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EGACY Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.

WEDNESDAYS • Nov. 28, 2018

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INSIDE

Testing for World AIDS Day - 4 Criminal justice long overdue - 6 Exploring immigrant’s lives - 10 Amazon CEO awards grants - 15

Richmond & Hampton Roads

LEGACYNEWSPAPER.COM • FREE

From enslavement to mass incarceration STACY M. BROWN

“The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that’s why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics of responsibility particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be avoided with good behavior.

But herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners.

All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world.”

- Michelle Alexander, author, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”.

“We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today than there were under slavery in 1850.”

- Musician, John Legend The United States has just five percent of the world population yet holds approximately 25 percent of its prisoners.

From the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade, slavery

deprived the captive of legal rights and granted the master complete power. Millions of slaves in America were humiliated, beaten and killed while black families were torn apart.

Slavery was abolished in 1865 with the end of the Civil War and passing of the 13th Amendment, but America found what many see as a disingenuous way of continuing its slave master ways – mass incarceration.

The NAACP recently released statistics that revealed that, in 2014, African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34 percent, of the total 6.8 million correctional population.

African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5

times the rate of whites and the imprisonment rate for African American women is twice that of white women.

Nationwide, African American children represent 32 percent of children who are arrested, 42 percent of children who are detained, and 52 percent of children whose cases are judicially waived to criminal court.

Though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32 percent of the US population, they comprised 56 percent of all incarcerated people in 2015.

If African Americans and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates as whites,

prison and jail populations would decline by almost 40 percent, according to the NAACP. “Five hundred years after the transatlantic slave trade, the strife and hate that remains is largely due to miseducation. To date, there has not been an honest evaluation accepted by the general public about the true relationship between African people in America and the European settlers, typically referred to as just Americans,” said activist and television personality Jay Morrison.

“This is one of the reasons that I wrote my book, ‘The Solution: How

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The LEGACY

2 • Nov. 28, 2018

News

Forum emphasizes faith as a means of combating poverty MICHA GREEN On a recent cold Thursday, students, professionals and the politically active packed into the Heritage Foundation in the nation’s capital for an Anti-Poverty forum, where several panelists spoke on the topic of poverty and how to combat it in 2018.

Speakers included Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.), pastor, author and former Fire Chief of the Atlanta Fire Department Kelvin Cochran and several advocates for faithbased support services, who spoke

on the importance of determination to improve life, holding onto the American dream, family values and how faith in God is key to a more stable life.

The United States Census bureau reported in 2017 that people of color are disproportionately affected by destitution, with blacks making up for 21.2 percent of the poverty rate, and Latinos accounting for 18.3 percent. Many conversations seemed to directly relate to black and brown people. Even with current success, Rubio and Cochran each shared their own family’s struggles with poverty.

“I try to remind myself every day that I am literally just a generation removed from poverty and despair.

And sometimes I wonder where I would be at this very moment, or whether I would’ve even been born, if there had never been America,” Rubio said.

Cochran talked about his family’s trials and tribulations. After his father, an alcoholic, left his mother, his family struggled with six siblings sharing a room, the boys on one mattress and girls on another, eating mayonnaise sandwiches and drinking sugar water.

“We were poor when dad was living with us, but… we went to a lower socio-economic class called, ‘Po,’ just P-O. Because we didn’t have enough money for the whole word, P-O-O-R anymore,” Cochran told the crowd.

“I also realized that having a mom raising six kids alone was not God’s design for a family,” he said.

He knew from childhood he wanted to be a firefighter and a family man unlike his father. He was taught from his church community that faith, discipline and respect helped people achieve their dreams.

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(from page 1) Africans in America Achieve Unity, Justice and Repair.’ In it, there is informative dialogue on the true experience of Africans in America during the enslavement era, the post enslavement era, and current day America – which I refer to as the mass incarceration era. Most Americans choose to live blindly and accept the political oppression, economic exploitation and social degradation of Africans in America,” Morrison said.

The longing by blacks for independence often threatens and offends many Americans and many people don’t believe in African Americans’ right to liberation and cannot fathom their desire to be in their true and original state, often leading to a fight, he said.

“I believe there is an opportunity in this millennial-led age to get Jay Morrison is a CEO, real estate mogul, author, speaker and activist. past the hate if there is true atonement. Until America can take occasion for communities of color to of racial difference, according to full responsibility for its past and unapologetically shine,” Hooper said. Bryan Stevenson, the founder and correct what is still purposefully In Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of the Equal occurring – mass incarceration, the attempts to educate Americans Justice Initiative in Montgomery. school-to-prison pipeline, unequal and others about the transatlantic Stereotypes and false school systems, gentrification, police slave trade and its ties to mass characterizations of black people brutality – the tension will continue incarceration continue at The were disseminated to defend their to exist,” Morrison said.

Legacy Museum: From Enslavement permanent enslavement as “most “Until all people can be honest to Mass Incarceration, which has necessary to the well-being of about our history and lack of repair, dedicated exhibits detailing the the negro” – an act of kindness the hate will be hard to get past. topic. that reinforced white supremacy, These human rights violations Opened on April 26, 2018, the Stevenson said. against Africans in America must be 11,000-square-foot museum is built “The formal abolition of slavery treated with the same seriousness on the site of a former warehouse did nothing to overcome the harmful as other communities that have where enslaved black people were ideas created to defend it, and so experienced similar imprisonment, imprisoned and is located midway slavery did not end: it evolved,” he oppression, exploitation and between an historic slave market said. genocide. When that playing field is and the main river dock and train In the decades that followed, these levelled, I imagine a greater peace in station where tens of thousands beliefs in racial hierarchy took America.” of enslaved people were trafficked new expression in convict leasing, Added Je Hooper, of the American during the height of the domestic lynching, and other forms of racial Ethical Union and the Brooklyn slave trade. terrorism that forced the exodus of Society for Ethical Culture: Montgomery’s proximity to the millions of black Americans to the “The black, brown, and beige fertile Black Belt region, where North and West, where the narrative community continues to seek a slave-owners amassed large of racial difference manifested in remedy for their post-traumatic enslaved populations to work the urban ghettos and generational slave syndrome, particularly in a rich soil, elevated Montgomery’s poverty. time of a socio-political climate that prominence in domestic trafficking, Racial subordination was codified is fueled by discriminatory political and by 1860, Montgomery was the and enforced by violence in the era rhetoric, violent sensationalized capital of the domestic slave trade of Jim Crow and segregation, as media, and disjointed cultural in Alabama, one of the two largest the nation and its leaders allowed information. slave-owning states in America. black people to be burdened, beaten, “Our country has lived in a fear To justify the brutal, dehumanizing and marginalized throughout the because of its own nationalist institution of slavery in America, 20th century, according to museum amnesia. I feel we must rise to the its advocates created a narrative officials.

Nov. 28, 2018• 3 Progress towards civil rights for African Americans was made in the 1960s, but the myth of racial inferiority was not eradicated.

Black Americans were vulnerable to a new era of racial bias and abuse of power wielded by our contemporary criminal justice system.

Museum officials said mass incarceration has had devastating consequences for people of color, including that, at the dawn of the 21st century, one in three black boys was projected to go to jail or prison in his lifetime.

“Our nation’s history of racial injustice casts a shadow across the American landscape,” Stevenson said. “This shadow cannot be lifted until we shine the light of truth on the destructive violence that shaped our nation, traumatized people of color, and compromised our commitment to the rule of law and to equal justice.”

The the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society, Stevenson said.

“I know the 13th Amendment provides the means for the criminal justice system to continue the practice of institutional slavery in the United States, for it is very clearly stated, ‘Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation,’” said Shawn Halifax, a cultural history interpretation coordinator at the Charleston County Park & Recreation Commission in Charleston, South Carolina.

“There is plenty of evidence, since its passage, that individual states and the United States have chosen to exercise the entirety of this amendment to the constitution and have manipulated the institution of criminal justice to make it happen,” Halifax said.

The LEGACY

4 • Nov. 28, 2018

GRTC to honor Rosa Parks On the anniversary of an historic Civil Rights movement, the Greater Transit Company will pay special tribute to Rosa Parks, Dec. 1.

GRTC will honor Parks, nicknamed “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”, by reserving the first passenger seat on every bus. Each of these seats will have a commemorative sign displayed on them. Operators will keep bus headlights on all day to represent her light, and the bus electronic

header signs will rotate with a special message honoring Parks.

Parks is most well-known for her act of defiance on a Montgomery bus on Dec. 1, 1955 that changed the course of history. On that date, Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. She was arrested and fined. Four days later, in response to Parks’ arrest, a year-long bus boycott began. It ended when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public

transportation was illegal.

Parks was born on Feb. 4, 1913 in Tuskegee. She passed away at the age of 92 on Oct. 24, 2005 in Detroit, becoming the first woman in American history to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol.

A dozen years before Parks triggered desegregation of public transit, Catherine Jones Coleman of Richmond also refused to move to the back of a bus in March 1943.

Coleman was also arrested, like Parks, and fined $5 and court costs.

Parks represented the culmination of decades of similar acts of defiance for civil rights.

Museum to offers free HIV testing on World AIDS Day As part of the Valentine’s public health exhibition “Pandemic: Richmond”, the museum, Nationz Foundation and Diversity Richmond are partnering to offer Richmonders access to free HIV testing in honor of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.

Nationz Foundation, a non-profit focused on providing education and information related to HIV prevention, health and wellness, will be on site at the Valentine in their Mobile Testing Unit & Food Pantry, providing free HIV tests from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“We are excited to partner with The Valentine and Diversity Richmond, to provide education and information related to HIV,” said Zakia McKensey, Founder of the Nationz Foundation. “It is important to erase the stigma related to the virus and make sure everyone is aware of their status!"

“The Valentine remains committed to our timeliness mission of pursuing community engagement and providing relevant programming to the people of the region,” said Valentine Director Bill Martin. “We are honored to be partnering with Nationz Foundation and Diversity Richmond to provide free HIV testing to the neighborhood and surrounding areas as a part of our Pandemic exhibition, and we look forward to additional partnerships like this that help us use our history to inform our present and shape the future.”

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Nov. 28, 2018• 5

Spanberger names chief of staff Congresswoman-elect Abigail Spanberger (D) has named Roscoe Jones, Jr. as her incoming chief of staff, her first official hire as the newly-elected representative from Virginia's 7th Congressional District.

In joining Spanberger’s Congressional office, Jones will continue his career of public service.

Jones currently serves as U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein’s legislative director overseeing the senator’s legislative agenda and staff. Previously, he served as senior counsel to U.S. Sen. Cory Booker and senior counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee under U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy’s

(from page 2) “If you believe in and have faith in God; if you go to school and work hard and get a good education; if you respect grown ups and treat other children like you want to be treated, all your dreams are going to come true. That got my attention and I focused on those four principles all of my life,” Cochran said.

“Because I continued to apply those principles, ultimately my dream came true and I became a firefighter in 1981. My dream to become a family man eventually came true. I married my 4th grade girlfriend when I became a firefighter,” he said, later revealing he has been married 36 years with three children all of whom are college graduates.

Focusing on the four principles taught him as a child and his mother’s belief in God and her children is what Cochran said made him successful.

“Back in the day and even today, our family would have been called, ‘At-risk families.’ You know what I’ve discovered ladies and gentleman? An at-risk family is a family that doesn’t have a vision for the future of their children. Has

Roscoe Jones, Jr. leadership. In addition to his nothing to do with race, has nothing to do with socio-economic levels,” he said.

Another panel member spoke on faith-based religious organizations having the freedom to serve.

“Faith-based organizations provide irreplaceable help to our society,” said Emily Kao, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation. Kao, who moderated the panel, said faithbased organizations provide services adding up to over $303 billion per year.

Sherrie Laurie, executive director of the Downtown Soup Kitchen Hope Center in Anchorage, Alaska, explained why she feels her faith-based organization has been successful in offering shelter, showers, training and more for women in need.

“We’ve really stopped focusing so much on the hand out starting to focus more and more on the hand up and coming alongside them.

But that can only be done with the transforming love of Jesus Christ,” Laurie said. “So it’s really focused on introducing them to Jesus Christ and calling them into their destiny and calling them into who he created them to be.

experience on Capitol Hill, Jones is a former Justice Department attorney having served as Assistant U.S. attorney in the Western District of Washington, as well as Special Counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights.

“I am pleased to have hired a chief of staff who is not only committed to public service, but also enthusiastic about the positive impact members of Congress can have on the communities they represent,” Spanberger said.

“Creating and managing a strong and responsive team is essential to ensuring the people of the 7th District have the representation they deserve and that I am beginning my first term focused on legislating in

an impactful manner. I am excited Roscoe has chosen to join me in these efforts.”

“Roscoe has been an important part of my senior team and he'll be missed,” said Feinstein. “I wish him the best of luck as chief of staff for Representative-elect Spanberger. I expect good things from him in the future.”

Jones, who is originally from Texas, received his B.A. from Stanford University and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He and his wife, Serena, live in Washington, D.C., and Jones looks forward to getting back to Central Virginia regularly as he assumes his new role.

6 • Nov. 28, 2018

Op/Ed & Letters

The LEGACY

Criminal justice reform overdue DR. BENJAMIN F. CHAVIS, JR. As a member of the infamous Wilmington Ten case in North Carolina from 1972 to 2012, I witnessed firsthand why the criminal justice system in the United States needed to be thoroughly reformed. We had been unjustly sentenced in 1972 to a combined total of 282 years in prison for standing up for equal quality education for back students in the public school system in Wilmington, NC in 1971.

For 40 long years, until North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue signed “Pardons of Innocence” documents for each member of the Wilmington Ten, the issues of unjust and disproportionate mass incarceration, bail reform, racism in the judiciary, prosecutorial misconduct, and reentry challenges were not matters of partisanship, but were matters of fundamental civil and human rights.

Thanks to the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the United Church of Christ (UCC), the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARP), Amnesty International and millions of people across the U.S. and throughout the world, we finally received a The LEGACY NEWSPAPER Vol. 4 No. 48 Mailing Address 409 E. Main Street 4 Office Address 105 1/2 E. Clay St. Richmond, VA 23219 Call 804-644-1550 Online www.legacynewspaper.com

modicum of justice with the Pardons of Innocence being issued on Dec. 31, 2012.

In the wake of the recent 2018 midterm elections, there now appears to be a more bipartisan interest and commitment in the achievement of significant criminal justice reform in America.

Earlier this year, the House of Representatives finally passed the First Step Act with bipartisan support. The legislation establishes the initial steps for criminal justice reform at the federal level. Just last week, even President Trump announced his support of the First Step Act. However, what the U.S. Senate will do is still an open question.

The U.S. Congress should expedite passing the First Step Act as well as other criminal justice reform legislation. For black America in particular, this remains an urgent and crucial public policy objective.

Of the current 2.2 million people incarcerated in the nation’s prisons The LEGACY welcomes all signed letters and all respectful opinions.

Letter writers and columnists opinions are their own and endorsements of their views by The LEGACY should be inferred. The LEGACY assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material.

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and jails, a disproportionate number are African Americans and other people of color. According to a 2018 Pew Research Study, in 2016 African Americans represented 12 percent of the U.S. adult population but 33 percent of the sentenced prison population. The ACLU reports that African American men are six times more likely to be incarcerated as white men in the U.S. According to the NAACP’s Criminal Justice Fact Sheet, African American women are imprisoned at twice the rate of white women. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reported in 2018 that 38 percent of prison inmates are African American.

But we need to do more than merely stating the statistics of criminal justice that bear witness to the racial, social, and economic inequities and injustices. We need solutions. We need more research about the successful programs and projects that can prevent mass incarceration while we emphasize the urgency for criminal justice reform legislation at both the federal and state levels. We also need more effective programs for the hundreds of thousands of incarcerated

people preparing to reenter society without the counterproductivity of recidivism.

I have served on panel discussions amicably with Mark Holden, general counsel of Koch Industries, who also supports the First Step Act, a bill grounded in evidence-based and data-driven practices that we know keep communities safe and provide people with the second chances they need to lead productive lives. The bill specifically provides programs to help reduce the risk that prisoners will recidivate upon release from prison. Mark and I are on the same page on the issues of reentry and the need to reduce systemic reincarceration.

In fact, Koch Industries has been funding criminal justice reform efforts for more than a decade and was one of the first major corporations in the U.S. to “ban the box” by removing questions about criminal history on its employment applications. Other corporate leaders should also “ban the box.”

Earlier this year at the NNPA’s Mid-Winter Conference, we were pleased to welcome Brother Lamont Carey, a former prison inmate,

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Nov. 28, 2018• 7

P.T. Hoffsteader, Esq.

What about unity?

I’ve been thinking a lot about unity lately. One of the things that I always hear from groups whose goals are to help solve the litany of problems and disparities in housing, employment, drug abuse, and health that occur is that we must all work in “unity.”

Although it sounds good, the only thing that many people really seem unified in is getting rid of the people who have been there for years, to carve up the “new” Northside, and see who gets what.

The changes in many communities are accelerating at a fast pace. New businesses and housing are springing up all over.

Streets are being repaired.

But these changes are coming at a price: higher rents and costs to buy a home. People who, a few years ago, wouldn’t have thought about moving into previously majorityblack communities, are now coming in droves. And they seem to be taking control of neighborhood associations, which drive the

direction of what goes on in the neighborhood.

Some of our communities have some of the worst racial disparities in the country. Despite all these groups of people working together in unity, it seems to be getting worse for African Americans. How can this be?

African Americans, on many important levels, seem to be falling behind other groups. Hispanics, whites, Arabs, and Africans seem to be building businesses. There seems to be a unifying principle among others who build up businesses that improve their people’s lives as a community.

When I go into buffet restaurants, I see Asians and Hispanics working together. No blacks are working there. Many black-owned restaurants are constantly empty. But Arabowned restaurants down the street are mostly always full of blacks buying fried chicken.

I always hear that blacks give bad customer service. Well, there is no worse customer service than to go somewhere to spend your hardearned money, knowing that you will never see any of your own people there. Is another people’s ice colder than ours? Does their food taste better?

We have many black churches in our communities. But as Desmond Tutu said once, “In Africa, when the white man came, they had the Bible, and we had the land. Now, we have the Bible, and they have the land.”

Is our spirituality really so empty that we can’t build businesses and grow as a community together?

Sometimes I feel like our people, as a collective, are like a great ship adrift at sea, without a rudder. We’ve made others rich, while we are starving as a collective — spiritually and materially.

Are there political leaders to advocate for us? They, in many cases, seem to work harder for others than they do us. I have no problem being in “unity” with others. I’m saying we need to have the same kind of unity among ourselves, not just in word, but in deed, as others seem to.

Our survival as a people depends on it.

Can we really unify with others, if we aren’t unified in our spiritual and financial growth among each other?

If we don’t start practicing practical acts of unity, we may be a doomed people.

I hope our spiritually will lead us into a place of action, where after we get done praying at church, we can go to a black restaurant that employs black people, get the service we deserve, respect each other, eat in peace without anyone getting shot, and go home to love God, ourselves, our families, and neighborhood.

Let’s lift each other. Let’s make our unity a priority, then our unity with others will be more effective, not for just a select few, but for all African Americans and all mankind.

Darrell Coles

(from page 6) noted author and founder of Contact Visits, a nonprofit 501(c) 3 organization that he established to assist people preparing to reenter society from prison. It was reassuring to see how Lamont was able to break free of the stigma of incarceration and make a positive and productive contribution to help others transform their lives, families and communities.

Lastly, on the related issue of bail reform: There are nearly a half million people, most of whom are people of color, who are sitting in jail today only because they cannot afford to post a monetary bail.

Google and Koch have also teamed up to raise awareness about the necessity for bail reform in America.

They believe that individuals accused of a crime should not be required to provide bail unless deemed a threat to public safety or a flight risk, because freedom should not hinge on a person’s financial worth.

The time is now for action, not more partisan debate. No more postponements. No more excuses.

The U.S. Congress should pass the First Step Act. We want equal justice.

Criminal justice reform for black America is long overdue.

Chavis is president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and can be reached at dr.bchavis@nnpa.org

8 • Nov. 28, 2018

Faith & Religion

The LEGACY

The changing role of chaplains in the U.S. More and more institutions across the United States are hiring chaplains and other spiritual care providers. Some are places that have long employed chaplains, but others may come as a surprise.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, recently installed a new chaplain. Various police departments are adding additional chaplains, as are horse racing tracks. At the same time, chaplaincy positions continue to exist in the U.S. House and Senate.

Given the growing numbers of Americans who describe themselves as atheistic, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” this can appear puzzling.

Why is chaplaincy growing when institutional religious affiliation is on the decline?

History of chaplaincy The presence of chaplains in American institutions goes back to the Revolutionary War, when they served the American military.

Chaplains helped perform many rituals and were present for patriotic ceremonies and events.

Military chaplains have long been uniformed, noncombatant, commissioned officers with rank.

Later, prisons and hospitals came to employ them to provide spiritual care. In federal prisons, chaplains provide a ministry to prisoners, along with support for behavior modification.

In earlier eras, chaplains, like the American population in general, were overwhelmingly Protestant, Catholic or Jewish. They mostly cared for people from their own faith traditions.

Changing role These traditional roles are changing.

increasingly called “spiritual care,” she argues, is understood by many as required by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In our research we have come across some unique examples of organizations and people providing support to individuals and communities in a variety of situations.

Allay Care Services, a newly launched venture, for example, provides chaplains who, for a fee, help individuals and families clarify their wishes at the end of life and prepare the necessary legal documents. While religious leaders have long worked around these issues, Allay links chaplains to people they do not know. The work takes place by phone.

Chaplains provide care for weary travelers. Donna Mote at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is just one chaplain among those working in over 170 countries who provide support to people they see mostly once as they pass through that busy space. At the New England Seafarers’ Mission

in Boston, chaplain Steve Cushing, greets the foreign-born staff of container and cruise ships every week.

Chaplains are currently deployed with every Red Cross disaster team in the United States and with many fire departments across the country.

In these and other examples, they are present with people in crisis and help connect them to other resources. Mote and Cushing, for example, help travelers transfer money to their families, shop for basic necessities or even call home.

While some of the people chaplains serve have relationships with local clergy, growing numbers do not.

This means that chaplains are, in many cases, the only theologically educated people that these members of the public have a connection with.

Religious studies scholar Winnifred Sullivan describes chaplains today as “secular priests” or “ministers without portfolios.” Their work,

Chaplaincy without religion?

What is most interesting is the presence of chaplains in places not typically thought to be “religious.”

For example, chaplains are increasingly present in social movements including Occupy, Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock.

They provide a steady presence to protesters grappling with existential questions amid deep tensions that characterize such situations.

An interesting example is that of Laura Everett, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches. Everett serves as a bicycle chaplain. When cyclists are killed in traffic in the greater Boston area, she places white bicycles on the sites and leads services of remembrance for community members.

The point being, even when people are skeptical or distant from religious organizations, many remain personally spiritual.

Millennials, especially, are gathering in athletic groups and activist organizations – not congregations - to build community and support personal growth.

And they too are being joined by chaplains who accompany them through life in ways traditional clergy have done in the past.

In view of this trend, a quarter of theological schools are focusing attention directly on chaplaincy as their overall enrollment numbers continue to decline. Might this reflect a long-term shift in American religious life?

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Nov. 28, 2018• 9

Tree planting ceremony meant to honor victims of environmental injustice Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, and over 30 Catholics from Hampton and the surrounding area recently gathered for a blessing and planting of trees to remember victims of environmental injustice, honor future generations, and outline a vision for supporting the Catholic Church in living out its teachings on justice and the environment. The event took place as a result of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that outlines the increasing impacts of climate change and the shrinking timeframe for action.

Thos in attendance noted that with “carbon pollution still increasing, coral reefs are dying, animal species are losing their range of habitat”, people all over the world becoming more at risk for drought, crop failure, and climate-related natural disaster.

“These situations have caused sister earth, along with all the abandoned of our world, to cry out, pleading that we take another course” said Pope Francis, in his Encyclical, Laudato Si’.“The problem is that we still lack the culture to confront this crisis.”

The Catholics gathered near a garden outside of Immaculate Conception Church, contemplated in silence, sang, and shared personal stories.

“When we take the time to grieve the loss that is caused by our current culture, we start to make space in our hearts to create something new,” said Shawn Gregory, the Catholic Outreach Coordinator with Virginia Interfaith Power & Light.

After the ceremony, parishioners gathered for a photo to send with a letter to Bishop Knestout, inviting him to sign the Catholic Climate Declaration, which urges the U.S. to return to the Paris Climate

The Virginia Interfaith Power & Light notes its mission is to, as people of faith, collaborate to grow healthy communities and advance climate justice through education, advocacy, and worship Agreement. It is a way to follow Pope Francis’ warning that “There is an urgent need to develop policies so that in the next few years, the emissions of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced”.

The pastor of Immaculate Conception, Father John Grace, who participated in the ceremony, agrees. He is leading his parish to significantly lower their carbon footprint. “We should start by doing it, not by saying how it should be done.”

Taking action was the general attitude of all who stayed after the blessing to discuss what could be done in the diocese.

“We are going to have to get together on this. There’s no other way out.” said Moses Lleva, a parishioner of Immaculate Conception Church. Kim Williams, founder of the Norfolk Catholic Worker agreed. “We do need to be educated, but there is a need for action...I want life to continue.”

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10 • Nov. 28, 2018

The LEGACY

New Virginians exhibition explores the immigration experience

Solomon Isekeije of Nigeria in his classroom at Norfolk State.

New Virginians: 1619–2019 & Beyond, a free exhibition at the Library of Virginia running Dec. 10, 2018–Dec. 7, 2019, explores the immigration and refugee experience and Virginia's increasing diversity through video interviews with first-generation newcomers and personal items that represent their stories.

Recent estimates place the number of foreign-born Virginians at just under one million, or about one in every eight Virginians. What will this mean, and what does it already mean, for public education, electoral politics, local economies, and a social fabric that has long been held together by a sense of shared history? The composite portrait of Virginia is becoming more complex, challenging an older, simpler understanding of what it means to be a Virginian.

This change presents opportunity to reconsider what kind of place

Dareen Aloudeh, Ahmad Abdulsalam & family of Syria photographed in their Harrisonburg, PHOTOS: Pat Jarrett/Virginia Humanities

Virginia is and what kind of place it should be—or can be.

Whether our roots in the state go back ten thousand years, ten generations, or ten weeks, we must create the future of the commonwealth together.

New Virginians examines the historical and continuous journey toward the ideals of America and seeks to foster an honest discussion about diversity and the challenges of blended cultures. Produced jointly by the Library of Virginia and Virginia Humanities— with support from the 2019 Commemoration,American Evolution—the exhibitionhighlights the changing demographics of the commonwealth on the eve of the 2020 federal census through a series of interviews with firstgeneration immigrants and refugees who arrived in Virginia after 1976.

The exhibition uses excerpts

from personal conversations, conducted by David Bearinger and filmed by Pat Jarrett, both with Virginia Humanities, to explore the complexity of the immigrant and refugee experience. Topics include the circumstances that led these men and women (and children or families) to leave their homes; their arrival in Virginia; the challenges and obstacles that they faced or overcame; questions about identity, assimilation, language, and culture; and what it means to be a Virginian (and an American). The people interviewed represent a wide range of personal backgrounds, experience, age, and countries of origin—Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Bearinger, director of grants and community programs at Virginia Humanities, noted that if he “had to choose just one word to describe the essence of these conversations, the place

where all of them converge, that word would be 'gratitude': for the opportunities, freedom, and protections—the relative safety— this country offers.”

To complement the videos, objects that have special meaning for the interviewees will be displayed.

The artifacts on loan include: · a graduation stole given to Isabel Castillo by her grandmother to celebrate Castillo’s receipt of an honorary doctorate from the University of San Francisco; · a copy of “Wedding Song”, a memoir by Farideh Goldin about her journey from Iran to the U.S.; · a mask crafted by Ganna Natsag for a tsam(masked dance) ceremony practiced in his native Mongolia; · a stringed instrument called a charangofrom Bolivia; and · a Qu’ran from Aliaa Khidr that represents the free practice of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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Nov. 28, 2018• 11

A marathon: ‘The African Americans-Many Rivers to Cross’ Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. recounts the full trajectory of African-American history in his groundbreaking sixpart series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. marathon airing Sunday, Dec. 2, at 12:30 p.m. on WHRO TV-15. Written and presented by Gates, the six-hour series explores the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies, and religious and social perspectives they developed — forging their own history, culture and society against unimaginable odds. Commencing with the origins of slavery in Africa, the series moves through five centuries of remarkable historic events right up to the present — when America was led by a black president, yet remains a nation deeply divided by race.

Professor Gates travels throughout the United States, taking viewers on an engaging journey through history. He visits key historical sites, partakes in lively debates with some of America’s top historians and interviews living eyewitnesses — including school integration pioneers Ruby Bridges and Charlayne Hunter-Gault, former Black Panther Kathleen Neal Cleaver, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and many more.

“The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience,” says Gates, director Hutchins Center for African and African American Research and Alphonse Fletcher University professor at Harvard University.

“Since my senior year in high school, when I watched a documentary about black history, I’ve longed to share those stories in great detail to the broadest audience possible, young and old, black and white,

scholars and the general public. I believe that my colleagues and I have achieved this goal through The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross.”

The series will take viewers across five hundred years and two continents to shed new light on the experience of being an African American. By highlighting the tragedies, triumphs and contradictions of the black experience, the series will reveal to viewers that the African-American community, which abolitionist Martin R. Delany famously described as “a nation within a nation,” has never been a uniform entity, and that its members have been actively debating their differences from their first days in this country.

Throughout the course of the series, viewers will see that the road to freedom for black people in America was not linear, but more like the course of a river, full of loops and eddies, slowing, and occasionally reversing the current of progress.

Below are brief overviews of each episode in this six-part series.

Episode One: The Black Atlantic (1500 - 1800)

· The Black Atlantic explores the truly global experiences that created the African-American people.

Beginning a full century before the first documented “20-and-odd” slaves who arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, the episode portrays the earliest Africans, both slave and free, who arrived on these shores. But the transatlantic slave trade would soon become a vast empire connecting three continents. Through stories of individuals caught in its web, like a 10-year-old girl named Priscilla who was transported from Sierra Leone to South Carolina in the mid-18th century, we trace the emergence of plantation slavery in the American South. The late 18th century saw a global explosion of freedom movements, and The Black Atlantic examines what that Era of Revolutions — American, French and Haitian — would mean for African Americans and for slavery in America.

Episode Two: The Age of Slavery (1800 - 1860) The Age of Slavery illustrates how black lives changed dramatically in the aftermath of the American Revolution. For free black people in places like Philadelphia, these

years were a time of tremendous opportunity. But for most African Americans, this era represented a new nadir. King Cotton fueled the rapid expansion of slavery into new territories, and a Second Middle Passage forcibly relocated African Americans from the Upper South into the Deep South. Yet as slavery intensified, so did resistance. From individual acts to mass rebellions, African Americans demonstrated their determination to undermine and ultimately eradicate slavery in every state in the nation.

Courageous individuals, such as Harriet Tubman, Richard Allen and Frederick Douglass, played a crucial role in forcing the issue of slavery to the forefront of national politics, helping to create the momentum that would eventually bring the country to war.

Episode Three: Into the Fire (1861 - 1896) · Into the Fire examines the most tumultuous and consequential period in African-American history: the Civil War and the end of slavery, and Reconstruction’s thrilling but tragically brief “moment in the sun.” From the beginning, African Americans were agents of their own liberation — forcing the Union to confront the issue of slavery by fleeing the plantations, and taking up arms to serve with honor in the United States Colored Troops. After Emancipation, African Americans sought to realize the promise of freedom — rebuilding families shattered by slavery; demanding economic, political and civil rights; even winning elected office. Just a few years later, however, an intransigent South mounted a swift and vicious campaign of terror to restore white supremacy and roll back African-American rights. Yet

(continued on page 14)

12 • Nov. 28, 2018

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VADOC project works to improve family relationships to further reduce recidivism The Virginia Department of Corrections is launching a new project aimed at improving services for incarcerated parents and their minor children. The Building Family Bridges project involves a number of pre- and post-release strategies and fosters positive parent-child engagement, thereby strengthening relationships and reducing recidivism.

The project is made possible by a recently awarded $667,829 grant issued by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), and Office of

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).

“The collateral damage of incarceration is significant and I am grateful we can dedicate additional resources to this challenge,” says Jessica Lee, Cognitive Programs Manager. “The Building Family Bridges grant will afford the VADOC an opportunity to enhance our family reunification services, along with direct parenting needs.”

Building Family Bridges will include two levels of facility involvement. One level will pilot a comprehensive, wrap around

World AIDS Day 2018:

Progress, challenges, and the role of local health departments World AIDS Day, observed annually on Dec. 1, celebrates accomplishments in combating the disease, remembers those who have lost their lives to HIV and AIDS, and refocuses efforts on what is still needed to end the epidemic.

Advances in testing technologies and biomedical interventions have expanded and transformed the way we approach HIV prevention and care, but disparities remain. This year’s World AIDS Day theme, “Know Your Status,” aims to address this by encouraging people to get tested and, in the event of a positive diagnosis, engage in care.

Local health departments are on the forefront of these efforts, working on initiatives to address the prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS. This update is provided by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), representing the nation’s nearly 3,000 local health departments.

The annual number of new HIV

infections has declined over the last decade. Still, more than 1.1 million people are estimated to be living with HIV in the U.S., and one in seven are unaware of their status.

Progress in the HIV epidemic is uneven across populations and regions.

Black populations account for nearly half – 44 percent – of HIV diagnoses, despite representing just 12 percent of the U.S. population.

Men who have sex with men (MSM) remain most affected, representing 67 percent of new diagnoses in 2016. However, white MSM are seeing decreases of 10 percent in HIV diagnoses, while black and Latino MSM have experienced increases of 4 percent and 14% percent respectively. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis suggests that if current HIV diagnosis rates persist, one in two black MSM and one in four Latino MSM will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime.

approach in at least three VADOC facilities. The second level will provide training designed to reach all facilities, potentially benefitting all offenders with minor children and visiting families.

“Successful reentry and strong family bonds go hand in hand. This grant gives us the opportunity to help grow and strengthen those bonds before returning citizens reenter society, thus improving our communities and reducing recidivism,” said Scott Richeson, Deputy Director of Programs, Education and Reentry. “Our staff

worked hard to obtain this grant and we’re excited to put these resources to work.”

Virginia’s recidivism rate is currently 22.4 percent, the lowest in the country among the 45 states that produce three-year recidivism rates for felons.

Performance measure data for Building Family Bridges will be gathered from VADOC’s data management system, surveys, new data collection tools specific to the project, and/or pre/post testing and/or participant evaluations to determine progress.

Youth ages 13-24 make up 20 percent of all new HIV diagnoses and are the least likely of any age group to be linked to care in a timely manner.

Nearly one in ten new HIV diagnoses are among people who inject drugs, reflecting the severity of the opioid epidemic.

Southern states account for more than half of new HIV diagnoses and 44 percent of all people living with HIV, while making up 38 percent of the national population.

Medical and community-based interventions are making a difference.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) significantly extends and improves the quality of life for people living with HIV, and there is now conclusive scientific evidence that people living with HIV who are on ART and virologically suppressed do not sexually transmit HIV. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), as well as post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), uptake is a critical intervention for decreasing the risk of HIV transmission.

Local health departments are key leaders in providing and assuring access to HIV prevention, care,

and treatment for the communities they serve. As community health strategists, local health departments facilitate collaboration among public health, health care, and social services organizations, among others, to achieve more integrated, evidence-based, culturally competent systems for HIV prevention and care. They are uniquely positioned to provide data and are leaders in broader efforts to fight stigma and address the root causes of health inequities and structural barriers to effective HIV prevention and care. These local efforts are critical to address disparities in the impact and reach of the epidemic.

Local health departments are also addressing the intersecting threats of sexually transmitted infections, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, and the opioid crisis.

NACCHO works closely with its members to help advance the National HIV/AIDS Strategy goals: NACCHO’s Southern Initiative seeks to improve HIV outcomes among minority populations in the south through the use of Community Health Workers.

(continued on page 14)

14 • Nov. 28, 2018

The LEGACY

(from page 11) new movement of quiet resistance, the achievements of Reconstruction would remain very much alive in the collective memory of the African-American community.

Episode Four: Making a Way Out of No Way (1897 - 1940) Making a Way Out of No Way portrays the Jim Crow era, when African Americans struggled to build their own worlds within the harsh, narrow confines of segregation. At the turn of the 20th century, a steady stream of African Americans left the South, fleeing the threat of racial violence, and searching for better opportunities in the North and the West. Leaders like Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey organized, offering vastly different strategies to further black empowerment and equality. Yet successful black institutions and individuals were always at risk.

At the same time, the ascendance of black arts and culture showed that a community with a strong identity and sense of pride was taking hold in spite of Jim Crow.

“The Harlem Renaissance” would not only redefine how America saw African Americans, but how African Americans saw themselves.

Episode Five: Rise! (1940 - 1968) Rise! examines the long road to civil rights, when the deep contradictions in American society finally became unsustainable.

Beginning in World War II, African Americans who helped fight fascism abroad came home to face the same old racial violence. However, this time, mass media — from print to radio and TV — broadcast that injustice to the world, planting seeds of resistance. Moreover, the success of black entrepreneurs and entertainers fueled AfricanAmerican hopes and dreams. In December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, heralding the dawn of a

with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as its public face.

Before long, masses of African Americans practiced this nonviolent approach at great personal risk to integrate public schools, lunch counters and more. As the civil rights movement scored one historic victory after another, non-violence was still all too often met with violence — until finally, enough was enough. By 1968, Dr. King, the apostle of non-violence, would be assassinated, unleashing a new call for “Black Power” across the U.S. Episode Six: A More Perfect Union (1968 – 2013) After 1968, African Americans set out to build a bright new future on the foundation of the civil rights movement’s victories, but a growing class disparity threatened to split the black community in two. As hundreds of African Americans won political office across the country and the black middle class made unprecedented progress, larger economic and political forces isolated the black urban poor in the inner cities, vulnerable to new social ills and an epidemic of incarceration. Yet African Americans of all backgrounds came together to support Illinois’ Senator Barack Obama in his historic campaign for the presidency of the United States. When he won in 2008, many hoped that America had finally transcended race and racism.

By the time of his second victory, it was clear that many issues, including true racial equality, remain to be resolved. Now we ask: How will African Americans help redefine the United States in the years to come?

Major corporate support for The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross is provided by Bank of America. Additional corporate funding is provided by The CocaCola Company and McDonald’s.

Leadership support is generously provided by the Abby and Howard

Milstein Foundation, in partnership with HooverMilstein and Emigrant Bank. Major funding is also provided by the Ford Foundation, Dr. Georgette Bennett and Dr. Leonard Polonsky in Memory of Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, Richard

Gilder, the Hutchins Family Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Support is also provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS.

(from page 13) implement school-based prevention Projects in rural areas of Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia are increasing local capacity to respond to the infectious disease consequences of the opioid epidemic and offer comprehensive harm reduction programs to address the needs of people who inject drugs.

NACCHO recently completed an action planning project focused on building local health department capacity to collaborate with schools and other key stakeholders to

programs that reduce HIV/STIs among adolescents.

This year, NACCHO also signed the U=U Consensus Statement, published the findings of a survey about PrEP implementation among LHDs, presented findings from an evaluation of local implementation of Health is Power, a campaign to promote sexual health among heterosexual black men ages 18-30, and updated its HIV Prevention, Care, and Treatment policy statement.

National Megan’s Law Helpline & Sex Offender Registration Tips Program

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Nov. 28, 2018• 15

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Va.’s Housing Families First receives one of the first Bezos Day 1 Families Fund Grants Housing Families First announced it has been selected to receive a $2.5 million grant from the Day 1 Families Fund, which will help nearly 500 children and adults exit homelessness into permanent housing over the next four years.

Funding from this grant also will provide space and furnishings for an additional 160 family members to access emergency shelter over the same period. Critical to this expansion are shelter modifications and upgrades made possible by the grant.

“This investment from the Day 1 Families Fund will transform not only the lives of literally hundreds of families who will be able to quickly move out of shelters and the streets into permanent homes, but also the long-term effectiveness of homeless services for families throughout the Richmond region," said Beth Vann-Turnbull, executive director of Housing Families First.

“We could not be more honored, humbled, and excited about this amazing opportunity from Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos.”

Housing Families First is one of 24

Beth Vann-Turnbull nonprofits to receive the first Day 1 Families Fund grants, totaling $97.5 million. Recipients from around the country include: Abode Services, Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami, Catholic Community Services of Western Washington, Community of Hope, Community Rebuilders, Crossroads Rhode Island, District Alliance for Safe Housing (DASH), Emerald Development & Economic Network (EDEN) Inc., FrontLine Service, Hamilton Families, Heartland Family Service, Housing

Families First, JOIN, LA Family Housing (LAFH), Northern Virginia Family Service (NVFS), Primo Center for Women and Children, Refugee Women’s Alliance (ReWA), SEARCH Homeless Services, Simpson Housing Services, The Salvation Army of Greater Charlotte, The Salvation Army of Greater Houston, UMOM New Day Centers and Urban Resource Institute (URI).

Founded by Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, the Bezos Day One Fund consists of two programs: the Day

1 Families Fund that provides grants to nonprofit organizations fighting homelessness, and the Day 1 Academies Fund that will fund and build a network of pre-schools in low-income communities across the country. The Day 1 Families Fund’s vision comes from the inspiring Mary’s Place in Seattle: No child should sleep outside. A small group of expert advisors provided input to the Bezos Day One Fund team to select these organizations. The Day 1 Families Fund will be awarding grants annually.

16 • Nov. 28, 2018

The LEGACY

Calendar

COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES & EVENTS

12.1, 4 p.m.

12.6, 6 p.m.

University of Richmond students will perform a documentary drama about the HIV/AIDS epidemic and its disproportionate effect on people of color in the city of Richmond.

“RVAIDS” will be at Richmond Triangle Players in Scotts Addition.

The performing students are enrolled in “Documentary Theater: The AIDS Epidemic in Richmond”, which is cotaught by Browder and theatre professor Patricia Hererra.

To gather the information for their performance, students met with Richmond residents who have been affected by HIV and those in the city who work to prevent it.

The performance will be directed

by New York-based director José Joaquin Garcia. It will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Rodney Lofton, deputy director of Diversity Richmond and longtime AIDS advocate and educator.

The performance is free and open to all.

Participants can learn about the process of purchasing a home and obtaining a mortgage at a free seminar offered by Virginia Credit Union.

The Home Buyers Seminar will be held at Virginia Credit Union in the Boulders Office Park, 7500 Boulder View Dr., Richmond.

Mortgage experts will be on hand to answer specific questions.

To register to attend, call 804323-6800 or visit www.vacu.org/ seminars..

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Ongoing

GRASP (GReat Aspirations Scholarship Program, Inc. provides free, college financial aid assistance on Wednesdays from 6-8 pm at the Belmont Library, 3100 Ellwood Ave., Richmond.

Assistance includes help with FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) completion and information about the overall financial aid process. Call 804 5277772 to make an appointment. For more information, visit the website www.grasp4va.org.

12.4, 4 p.m.

The Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond will hold the forum “Toward an Inclusive Democracy: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Legacy” with Blanche Wiesen Cook. She is the distinguished professor of history and women’s studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her book “Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One” has won numerous awards, including the Lambda Literary Award and The Los Angeles Times Biography Prize. It also is a New York Times best seller.

Audience members will have opportunities to interact with the speaker during book signings and receptions. This program is free and open to the public, but registration is required. To register or for more information, visit jepson.richmond. edu/forum or call 804-287-6522.

Submit your calendar events by email to: editor @legacynewspaper.com.

Include the who, what, where, when & contact information that can be printed. Deadline is Friday.

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Bureau neglects duty to enforce Military Lending Act CHARLENE CROWELL POINT OF VIEW Although predatory lending often conjures up images of an economically blighted urban America, seldom does the image of an enlisted man or woman come to mind. But just as check cashing stores, along payday and auto title loan shops focus on communities of color, America’s military is also a frequent target.

For years and near military installations across the country, a profusion of predatory lenders plied their wares, capturing our service men and women into the same web of debt trap loans that ensnared black and Latino civilians.

By 2006, a Department of Defense (DoD) report that delved into predatory lending practices against the nation’s armed services shared how the financial stress wrought affected military readiness. The report shared how predatory lending resulted in multiple negative effects.

From “undermining troop readiness” and morale, to even the revocation of security clearances essential to military operations.

In part the report stated, “Most of the predatory business models take advantage of borrower’s inability to pay the loan in full when due and encourage extensions through refinancing and loan flipping. These refinances often include additional high fees and little or no payment of principal.”

In reaction, to the DoD report, Congress enacted with bipartisan support the Military Lending Act (MLA). Drawing from the report’s recommendations, new military protections assured: a 36 percent interest cap for all costs associated with lending; included both military members and their families; and banned extensions of payday and auto title loans, or other types of predatory credit.

By 2010 the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform

Melissa Bryant and Consumer Protection Act, the newly-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) gave the nation for the first time, a fulltime consumer cop on the block, dedicated to financial fairness over a wide range of services and products.

In 2012, the National Defense Authorization Act authorized the CFPB to enforce the MLA. That legislative move enabled CFPB to use its authority to protect servicemembers.

Soon thereafter, veterans, military members, and their families took more than 72,000 lending complaints to the direct attention of the CFPB. Under the leadership of the Bureau’s first director, CFPB returned more than $130 million to the military community.

For several years, the CFPB conducted proactive supervision to verify that financial companies were honoring their obligations under the MLA – to not rip off our troops. Furthermore, the MLA itself was strengthened by DoD policy, which closed loopholes that lenders had been exploiting to rip off our servicemembers.

Despite this multi-year drumbeat of consumer concern at the federal level, this year the current Acting Director of the CFPB recoiled from Dodd-Frank’s statutory duty to veterans. Instead of continuing

its inclusion of MLA in CFPB supervisory examinations, earlier this year Mick Mulvaney, CFPB’s acting director claimed that the agency has no such legal authority.

In reaction, a bipartisan contingent of 33 state attorneys general (AGs) directly expressed their concerns regarding CFPB’s abdication of duty to the armed services. Representing coast-to-coast diversity in geography as well as economies were AGs who wrote on behalf of consumers from New England’s Vermont, to the mid-Atlantic’s North Carolina, the Midwest heartland of Illinois and Ohio, the Deep South’s Mississippi, westward to Colorado’s Rocky Mountain, and the most populous state, California. “[W]e are perplexed by reports indicating that the CFPB has determined that it needs further statutory authority in order to conduct examinations for MLA violations,” wrote the AGs. “We are also disappointed to learn that CFPB did not consult the Defense Department in developing its new examination policy, even though Congress specified that the Defense Department – not the CFPB – is the primary federal agency responsible for interpreting the MLA.” “By eliminating the proactive examination of compliance to correct problems before they affect servicemembers, however, your proposal will limit the CFPB’s protection of servicemembers to reactive enforcement when servicemembers submit complaints,” added the AGs. Nor were governmental officials the only ones to speak up in defense of the MLA. The Consumer Federation of America (CFA), an association of nonprofit interests that together have used a combination of education, research and advocacy to protect consumers since 1968, released a report that challenges CFPB to “Protect Those Who Protect America”. Written by Christopher L.

Peterson, CFA’s director of financial services, it rejects Mulvaney’s interpretation, and itemizes specific directives and requirements that together pose a legal argument that would be difficult to deny or disprove.

“For some inexplicable reason, the Trump administration is directing the CFPB to overlook illegal, usurious lending to our troops within supervisory exams,” said Peterson. “America’s military families deserve the protection from predatory lending offered by the Military Landing Act – not to be abandoned by the CFPB.” Veterans are also expressing their own heartfelt concerns about the unexpected reversal of consumer protection.

In a recent blog, Melissa Bryant, a member of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans also spoke up.

“We know that servicemembers are four times more likely to be targeted by predatory lenders and are in desperate need of stringent oversight and protection measures from fraud,” said Bryant. “If you need further proof, just look down the main drag of any street leading into a military post, full of payday lenders and car dealerships who prey upon young troops with little or no credit, but a steady paycheck to spend.”

And in a recent town hall convened

by CFPB in Baton Rouge, a Commander with the state’s branch of the American Legion faced off with Mulvaney.

Speaking on behalf of veterans, Ricky Griffin told the acting director, “Both the Pentagon and the American Legion are extremely worried about your proposal to pull back on enforcing the Military Lending Act. . . With the military currently unable to make its recruitment numbers this year, I think it is wrong for your agents to back off of any enforcement of the Military Lending Act…Why single out military service members?”

18 • Nov. 28, 2018

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41-18 (WITHDRAWN): An application of Leigh Street, LLC. for a building permit for a restaurant use (3,400 sq.ft.) with an accessory Ok with changes X _______________ outdoor dining patio (692 sq.ft.) at 2915 & 2919 WEST LEIGH STREET.

42-18: An application of Michael and Virginia Logan for a building REMINDER: Deadline is Friday permit to construct a single-story addition to a single-family (detached) dwelling at 815 HENRI ROAD. 43-18: An application of Global Elite Property Investments LLC for a building permit to construct a new single-family (detached) dwelling at 1810 3rd AVENUE. 44-18: An application of Corey and Megan McCalla for a building permit to construct a wooden 6 ½’ privacy fence accessory to a singlefamily detached dwelling at 2900 EAST LEIGH STREET. 45-18: An application of 2929 W Cary St, LLC for a building permit to re-construct a two-story building for a sit-down restaurant (1,750 SF)/outdoor dining (355 SF) on the 1st floor and two dwelling units on the 2nd floor at 2929 WEST CARY STREET. 46-18: An application of Stephen and Donna Bower for a building permit to construct a front vestibule addition (50 SF) to a single-family detached dwelling at 38 LEXINGTON ROAD. 47-18: An application of 1406 Bainbridge Street, LLC for a building permit to construct a multi-family dwelling building at 1406 BAINBRIDGE STREET.

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48-18: An application of Daniel & Alice Herlihy for a building permit to construct a one-story addition to a single-family dwelling at 707 TIBER LANE. Roy W. Benbow, Secretary Phone: (804) 240-2124 Fax: (804) 646-5789 E-mail: Roy.Benbow@richmondgov.com

Drivers Mr. Bult’s is hiring Local Class A CDL Drivers. Home Every Night, $1100+/week, Amazing Benefits!

Text WORK to 55000

Nov. 28, 2018• 19

www.LEGACYnewspaper.com City of Hampton,Virginia Procurement

ANNOUNCEMENTS DRPT FY20 PUBLIC NOTICE The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) is accepting applications for transit, rail, and transportation demand management (TDM) grants for the 2020 fiscal year. The state’s annual grant application period is open from December 3, 2018, through February 1, 2019. Transit and TDM funds are available through multiple state and federal funding sources to support transit service, human service transportation, senior transportation, ridesharing and TDM programs in Virginia.

Eligible project categories include capital purchases, administrative and operating costs, technical assistance, demonstration grants, and TDM/ridesharing program costs. Funds are available for rail initiatives through the Rail Enhancement and Rail Preservation programs. In addition, funding to provide access to freight rail shipping for Virginia businesses is available year round through the Rail Industrial Access program. Complete details on eligibility and the application procedures for DRPT grant programs are available online. To learn more about transit, rail, and transportation demand management funding in Virginia, visit www.drpt.virginia.gov.

Applications can be submitted online at https://olga.drpt.virginia. gov/. DRPT has also revised State Management Plans (SMPs) for the federal section 5310, 5311, and 5339 grant programs, awarded to Virginia by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). Draft plans can be found at http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/. DRPT is committed to ensuring that no person is excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of its services on the basis of race, color, or national origin, as protected by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. DRPT will also provide reasonable accommodations and interpretive services for persons who require special assistance to participate in this public involvement opportunity as required by the ADA. For accommodations, additional information on to file a complaint, please contact our Title VI Compliance Officer, (804) 786-4440, or 600 E. Main Street, Suite 2102, Richmond, VA 23219, or visit our website at www.drpt.virginia.gov AUCTIONS ATTN. AUCTIONEERS: Advertise your upcoming auctions statewide or in other states. Affordable Print and Digital Solutions reaching your target audiences. Call this paper or Landon Clark at Virginia Press Services 804-521-7576, landonc@vpa.net HELP WANTED / DRIVERS NEED CDL Drivers? Advertise your JOB OPENINGS statewide or in other states. Affordable Print and Digital Solutions to reach truck drivers. Call Landon Clark at Virginia Press Services 804521-7576, landonc@vpa.net REAL ESTATE FOR SALE ATTN. REALTORS: Advertise your listings regionally or statewide.

Print and Digital Solutions that get results! Call Landon Clark at Virginia Press Services 804-521-7576, landonc@vpa.net SERVICES DIVORCE–Uncontested, $395+$86 court cost. No court appearance. Estimated completion time twenty-one days.

Telephone inquiries welcome-no obligation. Hilton Oliver, Attorney (Facebook) 757-490-0126. Se Habla Español. BBB Member.

WANTED TO BUY OR TRADE FREON R12 WANTED: CERTIFED BUYER will PAY CA$H for R12 cylinders or cases of cans. (312) 291-9169; www.refrigerantfinders.com

The City of Hampton is seeking bids from qualified responsive and responsible bidders to participate in the new allocated State of Virginia contracts for rehabilitation and new developments in the City of Hampton which will span for another five years as the Virginia state government is extending its development across the states and doing everything to make Hampton a safe place to live for the residents

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