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Over the last several years, craft breweries have been one of the top trending businesses in the food and drink industry. For millennials, they serve as a new location to socialize, but like many industries, there’s a lack of diversity when it comes to the owners of these establishments. David McMullin Jr. ’12 is hoping to change that. The alumnus was recently mentioned in a Forbes article for his business, Mack Brewing Co.

Five years after the massacre at Emanuel AME Church, in Charleston, South Carolina, Johnson C. Smith University alumnus and Charlotte City Council member Malcolm Graham ‘85 is honoring all of the victims, especially his sister, Cynthia Graham Hurd.

Gracyn Doctor ‘16 was enjoying the summer before beginning her senior year at JCSU when bullets from the white supremacist’s gun changed her life forever. Doctor’s mother, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, was one of the nine parishioners killed in the massacre at Emanuel AME Church.

Many Johnson C. Smith University alumni are working to make a difference during the COVID-19 pandemic, including Charlotte City councilman Malcolm Graham ’85, who serves District 2. Graham is the chair of Charlotte’s COVID-19 Housing Task Force, which provides relief for rent and mortgages, in addition to assisting the city’s homeless population.

With the recent global pandemic affecting the country, small businesses have had to re-strategize, re-create and develop concepts of conducting “new normal” business practices. 

Despite the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, people across the world have found new ways to help each other. Two Johnson C. Smith University alumni are using their connection to pay it forward.

COVID-19 has hurt many small businesses across the world. However, business owners, like JCSU alumna Sa’Keithia Hamond ’15 have proven they are resilient during this crisis.

The challenges brought on by COVID-19 has affected the Johnson C. Smith University community, just as it has other institutions and communities across the world.

The COVID-19 pandemic is changing our everyday lives; including the way we work. Medical professionals, truck drivers and grocery store employees are among some of the professionals deemed essential and continuing to work daily. Also included in that group, journalists.

It is with tremendous sorrow that Johnson C. Smith University shares the loss of Fred "Curly" Neal, a 1975 alumnus who was a former member of the Harlem Globetrotters and the Golden Bulls basketball team.