She won’t be returning to BET’s “Reed Between the Lines,” but you never know what actress Tracee Ellis Ross has up her sleeves.

Earlier this year, she hit the road to campaign for President Obama, telling NewsOne that she found the prospect of a Mitt Romney presidency “scary,” but more because she believed so much was at stake.

And I think for this election, I really feel like there is so much at stake and there’s so much that I feel passionate about, especially women’s rights and women’s issues, and I really want to make sure that President Obama gets back in to office. And if I can do anything beyond just casting my vote and volunteer and speak up and get people energized, then I’m happy to speak up and participate and be of service.

The events that led to Ross’ departure from “Reed Between the Lines” are a bit odd.

Ross says BET was deciding what to do with the show when she was offered a shot at an NBC pilot. BET granted her permission to do the pilot, which wasn’t picked up but things got messy from there.

“Then the timing got complicated and there was a need to move forward. [BET] had to figure out how to deal without me because I wasn’t available. But it’s not because I wanted to leave,” she told Essence.

When the show returns, Ross’ character, Carla, will be separated from her husband Alex, played  by Malcolm-Jamal Warner. It’s kind of sad to see the depiction of a professional black couple on television ending but Ross remains hopeful for the future.

Don’t be surprised if you see her face on a television near you sometime soon.

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“Around the age of 14 is when I really, really knew that this was what I wanted to do for a living; this was my passion,”Norfleet told the Huffington Post. When she was young, her dad put two car batteries into a little corvette she had and she drove that car “until the wheels fell off. Ever since then, I’ve just been so enthused about motorsports.”

Her father nurtured that love of racing in his little girl.

“As a young girl, I knew she had the desire to do it,” Bobby said on Norfleet’s website. “I sort of stepped back on myself and my driving to spend the time on her….The talent, that has to be groomed but [she had] the drive and the ambition to do it. [It was] nothing I or her mom ever pushed her in to, so that’s half the battle right there. The rest of it is being taught the racing business, and then being taught the discipline of racing. Because racing is not just getting in the car and driving.”

It seems like Bobby Norfleet did a good job. Besides being very beautiful, this young lady is also focused: she is a businesswoman and a philanthropist.

Norfleet didn’t have any national sponsorship but completed her first NASCAR race anyway. And let’s not forget that there are only 25 Black people alive who’ve ever seen an entire NASCAR event (just kidding, NASCAR). But it’s safe to say that the sport is not particularly popular among African Americans.

Norfleet wants to change that, telling the Washington Post:

A lot of people don’t know anything about [race car driving], especially minorities, especially people of color. Because it is a predominately White sport — a predominately White male sport, at that — a lot of people just don’t know about it. Hopefully with seeing an example, that “hey, if she can do it, I can do it” hopefully that’s the kind of effect that will happen.

Norfleet co-owns  Bobby Norfleet Racing with her father. The national sponsorships, she says, are forthcoming.

“Things have definitely picked up. We’ve come a long way but we still have a long way to go,” she told the Post. “I have a team of people that also help [bring] awareness to people that don’t know about me. It’s working for me. It’s encouraging and it’s motivating to get the positive feedback from people. It makes me feel like, Okay, this is what I’m doing this for.”

NASCAR, one of the most-popular sports in the country, routinely draws 100,000 people to its events but still has to change with the times, Bobby told Loop 21:

The sport is changing. It’s not like it was when I first got in. You are seeing more minority participation in the sport. NASCAR is doing more to promote inclusion. They are trying to show people that it’s not like it was 20 years ago. NASCAR is big business, and in order to succeed in big business, you have to include everybody. I’ve seen rapid growth in the last six years. They are trying to come up with new ways to get more people involved in the sport. Keep in mind, NASCAR is 60 years old and this is all brand-new to them, but they are making an assertive effort.

Norfleet is more than excited to be a part of that change. Her goal is to win the Daytona 500, the Super Bowl of NASCAR events. But does she worry about the danger while speeding in a car at up to 200 miles per hour?

“I don’t focus on getting hurt,” Norfleet said. “I don’t pay attention to the crashes. I believe in God and that everything happens for a reason. I say my prayers, I thank him, and I just go for what I know.”

And what she knows that as a groundbreaking athlete, she has the responsibility to reach out to other young women and people of color. Norfleet has a foundation named “Driven 2 Read,” which focuses on child literacy. And when she’s not preparing to race, she speaks to young people about overcoming the odds. She tells Bleacher Report:

“When I am not racing on the track I am racing to help the next child with their dreams and ambitions.  I want to empower young people to be positive, especially young girls….When the world tells them they can’t, I want them to see my face and hear my voice that’s saying, ‘Yes, you can!’ I want young people to know that they can do whatever it is that they want to do in life as long as they believe in themselves and that can achieve their dreams no matter what.”

For breaking new ground and following her dreams, Norfleet is the Shine Awards Crafty Kid Winner. Congratulations, Tia! Now I might flip to a NASCAR event once in a blue moon.

Celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson (pictured) is a busy man. The New York Times gave a recap recently about three days in his hectic life.

RELATED: The 2012 Shine Awards Are Here!

Samuelsson went from hobnobbing with Kanye West at an event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to posing on the red carpet with his model wife to taping the audio version of his memoir to overseeing a dinner for the Queen and princess of Sweden. The following day, he was up in Harlem at his well-loved restaurant, Red Rooster Harlem.

In fact, the New York Times gushes that Samuelsson “exploded not only onto New York’s food scene but also on to its cutthroat food business scene”:

Yes, there is Red Rooster and five other restaurants. But there is more — much more. A forthcoming cookware collection for Macy’s. A new line of teas. Deals with American Airlines and MasterCard. Appearances on “Top Chef Masters,” “Chopped All-Stars,” and “The Next Iron Chef.” Two Web sites, FoodRepublic.com and marcussamuelsson.com, not to mention four cookbooks and the memoir. His growing multimillion-dollar enterprise stretches from New York to Chicago to California to Stockholm, and employs more than 700 people.

It’s clear that Samuelsson is going for broke.

In the mostly homogenous  world of celebrity chefs, Samuelsson is one of the few brown faces making noise. He cooked President Barack Obama‘s first state dinner. His website Food Republic is targeting a market often ignored when it comes to food and the kitchen– men.

On Lenox Avenue in Harlem, where he opened Red Rooster, he helped to revitalize the strip also known as Malcolm X Boulevard.

Red Rooster’s neighbor, Sylvia’s, probably the most-famous soul food restaurant in the world, has been holding down the area for decades. But after Samuelsson opened Red Rooster and A-list names started showing up for dinner, three other lounges and restaurants opened nearby. He recently hosted a fund-raiser for the President at the restaurant.

“I wanted people to think about Harlem as a place of food and culture the way you would think about Harlem in terms of music and its history, Samuelsson told NewsOne in an interview. “People all over the world want to  know about the African-American experience. They want to know how it tastes, how it sounds, what it feels like.”

After recently opening the American Table Cafe, a casual dining spot in Lincoln Center, the Ethiopian-born Samuelsson, who was raised by Swedish adoptive parents, proves that his brand shows no signs of slowing down.,

For all his efforts, Samuelsson is the Shine Awards Innovator winner. A busy restaurant like Samuelsson’s could easily gross $10 million per year, according to the Times,  and his endorsements can add many more millions.

But it’s not 100 percent about the cash for Samuelsson. He also gets points for wanting his restaurants to be about good, healthy foods and be accessible to the local community.

“The food caste system in America is right in front of me. I can’t escape that. Before I opened Red Rooster I looked at why is it easier to buy a soda than an apple in apple season. My goal is to shift that,” said Samuelsson.

He has also hired local workers at Red Rooster and says that 70 percent of the 110 people or so on staff are from the area.

“I take pride that 70 percent of my staff comes from this very community,” said Samuelsson. “In Harlem, when you have 18.5 percent unemployment, it means something different when we have 116 employees and 70 percent come from this very community.”

And he wants those staffers to advance: Samuelsson hopes that his Red Rooster staff grow up in the restaurant industry to become executives, head chefs, restaurant owners and entrepreneurs.

“It’s very important for me right now if we can have the journey of Rooster to be a place where people can aspire, be inspired, learn the trade and eventually be more chefs of color, more maitre d’s, winemakers and beer-makers of color. I think we’ve done our part,” said Samuelsson.

For all we know, the person who greets you at Red Rooster or who delivers the delicious fried yard bird– one of the restaurant’s oft-cited dishes– to your table could end up being the next Samuelsson.

RELATED: Al Sharpton, Modern-Day Freedom Fighter [VIDEO]

When he was a kid, Cullen Jones (pictured) almost drowned as a kid at a Pennsylvania water park. Now, after snagging another gold and two silver medals in the London Olympics to go with the gold he won in 2008, there’s no question that Jones he is the most-prominent African-American swimmer in the country.

RELATED: Cullen Jones Talks 4 Olympic Medals, Inspiring Black Youth, And Rio

Jones was narrowly beaten by a Frenchman in his 50m freestyle race at the London Games this summer. But in winning silver, Jones was able to win his first individual medal.

“I gave 100 percent, so I’m happy,” Jones said after the race. “The time wasn’t too bad and I’m thankful that I got second. I was dreaming of gold and I really wanted to get first, but it wasn’t in the cards this time. I’ll have to work with silver. And that’s enough motivation for another four years, I think.”

Even if Jones, 28,  decides not to come back for the 2016 Olympics, he’s already in the record books: He’s only the second African American to win an Olympic gold medal in swimming and the only one to hold a record in the sport.

It seems like an unthinkable story for a kid whose mom placed him in swim classes, after he almost drowned at a water park. Jones, just 5 years old at the time, got on an inner tube ride with his parents. His dad instructed him to hold on no matter what.

That meant when the tube overturned and began sinking to the bottom of the pool, Jones was still holding on.

“I remember how it feels to get light-headed and that terrible feeling that you are drowning,” Jones told me in a 2010 interview.

That’s an experience Jones wants to make sure no other kid has. He has worked hard with Make A Splash, an anti-drowning initiative from The USA Swimming Foundation, to teach kids and parents, especially African-American and Latino parents, about the life-saving benefits of learning how to swim.

African-Americans and Latino kids are not at all proficient when it comes to swimming. Seven of 10 African-American kids and six in 10 Latino kids cannot swim. Compare that with 40 percent of Caucasian kids who have low- or- no-swimming ability.

Those statistics are even more alarming when you learn that drowning is the second-leading cause of accidental child deaths; children from non-swimming households are eight times more likely to be at risk from drowning.

But there’s hope.

Participating in formal swim lessons reduces the risk of childhood drowning by 88 percent. There’s also the great fitness benefits that come from a low-impact exercise like swimming.

A survey from USA Swimming found that parental fear was he biggest factor preventing African-American and Latino kids from learning how to swim. For someone like Jones, whose mother enrolled him in swim lessons to protect him from drowning, those numbers just don’t make sense anymore.

“I want kids to [look up] to me,” Jones told Ebony. “I’m proud of who I am. I’m proud of my culture. That’s why I started working with [the] U.S.A. Swimming Foundation and Phillips 66 with Make A Splash.”

Jones visited 9 cities with the Make A Splash tour in 2012 and details for the 2013 tour are forthcoming.

As for Jones, he’s thinking about the Rio Olympics in 2016.

“I know this is a point in my life where I need to make that decision pretty soon,” Jones told NewsOne this summer.  “It’s a big commitment. But we have meets every year, so I get to kind of focus in on something and always have a goal in mind to come and keep myself on track for Rio. I definitely wanna go as an athlete, though.”

And in the meantime, he wants to show kids, especially African-American kids, that they can accomplish things no one ever expected of them.

“What I want them to say in their minds is, “I can do that,” because it [swimming] is something different, you know? I know that we as a people usually think of basketball, track, football. But there are other things that we’re good at. And we just have to be the trailblazer that does it,” Jones said.

For serving as that trailblazer, Jones is the Shine Awards Most Inspiring Story winner.

DePrince was taken to an orphanage by a family member in the hopes that she would be adopted and taken to a better life, but she was treated badly because she had vitiligo.

“I didn’t get enough food, I didn’t get the best clothes, I got the last choice of toys,” DePrince told CNN. “I was in the back, and they didn’t really care if I died or whatever happened to me.”

And if you think things couldn’t get much worse for DePrince, then known as Mabinty Bangura, they did:

Hopelessness and despair engulfed DePrince even further when she witnessed the murder of one of her teachers at the orphanage, a pregnant woman “who was the only person who actually took time to care for me,” she says.

“She was going outside the gate and I was walking with her, I was going to say bye, and then these three rebels come — two older and a younger one and they see that she’s pregnant and what they used to do is if it was a boy, they would keep the baby, if it was a girl they would kill the mother and the baby,” she says.

“So they cut her stomach and they saw that it was a girl, so then they were angry and they cut her arms and legs off and left her and the baby there. I was trying to save her and so I went underneath the gate and the little boy saw all these older people doing these things and I guess he wanted to impress them and thought it was funny, so he stabbed me and so I actually have a scar from it and it was a black out after that — I have no idea how I survived that, it was awful.”

Throughout her difficult early childhood, there was some light.

One day, a magazine picture of a ballerina blew up against the orphanage gate. The ballerina was wearing a tutu and pointed shoes. DePrince hid the picture the only place she knew it would be safe from the abusive adults and tormenting children in the orphanage–in her underwear. She would secretly take it out and imitate the moves of the ballerina in the picture. Soon she was adopted by American parents.

That love of her dance stuck with her and she began taking classes in Philadelphia. She progressed quickly with a lot of hard work and dedication. Much like Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas, DePrince had to overcome stereotypes about Blacks to succeed.

One dance teacher told a 10-year-old DePrince that she didn’t spend time training Black ballerinas because “they just get fat and get big boobs and big thighs.” Another teacher said she didn’t have the body of a professional dancer. And once, at the age of 8, she was pulled from playing the role of “Marie” in a performance of “The Nutcraker” because “people aren’t ready for a black ‘Marie.’”

I wonder where that teacher was when DePrince performed internationally for the first time in the Netherlands last December? Where was that teacher who said DePrince didn’t have a dancer’s body when, because of her talent, strength and determination, she had to decide between offers from the American Ballet Theatre and the Dance Theatre of Harlem performance company (she chose the Dance Theatre of Harlem)? And where was that teacher who said the world wasn’t ready for a Black to play the role of “Marie” in “The Nutcracker” when DePrince returned to the continent of her birth in September for her professional debut in South Africa?

For overcoming adversity that most people can only imagine, DePrince is the Shine Awards Most-Inspiring Story Winner.

Now, DePrince is on a mission to use her story to change the world. She wants to attract more Black girls to ballet and wants to give back to her homeland by starting an art school in Sierra Leone. She wants to inspire other little girls who find themselves in difficult circumstances like she did so that they can overcome.

“I take what’s in my past and put it in my body,” she says. “My life is proof that no matter what situation you’re in, as long as you have a supportive family, you can achieve anything.”

Remember when President Barack Obama won in 2008 and pundits started asking if the United States was post-racial because we had a Black man in the White House?

Well, people like Dr. Yaba Blay (pictured) knew better.

Blay, an assistant teaching professor of Africana Studies at Drexel University, explores Black racial identity and the politics of skin color with her creative and thought-provoking (1)ne Drop project.

The one-drop rule refers to the centuries-old rule that deemed anyone with any sort of African heritage to be Black, even if you are of mixed heritage. It’s the idea that one drop of Black blood makes you Black. The rule is still alive and well today, which has been discussed by people of mixed heritage like Obama and Halle Berry.

And it’s an issue we play out with one another. Four hundred years after Blacks were first brought to this country as slaves, it wasn’t uncommon for African Americans to discriminate against one another based on the color of their complexions. Just look at the complexions of women considered to be attractive in the media productions of African Americans. How many of our politicians are dark-skinned?

“Many of us would like to believe that we have a Black President and it’s how many years since enslavement and that we’ve come a long way and these things don’t matter,” said Blay.

Nobody knows how untrue that is more than Blay herself who was born to Ghanaian parents and raised in New Orleans.

“In New Orleans, skin color politics is at the forefront of our social relationships. So from a very young age I was made very aware that I was dark skinned,” said Blay.

Enter Blay’s (1)ne Drop Project.

“The (1)ne Drop Project is a multi-platform project that seeks to challenge narrow perceptions of what Blackness is and what Blackness looks like. It’s this interesting combination of photography, personal memoir, and historical information to delve in to people’s identities,” Blay added.

There were simply less choices when the one-drop rule was more strictly enforced. If you had African heritage, you were Black. There were always those with African heritage who could pass, but the one-drop rule “historically has come to define Blackness,” said Blay.

But today there is a choice to be multi-racial, which hasn’t always existed.

“How do we interact with people when we are not really clear about what race they are and what culture they are from or their ethnicity?” Blay asked.

Blay also discovered there is a flipside to the one-drop rule.

“There are benefits that come with having dark skin. There are benefits that come with being of one race — that I walk into a room and nobody is questioning me about my identity,” said Blay.

Blay recently explored some of these questions on “Who Is Black in America?” another installment of  CNN’s “Black in America” series that she produced. For tackling all these sticky issues, Blay is the Shine Awards Smarter Than Average winner.

“We have come to understand our Blackness much larger than a legal classification and so I’m trying to give voice to that,” said Blay.

“It’s something that we need to talk about and it’s something we need to heal from.”

Watch Blay talk about Blackness here:

When he saw that George Zimmerman, the man charged with killing unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in Florida, wasn’t being arrested, the Rev. Al Sharpton got involved. When concerns were raised that efforts to pass voter identification laws would suppress the votes of minorities, Sharpton once again took to the airwaves of his MSNBC show.

RELATED: Marcus Samuelsson: Chef, Businessman, Money Maker

“Trayvon Martin’s family lawyer called me to get involved because justice was not taking its course,” Sharpton said. “George Zimmerman needed to be arrested, the evidence supported that.”

He added, “I did not come to Florida…to convict Zimmerman. I came to say what is good for one is good for all. Black, White, gay, straight, young and old, the same standards of justice should be applied to everyone.”

That’s why Sharpton is one of the Shine Awards’ Freedom Fighters.

Watch Sharpton discuss his advocacy and award here:

Many pundits thought that African Americans, despite their strong support of Obama in 2008, would stay home this time around. The Associated Press reported that some Black pastors were upset at Obama because of his support of gay marriage.

But Sharpton rang the alarm on several occasions about possible voter identification laws in important swing states like Pennsylvania that many saw as thinly veiled attempts to suppress the impact of groups that supported President Obama, such as minorities and the elderly.

“If we’ve survived church bombings, brute force and more, we should at least be able to empower and assist the less fortunate among us to combat those who simply cannot win based on their own Party’s platform alone. We must take action; no excuses. The ones who are attempting to block us aren’t hesitating, and neither should we,” Sharpton said in a Huff Post column.

To drive his point home, Sharpton engaged in a “Voter Engagement” tour that spanned several states with voter identification laws.

It was Sharpton’s advocacy on this issue that many pundits thought brought minorities out to the polls in greater numbers than 2008.

And Sharpton took some heat for his actions. Prominent Obama critic Cornel West said Sharpton and other Obama supporters “sold out” to support the President.

Still, after the election Sharpton was seeking to turn his support into action. Last week, he met with the President. Earlier, he called for Blacks to prepare an agenda for the President to address.

“We cannot sit and ask the President to write an agenda to himself from us,” Sharpton said. “It ought to come from us to him or the Congress, from us to him.”

RELATED: The 2012 Shine Awards Are Here!

Next year will mark the fifth anniversary of the Black and Missing Foundation, the organization founded by sisters-in-law Natalie and Derrica Wilson to bring more attention to the plight of African Americans who go missing.

RELATED: Britney Exline, Nation’s Youngest African-American Engineer

The pair noticed that missing African Americans received less media attention than their White counterparts and they set out to do something about it. That has meant five years of late night calls and desperate Facebook messages, coaching distraught parents on how to deal with law enforcement who may not take their concerns as seriously and taking their message national with the help of partners like NewsOne and T.D. Jakes.

That’s why Natalie and Derrica have been named the 2012 Shine Awards Freedom Fighter winner.

“We believe that every missing person, regardless of age, race, mental ability or circumstance, deserves awareness,” said Derrica Wilson who has a background in law enforcement.

According to the FBI, Blacks make up 34 percent of the  678,000 people reported missing last year despite making up just 13 percent of the country’s population. Forty percent of children reported missing are African American.

“We are dedicated to being the voice for the missing by providing a platform of hope for the overwhelming number of missing persons of color,” said Natalie.

And the women have done just that.

The Black and Missing Foundation has assisted in the recovery of more than 100 missing persons since their founding. One way they’ve done that is to seek a national platform for the issue of missing African Americans. The women have appeared on HLN’s Dr. Drew, The Ricky Lake Show, and have partnered with TVOne for the television show Find Our Missing, which is hosted by S. Empatha Merkson. After Derrica Wilson appeared on “The View” earlier this year, Mishelle Greene, a young woman who had been missing for five months, was recovered alive and well.

Now, we are slowly seeing more faces of color creep in to national news about missing persons cases. When People Magazine or Nancy Grace profiles a missing person of color, it’s because Derrica and Natalie helped bring attention to the unfair disparity in media coverage that existed.

“We are working diligently to ensure that law enforcement training is enhanced, that they are prepared and respond more swiftly and effectively than ever before; that better laws are created to help protect our communities; and that our communities become more aware and alert,” said Derrica Wilson.

RELATED: The 2012 Shine Awards Are Here!

To say Britney Exline (pictured) is smarter than average is like saying Barack Obama is just another president.

It simply isn’t true and here’s why: Exline recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2011 at the age of 19, making her the youngest engineer to graduate from the school and the youngest African-American engineer in the country.

RELATED: The 2012 Shine Awards Are Here!

Now that’s smart.

At a time when young African Americans get too much publicity for violence or having children out of wedlock, Exline is proving to be an example of all the good that is possible.

“I really don’t think it’s been any different, except for in the beginning people are always a little shocked to learn that, but if they get to know me, then they know that it’s just a number,” Exline said at the time of her graduation.

After graduating, Exline decided to take a job as a software engineer outside of Boston. She eventually plans to head back to graduate school, though, to follow up on her Bachelor’s degree in computer science.

In addition to her collegiate success, Exline is one well-rounded young lady: She speaks five languages and graduated with minors in psychology, math, and classical studies. She also has a passion for volunteering to help others, having traveled to Cameroon with the One Laptop program.

And at the tender age of 16, Exline worked on Wall Street and was also a participant in several teen pageants, winning two in Colorado in 2004 and 2006.

Not to mention that Exline was building pyramids with blocks at 6 months old and walking at 8 months.

Exline owes part of her success to her parents, Chyrese and Christopher Exline.

In an interview with Ebony magazine, Chyrese said of her parenting,”I made sure they remained committed even when they wanted to quit. They learned you can’t quit an activity just because it’s hard. Sometimes you need to stick with something. That’s the only way to learn how to persevere and overcome true obstacles. Eventually, it becomes a part of you. I believe this.”

Just imagine the potential this young lady has. With her youth and advanced study, she has the chance to do something great.

But the best part about Exline might be her humility.

“I don’t think of myself as extraordinary,” she said.

It’s December. The rugged year that was 2012 is almost done. Now is the time for a moment of reflection: Think about the milestones you accomplished this year and whether you kept the promises you made this time last year. What were the most memorable moments that happened?

Finished? Good.

Now give NewsOne your full attention as we do the same thing for the newsmakers of this year. All month, we are going to be handing out awards to the people that made things happen in ways big and small in 2012 with The Shine Awards.

We’ll pick the people who were crafty, inspiring, money-makers, smarter than average, and freedom fighters. These are the people who inspired you to try to be a better person or who showed great courage, strength, and foresight in fighting for what they believed. These folks were smarter than other people in their fields and use their wit and intelligence to their advantage.

In short, these are people you’re going to want to read about as you get ready for 2013.

Keep checking back to see who we chose and then let us know if you agree.