Staff of Third World Press Foundation. / Screenshot of Kyrie Irving Donation (GoFundMe)
Kyrie Irving is once again supporting the culture by using his wealth to support Black-owned businesses. The NBA Champion recently donated $50,000 to the Third World Press Foundation, the nation’s oldest independent Black publishing company.
Irving donated to the company’s Flood Fund via a GoFundMe campaign. According to the campaign’s description, funding will help the non-profit publisher survive after it took significant losses in inventory, equipment, sales and other areas after a pipe burst in its basement and forced it to cease operations temporarily.
“The winter season is traditionally busy for us as we fill holiday orders for the Kwanzaa and Christmas gift giving season. This year however, our efforts were dampened when a water pipe burst beneath our building on a Friday night and quickly flooded the entire basement,” the campaign says. “Unfortunately, the flooded area housed the major portion of Third World Press’ backlist as well as front-listed books. Our loss has been overwhelming and financially crippling.”
According to its website, Third World Foundation “provides quality literature that primarily focuses on issues, themes, and critique related to an African American public.”
The publisher counts authors like Gwendolyn Brooks, Chancellor Williams, Adelaide Sanford, Fred Hord, Diane Turner, Thabiti Lewis, John Henrik Clarke, Herb Boyd, Edmund W. Gordon, Angela Jackson, Useni Eugene Perkins, Jacqueline Bryant, Keith Gilyard, Jacob H. Carruthers, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Christine List, Haki R. Madhubuti and more among its clients.
Irving’s donation was the largest single gift to the campaign and helped topple its $95,000 goal. The campaign had raised $106,389 from 599 donations at the time of this writing.
Twitter users lauded Kyrie Irving for his generosity.
“No longer has his sneaker deal and is still continuing to contribute. Imagine if there were more like him,” @MeDeev tweeted.
“He’s truly amazing and the media won’t show this only the stuff that don’t matter,” @slime0clock wrote.
This isn’t the first time Irving has donated from his personal fortune to help Black people. He’s done so frequently in the last few months.
In November 2022, Irving donated $130,000 to the family of Shanquella Robinson, a young North Carolina woman who was beaten by alleged friends and later died while vacationing in Mexico.
He also donated $50,000 to the family of Devin Chandler, one of the University of Virginia football players who was murdered by a former teammate; $50,000 to the family of Jaheim McMillan, who was shot and killed by police in October 2022; and $22,000 to Destiny Thompson to help cover her tuition at Howard University.
Irving has supported other causes, but he usually does so without making any announcements about his philanthropy.
In Dec. 2022, he shared his philosophy on helping others in a tweet.
“I am not FREE until all of my people are FREE” There’s still more to do in our world! Help on[e] person or one family a day and let’s see where we end up(Humanity),” Irving wrote.
