Month: June 2026

By Ben Jealous

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    June 29, 2026 (Houston Style Magazine) — Every year, we remember Paul Revere’s ride. As we should.

We should also reckon with Paul Revere’s picture.

His engraving of the Boston Massacre helped light the fire for revolution. It showed British soldiers firing into a crowd. Men fell dead in the street. Yet the first man killed that night is hidden in plain sight.

His name was Crispus Attucks. He was a sailor of African and Native ancestry. John Adams later described the crowd as sailors, Irishmen, “negroes and mulattoes.” But Revere’s image did not show Attucks as who he was. It turned a multiracial, working-class crowd into a whiter and better-dressed one.

That was bad art. It was a lie with a long life.

It taught generations to picture the Revolution as a fight led and suffered by wealthy white men with portraits, property, and papers.

That was never the truth.

Prince Estabrook was enslaved in Lexington. On April 19, 1775, he stood with his neighbors as British troops arrived. He was shot before Congress declared independence. Before Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal.

Salem Poor bought his freedom and fought at Bunker Hill. Fourteen officers petitioned to honor his courage. Peter Salem fought there too. James Armistead, enslaved in Virginia, spied for Lafayette. His work helped trap Cornwallis at Yorktown.

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The First Rhode Island Regiment, filled with Black, Native, and formerly enslaved men, held the line near Newport.

Women were there, too. Elizabeth Freeman, known as Mum Bett, heard the Revolution’s words and used them in court. She sued for her freedom and won. Deborah Sampson was poor and indentured as a child. She dressed as a man and served in the Continental Army. Margaret Corbin took over a cannon after her husband was killed.

That story is personal in my family. My adopted grandmother, Dr. Margaret Barnes, was an osteopath with Revolutionary roots. As a girl in the 1910s and 1920s, her father dressed her as a soldier to march in New England Fourth of July parades.

When people objected, he told them not to worry. In 1776, some fathers knew their daughters had gone off to fight dressed the same way.

He was right. History made room for daughters in uniform. Memory pushed them back out.

I still have the bow she used to teach me archery. In our family, women did not just remember courage. They passed it down.

Poor white men carried the war, too. Joseph Plumb Martin was a teenage soldier. He froze, starved, marched, and later wrote the Revolution from below. Ebenezer Mackintosh was a Boston shoemaker and street organizer. Before gentlemen took seats in Congress, men like him made resistance impossible to ignore.

The Revolution was not made by one class. It was sailors, servants, farmers, shoemakers, soldiers, spies, mothers, fugitives, and the enslaved.

On my father’s side, nine of my ancestors fought the British in Massachusetts. One was a sixteen-year-old fifer at Lexington. They knew Black patriots were there from the first morning.

On my mother’s side, we descend from Richard Bland, Jefferson’s cousin and mentor. Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal. But the same racist hand that scrubbed Attucks from the picture shrank “all men” to white men.

Frederick Douglass scraped that veneer away. In 1852, he asked what the Fourth meant to the slave. In 1869, he called for a “composite nation” — one people made of all peoples. Douglass was not inventing a new America. He was restoring the Revolution to itself.

Who we picture fighting for freedom shapes who we believe deserves it.

Paint Black patriots, women patriots, and poor white patriots out of 1776, and you shrink the nation’s image of itself.

Today’s whitewashing should alarm us.

In 2025, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon’s anti-DEI purge swept through military websites. Pages on Jackie Robinson, the Tuskegee Airmen, and Native code talkers were removed, then some were restored after public outcry. The system even flagged the Enola Gay bomber because it contained the word “gay.”

That was not strength. It was cowardice with a search function. My grandfather’s first cousin, Howard Lee Baugh, was a Tuskegee Airman. He flew more than 130 combat missions against the Nazis. There is a word for men like him: hero.

This Fourth of July, let’s remember Revere’s ride. But let’s redraw Revere’s picture.

Put Attucks back in the center. Put Estabrook on Lexington Green. Put Salem Poor at Bunker Hill. Put Mum Bett in the courthouse. Put Joseph Plumb Martin barefoot in the snow. Put my adopted grandmother in the parade, dressed as the soldier memory tried to deny.

Then look again. That is America.  Ben Jealous is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and former president and CEO of the NAACP.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Kierra Lee
KIELEESTYLE@GMAIL.COM
4096658446

By Francis Page Jr.

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    June 29, 2026 (Houston Style Magazine) — HOUSTON — In a city that knows how to tell a story, communicate through crisis, celebrate culture, and keep moving when the cameras are rolling and the deadlines are unforgiving, few voices have carried the steady authority of Mary Benton.

At the 2026 PRSA Houston Excalibur Awards, hosted by the Public Relations Society of America Houston Chapter at the scenic Houston Botanic Garden, Benton was honored with one of the evening’s most meaningful recognitions: the Legacy Award. The honor spotlighted her distinguished career, trusted leadership, and lasting contribution to public service communications, media relations, and civic storytelling in America’s fourth-largest city.

This year’s gala, themed “The Night of Bold Voices,” brought together Houston’s leading public relations professionals, agency innovators, corporate communicators, nonprofit storytellers, public affairs leaders, media partners, and rising stars. The room was filled with people who understand that communication is not just about press releases and perfect soundbites. It is about trust, timing, truth, and knowing exactly when to put the right message in the right hands.

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Mary Benton has done that for years.

Currently serving as Chief of Communications and Senior Advisor to the Mayor for the City of Houston, Benton stands at the intersection of public policy, media strategy, civic leadership, and community confidence. That is not a small intersection. In Houston, it is more like a five-lane freeway during rush hour, with a news helicopter overhead and everyone expecting answers by 5 p.m.

And Benton handles it with the calm, clarity, and professionalism of someone who has lived the work from every angle.

Before stepping into City Hall leadership, Benton spent more than two decades as a television journalist, covering hurricanes, government, politics, public policy, neighborhoods, and the everyday triumphs and challenges of Houston life. That newsroom experience gave her something no title alone can provide: instinct. She knows what reporters need, what the public deserves, and what leaders must communicate when the stakes are high.

That is why PRSA Houston’s Legacy Award feels especially fitting. A legacy is not built in one news cycle. It is earned through years of showing up, getting it right, staying composed, and understanding that words matter most when people are listening for direction.

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The 2026 Excalibur Awards celebrated excellence across public relations, marketing communications, digital strategy, media relations, nonprofit communications, public affairs, community engagement, and corporate storytelling. PRSA Houston President Angelique Myers-Evans, APR, captured the spirit of the evening with a message to honorees: “Your work spoke with purpose, moved audiences, and showed what excellence sounds like when bold voices lead the way.”

For Benton, that phrase lands with special power. Her career has been a masterclass in purposeful communication. Whether helping guide the city’s message during major civic announcements, responding to fast-moving media inquiries, or helping residents better understand city priorities, Benton has helped make public information more accessible, more credible, and more human.

The evening also featured Jennifer Reyna of KHOU 11, whose presence added familiar Houston sparkle and broadcast charm to a celebration already rich with talent and pride. PRSA Houston also thanked its sponsors and the dedicated Excalibur Awards Committee, including Jourdan B. Scruggs, Ed.D., Event Chair; Hannah Farr Pietsch, Awards Chair; Angelique Myers-Evans, APR; Emely Arenas; Johnta Wilson; Liz Lawhorn; and Elizabeth Fordham.

Still, Benton’s Legacy Award gave the night a special sense of history. Her recognition celebrates not only one accomplished professional, but also the essential role of women, journalists, public servants, and communications leaders who help shape how Houston sees itself.

For Houston Style Magazine readers, Mary Benton’s honor is a proud Houston moment. It reminds us that behind every major announcement, every civic milestone, and every carefully delivered message, there are professionals working with discipline, dignity, and purpose.

Mary Benton has been one of those professionals. And now, with PRSA Houston’s 2026 Legacy Award, her bold voice receives the applause it has long earned.

More information on PRSA-Houston: prsahouston.org

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Kierra Lee
KIELEESTYLE@GMAIL.COM
4096658446