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In Meeting with High School Students and Staff, Activist, Rapper and Entrepreneur Michael Render, pka Killer Mike Explains His, Tip ‘T.I’ Harris’ and Noel Khalil’s Vision for Bankhead Seafood

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For Immediate Release

Feb. 28, 2020

Contact: Jennifer R. Farmer, jenniferr@spotlightpr.org

In Meeting with High School Students and Staff, Activist, Rapper and Entrepreneur Michael Render, pka Killer Mike Explains His, Tip ‘T.I’ Harris’ and Noel Khalil’s Vision for Bankhead Seafood

ATLANTA, GA – As Black History Month comes to an end, three notable Atlantans are taking extraordinary strides to ensure black futures. In a press event at Frederick Douglass High School, Michael Render, pka Killer Mike, detailed his, real estate developer Noel Khalil, and actor, Grammy Award winning rapper, and serial entrepreneur Tip ‘T.I.’ Harris’ vision for reopening Bankhead Seafood.

On behalf of his co-owners, Harris and Khalil, who were unable to attend, Render paid homage to the restaurant’s original owner, Helen Harden, before making space for her to address the crowd of more than 100 people. The event was held at Frederick Douglass High School, where Render and Harris attended. Their former classmate,  Atlanta Chief Judge Asha Jackson, also attended the event and offered remarks in support of Harris and Render’s accomplishment. 

Notably, Daniel Moss, chief people person of HBCU Connection, traveled from Columbus, Ohio to mark the occasion and support the opening, by announcing scholarships for a limited number of Frederick Douglass High School students interested in attending a Historically Black College or University.

“When I was growing up, Mrs. Harden would prepare huge meals and sell them for $5 each,” said actor, activist, rapper and entrepreneur Tip “T.I.” Harris. “For people with limited financial means, this meant the difference between eating with dignity and experiencing the degradation that comes with lack. While Mrs. Harden was running a business, it was clear that she cared about the community. She is a model for the type of business owners we want to become, and a blueprint for the culture we want to have in the restaurant.”

“When you have a business owner and a restaurant with this sort of legacy, someone who ran a restaurant for fifty years, you do not let it slip away,” said activist, rapper and entrepreneur Michael Render, pka Killer Mike. “Mrs. Harden wanted the restaurant to remain in the community and it’s our duty to help her dream become a reality. The job of my generation and future generations is to pick up where our elders, people like Mrs. Harden, left off.”

While the group will break ground on the actual restaurant later this year, the food truck for the restaurant will be operational in weeks.

“We aren’t out-of-state investor with zero connection or compassion for the surrounding community,” said developer and Bankhead Seafood co-owner Noel Khalil. “We are neighbors who are not only committed to the restaurant, but to the people in it – our peers, friends, relatives and acquaintances.”

“Having grown up in the same neighborhood where the restaurant is located, we purchased Bankhead Seafood as part of a broader commitment to bring jobs and opportunity to a place many of us have long called home,” Khalil concluded.

About the Owners

Noel Khalil is a noted developer, affordable housing advocate and founder and principal of Columbia Residential, LLC.

Michael Render is an activist, Grammy Award winning rapper and businessman. He is the host of the Netflix special, “Trigger Warning with Killer Mike,” and one half of the hip hop duo, Run the Jewels.

Tip ‘T.I.’ Harris is an actor, Grammy Award winning rapper, art curator, entrepreneur, philanthropist and activist.

Internationally known and accomplished, Render and Harris have made a practice of seeking frequent counsel from civil rights leaders, neighborhood elders and businesspeople. Khalil is the duo’s long-time mentor.

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The Poor People’s Campaign: United Nations Must Address President Trump’s War Crimes

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For Immediate Release

Jan. 9, 2020

The Poor People’s Campaign: United Nations Must Address President Trump’s War Crimes

Leaders Request Meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Raleigh, NC — Following the assassination of Iran’s General Qassim Soleimani, and retaliatory ballistic missiles fired at two U.S. housing bases in Iraq, faith leaders and moral advocates today appealed to the United Nations. The faith leaders demanded the United Nations hold President Donald Trump accountable for war crimes and for violating a UN Charter. They also requested a meeting with the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. Their appeal was an effort to prevent further escalation of violence in the Middle East and in the United States.

“Indeed, these are dark and dangerous days,” said the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, executive director of the Kairos Center and national co-chair of The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. “The lives of poor and marginalized people all over the world hangs in the balance. As a pastor, a bible lover and scholar, a mother and daughter, I hold my breath as the world teeters on the brink of war. People are urging Congress to reclaim its constitutional power to determine war and peace. Communities are coming out in record numbers protesting impending and already existing war. As moral leaders, as poor people, who are disproportionately impacted by war, and leaders in the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, stand with these movements. We are making connections between war, militarism and peace and the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, ecological devastation, the war economy and the distorted narrative of Christian nationalism. Internationalism must be at the core of our activism in the U.S.”

“As moral advocates and faith leaders, we are appealing to the United Nations to take up the responsibilities of its Charter to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” said Bishop William J. Barber II, president of Repairers of the Breach, pastor of the Greenleaf Christian Church and national co-chair of The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. “President Trump’s recent reckless actions in the Middle East, have not only bypassed Congress, violated our constitution and placed U.S. soldiers at risk, coupled with his assassination of General Qassim Soleimani, a leader of a sovereign country, was itself an act of war. His direct threat to commit 52 new war crimes attacking Iranian civilian and cultural sites shows his disdain for international law. He has violated international law and ignored a host of international treaties. By threatening harsher sanctions, when what is need is more diplomacy, the U.S. President is making clear that his threat of war remains, and this is a violation of our deepest religious values that call us to be peacemakers and not peace breakers.”

In a letter to the United Nations explaining their request for U.N. intervention, Bishop Barber, Rev. Dr. Theoharis, and two dozen signers, noted:  “we believe that the United Nations, alongside mobilized social movements of poor and marginalized and committed people, must respond to these violations of human rights, the violations of international law, the threats of more war crimes to come.”

“Throughout this country people are urging Congress to uphold their constitutional power to determine when we go to war and when we stay at peace,” said the Rev. Dr. Robin Tanner, National Director for Religious Affairs, Repairers of the Breach, and minister with Beacon Unitarian Universalist Church in Summit, NJ. “We demand a halt of escalation and accountability for our president and government. We know that accountability must come from within the United States and from the international community. If the United States is permitted to violate our core agreements as global citizens, then the very elemental promises that preserve the peace we do have, will dissolve. As religious leaders, we would be hypocrites to the core tenants of our faith to be silent in the face of such reckless, immoral and unlawful actions. We see the inaction and the enabling of our government, the silence of those who hold elected office and the refusal to take meaningful action to pull us back from the brink of war. We call upon the United Nations for intervention.”

The leaders discussed their concerns via a January 9, 2020 conference call. To access audio from the call, email Jennifer Farmer, jenniferr@spotlightpr.org.

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The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber to Join Actress and Activist Jane Fonda for “Fire Drill Friday”

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The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, Founder of the Forward Together Moral Movement, to Join Actress and Activist Jane Fonda for “Fire Drill Friday” 

Goldsboro, NC – The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, president of Repairers of the Breach and national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, today announced his participation in actress and activist Jane Fonda’s “Fire Drill Friday” protest on Friday, December 20 in Washington, D.C.

The Rev. Dr. Barber was architect of the Forward Together Moral Movement, which launched Moral Mondays. The weekly protests brought North Carolinians from all walks of life together in a fusion movement to challenge injustice and ensure that immoral laws were not passed under the cover of night. The protests began with just a couple dozen people in April 2013 and grew to the tens of thousands in short order.

“We never take protest lightly,” said the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, president of Repairers of the Breach and national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. “But there comes a time when gentle admonition is insufficient. We are joining Sister Fonda with the hopes further raising the interlocking injustices of ecological devastation, which Greta Thunberg and other youth strikers have so passionately fought against, the war economy, systemic poverty, systemic racism and the distorted moral narrative championed of religious nationalism.”

Fonda has held weekly actions in protest of climate change and in support of climate refugees since Oct. 2019. She has said she was inspired to host the weekly actions after watching the Rev. Dr. Barber’s Moral Monday protests, a series of weekly protests at the North Carolina General Assembly, and Greta Thunberg, who famously said, in reference to climate change, that ‘our house is on fire and we should act like it’, and the Youth Climate Strike movement which Thunberg began. Thunberg was named TIME’s 2019 Person of the Year.

Rev. Dr. Barber’s participation in Fire Drill Fridays comes amidst the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival’s, “We Must Do MORE” tour, a nine-month, 25-state tour to mobilize, organize, register and educate people for the movement who vote. The tour, which kicked off in Sept. 2019 in El Paso, TX, and just held its seventh tour stop in San Francisco, CA on Dec. 11. The We Must Do MORE tour highlights the plight of the poor and build momentum towards a Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington on June 20, 2020. The Rev. Dr. Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center at Union Theological Seminary are national co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

WHO:             Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II

Actress Jane Fonda

WHAT:          Fire Drill Friday

WHEN:          Friday, December 20, 2019

WHERE:       Washington, D.C.

 

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Killer Mike Destroys the Oligarch in Fiery Remarks at Bernie Sanders’ Justice Town Hall

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Killer Mike Destroys the Oligarch in Fiery Remarks at Bernie Sanders’ Justice Town Hall in Charlotte, North Carolina

Charlotte, NC – – In a Bernie Sanders’ Justice Town Hall event in Charlotte, NC, activist, rapper and businessman Michael Render, pka Killer Mike, brought the audience to their feet with a fiery statement on the need to repudiate the oligarchy. His remarks followed comments from organizer and co-director of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, Mrs. Naeema Muhammad who shared that fecal waste from over 10 million pigs is reportedly spread across Eastern Carolina, a harmful practice that she said began after Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

The text to Render’s remarks is below and you can watch him speaking here and here:

“[Bernie] Sanders is the only politician I have seen in recent years who is not a member of the oligarchy. He is not a member of a special interest club. He does not accept money from people who then overcharge you for medicine. He does not accept money from companies that will charge you $80 for a CD once your child is in prison for a bullshit marijuana charge, while the politicians who help put your child there, children sit on the boards of marijuana companies. He’s the only guy. So, my question starts to be at this point, ‘why aren’t you voting for him?’ Why aren’t you voting for someone who does not wish to be your king, your emperor, or despot, or tyrant?

“What’s wrong with us, that we can look at television and see a tyrant? You see a fascist on television. You see someone saying that if they are removed, civil war will start. That is magnum primo 100 mennessa suomessa methenolone enanthate a threat. That is not a suggestion. That’s telling my people to arm up. And if you aren’t willing to take that down through the ballot box, then we certainly gotten what you deserve, and that’s a casino owner. Anything goes in a casino.

“The question is ‘how far will your morality let you go, before you wake up?’ You shouldn’t have to get to Hong Kong levels. It shouldn’t have to be like in Paris, where you’re fighting in the streets. But you should be willing to. And the government should know that I am willing to. I am willing to fight. I am willing to fight with all my might. And if we have not done that… If the government does not fear us in a year, we have failed ourselves.

“If politicians don’t act, we have failed Mrs. Muhammad as her neighbor. If another black man is incarcerated from marijuana, while the oligarch’s children sits on the [marijuana] boards, we have failed.  It is time to get mad as hell. It is time to focus your anger. It is time to let the light of joy, of happiness and love focus into a fine laser and pinpoint every evil in our system and eradicate it now. Vote these bastards out of office and elect one another. It is not about “I,” it is about us. It is not about him, [pointing to co-panelist Phillip Agnew], it is about him. It is not only about the lovely Mrs. Muhammad; it is about us. You, me, us, we, yall, all of us, should be marching to the polls and taking 10 people. Because if we aren’t, then we have bowed to our masters and your philosophy should be to kill them politically.”

From North Carolina, Render will travel with Senator Nina Turner, national co-chair for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign, and Phillip Agnew, organizer and Bernie Sanders surrogate, to Greenville, South Carolina. He will meet with Rev. David Kennedy of New Missionary Baptist Church and tour The Echo Theater, which he is transforming into a cultural center. Rev. Kennedy’s work is portrayed in the movie, Burden which stars Forest Whitaker and will be in theaters in February 2020.

Render is a Grammy-Award winning rapper and one half of the rap duo Run the Jewels, whose single “Legend Has It” recently went gold. Render is also host of the Netflix series, “Trigger Warning with Killer Mike,” co-owner, with his wife Shana, of the SWAG Shop Barbershops in Atlanta, Georgia and a two-time volunteer surrogate for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential bid.

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Prominent Black Church Leaders to Interview 2020 Presidential Candidates before 5,000 Black Millennials at Young Leaders Conference

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Prominent Black Church Leaders to Interview 2020 Presidential Candidates before 5,000 Black Millennials August 16-17 at Young Leaders Conference in Atlanta

ATLANTA, GA – The Black Church PAC and the Young Leaders Conference today announced an August 16 and 17 candidates’ forum, where Black church leaders will interview 2020 presidential candidates. The candidate interviews, which will occur before an audience of 5,000 Black millennials, will gauge the candidates’ plans for engaging and communicating with Black churchgoers, ensuring diversity among campaign staff, consultants and vendors and the campaigns’ efforts to engage Black voters around gun violence, mass incarceration, immigration and other key issues. The Black Church Presidential Candidate Conversation Series event is hosted by the Young Leaders Conference in partnership with The Black Church PAC.

At least five 2020 presidential candidates, including Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ), former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg have accepted our invitation to participate. They will join the Rev. Leah Daughtry and Pastor Michael McBride, co-founders of The Black Church PAC, for a discussion about the direction of our country and their vision for the future. Media interested in attending the forums must RSVP to Jennifer Farmer at jenniferr@spotlightpr.org or Heather Cabral at  heather@westendstrategy.com by COB on Wednesday, August 14. Upon doing so, press credentials will be distributed, which are required to gain entry to the forums.

WHO:

  • Pastor Michael McBride, Black Church PAC, LIVE FREE Campaign (Berkeley, CA)
  • Pastor Leah Daughtry, The House of the Lord Church (Washington, D.C.); founding member of Black Church PAC
  • Pastor Mark Moore, Jr., Founder of the Young Leaders Conference (Atlanta, GA)
  • Pastor Traci Blackmon, Executive Minister of Justice & Witness Ministries, United Church of Christ (Ferguson, MO); founding member of Black Church PAC
  • Grammy Award-Winning Producer and Pastor Warryn Campbell, California Worship Center (Hollywood, CA); founding member of Black Church PAC
  • Pastor Jamal Bryant, New Birth Christian Church (Atlanta, GA); founding member of Black Church PAC
  • Bishop Noel Jones, City of Refuge Church (Los Angeles, CA); founding member of Black Church PAC

WHEN:

Friday, August 16 from 12:15 p.m. to 1:20 p.m. – Candidate Conversations with Pastor Michael McBride and Pastor Leah Daughtry and Sen. Cory Booker, Julian Castro and Mayor Pete Buttigieg

Saturday, August 17 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. – Candidate Conversations with Pastor Leah Daughtry and Pastor Michael McBride and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders

WHERE: Georgia International Convention Center, 2000 Convention Center Concourse, Atlanta, GA (***Note: this will be streamed LIVE on social media***)

“The Black Church is a legacy institution for the Black community,” said the Rev. Michael McBride, Pastor of The Way Christian Center, chairman of the Black Church PAC, and national director for Faith in Action’s LIVE FREE Project. “We believe every serious presidential candidate must communicate to our communities a vision for the future that ends the unjust policies which lead to racism, gun violence, mass incarceration, and economic inequality. We are excited to host these candidates before an audience of prospective voters ahead of the 2020 elections.”

“In my many years of justice ministry and public service, we’ve never had this many presidential candidates running for President,” said the Rev. Leah Daughtry, Co-Founder of the Black Church PAC and Senior Minister-Elect of The House of the Lord Churches. “We believe a series of conversations with presidential candidates before black church audiences is critical. This level of dialogue will allow our communities to hear directly from candidates their vision for the future. The Black Church PAC was created as a vehicle to harness the political power of Black Churches across our many differences. We are blessed to partner with The Young Leaders Conference to kick off our first set of conversations!”

“Our vision for this conference has always been to facilitate transcendent connections across the depths and breadths of the church,” said Pastor Mark Moore, Jr., Conference Host and Founder of The Young Leaders Conference. “The partnership with The Black Church PAC is a highlight of this year’s conference.  And to have confirmed that five presidential candidates will participate demonstrates the inherent power and potential of our black church millennials and the unique appeal of our gathering.”

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Contact: Jennifer Farmer, jenniferr@spotlightpr.org 

Faith Leaders Prepare for Moral Monday at The Borderland

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El Paso, TX – In response to the crisis at the southern border and following the invitation of faith leaders in Texas, multi-faith and denominational leaders are spiritually preparing for Moral Monday at the Borderlands, July 28 and 29 in El Paso, TX. The two-day event includes a mass meeting on Sunday, July 28 at 7:00 p.m. MST (at First Christian Church, 901 Arizona Avenue in El Paso), and a nonviolent moral direct action on Monday, July 29 at 10:00 a.m. MST (beginning at All Saints Episcopal Church). Hundreds of clergy, faith leaders, and members of Congress have been invited to participate.

“We are going to El Paso to speak to the heart conscience of this nation,” said the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. “Through our bodies, our voices and our prophetic witness, we will cry aloud and we will not relent until children are free and families are whole.”

Moral Monday at the Borderlands was organized by Repairers of the Breach, Border Network for Human Rights, Define American, Religious Action Center, Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, Union for Reform Judaism and others. In addition to persons directly impacted by our nations immoral immigration system, event speakers include the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (Repairers of the Breach), Imam Omar Suleiman (Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, Faith Forward Dallas), Ambassador Jenn Budd (Define American), Rev. Terri Hord Owens (Christian Church/Disciples of Christ), Rabbi Rick Jacobs (Union for Reform Judaism), and Rev. Dr. Robin Tanner (Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Summit, NJ).

In explaining their decision to organize and participate in the moral witness, the faith leaders offered the following remarks:

“To free us from the infection of division and hate, the politicking that punishes the poor, cages children, and grinds many in the cogs of capitalism as a means to political gain, we are going to the borderlands,” said the Rev. Dr. Robin Tanner, Minister Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation Summit, NJ.  “We are going to El Paso to hear the urgings of a God known as Love, a God who does not choose political parties, but proclaims that the last shall be first.”

“Right now we have two choices, one would be to turn our backs to vulnerable, desperate families fleeing from violence and seeking a new beginning, accepting the criminalization and rejection of those families, or to face this challenge with bravery, empathy and open arms, knowing that these families are intrinsically connected to our future in America and that the US/Mexico border is the new Ellis Island of our times,” said Fernando Garcia, Border Network for Human Rights.

“These children have not just been separated from their families, but from their human family,” said Imam Omar Suleiman, founder and president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. “They are our children, and their families are our families. We cannot allow them to suffocate in silence and be stored away in these immoral camps and warehouses.”

“I’m being summoned to El Paso this weekend because I worship a God who is impatient with injustice, and insistent that ‘the stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as your citizens; [and that we must] love the stranger as yourself” (Leviticus 19:33-34),” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, who represents the largest, most diverse movement in Jewish life. “My faith requires me, with every fiber of my being, to oppose the inhumane conditions in which infants and children and their parents are being held – in overcrowded cage-like facilities, without diapers, forced to sleep on concrete floors, and to go without soap or showers for weeks; this disgraceful policy of deliberate cruelty is a moral affront to the values upon which this great country was founded.”

“We are not going to stop until these policies stop,” Imam Omar Suleiman, of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research concluded. “We won’t sleep until children can dream again. To engage these places directly is to insist that the status quo is unacceptable.”

“When we leave El Paso, we want to be authentic of our critique and in our witness in this way: there is a text that says when God called Ezekiel in the midst of the exile, he told Ezekiel to lay down for seven days in front of the people,” said the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. “I’ve studied the scripture and as I have looked at it, I have come to understand that the reason Ezekiel was instructed to lay down in front of the people, was because he had to feel, experience and pay attention to the people so the prophetic word he articulated the audible moans and groans of the people. In this way, our voice isn’t just ours alone; we are responsible for amplifying the voice of the people. Our voices, our bodies and our witness will be authentic in everything that we do.”

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Contact: Jennifer Farmer, jenniferr@spotlightpr.org

In Directorial Debut, Filmmaker Jodi Gomes Urges A Closer Look at Standardized Tests Following the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal

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In Directorial Debut, Filmmaker Jodi Gomes Urges A Closer Look at Standardized Tests Following the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal; Highlights Unrealistic Pressure Facing Educators

Gomes’ Documentary, One Child Left Behind, to Premiere Friday, June 14 in Miami

Atlanta, GA – One Child Left Behind, the heart-wrenching documentary by filmmaker Jodi Gomes on the 2009 Atlanta Public School scandal, is a searing indictment of high stakes testing and the pressure such tests place on students, parents and educators alike. Set to premiere Friday, June 14 at 3:50 p.m. ET at the American Black Film Festival (ABFF) in Miami, Fla., the film marks Gomes’ directorial debut. The press junket for the film is at 11:15 a.m. in the Loews/Sun Dial Room.

“One Child Left Behind exposes how the No Child Left Behind Act failed underserved communities,” said Jodi Gomes, acclaimed showrunner, filmmaker and the director. “One-size-fits all testing is an outdated mandate that fails to account for the social and economic disparities plaguing students across the U.S. The focus should be on how to address root causes of cheating, the harms of teaching to the tests, and crisis of underfunded public schools.”

Gomes takes us behind the headlines and into the lives of the educators and administrators implicated in the case. She highlights uncomfortable but necessary questions such as, “shouldn’t the No Child Left Behind policy have been on the stand too?” and “what if the law overstated the teachers’ involvement and understated the U.S. Department of Education’s culpability?”

Jodi Gomes is an award-winning documentarian, filmmaker and showrunner. One Child Left Behind: The Untold Atlanta Cheating Scandal is her directorial debut. She previously produced The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty (2009), Married to Medicine (2013), Laffapalooza, etc.

For more information, or to arrange an interview, please contact Jennifer Farmer at jenniferr@spotlightpr.org.

 

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