News — Black World

Marwa Elselehdar was hundreds of miles away when the giant Ever Given container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal, yet online rumors immediately spread, saying she was responsible.

“I was shocked. I felt that I might be targeted maybe because I’m a successful female in this field or because I’m Egyptian, but I’m not sure,” Elselehdar, who is Egypt’s first female ship’s captain, told news.

The 29-year-old said she was at sea as the first mate in command of the Aida IV in Alexandria when the massive container ship became wedged in the Suez Canal last month. When she checked her phone, fake news headlines and online rumors said she was to be blamed for the incident which caused massive traffic for almost a week with hundreds of vessels waiting to pass through the Canal.

It is yet to be known who the captain of the Ever Given was, though Egyptian officials believe that human error may have caused the disaster. Elselehdar said the rumors about her involvement stemmed from a doctored image of a news headline that said she was involved in the Suez accident. The fake image appears to be from an actual story by Arab News about Elselehdar from March 22 that was not in any way related to Suez, BBC reported. “This fake article was in English, so it spread in other countries,” Elselehdar said.

“I tried so hard to negate what was in the article because it was affecting my reputation and all the efforts I exerted to be where I am now.”

Elselehdar said she did not know who started the rumors or why they did that. She did receive some harsh comments, though many were supportive. “The comments on the article were very negative and harsh but there were so many other supportive comments from ordinary people and people I work with,” she said. “I decided to focus on all the support and love I’m getting, and my anger turned to gratefulness.”

“Also, it is worth mentioning that I became even more famous than before,” she added.

Elselehdar was moved to join the merchant navy after her brother enrolled at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT). The academy did not accept women at the time but she applied and gained admission following a legal review by Egypt’s then-President Hosni Mubarak.

She overcame sexism during her studies and graduated. She rose to the rank of first mate and captained the Aida IV when it became the “first vessel to navigate the newly-expanded Suez Canal in 2015”, according to BBC. She was at the time the youngest and first female Egyptian captain to cross the waterway. Elselehdar was also honored by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi during Egypt’s Women’s Day celebrations in 2017.

He won his first title in 2015 when he was a 19-year-old high school senior. Since then, Ezekiel Mitchell has won more than five titles as a professional bull rider. However, Michell has his eyes set on the big prize — to be the first Black cowboy to win a world title in bull riding in nearly four decades. The first Black person to win the world bull riding title was Charles Sampson in 1982.

Another big motivation for the aspiring champ is, he sees this career as a gateway to get his family out of poverty.

Mitchell has found a family in the community of bull riders and is the star of a limited Snapchat series, Life By the Horns, which chronicles the life of a rising Black bull rider, currently ranked 32nd on the Professional Bull Riders, the world’s premier bull riding circuit.

The 10-episode docuseries which premiered on February 20, according to Mitchell, is to “bring awareness to how much we love and care for our animals” and a full-on show of bravery on display as he encounters 1,500 lb. bulls.

There have been others who are still not accepting of the fact that a talented young Black athlete just wants to play a sport he loves. Mitchell does not let the negative remarks get to him.

“They’d ask me why I was wearing boots, and I’d tell them I was a cowboy,’’ he said. “And they’d be like, ‘There’s no such thing as a Black cowboy. You can’t be a Black cowboy.’ “

On the contrary, Mitchell has been a cowboy since he can remember. While all the kids would rush for the latest sneakers, the now 23-year-old preferred to rock his cowboy boots.

Growing up in a large family with 11 siblings in Baytown, Texas, things were hard especially after his parents got a divorce and he had to toggle between homes.

Determined to get into the rodeo, a predominantly white sport, Mitchell began asking his family members about the sport, but no one could help. “I didn’t have anybody in my immediate family that I could talk to or ask any questions about it,” he told PEOPLE.

His parents were also against him venturing into a dangerous sport but the passion to know more and explore the rodeo world was stronger than the fear many tried to put in him.

He eventually turned his attention to YouTube and taught himself the ins and outs of bull riding. His computer lab teacher at Bayton also pointed him to literature in the library on the dense history of Black rodeo riders sitting on dusty shelves. It was at that point that Mitchell knew he has a good shot at the sport regardless of his present circumstances.

He began training with a small bull and a homemade bucking barrel with a car suspension that simulates the actions of a bull. His cousin gifted him with his first horse, ‘Two Socks’, when he was 12. He steadily worked his way up through the rodeo. He aims to get the PBR world title and enough money to get his family out of poverty.

Mitchell is well on his way there thanks to Max Maxwell, a self-proclaimed North Carolina-based real estate mogul who took an interest in Mitchell after seeing him on a Vice show in 2018.      

Unlike other athletes, professional rodeo riders do have huge endorsement deals and all their cross-country trips are mostly self-funded. Maxwell worked his way into becoming Mitchell’s agent and primary sponsor, according to GQ.

He later enlisted the services of Dave Harding, a filmmaker and photographer to help boost Mitchell’s brand and get him endorsements because his salary can take him so far. “I just don’t ever want to be broke again,” Michell said.     

All Mitchell needs to do is break the almost 40-years jinx and win the PBR world title. With his brand growing, Mitchell may never be broke again and of course, he has dreams of retiring early knowing how dangerous the sport is.

“Imagine it: The black bull-rider who avoids major injuries, wins a title and millions of dollars, and then seamlessly transitions to something even grander. It’s the dream: the cowboy riding off into the sunset with nothing left to prove.”

At a will reading, every relative of the deceased present expects the lawyer to mention their name when the property is being distributed.

For the family of Lord Glenconner it came as a surprise when the lawyer allocated all his estates to his black manservant Kent Adonai.

Colin Tennant became 3rd Baron Glenconner when his father passed on in 1983, his wife Lady Anne Glenconner was the Lady-In-Waiting for Princess Margaret.

In a recent article by the Daily Mail, Lady Anne recounts how her devastated family was when after her husband’s passing in 2010, the family found out he had willed his entire estate to his manservant.

Known for having an eye for the exotic, Colin bought and transformed Mustique in 1958 for £45,000 and with his love for real estate he reinvented the place into a getaway island for the famous.

He set his eyes on St Lucia and invested in an undeveloped 480-acre estate. After he spontaneously bought an exotic elephant from a Dublin Zoo to St Lucia. Colin needed a caretaker for his new pet.

At 18, Kent met Colin in 1982 while helping his father load banana boats, they got wind of a ship that had exotic animals including an elephant.

Kent stood out from the many young boys who expressed an interest in caring for the elephant and Colin took a liking to him.   

 “When we got to Soufrière, the elephant didn’t want to come out of its box. I helped to encourage her out. I think that’s why Mr Tennant said he wanted me to look after her. To this day, many people here still know me as ‘marrie l’elefant’, (the elephant husband in patois), not Kent.”

Spanning three decades Kent became Colin’s go-to person for everything, especially since his wife, Lady Anne, had to dedicate her time to care for their almost-brain dead son, Christopher, who was 19 at the time of the accident in 1987.

He was his “elephant keeper, estate manager, driver and factotum for the aristocrat, whose family fortune was the product of an ancestor inventing industrial bleach.”

Lord Glenconner got prostate cancer in 2010 and hid his diagnosis from people except close relatives and Kent.  As a businessman he felt if his cancer went public, it will just be bad for business.

Describing the day Colin died to the Telegraph, Kent said, “I tried to pump his chest and bring him back to life as I held him, but it was no good,” he said emotionally. He drove his master to the hospital, but he was dead on arrival from the heart attack he suffered earlier.

In the wake of his master’s death Kent Adonai’s luck changed. A poor boy who grew up in “a shanty town, is now the proud owner of a vast estate on the island of St Lucia worth millions of pounds.”

Lord Glenconner made a new will seven months before his death with a lawyer from Soufrière. At the will reading the lawyer read, ‘I hereby leave everything to Kent Adonai, and I trust he will carry out my wishes towards the family.’

Clueless as to what his “wishes” were and his family’s obvious disappointment with the turn of events, the family contested the will in court in St Lucia.

Lady Glenconner told The Sunday Telegraph: “We are not angry; we are surprised. There’s no rift. We feel Colin [Lord Glenconner] was very ill, that he changed his will, but was not well enough. He had cancer very badly and I don’t think he remembered making the will. The will wasn’t Kent’s fault.”

For seven years, the legal battle to rightfully claim what they thought was theirs raged on. His family believed he was not of sound mind when he amended his will because to them the rightful heir to his estate was his grandson Cody Tennant.

Kent ended up with a huge amount of money and land worth £22 million and Cody got about half of his estate.

“I was with him every day. We would talk for hours; I drove him everywhere. He was a wonderful man. He taught me so much about the world, about history and culture. Every day, I miss him terribly,” said Mr Adonai to the Telegraph.