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Simmons professor wins prestigious poetry award..................pg. 2

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Scholars mull Obama’s record on race issues Yawu Miller

Meb Keflezighi of San Diego — the first American man to win the Boston Marathon since 1983 — cloaks himself in the American flag to celebrate. His finishing time of 2:08:37 was 11 seconds faster than his nearest challenger. (Don West photo)

Immigrant activists arrested protesting U.S. deportations Martin Desmarais Immigration activists blocking the Suffolk County House of Correction were arrested last week as a part of a national protest of the Obama administration’s immigration policies, which have resulted in the deportation of 2 million undocumented immigrants.

Protesters here and across the U.S. are calling for the president to use his administrative powers to halt the deportations.

Local groups, including the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Organization, Jobs with Justice! and the Chelsea Collaborative joined the National Day Laborer Organizing Network’s Not One More anti-deportation

campaign that has seen protests and rallies in as many as 80 U.S. cities in the last several months, with about half of those coming in April as the tide rises against congressional inaction on immigration reform.

Immigration advocates are specifically targeting the Secure Communities program, a federal enforcement policy that is credited for driving the Obama administration’s record number of deportations because it allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to access local and state law enforcement data to identify undocumented immigrants, detain them and deport them.

The Secure Communities program has given rise to claims that

undocumented immigrants are frequently deported after minor offenses, such as traffic violations.

According to statistics provided by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network following the Boston protest and arrests, 68 percent of the people deported in Massachusetts through the Secure Communities program had no criminal convictions or were only accused of minor offenses, including traffic violations.

Local immigration reform advocates are holding out hope that Massachusetts can join New England neighbor Connecticut and pass the Trust Act, which restricts ICE from accessing law enforcement data. Massachusetts lawmakprotest, continued to page 9

against white hate.”

Support for Obama cleaved A funny thing happened to Pro- along race lines in the 2012 election, fessor Matthew Whitaker on his way with overwhelming majorities of to the Barack Obama and American black and Latino voters supporting Democracy Conference at Tufts him, and the majority of white voters University.

— 59 percent — voting for Republi“I got a text message from my can challenger Mitt Romney. mother,” the Arizona State UniverFor many political pundits — sity Foundation Professor of His- black and white — the administratory said. “She said don’t be too crit- tion has been a disappointment with ical of Obama.” few palpable victories.

The other conference particIn the current atmosphere of exipants nodded in agreement with treme partisan gridlock, it’s not surWhitaker’s point: black people are prising that the Obama administrauncomfortable with criticism of the tion has been unable to advance an nation’s first black president. agenda, with the notable exception “This is true of the Affordof white liberable Care Act. als too,” noted Georgehistorian Diane “How can black town UniverMcWhorter. professor intellectuals criticize sity The conof Psychology ference, orga- the administration’s Michael Eric nized by the Dyson caupolicies while Center for the tioned against Study of Race according respect to underestimating and Democthe importance racy at Tufts, the president and his of the Afforddrew academ- office?” able Care Act, ics from across the first substanthe country to — Peniel Joseph tial legislation discuss politics, to reform the the criminal jusnation’s health tice system and care system in other issues that have occupied the decades. national spotlight during the five “When you see the questioning years of the Obama administration. of his humanity and his citizenship, The question that dominated the the fact that he got the Affordable opening session in the conference Care Act passed is a miracle,” Dyson last week was how best to evaluate said. “What he was able to achieve the Obama administration. was remarkable. To underestimate “How can black intellectuals crit- the lethal gravity of the people who icize the administration’s policies are opposing him is a mistake.” while according respect to the presBut aside from the new health ident and his office?” questioned care law, participants in the conferTufts Professor Peniel Joseph, ence agreed there was little in the founding director of the Center for way of concrete accomplishments the Study of Race and Democracy, for which the Obama administration and convener of the conference. can take credit.

“Black America sees him as a surAt the same time, the Obama Obama, continued to page 13 rogate son who they want to defend

U.S. marshals raid Roxbury radio station Yawu Miller Elected officials and community activists are rallying around the Grove Hall-based underground radio station Touch 106.1 FM radio after U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz ordered U.S. marshals to shut down the unlicensed station.

The marshals showed up last Thursday, and removed broadcasting equipment from the station’s Cheney Street studio.

Standing on the sidewalk outside

the studio, station owner Charles Clemmons vowed to resume broadcasting.

“I’ll adapt, improve and overcome,” he said. “Our community will not be silenced.”

Within hours, Clemmons resumed programming with online streaming, but the radio broadcast, which has a three-and-a-half mile radius, has remained silent.

Clemmons has operated the station for the last eight years without a license. Touch 106.1 Touch 106, continued to page 13

Touch 106.1 FM owner Charles Clemons says he is seeking a way to resume broadcasting after his studio was raided by U.S. marshals who seized his broadcasting equipment. Clemons has been broadcasting without a license for eight years. (Banner photo)

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2 • Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER

Simmons professor wins prestigious poetry award

Afaa Michael Weaver (Catherine Laine photo) Martin Desmarais Some might be surprised that the most recent winner of the prestigious $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the 62-year-old Afaa Michael Weaver, grew up in one of the most notoriously dangerous neighborhoods in America — the Baltimore ‘hood immortalized in HBO’s acclaimed “The Wire.” However, for current Simmons College profes-

sor and Somerville resident Weaver, poetry was just always part of who he was.

“Poetry has been my vehicle for self-realization. It has been a way to sort of bring myself to fruition,” Weaver said in a recent chat with the Banner. “I figured out early on I was a poet and I went about the business of developing that way … I have always seen myself at the core as a poet and I just kept at it.

“I always loved books and reading and writing ­— it was really necessary for me to have an inner life and by that I mean a reflective life,” he added. “I have always been a somewhat unique person. I was a very smart kid in a tough environment.

There were other smart kids there as well, but not all of us made it.”

Weaver credits his parents for helping him access the best schools available in the public education system and for backing his passions, despite them not being typical pursuits for a young black man in his neighborhood. “It meant being able to hold on to, protect and have some artistic talent despite it not being celebrated,” he said.

Weaver’s pursuits took him to the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1968 as a 16-year-old, but he left college after two years to take on a job in a Baltimore factory. He would spend the next 15 years working in a factory, but also writing poetry and working as a freelance journalist for several Baltimore papers.

His writing work eventually earned him a National Endowment for the Arts grant, which allowed him to leave the factory in 1985, finish his bachelor’s degree and also complete a master’s degree in creative writing from Brown University in 1987.

He has published a dozen poetry books, and also written award-winning plays and short stories.

His immersion into the writing world additionally allowed him to enter into the world of academia.

After Brown, Weaver worked as an adjunct professor at Essex County College in Newark, N.J., and at New York University and the City University of New York. He moved on to Rutgers University in Camden and received tenure at the school in 1995.

In the spring of 1997, he served as a poet in residence at the Stadler Center for poetry at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., and then moved on to be a visiting professor in the English department at Simmons.

In 1998, he accepted an endowed chair position at Simmons as professor of English, a position he still holds.

Weaver also is a long-time Tai Chai enthusiast, as well as Chinese scholar. In 2002, he was a Fulbright scholar at the National Taiwan University in Taipei and Taipei National University of the Arts in Kuandu, while on sabbatical from Simmons.

He has brought Chinese poets to the United States on many occasions and also translates their work into English.

But still his passion for writing his own poetry has not waned, and his recent $100,000 award — one of the largest given to poets — will allow him to sink into his craft even more.

He said he intends to scale back on some of his duties at Simmons and increase his writing productivity.

“I can make space and time to focus on my work,” Weaver said. “It is nice to be able to have the time to just think about poetry and value poetry.”

The Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award was given to Weaver for his 2013 poetry book “The Government of Nature,” which explores the trauma of his childhood — including sexual abuse — using thematic structure drawn from Chinese spiritualism.

“The Kingsley Tufts Award is one of the most prestigious prizes a poet can win, and I’m delighted to see it go to Afaa,” Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award Chief Judge Chase Twichell said in bestowing the prize on Weaver. “His father was a sharecropper. After serving for two years in the army, he toiled for 15 years in factories, writing poems all the while.

When he learned that he’d won a National Endowment Fellowship, he quit his job and attended Brown University on a full scholarship. He es-

sentially invented himself from whole cloth as a poet. It’s truly remarkable.”

Weaver said his plan now is to delve into his own past with his poetry and examine the period of the 1960s — when he grew up — and African American culture at that time. In particular, he is interested in examining the dramatic shift from the status of segregation to the world of integration, as well as analyzing the models for black men and black masculinity as the 1960s evolved into the 1970s.

“I have always have faith in my background and a faith in black people. I take a sense of pride that we survived slavery,” he said.

Weaver has already started down this thematic path and has his 13th poetry book slated to come out this summer called “A Hard Summation,” which comprises 13 serial poems spanning the entire history of African Americans from slavery to today.

A seasoned Bostonian now, he admitted he has also experienced a changing worldview after years in New England.

“Boston is a pretty conservative place. It is a paradox because this part of the country gets labeled for liberalism. But in the way that people behave it is also very conservative.

The two things live side-by-side,” said Weaver.

“In Boston it is very international with people from places such as Jamaica and Haiti. It is a whole new thing. It is a diaspora black community,” he added. “That is a new kind of African America for me. There is a whole diversity inside the black community in Boston I didn’t grow up with.”

Regardless of the different path Boston’s black community may have taken to their neighborhoods, Weaver can imagine that there are young black children with the same passion for the arts that he had.

He hopes they will follow their passion as well and has a message for them: “Believe in your own ability and take pride in the fact that you have a creative talent,” he said.

“Young people need to know that creativity means being able to have creative solutions — if you develop your creative self it will fuel everything you do because it is all connected.”

Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER • 3

Women’s group focuses on leadership development Kassmin Williams When Alicia Canady founded the Young Black Women’s Society of Boston along with four of her friends, it was because the then 23-year-old saw a need for an organization and network that catered to young women of color emerging in their careers.

The women she looked up to as mentors at the time were women who belonged to organizations focused on those who’ve already reached the point of success in their careers and lives, Canady said.

“That was a moment for me where I said ‘that’s fine if you’ve already arrived, but what about the women who are on their way to that destination? Why aren’t we investing in that group?” Canady said.

Canady, Wachmide LaBranche, Rashonda Ambrose, Nachelle Gordon and India Holmes founded the volunteer-led organization in 2005 with a goal to provide a platform for professional and personal development and civic engagement for young black women.

Since then the organization has attracted a group of dedicated and passionate women who have invested time in seeing the organization reach its full potential, and who have allowed it to serve for the past nine years.

“There are historical organizations around that are doing great things for people of color, but I think what makes YBWS unique is that

we’re not connected to a national organization,” Canady said. “For the past almost 10 years, we have funded ourselves. Our membership fees helped support our programming and our organization.”

While the organization has always had a focus on providing leadership development to young black women (targeting ages 21 to 25), the group has honed in on the need for their professional development in recent years, specifically for first-generation women who don’t have a professional network built into their families.

“You hear about a lot of programs and a lot initiatives throughout the city that are focused on just women or emerging leaders, but there isn’t a platform for young women of color in terms of their personal and professional development,” Canady said. “For example, who is telling you when you get out of school how to play the game in the workplace whether it’s nonprofit or corporate?

Somebody needs to tell you how to play the game. Who is talking about your personal brand? Who is talking to you about your own personal board of directors or about getting on nonprofit boards and the power of civic leadership? Who is helping you to learn how to speak publicly so you can get promotions and negotiate your salary?”

The organization has scaled back on the number of programs it produces to focus more on each member’s leadership development.

Its core development program is

called “ACCESS” and focuses on a different skill each year. The current focus is on personal branding.

The program includes various modules on the subjects and talks with guest speakers. Members participate in an evaluation at the beginning, middle and end of the program, Canady said.

Members also participate in retreats and quarterly meetings and have the opportunity to gain leadership roles within the organization.

Those leadership opportunities have been invaluable for some members.

April Watson has held roles as treasurer and vice-chair of finance and is now co-executive director

for YBWS. “When I started I just really wanted a way to have a positive impact on the city I had come from.

I knew [YBWS] had done a lot of community service work and initially that’s what intrigued me about the organization,” Watson said.

“But what has kept me in for the past three to four years was the potential for growth and the potential to learn from the past leadership in the organization.”

For the past three years, the group has hosted the Next Generation Women of Color Summit for women of all ages and high school-aged girls.

This year’s event is on May 3 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Simmons College.

The summit’s theme focuses on the idea of “having it all,” Canady said.

“It’s really about how you define what you’re “all” is, what you’re success is, and what happiness is to you,” Canady said. “We want our speakers throughout the day to use the opportunity to define what they see as “having it all” and for our attendees

to walk away at least thinking about how they define “having it all” so they know how it drives the decisions they make — whether it’s in their personal or professional lives.”

Natasha Eubanks, creator of celebrity blog site, theybf.com, is the keynote speaker.

Attendees will participate in three breakout sessions. Two of the sessions will focus on defining each individual’s motivation and pursuing a career centered on passion.

The third breakout session will focus on how some nonprofits are ensuring the urban community “has it all.”

The nonprofit organizations involved in the discussion are the Boston Foundation, New England Blacks in Philanthropy and Big Sister.

The summit will close with a roundtable modeled after daytime talk show “The View.” The roundtable will feature care.com founder Donna Levin. The group will speak about the idea of “having it all” and how their views of it have changed.

This year marks the third annual Next Generation Women of Color Summit, which aims to encourage leadership in girls and women.

(Photo courtesy of Young Black Women’s Society)

4 • Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER

Established 1965

A propaganda campaign to destroy self-image Racial discrimination in education and employment denied African Americans the right to progress in society, and discrimination in places of public accommodation was both inconvenient and demeaning. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 specifically outlawed throughout the country all three of those discriminatory policies. However, a media-driven strategy to marginalize, insult and humiliate African Americans has been underway without impediment for generations. The First Amendment with “freedom of speech or of the press” has provided an impervious protection of the bigotry.

Black men were characterized early on as rapists, lazy or simple-minded. D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film “Birth of a Nation” justified the organization of the clan to protect white women from rapacious blacks. The assertion of such sexual assault was the rationalization for the destruction of Tulsa’s black community in 1921 and the prosecution of the Scottsboro Boys in Alabama in 1931. History has proved that both of these accusations were false, but numerous men have lost their lives to the lynch mobs because of such rumors.

Lincoln Perry often played the role in feature films of Stepin Fetchit, the laziest man in the world.

“Amos ‘n’ Andy” was a radio hit from 1928 to 1943.

Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, two white actors, played the roles of two simple-minded black masters of the malapropism. With all of this defamation there was no dignified, heroic black male in Hollywood films until Sidney Poitier, who won the Academy Award in 1964 for “Lilies of the Field.”

Black women were characterized in Hollywood as “Mammy” types or “Aunt Jemima.” Hattie McDaniel won a supporting actress Oscar in 1940 for her role as “Mammy” in “Gone with the Wind.”

With so many beautiful black women in films and music now, it is no longer possible to characterize black women as unattractive. Kerry Washington, Tyra Banks, Halle Berry, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Iman, Toni Braxton and Naomi Campbell, to name a few, would not fit that description.

While the Civil Rights Act has mollified the impact of racial discrimination, abuse of the privileges afforded by the First Amendment continue. For example, the press currently treats suburban residents hooked on heroin like victims of a medical malaise.

By contrast, addicted residents of the center city are simply degenerate junkies.

It is good to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, but Americans must understand that there is still a long road to full equality.

Blacks striving to move forward For many years the media have reported on the inadequacy of the academic performance of African Americans. Consequently, it seems incongruous to learn that school enrollment for blacks is greater than for whites.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey for October 2012, the percentage of whites from the age of three and up who are enrolled in school is 22.7. The percentage of blacks in that same population age group is 31.4. This is a substantial difference of 8.7 percent.

The significance of this data can be determined by reviewing the enrollment percentage in various age brackets. For example, 96.4 percent of whites 16 and 17 years old are enrolled in school, while this is true of only 94.2 percent of blacks. Perhaps the difference of 2.2 percent reflects a higher high school dropout rate for blacks.

Similarly, the enrollment rate for whites 18 to 24

years old is 1.9 percent higher than the rate for blacks.

Perhaps a higher rate of college enrollment for that age group accounts for the difference. But among older blacks, enrollment in adult education is much higher. From the age of 25 on, a higher percentage of blacks than whites (2.5 percent higher) are enrolled in education; but the white population in that age group is so large (138,831,000) that its lower enrollment in adult education depresses the total result.

With such a rate of enrollment it is certainly unreasonable for conservatives to assert that blacks are just sitting back and waiting for handouts. Clearly, blacks are not indifferent to the value of education. The data indicates that blacks try to improve their level of education in their 40s and beyond at a rate even higher than that for whites.

The quality of the country’s education resources ought to be improved and become accessible to such a willing national resource.

The real question going forward is, what will the city do with the inclusionary zoning (IDP) funds collected? The mayor announced a week ago that $5 million in IDP funds will be disbursed for affordable housing. But there’s no word on what kind of housing. Nuestra Comunidad advocates for the Walsh administration to commit all, or at least the majority, of these funds for middle-income housing, with a priority for homeownership. Middlle-income housing is aimed at households making roughly $60,000 to $100,000, who are increasingly priced out of the rental and home-

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buying market in Boston. The city’s current Middle Income Housing Initiative offers low-priced vacant lots to developers, but that’s not enough to meet the need for middle-income homes or to get the prices down to levels affordable for folks living closer to $60,000 to $80,000 rather than $100,000 plus in annual

income. Roxbury, and many other neighborhoods at risk of gentrification, are at risk of becoming like the South End if we don’t aggressively design and build for middle-income families.

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Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER • 5

ROVINGCamera

OPINION Amid Detroit beating story, acts of racial reconciliation Robin Washington By now, everyone in Detroit has had an opportunity to show love for Steve Utash, whose beating by a mob after he stopped to help a child he struck with his pickup truck has sparked outrage.

It’s also fueled efforts toward racial reconciliation, though it may not be playing that way in the rest of the country. “‘Race is being looked at’ as a possible motive in attack,” CNN reported five days after the April 2 incident in which Utash, who is white, was beaten by as many as a dozen African American attackers in the city’s overwhelmingly black East Side. A CBS Detroit report was more blunt: “White man beaten by mob in Detroit after hitting boy with truck: Was it a hate crime?”

It may prove to be in part. A 16-year-old faces a count of “ethnic intimidation,” though authorities said there isn’t enough evidence to make that offense stick against four adults also charged in the attack.

Yet news reports were slower in telling the act of heroism and kindness that crossed racial boundaries. Deborah Hughes, a retired African American nurse who was packing a pistol in the neighborhood she also considered dangerous, shooed away the mob and gave emergency care to Utash seconds before what might have been the final, lethal blows.

“They were fitting to kick him and beat him some more and I told them they are not going to hit him anymore, they are not going to put their feet on him,” Hughes told Detroit’s WWJ radio.

To Utash, she said: “‘You can’t move baby, don’t move. Everything is going to be OK.’” A CBS affiliate, WWJ ran the story while other media outlets were still focusing on the hate crime aspect. And, if I missed something in my armchair observations of Detroit media from 500 miles away, a minister who has become involved in that city’s efforts at keeping the peace had the same impression.

“Initially, when the story was reported, race wasn’t even men- “They saw him hit an tioned. It was just a man beaten African American child, up on the East Side after he acci- accidentally, and one can dentally hit a boy,” Pastor David do the reasoning and Bullock of Detroit’s Greater St. see they might respond Matthews Baptist Church said in a aggressively. Is that a telephone interview Easter weekhate crime? I don’t think end. “Then the second framing so. Did race play a factor was ‘a white man.’ Then Deborah in that? Of course. The Hughes emerged as the third inmedia doesn’t always get carnation.”

After race was introduced, he a chance to parse these said, people of all colors jumped things out.” on social media with stereotypes — Pastor David Bullock about African Americans’ propensity for violence.

“Even some of the African American ministers’ initial comments were kind of strange,” Bullock said, including one asking, “‘What’s wrong with us?’ Deborah Hughes is black. Nobody said, ‘What’s right with us?’”

Though the circumstances are vastly different, the misplaced selfguilt is reminiscent of the initial condemnation of Shirley Sherrod, the black official forced to resign her U.S. Department of Agriculture post in 2010 after a politically motivated video showed her admitting discrimination against a white farm family — until the whole tape revealed she’d gone out of her way to help them.

As for whether or not the Utash attack was primarily motivated by race, Bullock noted it was not premeditated.

“They saw him hit an African American child, accidentally, and one can do the reasoning and see they might respond aggressively. Is that a hate crime? I don’t think so. Did race play a factor in that? Of course.

The media doesn’t always get a chance to parse these things out.”

While they’re working on it, Bullock — who grew up in Roxbury — is doing his part, with his congregation holding a special collection for Utash the Sunday after the attack. He also organized an Easter Sunday benefit concert at his father’s church for victims of similarly senseless violence.

Attending were the families of Renisha McBride, a 19-year-old black woman shot to death last fall by a white man when she knocked on his door seeking help after a car accident, and the recent, presumably blackon-black deaths of Darryl Smith, 19, caught in gang gunfire, and Eric Miles, 38, killed at another Detroit gas station.

And Joe Utash, the beaten man’s son, and his girlfriend and young daughter were also there — though they were at the hospital earlier in the day and came late, Bullock said. A newspaper report the next morning erroneously said they hadn’t shown up.

Because, like Bullock says, it can take a while to parse these things out.

Robin Washington is a research fellow for the San Francisco-based think tank Be’chol Lashon and a former managing editor of the Banner. He lives in Duluth, Minn.

The Banner welcomes your opinion. Email Op-Ed submissions to:

yawu@bannerpub.com ­Letters must be signed. Names may be withheld upon request.

How do you think Boston has changed since last year’s marathon bombing?

I think there’s an increased awareness of how to work together among citizens, medical, emergency and police personnel. There’s more of a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood and keeping our community safe.

I think it’s too soon to say the city has changed. We have a new mayor who’s aware of the urban community being underserved. He’s made good on some of his promises. As far as security, I’m sure everything is more secure

Stephen Hanley

Mikey Milers

Heywood Fennell

Carpenter Roslindale

Playwright Roxbury

Personally, I really don’t think it’s changed at all because we’ve had so many incidents in this city.

We have been strengthened by it, but there’s also a complaint that when something tragic happens in any neighborhood, people should be able to feel that pain on a wider scale.

I think we’ve become more aware and I think we’ve become closer.

Callie Cox

Jumaada AK Smith

Lilian O’Neal

Executive Director Roxbury

Retired Roxbury

Retired Roxbury

I don’t think it has. It’s a sad situation the way the media reports on events without looking at the root causes — how international politics plays a role. Is it Boston strong or Boston wrong?

Retired Jamaica Plain

INthe news

Cherina Clark

Cherina Clark, a resident of Hyde Park and a first year law student at Suffolk University Law School, was offered a position in the 2014 National NAACP’s Law Fellows Program. Clark is a graduate (magna cum laude) of Hampton University and active in the Black Law Students Association and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. Over the past two years, she has volunteered for the Boston NAACP and developed a passion for civil rights law through her work on discrimination complaints and voter engagement activities.

“I am excited and anxious to have the opportunity to work on some of the most critical legal issues of our time, including protecting our right to vote,” said Clark. “My work with the Boston NAACP has exposed me to the urgency for new and aspiring lawyers, like me, to lend our training and talents to the unfinished business of the civil rights movement.”

Throughout its 105-year history, the NAACP has offered attorneys the

opportunity to make significant, historic contributions to the field of civil rights law. Past NAACP attorneys include Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker-Motely, Robert Carter and Nathaniel Jones. In this tradition, the NAACP seeks to inspire attorneys to enter the field of civil rights law and to provide broad exposure to various strategies utilized by grass roots civil

rights organizations.

The NAACP Law Fellows Program, funded through the Kellogg’s Corporate Citizenship Fund, is designed to give students who have completed at least one year of law school the opportunity to work for the summer at NAACP Headquarters in Baltimore, Md. This year, the NAACP Law Fellows Program celebrates its 12th anniversary.

6 • Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER

NEWSBriefs

Grant of $400K to retain nontraditional students

Non-traditional students are far less likely to attain a post-secondary degree, and 70 percent of current students are non-traditional.

The American Council on Education has selected nine fouryear colleges and universities from among its member institutions to receive funding from one of its supporters, the Lumina Foundation, to increase non-traditional student attainment rates.

A non-traditional student is broadly defined as exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics: over the age of 20 upon initial enrollment, GED in lieu of high school diploma, dependent child or a dependent spouse, works fulltime, independent of their parent’s income, or enrolled in school parttime.

Meeting two or three of these criteria makes a student moderately non-traditional, and having four or more of these conditions makes a student highly non-traditional.

Most moderately non-traditional students are older than traditional age and are independent of their parent’s income.

Enrollment in post-secondary education among other types of non-traditional students, such as GED recipients or full-time jobholders, has decreased over the years.

The Lumina Foundation endowment of $400,000 will fund an 18-month study, called the Change Innovation Lab, to develop best practices for non-traditional student retention and attainment. One of the nine schools selected to participate in the Change Innovation Lab is Cambridge College.

Theater group honored for raising HIV/AIDS awareness The Theater Offensive, a nonprofit group that produces plays, social gatherings, and workshops for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, has been bestowed the prestigious Belynda A. Dunn award by the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts for their efforts in raising awareness of HIV/AIDS among racial minority communities.

The award was presented to The Theater Offensive at the 25th Annual Bayard Rustin Breakfast, named for the gay African American activist who worked with Martin Luther King Jr. in the Civil Rights Movement.

For black and Hispanic LGBT, HIV/AIDS awareness is one many concerns. Young people from this community are at a higher risk for homelessness, and at any age are likely to be harassed on the job, denied a job and denied housing more frequently than their black and Hispanic heterosexual counterparts.

The Theater Offensive, in operation for more than 25 years, strives to overcome racial bigotry and homophobia through performance, dialogue and workshops.

Boston’s Jazz Week ties past to present This Friday Boston salutes the power of jazz to bring people together as Jazz Week begins.

April 30 is the second-annual International Jazz Day, and Boston’s first observation of it will be marked

with a four-hour concert at Emmanuel Church co-hosted by state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry, City Councilors Michelle Wu and Tito Jackson, Boston Economic Development Chief John Barros, and JazzBoston board members. Innovative and traditional jazz music from near and far, including Armenia and Cape Verde, promise to provide a joyous noise in the church between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Concerts and other events throughout the city are scheduled for each day of Jazz Week, which ends May 4.

The annual event, now in its eighth year, was created by JazzBoston, an all-volunteer organization.

These volunteers — board mem-

bers, publicists, event planners — are musicians or aficionados of jazz music from the community.

Though seldom documented, Boston has a history of jazz clubs with in-house bands and touring performers, predominantly from the 1930s on through the 1960s.

All of these clubs were bulldozed and paved over for “urban renewal,” except for Wally’s Café in the South End. Wally’s has hosted live music almost every night since 1947, pausing briefly in 1979 to move across the street to their current location.

In 1959, a two-day jazz festival was held in Fenway Park and featured Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Charles, among others.

The festival was not renewed.

Community residents gather for the the Roxbury Historical Society’s Patriot’s Day observance at the First Church of Roxbury.

A reenactor on horesback portrays American Revolutionary War militia member William Dawes, who rode through Roxbury en route to Lexington on the night of April 18, 1775 to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams they were in danger of being arrested, before continuing on to Lexington and Concord.

Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER • 7

Ohio governor, legislature seen undercutting voter rights Zenitha Prince It was a sunny March morning when Democratic Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner and her small band boarded the No. 4 bus, beginning their trek from the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati to a proposed new county Board of Elections in Mount Airy.

The trip, she said, was meant to show how a decision to move early voting from downtown to the suburbs would make it extremely difficult for Hamilton County voters who didn’t have a vehicle.

“It took two buses — the second bus was late; one-and-a-half hours one way, and that doesn’t even count the time voters will spend waiting to vote; a half-mile walk, since the bus didn’t stop outside the site,” then they had to trod up a long driveway with no sidewalks since the building was situated some way off the street, Turner recalled.

“This is patently unfair,” said the lawmaker, who was joined by other Democratic colleagues and community activists. “How many hurdles should you have to jump to vote?”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2012 American Community Survey, almost 13 percent of Hamilton County households — mostly in Cincinnati — do not own a vehicle, creating a potential barrier to early voting, given the relatively difficult access to the new site.

It is but one of several new laws and policies that rolls back access to the ballot box in Ohio, voting advocates say.

“Unfortunately, in the state of Ohio, our GOP-led Legislature and governor’s mansion is using their political clout to roll back the hands of time,” said Turner. “My heart hurts that we are fighting the same battles that our ancestors already fought and died for.”

The current wave of restrictive voting laws in Ohio began in 2010 when an omnibus elections law bill, HB 194, was introduced in response to the spectacular breakdown of the state’s voting system, such as the extremely long lines in the 2004 presidential election.

Among provisions in the bill were some that would cut the early voting period in half (from 35 days to 16 days) and limit the hours for early voting, cutting out Sunday altogether.

“Considering how popular early voting had become in Ohio it was a little bit shocking that the Legislature wanted to reduce early voting,” said Sonia Gill, counsel, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law’s Voting Rights Project.

Signatures were collected for a referendum to overturn the legislation, but lawmakers repealed the bill before voters could act.

Since 2012, however, the tide has changed, bringing a flurry of legislation that could reduce broad

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participation in the elections. This year, alone, the Ohio General Assembly has passed and Rebulican Gov. John Kasich has signed bills that shave days off the early voting period and completely eliminates “Golden Week,” a brief window when voters could register and vote early on the same day; prohibits anyone but Secretary of State Jon Husted from mailing unsolicited absentee ballots to voters and makes it more difficult to count provisional ballots.

Husted has also set statewide, uniform early voting hours that contain no evening or Sunday hours, making it more difficult for working Ohioans to vote early and negating “Souls to the Polls,” an initiative of the faith community to mobilize their congregations to the polls on Sundays.

Secretary Husted’s platform of “uniformity” only “sounds reasonable,” Gill said, but it’s not since different counties have different populations with different needs and local administrators would know what is best for their voters.

Furthermore, she added, the policies disproportionately impact African Americans, who utilize early voting at higher rates. For example, she cited, one study showed that African Americans in Cuyahoga County voted early at 26 times the rate of white voters, accounting for one quarter of overall voter turnout but three quarters of early, in-person voter turnout.

“There should have been some accounting for this being a preferential method [of voting] for this community but there was not,” Gill said.

But then, that was probably deliberate, activists say. While Republicans tout voter fraud as the justification for increasingly restrictive elections laws there is little evidence of that phenomenon, they say. Conversely, there is more evidence that such laws are designed to reduce participation by minorities, the poor and other groups that tend to vote Democrat.

“It’s politics. It’s a margins game,” Gill said. “Elections are decided by slim margins, so when you manipulate the rules to create greater burdens to vote, ultimately, it’s going to reduce political participation.”

The adverse impact of these voter suppression laws is magnified by recent Supreme Court decisions that gutted Section 5 of the Voting

Rights Act and made it easier for corporations to influence elections, Sen. Turner said.

The effect will be the “polluting” of American democracy with money and the suppression of the voices of poor and working-class Americans, she added.

Turner said in addition to the March bus ride, she has highlighted and fought back against the harmful policies with legislation and other advocacy, and she is also running for the position of secretary of state in this year’s mid-term elections.

She urged fellow Ohioans to take a similar stand at the polls, like they did in 2012 when lawmakers tried to enforce similarly suppressive laws.

“A lot of people in 2012 gave a protest vote,” she said. “I’m hoping people will have that same spirit in 2014.”

New American Media

The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative celebrated its 30th anniversary on April 12 with a Community Summit. Keynote speakers were John Barros, City of Boston Chief of Economic Development, (standing) and Mel King, activist, educator, organizer and writer (sitting). Mariama White-Hammond, Project Hip-Hop Executive Director, moderated the event.

8 • Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER

Obama administration pushing clemency agenda Brentin Mock Twenty years ago, Nas took a walk down “Memory Lane” with grief about “judges hangin’ n***s, uncorrect bails, for direct sales.”

It was an observation that young African-Americans were getting handed punishments too extreme for the petty drug crimes for

which they were arrested.

Since taking the White House, President Obama has been taking measures to correct that. First, he signed the Fair Sentencing Act into law in 2010 to reduce racial sentencing disparities for crack-cocaine offenders; then he released eight men and women from prison last December who were jailed far

too long compared to the crimes they were convicted for.

Attorney General Eric Holder has been doing his own cleanup job in the meantime by reforming sentencing guidelines,tweaking racial-profiling policies, and pushing for restoration of voting rights for those with past felony convictions.

Today, Obama and Holder are

looking for ways to bring even more justice to those unfairly punished. They are seeking ways to expand Obama’s clemency powers so that the president can release more people from prison who are victims of what Holder calls the “old regime” of “tough on crime” criminal justice policies.

Holder announced today that he has created new clemency criteria that will allow the Justice Department and Obama to consider and grant “get-out-of-jail free cards” to a larger field of eligible prisoners.

“The White House has indicated it wants to consider additional clemency applications, to restore a degree of justice, fairness and proportionality for deserving individuals who do not pose a threat to public safety,” said Attorney General Holder in a video message posted this week.

“The Justice Department is committed to recommending as many qualified applicants as possible

for reduced sentences.”

Holder said he expects thousands of new applications for clemency to be submitted after this new criteria takes hold. To meet the demand, the Justice Department is bringing in extra lawyers to help review the applications.

“As a society, we pay much too high a price whenever our system fails to deliver the just outcomes necessary to deter and punish crime, to keep us safe, and to ensure that those who have paid their debts have a chance to become productive citizens,” said Holder.

“Our expanded clemency application process will aid in this effort. And it will advance the aims of our innovative new Smart on Crime initiative—to strengthen the criminal justice system, promote public safety and deliver on the promise of equal justice under law.”

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Governor Deval Patrick signs H. 3664, “An Act Relative to a Massachusetts Boston Strong License Plate,” at the State House.

(Governor’s Office photo by Spencer Crispino)

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Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER • 9

protest

continued from page 1

ers have such a bill, the Massachusetts Trust Act, in front of them.

California has also passed a version of the Trust Act. On April 17, the Suffolk County House of Corrections drew about 150 protesters from around New England. There was a large contingent of Connecticut protesters fueled by their recent success in persuading their state’s lawmakers to pass the Trust Act. The Boston detention center has faced demonstrations before — including a hunger strike last October — and holds several hundred immigrants slated for deportation.

The facility has been criticized for holding immigrant detainees alongside other incarcerated prisoners and faces several current lawsuits citing indefinite detention and poor conditions.

While demonstrators held up signs reading “No More Deportations,” “Stop Secure Communities,” and “Keep Families Together” and chanted or sang slo-

Her message — “Enough deportations” and “We are going to continue to fight.”

Another local protestor arrested was college student Maria Peniche, who grew up in Boston and graduated from Revere High School.

Her parents were just recently released by the ICE after two months in detention.

“I grew up here. This has been my home since I was 10, and I have no criminal record, but ICE detained me, stripped me, shackled me, interrogated me, and tried to break my spirit, just because I came here without papers,” she said to gathered demonstrators. “The president has the legal authority and the moral responsibility to stop this suffering now.”

One of the strongest voices on the day was Andres del Castillo, the American-born son of Columbian immigrants who grew up in Winthrop. His father and two older sisters were undocumented for much of his childhood and his mother was undocumented for 27 years.

Castillo spoke to protesters before the march on the Suffolk County House of Corrections

“Obama please hear us — hear our voices in this fight. I don’t want to continue suffering, and I don’t want to see other families continue suffering in the same way.”

— Santos Gutierrez gans such as “Liberation not Deportation” and “Not One More,” 19 protesters knelt to block the doors to Suffolk County House of Corrections.

Linked arm-in-arm, the protesters were warned three times over the course of an hour by police to move from blocking the prison doors before being handcuffed and removed by police outfitted in riot gear. The protest and the 19 arrests were carried out non-violently and those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing and released later that day.

Chelsea Collaborative Executive Director Gladys Vega, who moved to Boston from Puerto Rico when she was a child, was one of the local immigration advocates arrested. Vega spoke as the protesters rallied prior to marching on the prison front doors and she was also very vocal as she knelt on the ground in front of the doors prior to her arrest.

and also gave several impassioned speeches while kneeling at the prison doors before he was also arrested. Castillo called out the current government for its deportation policies.

“You are the one that is inhumane. You are the one that is breaking rules. You are the one that is breaking law, law-breaking laws of humanity, breaking laws of dignity.

You are breaking laws of respect.

Most important, you are breaking families and communities. You are tearing us apart,” Castillo said.

“And that brings us here, as U.S. citizens, as children of immigrants, as children of mixed-status family.

There are 340,000 of us born every year. There are 340,000 of us that will grow up, that will demand that this country listen to the pain that they have inflicted on our communities and we will not be quite.”

Like many, Castillo called on President Obama, as the son of an immigrant, to show he understands that immigrants deserve rights,

Demonstrators outside the Suffolk County House of Corrections on April 17 were part of the national Not One More anti-deportation campaign. The protest saw 19 activists arrested for blocking the doors of the Boston prison used to house those slated for deportation.

Immigration activists blocked the entrance to the Suffolk County House of Corrections in Boston last week in a demonstration against the Obama administration’s immigration policies that have resulted in the deportation of 2 million undocumented immigrants. (Banner photos) dignity and recognition.

Joining the protesters in the crowd was Santos Gutierrez of Springfield, a Legal Permanent Resident, whose husband Victoriano Aquilar Reynoso, an undocumented immigrant, has been going through a deportation battle.

“Three days ago my husband was detained by immigration. I am here so that he is not deported, but also so that no other families are separated the way we have been,” Gutierrez said. “Obama please hear us — hear our voices in this fight. I don’t want to continue suffering, and I don’t want to see other families continue suffering in the same way.”

Another protestor in the crowd as the police carried off those in front of the prison doors was Jasmine

Mendoza of Norwalk, Conn., born and raised in Vermont and married to Claudio Mendoza, who after 16 years in the U.S., was deported to Mexico a year-and-a-half ago.

“I go around and rally with everybody that is going through this horrible immigration process to try and get the deportations stopped and get the reform passed,” Jasmine Mendoza said.

Carrying her two-year old son in her arms, Mendoza said her message to President Obama and lawmakers is to stop deportations and, above all else, “reunite families.”

“They have been deporting 11,000 people a day, and to taxpayers that is a cost of between $12,000 to $18,000 to apprehend, arrest and deport. And then if they are the breadwinner, like my husband was,

we are a burden on the tax system because we are left behind. And he was the breadwinner so now I’m on food stamps and federal assistance.

Before we were self-sufficient and tax-paying. We have a house; we have everything. He was here for 16 years in this country and he paid taxes,” she said.

Mendoza now plans to leave the U.S. to go to Mexico to be with her husband, who hasn’t seen his son since he was 8 months old, but she still holds out hope that immigration reform may come and someday reunite them in the country she is from and they have called home together for so many years.

“A year-and-a-half without my husband is too much. It is time,” she said. “I haven’t given up hope.

I just want to be with my husband.”

10 • Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER

Marlon Wayans

weighs in on “A Haunted House 2”

Kam Williams Born in New York City on July 23, 1972, Marlon Wayans graduated from the High School of Performing Arts before matriculating at Howard University’s Film School. He started out in Hollywood on TV as a cast member of the Emmy Award-winning variety series, “In Living Color.” Next, he created and starred in the hit sitcom “The Wayans Bros.”

Some of his other noteworthy screen credits include: “The Ladykillers,” “Scary Movie,” “Scary Movie 2,” “Little Man,” “White Chicks,” “Norbit,” “Behind the Smile” and “Dance Flick.” The versatile thespian also exhibited an impressive acting range while delivering a powerful performance as a drug addict in “Requiem for a Dream.”

More recently, he starred opposite Channing Tatum in “G.I.

Joe: The Rise of Cobra.” And last summer he appeared in “The Heat,” a blockbuster featuring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.

He spoke to the Banner about his latest film, “A Haunted House 2,” a sequel spoofing the “Paranormal Activity” franchise.

Why did you decide to make “A Haunted House” sequel?

Because the audience really, really enjoyed the first one. And I also felt like I could find a nice, natural progression for my character, Malcolm. Plus, comedically, I knew I could match or exceed what we did in the original, and make a bigger, broader movie that could appeal to a wider audience just by making some adjustments and by adding a few pieces to the puzzle. One of those pieces was Gabriel Iglesias, and another one was Jaime Pressly.

How do you rev up a sequel so the faithful return for more while simultaneously enticing some newbies?

I think you have to make sure you have a little bit of the old, while adding something knew.

We kept Cedric the Entertainer, Affion Crockett and Essence Atkins and, like I said, we added Gabe and Jaime, and also Ashley Rickards. I think you have to stick with the integrity of the comedy, or lack thereof, and keep in stride with the humor of the movie. I don’t believe you try to sell it out.

Instead, you just keep your tone and your sense of humor, because that’s what they bought into the first time. It’s all about being authentic to whatever that movie is, and not reaching too hard.

Is there a remake of a classic film you’d like to star in?

I’d love to redo “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.”

Have you had any paranormal experience in real life?

No, I haven’t, but I wish I had.

Is it important to you not to get killed off in the first five minutes, as so often happens to black actors in horror films?

Yeah, it’s very important to me, being I’m a black actor, and I don’t want my black a-- to die in the first five minutes.

Is storytelling in the horror genre different from storytelling in a typical comedy?

Yeah, it is. But this is more of a typical comedy, because it’s a horror comedy with parody mo-

ments. It’s not a parody-parody, but what is kind of parody-esque is the pacing of how we tell the jokes. I’m throwing out five jokes a page. But what I’m not doing is going, “Here is the location, and here’s what’s funny about it.” It’s kind of grounded in reality, and once it’s grounded, we take the ceiling off and go crazy places with the comedy.

What’s the most difficult thing about your work? And what’s the most fun, aside from making a successful movie?

It’s always fun. I love my job, man. There’s no greater job for me in the world. I was born to do this. I think the most difficult aspect of the job is not having much time off, or time to sleep, or time to just chill. Sometimes, fame can be a little hard.

Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER • 11

intheMix with Colette Greenstein

with Colette

Forgiveness, redemption drive “The Railway Man” Burma?

Patti Lomax: In Britain anyway, his generation was taught more of the classics and history, our culture, than nowadays. I don’t know how it is here in America. And, of course there was no end to that for his generation at all. As far as surviving is concerned, his mother’s family is from Shetland. And in the last century they had some hard times.

Perhaps, there is a great streak of stubbornness there which probably stood him in good stead.

How did you support Eric in dealing with all the memories, pain and anger?

Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman play husband and wife in “The Railway Man,” the true story of World War II prisoner of war Eric Lomax, who was held by the Japanese in Burma and forced to work on the “Death Railway.”

What does it mean to truly love? Can love really heal the pain? What does it mean to forgive? Can you overcome the demons of your past? How does one find inner peace?

These are the questions at the center of the incredible movie “The Railway Man,” based on the 1995 bestselling autobiography of the same name. “The Railway Man” is the extraordinary true story of Eric Lomax, a British Army officer who is tormented as a prisoner of war at a Japanese labor camp during World War II, survives, is rescued, but is haunted by his past.

During Lomax’s imprisonment, he was one of several thousands of soldiers forced to work the notorious Burma Railway also known as the “Death Railway” — a 258 mile stretch of jungle between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma — built by the Japanese Empire in 1943, to support its forces in the Burma campaign of World War II. Decades later, Lomax and his remarkable and loyal wife, Patti, discovered that the Japanese interpreter responsible for much of his treatment was still alive and set out to confront him.

The film, which was shot in Scotland, Australia and Thailand with major sequences filmed on the actual “Death Railway,” stars Colin Firth as Eric Lomas; Nicole Kidman as Patti; Stellan Skarsgård as Lomas’ commander and friend, Finlay; Jeremy Irvine as the young Eric; and Hiroyuki Sanada as Takashi Nagase, the Japanese Imperial Army officer who presided over Lomax’s interrogation and brutal torture.

The Banner recently spoke with the real Patti Lomax and Andy Paterson, the screenwriter and producer of “The Railway Man,” at a round-table interview to promote the opening of the film in Boston.

What made Eric so different in how he dealt with his experience in Thailand and

Patti Lomax: This is Eric’s story. I did have some influence.

It’s a love story, I think, when we really look at it. I believe perhaps if one has support — I’m sorry if it sounds trite — that deep support, then perhaps it gives somebody enough strength to go forward, and try to find an answer, whatever it is and, in his case, to receive help from the Medical

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Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, which is a charity in London. [The Medical Foundation was set up in 1985 by a nurse who helped Holocaust survivors in the aftermath of World War II.] It took a period of two years for him to tell his story. It was a healing process in a sense.

It wasn’t just my input. It was other people, too.

What have you learned from doing this film? How has it

changed you?

Andy Paterson: It’s made it very difficult to make any other films because it’s such an extraordinary story. It does something that I suppose you dream movies can do, which is to tell a specific story that has a resonance for millions of people in different ways.

We continue to send people to war and we continue not to take responsibility for that. One of the Railway Man, continued to page 12

12 • Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER

Railway Man continued from page 11

reasons for me that Patti was such an important part of the story was that she represents the families that deal with the wreckage of war and who deal with that for decades, much of the time unable to even begin to comprehend what the problem is. I’ve learned so much about the fact that human beings aren’t capable of dealing with the kind of trauma we expose them to. I’ve learned a lot about the way that we do not understand or take responsibility for wars fought in our name.

I don’t understand how we constantly let that happen.

In “The Railway Man” former prisoner of war Eric Lomax, played by Colin Firth (r), confronts his former captor Hiroyuki Sanada, played by Takashi Nagase (l), years after his release.

What was it like watching someone play you and watching your life on the big screen?

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Patti Lomax: It was lovely watching somebody half my age. It was a great honor to have someone of Nicole’s caliber play me. It was surreal to begin with and I had to see the film the second time to get beyond that sort of amazement that this lady was representing me. And, the second time it became far more normal, if that makes sense. It was a very great honor.

You mentioned that this is a love story at its core. How did you handle everything that Eric was dealing with?

Who did you talk to or lean on in order to help him?

Patti Lomax: I think in the physical sense it was damaging.

That’s possibly why I always look like as though I’ve had half a dozen vodkas. I think it’s just simple. I loved the man.

Are you both happy with how the film came out?

Patti Lomax: Enormously. Although it’s a drama, the dramatized scenes are based on fact, and I think that’s a very great skill to have done that. Even the cage piece at the end, which probably seems a little bit overdramatic to somebody who doesn’t know, and right up to the meeting Eric intended to kill that man, and so that’s just representing the physical sense to an audience how he was thinking. So, it’s true.

Andy Paterson: Obviously, the fact that Patti is such a supporter gives you one level of an endorsement. It was a long journey but I don’t think we’ve stopped until it was good as it could have been. We wouldn’t have made it unless we felt we found a way to capture that.

It’s a fantasy to me to have Colin, how it ended up being, and having the chance to do it at the level that we were able to do it.

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Criminal: Drug Offenses/Probation Surrenders, Drunk Driving/OUI, Vehicle Offenses/Firearm, 209A/ DomesticViolence, Sealing Records/Sex Crimes, Personal Injury/Automobile Accidents Immigration: Deportation/Removal Proceedings, Employment Visas/Citizenship Sports/Entertainment: FIFA Player Agent Creative Solutions Always Delivers The Best!!!

170 Milk Street, 4th floor, Downtown - Boston, MA 02109, Phone: (617) 367-4500; Fax: (617) 275-8000, www.Bostontoplegal.com, Email: Harvcom@prodigy.net

$750 CHAPTER 7 BANKRUPTCY AFFORDABLE CHAPTER 13

“Because You Deserve a Fresh Start” STUDENT LOAN LAW NO ATTORNEY FEE – FIRST TIME HOME BUYER CLOSINGS DeBorah Sonnenschein, Esq. 781-641-0898 email: ds@sonnenscheinlaw.com FREE CONSULTATION

REMOVAL SERVICES FREE TREE WOOD REMOVAL good hardwood only Call Akee Roofing (781) 483-8291

JET-A-WAY DISPOSAL & RECYCLING

Commercial Waste & Recycling Removal for Businesses of all sizes Servicing the Greater Metropolitan Boston Area And the South Shore. Since 1969 www.jawdirect.com Contact us 617-541-4009 or sales@jawdirect.com

ROOFING AKEE ROOF REPAIRS

Roof Leaks repaired, Gutters repaired, cleaned, and replaced, Flatroofs replaced. Free estimates.

Call (781) 483-8291

Proudly serving the Community since 1927

BENJAMIN HEALTHCARE CENTER

120 Fisher Ave, Boston, MA 02120 www.benjaminhealthcare.com Tel: (617) 738-1500 Fax: (617) 738-6560 Short-term, Long-term, Respite, Hospice & Rehabilitation Myrna E. Wynn, President & CEO, Notary Public

TELEPHONE & INTERNET PREPAID HOME PHONE & INTERNET SERVICES

• starting at $39.95 +tax • Unlimited Local Calling • Receive Unlimited International Calls • Free Maintenance & Repair • No ID Required! • Services & Privacy Guaranteed!

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VIDEO & PHOTOGRAPHY EVEN KEEL PRODUCTIONS

Video, photography and audio services for weddings, graduations, private parties, performances, recitals and other celebrations.

Contact Stephen: 818-519-1399 www.evenkeelproductions.com Authorized vendor for CPCS

BUSINESS DIRECTORY $250/six months fora 30 word listing in print.

Email: ads@bannerpub.com

Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER • 13

Obama

continued from page 1

administration has been unwilling or unable to take decisive action on, or to weigh in on race issues that have occupied the national spotlight in the last five years — the unprecedented rate of deportation of undocumented immigrants, the erosion of voting rights for blacks and Latinos, the disproportionate targeting of African American families by unscrupulous lenders and the rapid expansion of the prison industrial complex.

Given the declining fortunes of blacks during the Obama years, it’s surprising that there are so few prominent black critics of the Obama administration, Joseph noted. Black businesses have not prospered from government contracts in the last five years, he added.

Just 1.7 percent of government contracts have gone to black-owned businesses.

“The whole notion of Obama as a power broker whose power will trickle down — it’s bankrupt,” he added.

One of the few to publicly rebuke Obama was his former pastor Jer-

emiah Wright, who contrasted Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech with Obama’s record of military expansion, which he summed up with the phrase ‘I have a drone.”

In spite of what Obama has not been able to accomplish, his presidency has transformed U.S. society, Dyson and other participants noted, paving the way for future black progress.

“It’s opens up space for us even to articulate dissent to Obama,” Dyson said.

Dyson argued that the president should pursue strategies to alleviate the disparate impacts of laws on blacks by using a race-neutral policies. Obama’s increase funding for Pell grants last year and the Affordable Care Act are two concrete examples of policies that are helpful to blacks, according to Dyson.

“You can be race explicit without being race exclusive,” he said. “The prison-industrial complex affects black people, but it has implications for everybody.”

While critical of Obama’s record, the academics at the conference were nevertheless appreciative of Obama’s historical significance. They contrasted black activists in the pro-

Tufts University Professor Peniel Joseph (center) makes a point during a panel discussion at the Barack Obama and American Democracy conference. Joining Joseph in the discussion are (l-r) Tufts Professor Lisa Lowe, Arizona State University Professor Matthew C. Whitaker, historian Diane McWhorter and Georgetown University Professor Michael Eric Dyson. (Banner photo) phetic tradition — King, Jesse Jackson and even Al Sharpton — with Obama, who has rarely mentioned race or invoked race issues.

“He’s not Moses, he’s Pharaoh,” said Jeremy Levitt, a professor of international law at Florida A&M University College of Law. “Black people have had plenty of prophets, but they’ve never had a president.”

Boston Water and Sewer Commission (BWSC) 980 Harrison Avenue Boston, MA 02119

WATER MAIN FLUSHING NOTICE ROXBURY AND SOUTH END Boston Water and Sewer Commission will begin Water Main Flushing in Roxbury area starting:

April 23, 2014 through May 30, 2014

Roxbury resident Dan Richardson (l) is honored during a Patriot’s Day celebration at the First Church of Roxbury.

Joining Richardson are Thomas Plant and Rep. Byron Rushing of the Roxbury Historical Society and state Rep. Gloria Fox. (Banner photo)

Touch 106

continued from page 1

was one of three stations the U.S. Marshalls raided last week. Licenses for radio frequencies are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission.

“As prosecutors we work in conjunction with the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau to identify violators of federal communications law,” Ortiz said in a press statement. “It is a public safety hazard for illegal radio stations to broadcast, potentially interfering with critical radio communications.”

Elected officials, many of whom have been mainstays on the Grove Hall station’s broadcasts, were inundated with constituent calls, demanding action.

“Touch 106 is part of the fabric of the community,” said at-large City Councilor Ayanna Pressley.

“We need to create more options for low-power stations. For many people in our community, it’s a main source of information.”

Gov. Deval Patrick, who has been a frequent guest at the station, expressed disappointment, telling reporters he asked Ortiz not to go through with the raid.

Patrick, Pressley and other councilors and legislators of color are working to help Clemmons obtain a low-power license and return to the airwaves, according to Pressley.

With the consolidation of media companies in recent de-

“Touch 106 is part of the fabric of the community.”

— Ayanna Pressley cades, large corporate entities have come to dominate urban markets. Licenses for full-power stations, which can cost as much as $60 million in an urban market, are out of reach for many black entrepreneurs, Clemons says.

“When it comes to television

and radio, black ownership in the media is at less than 1 percent,” he told the Banner. “We had [AM radio station] WILD for nearly 50 years, but we’ve never fought for more power.”

The FCC launched its low power service in 2000, in response to pressure from community groups, granting licenses to nonprofit entities to broadcast signals that could travel up to three-anda-half miles from a transmitter.

The licensing was halted within months, after corporate stations lobbied Congress.

The FCC fined Clemmons $17,000 in 2008 for operating without a license.

Clemmons and other lowpower activists lobbied for years to pressure the FCC to grant new licenses. But when the commission did open a two-week window for new license applications in Oct. of last year, Clemons, who was then a candidate for mayor, says he was not notified and missed the deadline.

The other stations raided by U.S. marshals were 100.1 FM, broadcasting from Everett, Mattapan, and Brockton, with a studio in Dorchester, and 88.7 FM, broadcasting from Brockton.

The boundaries for the area being flushed are: Kneeland Street to the North, Malcolm X Boulevard to the South, Albany Street at Union Park Street to the East and Huntington Avenue at Longwood Avenue to the West.

The purpose of the Water Main Flushing Program is to improve drinking water quality for residents and businesses.

Water Main flushing will take place between the hours of 10:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M. The flushing process may cause discolored water and a reduction in pressure. The discoloration of the water will be temporary and is not harmful. If the condition persists, please contact BWSC’s 24 Hour Service at (617) 989-7000.

BWSC appreciates your patience as we work to improve the quality of drinking water we will provide to the residents and businesses of Boston.

If you have any questions, contact BWSC’s Night Operations Manager at (617) 989-7000 or visit our website @ www.bwsc.org.

14 • Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER

ONE AD. EVERY MEDIA. $30.

The Banner’s new online Marketplace enhances our print ads by including them across all of the most widely used digital devices — mobile phones, computers and tablets. 80% of consumers search online first before buying local products and services. Our highly optimized platform gives our local businesses an opportunity to have their ads included in the digital searches for just $30 per month in addition to the print ad.

CONTACT SANDRA CASAGRAND AT SANDRA@BANNERPUB.COM OR (617) 261-4600 x7797 FOR MORE INFORMATION

Roof Space Management Company The Brookline Housing Authority (BHA) has issued an RFP for a Roof Space Management Company to market and manage roof space on our buildings.

The services shall include negotiating and executing leases with carriers, working with the carriers throughout the zoning process, coordinating installations and upgrades, all in the BHA’s best interest. The company shall provide monthly reports, preferably available online, and maintain a database of all properties and activities.

The deadline line for submitting responses is Monday, May 19 at 4:00 p.m.

RFP is available at www.brooklinehousing.org For more information, call 617-277-2022 x 315.

MASSACHUSETTS BAY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY 100 SUMMER ST., SUITE 1200 BOSTON, MA 02110 NOTICE TO BIDDERS Electronic proposals for the following project will be received through the internet using Bid Express until the date and time stated below, and will be posted on www.bidx.com forthwith after the bid submission deadline. No paper copies of bids will be accepted. Bidders must have a valid digital ID issued by the Authority in order to bid on projects. Bidders need to apply for a digital ID with Bid Express at least 14 days prior to a scheduled bid opening date.

Electronic bids for MBTA Contract No. B01CN01, REHABILITATION OF SAVIN HILL OVERPASS, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, CLASS 1, GENERAL TRANSIT CONSTRUCTION and CLASS 4B, CONCRETE BRIDGE SUPERSTRUCTUREPROJECT VALUE - $1,514,000.00 , can be submitted at www.bidx.com until two o’clock (2:00 p.m.) on May 21, 2014. Immediately thereafter, in a designated room, the Bids will be opened and read publicly.

The work consists of stabilizing Savin Hill Overpass, which includes filling the Main Tunnel, the Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest Structures with Low Density Concrete Fill (LDCF). The work also includes constructing two reinforced concrete walls to retain fill in Northeast and Southwest structures, the construction of two Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) walls to retain fill at both ends of the Main Tunnel and the construction of the reinforced concrete fascias. Other work includes repairing concrete walls that exhibit concrete spalls and cracks and removal and transportation of abandoned track.

The DBE Goal is 5%. This Contract is subject to a financial assistance Contract between the MBTA and the Federal Transit Administration of U.S. Department of Transportation. FTA Participation 80 percent.

Additional information and instructions on how to submit a bid are available at http://www.mbta.com/business_center/bidding_solicitations/current_solicitations/ On behalf of the MBTA, thank you for your time and interest in responding to this Notice to Bidders Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Beverly A. Scott, Ph.D. MBTA General Manager and Rail and Transit Administrator

Bid Documents in electronic format may be obtained free of charge at the Authority’s Capital Programs Department Office, together with any addenda or amendments, which the Authority may issue and a printed copy of the Proposal form.

In order to be eligible and responsible to bid on this contract General Bidders must submit with their bid a current Certificate of Eligibility issued by the Division of Capital Asset Management and an Update Statement. The General Bidder must be certified in the category of GENERAL BUILDING CONSTRUCTION. The estimated contract cost is ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-SIX THOUSAND, ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR DOLLARS ($156,124.00).

Bidding procedures and award of the contract and sub contracts shall be in accordance with the provisions of Sections 44A through 44H inclusive, Chapter 149 of the General Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

A proposal guaranty shall be submitted with each General Bid consisting of a bid deposit for five (5) percent of the value of the bid; when sub bids are required, each must be accompanied by a deposit equal to five (5) percent of the sub bid amount, in the form of a bid bond, or cash, or a certified check, or a treasurer’s or a cashier’s check issued by a responsible bank or trust company, payable to the Massachusetts Port Authority in the name of which the Contract for the work is to be executed. The bid deposit shall be (a) in a form satisfactory to the Authority, (b) with a surety company qualified to do business in the Commonwealth and satisfactory to the Authority, and (c) conditioned upon the faithful performance by the principal of the agreements contained in the bid.

The successful Bidder will be required to furnish a performance bond and a labor and materials payment bond, each in an amount equal to 100% of the Contract price. The surety shall be a surety company or securities satisfactory to the Authority. Attention is called to the minimum rate of wages to be paid on the work as determined under the provisions of Chapter 149, Massachusetts General Laws, Section 26 to 27G, inclusive, as amended. The Contractor will be required to pay minimum wages in accordance with the schedules listed in Division II, Special Provisions of the Specifications, which

Parker Hill Apartments The Style, Comfort and Convenience you Deserve!

Heat and Hot Water Always Included Modern Laundry Facilities Private Balconies / Some with City Views Plush wall to wall carpet Adjacent to New England Baptist Hospital Secured Entry, Elevator Convenience Private Parking Near Public Transportation and much more ...

Open House April 24 12-2 pm

Richard A. Davey MassDOT Secretary and CEO

2 bedroom starting at $2200

April 18, 2014 ZONING HEARING The Zoning Commission of the City of Boston hereby gives notice, in accordance with Chapter 665 of the Acts of 1956, as amended, that a public hearing will be held on May 14, 2014, at 9:00 AM, in Room 900, Ninth Floor, Boston City Hall, in connection with Map Amendment Application No. 655 and a petition for approval of the Development Plan for Planned Development Area No. 97, Northampton Square, Roxbury, (“Development Plan”) filed by the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Said map amendment would amend Map 6A/6B/6C, Roxbury Neighborhood District, by adding the designation “D”, indicating a Planned Development Area overlay district to approximately 156,282 square feet (3.59 acres) of land located within the city block formed by Northampton Street, Harrison Avenue, Massachusetts Avenue, and Albany Street, Roxbury. The Development Plan includes a complex of nine new and existing buildings on one parcel with up to 558 residential units, up to 137,108 square feet of office space, commercial and retail space, three levels of above grade public parking for up to 538 vehicles, a social recreational and/or sports center building, and open space.

A copy of the petition, map of the area involved and the Development Plan may be viewed at the office of the Zoning Commission, Room 953C, Boston City Hall, between 9 AM and 5 PM any day except Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays.

For the Commission, Jeffrey M. Hampton Executive Secretary

Call Today for more details and to schedule a visit...

888-842-7945

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Wollaston Manor 91 Clay Street Quincy, MA 02170

Senior Living At It’s Best

MASSACHUSETTS PORT AUTHORITY NOTICE TO CONTRACTORS Sealed General Bids for MPA Contract No. L1324-C1 TERMINAL E CUSTOM KIOSKS, EAST BOSTON, MA will be received by the Massachusetts Port Authority at the Capital Programs Department Office, Suite 209S, Logan Office Center, One Harborside Drive, East Boston, Massachusetts 02116, until 11:00 A.M. local time on WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2014 immediately after which, in a designated room, the bids will be opened and read publicly.

PRE BID CONFERENCE WILL BE HELD AT THE CAPITAL NOTE: PROGRAMS DEPARTMENT (ABOVE ADDRESS) AT 9:00 AM LOCAL TIME ON TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 2014.

The work includes CUTTING & PATCHING, ELECTRICAL, CASEWORK Bid documents will be made available beginning WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2014

wage rates have been predetermined by the U. S. Secretary of Labor and/ or the Commissioner of Labor and Industries of Massachusetts, whichever is greater.

The successful Bidder will be required to purchase and maintain Bodily Injury Liability Insurance, Auto Liability Insurance, and Property Damage Liability Insurance for a combined single limit of ONE MILLION DOLLARS ($1,000,000.00). Said policy shall be on an occurrence basis and the Authority shall be included as an Additional Insured. See the insurance sections of Division I, General Requirements and Division II, Special Provisions for complete details.

No filed sub bids will be required for this contract.

This Contract is also subject to Affirmative Action requirements of the Massachusetts Port Authority contained in Article 84 of the General Requirements and Covenants, and to the Secretary of Labor’s Requirement for Affirmative Action to Ensure Equal Opportunity and the Standard Federal Equal Opportunity Construction Contract Specifications (Executive Order 11246).

The General Contractor is required to submit a Certification of Non Segregated Facilities prior to award of the Contract, and to notify prospective subcontractors of the requirement for such certification where the subcontract exceeds $10,000.

Complete information and authorization to view the site may be obtained from the Capital Programs Department Office at the Massachusetts Port Authority. The right is reserved to waive any informality in or reject any or all proposals.

MASSACHUSETTS PORT AUTHORITY THOMAS P. GLYNN CEO & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Housing Opportunity at Alvah Kittredge House 10 Linwood Street, Roxbury, MA 02119 Alvah Kittredge House is a rehabilitated five unit residential redevelopment project in Fort Hill, Roxbury.

All units in the developments are two bedrooms.

Three (3) units will be listed at market rate & Two (2) units are affordable housing opportunities The rental units are available to eligible tenants for occupancy on July 1, 2014.

Monthly rent for each market unit will be $2150, plus utilities.

Monthly Rent for each affordable unit will be $1361, plus utilities.

Maximum Income Limit for the 2 Affordable Units: Household Size

70% of median income

1 person

$46,100

2 persons

$52,700

3 persons

$59,300

4 persons

$65,850

5 persons

$71,150

Applications for the affordable units will be available from May 13th to May 17th, 2014 and may requested to be sent by mail or via email from Certified Property Management 1195 Beacon Street Brookline, MA 02446 robin@propertymanage.com Applications for the market rate units will be available May 13th & distributed until tenants are accepted.

To obtain an application for a market rate units please contact: robin@propertymanage.com

Applications available in person:

May 13th from 2pm-7pm at Historic Boston Incorporated, 20 Eustis St Roxbury, MA 02119

A senior/disabled/ handicapped community

Deadline for completed applications for the affordable units is May 27, 2014

0 BR units = $1,027/mo 1 BR units = $1,101/mo All utilities included.

Affordable units: Selection by lottery. Preference for families with Child(ren) under age 6. Preference for households with at least one person per bedroom. Income, asset, use and occupancy restrictions apply.

to be postmarked and mailed to Certified Property Management by that date to the above address.

Call Sandy Miller, Property Manager

For more information call Certified Property Management 617-738-6606 x208

Program Restrictions Apply.

Reasonable accommodations made. An open occupancy building

#888-691-4301

Thursday, April 24, 2014 • BAY STATE BANNER • 15

CHELSEA APARTMENT

4+ bdrms Newly renovated, 2000+ sq ft apt in 3 fam, no smkng/pets, hrdwd flrs, eat-in kit, pantry, lg master bedroom, din and lv rm, laundry rm, enclosed frnt/bck prchs, off street prkng, T access, min to Bost.

Sec 8 OK

617-283-2081

OFFICE SPACE DORCHESTER/ MILTON 1st Class Office Space Corner of Gallivan Blvd and Washington St ample parking.

$375/mo. $695/mo. $1000/mo. $1395/mo. heated

OWNER

617-835-6373 Brokers Welcome

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Hadley West Apartments Wait list opening for Non-Elderly Disabled Applicants and their families Applicants must be non-elderly and disabled between the ages of 18–49 and meet both HUD and property eligibility requirements regarding income and unit size.

• One and Two Bedroom Apartments • Rent is based upon 30% of income • Heat and hot water included, community room, and on-site laundry • Max. income Guidelines are published by HUD, based on family size and are subject to change: 1 Person: $44,750 2 Person: $51,150 3 Person: $57,550 4 Person: $63,900 Applicatons will be provided upon request and will be numbered and date & time stamped upon receipt in the order they are received in the management office. Applicants will be notified in writing within 30 days regarding the status of their application. Visit or call the management office for more information and/ or assistance with the application process.

515 Hadley West Drive Haverhill, MA, 01832 Phone: 978-373-9571 Fax: 978-241-7965 TTY/TDD users dial 711 or 800-439-2370 (TTY/TDD) Office Hours: Mon, Wed, & Friday 9:00 am to 12:00 Noon and 1:00pm to 4:00 pm Equal Housing Opportunity

@BAYSTATEBANNER

Hoyle, Tanner & Associates, Inc. is a mid-size national consulting engineering and we are currently seeking to fill the following position:

CLF has an immediate opening in its Boston office for a Program Assistant.

The position provides a wide range of general and legal administrative support to three attorneys in the Clean Energy & Climate Change, Clean Water & Healthy Forests, and Healthy Communities and Environmental Justice program areas.

http://www.clf.org/about-clf/ employment-opportunities/

SMALL ADS BRING

BIG RESULTS! Call 617-261-4600 x 7799 or visit www.baystatebanner.com now to place your ad.

GET READY FOR

A Great Office Job! Train for Administrative, Financial

Services, Health Insurance Customer Service & Medical Office jobs.

We Help People Get and Succeed at Good Jobs Free job-search and career development help: • Most people who complete our 60-hour job-search workshop qualify for free, individual job-search help.

• We refer people to jobs that pay $20,000 — $30,000 and offer benefits.

• We mentor people who accept jobs through our referrals for two years.

If you are a low-income adult who is: • Looking for a full-time permanent job; • Willing to participate in our two-year mentoring program; • Age 22 to 55; • Legal to work in the U.S.; • Able to succeed in an English-speaking workplace, then…

Orientation Every Thursday, 1:00 PM. Call us to see if you qualify at (617) 424-6616.

• You will need to bring your résumé • If you do not have a résumé, bring a list of: 4 Jobs and military service since high school; 4 Education and training.

4 Be sure to include month and year; be sure that all dates are correct.

We look forward to working with you!

Work in hospitals, colleges, insurance agencies, banks, businesses, government offices, health insurance call centers, and more!

YMCA Training, Inc. is recruiting training candidates now!

We will help you apply for free training. Job placement assistance provided.

No prior experience necessary, but must have HS diploma or GED. Free YMCA membership for you and your family while enrolled in YMCA Training, Inc.

Call today to schedule an Information Session: 617-542-1800

Experienced parking and revenue control professionals needed › Parking Facility Managers › Parking Shift Supervisors › Parking Cashiers › Lobby Attendants › Parking Attendants Full and Part-time Positions available in the Boston area. Competitive wages and employee benefits. Military veterans are encouraged to apply. Please send resumes to mmsgroup@aol.com.

Vanguard Parking & General Services Corporation 795 Columbus Avenue Roxbury Crossing, MA 617-585-3150-employment office 617-585-3153-FAX

SUBSCRIBE to The Banner Call 617-261-4600 or visit baystatebanner.com

RESIDENT PROJECT REPRESENTATIVE

to provide on-site construction observation and resident engineering services on a sewer replacement project in New Hampshire. Requires at least 5 years construction related experience with emphasis on gravity sewers, wastewater treatment facilities, water mains, drainage systems, roadway reconstruction, new roads, and similar utility and infrastructure projects. Minimum of two years of education in civil engineering, construction management, Architectural design or civil engineering technology, OSHA training/certificate (40hour) required.

Please send resume and cover letter, to: Hoyle, Tanner & Associates, Inc., 150 Dow Street Manchester, NH 03101, or email jhann@hoyletanner.com AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

www.hoyletanner.com

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