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NEWS -July 02, 2020 2016 THEINNER-CITY INNER-CITY NEWS July27, 15,2016 2020- August - July 21,

Financial JusticeCould a Key FocusResult at 2016 NAACP Convention Wells Fargo Commitment Potentially in Billions for Small Businesses New Haven, Bridgeport

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Volume 27 . No. 2398 Volume 21 No. 2194

Malloy Malloy To To Dems: Dems:

“DMC” Ninth Square Caribbean

Ignore Ignore“Tough “ToughOn OnCrime” Crime”

Keeps Takeout Coming

Color Struck?

Snow in July?

Why We Put Up The Sign

ONRanks New Ice TheFOLLOW Beef VP Rose US Through 1

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

For A Grassroots Politician, A Grassroots Arts Assist

Lucy Gellman, Editor, The ARTS Paper, www.newhavenarts.org

The cartoon begs a viewer to come closer. A man lifts his hands to his chest, frozen momentarily in time. Beside him, a young woman cocks her head, and raises her hands to her shoulders. They’re deep into the history of Juneteenth. He’s just gotten to the fact that chattel slavery didn’t officially end until 1865—two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation—when she cuts in.

“But why did anyone care?” she asks.

“Because real freedom means that all of us are free!” he answers.

The man pictured is Justin Farmer, a member of Hamden’s Legislative Council who is running to represent Hamden, Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethany, Naugatuck, Derby, and Woodbridge in the Connecticut State Senate (“instead of gerrymandered, I say diverse,” he joked about the district). In his grassroots bid for state office, he has received an unexpected creative assist: young artists who are lending their skills to his political fight.

Farmer faces Democrat Jorge Cabrera in the Aug. 11 Democratic primary. The seat is currently occupied by State Sen. George Logan, a Republican who grew up in New Haven and now lives in Ansonia.

Farmer on July 4, at a march for Black liberation that travelled from the New Haven Green to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, and then on to the New Haven Police Department headquarters at 1 Union Ave. Lucy Gellman Photo.

“I think it’s another way for people to engage and be part of the political process,” Farmer said in a recent phone call. “We’re trying to show an outside perspective.

What’s more grassroots than having community members submit their art? If you hear me speak at a rally, at a protest, at an event … I want to know how you see our campaign. These images have been amazing and inspiring to me.”

The idea came from Farmer and 18-yearold Mariam Khan, a first-time voter who is working as Farmer’s deputy campaign manager and chief communications specialist. Earlier this year, Khan put out a call on Instagram for artists to share work related to the campaign. As the leader of Connecticut PERIOD, which has been distributing free menstrual products to people during COVID-19, she’s gotten used to using social media to get the word out.

But this was new territory, made more complicated by the limits of COVID-19 in an election year. Farmer’s campaign office is a Slack channel, rather than a storefront or even his home. The campaign has been running weekly phone banking on Zoom. His Instagram account, which has a couple thousand followers, is some-

times the fastest way to get in touch with him.

It’s a strategy that makes sense: his pitch is often tailored to young voters. At 25, Farmer is the oldest person working on his campaign.

Then submissions started rolling in. Almost all of them came from young, queer artists of color, first-time voters who had seen Farmer’s policy platform and gotten excited reading his stances on LGBTQ+ issues, reproductive rights, mass incarceration, public transit and the Green New Deal. Others had heard him speak at rallies—for the environment, for Black Lives Matter, for an end to police brutality—and started imagining designs while they were still in the streets.

Like his campaign logo—a blue-andwhite profile of Farmer, set against two seafoam green bars—almost all of the art features Farmer’s signature look: a striped tie, wide, angular glasses and noise-canceling headphones to help him cope with Tourette Syndrome.

“This is really a community campaign,” Khan said. “We could get people to make official graphics, but when you have a community of so many young, local artists—artists of color, LGBTQ artists, artists who were doing this work already— giving them this platform for their work and showing that this is a campaign by people for people is incredibly important.”

Alexis Chang and Siobhan Ekeh lead marchers down Whitney Avenue on July 4. Farmer later spoke at the same march.

Lucy Gellman Photo.

One of those artists was Siobhan Ekeh, a rising senior at Jonathan Law High School and the Educational Center for the Arts who saw Farmer speak at a number of rallies and marches, and has since become a budding political organizer herself. In June, she designed a five-part cartoon around prison abolition, Black history, and Black and queer liberation that dropped on Juneteenth.

While the images are meant to pull from Farmer’s platform, the designs are completely her own. She said she lives by Toni Cade Bambara’s advice that “the role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.” It’s her motto for most work projects too.

“The infrastructure is already there,” she said in a recent Zoom call. “The ideas are already there. What art does is it grabs people, and makes them think about it in a different way. Or it makes people interested in things they otherwise wouldn’t be interested in. It’s kind of a sneaky medium for taking in information.”

“That’s the role of artists,” she added.

“To change the way people think.”

Last month, Windsor-based graphic designer Kayla Kelly also jumped onboard, just as Farmer was putting together his platform for Black liberation. A rising sophomore at American University, Kelly had already been designing “Politics 101”

graphics for her own Instagram followers as a teaching tool.

In a series of weeks, she has designed infographics for both Black and LGBTQ+ liberation for Farmer’s team. In the first set of images, three fists punch the air, steady and resilient. In a series of panels that follow, graphics accompany text that outlines defunding the police, advocating for Black queer people and Black women, ending residential segregation, closing the opportunity gap, and recognizing health disparities that include environmental racism.

In the second, which went live on the last day of Pride Month, Kelly has come back with a brighter, punchier palette. Among rainbow-colored bands, smiling families

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with their kids, transgender athletes and blue-and-pink pride flags the size of postit notes are calls to end disproportionate LGBTQ+ youth homelessness, stop legal and verbal attacks on trans athletes, and improving access to affordable, stigmafree healthcare.

“I feel like nowadays, academic language can be very limiting for those who want to expand on their language about politics,” she said in a Zoom call. “Politics can seem like a very daunting subject to get into. With these infographics that I create, these graphics, it’s more digestible for folks to absorb. I guess that’s my strategy.”

She is also drawn to Farmer on a personal level: she is a Black woman with a

speech impediment, and has been moved watching him speak so openly about Tourette Syndrome—and about liberation for all communities. While she is outside of his district, she does plan on voting in the August primary, which comes just days after her 18th birthday.

“He wants to actually be involved with marginalized communities, and that speaks volumes to me,” she said. “With these politicians nowadays, it feels so performative. But with Justin, he actually is a member of those communities. It feels like an old friend trying to run for state senator. That’s beautiful to me. I don’t feel that he’s trying to do it for votes or clout. It feels very genuine to me.”

Farmer is also getting an assist from artist Addy Twohill, a rising senior at Hamden High School and aspiring lawyer who met him last year, when he spoke to her government class. After hearing him speak, Twohill found out more about Farmer, including his hours of advocacy for students and parents as the town cut millions of dollars to the Hamden Public Schools.

“What stood out to me is he isn’t trying to please people,” she said. “He’s not gonna do this middle of the road stuff to get voters. He stands for what he stands for, and he stands for it proudly.”

In an image that she submitted in June (pictured at left), close to the end of Pride Month, Farmer appears in a white shirt, shoulders squared against a white background. Everything from the neck up is rendered in bright, kaleidoscopic color.

The headphones are two tones of brilliant blue. Farmer opens his mouth: it seems like a laugh slips out.

“To me, the most important thing about any piece of art is how it can make people feel,” she said. “And then you can hit them with the articles, and the quotes, and the policies and the platforms.”

Going forward, Khan said she and Farmer are still interested in hearing from new artists. With four weeks to go before the primary, the campaign is focusing on talking to and registering voters, and getting absentee ballots to those who cannot be at the polls, for reasons that range from work to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It really gives me hope that there’s a future in art, and art in politics,” she said.

“A lot of the work we’re doing is so, so heavy. We’re talking about prison gerrymandering. We’re talking about the Black Lives Matter movement. There’s so much trauma and pain attached to that.

And I think that art is one of those forms where it’s just about the emotion, instead of arguing with someone. That artwork is there for you to put out without any question.”

To find more about the artists working for JustinForCT, follow the campaign on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. All of the artists and their respective handles are listed there.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

How LEAP Salvaged Summer

by MAYA MCFADDEN

New Haven I ndependent

With adjustments made for the pandemic, LEAP is running its annual free summer program this summer for 340 children and teens in part virtually, in part in-person.

The four-week program began July 6t There’s a possibility that the program could be extended to six weeks depending on how the program’s first few weeks go, said LEAP Director of Development Rachel Kline Brown.

Safety and health efforts for the kids and staff have arranged for groups of 30 kids and dedicated counselors to rotate weekly between a virtual program and an in-person program.

LEAP serves at five neighborhood sites: Dixwell, Dwight-Kensington, Fair Haven, the Hill, and Newhallville. The sixth summer site is at LEAP’s main building at 31 Jefferson St. for Leader in Training (LIT) students ages 13-15. Each site is at its capacity of enrolled students and has a waiting list.

The counselors and children will switch off each week between an in-person and virtual program with all in-person programming taking place outside. Each site is used for a dedicated group of 60 but hosts only half of the group in-person at a time. The children will remain with their group of 30 virtually and in-person throughout the program. While on site, students are required to wear masks. For those without a mask, reusable kid-sized masks are provided.

The Dwight-Kensington site is at Troup school, where Jasmin Williams is the site coordinator for 7-12-year-olds. Williams’ students played kickball around 9 a.m Wednesday for a more relaxed social time than other days. On Tuesday, Williams read a two-page article with her group about Juneteenth, melanin, and Black history before African enslavement for a curriculum activity.

Williams held up words to the students like “police” and asked them what it meant to them and how it made them feel.

She also asked the students to think critically about what it means to them to be a person of color.

All of the studentslive in the neighborhood of their site; 95% of participants are Black and/or Latinx.

After reading and discussing the article, Williams had the students make a video about being proud to be a person of color.

Each student walked down an imaginary walkway calling themselves “proud” or “beautiful.” Williams said, in the end, all the students chanted together “we are beautiful.”

“I want to create this routine of togetherness with them,” Williams said. “Seeing how interested they were makes me want to push on. I’m going to continue learning so I can teach them.”

At 8 a.m the students check in with hand sanitizer and having parents check

14-year-old LIT students. temperatures. They answer five questions about exposure to potential Covid-19 symptoms. Then they eat breakfast, drop everything and read (“DEAR” time) for 15 minutes, do an hour-and-15-minute curriculum activity, have 15-minute disinfectant time, retake temperatures, spend an hour and 15 minutes on social activity like taking a local walking trip to McDonald’s, park, or store. That’s followed by another disinfectant time, lunch, then dismissal.

That all happens between 8 a.m and noon, four hours less than summer programs in the past.

Staff and counselors on-site also get weekly temperature checks.

The virtual program is hosted from 9 a.m to 11 a.m every day. During those two hours per day, the students focus on literacy and educational activities taught by their counselors. Virtual field trips to places like museums are also offered.

Williams said she will focus her students on social and emotional development this summer to help the kids have an outlet about how they feel during the pandemic.

At the LIT site on Jefferson Street Wednesday, the 30 students broke apart into smaller groups for different activities. A group of three 14-year-old girls in the site’s gardening group together said they enjoyed coming to the program in person for their first time this week much better than being virtual.

The girls said they didn’t expect to enjoy gardening as they are. “I didn’t know there was so much i didn’t know about plants I walk by every day,” said Kaiden (right in above photo).

Earlier this week the girls harvested and

brought home collard greens, cilantro, basil, mustard green, and blackberries.

All three girls are returners and joined the LIT program last year. In the past, the girls said, they enjoyed learning soccer and yoga from the program.

Before the pandemic, the LIT program allowed students to learn to lead directly with younger students. Many LIT students graduate to be LEAP counselors.

“It taught me how to be better with my little sister,” said Deandres “It really helped me to calm my social anxiety,” said Kaiden.

The three girls agreed that LEAP has made learning fun for them and offering them the opportunity to learn necessary life skills. Kaiden said they have gotten lessons on bills, taxes, and social justice.

“It taught me to be way more responsible,” said Kanai.

Deandres said she learned how to take the city bus in the past during LEAP programming. Other LIT programming in the past has included health education, PSAT prep classes, community service, swim lessons, and job exploration.

Another group of seven boys aged 14 and 15 finished are reading as a group Ghost Boys, a book about a Black boy killed by a police officer.

“It’s good because it connects to stuff happening today so it’s real,” said one student. The group of boys attend high schools ranging from Wilbur Cross, New Haven Academy, and Career.

After reading the boys walked to Lenzi Park.

“I’m just happy I can get out the house,” one student said.

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DONT LET THEM COUNT YOU OUT!

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

Pastors Offer Help With Schools Reopening

by LAURA GLESBY

New Haven I ndependent

How will kids whose parents have to work or who don’t have internet access at home be able to attend school online if they prefer?

A group of New Haven pastors floated an idea: Let kids learn remotely inside churches.

Rev. Steven Cousin of Bethel A.M.E. Zion Church and Rev. Boise Kimber of the First Calvary Baptist Church pitched the idea at a press conference outside Kimber’s Dixwell Avenue church in Newhallville on Wednesday morning. They were joined by Rev. John Lewis of Christ Chapel New Testament church, Nijija-Ife Waters of the Citywide Parent Team, and other community leaders.

They gathered, in part, to share concerns about plans to reopen Connecticut schools in the fall during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The state of Connecticut has asked that districts allow students to return to school five days per week. Superintendent Iline Tracey has outlined three contingency plans for reopening schools, per the state’s ask, including one for the state-requested five days of in-person learning per week, one for a hybrid week of in-person and remote learning, and one for entirely remote schooling. In every plan, the district is allowing all students the choice to attend school entirely remotely.

The pastors sketched a vision in which students choosing the remote option could attend online classes in a socially distanced manner within churches. Cousin said that such a program would allow parents who have to work and are unable to supervise their kids during the day to go through with a remote learning option. Kids in need of access to WiFi while learning from home would also benefit, he added.

Cousin said that he does not feel personally comfortable sending his son to inperson classes in the fall. He will be able to supervise his child’s online education due to the nature of his job, he added. But not everyone is in that position.

“What can I do to ensure that children who may not be my own children have a safe place to learn?” he asked.

“We are in this together,” he said. “We want our kids to be safe. We want them to be educated.”

According to a survey conducted by the superintendent’s office, 55.19 percent of K-8 families said they would send their kids to in-person classes, while 44.81 percent would opt into remote learning.

Among families of high school students, 57.4 percent said they would send their kids to in-person classes, compared to 42.55 percent who would choose remote learning.

Rev. Kimber asked rhetorically about the school system’s plans to retrofit schools for Covid-19 protect, provide personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer to students and staff, and transport kids to

Rev. Kimber calls for more communication from the school district.

Nijija-Ife Waters shares concerns as a parent.

Rodney Williams calls for more jobs for Black contractors.

school buildings safely.

He called for more clarity and communication from the superintendent and the Board of Education on the plans. “Share the plan with the community,” he said.

Several speakers criticized the state’s emphasis on five days of in-person learning per week.

“It’s very scary,” said Nijija-Ife Waters, who was part of the “Tiger Team” committee that assisted in developing reopening plans for the district. “We can’t do this and guarantee our parents safety.”

“It seems that we are trying to emphasize jobs over safety,” said Cousin. “No parent should have to choose between educating

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their kid and keeping their job.”

Tracey said she wanted to learn more details about the idea to have churches host students learning remotely before commenting.

“I’m glad others are looking for ways to ensure our kids get the services they need. We want to work collaboratively with others,” wrote Board of Education President Yesenia Rivera in a text. “I can say we are looking for ways to get WiFi into all of our neighborhoods so that all of our students are able to receive the instruction should we have to go back to online learning.”

Board of Ed member Larry Conaway stressed that families should have the ability to make decisions about their kids’ education based on their particular needs.

“If they feel that the library, or a church, or sending their kid to school, or an individual tutor is best for their children, I think that the school has a responsibility to make that a possibility,” he said.

“I love the idea of the community coming together,” said fellow Board of Ed member Darnell Goldson. “The question is about social distancing. If a parent is concerned about their child’s safety going to a school, why would they not similarly be concerned about their safety inside a church?”

He said the idea would be worth exploring if opening churches would help reduce density in schools.

At the press conference, the pastors also spoke about upticks in unemployment and crime over the summer.

Rev. John Lewis addressed a recent wave of shootings in the city.

“People are coming from outside to come in and stop us from doing harm to ourselves,” he said, alluding to the police.

“They owe us assistance, but we owe ourselves to stop doing that to one another.

Ain’t nobody coming to rescue us. We are the rescuers.”

He linked recent gun violence to an economic downturn brought about by the pandemic, underscoring the need for more jobs for Black community members.

Rodney Williams, a Newhallville resident who runs Green Elm Construction, elaborated on the need for the city to hire more Black contractors, including at projects like the Q House community center on Dixwell Ave. The project has given opportunities to contractors from the “suburbs that don’t look like us,” he said.

“Everything we’re talking about is interrelated,” said Cousin. The speakers called for a reinvestment of resources into Black communities and neighborhoods in the form of job opportunities and social services.

Cousin spoke of the historic role of Black churches as sites of community power and education, from the Underground Railroad to the founding of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). “We started schools in our own churches,” he said.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

Ninth Square Caribbean Keeps Takeout Coming

By Tyler Mitchell, The Arts Paper www.newhavenarts.org

A global pandemic changed the way Ninth Square Caribbean does business.

Now, owners Elisha Hazel and Qulen Wright are looking at how to keep it safe for customers as the world partially reopens—but their physical doors do not.

Ninth Square Caribbean is an all-vegan restaurant nestled on George Street, where Hazel and Wright have been serving up rice and peas, curried vegetables, jerk tofu and vegan mac and cheese since early 2017. Three years after the restaurant originally opened, the two are working to keep the space financially afloat while also keeping their customers safe from COVID-19.

That work comes as the state moves further into the second phase of its reopening, during which restaurants are allowed but not required to invite customers back inside at half capacity. Gov. Ned Lamont has recently put the brakes on allowing bars to reopen this month, as COVID-19 cases explode across the country.

“We sanitize, triple- sanitize,” Hazel said in a recent interview. But “our restaurant is small, the space for social distancing is… not that great.”

For Hazel, it’s the latest way the restaurant has been pushed to adapt. When Ninth Square Caribbean opened in 2017, Wright’s brother Mark Sinclair was responsible for cooking meat, which was served alongside vegetarian and vegan options. The restaurant also did business through catering, including for local designer Neville Wisdom, the vegan food festival Compassionfest, and New Haven’s LEAP for Kids program.

At some point, meat left the menu. No one seemed to care. Wisdom, who grew up in Jamaica and met the couple when

his shop was still in the Ninth Square, praised the restaurant for its diversity of flavors and menu items. When he saw that he could order peanut soup, ackee and fish-less salt fish, and soursop tea, he thought of home. He recalled asking Hazel and Wright if they wanted to have a booth at one of his fashion shows in 2017.

He’s been a Ninth Square evangelist ever since.

“The first time I found out there were other Jamaicans in the neighborhood, I was so excited,” he recalled in a phone call Tuesday. “And then I tasted the food.

Everything about them is great. The food is great, but they are also some of the sweetest people I’ve met in New Haven.”

For three years, business was steady.

Then COVID-19 hit. Even before Lamont officially ordered bars, gyms, and restaurants closed, Hazel and Wright closed the restaurant’s doors, sanitized the space and turned entirely to curbside pickup.

It wasn’t a full pivot: Ninth Square has always relied heavily on takeout. Hazel suggested adding new, immune-boosting teas to the menu in March, including more of the soursop that customers like Wisdom have come to love.

But it wasn’t the same, the two discovered quickly. Person-to-person interaction felt different through multiple layers of glass. Business plummeted. Customers could no longer walk in, eat and chat in a small seating area, or look over daily options in a fragrant hot bar filled with bright, spiced vegetables, non-meat proteins in curries and brown sauces, and beans at least three different ways.

Four months after that initial change, customers still aren’t allowed in the restaurant. Instead, Hazel puts a steel cart in a small foyer between the front door and a second inner door, creating a clean chamber where bags of food wait for pickup.

A bottle of hand sanitizer sits on the cart for anyone who wants a squirt. When she sees a customer pick up their food, she still waves and smiles from inside.

Hazel said she and Wright continually clean the space, wiping things down after every customer picks up their food.

The two ask that customers wear masks if they so much as open the front door, a request that is supported by a municipal order from Mayor Justin Elicker. They use masks and gloves inside the restaurant as well.

Hazel said the restaurant has been lucky to keep going, but has suffered financial-

ly. Since March, Ninth Square Caribbean has cut one staff member, and lost 70 to 80 percent of its business. She and Wright have been working while also navigating distance learning for their daughter Marlee, a student at Amistad Academy.

“Faithful customers and new customers have been coming back during the pandemic, which is good because it shows people are willing to support small businesses,” she said.

And yet, Hazel is hopeful, she added. In the long term, she and Wright would like to have a larger space, expand their menu, and teach more New Haveners about the

health benefits of veganism. They’ve talked about selling prepared, multi-person meals for regulars on the go, who “might enjoy taking food home, to warm up and eat with their family.” She suggested it is a form of building community through business.

Ninth Square Caribbean is open Wednesday through Saturday from 12 - 6 p.m.

They take orders at (203) 787-9703. This piece comes to the Arts Paper through the third annual Youth Arts Journalism Initiative (YAJI), a program of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. This year, YAJI has gone virtual.

New Ice The Beef VP Rose Through Ranks

by MAYA MCFADDEN New Haven I ndependent

Anti-violence group Ice the Beef has welcomed a new vice president, Ronisha Moore.

Moore joined the anti-violence group around 2008 while a third-grader at Troup School in the Education and Staged Arts after-school program. She hasn’t departed since.

Moore, who turns 20 today is currently pursuing nursing at Gateway Community College.

Ice the Beef President Chaz Carmon, a father figure to many youths in the program, took Moore under his wing when he saw her having a rough time in high school, where she was getting into fights.

“I had to push her to use her voice rather her fist,” he said.

Carmon mentored Moore and pushed her to take on leadership roles in the group. Moore has been Ice the Beef’s youth president for more than two years.

During her freshman year of high school, Moore said, she committed herself to Ice the Beef’s quest of stopping street violence in New Haven. “I knew it before, but the older I got I realized we have to take action in our own streets,” she said.

Moore graduated from Hillhouse High School in 2019.

“I never took a break because as a kid I never got a break from hearing gunshots outside,” said Moore, who grew up in the Hill.

Moore was a close friend of 14-year-old Tyrick Keyes, who was a victim to New Haven’s gun violence in 2017. After his

Anti-violence group Ice the Beef has welcomed a new vice president, Ronisha Moore.

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death, Moore put on what she calls her “strong face” and helped organize a rally for Tyrick and to call for a stop to gun violence.

“It’s not easy to keep talking about people dying for no reason. The only way it will ever get easier is when people start helping,” she said.

Throughout high school, Moore became more and more vocal about what she believed in and her stance against gun violence. She would ask her teachers to come to rallies she helped plan and invited her friends to join Ice the Beef.

“It [Ice the Beef] means everything to me. I feel like fighting for our cause is my life,” Moore said.

As VP, a volunteer position, Moore is in the process of arranging rallies beyond New Haven. Hartford and Bridgeport are

two areas she is looking to partner with in the near future. “The violence isn’t just in New Haven, so I want to bring our voices all over Connecticut,” she said.

“She’s been in every fight and at every table. As a young teenager she stepped up to being a part of every conversation,” Carmon said. “It just made sense.”

Carmon has watched Moore elevate the teenagers of the programs and push them to become leaders. “They listen and look up to her,” he said.

Carmon said he hopes to see Moore in his position as president one day.

“This shows our process. It works, just look at our new VP,” he said. “I’ve watched her go from a young lady who was really tough to be a young queen who can calm herself and others. She can no longer be antagonized.”

Why We Put Up The Sign THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

true during the 250 years of slavery, after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, after the Carnage of the Civil War, during the 100 years of Jim Crow, after the 1960s progress in racial integration and some movement toward more equal opportunity for Black Americans.

There has been slow progress over the last 150 years but inequality has persisted, even after we elected an African American president for two terms.

The demonstrations and protest marches involving Black and white Americans feel different this time. There are more white people involved, and the emotional outpouring doesn’t seem to dissipate. Maybe there is now a majority of American who envision real equality, and maybe it will persevere.

Underneath the prejudice there has always been a sentiment that Black lives do not matter as much as white lives. It is a very destructive notion, and it justifies oppres-

by ALAN LOVINS

New Haven I ndependent

(Opinion) One Saturday morning I was teaching a small group at my synagogue, Beth El-Keser Israel. During the sabbath service, this group comes together to learn prayers and the Bible.

I don’t remember what the subject was, but I recounted a story from my childhood.

I said, “When I was little, my mother said if I ever got lost, I should find a policeman and ask for his or her help. The policeman is your friend.”

A Black member of the congregation looked and me and said, “That’s not what my mother told me!”

It stopped me in my tracks. It hadn’t occurred to me to make that connection, even though I’ve been an activist all my life in support of equal rights and equal opportunity and treatment for Black Americans.

Black lives in America have never mattered as much as white lives. That was certainly

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Trish Loving & Alan Lovins.

sion and murder.

My wife, Trish Loving, and I have watched the proliferation of signs that say “Black Lives Matter” in front of houses in our neighborhood and elsewhere in New Haven. We decided to put one in front of our house. It has occurred to me that if these signs proliferated in our neighborhood and other neighborhoods in our city, it would convey a message that large numbers of all racial groups want equal rights and opportunities for all Americans.

If other cities across the country took the example of New Haven and put signs up in their neighborhoods, it could be transformational. It has some advantages over demonstrations and protests. The signs remain in place. They don’t have to reassemble. They don’t require organizations, regrouping, or time devoted to demonstrate.

It is a constant and gentle reminder of the work that needs to be done.

Seniors Add Voices To Black Lives Matter

by MAYA MCFADDEN

New Haven I ndependent

Chuck and Carolyn Paul attended their second Black Lives Matter rally Tuesday morning and left feeling frustrated but determined to demand change.

They joined 80 fellow elders who gathered with posters, lawn chairs, and masks on the Green for a second senior-focused socially-distant gathering demanding a shift in the racist culture of policing and corrections in Connecticut and nationwide.

Both Chuck and Carolyn (pictured above) came to New Haven in the ‘70s to attend Yale University. Originally from New York, Carolyn moved to Virginia at 5 years old and recalled asking her mom as a young girl why there were bathroom and water fountains labeled “whites” and “colored.” “I knew something was wrong but didn’t understand much more than that,” Carolyn said.

At Tuesday’s rally, designed for elderly Black Lives Matters supporters seeking to remain safe from catching Covid-19 while adding their voices to the movement sparked by the killing of George Floyd,, the two wore handmade knitted masks lined with a T-shirt material on the inside. It was the second such gathering in five weeks.

After the 2016 presidential election, Chuck said, he became fearful for the future of his three grandchildren ages 3, 6, and 13. “I’ve been complacent, and now I see the dangers of that for everyone, my grandkids and even us,” said Chuck.

In front of a sign stating “Participate, Advocate, Demand” stood organizers and

speakers like The Greater New Haven NAACP President Doris Dumas, community activist Barbara Fair, Shalom United Church of Christ Rev. Allie Perry, State Sen. Gary Winfield, and Colleen Lord, mother of Carl “Robby” Talbot, who suffered from mental illness and died at the New Haven Correctional Center from being pepper-sprayed and placed in fivepoint restraints.

“If we want to change, we have to be a part of the process,” Dumas told the crowd.

Fair (pictured), who helped organize the gathering, said the first thing she saw on TV when she woke up this morning was a recently surfaced video of a police officer in Philadelphia with his knee on the neck of a Black man. Fair said she was left frustrated after watching the video clip.

“They have a policy against it but still do it,” she said. “It makes me feel like — what are we doing this for?”

Fair followed up her frustration with demands for accountability of police and correctional facilities. Fair demanded that all police departments get accredited and that police academy training stop resembling military training. Fair also demanded that state police departments be defunded, with the money reallocated to hire and train social workers to help ex-cons heal from their experiences in prison.

Fair yesterday read the entire 63-page police accountability bill set to be considered by a special session of the state legislature. She said it is strategically worded to avoid police and correctional oversight and accountability. Fair said the

bill’s use of words like “may,” “reasonable,” and “reasonably believed” gives police departments the ability to dismiss responsibility of police brutality.

Fair called out Gov. Ned Lamont for not properly addressing Connecticut’s correctional accountability issues. “Those lives inside matter just as much as those outside,” she said. “Maybe from Greenwich you don’t see that.”

Fair demanded that police officers’ wellness checks be annual and that they get random drug screenings.

New Haveners Paula and Frank Panzarella (pictured above with signs), who are 68 and 69 respectively, said they felt most comfortable coming to this gathering because of its advertisement of being “Covid-safe.” Paula said despite being passionate she could not risk being in a large gathering while taking care of her 97-year-old mother at home. The two also attended the previous senior gathering on June 8.

“I’ve been hopeful since my 20s. There’s no other option than to try,” Paula said.

“You have to be committed even if it takes civil disobedience,” Frank said.

“How can people wave the American flag around and not respect their own people?”

Lord spoke to the crowd about her 30-year-old son who was killed 15 months ago while behind bars after pulling an emergency room fire alarm out of frustration because he was refused help from medical staff more than 40 times.

Lord stood in front of the crowd with her grief therapy dog. Earlier in the day, Lord was granted permission since her son’s death to view the correctional facil-

6

MAYA MCFADDEN PHOTO

ity’s video footage of the incident. Lord said her son’s last words were “I can’t breathe” after being pepper-sprayed four times in the facility’s shower, kicked, and stomped on by multiple correctional officers. “Justice for me would be for this to never happen again,” Lord said.

Crowd members stood eight feet apart with guiding tape markers in the grass.

Perry reminded the seniors of their power in their communities. She encouraged the crowd to track legislation, hold police accountable to justice, recruit friends and

family members to not stand racism, hold local legislators responsible to their promises, learn about police commissions, and show up to gathering such as today.

East Havener Ronnie Neuhauser, 56, recalled fighting for justice since Occupy New Haven. Ronnie and Paula called the recent calls for action nationwide “Occupy on steroids.”

“More has happened now than ever before. I’m here to help it continue,” Neuhauser said.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

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6/25/20 2:27 PM

William Lanson Statue Tap THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

her sculpture, which includes bronze statues at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and a larger-than-life rendering of Black political trailblazer William Byron Rumford among others. She heard about the project from author Regina Mason, a friend who also happens to be the great-great-great granddaughter of the fugitive slave William Grimes and a colleague of Marder’s. Grimes is interred at Grove Street Cemetery; his grave is a stop on the Freedom Trail.

King started researching Lanson, a formerly enslaved Black man who arrived in New Haven at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1810, he led the extension of New Haven’s Long Wharf by almost 1,500 feet, a move that allowed larger boats to dock in the city’s port— and the city to compete with nearby ports including New York. It was a move, she learned, of sheer engineering genius: Lanson completed the extension with stone quarried from nearby East Rock, that was loaded it into boats that could handle its weight.

When he finished Long Wharf—a project that received high praise from Yale President Timothy Dwight and abolitionist James Hillhouse—he went on to build sections of the Farmington Canal.

He bought land in what is now Wooster Square, where he envisioned an integrated community decades before slavery was abolished. He also became active in the nascent plans for Temple Street Church, which would become the Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church of Christ.

When Lanson wasn’t working, he was pushing for the right of free Black men, of whom there were about 800 in the state, to vote. Not only was enslavement still legal in the South—it was also legal in Connecticut. The last documented sale of Black people in New Haven took place in 1825, on the New Haven Green.

“He was so committed to building up New Haven,” King said. “And he did so by the sweat of his labor. Back-breaking labor. When you think about the physicality of cutting rock and getting it from a quarry, and then getting it into the sea … he allowed New Haven to compete with the port of New York. Here’s this AfricanAmerican freeman who put his life on the line every day.”

And then—like the story of urban renewal a century later—everything was taken from him. New Township, part of presentday Wooster Square, was purchased by white New Havener Matthew Elliott. A hotel that he had run nearby became the site of ostensible crimes and harassment from the police. Lanson died in poverty in 1851. Back in Oakland in 2020, King felt like she knew him.

“I was just like a cat on a hot tin roof waiting, waiting, waiting for the committee to decide,” she recalled in a phone in-

By Lucy Gellman, Editor, The ARTS Paper www.newhavenarts.org

William Lanson is coming home. Not to the neighborhood he helped build—but to a city that has never been more ready for him.

A seven-foot, bronze statue of William “King” Lanson will soon grace a section of the Farmington Canal, where Ashmun and Lock Streets run up against the lip of Scantlebury Park. The project is a collaboration among the Amistad Committee, New Haven City Plan Department, and Oakland, Cal. based sculptor Dana King.

A dedication is planned for late September.

It is part of the plan for a larger William Lanson Plaza, the timeline for which is still in the works. The plaza will include a timeline of Lanson’s life and work in New Haven, as well as the outline of “an historic canal boat,” according to the RFQ. Lanson was responsible for building part of the Farmington Canal’s retaining wall; the plaza will sit close to what was once the northern terminus of the canal.

“This is all I do,” King said in an interview Thursday morning. “I create Black bodies in bronze. I create memories in bronze for African descendants. We have a right to our memories.”

The project has been almost a decade in the making. In 2010, the Amistad Committee received a grant to expand its work on the Connecticut Freedom Trail, which it maintains with the state’s Historic Preservation Office and Department of Economic and Community Development.

That year, historian Katherine Harris published a pamphlet on the trail, which comprises over 130 sites across the state.

For the committee, the brochure was a springboard: Harris wrote about a “William Lanson Site” at Canal and Lock Streets. In 2011, the city received two plaques commemorating Lanson, one of which was intended for the Farmington Canal. In 2014, the Committee began working with former Mayor Toni Harp to jumpstart a monument at the plaza. But after a dedication at the site with Harp and Yale President Peter Salovey in 2014, the project slowed to a halt, and then fell through the cracks.

“Unfortunately, it did not take place immediately,” said Al Marder, the 98-yearold founder and president of the Amistad Committee. He worked to rekindle the project last year, during the final months of the Harp Administration. After sending it to City Plan Director Aïcha Woods, the project got a green light. An RFQ went out last year. This project is unrelated to a push from The Lineage Group to rename Wooster Square after Lanson.

Across the country, King (pictured above) was dedicating herself to the practice of building Black memory through

8

ps Into City's Black History THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

terview Thursday. “I felt connected to his story and I wanted to cast it in bronze.”

She started the project in mid-March, with no photographs or period engravings to work from. While she had Lanson’s weight—200 pounds—she did not have his height, or any other identifying information.

But King had read enough to know he was strong, muscles almost straining against his clothes (“the clothes were tight at the time!” she explained). The sculpture pictures Lanson in 1825, which “was really the height of his power.” He would have been in his early 40s at the time.

As she worked on the sculpture, “he revealed himself to me,” she said. She researched the faces of nineteenth-century West Africans, placing a single scar above his right eye. Beneath it, he locks eyes with the viewer. His stare is piercing but benevolent, proud but tired—as if he can see into the future, and wants to freeze time right where it is.

The scar “represents the physical danger that he was in, and the emotional danger that he encountered every day,” she said. “The emotional violence that he endured.”

“They did take everything from him,” she added. “Which they could have done on any given day at any given time. That was what did it for me. The strength, physically and emotionally, of that man.

And to think that his struggle is our struggle still today.”

When the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers rocked the country earlier this year, the sculpture took on a new resonance for King. From the moment she had started research, she saw Lanson as a bridge from past to present: a Black man who risked and ultimately lost his life on the grounds of who he was.

“Working on this piece, it helped me endure this earth-shaking, life-altering change that’s occurring in the world right now,” she said. “I couldn’t go out and protest, so my protest is making this sculpture. I do believe that he [Lanson] would be in lockstep with the Black Lives Matter movement.”

“As the country was roiling, I had an epiphany,” she continued. In her original renderings, Lanson’s right hand holds a top hat. His left hand rests on his left leg.

She wrote to the Amistad Committee, requesting that she turn the left hand into a fist. Specifically, the left hand is a fist that connects past to present—the continuation of a movement 169 years after his death.

Were Lanson alive for the moment, she suggested, he’d raise that fist high—for Black power, for resilient and healthy communities, for Black Lives Matter and Black liberation. Marder gave it a re-

sounding green light.

“The closed fist should be our demand for unity,” he wrote back. “I hope that some youngster in years to come will ask: How come that fist is closed?”

Months before the unveiling, the sculpture has already started to make an impact (from King’s studio, it will now go to the foundry in Berkley, where it can be cast in bronze). In a virtual meeting with Mayor Justin Elicker and Alder Jeanette Morri-

son, King listened as Morrison noted that it reminded her of her father, whom she described Thursday as “a proud, strong black man who has taken on the responsibilities to ensure justice for people who look like him.”

Another attendee noted that they had the same nose. King found herself on the brink of tears.

“That’s the point of memory,” she said.

“That is the point of sculpture. I want

9

children to touch him. I want them to rub his hair. I want people to touch his hands.

That’s the beauty of public art. Public art is there to commune with. That is the point of memory making. We all share these memories. It’s a gift of knowing that we built this country, and we are in every space, but we are invisible.”

Morrison, who represents Dixwell, also praised the sculpture for filling in some of New Haven’s missing history. She

recalled her time as a student at James Hillhouse High School, during which she learned about a total of three Black historical figures. Lanson, was not one of them. Neither was the fact that New Haven was once a proposed site of a Historically Black College.

“We learned that Harriet Tubman freed the slaves, that Martin Luther King was a good man, and that Malcom X was a bad man. Which is a lie,” she said. “I was blessed to go to Morgan State. I’m so happy I got the chance to experience an HBCU. I learned about us.”

Now, she said, “I’m honored” to have a piece of that history coming to Dixwell.

The monument will mark the first sculpture of a Black person in a New Haven neighborhood, rather than right outside of City Hall where the Amistad Memorial currently stands. She suggested that Dixwell is a fitting choice: the neighborhood was a twentieth-century model of Blackowned economic prosperity, then was ravaged by urban renewal, and is now on the cusp of transformation.

“Just like he has risen up, Dixwell is rising,” she said, noting the nearly-finished skate park and new Q House. “Dixwell is that diamond in the rough. We’ve always been a sparkling diamond. So much was buried on top of us. But we’re coming out now.”

While she has been walking the same loop each day as she works from home— from Webster to Ashmun Street, and Ashmun to York—she said she will be changing her route once the statue arrives in September. She joked that he has officially moved from Wooster Square to Ward 22.

In a phone call Thursday afternoon, Elicker added that he is thinking about issuing a formal apology to Lanson on behalf of the city of New Haven during the dedication in September.

“I think it’s important for us to look back on history and reflect on people that were wronged, and take ownership for that and in appropriate cases, apologize for those wrongs,” he said. “And for Mr. Lanson, I saw two things where the city treated him wrongly. The first is the city didn’t recognize his contribution. The second is there’s a lot of evidence that he was harassed by the police and the business community, and his finances struggled because of that.”

“You can never say sorry enough,” Morrison said. “When you can recognize history, there’s a possibility you can recognize me.”

To find out more about the Amistad Committee, visit their website. To find out more about sculptor Dana King, check out her work on Instagram or visit her website. A dedication is planned for Sept. 26.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

Wells Fargo Commitment Could Potentially Result in Billions for Small Businesses

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent

In April, Wells Fargo announced it would donate gross proceeds from the Paycheck Protection Plan to nonprofits working with small businesses.

This month, the bank has ramped up its efforts by unveiling the details of an approximately $400 million initiative to help small businesses impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The goal is to help keep the doors of small businesses open, retain employees, and rebuild.

Through Wells Fargo’s new Open for Business Fund, the company will engage nonprofit organizations to provide capital, technical support, and long-term resiliency programs to small businesses, emphasizing those that are minority-owned businesses.

“We realized early on that small businesses were taking the brunt of what was happening with COVID-19 and the economic slowdown that occurred,” said Jenny Flores, Wells Fargo’s head of small business growth philanthropy.

“We also noticed that diverse individuals were having a very negative impact, and with the data, it was coming to 41 percent or 450,000 Black-owned businesses closed when COVID hit. That is a disproportionate impact not only to the entrepreneurs but also to the employees they have and the pocketbook,” Flores stated.

Through June 30, Wells Fargo funded loans under the PPP for more than

179,000 customers, with an average loan amount of $56,000, totaling $10.1 billion.

Of the loans made, 84 percent of those are for companies with less than ten employees; 60 percent were for amounts of $25,000 or less; and, 90 percent of these applicants had $2 million or less in annual revenue.

Given the federal government’s extension of the PPP, Wells Fargo will reopen its PPP loan application process to eligible customers as soon as possible through a link in Business Online Banking, the bank noted in a news release.

Additionally, the Wells Fargo Open for Business Fund’s initial grants will allocate $28 million to Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), also known as nonprofit community lenders.

The grants are aimed at empowering Black and African American-owned small businesses, which the National Bureau of Economic Research said are closing at nearly twice the rate of the industry.

Among the first grantees are Expanding Black Business Credit Initiative (EBBC), which will support the launch of a Black Vision Fund to increase the flow of capital to Black-focused CDFIs for transformational work to close the racial wealth gap in African American communities.

The CDFIs will also receive capital for urgent deployment to impacted businesses in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and Midwest.

Further, a Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) will provide grants and low-cost capital to more than 2,800

entrepreneurs, focusing on preventing loss in revenue, sustaining employment, and averting vacancies among vulnerable small business owners in urban and rural markets nationwide.

“This is an extension of the commitment we had to diverse businesses,” Flores noted.

“Small businesses need cash to open again, and we are putting $260 million for community development financial pocket lenders that have a track record of reaching diverse communities. We want them to be able to do new loans and to have

Advice you need for the mortgage you want.

grant money.”

Wells Fargo counts as one of the top PPP lenders in the country and has spent a lot of time understanding various strategies to assist small businesses, Flores declared.

“We have key members across the country, and I talk to entrepreneurs directly,” she said.

“This reflects a very thoughtful approach, one that is based on really putting the customer right at the center, listening to what they need. This has potentially $1

billion of impact in a three-year period,” Flores added.

“When they get the loans and recycle that and then for every million CDFI loans out to small businesses, they can support 18 businesses and create 31 jobs.

“Hence, if you take the $250 million and work through it, it’s thousands of businesses we’re impacting in such a positive way. We’re really proud of the opportunity we have to collaborate with CDFIs and particularly those who are led by diverse entrepreneurs.”

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

The Impact of COVID-19 in Our Community: Let’s Not Put Our Health at Risk

By J.C. Watts, founder and chairman of J.C. Watts Companies

Washington, D.C., city attorney George Valentine was Black, brilliant, and fit. But after contracting COVID-19, he became so weak, he had trouble moving and even speaking. When it got to the point where he could barely breathe, George called an ambulance and waited on the steps of his house for it to arrive. Every second he waited must have seemed like an eternity.

Two days later, George died. He was 66 and had suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure before getting sick with the coronavirus.

New research seems to confirm that, across the nation, the coronavirus has disproportionately impacted Black people, with death rates more than twice as high as that for any other race. Why is this happening-and can we do anything about it?

There are several explanations for the disparity, and most have to do how we live, where we work, and our underlying health conditions. There are also factors that are within our immediate control that we can all do right now to protect ourselves, but that many in our community are failing to do.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cite several possible reasons that Black Americans are more affected. One is that many of us live in more highly populated areas where it’s more difficult to practice physical distancing from one another. Many of us also live in multi-generational households where it’s easier for younger family members to spread the virus to more vulnerable elderly members. This is especially true for lower-income households with smaller living spaces.

Another reason is that a large percentage of African Americans hold frontline service industry jobs as food servers, cleaners, and personal-care providers, and in fields such as nursing that are all considered essential during the pandemic, and they bravely continue to go to work each day.

One other big factor is that, sadly, our people also tend to have more underlying medical conditions-like obesity, diabetes, and hypertension-that make us more vulnerable.

While many of these factors are difficult to change in the near term, we can do some things immediately to reduce our risks. In my own community in Oklahoma, I’ve witnessed many Black folks not wearing masks or practicing any degree of physical distancing in public. A lot of people just plain aren’t following recommendations to keep themselves and their families safe.

Let’s be real for a minute. Some of this stems from past experiences with government that make people skeptical about what they’re hearing from public officials. For some, it’s the bitter memories of government-enforced segregation and other racist policies. For others, it’s

the fact the young Black men have more negative encounters with the police, and people don’t want to wear masks and give anyone an excuse for mistaking them for criminals. For others, it’s that politicians have made promises to us for decades and have failed to make good. Why trust them now?

Despite all this, please don’t put your

health at risk. We have to do all we can to protect our communities and our loved ones from being exposed to infection.

First, avoid close contact with people who are sick. Being in the same enclosed room with somebody who has the virus can lead to infection. Second, keep at least six feet between you and others if you have to leave home. People can be in-

fected even if they’re not showing symptoms. Third, wash your hands or sanitize them often and for at least 20 seconds.

Also avoid touching your face, mouth, and eyes with unwashed hands.

I know the advice about wearing masks is a tough one for many folks, but perspectives have changed during this pandemic. So, cover your mouth and nose

with a bandana or other face covering if you have to leave home. The mask provides some protection for others in case you’re infected and don’t know it.

Finally, be sure to get medical help if you have any flu-like symptoms or have trouble breathing, persistent pain in your chest, a fever, or a dry cough.

As I write this, The Heritage Foundation’s National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, of which I’m a member, is wrapping up its final report offering recommendations to help us all recover from this pandemic. The commissioners are deeply concerned that COVID-19 has hit minority communities so hard and are urging medical researchers to look into how we can prevent this disproportionate impact in the future.

The commission is also recommending ways that our churches and community institutions can be a positive force for encouraging people to take preventative actions to stop the spread of COVID-19.

I’m hopeful that our nation will conquer this disease and that together, we will emerge from this chapter in our history stronger than before. But ultimately for that to happen, the cure must start with us.

J.C. Watts is founder and chairman of J.C. Watts Companies, chairman of Black News Channel, and a member of National Coronavirus Recovery Commission.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - August 02, 2016

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The Town of Wallingford’s Water and Sewer Division is seeking a highly qualified business manager to perform responsible managerial work in the administration, direction and supervision of the financial, accounting and billing functions for the Water and Sewer Divisions’ business office. The successful candidate must have VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE a bachelor’s degree from a recognized college or university in accounting or business administration plus five (5) years of increasingly responsible office work experience including at least three (3) years in a supervisory HOMEorINC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, capacity, an equivalent combination of education and qualifying experience substituting on a year-for-year is accepting pre-applications studio and apartments this develbasis.

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Town Planner: Seeking an experienced professional to perform highly responsible and complex planning and zoning work in the management of a municipal planning department. Some evening work involved. Bachelor’s Degree in Urban Planning, Public Administration or related field plus 4 years of responsible experience in municipal planning and zoning enforcement work or an equivalent combination of experience and training substituting on aMACRI year-for-year basis.DESalary: $97,023 - $124,140 annually plus an excellent fringe benefit VALENTINA VIVIENDAS ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES package. Applications can be downloaded from the Town’s Department of Human Resources Webpage and mailed or faxed Human S. Main Room 301, Wallingford CT 06492 Fax HOME INC, ento:nombre de Resources la ColumbusDepartment House y de la45New HavenStreet, Housing Authority, está (203)-294-2084 Phone: (203)-294-2080.The closing date will be July 24, 2020.EOE aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo

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APPLY NOW!

Tri-Axle Dump Truck driver

ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición MAINTENANCE Bristol Housing deberán Authority is seeking an energetic inllamando a HOME INC alMECHANIC. 203-562-4663 duranteFT. esas horas.Pre-solicitudes remitirse dividual who has experience properties.

Skills in Haven the areas building repair incl. plumba las oficinas de HOME INC enmaintaining 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New , CTof 06510 . ing, electricity, HVAC, carpentry and mechanical equipment repair helpful. Wage for this position is determined by the Bargaining Unit Contract. Excellent benefits. Send resume and references by July 31, 2020 to Mitzy Rowe, Chief Executive Officer, Bristol Housing Authority, 164 Jerome Avenue, Bristol, CT 06010. The Bristol Housing Authority is an equal opportunity employer.

Seeking qualified condidates to fill numerous vacancies to include, Engineer Technician, Public 242-258 Fairmont Ave Health Nurse and more. For information and detailed application instructions, visit WWW.ci.milford.

Townhouse, 1.5JOB BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA ct.us Click2BR on SERVICES, JOBS and TITLE. All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 highways, near bus stop & shopping Construction Administrative Officecenter Position. FT-Exp required.

QSR STEEL CORPORATION

Invitation to Bid: 2nd Notice

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES Request for Proposals

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Brokerage/Agent of Record Consulting Services for Insurance Benefits Old Saybrook, CT (4 Units) The HousingBuildings, Authority 17 of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Proposals Brokerage/Agent of Record Taxfor Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Consulting Rate ProjectServices for Insurance Benefits. A complete copy of the require-

ments may be obtained from Elm City’s Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

APARTMENTS FOR RENT

New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, CastMonday, July 6, 2020 at 3:00PM in-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles, Vinyl Siding, Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Building Superintendent 241 Quinnipiac Avenue, New Haven Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

St. New Haven, CT Spacious 2 bedroom townhouses with hardwood floors. 1.5 baths. Select with basements and washer/ Property Company seeking a hands-on individual This shopping contract is subject to stateManagement set-aside and contractiscompliance requirements. who is capable of performing minor repairs dryer hookups. On-site laundry facility. Off street parking. Close proximity to restaurants, CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. (203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster

and duties as well as supervising maintenance operations of the facilities. Must be computer literate and should communicate verbally and via email to coworkers, vendors and tenants. Works with co-workers to improve Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 facilities.

Operates and maintains sophisticated mechanical and electrical equipment, performs miscellaneous repairAugust work as15, needed, Anticipated Start: 2016 performs cleaning and other related duties as required.

Project documents available via ftp link below:

centers and on bus line. No pets. Security deposit varies. $1,425-$1,450 includes heat, hot water and cooking gas. Section 8 welcome. Call Christine 860-985-8258.

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour APARTMENTS FOR RENT until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, Qualifications: http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage Seymour, CT 06483Avenue, for ConcreteNew Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the A combination of experience, education, and/or training which substantially demonstrates the following knowl258 Fairmont Haven edge, skills and abilities. Principles and practices of installing, operating, maintaining and repairing building Smithfield Gardenstownhouses.

Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Seymour.

Spacious 2 bedroom $1,225.00.

Tenant pays Street all utilities including gas for heat,hot water, Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com

equipment and systems. Operation maintenance and repair of various pumps, motors, air conditioning equip-

elec.stove, balcony and private entrance, off street parking. Close proximity to restaurants,HCC shopping encourages the participation all Veteran,control S/W/MBEvalves & Section Businesses ment, boilers,of blowers, and3 Certified switches, and instruments related to HVAC, and to the digital control Haynes system.

ConstructionAbility Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 centers and on bus line. Section 8 welcome.

Call Christine 860-985-8258.

A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith to trouble shoot and repair lighting, plumbing, fire protection, security systems and energy man-

Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

254 Fairmont Avenue, New Haven

Spacious bedroom townhouses. $1,400.00 paysHousing all utilities including Bidding3 documents are available from theTenant Seymour Authority Of-gas for heat,hot water, elec.stove, balcony and private entrance, off street parking.

Close proximity to restaurants, shopping fice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579. centers and on bus line. Section 8 welcome. Call Christine 860-985-8258.

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

12

AA/EEO EMPLOYER agement systems normally found in an office building environment. Identify Hazardous materials encountered in the work environment and knowledge of their treatment. Should be able to promote safety in the workplace and be vigilant concerning visitor safety.

Excellent benefits include medical, dental and 401k. Please send resume to openjobs.mgmt@fusco.com.

Phone calls will not be accepted. Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer.

THE INNER-CITYNEWS NEWS July - July , 2020 - July 21, 2020 INNER-CITY 27,152016 - August 02, 2016

Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Inc seeks:

Listing: Commercial Driver

Construction Equipment Mechanic preferably experienced in Full time Class A driver for petroleum deliveries for nights Reclaiming and Road Milling Equipment. We offer factory training on equipment we operate. Location: Bloomfield CT and weekends. Previous experience required. Competitive We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits wage, 401(k) and benefits. Send resume to: HR Manager, VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING PRE- APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE Contact: Tom Dunay P. O. Box 388, Guilford, CT 06437.

Phone: 243-2300 HOME INC, on behalf of860Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, ********An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer********** Email: tom.dunay@garrityasphalt.com is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this develWomen Minority Applicants are New encouraged to apply income limitations apopment & located at 108 Frank Street, Haven. Maximum Fitzgerald & Halliday, Inc. (FHI) is seeking to fill Action/ Opportunity Employer ply.Affirmative Pre-applications willEqual be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y two positions, a Finance Administrator and a Senior Finance 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have The repositions are based out of our Corporate Headbeen received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be Manager. mailied upon in Hartford, CT. We are looking for financial profesquest by calling HOME Reclaiming, INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours.quarters Completed preGarrity Asphalt Inc seeks: sionals withThird strong analytical, communications, and problemapplications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street, Reclaimer Operators and Milling Operators with current licensing solving skills who can be a vital part of our finance team. The Haven, CTbe06510. andFloor, cleanNew driving record, willing to travel throughout the NorthFinance Administrator responsibilities will include reviewing east & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits and processing accounts payable invoices and employee payroll and expenses and processing project invoicing and accounts Contact: Rick Tousignant Phone: 860- 243-2300 receivable. Additionally, the Finance Administrator will assist Email: rick.tousignant@garrityasphalt.com project and financial reporting, support employee benefit VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDESwith DISPONIBLES Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply assessments, and other miscellaneous related duties. Candidate Affirmative Action/deEqual Opportunity Employer should have a está 3+ years of experience in business finance roles.

HOME INC, en nombre la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, resume to financeadmin@fhiplan.com. The Finance Manaceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorioSend en este desarrollo ager responsibilities ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos include overseeing all aspects of our financial operations; documenting, forecasting, and driving financial máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 Tractor Trailer Driver for Heavy & Highway Construction Equipperformance; and decreasing our need for outside CPA consultjulio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) ment. Must have a CDL License, clean driving record, capable of ing services. Candidate should have a 10+ years of experience in en las oficinas HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas correo a petición operating heavydeequipment; be willing to travel throughout the porbusiness finance roles, with at least 5+ years in senior financial llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse Northeast & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits management role. Send resume to financemanager@fhiplan. a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 . com. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. For more information about Fitzgerald & Halliday, Inc. and these availEmail: dana.briere@garrityasphalt.com able positions, please visit our website at www.fhiplan.com.

Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply Fitzgerald & Halliday, Inc., 416 Asylum Street, Hartford, CT Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer 06103. Fitzgerald & Halliday, Inc. is an EEO/AA /VEV/Disabled employer. Salary commensurate with level of experience.

NOTICE

NOTICIA

Union Company seeks:

Contact Dana at 860-243-2300

HELP WANTED: 242-258 Fairmont Ave NEW HAVEN

Fitzgerald & Halliday, Inc.

(FHI) is seeking to fill two positions, a Finance Administrator and a Senior Finance Manager. The positions are based out of our Corporate Headquarters in Hartford, CT. We are looking for financial professionals with strong analytical, communications, and problem-solving skills who can be a vital part of our finance team. The Finance Administrator responsibilities will include reviewing and processing accounts payable invoices and employee payroll and expenses and processing project invoicing and accounts receivable. Additionally, the Finance Administrator will assist with project and financial reporting, support employee benefit assessments, and other miscellaneous related duties. Candidate should have a 3+ years of experience in business finance roles. Send resume to financeadmin@fhiplan.com. The Finance Manager responsibilities include overseeing all aspects of our financial operations; documenting, forecasting, and driving financial performance; and decreasing our need for outside CPA consulting services. Candidate should have a 10+ years of experience in business finance roles, with at least 5+ years in senior financial management role. Send resume to financemanager@fhiplan.com. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. For more information about Fitzgerald & Halliday, Inc. and these available positions, please visit our website at www.fhiplan. com. Fitzgerald & Halliday, Inc., 416 Asylum Street, Hartford, CT 06103. Fitzgerald & Halliday, Inc. is an EEO/AA /VEV/Disabled employer. Salary commensurate with level of experience.

New Haven Section 3, DAS certified MBE & WBE subcontractors wanted Encore Fire Protection is looking for Section 3, DAS certified MBE & WBE subcontractors to install a fire sprinkler/suppression system. All interested bidders, companies, and employees are to be licensed in the State of Connecticut, Bonded, and Insured. Work duties will include all tasks required for proper fire sprinkler system installation per approved plans. Construction experience is a must. All F2 licensed mechanics are responsible to arrive to the job site on time, have a minimum of OSHA 10 training, and possess approved personal protection equipment. You will also participate in daily, weekly, and monthly progress reports. If interested, please contact EncoreFPAds@gmail.com.

Construction Administrative Office Position. FT-Exp required.

Email- Hherbert@ gwfabrication.com Invitation to Bid: 2nd Notice

Town of Bloomfield

Townhouse, BA, for 3BR, 1 level , 1BA CT2BR guardrail company 1.5 looking Laborer/

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Finance Director

Stockperson

Large new valid apartments, new appliances, newand carpet, DriverAllwith CT CDL Class A license ableclose to to I-91 & I-95 Old Saybrook, CT highways, busto stop & shopping center Full Time - Benefited $96,755 to $149,345 get a medical card.

Must near be able pass a drug test (4 Buildings,Performs 17 Units)a variety of stockroom/warehouse duties in the storage of material and equipment for an electric utility. Requires a H.S. diploma or equivalent and 1 year of and physical.

Compensation based on contact experience.

Pre-employment drug testing. For more details, Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties Maria @ 860-985-8258 Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project employment in a stockroom, warehouse, office, maintenance or construction environEmail resume to dmastracchio@atlasoutdoor.com visit our website – www.bloomfieldct.org ment. Must have a valid State of CT driver’s license. Pay rate: $23.09 to $28.18 AA/EOE M-F CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., B.S. (203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster

LEGAL NOTICE of TOWN OF PORTLAND, CT

Town of Portland has amended its Citizen Participation St. New Haven, CT Plan for the purpose of informing the public about its intent to apply for CDBG, Covid-19 funding. For a copy of SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY the amended Plan go to www.portlandct.org.

Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour until 3:00 pm onELM Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, CITY COMMUNITIES Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the Request forFacility, Proposals Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living 26 Smith Street Seymour.

Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) Project- Based Assistance Program to Support the Development of Affordable Housing

A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith Housing Authority City of 10:00 New Haven d/b/a Elm city Communities is currently seekStreet Seymour, CT at am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

ing Proposals for Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) Project- Based Assistance Program to Support the Development of Affordable Housing. A complete copy of the Bidding documents are available from the Seymour Housing Authority Ofrequirement may 28 Smith Seymour, 06483 (203)Portal 888-4579. befice, obtained from Street, Elm City’s VendorCT Collaboration https://newhavenhousing. cobblestonesystems.com/gateway

beginning Monday, Julyto13,accept 2020oratreject 3:00PM. The Housing Authority on reserves the right any or all bids, to reduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the Housing Authority.

New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Cast- package. Applications can be printed from hourly plus Demolition, an excellentSite-work, fringe benefit Town’sVinyl Webpage in-place Concrete, AsphalttheShingles, Siding, http://www.wallingford.ct.us/Content/Personnel_Department.

Centrally Located aspAppliances, Fax (203) 294-2084, (203) 294-2080. The closing date will be that date Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, ResidentialPhone: Casework, the 30th application form/resume is received, or July 15, 2020, whichever occurs first.

Construction Company Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing EOE and Fire Protection. in This Connecticut positions available contract has is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements.

for experienced project managers, laborers and truck drivers.

Bid Extended, Due This company is an Affirmative Action / Date:

ROTHA Contracting Company August 5, 2016 Equal Opportunity Employer M/F.Anticipated Females and Start: August 15, 2016 ROTHA Contracting Company, Inc. is a Union contractor that has various job openings Minorities are encouraged apply.

Projecttodocuments available via ftpthe linkyear below: throughout for Bricklayers, Carpenters, Laborers, and Operating Engineers. We Please fax resume to ATTN: Mike to have contracts with the following Unions: http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage 860-669-7004.

· United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, New England Regional CounFax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com of Carpenters 24,Businesses 43 and 210 QSR STEEL CORPORATION HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran,cilS/W/MBE & SectionLocals 3 Certified

Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers AFL-CIO Local 1 AA/EEO EMPLOYER · Connecticut Laborers’ District Council of Laborers’ International Union of North AmerSteel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders ica, AFL-CIO

APPLY NOW!

Top pay for top performers. Health Benefits, 401K, Vacation Pay.

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

13

· International Union of Operating Engineers Local 478 and its Branches AFL-CIO

Please contact your Union Local to apply for open positions. ROTHA Contracting Company, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer and welcome minorities, woman, and trainees in our workplace.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

DA 5 BLOODS AND AMERICA ABROAD

By Oscar Blayton I get an ache in my heart every time someone who learns that I am a Vietnam veteran, says “Thank you for your service.”

Even before I returned to the United States from my combat tour in Vietnam, I had decided that we were fighting an unjust war. More than 50 years later, watching Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” set off my internal alarm bells, warning against African Americans blindly participating in U.S. foreign policy.

Lee’s latest movie is an excellent commentary on some of the complexities of the Vietnam war for African Americans, which he boils down to a single line spoken by a central character: “We fought in an immoral war that wasn’t ours… for rights that wasn’t ours.”

I am a big fan of Spike Lee, and Da 5 Bloods is among his best work, but the film points out how Black folk were

victims of America’s foreign policy while understating our complicity in it.

I do not fault Lee for this because this war was too broad in its social and political ramifications to fit into a single movie. But it omits two lessons Black folk should have learned from this painful bloodbath.

First, the American War in Vietnam was an attempt to maintain white supremacy in Southeast Asia. U.S. involvement in that part of the world did not ramp up until after the Vietnamese had forced out their former colonial masters – the French.

Having abandoned Vietnam to Japanese invaders during World War II, France returned at the end of that war and demanded – with an outrageous sense of entitlement bourne of white supremacy – that it be allowed to continue its rule. The bloodied and proud Vietnamese, who had engineered their own resistance to the Japanese, were having none of it.

After the Vietnamese rid themselves of the French in 1954 at the cost of many more lives, the United States – in its role as the Chicken Little of anti-communism – raised the alarm that the sky was falling. Self-proclaimed “foreign policy experts” in the United States

warned that Southeast Asian countries would fall like dominos if communists were allowed to gain control of all of Vietnam. North Korea had securely established itself as a communist nation a decade earlier and foreign policy advisors in Washington reasoned that preventing the spread of communism was in America’s national interest.

When we make a critical examination of Vietnam today, we see a trading partner of the United States and a respected member of the global community. We see economic and social progress under a communist government that exposes the lies of American demagogues who, foaming-at-the-mouth, protested the rise of communism.

In the late 1950s and early 1960, with Blacks being murdered with impunity and denied basic constitutional rights in America, the U.S. government chose instead to focus on the “rights” of people half a world away. But “freedom” was not what Washington was seeking to establish in Southeast Asia; it was “compliance.” The United States wanted to bend that part of the world to its will – a world order based upon white supremacy.

If one ignores the rhetoric and examines America’s actions towards Africa,

Asia and South America, the evidence is clear that white supremacy has driven U.S. foreign policy throughout its post-World War II history.

Secondly, African Americans have been complicit in U.S. aggressions towards people of color around the world. Handicapped by the blindfold of anti-communist rhetoric, Black folk have too often been enablers in America’s efforts to keep whiteness perched upon its global pedestal. Even those of us who knew that Washington’s antiCommunist zeal made no sense, particularly as it related to Africa and South America, did not make the connection between U.S. foreign policy and white supremacy.

It was not the rise of communism that these demagogues feared; it was the loss of white privilege around the world. In the 1960s, the newly emergent African nations were being successfully oppressed by a network of political, economic and military resources that put a lid on any threat to white supremacy from the “Dark Continent.” But with the rise of the People’s Republic of China and the defeat of the French in Vietnam, the white supremacy lid was coming off of Asia.

Revisiting the American War in Viet-

nam, we see one aspect of America’s attempt to maintain global domination by white supremacy and we see our complicity in this effort. It is not enough for Black folk to plead innocence as draftees just trying to make it back to the “World” alive. We must own our part in the oppression of others.

Attempts to deny our complicity in spreading misery around the globe in support of white supremacy is not unlike Confederate sympathizers refusing to acknowledge that the underlying cause of the Civil War was the preservation of slavery, not the noble South.

As Confederate statues finally come tumbling down, African Americans are asking, “Why has it taken so long?

There was no just cause. There was no noble South.” By that same measure, we must ask ourselves, “What was the true cause and where was the nobility of America’s involvement in Vietnam?”

Not only must we ask ourselves these questions about Vietnam, we must continue to ask these types of questions about all of America’s foreign policies.

Oscar H. Blayton is a former Marine Corps combat pilot and human rights activist who practices law in Virginia.

Giant anteaters don’t have teeth?

Let your curiosity run wild!

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS! PLEASE CALL Dr. Acabbo at 203-710-2102 Email: drashsp@yahoo.com or Judy Thompson at 203-892-8191 Email: jfreyerthompson@gmail.com for an application

**Our program is Full Day/Full Year/Open from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm **NAEYC Accredited **Care4Kids accepted **State mandated sliding scale fee based on income and family size

St. Aedan Pre School 351 McKinley Avenue New Haven CT 06515 office phone 203-387-0041

Online tickets required: www.beardsleyzoo.org 14

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - July 15, 2020 - July 21, 2020

Inaction is not an option.

Complete the 2020 Census to shape the next ten years for your community.

The power to change your community is in your hands. We can help inform funding every year for the next ten years for public services like healthcare, childcare programs, public transportation, schools, and job assistance. And our responses determine how many seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives. But time is running out, so complete the census today online, by phone, or by mail.

Complete the census today at:

2020CENSUS.GOV Paid for by U.S. Census Bureau.

2019_Census_Community_DM_Size O.indd 1

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7/6/20 4:50 PM