The New York Times News September 3, 2020 Bloomberg Gives Big to Black Medical Schools Mike Bloomberg donates $100 million to Black medical students The former New York City mayor today plans to announce a large donation to four historically Black medical schools, in an effort to improve the health and wealth of Black communities, particularly during the pandemic. The immediate goal is to ease the financial burden on about 800 medical students, who will each receive grants of up to $100,000. The donation to four institutions - Charles R. Drew University of Science and Medicine, in Los Angeles; Howard University College of Medicine, in Washington; Meharry Medical College, in Nashville; and Morehouse School of Medicine, in Atlanta - is one of the biggest by a single donor to historically Black schools. It follows other pledges to historically Black institutions by Reed Hastings of Netflix<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/business/netflix-reed-hastings-hbcus.html> and his wife, Patty Quillin, and MacKenzie Scott<https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/29/us/hbcus-largest-donation-history-mackenzie-scott-trnd/index.html>. Mr. Bloomberg's gift is the first major donation from the Greenwood Initiative<https://www.mikebloomberg2020.com/policies/economic-justice>, a racial justice program he started in the waning days of his presidential campaign. Its broader aim is to increase the number of Black doctors in the U.S. The data-driven Mr. Bloomberg and his team were convinced by statistics showing that Black doctors help provide better health outcomes for Black patients and are more likely to work in underserved communities. That became even more of a concern amid the pandemic's disproportionate impact<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/05/us/coronavirus-latinos-african-americans-cdc-data.html> on Black people. "By increasing the number of Black doctors, we hope the gift will help to save more Black lives and reduce the health problems that limit economic opportunity in Black communities," Mr. Bloomberg told DealBook. Discussions began about four weeks ago when Mr. Bloomberg's representatives began reaching out to college and university officials about ways to increase Black communities' wealth, said Dr. Wayne Frederick, the president of Howard University. He and other officials said that the Bloomberg team asked for potential solutions instead of offering them from the start, and took a lot less time to donate than many other philanthropies. School officials hope other deep-pocketed donors will follow. Dr. James E.K. Hildreth, the president of Meharry, noted that the historically Black medical schools' alumni often lacked the opportunity to earn the kind of wealth of their white counterparts, limiting how much they can donate to their alma maters. One ambition is to follow in the footsteps of N.Y.U.'s School of Medicine, which made education free in 2018 after raising $450 million from donors like the billionaire Ken Langone. SANDRA M. PHOENIX HBCU Library Alliance Executive Director Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library 111 James P. Brawley Drive SW Atlanta GA 30314 404-978-2118 (office) 404-702-5854 (cell) http://www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> Honor the ancestors, honor the children and those yet to come. Building Capacity for Humanities Special Collections at HBCUs - Become an ally and partner with us to protect, preserve and share a more authentic record of American history. Follow this link http://hbculibraries.org/humanities-2019.html for more information. Follow this link http://hbculibraries.org/ and click on the Donate Now button to invest in this project. Your support is appreciated. Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/hbculibraryalliance1/ and Twitter at https://twitter.com/HBCULibAlliance Check out "PULSE!" The HBCU Library Alliance's News Source! - https://hbculibraryalliance.wordpress.com/