Title:NAPOLEONICA LIBERTAD EQUINA Artist:Disey Zemog / Yesid Gomez Dimension:80" by 70" Media:Acrylic and 24 karats of gold leaf on canvas
CONTENTS
Pg4 Vote Pg 6 Hispanic Heritage Month Pg 6 Hispanic Art Show Pg 9Uncle Nate Pg 13 UnJustice System Pg 17 bctv.
Issue 195
9/1/12
From the Publisher… The Longest Running Minority Magazine
W
elcome to the 195th I ssue of Afro/Latino Magazine. Here you will find your source for Entertainment, Local Business, and other areas of interest in the Reading, Harrisburg, Pottstown Lancaster Pa area. Afro/Latino welcomes all your Advertising needs. We offer custom Advertising and Graphic work. We offer product placement and helpful ideas to make your business grow. Utilizing our Extensive Network of Websites, Print Publication, Promotional Tools and Events is a great way to increase your exposure and drive traffic to your business.
Afro/Latino is also a great way to make For all of your Personal Announcements such Advertising: as Birthdays, Anniversaries, Reunions, 484 484--256 256--7258 Weddings, Birth Announcements and Bienvenido a los afro / hispano much more! We are much more than Quiero darle las gracias por an Advertising echar un vistazo a nuestra Magazine . We publish revista, si tiene alguna pregunhelpful and knowledgeable information ta acerca de la publicidad en to empower our communities. So, when nuestra revista o sugerencias it comes to making the choice for your con respecto al contenido, Advertising...Stick with the Magazine that por favor llámenos al 484is in your Commu256-7258 nity and about your yle ayuda, Gracias Community
Look Us Up On Line , Afrolatinomag.com, EE--mail LCSERL@AOL.COM, Earl Lucas Facebook
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Two weeks ago we had our first employee meeting here in council chambers. I had a chance to introduce all the new members of the administration so ever yone in City Hall can put a name to the new faces. I used the opportunity to thank all the employees for all their hard work these last several months and to commit to working with the administration on accomplishing all the goals we have planned now that we have a full team in place. ♦ We have received overwhelming response to our PILOT and SILOT
programs, and I would like to
thank all the nonprofits in the area for their response to these programs. There have been over 36 SILOT programs completed and 25,377 volunteer hours logged. The clean-ups taking place through the SILOT program is definitely making a difference in the cleanliness of our city. ♦ Congratulations to Carlos Garcia of the Reading Inner-City Boxing Club, who won the 189-pound title at the Ringside World Championship Tournament held at the Expo Center, in Kansas City, Mo. Carlos was the 2012 PA District Golden Gloves Champion and is the Reading Inner-City’s first world amateur champion! The East Reading Boxing Club just had a very successful event and I’d like to recognize all the area boxing clubs, including King’s Gym, who are doing significant work with our youth and giving them something constructive and positive to do, and deserve the recognition for the great job they do with all the young men and women boxers. ♦ We continue with our neighborhood meetings. We held one Aug. 1 at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. We had a good turn out and received several good questions and heard several concerns, which we will
address.
We will have our next neighborhood meeting tomorrow night in conjunction with the Centre Park
Historic District
meeting at the Centre Park Historic District Headquarters on North Fifth Street. Managing Director Carole Snyder and Fire Chief Hollinger will be there to meet the residents and hear their concerns. ♦ Last week the City of Reading was awarded a HUD 108 Loan for $1.5 million dollars and an accompanying BEDI (Brownfield Economic Development Initiative) for $750,000 for the Ricktown neighborhood. The HUD 108 funds will be used for the rehabilitation of units already in the Ricktown area to give local residents and first-time homebuyers an opportunity to own their own home in a very exciting area of the city. It is also intended for commercial mixed-use so that artists can use the ground level to showcase and sell their art while living above. It’s our hope that a coffee shop or the like can also find its way into a bottom floor. The BEDI initiative can be used for environmental remediation and housing/streetscapes. ♦ Last Friday, the Christmas Special was taped at Hope Lutheran Church. It is scheduled to air on CBS on Christmas Eve, but there will be a special premiere screening here in Reading and we’ll keep you updated on when that date will be. ♦ This is the final week of the tax amnesty program. If someone has an outstanding per-capita tax bill or businessprivilege tax bill and completes the application by Friday, they will be accepted into the
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One of the paradoxes of the trans-Atlantic slavery is that it caused some unintelligible Westerners to think that the history of the black man began with the advent of slavery. On the contrary, Africa and Africans had had large and formidable empires the size of Rome and some even bigger. In fact, at the time when Europe languished in 500 years of darkness — the so-called dark ages when intellectual and cultural pursuit stagnated — African empires and Kingdoms flourished. Between 750 and 1200 A.D. for example, Ghana Empire, blossomed as the “Land of Gold” for its role in the gold trade under the leadership of a Manden speaking people known as the. And the Mali Empire which covered most of Africa south of the Sahara flourished from 1200— 1500 A.D. Its powerfixl leader, Sundiata Keita — who rose from a royal slave and a magician to a leader, has been credited in many quarters for uniting the Mali Empire. Then there was the Songhai Empire (1350— 1600 AD) which was larger than Mali and was centered along the Niger River. Its city of Timbuktu became well known as a center of Islamic learning, attracting scholars from around the world. Thus the people we refer to in the west today as descendants of slaves are actually descendants of kings and princes who, due to a combination of unfortunate circumstances, became slaves in the hands of some of the most heartless slave traders and owners history has ever known. Prince Abdul Rahinan of Timbo in Futa Jallon is a case in point. Rahman’s story has been documented in a book, Prince Among Slaves, by Terry Alford, and featured in a PBS documentary during 2008 black history month. This son of king Sori of Futa Jallon was captured in 1788 while returning from a military expedition in which he commanded 2,000 men. His maltreatment began immediately as his captors forced him to walk about 100 miles on foot. Compelled to leave his wife and child behind, Abdul Rahman embarked on his three month journey to the cotton plantations of America that took him through The Gambia and finally to Natchez, Mississippi where slave owner Thomas Foster bought him. After observing the ingenuity of his new slave, Foster put Abdul Rahman in charge of his cotton plantation, and after seven years allowed him to marry Isabella, another slave woman with whom Rabman had five sons and four daughters. During his twentieth year in captivity Abdul Rahman encountered an Irish physician named Dr. John Cox who immediately recognized the prince and took it upon himself to endeavor to free him as a repayment of a personal gratitude he owed the prince’s father who had saved him decades back in West Africa when the man was separated from his ship’s crew. Foster, however, refused every offer Dr. Cox made to buy Abdul Rahinan from him. The slave, who was very knowledgeable in geography, astronomy, math, etc. in addition to his skills in the fields, was just too valuable to his economic welfare. At the age of 60, after realizing that Abdul Rahman had lost most of his usefulness due to age, coupled with some pressure from the government, championed by the then secretary of state Henry Clay, Thomas Foster eventually agreed to free Rahman on condition that he is sent back to his home land. Eager to spread Christianity among Arabic speaking Africans, The American Colonization Society ofiered to help Abdul Rahman raise funds to free his family in exchange for writing The Lord’s Prayer in Arabic. Researchers later found out that Abdul Rahman actually wrote Surah Al-Fatiha — which is the opening chapter of the Holy Quran. Eventually Abdul Rahman and his wife Isabella were able to return to West Africa, but landed in Monroe (now Monrovia), Liberia, on March 18, 1829 instead of Futa Jallon in neighboring Guinea. Just four months after his arrival, Abdul Rahman contracted spells of fever and died at the age of 67. So the next time you see a black man anywhere in the West, have some respect for him, and instead of thinking that he is a former slave or a descendant of a former slave, treat him as a man or woman who has endured the test of time and might just be a brother of sister of Abdul Rahman.
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