On October 22, 2022, digital media network theGrio hosted their first award show, “theGrio Awards,” in Los Angeles, California. The ceremony and gala was co-hosted by entertainers Sheryl Underwood and Taye Diggs and was attended by many high-profile guests, including professional athlete Allyson Felix, rapper Queen Latifah, attorney Ben Crump and philanthropist Robert F. Smith.
TheGrio is a television network and online news publication that focuses on news and perspectives that directly affect Black Americans. Launched as a division of NBC News in 2009 to address the chronic underrepresentation of people of color in national news media, theGrio provides consumers with an alternative source of news and entertainment that centers and is geared towards Black people. Today, theGrio’s online website has more than 7 million visitors per month and is frequently ranked as the “number one Black/African American targeted news site.” Although theGrio’s mission has stayed the same, its ownership changed after media conglomerate Allen Media Group purchased it from theGrio co-founder Dan Wilson in 2016.
Held at the The Beverly Hilton, theGrio Awards celebrated Black trailblazers and innovators in film, music, television, sports, philanthropy, business, social justice, education and more. This year’s honorees included Tyler Perry, Jennifer Hudson, Kenan Thompson and Patti LaBelle. “As a child, strong, positive African-American icons such as Berry Gordy, Jr., Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, and Martin Luther King, Jr. helped me see myself differently, and changed the trajectory of my life,” said Allen Media Group Founder and CEO Bryon Allen in a press release announcing the event. “Celebrating and amplifying iconic individuals is something we can never do enough of, especially for our children,” Allen added.
Robert F. Smith’s Work to Preserve Black History and Culture
During theGrio Awards, Smith was recognized with the Philanthropy Award celebrating his contributions to the Black community. An advocate for racial justice, Smith supports organizations and other institutions that work to preserve African-American history and culture. In fact, Fund II Foundation, a charitable foundation of which Smith is founding director and President, focuses their donations on organizations that preserve the African-American experience, safeguard human rights and sustain critical American values, among others.
Fund II Foundation was established in 2014 and has since given almost $250 million in grant money to a range of charities, including The United Negro College Fund, The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, NPower and more. In 2019, Fund II Foundation made a donation to the National Park Foundation to help purchase two homes where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived; one where he was born and raised and the other where he lived with his wife, Coretta Scott King, and their children.
Because of this donation, the homes were transferred to the National Park Service and preserved as the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta, Georgia. “A key component of Fund II Foundation’s mission is to bring African-American history to life and preserve it for generations,” said Smith in a press release announcing the donation. “This grant will help make it possible for all people to experience and learn first-hand about Dr. King’s legacy and the civil rights stories that are part of our shared American heritage” Smith said.
Additionally, Smith made a $20 million donation to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2016, which was one of the largest individual donations to the museum in that year. Smith’s gift went toward the museum’s digitization efforts, including the creation of the Robert F. Smith Explore Your Family History Center, a virtual genealogy program that helps visitors conduct research about their familial ancestry.
Learn more about Smith’s efforts to preserve Black history and culture.
