The Watson Foundation

06/12/2026

A Democratic political group announced on Tuesday that it will spend $2 million on Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic challenger Scott Colom. https://ow.ly/Cc1650Z9vfX

06/10/2026

~ Larry ~ I’m truly A BLESSED MAN AND I GIVE ALL THE HONOR,ALL THE PRAISE AND ALL OF THE GLORY TO MY LORD AND SAVIOR,JESUS THE CHRIST 🙌🏾 ❤️…. I Have Such Joy Unspeakable JOY …. I wish to thank everybody for stopping by to holla at the Birthday Boy and show me soo much LUV and THANKFULNESS ❤️🎈🎂🎊🎷🎸🎈❤️ 🙌🏾 …. I Truly do Love Y’all and Ain’t Nothing You Can Do About It 😍‼️

06/08/2026

BREAKING: Kristen Welker Refuses to Back Down as Trump Melts Down on Live TV

NBC anchor Kristen Welker delivered one of the most unflinching interviews of Trump's presidency Sunday on Meet the Press, repeatedly calling out false claims to his face and refusing to let him off the hook even as he grew increasingly hostile and ultimately stormed off the set.

Welker came prepared. When Trump claimed FBI agents had been ushering January 6th rioters into the Capitol, she told him directly there was no evidence of that. When he insisted the 2024 California elections were being rigged in real time, she asked for evidence. When he said all he had to do was look, she pushed back again. "But that's not evidence," she said, calmly and without flinching.

She pressed him on his abandoned $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund, demanding a straight answer on whether he was backing off it completely. She confronted him on the 170 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers on January 6th. She cited his own words back to him on his "no new wars" pledge and refused to accept his attempts to rewrite history.

Trump responded the way he always does when cornered. He called her a "big liberal." He called her crooked. He called NBC crooked. He called Meet the Press crooked. Then he announced he was done, told her "thank you, darling," and walked away from a reporter who had simply asked him to tell the truth.

Welker's response to being called crooked said everything: "To be fair, I'm not crooked." Simple. Direct. Unbothered.

This is what a free press looks like. This is what accountability journalism looks like. And Trump cannot stand it.

06/06/2026

From Receptionist to CEO: The Ramona Hood Story
She started at the front desk. Three decades later, she took the corner office.

Ramona Hood didn't just break a glass ceiling at FedEx — she shattered it. In 2019, she was appointed President and CEO of FedEx Custom Critical, becoming the first Black woman to lead any FedEx operating company in the logistics giant's nearly 50‑year history.

But her journey didn't start in the C‑suite. It started in 1991, when she walked into the division then known as Roberts Express as a receptionist. Fresh out of high school, she answered phones, greeted visitors, and quietly observed how the business worked. She didn't see herself as "just a receptionist." She saw herself as a student of the game.

Over the next 28 years, Hood climbed. She took on roles in operations, sales, customer service, and eventually executive leadership. She earned a bachelor's degree in business management from Walsh University and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University — all while working full‑time and raising a family. She didn't wait for opportunity to knock. She built the door.

💡 A Visionary Before Her Time
In the early 2000s, long before remote work became a pandemic necessity, Hood introduced a work‑from‑home program for call center employees. It was unconventional. It was risky. And it was brilliant.

“At that time, it was not common to have call centers where you would have individuals working from home,” Hood said. “I looked at our processes and the technology that we had, and I realized nothing was preventing us from that.”

She saw what others overlooked. She implemented what others feared to try. And she proved that innovation doesn't always require a big budget — sometimes it just requires a leader willing to think differently.

🏆 More Than a Title
As CEO of FedEx Custom Critical, Hood oversees one of the company's most specialized divisions: time‑critical, door‑to‑door shipping for everything from medical supplies to automotive parts. Her leadership has been defined by inclusivity, resilience, and a commitment to lifting others as she climbed.

Her story isn't just about being first. It's about what happens when talent meets opportunity — and when a receptionist refuses to let her starting position determine her final destination.

✨ What Her Achievement Means
Ramona Hood's rise is a testament to the power of patience, preparation, and purpose. She didn't become a CEO overnight. She became one by showing up every day for nearly three decades, learning every role, earning every degree, and leading with courage long before she had the title to match.

For every young Black girl who walks into an office as a receptionist and dreams of the corner office: your path is possible. It may take 28 years. It may require late nights and early mornings. But doors open for those who keep knocking — and for those who build their own keys.

06/04/2026

Now this does make sense of the whole situation with shotgun houses in New Orleans 📚‼️

The shotgun house is the most common residential structure in New Orleans, and also the most misunderstood. Its name — disputed in origin, possibly derived from the Yoruba word "to-gun," meaning gathering place, or possibly from the folk claim that a shotgun blast fired through the front door would pass clean through every room and out the back — describes a form so practical and so specific to south Louisiana's conditions that it became the dominant vernacular architecture of the city's working and middle-class neighbourhoods for over a century.

The form arrived in New Orleans through the Caribbean, carried by Haitian refugees and free Black immigrants who came to the city in large numbers following the Haitian Revolution, beginning around 1809. The shotgun's floor plan — rooms arranged in a single file, one behind the other, no hallway — was ideally suited to the narrow lots the city distributed in its early Creole neighbourhoods, and to the climate: doors aligned front to back created a through-draft that provided the closest thing to air conditioning available in a Louisiana summer before electricity. The front room opened to the street. The private rooms retreated toward the back. The kitchen, historically, was at the rear or detached, for fire safety.

In the Tremé — the oldest African American neighbourhood in the country, established by free people of colour before the Civil War — the shotgun house was not merely a building type. It was the material form of a community's autonomy. Free Creoles of colour purchased their lots, built their homes, and established the social and cultural infrastructure of a neighbourhood that produced, among other things, the brass band tradition that became the foundational architecture of jazz. Congo Square, where enslaved and free Black people gathered on Sundays to maintain African musical and spiritual practices under Spanish law, was at the Tremé's edge.

The neighbourhood survived yellow fever, Civil War occupation, economic collapse, and a century of neglect. What it did not fully survive was urban renewal and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which scattered many families who had lived on the same blocks for four and five generations. Some came back. Some could not afford to. The houses are still there, many of them. But the specific human weight of who lived inside them — the names, the kitchens, the particular way a screen door sounded in July — that belongs now only to memory. ⚜️ 🌿

05/30/2026

The Obama Presidential Center has released a fun-filled schedule of activities for its opening weekend on June 19-21. There will be many free and family-friendly events, like live music and dancing, throughout the weekend.

05/30/2026

President Barack Obama Presidential Library 🕋✅‼️

05/28/2026

Larry Watson …. We congratulate all of our recipients and nominees ; To whom much is given ; Much is Required …. I was unable to attend this ceremony but do appreciate the recognition that was bestowed upon me as one of the nominees for The Inaugural Power of the Purse Philanthropist of the Year Award given to impactful nominees of our community.We were honored and recognized because of our commitment to helping the least among us at The Watson Foundation 💸 🙌🏾 ❤️ 🕋 ‼️