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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 06,2016 2019- August - March 12, 2019 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 02, 2016

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

Housing, LGBT Activist Files Mayor Run

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven Independent

The latest candidate to enter New Haven’s mayoral race offers these qualifications for serving the marginalized: • She’s an affordable housing wonk.

• She’s faced discrimination as a transgender woman. * She struggles to find steady work. * She has been homeless — and is currently couch-surfing.

Urn Pendragon has officially registered to run for the Democratic nomination for mayor.

She is the third candidate to file papers to challenge incumbent Mayor Toni Harp, following New Haven Land Trust Executive Director and 2013 mayoral candidate Justin Elicker and local philanthropist Wendy Hamilton.

Pendragon, a 50-year-old Michigan native and Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) graduate, has lived in Connecticut for over a decade. She moved to New Haven a few weeks ago. She has never held elected office.

After earning her political science master’s degree last year from SCSU, where she focused her studies on the intersection of inclusionary zoning and renewable energy as part of the solution to both environmental and affordable housing crises, she has thrown herself head first into local political advocacy.

“I’m a person who researches,” she said during an interview at the main branch of the public library. “Who gets out and advocates, recognizes, and has discussions with

people who are in the trenches.”

After interning for the city’s Economic Development Corporation in the spring of 2018, Pendragon got involved with Mothers and Others for Justice and a host of other local activist groups that would ultimately coalesce into the Room for All coalition. That group held rallies and turned out en masse for meetings of the Affordable Housing Task Force, consistently calling on them to keep the voices and needs of the homeless, the working poor, and the most marginalized members of society front and center as the task force developed its recommendations for how to increase the number of safe, affordable, and convenient housing options in the city and beyond.

If elected mayor, Pendragon said, she would push for the city to adopt an inclusionary zoning ordinance that would mandate 20 to 22 percent percent of units in new housing projects be set aside as affordable. She said she would also hire more housing inspectors, code enforcement officers, city planners, and economic development staff.

How would she pay for it? By appealing directly to the governor for more state aid, she said.

And what would make her ask for more aid from Hartford more convincing then the current administration’s?

“You have to put your foot down and say the city’s falling apart,” she said.

Before landing at SCSU, Pendragon said, she bounced around between the South and the Midwest, living in St. Louis, Tulsa,

March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

and Winston-Salem, N.C. She said she was twice homeless in North Carolina, and once homeless after moving to Connecticut over a decade ago.

While living in Shelton, she worked as a telephone tech support provider for Cablevision. She was laid off with hundreds of her colleagues in when a European telecommunications company purchased the New York cable provider in 2016.

Soon thereafter, Donald Trump was elected president. The combination of Trump’s misogynistic, anti-immigrant, and anti-transgender rhetoric and policies with her own firsthand experience of homelessness and job loss inspired her to go back to school to pursue progressive social change with an academic bent, she said.

She took a class with SCSU Political Science Professor and former Republican Town Chair Jonathan Wharton. Wharton brought his class down to City Hall to witness first hand how the Board of Alders and city government work.

During those class trips to City Hall, Pendragon said, she was “listening and hearing people saying that housing is a major, major issue.”

After earning her master’s degree last year, Pendragon said, she has struggled to find steady work in New Haven. She’s currently working part-time as a secretary, and bouncing between friends’ apartments in West Haven and New Haven. She said she has applied time and time again for a full-time job at Yale University, but so far, hasn’t landed anything.

She said she fears that one of the reasons

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THOMAS BREEN PHOTO

Pendragon at a recent affordable housing rally. why she has so struggled to find work is her being a public transgender woman fighting for housing rights.

“I’ve walked both sides of the street, so to say,” she said. “I’ve been homeless before.

I know what its like to be underemployed, to struggle to feed yourself, to struggle to have good, decent insurance.”

In Pendragon’s official registration to run for mayor, she exempted herself from forming a candidate committee, meaning

that she won’t be raising money for her run. Though, she said, she’s open to raising money in the future if her campaign picks up traction.

“I’ve always been the person to stand up, be a protector and help other people,” she said, describing why she felt compelled to throw her hat in the ring for mayor. “I’ve always been the person to stand up and help others. That really shapes my entire personality.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

Parents Probe Roots Of School Budget Challenge

by CHRISTOPHER PEAK New Haven Independent

The State of Connecticut doesn’t know how much it costs to educate a child. And it doesn’t want to risk having to pay school districts more by finding out.

That insight into how state lawmakers budget was shared Wednesday night at a school finance workshop put on by the NHPS Advocates, a watchdog group formed in late 2017.

Close to 30 parents and teachers squared up in a classroom in Yale’s Marsh Hall on Prospect Hill to review the district’s current line-item spending, ask questions about next year’s budget and hear from three experts about what a different model of state support for education might look like.

The talk took place just days after the Board of Education asked Mayor Toni Harp to allocate $217 million for next year’s budget, covering a projected $30.7 million shortfall that Superintendent Carol Birks had warned could lead to closing a school and eliminating 170 full-time positions.

Most of the discussion focused on the adequacy of the Educational Cost Sharing (ECS) formula, the state’s mechanism for distributing $1.93 billion in aid to local school districts.

It starts by setting a “foundation” amount for how much it costs to educate a typical student anywhere in Connecticut. Currently, ECS formula estimates that it takes $11,525.

As Wendy Lecker, a senior attorney at the Education Law Center, pointed out on Wednesday night, the state didn’t pick that dollar figure based on any real study of costs; instead, it simply ranked the per pupil spending across every school district and arbitrarily set a cut-off that four-fifths of them exceeded.

“In its bones, [the ECS formula] should work fine if it’s based on how much it costs to educate. Other states say, ‘Gee, how much does it cost to meet state standards?’

They do a cost study and they base the formula on that,” Lecker said. In Connecticut, “it’s just underfunded.”

Recognizing that some students have significantly higher needs, the ECS formula does pay more for students who are growing up in poverty or who are learning English as a second language.

The state doesn’t include any extra for learning disabilities, maintaining that its share of special education spending is already factored in to the foundation amount.

But the ECS formula does kick in 30 percent more money to educate low-income students (plus 5 percent more when poverty is intensely concentrated) and 15 percent more money to educate English language learners.

Lecker said those numbers don’t reflect the realities in the classroom.

One independent adequacy study recommended putting up at least 112 percent more for mild learning disabilities and 332 percent more for severe learning disabilities, 76 percent more for English language learners and 32 percent more for at-risk students, along with a 12.1 percent bonus for urban areas.

Advocates pore over last year’s school budget.

Wendy Lecker: The state’s per-pupil spending doesn’t cut it.

“If you cut the inputs to the system in half, it still gets distributed equitably, even if it’s not adequate,” said Jill Kelly, a parent at Engineering & Science University Magnet School. “You can’t complain because you’re getting the right amount, compared to your neighbor, but it may not be enough to do the job to educate your kids.”

Once the weights are assigned, the ECS formula then doles the money out based on a town’s revenue-raising abilities. Towns can hike property taxes on their residents if they want to supplement the “foundation” amount.

That’s how the funding mechanism is supposed to work, at least in theory.

But the legislature has routinely skimped on its obligations, underfunding the latest version of the ECS formula since 2013, just a year after it reworked it, and distributing

aid through block grants that have been about $800 million short.

Lawmakers have committed to fully funding towns over the next decade, which would lead to a $20.9 million increase for New Haven by 2028 at current enrollment, according to the Connecticut School Finance Project.

Overall, even though it’s intended to redistribute wealth around the state, though, the system ends up leaving vast disparities in how much school districts are currently spending on their students, ranging from $12,828 in Danbury $35,155 in Cornwall.

Among the big cities, the range is narrower, with per pupil spending falling between $13,061 in New Britain and $19,616 in Hartford. Last year, New Haven spent $18,381 per student.

Compare that to the suburbs nearby, where

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per pupil spending ranges from $14,275 in West Haven to $19,715 in Milford.

A growing body of research indicates that increased per-pupil spending leads to higher student achievement.

By looking at what happened after courtmandated school finance reforms hit 28 states between 1971 and 2010, one team of researchers found that a consistent 10 percent increase in per-pupil spending correlated with tremendous benefits for lowincome students over the long run, staying in college for almost half a year longer and eventually earning 9.6 percent more.

Similarly, a quirk in New York’s laws that allows school districts with declining enrollment to keep drawing the same amount of state aid each year has given analysts another way to study per-pupil spending at a district level. In that case, researchers found that each $1,000 in additional per-pupil spending correlated with a boost in state test scores, about one-seventh of a grade level in math and one-ninth of a grade level in reading.

In recent years, it looked like Connecticut under its own court order — was going to have to redirect money from well-off suburban schools to broke urban ones.

The Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, a Hartford-based nonprofit that sued the state on behalf of municipalities, school districts, educator unions and students, initially convinced a lower-court judge that the state is “spending its money whimsically,” when it comes to schools.

“The state spends billions of dollars on schools without any binding principle guaranteeing that education aid goes where it’s needed. During the recent budget crisis, this left rich schools robbing millions of dollars from poor schools,” Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher wrote

in a 2016 decision. “Instead of the state honoring its promise of adequate schools, this paralysis has left rich school districts to flourish and poor school districts to flounder.”

But eventually, the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned his ruling, saying that it wasn’t up to the justices to decide whether the state was failing its poorest students, as long as they did the minimum to keep schools open.

“Really, the courts basically said you just have to fund teachers, books, facilities and basic instruments of learning. You don’t really need anything like guidance counselors or [English language learner programs] or special education. That’s all extra,” Lecker said. “It’s out of step with just about every state in this country, and it gives the state license to basically fund it at whatever level they want to fund. Other state courts have said, ‘Of course, you need to bring education within the reach of every child, no matter what their needs are.’

Connecticut, no.”

At Wednesday’s meeting, parents asked what to do about their schools not getting enough to teach their kids.

They wondered aloud how they could lobby their state representatives for more cash when they still weren’t clear on why the district’s budget is so out of balance.

And they wondered aloud how they could demand more support staff when they had issues with classroom teacher performance.

Judy Puglisi, a recently retired principal at Metropolitan Business Academy, said that’s exactly what critics of school funding wanted them to argue about, debating about whether dollars should go to social workers or bilingual tutors.

Kelly suggested that a better system of governance would be one where schools set spending priorities based on what they need, rather than politicians just divvying up the available dollars.

“Ideally in utopia, that amount” whatever’s actually needed “would get funded, but we know that never happens because there’s not enough money,” Kelly said. “Governments obviously would not like this system because they’re the ones on the hook for the money. Instead, the system that governments really love is the opposite that’s input-based, saying how much they can give.”

But she also cautioned against seeing kids as dollar figures that add up wherever they go to school, in what’s sometimes called “student-based budgeting.” New Haven’s previous CFO Victor De La Paz tried to push the district towards that model in 2015.

“The thing that gets me [about that system] is that the blame for failure is not at the governor or the mayor or even the superintendent. The blame goes all the way down to individual principals, if a school is struggling and doesn’t have enough money to complete its functions,” Kelly continued.

“It diffuses our popular anger. Instead of us all acting in solidarity and going to the mayor and the governor, it puts the school community in conflict with its principals.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

Harp Budget: $9.5M Increase, No Tax Hike

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven Independent

No tax increase. A marginal bump, not a new $30 million, for the Board of Ed. Bigger pension investments.

And a 1.75 percent overall increase in spending, to be covered by debt savings and a host of small new sources of revenue.

Those are a few of the highlights from the mayor’s proposed $556.6 million operating budget for the next fiscal year.

Mayor Toni Harp and a dozen city department heads revealed some of those Fiscal Year 2019-2020 (FY20) budget details during a a 20-minute press conference in the second-floor atrium of City Hall.

The final budget book itself wasn’t on hand at Thursday’s presser. City spokesperson Laurence Grotheer and Acting City Budget Director Michael Gormany said the final document is still being tweaked, but should be available later Thursday night or by Friday morning at the latest.

The city charter mandates that the mayor publish a complete first draft of the budget

by March 1. FY20 begins on July 1 and runs through the following June.

Despite the absence of the document itself, Harp and her budget team had plenty of details to share about what the public can expect as the alders prepare to embark on their own three-month-long budget-making process before they return a revised version of the budget to the mayor by the first week of June.

Harp, Gormany, and City Controller Daryl Jones all stressed that next year’s budget contains no new tax increase. The current year’s budget saw an 11 percent increase to the property mill rate (or how much property owners pay in taxes for every $1,000 worth of assessed value.) It was widely expected that Harp, who is facing a reelection campaign challenge from Justin Elicker, would not raise taxes this year.

With this budget, Harp said Thursday, “we send a clear signal to city residents, property owners, business operators, generous partners, private sector investors, and everyone else that New Haven stands tall.”

The total proposed general fund budget will be $556.6 million, Harp and Gormany said. That’s an increase of $9.5 million, or around 1.75 percent, over the current year’s general fund budget of $547.1 million. It’s also $1.4 million more of an increase to the general fund than what the current budget saw last June.

Grotheer said that the $9.5 million increase will not be paid for by new local property taxes or by essentially flat expected state aid.

Instead, he said, the revenue will come from a variety of smaller sources, including increased car towing fees, projected increases in building permit revenue thanks to anticipated development projects, projected increases in city investment earnings, and the anticipated sale of city-owned vacant lots and old equipment.

Grotheer did not have any details on how much money any one of those initiatives will bring in, pointing instead to the imminent release of the final budget for details.

Grotheer also did not say how much of the

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Contributing Writers THOMAS BREEN PHOTO Mayor

Harp with department heads at Thursday’s budget presser.

Acting Budget Director Michael Gormany.

Mayoral Chief of Staff Tomas Reyes, CEO Interim Director Angel Fernandez-Chavero, Asst. Police Chief Luis Casanova, Fire Chief John Alston, and Gormany. expenditures increase sans tax increase • The city will not lay off any current emcould be accounted for by the short-term ployees, and will add 13 new full-time revenue boost the city saw last year when positions to the city budget. Those will it refinanced $160 million in existing debt, include two new tree trimmers and a tree pushing debt payments decades into the foreman in the Parks Department; a new future through a process known as “scoop field utilization monitor in the Commisand toss.” sion on Equal Opportunities (CEO); four Following are a few other expenditure new positions in the Police Department, highlights from the forthcoming budget: including two police mechanics, a pub-

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lic information officer, and a body camera specialist; a new field representative for the Fair Rent Commission, as recommended by the city’s Affordable Housing Task Force; a new permitting officer for the transit department who will help with collecting permit fees for e-scooter services that might soon come to town, among a few others.

• A marginal, $750,000 increase in funding to the Board of Education, which is currently staring down a potential $30 million budget deficit over the next few years.

• A combined $4.5 million increased contribution to the city’s two public pensions, the City Employees Retirement Fund (CERF) and the Police & Fire Pension Fund (P&F).

The two funds currently face roughly $700 million in unfunded liabilities.

• A $1 million increase to the city’s healthcare fund.

• A switch from one-year capital budgeting to two-year capital budgeting, meaning that the city will only bond for capital projects every two years, thereby saving a few hundred thousand dollars every year in fees paid everytime the city issues new bonds.

The proposed two-year capital budget for FY20 is around $70 million, Gormany said on Thursday.

• Increases to the police and fire overtime budgets, and decreased to the police and fire budgeted staff. Gormany said the mayor has proposed increasing the police overtime budget from $4.4 million to $6.5 million.

The department is expected to spend over $8 million on overtime. Gormany said that the mayor has also proposed increasing the fire department’s budget by $435,000. The current fire overtime budget is $2.17 million, though the department is expected to spend well over $3 million in overtime by the end of the fiscal year. As for staffing, Gormany said the budgeted number of police positions will drop from 490 to 429, while the budgeted number of fire positions will drop by nine.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

X Marks New Coffee Spot In Westville

by SAM CARLSON

New Haven Independent

Nate Blair knew that every neighborhood needs a hub, and Westville was no exception. With the opening of Cafe X, a new coffee shop on the corner of Whalley and Blake, he aims to create that hub.

For a long time Westville has had a lot of places to get coffee but there was no coffee shop to call its own. There are restaurants that serve coffee with breakfast or brunch.

There is a Dunkin Donuts that you can grab a drink from in a hurry. The space below Lotta Studios was annexed by coffee shops from different parts of town, like Coffee Pedaler or Happiness Lab, who purveyed caffeine, but they weren’t full-fledged coffee shops — until Cafe X opened.

The way Blair sees it, a coffee shop is about so much more than coffee. It is a social place where strangers share space comfortably. It allows for an exchange of ideas, and a way to keep up with the news of the neighborhood. A good coffee shop can be a sort of bioindicator for a healthy area, which is why it’s strange that Westville didn’t have one — a shop with regulars to run into, a great place to hunker down with a laptop, or to just sit and sip your coffee.

“It was a great location,” said Blair. “It was never the primary focus, but I knew it was a goldmine in terms of potential. Westville is ready to explode, and if I can help tip the scales toward making it a destination by opening a coffee shop there, I’d like to do so.” Westville is home to a bustling creative enclave in New Haven, with shops like Strange Ways and Vintanthromodern, a clutch of art galleries, the ArLow live/work spaces, and the studios and Snail Market above Lotta Studios.

The mission for Blair and his business partner, filmmaker Stephen Dest, became building a coffee shop that fit the culture and ethos of Westville. They began work this past November, building a wall, getting a grab ‘n’ go cooler for sandwiches, and moving the counter outward away from the back wall to make more space for the barista. They formally hung their sign on Jan. 18.

Stepping into Cafe X now, it feels like it’s been there for years. The cafe is built into the lower level of Lotta Studios, separated from the coworking space by a glassy wall.

The shop’s chic rusticism melds with the artistic goings-on at Lotta. A row of classic bar stools were recovered from an old ice cream parlor.

Less obvious — at first — is the preparation that Cafe X puts into its drinks.

“After years in the restaurant business I’ve come away with some pretty resolute values,” Blair said. Before opening Cafe X, Blair had spent 12 of his 28 years working just about every tier of service at restaurants and coffee shops including Miya’s, Roia, Mamoun’s, and Koffee? on Audubon.

“For one, I want to make healthy decision making as simple as possible for people by simply removing the bad decision or giving the decision to the customer,” he said.

To this point, none of the drinks at Cafe X contain any added sugar. Customers who want it can get it from the shop’s lid and sleeve station. But you’ll never wonder

SAM CARLSON PHOTO

Veteran barista Nate Blair in his new joint.

how much sugar is in your drink because you will be the only one putting it in. Cafe X also doesn’t serve the 20-ounce drinks available at many other establishments, which helps the shop cut down on waste and excess. There are some pretty interesting and wholesome options on the menu as well, such as the Thema, an espresso drink made with raw cacao, and the Gothic Mocha, which is made with activated charcoal.

“There’s a sort of Jedi trick that goes into making food that’s both good for you and exciting,” Blair said. That echoed the sentiment of Miya’s and other New Haven establishments that, in light of growing

Friday, May 31st

environmental and health concerns, have taken it upon themselves to change the tide in how restaurants, coffee shops, and their consumers approach the food that we eat. Blair feels that a business has a duty to form a connection with its neighbors and to be an asset to its community. He and Dest opened a coffee shop because they feel that coffee shops have the most potential to be that sort of asset.

And why was that latte called Thema?

It’s named after a regular who orders it all the time, Blair said. Any three-monthold cafe that already attracts such regulars must be hitting the mark.

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Young Voices Take On August Wilson THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

by Lucy Gellman, Editor, The Arts Paper www.newhavenarts.org

We first ran this piece last year, as students were getting ready for the New Haven’s chapter of the the August Wilson Monologue Competition in February. As we prepare to cover that competition again, we wanted to re-share this piece as a snapshot of immense time and work that students put into the program. This year’s competition unfolds Feb. 28 at the Yale Repertory Theatre at 7 p.m. More information is available here.

The scene is set. Pittsburgh, 1948, somewhere in the belly of the city’s Hill District.

It is warm and dry, like anything could snap under just the right conditions. And Vera is filling the room with her anger, a heavy, smoldering thing that has travelled straight from her chest to the front of the room, and ripped the space clear in half.

I lay here every night in an empty bed.

In an empty room. Her voice trembles.

Where? Someplace special? Someplace where you had been? The words take up every inch of her throat as they travel up and out.

Floyd. I wanted to know where you was bruised at. So I could be a woman for you.

So I could touch you there. So I could spread myself all over you and know that I was a woman. She is going to bring Floyd to his knees if it’s the last thing she does.

And then, maybe, she is going to take him back.

Except we’re not in Pittsburgh. This is the Educational Center for the Arts (ECA) on Audubon Street, where high school students like Remsen Welsh are rehearsing for the August Wilson Monologue Competition, transforming into the Veras, Floyds, Renas, Bernices, King Hedley IIs and Rubys that populate August Wilson’s most celebrated plays.

Founded in 2007 by Kenny Leon and Todd Kreidler at the True Colors Theatre Company in Atlanta, the August Wilson Monologue Competition is a national sort of speech tournament meets theater festival. Students choose monologues from Wilson’s heralded Pittsburgh Cycle, a series of ten plays chronicling ten decades of working-class, African-American life in 20th century Pittsburgh and Chicago.

This spring marks the third year that New Haven has participated. After piloting the program last year, Long Wharf Theatre paired up with the Yale Repertory Theatre and Wilbur Cross High School, the Regional Center for the Arts, Educational Center for the Arts, and Co-Op High School for the 2018 program. They expanded that further in the 2019 program.

In all, over 150 students are participating, preparing for the panel of judges that will meet them at New Haven’s Regional Final on Feb. 28 at the Yale Repertory Theatre downtown. From there, the highest-scoring two performers will continue to the national final in New York City later this spring.

On a cold, bright day in mid-January of

Lucy Gellman Photos: Remsen Welsh: “It’s a thing where I get transported. There’s a part of her I think I can breathe new life into.” Treneé McGee (in the green) sculpts her feedback for the students.

last year, rehearsals were well underway at ECA, where 12 high school students are vying for one of the regional spots this March. Ensconced in Ingrid Schaeffer’s upstairs drama classroom, they made their way across the floor, some pacing fretfully as others took their time with long, careful strides across each floorboard. As they

walked, breath audible, they were transitioning out of this realm, and into Wilson’s.

Whole universes unfolded before them: pool tables and kitchen get-togethers, empty bedrooms, smoky blues clubs and shiny guitars, grocery stores and rapidly gentrifying street corners.

“How does your core move? Do you have

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a strong core?,” called out Madelyn Ardito Newman, director of education at Long Wharf. “Do you take care of yourself? Are you sick? Are you hungry?”

Students changed their steps with each question. On the periphery, Zoe Eklund’s Vera (Seven Guitars, 1995) paused for a moment, her hand gliding through the air.

Across the room from her, Jhenzen Gonzalez became a totally different Vera, mouth twisting as she sped up and focused on a point ahead of her. Right at the center, Hannah Stein’s Bernice (The Piano Lesson, 1987) stopped and started. On Newman’s cue, she shouted out a line: “Mama Ola polished this piano with her tears for 17 years.”

During these sessions, students are critiqued by drama teachers, theater educators, and directors—but also by each other.

Huddling into smaller groups of three and four after their warmups, students migrated to different corners of the room, running lines one at a time. In one group, Justyn Velez said he was channeling his dad, a proud Boricua who talks about getting pulled over because of his darker skin, before launching into a monologue from King Hedley II. “My fifth grade teacher told me I was gonna make a good janitor,” he began, tilting his face to the ceiling. Wilson’s words worked through him. “Had me believing it. I come home and told mama Louise I wanted to be a janitor.”

His face tightened as he continued. “Got one job the man told me he was gonna shoot me if he caught me stealing anything.

I ain’t worked for him ten minutes. I quit right there. He calling me a thief before I start.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the corner, where Daniya Chopra (Ruby from Seven Guitars) was sitting in a chair.

“He’s calling you a thief,” she said during feedback later in the session. “That’s strong. Like, he doesn’t even know you and he’s calling you a thief already.”

The group cycled through. In an oversized sweatshirt, Sadie Turner transformed into Rena (Jitney, 1977), her head swaying to one side as she berated her partner Darnell for taking the grocery money, leaving their small child with nothing to eat. Chopra bowed her head and returned as Ruby, a strong women who couldn’t stand no jealous man. Then Welsh was up, channeling a woman who had been left by her man, only to have him come back.

“You never showed me all those places where you were a man. You went to Pearl Brown and showed her,” she proclaimed, tears starting to run. “I don’t know what she did or didn’t do, but I looked up and you was back here after I had given you up.”

Earlier in the session, she had flashed a quick smile when asked why she chose to take on Vera. The competition odds are against Veras: Her monologue from Seven Guitars is one of the most frequently selected and performed in the competition.

At ECA alone, there are three Veras in a group of 12, joined by several others in the

region. There are sad Veras, angry Veras, strong Veras and smarting Veras cleaning their wounds as they speak.

For Welsh, that wasn’t a deterrent. It was a selling point that started when she saw the show at the Yale Rep last year.

“I was astounded by how the character did it,” she said. “It’s a thing where I get transported. There’s a part of her I think I can breathe new life into.”

But with Vera’s last line—It ain’t even here no more, what you looking for. What you remember. It ain’t even no more.— Welsh dissolved into tears. Watching the performance, Treneé McGee swooped in.

“Take a moment,” she urged Welsh. “Just take a moment.”

A graduate of Co-Op, competition alum and resident teaching artist at Long Wharf, McGee has been helping coach the students. Earlier in the session, she said it was her hope that students didn’t just learn more about Wilson through the competition, but could also place his lived experiences in dialogue with their own.

“One of the things that is universal about this work is love,” she said. “It’s family.

It’s identity. He opened the door to humanity.”

Two weeks later, ECA students headed to Audubon Street’s Little Theater to face their toughest audience yet—judges from Long Wharf, Elm Shakespeare Company, and ECA, with a large group of their peers.

As they took the stage, Schaeffer made notes, scribbling furiously on papers in front of her.

Kaleb Walton’s Floyd drew laughs and Mmmmms of assent as he stepped back into the world of Seven Guitars, hollering “I seen you and said, ‘There go a woman!’” at a fixed spot to his right. Turner’s Rena had hardened, landing each line as she let a sort of seething rage take over the performance. To become Martha Pentecost (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, 1984) Tiana McGee channeled her own performance last year as Zonia, the daughter who Martha had left behind.

Up fifth, Stein returned with a sharp Bernice, parsing out her words and hitting each T sharply. A room materialized around her: wood floors, clean walls, and that piano, polished by decades of tears.

A white actress, Stein said she looked to her own history of suffering as she took on Bernice, and grappled with the legacy of slavery. A practicing Jew, she had explored the impact that the Holocaust had on not just her family, but an entire population.

“August Wilson’s work is so relatable,” she said. “For me, this was about getting to learn new things. I keep learning about the character, and breaking it down.”

Schaeffer nodded along to McGee and Stein, listening to the students as they prepared for regionals.

“Often, we think we have to reach outside of ourselves and really it’s here,” she said, pointing to her chest. “That relation to the text could come from the text, but maybe it doesn’t. And it speaks to a lot of people.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

N e w P u b l i c

H av e n S ch o o l s

Attention Parents/Guardians: If your child is turning 5 years old on or before January 1, 2020, then your child should be registered for Kindergarten!

Register with the Office of Choice & Enrollment Please bring the following required documents with you: 1. Birth Certificate 2. Proof of Residency (current utility bill, lease/mortgage statement with parent/guardian’s name & address) 3. Parent/Guardian Identification

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Location: 54 Meadow St., 1st Floor, New Haven, CT 06519 Hours: Monday - Friday, 8:30am to 4:30pm Phone: 475-220-1430 and 475-220-1431 Website: choice.NHPS.net 7

Anti-Violence Effort Rebuilds THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

by PAUL BASS

New Haven Independent

New Haven and Hamden have committed over $200,000 to start rebuilding an outreach program with “street cred” that’s credited with helping cut violence.

The effort, the Street Outreach Worker Program, is being reborn with a new nonprofit staffed by some refugees from the former organization that ran it.

The Harp Administration announced Wednesday that its youth department is ponying up $50,000 through the rest of the fiscal year and $160,000 next fiscal year to the new nonprofit, Connecticut Violence Intervention Program, to build the program back up. Hamden is adding another $60,000 a year to have the crew work in that town as well.

That money is supporting part-time, 25-hour-a-week salaries to four outreach workers as well as the salary of the director, former local adult probation chief Leonard Jahad.

The program sends outreach workers some of them former convicts who have turned their lives around to the scene of shootings and to hospital rooms to help 13- to 21-year-olds involved in violence straighten out.

The program launched in 2007 under the auspices of the New Haven Family Alliance. Workers helped negotiate truces and, in the view of law enforcement, worked with cops to bring shootings in New Haven to the lowest level in decades. At its height, the program had eight full-time outreach workers plus a director. The city was just one of numerous financial supporters.

Over the years the program’s funding dried up. Last year the workers told the city the program was on the verge of closing.

PAUL BASS PHOTO Bartlett:

Where’s the Board of Ed’s $75K?

Police intelligence chief Karl Jacobson (center) at press announcement with outreach chief Len Jahad (right) and Hamden Mayor Curt Leng.

Jahad who previously ran the program at Family Alliance since 2015 formed his new nonprofit. He brought along four veteran street outreach workers with deep ties in city neighborhoods: William “June Boy” Outlaw, Douglas Bethea, Pepe Vegan, and Lopez Jones.

Youth Services Director Jason Bartlett said a condition of the new contract is that Jahad’s group find new partners and new sources of funding. So far it has been working on an agreement with Yale-New Haven Hospital to provide help, including training and uniforms. (The agreement has not yet been signed.) Jahad said he’s speaking with officials in Hartford, Waterbury, New Britain, New London, and Bridgeport to try to expand the program there as well. He’d also like to obtain funding for full-time workers in New Haven’s Newhallville and West Rock neighborhoods and the streets near I-91 Exit 8.

At Wednesday’s City Hall press conference, Bartlett pointedly criticized the Board of Education for not coming up with another $75,000 for the street outreach program.

He claimed the board had committed to paying the money.

“I don’t understand why they’re not here today and making a statement that it’s a done deal,” Bartlett complained.

Mayor Toni Harp who on two other occasions this week had already made comments critical of school Superintendent of Schools Carol Birks’ positions echoed Bartlett’s remarks.

“My expectation is that this is some glitch that will be worked through and those dollars will be forthcoming,” Harp said.

Birks did not respond to a request for comment before this story was published. The Board of Ed had publicly considered grant-

ing Family Alliance $85,000 back in December for the outreach worker program, then didn’t take action on the proposal.

Board of Education President Darnell Goldson told the Independent in a conversation after Wednesday’s press conference that the board is looking at all its contracts to make sure it gets what it’s paying for (as detailed in this story by the New Haven Register’s Brian Zahn).

Goldson said the board is open to hearing the new street outreach program organization’s pitch and approves of its stated mission.

“Any program that actually goes to where the kids are and tries to encourage them to not be involved in violent activities is a good program. We have to make sure that is what actually happens,” Goldson said. “At this point in time, I haven’t seen anything from this program that that is what happens. I’m not saying that’s not happening. I just haven’t seen the data.”

Meanwhile, Hamden Mayor Curt Leng said at Wednedsay’s press conference that his town’s support for the program reflects its development of a community policing approach. He called New Haven and Hamden one community “with an imaginary border.”

Or, as Bartlett put it, “Our kids go to Hamden. Hamden kids come here. We’re one big community.”

Street outreach worker Outlaw, who is known to pull in long hours that can double his official schedule, vowed to continue putting in the time even if the organization struggles for funding. Street outreach is a mission, he said. “If I lose this job tomorrow,” he said, “I’m still going to be at the hospital. This is my community”

Grassroots Drive Targets Guv’s “Wall Street Hustler”

by STAFF

New Haven Independent

A new online citizens’ petition drive aims to stop the confirmation of a “Wall Street hustler” Gov. Ned Lamont picked to serve as state economic development commissioner.

The driveis posted on the change.org website. It targets former Goldman Sachs exec David Lehman, whom Lamont has picked for the development post.

Lehman has come under fire for his role in pushing investments in toxic mortgages on his clients while simultaneously betting against them, then offering suspect explanation under oath to Congress.

We ask that you OPPOSE the nomination of David A. Lehman for the Commissioner of Economic and Community Development/Senior Economic Advisor position for the State of Connecticut.

In 2007, as a Managing Director of Goldman Sachs, Mr. Lehman was part of a team that defrauded clients, by knowingly selling toxic mortgage debt under the auspices

that these investments were profitable.

This led to the loss of billions of dollars by several investment firms. All the while, Goldman Sachs was profiting from having shorted their position. Not only did investment firms fail, but the citizens of this country were then used as a bank - as billions of dollars of taxpayer money was used to save the banks that were deemed, “too big to fail”.

On February 26th, as David A. Lehman testified before the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee, he was more than happy to give the same noncommittal and pass-the-responsibility answers that he gave before the U.S. Congress in 2010. He spoke of transparency, but could not give us a clear reasoning for his own actions. He repeatedly stated that all these events were ten years ago, and that he couldn’t remember the specifics. It felt as if he wanted us to forget.

Well, for many families, ten years ago is still as relevant today, as it was then. While Goldman Sachs was profiting from their

‘big short,’ millions of foreclosures were being filed. Families lost their homes and dreams, at a speed never before seen. To this day, in both Connecticut and around the country, many have not yet recovered.

As foreclosures rose, investment firms swept in to purchase homes for dimes on the dollar. Rental rates grew beyond the means of many. Options for a roof over our heads became fewer.

Ten years ago, will still be relevant tomorrow, and for months and years, if we do not repair the Connecticut economy.

We are being asked to accept that David A. Lehman is the man to fix the economy, to help rebuild the lives of those that his very actions harmed. However, we the citizens of Connecticut, do not want a person this irresponsible to hold the keys to our future.

We do not believe he should have the honor, nor the privilege, to represent the citizenry of Connecticut in this important and perilous time. We do not believe, because he cannot be believed.

Knowing how Mr. Lehman and his col-

8

CHRISTINE STUART PHOTO

Lehman testifying last week in Hartford.

leagues were predatory towards their own clients at Goldman Sachs, would you trust him with your own money? Would you trust his advice with TAXPAYER money?

Mr. Lehman has demonstrated that he is not

to be trusted, and thus please REJECT this gubernatorial nomination.

Sincerely, The People of Connecticut

Good Times Roll, For A Cause THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

by MARKESHIA RICKS New Haven Independent

New Haven felt a little closer to New Orleans Tuesday night as revelers converged on Mitchell Library during the annual Mardi Gras fundraising celebration for the New Haven Free Public Library.

Celebrating the freedom to read and unfettered access to information, some 200 people enjoyed a last night of hell for a good cause before the start of the solemness of the Lenten season.

Shana Schneider (pictured), president of the New Haven Free Public Library Board of Directors, served as mistress of ceremonies as celebrants partook of the many additional opportunities the event provides to further give back to the library.

City Librarian Martha Brogan said that the event aimed to raise up to $50,000.

The night’s celebrants included revelers like this Fair Haven community organizer ... the Yale University mascot ... and a pre-masked city transit czar Doug Hausladen stepped into a Mitchell Library transformed into a little French Quarter with the Funky Dawgz Brass Band providing a lively soundtrack.

The important work of the city’s library system wasn’t the only subject of celebration on the menu Tuesday night. Attendees

workshops free and public.”

Mayor Toni Harp called the city’s public library system “one of New Haven’s undeniable jewels.”

“I have always believed that the collective will of an informed electorate could and would steer a just and moral society,” Harp said. “As a function of that belief, I have always supported libraries because that is where people have ready access to important information. It’s where people become the informed electorate.”

Harp encouraged attendees to keep the Mardi Gras spirit alive throughout Lent.

But not through the revelry of eating, drinking and merrymaking that they engaged in Tuesday night.

“Let’s parade through the stacks to find just the right book to read,” she said.

“Let’s throw beads and necklaces and treats to one another of all the good things we’ve learned through the reading that we’ve done.

“Let’s dance with the ideas prompted by interesting articles we’ve read,” Harp said further. “And let’s respectfully debate disagreements about the best way to move forward on different policy proposals. The public library has been a non-stop festival of creative thought, important ideas, and news of the day.”

also got to celebrate a milestone for the forthcoming new Stetson Library in the Dixwell neighborhood, which will call the future Q House home. Elsie Chapman (pictured), president of the library foundation board, announced that $1.7 million of the $2 million capital campaign had been raised to provide the furnishings and fixtures.

“We only have $300,000 more to go,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be great if we raised the additional $300,000 tonight?” The question drew cheers from the audience.

City Librarian Martha Brogan, pictured wearing her freedom tiara, said that the annual event has become a time-honored tradition that celebrates philanthropy through the library and a “strong resilient and informed community where everyone can thrive.”

“Upholding the democratic principle of giving free and unfettered access to information, resources, experiences, and opportunities for all, Mardi Gras celebrates the library’s vital role in the community and also focuses attention on the extent to which we rely not only on city funding but on the philanthropy of friends like you,” Brogan told the assembled. “To fulfill our mission we count on your support to keep our resources, programs, and

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9

Detroit 67 A Review

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

by Francette Carson, ICN Correspondent

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The Hartford Stage presents Detroit 67 by the award-winning playwright Dominique Morrisseau. The production is directed by Jade King Carroll. The Detroit race riots in 1967, exploded as a defense against the crippling effects of racial prejudices, injustices, and oppression of blacks in the community. Morrisseau’s brings humanity to the black people of Detroit.

The 2018 movie Detroit, depiction of the riots was a significant blow to the psychic.

The director of the film, Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal revictimize audiences. The recollection of the hideous, horrific and dehumanizing acts of the law officers against African Americans in the community left viewers distraught and hopeless for change in regard to racial tensions in the motor city. Morrisseau took a stand to show audiences, African Americans share authentic feelings of love, compassion, meaningful relationships, and strong family values. The comedic relief, classic music conveys the message that black folks live, love, laugh, sing and dance despite the oppression caused by racism.

The setting takes place in the center of the riots at an after-hour dance club located in the basement of Chelle (Myxoldyia Tyler) and Lank’s (Johnny Ramey) house inherited from their parents. The homey basement captures the past with an eclectic collection of 60’s style furniture, appliances, a record player, and an eight-track tape player. The photographs of Joe Louis, Malcolm X, the power to the people black fist painted on the wall, and a velvet picture of a sexy black woman covered the walls creating a nostalgia of the 60’s era. The music of Motown intended to breathe life into the storyline. However, the party never gets started because of the faint sounds of the music, a skipping record player, and short clips of the songs never reach the soul. The anticipation of jamming to soulful sounds of the Motown greats are left unfulfilled.

The mellow sounds of Motown are the background to the drama playing out in their lives.

Morisseau depicts a portrait of a black family struggling to push forward. The social tension in the community is reflected in the conflict between Chelle and Lank.

Chelle is a sensible woman and wants to put their small inheritance to use by investing in her son’s education. Lank is an ambitious, optimistic, bright-eyed go-getter and wants to make the most out of the money, by investing in a legitimate neighborhood bar.

Carroll weaves in the three-dimensional characters, creating a performance that connects with the audience. The characters displayed a range of emotions reflecting on the message of the story. The intense dramatic performances of Lank and Chelle were uplifted by supporting roles. The sassy, vibrant Bunny (Nyahale Allie), a de-

10

production photos: All

photos by T. Charles Erickson, courtesy of The McCarter Theatre Center.

lightful character brings forth laughter with her sharp tongue, sexy outfits and witty comments. Bunny delivers a light-hearted performance which is welcomed amid the drama. Lank’s best friend Sly (Will Cobbs) presents as a smooth-talking handsome young man showing love and respect for both Chelle and Lank. Sly’s performance was on point and displayed a range of emotions, bringing charisma and charm to the stage. Lank brings home Caroline (Ginna Le Vine), a mysterious young white woman, he found bruised and beaten. Her troubles and identity are unknown. Caroline delivered a warm, authentic and supportive performance. Caroline’s character intensifies the racial tension, a white woman showing romantic interest in a black man at the height of the 1967 race riot. Chelle had many reasons to be unsettled with Lank and Caroline’s relationship. The interracial relationship evoked fear of violence as retaliation because of Caroline’s presence in

the home and considering everything “Why is a black woman not good enough?”

A passive-aggressive storyline sheds light on the essence of black culture and the struggles faced to bring security and stability in their lives. The realistic characters and cleverly weaved subplots give the audience a break from the realism of the cause and consequences of the riots.

African Americans have historically used music to ease pain and deflect from the trauma inflicted by racism. The music is the backdrop to the after-hour dance club, solidifies the romantic interest amongst the characters and provides a sense of comfort amidst the echoes of violence in the community. Morrisseau provides insight into the lives of black people affected by the Detroit Race Riots of 67. The emotional connection amongst the characters magnify these issues through the running themes of racism, destruction, loss, and grief.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

Katherine Johnson Gets a NASA Facility Named in Her Honor BlackNews.com

Nationwide — In 2016, the book and movie Hidden Figures made its mark on the world. The story follows Katherine Johnson, an incredibly intelligent and motivated mathematician, and her journey from the “Computer Pool” of NASA to the woman whose calculations made for groundbreaking space missions.

Thanks to her perseverance and the success of Hidden Figures, brilliant mathematician Katherine Johnson got a NASA facility named in her honor. Now the NASA facility is named the Katherine Johnson IV&V Facility – an incredible recognition.

Previously named The Independent Verification and Validation Facility (IV&V), the IV&V program ensures the safety and success of NASA’s high-profile missions. The history of “hidden figure” Katherine Johnson now has a dedicated spot within NASA and the recognition it deserves.

History of Katherine Johnson Born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Katherine Johnson was blessed with motivating parents. In an area where education for Black people ended in eighth grade – her parents saw her mathematical talent and sent her to a high school campus. By 14 she graduated high school and by 18 she finished off her collegiate education at West Virginia State.

With goals to become a research mathematician, and after Langley Memorial

Aeronautical Laboratory finally allowed for the recruitment of Black people, NASA inserted Johnson into the Computer Pool.

Computer Pool In the 1950s, before computers were small enough to fit on our laps – and before they were trusted- agencies and governmental programs like NASA utilized human mathematicians, whom they called “computers.” The smallest of errors could send million-dollar shuttles off floating into space – a costly mistake they could not afford to make.

That is where the Computer Pool came into play with the unbelievably complex and hand-written calculations of Black female employees. Johnson and the other talented women of the Computer Pool are the ones who figured out these calculations.

Johnson’s Relentless Desire After a few weeks in a segregated wing, Johnson’s talent transferred her to the NASA’s Flight Research Division. With her gumption and relentless desire to push into meetings not meant for women – let alone a Black woman – Johnson ended up aiding in the success of missions like John Glenn’s 1962 mission; it was on this mission he became the first American to orbit Earth.

None of these firsts would be possible without Johnson. She dealt with immense difficulties, from racism around every corner to misogynistic men keeping her from important meetings. Due to these ob-

Katherine G. Johnson outside of a new building at NASA named after her stacles, her contributions went unnoticed for far too long. However, with the help of Hidden Figures – released around 50 years after Johnson’s first big helpful moment – shined a light on the work done and the challenges faced by Johnson and the other remarkable women she worked with.

T:9” Today

Now, years later, Hidden Figures has brought Katherine Johnson the recognition she deserves. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said that he and NASA are thrilled to honor her in this way “as she is a true American icon who overcame incredible obstacles and inspired so many.”

NASA’s program director, Gregory

Blaney, furthers that sentiment by stating that “it’s an honor the NASA IV&V Program’s primary facility now carries Katherine Johnson’s name […] It’s a way for us to recognize Katherine’s career and contributions not just during Black History month, but every day, every year.”

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

Detroit Man is Suing Three White Women Who Called the Police on Him For ‘Gardening While Black ’ by BlackNews.com

ultimately get him “incarcerated or seriously injured by law enforcement.”

Peeples said it started when he built a small community garden at Hunt Park, a public park in their neighborhood. He also helped other people cut grass and secure their abandoned property.

Apparently, the three women “had prior plans” for the park and “did not want [Peeples] in the area at all,” the lawsuit stated.

So they filed numerous police reports from July 2017 to May 2018 accusing Peeples of several crimes, including stealing from homes, carrying weapons, and threatening to burn down their homes and kill them.

In another incident, while Peeples was teaching home-schooled students about

Detroit, MI — Marc Peeples, a 33-year old Black man from Detroit, is filing a lawsuit against three white women who repeatedly reported him to police just to get rid of him in a public park. In the case described as “gardening while black,” the women falsely accused him of being a pedophile and even threatening to kill them.

Peeples claims in the lawsuit filed in Michigan state court last week that the three women — Deborah Nash, Martha Callahan, and Callahan’s granddaughter, Jennifer Morris — “conspired to accuse” him of “various crimes that they knew or had reason to know he did not commit” to

gardening, Callahan called 911 to report that he was a convicted pedophile who was not legally allowed to be around children. That resulted to him being arrested in front of the children and charged with three counts of stalking.

After Peeples was arrested and banned from the park, the women destroyed what he planted in the garden and requested permission from the city to “implement their own projects” at the Hunt Park.

His case was eventually dismissed at his trial in October 2018 where the judge described the case as “disgusting” and “a waste of the court’s time and resources.”

Despite that, the three women continued spreading false accusations against Pee-

ples.

The lawsuit accuses the women of malicious prosecution, abuse of process, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation and civil distress. It also claims he suffered economic injury and demands the women pay $300,000 in damages, as well as attorneys’ fees and other costs.

Meanwhile, Peeples is now planning to establish a new garden. A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to support him in further improving the farm and other expenses. For four months, donations keep on flowing and he has so far garnered about $55,000, which is over 10 times bigger than the initial $5,000 goal.

Glamourina Offers Afrocentric Inspired Wear to Culturally Conscious Women

By Micha Green

As Black History Month comes to a close and Women’s History Month is ushered in, Glamourina, a women’s active-wear brand, perfectly intersects both month-long celebrations as a Black-women-owned and operated company.

“Glamourina is the go-to active-wear brand for culturally conscious women. We are most known for our African inspired active-wear pieces,” founders Kia Phillips and Nekol Gaskins told the AFRO in a statement.

Although both mothers, Phillips and Gaskins found time to work their entrepreneurial and creative muscles when establishing Glamourina in 2015 and launching their Kente collection in 2017.

Since the 2017 launch, the millennial mom-bosses have been working constantly to provide quality active-wear, recently launching the 2019 Culture Collection.

Glamourina intentionally targets all women within the beautiful, Black diaspora by offering athletic wear that emphasizes and enhances their #BlackGirlMagic.

“We started Glamourina for several reasons. The first is we feel that Black women are highly underrepresented in the athletic market. When you go into athletic apparel stores or see commercials and ads, there is a clear absence of Black women being represented. And if you do see them it is always one type of woman displayed, and that is the super athletic woman,” the entre-

preneurs said. “Through Glamourina we wanted to create apparel that represents the diversity of Black women. We come in a variety of shapes and sizes and we wanted to showcase that in our apparel.”

Further, Phillips and Gaskins started Glamourina in order to bring health awareness to Black women.

“Also, we know that heart disease is the number one killer amongst African American women. We wanted to create affordable sustainable apparel in hopes to motivate and encourage women of color to live healthier active lifestyles. We know that when you look good, you feel good and that might motivate you to go workout, or just be mindful of your overall physical health,” they said.

Phillips, 33, is a full time mom and personal trainer. A Northeast, D.C. native, Gaskins, 28, is a mother, artist and financial aid counselor. As entrepreneurs with families and other responsibilities, balancing life with Glamourina has its challenges, yet the women find ways to do it while also growing the business, which now has over 5,000 followers on Instagram.

“It is not easy but it takes lots of planning and prioritizing for the both of us. We also have to make sure that we designate time for the business, our families and ourselves,” the co-owners told the AFRO. Although now finding success with their active-wear line, it was not always an easy

Glamourina is an African-inspired active-wear brand established in 2015 that targets culturally conscious women. (Courtesy Photo)

task getting the business off its feet. “Some of the biggest obstacles include balancing business and personal life and obtaining capital to fund our first collection,” they

said. However, Phillips and Gaskins have found the trick to keeping Glamourina alive and thriving. “It takes drive and consistency. Also, it takes listening to our audience and staying on top of the news and trends within our industry.”

Phillips and Gaskins definitely listen to their audience and find happiness in engaging with them.

“We really enjoying seeing our vision come to life. We created this brand to encourage and motivate women of color to live healthy active lifestyles by providing confidence-boosting active-wear,” they said. “When woman proudly wear our apparel and share their photos with us, we really feel a sense of joy. It is also great to know that we are building an empire as women of color and being positive role models for our daughters and other young girls.”

The mompreneurs who consider the next

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generation of Black business owners even as they continue to build their current brand, have advice for other women hoping to start businesses.

“We advise other Black women entrepreneurs to research their market first, create a game plan and remain determined throughout the entire process of starting and growing their businesses.”

As their company continues to grow, Phillips and Gaskins hope that Glamourina will be a true go-to brand for women of color.

“Each year we plan to expand our collections and offer more active-wear options to our customer base. Our goal is to become a one-stop-shop for all active-wear needs.”

For more information on the culturally conscious active-wear, visit the website, Glamourina.com, or follow the company on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at @ shopglamourina.

This article originally appeared in The Afro.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

125

YEARS

TO THEE WE SING Dominique Morisseau’s powerful Detroit ’67 unfolds during an explosive moment in U.S. history— the riots that tore the city of Detroit apart.

Thursday, April 4 • 7:30pm Lyman Center • Southern Connecticut State University

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New Haven Symphony Orchestra William Boughton, conductor Harolyn Blackwell, soprano & narrator Elliott Forrest, visual artist New Haven All-City Orchestra The NHSO marks the 80th Anniversary of Marian Anderson’s groundbreaking performance at the Lincoln Memorial with a concert that celebrates the perseverance of the human spirit and the ability of music to speak to power. This resonant, poignant performance will use the words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr; original art by Elliott Forrest; and music by Aaron Copland, Joseph Schwantner, Daniel Bernard Roumain, and others to commemorate and examine what it means to be an American.

Tickets on Sale Now! (203)787-4282 | NewHavenSymphony.org 13

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

Octavia E. Butler Biography Author

(1947–2006)

by Editors, The Biography.com

Author Octavia E. Butler is known for blending science fiction with AfricanAmerican spiritualism. Her novels include ‘Patternmaster,’ ‘Kindred,’ ‘Dawn’ and ‘Parable of the Sower.’

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Who Was Octavia E. Butler?

Octavia E. Butler was born on June 22, 1947, in Pasadena, California. She studied at several universities and began her writing career in the 1970s. Her books blended elements of science fiction and AfricanAmerican spiritualism. Her first novel, Patternmaster (1976), would ultimately become one of the installments in the fourvolume Patternist series. Butler went on to write several other novels, including Kindred (1979) as well as Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998), of the Parable series. She continued to write and publish until her death on February 24, 2006, in Seattle, Washington.

Early Life Writer Octavia Estelle Butler was born in Pasadena, California, on June 22, 1947, later breaking new ground as a woman and an African American in the realm of science fiction. Butler thrived in a genre typically dominated by white males. She lost her father at a young age and was raised by her mother. To support the family, her mother worked as a maid.

As a child, Octavia E. Butler was known for her shyness and her impressive height.

She was dyslexic, but she didn’t let this

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challenge deter her from developing a love of books. Butler started creating her own stories early on, and she decided to make writing her life’s work around the age of 10. She later earned an associate degree from Pasadena City College. Butler also studied her craft with Harlan Ellison at the Clarion Fiction Writers Workshop.

Fiction Debut, Patternist Series To make ends meet, Butler took all sorts of jobs while maintaining a strict writing schedule. She was known to work for several hours very early in the morning each day. In 1976, Butler published her first novel, Patternmaster. This book would ultimately become part of an ongoing storyline about a group of people with telepathic powers called Patternists. The other related titles are Mind of My Mind (1977), Wild Seed (1980) and Clay’s Ark (1984). (Butler’s publishing house would later group the works as the Patternist series, presenting them in a different reading order from when they were chronologically published.)

In 1979, Butler had a career breakthrough with Kindred. The novel tells the story of an African-American woman who travels back in time to save a white slave owner—her own ancestor. In part, Butler drew some inspiration from her mother’s work.

“I didn’t like seeing her go through back doors,” she once said, according to The New York Times. “If my mother hadn’t put up with all those humiliations, I wouldn’t have eaten very well or lived very comfortably. So I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure.”

Literary Awards For some writers, science fiction serves as means to delve into fantasy. But for Butler, it largely served as a vehicle to address issues facing humanity. It was this passionate interest in the human experience that imbued her work with a certain depth and

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complexity. In the mid-1980s, Butler began to receive critical recognition for her work. She won the 1984 Best Short Story Hugo Award for “Speech Sounds.” That same year, the novelette “Bloodchild” won a Nebula Award and later a Hugo as well.

In the late 1980s, Butler published her Xenogenesis trilogy—Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1988) and Imago (1989). This series of books explores issues of genetics and race. To insure their mutual survival, humans reproduce with aliens known as the Oankali. Butler received much praise for this trilogy. She went on to write the two-installment Parable series—Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998).

In 1995, Butler received a “genius” grant from the MacArthur Foundation—becoming the first science-fiction writer to do so—which allowed her to buy a house for her mother and herself.

Final Years In 1999, Butler abandoned her native California to move north to Seattle, Washington. She was a perfectionist with her work and spent several years grappling with writer’s block. Her efforts were hampered by her ill health and the medications she took. After starting and discarding numerous projects, Butler wrote her last novel Fledgling (2005), which was an innovative take on the concept of vampires and family structures, the latter being one of her works’ prevailing themes.

On February 24, 2006, Octavia E. Butler died at her Seattle home. She was 58 years old. With her death, the literary world lost one of its great storytellers. She is remembered, as Gregory Hampton wrote in Callaloo, as writer of “stories that blurred the lines of distinction between reality and fantasy.” And through her work, “she revealed universal truths.”

On June 22, 2018, Google featured the award-winning author in a Google Doodle to honor what would have been her 71st birthday.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

Part Two:

Aleta Stanton on Teaching & Theater From the Festival Staff of Arts & Ideas www.artidea.org

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Meet our new Community Engagement Manager, Aleta Stanton, in this second half of our interview in which she talks of how her 35 years of teaching experience has shaped her life. Her passion and open perspective continue to inspire as she shares how theater translates to everyday life.

Aleta Staton, past project manager, artist services and community programs associate at our festival, is stepping up as our new Community Engagement Manager. Besides working as an educator for 35 years, she has also worked in arts administration, business management, and staff supervision. We are excited to have her expand further community engagement through her bond with the New Haven community, her artistic skills and her extensive leadership background.

Not only have you interacted with different people through the festival, but you personally have worked with many different groups through educational settings in teaching theater and other courses. Through working with these communities, how has your approach to instructing art changed?

Through the years, I have come more into my own as an instructor. I’ve found everybody has a way of communicating. There is no—especially in higher education—completely prescriptive way of teaching this or that. You have to discover along the way what parts of you can connect with them that you need to share every day, and what parts of them do you want to draw out, and what methodologies are you going to use for them to communicate with each other in this room, because it all boils down to what is happening in this room. I love teaching higher ed because from day to day, I have a lesson for every increment of the subject matter, but the lesson can veer to the right or the left or explode in the center, and those are the magic moments in class! I live for that, and I’ve learned through the years to let the veering happen. There was a time when I said “We’re gonna get through this lesson; we’re gonna get through every point in this lesson,” and by hook or by crook I got through everything I had planned on paper, but I’ve learned to let the lesson breathe and let it live through this group of students that is gonna be different every semester. Their needs and challenges are going to be different, and so I’ve learned to listen and pay attention to that.

It’s clear that you’re passionate about providing the experience of art to all ages. You’ve taught youth, young adults, college-age students and beyond.

I ran a lifelong learning program for mature adults; I’ve probably taught from Pre-K to mature adults!

Playwriting, theater courses. At Quinnipiac I’ve taught theater and First Year Experience (the experience of transitioning into academic life), and at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute I taught theater classes and was a co-teacher of a historical course on the Harlem Renaissance. I was only delivering the theater portion, but I wanted to design in the visual arts and the development of queer and gender perspectives throughout the Harlem Renaissance as well as the writings of the Renaissance and all of that, so this was a really, really wonderful course and they ate it up! I’d love to get the chance to do it again. It was very expansive; it could never be done by just one person.

And you’ve taught vocal music as well?

I taught a course on scat singing. It was more an experiential course as opposed to a music course. It was a course for middle school students that rendered an approach to jumping in to the experience, letting go enough to be able to sing scat music, to create as we go; scat lyrics that are completely improvised over either a music score or a traditional song. It was a very successful program at Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School that ran a few years. I had a master musician actually accompanying me in the class. He was the music expert, and I was the experiential leader—“Be brave; jump in the pool! You can do this!” I was the cheerleader. It was a good design and I haven’t seen anyone delivering a class like that, something I would also love to see continue to happen. The whole idea of improvisation: When does that start? I think that can start as early as and even earlier than middle school.

Were those students already being trained in vocal music at Betsy Ross, or were they first time learners?

Mostly students were experienced in vocal music. For some of them, the accompanist was their teacher. So we tried to tie the scat singing with some of the music they had already studied, with the notion that you can bounce off of whatever you already know and add a scat feature to it.

How would you compare working with students who have some artistic background with working with students who you’re introducing theater, or even younger students who are first experiencing performing arts?

Depending on the age group, sometimes there’s no difference. With younger kids, it’s all new to them. Each instructor has their own style, so even with students who have a lot of experience, they’re meeting you for the first time, and so your style has given them a new lens to look at some of the same material. I’m finding that they’re all being lifted and pushed forward, sometimes at the same rate.

Can you share what personal significance teaching theater to college students has in your life right now?

The importance that it has for me right now is the ability for different classes to open up perspectives of groups of people who were not so ready to get to know each other, to touch each other, to handle conflict in

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

Meet The World’s First Black Woman Cruise Ship Captain

by Derrick Lane, BlackDoctor.org

Beautiful destinations, lavish ships and incredible vacations usually make up the dayto-day cruise industry. But in that industry, women make up 18 to 20% of the workforce. That may seem like a high number, but it’s still a long way to go. Of the more than 300 passenger cruise ships worldwide, fewer than a dozen have woman captains and it’s still pretty rare to find women in the upper levels of the cruise industry, since they only account for 5.4% of officers.

But those statistics are changing thanks to Belinda Bennett, the world’s first black woman cruise ship captain. Bennett has worked for the small ship line Windstar Cruises for 14 years and sails the MSY Wind Star through the Caribbean in winter and Europe in summer. She recently won the U.K.’s prestigious Merchant Navy Medal for Meritorious Service. With International Women’s Day and Women’s

Wind Star Cruises Blog)(Photo credit: Shoppe Black)

History month just around the corner, we caught up with this trailblazing woman who is making history and helping create a sea change in her industry.

“I originally came from a small island called St. Helena, which is in the South Atlantic Ocean between South America and South Africa,” explains Bennett to Forbes. com. “[It’s] smack bang in the middle of the Atlantic, miles from anywhere. Growing up on a small island, from the age that I could walk I was in the water. I loved the ocean. It used to be that the only way off the island was by ship. So when I was 17, I took a job on the RMS St. Helena, the ship that supported the island. That’s when my adventures started.”

“Unfortunately, I had a rough start,” continues Bennett. “When I was training as a cadet, I sailed with chief officers who made me work harder than the other guys.

During your cadetship you’re starting out as a sailor, so you do every job that they

do. I had a chief officer, unfortunately, who made me work later than the sailors, so they would knock off for the day, and I would be left outside continuing to work until it got dark. It really was a make-orbreak-you time, and me being me, I refused to be broken.”

Every ship has a captain, but on larger percentage on the ships in the cruise industry captains are of the male gender. It has been the truth as old as time, men overpopulate the majority of the higher paying positions around the world and this positions has not been any different for as long as the cruise industry has existed. It seems that this old-fashioned way of thinking has wasn’t ready for Bennett–well, not at first.

“After working on a private yacht off of Monaco for over two years, I did a stint on the Isle of Man Steam Packet ferries. Then I went back to school for my masters. After that, I tried to go back into yachts, but I was

unsuccessful. The yachting industry wasn’t quite ready for me at that time. I remember being sat down by an agent in Antibes and being told that finding a job in the yachting industry would be very hard because of three things: 1) I had a higher education than most captains at the time; 2) I was a woman; 3) I was black. So I had to reevaluate my options, and Windstar, here I came.

I got a job with Windstar Cruises in 2005.”

Becoming a captain aboard one cruise ship does not happen overnight, it takes years of commitment towards one or several companies and experience. That’s why its so important to congratulate Bennett.

The acknowledgment that a woman can work as hard and sacrifice as much as one man aboard a cruise ship is a step forward to breaking away from those old-fashioned stereotypes which have been lingering throughout the history of the cruise ship industry.

Newsrooms Still Lack Women and Individuals of Color

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

With observances planned throughout March to commemorate Women’s History Month, a new report revealed that women are still mostly absent from newsrooms.

The Women’s Media Center’s 2019 report on the status of women in U.S. media shows that despite some gains, men still dominate in every part of news, entertainment and digital media.

“The media is in a state of great disruption, but despite all of the change, one thing remains the same: the role of women is significantly smaller than that of men in every part of news, entertainment and digital media,” Julie Burton, president of the Women’s Media Center (WMC), said in a news release.

Burton said the data in the report paints a stark picture.

“It is clear that a cultural, systemic shift is necessary if all parts of the U.S media are to achieve gender and racial parity and move toward a world where stories fully represent the voices and perspectives of diverse women,” she said.

“Research spotlighted in this report shows that diversity boosts corporate profits. When boardrooms, newsrooms, studios and tech companies fully reflect the faces, genders and myriad talents of our society, we’re all exceedingly better served,” Burton said.

The report titled, “The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2019,” is comprised of 94 studies, including original research by WMC and aggregated research from academia, industry and professional groups, labor unions, media watchdogs, newsrooms and other sources.

It includes several original WMC studies, including “Divided 2019: The Media Gender Gap,” an assessment of where

women stand as media writers, reporters, correspondents and anchors in the major news media platforms, including the prime-time broadcast news programs, print publications, wire services and online news sites.

The report noted that across all media platforms, men receive 63 percent of bylines and credits; women receive only 37 percent.

“Women have been fighting for greater parity and equality in the news media for decades,” said one of WMC’s co-chairs Maya Harris.

“This report shows that more work needs to be done to level the playing field. Women and our male allies will not rest until we see wholesale change,” Harris said.

Further, “when we watch the evening news, we’re not seeing an America that truly reflects all voices,” said Pat Mitchell, also a WMC co-chair.

“Too often, the voices we hear and the images we see are men’s. Men largely are reporting and telling the story even though women represent more than half the U.S. population,” Mitchell said.

The report is inclusive and also features WMC’s “The Status of Women of Color in the U.S. News Media 2019,” which offers a rare look at where women journalists of color are – and aren’t – in legacy print, radio, TV, and digital news.

That report revealed that women of color represent just 7.95 percent of U.S. print newsroom staff, 12.6 percent of local TV news staff, and 6.2 percent of local radio staff.

“Missing women of color in the newsrooms of this country is an injustice in itself, and an injustice to every American reader and viewer who is deprived of great stories and a full range of facts,” said WMC co-founder Gloria Steinem.

“Inclusiveness in the newsroom means inclusiveness in the news. Racism

and sexism put blinders on everyone,” Steinem said.

In an expanded section on tech, social media, gaming and engineering, “Status 2019” also spotlighted the growing threat online to women in media and the perils of failing to protect free and safe speech.

“As part of their day-to-day work, women journalists often face a torrent of harassment, denigration, and threats … and the point of this hostility is to silence women, most frequently women of color,” said Soraya Chemaly, director of WMC’s Speech Project.

“The onus continues to fall on women’s shoulders as individuals. Media companies have to develop institutional responses to these threats if they are serious about building inclusive organizations,” Chemaly said.

The report titled, “The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2019,” is comprised of 94 studies, including original research

by WMC and aggregated research from academia, industry and professional groups, labor unions, media watchdogs, newsrooms and other sources. (Photo iStockphoto / NNPA)

The 2018 Empowering women in Media, a networking and panel event that presented women of color in media sharing their stories with other women who are looking to break into the world of media/En la Escena/Kizzy Cox.

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Some of the findings in the report include: The American Society of News Editors’ latest tally found that women comprised 41.7 percent and people of color 22.6 percent of the overall workforce in those responding newsrooms.

Sports desks at 75 of the nation’s newspapers and online news sites earned a “B+” for racial diversity, a “D+” for gender and racial diversity, combined, and a sixth consecutive “F” for lack of gender equity.

Editors of the nation’s 135 most widely distributed newspapers are overwhelmingly male and White.

69 percent of news wire bylines are snagged by men, 31 percent by women; 63 percent of TV prime-time news broadcasts feature male anchors and correspondents; 37 percent feature women; 60 percent of online news is written by men, 40 percent by women; 59 percent of print news is written by men, 41 percent by women.

(Women’s Media Center)

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

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Part Two:

an inventive way… It really gives me joy to see at the end where they’ve come from, how far they’ve come. As they walk into my classroom they’re already adults, but they’re not so ready to reach across the table and even speak to each other, play with each other, and debate with each other, escalate in a safe way. It gives me joy to be able to carry people through those steps and to see them, in a healthy way, be able to interact way differently than they did in the beginning when they first walked into the room; again, it’s all about what happens in that space.

As you teach, what are you having students do to start the experience of interacting with each other and exploring how to express themselves?

In the beginning we take a good, long look at what happens before we speak. We don’t speak for several weeks, and we zoom in on what we’re actually doing: what is happening to expression and through gesture, what are you thinking about, what are you assuming and why are you assuming? And what can you glean from someone’s posture, or from someone who’s not attending to you? So we examine everything that’s happening before we speak, and then we start layering. Layer speech on top, layer grander gestures and expressions, and by the end we have a toolkit of things that we can use that actors and directors use to manipulate a situation. Theater is about manipulation: I want my audience to respond in a specific way, I want them to feel a specific way or not. What I do as a teacher and a director is manipulate through these tools. The tools that students walk away with, they can use on their own. They can use them if they’re going to deliver an address, if they’re going to have a public conversation, if they really want to emphasize specific points in whatever situation they find themselves in. A lot of my students are not theater majors, so the question becomes “why do you need this; what good is this going to be for you when you leave this class?” I add a specific emphasis on that as well as the intersectionality of theater with other industries.

In theater, you’re using these layers to build a believable self, and outside of theater you use them to realize and recognize how we communicate and express ourselves.

Absolutely, and how can you enhance your believability; how can you enhance your concern? You’re very concerned about something: how can you convey that to the room, how can you convey that one-on-one—to the person that might write you a check? (She laughs.)

What are some of your current inspirations?

Any performers or works?

Things are gonna pop into my head now and in 10 minutes, so bear with me! Who is inspiring me right now… anybody who is struggling through it in front of me. Anybody who is sharing what is hurting, what is hard to do, what they made a mistake with and are trying to rectify; anybody who is transparent about the struggle. I am inspired by that because it makes it so that I don’t feel so alone with my own struggles. And anybody who’s able to get out of their own head and see that it might also be an issue for someone else is being helpful to me, because they’re giving me something that I can share forward.

March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

African Landing Day and the 400th Landing Commemoration

By Calvin Pearson

On August 25, 1619, the first ship carrying enslaved Africans to the Colonial Colonies of English North America landed at Point Comfort (today’s Fort Monroe) in Hampton, Virginia. From that perilous landing, their presence has had a profound impact on the cultural manifest of America’s past and still impacts the social, economic and political disparities facing families of color today. In 2019 our nation and other countries around the world will collectively come together to commemorate the 400th Anniversary of this dreadful but historic event.

The first Africans did not arrive at Ellis Island, Plymouth Rock, or Jamestown, but arrived as captured human cargo on the high seas during the transatlantic slave trade. In August 1619, the English privateer ship the White Lion, landed at Point Comfort carrying the first 20 and odd Africans who had been

No, Solange Knowles Did Not Buy BlackPlanet But She Did Launch a

New Page! BlackNews.com

Nationwide — After a brief social media hiatus since October 2018, singer-songwriter Solange Knowles is back with a bang.

On February 27, she announced through her Instagram and Twitter posts the launching of her new own page on BlackPlanet, the popular Black online community and social media platform created back in 1999.

Solange’s new page currently includes links, GIFs, a looping futuristic video, as well as cryptic texts like: “When your body is all you have you best take care,” and “How much of ourselves do we leave at home and how much do we carry with us forever?”

The highlight of the page is Solange’s newly released images of herself wearing cowboy boots. The schedule of her live tour, which will begin in May, is also posted.

Moreover, the announcement about her BlackPlanet page came days after it was revealed that she will grace the Spring 2019 cover of i-D magazine.

Solange’s fans were excited about her comeback. Some even initially thought the recent announcement meant she had bought the iconic African-American social networking company. Regardless, a lot have already been anticipating over her upcoming projects.

For more details on Solange’s new BlackPlanet page, visit blackplanet.com/solange

captured from the slave ship San Juan Bautista in a fierce battle in the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico. In consort with the White Lion was another English privateer ship, the Treasurer, who also took enslaved Africans. This was the first time a privateer or pirate ship had unknowingly mistaken a Spanish galleon ship for a slave ship whose primary cargo was human Africans. The first enslaved Africans who were brought to Point Comfort were not immigrants, but their landing was one of the most significant events in our country’s history. The first generations of Africans brought to Virginia were captured from the villages of Ndongo, Kongo and Kabasa in the Angola region of Africa.

Those first enslaved Africans were skilled farmers, herders, blacksmiths and artisans.

They had the perfect skill set needed for the colonies to survive. Along with their culture, they also brought many ideas and innovations including floodways, crop cultivation, music and dance. It was their unbridled spirit and labor that helped build Hampton, Fort Monroe, America, and the White House, but they toiled through many generations of unpaid bond- age servitude, civil unrest, and the march for civil rights, before their descendants became legal citizens.

Those first twenty and odd enslaved Africans who arrived at Point Comfort marked the beginning of 246 years of unpaid servitude. For the first two generations from 1619 until 1661 some of the enslaved Africans were granted their freedom and in some cases were able to purchase the freedom of their relatives, start their own homesteads, and employ indentured servants. Yet others were held in bondage for life or until 1661 when Virginia established a law legalizing lifelong servitude of all un-free Africans.

Since 1994, Calvin Pearson, Founder, and members of Project 1619 Inc. have been the catalyst to change the narrative of the landing of the first Africans at Point Comfort in Colonial North America. In 2008, they created African Landing Day in the City of Hampton to commemorate the landing of the first Africans in Virginia at Point Comfort. They have been the champions for exposing and promoting the true history of our ancestors. Slavery is an indelible stain on America’s soul. Slavery is the biggest human transgression perpetrated by one human being on another. And through it all their descendents have endured with dignity the cruelest barbaric acts of en-

18

The Above Sign was installed by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources at the Landing Site at Fort Monroe.

slavement. They have endured through the Jim Crow era, segregation, and the disparity of basic human rights. The chains of slavery have now become the unfair prison sentences for minor crimes where other ethnic groups receive less or no prison time. The chains of slavery have now become racial profiling where you can get stopped merely because the color of your skin or arrested for a crime you did not commit. The chains of slavery are now the disparity of young brown and black people not being able to get a quality education or a job because of the socioeconomic, financial conditions of their living environment. Our people are being moved out of urban communities because of gentrification and may never return. Our young girls are being captured and forced into human trafficking and the sex slave industry. Our young people are hooked on crack; heroin and opioids as a way to deal with the deck of cards they have been dealt. When will it all end?

Two of the original Africans who arrived on the White Lion in 1619 at Point Comfort were Antony and Isabella. In January 1625, according to the Virginia census, those two Africans, Isabella, Antonio and their son William were living in present day Hampton in Capt. William Tucker’s home, who was the commander at Point Comfort (today’s Fort Monroe). Their son William is the first documented African child born in English North America. He was baptized on January 4, 1624.

Capturing over 30 million Africans from West and East Africa, and killing millions more in battle, removed child bearing young women and African boys and men, that changed the dynamics of the African family forever.

Project 1619 invites you to come to Hampton, Virginia on August 23-25, 2019 to be a witness to the 400th Anniversary Commemoration. Walk on the hallowed grounds of your ancestors. Present day Fort Monroe in Hampton is ground zero for the landing of the first enslaved Africans. This is where the story of Africans in America began. On that fateful day on Tuesday August 25, 1619 two Africans, Isabella and Antony, captured from Angola, stepped off an English privateer on the land at Point Comfort to start a legacy and a 400 year odyssey to create a new home for generations of future descendants. Come to Hampton and be a part of history. For more information go to www.project1619.org.

Calvin Pearson, Project 1619 Founder said “Transatlantic slave trade, just like the systematic elimination of the Native American Indian in the United States, and the Holocaust in Germany, are human tragedies that changed the world. We can not change history or the impact that it had on past generations.

But we should always recognize and learn from the perils and transgressions of mankind’s inhumanity against one another.

This article originally appeared in the Chicago Crusader.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

NEW HAVEN’S GRASSROOTS COMMUNITY RADIO STATION! www.newhavenindependent.org

JOE UGLY IN THE MORNING Weekdays 6-9 a.m.

THE TOM FICKLIN SHOW Mondays 10 a.m.

MAYOR MONDAY!

MERCY QUAYE

Mondays 11 a.m.

Mondays 1 p.m.

“THE SHOW”

“DJ REL”

MICHELLE TURNER Tuesdays 9 a.m.

“WERK IT OUT”

ELVERT EDEN Tuesdays at 2 p.m.

MORNINGS WITH MUBARAKAH

“JAZZ HAVEN”

Wednesdays 9 a.m.

Wednesdays 2 p.m.

STANLEY WELCH

“TALK-SIP”

LOVEBABZ LOVETALK

Thursdays 1 p.m.

Mondays-Fridays 9 a.m.

ALISA BOWENSMERCADO

FRIDAY PUNDITS Fridays 11 a.m.

19

THE INNER-CITY INNER-CITY NEWS March 2019 - March 2019 NEWS- July 27,06, 2016 - August 02, 12, 2016

Dispatcher

PVC FENCE PRODUCTION NOTICE

Galasso Materials is seeking a motivated, organized, detail-oriented candiLarge CT Fence Company looking for an individual for our PVC date to join its truck dispatch office. Responsibilities include order entry Fence Production Shop. Experience preferred but will train the and truck ticketing in a fast paced materials manufacturing and contracting right person. Must be familiar with carpentry hand & power tools company. You will have daily interaction with employees and customers and be able to read a CAD drawing and tape measure. Use of CNC as numerous truckloads of material cross our scales daily. We are willing Router machine a plus but not required, will train the right person. to train the right individual that has a great attitude. NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE. Authority, Reply to Hiring Manager, PO Box 1776, East Granby, CT 06026.

HOME on behalf of Columbus and the New Haven Housing This is an INC, in-shop production position.House Duties include building EOE/M/F/D/V. is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this devel-

VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE

fence panels, posts, gates and more. Must have a valid CT driver’s opment 108 Frank Street, New Haven.

Maximum income limitations aplicense & belocated able toatobtain a Drivers Medical Card. Must be able ply. Pre-applications will test. be available from resume 9AM TOto5PM beginning Monday Ju;y to pass a physical and drug Please email pking@ atlasoutdoor.com.

AA/EOE-MF 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have

DELIVERY PERSON NEEDED

been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon request by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed preCT fence guardrail con-Orange Street, Third applications must be returnedLarge to HOME INC’s&offices at 171 tractor looking for a shop welder/helper. Duties include but are Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

Welder/Helper:

Part Time Delivery Needed One/Two Day a Week,

not limited to cutting & notching pipe to build gates, and fabbing, plating posts, truck & trailer repairs. Ability to mig weld steel and aluminum is a plus. Some road work may be required. All necessary equipment provided. Must have a valid CT driver’s license and be able to get a DOT medical card. Required to pass a physical and VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES drug test. Medical, vacation & other benefits included. Starting pay @ $17.00 per hour. Please email resume to pking@atlasoutdoor.

HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está com AA/EOE-MF

NOTICIA

Must Have your Own Vehicle

APPLY TODAY

If Interested call

(203) 387-0354

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 Bridge Repair Crew Openings máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 Operators, Foreman M/F. Drivers CDL,Laborers, julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) Welders, Concrete Work en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición Accounting Department has two immediate openings for full llamando a860-664-8042, HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse Fax 860-664-9175 time Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable professionals a lasmichelle@occllc.com oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 .

EOE 10 Hour OSHA in a fast-paced office environment. Must be highly organized, Females and Minorities encouraged to apply possess good computer skills, be detail oriented, and able to manage multiple projects. Benefits include health, dental & LTD insurance plus 401(k). Send resume to: Human Resource Administrative Assistant Dept. P O Box 388, Guilford CT 06437.

Listing: Accounting

Must have DOT Construction Exp. Involves traveling to Job Site for record keeping. Reliable transportation a must. NO PHONE CALLS EMAIL RESUME TO michelle@occllc.com 242-258 Fairmont Ave EOE/AA Females and Minorities are encouraged to apply

NEW HAVEN

EMPLOYMENT SPECIALIST - (P/T)

Assist individuals receiving services in identifying and making choices about their social, vocation and personal goals. Duties include case management, job development/placement/retention services and job support as needed. Requires use of personal vehicle. B.A. in a related field; plus 2 yrs’ related experience or equivalent combination of education and experience. Pay rate $16.61/hr.

Apply to: GWSNE, 432 Washington Ave., North Haven, CT 06473/Fax (203) 495-6108/ hr@goodwillsne.org EOE/AA - M/F/D/V

SHOP InvitationCARPENTRY to Bid: Large CT Fence Company looking for a full-time carpenter for our Wood Fence Production nd Notice 2 The GUILFORD HOUSING AUTHORITY Shop. Experience preferred but will train the right person. Must be familiar with carpentry ********An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer**********

2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 levelis, currently 1BA accepting applications for its efficiency and one hand & power tools and be able to read a CAD drawing and tape measure. This is an inbedroom apartments at Guilford Court and Boston Terrace shop production position. Duties include mortising & drill wood posts for fence panels, All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 Old Saybrook, CT in Guilford, CT. Applicants must be age 62 and over or on building fence panels gates & more. Must have a valid CT driver’s license and be able to highways, nearConnecticut bus stop & shopping center State of (4 Buildings, 17 Units) 100% social security or federal disability and over the age obtain a Drivers Medical Card. Must be able to pass a physical and drug test. Please email Pet under 40lbOffice allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258 resume to pking@atlasoutdoor.com.

AA/EOE-MF of Policy Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project of 18. Applications maybe obtained by calling the applicaand Management tion line at 203-453-6262, ext. 107. Applications will be acCT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s NewatConstruction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Castcepted until May 30, 2019 3:00 p.m. Credit, police, and Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates landlord checks are procured by the authority.

Smoke free in-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, in response to the Church’s Ministry needs.

The cost is $125.

Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:30The State of Connecticut, Office of 3:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. Request for Qualifications housing.

Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, (203) 996-4517and Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, Pastor of Pitts Chapel Policy Management isD.D. recruiting for U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster EQUAL OPPORTUNITY HOUSING Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Elm City Communities

Architectural and Engineering Services

an Information Technology Analyst 1 (confidential) position.

St. New Haven, CT

This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

Housing Authority City of New Haven d/b/a Elm city Communities is currently seek-

ing Qualifications for Architectural and Engineering Services A complete copy of the Further information regarding the duties, Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 requirement may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://neeligibility requirements and application ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT - Portland Anticipated Start: whavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway August 15, 2016 beginning on Wednesday , FebruSealed bids are invited by the HousingisAuthority of the Town of Seymour instructions for this position available Project documents available via ftp link below: ary 20, 2019at 3:00 PM Assistant for data entry, filing, reception, phones, and corporate staff supuntil 3:00 pm on Tuesday,at: August 2, 2016 at its office at Administrative 28 Smith Street, port. Working knowledge of Haz. Wastehttp://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage Regs., Manifests, AP & billing. OSHA certification a +.

Forward Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement atresumes the to RED Technologies, LLC Fax 860-218-2433; or Email to HR@redtechllc.com RED Technologies, LLC is an EOE. https://www.jobapscloud.com/ Elm City Communities Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com CT/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1= HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses 190207&R2=7611CN&R3=001 Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483Request for Proposals A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28Firefi Smithghter Town of Greenwich Environmental Services AA/EEO EMPLOYER Street Seymour, CTofatConnecticut 10:00 am, on is Wednesday, The State an equal July 20, 2016.

Do You Want A Job That Makes A Difference?

opportunity/affirmative action employer Become A Town of Greenwich Firefighter.

Bidding are available the fromapplications the Seymour Housing Of-information and apply online visit www.governand documents strongly encourages To Authority view detailed women, and persons fice, 28 of Smith Street,minorities, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579. mentjobs.com/careers/greenwichct with disabilities.

Current Starting Salary: $60,910. The Town of Greenwich is dedicated to Diversity & Equal Opportunity Employment; Town of

The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to 101 Field Point Rd, Greenwich, CT, (203)861Greenwich, HR Dept., reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any 20 informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the Housing Authority.

Housing Authority City of New Haven d/b/a Elm city Communities is currently seeking Proposals for Environmental Services A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on Wednesday , February 20, 2019at 3:00 PM

NEWS- July 27,062016 - August THE INNER-CITY INNER-CITY NEWS March , 2019 - March 2019 02, 12, 2016

Heavy Equipment Operator & Skilled Laborer

Listing: Accounting

ELECTRICIAN

Our growing construction company currently has 2 open positions available.

All work is 1st shift and we work only in the State of Connecticut.

Accounting Department has an immediate opening in Accounts Payable. This full time position in a fast-paced office environment could be an excellent entry to an Accounting career. Requires good computer and organizational skills, attention to detail, and multi-tasking. Benefits include health, dental & LTD insurance plus 401(k). Send resume to: Human Resource Dept. P O Box 388, Guilford CT 06437. ********An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer**********

– Telecommunications company looking for low voltage cable installer with a C or T license, specializing in fusion/splicing, testing and termination. Also must be familiar with all aspects of indoor & outdoor cable installation, aerial bucket work, pole work, messenger, lashing, manhole & underground installation. Good salary with full benefits. Fax resume to 860-282-0424 or mail to Fibre Optic Plus, LLC 585 Nutmeg Road North, South Windsor, CT 06074 Attn: Don Ballsieper Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

NOTICE

HeavyHOUSING Equipment PREOperator VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE Ideal candidate will have experience operating all types of heavy equipment on large municipal construction jobsites. AHouse minimum 3 years’ experience required.

HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus andofthe New Haven Housing Authority, Skilled Construction Laborer is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this develIn needlocated of a skilled construction laborer has Maximum experienceincome prepping, forming,apopment at 108 Frank Street, Newwho Haven. limitations pouring and finishing sidewalks.

Additional skills Monday a plus. Ju;y ply. Pre-applications will beconcrete available from 9AM TO 5PM labor beginning Both positions OSHA 10pre-applications Certificate (Hazwoper Certificate a plus).

25, 2016 andrequire ending current when sufficient (approximately 100) have Positions require taking and of passing test / background check.

Apply been received at the offices HOMEa drug INC. Applications will be mailied uponbyreemailing yourHOME resumeINC to TradeMarkLLC@att.net or faxhours. to 860-314-1428. quest by calling at 203-562-4663 during those Completed preWomen & Minority applicants are encouraged to apply. Street, Third applications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange An Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity Employer

Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

NOTICIA BRISTOL HOUSING AUTHORITY Request for Proposal for Construction Manager – at Risk 3:00House p.m.,yFriday, March 2019 Authority, está HOME INC, Responses en nombre de la Due Columbus de la New Haven 1,Housing

VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES

Bristol pre-solicitudes Housing Authority (“BHA”)y is seeking a qualified firm to serve as desarrollo Construc The aceptando para estudios apartamentos de un dormitorio en este

tion Manager proposed rehabilitation of Se D.J.aplican Komanetsky Estatesde(the “Projubicado en atla Risk callefor 109itsFrank Street, New Haven. limitaciones ingresos ect”).

BHALas is requesting a “Statement of Qualifications to Request for máximos. pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5and p.m.Response comenzando Martes 25 Proposal” from interested parties for the Project. The Project is anticipated to be funded julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) primarily with financing from the State of Connecticut Department of Housing (“DOH”), en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority (“CHFA”) and BHA. Prior successful experillamando a HOME INC aland 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán ence working with DOHCHFA-funded affordable housing developments of remitirse this scale a las oficinas HOME en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 . is mandatory to de qualify forINC consideration for the Project.

A full copy of the Request for Proposal and access to drawings are available by contacting Carl Johnson, Dir. of Capital Funds at (860) 585-2028 or e-mail cjohnson@bristolhousing. org.

The Bristol Housing Authority is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer

NEW ofHAVEN The Housing Authority the City of Bridgeport 242-258 Fairmont Ave

Invitation Bid (IFB) 2BR Townhouse, 1.5for BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA

Renovation for UFAS Compliance of 58 Units at Fireside

All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 Solicitation highways, nearNumber: bus stop &119-PD-19-S shopping center Pet under 40lb allowed.

Interested parties contact @ 860-985-8258 The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport d/b/a Park CityMaria Communities (PCC) is request-

ing sealed bids for Renovation for UFAS Compliance of 58 Units at Fireside. A complete set of the plans and technical specifications will be available on March 4, 2019. To obtain a copy of the CT. Unified you Deacon’s pleasedto to offer a Deacon’s solicitation mustAssociation send yourisrequest bids@parkcitycommunities.org, please reference soCertificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates licitation number title on the subject line.cost A MANDATORY pre-bid conference will be1:30held in response to theand Church’s Ministry needs. The is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 at 3:30 730 Contact: PalisadeChairman, Ave, Bridgeport, 06608M.S., on B.S. March 13, 2019, 2018 @ 10:00 a.m., submitting Deacon JoeCT J. Davis, (203) Host,without General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor U.F.W.B.ofChurch 64 Brewster a bid for996-4517 the project attending conference is not of inPitts the Chapel best interest the Offeror.

Additional St. Newquestions Haven, CTshould be emailed only to bids@parkcitycommunities.org no later than March 28, 2019 @ 3:00 p.m. Answers to all the questions will be posted on PCC’s Website: www.parkcitycommunities.org. All bids must be received by mailed or hand delivered by April 4, 2019 @ 2:00 PM, to Ms. Caroline Sanchez, Director of Procurement, 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604, at which time and place all bids will be publicly opened and read aloud. No bids will be accepted after the designated time.

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

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 Manager.

Seymour. is seeking to fill the position of Development

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven

A pre-bidrefer conference willwebsite be held at for the Housing Office 28 Smith Please to our details:Authority http://www.cfgnh.

Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016. org/About/ContactUs/EmploymentOpportunities.aspx. EOE. Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Office, 28 Electronic Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203)No 888-4579. submissions only. phone calls 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 Greater New Haven O.I.C. Inc., A non-profit community organization, is seeking to hire a Receptionist. The part-time position (9-1pm) Monday to Friday requires good communication skills and basic computer skills. This position will pay $11.50 per hour.

To apply, please e-mail your resume to: tgnhoic@gmail.com Your resume must be received prior to 5pm on March 15th.

(TGNHOIC) is located at 333 Valley Street in New Haven.

(TGNHOIC) is an Equal Opportunity Employer

CITY OF NEW HAVEN BID NOTICE Sealed bids to purchase the following, will be accepted at https:// newhavenct.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=loginfor the City of New Haven Bureau of Purchases, Room 301, 200 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06510 until 3:00 P.M., local time, on April 10, 2019, at which time they will be publicly opened and read aloud in the Bureau of Purchases, Room 301, 200 Orange Street, New Haven, Connecticut. Dixwell Community House, Bid No.21618. A performance bond covering 100% of the contract price is required. A bid bond of 5% is also required. This project is paid in part by State Funds provided by the Connecticut State Department of Economic and Community Development as well as the Connecticut State Lito Prequalification Bid: brary. Vendor must comply with DASInvitation Contractor nd requirements. The City of New Haven is2 anNotice Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer. Minority/Women’s Business Enterprises are

Project Manager Environmental Remediation Division 3-5 years exp. and Bachelor’s Degree, 40-Hr. Hazwoper Training Req. Forward resumes to RED Technologies, LLC, 10 Northwood Dr., Bloomfield, CT 06002;

Fax 860.218.2433; or Email to HR@redtechllc.com

RED Technologies, LLC is an EOE.

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE Old Saybrook, CT

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc

seeks: Construction Equipment Mechanic preferably experienced in Reclaiming and Road Milling Equipment. We offer factory training on equipment we operate. Location: Bloomfield CT We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits Contact: Dan Peterson Phone: 860- 243-2300 email: dpeterson@garrityasphalt.com

encouraged to apply. Mandatory Pre-Bid Meeting: March 12th (4 Buildings, 17 Units) and March 21st 2109 at 10:00 A.M. TaxConference Exempt & Not Prevailing Wagefloor.

Rate Project 200 Orange Street, Room, G2, Ground

Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc

seeks: Reclaimer Operators and Milling Operators with current licensing and clean driving record, be willing to travel throughout the Northeast & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits Contact: Rick Tousignant Phone: 860- 243-2300 Email: rick.tousignant@garrityasphalt.com Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer

New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Castin-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Union Company seeks: Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Tractor Trailer Driver for Heavy & Highway ConMechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.struction Equipment. Must have a CDL License, This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract complianceclean requirements. driving record, capable of operating heavy equipment; be willing to travel throughout the

Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 Northeast & NY. Attention Drivers Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits We have concrete mixer and triaxle dump driver openings Project documents available via ftp link below: Contact Dana at 860-243-2300.

Minimum 2 years experience. http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage Email: dana.briere@garrityasphalt.com .

Must have valid CDL with clean driving record.

Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Excellent pay and benefits.

Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com Apply M-F from at S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses HCC encourages the participation of all9-4 Veteran, 24 Industrial DriveCompany, Waterford, CT Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 Haynes Construction 32 Progress Youth AA/EEO EMPLOYER

860-444-9600

Applications available at: www.kobyluckinc.com An Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer

21

Town of Bloomfield

& Family Program Assistant Part Time $11.87 hourly For Details go to www.bloomfieldct.gov Pre-employment drug testing AA/EOE Deadline to apply 3/7/19

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

HIV: Here’s How Your Words Can Help Stop Stigma places the person before the medical condition and does assign HIV to a person’s identity. So instead of saying “the HIVpositive woman,” say, “the woman living with HIV.” It’s important to recognize that phrases that seem harmless may actually be outdated, off-putting or downright derogatory. Whatever level of stigma such words and phrases bring, they should all be muted from our lips.

by LaTroya Hester, NAATPN, BlackDoctor.org

A national epidemic like HIV should make you look up and pay attention. Unfortunately, many people are looking everywhere except where they should. They are looking with judgment at others, they are looking with pity at statistics, and they are even looking with paranoia over their shoulders.

But one of the ugly monsters that contribute to the rise in HIV is the oppressive, stigmatizing language we use to talk about the people living with it. And like many who unknowingly sustain oppression and racism in our culture, when it comes to HIV and stigma, we rarely look where we should: in the mirror.

Even if your HIV status is negative or undetectable, you have a responsibility to eliminate stigma. According to the Centers for Disease Control, negative attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people liv-

The below language-fixes are simple but powerful tools in combatting stigma:

ing with HIV can make them less likely to get tested or seek treatment. This is because stigma causes isolation, feelings of shame and fear of disclosing one’s status. Hence, stigma is a contributor to the overall rise or stagnation in HIV diagnoses. That should set off all of our alarm bells.

When you consider that African Americans account for 44% of HIV diagnosis, we should all rush to the frontlines to fight stigma in all forms. Misconceptions and fear about HIV—stigma—are often perpetuated in everyday conversations.

The language we use can create stigma

by reinforcing negative stereotypes. Yet language can also disrupt stigma by affirming those living with HIV. Best said by the National Black Justice Coalition, words can facilitate healing.

An easy start to cleaning up our mouths is employing people-first language. This

Remember, this is just your starter kit.

The National Association of LGTBQ Journalists, the National Black Justice Coalition and the CDC’s Let’s Stop HIV Together resources have published language and style guides to help you dig a little deeper to fight stigma – starting with your tongue.

National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is on March 10.

Black Women in America and Cervical Cancer Prevention

By Dr. Anisa Shomo, Director of Family Medicine Scholars at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio and Health Columnist for the NNPA. Many people may believe that cervical cancer is a problem of the past. Prior to the 1940s, it was a major cause of death of women of childbearing age. According to the National Institute of Health, invasive cervical cancer is now considered to be the 14th cause of cancer deaths in women in the US. That accounts for approximately 4,000 deaths of women each year.

African American women are twice as likely as Caucasian women to be diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer and 2-3 times more likely to die from this diagnosis. Before we examine why this health disparity exists, let’s explore the historical gains that lead to the reduction of invasive cervical cancer diagnosis and deaths.

Before the 1940s, it was difficult to diagnose cervical cancer unless accompanied by significant symptoms such as bleeding, pain, and nausea were occurring, which caused women to present in the later stages.

In 1943, Dr. George Papanicolau published a paper on his work to identify cervical changes as normal or cancerous via a microscope before invasive cancer occurred in an article titled “Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer on Vaginal Smear.”

In 1954, Dr. Papanicolau published his atlas for labs to learn how to identify cervical cancer using his method and this is now called a Papanicolau test or “Pap” smear.

We now use this to screen for cervical can-

cer and catch it in its early stages. Cervical cancer caught in the early stages can be removed with very minor surgeries and in many cases, hysterectomy can be avoided.

In the 1970s, the HPV virus was being extensively researched as a possible link to cervical cancer. In 1984 Dr. Harald zur Hausen discovered that HPV 16 and 18 were major causes of cervical cancer. He later won a Nobel Prize in Science for this discovery. In the 1990s, Dr. Lowy and Schiller began working to create an HPV vaccine that could help prevent cervical cancer altogether. In 2006 the FDA approved the first HPV vaccines.

We now use the HPV vaccine to help prevent cervical cancer in the first place.

This is especially important internationally since currently 500,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year and 275,000 of them will die of their disease due to low access to screening and treatment.

Cervical cancer has had such great advancements in treatment and diagnosis in the United States that even one death from this disease could be considered a failure of the system. But an estimated 700 African American women still die of cervical cancer each year. The three main reasons are: later stage at diagnosis, less aggressive treatment, and more barriers to care once diagnosed.

One reason cited for lack of timely screening is confusion of Pap smear with a pelvic exam causing a person to think that they have already been screened, although they may have had this exam for a different reason. Many African American women do not receive treatment due to comorbid conditions, advanced cancer, or refusal to be treated. In 2016, Nardi et al detailed some of the findings of multiple studies that indicate that lack of knowledge about cervical cancer may be the largest barrier to screen-

ing and treatment of cervical cancer in African American women.

Many women do not know that a Pap smear is a cervical cancer screening and do not realize that HPV is a known risk factor. They also may believe that if they are no longer sexually active, they no longer need to be screened which may contribute to presenting with cervical cancer in the later stage. There was also discussion that women feared hysterectomy would be needed and they did not desire to have this performed so they avoided screening.

In 2012, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology drastically changed the guidelines for cervical cancer screening. As of September 2017, the guidelines are: Screening starting at age 21 with a Pap smear Screening is now every 3-5 years with a Pap Smear and depending on age, HPV testing HPV testing is recommended to start at age 30 but many physicians perform it at ages 21-29 with Pap smear These changes have caused further confusion about the importance of cervical cancer and when a person’s next pap smear is due. This change occurred due to research demonstrating that yearly Pap smears were not better at decreasing cancer rates than when performed every 3 years. There was also concern about damaging the cervix with unnecessary procedures if screening too often.

The HPV vaccine has been FDA approved since 2006. It is currently recommended for use in all genders aged 11-26 and it was most recently approved to be extended for use up to age 45. The vaccine has been shown to be effective in preventing an estimated 90% of HPV related cancers.

In 2015, the CDC studied the percent of women aged 19-26 who received at least

22

1 dose of the vaccine and it was found that African American women were 10% less likely to have started that vaccine.

Despite the many advances in cervical cancer screening, treatment, and prevention, African Americans women are more likely to be diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer and death as a result of late diagnosis. Increased knowledge about the purpose of a Pap smear and how often it is needed, the new treatments available that may prevent need for hysterectomy, and the purpose of the HPV vaccine may help reduce this health disparity in the future.

For Black American women receiving

updated information about how to prevent cervical cancer is a matter of life or death.

If our Black families and communities are made more aware of the advantages of early detection and diagnosis concerning cervical cancer, the current disproportionate mortality rates for Black women with this health problem in America will be dramatically reduced.

Dr. Anisa Shomo is the Director of Family Medicine Scholars at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio and is a health columnist for the NNPA. She can be reached at drshomoknows@gmail.com

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

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ConnecticuT Facts: 12% of the CT population is Black, yet 41% of new HIV cases are too.

African American women are highest among all women getting infected with HIV “If current HIV diagnoses rates persist, about 1 in 2 black men who have sex with men in the United States will be diagnosed with HIV during their lifetime” -CDC Things You Can Do: Get a FREE HIV TEST! Use Condoms!

Take PrEP pill daily to PREVENT INFECTION!

New HIV cases are mostly people in their 20’s

For More Information

PositivePreventionCt.org 23

THE INNER-CITY NEWS -

March 06, 2019 - March 12, 2019

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