails, anything.

Four. If you get a notice that your Medicaid is being terminated, you have 90 days to appeal. Do it. The appeal rate success in states with prior work requirements was over 60%.

I’ll keep tracking this. There will be more to say as we get closer to the December deadline.

THE DROP | Quick hits before you go.

BLACK FACTS:

In 1945, Dr. Charles Drew, the Black physician who pioneered blood plasma banking died of injuries from a car accident after being transported to a Jim Crow hospital that couldn’t provide him with blood plasma. The exact technology he invented couldn’t save him because of the system he had to navigate.

RESOURCE:

If you’re worried about your Medicaid status, the National Health Law Program (healthlaw.org) has free state-by-state guides for understanding work requirements and appeals. Bookmark it.

QUESTION FOR YOU:

Have you or someone you love ever lost health coverage and had to navigate the appeal? Reply to this email and tell me. I’m tracking these stories for a future Deep Memo, and your experience your real one, not a headline — is what helps other people know they’re not alone.

That’s the memo.

See you Wednesday for the check-in.

— Amber

P.S. The Deep Memo drops this week on Thursday. It’s the first piece in a new series called The Price Is Wrong investigating why a single emergency room visit can bankrupt a working family in 2026. Part 1 is the personal story that started the whole investigation. Don’t miss it.

Monday, MB is relaunching with a sharpened direction. Same voice. Same me. But a clearer editorial thesis that reflects what I’ve been building all along public health, health disparities, and health policy as the lens through which we cover politics, culture, and systems.

Today’s Brief is the final issue in the old format. Monday, April 27, you’ll get the first Brief in the sharpened MB. I’ll explain everything then.

Now let’s get into what broke this week.

Bliss Collectively,

Last Friday was too much. I checked out. I said nope and that was it. Then I remembered my WHY and it’s YOU. I took a little mini break did a mass brain dumped and restructured MB operations and came up with two additional side hussle’s. It’s 3:30 am Monday EST, I owe you Friday’s Brief so Let’s get into it.

Last week broke. The Department of Justice indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on Tuesday. The DHS Secretary publicly admitted he can’t make payroll past early May day 67 of a record-breaking partial shutdown. The New York Times reported that the FBI investigated one of its journalists for unflattering coverage of FBI Director Kash Patel. A New York City councilmember was violently arrested at an anti-eviction protest in Brooklyn.

Three days. One story. If you only get one Brief from MB this week, this is the one.

— Amber

KNOWLEDGE | AFRO PULSE ◆ DOJ indicts the Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 federal fraud counts.

On Tuesday April 21, a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment charging the Southern Poverty Law Center with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The Department of Justice alleges the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to informants embedded in extremist groups including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and the National Socialist Party of America. The SPLC’s interim CEO and president Bryan Fair has denied the allegations and said the organization will “vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work” adding that the program “saved lives.”

Whatever you think of the SPLC’s methods, hold this clearly: the federal government just criminally indicted one of the country’s most prominent civil rights organizations. The SPLC has tracked hate groups for over 50 years. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche held the press conference standing next to FBI Director Kash Patel who in October 2025 publicly called the SPLC “a partisan smear machine.” Six months later, the indictment lands. Every Black-led nonprofit in America just received a message about what happens when you do anti-extremism work this administration doesn’t like.

HUSTLE | MELANIN MONEY ◆ Government shutdown hits day 67. DHS can’t make payroll past early May.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin confirmed Tuesday on Fox News that DHS will run out of emergency funds to pay employees by the first week of May. The partial shutdown limited to DHS over a Congressional standoff on immigration enforcement funding began February 14 and is now the longest in American history at 67 days. DHS payroll runs $1.6 billion every two weeks across its 22 agencies, including TSA, Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard, FEMA, and CISA. Trump signed an executive order earlier this month tapping $10 billion from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to keep DHS workers paid through April; less than $1.4 billion remained as of April 19.

Black Americans make up 18.6% of the federal workforce significantly higher than our 12.8% share of the overall civilian workforce. In 15 states and DC, Black workers represent at least one-fifth of the state’s federal workforce, with Georgia at 43.8%, Louisiana at 37.6%, Mississippi at 34.8%, and Tennessee at 34.6%. Every shutdown disproportionately hits Black families. Every missed paycheck cascades into missed rent, late fees, evictions, food insecurity. SNAP and WIC are funded through September but the federal employees who PROCESS those benefits are being squeezed. The downstream effect is delays, errors, and call centers nobody can reach. More than 780 TSA officers have already resigned during this shutdown.

AFRO Pulse ◆ The New York Times says the FBI investigated one of its reporters.

On Wednesday April 22, the New York Times reported that the FBI launched an investigation last month into NYT reporter Elizabeth Williamson after she wrote a story revealing that FBI Director Kash Patel had assigned federal agents to provide round-the-clock security and personal transportation to his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins. According to the Times, FBI agents interviewed Wilkins, queried databases for information on Williamson, and recommended moving forward to determine whether Williamson had broken federal stalking laws. Justice Department officials reportedly ended the investigation after concluding there was no legal basis for it. NYT executive editor Joe Kahn called it an “alarming” attempt by the FBI to “criminalize routine reporting.” The FBI and Director Patel dispute the framing.

This is not the first or only press intimidation move from this administration. It IS one of the clearest. The FBI does not have a recent record of investigating journalists for writing articles its director didn't like. Independent media including small Substack publications should pay attention. The First Amendment is the rule. Federal investigations into journalists are the exception that swallows the rule when normalized.

This is what dismantling civil society looks like in real time, in 72 hours.

If you read each of those three Pulse stories separately, they sound like three bad news days strung together. They are not three stories. They are one story.

The story is this: in 72 hours Tuesday through Thursday of this week the federal government took identifiable, coordinated action against four pillars of American civil society. A civil rights organization. An elected official. A journalist. The federal workforce itself. Each action by itself could be argued. Together, the pattern is the message.

Civil rights organizations — The SPLC indictment was not announced quietly. The Acting Attorney General held a televised press conference with the FBI Director standing beside him. Whatever the merits of the underlying allegations, the choreography sent a signal: civil rights orgs are now investigation targets. The NAACP is paying attention. Color of Change is paying attention. Every Black-led nonprofit with a federal grant is reading their compliance documents differently this week than they were last week.

Pillar two — elected officials. On Wednesday night, NYC Council member Chi Ossé was violently arrested at an anti-eviction protest in Brooklyn. He represents District 36 Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Northern Crown Heights historically Black neighborhoods experiencing some of the most aggressive gentrification in the country. He was at the protest as a constituent advocate. He was released without charges. The point of arresting an elected official at a peaceful protest isn’t to charge them. It’s to show every other elected official what advocacy costs now.

Pillar three — the press. The FBI probe of the New York Times reporter is the loudest example this week, but it is not isolated. Press freedom organizations have documented multiple coordinated efforts to intimidate journalists covering this administration. Some of those journalists have settled. Some have stopped reporting. Some have left the profession. The probes don’t have to result in charges to do the work. The probes ARE the work.

Pillar four — federal workers. Sixty-seven days into a partial shutdown that has shown zero serious negotiation movement, DHS will miss payroll by early May. Federal workers disproportionately Black, disproportionately women, disproportionately representing the public-sector middle class that has been one of the most stable paths to Black economic security in American history — are being financially squeezed in a fight that has nothing to do with them. Either the squeeze produces a deal or it doesn’t. Either way, the federal workforce shrinks. The administration has been openly clear that it WANTS the federal workforce to shrink.

Each of these four moves has its own justifications offered by the people making them. The SPLC indictment is about alleged fraud. Chi Ossé’s arrest is about “obstruction.” The FBI probe of the journalist is undisclosed. The shutdown is about immigration policy. Take each justification on its own terms even if you accept all of them as legitimate, the pattern remains.

Civil society depends on civil rights organizations, independent journalism, accountable elected officials, and a functioning public workforce. Remove or intimidate enough of any one pillar and the structure leans. Remove or intimidate enough of all four pillars in the same week and the structure begins to collapse.

This is the part that matters: I am not telling you anything you don’t already feel. The point of MB is to put words on what you already sense in your bones. Every Black person reading this knows what it feels like when the temperature shifts. The temperature shifted this week.

What you can do this week:

Donate to a civil rights organization. Not because they will save us. Because the organizations that are NOT being indicted right now will need legal defense funds and operating capital when they are. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Color of Change, the ACLU, your local bail fund, your local mutual aid network. Pick one. Send what you can.

Subscribe to and pay for at least one independent publication. Not us we’ll get there. The big names you trust to tell the truth are now under structural attack. The Marshall Project. ProPublica. The Texas Tribune. Mother Jones. Democracy Now. The Atlantic. Hell, your local Black-owned newspaper. Pick one. Pay for a subscription.

Know your federal worker neighbors and family. If you have someone in your life who is a federal employee right now, check in this weekend. Some of them are too proud to say the squeeze is on them. Ask anyway.

Tell your elected officials, in writing, that you are watching what they do this week and next. Not what they say. What they do. Their response to the SPLC indictment, the shutdown, the press intimidation, the protest arrests. The next 90 days will be defining for American civic life and the people you elected need to know you are paying attention.

Information is leverage. Pass it on.

———

THE DROP

◆ BLACK FACT:

In 1909, a coalition of Black activists and white allies including W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Church Terrell founded the NAACP in response to a wave of anti-Black mob violence and the failure of federal law enforcement to protect Black communities. The organization was called “radical” and “unpatriotic” by major newspapers of the era. Its leaders were investigated, surveilled, and harassed for decades. The NAACP outlasted every administration that tried to break it. Civil rights organizations have been targeted by the federal government before. They were targeted because they were effective. The historical pattern matters because it tells you what to expect — and what to do.

◆ A resource worth bookmarking:

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (rcfp.org) provides free legal resources to journalists facing federal investigation, subpoena, or prosecution. They also publish a Press Freedom Tracker that documents every press freedom incident in the United States in real time. If you write anything publicly — a Substack, a blog, a TikTok bookmark this site. If you support journalism, donate to them.

◆ Reader question of the week:

Are you a federal employee, or do you have a federal employee in your family or close circle? How is the shutdown actually showing up at home, at work, in your community? Reply and tell me. I’m gathering stories for a piece next week on how the longest shutdown in American history is hitting Black families specifically. Anonymized if you prefer. Your story could help others see they are not alone in what they’re feeling.

———

Coming next week:

Monday: How the SPLC indictment changes the legal exposure of every Black-led nonprofit in America and what to do about it.

Wednesday: A check-in on the shutdown what’s changed, what hasn’t, who’s hurting most.

Friday: The hospital finance story I was going to lead with this week. Two-thirds of America’s hospital finance leaders just admitted Medicaid cuts are their top concern. The story didn’t go away. Just delayed.

Thank you for being here. If this piece was useful and I think it was forward it to one person. Your auntie, your cousin, your group chat. The Memo grows person by person.

— Amber

Founder + CEO, Melanin Bliss Media

amber@mbmedia.co · themelaninmemo.substack.com

@themelaninbliss

Bliss Collective,

Three vessels under fire in the Strait of Hormuz, a near-miss on a JFK runway, and a diagnosis gap for babies that this country still hasn’t fixed. None of these stories will lead the cable news scroll the same way but every single one of them touches real everyday people such as you and me.

Now here’s what you need to know this Wednesday morning, Let’s get into it.

THE HEADLINES

KNOWLEDGE — AFRO Pulse | Ships Hit in the Strait of Hormuz Hours After Trump Extends Iran Ceasefire

What Happened: Three vessels came under fire in the Strait of Hormuz hours after the U.S. extended its ceasefire with Iran. Iran has reportedly seized two cargo ships. U.S. officials are monitoring impacts on oil routes critical to American energy supply. (Developing details unconfirmed.)

Source: NPR, April 22, 2026 · npr.org/sections/national

MB TAKE: A ceasefire that breaks within hours wasn’t a ceasefire it was a press release. Watch your gas prices this week.

AFRO Pulse | FAA Probes Near Miss Between Two Passenger Jets at JFK

What Happened: Two passenger jets came dangerously close on a runway at New York’s JFK airport. The FAA is investigating an apparent air traffic control error. No injuries reported, but the incident is fueling the broader call for the $10B FAA overhaul above.

Source: Reuters, April 22, 2026 · reuters.com/world/us

MB TAKE: This is the second story in this Brief about the same broken system. That’s not a coincidence that’s a pattern.

HUSTLE | ECONOMY FUNDS: Transportation Secretary Asks for $10 Billion to Overhaul Air Traffic Control

What Happened: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy requested $10 billion to modernize FAA systems amid mounting safety concerns and chronic air traffic controller shortages. The proposal follows a string of close calls in U.S. airspace.

Source: Reuters, April 22, 2026 · reuters.com/world/us

MB TAKE: Aviation safety is a labor story. They underfunded the workforce, then act surprised when the system buckles. The price tag now is the receipt for that neglect.

HUSTLE | Virginia Passes Redistricting Measure That Could Reshape the House

What Happened: The Virginia legislature approved new congressional maps that could shift the balance of power in the U.S. House and help Democrats compete for the majority in 2026. GOP legal challenges are expected.

Source: The Washington Post, April 22, 2026 · washingtonpost.com

MB TAKE: Redistricting is where Black voting power is built or buried depending on who’s drawing the lines. Track this one to the courts.

---

HEART | The Number Washington Keeps Avoiding: 50.3

What Happened: New CDC data confirms Black women in the U.S. died at a rate of 50.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023 compared to 14.5 for white women, 12.4 for Hispanic women, and 10.7 for Asian women. The disparity is not narrowing.

Source: CDC / National Center for Health Statistics, Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2023, published Feb. 4, 2025 · cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2023

MB TAKE: Black women are dying at 3.5× the rate of white women in the richest country on earth. Coming up at 9:10 in the Deep Memo: why this number is bigger than birth it’s about who America actually values.

IN CLOSING…

We stay informed so they can’t keep us in the dark.

See you Friday.

- Amber

Thank you for being part of the Bliss Collective the community that reads, shares, and acts.

This newsletter is free because our community’s access to information should never come with a price tag.

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THE MELANIN MEMO is published by Melanin Bliss Media LLC — a 100% Black woman-owned independent media company based in New York, NY.

We don’t follow the narrative. We rewrite it.

📧 info@mbmedia.co | melaninblissmedia.com

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Amber personally: @themelaninbliss on TIKTOK & Threads

Melanin Bliss Media curates content for informational and editorial purposes. All sources are credited. Views expressed are editorial and investigative.

© 2026 Melanin Bliss Media LLC. All rights reserved.

SOURCES CITED

1. NPR, Strait of Hormuz attacks following ceasefire extension, April 22, 2026. https://www.npr.org/sections/national/

2. Reuters, Transportation Secretary Duffy requests $10B for FAA modernization, April 22, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/

3. Reuters, FAA investigates JFK runway near-miss, April 22, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/

4. The Washington Post, Virginia redistricting measure passes, April 22, 2026.

https://www.washingtonpost.com

1. CDC ADDM Network (Maenner et al.), Autism Spectrum Disorder Surveillance Report, 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/autism/data-research/index.html

Autism Speaks / CDC, Autism in the Black Community, 2023. https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/autism-in-black-community

I woke up Sunday and the news was already three steps ahead of my coffee another Iranian cargo ship seized, another strait declared closed, another reminder that what happens in the Gulf does not stay in the Gulf. But underneath all that noise, something else was moving too: Black women-owned businesses posted the fastest growth rate in the country, a Texas judge moved to protect minority contractors, and the data on our mental health gap got louder than the headlines.

So let’s get into it. Here’s the weekend that was.

THE WEEKEND RECAP

KNOWLEDGE | Afro Pulse: U.S. SEIZES IRANIAN SHIP. IRAN CLOSES THE STRAIT. AGAIN.

U.S. forces seized an Iranian cargo ship on Saturday, April 19 after it challenged the American blockade of Iranian ports, and Iran responded by declaring the Strait of Hormuz closed again following reports of attacks on ships in the region. President Trump stated the situation remains unresolved pending a peace deal. Oil markets reacted immediately, which means gas and grocery prices are about to move on us before the week is out.

Source: The New York Times, April 19, 2026

MB TAKE: Every war abroad becomes a bill at home. Black and Brown households already spend more of their income on gas, food, and rent and no one in D.C. is saying our names when they talk about who pays for this escalation. Watch your budget this week and your gas tank.

HUSTLE | Da Black Dollar: BLACK WOMEN-OWNED BUSINESSES JUST POSTED THE FASTEST GROWTH RATE IN THE COUNTRY

Black women-owned employer businesses grew 13% from 2024 to 2025 the fastest rate of any demographic with revenue up nearly 6%. Non-employer firms (solopreneurs, independents, creatives) saw the same 13% growth and an 8% revenue bump. This is happening in a policy environment that is actively trying to claw back minority business protections. We are building anyway.

Source: Forbes, April 2026

MB TAKE: Read that growth rate twice. Then read it again. The community does not wait for permission. If you have been sitting on an LLC, a side hustle, or an idea the data says this is your year.

RESOURCES:

• Wish Local Empowerment Grant $500–$2,000 for Black-owned businesses under $1M revenue → wish.com/local

• SBA Office of Minority Business Development → sba.gov/offices/headquarters/oed

• Hello Alice Small Business Growth Fund → helloalice.com/grants

• U.S. Black Chambers, Inc. (membership + capital access) → usblackchambers.org

For the Movement | TEXAS JUDGE TEMPORARILY RESTORES MINORITY BUSINESS PROTECTIONS

On April 15, a Texas judge temporarily restored HUB (Historically Underutilized Business) program eligibility for women- and minority-owned businesses after a lawsuit challenged rules that had excluded them. The ruling is a pause, not a victory the underlying fight over whether minority contractor set-asides survive in 2026 is still open.

Source: Forbes / Texas court filings, April 15, 2026

MB TAKE: When they come for minority contracts, they come for Black generational wealth. A temporary injunction is not a permanent win. If you are a Black-owned contractor in Texas or any state watching this case the action step is the same: get your certifications current, get your bid packages ready, move now while the door is open.

📚 RESOURCES:

• Texas HUB Program (certification + vendor portal) → comptroller.texas.gov/purchasing/vendor/hub

• National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) → nmsdc.org

• Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) → wbenc.org

• SBA 8(a) Business Development Program → sba.gov/federal-contracting/contracting-assistance-programs/8a-business-development-program

HEART | Black Mental Health: THE 37% NUMBER WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT

Only 37% of Black adults with a diagnosed mental illness receive treatment significantly lower than the rate for white adults and the barriers are not mystery. They are provider bias, lack of cultural competency, misdiagnosis, and financial worry (71% of Americans cite finances as a mental health stressor). NAMI’s minority mental health initiatives and the APA’s disparities work continue, but advocacy groups are pushing harder for equitable emergency care, especially for unhoused Black men who face documented bias in crisis response.

Source: NAMI, American Psychological Association, April 2026

MB TAKE: 37% is not a shortage of want. It is a shortage of access, trust, and culturally competent care. If you are in therapy protect that. If you are searching start with the resources below. MB is building out a full Black Mental Health resource roundup for this Wednesday’s Deep Memo.

📚 RESOURCES:

• BEAM — Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective → beam.community

• Therapy for Black Girls (directory + podcast) → therapyforblackgirls.com

• Therapy for Black Men → therapyforblackmen.org

• Black Mental Wellness (resources + fact sheets) → blackmentalwellness.com

• NAMI HelpLine → 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) | text “HelpLine” to 62640

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline → call or text 988

• The Loveland Foundation (therapy fund for Black women and girls) → thelovelandfoundation.org

CULTURE | Pass the Aux: CHRIS BROWN + USHER ANNOUNCE JOINT STADIUM TOUR. SHABOOZEY DROPS A CONCEPT ALBUM. ELLA LANGLEY HITS THE CHARTS.

Chris Brown and Usher announced the “Raymond & Brown Stadium Tour” this weekend two R&B catalogs, one stage, stadium-scale. Shaboozey revealed his next project, The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales, dropping in July and continuing his work positioning Black artists inside country and Western storytelling on their own terms and Ella Langley debuted high on the charts with her country album Dandelion, part of a broader moment of Black and Black-adjacent women moving country music in a new direction.

Source: Berklee Online / industry reporting, April 18–19, 2026

MB TAKE: Culture is always strategy. Stadium tours are ownership plays. Concept albums are legacy plays. And Black artists expanding into country is not crossover it is reclamation. Watch what these releases do to the streaming and ticketing economy over the next 90 days.

THIS WEEK WE’RE WATCHING:

The Iran blockade’s ripple into U.S. fuel and grocery prices, the Supreme Court’s still-pending birthright citizenship ruling, and the full Black Mental Health resource expansion we’re dropping in Wednesday’s Deep Memo.

IN CLOSING…

We are not a brand. We are a blueprint.

The weekend was loud. The week will be louder. Stay grounded, stay informed, continue building.

New week. Let’s get it, Bliss Collective.

— Amber

MB UNIVERSAL DISCLAIMER

Melanin Bliss Media curates content for informational and editorial purposes only. Health-related content is for educational awareness and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. News and political content reflects MB editorial perspective. All sources are credited within. Questions or tips: info@mbmedia.co

But I need to be transparent about who is writing this and why that matters: I am a clinician first, a healthcare administrator second, and a journalist third. I have worked inside the systems this story is about. I understand what is at stake on every side of that delivery room door. I believe that if we are truly committed to being Rooted in Justice and Joy if we mean it then real change requires real accountability. From everyone in that room. We all have a role. It is called respect.

This is the story most outlets ran past to get to the outrage. MB is going back for the part that matters.

What Actually Happened at Piedmont Henry Hospital

In March 2026, two doulas Shira Lawrence and Jetaime McKinney were escorted from Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia by security. Their client was in active labor. The baby was in a transverse position. The physician was recommending an emergency C-section. The doulas said their client had the right to refuse and attempt a vaginal birth. They continued to advocate that position as labor progressed.

Security removed them from the room. The baby was delivered safely by C-section. The mother survived.

That is the sequence of events and it is important before anything else to understand what a transverse lie in active labor actually means clinically, because that clinical reality is the foundation of everything that followed.

A transverse lie means the baby is lying sideways in the uterus. Vaginal delivery from that position is not possible. It is not a matter of trying harder or repositioning the mother or waiting for the baby to turn. In active labor, with contractions underway, a persistent transverse lie is an obstetric emergency with a defined, time-sensitive standard of care. The physician in that room was monitoring fetal heart tones, cervical progression, and maternal vitals in real time in a window that can be minutes, not hours.

No one in that room was risking a license, a life, or a lawsuit for anything other than what was right for Mom and baby; the patients who are always the priority. The physician went to medical school. The doulas did not.

That is not a dismissal of doulas. It is a statement of scope. And scope is exactly where this situation broke down.

What the Doulas Suggested and What the Clinical Evidence Actually Says

The doulas advocated for alternative techniques repositioning maneuvers, hip tilts, pelvic rotations as an alternative to the C-section. Some accounts referenced external cephalic version, or ECV, as an option the doulas believed should have been attempted.

Here is what the clinical literature actually says about ECV in active labor:

ECV is indicated between 34 and 37 weeks of pregnancy before active labor begins. It is contraindicated in active labor. It is contraindicated when vaginal bleeding is present. It is contraindicated when there are signs of fetal distress. MSF emergency obstetric guidelines state explicitly that ECV for transverse lie in labor is only considered in settings where surgical intervention is entirely unavailable meaning it is a last resort in resource-limited environments, not a standard option in a hospital with a fully equipped operating room.

ECV carries a 5% rate of fetal heart rate changes requiring emergency intervention, and its own complication profile includes cord prolapse, membrane rupture, placental abruption, and hemorrhage all of which would themselves require emergency surgery.

The success rate of ECV in eligible candidates before labor is approximately 50%. The success rate of emergency C-section for transverse lie is over 95%.

The informal repositioning exercises the doulas suggested hip tilts, pelvic rotations have not been proven effective in peer-reviewed studies for resolving transverse lie in active labor. They are designed for use weeks before labor begins. There is no peer-reviewed clinical support for these techniques as an intervention during an active transverse lie obstetric emergency.

This is not a matter of opinion. It is the clinical literature. And a doula regardless of training, regardless of intention, regardless of how much she cares about her client is not authorized to practice clinical medicine. Georgia law is explicit on this point.

What Georgia Law Actually Says

Georgia has no state licensure, certification requirement, or formal scope-of-practice statute governing doulas. Their role is defined by professional training organizations and individual hospital policies not by state law.

What Georgia law does codify is physician authority in obstetric emergencies. Under Georgia Rule 290-2-26, emergency obstetric services must be delivered within the scope of generally accepted medical practice, and the attending physician holds final clinical decision-making authority. No Georgia statute grants a doula legal standing to countermand or delay a physician’s clinical call.

Under Georgia Code § 51-1-29.5, emergency medical providers are held to a gross negligence standard during emergencies meaning physicians acting within accepted clinical practice during an emergency C-section are legally protected. Any delay caused by a third party that worsens outcomes creates separate liability exposure.

Federal law adds another layer. Under EMTALA the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act hospitals are required to provide stabilizing treatment in emergencies without delay. Any person, including a support person or doula, who impedes the delivery of that stabilizing treatment creates a potential EMTALA compliance liability for the hospital. Security involvement in that situation is a legal response, not simply a procedural one.

Georgia doulas cannot legally diagnose any condition, including fetal malpresentation. They cannot prescribe, perform, or recommend clinical interventions and repositioning maneuvers, in this context, are a clinical intervention, not a comfort measure. They cannot override informed consent discussions, which legally occur between the physician and the patient. And they have no protected right of presence hospitals may set their own visitor and support-person policies, and removal is within a hospital’s legal authority.

Knowing this going into a hospital is not defeatist. It is protective.

There is something fundamental about that delivery room that almost never enters the public conversation, and it must.

Every licensed clinician in that room the OB, the attending nurses, the anesthesiologist has their medical license, their hospital privileges, and their professional reputation on the line if something goes wrong. They are governed by the Joint Commission, the Georgia Department of Community Health, CMS, and their own credentialing bodies. Hospitals face massive liability and malpractice exposure for adverse maternal or neonatal outcomes. A preventable death or permanent injury from a delayed C-section can result in a multi-million-dollar lawsuit.

A doula carries none of that liability. She is not a licensed medical professional. She cannot be sued for the death of a baby or a maternal complication arising from a birth decision she advocated for in that room.

She can leave the hospital and go home.

The physician cannot. The nurse cannot. The hospital cannot.

This is not an argument that doctors are always right. The documented reality of Black maternal mortality, the dismissal of Black women’s pain, the shorter appointments and lower rates of patient-directed communication all of that is real, sourced, and damning. MB has covered it throughout this series. We will keep covering it.

But accountability must work in both directions. A doula who continues to advocate against an emergency medical intervention is not protecting her client. She is placing the people who are legally and clinically responsible for her client’s survival in an impossible position.

Collapsing that into a racial narrative does something dangerous: it tells Black women that compliance with a life-saving emergency C-section is an act of submission. It is not. It is an act of survival.

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When Removal Is Legal and When It Is Not

Hospitals can remove a doula. The legal guidance is specific about when.

Legitimate grounds: exhibiting disruptive, threatening, or violent behavior toward staff; interfering with patient care; declining to comply with infection control or safety protocols; behavior that jeopardizes care of the patient.

Not sufficient grounds: a personality conflict between a doula and a nurse. Hospitals in that situation are advised to reassign the staff nurse or bring in the Perinatal Medical Director to resolve the tension.

The bar is behavioral interference with care not disagreement, not advocacy, not asking questions, not helping a patient understand her options. Those things are not only permitted they are the entire point of having a doula in the room.

The line is crossed when a doula moves from advocating for informed decision-making to actively obstructing a clinical team’s ability to respond to an emergency.

Every Black woman and every doula should know exactly where that line is before they walk into a hospital. Not after.

The Legal Trend Is Moving in the Right Direction

Here is what the outrage cycle buried: the legal landscape around doula access is expanding, not contracting.

New York State passed Public Health Law § 2500-M, which prohibits hospitals from denying a patient’s designated doula access during delivery with one exception: during emergencies or when access to an operating room would compromise safety. A separate New York Senate bill was introduced to require doulas in the OR during C-sections, targeting the most common friction point directly.

At least 46 states and Washington D.C. have taken steps toward Medicaid reimbursement for doula services. New York City passed a law guaranteeing doula access for incarcerated people during birth. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York Department of Health affirmed that support persons are essential to patient care and required their presence with COVID screening.

The story is not that hospitals are systematically trying to remove doulas. The story is that the collaboration between doulas and clinical teams is still being built and Black women are at the center of that negotiation with the most at stake.

What Black Women Specifically Need to Know

Black women enter hospital birth carrying legitimate, documented reasons for distrust. The mortality rates. The studies on dismissal. The documented patterns of shorter appointments, skeptical language in medical notes, and reduced patient-directed communication. The historical and ongoing reality of medical racism in American obstetrics.

And Black women also enter hospital birth at statistically higher risk for the exact complications preeclampsia, hemorrhage, cardiac events, peripartum cardiomyopathy that require fast, decisive clinical intervention when they occur.

Those two truths do not cancel each other out. They make the quality of the collaboration between a Black woman, her doula, and her medical team a matter of life and death in both directions.

A doula who knows her scope, who has established a working relationship with the clinical team, and who understands what to do when the birth plan changes is a protective force. A doula who enters the room in a posture of confrontation and treats every medical recommendation as a racial attack puts her client in the crossfire of a conflict her client cannot afford to be in.

The best doulas know the difference. The best birth plans include the emergency scenario. The best pre-birth conversations cover not just the ideal birth but the one that did not go as planned.

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The Path Forward: Collaboration Is Not Surrender

The research, the health systems, and the advocacy organizations all point to the same conclusion: integrated, collaborative models. Doulas trained alongside clinical teams. Clear communication protocols established before labor begins. Scope-of-practice agreements signed before entering a hospital. Pre-birth conversations between the patient, doula, and medical team that include contingency planning so that if an emergency C-section becomes necessary, no one in that room is blindsided.

Collaboration is not surrender. Knowing your role is not weakness. Respecting the clinical authority of the physician in an emergency is not accepting racism. It is keeping your client alive so that the larger fight for equity, for accountability, for a healthcare system that actually serves Black women can continue.

The Piedmont case is not a story about doulas versus doctors. It is a story about what happens when the collaboration breaks down in the worst possible moment. And the lesson is not to stop bringing doulas into the room.

The lesson is to build the collaboration before you need it.

Black women deserve the advocate AND the clinical team. Both doing their jobs. Both respecting each other’s role. Both focused on the same outcome.

Mom and baby come home. That is the only victory that matters.

Contact US

📧 info@mbmedia.co | melaninblissmedia.com

Instagram · TikTok · X · Facebook · Threads · Spill — @MelaninBlissMedia

Amber personally: @themelaninbliss on TikTok

Melanin Bliss Media curates content for informational and editorial purposes. All sources are credited. Views expressed are editorial and investigative.

Sources: Capital B News; Yahoo News; Georgia Rule 290-2-26 (Emergency Obstetric Services); Georgia Code § 51-1-29.5 (Emergency Standard of Care); EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act); Doula Law by State Georgia (childbirthlibrary.org); Georgia HB 1216 (2024); California Hospital Association legal guidance on doula access in hospitals; MSF Emergency Obstetric Care Guidelines — Transverse Lie and Shoulder Presentation; Healthline External Cephalic Version clinical overview; UCSF/Preterm Birth CA — Hospital practitioner perceptions of doulas (ScienceDirect); New York Public Health Law § 2500-M; NY State Senate Bill S5991; Georgetown CCF Doula Medicaid Reimbursement tracker; PMC qualitative research on Black women’s motivations for doula support (Drexel WHEP); PMC feasibility study — doula-clinician collaboration models.

Not a brand. A blueprint. © 2026 Melanin Bliss Media LLC. All rights reserved.Melanin Bliss Media is an independent, Black woman-led digital journalism outlet. This piece was published during Black Maternal Health Week 2026 under the theme Rooted in Justice and Joy.

But there is a different conversation that needs to happen alongside that one not instead of it. It is the conversation about what Black women are never told before something goes wrong.

Because the system’s failure is not only in the delivery room. It starts years earlier, in the OB visits where no one mentioned ovarian reserve testing, in the appointments where fibroids were noted and filed away without a conversation about what that meant for future pregnancies, in the referrals that never happened, in the options that were never named.

This is that conversation.

Our community deserves to be informed not summarized, not softened, not filtered through someone else’s lens.

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Your Ovarian Reserve and Why You Should Know Your Number

Anti-Müllerian hormone AMH is a hormone produced by follicles in your ovaries. A blood test measuring your AMH level gives your provider a rough picture of how many eggs you have remaining: your ovarian reserve. It is not a fertility sentence. It is information. And it is information that most Black women in their late 20s and 30s have never been offered or told exists.

Ovarian reserve declines with age for all women, but individual variation is significant. Some women at 38 have reserves typical of a 30-year-old. Others at 32 have reserves that signal a faster-than-expected decline. You cannot know which category you are in without the test. And you cannot make informed decisions about timing, egg freezing, or fertility treatment without knowing where you stand.

The question is not: why don’t Black women get this test? The question is: who decides which patients get this information proactively, and which patients have to ask for it themselves? Research on provider-patient communication patterns consistently shows that Black patients receive less information, are asked fewer questions, and have providers who spend less time in patient-directed conversation during appointments. The information gap is not a coincidence. It is a pattern. And the cost of that pattern is measured in time time that matters enormously in reproductive health.

→ What you can do: Ask your OB or gynecologist directly for an AMH test at your next annual visit. It is a simple blood draw. If you are between 28 and 38 and not currently planning pregnancy but want to preserve options, knowing your number is worth knowing.

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Egg Freezing Is Not Just for the Wealthy or the Uncertain

The cultural image of egg freezing in American media is almost exclusively white, professional, and affluent a woman in her late 30s who has not found the right partner yet, buying herself time. That image has done significant damage to who feels like egg freezing is for them.

But there is another group of women for whom egg freezing is not about uncertainty it is about family history.

If early menopause runs in your family, and in many Black families it does, the window for egg freezing is not a vague concept. It is a real and finite timeline that can be anticipated and planned for. Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI), or early menopause before age 40 is a diagnosis that ends natural conception options and one that many women do not know is in their genetic history until they are already experiencing it.

Black women make up only 7% of egg freezing patients in cities where they represent nearly a third of the population even in areas with insurance coverage available. The two barriers most commonly identified are cultural beliefs and simply not knowing the option existed. That is an information failure with a direct reproductive consequence.

Egg freezing is not a guarantee. Success rates vary by age at the time of freezing, number of eggs retrieved, and fertility clinic quality. But the conversation the one where a provider explains what it is, what it costs, what it can and cannot do, and whether your personal or family history makes it worth considering is a conversation Black women deserve to be offered, not one they should have to stumble into on their own.

Fibroids: The Diagnosis That Often Comes Without a Full Conversation

Black women are two to three times more likely to develop uterine fibroids than white women, develop them earlier, and experience more severe symptoms. This is widely reported. What is less reported is what happens after the diagnosis.

Many Black women are told they have fibroids and handed a pamphlet. What they are not always told: whether the location, number, or size of their fibroids is likely to affect their ability to conceive. Whether watchful waiting is appropriate for their specific situation. What the difference is between a myomectomy, embolization, and other treatment options and which preserves fertility and which may compromise it. Whether they should be followed by a specialist, and what timeline is appropriate for reassessment.

The fibroid diagnosis is often delivered as if it is the end of the conversation, when it is actually the beginning of several conversations that directly shape reproductive outcomes. Black women deserve providers who have all of those conversations, not just the one that ends with a brochure.

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Pregnancy Over 40: The Full Picture

The rise in pregnancies among women over 40 is real and it represents something meaningful women making intentional decisions about their bodies and their timelines on their own terms. That deserves to be celebrated without qualification.

It also deserves to be entered with complete information.

Pregnancy after 40 carries increased risks for all women: higher rates of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, preterm birth, and chromosomal differences. For Black women, those risks are compounded by preexisting disparities. Black women already experience higher rates of hypertension, heart failure, and peripartum cardiomyopathy than white women. Preeclampsia is significantly more common among U.S.-born Black women, and a history of preeclampsia is associated with a 66% increased long-term risk of stroke a link that is especially pronounced in Black women.

Black women 40 and older face severe maternal morbidity rates 104% higher than white women in the same age group. That is not a reason not to pursue pregnancy. It is a reason to pursue it with a provider who takes those risks seriously, monitors accordingly, and does not dismiss symptoms that warrant attention.

The medical term for pregnancy after 35 is “advanced maternal age.” It has also been called, colloquially, a “geriatric pregnancy” a term that is both clinically useless and culturally harmful, particularly for Black women who have spent years being told their biological clock was running out. What the term should signal is: this patient may benefit from additional monitoring and specialist involvement. What it should never mean is: this patient’s concerns about her body are less credible.

→ What you can do: If you are over 35 and pregnant or planning to be, ask specifically about being referred to a maternal-fetal medicine specialist for a consultation, regardless of whether you have been labeled high-risk. Ask about your blood pressure baseline and preeclampsia monitoring protocol. Ask what the follow-up plan is if you develop any symptoms during or after pregnancy. Ask these questions before you need to.

Mental Health Is Not a Side Note

Nearly 60% of Black mothers receive no mental health support during prenatal or postnatal care. This is not because Black women do not experience prenatal depression, postpartum depression, or pregnancy-related anxiety they do, at significant rates. It is because the screening, the referral, and the follow-through are not being applied equally.

Black women who experience racism in the year before delivery have significantly higher odds of depression during pregnancy. Women who experienced dismissal, skepticism, or loss of autonomy during hospital births a pattern documented disproportionately in Black women’s accounts are carrying that experience into their postpartum recovery. The mental health story is not separate from the maternal health story. It is the same story with a different entry point.

A provider asking once on a screening form whether you feel sad is not mental health care. A referral to a therapist who has experience with pregnancy-related grief, fertility treatment, or postpartum adjustment preferably someone who is Black or has demonstrated cultural competency with Black patients is a different thing entirely. Black women deserve the second version, not just the form.

What Informed Care Actually Looks Like

The reproductive information Black women deserve is not complicated. It does not require a revolution. It requires providers who have full conversations instead of partial ones, who offer proactive screening instead of reactive responses, and who treat Black women as the primary experts on their own bodies.

It requires a healthcare system that understands that when a Black woman says something is wrong, the correct response is to investigate not to document her concern with skeptical language and send her home.

It requires community spaces like this one where the full picture gets spoken out loud, where egg freezing and AMH testing and fibroid treatment options and preeclampsia risk are discussed not as medical jargon but as information that belongs to the women whose lives they shape and it requires Black women to know, going into every appointment, that they are allowed to ask every question on this page. That they do not need permission to request a referral, a test, a follow-up call, a second opinion, or a provider who will listen.

You do not have to be a medical professional to advocate for yourself in a medical system. You just have to know that the information exists and that you are entitled to it.

Black and Brown communities have always been the last to receive information and the first to feel the consequences. We are changing that

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SOURCES:

NPR / birth rate crossover: https://www.npr.org/2025/12/17/nx-s1-5635167/the-u-s-birth-rate-is-on-the-decline-but-not-for-women-40-and-older

TIME / Guttmacher teen birth rate: https://time.com/88665/teen-pregnancy-rate-drops-guttmacher-institute/

OJJDP population stats: https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/population/qa01302.asp

Essence — Career vs. Motherhood: https://www.essence.com/news/money-career/career-vs-motherhood-black-women-family-planning/

National Partnership — Black Maternal Health: https://nationalpartnership.org/report/black-womens-maternal-health/

CDC Vital Statistics Rapid Release: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr038.pdf

Policy Center MMH — Mortality: https://policycentermmh.org/maternal-mortality-in-the-u-s-a-declining-trend-with-persistent-racial-disparities-in-the-black-population/

PMC — Morbidity 104% disparity: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6082383/

PMC — Preeclampsia / stroke risk: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10919377/

Loma Linda Fertility — miscarriage recovery: https://lomalindafertility.com/pregnancy-following-miscarriage/

CoFertility — egg freezing + Black women: https://www.cofertility.com/freeze-learn/what-black-women-should-know-about-egg-freezing

Fight Chronic Disease — fibroids: https://www.fightchronicdisease.org/post/addressing-maternal-health-challenges-for-black-women-imperative-to-fight-against-chronic-disease

CDC — Women’s Health / provider communication: https://www.cdc.gov/womens-health/features/maternal-mortality.html

Policy Center MMH — Mental Health Brief: https://policycentermmh.org/black-maternal-mental-health-issue-brief/

ScienceDirect — racism + prenatal depression: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667321525000149

MadameNoire — Black motherhood after 40: https://madamenoire.com/1438424/rise-of-black-motherhood-after-40/

Melanin Bliss Media is an independent, Black woman-led digital journalism outlet. This piece was published during Black Maternal Health Week 2026 under the theme Rooted in Justice and Joy. If you found this piece useful, share it with someone who needed it earlier.

Not a brand. A blueprint. 🖤

In 2023, for the first time in recorded American history, women over 40 gave birth at higher rates than teenage girls. The crossover was quiet. There was no ceremony. Most people read the headline and kept scrolling. But for Black women of a certain age and a certain upbringing, that number lands differently. It lands like confirmation. Like receipts.

Like: we told you so.

Where I Come From

I grew up in South Central, Los Angeles during the crack era and the gang violence years the 1980s and early 1990s in a world where teen motherhood was not an anomaly. It was the water.

My mother had me at 15. My grandmother was a teen mother. My aunt was a teen mother. My older cousins were teen mothers. My mother’s closest friends were teen mothers. The women in my family did not make announcements about it. It was just what happened when you were young and poor and there was a lot of chaos and not a lot of futures that felt available to you.

In 1990, the teen birth rate for Black girls was 223.8 per 1,000 nearly three times higher than the rate for white teens. That was not a statistic my neighborhood knew. It was just a life. It was block after block of young women with babies on their hips, still children themselves, trying to figure out how to become mothers before they had finished becoming people.

I watched it. I absorbed it and somewhere around middle school I decided, with no framework for what that decision really meant, that I was not going to do that.

My mother who had dropped out of school herself made that decision very clear: a high school diploma was not negotiable in her house. And if I came home pregnant, she told me without softening it, I would be outside.

I believed her and I was terrified.

The Generation That Stretched the Timeline

The shift did not happen all at once. It happened in individual women making individual choices, often without community permission or cultural language for what they were doing.

My aunt Courtney had her child at 26 a small rebellion against the timeline she had grown up watching. My cousin Porschia had hers at 26, then had her second at 36. A decade apart. Two different chapters of the same life. No one called those a statement. But together, across thousands of families like mine, they were.

Between 1990 and 2020, the teen birth rate for Black girls fell by 87 percent. That decline is one of the most significant and underreported public health shifts of the last three decades. It did not happen because of a policy. It happened because a generation of Black girls daughters of teen moms, daughters of survival quietly decided they had more time than their mothers were told they had.

The average age of first-time Black mothers is now 25. A generation ago it was a teenager. That is not a footnote. That is a transformation.

What Being “Too Late” Cost Women

But the story is not only a triumph, and it would be dishonest to tell it like one.

Because while Black women were pushing back on the pressure to be pregnant by 25, there was no corresponding cultural or medical support telling them what the new timeline actually required. No one sat down with a young Black woman at 29 or 33 and said: here is what your reproductive health looks like right now, here are your options, here is what you need to know before you decide.

The old message was: have children young or you will regret it. The replacement message was largely silence.

So women waited for the right partner, the right income, the right stability, the right sense of self and many of them found out far too late about ovarian reserve testing, about egg freezing, about what happens to fertility in the years between 30 and 40. They found out about fibroids when fibroids had already complicated their options. They found out about PCOS when PCOS had already affected their cycles for years without a name.

57% of working mothers delayed having children for their careers, and 76% were explicitly told by employers or mentors to wait until they were more professionally established. For Black women navigating workplaces that already demanded twice the output for half the recognition, that advice landed harder. The postponement was not a luxury it was often the price of survival in a workforce that made it very clear that motherhood and ambition were not designed to coexist.

Nearly 70% of Black mothers are their family’s primary or sole breadwinners. Motherhood for Black women has never been just personal. It has always been economic. It has always been structural. The decision of when has always carried consequences that white women’s lifestyle coverage of egg freezing and “geriatric pregnancy” does not come close to capturing.

What Happened When We Turned 35

And then something shifted in the culture.

Janet Jackson had her first child at 50. Gabrielle Union had her daughter via surrogate at 46 and has been vocal about her fertility journey. Halle Berry gave birth to her son at 41 and her daughter at 47. Black celebrity women educated, established, partnered or not began appearing in public as visibly, joyfully pregnant at ages that the generation before had been told were too late.

This mattered in ways that are difficult to fully quantify. Visibility is not medical care. But for women who had been told by culture, family, and sometimes their own doctors that the window was closing, watching other Black women carry healthy pregnancies in their late 30s and 40s was information. It was proof. It moved what felt possible.

What the celebrity stories did not often include and what MB will tell you is the full picture. The IVF rounds. The egg freezing decisions made years earlier. The miscarriages that happened before the baby that made headlines. The monitoring, the specialist teams, the financial resources that made those outcomes possible. That context is not meant to diminish what those women did. It is meant to make sure that Black women who cannot afford what those women could afford still have access to the truth about their options.

What the Numbers Say Right Now

From 2013 to 2023, there was a 40% increase in births among women aged 40 to 44. In 2024, the birth rate for that age group rose again up to 12.8 births per 1,000 women, the highest recorded rate for that group. Overall U.S. birth rates are declining. The only group where they are rising is women over 40.

But the full truth also includes this: women 40 and older face a maternal mortality rate of 59.8 deaths per 100,000 live births nearly five times the rate of women under 25. And Black women 40 and older face compounding risks that the headline numbers do not surface. Research shows that Black women over 40 had a severe maternal morbidity risk 104% higher than white women in the same age group. Preeclampsia rates are significantly higher for U.S.-born Black women than for their white or foreign-born counterparts, and a history of preeclampsia is associated with a 66% increased long-term risk of stroke.

The opportunity is real. The joy is real. The risk is also real, and it is not distributed equally.

What Black women over 35 are navigating is not just a personal reproductive choice. It is a personal reproductive choice made inside a healthcare system that has historically underserved them, within bodies that carry the biological toll of chronic stress and racial weathering, with access to monitoring and specialist care that varies enormously by zip code and insurance status.

That is not a reason not to try. It is a reason to go in fully informed.

What No One Handed Us

Here is what I know from talking to the women around me and living this alongside them:

Many of us did not know that miscarriage after a first pregnancy is statistically common. Many of us did not know that we could try again almost immediately after a loss, and that 85% of women go on to have successful pregnancies after one miscarriage. Many of us had never heard of anti-Müllerian hormone testing a simple blood draw that can give you a rough picture of your remaining egg reserve a test that exists and is accessible and that most Black women in their 30s have never been offered or told about.

Many of us did not know that if early menopause runs in your family, egg freezing in your early 30s is a conversation worth having with a reproductive endocrinologist not a luxury, not a last resort, but a proactive and reasonable option.

None of this information was withheld through malice in every case. Sometimes it was not withheld at all it was simply never offered. And for Black women, who already face shorter appointments, more frequent dismissal of symptoms, and less patient-directed communication in clinical encounters, “never offered” lands with particular weight.

The information gap is its own kind of structural failure. The education a Black woman deserves about her own reproductive body should not depend on which doctor she happened to get, whether she had a friend who went through fertility treatment, or whether she stumbled across the right corner of the internet at the right moment in her 30s.

On Time

My mother was a teenager when she had me. Her mother was a teenager when she had her. The women I grew up watching built their entire lives around children that arrived before they had fully arrived themselves.

I watched that. I chose differently. And for a long time, choosing differently felt like choosing against against my family, against my community, against a culture that measured womanhood in diapers and due dates and whether someone could call you a mother before you turned 30.

What that crossover number from 2023 tells me is that I was not alone in that choice, and neither was my generation. Quietly, without permission, Black women across this country looked at the timeline they had been handed and said: not yet. And then many of them on their own terms, with their own bodies, with the education and the careers and the partners or the confidence to do it alone said: now.

The babies born to women over 40 for the first time in 2023 did not arrive by accident. They arrived because a generation of Black women decided they had time. And the data, finally, has caught up to prove them right.

What we need now is a healthcare system that does the same.

Melanin Bliss Media is an independent, Black woman-led digital journalism outlet. This piece was published during Black Maternal Health Week 2026 under the theme Rooted in Justice and Joy.

Not a brand. A blueprint. 🖤

Bliss Collective,

I owe you Wednesday. I’m not going to pretend I don’t. Life moved faster than my publishing schedule this week but the news didn’t pause, and neither can we. So, today’s Brief is a little longer than usual. Consider it catch-up.

The headline I cannot get out of my head this week: the Pentagon reportedly threatened the Pope. Then the administration picked a public fight with him while he’s in Cameroon preaching against corruption and war. That’s where we are. And today also closes out Black Maternal Health Week but let me be clear: the advocacy doesn’t end at 11:59 PM tonight. It never does. Here’s what you need to know this morning let’s get into it.

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KNOWLEDGE PILLAR

AFRO PULSE | Pentagon Threatened the Pope & the Vatican Cancelled His U.S. Tour

According to reports first published by The Free Press and confirmed by independent journalist Christopher Hale, Pentagon Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby threatened Vatican Ambassador Cardinal Christophe Pierre in January, invoking the historical “Avignon papacy” a 14th-century period when French kings held the papacy captive. Vatican officials interpreted this as a veiled military threat against the Holy See. Pope Leo XIV, who had been invited to the U.S. for the nation’s 250th anniversary on July 4, will instead spend that day on Lampedusa the Italian island that serves as a primary landing point for North African migrants.

Source: The New Republic · Newsweek · Military.com · April 9, 2026

MB TAKE: The first American-born Pope is choosing refugees over Washington on America’s birthday. That is a message. Receive it.

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AFRO PULSE | Pope Leo in Cameroon: “Break the Chains of Corruption”

Pope Leo XIV arrived in Cameroon April 15 on the second leg of a 10-day Africa tour, telling leaders at the presidential palace that “the chains of corruption which disfigure authority and strip it of its credibility must be broken.” He urged “authentic democracy” as a guardrail against abuse of power widely read as a dig at both Cameroon’s 93-year-old President Paul Biya and authoritarian leaders globally. The separatist Unity Alliance announced a 3-day pause in fighting out of respect for the visit.

Source: AP · BBC · America Magazine · April 15, 2026

MB TAKE: He’s in Africa telling leaders to stop stealing from their people while Washington is trying to bully him into silence. The moral geography of this moment is clearer than the headlines let on

AFRO PULSE | GLOBAL DESK

→ U.S.–Iran war: CENTCOM says the naval blockade of Iranian ports is “fully implemented.” Inflation and fuel price pressure keep hitting Black and Brown households hardest. Black Americans also serve in the armed forces at higher rates than their share of the population these deployments fall on our families. (BBC, CBS, PBS)

→ Israel–Lebanon ceasefire: A 10-day ceasefire is holding; displaced Lebanese residents have started returning home, though many fear collapse. (Reuters)

→ Cameroon: Pope Leo visited Bamenda, a conflict region where English-speaking separatists have fought the government since 2017. Separatists paused fighting for 3 days in respect for the visit. (AP, Vatican News, Al Jazeera)

MB TAKE: The diaspora is not separate from us. When Africa burns, when the Caribbean floods, when war hits the Gulf it comes home.

BLUEPRINT POLITICS | Supreme Court Signals Skepticism on Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order [DEVELOPING]

The Supreme Court heard arguments on President Trump’s executive order seeking to deny automatic citizenship to some children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents, and several justices including conservatives signaled skepticism. No ruling yet. The 14th Amendment was written after the Civil War to undo Dred Scott and secure citizenship for formerly enslaved Black people and their descendants a history the administration is trying to rewrite in real time.

Source: NPR · April 1, 2026 (arguments); decision pending

MB TAKE: This isn’t just an “immigration” case. It’s the 14th Amendment on the table. And the 14th was ours first.

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HUSTLE PILLAR

FOR THE MOVEMENT | House Votes to Extend TPS for Haitians Defying Trump

The U.S. House voted to extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitians against the White House’s push to let protections expire. The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation notes that more than 300,000 Haitian nationals were at risk of arrest or deportation under the planned expiration. The extension buys time it does not settle the fight.

Source: Reuters · Congressional Black Caucus Foundation · April 2026

MB TAKE: Black immigrants are not a bargaining chip. Every Haitian under TPS is someone’s mother, cousin, neighbor. Remember that when the next vote comes.

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MELANIN MONEY | National Urban League: “Black America Is Already In a Recession”

The National Urban League released an analysis April 16 arguing that Black America is already in a recession, citing Black unemployment rising to 8.3% by November 2025 and Black homeownership falling to 43.9% in early 2025. Experts quoted link the trend to policy rollbacks the same FY 2027 budget we covered on April 6 and weakened civil rights enforcement.

Source: National Urban League · April 16, 2026 · nul.org

MB TAKE: “The economy is fine” depends entirely on who they’re talking about. It’s never been us.

THE MB ASK: If Black unemployment at 8.3% and homeownership at 43.9% isn’t a recession to them what number would be?

MB FACTS CHECK │ ASHLEE JENAE CASE

The case of Ashley Robinson known online as Ashlee Jenae, the 31-year-old Black influencer who died April 9 in Zanzibar has become a magnet for misinformation. Here is what is confirmed and what is false as of this morning:

❌ FALSE OR UNVERIFIED

• “Joe McCann has been charged with murder”

  FALSE. No charges.

• “The cause of death has been confirmed”

  FALSE. Autopsy pending.

• “A hotel staffer leaked the full story”

  UNVERIFIED No mainstream outlet has corroborated.

• “Joe Budden was romantically linked to Ashlee”

  UNVERIFIED gossip, unconnected to the investigation.

• “She was engaged in Zanzibar” MISLEADING.

  Engagement happened at Serval Wildlife in Kilimanjaro

  ---

✅ CONFIRMED

• She died April 9 at the Zuri Zanzibar resort after being found unresponsive in her villa.

• She and fiancé Joe McCann had an argument; hotel staff separated them before her death.

• McCann is being questioned as a witness — NOT charged. His passport is being held by Zanzibar authorities.

• Autopsy and toxicology results are still pending.

• Her family strongly disputes the suicide framing police have floated and has traveled to D.C. to pressure the State Department

Source: ABC News · CBS News · People · Newsweek · AOL · Cosmopolitan UK · April 2026

MB TAKE: A Black woman is dead in a foreign country and her family is still fighting for answers. Protect the story. Protect the family. Stop sharing the gossip.

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HEART | BLACK MATERNAL HEALTH WEEK CLOSES TODAY

Today is the last day of Black Maternal Health Week. MB’s full special edition is coming but before the week closes, I need to say something the data alone cannot:

Advocacy for Black maternal health doesn’t end tonight and the disparities are not always death.

Death is the headline. But for every Black mother who loses her life, there are thousands who are dismissed, under-medicated, discharged too early, ignored about their pain, denied breastfeeding support, written off as “non-compliant,” or sent home with a diagnosis that turned out to be wrong. Survival is not the same as being served.

WHAT THE DATA SAYS

• Maternal mortality: Black non-Hispanic women 44.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2024, 3.3x the rate of white non-Hispanic women (CDC Health E-Stat 113, Feb 28, 2026).

• Severe maternal morbidity: Black women are roughly 2x more likely than white women to experience life-threatening complications that don’t end in death such as hemorrhage, eclampsia, embolism, and ICU admission.

• Pain management: Research consistently shows Black women are under-treated for pain during and after childbirth.

• Mental health: Postpartum depression in Black mothers is diagnosed less often and treated less adequately than in white mothers, despite similar or higher prevalence.

  But also, and this matters, we have come a long way.

  The word “Black maternal health” was not in the national vocabulary 15 years ago. The Momnibus Act did not exist. Doula coverage under Medicaid did not exist in most states. Black Mamas Matter Alliance didn’t have the reach it has now. Serena Williams speaking publicly about almost dying after giving birth changed medical training rooms across the country. The March of Dimes didn’t have a Black maternal health program. Progress is real. It’s just incomplete.

WHAT TO KEEP DOING AFTER TODAY

• Know your rights during labor, delivery, and postpartum.

• Bring an advocate partner, doula, family member to every appointment.

• Document everything symptoms, responses from providers, timelines.

• Support Black doulas in your community; if you’re pregnant, hire one if you can.

• Donate to Black Mamas Matter Alliance (blackmamasmatter.org) or National Birth Equity Collaborative (birthequity.org).

• Follow @BlackMamasMatter, @BirthEquity, @IrthApp give honest reviews of OBs and hospitals by Black women).

• Demand your state pass full Momnibus provisions 12-month postpartum Medicaid, doula coverage, implicit bias training.

Source: CDC Health E-Stat 113 · Black Mamas Matter Alliance · National Birth Equity Collaborative · March of Dimes

MB TAKE: Be proud of the progress. Refuse to stop at it. The mothers we have not buried still deserve to be heard.

IN CLOSING…

The Pentagon threatened a Pope. The Pope is in Africa calling out corruption anyway. The Supreme Court is considering whether the 14th Amendment still means what it says. Black maternal mortality is still 3.3x. The Urban League says we’re already in a recession. A Black influencer is dead in Tanzania and her family is still fighting to be heard.

It’s a lot. It’s always a lot. But we stay in it.

Deep Memo drops tomorrow full breakdown on the Pope-Pentagon story, what it means for Black Catholics and the global South, and why Leo’s Africa message matters to us here.

See you tomorrow.

— Amber

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The Melanin Memo is published by Melanin Bliss LLC · New York, NY

This content is produced by Melanin Bliss Media LLC for informational and editorial purposes only. Health-related content is for educational awareness and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. News and political content reflects editorial perspective. All sources are credited within. Melanin Bliss Media is committed to accuracy, cultural integrity, and community-first journalism. Questions or tips: info@mbmedia.co

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Bliss Collective,

The U.S. naval blockade of Iran went live at 10 AM this morning and by the time you finish reading this, oil is already trading above $100 a barrel. That number will reach your gas pump within weeks, your grocery bill within the month. Low-income and working-class Black and Brown households who spend a higher share of income on gas and food than any other demographic will absorb this first, hardest, and longest and no targeted relief has been announced.

We are also in Day 3 of Black Maternal Health Week. FEMA just approved disaster aid for seven states while leaving requests from states with higher Black and Brown populations pending. The full picture the economic, the political, and the health is what MB is built for.

🚨 SOUNDING THE ALARM 🚨

U.S. Naval Blockade of Iran | Effective 10:00 AM EST, 04.13.2026

WHAT HAPPENED (as of 10:00 AM EST)

The United States Navy, operating as part of ‘Operation Epic Fury,’ began enforcing a naval blockade of Iranian ports and a partial blockade of the Strait of Hormuz at 10:00 AM Eastern Time this morning effective today, Monday, April 13, 2026. The blockade follows the collapse of ceasefire negotiations led by Vice President Vance on April 11–12, during which Iran refused U.S. demands to end uranium enrichment and dismantle nuclear facilities. Brent crude oil immediately surged above $102/barrel; WTI crude topped $104 a 7–9% single-day spike. U.S. wholesale gasoline prices rose 6–10% within hours. Retail pump prices are expected to spike within 2–4 weeks.

WHO IS MOST AFFECTED CENTER THE COMMUNITY

Low-income and working-class Black and Brown households spend 10–15% more of their income on gas and food than white households with comparable total income meaning every price shock hits harder and faster in our communities. Black-owned small businesses operating on thin margins face immediate exposure through rising freight and logistics costs. POC-heavy urban food desert neighborhoods where residents already travel farther for groceries face compounding food insecurity as transportation costs surge. Fertilizer and chemical costs rising 10–20% will push grocery prices up by an equivalent margin within weeks. No targeted economic relief has been announced by the federal government.

WHAT IS NOT CONFIRMED YET

The timeline and duration of the blockade are not confirmed. Whether Iran will retaliate militarily against commercial shipping is unconfirmed. Whether Congress will act to authorize or challenge the blockade is unconfirmed. Whether any emergency consumer fuel relief will be announced is unconfirmed. MB flags: some reported details about the military operation come from social media and YouTube sources — MB is tracking verified reporting from AP, Reuters, NYT, and BBC only.

WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW

Fill your gas tank this week before retail prices spike (2–4 week lag from today’s wholesale surge). If you own a small business: review your freight and supply chain contracts NOW. Lock in pricing where possible before the spike lands. Call your representative: 202-224-3121. Ask: what emergency consumer relief is coming for families hit by gas and food price increases? Follow AP, Reuters, and NPR for verified updates do not rely on social media for confirmed facts on military operations.

Iran Blockade Black Economic Impact

THE NUMBERS, PLAIN AND SPECIFIC

• Oil: Brent crude above $102/barrel; WTI above $104 as of this morning (AP, Reuters — April 13, 2026)

• Wholesale gasoline: up 6–10% within hours of blockade announcement

• National average retail gas: currently $3.82–$3.90/gallon; projected $4.50+ within 2–4 weeks

• If blockade is sustained: BMO Capital Markets projects $150 oil → $5.00–$6.00/gallon nationally; $6–$7+ in high-cost states like California and Hawaii

• Food: fertilizer and chemical costs up 10–20%, translating to grocery price increases within 4–6 weeks

• Rule of thumb: every $10 rise in oil adds approximately $0.25/gallon at the pump (EIA methodology)

THE COMMUNITY IMPACT WHY THIS HITS US HARDER

Low-income and working-class Black and Brown households spend 10–15% more of their total income on gas and food than white households at comparable total income levels, per The Grio and Economic Policy Institute research. This is not a lifestyle choice. It is the documented consequence of wage gaps, transportation deserts in Black communities, and housing segregation that placed Black and Brown families farther from employment centers and grocery stores. The consequences of the Iran blockade will compound existing economic pressures that were already acute: the tariff environment started in early 2026 had already begun elevating prices on manufactured goods. Now add oil above $100. The Grio has specifically documented the risk of what economists are calling a ‘Black recession’ with unemployment and homeownership rates in Black communities already under pressure from the existing tariff-driven slow down before today’s announcement. Black-owned small businesses which already operate on thinner margins than comparable white-owned businesses due to documented lending disparities face direct exposure through freight cost increases across every supply chain. Food service, retail, transportation, distribution: all of these sectors are exposed immediately.

WHAT IS NOT BEING DONE AND WHO TO CALL

As of this morning, no targeted economic relief program for low-income households has been announced to offset the gas and food price increases this blockade will generate. No emergency expansion of SNAP benefits. No fuel assistance supplement. No small business emergency loan program. Nothing. Congress has the power to act. The administration can direct emergency energy assistance through existing programs. None of that has happened.

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Bliss Collective,

Monday mornings hit different when the weekend gave you no rest. Between tariff escalations that are quietly gutting Black and Brown household budgets, thousands of Haitian immigrants still in legal limbo as their TPS cases head to the Supreme Court, and a Coachella stage that actually put our culture front and center — this weekend was loud. I was watching all of it. And so were you.

The weight of that is real. None of these headlines are abstract — they are grocery prices, they are family members’ immigration cases, they are whether our stories get told on the world’s biggest stages.

Here’s what you need to know this morning, Bliss Collective, Let’s get into it.

— Amber McClendon

WEEKEND RECAP — April 10–12, 2026

The Tariff Wall Just Got Higher + Black & Brown Families Are Paying the Price

The Trump administration’s escalating tariff war intensified over the weekend, with the administration signaling no rollback on sweeping import duties that economists at the Urban Institute and Economic Policy Institute warn will disproportionately increase costs for lower- and middle-income households a category that over-represents Black and Latino families. Goods from food packaging to electronics to clothing are affected. While wealthy households have asset buffers, working-class families absorb the full cost through higher prices at checkout. There is no tariff exemption for Black and Brown grocery runs.

Source: AP, Reuters April 11–12, 2026 | Urban Institute, Economic Policy Institute (ongoing analysis)

MB TAKE: Every tariff announcement is framed as ‘America first.’ What they never say is whose America pays first.

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Haitian TPS Heads to the Supreme Court Thousands of Lives in Legal Limbo

The Trump administration’s February 2026 termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitian nationals is now heading toward the Supreme Court as lower court battles continue. Thousands of Haitian immigrants — many with U.S.-born children, stable jobs, and deep community roots — face an uncertain future under the looming threat of deportation. ICE enforcement activity has already spiked in communities with large Haitian populations, creating a climate of fear that extends far beyond those directly affected by TPS. This is not an immigration abstract. This is our people.

Source: Reuters, AP, CBCFInc April 10–12, 2026

MB TAKE: Ending TPS for Haiti in the middle of a humanitarian crisis is not a policy decision. It is a political one. And our community is the target.

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Africa Moves: Rwanda Locks $250M IMF Deal, Somalia Eyes Offshore Oil, Benin at the Ballot

Three major developments emerged from the African continent over the weekend. Rwanda secured a $250 million IMF program to stabilize its economy amid fuel and fertilizer cost pressures tied to global conflict. Somalia moved forward with plans for its first-ever offshore oil drilling operation, partnering with Turkey in a move that could redefine its economic trajectory. Benin held presidential elections against a backdrop of regional security threats underscoring the fragile balance between economic progress and stability across West Africa. The African diaspora in America is connected to each of these stories by family, by blood, and by the global flows of capital that shape life on both sides of the Atlantic.

Source: The Africa Brief — April 10–12, 2026

MB TAKE: The continent is not waiting. Africa is making moves and MB will be here to report every one of them.

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Da Black Dollar / Melanin Money | The E3 Expo Put Black & Brown Business Owners in the Room Where It Happens

The Economic Empowerment Expo (E3) 2026, hosted by Harmony CDC, wrapped up its three-day run April 10–12 in Dallas, TX, centering financial literacy, entrepreneurship education, and direct funding access for Black and Brown business owners. In a national climate where DEI funding is under attack and SBA lending to minority entrepreneurs continues to face structural barriers, events like E3 function as critical infrastructure filling the gap left by institutions that were never built with us in mind. MB tracked the Expo’s programming: the focus on generational wealth building, credit repair, and investor pitch preparation reflects exactly the kind of community-first economic infrastructure that no executive order can legislate away.

Source: Harmony CDC / E3 2026 official programming, April 10–12, 2026

MB TAKE: While Washington argues about which tax brackets get relief, Black and Brown entrepreneurs are building the receipts on their own terms

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Karol G Makes History at Coachella: The First Latina to Headline

Coachella 2026 opened April 10 in Indio, California, and the headline that mattered most for our culture: Colombian artist Karol G became the first Latina headliner in the festival’s history. Sharing the bill with Sabrina Carpenter and Justin Bieber, Karol G’s set was a declaration — not just a performance. Latinx representation at the top of mainstream festival culture is not a gift; it is a demand that was finally answered. For a festival that has historically centered whiteness at the top of its lineups, this is a structural shift in who gets to define what mainstream sounds like. MB sees this not as a celebrity story, but as a creative economy story.

Source: Vanity Fair, Billboard, multiple entertainment outlets — April 10, 2026

MB TAKE: One headliner does not fix an industry. But one headliner can change what the next generation believes is possible.

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The Mistrust Is the Symptom: Medical Racism and What It Costs Us

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel opinion published April 10 laid bare what the MB community has known for generations: medical mistrust among Black patients is not irrational paranoia it is a documented, rational response to documented, ongoing racism in healthcare. The piece called on providers and health systems to actively earn trust through structural change, not just cultural competency trainings. With 15+ years in healthcare administration, MB’s founder has watched institutions pay for the optics of equity while maintaining the architecture of inequity. The Deep Memo today goes further on this and what the Medicaid fight means for Black patients right now.

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Opinion — April 10, 2026

MB TAKE: When Black patients don’t trust the system, it is because the system earned that distrust. The burden of proof is on the institution, not the patient.

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CARICOM Nations Rush Aid to Cuba as U.S. Tensions Rise and Crisis Deepens

Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations, led by St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Terrance Drew, moved urgently around April 10 to deliver humanitarian aid to Cuba amid worsening economic conditions and energy shortages. The move comes as U.S.-Cuba tensions remain elevated, with the U.S. reportedly deploying a naval destroyer to the region. An Al Jazeera opinion piece published April 13 contextualizes Cuba’s history of sending doctors to African and Caribbean nations a legacy of solidarity that sits in direct tension with current U.S. policy posture. For the African diaspora, these tensions are not geopolitical abstractions. They are the lived reality of Black and Brown nations navigating U.S. power with minimal international protection.

Source: Caribbean Today, Al Jazeera (opinion) — April 10–13, 2026

MB TAKE: CARICOM acting where the U.S. will not. That’s the story. That’s the receipt.

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In Closing…

We stay informed so they cannot keep us in the dark. The Deep Memo drops in later today we go inside the Medicaid fight and what medical mistrust actually costs Black patients in dollars, outcomes, and a special black mothers awareness week issue, so Don’t miss it.

See you in the Deep Memo…

Amber

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MELANIN BLISS LLC · Heart · Hustle · Culture · Knowledge

“The only difference is the zip code and the cost. For Black and Brown patients, that difference is not inconvenience. It is financial ruin.”

KEY FINDINGS AT A GLANCE

• CMS published the most sweeping hospital price transparency enforcement rules in history effective April 1, 2026

• Hospital price transparency compliance data pulled directly from CMS machine-readable files across 14 hospitals

• Named hospitals with documented price disparities, billing irregularities, and CMS enforcement actions

• Why zip code not diagnosis determines how much a Black patient pays for the same procedure

• What to do right now if you have been overbilled, overcharged, or denied transparent pricing

• The Medicaid crisis layered on top the double punishment for communities already underserved

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THE LAW THAT KEEPS BEING IGNORED

On January 1, 2021, the federal government made something absolutely clear: every hospital in America must publicly post their prices. Not buried in a PDF. Not locked behind a login. Machine-readable, Accessible, Comparable. The rule? CMS Hospital Price Transparency was designed so that a patient in Watts, California could look up what a C-section costs at Cedars-Sinai the same way someone in Beverly Hills does. The same procedure. The same surgeon. The same city. Different bill, NOT different zip code.

That was five years ago. As of April 1, 2026 the date new enforcement rules took effect hundreds of hospitals are still playing games with your money. Still hiding prices in technical formatting tricks. Still encoding nine 9s ($999,999,999) as placeholder data where real numbers should go. Still charging patients wildly different rates for the identical procedure depending on their insurance, their zip code, and frankly, their race.

MB pulled the machine-readable files directly from CMS public enforcement data. We compared charges across 14 hospitals in Los Angeles, New York, and the South. What we found is not surprising it is infuriating and it is documented.

THE PROOF | HOSPITALS DOCUMENTED DISPARITIES

**** Hospital | City | CMS Status | Key Finding | Penalty
Jackson Memorial Hospital Miami, FL — Civil Monetary Penalty | 550+ beds; 147 days noncompliant; no MRF published | $871,122

Arkansas Methodist Medical Center, Paragould, AR — Civil Monetary Penalty | No root locator file, no affirmation statement, data not updated annually | $309,738

Bucktail Medical Center, Renovo, PA — Civil Monetary Penalty | No MRF, no shoppable services display, no footer link | $75,582

MLK JR. Community Hospital Watts, CA — MB comparative (CMS MRF) | CT head scan: $2,520 vs Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Beverly Hills, CA — $8,200+ | Monitoring

BronxCare Health System, Bronx, NY — MB comparative (CMS MRF) | CT head scan: $14,330 vs NYU Langone: $389 — same billing code | Monitoring

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA — MB comparative (CMS MRF) | Laparoscopic appendectomy ceiling: $57,207 gross charge | Monitoring

East Harlem Hospital (NYC H+H) New York, NY — MB comparative (CMS MRF) | 42-67% poverty neighborhood; vaginal delivery: $1,000 vs $9,900 at Lenox Hill | Monitoring

NYU Langone Health, New York, NY — MB comparative (CMS MRF) | Psychotherapy: $389 vs equivalent community facility: $200 | Monitoring

WHY THIS MATTERS TO US SPECIFICALLY

This is not an abstract policy debate. This is your grandmother who went to the community hospital in the South Bronx because that was the closest option — and received a bill for a CT scan that was 36 times higher than what a patient with better insurance at NYU Langone would have paid using the exact same billing code. That is not a mistake. That is a system.

Hospital price opacity has never hurt everyone equally. It has always fallen hardest on communities of color communities where patients are more likely to be uninsured or underinsured, more likely to rely on emergency care because they lack a primary care physician, and more likely to be in a hospital service area that serves a majority Black and Brown population.

The USC Center for Health Journalism documented in 2024 what MB’s own data confirms: hospital price non-transparency disproportionately affects Black patients who cannot comparison shop, cannot negotiate, and are given no information until a bill arrives months later.

"Hospitals charged a sample of patients 9s — $999,999,999 — where real prices were required by federal law. CMS found this in more than 90% of estimated allowed amounts reviewed. That is not a glitch. That is a choice."

The 9s trick deserves its own paragraph. CMS discovered that when hospitals were required to list their “estimated allowed amounts” the real price patients with insurance would actually pay more than 90% of amounts reviewed at a sample of hospitals were encoded as nine 9s. $999,999,999. A placeholder designed to technically comply with the requirement while rendering the data completely useless. CMS explicitly outlawed this practice in the 2026 final rule. The fact that it was widespread enough to require a regulation tells you everything about how seriously hospitals were taking your right to know what care costs.

THE NEW RULES (EFFECTIVE APRIL 1, 2026)

Actual dollar amounts required —> No more contracts expressed as percentages with no dollar figure

Median, 10th & 90th percentile allowed amounts published —> Patients can see the range of what insurers actually pay

Nine 9s ($999,999,999) explicitly banned —> Placeholder data outlawed

New attestation — hospitals must certify accuracy —> Hospital executives legally attest data is "true, accurate, and complete".

Civil monetary penalties up to $5,500/day —> 550+ bed hospital can face $871,000+ in penalties and CMS will collect.

CMS has conducted over 5,149 comprehensive compliance reviews since 2021. Of those reviewed, 65% received at least one warning notice or corrective action plan. Only 27 monetary penalties charged but those that were, were substantial. With new enforcement beginning April 1, 2026, the era of hospitals receiving warnings and walking away is closing.

THE FOLLOW-THE-MONEY ANALYSIS

Hospital price opacity is not a systems problem. It is a revenue strategy. When patients cannot compare prices, they cannot negotiate. When they cannot negotiate, they pay whatever the hospital charges.

National hospital care spending reached $1.6 trillion in 2024 a 40% share of all growth in national health spending between 2022 and 2024, per KFF analysis. A 2026 Blue Cross Blue Shield analysis found hospitals are increasingly billing for more complex care than they actually deliver “coding intensity” inflated through AI-assisted documentation. A Yale University analysis found approximately 1,300 hospital mergers over two decades concentrate market power and eliminate competition.

When the hospital in your neighborhood is the only hospital in your neighborhood, you have no leverage. That is not an accident. That is design.

MB PATIENT RIGHTS TOOLKIT

1. Every hospital is required by federal law to post prices online. Go to any hospital’s website and search “price transparency” or “standard charges.” If you cannot find it, that is a violation.

2. File a complaint directly with CMS: cms.gov/priorities/key-initiatives/hospital-price-transparency

3. Before any non-emergency procedure, ask for a Good Faith Estimate in writing. This is your legal right under the No Surprises Act.

4. Negotiate your bill AFTER care. Hospitals have charity care programs and discounted cash prices that are rarely advertised. Ask for the financial counselor, not the billing department.

5. Medical debt cannot currently be included in your credit score (2024 CFPB rule). If a collection agency threatens your credit over a hospital bill, know your rights.

6. Organizations that can help:

• Dollar For: dollarfor.org

• Patient Advocate Foundation: patientadvocate.org

• NeedyMeds: needymeds.org

  ---

MB TAKEAWAY BOX

• Your hospital is legally required to post prices. If you cannot find them, file a CMS complaint it takes 10 minutes.

• The same procedure costs wildly different amounts depending on your hospital, your insurance, and your zip code. This is documented. This is provable. This is changeable.

• CMS is now fining hospitals that hide prices. Jackson Memorial: $871,122. Arkansas Methodist: $309,738. The era of warnings without consequences is ending.

• The No Surprises Act gives you the right to a Good Faith Estimate before any non-emergency procedure. Use it every time.

• If you receive a surprise medical bill, negotiate. Hospitals have charity care and discounted cash prices they do not advertise. Ask for the financial counselor directly.

  ---

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REFERENCES

CMS Hospital Price Transparency Enforcement Data. data.cms.gov — enforcement activities and outcomes

CMS CY 2026 OPPS and ASC Final Rule — Hospital Price Transparency Policy Changes. cms.gov. November 21, 2025

Reforming Hospital Price Transparency Enforcement. Health Affairs Forefront. October 2025

CMS Civil Monetary Penalty Notices: Jackson Memorial ($871,122), Arkansas Methodist ($309,738), Bucktail Medical ($75,582). CMS Enforcement Records 2025

USC Center for Health Journalism: “The Health Divide: The Lack of Transparency on Hospital Prices Disproportionally Affects Black Patients.” February 2024

AHIP Analysis: “Analyses Find Hospitals Driving Up Health Costs with Opaque Billing Practices.” March 2026

Yale Health Care Affordability Lab: Hospital Consolidation Analysis. 2026

KFF Analysis: Hospital Care Spending Share of National Health Spending 2022-2024

CMS Hospital Price Transparency FAQs. December 2025

HHS Press Release: CMS Empowers Patients and Boosts Transparency. November 21, 2025

Executive Order 14221: Making America Healthy Again by Empowering Patients with Clear, Accurate, and Actionable Healthcare Pricing Information. February 2025

McDermott+Will+Emery: CMS Requires Hospitals to Publish More Pricing Information. September 2025

This is the Deep Memo, where we don’t just tell you what happened, we tell you why it matters, what the system doesn’t want you to see, and what you can do with what you know. Today we’re going deeper on the story I flagged in the Brief: Black maternal health, the 10-year anniversary of BMHW, and the federal dismantling happening in plain sight while the theme this year says “Rooted in Justice and Joy.” We have to hold both the joy AND the fight; Let’s get into it.

HEART PILLAR

HEALTH & WELLNESS + BLACK MENTAL HEALTH | Rooted in Justice and Joy While Washington Burns the Infrastructure

WHAT’S HAPPENING | Tomorrow, April 11, Black Maternal Health Week 2026 begins. Ten years ago, the Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA) founded this movement. This year’s theme is “Rooted in Justice and Joy” a declaration that joy itself is an act of resistance for Black mothers in a country that still loses us at rates that should be a national emergency.

Here are the numbers, verified and sourced, that you need to carry with you this week and beyond:

• In 2023, the U.S. maternal mortality rate for Black women was 50.3 per 100,000 live births while rates for white (14.5), Hispanic (12.4), and Asian (10.7) women all decreased. (CDC / Congress.gov H.Res.332)

• A December 2025 study found maternal mortality rates are three times higher in Black and Indigenous mothers than in white mothers.

• In New York City, Black non-Hispanic women are five times more likely to die of a pregnancy-associated cause than white women. (NYC Health Dept, 2026)

• In Guilford County, NC, Black infants make up 70% of the county’s infant mortality. (WHQR, Apr 9, 2026)

• In Washtenaw County, Michigan, 44% of pregnancy-related deaths among Black mothers are considered preventable. (Michigan Medicine / WEMU, 2026)

• Nationally, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the maternal mortality rate for Black women increased by 26%. (CDC)

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WHAT THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HAS DONE

While advocates mark a decade of BMHW with workshops, wellness events, and policy dialogues, the federal infrastructure that was supposed to address this crisis has been systematically dismantled:

• Most staff in the CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health have been laid off.

• Community-based maternal health grants have been halted.

• The prior White House Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis was erased.

• The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) the tool states used for DECADES to understand why women are dying was eliminated.

• The federal FY2026 budget called for eliminating CDC’s Safe Motherhood program funding entirely. (RFK Jr. has “signaled willingness” to restore it but signaling is not funding.)

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MB Healthcare Admin Lens | I spent 15+ years in healthcare administration at leading institutions in Los Angeles and New York. I’ve seen how systems work and how they fail our communities. That experience shapes everything MB investigates. I know what it means when you cut the data infrastructure. Without PRAMS, states lose the ability to track what interventions actually save lives. Without that data, maternal mortality review boards are operating blind. This is not a mistake. This is policy designed to erase the evidence of a crisis so there’s no mandate to address it.

WHAT’S HAPPENING THIS WEEK + WHAT YOU CAN DO

• NYC Health Dept events run April 11–17 across all five boroughs including Sugar Scrub/Paint & Sip, Yoga, Belly Dancing, birth justice workshops, and doula discussions. (Bronx: April 16, Tremont Action Center, 10am–1:30pm)

• NYS Dept of Health roundtable: Monday April 13 at Ancient Song Doula Services, 521 Halsey St., Brooklyn, 1pm.

• Richmond, VA: Birth in Color State of the Union on Black Maternal Health grading state + federal records on maternal health.

• Greater Washington Community Foundation + CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield: awarding up to $200K over two years to DC-area organizations working on maternal health equity.

• Visit blackmamasmatter.org for the full 2026 toolkit and local event listings.

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THE MB ANGLE: JOY IS NOT A CONSOLATION PRIZE

Here’s what I keep turning over as we head into BMHW 2026: the theme “Rooted in Justice and Joy” is an argument, not a pivot. It’s BMMA saying: we have been here for 10 years. We have grieved. We have documented. We have testified. We have organized. And we are still here. Joy is not the absence of urgency it is the claim that Black mothers deserve to survive AND to thrive. To be celebrated AND to be protected. Both at the same time.

The administration has not taken that argument seriously. But we have to. Every person in the Bliss Collective who is pregnant, postpartum, supporting a Black mother, or working in healthcare: the advocacy happening this week is for you, and you are part of it whether you attend an event or not.

BMMA Executive Director Angela D. Aina, named a 2026 TIME100 Health Honoree, said it clearly: they have spent a decade building the global Black Maternal Health Movement. 10 years of midwives, physicians, doulas, nurses, advocates, healing practitioners, and artists. They built something real. We don’t let that be erased quietly.

Sources: NYC Health Dept (Apr 9, 2026); NY State Dept of Health (Apr 8, 2026); accessHealth News (Apr 2026); Washington Informer (Apr 2026); WEMU/Michigan Medicine (Apr 10, 2026); WHQR (Apr 9, 2026); Congress.gov H.Res.332; Healthy Start Florida / BMMA

KNOWLEDGE + HUSTLE PILLARS

Afro Pulse | The Iran Ceasefire and What Nobody Is Saying to Black and Brown Americans

The ceasefire brokered by Pakistan on April 8 stopped the immediate military exchange between the U.S., Israel, and Iran. But the 2026 Iran War named Operation Epic Fury, launched February 28 has already left more than 3,400 dead in Iran (per HRANA), over 1,497 killed in Lebanon including 57 health workers, and 13 U.S. service members lost. The Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of global oil flows, has been effectively closed or disrupted since the war began, causing fuel shortages in parts of Asia and rippling economic effects globally.

Today, April 10, U.S. and Iranian delegations are scheduled to meet in Islamabad, Pakistan for peace talks. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council is calling the ceasefire a “great victory” citing that it forced the U.S. to accept Iran’s 10-point plan, including lifting sanctions, releasing Iranian assets, withdrawing U.S. forces from regional bases, and guaranteeing Iran’s right to enrich uranium. The U.S. has not confirmed all these terms.

Israel is still bombing Lebanon. Hezbollah is retaliating. Iran is accusing both the U.S. and Israel of violating the ceasefire on Day One. The Strait of Hormuz has reopened and closed again in the same 48 hours. BCA Research warns: “Fighting will ignite later this year, if not later this month.”

What this means for Black and Brown families in the U.S.:

• Gas and energy prices remain elevated the war pushed costs to their highest since Russia invaded Ukraine, and the ceasefire hasn’t fully reversed that.

• Global shipping disruptions hit goods disproportionately consumed by working-class households food, household products, clothing, electronics the same goods already hit by Trump’s tariffs.

• Pharmaceutical tariffs (up to 100% proposed on imported drugs) combine with war-inflated supply chain costs to squeeze medication access for the uninsured and underinsured a disproportionately Black and Brown population.

• The federal government shutdown in late 2025 disrupted BLS data collection, meaning we have an incomplete picture of how the economic pain is actually being distributed.

Sources: Al Jazeera (Apr 8, 2026); NPR (Apr 6–8, 2026); CBS News Live Blog (Apr 8, 2026); NBC News Live Blog (Apr 9, 2026); CNBC (Apr 8, 2026); Britannica 2026 Iran War (Apr 10, 2026); CNN Tariff Tracker (Apr 2026)

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CULTURE PILLAR

For the Culture | Howard University’s Cardi B Course and What It’s Actually Saying About Black Women’s Labor

Howard University is launching a Cardi B-focused course for Fall 2026. It’s going to get think pieces written about it that miss the point entirely. Here’s the MB frame: What Howard is doing is academic legitimization of the business acumen, brand architecture, and cultural labor of a Black woman from the South Bronx who built a global empire with a degree from the school of doing-it-yourself.

Cardi B’s music rollout strategy the subject of the course is a masterclass in audience ownership, authentic marketing, and cultural timing. The fact that a course is now being built around it says two things simultaneously: (1) Black women’s intellectual and creative labor is worthy of serious academic study, and (2) it took this long for an institution to say so. Both are true. Both matter. Howard saying it matters more than most institutions saying it.

For the Bliss Collective building businesses, media brands, and community platforms: your strategy IS your scholarship. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you need permission to take your own work seriously.

Sources: BlackNews.com (Apr 2026)

FULL SOURCE CITATIONS | All claims in The Melanin Memo are sourced from the following verified, credible institutions and publications:Al JazeeraUS-Iran Ceasefire Coverage, Apr 8, 2026 | aljazeera.comNPRIran War Updates,Apr 6–8,2026 | npr.org|CBS News Live Blog Iran Ceasefire, Apr 8, 2026|cbsnews.com|NBC News Live Blog Iran Ceasefire, Apr 9, 2026 |nbcnews.com|CNBCUS-Iran Ceasefire Market Analysis, Apr 8, 2026| cnbc.com|Britannica 2026 Iran War, Updated Apr 10, 2026 | britannica.com|Tax Policy Center (Brookings/Urban)Tariff Tracker, Apr 2026 | taxpolicycenter.org|Tax FoundationTrump Tariffs Tracker, Apr 2026 | taxfoundation.org|ITEPImpact of Trump’s Tariffs | itep.org|Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) Black Households & Economy, Feb 2026 | cbpp.org|Capital B NewsBlack-Owned Businesses & Tariffs, Aug 2025 | capitalbnews.org|AFRO American NewspapersTariff Whiplash & Black Recession, Mar 2026afro.com|Sacramento ObserverTariff Whiplash, Mar 2026 | sacobserver.com|EssenceTrump Tariffs & Black Small Businesses, Mar 2026 | essence.com|NCNWHigh Cost of Tariffs for BlackBusinesses | ncnw.org|Center for American ProgressHousing & Tariffs|americanprogress.org|NYC Health DepartmentBMHW 2026 Announcement, Apr 9, 2026 | nyc.gov|NY State Dept of Health BMHW Roundtable,Apr 8 2026 | health.ny.gov|accessHealth NewsBMHW Turns 10, Apr 2026|accesshealthnews.net|Washington Informer|BMHW 10 Years, Apr 2026 | washingtoninformer.com|WEMU / Michigan MedicineBlack Maternal Health,Apr 10, 2026|wemu.org|WHQRGuilfordCounty BMHW,Apr9, 2026 |whqr.org|Congress.govH.Res.332 BlackMaternal Health Week 2025 Text |congress.gov|Black Mamas Matter Alliance BMHW 2026 Toolkit| blackmamasmatter.org|KFFMedicaid:What to Watch in 2026,Jan 2026 |kff.org|APA ServicesMedicaid Funding Cuts Update|updates.apaservices.org|Center for Medicare Advocacy OBBB Medicare Impact| medicareadvocacy.org|Medicare Rights CenterOBBB Health Cuts|medicarerights.org|UnidosUSMedicaid Cuts & Communities of Color, Mar 2025|unidosus.org| Economic Policy Institute Medicaid Cuts & POC|epi.org| CBPP Medicaid & Budget Stakes, Mar 2026 | cbpp.org|BlackNews.com Howard University Cardi B Course| blacknews.com|BlackVoteWatch.org Bills Tracker|blackvotewatch.org|CNNTariffImpactTracker,Apr2026 cnn.com|SHVS /Georgetown Medicaid Cuts State Tracking | shvs.org |Pew Research Americans and Trump Tariffs, Feb 2026|pewresearch.org

UNIVERSAL MB DISCLAIMER:The Melanin Memo is published by Melanin Bliss Media LLC. All editorial content reflects the independent investigative journalism and original commentary of Melanin Bliss Media. MB Angle pieces are original editorial commentary. Views expressed are editorial in nature. All factual claims are sourced from peer-reviewed research, credible institutions, and established news organizations. © 2026 Melanin Bliss Media LLC. All rights reserved.

@HealthBMHW2026 @RootedinJusticeandJoy @BlackMamasMatter @Health Equity @MaternalMortality @BlackWomen @BlackHealth @InvestigativeJournalism @BlackNews @BlackMedia @Medicaid @HealthcarePolicy @BlackJournalism @MelaninMemo @MelaninBlissMedia #BlissCollective #MorningBrief #DeepMemo @BlackPress

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In truth and in service, see you in the Morning Brief on Monday

Amber K. McClendon

Founder & CEO, Melanin Bliss Media LLC

New York, NY | melaninblissmedia.com

It’s Friday and the world is still on fire, but we’re still standing. This morning’s brief covers a fragile ceasefire that could collapse before you finish your coffee, a tariff economy quietly bleeding Black families dry, and a maternal health week that begins tomorrow while Washington dismantles the infrastructure that was supposed to save Black mothers’ lives. No fluff. No filler. Just what you need to walk into the weekend informed.

Let’s get into it. — Amber

TOP STORIES

Ceasefire or Curtain Call? The Iran Pause Nobody Should Trust

As of this morning, the U.S. and Iran are technically in a two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan just hours before Trump’s self-imposed deadline to “destroy Iran’s civilization.” The Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of global oil flows, is partially open again. Markets surged. Oil prices dropped below $100 a barrel for the first time in weeks.

But here’s the MB read: this is not peace. This is a pause. Israel refused to include Lebanon in the deal, striking Beirut with its largest attacks since the war began more than 250 killed, 1,160 wounded in one day. Iran accused the U.S. of violation on Day One. Ships are barely moving through Hormuz. Peace talks are scheduled to begin TODAY in Islamabad, but the trust deficit on every side is historic.

The MB Angle: Nobody in mainstream media is talking loudly enough about who’s paying for this war in their grocery bills, gas tanks, and pharmaceutical costs. Black and Brown households already disproportionately bearing the tariff burden are now also absorbing war-premium energy costs that CNN quietly noted have been at their highest since Russia invaded Ukraine. The Strait of Hormuz is not an abstract geopolitical story. It’s why your gas bill didn’t go down this month.

Sources: Al Jazeera (Apr 8, 2026); NPR (Apr 7–8, 2026); NBC News Live Blog (Apr 9, 2026); Britannica 2026 Iran War; CBS News (Apr 8, 2026)

Da Black Dollar | It’s Not a Slowdown. It’s a Black Recession.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies named it at the start of 2026: the U.S. is in a documented Black recession. Record Black unemployment. Business contraction. Federal workforce gutted and Black workers make up 18.6% of federal employees. Since January 2025, the feds have cut 277,000 jobs.

Then there are the tariffs. A year after Trump’s “Liberation Day,” the Tax Policy Center estimates the average 2026 household tariff burden at $1,050 but for the poorest fifth of Americans (incomes under $29K), the burden equals 6.2% of their entire income vs. just 1.7% for the top 1%. The Supreme Court struck down Trump’s sweeping IEEPA tariffs in February, but he immediately reinstated a 10% global tariff under a new legal authority. New York State is suing to block it.

For Black small businesses: 52% reported declining sales due to tariffs as of mid-2025 8 points above the national average. Small businesses with under 50 employees paid over $86,000 more in tariffs in just six months. A majority of Black-owned businesses have fewer than 20 employees, and businesses that size cut 62,000 jobs since January 2025. The AFRO American Newspapers called it plainly: “Tariff Whiplash and a Rising Black Recession.”

MB Healthcare Lens: Tariffs on pharmaceuticals (up to 100% proposed on patented drug imports) hit Black families doubly hard we’re overrepresented among uninsured and underinsured Americans. Higher drug costs don’t trickle down. They land directly on us.

Sources: CBPP (Feb 2026); Tax Policy Center (Apr 2026); Capital B News (Aug 2025); AFRO American Newspapers (Mar 2026); Essence (Mar 2026); Sacramento Observer (Mar 2026)

BMHW Begins. Here’s Why It Matters More Than Ever.

Black Maternal Health Week 2026 runs April 11–17, led by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance under the theme “Rooted in Justice and Joy.” This year marks 10 years of the movement. But while advocates gather, the infrastructure supporting Black maternal health is being dismantled from above.

The Trump Administration’s restructuring of HHS eliminated most CDC Division of Reproductive Health staff. Community-based maternal health grants were halted. The White House Blueprint for Addressing the Maternal Health Crisis was erased. The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System the decades-long tool states use to understand why women are dying was eliminated.

The numbers that should make you put down your coffee: Black non-Hispanic women in NYC are five times more likely to die of a pregnancy-associated cause than white women. Nationally, in 2023, Black women’s maternal mortality rate was 50.3 per 100,000 live births while the rates for white, Hispanic, and Asian women fell. The racial gap widened during the pandemic and post-pandemic trends remain deeply concerning.

The NYC Health Department announced a full week of events beginning Saturday. New York State is hosting a roundtable in Brooklyn on April 13 at Ancient Song Doula Services. But advocates warn: without the federal infrastructure, the data to know what’s working will soon disappear entirely.

Sources: NYC Health Dept (Apr 9, 2026); NY Dept of Health (Apr 8, 2026); accessHealth News (Apr 2026); Washington Informer (Apr 2026); WEMU (Apr 10, 2026); Congress.gov H.Res.332

THE MEMO — THE MB ANGLE

Medicaid Is Black America’s Safety Net. Congress Just Cut the Rope.

Here’s what you need to know and what no one is framing for us directly: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed July 4, 2025 is the largest rollback of federal healthcare support in American history. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 11.8 million people will lose Medicaid coverage directly, with another 3.1 million losing marketplace plan coverage. Health policy total: up to 17 million losing insurance.

Who carries that weight? Nearly a third of all Black Americans and a third of all Hispanic Americans rely on Medicaid for health coverage. Medicaid covers half of all children of color. More than a fourth of adults of color aged 65 and older depend on it. These aren’t abstractions they are your aunties, your cousins, your neighbors.

Starting in 2026: several provisions are now active. States cannot establish new provider taxes. Enhanced Medicaid expansion funding (previously covering 90% of expansion costs) sunsetted January 1. Work requirements of 80 hours/month begin in January 2027. States must verify eligibility every six months a bureaucratic burden designed to push people off the rolls even when they remain eligible. Arkansas already proved it: work requirements didn’t increase employment, but 1 in 4 subject to the requirement lost coverage.

What the KFF is watching: the November 2026 midterms could shift Congressional control. The ACA premium tax credit expansions expire this year. States are already cutting Medicaid ahead of federal mandates. New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have all published their own projections of the damage and the numbers are devastating.

MB Bottom Line: This is healthcare being used as a weapon. The Bliss Collective needs to know: if you or someone you love depends on Medicaid, document your coverage status NOW. Contact your state Medicaid office. Verify your eligibility. Don’t wait for a letter that tells you it’s already gone.

Sources: KFF Medicaid 2026 Watch (Jan 2026); APA Services Update; Medicare Rights Center (Jul 2025); Center for Medicare Advocacy; UnidosUS (Mar 2025); EPI Blog; CBPP Budget Stakes (Mar 2026)

THE DROP:

Harlem’s Forgotten Power: Stephanie St. Clair and the Numbers

Most people think of organized crime in Harlem as a white mob story. Wrong. In the 1920s and 30s, Stephanie St. Clair known as “Madame Queen” ran the Harlem numbers racket that employed hundreds of Black residents and generated wealth that circulated inside the community. She went to war with Dutch Schultz when he tried to take over, took her grievances to the press and to politicians, and lived to see Schultz die. She was a Black woman who built economic infrastructure under apartheid-level American conditions. If you want to talk about power — real power — look up Stephanie St. Clair. Before there was a Black Wall Street, there was Madame Queen of Harlem.

MB Note: We’re not glorifying violence. We are centering Black economic ingenuity that operated outside a system designed to exclude us. That’s not gangsterism. That’s survival made architecture.

Black Mental Health BMHW Resource for You This Weekend

Black Maternal Health Week begins tomorrow, April 11. If you or someone you love is pregnant, postpartum, or supporting a Black mother find your local BMHW events at blackmamasmatter.org. NYC events run all week across all five boroughs. Your life and hers is worth fighting for.

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION FOR THE BLISS COLLECTIVE:

If your Medicaid coverage was eliminated tomorrow do you know where to go? Do you have a plan? Reply and tell us. We’re compiling responses for a future Deep Memo on navigating healthcare in a system that keeps moving the floor.

UNIVERSAL MB DISCLAIMER:

The Melanin Memo is published by Melanin Bliss Media LLC. All editorial content reflects the independent investigative journalism and original commentary of Melanin Bliss Media. MB Angle pieces are original editorial commentary. Views expressed are editorial in nature. All factual claims are sourced from peer-reviewed research, credible institutions, and established news organizations. We do not speculate. We do not fabricate. We report and we always cite our work. © 2026 Melanin Bliss Media LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

FIND US + SPREAD THE WORD:

Instagram: @melaninblissmedia | Personal: @themelaninbliss | TikTok: @MelaninBlissMedia | Amber @themelaninbliss

Threads: @melaninblissmedia | Facebook: Melanin Bliss Media

Newsletter: melaninblissmedia.com / Substack

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Until the Deep Memo,

Amber McClendon

Founder & CEO, Melanin Bliss Media LLC

It’s National Public Health Week, April 6 through 12, 2026. The American Public Health Association has been organizing this for over 30 years, and this year’s theme is “Ready. Set. Action!” The idea behind it is simple but very true: good health doesn’t just happen. It takes systems, science, community partnerships, and people who show up every day to make it work.

Public health isn’t just medicine. It’s policy, It’s management, infectious disease aka epidemiology, biostatistics, health equity, nutrition, addiction, environment, health information, community, quality of life, it’s It’s who decides where the money goes, which hospitals stay open, and who gets left behind.

But I want to be honest with you about something. Most of the NPHW coverage you’ll see this week is going to look like wellness tips. Exercise challenges. Infographics about handwashing and that stuff matters it really does. That’s not what Melanin Bliss is going to give you.

I’m covering National Public Health Week through the lens of policy and management because that’s where the most decisions are made and that’s the lane I’m building my career in let’s get into it and you’ll see why.

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What Public Health Actually Is + Why People Get It Wrong

When most people hear “public health” they think doctors and hospitals, the CDC, or maybe somebody handing out flu shots at Walgreens. That’s healthcare and that’s not the same thing as public health.

Public health is the system that determines whether you get sick in the first place. It’s the water you drink, the air you breathe, the food that’s available in your neighborhood, the laws that decide whether your job gives you sick days, and the policies that determine whether Medicaid covers your kid or not. Here’s the difference that changed how I see everything:

Healthcare treats individuals after they’re sick. Public health creates the conditions that keep entire communities healthy or fails to.

The APHA’s focus areas for this year’s NPHW break it down into four pillars:

Government Partners: the laws and policies that create clean water, safe food, disease prevention, and emergency response. None of this happens without policy decisions. Every line in a budget is a public health decision.

Scientific Advancement: vaccines, sanitation, seatbelts, safer workplaces. Science gives us the resources. Policy decides who receives access to them.

Community Leadership: local organizations, churches, community health workers, and advocates. The people who bridge the gap between what the system offers and what communities actually need.

You Partner with Public Health: individual choices matter, but only when the conditions support them. You can’t “choose” to eat healthy when the nearest grocery store is 45 minutes away by bus.

Every single one of these pillars runs through policy and management. Someone has to write the policy. Someone has to manage the budget. Someone has to decide which neighborhoods receives resources and which don’t. That’s the work I’m interested in and it’s the work that determines health outcomes far more than any doctor’s visit.

Why Policy and Management Is My Lane.

I want to share something personal with you.

I’m going back to school later this summer to pursue a Master of Public Health in Health Policy and Management. I didn’t choose this concentration randomly. I chose it because I’ve already seen what happens when policy fails.

I am a writer, creative but I am a healthcare girlie with over 12 years beginning as a clinician now a Healthcare Administrator. I wasn’t the physicians or pharmacists but I was a true student in the system doing whatever required to give my patients top care as they deserved.

My aunt has spent over 24 years as a medical biller across UCLA, in Beverly Hills, Manhattan Beach, and Santa Monica, CA. She’s billed for some of the most high-profile doctors in the country. She’s seen the inside of the healthcare money machine in ways that most people never will.

What we both know from experience is this: the biggest problems in healthcare aren’t medical. They’re administrative. They’re policy failures. They’re management decisions that prioritize revenue over people.

When a hospital closes in a rural Black community, that’s not a medical failure. That’s a policy decision about Medicaid reimbursement rates.

When a patient gets a $4,000 surprise bill because their ER doctor was out-of-network, that’s not a medical failure. That’s a management structure designed to maximize revenue.

When only 4% of psychologists in America are Black and 63% of Black Americans say mental illness is a sign of weakness, that’s not a personal failure. That’s a public health system that never invested in reaching Black communities with the right messengers, the right services, and the right trust.

Health Policy and Management is the field that addresses all of this. It’s the intersection of how health systems are designed, funded, regulated, and held accountable. It’s the lens through which MB is covering public health not just this week, but going forward.

What This Means for MB

Let me connect this to what you can expect from us this week and beyond.

Every story I cover politics, culture, finance, mental health, or history I’m going to show you the public health thread running through it. Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

This week for NPHW, here’s what’s coming from MB:

Tomorrow: I’m breaking down hospital price transparency the new federal rules that took effect April 1, 2026, that require hospitals to post actual prices. How to find them. How to use them. How to compare what hospitals charge your neighborhood versus what they charge affluent areas. This is public health policy in action.

Thursday: Mental health and the state of the world. War. Famine. Political chaos. The weight that Black Americans specifically are carrying and the data showing that our mental health system was never built to support us. This is a public health failure driven by decades of policy neglect.

Friday: AI in healthcare. The algorithms making decisions about your care that have documented racial bias against Black patients. This is where public health meets technology and where management decisions about which tools hospitals adopt have life-or-death consequences.

Saturday: The Medicaid crisis. Nearly $1 trillion in cuts signed into law. What that means for 13.3 million Black Americans on Medicaid. Work requirements, trigger laws, eligibility redeterminations. This is the biggest public health policy story of 2026 and most people don’t understand it yet.

Sunday: A wrap-up connecting everything showing you that hospital pricing, mental health, AI, and Medicaid are all one story about who designs the systems, who manages the money, and who gets left behind.

This is public health through the lens of policy and management. This is what I studied. This is what I’ve lived and this is what Melanin Bliss is building.

Why This Matters Right Now

Here’s the moment we’re in.

National Public Health Week 2026 is happening while:

$911 billion in Medicaid cuts are now law the largest in the program’s history. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 11.8 million people will lose coverage. Many of them are Black.

Black journalists are being laid off at a rate disproportionate to their representation in newsrooms, as outlets dismantle race and culture desks.

Corporate DEI spending has collapsed the term “DEI” has dropped 98% from Fortune 100 corporate communications since 2023.

AI tools being deployed in hospitals have been shown to exhibit racial bias in diagnosis, treatment recommendations, and care prioritization.

Black maternal mortality remains 2.6 times higher than white maternal mortality.

Only 39% of Black adults with a mental illness receive treatment.

And against all of that, the APHA’s theme this year is “Ready. Set. Action!”

They’re right. The question is: who’s taking action for Black communities specifically?

The Melanin Bliss is.

Not with wellness tips, but with policy analysis. With data with the insider perspective of someone who has worked inside the system and seen where it breaks down. ith a commitment to getting the information right not first, but right.

If you’re reading this and you’re not subscribed: this is the week to change that. Hit subscribe. It’s free and over the next five days, I’m going to show you public health in a way you’ve never seen it covered in Black media.

Good health doesn’t just happen and neither does good journalism.

Ready. Set. Action.

— Amber

If this resonated with you, forward it to one person who needs it. That’s how independent media grows. And reply to this email with one word: what public health issue affects YOUR life most? I read every reply.

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Sources referenced in this article: - American Public Health Association, National Public Health Week 2026 (nphw.org) - APHA, “Ready. Set. Action!” NPHW 2026 Theme and Focus Areas - APHA, “Public Health in the Age of Deception” NPHW 2026 kickoff forum (April 7, 2026) - CMS, CY 2026 Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule (November 2025) - Congressional Budget Office, OBBBA Medicaid coverage impact estimates - National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 2021 - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health (reviewed March 2026) - Obermeyer et al., “Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations,” Science (2019) - NAACP/UnidosUS joint report on Medicaid cuts and communities of color (March 2025) - Gravity Research, “5 Findings That Defined DEI in 2025” (December 2025)

Bliss Collective,

I’ll be honest with you I almost didn’t know how to start this one. Last night, two hours before Trump’s own deadline to, in his words, “annihilate” Iran, a ceasefire was announced. Both sides are calling it a win. Meanwhile, gas is $4.14, food banks are overwhelmed, and this is also National Public Health Week which feels almost ironic when the biggest threat to our health right now is the cost of staying alive.

But here’s what I know: being informed is the first act of resistance. So let’s get into it.

This publication exists because I was tired of watching our communities absorb the consequences of decisions made in rooms they were never invited into. Subscribe free

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THE HEADLINES

KNOWLEDGE PILLAR

Afro Pulse | The U.S. and Iran Hit a 2-Week Ceasefire But 3,400+ Are Dead, the Strait Is Still a Question Mark, and Congress Is Just Now Debating Whether This War Was Even Legal?

At 6:32 PM ET last night, Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran, brokered through Pakistan’s Prime Minister Sharif, based on a 10-point proposal. The U.S. and Israel will suspend strikes; Iran will begin reopening the Strait of Hormuz under military coordination. Both sides claim victory. But here’s what’s real: more than 3,400 people are dead across the Middle East. Iran’s supreme leader was assassinated by an Israeli strike on February 28. Hospitals, mosques, and residential neighborhoods in Tehran have been hit. And Congress is only now pushing war-powers resolutions to question whether Trump had the authority to launch this campaign in the first place.

Source: Reuters, April 8, 2026; NPR, April 8, 2026; CNN, April 7, 2026; AP News, April 7, 2026

BLACK ARCHIVES: OFF THE RECORD x LEGACY OF VALOR | ONESIMUS

In 1721, an enslaved African man named Onesimus shared his knowledge of variolation an early form of inoculation practiced in Africa with Cotton Mather in Boston during a devastating smallpox outbreak. His expertise was initially dismissed because it came from African medicine. It worked. His knowledge helped save New England and laid the groundwork for modern vaccination.

Most of us never learned his name. The medical establishment built on his knowledge but erased his contribution. During National Public Health Week, MB names him: Onesimus is a reminder that today’s public health innovations still sit on the erased genius of Black people worldwide.

Source: BMCC African Heritage Project; Vital Strategies; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

RECEIPTS | The SAVE America Act Is a Poll Tax in a Pantsuit and It’s Coming for Black Elders Born Without Birth Certificates

The SAVE America Act, now in the Senate, would require proof of citizenship like a birth certificate or passport to register to vote. Twenty-one million voting-age Americans lack this documentation. The burden falls hardest on Black elders born in the Jim Crow South where home births attended by midwives were common and records were never created. One-fifth of Black Americans born in 1939–1940 were never issued a birth certificate. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has called it a modern poll tax. The bill would also eliminate most online and mail-in registration and functionally end church-based voter drives — a cornerstone of Black civic participation — because you can’t verify citizenship documents at a folding table after Sunday service.

Source: Capital B News, March 27, 2026; Essence, March 2026; NAACP LDF, April 2026; The Lens/New Orleans, April 7, 2026; Brennan Center for Justice; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

HEART PILLAR

HEALTH & WELLNESS | IT’S NATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH WEEK & THAT’S NOT A COINCIDENCE

This week (April 6–12) is National Public Health Week, led by the American Public Health Association under the theme “Ready. Set. Action!” The irony is not lost on us. This week’s daily themes cover health equity, climate resilience, healthy neighborhoods, and civic engagement and every single one of those topics is under direct assault by the stories above.

Gas prices driven by war are cutting off food access in food deserts that’s healthy neighborhoods. The SAVE Act suppresses civic participation that’s civic engagement. Hospital pricing disparities (which MB’s “The Price Is Wrong” series has been exposing) drive medical avoidance and debt in Black zip codes that IS health equity. This isn’t abstract public health theory. This is your Wednesday morning.

Source: APHA, National Public Health Week 2026; PHERN; MB “The Price Is Wrong” investigation

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HEALTH & WELLNESS x BLACK DOLLAR | $4.14 Gas. 20% Food Bank Surges. Black Families Choosing Between the Tank and the Table. This Is a Public Health Emergency

Gas prices have surged 39% since the Iran war began on February 28. In San Antonio alone, food bank demand has spiked 20% year-over-year, with families reporting they spend more on fuel than groceries. Diesel which powers every truck delivering your food jumped from $3.89 to $5.37 in two weeks. Lower-income households devote 31% of their income to transportation. And here’s the MB connection no one else is making: Black households disproportionately live in food deserts that require longer drives to reach a full-service grocery store. A 39% gas spike doesn’t just squeeze budgets it physically cuts off access to nutrition. That’s not economics. That’s a social determinant of health.

Source: KENS5 San Antonio, April 6, 2026; PBS NewsHour, March 2026; AAA, April 7, 2026; Community Solutions Ohio, April 6, 2026; Bureau of Transportation Statistics

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HUSTLE PILLAR

FOR THE GRIND | 2020’s “Racial Reckoning” Funding to Black Nonprofits Was a Photo Op New Data Confirms the Money Is Gone.

New research from Candid and ABFE reveals that corporate funding surges to Black-led nonprofits after George Floyd’s murder were largely temporary and transactional. Some organizations hired staff to manage new grants — then laid them off when the checks stopped. In Chicago, one neighborhood association saw a $7 million capital project stalled after funders said their “priorities have shifted.” Consultants working with Black nonprofits described the donations as the “most transactional gifts” they’d ever seen.

Source: Associated Press, April 7, 2026; ABC News; Candid/ABFE study, 2026

DA BLACK DOLLAR | One Year After “Liberation Day”: Trump’s Tariffs = $1,500 More Per Household + 89,000 Manufacturing Jobs Lost

April 2 marked the one-year anniversary of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. The Tax Foundation estimates they amount to the largest U.S. tax increase as a percentage of GDP since 1993. The average household is paying $1,500 more this year. Manufacturing employment dropped in 9 out of 10 months since. Food prices rose 2.8% from 2025 tariff actions alone, with economists warning peak consumer impact will hit between April and October 2026 — meaning right now. The Supreme Court struck down the broadest tariffs, but the administration is already pursuing new ones through Section 301.

Source: Tax Foundation, April 2026; NPR, April 2, 2026; Council on Foreign Relations, April 2, 2026; Axios, April 2, 2026; Tax Policy Center, April 2026

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BY THE NUMBERS | 21 MILLION

That’s how many voting-age Americans lack readily available proof of citizenship. For Black Americans born during Jim Crow, that’s not a gap in their paperwork it’s an inheritance of a system that never intended to count them in the first place. And the SAVE Act would use that inherited exclusion as a weapon.

Source: Brennan Center for Justice; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

MB SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT

Because misinformation moves faster than facts and our community deserves clarity, not chaos.

⚠️ THE CLAIM: “Trump committed war crimes and is being impeached / the 25th Amendment is being invoked.”

✅ THE TRUTH: International law experts, including former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes Stephen Rapp, have warned that Trump’s threats to target civilian infrastructure power plants, bridges, desalination facilities risk meeting the legal definition of war crimes under international humanitarian law. But as of today, no international tribunal has filed or accepted formal war crimes charges. There is legal warning, not a legal case.

Separately, there is no credible reporting that the 25th Amendment is being invoked. That process requires the vice president plus a majority of the Cabinet. It is not in motion. On impeachment: some members of Congress and Black political leaders have called Trump’s actions impeachable in principle, but no new impeachment articles tied specifically to the Iran strikes have been formally introduced.

Congress ARE debating war-powers resolutions a bipartisan effort to question whether Trump had legal authority to strike Iran without congressional approval. But war-powers votes function as political referendums, not removal mechanisms.

Source: AP News, April 2026; CNN, Feb-April 2026; NBC News, April 2026; Reuters, April 2026

SHARE THIS INSTEAD: War crimes experts are raising serious alarms about Trump’s targeting of civilian infrastructure. Congress is debating war-powers limits. No impeachment articles or 25th Amendment actions have been filed. Stay informed. Don’t spread the wish spread the facts.

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---

IN CLOSING…

Look a ceasefire was signed last night, and that matters. But the war already rewrote your gas receipt, your grocery run, and your commute. Tariffs have been bleeding us for a year. The SAVE Act is coming for our elders’ ballots. Corporate America ghosted the nonprofits they swore they’d support. And somewhere in all of this, it’s National Public Health Week and the biggest threats to our health aren’t viruses. They’re policies.

That is why The Melanin Memo exists and why I created Melanin Bliss. We don’t just report what happened. We show you the thread between the war, the gas pump, the grocery shelf, the ballot box, and the hospital bill. Nobody else is doing that. Not like this.

Share this with someone who needs to see what informed looks like. Forward this to someone who thinks the ceasefire means it’s over. Bring them into the Bliss Collective.

Find us: @melaninblissmedia on Instagram, Threads, Facebook

Share a story: info@mbmedia.co

Happy Wednesday. Stay sharp. Stay Blissed.

— Amber

P.S. This is free because access to truth should never be a privilege. No spam. No gimmicks. The Melanin Memo every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday plus investigative deep dives in between. Subscribe, share, and bring someone with you.

Melanin Bliss Media — We don’t follow the narrative. We rewrite it. 📧 info@mbmedia.co · 🌐 melaninblissmedia.com 📷 🎵 🐦 📘 🧵 ☕ @MelaninBlissMedia · 👤 @themelaninbliss

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This content is produced by Melanin Bliss Media LLC for informational and editorial purposes only. Health-related content is for educational awareness and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. News and political content reflects editorial perspective. All sources are credited within. Melanin Bliss Media is committed to accuracy, cultural integrity, and community-first journalism. Questions or tips: info@mbmedia.co

The MB Angle is original editorial commentary by Melanin Bliss Media LLC. Views expressed are editorial.

MELANIN BLISS MEDIA LLC · The Melanin Memo · Dual Newsletter System

We are not a brand. We are a blueprint.

SOURCES

• Reuters — “Trump agrees to two-week Iran ceasefire” — April 8, 2026

• NPR — “U.S. and Iran agree to 2-week ceasefire” — April 8, 2026

• CNN — Day 39 of Middle East conflict live updates — April 7, 2026

• AP News — US and Iran ceasefire live coverage — April 7, 2026

• Reuters — “Trump says US won total and complete victory” — April 8, 2026

• Reuters — “Iran rejects ceasefire / emphasizes permanent end to war” — April 6, 2026

• AP News — “War powers debate intensifies after Trump’s Iran strikes” — April 2026

• CNN — “Congress to vote on Trump’s war powers” — Feb–April 2026

• NBC News — “Trump’s Iran threats alarm war crimes experts” — April 2026

• CFR — “A Guide to Trump’s Second-Term Military Strikes” — 2026

• Al Jazeera — “Iran war: What is happening on day 38” — April 6, 2026

• Britannica — “2026 Iran War” — Updated April 2026

• AAA — National average gas price data — April 7, 2026

• KENS5 San Antonio — “Spending more on gas than groceries” — April 6, 2026

• PBS NewsHour — “Soaring gas prices and supply chain disruptions” — March 2026

• Community Solutions Ohio — “The ripple of rising gas prices” — April 6, 2026

• Bureau of Transportation Statistics — Household transportation spending data

• Associated Press — “Black-led nonprofits didn’t see lasting funding boosts” — April 7, 2026

• ABC News — AP wire coverage of Candid/ABFE study — April 7, 2026

• Capital B News — “SAVE America Act Threatens Voting Access for Older Black Americans” — March 27, 2026

• Essence — “Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester Says SAVE Act Could Restrict Millions” — March 2026

• NAACP Legal Defense Fund — “LDF Commends Senate for Stalling SAVE Act” — April 2026

• NAACP LDF — “What You Need to Know About the SAVE Act” — 2026

• The Lens/New Orleans — “Louisiana State Voting Rights Act: Why the fight can’t wait” — April 7, 2026

• Black Enterprise — “SAVE Act Could Jeopardize Voting Rights of Black Elders” — March 29, 2026

• The 19th — “SAVE Act threats driving women to mobilize” — March 2026

• Racism.org — “The SAVE America Act, Racial Justice, and the Return of the Poll Tax” — 2026

• Brennan Center for Justice — Citizenship documentation data

• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities — Birth certificate data, Black Americans born 1939–1940

• Tax Foundation — “Tracking the Impact of Trump Tariffs & Trade War” — Updated April 2026

• NPR — “Have Trump’s tariffs worked? A year after Liberation Day” — April 2, 2026

• Council on Foreign Relations — “A Year After Liberation Day” — April 2, 2026

• Axios — “Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs: impact still being felt” — April 2, 2026

• Tax Policy Center — TPC Tariff Tracker — Updated April 2026

• APHA — National Public Health Week 2026 — “Ready. Set. Action!”

• PHERN — National Public Health Week 2026 themes

• BMCC African Heritage Project — Onesimus and Black public health history

• Vital Strategies — “Black Leaders Who Paved the Way for a Healthier Future”

• Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health — “Black Public Health Heroes”

• MB “The Price Is Wrong” investigation — Melanin Bliss Media original reporting

Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington, as Jeffrey Epstein survivors, stand left. | Tom Brenner/AP

We called it.

No we’re not psychic and not because we have sources inside the West Wing (we never stepped foot inside the white house), But because we paid attention to history, to pattern, and to the most predictable man in American politics.

On April 2, 2026, Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi. Trump confirmed the move in a Truth Social post, calling Bondi “a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend” as he showed her the door saying she would transition to “a much needed and important new job in the private sector.” CBS News (she will not).

Translation: She was useful. Then she wasn’t. Now she’s gone.

This is Issue #002 of In Trump’s Orbit MB’s recurring series documenting what happens to the people who enter this president’s gravitational pull. We launched this series with Bondi as our first subject, tracking her trajectory from the moment she sat before Congress and refused to look Epstein’s survivors in the eye. Today, the story ends the way MB told you it would.

THE TRANSITION

But before we close the Bondi chapter, we need to open the one that explains everything. Because Pam Bondi isn’t the center of this story. She never was. She was a satellite. She orbited something larger, something older, something that has been shaping American power since before most of us were born.

His name was Roy Cohn. And we’ll get to him.

But first who was Pam Bondi before Trump? Because that question matters more than most people are asking right now.

Marjorie Taylor Greene learned it the hard way. The people have the true power. Loyalty to Trump will get you used, applauded, then one day without warning you’re no longer needed. Your career is a cautionary tale. Your reputation is rubble. And America doesn’t hate you anymore. It pities you.

Pity is worse. Pity means you’re not even worth the fight.

About 90% of her peers in law and politics have lost respect for Bondi. The people who once shared a bar exam, a courtroom, a law school hallway with her they’re not angry. They’re embarrassed for her. And that distance between who she was and who she became is exactly where MB begins.

PART I: APRIL 2, 2026 — THE FIRING

Trump had grown “more and more frustrated” with Bondi not because she was corrupt, but because she wasn’t corrupt enough. He didn’t think she had “executed on his vision” in the way he wanted. (NBC News)

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche Trump’s former personal criminal defense attorney was installed as acting AG. The man who once defended Trump in a criminal court is now the nation’s top law enforcement officer. Sit with that.

Trump is reportedly considering EPA Director Lee Zeldin as a permanent replacement. (CNBC)

Bondi is the second Cabinet member fired by Trump in his second term after Kristi Noem. The pattern isn’t subtle. It is the most documented pattern in modern American political history. And yet they keep coming.

PART II: WHO WAS PAM BONDI BEFORE TRUMP?

Pamela Jo Bondi was born on November 17, 1965, in Tampa, Florida. A fourth-generation Floridian, she earned a law degree from Stetson University College of Law in 1990 and was admitted to the Florida Bar on June 24, 1991. (Wikipedia)

After completing law school, she began her career as a prosecutor in the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office, where she specialized in prosecuting child abuse cases. (Miller Center)

Read that again. Child abuse cases.

She spent nearly two decades in that courtroom standing between children and the adults who harmed them. In 2010, she was elected as Florida’s 37th Attorney General, becoming the first woman to hold the position. When she took office, Florida was the pill mill capital of the United States. She cleaned it up. (Britannica)

She also championed human trafficking legislation and spearheaded the Florida Statewide Human Trafficking Council.

There is a painful irony here that is almost too heavy to name: the woman who spent her career protecting children from sexual abuse would later stand in front of Congress and refuse to apologize to the survivors of the largest documented child sex trafficking operation in American history.

She couldn’t face them. Because she couldn’t face herself.

Something happened between 2011 and now. Something dismantled everything she built. That something had a name.

PART III: THE TRANSACTION

In 2013, Bondi received scrutiny following a campaign donation from Donald Trump. Prior to the donation, Bondi had received at least 22 fraud complaints regarding Trump University. Her office announced it was considering joining a lawsuit and then, after the $25,000 donation, it did not. (Britannica)

Trump was later ordered by a New York state court to close his foundation and pay $2 million in damages for misusing it, including the illegal donation to Bondi. Neither was criminally charged.

But the transaction was complete. And Donald Trump had learned something valuable: Pam Bondi could be purchased. Not with cash directly. With access. With loyalty. With proximity to power.

By 2016, she endorsed Trump over her own state’s senator. By 2020, she was on his impeachment defense team. By 2025, she was his Attorney General confirmed 54-46, mostly along party lines.

She had traded her prosecutor’s instincts for a presidential coat of arms. For a time, it looked like the trade had paid off. It hadn’t.

PART IV: THE HEARING THAT BROKE HER

If there is a single moment that defines the Bondi era at the DOJ, it is Room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building on February 11, 2026.

Epstein survivors, dressed in white, sat directly behind Pam Bondi as she testified before the House Judiciary Committee. They wore white as a declaration. They came as witnesses to what the DOJ had done to them, again. (NBC News)

Rep. Pramila Jayapal: “I wish that you would turn around to the survivors who are standing right behind you and on a human level apologize to them for what you have done.” (CBS News)

Bondi called it “unprofessional.” Called the hearing a “circus.” She did not turn around.

At least 11 Epstein victims had not met with the DOJ at all during Bondi’s tenure.

Then came the moment that encapsulated something broader and uglier. Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont pressed Bondi on Howard Lutnick’s ties to Epstein. When Balint’s time expired, Bondi escalated: “And with this anti-Semitic culture right now, she voted against a resolution...”

Balint’s response: “Oh, do you want to go there, attorney general? Are you serious? Talking about antisemitism to a woman who lost her grandfather in the Holocaust? Really? Really?” (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

Balint’s grandfather, Leopold Bálint, was killed by the Nazis on a forced march from Mauthausen Concentration Camp in 1945. He stopped to help a fellow prisoner. He did not survive. (JTA)

Balint later described Bondi’s tactic as “weaponizing antisemitism” using “the fascist authoritarian playbook in the same way that my family was on the receiving end of those same tactics during the Nazi era.” (The Advocate)

The woman who once prosecuted child abuse cases had just been accused, by the granddaughter of a Holocaust victim, of using fascist tactics to avoid accountability for a child sex trafficking cover-up. History is rarely subtle. But it is always precise.

PART V: THE COVER-UP THAT COST HER EVERYTHING

She went from saying the Epstein client list was “on her desk,” to claiming it didn’t exist, to handing out dramatic white binders for a photo op with MAGA influencers that contained no new information. (The New Republic)

She exposed Epstein’s victims by publicly listing their names while keeping alleged perpetrators’ names redacted. Even Republicans on the House Oversight Committee agreed to subpoena Bondi over her “possible mismanagement” of the files. (CNBC)

Ghislaine Maxwell convicted in 2021 for helping Epstein recruit and abuse underage girls was quietly transferred from a federal facility in Florida to a minimum-security camp in Texas, just days after meeting with Todd Blanche. No reason was given. (CBS News)

The woman who built a career prosecuting child abuse cases ran the DOJ while the nation’s most notorious convicted child sex trafficker received a prison transfer with no explanation. MB doesn’t call this karma. We call it a pattern.

PART VI: AND THEN THERE’S THE LAW LICENSE

While Bondi sat in that hearing room while survivors in white waited for her to turn around she was also, quietly, trying to make sure no one could ever hold her legally accountable for any of it.

In June 2025, more than 70 lawyers and former judges including two former chief justices of the Florida Supreme Court and a former president of the American Bar Association filed a formal ethics complaint with the Florida Bar against Bondi, alleging violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct. (American Bar Association, January 2026)

The Florida Bar’s response? They refused to investigate. Their reasoning: she was a sitting constitutional officer. The Florida Supreme Court refused to force them to open an investigation either. (Lawyers Defending American Democracy, October 2025)

So Bondi took it further.

Her DOJ proposed a federal regulation that would have given the Attorney General the power to block any state bar investigation into any DOJ attorney indefinitely. No time limit. No end. Legal experts called it what it was: a rule designed to create a permanent class of lawyers who answer only to the president and never to the profession they swore to uphold. (Democracy Docket, March 2026; Slate, March 2026)

Congress had already said clearly through the McDade Amendment that DOJ lawyers must be held to the same ethical standards as every other attorney in their state. Bondi tried to repeal that principle by regulatory memo.

She also fired her own personal ethics adviser Joseph Tirrell, the DOJ’s top official responsible for counseling the most senior political appointees, a career lawyer with 20 years at the Department after she had already eliminated most of the oversight infrastructure around him. (American Bar Association, January 2026)

Then Trump fired her.

The moment Bondi walked out of the DOJ on April 2, 2026, the legal shield collapsed. She is no longer a constitutional officer. The Florida Bar’s only argument for delay — gone. The ethics complaints that sat frozen for over a year are now unblocked. Legal analysts across Florida are openly questioning whether the Bar can continue to delay action without undermining its own credibility. (South Florida Media, April 2026)

She was a prosecutor. She fought for victims. She specialized in child abuse cases. She built the Florida Statewide Human Trafficking Council. She once stood between children and the adults who harmed them.

She sat with her back to Epstein’s survivors and called their questions a circus.

Now the law she spent 18 years practicing is coming for her.

Trump who required her absolute loyalty, who she gave everything to fired her the night before his Iran address and had her on a plane back to Florida before he stepped to the podium. All for what, exactly?

PART VII: THE BLUEPRINT ROY COHN AND THE MONSTER HE BUILT

Most people watching Pam Bondi’s implosion see a story about one woman’s terrible choices. MB sees something much older.

Roy Marcus Cohn was born in the Bronx in 1927. He first gained fame as a prosecutor of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and as Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954. In the 1970s and 1980s, he became a prominent legal and political fixer in New York City. He represented and mentored Donald Trump during Trump’s early business career. (Wikipedia)

Cohn advised Trump to tell the Department of Justice to “go to hell” when the DOJ alleged Trump’s real estate company had discriminated against Black tenants. That was 1973. Cohn recognized something in young Trump immediately a man with money, ambition, and absolutely no ethical restraint. (History.com)

What Cohn taught Trump was a philosophy of power condensed into six rules:

1. Never apologize or admit wrongdoing

2. Always counter-attack with greater force than you received

3. Use the legal system as a weapon, not a recourse for justice

4. Manipulate the media ruthlessly

5. Never acknowledge defeat

6. Build a fortress of loyalty around yourself then discard those inside it when they are no longer useful

In his 1987 book The Art of the Deal, Trump wrote: “What I liked most about Roy Cohn was that he would do just the opposite” of “the respectable guys who made careers out of boasting about their uncompromising integrity but have absolutely no loyalty.”

Trump’s model was a man who died disbarred, disgraced, and alone. Less than six weeks before his death in 1986, Cohn was disbarred by the New York State Supreme Court on charges of unethical conduct including misusing a client’s escrowed property, lying on his bar application, and tricking a dying friend into naming him executor of his estate. He died from AIDS-related complications, insisting until the end that he was dying of liver cancer controlling the narrative to his last breath. (Britannica)

Trump was the last person to call him before he died. He did not attend the funeral.

Sound familiar?

PART VIII: THE MB VERDICT

MB doesn’t traffic in pity. But we do traffic in truth.

Pam Bondi is not a villain in a vacuum. She is the latest in a very long line of people who looked at Donald Trump saw exactly who he was and decided that proximity to his power was worth the cost of their own.

She had a career. A reputation. A law license earned through 18 years of prosecutorial work, including cases where she stood between children and the adults who hurt them.

She gave it all away. Not in a single dramatic moment. In a hundred small ones: the Trump University donation she didn’t investigate, the impeachment defense she signed onto, the Epstein files she mishandled, the survivors she refused to face, the Congresswoman whose grandfather died in a Nazi concentration camp she tried to weaponize, the ethics regulator she fired, the immunity rule she tried to write for herself. None of that made her irreplaceable. It made her expendable.

This is not the exception in Trump’s orbit. This is the rule. Kristi Noem, Michael Flynn, Bill Barr, John Kelly, Jeff Sessions, Matt Gaetz, and now Pam Bondi.

Every single one of them gave Trump something their credibility, their reputation, their silence and every single one of them were either fired, forced out, or publicly humiliated when they stopped being useful.

Roy Cohn died disbarred, having given everything to power that would not protect him.

Pam Bondi left the Justice Department fired, facing an unblocked ethics investigation that could reach her law license, having squandered a career built on protecting children for a man who called her “wonderful” on Wednesday and replaced her on Thursday.

MB said this was coming. Not because we are prescient. Because we read the blueprint.

THE ORBIT CONTINUES

Pam Bondi is Issue #002 in the In Trump’s Orbit series but she is not the most important figure in this story. She is #2.

Issue #003 is coming: Roy Cohn. The architect. The original. The man Donald Trump literally believes he has become. The man whose entire career ended in disgrace and whose student is now the President of the United States.

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See you next issue…

SOURCE LOG

Source Publication Date Bondi firing confirmed CNN April 2, 2026 Bondi firing confirmed CBS News April 2, 2026 Trump frustrations with Bondi NBC News April 2, 2026 Bondi fired Fox News Digital April 2, 2026 Bondi live updates Newsweek April 2, 2026 Zeldin as replacement CNBC April 2, 2026 Bondi Judiciary Committee hearing The Hill February 12, 2026 Feb 11 hearing live coverage CNN Politics February 11, 2026 Feb 11 hearing live blog NBC News February 11, 2026 Feb 11 hearing live updates CBS News February 11, 2026 Balint walkout / Holocaust Jewish Telegraphic Agency February 11, 2026 Balint statement The Forward February 11, 2026 Balint / fascist playbook quote The Advocate February 12, 2026 Bondi / Epstein binders The New Republic April 2, 2026 Ethics complaint against Bondi American Bar Association January 2026 DOJ / state bar regulation Democracy Docket March 4, 2026 Bondi DOJ immunity proposal Slate March 6, 2026 Disbarment risk post-firing South Florida Media April 2026 Law license analysis Florida Bulldog March 2026 Florida Bar refusal to investigate Lawyers Defending American Democracy October 2025 Pam Bondi biography Wikipedia Current Pam Bondi biography Britannica Current Roy Cohn biography Wikipedia Current Roy Cohn biography Britannica Current Roy Cohn / Trump relationship History.com Current The Art of the Deal Donald Trump 1987.

Melanin Bliss Media | The Melanin Memo Not a brand. A blueprint. *melaninblissmedia.com | @melaninblissmedia

Happy Monday! Bliss Collective,

I hope you rested this weekend because the administration certainly did not. While most of the country was off the clock, the White House dropped a new executive order targeting how we vote, released a budget proposal that cuts housing, environmental justice, and medical research, and continued its systematic effort to erase Black history from federal institutions. Three fronts. One weekend. Congress was on Spring Break.

There is also misinformation circulating in our community right now about vaccines and autism in Black children. We are correcting it in this issue with the CDC’s own data; Let’s get into it.

— AMBER

✦ WEEKEND RECAP | April 04 - 06, 2026

BLUEPRINT POLITICS | Trump Signed EO 14399 — A New Executive Order Attacking How Black Americans Vote

Trump signed Executive Order 14399, ‘Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,’ on March 31, 2026, published in the Federal Register on April 3. The order requires DHS and the SSA to send citizen eligibility lists to state election officials, directs the U.S. Postal Service to begin rulemaking on mail-in ballot handling, and mandates documentary proof of citizenship for federal voter registration forms. A federal court previously blocked this same provision when Trump attempted it in March 2025. The NAACP, ACLU, Brennan Center, and NAACP LDF are in active litigation. The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus called it ‘a voter suppression executive order based on flawed data.’ For Black voters 21% of whom lack government-issued photo ID this is not an election policy. It is a barrier.

Source: Federal Register EO 14399, April 3, 2026 · CAPAC Press Release · AILA · NAACP LDF · Brennan Center March 31–April 3, 2026

MB TAKE: They keep packaging voter suppression as election integrity. There is no documented crisis of non-citizen voting only a documented history of making it harder for Black people to vote.

DA BLACK DOLLAR | FY2027 Budget Released on April 3 and HUD Cut $10.7B, EPA Environmental Justice Eliminated, NIH Cut $5B

The Trump administration’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget, released April 3, proposes a 10% cut to non-defense programs and a 44% increase in defense spending to $1.5 trillion. HUD faces a $10.7 billion cut (13%), directly threatening public housing and Section 8 vouchers. The EPA Environmental Justice Program which specifically addresses toxic pollution in Black and Brown neighborhoods is proposed for complete elimination. NIH, which funds research into sickle cell disease, hypertension, and Black maternal mortality, faces a $5 billion cut. HUD’s Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing is also slated for elimination. On April 1, Trump said on the record: ‘We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare... It’s not possible for us to take care of Medicaid, Medicare.’ He said it out loud.

Source: NLIHC · NCSHA · Government Executive · House Budget Committee Democrats · Bloomberg Government April 3, 2026

MB TAKE: Cutting the EPA Environmental Justice Program while Black neighborhoods breathe polluted air is not a budget decision. It is a policy statement about whose lives matter.

BLACK FACTS/ RECEIPTS | The Federal Government Is Actively Erasing Black History & The Evidence Is Documented

A Poynter investigation documents the ongoing systematic removal of Black history from federal institutions. An 1863 photograph of a formerly enslaved man bearing whipping scars was removed from Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia. The Confederate statue of General Albert Pike torn down during BLM protests in 2020 was renovated and reinstalled in Washington D.C. by the National Park Service in October 2025. Interior Department gift shops were ordered to remove all DEI items. VP JD Vance was empowered to review Smithsonian programs and remove ‘improper ideology.’ Trump’s 2026 Black History Month proclamation described the month as having been ‘twisted by the progressive movement.’ Northwestern historian Leslie M. Harris: ‘No other presidential administration has interfered with these historical sites in this way before.

Source: Poynter Institute · Federal Register · CBCF Executive Order Tracker — February–April 2026

MB TAKE: Reinstalling a Confederate statue and removing evidence of enslaved survival in the same administration that proclaimed Black History Month. The record does not lie.

For the Movement | Federal Law Enforcement Being Deployed in D.C., A City That Is Over 40% Black

The CBCF Executive Order Tracker documents an executive order establishing increased federal law enforcement in Washington D.C., a majority-Black city, including measures that criminalize homelessness and restrict federal grants for organizations supporting Black families, HBCUs, and public housing. The order also expands concealed carry permits and directs immigration enforcement in the District. Civil rights advocates warn it functions as a blueprint for over-policing majority-Black urban areas under the framing of ‘safety and beautification.’

Source: CBCF Executive Order Tracker · National Low Income Housing Coalition April 1–6, 2026

MB TAKE:They call it making D.C. ‘safe and beautiful.’ The question is: safe and beautiful for whom and at whose expense.

Four stories from one weekend. A voter suppression EO. A budget that guts HUD, NIH, and EPA environmental justice. A Confederate statue reinstalled. Federal law enforcement in a majority-Black city.This is what we’re working with. Share it. Tag: @NAACP @ColorOfChange @BrennanCenter @CBCFdn @HakeemJeffries

FOLLOW US — ALL SOCIALS @MelaninBlissMedia

✦ CIRCULATING IN OUR COMMUNITY RIGHT NOW | MB IS CORRECTING IT

🚨 MB SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT

THE CLAIM: “The CDC just confirmed that vaccines cause autism. Especially in Black boys.”

THE TRUTH: This claim is FALSE. NOT disputed, not unclear, FALSE. No CDC, NIH, or peer-reviewed research confirms any link between vaccines and autism in any population. What the CDC DID confirm in its April 14, 2025 MMWR report is that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevalence is now higher among Black children (3.66 per 1,000) than white children (2.77 per 1,000). But this reflects better screening, later diagnosis, and documented disparities in access to early intervention — NOT vaccines. Black children with ASD also have higher rates of co-occurring intellectual disability (52.8%) than white children (32.7%), which researchers attribute to delayed diagnosis and systemic healthcare barriers. No CDC or NIH data identifies vaccines as a cause of higher ASD prevalence in Black boys or any other group. The original vaccine-autism claim traces to a 1998 study by Andrew Wakefield that was retracted and whose author lost his medical license for fraud.

MB VERDICT: REFUTED. Completely. By the CDC’s own published data.

What is actually happening with Black children and ASD: Black children are diagnosed with autism later, receive less access to early intervention, and face higher rates of co-occurring conditions all because of systemic healthcare barriers, not vaccines. Sharing this misinformation causes real harm by driving vaccine hesitancy in communities that already face disproportionate barriers to healthcare.

SHARE THIS: Black children are being diagnosed with autism at higher rates and the research shows this reflects better detection AND systemic healthcare barriers that delay diagnosis and limit early intervention. That is the real story. Vaccines did not do this. The system’s failure to serve Black children did.

Share

MB STAT WATCH | 3.66% Black children vs. 2.77% white children ASD (2022)

Higher ASD prevalence among Black children reflects improved screening and delayed diagnosis from systemic healthcare barriers not vaccines. Black children with ASD are 20+ points more likely to have co-occurring intellectual disability than white children due to later detection.

Source: CDC MMWR: Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network Surveillance April 14, 2025 · cdc.gov/mmwr

✦ HEART PILLAR

Health & Wellness: Black Maternal Health Week Starts Saturday April 11th — MB will be on it EVERYDAY!

Black Maternal Health Week runs April 11–17. The data anchoring it: in 2024, Black non-Hispanic women had a maternal mortality rate of 44.8 deaths per 100,000 live births more than 3.3 times the rate of white non-Hispanic women at 13.6 per 100,000. This figure, from the CDC’s Health E-Stat 113 published February 28, 2026, represents a documented crisis that the FY2027 budget which cuts NIH by $5 billion and Medicaid makes measurably worse. MB will cover Black Maternal Health Week in full, April 11 through 17.

Source: CDC Health E-Stat 113: Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2024 February 28, 2026 · cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/hestat113.pdf

MB TAKE: 3.3 times more likely to die giving life. And this week the government is cutting NIH and Medicaid while calling it fiscal responsibility.

✊🏾 WHAT THE BLISS COLLECTIVE CAN DO RIGHT NOW

→ CALL CONGRESS on EO 14399: 202-224-3121. Ask your Senator to oppose the SAVE Act, which would codify this voter suppression EO into law.

→ VERIFY YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION at vote.org before November 2026. Do not wait.

→ CHECK YOUR HUD BENEFITS at benefits.gov if you or a family member receives Section 8 or rental assistance. The FY2027 budget cuts these directly.

→ SHARE THE ASD FACT CHECK with anyone in your circle who saw the vaccine-autism claim. Do not let misinformation go unchallenged.

→ MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Black Maternal Health Week April 11–17. National Public Health Week this week, April 6–12. MB is covering all of it.

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The CDC’s data says vaccines don’t cause autism. Black children face higher ASD rates because of delayed diagnosis and healthcare barriers. That is the real story.Share this fact check. And Black Maternal Health Week starts Saturday. We will be in it every day.Tag: @CDCgov @BlackMamasMatter @NAACP @NAAMedicine

ALL SOCIALS @MelaninBlissMedia · @themelaninbliss

You need The Melanin Memo. Investigative. Sourced. Free. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

✦ HUSTLE PILLAR

Da Black Dollar / Melanin Money | FY2027 Budget: What It Means for Black Families

The FY2027 budget isn’t a proposal. It is a statement of priorities. Here is what it says:

• HUD — $10.7B CUT (13%): Public housing, Section 8, homelessness programs. Black families disproportionately rely on these. Cuts displace families.

• EPA Environmental Justice — ELIMINATED: Monitored toxic pollution in Black and Brown neighborhoods. No replacement. Gone.

• NIH — $5B CUT: Funds research into sickle cell, hypertension, and Black maternal mortality. A $5 billion cut is not fiscal prudence. It is a death sentence in slow motion.

• HUD Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing — ELIMINATED: Targeted affordable housing barriers in underserved communities. Proposed elimination.

• DEFENSE — UP 44% to $1.5 TRILLION: The same budget that eliminates environmental justice funding increases defense spending by $445 billion. The priorities are in writing.

Source: NLIHC · NCSHA · Government Executive · House Budget Committee Democrats April 3, 2026

✦ National Public Health Week (April 6–12):

NATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH WEEK STARTS TODAY AND MB IS BUILT FOR THIS EXACT MOMENT

National Public Health Week runs April 6–12 the first full week of April. This is a national call to action on the systems and policies that determine how long communities live. And this week, those systems are under direct attack: NIH is being cut $5 billion. The EPA’s Environmental Justice Program is being eliminated. Medicaid work requirements go live January 1, 2027. The food insecurity survey has been cancelled. MB covers this all week because public health IS racial justice.

APRIL AWARENESS CALENDAR:

April 6–12: National Public Health Week — MB in it every day

April 11–17: Black Maternal Health Week — MB full coverage

All April: Alcohol Awareness · Minority Health · STI Awareness · Oral Health · Autism Awareness · Sarcoidosis Awareness

IN CLOSING —

A new voter suppression order. A budget that guts housing, environmental justice, and medical research. A Confederate statue installed in Washington D.C. a piece of misinformation about our children we just corrected with the CDC’s own data. Black Maternal Health Week starts Saturday. National Public Health Week starts today. MB is in all of it. Every day. Every issue. See you in the next Brief on Wednesday.

Stay informed. Stay ready.

— Amber McClendon | Founder & CEO, Melanin Bliss Media LLC

P.S. This is free because access to truth should never be a privilege and right now, it isn’t. No spam. No gimmicks. The Melanin Memo every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday plus investigative deep dives in between. Subscribe. Share. Bring someone with you.

We don’t follow the narrative. We rewrite it. 📧 info@mbmedia.co

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Amber personally: @themelaninbliss TIKTOK. — www. melaninblissmedia.com

The Melanin Memo is published by Melanin Bliss LLC · Westchester, NY · melaninblissmedia.com

Melanin Bliss Media curates content for informational and editorial purposes. All sources are credited. Views expressed are editorial and investigative. Content does not constitute legal, financial, or medical advice. © 2026 Melanin Bliss Media LLC. All rights reserved.

We don’t follow the narrative. We rewrite it.

Let’s Get Right Into It…

✦ KNOWLEDGE PILLAR

AFRO Pulse | Iran War + U.S. Foreign Policy

🚨 IRAN WAR — DAY 34: WHERE WE ARE

The U.S. Iran war has now passed 34 days. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Iran has struck U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, injuring 20 Americans. Israel has bombed 230+ targets in Tehran and expanded into Lebanon. Trump addressed the nation on the conflict and signaled U.S. forces could exit in 2–3 weeks without conditions requiring Iran to reopen the Strait. Iran has denied any negotiations and threatened U.S. technology companies. Markets are volatile. Oil prices are unstable. And no one in Congress formally voted for this war.

📎 Sources: NPR · DW/BBC · CBS News/AP — April 1–3, 2026

Afro Pulse | A War Congress Never Voted For, the Black and Brown Communities Paying the Price

Trump launched U.S. military strikes on Iran without a formal declaration of war from Congress, bypassing the constitutional framework that requires Congressional authorization for sustained military action. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries demanded a vote. Republicans blocked it. The Strait of Hormuz closure is now driving global oil price instability which flows directly into fuel costs, food prices, and transportation costs for the working-class communities who absorb these hits first. An AP–NORC poll found most Americans believe the military action has gone too far.

📎 Source: NPR · Associated Press/NORC · CBS News — March 30–April 3, 2026

MB TAKE: This is a war Black and Brown families will pay for in gas prices, grocery bills, and body bags and nobody in the room asked them.

Senate Republicans: U.S. Senate Majority —

THE ACT: Blocked a measure that would have required Congressional authorization for the ongoing U.S. military campaign against Iran — despite no formal declaration of war from Congress.

THE CONSEQUENCE: A war that has already injured 20 U.S. service members continues without a single binding Congressional vote. The Constitution says Congress declares war. Republicans decided the Constitution doesn’t apply this time.

For The Movement | Supreme Court Is Still Weigh Whether to Erase Birthright Citizenship Using White Supremacist Arguments

The Trump administration’s case before the Supreme Court to end birthright citizenship which would affect Black non-citizens, mixed-status families, and Latinx communities is still pending. The administration’s filings lean on legal frameworks once advanced by white-supremacist organizations. Civil rights groups warn a ruling against birthright citizenship could trigger mass challenges to the citizenship status of children born in the United States to non-citizen parents, and establish a new legal architecture for denaturalization.

📎 Source: The Washington Post · ACLU · NAACP LDF March–April 2026

MB TAKE: The Supreme Court is being asked to use the legal language of white supremacists to define who counts as American. That sentence should not require a take.

The SAVE Act: Republicans Are Now Requiring Documentary Proof of Citizenship to Register to Vote

House Republicans passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act codifying Trump’s executive order requiring documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration. The Brennan Center and voting rights scholars warn this creates a new barrier disproportionately impacting Black voters, low-income voters, and communities of color who are less likely to have passports or birth certificates easily accessible. Twenty-one percent of Black Americans of voting age do not have government-issued photo ID. This is not about fraud. Documented voter fraud is statistically negligible. This is about who they want to stop.

📎 Source: CBCF Executive Order Tracker · Brennan Center for Justice March 2026

MB TAKE: Requiring documents most Black voters don’t have to vote is a poll tax. Just give it a new acronym.

MB STAT WATCH | 21% of Black voting-age Americans lack government-issued photo ID the same documentation the SAVE Act would require for voter registration. This is the target. This is the plan.

Source: Brennan Center for Justice, 2026 —Government Accountability Office

✦ MB EXCLUSIVE | STORIES MEDIA ARE NOT COVERING — BUT WE ARE

NOBODY IS REPORTING: The Survey That Measured Black Food Insecurity Was Just Cancelled by the Administration

In September 2025, the Trump administration quietly stopped the annual federal survey that measures food insecurity in America at the exact same moment tariffs were pushing food prices higher and the One Big Beautiful Bill was cutting SNAP by 20% for 4 million people. Without this survey, we lose the ability to track how many Black and Brown families are going hungry in real time. No data. No accountability. No evidence trail for the courts or advocates to use. This is not bureaucratic reshuffling. This is evidence suppression while the harm is being done.

📎 Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities September 2025

MB TAKE: They cancelled the tool that measures hunger right as they cut the food. That is not a coincidence. That is a strategy.

NOBODY IS SAYING IT, BUT WE KNOW SO: Apple Got a Tariff Exemption. Your Black Hair Salon Did Not.

When Liberation Day tariffs hit last April, Apple’s CEO lobbied the Trump administration directly and received an exemption for iPhones and select tech products. Meanwhile, Black salon owners in Georgia watched their packs of Vietnamese-imported hair jump $100 per pack, and Black coffee shop owners in majority-Black ZIP codes saw input costs rise with no exemption pathway available to them. Only 1.6% of Fortune 500 companies have Black CEOs. Large, politically connected corporations get exemptions. Black small businesses absorb the full cost. This is the tariff system working exactly as designed for the people it was designed for.

📎 Source: Capital B News · CBPP · Essence 2025–2026

MB TAKE: Apple has one Black CEO and got a tariff exemption in 2025. Black salon owners got nothing but higher prices. That is not a coincidence. That is access to power.

HEART | HEALTH & WELLNESS — NOBODY IS TRACKING: Medicaid Work Requirements Will Hit Black Children Through School-Based Services

Starting January 1, 2027, Medicaid work requirements go into effect for expansion adults. What is not being covered: 80% of public school district staff surveyed by the Healthy Schools Campaign expect layoffs of specialized instructional support personnel if Medicaid dollars are cut. Children with disabilities disproportionately Black and Brown receive Medicaid-funded services at school: speech therapy, occupational therapy, counseling, and nursing. When Medicaid is cut, those services disappear. And those children fall further behind in a system that was already not designed for them.

📎 Source: Center for American Progress · Healthy Schools Campaign · CBPP 2025–2026

MB TAKE: They cut Medicaid and called it a budget item. What they actually cut was a Black child’s speech therapist.

✦ HUSTLE PILLAR

FOR THE MOVEMENT | What's Coming & How We Take It Back

✦ DATES & DEADLINES THAT MATTER ✦

October 1, 2026: Immigrant Medicaid and CHIP eligibility narrows legal permanent residents’ only. Millions of mixed-status families and DACA recipients lose coverage.

January 1, 2027: Medicaid work requirements begin. If you are a Black Medicaid recipient not working a required number of hours, you risk losing coverage regardless of disability, caregiving, or job market conditions.

2027–2034: SNAP cuts of 20% phase in. Four million people disproportionately Black women, children, and disabled adults will lose food assistance.

2040: Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund projected insolvent under current policy trajectory. Automatic benefit cuts begin if Congress does not act.

November 2026: Every House seat and 34 Senate seats are on the ballot. This is the most consequential midterm election for Black communities in decades.

✊🏾 MB SOLUTIONS DESK | WHAT WE CAN DO

→ KNOW YOUR MEDICAID STATUS NOW | Go to benefits.gov or call your state Medicaid office. Find out if work requirements will affect you or a family member in 2027 and document your situation.

→ FIGHT THE SAVE ACT | Contact your Senator at 202-224-3121 and demand they oppose the SAVE Act in the Senate. This is a voter suppression bill dressed in bureaucratic language.

→ MIDTERM ORGANIZE NOW | NOT IN OCTOBER. November 2026 is six months away. Every House seat is up. 34 Senate seats are up. The bills that cut Medicaid, SNAP, and Medicare passed on party-line margins. Those margins can change.

→ SUPPORT BLACK INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM. Subscribe to outlets covering these stories. Share them. Donate to them. When Black media is funded, Black communities are informed. When Black communities are informed, they vote differently.

→ FILE COMPLAINTS ON DISCRIMINATION | If a federal agency denied you service, delayed your benefits, or closed an office you depend on file at usa.gov/government-agencies-complaints. Create a paper trail. Lawyers need evidence.

✦ CULTURE PILLAR

4 DA CULTURE | Black Culture Is Not Resting While the World Burns, It’s Building.

Jay-Z headlining the Roots Picnic. Black-owned businesses building alternative supply chains. Black media platforms growing subscriber bases while legacy outlets lose them. Black youth running for office at unprecedented rates for 2026. The culture is not a distraction from the political fight it is the economic and spiritual infrastructure of the fight itself. Every Black dollar spent in a Black business is a vote against tariff-driven consolidation. Every Black newsletter subscribed to is a direct investment in the only media that is telling you what is happening.

📎 Source: Roots Picnic 2026 · NAACP · MB Original Editorial Analysis April 2026

MB TAKE: They are counting on us to be exhausted. The culture says: not today.