Insight ::: 03.13.2023

The women who stood with Martin Luther King Jr. and sustained a movement for social change

By Vicki Crawford Professor of Africana Studies, Morehouse College

An activist in her own right

Coretta Scott King is often remembered as a devoted wife and mother, yet she was also a committed activist in her own right. She was deeply involved with social justice causes before she met and married Martin Luther King Jr., and long after his death.

Scott King served with civil rights groups throughout her time as a student at Antioch College and the New England Conservatory of Music. Shortly after she and King married in 1953, the couple returned to the South, where they lent their support to local and regional organizations such as the NAACP and the Montgomery Improvement Association. They also supported the Women’s Political Council, an organization founded by female African American professors at Alabama State University that facilitated voter education and registration, and also protested discrimination on city buses. These local leadership efforts paved the way for widespread support of Rosa Parks’ resistance to segregation on public busing.

Following her husband’s assassination in 1968, Scott King devoted her

life to institutionalizing his philosophy and practice of nonviolence. She established the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, led a march of sanitation workers in Memphis and joined efforts to organize the Poor People’s Campaign. A longtime advocate of workers rights, she also supported a 1969 hospital workers’ strike in South Carolina, delivering stirring speeches against the treatment of African American staff Scott King’s commitment to nonviolence went beyond civil rights at home.

During the 1960s, she became involved in peace and anti-war efforts such as the Women’s Strike for Peace and opposed the escalating war in Vietnam. By the 1980s, she had joined protests against South African apartheid, and before her death in 2006, she spoke out in favor of LGBT rights – capping a lifetime of activism against injustice and inequalities.

Women and the March

While Scott King’s support and ideas were particularly influential, many other women played essential roles in the success of the civil rights movement. Take the most iconic moment of the civil rights struggle, in many Americans’ minds: the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freeedom, at which King delivered his landmark “I

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steps of the Lincoln Memorial. As the 60th anniversary of the march approaches, it is critical to recognize the activism of women from all walks of life who helped to strategize and organize one of the country’s most massive political demonstrations of the 20th century. Yet historical accounts overwhelmingly highlight the march’s male leadership. With the exception of Daisy Bates, an activist who read a short tribute, no women were invited to deliver formal speeches.

Women were among the key organizers of the march, however, and helped recruit thousands of participants.

Dorothy Height, president of the National Council of Negro Women, was often the lone woman at the table of leaders representing national organizations. Anna Arnold Hedgeman, who also served on the planning committee, was another strong advocate for labor issues, anti-poverty efforts and women’s rights.

Yet women’s organizing during the 1950s and 1960s is most evident at local and regional levels, particularly in some of the most perilous communities across the deep South. Since the 1930s, Amelia Boynton Robinson of Dallas County, Alabama, and her family had been fighting for voting rights, laying the groundwork for the struggle to end voter suppression that

continues to the present. She was also key in planning the 50-mile Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965. Images of the violence that marchers endured – particularly on the day that came to be known as Bloody Sunday – shocked the nation and eventually contributed to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. Or take Mississippi, where there would not have been a sustained movement without women’s activism. Some names have become well known, like Fannie Lou Hamer, but others deserve to be.

Two rural activists, Victoria Gray and Annie Devine, joined Hamer as representatives to the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a parallel political party that challenged the state’s all-white representatives at the 1964 Democratic Convention. A year later, the three women represented the party in a challenge to block the state’s congressmen from taking their seats, given ongoing disenfranchisement of Black voters. Though the congressional challenge failed, the activism was a symbolic victory, serving note to the nation that Black Mississippians were no longer willing to accept centuries-old oppression.

Many African American women were out-front organizers for civil rights. But it is no less important to remember those who assumed less visible, but indispensable, roles

2. That the Governor hold his appointed State Commissioners and the state departments they lead accountable for measurable and reportable processes and strategies to eliminate disparities that exist in and that are supported by policies and procedures of state governance.

3. That the Minnesota Legislature prioritize intentional solution making that can occur when Legislators, Committee Chairs and Committees engage Minnesota’s Black community at the table of decision.

4. Housing Invest now in multiple housing options for the Black community to close the home ownership gap.

An article published by the Brooking Institute stated that the underrepresentation of Black businesses does not come from a lack of will or talent. Rather, the underrepresentation of Black businesses encapsulates a myriad of structural barriers underscoring America’s tumultuous history with structural racism. One of the principal barriers to the growth and development of Black businesses is that Black households have been denied equal opportunities for wealth accumulation. The median Black household’s wealth ($9,000) is nearly one-fifteenth that of non-Black households ($134,520). The article states that 90% of new businesses among all races do not receive any outside investors. Most people use the equity in their homes to start their firms. This is a huge disadvantage to Black folks in Minnesota because of the home ownership gap. Further, the report stated that minority owned businesses experience higher loan denial probabilities and pay higher interest rates than white-owned businesses even after controlling for differences in credit-worthiness, and other factors. Limited access to investment capital in its many forms is inextricably linked to systemic discrimination in lending, housing, and employment. It cripples Black business development.

2. Employment Invest now in creating employment opportunities for the Black community

In an article published by the Urban Institute, the issue of Black employment was addressed.

It stated that, “while many are heralding the drop in the national Black male unemployment rate, which recently fell below 10 percent for the first time in seven years, joblessness remains much higher in many poor African American communities. It stated that for many low-income Black men, finding and keeping work is a constant struggle, never far from their minds. Black job applicants might not even make it into the queue if they have had an encounter with the criminal justice system. Helping Black folks secure steady employment at decent wages will require resources to break down the institutional barriers that separate people from decent job opportunities and to enable Black people to build the skills needed for well-paying jobs

3. Public Safety

Invest now in Public Safety in the Black community.

Public safety exists to protect citizens, organizations, and communities by preventing them from being in danger and guarding their well-being. Abraham Maslow defined safety in his famous “Hierarchy of Human Needs“. He said that to function as a society public safety is needed. He said this safety goes beyond just physical safety but also safety when it comes to health, money, possessions, and family. Less we forget, there’s an Emotional Impact on Public Safety. When folks feel unsafe, it could have major effects on individuals, their loved ones, and the community they live in. Violence has been way to prevalent in the inner cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Playgrounds are unsafe, the streets are unsafe, and the shopping malls are unsafe.

Multiple housing options are an important part of any community. It provides a safe and affordable place for people to live and can help reduce poverty and homelessness. However, there are many challenges associated with providing low-income housing, such as limited resources, high demand, and the need to ensure that the housing is safe and secure. Minneapolis has one of the widest homeownership gaps in the country between whites and Blacks.

5. Education

Invest now in ensuring that our Black students are educated at the same level as White students. Dr. Sinclair Grey lll stated that education is without a doubt crucial to the success of our students competing for jobs. Quality education that enforces and reinforces math, science, writing, and cognitive thinking will separate those who desire a prosperous future from those who are simply content with getting by. Yet, in Minnesota, reading test scores for Black students are over 20 points below state average and math test scores are 20 points below state average. Minnesota ranks 50th in the nation for Black students who graduate on time. Minnesota has one of the worst college-readiness gaps in the nation by race and ethnicity – only 25% of Black students are prepared for college. Thus, Black students who attend college must take significantly more remedial courses than their peers as their starting point.

6. Health & Wellness

Invest now in efforts that will impact the health and wellness of the Black community. The Black community is faced with escalating social, economic, and life-style problems, which threaten the life and well-being of current and future generations of Black people in crisis proportion. The rising number of deaths due to heart disease and stroke, homicide and accidents related to substance abuse, AIDS, cancer, and infant mortality are among the leading culprits. They interfere with prospects of longevity and contribute to joblessness, poverty, and homelessness and further complicate the crisis in the Black community. The magnitude of the problems dictates the need for support from the Minnesota State Legislature.

7. Policy

Each member of the legislature, regardless of political affiliation, is involved in setting public policy. These policies should reflect the will of the people and is carried out by those elected to vote. Because of conflicting interests and capacities, some policies have disenfranchised the Black community. There is therefore a need for coherence of interest/capacities in an attempt to pass policies that reflect the needs of the Black community.

Every time another national “quality of life” is broadcast or published about the best places to live in the U.S., Minnesota and the Twin Cities always rank at or near the top. The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson once referred to this as the miracle of Minneapolis.” Likewise, every time those lists are parsed out further, the state and the metro fall all the way to the bottom when it comes to quality of life measures for Black people, or, what some have called the “Two Minnesotas.” But to ensure that all those in our state have the opportunity to thrive, we cannot forget about the communities that have been systematically abused, persistently underrepresented, and long underserved. Minnesota is now the seventh (7th) worst state in the country for Blacks to live. This dubious recognition alongside the May 2020 murder of George Floyd has brought the State into an era of racial reckoning and has put racial inequity at the center of the national conversation, and Minnesota on the racial map. Today Black folks are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to live below the poverty line. Additionally, the typical Black household earns just 63 cents for every dollar a typical white household earns, and African American workers are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as white workers.

Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 24/7 Wall St. created an index to measure socioeconomic disparities between Black and white Americans to identify the worst states for Black Americans. High on the list of cities that have extremely troubling disparities is Minneapolis-St. Paul. Minnesota’s urban core boast these disturbing rates:

• Black population: 290,210 (8.2% of total)

• Black median income: $36,127 (44.0% of white income)

• Unemployment: 9.2% (Black); 3.2% (white)

• Homeownership rate: 25.2% (Black); 75.5% (white)

• Black poverty rate of 28.3% in the metro area, 5.9% (white)

• Black medium household earn $36,127 a year — the median income among white area households is $82,118.

The profound racial wealth gaps for Blacks in Minnesota is structural, as they are across the United States. Structural racism is inherent in intersecting and overlapping institutions, policies, practices, ideas, and behaviors that give resources, rights, and power to white people while denying them to others. The roots of racial wealth gaps can be traced back centuries through racialized public and private policies and practices, which fueled economic boosts to white families that allowed for intergenerational wealth transfers and created barriers to Black families. Past discrimination and injustices accumulate and build across generations, making it hard for communities that have been harmed to catch up. As one example, the losses from unpaid wages and lost inheritances to Black descendants is estimated at around $20 trillion today. The NAACP Twin Cities 2019 Economic Inclusion Plan states: “There are two Minnesota’s, one white, one Black – separate and unequal.”

Data from the 2019 Prosperity Now Scorecard shows that 40% of Americans are liquid asset poor—meaning they do not have enough in savings to make ends meet at the poverty level for three months ($6,275 for a family of four in 2018). This problem is even more stark when disaggregated by race. 31.7% of white households are liquid-asset poor compared to over 62% of Black households.

Recent trends in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties are moving in the wrong direction. The share of Black families who own a home has declined from 31 percent in 2000 to 21 percent in 2018. The racial homeownership gap in the Twin Cities is the highest in the nation and has only widened over the past two decades, especially in neighborhoods where investors have acquired hundreds of single-family homes to now use as rentals, according to a June 2021 report from the Urban Institute.

Minnesota House approves $1.9B public works package

By Steve Karnowski Associated Press

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota House approved a $1.9 billion public infrastructure package with bipartisan support Monday evening for fixing up roads, bridges, water systems, college facilities and parks and trails across the state, sending it to the Senate where its fate is less certain. Most individual projects in the package were unglamorous and noncontroversial, with a focus on maintaining or replacing existing but aging assets in legislative districts statewide.

They were split between one piece of legislation that called for $1.5 billion in borrowing, known as a bonding bill, and another that totaled about $400 million in cash.

Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, told reporters that the two bills are “chock full of critically important infrastructure projects that will strengthen communities ... all across the state, and importantly will create jobs.”

But the politics of assembling bonding bills get complicated because it usually takes a 60% supermajority in each chamber for the state to take on more long-term debt.

The House cleared that bar when it passed the bonding bill 91-43, with 21 Republicans joining majority Democrats in voting yes, more than the needed 11. The separate cash projects bill, which required only a simple majority, then passed 98-36. But leaders of the Senate GOP minority reiterated at a news conference Monday that some kind of tax relief from the state’s huge $17.5 billion budget surplus would be their price for the necessary GOP votes when the bill comes up in the Senate. Democrats hold a one-vote, 34-33 majority in the Senate. It would take at least seven Republican votes to pass a bonding bill there.

The brief but shining life of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a poet who gave dignity to the Black experience

By Minnita Daniel-Cox Associate Professor of Music, University of Dayton

Paul Laurence Dunbar was only 33 years old when he died in 1906.

In his short yet prolific life, Dunbar used folk dialect to give voice and dignity to the experience of Black Americans at the turn of the 20th century. He was the first Black American to make a living as a writer and was seminal in the start of the New Negro Movement and Harlem Renaissance.

Dunbar also penned one of the most iconic phrases in Black literature – “I know why the caged bird sings” – his poem “Sympathy.”

“… When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings – I know why the caged bird sings!”

Published in 1899, “Sympathy” inspired acclaimed Black writer and activist Maya Angelou to use Dunbar’s line as the title of her seminal autobiography.

But Dunbar’s artistic legacy is often overlooked. This,

Hortman and Rep. Fue Lee, of Minneapolis, chair of the House Capital Investment Committee, framed the package as unfinished business from the 2022 session, when a bonding deal fell apart amid other partisan election-year disputes. They said they hope to follow it up with another public works package in the coming weeks.

If Senate Rep. Kozni and Republicans don’t go along, leaders of the House and Senate Democratic majorities have threatened to pay for a potentially much bigger list of projects just out of the surplus. What Hortman called a “with-orwithout-you” all-cash approach

Joe Biden plans new taxes on the rich to help save Medicare

By Chris Megerian and Josh Boak Associated Press

President Joe Biden on Tuesday proposed new taxes on the rich to help fund Medicare, saying the plan would help to extend the insurance program’s solvency by 25 years and provide a degree of middle-class stability to millions of older adults.

In his plan, Biden is overtly declaring that the wealthy ought to shoulder a heavier tax burden. His budget would draw a direct line between those new taxes and the popular health insurance program for people older than 65, essentially asking those who’ve fared best in the economy to subsidize the rest of the population.

Biden wants to increase the Medicare tax rate from 3.8% to 5% on income exceeding $400,000 per year, including salaries and capital gains. The White House did

not provide specific cost-saving estimates with the proposal, but the move would likely increase tax revenues by more than $117 billion over 10 years, according to prior estimates in February by the Tax Policy Center.

“This modest increase in Medicare contributions from those with the highest incomes will help keep the Medicare program strong for decades to come,” Biden wrote in a Tuesday essay in The New York Times. He called Medicare a “rocksolid guarantee that Americans have counted on to be there for them when they retire.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was quick to dismiss the plan, telling reporters on Tuesday that Biden’s budget agenda “will not see the light of day.”

More than 65 million people rely on Medicare at a cost to taxpayers of roughly $900 billion every year. The number of Medicare enrollees is expected to continue growing as the U.S. population ages.

Biden

But funding for the program is a problem with federal officials warning that, without cuts or tax increases, the Medicare fund might only be able to pay for 90% of benefits by 2028.

Biden’s suggested Medicare changes are part of a fuller budget proposal that he plans to release on Thursday

in Philadelphia. Pushing the proposal through Congress will likely be difficult, with Republicans in control of the House and Democrats holding only a slim majority in the Senate. The proposal is a direct challenge to GOP

By Chuck Hobbs

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed a Bill last week that criminalizes anyone who dresses or performs in drag on public property, in general, and specifically proscribes: “topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest, or similar entertainers.”

Geez, had the hetero parts of this bill been the law across the South during my student days at Morehouse, FAMU Grad, and UF Law, I and my whole crew of friends might have been felony offenders based upon the time that we spent at Club Nikki’s and the Blue Flame in Atlanta, and the Rolexxx down in Miami .

Clearly, that’s a long list of prurient interests, not all of which specifically target the LGBTQ community despite

despite the fact that his work influenced a number of other great African American literary giants, including Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston and Margaret Walker.

In a very real sense, Dunbar is your favorite poet’s favorite poet.

A blooming life of writing

Born on June 27, 1872, to two formerly enslaved people from Kentucky, Dunbar was raised by his mother, and they eventually settled in Dayton, Ohio. While there, Dunbar attended the integrated Dayton

the aim being to antagonize a demographic that far too many so-called “Values Voters” believe runs contrary to their so-called “Christian values.” I use “so-called” in the prior paragraph because as a Baptized Christian since November of 1982, I have lived long enough to know that some of the most racist, sexist, homophobic, and religiously bigoted people in America claim to be followers of Christ and believe that they are “doing their Master’s will” by codifying their bigotry into law. But as I often remind, America was NOT founded as a theocracy and contrary to popular (and quite wrong) sentiment, the U.S. Constitution does not hold dear to “Judeo-Christian values” in any way, shape, or form. Lest we forget that the Pilgrims and assorted colonizers from Europe sailed West for the purpose of practicing Catholicism, Methodism, Anglicism, Episcopalianism, and Lutheranism as they saw fit. Lest we also forget that the descendants of those Pilgrims and assorted colonizers, men

photo/designer491

wants to increase the Medicare tax rate from 3.8% to 5% on income exceeding $400,000 per year, including salaries and capital gains.

College era Billy Lee (left-center) dressed like a woman during a skit. On the right, hypocritical Gov. Bill Lee doing what hypocrites do…

MN HOUSE 4

photo/Steve Karnowski

Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, speaks at a news conference at the State Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., on Monday, March 6, 2023, about a $1.9 billion public infrastructure package for fixing up roads, bridges, water systems, college facilities and parks and trails across the state. She was joined by Democratic Rep. Fue Lee, of Minneapolis, chair of the House Capital Investment Committee.

Collection/Gado/Getty Images A 1902 portrait of Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

Minneapolis parks offer affordable summer day camps for youth ages 8-13 in 2023

Neighborhood Day Camps, which are economical summer day camps, will return to the Minneapolis Parks system during the summer break. The camps are hosted in the local parks of Minneapolis. The camps are themed, all-day camps that operate from Tuesday through Friday throughout the summer for 0 to 10 dollars per child, depending on the park’s location. Nonetheless, seats quickly fill up, so families are advised to register as soon as possible.

Over the summer, Minneapolis Parks offers free and low-cost day camps for children ages 8 to 13. The camps have a theme, and sessions are held every week from June 27 to August 18 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday.

Cycling Explorers, Great Outdoors, Farm-to-Table, Arts Dabbler, and Wet & Wild are the 2023 camp themes. The Park Board says not every camp is provided at every location; interested parents can consult registration for details. Farview and Creekview will house campgrounds in the North Mnneapolis. Logan and Van Cleve will serve the Northeast/Southeast Minneapolis . MLK Park and Bryant Square will serve the Southwest neighborhood.

Longfellow and Brackett will serve the lower South. Corcoran and Powderhorn will be in the upper South Minneapolis.

The camps run for four days, from June 27 to August 18. The first camp is held

MN House

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would require only simple majorities to pass — and leave less money available for tax cuts.

Republican leaders from both chambers proposed

Dunbar

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Central High School. An exceptional writer, Dunbar was the only Black student in his class and became editorin-chief of the high school newspaper as well as a member of the literary and drama clubs and debating society. He also became friends with a white classmate who, with his brother, would later invent

between June 27 and 30, while the last session is held between August 15 and 18. The cost per camp, per child, for Minneapolis residents, is $0 to $10.

Note to parents: campers must bring their own lunch, wear comfortable outdoor attire, and be prepared to get wet. The parks provide numerous outdoor activities, so it is prudent to dress for the weather and bring a swimsuit. The parks also take youngsters off-site, so parents should prepare their children for outside activities.

a $13 billion tax cut wish list last week. It includes rebate checks, tax credits for families with children, eliminating the state’s partial taxation of Social Security income and lower income and property taxes.

Senate GOP leaders wouldn’t specify Monday which, or how much, of those tax cuts they’ll need to get to put up votes for a bonding bill but said

the airplane – Orville Wright.

The two knew each other well.

Their friendship led to business as the Wright brothers, who owned a printing press, were the first to print Dunbar’s writings, including the newspaper Dunbar started and edited, the Dayton Tattler, the first Black newspaper in that city.

After high school, the lives of Dunbar and Wright took different turns.

Unable to find consistent pay for his writing, Dunbar worked a variety of

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Themes:

be able to bicycle at least four miles. Bicycles are available for rental.

Arts Dabbler

Camp is developed for artloving children. Campers will experiment with visual and performing arts in enjoyable outdoor settings. This session will allow children to experiment with various forms of art. The Cycling Explorers Camp is for adventure-seeking children. This camp will bicycle around Minneapolis. This is not a learn-to-bike program, therefore, participants must

they’re open to negotiations.

“How can we in good conscience go back to the taxpayers of Minnesota and say, oh yeah, we have this historic surplus, almost $18 billion, but we’re going to to put almost $2 billion on a credit card and not give you a penny of your hardearned dollars back?” said Sen. Karin Housley, of Stillwater, the lead Republican on the Senate

jobs, including as a janitor in one downtown Dayton office building and as an elevator operator in another. Not one to miss a business opportunity, the 20-year-old Dunbar sold his first book of poetry, “Oak and Ivy,” to passengers he met on the elevator. He found another such job after he moved to Washington, D.C., and worked stacking shelves at the Library of Congress. According to his wife, Alice Dunbar, an accomplished writer in her own right, it was there that her husband began to think about a caged bird.

“… The torrid sun poured its rays down into the courtyard of the library and heated the iron grilling of the book stacks until they were like prison bars in more senses than one,” Dunbar wrote.

“The dry dust of the dry books … rasped sharply in his hot throat, and he understood how the bird felt when it beats its wings against its cage.”

Dunbar’s first break came when he was invited to recite his poems at the 1893 Worlds Fair, where he met Frederick Douglass,

Farm-to-Table Camp is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for children interested in discovering local food plants. This camp will allow campers to catch fish, learn gardening techniques from a Master Gardener, and then prepare delectable meals in the rec center kitchen.

Great Outdoors Camp is created for outdoor-loving children. This camp will take

Capital Investment Committee. Lawmakers haven’t managed to pass a statewide projects bill since 2020, but control of the Legislature is no longer divided. Some highlights of the new House package include:

—Over $245 million for transportation projects, including $85 million for local road improvements

the famous abolitionist. Impressed, Douglass gave Dunbar a job and called him the “the most promising young colored man in America.”

Dunbar’s second break came three years later. On his 24th birthday, he received a glowing Harper’s Weekly review of his second book of poetry, “Majors and Minors,” from the prominent Ohio-raised literary critic William Dean Howells. That review cam with a mixed blessing. Howells’ praise of Dunbar’s use of dialect limited Dunbar’s ability to sell his other styles of writing. But that same review helped catapult Dunbar to international acclaim. His stardom didn’t last long, though. Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1900, Dunbar died from complications of the disease on Feb. 9, 1906. But his work survives.

Dunbar’s musical legacy In all, Dunbar wrote 600 poems, 12 books of poetry, five novels, four volumes of short stories,

campers on a journey into the stunning urban wilderness of Minneapolis. The campers will learn the fundamentals of archery and canoe on one of the city’s stunning lakes. Wet & Wild Camp is a camp for youngsters that enjoy water sports. All day long, students will participate in swimming, water slides, and other water-related activities at this camp.

The Minneapolis Neighborhood Day Camps Registration link on the website

and $67 million for local bridge replacements;

—Nearly $175 million for the Department of Natural Resources for state parks and trails, plus flood mitigation and wildfire suppression projects;

—Over $87 million for water infrastructure projects;

—Around $72 million for rehabbing public housing;

—Nearly $93

essays, hundreds of newspaper articles and lyrics for musicals. His poetry has been continuously set by composers, from his contemporaries to living composers still living today, including Carrie Jacobs Bond, John Carpenter, Harry Thacker Burleigh, William Bolcom and Zenobia Powell Perry.

Florence Price’s numerous settings of his texts include popular and advertisement music, while William Grant Still’s “AfroAmerican” symphony features spoken epigraphs of Dunbar poems before each movement.

Dunbar’s legacy in apparent not only in the concert hall, but on the theatrical stage as well.

Dunbar was librettist for an operetta by Samuel Coleridge Taylor, “Dream Lovers,” written specifically for Black singers.

Dunbar’s own extraordinary life became the subject for operas as composers Adolphus Hailstork, Richard Thompson, Steven Allen and Jeff Arwady composed works depicting Dunbar’s legacy.

The collaborations of Dunbar and Will Marion Cook produced the first examples of contemporary musical theater.

Without Paul’s contributions with “In

minneapolisparks

for Minneapolis Parks allows parents to register their children for the camps. In addition, parents can print or distribute the 2023 Neighborhood Day Camps leaflet by using the website’s link. Parents who have questions about the camps should email DayCamps@ minneapolisparks.org or call 612-723-8846.

million for a long-sought new undergraduate chemistry lab for the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis;

—Over $31 million for upgrades at National Guard armories; —Over $18 million for improvements at the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley.

Dahomey” and “Jes Lak White Fo’ks,” in my view there would be no “Hamilton,” the modern Broadway musical written by Lin-Manuel Miranda in 2015.

‘We wear the mask’ Dunbar’s works celebrated all of humanity. He turned the plantation tradition on its head by using dialect to not only offer critical social commentary, as in his poem “When Malindy Sings,” but also to portray oftignored humanity, as in “When Dey ‘Listed Colored Soldiers.” Dunbar’s works provide historical snapshots into the everyday lives of working-class Black Americans. None were as poignant as his poem “We Wear the Mask.” “We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties.”

Minnita DanielCox has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mellon Foundation. This article originally appeared on The Conversation and has been republished under a Creative Commons license.

Neighborhood Day Camp at Brackett Park in 2021.

Notable former athletes pay it forward

Sports Editor

By Leahjean M. Denley, MBA

Pt. 2 Insight News –

Sports will celebrate several Twin City Metroplex former athletes in the coming weeks as we acknowledge Twin Cities

Excellence in Sports

March is Women’s History Month and we would be remiss to not begin our listing with 10 female community icons who have moved past their Minnesota athletic

Medicare

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lawmakers, who argue that economic growth comes from tax cuts like those pushed through by former President Donald Trump in 2017. Those cuts disproportionately favored wealthier households and companies. They contributed to higher budget deficits, when growth failed to boom as Trump had promised and the economy was then derailed in 2020 by the coronavirus pandemic.

The conflicting worldviews on how taxes would impact the economy is part of a broader showdown. Biden and Congress need to reach a deal to raise the government’s borrowing authority at some point this summer, or else the government could default and plunge the U.S. into a debilitating recession.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and an advocate for the kinds of tax cuts generally

participation and achievements and into fulfilling careers and commitments to “pay it forward.”

Listed In alphabetical order by their name former sport[s] - current profession and/or local community impact: Lisa [Walton]

Anderson – Track & Field –Mpls. North HS/University of MN – Enterprise Sales Support Rep. UPS [Retired]/Co-

Founder of Track MN Elite/

Youth & Families Determined To Succeed/Mentor

Kathie EilandMadison – Track & Field / Basketball – Marshall U HS/ Univ. of MN - VP of Human

Resources at Delta Dental of Minnesota/ Co-Founder of

favored by Republicans, said that the U.S. economy would suffer because of the president’s plan.

“The Biden tax hikes will raise the cost of goods and services for everyone, and make American workers and businesses less competitive internationally and vs. China,” Norquist said.

But Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, applauded the plan despite having some reservations about it.

“The president’s plan would generate hundreds of billions of dollars – perhaps even approaching a trillion dollars –to strengthen Medicare,” said MacGuineas, a fiscal watchdog focused on deficit reduction.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to discuss the numbers behind the budget plan. She told reporters at Tuesday’s briefing that she would not “dive into the math,” but that Biden’s proposal on Thursday “will be very detailed and transparent.”

Ahead of an expected budget feud and the 2024

Trauma Study Notification

the Shooting Stars Basketball Clinic Crystal Flint –Basketball – U of MN –Educator and Head Coach/

Founder of Triple Threat Basketball Showcase

Faith Johnson Patterson – Basketball- MN North HS/Univ. of Wisconsin – Head Coach/Exact Staff Business Development Manager/Mentor

Lisa Lissimore [Blue] – Basketball – St. Paul Central/U of MN /Grandview Univ. – 30+ yrs. asAssociate Director of the Minnesota State High School League [Retired]/ CoFounder of the Shooting Stars Basketball Clinic/Mentor Tisa [Thomas] Mitchell - Basketball -

campaign season, Democrats have ramped up talk around Medicare, vowing to fend off any Republican attempts to cut the program, although so far the GOP has vowed to avoid any cuts. Still, Republican lawmakers have reached little consensus on how to fulfill their promise to put the government on a path toward balancing the federal budget in the next 10 years.

Last year, members of the House Republican Study Committee proposed raising the eligibility age for Medicare to 67, which would match Social Security. But that idea hasn’t moved forward in a split Congress. Republicans have denied that they plan to cut the program. A proposal from Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., that would require Congress to reconsider all federal laws every five years, including Medicare, has gotten little traction.

Raising taxes on Americans who make more than $250,000 to pay for Medicare has broad support

Trauma is the leading cause of death in patients under the age of 45. Hennepin Healthcare – HCMC is one of the lead hospitals in a research trial at 100 hospitals worldwide that will enroll trauma patients who have significant bleeding and will receive massive blood transfusions.

Eligible patients will receive prothrombin complex concentrate (PCC), an FDA approved product, or placebo. PCC is a medicine that contains clotting factors and may help slow bleeding in trauma patients. Because patients who are bleeding to death are typically not able to provide informed consent and normally don’t have a family member with them, this trial is planned to occur using Exception from Informed Consent. The FDA and a national IRB have approved the protocol.

As part of the local IRB review process, Hennepin Healthcare is notifying the community through meetings and messages like this. Use the code, go to uab.edu/medicine/cis/tap-trialat-hennepin, or call 612-873-7448 for more information or to opt out.

Mpls. North HS/Southeast Missouri State – Coach/ Strategy and Programming Expert

Tamara Moore –Basketball - MN North HS / Univ. of Wisconsin/Miami Sol/MN Lynx - Head Men’s Basketball Coach/Owner and CEO at Hype Hoops League Lea B. [Bergin] Olsen– Basketball. – MN South HS/Mpls. Community and Tech./ U of MN - Sportscaster/ Motivational Speaker/ Founder of Rethink The Win Linda Roberts –Basketball – St. Paul Central/U of MN/Minnesota Phillies –Director of Special Events/ Outreach U of MN Athletics [Retired]/Co-Founder of the Shooting Stars Basketball

Clinic Ellen [Hebert] Stewart – Track &Field/Basketball –MN North HS/ Hamlin/U of MN – Former Miss Black MN/ Former Educator, Former Athletic Director, and Former

Principal/ Current Osseo Area

Schools Director of Equity

Services

Our Twin Cities

Excellence in Sports list in the coming weeks and near future will also include men and prominent professionals that may be lesser known for their athletic prowess in either high school, college, or the pros. Many, once completing their playing days, wasted no time pivoting to formidable professions. As previously

mentioned, this will be ongoing, so check back often – in print here and online at www. InsightNews.com to see if your favorite former athlete – and perhaps your current colleague, boss, or neighbor - is listed. Be sure to tune in to all the Insight News’ live streaming platforms - LinkedIn Live, Facebook Live, and YouTube live for Conversations with Al McFarlane. Stay tuned for CoachLeah’s After the Whistle –The Vodcast. Sincerely yours in Sports and Service!

CoachLeahTM Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @CoachLeah40 or at www.CoachLeah.net

Tamara Moore MN Women’s Press

Linda Roberts and Lisa Lissimore

Ordway welcomes new diverse board members

On March 1, 2023, the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota, announced the addition of five new board members. These new board members have different skill sets and backgrounds, including representation from the fields of law, engineering, and digital services. The Ordway’s board now consists of 31 people from a variety of generations, backgrounds, and professions who feel that performing arts are crucial to the development of thriving communities.

New to the Ordway Board is Erin Dady, the top marketing and public relations officer for Bremer Bank. Dady oversees the bank’s marketing department, which includes digital marketing, creative services, external and executive communications, and community relations. She formerly served as director of marketing and chief of staff for the City of Saint Paul and as director of government and community relations at the University of Minnesota. Dady earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in business

Medicare Medicare

From 5

among older Americans, but raising the eligibility age for Medicare, is widely unpopular, said Mary Johnson, a policy

administration from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In 2012, she also finished the Senior Executives in State and Local Government program at Harvard Kennedy School.

President of Windward Engineers & Consultants, Jason Booth, has also joined the board. Windward Engineers & Consultants provides design services for mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering. Booth is a seasoned and enterprising business executive who previously founded and directed

analyst for the nonpartisan Senior Citizens League who has researched the issue.

Politicians who try that route might “lose supporters and it can backfire. You can wind up losing your office, too,” she said. “A very high percentage of seniors are voting in elections.”

Biden’s plan is also intended to close what the White

Amendment of the Constitution that the new Republic would neither “establish” nor “prevent the free exercise of religion.”

The Patient Source, the biggest Native-owned healthcare education agency in the United States. The University of Minnesota awarded him a bachelor’s degree in English, and he is a proud member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

Jeff Lin, founder and chief executive officer of Bust Out, a Minneapolis-based studio that designs and develops websites, mobile applications, and digital experiences, is the third new member of the board. In 2021, he established Pennant, a software tool that

House describes as loopholes that allow people to avoid Medicare taxes on some income. Besides the taxes, Biden wants to expand Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug costs, which began with the Inflation Reduction Act. He signed the sweeping legislation last year.

The White House said its budget plan would

lets performing artists develop their own custom-branded streaming video platform on the web, mobile, and television. Lin, originally from Oberlin, Ohio, moved to Minnesota to study biology at Carleton College. John Lunseth, 45, a Taft, Stettinius & Hollister LLP equity partner is the fourth new board member. Lunseth has been a first-chair trial attorney handling major, complex intellectual property and commercial issues. He has represented Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 organizations, as well as local governments

expand the pharmaceutical drug provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. More drugs would be subject to price negotiations, other drugs would be brought into the negotiation process sooner and the scope of rebates would be expanded. Taken together, Biden’s new proposals would help shore up a key trust

and private business owners.

The University of Minnesota awarded him both his law degree and his undergraduate degree in international relations.

3M’s senior vice president for emerging markets, Jose R. Varela Garza, is the fifth member. Varela Garza is a leader with worldwide, multibusiness, and multi-function expertise, having lived in nine different countries and overseen businesses with global, regional, and local responsibilities. He studied computer programming at Técnica Alemana, earned a bachelor’s degree in

fund that pays for Medicare, which provides health care for older adults. According to the White House, the changes would keep the fund solvent until the 2050s, about 25 years longer than currently expected.

Changes would also be made to Medicare benefits.

Biden wants to limit cost sharing for some generic drugs

business administration from Universidad Católica, U.C.A., El Salvador, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in science, computer science, and international business at the University of Cumbria, UK. The Ordway said it is concluding a successful 20222023 campaign and hopes to continue its success in the future. For more insight on Ordway news, visit https:// ordway.org/

to only $2. The idea would lower out-of-pocket costs for treating hypertension, high cholesterol and other ailments. AP writers Amanda Seitz and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report. Follow the AP’s coverage of Medicare at https://apnews. com/hub/medicare

revered as “Founding Fathers” like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams— British subjects one and all— ensured within the very First

Those two phrases have meant for well over two centuries that “Christ” may be the head of some of our individual lives, but he sure isn’t supposed to be the head of the federal or individual state governments.

The above facts are the primary reason why I aver that Tennessee’s law, much like Florida’s “Stop Woke Act” and other infringements upon free speech by Republican leaders across America, very likely will be struck down in federal courts on First Amendment grounds. Still, those hard headed, hard hearted, and all too bigoted

Republicans will push their cultural war narratives because it is far easier for them to codify laws designed to marginalize or impede the progress of gays, lesbians, transgender, Blacks, and other people of color, than it is for them to address the high illiteracy, high unemployment, and high poverty rates in their struggling

states—especially in the South.

on television and on stage, like: Heck, even Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) was dressed in drag while in college, as the photo that was pulled out of somebody’s closet shows below: Which leads to my last dig at “so-called Christians,” but this “drag” aimed squarely

LEE

Westmoreland Legacy: The Outlaws

Steele family, and the Outlaw family, to name a few. That being said, here is The Wife He Needs.

38-year-old Garth

By: W.D. Foster-Graham Book Review Editor

THE WIFE HE NEEDS Westmoreland Legacy: The Outlaws

By Brenda Jackson

It’s Women’s History

Month, and as one who loves romance novels with Black Love, it is my good pleasure to give a hat tip to one of the trailblazing authors in the romance genre for Black women: Brenda Jackson. When Brenda Streator Jackson entered Romancelandia with her work nearly 40 years ago, she was told that romance novels featuring Black couples wouldn’t sell, that there was no market for them. That didn’t stop her. She selfpublished her first nine novels, and the response was so overwhelming that traditional publishers couldn’t ignore it. She is now a New York Times bestselling author, in addition to having her own publishing company. Jackson describes herself as a “die-heart romantic,” with the motto “Family is everything.”

It shows in her successful series of family sagas, such as the Madaris family, the Westmoreland family, the

From

at my Black Christian Brothers

Outlaw is CEO of the family company and the oldest of six siblings, part of the Outlaw branch of the Westmoreland family. As it happens, each of them has a different mother, the result of his father Bartram “Bart” Outlaw’s five marriages and one relationship. Raised by Bart, the siblings are a closeknit family. For 10 years, Bart has been carrying a torch for his deceased fiancée Karen, who was killed in a military helicopter crash. Now, with a push from his younger sister Charm, he has opted find a wife through a dating service, but not for a love match. He has a date to meet her in Santa Cruz, Spain.

28-year-old Regan

Fairchild is a pilot par excellence for the Outlaw’s Fairbanks, Alaska-based company, as her father was before her. Growing up around the Outlaw siblings, she is like a sister to Charm. Unknown to Garth, Regan has been in love with him since the age of 16. As the company pilot and having Garth as her boss, she has done her best to keep these feelings in check. And now she is to fly him to Santa Cruz to meet his prospective bride. Men she has dated never lasted too long because they weren’t Garth. But how could she compete with a woman who was dead?

and Sisters who are quick to join these Republican reprobates on anti-LGBTQ issues because they just love to claim what “their Bible” says about this, that, or the third. News flash, skin/kin folks: The Republicans who are

When they arrive, Garth discovers that the woman isn’t there due to a mixup, so Charm convinces him to invite Regan to stay with him at the chateau for this two-week holiday. The thing is, Garth’s feelings for Regan have grown to more than friendly, but he is in denial about being able to love her. For Regan, this is her window of opportunity to show Garth that she is the woman he can fall in love with and the wife he needs. Can she do it?

Jackson is masterful at establishing the chemistry between her characters; it’s romantic, steamy, and sensual. Garth and Regan’s relationship is also grounded in their family ties and connections. Like many families, they can be nosy and intrusive; here is where I see Jackson’s humor come in. At the same time, there is no mistaking the strong family love, unity, and support that is a signature of her work, something that I have loved since I picked up my first Brenda Jackson novel. And of course, Garth and Regan’s happily-ever-after is most satisfying.

The Wife He Needs is the first of her Westmoreland Legacy: Outlaw series. It is available through Amazon and Harlequin Desire.

Thank you again, Brenda, for bringing another story of Black Love that checks all the boxes with all the feels, and for all you have done over the years to inspire more authors of color in this genre.

castigating gays and lesbians today are also castigating Black people by limiting what can be taught about Black history— while usurping Black voting rights in the same legislative sessions!!! Which means

that when you take to social media to march in ideological lock-step with conservatives against one minority group just because of your own personal sexual preferences, identity, and religious dogma, you

KRASNO/MOORE PROJECT NOLA Organ Funk

MAR 23

CHARLIE PARR Resonator-fueled Folk

MAR 25

J.E. SUNDE & PIT STOP Original Rock Raconteurs

MAR 27

DANILO PÉREZ, JOHN PATITUCCI, BRIAN BLADE: CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT

MAR 29

EZRA COLLECTIVE Joyous UK Afro-jazz

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SKERRYVORE Scottish Folk Rock

help fuel their efforts against your own minority group— and look like a in so doing!

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a free or paid subscriber. Chuck Hobbs is a freelance journalist who won the 2010 Florida Bar Media Award and has been twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

MAR 24

MAR 26

MAMBAZO Soulful South African A cappella

MAR 28

KARLA BONOFF Iconic Singersongwriter

MAR 30

JAY YOUNG & THE LYRIC FACTORY Funky Jazz Bass Virtuoso

CAFÉ ACCORDION ORCHESTRA Parisian Street Music

APR