Who is Robert Shumake?

Shumake's philanthropic record is independently documented by the Detroit News, the Michigan Chronicle, the Chicago Defender, and corporate sponsors.

He founded Detroit's Red Carpet Backyard BBQ for the Homeless and Hungry, which served more than 10,000 people annually at its peak and distributed over 400,000 pounds of food across its run. Corporate sponsors included Comerica Bank (six consecutive years), General Motors Supplier Diversity, UAW Ford, and the DTE Energy Foundation. Detroit Lions players Eric Ebron, Brandon Pettigrew, Casey Pierce and Tim Wright served food alongside Caribbean ambassadors from Trinidad and Tobago and Botswana. Comerica Bank's Assistant Vice President Jaunice Keller stated publicly in 2017: “This is the sixth year we've sponsored this event, which is helping to feed more than 25,000 metro Detroit families.”

He served as Chairman of the Ebony Foundation, the charitable arm of Ebony magazine. Under his leadership, the Foundation launched a COVID-19 response feeding more than 650,000 children and seniors weekly beginning March 2020. He directed the “Home by the Holiday” bail reform initiative reuniting Black and Latino families separated by pretrial detention. He organized and led the national clemency campaign — joined by Bishop T.D. Jakes, Alice Marie Johnson and nearly two dozen pastors — that resulted in the commutation of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's twenty-eight-year sentence on January 19, 2021. The Detroit News described Shumake as the businessman “who worked to get former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick freed from prison decades early.”

Through the Shumake Family and Friends Foundation (established 2005), he has funded more than 200 college scholarships to students attending historically Black colleges and universities. The Robert S. Shumake Scholarship Relays, a track and field meet paired with scholarship awards, are archived in the Track and Field Results Reporting System, the sport's standard national results database.

He served as honorary consul to both Botswana and Tanzania, and holds an honorary doctorate from Lewis College of Business in Detroit, Michigan's first historically Black college.

Shumake owns Shumake Media Group, which operates 263 newspaper domains and 20 magazine brands. He acquired and republished Smart Money Magazine (originally founded by the Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones) and Business 2.0 (originally founded by Time Magazine/Time Inc.), and launched Smart Money Black for African American entrepreneurs in partnership with the National Business League.

He has published more than 140 books available on Google Play, Apple Books and through Draft2Digital's global distribution network, including the 70-volume Living Archive Series documenting historic American newspapers, the Spiritual Reparations Series, works on Ifá and Orisha traditions, Buddhist philosophy, Hindu traditions, consciousness studies and AI/business strategy.

He has 86+ DOI-registered academic publications indexed on Zenodo (hosted by CERN), the Open Science Framework and ORCID (0009-0007-4429-7802), spanning artificial intelligence, African traditional religions, Buddhist philosophy, Hindu theology and American press history. He completed the Harvard Data Science Initiative Agentic AI Intensive in June 2026 (Certificate of Completion, verification UTHW-KVJS), presented by Harvard Data Science Review.

He is the founder of seven religious universities operating under Buddha Digital Temple, a 508(c)(1)(a) institution: Buddha University, Orisha University, Shiva University, Krishna University, Islam University, Enoch University and Egziabher University.

He is initiated across five traditions: Ifá and Orisha practice (Yoruba), Thai Theravada Buddhism, the Tamil Siddhar tradition (Hindu), Maasai shamanism (East Africa), and Bon jhakri shamanism (Himalaya).

His current program, Sacred Study Beyond Walls, provides free religious education to federal prisoners through a 140-volume library — extending the same principle that drove the scholarship work: education is the most durable form of assistance, because unlike a meal or a grant it cannot be taken back.

He authored Detroit's Proposal E, the 2021 ballot measure decriminalizing entheogenic plants in the city of Detroit, which passed with 61.08 percent of the vote. He hosted the television and radio programs Necessary Business and Take the Land, and his book For Entrepreneurs Who Considered Suicide When Business Got Tough! reached a third printing.

In his case (SEC v. Japhia, No. 2:21-cv-12193, E.D. Mich.), the Securities and Exchange Commission notified the court of its own error, filing a formal Notice of Errata (ECF No. 96, May 16, 2025). The SEC declined to disclose that error to defendants in other cases where it had collected funds under the same flawed basis. Robert Shumake became a whistleblower to bring that information to light — sharing the story with others caught in similar circumstances who had no way of knowing the government had already acknowledged its mistake.