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THEINNER-CITY INNER-CITY NEWS - February 072016 , 2024- August - February 2024 NEWS July 27, 02,13, 2016

Financial a Key Focus at 2016Piece NAACP Convention Setting theJustice Record Straight on an Important of Black History New Haven, Bridgeport

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

“A Dixwell Daughter”: Q House Unveils Constance Baker Motley Forever Stamp by YASH ROY

Judge Constance Baker Motley was the only woman to work at the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund during the Civil Rights Movement. She wrote the original complaint in Brown v. Board of Education. She was Martin Luther King Jr.’s lawyer. She was the first Black woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and she fought nine more desegregation cases, winning every single one. She was a daughter of New Haven. She was a daughter of Dixwell. She was a daughter of the Q House. Now she joins King, Rosa Parks, John Lewis, and Thurgood Marshall on a U.S. Postal Service Forever stamp. On the first day of Black History Month, the Greater New Haven NAACP hosted an unveiling of the stamp, which was designed by Charly Palmer. Her stamp is the 47th in the Black Heritage Series. New Haven NAACP President Dori Dumas and Motley’s niece Constance Royster unveiled the stamp Thursday evening at the place where Motley’s career started — the Q House community center. New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker, Connecticut NAACP President Scot X. Esdaile, NAACP National Board Vice-Chair Karen Boykin-Towns, U.S. Attorney Vanessa Avery, and more than 200 other New Haveners joined in the celebration. “Knowing she was from New Haven, attended the same high school, went to the same church and was part of our NAACP makes her so special to me,” Dumas said. “So, when we first found out that the United States Postal Service had chosen her as the 47th Black heritage stamp, well, we said, ‘It’s about time.’” Motley was born in New Haven in 1921, the daughter of two Nevisian immigrants. Her mother was a domestic servant and helped co-found the New Haven NAACP. Her father was a cook for Yale’s secret societies, including Skull & Bones. She graduated from Hillhouse with the highest honors, but her family could not afford her to attend college, even when her parents worked three jobs each. That changed at a Q House town hall. Called on by a group of largely Yale benefactors to ask the community why no one was using the Q House, Motley was the only person to stand up and tell them it was because no one had asked for the community’s input in the Q House. Some of the benefactors did not like what she had to say. But one did: CW Blakeslee. He asked to speak to her after the meeting and asked her why she

YASH ROY PHOTOS

NAACP New Haven President Dori Dumas and Motley's niece Constance Royster unveil the stamp at Q House event.

While her roots were in New Haven, Motley spent her career shoulder to shoulder with civil rights leaders across the country. Her strategy was the basis for almost every desegregation case, from lunch counters to universities. She lived under a constant threat of being killed, but she persisted, according to Avery. “Imagine the courage and tenacity it took for a woman to do that, at that time,” Avery said, reading partially from a biography of Motley by Gary Ford. “Her contributions complicate the view of history, from the male model of leadership by charismatic men to a more complete model that is inclusive of women.” While Motley made history as a judge, she was also a mother, daughter, and aunt who inspired her own family, noted Constance Royster, her niece. Reading from an excerpt of Civil Rights Queen, another biography on Motley, by Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Royster called on attendees to learn more about Motley. “Far too few American today know her. Her likeness is not even featured on a postage stamp,” Royster said. “That line is only a year and a half ago. Not anymore.” Royster also pointed out that New Haven has no memorial for Motley. Yet. Thursday’s event was not just a memorial of Motley. It was also a call to action. “This is just an amazing way to kick off Black History Month and reflect on the past, and I think, more importantly, reflect on the work that we have ahead of us,” Elicker said. “We know her work is far from done.” What does that look like in New Haven?

Scot X. Esdaile: Work still left to do, rigaht here at home.

was not in college. When she told him her family could not afford it, he offered to pay “This organization allowed her to hone her public speaking skills and helped her find her voice, use her voice, and caught the attention of CW Blakes-

ley, who was so impressed by this dynamic woman that he paid for her undergraduate education and law school … That’s how impressive she was,” said Q House centennial committee Co-Chair Charles Warner. “Her story started here, which is why

it was so important for us to host this event here,” Dumas added. The Q House is celebrating its centennial this year with a whole host of events throughout the year to highlight the past, present, and future of the space.

According to Esdaile, the state’s NAACP president, it’s organizing against the ongoing effort by the cops responsible for paralyzing Randy Cox to get their jobs back. “We have to keep up her traditions here in New Haven, Connecticut, where she was born and raised,” Esdaile said. “There are some serious cases right here in New Haven, and I am talking about the Randy Cox case. … The fight is not over. The officers are now trying to get their jobs back. It’s imperative that the New Haven NAACP and the individuals of New Haven mobilize and get involved in action to stop this from happening.” St. Luke’s plans to host another event commemorating Motley’s life and her stamp on Feb. 11.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

Residency Rethink Starts With “Incumbents”

HOWARD K. HILL F UNERAL

SERVICES

by ALISA REINER

Alders voted to advance a proposal to ease residency requirements for top city officials — but just current ones, at least for now. The 6 – 0 vote took place at a meeting in City Hall of the Board of Alders Legislation Committee Tuesday night. The vote approved a proposal submitted by the Elicker administration to allow “incumbent” holders of top city “coordinator” positions to seek exceptions from the Board of Alders to live outside New Haven. Currently coordinators must move into the city within six months of beginning their jobs. The proposal affects only four top city positions: chief administrative officer, community services administrator, economic development administrator, and if a fourth currently vacant “coordinator” position is created and filled (as allowed under the city charter). Officials must have already served in their jobs for 12 months, and they must still live no farther than 50 miles away from New Haven within Connecticut, to qualify for an exception, the proposal reads. The alders would still have to approve permission for any of the officials to live outside New Haven. The coordinators would need to prove that living in New Haven poses a “hardship,” and first have that hardship evaluated in house before the alders consider the request. The city personnel director will review exemptions annually, reporting to the alders if action needs to be taken on any changes. The proposal now goes before the full Board of Alders for a final debate and vote. The city’s three current “coordinators” already live in New Haven. But one of them is seeking permission to live outside of New Haven: Chief Administrative Officer Regina Rush-Kittle, who oversees line departments like police and fire and parks. Rush-Kittle’s name didn’t come up during Tuesday night’s hearing. Nor did she attend. Still, a broader issue was at stake: A charter reform referendum passed in November allows the alders to consider easing residency rules for top officials on a more permanent basis. Alder Majority Leader Richard Furlow told the Independent after the hearing that the alders will consider that broader residency question in the future for coordinators and department heads. Board President Tyisha Walker-Myers is creating a working group to study how a broader policy will work. Deputy Chief Administrative Offi-

Rush-Kittle: Seeks OK to live officially in Rocky Hill.

cer Rebecca Bombero did address the broader principle at Tuesday’s hearing. She told the committee that easing residency rules would broaden the pool of qualified candidates for top positions. Bombero highlighted the strain on existing staff when positions remain unfilled. For instance, she noted, the city went three and a half years without a controller while it sought someone to fill the job, requiring the budget director to do both jobs. Moreover, proponents pointed out that residing beyond New Haven’s borders could result in shorter distances to the workplace than some neighborhoods within the city, potentially enhancing emergency response capabilities. They also spoke of candidates needing to juggle challenges that come with having dual-income households. Hill Alder Evelyn Rodriguez voiced concern at the hearing about the general idea of easing residency requirements, emphasizing the importance of coordinators being embedded in New Haven communities to grasp local issues fully. City Corporation Counsel Patricia King, who wrote the ordinance and presented it at the hearing, emphasized that coordinators primarily oversee department heads rather than provid-

ing “direct service” to the residents. So their city of residence is less critical to their effectiveness, she argued. Similarly, she noted, the proposal includes requiring officials to have served at least 12 months in the job and undergo an evaluation process before they could obtain an exception to live outside New Haven. That process will determine whether the applicant has exhibited strong performance and displayed sufficient commitment to their duties. Rush-Kittle did not attend Tuesday night’s hearing. The mayor’s office released a written statement attributed to Rush-Kittle to the Independent. It quoted her as saying: “It has been a privilege working for the City of New Haven for the past two years, and I would enjoy continuing to serve in this role. At the same time, my family is based in Rocky Hill and, like other working families, I’d love to be able to do the job I love during the day and then commute home to be with family on the evenings and weekends. I’m appreciative of the Board of Alders consideration of the proposed ordinance and I’m hopeful that it will pass so that I can continue to serve the residents of New Haven.” Rush-Kittle: Seeks OK to live officially in Rocky Hill.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

Sisters’ Journey February Survivor of the Month - Patricia Royal

“God is Working for My Good” is the motto I have chosen for my journey. I am Patricia Royal, and I live in Northfield, New Jersey. I was born January 9, 1944. I was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer in April 2022. Having said that, I had lived cancer free for 78 years. My cancer was 100 percent treatable and believed to be 100 percent curable because of early detection. I always had my annual mammogram and was consistent in doing selfbreast examinations. In January 2010, I was sent for an ultrasound and MRI because I had dense breast tissue. Every year thereafter, my annual mammogram was normal until April 2022 when it was a different story. Following my annual mammogram that year, there was a follow-up ultrasound and biopsy. This led to the dreaded words: “It is cancerous.” I didn't have to go at it alone. I had a good friend who had gone through it some years earlier. She was with me for my initial visits until my sister could arrive. My sister lived in California and had planned to come to New Jersey in October 2021, but changed her visit until January 2022. In January she changed her visit until April. God was working for my good. He knew when I would need her the most. My surgery was scheduled for May. When my sister had to leave, my son was able to come from Virginia to be with me for surgery and recovery. Since I was post-menopausal, the diagnosis was in my favor. The cancer did not have hormones to feed off and it had not spread. I did not have to

do chemotherapy. However, I did have to undergo radiation. The process was 10 doses over a five-day period. I went for radiation twice a day. A contura applicator was inserted in my breast to target the area and I had to keep it in place for five days during which I could not shower. I had to be very careful not to let it move. When I went for my treatments, I was attached by what was referred to as the key and that would connect me to the machine. The preparation leading up to the surgery (a lumpectomy), was demanding. It included an MRI, a bone density test, an echocardiogram, doctor visits, sterile baths and blood work, but it was worth it. Postsurgery was demanding, but also welcomed. My follow-up tests – first every three months, then every six months – have all been negative. When I look back, I realize I was so blessed. I did not have to do any of my initial visits alone. Someone was always there with me. They could take notes for me as the doctors were talking. I was able to drive myself to treatments and followup visits. My family, my church family and Delta Sorors surrounded me with an outpouring of love. To all women, you are my “Sister,” and one “Sister” to another, do not neglect to get your mammogram. Self-examination is not enough. I never felt a lump in my breast. Early detection yields the best cure. I am now in recovery via hormone therapy for five years. This is the story of my journey and that is how “God is Working for My Good.”

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Federal Training Grant Offers Hope for New Haven Satudents by Hudson Kamphausen The new haven independent

NEW HAVEN, CT – New federal grant money, which will go to improving training resources for community college students, will allow for better job opportunities, a New Haven student said Thursday. The training grant, which is part of a $70 million program, was praised as a crucial tool for students during a Gateway Community College event with Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su and Gov. Ned Lamont. Adonis Dawson, a freshman computer science student at Gateway in New Haven, who is originally from the Bronx, said that the grant will give him and his peers the opportunities and resources they need to succeed. Coming from the Bronx, Dawson said he saw the failures of an educational system without the proper resources. “Nobody cares – the students don’t care, and the teachers match that energy,” he said. But, Dawson said he was incredibly grateful for the grant, and the opportuniContinue on page 10

Gov. Ned Lamont and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro with Gateway Community College students on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2024. Credit: Hudson Kamphausen / CTNewsJunkie

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fREsh-taurant Community Kitchen Opens In Newhallville by LISA REISMAN

You can speak all you want into somebody’s ear. If their stomach is growling, they can’t hear it. Those were the words of Marcus Harvin, the visionary founder of Newhallville fREshSTARTs, at Pitts Chapel Unified Free Will Baptist Church on Friday night. The occasion was the grand opening of the fREsh-taurant, a food recovery initiative that will provide free hot, nutritious meals for the community, either eat-in or take-out, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening. Everyone is welcome. The assortment of upper-case and lowercase letters is “to highlight the word RESTART, which symbolizes our mission to assist in undoing the ills of the days of old and is simultaneously symbolic of my new beginning,” said Harvin. The opening marked the culmination of a plan he conceived, developed, and honed during his six years in prison to improve the lives of those around him. His mother Stephanie Harvin, among a group of 50 high-spirited volunteers, church members, friends, and family, summed up the reason for a slim turnout. “It’s the beginning of the month, which is when people get their food stamps,” she said, amid the cozy aroma of roasted chicken and the strains of cool jazz sounding in the mellow lit basement. “Wait a week or so and they’ll be com-

ing.” Seated at a nearby table with white cloths adorned with fresh flowers and tealights, Pitts Chapel member Rachel Richardson agreed. “This is needed,” she said. “We have food pantries but some people don’t have anywhere to cook the food, so their needs are not being met. “So they get a hot meal in their stomach, and we might engage them in conversation and find out they need medical care or psychological care, and we have utility people here to help with bills,” she said, gesturing at a table in the corner with Avangrid representatives sharing brochures on lowering energy costs. That’s consistent with Harvin’s philosophy. “This is for anybody with an appetite that does not have enough money at the moment to fill their stomach, or anybody that has been deprived of interaction, they can come here and get food, and they can get emotional, social sustenance,” he said. “It’s about making the whole person whole.” University of New Haven executive chef Peter Marrello said he brought 50 pounds of food with him from UNH dining halls. Also donating food were Yale, with pickup by Haven’s Harvest, and the SCSU Office of Sustainability. Regarding the dining halls, “it’s overproduction,” said Marrello, stationed in the kitchen amid aluminum trays of rice,

Marcus Harvin.

LISA REISMAN PHOTO fREsh-taurant crew at Pitts Chapel; Marcus Harvin, in yellow shirt, left center.

beans, and chicken. “It happens when you’re feeding thousands of people.” At a corner table, Newhallville Alder Kim Edwards strategized with Harvin, Neighborhood Housing Services’ Adam Rawlings, and Derek Faulkner, program coordinator of the SCSU Office of Sustainability Resilience Academy, about how to get the word out. “We need to flyer all these neighborhoods and we also need to get the information to the right people,” she told them. Rapper Dontae “Bugatti” Harvin, Marcus’ younger brother, joined them, pledging the support of Gorilla Lemonade which, as part of the Eat Up Foundation, seeks to promote community over competition. “We are about taking care of the next generation, the kids that don’t have a chance, as young Black men, to do certain things because they don’t have role models,” he said. “We want to be the new role models, the new leaders of the community.” “Marcus grew up in this church, he was raised to do this, especially by his grandmother Sally Harvin,” said Pitts Chapel church clerk Gaynell Martin, as she welcomed a neighbor, directing him to the kitchen for a take-out meal. “This is a beautiful idea. This is everything.” For more information, call (203) 640‑2353 or email marcus@newhall‑ villefreshstarts.org.

Health Dept. Move Centers “Wellness” by NORA GRACE-FLOOD

City officials cut the ribbon on a “health and wellness” center — and hoped the fresh color scheme and branding strategy could sell STI tests, school physicals and flu vaccinations to the public as presents rather than punishments. More than 50 people crowded Thursday afternoon into the new lobby for the ribbon-cutting, at the New Haven Health Department’s relocated offices and clinic, which moved this winter from its former 54 Meadow St. home to 424 Chapel St. The move means that the 100 employees who make up that department now work together on one floor in open-plan offices, as opposed to on the first and ninth floors of the previous building. And what was once the New Haven Health Department Clinic will now be known as the city’s “Health and Wellness Center.” “The doors are open for all of you,” Director Maritza Bond announced to her audience: “Make sure you capture this moment. Take some selfies.” Don’t forget to hashtag NewHavenHealth, added Bond, whose blouse matched the building’s “Elm City Green”

City Health Director Maritza Bond Thursday at her department's new HQ: Wellness the new "holistic aapproach.”

paint job. “Oftentimes our work is behind the scenes and goes without notice,” she continued. “Today it’s exciting to be at the forefront.” The pandemic brought the value and complexities of collective health into mass consciousness, Bond noted. As people across the globe, nation and municipalities reconceptualize their relationships to their health, Bond said, it’s more important than ever that “people actually know who and where the health department is.” Using “holistic” words like “wellness,” she said, can also make spaces that feel intimidating or stigmatized, like public clinics, feel more accessible to people overwhelmed with technical medical jargon. “Nobody wants to go to a clinic,” Bond argued — but a “wellness” center suggests preventative care rather than scary sickness. The new building offers the same services as the previous health department headquarters, including eight exam rooms to administer vaccines, get kids caught up with school health requirements, check

out and treat sexually transmitted diseases. The clinic, er, wellness center, provides sliding scale care for under– and uninsured patients. Now, it also has a bright blue and green waiting room with a playspace for kids. The overhauled offices also place supervisors and their staff more closely together than before. All employees working on everything from community health to epidemiology have been relocated to one floor to promote more rapid and collaborative communication. As she aims to make New Haveners more health-forward through approachable, public campaigning, Bond argued that the new location is more physically accessible than 54 Meadow. The former location was at the edge of downtown and the Hill by the train station and Board of Education offices. 424 Chapel is “right between neighborhoods, on the bus line, and has parking,” Bond stated. Ultimately, Bond said, through judgment-free care, bilingual communications, and, yes, bold colors, “we want to make people feel welcome.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

4th Tenants Union Presses Ocean by NORA GRACE-FLOOD

Lenox Street residents said they couldn’t get through to their landlord to report rodents, water damage and trash pileup — so they formed a union and pasted their collective complaints to Ocean Management’s front door. Members of New Haven’s fourth formally recognized tenants union made their debut protest Tuesday afternoon outside the offices of local mega landlord Ocean Management at 101 Whitney Ave. Ocean owns hundreds of apartments across New Haven, many of which it’s trying to sell. 199 and 195 Lenox St. in Fair Haven Heights has 11 apartments across those two buildings, 10 of which are home to renters who have joined the tenants union to combat substandard living conditions and unstable leases. (The secretary of the state’s office reported that it has revoked the licenae of the limited liability corporation Ocean formed to own this complex because of a failure to file an annual report.) After forming that union back in November, the residents gathered on Tuesday to deliver a petition to Ocean demanding a meeting with their landlord to request better property maintenance and annual rather than month-to-month leases. “We want a real conversation so we can have real fixes,” said union leader Alisha Moore into a microphone outside those offices at the gathering. She was backed

change, and he only receives new contact information when a representative reaches out to make sure he pays his rent. He said that when he requests repairs, whoever is on the other end of the line simply says, “We’ll get back to you.” They rarely do. And the 31-year-old has lived at 199 Lenox St. for four years.

NORA GRACE-FLOOD PHOTO

Tenant Alisha MTenant Alisha Moore with her union on Tuesday: "We want real fixes.”

by her neighbors, housing advocates with the Democratic Socialists of America and Mayor Justin Elicker, all of whom also spoke out against negligent landlords. No one from Ocean Management responded to requests for comment from the New Haven Independent by the time of this article’s publication. Principal Shmuel Aizenberg last appeared in court in January, when a judge granted him accelerated rehabilitation for a housing code violation after he promised to stop break-

ing the city’s housing code. That lack of response was the primary complaint of those living in the Lenox Street apartments. “I have to pay my rent late every month,” tenant Chris Collet said, not because he doesn’t have the money, but because “it’s the only way someone will get in touch with me.” Each month, he said, the phone numbers and email addresses he attempts to use in order to contact his landlord seem to

When Collet first moved to Lenox Street, he said, he chose a first-floor apartment. He said that over the ensuing months, his apartment flooded three different times, an issue he chalked up to faulty storm water management around the building. He complained to management to no avail, until one day he woke up and put his feet into an inch of cold water. “I thought my dog had peed on the ground,” he said, until he realized a storm had sent water from the nearby river rushing through his home. All of his furniture was ruined, he said. His landlord finally offered him a third floor apartment, which he said he’s invested thousands of dollars to fix up with fresh paint and new light fixtures. He also rakes the leaves and shovels snow year round because property management never does. “I work 16 hours a day,” he said, “and then come home and have to do that.” Collet said he hasn’t moved because his rent of $1,100 is cheaper than any other apartment he can find in the area. In November, he said, he got a call from

Ocean asking if the company could show his room to a potential buyer — at which point Collet said he realized his landlords were trying to sell his home (which Ocean has yet to confirm). Around the same time, a housing organizer knocked on his door. “I thought she was a Jehovah’s Witness, but she turned out to be a godsend,” he said. Together, they started reaching out to other tenants — all of whom checked their leases and found out they were on month-to-month agreements, despite the fact that they had recalled previously signing annual agreements. “That’s what prompted us to come together and unionize,” Moore stated. Tenants said they want Ocean to renew their annual leases rather than forcing them to question their housing fate each month. They also want safer living conditions and regular maintenance. The third floor is better than the first, Collet said, but still, “When I shower it goes into my downstairs’ neighbor’s shower — and I feel bad!” The hot water goes out several times a month. Several apartments have back doors that don’t lock. Windows are broken. Water damage and mold are rampant, according to tenants who spoke with the Independent on Tuesday. In the meantime, as tenants wait for Ocean’s response, Collet said: “I’m just waiting for a note on the door saying you’re evicted.”

Migrant Workers’ Eviction Stopped, For Now by LAURA GLESBY

A landlord has to start all over again if he still wants to evict two of the Guatemalan temporary workers he brought to Fair Haven to work at his painting company. Judge Walter Spader issued that decision on Monday following a January trial that brought to light allegations of labor exploitation by local contractor MDF Painting and Powerwashing. MDF founder Mark DeFrancesco, alongside co-landlord Lauren DeFrancesco, had sought to evict two former MDF employees — Edgar Becerra and Josue Mauricio Arana — from a threefamily house at 200 Peck St. DeFrancesco’s company had originally recruited Becerra and Arana from Guatemala, sponsoring their temporary work visas and putting them up in a crowded house with other migrant workers in order to pay them $16 an hour as painters. Then, according to Becerra and legal aid attorney Tyrese Ford, the company fired

him after he sustained severe injuries while on the job. And when Becerra filed a worker’s compensation case, they filed an eviction against him. Ford represented only Becerra, and not Arana, but said that similar events had affected Arana. DeFrancesco and his lawyer, Joshua Brown, denied all of these claims. Ford said on Monday that the decision allows the tenants “to stay in a safe and warm environment as they seek justice through their worker’s compensation case.” Ford added that “the landlord can still use other causes of action to bring an eviction” — but that if another eviction notice comes, the tenants plan on continuing to defend their case. Judge: Lease Shouldn't Involve Guesswork DeFrancesco testified in court that the tenants lived in the house on the basis of a weekly, oral lease lasting from each Sunday to each Saturday. But in his decision, Spader questioned

whether such a lease really ever existed, citing inconsistencies in the landlord’s side of the story. For instance, echoing an argument that Ford had presented in court, Spader wrote that if the oral lease indeed began every Sunday, then the date of the eviction notice would likely have been invalid. That’s because it would have been served within the mandatory grace period for unpaid rent (unless it applied to the previous week). “Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, a Court should not be guessing at the terms of a lease agreement,” Spader wrote.

LAURA GLESBY PHOTO Becerra and Arana: They beat the landlord in court.

He added later in the opinion, “The court cannot find that the plaintiffs have set forth in a credible manner what the essential terms of the oral week-to-week agreement between the parties was.” The landlord’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment in time for this story.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

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Connecticut’s first choice for Urban News since 1990

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TheInnerCitynews.com CONNECTICUT’S FIRST CHOICE FOR URBAN NEWS

From a 4-year-old orphan to an international award-winning actress

The inspiring story of Thuso Nokwanda Mbedu

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

Meet the engineer turned florist running Central District’s

1st Black-owned floral shop since 1984 In 1984, Mary Wesley, who is nicknamed "Miss Mary," founded Flowers Just-4-U, the first Black-owned flower shop in the Central District of Seattle, to give lovely flowers to her community. Photo Credit: Instagram, Intentionalist

by Dollita Okine, Face2FaceAfrica.com In 1984, Mary Wesley, who is nicknamed “Miss Mary,” founded Flowers Just-4-U, the first Black-owned flower shop in the Central District of Seattle, to give lovely flowers to her community. In an interview with King5.com, Wesley said, “It was just something I loved to do and it was giving something back to my community. We did not have a flower shop in the community.” Over the past 40 years, the elderly entrepreneur has given away “tens of thousands” of bouquets at significant life events in Seattle and beyond. Wesley previously worked as an engineer at Boeing for nearly 30 years. She studied floral design and gardening after retiring in 1997 to fulfill her goal of becoming an entrepreneur. Since Wesley opened Flowers Just-4-U, she has been able to combine her love of the area with her passion for business and creative talents. She expressed, “It’s a very joyous thing. I could never find the words to say it how I’d like to express it because there’s not a word yet I think I could use that would really explain how I feel about my career.” After Wesley’s old store at 23rd and Jackson was forced to close due to new construction in the quickly gentrifying Central District in 2018, she moved to 23rd and Cherry but suffered from reduced foot traffic and parking. In 2020 when the cherished florist Flowers Just-4-U was about to be evicted, the neighborhood came together to save it.

In 1984, Mary Wesley, who is nicknamed "Miss Mary," founded Flowers Just-4-U, the first Black-owned flower shop in the Central District of Seattle, to give lovely flowers to her community. Photo Credit: Instagram, Intentionalist

Miss Mary’s shop remained open thanks to a GoFundMe campaign. Despite hardships over the last 40 years, Miss Mary has continued to bring joy via floral art, with no intentions to retire. Sue Grimord, a current employee, describes her workplace as “a family” and

bears witness to Wesley’s angelic care for all customers. Despite working on a smaller scale than in previous years, Flowers Just-4-U remains a neighborhood foundation, thriving into its fifth decade because of the vision and heart of “Miss Mary.”

Bartlett’s Back, With A Posse by Ben Ebuka, Face2FaceAfrica.com

Growing up in the early 1990s, Thuso Mbedu never by dreamt ofBASS being an entertain- “This is not about taking out anyone. This PAUL ment figure. At a very young age, she want- is about [including] more people in the edAto be aofdermatologist, but afteris taking slate political challengers seekinga process,” said Bartlett, a former state repdramatic arts class in the 10th grade, she resentative and Harp administration maya little-noticed office as a way to pry open became in acting. the doorinterested of democracy in New Haven. oral aide who has managed three DemoHer acting career earned her fame and cratic mayoral campaigns (for James At least that’s howhas organizers of the “New fortune locally and internationally, rising Newton, Martin Looney, and Toni Harp). Haven Agenda” put it. to They’ve become one of the most soughttoafter collected petitions run acin “We have to have community voice. It’s tresses South Africa. At 27, she was a Marchfrom 5 Democratic Party primary for been very monolithic. … It has its own named in the 2018positions. Forbes Africa Under chill. People don’t want to participate. ward co-chair They30 expect 30 of the 100 Mostqualify Influential to List, have and up one to 17 candidates for People don’t want to run. People don’t Africans by Co-chair New African Magazine. the ballot. candidates from the want to speak out at public meetings.’” Born on July 8, 1991, at and the Midlands Democratic, Republican, IndepenAs a result, Bartlett said, the UNITE Medical Center Pietermaritzburg, Kwa- HERE-supported Elicker administration dent parties haveinuntil 4 p.m. Wednesday Zulu-Natal South Africa, a Zulu mothto submit in petitions to theto Registrar of is not held accountable for, example, er and Office Xhosa to andqualify Sothofor father, never waiting years to fill the comptroller’s poVoters wardshe co-chair enjoyed of herofparents whoseats, died sition with a permanent appointee while positionsthe or,care in cases contested when she was barely four years old. She “$6 million disappeared” in a Board of party primaries. was raised by her grandmother, a very Most party ward co-chair seats arestrict un- Thuso Education hack attack. Mbedu. Photo -IOL school principal in school home. contested. Sometimes it’s and hardatenough More voices in government would bring Reel Awards’ (Outstanding Her name reflected the multicultural tribes to find people to volunteer time to fill the ‘Black more scrutiny and more ideas toActress chalTV Movie / Limited ‘Hollyof herEach parents – Thuso is awards Sothohas name, role. of the city’s 30 two –lenges like the state ofSeries), publicthe education Critics Association TV Awards’ (Best Nokwanda is a Zulu is wood party co-chairs. The name, job’s and mainMbedu responand posting enough police officers to in a Limited Series, Anthropology Xhosa. sibility is to cast votes at party conven- Actress patrol neighborhoods like Morris Cove, or Television Movie), ‘Gotham Mbedu went tocandidates Pelham Primary School Series tions to endorse for municipal, said Sharon Braz, one of thethe dozen-plus (Outstanding Performance in New and Girls’ High School Awards’ state Pietermaritzburg and federal office. More ambitious Democrats Bartlett has recruited to seek the ‘Hollywood and graduated the University of Wit- Series), co-chairs use from the position to galvanize ward co-chair slots as partCritics of the Associaslate. TVisAwards’ Star), and watersrand in South where door-knockers andAfrica activein 2013, citizens in tion Braz seeking(TV oneBreakout of Morris Cove’s Choice Television she Physical Theatre and Perform- the theirstudied neighborhoods. Ward‘Critics 18 seats. She moved to theAwards’ neighActress Miniseries or Television ing ArtsisManagement. in 2012, This the first time Earlier since 2011 thatshe an (Best borhood threein ayears ago after retiring all for herpractitioner role ‘Cora in Randall’ in took a summer at the Stella Adler Movie), organized slate course of challengers is seeking as a family-law Califor‘The Underground Studio of Acting in New to wrest co-chair seats York withCity. a common the nia.2021 She TV saidseries in that role and beforeRailthat agenda. In 2011 aCareer citywide slate of candi- road.’ as a nurse practitioner she worked as a She won the ‘TV Star’ award Her acting career began in UNITE 2014 when she “change dates affiliated with Yale’s HERE agent” in herBreakout fields. She hopes to Hollywood Critics asAssociation played minorco-chair role of ‘Nosisa’ in the unions aswept primaries andpopuhave from plays athe similar role if elected a co-chair and wonmore the ‘Outstanding lar African ruledSouth the party everSoap since,Opera along ‘Isibaya’ with the TV to involve people in Performance politics and New Series’ fromopponents the Gotham from Magic. In an 2015, she played BoardMzansi of Alders, with agenda focuseda in government andaward represent of guest role as ‘Kheti’ in the Second Season on pressuring Yale on community issues Awards. Tweed New Haven airport’s expansion. In 2022, Mbedu nominated of SABC 2 youth drama series ‘Snake andthesupporting affordable housing and Democratic Townwas Chair Vincent for the Awards (Best Female community policing. (An effort to run ‘Independent Mauro Jr. saidSpirit he welcomes Bartlett’s Park.’ in a New Scripted Series), for anShe anti-UNITE “Take team’s challenge. got her firstHERE starring role Back in the New teen Performance role ‘Cora Randall’ televiHaven”television challenge slate‘IS’THUNZI’ of alders in 2013 “Absolutely,” he said ininthean2021 interview. drama series from her series are ‘The Underground Railroad.’ fizzled out.) “Elections good. We have the converMzansi Magic where she played ‘Winnie.’ sion “Unions are great. I’mwas a Teamster,” Ja- She sationwon withthe the ‘Critics voters.” Choice Television Her international debut in ‘The Unson Bartlett, who organized the New Ha- Awards’ He argued thatActress the Elicker administrafor ‘Best in a Miniseries or derground Railroad’ an American fantasy ven Agenda challenge seeking tion and party leaders had role that ‘Cora “conversaMovie’ for her Ranhistorical drama series slate basedand on isthe novel Television a WardUnderground 6 DemocraticRailroad’ co-chair seat in City tion”inlast fallUnderground both in a contested ‘The Railroad.’Demo‘The written by dall’ Point, said during an appearance Tuesday cratic in aatcontested general In herprimary keynoteand speech TheWrap’s PowColson Whitehead. onInWNHH FM’s “Dateline Haven” election —Summit, in whichThuso “the Mbedu people tearfully of New Women 2022, she starred in her fiNew rst film ‘The er program.King’ “UNITE has donedrama great spoke Havenofhave to keepthe thisloss team in how voted she overcame of her Woman an HERE epic historical thingsAgosie, in Newwhere Haven. to have place.” His theory why: “New has parents, grandmother, andHaven aunt. But about an You entirehave female war- dear moreunit than one special interest pulling le- her become most stable and‘IS’THUNZI’ best run city role the in Amanda Lane’s rior protected the West African Kingvers in government. hasn’t hap- gradually in the state.” renewed her hope in life. dom of local Dahomey in the 17That – 19th century. pened in 12‘Nawi’, years.” a zealous recruit in the “…my world was that blur, until AmanShe played da Lane happened in 2016. The role that military unit. In 2017, Mbedu was nominated for the Amanda Lane gave me was the difference ‘DSTV Viewers Choice Awards’ and the between life and death for me. Receiv‘International Emmy Awards for the ‘Best ing that audition brief, I told myself that Performance by an Actress’ for her role I would audition like it was my last audi‘Winnie Bhengu’ in the 2016 -2017 televi- tion. I gave it the last of everything that I had, that at the time I got the callback, I had sion drama series ‘IS’THUNZI.’ In 2018, she won the ‘South African Film nothing left. I secretly made the decision and Television Awards’ for ‘ Best Actress not to do the callback because I had noth– TV Drama’ for her role ‘Winnie Bhengu’ ing left to give. But fortunately, I received in the 2016 -2017 television drama series the callback. So I didn’t do the callback be‘IS’THUNZI.’ She was also nominated for cause the role was mine. I had given up. I the ‘International Emmy Awards for ‘Best was in a very dark place at the time, and the Performance by an Actress’ for her role character, the role, the opportunity, was a ‘Winnie Bhengu’ in the television drama much needed light. And I told myself that I will act as if it was the last character that series ‘IS’THUNZI.’ In 2021, she was nominated for the I will play. And through a great script and ‘Television Critics Association Award’ an amazing director, I earned two InternaCONNECTICUT’S FIRST CHOICE FOR URBAN NEWS (Individual Achievement in Drama), the tional Emmy Awards for that role…”

Connecticut’s first choice for Urban News

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

150 Apts Eyed For Liberty Street by LAURA GLESBY An abandoned lighting manufacturing hub will soon transform into 150 below-market apartments a block from Union Station, if a development plan comes to fruition. The city has received a $995,600 brownfield grant from the state Department of Economic and Community Development to fund the demolition and final environmental cleanup of four industrial buildings located at the former hub, 10 Liberty St., where the development company LMDX plans to build an all-“affordable” housing complex. The building, now abandoned, once housed Electrix Illumination, a lighting manufacturer currently based in West Haven. The Board of Alders Community Development Committee issued a preliminary approval for the city to accept this grant on Wednesday night. The request will next go before the full Board of Alders for review. LMDX’s Jonathan Cortell stated that all 150 apartments will be reserved for households making 60 percent of the area median income (AMI) — equating to a one-person household earning $48,180 a year, or a four-person household earning $68,820 a year as of 2023. Cortell pitched the development as “a short bike ride from the train station” — exactly what “community development is all about,” he said. The company expects construction to take two years once demolition is complete. City Economic Development Officer Helen Rosenberg explained to alders that the buildings have already gone through a remediation process, but that another layer of abatement will be needed for the below-ground structures as the building gets demolished. Beaver Hills Alder Brian Wingate asked whether the complex would include businesses on the bottom floor. Cortell responded that LMDX doesn’t think that location would be able to sustain retail businesses, so instead, “ground-floor activation would be achieved through amenities that would serve the residents.” Though private, the amenities would still bring new life and energy to the block, he argued, which could have positive ripple effects on the neighborhood. The alders unanimously voted to favorably recommend the grant to their colleagues on the full board. “I think this project is in line with our agenda for affordable housing,” Wingate said. Committee Chair Carmen Rodriguez, who represents the building’s ward, noted, “I’m very happy to see what the developers have presented.” Neighbor: Affordable Housing Sorely Needed Two blocks away from the old Electrix building, a Howard Avenue resident named Shawn filled a washing machine inside the Cedar Street Laundromat. Upon learning of the Liberty Street development, Shawn gave his approval — as long as it’s “low-income affordable housing,” which he said the area sorely needs. Shawn moved to New Haven from Waterbury about a year ago to be closer to his work as a truck-loader, and quickly found out that the housing options in New Haven tend to be pricier. He spent eight months on the apartment search. “I got denied a lot of good apartments,” he said. He finally found a nice apartment — a one-bedroom for which he pays $1,200 a month. His current home is “nice,” but “it’s expen‑ sive.” As he continued to contemplate the Liberty Street development, he figured that maybe he’d apply to live there someday. “If it’s gonna be brand new …” he said, “you can eat off the floor, all you have to do is mop.”

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

Old-School Rx Sought For Big Tech Headaches by NORA GRACE-FLOOD

The president of New Haven’s teacher union locked eyes with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal to deliver a meta message about how to free kids from the grips of social media giants like Meta: Lean on hands-on learning that takes place face to face. The union leader, Leslie Blatteau, joined eight fellow teachers and counselors for a roundtable discussion inside the library of Hill Regional Career High School Monday to school Blumenthal on how online social services are harming their students — and learn more about a federal bill aiming to hold corporations liable for minors’ mental health. The conversation came a week after the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled tech chief executives during a hearing held to debate a slate of legislative proposals, including the Kids Online Safety Act, which seek to protect kids from the dangers of internet access. “I grew up in a time when there weren’t any computers in the classroom,” Blumenthal told the teachers. “It was a blackboard and chalk.” Blumenthal has been a recent champion of regulating big tech, despite or perhaps because of his difficulties understanding modern social media operations. As a co-sponsor of the Kids Online Safety Act, Blumenthal has been interviewing parents and kids about their relationships to online social networks. On Monday, he turned to New Haven teachers and student counselors for additional insight. That bill, approved by the Senate Com-

Union head Leslie Blatteau: "Human to ahuman is better.” NORA GRACE-FLOOD PHOT Social Studies teacher Richard Cowes: "We want students to be more questioning."

merce Committee back in July, would require social media platforms to provide minors with options to protect their

information, disable product features determined to be “addictive,” and opt out of personalized algorithmic recommenda-

tions. It would create liability for online platforms that target specific threats to minors, like promotion of suicide, eating

disorders, or substance abuse. It could further require those large platforms to perform independent audits to assess their risks to minors and report how they are addressing those potential harms. Civil liberties advocates have criticized the bill as too vague and sprawling. They warn it will lead to blatant censorship through disparate interpretations across the states concerning what constitutes “harm” to kids. “We’re not saying anything should be censored,” Blumenthal said, “but that we need to impose a duty on corporations.” In the business model behind social media, he stated, “kids are not the consumers, they’re the product. They’re literally the product — information is collected about them, it’s sold and monetized, and then it’s weaponized.” Teachers like Career High School’s Rose Murphy recalled instances of students witnessing “the worst things you can imagine,” like acts of murder, sexual assaults, and revenge porn, online while worrying about seeming overly sensitive to such ubiquitous content in front of their peers or getting in trouble with parents for accessing inappropriate sites. “What I see everyday is that they’re completely addicted to doom scrolling,” Wilbur Cross tech teacher David LopezIbarra said. “I’m seeing children who are just asleep in class because they’ve been up gaming all night,” added Mia Comulada-Breuler, a counselor at the same high school. “This is a great opportunity for governContinue on next page

Erika Hairston and Arnelle Ansong on why they sold their AI platform to Google corporate it into the Edlyft AI Tutor. “Historically, Edlyft impacted students in the Google Tech Exchange program by pairing them with an empathetic peer mentor who has aced the course content before. While a fantastic resource, a peer mentor’s time is a constraint that limits how many and how often students can be supported,” Hairston explained to AFROTECH in an interview. “From our perspective, in Google’s hands, the Edlyft AI Tutor will support a growing number of talented future engineers as Google scales its programs. Our hope is that every student feels seen when they watch videos of peer tutors who look like them and who’ve been in their shoes explaining complex concepts and answering their questions.” For instance, when students type their questions into a chat box, the AI program will generate an answer and video snippets from the Edlyft AI Tutor. Hairston and Ansong said they can’t wait to see how their technology will continue to

by Abu Mubarik, Face2FaceAfrica.com

Meet Erika Hairston and Arnelle Ansong; they are the founders of Edlyft, which seeks to provide students access to group tutoring and study groups to excel in computer science courses. The duo founded the startup in 2019 and today, its potential has caught the attention of Google. Edlyft AI Tutor, Edlyft’s generative AI platform has been purchased by Google, Hairston and Ansong said on Monday. The purchase, according to them, is to help the startup scale the number of students it can reach. The purchase comes following Edlyft’s first partnership with the tech giant in 2022 for Google Tech Exchange. The Google Tech Exchange teaches applied data structures (ADS) to students at select Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). The partnership allowed Edlyft to collect hours of video data from tutoring sessions and in-

Erika Hairston and Arnelle Ansong. Photo via: Instagram/edlyft

make waves, creating a lasting impact on students at select HBCUs and HSIs through Google Tech Exchange. “In Tech Exchange, CS basics meet cutting-edge tech to equip students with the skills they need to navigate the everevolving tech landscape,” Google’s education equity team leader, Jess Hill, said in the announcement of the purchase. “Our partnership with Edlyft has already amplified learning outcomes, and we’re thrilled to unlock even deeper impact through their AI-powered platform, which will amplify effective support and ignite every student to thrive.” Hairston and Ansong founded Edlyft after they graduated from Yale and Stanford, respectively intending to make the tech industry more accessible. Since founding it, they have built a successful tech startup that has closed some of the biggest companies as customers, surpassed seven figures in revenue, and raised millions of venture capital, Hairston told Her Campus.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024 Continue from page 12

Big Tech Headaches

ment intervention,” she said of the big tech challenge. But human solutions are equally important. The most direct way to avoid turning children into 24-hour consumers and commodities, Blatteau argued, is embodied learning that counteracts addictive screen time. Teachers, parents, and children themselves cannot be wholly responsible for minors’ media intake. “We welcome a partnership because we can’t do it alone,” she said, pointing to the deliberately addictive design behind social media and the importance of protecting students’ data privacy. “I just want to make sure we all celebrate the human solutions to our children’s mental health crisis.” “We can’t regulate corporations from our classrooms,” Blatteau said, but the federal government could prioritize policies that would facilitate smaller classroom sizes, more library media specialists and counselors inside schools, and an emphasis on experiential learning models. “I have counselors with care loads of 200 kids,” KC Petruzzi, director of the Connecticut Education Association, and the only non-New Haven teacher present Monday. “How do we build relationships” with so many students and so little time? she asked aloud. “There’s a reason we look or student to teacher ratios,” Blumenthal began … “… Yeah, yeah, keep looking!” Blatteau cheered. “It’s so revealing when you talk to people who run these tech companies,” Blumenthal followed up: “Are you crazy?” tech chiefs answer when asked if they let their own kids use those networks. Blatteau argued that private schools are often able to impose restrictions on social media more easily than public schools and offer better one-on-one guidance to kids growing up in the age of big tech. “Those students grow up and end up running the tech companies,” she said, while the Black and Brown and working class students of school districts like New Haven are less likely to access jobs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. “We’re coming out of a time when we all felt so alienated,” Blatteau said of remote learning. “We’re asking our children to learn on computers… is that the human solution that we want?” “We’re bucking trends if we do this,” she noted, remembering a recent visit to her favorite local bagelry where she was instructed to order on a digital tablet rather than a cashier. “But I think we know,” she said, giving a grin to the senator and her colleagues, that “human to human is better.”

The Early Childhood REGISTRATION OFFICE is located at:

New Haven Public Schools

Early Childhood Programs Programs for 3 and 4 Year Olds in New Haven

SCHOOL READINESS NEW HAVEN

Free 6-hour early childhood programs for low-income New Haven families in the following New Haven Public Schools:

• Benjamin Jepson Multi-Age School • Dr. Mayo Early Childhood School (Immediate Openings) • Fair Haven School • John Martinez Sea & Sky STEM School ••Lincoln-Bassett School T• ruman School (Immediate Openings) Additional community locations also participate in the program. Contact:

Head Start Registration Office Tel. 475-220-1464 HeadStartNewHaven.com 475-220-1464

NEW HAVEN Sliding scale, fee-based 6-hour early childhood programs for New Haven families in the following New Haven Public Schools:

• Augusta Lewis Troup School • Columbus Family Academy • East Rock Community School • Hill Central School • Nathan Hale School • Additional community locations also participate in the program. • Free 4-hour programs available at East Rock Community and Nathan Hale Schools. Contact : School Readiness

Registration Office Tel. : 475-220-1482

Celentano Observatory 400 Canner Street New Haven, CT 06511

In person REGISTRATION is Available

We are Accepting Applications NOW! How to Apply

The Office of Early Childhood is accepting applications electronically. Parents of 3 and 4 year olds are encouraged to apply online. English: https://registration.powerschool.com/family/gosnap.aspx? action=24982&culture=en

Spanish: https://registration.powerschool.com/family/gosnap.aspx? action=24982&culture=es

What you will submit with your Application 1) Proof of Age

Child’s Birth Certificate OR Legal Custody/Guardianship Papers

2) Proof of Address

Current utility bill (Gas, Electric, Phone, Cable) in your name

3) Proof of Income

• 2 months of Current & Consecutive pay stubs OR W-2 or 1040 Tax Return • Budget Statement from the CT Department of Social Services or Social Security Office or Child Enforcement Bureau • Notarized Statement indicating Parent is unemployed • Additional forms may be requested 4) Proof of a Physical (within one year-to-date)

• CT Department of Education Early Childhood Health Assessment Record • Anemia and lead level test results • TB assessment • Immunizations records • Seasonal flu vaccination • Health insurance card 5) Proof of a Dental Exam (within 6-months-to-date)

Dental Exam record

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

Activists and Lawmakers Rally at Capitol for Greater Equity and Revenue to Address Inequality by Jamil Ragland HARTFORD, CT – Activists and their Democratic legislative allies say Connecticut residents are still struggling from high inflation and the lack of opportunity built into the two-year budget passed last year. Connecticut for All, a coalition of more than sixty organizations across the state, came together with Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, and Rep. Jillian Gilchrest, D-West Hartford, at the state Capitol on the eve of the legislative session, to call for greater equity. “We in this coalition have known for far too long that there are two Connecticuts,” said Leslie Blatteau, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, “and that’s why we’re here today, to present our State of the People, from our perspective…to remind Governor Lamont, and our elected officials, that the status quo of two Connecticuts is no longer acceptable. She said that equity requires revenue. “Don’t let them tell you that there’s equity without making the ultra rich pay their fair share,” she said. The Connecticut For All platform includes proposals that focus on labor rights, education, health care and hous-

Para-educators with the “Coalition For All.” Credit: Jamil Ragland / CTNewsJunkie

ing. Some of the policy recommendations include: • Expanding HUSKY health care and paid sick leave to all residents regardless of immigration status;

• Passing a universal Just Cause law to prevent tenants from being evicted without reason; • Capping the amount parents pay for early childhood care at 7% of their in-

come; • Improving wages and benefits for tipped workers, rideshare drivers, and paraprofessionals “The governor keeps saying that Con-

necticut is in good fiscal health. We have a different definition of good fiscal health. Connecticut is not in good fiscal health when there are homeless children sleeping on the street, families who can’t afford health care, and workers who have one, two or three jobs and they still can’t afford to live in our state,” Gilchrest said. Some of the morning’s most forceful statements came from Victoria Ceylan, a paraeducator in Danbury Public Schools. “My son AJ has cerebral palsy, and I was told he would never walk, talk or amount to anything. But because of his dedicated paraeducators, he was able to graduate from UConn last spring,” Ceylan said. Making sure paraeducators are paid well-enough is part of the agenda the group was pushing for Tuesday. “He would never have come this far without the help of his paraeducators, but all of that requires investment. There are over 1300 paraeducator vacancies across Connecticut, and as a para who has been working since 2014, I barely make $18 an hour. We are not being paid the wages we need,” Ceylan said. The coalition proposed closing tax Continue on page 17

House Republicans Tackle Tax Cuts: Connecticut Residents Need Relief by Jamil Ragland

HARTFORD, CT – Gov. Ned Lamont said he doesn’t intend to offer any more tax breaks this year, after the historic tax cuts adopted last year, but House Republicans believe there’s enough revenue to reduce taxes and make permanent some other fiscal policies. “We think Connecticut taxpayers deserve to have more money in their pockets, and this would be a step in the right direction,” Rep. Holly Cheeseman, RGroton, said at a Capitol press conference Thursday. The budget, adopted on bipartisan votes last year, included around $460 million in tax reductions, including the first reductions in state income tax rates in decades. The Republican plan includes several changes designed to reduce taxes even further than the tax cuts that were enacted at the beginning of the year. The largest is a proposal to enact a state child tax deduction that would give families a credit of $2,000 per child toward the income taxes they pay. Another proposal would exempt children’s clothing under $100 from the state’s sales tax all year round, expanding the popular tax holiday which occurs for a week during back to school shopping in August. Other proposals include reducing the sales tax on new cars, which cost between $50,000-$70,000 from 7.75% to 6.35%,

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, and Rep. Holly Cheeseman, R-East Lyme, present the House Republicans’ tax proposal during a news conference in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. Credit: Jamil Ragland / CTNewsJunkie

and reducing the mandatory paid family leave payroll tax from 0.5% to 0.4%. “I think there’s a sense among our Democratic colleagues that, because we achieved some measure of tax relief last spring, we can rest on our laurels and retreat to focusing only on figuring out ways to spend more on government programming,” Cheeseman said. “The reality is that we still reside in one of the most expensive states in the nation, and we can’t fix that unless we continue to make

strides toward reducing the cost of living here. And we can’t have that conversation without proposals like there.” Republicans also want to amend the state constitution to make the volatility and revenue caps permanent. The volatility cap requires that certain types of revenue beyond a certain threshold must be deposited into the Budget Reserve Fund (BRF) and excluded from general appropriations.The revenue cap limits the percentage of estimated revenues that may

be spent in any fiscal year. Last year, policymakers extended for five years a set of fiscal constraints, including spending and volatility caps, which are widely credited with helping to generate a series of budget surpluses and around $8 billion in additional payments on Connecticut’s unfunded pension liabilities. “The relative fiscal stability Connecticut enjoys today is attributable to the strict fiscal controls that were approved, and later renewed on a bipartisan basis,” House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora said. “Amending our state’s Constitution to protect our revenue, spending and volatility caps would cement our commitment to a fiscally conservative approach that demands each or us who serve in state government make informed, and sometimes difficult, choices about our budget priorities.” Republicans contend that the changes they’ve suggested would cost less than some of the other initiatives the state spends the taxpayer’s money on. “We spend $17 million a year on overtime for corrections officers working inside of prisons,” Candelora said. “I think we can afford $15 million to bring relief to Connecticut’s families.” Connecticut has had fiscal difficulties in the not-too-distant past. At the same time social service programs and nonprofits are complaining about how they’re still

behind due to 20 years of underfunding. However, Lamont vowed Wednesday that he doesn’t plan on trying to find a gimmick around the fiscal guardrails and that this budget will move money around to make additional funding for things like child care a priority. Lamont and his budget director Jeffrey Beckham were silent about what parts of the budget could see cuts to make sure those things are funded. House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said there are some proposals that are worth a debate, including the child tax credit. However, an absolute “no” is a constitutional amendment for the fiscal guardrails. “What’s a nonstarter for me is amending the state Constitution to enshrine those guardrails,” Ritter said. “Intellectually, I think the legislature should control the budgeting process, and enshrining those guardrails in the Constitution would give way too much power to the executive branch. “The legislature would regret that decision. We need to be able to respond to situations as they arise. Statute gives you that flexibility while a constitutional amendment wouldn’t.” The opening day of the legislative ses‑ sion is Feb. 7 where Lamont will propose his budget adjustments.

Lady Academics Clobber Career THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

by MAYA MCFADDEN

Hillhouse’s Lady Academics didn’t let a tough one-point loss on Monday get in the way of coming out victorious Tuesday night. Tuesday’s face-off between Hillhouse High School and Career High School’s girls varsity basketball teams was held at Career. Hillhouse took the win, 68 – 31, putting the team at eight wins this season and ten losses. “They battled really hard yesterday and came back after a really tough game,” head coach Catrina Hawley said Tuesday about Monday’s loss. “They came here today to execute and with the determination to get better each game.” The Lady Academics kicked off the game by winning the tipoff and scoring with a layup in the first 20 seconds by number 1 on the court, Jordyn Thomas. Career caught up with a steal and a score on the Academics, making it 2 – 2. The teams stayed neck-and-neck until the final two minutes of the first quarter when the Academics took a total that was double Career’s score thanks to a steal and a layup by freshman Zariah Rivera, bringing the score to 12 – 6.

Lady Academics: Freshman Zariah Rivera and senior Dillyn Boyd.

Hillhouse was still in the lead going into the second quarter, 22 – 9, and continued its scoring streak through layups, mid range shots, and floaters. They did this by keeping their communication strong both verbally and nonverbally, signaling to their teammates where they needed them on the court. The two teams battled against turnovers, constantly making steals from their opponents. Rivera aided her team with several steals leading to assists or her own layups.

With 20 seconds left in the second quarter, Thomas sunk a three-pointer, increasing Hillhouse’s lead to 47 – 19. During halftime, the Lady Academics remained on the court to practice their shooting. Despite being down 28 points, Career stepped into overdrive during the final two quarters, amping up their rebounds and steals, but Hillhouse kept a steady lead. The fourth quarter began with Hillhouse up 58 – 27 and both teams battling aggres-

sively for a win. Hillhouse ultimately took the win thanks to its focus on making shots in the paint. This was Hillhouse’s second win this season against Career. In the stands cheering for the Hillhouse varsity team were several junior varsity players supporting their teammates with stomps and claps. The Lady Academics took little time after Tuesday’s game to celebrate as most of the team — including coach Hawley — went to support the Wilbur Cross boys basketball team during their game that same night. Team co-captain Dillyn Boyd is a senior at Metropolitan Business Academy and has been playing for Hillhouse since her freshman year. “It feels like a family, it’s definitely what they say it is. ‘House Fam,’ ” she said. “It’s more than just basketball. On and off the court they support you in everything you do.” Thanks to basketball, Boyd said she has improved her ability on and off the court to multi-task and to not give up on anything. “Life throws you battles all the time and you win some and lose some, just like the sport.” Boyd said the Tuesday win felt good after taking Monday’s loss very personally. “We

was so close, so it feels to get a win here,” she said. Boyd described the start of the season as “rough” because this year’s team is young. “We grew together as a team,” she said. Hillhouse freshmen Zariah Rivera said that during her first year of high school basketball, her team has taught her the importance of spreading the floor and how to work as a team. Last year, Rivera’s sister graduated from Hillhouse and played basketball and encouraged her to join the team. “I get in my head too much, and they just be telling me stay in the game, don’t give up, they need me. Like that’s big for me, them needing me, a freshman. It’s big,” she said. “I can’t give up on my team.” When asked how it was facing off against Career for a second time this season, she said, “Other players play nasty but they don’t.” “At the end of the day, we all are one, we’re New Haven,” Boyd said. The Lady Academics have two games left in the season. Friday they will face off with Daniel Hand High School in an away game at 7 p.m. Their final game and senior night will be Monday against Mercy High School at 7 p.m. at Hillhouse High School’s gym.

Honoring the past, inspiring the future Celebrating Black History Month We honor the history and strength of the Black community in Connecticut and recognize their contributions in shaping a healthier future. Access Health CT is committed to helping you find the right health coverage for your needs.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

State Of The City Meets State Of The World by LAURA GLESBY

A mayor’s vision of a booming city clashed with protesters’ vision of a world on fire — as pro-Palestinian activists held up the annual “State of the City” address in City Hall for half an hour on Monday night. One hundred protesters arrived outside City Hall to press the Board of Alders to pass a proposed resolution in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza, which activists had submitted in early December and which has not yet been assigned to an alder committee for a public hearing. Bracing to enter City Hall, one activist took the megaphone to provide instruction. “If they’re not gonna give us public comment, we’re gonna disrupt business as usual,” they said. The crowd filed inside the building, marched upstairs, and filled the aldermanic chamber, where alders, city staff, and a number of other city residents were awaiting Mayor Justin Elicker’s “State of the City” speech. Holding up signs and banners, the protesters sang in an ethereal melody: “Ceasefire now … Never again for anyone … No genocide, no more genocide … Let Gaza live.” After a couple of minutes, Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers interrupted. “That’s a very nice song. I’m gonna ask you to wrap it up.” After a few more verses, the protesters followed suit. For about half an hour, Elicker deliv‑ ered his speech as planned. He painted an image of New Haven as a thriving city purported to keep growing. He cited articles in The New York Times and Cosmopolitan Magazine heralding the city as trendy and worth visiting. He touted visits from federal officials such as U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and U.S. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su. He highlighted his administration’s efforts to ensure that the city’s economic growth is “inclusive,” pointing to the city’s homeless services as an example of how “when other places say it’s not our problem, New Haven steps up and that should make us proud.” Before the mayor could finish his speech, one of the activists took to the megaphone once again: “Mayor Elicker! Do you oppose Israel’s mass violence against Palestinians? Do you support a ceasefire?” “We want action!” Other activists chimed in. “How many children will

Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers to protesters... for 30 minutes: "I will meet with you afterwards."

you let die? Think about the children!” Repeatedly, Walker-Myers promised to stay after the meeting to hear out the protesters’ concerns, while imploring them to stop disrupting the meeting and allow the mayor to finish his speech. The activists ignored her. Student Board of Education representative Harmony Cruz-Bustamante called out, “What will I tell the Palestinian students in New Haven Public Schools?” Other activists yelled out individual pleas. The group began to chant: “Alders, alders, stop your stalling. While you wait the bombs are falling!” Alders dispersed for a five-minute recess. Walker-Myers and Elicker conferred. Half a dozen officers filed into the room. “Whoever is in charge, I want to speak to you,” Walker-Myers announced. Eventually, Zachary Herring approached the aldermanic president for a hushed conversation. The group continued to heckle and chant as Herring returned to the group. “You don’t care!” one person shouted at the alders.

Mayor Justin Elicker consults Police Chief Karl Jacobson during an aldermanic recess.

“You don’t know me,” Walker-Myers responded. “I do care.” Herring took the megaphone to address fellow protesters and urge them to wait quietly until they are able to

LAURA GLESBY PHOTOS Zachary Herring implores fellow protesters to embrace "solidarity."

discuss the matter with alders after the meeting. “This room is divided,” he said. “We have to be in solidarity.” New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson eventually took the microphone. While protesters who remain quiet can stay, “we will clear out whoever is disrupting,” he said. He issued three warnings to the group. Eventually, a majority of the activists marched out of the room — and the mayor continued his speech. “In conclusion, the state of the city is strong,” he said. About 20 protesters remained until the meeting’s end, after the mayor finished his address and after alders voted on their agenda items, to chat with Walker-Myers and other representatives. “People have a right to protest,” Walker-Myers said after the meeting ended, in between chats with several individual protesters. “Everyone is welcome in these chambers. We’re going to have some order.” She said she is still “undecided” about how to proceed with the resolution. Elicker Emphasizes Housing In his address, Mayor Elicker predicted that New Haven will grow from 139,000 to 150,000 residents by the time of its 250th birthday as an incorporated city in 2034. The core of his speech was a call to guide that growth by ensuring people have affordable, safe places to live with no one getting pushed out by higher rents. “How does New Haven become a city of 150,000 thriving people?” Elicker asked in the address. “We must ensure that our residents who were born here, raised here, live here now, and made New Haven what it is today, are able to stay here and be beneficiaries of its growth. At the same time, we must ensure we remain a city that is consistent with our values – an inclusive city that welcomes everyone and that is a haven for all.” Toward that end, Elicker said, his administration will propose in his upcoming proposed new fiscal year budget an increase in spending on housing code inspectors. Another proposal will seek to strengthen the city’s tenants union ordinance to enable more renters to organize. He vowed to “continue to explore and advance ways that we can lift existing barriers in the City’s zoning law to facilitate the responsible growth and creation of new housing as well.” Nora Grace-Flood and Paul Bass contributed.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024 Continue from page 14

Oficina de registro de primera infancia Se encuentra en: Celentano Observatory 400 Canner Street New Haven, CT 06511

Lawmakers

loopholes and instituting new taxes on the wealthy to cover the costs of new and expanding state programs. Connecticut For All’s platform calls for the closing of the carried interest loophole by imposing a 19% surcharge on investment management service fees. It also calls for hiring 50 new in-house auditors at the Department of Revenue Services to assist in collecting taxes from the wealthy. In terms of new taxes, the coalition’s Equity Agenda proposes establishing three new tax brackets for individuals earning over $1 million, $10 million and $25 million. Those brackets would be taxed at 9.55%, 10.25% and 10.55% respectively. Another new tax, called the Digital Advertising Tax, would tax any company with income over $10 billion on their digital advertising business at 10%. Finally, the agenda calls for a 5% surcharge on capital gains for individuals earning $500,000 or couples earning $1 million. Lamont, a Greenwich millionaire, has been against a capital gains surcharge since he was first elected in 2018. According to his 2021 tax return, released during the campaign, Lamont, who does not take a salary from the state, made $54 million. All of that came from capital gains which are managed through a blind trust while he serves as governor. Senate Republicans were not impressed by the coalition’s plans to pay for their agenda. “So much for fiscal responsibility. Democrats are up to their old tricks,” Senate Republican leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford said in a statement. “In just the past few days, Democrats have called for new job-killing mandates and an end to our smart fiscal guardrails. Those guardrails actually led us to tax cuts last year. Now, Democrats want to upend the stability we created and make our state more unaffordable. Democrats are falling in love with putting more tax burdens on working and middle class families. Hold onto your wallets, because there’s a bullseye on them.” Despite the challenges, Winfield was optimistic that the broad legislative agenda can find support, but not without a great deal of effort. “In order to move the legislature, you have to bring an idea to them over and over. You have to demonstrate that there’s support and political will. It takes repetition and real effort, but political will can shift very quickly.” This is also an election year for every lawmaker in the state, which means raising revenue will be an even steeper uphill climb.

Escuelas Publicas de New Haven

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La oficina de Primera Infancia ahora está aceptando aplicaciones electronicamente. Se alienta a los pandres de ninos de 3 y 4 años a presentar su solicitud en linea.4 Spanish: https://registration.powerschool.com/family/gosnap.aspx? action=24982&culture=es English: https://registration.powerschool.com/family/gosnap.aspx? action=24982&culture=en

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de NEW HAVEN

3) Demostración de ingresos

Programas para la infancia temprana GRATUITOS de 6 horas para familias de bajos ingresos de New Haven en las siguientes escuelas públicas de New Haven:

Programas de educación temprana de 6 horas con tarifa variable y de escala móvil para familias de New Haven en las siguientes escuelas públicas de New Haven:

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y consecutivos O W-2 o Devolución de impuestos 1040 • Declaración de presupuesto del Departamento de Servicios Sociales de CT, o de la Oficina del Seguro Social, o de la Oficina de Cumplimiento de Menores (Child Enforcement Bureau) • Declaración ante notario indicando que el padre o la madre es desempleado/a

4) Físico (dentro del último año) • Registro de evaluación de la salud del Departamento CT de educación de primera infancia • Resultados de exámenes de anemia y plomo • Evaluación TB • Registros de inmunizaciones • Vacunación de la gripe de estación • Tarjeta de seguro de salud

5) Examen dental • Registro de examen dental

(dentro de los últimos 6 meses)

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

Dr. Sylvia A. Boone, Yale’s first tenured Black faculty member by Herb Boyd Sign up for our acclaimed free newsletter Editorially Black with the top Racial Equity stories of the day to your inbox! Now that the clamor around Dr. Claudine Gay has somewhat subsided, it all brought to mind the extraordinary scholar Sylvia Ardyn Boone, the first Black woman given tenure at Yale University. In a similar way that Gay was a trailblazer at Harvard as the first African American president of the institution, Boone was an equal pioneer in the Ivy League, establishing the role of Black women in African art and women’s studies. Born on September 30, 1940, Boone was a native of Mt. Vernon, N.Y., and attended Brooklyn College and Columbia University, where she earned her master’s degree in social sciences. After studying in Ghana, where she often conferred with several distinguished African Americans, including Maya Angelou, Shirley Graham Du Bois, and Julian Mayfield, Boone returned stateside and earned degrees in art history from Yale University. According to a wide-ranging tribute to her at Yale in 2001, Boone first came to Yale in 1970 as a visiting lecturer in the Afro American Studies Program before resuming her studies there, studying mainly with Robert Farris Thompson. Her Ph.D. dissertation, in 1979, “Sowo Art in Sierra Leone: The Mind and Power of Women on the Plane of the Aesthetic Disciplines,” won the Blanshard Prize. That same year, she joined the faculty as

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Eunice Brooks, an early film star with Oscar Micheaux by Herb Boyd

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Dr. Sylvia Ardyn Boone

an assistant professor of the history of art. By 1985, she was a professor and became the first Black woman tenured at the university three years later. Along with her teaching assignments, Boone was active in the struggle for women’s studies and later established the annual Black Film Festival at Yale. Her first book was “West African Travels: A Guide to Peoples and Places” (Random House, 1974). In her second book, “Radiance from the Waters: Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Mende Art” (Yale Press, 1986), she delved deeply into a form of African art and philosophy that had not been

widely discussed. “Mende has written almost nothing about their life experiences or about their concepts and ideas,” Boone noted. “They have the distinction of being one of the West African groups that invented its own ideographic and syllabic writing system. Despite this noteworthy development, little of what has been recorded in Mende script has ever become known to scholars.” When she wasn’t amid a deep dive into African art, Boone was known as a popular teacher whose courses in African art, esthetics of female imagery in African Art, masquerading and masks, and women’s art always drew a crowd of students. In 1989, she was a key member of the nationwide commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Amistad Affair, a milestone in the fight to end slavery and an event that now has an annual celebration. Boone was the recipient of numerous grants and awards, and, at one time, served as a consultant to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art and on the U.N. UNICEF committee that selected the organization’s annual greeting cards. She was also vice president and scholarship chair of the Roothbert Fund of New York City. She died on April 27, 1993, of heart failure. She was 53 or 54 and is buried in Grove Street Cemetery. Each year, a Yale student receives the Sylvia Ardyn Boone Prize for the best graduate essay written for a course or seminar about West African or African American art.

CONNECTICUT’S FIRST CHOICE FOR URBAN NEWS

We were surprised, though we shouldn’t have been, to learn that the first Black film utilizing sound, “a talkie,” was Oscar Micheaux’s “The Exile,” produced by Frank Schiffman, of Apollo Theater fame, and starring Eunice Brooks. Micheaux and Schiffman have been cited before in the profiles here but Ms. Brooks is practically a newcomer, and virtually well under the radar. Of course, given the deep dives we do here, her discovery was just a matter of time, and as Black history illuminates the calendar in the wake of Juneteenth, her appearance is all the more appropriate. Finding vital statistics on Brooks was a search of utter futility. Even several biographies on Micheaux revealed not a mention of her and very little about “The Exile.” Her role in the film is equally bereft of background as she is described, early on in the film, as a white woman by another character. What little narrative insights shared arrived when Eunice stands before the mirror and examines her physicality, still puzzled about her race. One citation about the film notes that Eunice appeared in Micheaux’s early films, and was considered one of his leading actresses. That, however, is not

Eunice Brooks with Stanley Morrell in The Exile

confirmed in a thorough survey of his early films and the casts. She was a lightskinned and fairly attractive woman, a veritable femme fatale, who has somehow come into possession of a mansion that she converts into a club or after-hours joint. The house, according to one review, “is also the house where she leads men into ruin but suffers for it in the end.” The film opened in Harlem in 1931 at the Lafayette Theater to a standing-room-

only crowd. Black attendees may have been up on the production and its premiere, but the white press gave it little attention. The Pittsburgh Courier praised the picture, citing it as a solid “portrayal of Negro life in a city that no one but a Negro, who has traveled and lived in cities, could tell.” Those willing to invest a few dollars on Roku and access The Criterion Channel, Continue on page 20

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

Evazelyn Boyd Granville, one of the celebrated “Hidden Figures”

There are two Evelyn Boyds in my family tree, but neither is nor was as distinguished and accomplished as Evelyn Boyd Granville—who played a prominent role in helping NASA land on the moon. Granville is considered one of the acclaimed “Hidden Figures,” the Black women who worked in the shadows at NASA but nonetheless were key scientists and mathematicians, as Granville was. According to a recent obituary, Granville was the second Black woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics. She died this past June 27 at her home in Silver Spring, Maryland. She was 99. Granville was born on May 1, 1924, in Washington, D.C. Her father, who worked various odd jobs due to the Great Depression, separated from her mother when Granville was young. She and her older sister were raised by her mother and aunt, both of whom worked at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Granville was a high achiever at Dunbar High School and valedictorian of her class. With a partial scholarship from Phi Delta Kappa supplemented by her aunt’s financial support, she entered Smith College in 1941. She majored in mathematics and physics with a keen interest in astronomy. In 1945, she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and to Sigma Xi and graduated

Evelyn Boyd Granville

summa cum laude. A brief summary of her life indicates that “encouraged by a graduate scholarship from the Smith Student Aid Society of Smith College, she

applied to graduate programs in mathematics and was accepted by both Yale University and the University of Michigan; she chose Yale because of the finan-

cial aid they offered. There she studied functional analysis under the supervision of Einar Hille, finishing her doctorate in 1949. Her dissertation was ‘On Laguerre Series in the Complex Domain.'” Her teaching career began at New York University Institute for Mathematics and in 1950 she accepted an appointment at Fisk University. Among her outstanding students were Vivienne Malone-Mayes and Etta Zuber Falconer, who earned doctorates in mathematics. Two years later she returned to the nation’s capital for a position at the Diamond Ordnance Fuze Laboratories. She moved to IBM as a computer programmer in 1956 and after the company received a NASA contract she took a position at the Vanguard Computing Center in D.C. By the early sixties, she married the Rev. G. Mansfield Collins and lived in Los Angeles after a short stay in New York City. In L.A., she worked for the U.S. Space Technology Laboratories which later became the North American Aviation Space and Information Systems Division. Among subsequent projects was her work for the Apollo program, including celestial mechanics, trajectory computations, and “digital computer techniques.” Because of the restructuring at IBM, Granville accepted a full professorship in mathematics at California State Univer-

sity in 1967. Three years later she married a realtor, Edward V. Granville. After retiring from the school in 1984, she taught at Texas College in Tyler, Tx. for four years and in 1990 joined the faculty at the University of Texas as the Sam A. Lindsey Professor of Mathematics. During her tenure, she assisted in the development of elementary school math enrichment programs, and at the same time immersed herself in the fight for the stronger inclusion of women in tech. In 1989, Granville was awarded an honorary doctorate by Smith College, the first by an American institution to a Black woman mathematician. The Evelyn Boyd Granville papers, donated by her in 2015, are located in Smith College’s Special Collection. Among her many honors and awards is one from the National Academy of Engineering in 1998; the United States National Academy of Sciences inducted her into its Portrait Collection of AfricanAmericans in Science. In 2000, she was awarded the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, the Yale Graduate School Alumni Association’s highest honor. And In 2001, she was cited in the Virginia state senate’s Joint Resolution No. 377, designating February 25 as “African-American Scientist and Inventor Day.”

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

Dots Johnson, actor, credited and uncredited in several films by Herb Boyd

In a recent retrospective on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) about the film career of Sidney Poitier, “No Way Out” was one of the features. While it marked the beginning of Poitier’s odyssey in Hollywood, the film also had several uncredited Black actors who would go on to bigger and better roles. Among those were Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Frederick O’Neal. One of the credited Black actors was Dots Johnson, who portrayed Lefty Jones. Three years later, Johnson would get a larger part in the “Joe Louis Story” as Julian Black, Louis’s manager. But Johnson’s most significant role was as an American MP in Roberto Rossellini’s “Paisan” in 1946. Johnson’s charac-

ter, Joe, has his most moving moment in the second episode, after the Allies invade the mainland and capture Naples, a port city. A street urchin stumbles upon Joe, who is drunk and about to be a robbery prey. When the police arrive, the urchin and Joe run off and during their flight, Joe relates his war experiences to the young boy. Later, Joe falls asleep, and the urchin steals his boots. The next day, Joe, now fully sober as an MP, catches the urchin stealing supplies from a truck, and demands the return of his boots. Joe then accompanies the urchin back to where he lives, but after seeing the conditions of squalor, decides to leave without taking his boots. A poster for the film lists Johnson as Dats, just one of several names that will

Dots Johnson

identify him in his filmography, which includes at least seven in which he is credited. Johnson was born on February 3, 1913, in Baltimore, Maryland and what little information we were able to obtain comes from the brief bios in his films. His first film was in 1946, where he portrayed “The Duke,” and it’s not clear whether this was a reference to Duke Ellington, since “Tall, Tan, and Terrific” is a musical, starring Mantan Moreland. A year later, he appears in “Reet, Petite, and Gone” as Michaels—some confusion of misidentification may have occurred because another actor, J. Louis Johnson, is also among the performers. There are no problems of identity in his next two films—“No Way Out” and “The

Alonzo Herndon, one of the first Black millionaires

We’ve devoted a considerable amount of time and space to the Niagara Movement over the last several weeks, including two women who played pivotal roles in an organization that paved the way to the NAACP. These recent profiles featured many of the founding members— W.E.B. Du Bois, Lafayette Hershaw and Clement Morgan—and we conclude with a few words about Alonzo Franklin Herndon, a man born into slavery who became among the first Black millionaires. Herndon was born on June 26, 1856, in Walton County, Georgia, and the son of Sophenie, an enslaved woman, and presumably his white father wealthy slaveholder, Frank Herndon. He was among the 25 people enslaved by Herndon who never acknowledged paternity to him. He was 7 when his family was emancipated in 1865. At a very early age, he began

Alonzo Herndon, courtesy of the Herndon Foundation

working as a common laborer and peddler to help support his destitute family. The family survived as sharecroppers on plantations in Social Circle, Georgia, about 40 miles east of Atlanta. In 1878, according to the Herndon Foundation, Herndon left Social Circle on foot, armed with $11 in savings and about a year of schooling. “He stopped initially in the community of Senoia (located in presentday Coweta County), where he worked as a farmhand and began learning the barbering trade. After a few months Herndon migrated to Jonesboro in Clayton County. He opened his first barbershop in Jonesboro, where he spent the next five years developing a thriving business and reputation as a barber before moving on to Atlanta. Arriving in early 1883, Mr. Herndon secured employment as a barber in a shop on Marietta Street owned by

William Dougherty Hutchins, an AfricanAmerican. After six months Herndon purchased half interest in the shop, entering into a partnership with one of the few free blacks operating barbering establishments since before the Civil War.” Ever enterprising, Herndon expanded his business exponentially and by 1904, he owned three shops in Atlanta. One of them, on Peachtree Street, was luxuriously appointed with crystal chandeliers and gold fixtures, and earned a reputation as the largest and best barbershop in the region. As the Atlanta Journal noted, Herndon and his staff were “known from Richmond all the way to Mobile as the best barbers in the South.” Of course, his shops adhered unwaveringly to the racial customs of the day, serving an exclusive white clientele of the city’s prominent civic leaders.

Hip Hop Star Memphis Jelks Drops New Track ‘The 89th Day,’ Inspired by Bill Cosby’s Mentorship and Workforce Realities Jelks discussed the inspiration for “The 89th Day” in a recent phone conversation with Cosby, arranged by the comedian’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt.

By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Senior National Cor‑ respondent@StacyBrownMedia Memphis Jelks, the hip-hop luminary signed to Chuck D’s Spit Slam Record label, has unveiled his latest track, “The 89th Day,” drawing inspiration from a conversation with legendary comedian Bill Cosby. The release follows Jelks’ previous viral hit, “The Cosby Dance,” which caught the attention of Cosby himself, leading to a statement praising Jelks as a “prolific rapper” contributing to the restoration of Cosby’s legacy. Jelks discussed the inspiration for “The 89th Day” in a recent phone conversation with Cosby, arranged by the comedian’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt. He related his experience of losing his job just before starting employment elsewhere. Cosby, known for his entertainment genius, sug-

gested turning the story into a song, resulting in the creation of the new track. “The 89th Day” aims to blend comedy and music while conveying the importance of education and credentials in the modern workforce. Jelks expressed appreciation for Cosby’s mentorship and acknowledged the vital role of education in his journey. “I salute everyone around the world involved in the education industry because I know how it feels to have a job that doesn’t appreciate my hard work and will terminate my employment at the drop of a dime,” Jelks stated. He added that Cosby continues to inspire him. In addition to his musical endeavors, Jelks anchors a podcast, “The Memphis Jelks Show,” where he hopes to bridge worlds and unite communities across racial, religious, and political boundaries.

Joe Louis Story”—and his roles here give him a chance to demonstrate his acting ability. In “The Grissom Gang” in 1971, Johnson is not credited and obviously, he is not a member of the white Grissom family or gang. His last film was “If You Give a Dance, You Gotta Pay the Band,” where he portrays Jim. The cast includes several boldface Black names: Laurence Fishburne, Moses Gunn, and Arthur French. The film follows the life of young Billie Jean Sims, whose father is in jail, grandmother is blind, and brother is strung out on drugs. Only Fishburne as Fish is her anchor as she navigates the hurdles of the ghetto and seeks to reunite with her father. How Johnson’s character is part of this plot is not explained. Like so many uncredited and even credited Black actors, so much more needs to be said, particularly about Johnson, who died on August 22, 1986. He was 73. Continue from page 18

An early film star with Oscar Micheaux

but (and here’s the spoiler if you want to blink paste the next few lines) it’s hardly worth the time or money. Being his first talkie, Micheaux seems to be fascinated by the sound, leaving the editing of the film unattended to in too many places. The acting is stiff, and the plot is deplorable with a slap-dash tragic ending. In her next film, shot a year later, Eunice is a Mrs. Austin in “The Girl from Chicago” and once again, according to several critics, delivers a wonderful performance. It might be wise just to forego a profile on her rather than allowing it to stand as a tease or bait to get a response from one of our readers. We were hoping to derive more information on Eunice from Grant Harper Reid’s otherwise informative “Rhythm For Sale” about Leonard Harper, his grandfather who staged the dancers and the choreography in “The Exile.” While Reid offers a thoroughgoing account of his grandfather’s life and the film, Eunice is not mentioned. Even so, Reid offers several pages on the film, particularly some of the scenes that were lucky to make it past the ever-alert censors of the day. “What the censors found objectionable in ‘The Exile,’” Reid writes, “was the racial theme of the film.” Basically, the film is about an interracial romance during a period when such a coupling was taboo. “White audiences bristled when they watched what they thought to be one of their own female Caucasoid interrelating with an African American on the screen.” Particularly incensed by the celluloid romance, Reid adds, were the white women members of the Pennsylvania Board of Censors. Reid provides an interesting follow-up to the promotional and financial developments of the film, though we leave that to titillate and coax readers to check out this very entertaining book.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February , 2024 - February 13, 2024 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27,07 2016 - August 02, 2016

Senior Sales Representative

NOTICE Penfield Communications, Inc. Publishers of The Inner-City News Weekly Print Publi-

cation is seeking a Senior Sales Representative The Inner-City News is a legacy, Black owned print publication, celebrating 30+ years as Greater New Haven’s urban news and VALENTINA information outlet. MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE The Inner-City News is a weekly print publication with a readership spanning across Greater New Haven. Fromof Hamden, NewHouse Haven, West Stratford, Milford, BridgeHOME INC, on behalf Columbus and theHaven, New Haven Housing Authority, port. This free weekly print publication committed to sharing news and information is accepting pre-applications for studioisand one-bedroom apartments at this develimportant the Black community. opmenttolocated at 108 Frank Street, New Haven. Maximum income limitations apAdvertising and the cultivation existing and advertising is keyMonday to the growth ply. Pre-applications will beofavailable fromnew 9AM TO 5PMclients beginning Ju;y and continued success of The Inner-City News. The paper is delivered weekly to busi25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have nesses, schools, shopping outlets and wherever newspapers can be found. This is a remote been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon resales position.

quest by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preapplications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third Senior Sales Representative Job Responsibilities: Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

Work closely with the Publisher and editor to create a successful sales strategy. Must be a self-starter and highly motivated.

NOTICIA

• Builds and manages the sales pipeline. • Creates monthly sales forecasts. VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES • Develops strategies to reach sales goals. • Writes sales pitches for all products and services. HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está • Completes competitive analysis reports. aceptando• pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo Presents monthly sales reports. ubicado •en Contacts la calle 109 Frankcustomers Street, New aplican limitaciones de ingresos potential andHaven. makesSe sales pitches. máximos.• Las pre-solicitudes estaránwith disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 Develops relationships top customers. julio, 2016 cuando se hansales recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) • hasta Meets or exceeds quotas. en las oficinas de HOMEwith INC.customer Las pre-solicitudes seránand enviadas por correo a petición • Collaborates service, billing, other departments. Uses popular sales management software. llamando•a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 .

[Work Hours and Benefits]

Work hours Monday-Friday (Hours?) Salary (base pay) + Commission to be discussed Potential local travel. Senior Sales Representative Qualifications and Skills: Communicates well and has strong written and verbal communication skills. Knows effective ways to market products and services and learns about new offerings quickly. Works well independently and has advanced time management and organization skills. Potential to manage sales representatives and has good leadership skills. Builds relationships with customers and coworkers and has strong interpersonal skills. Education and Experience Requirements: A high school diploma or equivalent is required.

NEW HAVEN

242-258 Fairmont Ave 2BR Townhouse, 1.5business, BA,or3BR, 1 level , 1BA An associate or bachelor’s degree in marketing, a related major is a plus but not required.

At least [number] years of sales representative experience is preferred. All newInterested apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 candidates should apply to John Thomas, JThomas@penfieldcomm.com highways, near bus stop & shopping center Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258

Municipal Services Coordinator or Director

The South Central Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG) is seeking to fill the Municipal Services Coordinator or Director position. Visit www.scrcog.org for the full position description, St. New Haven, CT qualifi cations, and application requirements. Applications are to be submitted by noon on Monday, March 11, 2023, or until the position is filled. Questions may be emailed to jobs@scrcog.org. SCRCOG is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour. The South Central Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG) is Aseeking to fill the Transportation Planner position. Visit www. pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith scrcog.org for the position qualifi and apStreet Seymour, CTfull at 10:00 am, ondescription, Wednesday, July 20, cations, 2016. plication requirements. Applications are to be submitted by noon onBidding Monday February 2023 from or until the position is fiAuthority lled. Quesdocuments are 5, available the Seymour Housing Oftions may be emailed to jobs@scrcog.org. SCRCOG is an Affirfice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579. mative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. (203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY Transportation Planner

Town of Bloomfield

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Salary Range:

Real Estate and Property Management Support Services At New Haven Union Station Campus New Haven Parking Authority New Haven, Connecticut

$87,727 to $136,071 Deputy Finance Director/Controller

NHPA Project #23-019 Proposals due March 6, 2024 at 3:00 PM.

Pre-employment drug testing.

AA/EOE. For Details go to www.bloomﬁeldct.org

Town of Bloomfield

Finance Director

Salary Range - $101,455 to $156,599 (expected starting pay maximum is mid-range) Fully Beneﬁted – 35 hours weekly Pre-employment drug testing. For more details, visit our website – www.bloomﬁeldct.org

Proposal Documents will be available beginning February 5, 2024 at no cost by downloading from the New Haven Union Station Partnership website at www.unionstationnewhaven.com . A non-mandatory but recommended Pre-Proposal Webinar will be held on February 16, 2024 at 11:00 AM. Refer to Proposal Documents for Webinar link and access. NHPA is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator (Attendant II)

Go to www.portlandct.org for details

The Town of Wallingford is seeking qualified applicants to perform skilled duties associated with the operation and maintenance of its modern, upgraded Class IV wastewater treatment facility. Applicants should possess a H.S. diploma or equivalent, plus possess a State of Connecticut DEEP Class II Operator or higher, or a Class II Operator-inTraining or higher certification. Must possess and maintain a valid State of Connecticut Driver’s License. Wages: $28.44 to $33.89 hourly plus on-call pay when assigned. The Town offers an excellent fringe benefits package that includes pension plan, paid sick and vacation time, individual and family medical insurance, life insurance, 13 paid holidays, and deferred compensation plan. Applications may be downloaded from the Department of Human Resources Web Page and can be faxed or mailed to the Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492, or emailed to: wlfdhr@wallingfordct.gov by the closing date of February 20, 2024. Phone: (203) 294-2080; Fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE

QSR STEEL CORPORATION

THE GLENDOWER GROUP, INC.

Portland Police Officer full-time

Invitation to Bid: 2nd Notice

Old Saybrook, CT APPLY NOW! (4 Buildings, 17 Units)

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Request for Proposals Architectural Design 34 Level Street New Haven CT Steel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project Top pay for top performers. Health Beneﬁts, 401K, Vacation Pay.

The Glendower Group, Inc. is currently seeking proposals for archiNew Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selectivedesign Demolition, Site-work, tectural services for Castthe 34 Level Street located in New Hain-place Concrete, Asphaltven Shingles, Vinyl Siding, CT. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Glendower’s Vendor Casework, Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing. State of Connecticut Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection. cobblestonesystems.com/gateway Office of Policy This contract subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements. andisManagement

Email Resume: Rose@qsrsteel.com Hartford, CT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

beginning on Monday, February 5, 2024, at 3:00PM.

The State of Connecticut, Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 Office of Policy and Management Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 is recruiting for an Information Technology Technician hour). Project(40documents available via ftp link below:

Director of Regional Planning

Further information regarding http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage

the duties, eligibility requirements and application The South Central Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG) is Faxinstructions or Email Questions & Bids to:at: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com are available

seeking to fill the Director of Regional Planning position. Visit www. https://www.jobapscloud.com/ Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 CT/sup/bulpreview.asp?b=&R1= scrcog.org for the full position description, qualifications, and applica230927&R2=7602FR&R3=001 AA/EEO EMPLOYER HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses

The State of Connecticut is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and strongly encourages the applications of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities.

tion requirements. Applications are to be submitted by noon on Monday, March 11, 2023, or until the position is filled. Questions may be emailed to jobs@scrcog.org. SCRCOG is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - August 02, 2016

Construction

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc seeks:

Construction Equipment Mechanic preferably experienced in Seeking to employ experienced individuals in the labor, Reclaiming and Road Milling Equipment. We offer factory foreman, operator and teamster trades for a heavy outside training on equipment we operate. Location: Bloomfield work statewide. Reliable personal transportation and a valCT We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits id drivers license required. To apply please call (860) 621Contact: Tom Dunay VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE 1720 or send resume to: Personnel Department, P.O. Box 368, Cheshire, CT06410. Phone: 860- 243-2300 HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, Email: tom.dunay@garrityasphalt.com is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom this develAfﬁatrmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/V Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to applyapartments Drug Free Workforce opment located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven. Maximum income limitations apAffirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer ply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc seeks:will be mailied upon rebeen received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications Reclaimer and Milling with current quest byOperators calling HOME INC atOperators 203-562-4663 duringlicensing those hours. Completed preand clean driving record, be willing to travel throughout the NorthLargeStreet, CT Fence applications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Third Company looking for an individual for our east & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits PVC Fence Production Shop. Experience preferred but will Floor, New Haven, CT 06510. train the right person. Must be familiar with carpentry hand Contact: Rick Tousignant Phone: 860- 243-2300 & power tools and be able to read a CAD drawing and tape Email: rick.tousignant@garrityasphalt.com measure. Use of CNC Router machine a plus but not required, will train the right person. This is an in-shop production poWomen & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Duties include building fence panels, posts, gates and AffirmativeMACRI Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer VALENTINA VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDESsition. DISPONIBLES more. Must have a valid CT driver’s license & be able to obtain a Drivers Medical HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está Card. Must be able to pass a physical and drug test. Please email resume to pboucher@atlasoutdoor.com. Tractor Trailer Driver for Heavy & Highway Construction Equip‑ aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ment. Must have a CDL License, clean driving record, capable of AA/EOE-MF ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos operating heavy equipment; be willing to travel throughout the máximos. Las We pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m.tscomenzando Martes 25 Northeast & NY. offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefi Full Time julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100)Administrative assistant position en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición for a steel & misc metals fabrication shop who will oversee the llamandoEmail: a HOMEdana.briere@garrityasphalt.com INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirseof clerical duties such as answering phones, acdaily operations Women & Minority encouraged to apply a las oficinas de HOMEApplicants INC en 171are Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 .purchase orders/invoicing and certified payroll. counts payable Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer Email resumes to jillherbert@gwfabrication.com

NOTICE

NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR

Union Company seeks:

The Town of Wallingford Electric Division is seeking a highly qualified Network Administrator to oversee its business and information systems. The position is responsible for the design, implementation and maintenance of local and wide area computer networks (LAN/WAN) in offices and remote sites. Applicants should possess five (5) years of progressively responsible experience in all phases of information technology processing, including supervisory and managerial experience and installation and support of personal computer workstations, plus a bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field. An equivalent combination of education and qualifying experience may be substituted on a year-for-year basis. Must possess and maintain a current and valid Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) certification or its equivalent. Must possess and maintain a valid State of Connecticut Driver’s License. Salary (currently under negotiations): $88, 811 to $113, 630 annually. The Town offers an excellent fringe benefits package that includes pension plan, paid sick and vacation time, individual and family medical insurance, life insurance, 13 paid holidays, and deferred compensation plan. Applications may be downloaded from the Department of Human Resources Web Page and can be faxed or mailed to the Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492, or emailed to: wlfdhr@wallingfordct.gov by the closing date of January 29, 2024. Phone: (203) 294-2080; Fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE

Contact Dana at 860-243-2300

Electric Utility GENERAL LINE FOREMAN

PVC FENCE PRODUCTION

NOTICIA

NOW HIRINGNEW FOR 2024 SEASON HAVEN

Fairmont Roma Construction, 242-258 Inc. has openings forAve Laborers, CDL Drivers 2BR Townhouse, 3BR, 1We level 1BA with Class A & B Licenses,1.5 andBA, operators. are,an Equal All new apartments, new appliances, newtraining carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 Opportunity Employer and have availability. highways, near bus stop & shopping center Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested partiesat contact Maria @ 860-985-8258 Please contact Rebecca 860-996-8766

or put in an application at romaconst.com

CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. 630 Bishop PlainfiElijah eld Davis, Rd Jewett City, CT Chapel 06351U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster (203) 996-4517 Host, General D.D. Pastor of Pitts

ROMA CONSTRUCTION, INC.

St. New Haven, CT

Listing: Outside Sales & Estimator Position

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

Fast paced HVAC department has an immediate opening. This position will interact directly the customer the entire sales Responsible Sealed bidswith are invited by thethroughout Housing Authority of theprocess. Town of Seymour foruntil all aspects of on HVAC estimation includes sheetStreet, metal, 3:00 pm Tuesday, Augustwhich 2, 2016 at itssystem office design, at 28 Smith piping, and organizing information to compile estimates for poSeymour, CT 06483 vendor for Concrete Sidewalk Repairsaccurate and Replacement at the tential HVAC projects. This candidate must be well organized, hands-on, selfSmithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour. motivated, dependable and work independently. Minimum of 5 years of sales/ estimating experience. Must have the ability to read and comprehend blueprints. A pre-bid conferenceofwill be held at the Must Housing Authority Office 28knowlSmith Must have knowledge HVAC systems. have Microsoft Office Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016. edge. Send resume to: HR Manager, P. O. Box 388, Guilford, CT 06437 or emailHRDept@eastriverenergy.com

Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Office, 28 Smith Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579. **AnStreet, Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer** The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any

The Town of Wallingford Electric Division is seeking a highly qualified General Line Foreman with strong leadership skills to oversee the utility’s overhead and underground line installation, repair and maintenance functions. The utility serves 25,000 customers in a 50+ square mile distribution area with a peak demand of 130 MW. Applicants should possess 8 years of progressively responsible experience in the construction, maintenance, and operation of utility-grade electric distribution facilities, State of Connecticut plus an A.S. degree in electrical, civil, or mechanical engineering, or an equivalent Office of Policy and Management of education and qualifying experience substituting on a year-for-year Invitationcombination to Bid: nd basis. Must possess or be able to obtain and maintain ESOP-100 Switching and Tag2 Notice ging qualifications within 12 months. Must possess and maintain a valid State of The State of Connecticut, Office of Policy and Management is recruiting Connecticut Driver’s License. Salary (currently under negotiations): $97, 917 to for an OPM Assistant Division $125, 278 annually plus on-call pay when assigned. The Town offers an excellent Director in the Office of Finance.Old Saybrook, CT fringe benefits package that includes pension plan, paid sick and vacation time, indi17 Units) Further information regarding (4 Buildings, vidual and family medical insurance, life insurance, 13 paid holidays, and deferred the duties,Tax eligibility Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rateplan. Project compensation Applications may be downloaded from the Department of Hurequirements and application man Resources Web Page and can be faxed or mailed to the Department of Human instructions are available at: Resources, of Wallingford, 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492, New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Town Demolition, Site-work, Casthttps://www.jobapscloud.com/ or emailed to: wlfdhr@wallingfordct.gov by the closing date of January 29, 2024. CT/sup/bulpreview.asp?b=&R1= in-place Concrete, AsphaltPhone: Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Fax: (203) 294-2084. EOE (203) 294-2080; 230908&R2=0104MP&R3=001

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection. This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.

The State of Connecticut is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and strongly encourages the applications of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities.

Request for Qualifications

The August South Central Bid Extended, Due Date: 5, 2016 Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG) seeks the services of15, one or more consultants for the four following transportation planning Anticipated Start: August 2016 QSR STEEL studies during the 2024 and 2025 Fiscal Years (July 1, 2023- June 30, 2025). Project documents available via ftp link below: CORPORATION http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage • South Central Regional Bike and Pedestrian Study

APPLY NOW!

• State Street Pedestrian Needs Study in Hamden

Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com • Town Wide Pavement Management Study in Madison HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE &•Section 3 Certified Businesses Orchard Street Safety and Mobility Study in New Haven Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 Steel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders AA/EEO EMPLOYER Disadvantaged Business Enterprise firms are strongly encouraged to respond as Top pay for top performers. Health prime contractor or to play a significant role within a consultant team. Responses Beneﬁts, 401K, Vacation Pay. Email Resume: Rose@qsrsteel.com Hartford, CT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

are due by February 5, 2024, (12 noon local time). The full RFQ documents can be viewed at the Council’s website: www.scrcog.org or can be made available upon request. Contact James Rode at (203) 466-8623 with any questions.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February , 2024 - February 13, 2024 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27,07 2016 - August 02, 2016

NOTICE OF REQUEST FOR BID HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF DANBURY NOTICE Elevator Maintenance and Repair Services

IFBHOUSING No. B23008 VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE Please register here to obtain Bid Package: HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, https://ha.internationaleprocurement.com/requests.html?company_id=49968 is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this develPROPOSAL SUBMITTAL RETURN:income limitations apopment located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven. Maximum Authority will of the of Danbury, 2 MillTO Ridge Rd,beginning Danbury, CT 06811 Ju;y ply.Housing Pre-applications beCity available from 9AM 5PM Monday Envelope Must Marked: IFB No. B23008,pre-applications Elevator Maintenance and Repair Services 25, 2016 andbeending when sufficient (approximately 100) have Lisa Purchasing Agentwill be mailied upon rebeen received at the Attn: offices ofGilchrist, HOME INC. Applications quest by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preDEADLINE applications must be returned SUBMITTAL to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Third January Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.8th, 2024 at 10:30am (EST) CONTACT PERSON FOR IFB DOCUMENT: Lisa Gilchrist – Purchasing Agent Telephone: 203-744-2500 x1421

NOTICIA

E-Mail: lgilchrist@hacdct.org

VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES

[Minority- and/or women-owned businesses are encouraged to respond] HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en las oficinas de HOME Las pre-solicitudes seránhas enviadas por correofor a petición HVAC department in aINC. Petroleum Company an opening a full llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse time HVAC/Oil/Heating Technician. Candidate must possess a technical a las oficinas HOME en 171ventilation, Orange Street, tercer piso, New Havenoil, , CTpropane 06510 . school certifidecate in INC heating, air conditioning,

Listing: Technician

and natural gas. Minimum of a B2 license. Send resume to: HR Manager, P. O. Box 388, Guilford, CT 06437 or email HRDept@eastriverenergy.com **An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer, including disabled and veterans**

NEW HAVEN

242-258 Fairmont Ave 2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA,(RFP) 3BR,#2023-12-GC 1 level , 1BA REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

All new apartments, new appliances, FOR new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 highways, near bus stop & shopping center GENERAL COUNSEL/LEGAL SERVICES Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258

The Housing Authority of the City of New Britain (Authority)

is CT. seeking proposals for to general legal services from experienced, area law Unified competitive Deacon’s Association is pleased offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates firms. in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:30The will be available 2023, and can be obtained online at www. 3:30RFP Contact: Chairman, Deacon on JoeDecember J. Davis, M.S.,4, B.S. (203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, of Pitts Administrative Chapel U.F.W.B. Church nbhact.org. Proposals must be received atD.D. thePastor Authority Offi64 ceBrewster no later than January St. New Haven, 05, CT 2023, at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Late Submissions and facsimiles will not be considered.

Transportation SEYMOUR HOUSING Planner AUTHORITY The Southbids Central Council of Governments (SCRCOG) is seeking to fill the Sealed are Regional invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour Transportation Planner position. August Visit www.scrcog.org foroffice the fullatposition description, until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, 2, 2016 at its 28 Smith Street, qualifications, and application requirements. Applications are to be submitted by noon on Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement the Monday February 5, 2023 or until the position is filled. Questions may be emailed toat jobs@ Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, Opportunity 26 Smith Street Seymour. scrcog.org. SCRCOG is an Affirmative Action/Equal Employer.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

Lisa Lackey On The Benefits Of Trauma Therapy In The Black Community

impacted and how if you have traumatic experiences that are not processed, what ends up happening is that trauma gets stored in your brain and your body, releases massive amounts of cortisol, creating disastrous mental and physical outcomes. Without the opportunity to understand and practice internal and external safety, it is like having many screens open on your computer; it’s not running as efficiently as it could. So that’s one way of explaining trauma. Q: How can addressing it propel us forward as individuals or as a community? A: As I said before, I think education incorporates that knowledge organizationally. So, for example, having well-being programs that focus on mental health and spiritual health, emphasizing a strengthbased model where we educate in a way that highlights our history of resilience and our creative healing abilities. We’re talking about how to use this embedded strength to overcome embedded trauma, leading lives of well-being and being in the service, leading our communities into being well. And so, I think we often have to de-stigmatize getting help by providing culturally familiar environments where people feel seen, accepted, and welcomed. Q: Since addressing it has such a positive impact, what do you think is the lingering stigma? A: I think not enough people talk about it. I think transparency is important. Hearing people’s stories of their mental health healing journeys that look like us. I think that it is normalizing it. Letting people know that getting therapy doesn’t mean you’re crazy or something’s wrong with you. It means that we all need support, and most of us at one point receive that in relationships, tight-knit communities, and seeing examples that look like us. And we don’t have community experiences as often anymore. People are very isolated and insulated. Sharing our before and after experiences—intentionally creating spaces for that. We can start with those closest to us, from the pulpit, through books, family gatherings, and more. Featured on BlackDoctorTracker Q: For us to feel comfortable seeking help, like you mentioned, hearing other people like us talk about it and address it. How can we go about finding help? Like what, what kind of resources are out there other than yourself? A: Well, I think that, and this might sound really strange, there’s a number of excellent Black therapists that regularly post on social media. There are a lot of black clinicians on social media sharing great

information about trauma but also providing different resources almost anywhere in the world. Search Joy Hardin; she provides resources throughout the United States. Being Black doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a right fit for you. Asking questions about the therapist’s experience with trauma and working with black people is helpful. Ask your friends and family. There are different places to find these resources. But I do encourage people that if they choose someone, they realize that they’re interviewing that person who is going to be working for them. So, you can ask them anything you want to know: their experiences, how they work, who their ideal client is, and that kind of thing.

mas that were not resolved and currently add to current stress. And so, a lot of what I do is help people in those spaces first understand what boundaries are and help people understand who they are outside of their professional role—then retrieving and excavating that person’s authentic identity that has often been buried under the noises of other person’s interpretations and definitions that accompany systemic racism in work culture. My approach is from the inside out. So it’s not just here are some stress management tips, but more so, here are the causes and conditions, and creating a personalized map that guides women to the greatest extent of well-being. And I try to do that work in a safe community, like cohorts or group coaching, workshops, and healing pods, because we also build off other women’s strengths.

Q: What would you say makes a good trauma therapist? How does trauma therapy work? A: So here’s my thing. I believe that you can’t take anyone further than what you’ve been willing to do yourself; otherwise, it feels inauthentic. A good therapist is someone who has worked on their own healing journey, whether that was through therapy or, coaching or indigenous practices, so you can ask that question as well. When you’re seeing a therapist, I think that it’s someone who is well-trained in a blend of various modalities, including therapy for the mind and body within various areas of specialized trauma treatment. And by that, I mean there are a lot of therapists out there that do talk therapy. In actuality, talk therapy is not as effective as therapy that incorporates the body, mind, and spirit. I can’t help but mention Insideout Living; my husband and I co-founded this practice, and there are great therapists who work with trauma. Some of those kinds of therapies are things like Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), which helps you to process trauma by starting at the earliest remembered experience of a particular trauma. And really, it allows you to do that in such a way that you can resolve the trauma a lot easier than you could if you were talking about it. Sometimes, talking about the trauma is retraumatizing. There’s somatic therapy, yoga therapy, and art therapy. There are different ways to get to the trauma in a gentle way that deepens the healing. So, I would say that a good trauma therapist should have more than one trick in their bag. Q: I know from doing my research that you focus on high-achieving black women. I think I was looking at your website, and I saw that success without stress is related to trauma therapy in a sense. Or does that just kind of shift off into something different?

Q: So you just mentioned cohorts and groups. Is there anything you are offering right now for people to look forward to or something coming up that they can join if they have any additional questions or need help after reading this article?

Lisa Lackey

A: So success without stress is work I do with highly successful black women primarily and other women in different venues. Where does the stress is coming from? I specialize in helping clients resolve traumatic stress from a belief that the mind-body connection is the key to recovery. Working with traumatic experiences requires moving away from the belief that trying to think our way out of the past or containing our memories and constraining our behaviors will bring resolution. It requires turning toward how our experience is held in the body and the brain and engaging with models of processing that recognize this principle. You May Also Like Real Housewives Star Describes Terrifying Medical Experience! And so when you talk about things like code-switching, when you talk about

things like quote-unquote microaggressions that aren’t micro, when you talk about how much more advanced a Black woman has to be in professional spaces to gain entry into the hierarchy of their professional life, all of that and more contributes to chronic stress, within systems that don’t care about your wellbeing. And if it continues, it becomes burnout. I believe that there is also some underlying trauma that is experienced within this group of women; again, we don’t always know what that is until we start to dig in and ask about the triggers to your stress; what are the beliefs that you have about yourself? What are your patterns of pleasing? And, you know, really looking at that. We also provide the ACE screening, it is The Adverse Childhood Experience assessment—a very short questionnaire about things that happened to you before your 18th birthday. That helps to shed light on early trau-

A: Sure. So I would say go to Lisa Lackey, which will also, if you look through it, provide a link to my other website, Insideout Living (insideoutrecovery.com), and on lisalackey.com, you’ll find all the different things that I offer to organizations, individuals, and groups related to decreasing the stress and all of the symptoms that come as a result of it. Coaching focuses on liberating the client’s natural ability to move toward well-being and health from the “inside out.” Committed to their ongoing healing and growth, we are passionate about facilitating change for individuals, couples, families, and groups. Currently, we have a cohort that’s coming up in a couple of weeks. I’m very excited about it. It is designated for black women professionals only, and it’s a 10week cohort where we break down the principles of well-being (7 Principles of Success — Lisa Lackey) and the things that cause us stress and how to detect how we’re feeling sooner than later so that we can give intervention to that. And just an opportunity to look at yourself, reflecting and your worth outside of anything you do. We look at that in four parts. We have people look back over what their patterns have been. We have people look at what they need to let go of in order to incorporate more well-being into their lives. And then, as women, we have difficulty receiving; we’re usually great givers, but how do we start to be receptive to the support and help around us? And then the last part is return. And so the women will return with a map so that Continue on page 26

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

Setting the Record Straight on an Important Piece of Black History

By Ben Jealous With the start of Black History Month, I brace myself for the mis-telling of Black History yet again. In schoolhouses and everywhere the stories are told, a persistent myth shows its ugly head: the ridiculous notion that great Black leaders are not just exceptional but exceptions. It is an idea rooted in the ahistorical and unnatural misperception that the most notable Black Americans were superhumans that sprung forth from collective misery. It discounts the many, many Black leaders who were – and are – the children and grandchildren of courageous leaders in their own right. Paul Robeson was a phenomenal actor, orator, singer, athlete, and activist. The family that produced him might be even more impressive. His father escaped enslavement to earn two college degrees and become a prominent minister. His mother was part of the Bustill family, who were famous abolitionists and included Grace Bustill Douglass, the crusading abolitionist and feminist. Kamala Harris’s path to the vice presidency began as a transformative district attorney. She refused to pursue the death

penalty, and shifted her department’s punitive focus away from sex workers and squarely onto sex buyers and traffickers. She both provided a model for the movement to elect more Black and progressive district attorneys and spawned the national training institute for female candidates known as Emerge America. Vice President Harris would readily admit there is no explaining her uncommon courage without accounting for her civil rights activist parents and her education at the very university that produced Thurgood Marshall. Martin Luther King is perhaps Black America’s best-known leader. His grandfather was himself a crusading Black Baptist preacher and the first president of the Atlanta branch of the NAACP. Whitney Houston became an iconic star of radio and the silver screen. Her first cousin was Dionne Warwick. Through Warwick, Houston had close, life-shaping relationships with other celebrated female singers and actors like her “honorary aunt” Aretha Franklin, godmother Darlene Love, and close friend Cicely Tyson. Malcolm X is America’s most famous Black nationalist. Before him, his father Earl Little was a Black nationalist Baptist preacher who organized for Marcus Garvey. Harassment by the Ku Klux Klan forced the Littles to relocate from Omaha, Nebraska to Lansing, Michigan, where Earl was murdered by a Klan-like white supremacist group. Stacey Abrams rose to become the first woman leader of a party in Georgia’s

legislature and the most impactful voting rights activist of the 21st century. Her parents were courageous civil rights activists and her father was among the youngest leaders of the Hattiesburg boycott in Mississippi. Middle Tennessee claims a famous political father-son pair in former Congressman and Senator Albert Gore, Sr. and former Senator and Vice President Al Gore. But western Tennessee saw its own confrontational and crusading former Congressman Harold Ford, Sr. followed by the diplomatic, incisive, and consensus-building former Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. From the time he started preaching at the age of four, Reverend Al Sharpton’s early years were shaped by the mentorship of Black leaders like Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., James Brown, and the incomparable Jesse Jackson. But it was his mother Ada Sharpton’s work that inspired her son’s founding of the National Action Network. Mrs. Sharpton rose from poverty to power as a prominent civil rights activist in New York City’s outer boroughs and became president of Mothers in Action. Fifteen years ago, I was named the youngest national president in the history of the NAACP. My grandmother Mamie Bland Todd trained future US Senator Barbara Mikulski as a social worker early in her career. In researching my latest book, I followed my own ancestry back to my grandmother’s grandfather. In the late 1800s, Edward David Bland led Black Republicans into coalition with former

white Confederate soldiers to form a third party that took over the Virginia state government. Known as the Readjusters, the bipartisan political movement won all statewide elected offices and controlled the Commonwealth of Virginia from 1881-85. In that time, they abolished the poll tax and the whipping post; radically expanded Virginia Tech and created Virginia State University; and readjusted the terms of the Civil War debt to save the free public schools and take the state from a financial deficit into a surplus. Parentage and family connection are not and never should be a prerequisite for leadership in our country. But we can still recognize that one of the greatest traditions in Black leadership is Black leaders who raise Black leaders. Some of those leaders inspire with their art; others with their activism; many with both. The historical arc they help form – which sometimes wavers but ultimately bends towards justice – would not be possible without that tradition. So, if it occurs to you that you do not know enough about how your ancestors might have led, get curious and do some research. You might just find an interesting and inspiring piece of family history. Ben Jealous is executive director of the Sierra Club, professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free” and “Reach: 40 Black Men Speak on Living, Leading, and Succeeding.”

Los Angeles County Returns $75 Million Land to Black Familay By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

Nearly a century after the government allegedly used trickery and eminent domain to seize their valuable property, the family of Charles and Willa Bruce are finally receiving justice. Officials in Los Angeles County reportedly have decided to return the family’s Manhattan Beach property that estimates show might be worth as much as $75 million. The beach resort once flourished while welcoming African American visitors in the 1920s – a time when Black people and other minorities weren’t allowed on White beaches. The property famously took on the name “Bruce’s Beach.” Meanwhile, descendants of Charles and Willa Bruce had fought for years to have the land returned to the family. “It was a very important place because there was no other place along the coast of California where African Americans could actually go and enjoy the water,” Chief Duane Yellow Feather Shepard, the Bruce family historian and spokesperson said in a local interview.

owned the property that was once Willa and Charles Bruce’s Beach Lodge, I knew that returning it to the Bruce family was the right thing to do,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn told CBS Los Angeles in a statement. “But this is the first time a government has done anything like this, and there were a lot of questions about how it would work.” For the family and Shepard, there re‑ mains more work.

Regularly facing threats and intimidation tactics from the Ku Klux Klan and other White supremacists, the Bruce family maintained their property and kept the resort open. But in 1924, the city council cited eminent domain as a reason to take the land, reportedly under the guise of building a park. “However, the land remained un-

touched for years,” the Insider reported. According to media reports, Willa and Charles Bruce fought back legally but received only $14,000 in compensation. Now, city officials have placed the value of the property at $75 million. “When I first realized that the county-

“Our next step will be, once we get that land restored to us, is to go after them for the restitution, for the loss of revenue for 96 years of our family from the business, the loss of generational wealth, and the punitive damages for their collusion with the Ku Klux Klan in disenfranchising our family,” Shepard remarked. According to media reports, Willa and Charles Bruce fought back legally but received only $14,000 in compensation. (Photo: Visitors to Bruce’s Beach in 1920, featured in the book “Living the California Dream,” by Alison Rose Jefferson. Credit...Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection – UCLA)

Continue from page 24

Black Community

they can stay accountable to the strategies and systems they put in place during the cohort to manage a life with much more room for self-care. Q: So, what advice would you give anyone looking for help? Maybe starting trauma therapy or trying to go into any type of therapy? A: I would simply suggest that they start. Start the looking process and commit to follow through by a certain time. Have someone that you can be accountable to, to stay on track. Most of the time, when people are right at the edge of actually seeking therapy or coaching, they’ve been thinking about it for a long time. We don’t pick up that phone or go online for many reasons. And you have to start. I think the other thing is that once you start, it’s not a committed relationship like a marriage or something. So, if the therapist doesn’t work out for you, you look again and find someone who will work out. But I tell people to try, if they can, at least six times before they decide not to go back. That’s the advice that I would give. Because what happens is that you can look and research and do all that stuff, and it can be years later, and you still haven’t followed through on what you believe you need. Q: And is there anything you feel like that maybe we didn’t address that you would like to add? A: I think that we don’t realize, as a community, when I say we, I mean many of us as black people. But again, I’m focusing on the women, the state of emergency that we’re in as black women; we are literally seven years older than a white woman that’s our similar age because of the wear and tear and stress –it’s called weathering. And I always say Black doesn’t crack on the outside, but on the inside, we carry so much responsibility and burden in so many areas that it impacts us. I think the other thing is going back to that example of when you’re on a flight, they say put your oxygen mask on first because it’s counterintuitive, but if you don’t, you won’t be able to breathe to help someone else. I think frequently, as black women, we have a lot of guilt around taking time for ourselves. We have a lot of guilt around asking for help. We have a lot of guilt around if this will put someone out. And so I think understanding that your mental and spiritual well-being is your lifeline and we’re dying sooner than we need to, may be a motivator. And if we’re living, we have many more chronic illnesses than we need to if we were able to manage some of the stress that’s in our bodies and process some of the trauma of our experiences.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - February 07, 2024 - February 13, 2024

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