On tonight’s news, Channel 26 aired a piece on the Center’s annual Juneteenth Ally Award luncheon held today. Channel 26 was one of the award recipients for their series focusing on the cultural and racial diversity in Houston. You can see The New Face of America series on the station’s You Tube Channel.
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HOUSTON (FOX 26) – Brown, white, yellow, black or anything in between. You may have noticed Houstonians have a way of coming together, despite skin color. The Center for Healing of Racism honored FOX 26 with the 2015 Ally award, Saturday afternoon.
The non- profit group says as stories of strained race relations across the country come to light, the only way to break those burdensome barriers is to come together and talk about it. Exactly what FOX 26 did with a recent special series; Houston: The New Face of America.
FOX 26 Vice President and General Manager, D’Artagnan Bebel explained, “Initially, I conceived the idea because of what was going on in Ferguson. I really wanted to do a series on race relations in this country. Houston looks like right now, what America will look like in the not too distant future. That isn’t to say that Houston is perfect, but we do a lot of things right here. So we wanted to identify what was working in this diverse community that we live in.”
Cherry Steinwender, the founder of the non profit organization says she couldn’t help but notice the positive difference the Fox 26 special series is making; “When I look at the scope of what channel 26 did, I think they really needed to be congratulated and rewarded by this organization. She added, “What better way than to sit in a circle with people that look totally different from you and really talk in a very transparent way about how your life has been impacted by racism.”
Mr. Bebel says the special wouldn’t have been possible without the insight of Dr. Stephen Klineberg, co-director of the Rice University Kinder Institute for Urban research, who also received an award.
If you missed Houston: The New Face of America you can see the series on our You Tube Channel https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzU9hsam67vZ8q1l94LPe606OMtCWIpem