INNER-CITY NEWS

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06 , 2020

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Malloy Malloy To To Dems: Dems:

“DMC” “Mr. Lanson is Back Home”

Ignore Ignore“Tough “ToughOn OnCrime” Crime”

Color Struck?

Snow in July?

Breonna Taylor March 5 Siblings Launch “The Sisters Show” Podcast to Connect Shuts Down Whalley Black America With the Global African Diaspora FOLLOW US ON 1

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020

ConnCAT Sends Chefs, Phlebotomists Into Workforce

by SOPHIE SONNENFELD New Haven I ndependent

Ten new certified phlebotomists and ten chefs are plunging into the workforce after graduating Saturday as the Cohort VIfrom the Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology (ConnCAT).

Wearing caps, gowns, and chefs hats, the graduates who attended were cheered on by family and friends at a socially distant ceremony held in ConnCAT’s Winchester Avenue parking lot.

Through its Culinary Arts Academy and Phlebotomy Technician program, ConnCAT provides unemployed or under-employed adults with job-training for work opportunities in town. Many of Saturday’s graduates have already found work since joining the program, and enthusiastically returned to ConnCAT for the ceremony.

Administrative Services Manager Stephanie Mallard said ConnCAT started planning the graduation ceremony in July.

Mallard, who coordinated the graduation, put in place social distancing measures such as allowing families to observe from their cars in the back or sit in chairs stationed more than six feet apart.

ConnCAT usually holds two graduations a year, in the winter and in the spring. Saturday’s graduation was ConnCAT’s first outdoor commencement ceremony, since they typically hold graduation in the arts studio.

“These folks have been waiting to graduate due to the pandemic, and so we really wanted to honor and celebrate their achievement,” said ConnCAT CEO Erik Clemons.

“It’s a very powerful thing to be able to finish and complete something and show the community that all things are possible.”

In her welcoming speech, ConnCAT Chief Operating Officer Genevive Walker highlighted the graduates’ determination.

“Even in this day when we have this global pandemic, we have this national civil unrest, none of these things could stop us from celebrating you on this day,” Walker said.

Walker mentioned the hard work Culinary Arts Academy students put in cooking and serving food at ConnCAT’s Orchid Cafe through the pandemic. In five weeks this spring, the Orchid Cafe and Culinary program made $15,000.

“If you have the heart and mind to protest, if you have the heart and mind to survive, I just want to offer to you sitting in these immediate seats that your success is a protest. So I just want to encourage you to continue to protest. The world needs you. They need your demonstration of mutual respect, of commitment, of integrity, of self-accountability. We need right now your compassion and empathy, and we look to your excellence,” she added.

Culinary arts instructor Jenna Martin said that some mornings her students came knocking on the kitchen door as early as 5:30 to learn something new and practice their skills. “At this point, I had no choice but to be addicted to coffee and buckeyes candies to keep up with them!” she said jokingly.

“With dedication came sacrifice and this group proved that they were willing to sacrifice for what they wanted.”

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Advertising/Sales Team Keith Jackson 10 Delores Alleyne John Thomas, III

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Staff Writers Christian Lewis/Current Affairs Anthony Scott/Sports Arlene Davis-Rudd/Politics Autumn Smith with her mother.

Autumn Smith, who graduated from the phlebotomy technician program, said the number-one thing she learned at ConnCAT was professionalism. “I liked the family environment. Everyone wanted to talk to each other, help each other. And the teachers were very supportive.”

Bianca Roundtree had been waiting to graduate from the Phlebotomy Technician program since January, when she completed an externship. “I’m excited.

I never thought this would have happened!”

Roundtree is employed at ConnCAT and is studying to take her National Phlebotomy Association (NPA) certification exam in October, with plans to be a traveling phlebotomist.

At ConnCAT, Roundtree said, she learned a lot about compassion and community involvement. “It’s more important to make an impact in your community, that’s the biggest thing I’ve learned and that I see here. You want to get something for yourself, but you want to also give something.”

Mayor, Police Union At Odds Over Breonna Taylor Fallout

Florencio Cotto, president of the police union, took to social media to brand Elicker as anti-cop and seek a retraction for his “disgraceful” statement that the officers in the Taylor case were not held accountable.

“Mr. Mayor, please apologize to the men and women of the New Haven Police Department. They deserve it. Otherwise, your bias toward the police must be noted so when one of our fine officers is hurt, then they and their family won’t be surprised when you engage in harmful, fake news tweeting,” Cotto wrote.

Rather than apologize, Elicker repeated in a Friday response post the he “remains” unconvinced that “justice was served in this case.” “Many national legal experts share this same assessment.”

He proceeded to state that he wasn’t making any reference to New Haven officers.

He called Cotto’s linking of his remarks to New Haven police “an attempt to silence the voice of local elected officials in this important and historic national conversation that is happening. Now more than ever, we must stand up and call out injustices, even in the face of adversity.”

Here’s Elicker’s full post:

by STAFF

New Haven I ndependent

The police union demanded an apology for allegedly traitorous remarks. The mayor stood his ground against an alleged silencing attempt.

That was some of the local fallout from the decision by a Louisville, Kentucky, grand jury not to indict any of the officers who shot up Breonna Taylor’s apartment and killed her.

Mayor Justin Elicker joined a chorus of New Haveners expressing disappointment and outrage at the decision. Protesters marched peacefully through city streets Thursday night and plan another demonstration Friday evening.

Elicker posted a link on his mayoral Facebook page on Thursday to a New York Times article about the Louisville decision.

“I am shocked to hear that the grand jury didn’t charge any officers for the murder of Breonna Taylor in her Louisville apartment. What happened to Breonna was wrong in so many ways and the officers should be held accountable. It is a tragedy the Taylor family couldn’t realize justice in the courts,” Elicker wrote above the link.

THOMAS BREEN PHOTOS Cotto vs. Elicker: Perfidy? Or attempted silencing?

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06 , 2020

Mindful Of Civil Rights History Kiyama, Fraternities unite To Register Voters

by RAM VISHWANATHAN New Haven I ndependent

Smiles of pride discernible through their masks, Julian Lewis and Shawn Williams handed over forms Saturday to register to vote for the first time.

Lewis and Williams, both 18, showed up at a voter registration drive set up outside the government office building at 200 Orange St. in memory of the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. Passed in August 1965, the Act prohibits racial discrimination in voting, and marked a landmark moment in the Civil Rights “Everybody in our past fought for our right to participate. If people don’t vote, we’re disrespecting that,” said Lewis.

Williams, who soon plans to join the army, was similarly passionate in affirming his desire to vote. “I don’t want to get pushed to the side by the president,” he said.

An acute awareness of history and the need to continue the work of Black activists in the past was palpable among all present Saturday. Michael Jefferson, the lead organizer of the event, said that the push to bring the Black community out to vote had to be contextualized in the ways in which it has been historically disenfranchised.

“It’s not just the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act that we need to remember. It’s also the 150th anniversary of the 15th Amendment, which first allowed some Black men to vote, and the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote,” Jefferson stated. “These laws overturned a brutal era of voter suppression, and so many people died for this right. We can’t take that for granted.”

Jefferson, a member of the Kiyama movement as well as the local chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity’s Chi Omicron, said that Saturday’s event focused on brining different community organizers together to meet each other, while also generated foot traffic for a voter registration drive.

The Kiyama movement has been organizing to bring Black men out to vote this election cycle. “Black men are the least likely to participate in electoral politics across all key demographics. And New Haven is no different,” Jefferson said.

In a state like Connecticut, where people of color have not had to deal with voter suppression as much as in other parts of the country, the onus os on the Black community to step out and vote, Jefferson argued. “We have so much power, and we can influence the process. It’s in your hand, you have the franchise.”

“In New Haven, the mayor selects the chief of police and the Board of Police Commissioners . That also means we can have our say in policing. And we can make sure that the powers-that-be respond effectively to a pandemic that is

RAM VISHWANATHAN PHOTO

shredding our community,” he said.

Jefferson marked an all-action presence throughout the event, pausing during his interview with the Independent on multiple occasions — to hand over a set of forms, greet passers-by he recognized, or even warn that a baby was walking too close to the road. His initiative was also vital to bringing organizers from local fraternity networks to the event.

Marcellus Edwards, the head of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity’s Chi Omicron chapter, mentioned that his organization has set a target of registering to vote over a million Black men in time for the election in November. Edwards has been playing an active role in mobilizing his chapter to do its part in New Haven, and estimates that they have so far registered over 200 families to vote in weekend door-to-door campaigns. Edwards mentioned that they have been canvassing in Newhallville for several weeks, and had a lot of success during a campaign in Dwight neighborhood last Sunday. He also expressed his excitement at the chance to be able to share information and best practices with other groups present.

Like others present, Edwards reflected on historical legacies: “All sorts of hurdles and obstacles have been put in place,

and people committed their lives to combatting them. It’s critical for organizations like mine to do step up and do what we can to make sure black men are part of the movement and the electoral process,” he said.

The New Haven Alumni chapter of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, headed by Derek Tompkins, was also present. Like their Omega Psi Phi counterparts, the fraternity has a national mandate to register participants to vote. Tompkins collected a stack of voter registration forms at the event, and planned to take his brothers canvassing the same day.

Tompkins, Edwards and Jefferson will not be alone in doing so. Lewis and Williams also promised to return home to convince their friends to vote, only 30 percent of whom they estimated are registered. “I’ll send them messages, and I’ll tell them when I see them at the basketball court,” said Lewis. “If they had the sheet in front of them, they’d sign up to vote for sure.”

Williams’ mother Valerie, who brought the two boys to the event, smiled and pointed to a stack of forms in her hand that she had collected at the event, ready for distribution.

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DONT LET THEM COUNT YOU OUT!

“Mr. Lanson is Back Home” THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020

Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison recalled growing up receiving history lessons that left out important figures. She said she learned only that “Martin Luther King Jr. was good. Malcolm X was bad. And Harriet Tubman freed the slaves.” It wasn’t until Morrison attended Morgan State Univeristy when she learned more about Black history.

Morrison worked as the organizers’ liaison to the city for the Lanson project.

A larger plan for a William Lanson Plaza is in the works, she. Morrison called for the public schools’ curriculum to include Lanson and other important Black figures in the city’s history.

Assistant Superintendent for High Schools Paul Whyte said he will take up Morrison’s homework assignment.

Many of the speakers Saturday spoke of Lanson’s contributions to the city. Guest wore mask during the celebration and seats were spaced six feet apart.

Lanson was proclaimed a trailblazer, visionary leader, king, legacy, and hero by the gathered crowd, which included the planning committee.

In his time Lanson was defamed by white city leaders who resented his accomplishments. U.S Rep Rosa DeLauro said the celebration and monument recognize the city’s history and mission to work towards equity.

At the Saturday ceremony Mayor Justin Elicker declared Sept. 26 William Lanson Day in New Haven. Elicker also proclaimed a pardon on behalf of the city for alleged past municipal violations under his authority. “You have been wronged by us, and as much as we can we wish to make it right,” he said.

After the unveiling, community members posed for photos with the seven-foottall bronze statue.

Welfare sang Luther Vandross’s “The Impossible Dream” in honor of Lanson whose “impossible dream was brought to life today.”

Welfare faced the Lanson statue while singing:

by MAYA MCFADDEN

New Haven I ndependent

After seven years of planning, New Haven Saturday unveiled a 700-pound bronze monument to one of the seminal and no-longer forgotten figures of the city’s Black history, William Lanson.

The monument was unveiled at a ceremony along the Farmington Canal Trail in the Dixwell neighborhood, where Lanson will now stand as a reminder of too-oftenforgotten heroes.

Lanson, an early 19th century local engineer, entrepreneur, and Black political leader who freed himself from slavery and was elected “Black governor” in 1825, helped build the Farmington Canal and Long Wharf during his time working and living in Antebellum New Haven.

“I can see someone I know in William Lanson,” Metropolitan Business Academy student activist Antonia Wright said at Saturday’s ceremony. She said the Lanson statue makes her feel represented and motived to research more about Black history.

Oakland-based sculptor Dana King, who created the statue, said she strived to liberate Lanson’s spirt. While sculpting Lanson’s Black body in bronze, King said, she looked to capture what hurt him, who loved him, and who he truly was. “Black bodies in bronze can no longer be hurt,” she said.

King sculpted Lanson’s scar above his left eye. The statue is positioned in a stance of confidence and power, said King. With a clenched fist, King said, she suggested if Lanson were alive today she knows he would be protesting with Black Lives Matter.

King said she forsees a nest of birds forming in Lanson’s hallowed out top hat.

“He will bless us with new life,” she said.

Francis Miller, founder of ConservArt LLC, finished installing the monument Friday around 11 p.m. Miller installed the statue according to King’s vision: Lanson is positioned to eye the Farmington Canal Greenway rather than the street.

Organizers and community members joined the celebration to reconize the American story of Lanson and his accoplishments and impact on the city.

“This is more than a portrayal of a man but a call to action,” said Amistad Committee President, Alfred Marder (pictured).

Malcolm Welfare, leadership coordinator and technology teacher for New Haven Public Schools, led the audience in a libation to thank and salute the land’s ancestors of the north, south, east, and west.

The project started seven years ago with support from former Mayor Toni Harp.

Harp worked with Marder in support of the project when first proposed. Harp recalled her learning the importance of Lanson to New Haven’s Black history.

That one man, scorned / And covered with scars, / Still strove with his last / Ounce of courage / To reach the unreachable ...

MAYA MCFADDEN PHOTO

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... then followed it up with Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

Sculptor King said she will return to New Haven to check in with Lanson. The statue will also be waxed once a year, she said.

“Young screenwriters get busy,” said Yale Professor of History and African American Studies & American David Blight, who encouraged New Havener’s to continue to “breathe in history” and showcase it.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06 , 2020

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020

School Health Centers Reopen

by EMILY HAYS

New Haven I ndependent

Schools are accepting students back in, by appointment-only, to get their vaccines and physicals.

In the latest in a series of incremental reopening decisions, the New Haven Board of Education has given its permission for all 16 of its school-based health centers (SBHC) and six dental clinics to reopen for in-person appointments.

Meanwhile, classes remain remoteonly for nearly all students during the first quarter out of Covid-19 safety concerns.

“With telehealth, we can’t give the immunizations and exams that are required for school entry. Every year, we bring hundreds into compliance and protect the school community from disease outbreaks,” said Sue Peters, the district’s director for the centers.

Peters said that the centers have continued to see their patients virtually since schools shut down when the Covid-19 pandemic started. However, some families are still struggling to get online and some necessary procedures need to happen in-person.

“Students already had been relying on SBHCs for essential health care needs well before this pandemic. Now with COVID, it’s even harder for parents to find work, childcare, transportation, healthcare and just about everything else,” Peters said.

The board members gave Peters unanimous approval for the in-person appointments at an online meeting Monday night. Board member Matthew Wilcoxabstained from the vote because his spouse works for Clifford Beers, one of the providers involved in the clinics.

“I don’t have a big concern that there will be a lot of people in the building congregating. That made it easier for me to be supportive,” said Darnell

Goldson, one of the most vocal opponents of resuming in-person classes in September.

Goldson said the rules for the clinics settled this decision for him. Only one student would be allowed in at a time, accompanied by at most one guardian.

Appointments would be separated by 15-minute gaps, and surfaces would be disinfected.

Yale New Haven Hospital, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, Fair Haven Community Health Care, Clifford Beers and the New Haven Health Department run the various clinics.They plan to replicate the safety procedures they have maintained at their hospitals and health care centers that have been open throughout the pandemic.

Peters said that only Fair Haven plans to offer Covid-19 tests on-site. The other clinics can order tests for their patients at nearby testing sites.

Reopening Baby Steps The two other reopening steps the board has taken are to open high schools for two days to administer PSATs and SATs, and to allow a small number of students with severe cognitive disabilities back to in-person classes.

The board learned on Monday that 43 students with disabilities took classes at their 11 schools last week. District Special Education Director Typhanie Jackson explained that the plan was to start small, with a maximum of five students per school. Seven of the families invited to return decided to stick to remote classes, four were dealing with other medical issues last week, and one was MIA enough to warrant special attention from truancy officers.

Many more students, around 1,600 juniors and seniors, have signed up for the Oct. 14 SAT test date and the Oct. 29 PSAT test date. Students will take the college admissions exams in groups of ten, at ten high schools.

Newhallville Looks To Highlight Landmarks

History With Democracy Dollars

LAURA GLESBY PHOTO Management Team Chair Kim Harris gives out prizes at last year’s Newhallville holiday party.

by LAURA GLESBY

New Haven I ndependent

Newhallville neighbors are looking to spend $10,000 in public dollars on spotlighting “a sense of who we are,” said management team Chair Kim Harris: By installing signs that point the way to community landmarks and delve into the neighborhood’s history.

Harris announced this project at last week’s Newhallville Community Management Team meeting, which took place via telephone conference.

The signs would be supported by the city’s Neighborhood Public Improvement Project (NPIP), through which the Livable City Initiative (LCI) allocates $10,000 each year to every management team in the city for projects determined by neighborhood community members.

In Newhallville, some of that pool of money has already been spent on a holiday party last year as well as a youth “ambassadors” employment program for neighborhood teens during the summer of 2019. According to LCI neighborhood specialist Linda Davis-Cannon, $3,700 went toward last year’s holiday party.

She said she did not have a figure for the amount that was spent on the ambassador

program.

Harris posited that NPIP money could be used to purchase signs pointing the way to prominent neighborhood buildings and parks, like Lincoln Bassett School, the Winchester Arms factory, or the Learning Corridor along the Farmington Canal Trail. They could also spotlight the neighborhood’s rich history, she said.

“For instance, how did Newhallville come about? What’s the history behind the name Newhallville? What’s the history behind Bassett School?” Harris told the Independent after the meeting.

“There’s some real historical nuggets out there in terms of Newhallville that we’ve not dived into.”

“It’s just another way of beautifying Newhallville — giving a sense of who we are,” Harris said.

Harris has been raising the idea of installing signs throughout the neighborhood since February. She said this NPIPfunded project stemmed from monthslong conversations with management team members.

The NPIP funds will also go towards shared materials, such as tents, tables, and chairs, that neighborhood residents will

be able to borrow for backyard events.

Harris told the Independent that she hopes the shared resources would assist neighbors who might not have the means to rent event supplies. “We’re in a time right now where some people don’t have jobs,” she said.

The resources would build off of an existing pool of community materials, including tents and trays, that were left over from a CARE-funded event at Lincoln Bassett School a few years ago. The supplies — which, according to Harris, have survived wear and tear over the years — currently sit in Harris’ backyard, she said, and they’re available for neighbors to borrow. Harris said she hopes to also use NPIP funds to purchase a shed for the shared materials, so that they can occupy a more communal space.

The remaining funds would be saved for the management team’s 2021 holiday party, according to Harris.

Harris said that a committee would be formed to determine specifics such as how much money to allocate to each project, where the signs will be installed, what they will say, and the precise community supplies that would be purchased.

WNBA Star Maya Moore Helped Free a Wrongfully Convicted Man — And Then Married Him!

By BlackNews.com

Nationwide — Former WNBA star Maya Moore has announced that she and Jonathan Irons, a man whom she helped overturn a wrongful conviction and was released from prison last July, were married over the summer.

“We wanted to announce today that we are super excited to continue the work that we’ve been doing together, but doing it as a married couple,” Moore said in an interview with Good Morning America.

“We’re excited to share this new chapter of life together.”

Moore, who is now 31-years old, and Irons, who is now 40-years old, got married during the ongoing pandemic. They had a small gathering with their closest

his love for her while still in prison but waited until he was freed to ask her for marriage.

In March, a judge overturned Irons’ conviction, citing been issues with the investigation and trial of the case such as the fingerprint evidence blocked by the prosecutors that would have proved Iron’s innocence. He was released from prison on July 1.

Meanwhile, the married couple hopes to help others who have been wrongfully convicted as well.

“Hopefully, I can continue to do and whatever else, you know, that we can contribute to the fight because it’s a big fight and the more hands involved makes the work easier. So we’re doing our part,” Irons said.

friends and family, implementing health protocols such as wearing masks and social distancing.

Irons was then 16-years old in 1998 when he was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment after he was convicted by an allwhite jury for burglary and twice shooting a homeowner. Irons maintained his innocence through the years, saying he was wrongly identified.

In 2007, Moore, who was then 18-years old, met Irons during a visit to the Jefferson City Correctional Center in Missouri.

Moore paused her basketball playing career in February 2019 to focus more on helping overturn Iron’s wrongful conviction.

Their friendship blossomed gradually to a romantic relationship. Irons revealed

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06 , 2020

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020

Hamden Black Film Series Hits A Home Run

by Lucy Gellman, Editor, The ARTS Paper

On screen, Jackie Robinson was up at bat. He coated his hands in dust and took a few practice swings. From the stands, his wife Rachel held her breath, so nervous she could barely watch. Under a night sky in Hamden, two dozen people sat transfixed, glued to a story that was over 75 years old.

The ball whirred through the air and made contact with the bat. Both the baseball and Robinson became airborne.

Thursday, the Hamden Black Film Mini Series brought Robinson to the screen with 42, the Jackie Robinson biopic starring Chadwick Boseman. The film tells the story of Robinson, the Black baseball player who broke the color line when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. A few dozen attended the event, held on the sprawling lawn of Spring Glen Church.

The series is a collaboration among “Ignite The Light” Founder Shamain (Sha) McAllister, Best Video Film and Cultural Center, the Hamden Department of Arts and Culture and Spring Glen Church Pastor Jack Davidson. Emalie Mayo, who has joined the group in an advising role, is a co-coordinator of the Elm City Lit Fest.

To stem the spread of COVID-19, the three-part series is held outdoors, with mandatory mask wearing and social distancing. The town of Hamden is also doing contact tracing.

As night began to fall, attendees rolled in, propping up lawn chairs and unpacking snacks, bug repellent, and face masks. Some came equipped with blankets and quilts for the damp, dropping temperatures. Close to the church, organizers did last-minute tests on a screen and nest of equipment. Someone brought out a rack of extra folding chairs from the church. Every 20 minutes, the 228 bus trundled by, going from half-full to totally empty in its final hours of the day.

As one of the first to arrive, Hamdenite Rashanda McCollum found a grassy patch just to the right of the screen, laying out a blanket as her daughter Aria checked out the Moon Rocks Cookies truck with two of her friends. Beside her sat her mom Elois and three-year-old dog Sasha, whose purple stroller doubled as the best seat in the house.

McCollum, who works as the executive director of Students for Educational Justice, said she was excited to see the film but expected it to feel bittersweet. Boseman passed away last month at 43 years old, after a four-year battle with colon cancer. Before his death, he was known for the empathy and grace with which he imbued his characters, Black men from Robinson to Thurgood Marshall to T’Challa, the now-heralded Black Panther of Marvel’s Black Panther universe.

Do The Right Thing

“For me, it was important to come out,” she said. “The film itself, I haven’t seen it. I loved that it was being shown in a community format. It has both entertainment value and feels timely.”

13-year-old twins Angelina and Rachael Skojec, who had joined McCollum, said they were looking forward to the film after days of distance learning and a COVID-19 scare at one of the local schools.

Before the pandemic, they went to the movies as a bonding activity with their dad. Now, the pandemic has turned their year upside down. They don’t go out anymore. They’ve lost family members in the midst of the pandemic. An outdoor movie night felt stunningly normal.

“I don’t get to watch movies that often anymore,” said Rachael. “Stuff like this is really rare for me.”

In the front “row”—a neat line of orange traffic cones—Ann Ruhlman also settled in. A Spring Glen resident and lifelong cinephile, she walked the few blocks from her home after reading about the series in the newspaper. For months, she has felt at sea without a COVID-safe movie theater to go to.

Her favorite summer activity, the New Haven Documentary Film Festival, didn’t work for her in its largely-online format this year. Movies streamed at home aren’t the same, she said. The out-

door format gave her a reason to get back out into the community while doing one of her favorite things.

“I’ve missed it for a long time now,” she said. “Since the pandemic started, I haven’t really been to anything. I love the movies because it’s like going to another world.”

Dusk rolled in. Across the street, a band in front of Best Video was winding down its set, strains of folk and bluegrass floating in the twilight. A few just-on-time attendees swung into the parking lot, jogging across the lawn to set up chairs.

William Foster, a professor emeritus at Naugatuck Community College, got up to introduce the film.

Foster urged the audience to remember two numbers: 42 and 47. Forty-seven was the year that Robinson, in the face of racist threats that dogged him for the remainder of his career, broke the color line in Major League Baseball. Fortytwo was the number on the back of Robinson’s jersey, officially retired from the sport in 1997.

“He’s an icon, but Jackie Robinson was more than that,” he said. “You’ll see how his reserve was tested. People liked him or they didn’t like him. But he won them over because he was good at what he did.”

As the opening credits rolled, the crowd fell to a hush. Light danced off the screen. The film opened on a grainy,

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compressed history lesson that jumped from segregationist policies to Branch Rickey, who served as the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1943 to 1950. As a camera swept across his office, Rickey puffed on a cigar and announced that he planned to invite a Black player onto the team.

“I don’t know who he is or where he is, but he’s coming,” he declared.

Audience members seemed to lean in a little closer; a few munched on bags of popcorn they had brought from home.

The scene shifted to Robinson somewhere in the South with the Kansas City Monarchs, a powerhouse team in the Negro National League. The plot had started barreling forward, like a pitch in perfect motion.

Across the lawn, people started interacting with the film. Someone snapped as Robinson made his ascent from the Monarchs to the Montreal Royals to the Brooklyn Dodgers in a matter of two years. When manager Burt Shotton looked around the locker room and took a moment to identify Robinson—the only Black player on the team—a cackle went up from the crowd.

Pint-sized viewers watched as Robinson inspired kids who came to watch him play, just as Boseman himself later redefined who and what a superhero could

look like. A few adults smiled through their masks as the film traced the great love story between Robinson and his wife Rachel, who went on to be a professor of nursing at Yale and is still alive today. Masks stayed on; eyes crinkled at the edges. Very few weren’t misty by the end.

As it played in Spring Glen—a historically redlined and still predominantly white neighborhood—42 felt timely, like the beginning of a conversation the town still needs to have. In the film, Robinson’s teammates use language soaked in white supremacy that isn’t as antiquated or disorienting as it perhaps should be.

In the 77 years since he broke the color line in baseball, racism has lived on in not only Major League sports, but in the de facto segregation of public schools, neighborhoods, and access to basic resources.

Robinson’s own history intersects with segregationist policies in New York and Connecticut: he and his family were kept out of housing developments in Purchase, Port Chester, Greenwich and Stamford through the process of redlining. They ultimately settled on Stamford, where Robinson lived until his death in 1973.

Almost everyone in attendance had a Jackie Robinson anecdote, from young, squeaky-voiced moviegoers to those who were fully grown. Hank Hoffman, who runs Best Video and came wearing a New York Mets patterned mask, has a baseball signed by Robinson. Former mayoral hopeful Jay Kaye said that Robinson had visited Spring Glen in the early 1970s, during the time that Rachel was at the Yale School of Nursing, to have dinner at a colleague’s home.

That colleague’s kid is now Kaye’s very grown up friend.

During a short talkback, Foster suggested that the story of Robinson can give an audience hope. He pointed to moments in the film where Robinson’s teammates pushed through some of their own racist beliefs—like a petition to get Robinson off the team—to defend him as they learned about the danger and ugliness of American racism. He urged attendees to take that message to heart in their own lives, lived in a progressively divisive country.

“You see him as a human being fighting for himself, ” Foster said. “And then some people come and support him.”

“Despite what we watch, what we hear, what we see on our cell phones and TV,” he added, “There is common ground.”

The Hamden Black Film Mini-Series will return with a screening of Brown Sugar on Sept. 25 and Do The Right Thing on Oct. 3. Both screenings begin at 7:30 p.m. at Spring Glen

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06 , 2020

Stop & Shop Workers Win More Hazard Pay

Teacher Of The Year Speaks Out For Undocumented

by EMILY HAYS

New Haven I ndependent

SAM GURWITT PHOTO Local Stop & Shop workers with U.S. Sen. Dick Blumenthal at a July

event seeking hazard pay.

by STAFF Stop & Shop workers have won a second round of extra hazard-duty pay for service during the Covid-19 pandemic’s summer months.

Their union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Friday announced a deal to that effect with the supermarket chain on behalf of 56,000 employed nationwide.

Under the deal, the chain will give workers retroactive pay “in the form of lump sum payments equal to 10

percent of all hours worked between July 5, 2020 and August 22, 2020,” the union announced in a press release.

The chain had given workers hazard pay during the first months of the pandemic. Then it refused to offer a second round despite efforts by the union to obtain it; click here for a local story about that.

The deal doesn’t include paid time off, and it doesn’t cover unions whose locals are currently in contract negotiations.

When Wilbur Cross teacher Kristin Mendoza had the floor, she didn’t waste the chance to advocate for undocumented students facing extra disadvantages during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mendoza was selected by group of peers to be New Haven Public Schools’ Teacher Of The Year. Superintendent Iline Tracey invited her to give a brief acceptance speech at Monday’s Board of Education meeting.

Mendoza spent the majority of her speech reading a list of policy changes that she thinks would benefit her immigrant and undocumented students.

“When I have you here as a captive audience, I want to encourage the board and whole city to support English language learners and mixed-status families. This might be the only chance I have in my lifetime,” Mendoza said.

Despite this quip, Mendoza has often used public forums to advocate for her ELL students.

Mendoza teaches English and writing to 11th and 12th graders at Wilbur Cross High School who are recent immigrants and need more language help. She also advises the Cross In Action student club, which rallied to bring then-undocumented teen Mario Aguilar Castañon home from federal detention this January.

In her previous position at Fair Haven School, she helped lead instructional reforms for English learners there.

Mendoza described the nerve-wracking experience of trying to bring a former student home from detention. She said that Castañon had just won asylum when the Covid-19 pandemic started and magnified disadvantages undocumented students were already facing.

To address these disadvantages, Mendoza

Red pandas are vegetarian carnivores?

Let your curiosity run wild!

Online tickets required: www.beardsleyzoo.org 9

MELISSA BAILEY FILE PHOTO Teacher Of The Year Kristin Mendoza: This is my chance to advocate.

asked for four policy changes at the district, city and state level: 1 Advocate that the state expand its Medicare program, HUSKY, to include undocumented immigrants. Mendoza said that the school health clinics, which the board just voted to reopen, do a good job serving students without legal immigration status but that access to counseling for trauma and reproductive health cares ends when they graduate.

“At graduation, I sometimes feel that I’m watching my undocumented students walk off the edge of a cliff. It really feels that way,” Mendoza said.

2 Open trade schools like ConnCAT to undocumented students.

3 Open scholarship opportunities, especially state aid that helps students attend Gateway Community College for free, to undocumented students.

4 Create a jobs pipeline that supports multilingual students through the higher education and teaching requirements they need to become bilingual educators.

“So many bilingual educators look like me—a white women who speaks Spanish as a second language—and so few look like my husband, who was born in Guatemala,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza ended her speech with her sense of optimism that things will get better for her students, despite the challenges the year has thrown their way.

“You see why she’s Teacher Of The Year,” Tracey said to the board.

Board members responded by thanking Mendoza for her work. Mayor Justin Elicker asked her to email her wishlist to the board for further consideration.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020

Breonna Taylor March Shuts Down Whalley

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven I ndependent

Two dozen young, Black women jumped and danced and sang in the middle of the intersection of Whalley Avenue and Sherman Avenue as several hundred fellow protesters sat in the street and blocked traffic on all sides.

“Black women matter!” the group cheered, a portrait of Breonna Taylor held aloft nearby. “Black women matter!”

That spontaneous, cathartic 10-minute dance party came more than two hours into a Thursday evening rally organized

by Black Lives Matter New Haven in honor of Taylor.

Taking place well after the sun had set, with cars honking—some in frustration, some in support—all around the island of protesters, the moment represented the emotional climax of a four-hour action filled with grief, outrage, joy, indignation, and an intensely political thirst for justice.

The catalyst for Thursday’s march was a Kentucky grand jury’s decision the day before to not charge the officers who shot and killed Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, in her Louisville home in March during a botched drug raid. The only indictment the grand jury did hand down was a charge of wanton endangerment against a now-former detective who shot into Taylor’s neighboring apartments. The grand jury decision has sparked demonstrations throughout the country.

Thursday’s demonstration in New Haven brought together roughly 300 people to the Green—and then into the streets, for three-and-a-half hours of marching and mourning and chanting and blocking of traffic.

“No justice! No peace!” sang out the rally’s organizers, including Ala Ochumare, Sun Queen, Amelia Sherwood, and MiAsia Harris. “Say her name! Breonna Taylor!”

Unlike previous Black Lives Matter rallies that took place this summer in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Thursday’s march went not to city police headquarters at 1 Union Ave., but rather out into the neighborhoods. It wound through Dwight and Edgewood and Whalley before circling back downtown.

The protest was unaccompanied by any visible police escort, leaving the event’s organizers responsible for navigating hundreds of people for a miles-long journey by foot through the middle of relatively dark city streets and across intersections bustling with car traffic.

“We got time today,” Ochumare said multiple times over the course of the night, including when the group blocked the intersection of Chapel Street and Park Street on their way out towards Edgewood.

“We’re not in a rush. We cannot continue to just keep moving like this is not happening. It is very inconvenient for Breonna’s family to be having to bury her.

It’s very inconvenient for each and every one of us to be here because we’re risking our lives.” To the drivers honking their car horns behind the demonstration, she said, either turn around or stay parked or, better yet, get out and join the group.

“We’re gonna be here,” she said. “We’re taking up all these spaces. We got time today, y’all.”

“It’s About Change” Young protesters—many walking over from Yale’s campus and wearing blue face masks stamped with the university’s white Y logo—started arriving at the Green at around 5 p.m.

Amistad High School students Tanayah Longs, Natenen Conde, and Julie Hajducky said they turned out for Thursday’s action primarily to “honor Breonna Taylor’s legacy,” as Hajducky said.

“Her family has gone through so much,” she said.

She said that protests like New Haven’s, as well as those taking place all across the country this week, play a dual role of providing direct emotional support for Taylor’s grieving family as well as letting politicians and law enforcement know that many view the grand jury’s decision as the opposite of justice.

“As a young Black woman, it hurts,” Conde said about both Taylor’s death at the hands of police and at the zero indictments handed down to the officers who shot and killed her.

East Shore resident Marissa Harris, her 11-year-old daughter Isis Harris, and her mother Marcia Smith (pictured right to left) said that all three generations of their family had been closely following the months of protests that took place in Louisville after police killed Taylor. Smith and Harris said they even piled their family into a car and drove 15 hours to Kentucky earlier this month to participate first-hand in one of those protests.

“It just affected me,” Harris said about Taylor’s death. “She’s like family. I’m really saddened and disappointed in the justice system.”

Smith said she was particularly struck by how Louisville police were “up in arms” over the ongoing protests surrounding Taylor’s death. “We are citizens of the United States of America,” Smith said.

“We have every right to protest and to exercise our First Amendment rights.”

“It’s not just about Breonna Taylor now,” she continued. “It’s about change. It took 400 years, and we’re still fighting.”

By the time the event’s organizers and featured speakers were ready to address the full crowd with megaphones, they too spoke of a deep-seated grief and anger and righteous indignation surrounding Taylor’s death and the grand jury’s decision.

“These last two days have been tumultuous,” said Sherwood. “We’ve been in pain. We continue to be in pain. Black women all over the world are enraged. We are hurt. We are tired.”

“The system just chews us up and throws

Ochumare (center) leads the way on Chapel Street.

Marching down Chapel Street towards Sherman Avenue.

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us away,” Ochumare said. “I wish we didn’t have to do this work.” She said protests and mass uprisings ideally create positive, systemic change that betters the lives of Black and brown and queer people.

“Rage is a righteous and sacred emotion,” said Spring Glen Church Rev. Jack Davidson. “I am not here to ease your anger, but to encourage you to channel it towards justice. To let you use it for strength and courage. To remind you that Black Lives Matter. That Breonna Taylor’s life mattered. And that the bullets that went through her body deserved an indictment more than the bullets that went through the plaster in a wall.”

State Sen. Gary Winfield agreed. “Her name is Breonna Taylor,” he said. “She is a beautiful, brilliant young woman who was taken from us not because of any particular issue that happened on that day, but because the soil that this country has grown up from has been poisoned from the beginning.” That history of anti-Black racism and chattel slavery, he said, still reverberates in this country’s disparate treatment of Black and brown people.

“Do not accept when people tell you what can’t be done,” he continued. Mass movements and political persistence can make a change.

100s Hit The Streets With Black Lives Matter flags raised high and masks wrapped tightly around faces, hundreds of the action’s attendees then marched from the Green and into the middle of Chapel Street.

“Justice for ... !” Ochumare shouted into her megaphone.

“Breonna Taylor!” the crowd replied.

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom,” Ochumare said in another call-andresponse with the crowd. “It is our duty to win. We must love and respect one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

Ochumare, Sun Queen, Sherwood, and Jeremy Cajigas took turns keeping the front line of marchers in an even row and walking at a slow enough clip to ensure that no one at the end of the group got left behind. Upon reaching an intersection one of the organizers would call on participants to rush up and block oncoming traffic to clear the way for the hundreds of people marching forward in the street.

They paused at Chapel and Park, and at Chapel and Orchard Street, before turning right on Sherman Avenue and making their way up to Whalley Avenue.

By then, the sun had fully set, leaving the crowd illuminated only by the stray streetlight and the lights spilling out from doorways and windows filled with onlookers, many of whom cheered the protesters on.

When the marchers got to Whalley and Sherman, Ochumare walked out into the Whalley Avenue intersection with a few others to raise their hands and stop cars on the six-lane road from moving for Con’t on page 15

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06 , 2020

Surprise Baby Shower Celebrates Hero

by SAM GURWITT

New Haven I ndependent

Neighbors decorated Stephanie Allis’s lawn with tissue paper and balloons—not to mourn the life she tried to save, but to celebrate the one she will soon bring into the world.

At around 3 p.m. Sunday, Allis stood with her boyfriend in their yard on Newhall Street. A few balloons were floating in the breeze, tied to the fence. A table decorated with tissue paper stood on the sidewalk a few paces from the bank of memorial candles arranged to spell the nickname “Kay.” Allis has gotten used to people gathering in front of her house. They stop by every day to mourn the friend, or brother, or son who lost his life there in July.

On July 18, Kaymar Tanner was shot while driving on Newbury Street in southern Hamden and crashed his car into the fence across the street from Allis’s house.

Allis, a nursing student who works at Yale New Haven Hospital and is currently pregnant, ran across the street, jumped the fence, and tried to save Tanner’s life. She administered CPR and tried to stop the bleeding, but the wound proved fatal, and he died in her arms before the paramedics arrived.

Two days later, Allis went in for a doctor’s appointment. She is expecting a baby in January. That Monday, she found out her baby would be a boy.

Valerie Tanner, Kaymar’s adoptive mother, lives right around the corner from Allis. Every day since her son died on that street corner, she has stopped by the candles to clean them up and make sure there’s no trash around them.

But on Sunday, she came for a different reason. This time, she brought friends, balloons, and bags and bags of gifts.

Tanner said she wanted to thank Allis, so she decided to hold a surprise baby shower for her. For weeks, she has been calling Allis’s boyfriend Ben to plan. She told him to tell Allis that they were planning an event for Kaymar.

“I just wanted to give her love,” she said.

At around 3 p.m., Tanner and friends and family lined up in cars on Morse Street.

One car had helium balloons floating out the sun roof. At about 3:15, the cars turned on their hazard lights and drove to the corner, where they turned left onto Newhall Street. They drove slowly down the block, blasting their horns as they went.

Allis stood with her boyfriend in the yard and burst into tears.

“I hate surprises. And I have an ugly cry face,” she said later, laughing with Tanner as they recalled her reaction.

The cars circled the block. When they drove by again, each one stopped so that a friend could unload a gift and carry it to the table on the sidewalk that was quickly filling up with all manner of presents. Underneath was a large stack of diaper box-

Allis and Valerie Tanner. es. In the bags on the table were games for Allis’s kids, gift cards, gifts for Allis and her boyfriend, and even a few for the dogs.

“Stephanie is our hero, our she-ro,” Shirley Lawrence, a community activist and cousin of Tanner, said into a small red megaphone. “God bless you.”

Once the cars rolled by and parked, the friends and family that Tanner had invited got out and gathered around Allis.

Tanner had asked the town if she could leave the memorial candles on the other side of the street, she said into Lawrence’s small red megaphone. The town said no.

The candles would have to be moved if they were there. So, she asked Allis if she could leave them in front of her house.

Allis said yes.

When Tropical Storm Isaias hit, Tanner said, Allis called her to say that the candles were getting knocked over and damaged so she had taken them all inside.

When Lawrence came by the next morning to bring them all back out, Allis and

her family had already done so.

“I’ve never met a person like her,” Tanner said to the small crowd. “Since that day that my son died, Stephanie has been in my heart. We talk on a regular basis.”

Allis and Tanner said they now talk every few days, and have since July.

State Rep. Robyn Porter took the megaphone and shook it as Lawrence instructed her to so it would work. “You went above and beyond what your call of duty was that day,” she said. “I just want to personally thank you for allowing God to use you in that way. That he didn’t have to be alone, and that he was in your arms.

And through God, that love was felt. I believe that.”

Allis stood next to one of her sons, sometimes smiling, sometimes blushing. “I’m a really shy person,” she said.

“Usually the only time I’m outside of my shy zone is at work when I’m helping people.”

Allis grew up in Fair Haven in the foster care system. Tanner, who works at

11

the Department of Children and Families (DCF), works with Allis’s DCF workers, they later found out.

She also had another connection with Kaymar Tanner. Tanner’s best friend, Jericho Scott, was also killed by a bullet in a car five years and three months to the day before Tanner. Allis said she grew up with Scott. She said she knew him since he was “this high,” holding her palm at her hip.

Allis said her foster brother was killed when he was 21. Tanner was 22. She said she probably mourns as much for Tanner as for her brother, she said, and when she thinks of Tanner, she always thinks of her brother.

After she tried to save Tanner’s life, Allis said she decided to switch back to working in the emergency room. She had been working in a child psychiatry ward.

“All I know is I just want to be in emergency service,” she said. “Everyone’s like ‘you’re crazy, you went to the emergency department pregnant?’ I’m like, ‘it’s natural.’”

Trying to save Tanner’s life also strengthened her resolve to finish nursing school and get her degree, she said.

“I felt like such a failure that he passed away,” she said. “But his family is like ‘don’t feel like that.’”

When she said that to Tanner and her friends a few minutes later, her comment was met with a chorus of “no.”

“We don’t celebrate failures,” said Lawrence, “so you just got to…” she snapped her fingers. “Snap out of that.”

After the speeches, Tanner went up to Allis and hugged her, and Allis buried her face in Tanner’s chest. They stood like that, arms wrapped around each other, for almost a minute. When they let go of each other, Allis wiped a trickle of tears from her cheek.

Still Hard Tanner said she or Lawrence come to tidy up the candles outside of Allis’s house every day.

“I just feel that I’m responsible for it as a mother,” she said. She said she feels the candles are mostly for his friends.

She sometimes sits on the steps of the business incubator across the street and watches the bank of candles that spell her son’s name. People mostly Kaymar’s friends ride by and stop. They walk over and tap one of the basketballs and stand for a moment.

“They find peace and comfort,” she said.

She found one of his friends sitting on the sidewalk next to the candles at 7 a.m. once, she said. Sometimes her other son, Kaymar’s brother, will take his dinner and go eat it by the candles. She said about 60 to 70 people stop by every day.

They’ve gotten to know Allis and her kids and dogs. They know the kids’ names now and stop to talk with them over the fence, and they pet the dogs if they’re in the yard.

Tanner was smiling for much of Sunday’s baby shower. She was busy making the event a success. But once she got home that night, she said, then she might shed tears.

“It’s hard. It’s still unbelievable. I still can’t believe my son is gone,” she said.

It was so sudden, she said, and it appears the bullet was not even meant for him, but for someone else who drove a similarlooking car.

Tanner said the problems that led to her son’s death run deep in the neighborhood.

And the shootings have continued. Saturday night, as Tanner and Lawrence were sitting at Lawrence’s home, they heard gunshots. Tanner went out to see what had happened. There had been a shooting just a few blocks away.

She is still mourning, but said she is beginning to think about creating something to memorialize her son. She said she is considering some sort of scholarship that would help kids who are struggling and “let them know that there is hope.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020

COMMENTARY:

2020 First Presidential Debate an Embarrassment for America

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

American politics nose-dived spiraled and crashed and burned during what masqueraded as the first 2020 presidential debate.

“You’re a clown!” “Would you shut up, man!” “Everything you say is a lie.”

Those were just some of the barbs from Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden who grew irritated by repeated interruptions by President Donald Trump at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland on Tuesday, Sept. 29.

Trump, who received a regular rebuke from moderator Chris Wallace, claimed Biden was weak and unintelligent.

“Don’t ever use the word smart with me,” Trump railed at Biden.

“There’s nothing smart about you, Joe.” The president sunk even lower, making accusations that Biden’s son, Hunter, was “kicked out of the military – dishonorably discharged – because of drugs.”

Biden reminded the audience of a little more than 100 people – down from an anticipated 900 because of the pandemic – that Trump called fallen military members “losers and suckers.”

While Trump dared Biden to say, “Law and order,” Wallace opened discussions on race. “Are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down?” the moderator asked Trump.

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump reluctantly said in a declaration that fell well short of condemnation.

“But,” Trump insisted, “I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left.”

Biden also blasted Trump’s handling of the coronavirus.

The former vice president said more than 200,000 people have died, and some 40,000 people are still contracting COVID each day.

“The President has no plan. He hasn’t laid out anything,” Biden charged.

Trump responded that a vaccine and lifesaving treatments might come before the election.

The president again hit out at China, blaming the Far East nation for the virus.

“It’s China’s fault. It never should have happened,” Trump contended.

“We’ve done a great job,” Trump added, accusing the “fake news” of distorting his record on the virus. Trump claimed a Biden administration would have “lost far

more people.”

Biden responded: “Get out of your bunker and get out of the sand trap and your golf course.”

Later, Trump again refused to say whether he’d leave office peacefully if Biden wins the election.

The ugly match further denigrated when the topic turned to Trump’s income taxes, which he has refused to release them pub-

licly.

A New York Times investigation revealed that Trump had gone 10 of the past 15 years without paying any income taxes, and in 2017 and 2018, he paid just $750.

The president disputed the report but evaded Wallace’s questions about specifics.

As a successful businessman, Trump

offered that he understands the tax code, and others who don’t take advantage of it are inept.

Biden’s campaign released the former vice president’s 2019 tax returns before the debate, which showed he paid nearly $300,000 in federal income tax last year.

“You are the worse president America has ever had,” Biden told Trump.

vote in the upcoming presidential and congressional general elections.

“This feels to me like the most important election of my lifetime,” said Forman. He said his parents met during the Civil Rights movement, and that he learned at an early age not to take for granted the hard-fought and ever-precarious right to vote, especially for Black Americans.

This sidewalk letter-writing campaign represented an opportunity for fellow politically-galvanized New Haveners to gather in person in a relatively safe manner during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and to add a personal, handwritten touch to their efforts to motivate swing-state voters to cast their ballots.

“There’s something that comes from this collective energy,” Forman said, that’s feels fundamentally different from sitting alone in one’s home while phone-banking or writing letters to strangers thousands of miles away.

Ahmad said that this is the second weekend in a row that Loomis Place has played host to such a get-out-the-vote gathering.

He and Forman organized the first blockwide letter-writing campaign last Sunday, in the immediate aftermath of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. Sunday’s event took place one day after President Donald Trump announced that he would like to see conservative federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett replace the

late liberal icon on the country’s top court.

The Prospect Hill organizers plan on holding similar letter-writing parties on each of the next two Saturdays. They’ll then gather all of the letters written over the course of the four events and mail them all on Oct. 17—a date selected by Vote Forward, with the goal of having the letters arrive several days before the Nov. 3 election.

Ahmad said the roughly 30 people who participated last week wrote a total of 400 letters. This week, he said, the organizers hoped to have 1,000 more letters penned.

“I feel such intense urgency around this election,” he said. Whichever candidate wins the presidency and whichever party wins control of Congress will have profound implications on the future of affordable and accessible healthcare, immigrant rights, and economic inequality in this country. Ahmad said he believes that the more people who vote—especially in states that play a disproportionately important role in the electoral college map—the more likely this country can tilt towards becoming a “community of equality and fairness.”

The dozens of New Haveners who came out to Sunday’s letter-writing event agreed.

Rosalie Mutonji, a Beaver Hills resident and immigrant from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said she wanted to emphasize in her letters to Pennsylvania and Florida voters just how much their votes and voices matter in this election.

“I am a woman, an immigrant, Black,” she said. “I feel like my voice needs to be heard, too.”

East Rock resident Lise Dondy said that voting is a foundational, essential component of participating in a democracy.

“I feel like if I don’t vote and someone is elected who doesn’t support the policies I believe in, I only have myself to blame,” she said as she wrote a letter to a Florida voter.

The message fellow East Rock resident Patricia Garland wanted to convey in her letters to Florida voters? “Just go vote.”

She said she has been including in each of her letters a quotation from Abraham Lincoln. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” In order to keep this country a democracy, she said, people must exercise their right to vote.

High School in the Community Principal and North Carolina native Matt Brown said he turned out to Sunday’s letter-writing event in part to demonstrate to his school’s students just how seriously he takes the right to vote, and how invested he is in participating in and protecting democracy. “It is so critically important to vote,” he said, in order to have a say in what the future of this country looks like.

Constance LaPalombara said she was writing specifically to female voters in swing states on Sunday. In her letters, she’s written about how hard this generation’s moth-

ers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers worked to secure and preserve the right to vote for women. “Our democratic institutions are at stake,” she said.

“I figured in a democracy, it’s really important to be civically engaged,” said Yale Law School student Ink Berko (pictured). That means not just voting come election time, but also gathering with other politically engaged members of New Haven’s community to collectively encourage greater democratic participation across the country.

And Tagan Engel and Enroue Halfkenny made Sunday afternoon’s letter-writing campaign a family affair, joining their teenage children Tomi and Ifadayo in penning letters to Florida and Pennsylvania voters.

Engel said she has seen an increasing number of Trump lawn signs and bumper stickers the more she travels outside of New Haven, and is concerned that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s current lead in national polls may be less sturdy than some might think.

Tomi, who is 12, pointed out that she’s not old enough to vote yet. But she’s old enough to recognize that the more people who turn out to vote, the stronger this country’s democracy will be.

“I’m trying to put in my letters just how important it is to make your voices heard,” she said.

Block Party Targets Swing-State Votes

by THOMAS BREEN

New Haven I ndependent

On a quiet, tree-lined Prospect Hill block, several dozen New Haveners gathered at pandemic-safe distances to listen to cello music, enjoy the picture-perfect autumn afternoon—and write letter after letter after letter, desperately encouraging swing-state voters to do their part to ensure that the United States remains a functioning democracy this election season.

That get-out-the-vote block party took place Sunday afternoon on Loomis Place, a tranquil residential stretch of large, stately brick single-family homes right next door to The Foote School.

The event was organized by Loomis Place neighbors James Forman, Jr. and Muneer Ahmad. Roughly 60 participants from East Rock, Prospect Hill, Beavers Hills, Westville, and elsewhere from across the city came out to sit in folding chairs placed sixfeet apart and write letters to registered voters in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Florida about why they should hit the polls—in person or absentee—this November.

Forman and Ahmad said that they received a list of voters from “historically underrepresented communities” from an organization called Vote Forward. They said the nonpartisan mission of Sunday’s outreach effort was to get as many people as possible in those critically important swing states to

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06 , 2020

Stop & Shop and Faxon Law New Haven Road Race

2020 Conference For Black Writers and Entrepreneurs to Convene in October Despite Pandemic

Donate $5,000 to DESK New Haven New Haven, CT: Stop & Shop teamed up with the Faxon Law New Haven Road Race to help raise over $5,000 for the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen to help feed those in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The virtual road race focused on community organizations most affected by COVID-19 and asked participants to consider donating to the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen (DESK) during online registration. Stop & Stop generously agreed to match all donations up to $2,500.

The race and its participants raised nearly $10,000 in total, for several local New Haven non-profits and community organizations.

“Food insecurity across our communities has become a rapidly growing issue since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Supporting organizations, such as DESK, who work tirelessly in the fight against food insecurity is so important to Stop & Shop, and we look forward to helping in the continued efforts to ensure our neighbors have access to food during their times of need” - Maura O’Brien, Manager of External Communication and Community Relations with Stop & Shop.

DESK serves over 4,000 people who

are experiencing homelessness or living in poverty by providing food assistance and services that promote health, community, and equity. At the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, DESK moved quickly to partner with our sister agencies to develop and launch a new program, called Pantry-to-Pantry, to ensure that those who are immunocompromised and should not be leaving their homes would have the food they need. Today, more than 100 volunteers deliver groceries to over 1,100 households.

The Faxon Law New Haven Road Race was very pleased with the support they were able to give to the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen.

Joel Faxon, long time race sponsor stated “although the race looked different this year, I am proud of the contributions our participants and the race made to DESK. It was great to see the community come together to support a great cause.”

Sponsors of the New Haven Road Race included the Faxon Law Group, Stop & Shop, AVANGRID, Alexion, Town Fair Tire, Yale University, Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield, New Haven Terminal and 99.1PLR.

. BlackNews.com Nationwide — Black Writers on Tour and the Southern California Black Business and Tech Expo will partner this year to produce a powerful one-day virtual event. Produced by Dr. Rosie Milligan, the event will be held online on Saturday, October 10, 2020, from 10am to 4pm via a platform called Hopin. Both authors and entrepreneurs are invited to participate in a conference that will be more dynamic

than ever with seminars, workshops, and exhibits.

The event’s theme for 2020 is “Literacy is Everybody’s Business—Literacy + Technology Changes Lives,” and participants will learn how to intertwine tech and literacy in the 21st century.

This year’s event will connect writers with readers while also connecting consumers with Black-owned business owners. Workshops throughout the day will cover a variety of topics including “How

To Write, Publish and Sell Your Book Made Simple,” “How to Write a BestSelling Novel,” “Protecting Your Writing Rights, Trademark and Patent Rights,” “How to Develop Characters That Leap Off The Page,” “How to Operate a HomeBased Business,” “Tax Compliance & Recordkeeping,” and many more.

Attendance at past events has surpassed 3,000. General admission is free. Visit BlackWritersonTour.com

PAID FOR BY AARP

Connecticut

Your Vote. Your Voice.

Our Fight.

As our nation battles a pandemic and economic downturn, the health and financial security of voters over 50 are on the line. That’s why AARP Connecticut is fighting for your voice to be heard.

AARP Connecticut wants to make sure that you know all of your voting options and that all Americans—from working parents to family caregivers to seniors in nursing homes— can vote safely whether they choose to vote from home or in-person.

Learn how you can vote safely and make your voice heard at aarp.org/CTVotes facebook/AARPCT | @AARPCT | aarp.org/CT

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020

New Black-Owned Dating Platform For Sports Fans to Launch

By BlackNews.com

ScoreBiggerDating is a fun, unique dating platform that allows people to connect through their shared love of sports Savannah, GA —African-American entrepreneur Walter Davis recognized a need in the online dating industry for sports fans after frequenting his favorite sports bar and realizing how many single African American patrons were showing up and watching sports alone. It was then that his vision for Score Bigger Dating was born.

Davis’ goal for African-American sports fans is for them to find the love of their lives through their love of sports. “It’s not about how many dating sites you may be affiliated with, it’s about the one site that you’re the most compatible with,” said Davis. “At Score Bigger Dating, you’re more than just a score.”

Meeting a potential mate can be a difficult process. At ScoreBiggerDating, members break the ice by first meeting online and then by following up with a meeting at a sports venue or event when they are ready.

ScoreBiggerDating is an innovative dating platform, launching in 2020, that brings its members fresh, exciting, and relevant content, including the latest news and information within the sports industry. In an age where social distancing has become the norm, ScoreBiggerDating provides the perfect community for true sports fans to find authentic, meaningful relationships.

Learn more and/or sign up at ScoreBiggerDating.com About the Score Bigger Dating Community

NBA Star Chris Paul Enrolls as an HBCU

Student at Winston-Salem State

By BlackNews.com Winston-Salem, NC — NBA player Chris Paul is reportedly taking classes at Winston-Salem State University, the same HBCU that his parents attended years ago.

Chris, who is now 35-years old, played college basketball at Wake Forest University. After his sophomore season, he left for the NBA where he now plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder.

His father, Charles Paul, is glad that his son is taking a class again in his free time.

He told ESPN’s First Take, “He’s always wanting to learn new things, so that’s a

good thing.”

Paul still finished college a few years after leaving. He had two years of eligibility left before, but now he won’t be playing again in college at his age.

Moreover, Paul took the opportunity to promote HBCUs. He also mentioned about providing transportation to its students to be able to register to vote.

“Just about everybody in my family went to an HBCU except for me,” Paul said. “When Stephen A. (a WSSU graduate) talks about Winston-Salem State, that’s near and dear to my heart. For me, it’s been about trying to give a voice to HBCUs.”

The love of sports is a unique compatibility factor. Within the Score Bigger Dating Community, members can meet and mingle online and eventually attend and enjoy their favorite sports teams together.

For added safety and security, Score Bigger Dating provides a premium membership level that features Truststamp identity verification. This allows members the extra protection of a safer online dating experience.

Along with safety, the community also provides fun and entertainment with the Score Bigger Dating Virtual Hangout Talk Show. On the show, members are featured as show guests who respond to topics in sports and romance. Sports + Dating = Fun! The African American community can benefit from a unique and extraordinary experience. ScoreBiggerDating is breaking the ice for the Real Sports Fans.

Sisters’ Journey October Survivor of The Month Hello, my name is Rosetta Howell and I’m a 5-year breast cancer survivor. I was diagnosed with breast cancer on May 19, 2015. I will never forget that day. When I got the call, I was visiting with my dad as he recuperated in a nursing home. He was fighting prostate cancer and I was his guardian and caregiver. Wow! Not only did I have him to worry about, but now I had me to worry about also. He too worried about me because I was his first-born and only daughter.

My breast cancer journey actually started a few weeks before near the end of April 2015 when I found the lump in my breast.

I wasn’t worried or scared as I had always attended all my annual examinations, which included mammograms and sonograms. Starting in 2007, I did both a mammogram and a sonogram because I was told I had dense breasts and the combination of both exams was best at detecting breast cancer in dense breasts.

In addition, all my previous test results had always come back negative, including the latest results that were taken eight months earlier. After finding the lump, in my mind I was thinking, I’m going for my annual examination in two days and I will let the doctor know that I think I felt a lump again for the hundredth time.

During my examination, I knew things were going to be different this time. I needed to get a mammogram and sonogram as soon as possible. Well, during those exams, the radiologist asked if I ever had a biopsy. Right then and there, I knew something was wrong.

I had my biopsy on May 15, 2015 and was told I had a diagnosis of Stage 2 breast cancer on May 19, 2015. All I remembered hearing were the words, “Cancer, Non-aggressive and Stage 2.” There were

14

Rosetta Howell

other words and a short conversation but I think I zoned out after the word “cancer.”

I told my dad and called my fiancé to give him the news. I tried to remain strong for both, especially my dad. I was a daddy’s girl and now his little girl was in a battle for her life.

My fiancé, my son, and I met with the doctor the next day to discuss my diagnosis and determine a path of treatment.

Before my cancer diagnosis, I had always said, “If I ever have breast cancer I would

remove both breasts. What’s the big deal?”

Well now it was time to put my money where my mouth was. I had asked the doctor, if she were in my shoes and given everything she knows, what would she do? She said she would get a lumpectomy because 50 was still a young age, the cancer was nonaggressive and it was Stage 2.

The doctor explained all the various surgical treatment methods such as lumpectomy, mastectomy, double mastectomy, etc.

We all asked various questions to put our minds at ease. Both my son and my fiancé told me the decision was mine and to do what’s best for me and what I could live with. I came home, did my research and did not tell anyone until I had come to a decision about my method of treatment. I did not want anyone influencing my decision. Once I had made up my mind, I told family and friends.

I elected to have a double mastectomy even though the cancer was only in one breast. I planned on doing this treatment only once and was not leaving the other breast up to chance. During surgery, cancer was also discovered in a few lymph nodes under my left arm and those were removed also. I had to endure eight rounds of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation. Radiation was five days a week for six weeks. January 29, 2016 was my last radiation treatment. My dad passed on February 20. He lived to see his baby girl kick cancer’s butt. I think he was at peace knowing I was going to be OK. Through the grace of the Almighty God, the Westchester Medical Group staff, my caregiver, Bill Barnes, family and friends, I AM A SURVIVOR! I now encourage all women to get their annual examination and pay attention to their body. Breast cancer does NOT have to be a death sentence.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06 , 2020 Con’t from page 10

Breonna Taylor

ward. The roughly 200 people still with the march proceeded into the intersection, with many sitting in all four crosswalks, forming a boundary for a space in the center ultimately filled by the impromptu, joyful dance party.

Amistad High School music teacher John Galusha (pictured) served as a human beatbox for the night, providing the vocal equivalent of bass drum kicks and snare hits, all amplified through a speaker he carried in his backpack.

Many drivers stuck in traffic decided to turn around and pursue another route. An ice cream truck driver decided to stay put on the northern end of the intersection, and found a few happy customers looking for refreshment.

Robin Ellington (pictured) took the mic after the dance party and brought the group back to the particular life—and death—that spurred the night’s action. She referenced the $12 million settlement that the City of Louisville came to with Taylor’s family earlier this month. “$12 million is not good enough when you take my family and put them down,” she said. “No, it’s not good enough. It should never be good enough. Prosecute her killers! Prosecute her killers!”

Cajigas (pictured), one of the lead organizers with Citywide Youth Coalition, led the crowd in chant after chant on their slow walk back down Whalley Avenue towards downtown.

“I ain’t get no sleep cause of y’all,” they shouted. “Y’all never gonna sleep cause of me!”

And, “Mama, mama can’t you see, what this system’s done to me. They lock us up and shoot us down. There’s no justice in this town.”

One of the last intersections that the marchers blocked Thursday night was at Elm Street and York Street. The protesters sat down once again, and this time Ochumare gave her most explicit call to political action of the night.

She said protests like Thursday’s are not just pressure valves to let off pent up anger and frustration and grief. They’re also opportunities to find and inspire a new generation of local political leaders.

“We definitely have to vote,” she said.

“But it’s also time for us to identify other people in our city and our community, people have gained this knowledge through lived experience.” Those people need to be running for alder, she said. And for mayor and for state representative and for state senator.

“You younger people, y’all are the people we want to get into aldermanic seats,” she said. “It is so imperative for us to make a lasting change.”

The march ended just after 9:30 p.m., back at the flagpole on the Green, where an altar to Taylor set up the night before remained. It included a picture of her, rose petals, and dozens of unlit candles. Ochumare and a few others took out lighters and lit up the candles, providing a wavering orange glow in the near-black darkness of the Green.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020

5 Siblings Launch “The Sisters Show” Podcast to Connect Black America With the Global African Diaspora BlackNews.com

Nationwide — The Sisters Show is a new talk show & podcast hosted by five sisters from Gambia (West Africa) now streaming on Apple Podcast and Facebook Live.

The sisters — Dr. Jay Ceesay, Olay Ceesay Jabbi, Amy Ceesay, Juka Ceesay, and Dr. Mamaram Ceesay — all have diverse views, different professions, and vibrant personalities. The sisters’ goal is to have honest conversations, each bringing in their unique perspectives of various burning topics from health and wellness, entrepreneurship, finance, relationships, innovation & current entertainment and lifestyle news events. They believe that when we connect to have honest conversations, we can educate, inspire, and empower each other.

The Sisters Show brings various experts from all walks of life from financial advisers to doctors, dietitians, therapists, technology/ innovators, entrepreneurs, artists, etc. to have a conversation with the sisters and share their experience and exchange ideas with our diverse audiences in the African continent and around the world.

The Sisters Show premiered on August 22nd, 2020 at 4pm EST. Just within 6 hours, their live video reached over 6,000 viewers. The audience of the show has been from a wide range demographically. Just in a few weeks, two episodes, the sisters have managed to catch the attention of women and men of all ages because of the hot burning and variety of topics they discuss on the

show which include social and economic issues.

The siblings comment, “We know there is a gap in media for us to fill. There are lot of young women that need mentoring in Africa. We also realized the power of media during the time our brother and his best friend, Alhagi Mamut Ceesay & Ebou Jobe, (may peace be on them) went missing in The Gambia during the Jammeh regime.

Media is a tool we all can utilize to bring about positive change in the world. We will focus on discussions that push the envelope for Africans, even if it gets uncomfortable

for our audience. We will also be sharing information to empower those that want to start their own businesses and brands. People that aspire to go into the health care system, the corporate world or to follow their passion if their calling is to work in the beauty industry. We want to be a platform for all people, including older women too.”

They continued, “The topics we discuss are quite diverse and of course health will be part of what we talk about since we have two doctors on the team. The changes we want to bring is for the whole of the African continent. Including people of color or any-

one that is looking to be inspired and empowered. Change starts with the mind and taking action. We as Africans can no longer sit back to allow people that do not look like us or know our culture or stories to speak for us or to lead our generation. We are capable as Africans. We hope you join us every Saturday at 7pm GMT on Facebook Live for great weekly conversations.”

The Hosts: • Dr. Jay Ceesay has been a health care provider for over 20 years. She currently runs her own family practice in Texas.

• Olay Ceesay Jabbi has been a technology

leader with over 13 years of experience.

She is currently the Vice President/Chief of Staff of Operations for a Fortune 500 company.

• Amy Ceesay is a beauty Director for a major International markup brand, Dior.

• Juka Ceesay is the founder of Juka’s Organic Co., the leading provider of natural food and beauty products from Africa produced by women farmers in over 5 countries.

• Dr. Mamaram Ceesay is currently a resident physician in Obstetrics and Gynecology “OB GYN” In Texas. She obtained her Doctorate in Medicine from Wisconsin.

Follow and watch The Sisters Show on social media: • Facebook – @TheSistersShowPage • IG – @TheSistersShow_ • Twitter – @TheSistersShow_ • Apple Podcast • YouTube Also, learn more about the show at TheSistersShow.com To watch some of their recent episodes, check the following: Facebook.com/TheSistersShowPage/videos/4723059857719024/ Relationships Between Africans and African Americans and Cultural Differences: Facebook.com/TheSistersShowPage/videos/1457581854439254/ What Africans Think About Beyoncé & Black Is King: https://youtu.be/NirxMnyA3mI

Pauletta Washington at 70: Elegant, Smarter and Stronger than Ever

by Christian Carter, BlackDoctor.org

Denzel and Pauletta Washington are one of Hollywood’s favorite couples.

They’ve been married for over 37 years, have four children and, for the most part, have not fallen prey to many other traps or scandals in Hollywood.

Now, as Pauletta is turning 70, five years older than her superstar husband, we reflect on the woman she was, the woman she is, and the women she inspires just by being herself.

The two first met on the set of the 1977 TV movie Wilma, but it wasn’t until circumstance, and pure luck, brought them together again a year later that they began laying the foundation for an impressive future together.

“The first movie I ever did — TV movie — was about Wilma Rudolph and I played Wilma Rudolph’s boyfriend,” Denzel Washington recalled on Live with Kelly and Ryan in 2018. “Pauletta was one of the track stars,” he continued. “I met her then, but I didn’t meet her then. I saw her then,” he explained.

Shooting wrapped and they went their separate ways. It wasn’t until months later that Denzel would actually meet Pauletta, proving that people come in and out of your life for a reason.

And when they return, they can take on a completely different role.

Recalling their fateful second encounter, Pauletta told the Oprah Show in 1996, “A mutual friend of ours, who was also in the film, had given a party. And Denzel and his friends came at the very end of the party,” she remembered.

“We spoke again. We were reintroduced.” Then something truly spectacular happened. “The next night, I attended a play, and he was there” Pauletta continued.

Apparently, it took a lot of convincing for Denzel to get Pauletta to accept a marriage proposal. He told Access Hollywood that he had to ask her multiple times.

“You heard it here first,” Denzel said.

“She turned me down, she said no. And since it was three times, that means she turned me down twice.”

But as you know, the couple tied the knot nearly 40 years ago and even renewed their vows in South Africa years later with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as officiant.

The couple welcomed four children together during their marriage. All four children are pursuing careers in the film industry.

Their oldest, John David Washington, starred in the Oscar-nominated Spike Lee film BlacKkKlansman and the much talked about 2020 film, Tenet.

Daughter Katia has served as a producer

and production assistant on several of her father’s films, including Fences. Twins Olivia and Malcolm have studied filmmaking and acting.

Olivia wants to follow in her father’s footsteps in front of the camera after studying at NYU. One of their first dates

Denzel revealed that he had taken Pauletta out for a fancy dinner, and then decided to splurge on a cab ride home. In those days, the actor revealed, he was struggling, and the alternative was the Subway or a walk home.

But, as they drove and the cab’s meter continued counting the growing fare, Denzel realized that he wouldn’t have enough money to pay for it.

Even though the thought of her paying made Denzel cringe, Pauletta ended up having to pay for the cab, but it didn’t seem to put her off the handsome actor, and she agreed to see him again.

So what’s the secret to their marriage?

“I do what I’m told. I keep my mouth shut!” joked Denzel. But then the actor later got real about what had really held he and Pauletta together over the years, and gave his wife a huge amount of the credit.

“What pops into my head: security, food, a beautiful home,” he said. “The differ-

16

ence between a house and a home, it’s a big difference.

You can buy a house, but that doesn’t make it a home—and not to say a man can’t make a home a home, but my wife has made our house a home, and raised these beautiful kids, and protected them and sacrificed for them. She did the heavy lifting.”

She went on to acknowledge that Denzel

had been far more in the public eye than she had, but it had made no difference to their connection with each other.

“When Denzel first started, I was right there, but there was no focus on me. But there’s been no less presence in his life and in my life than now. As you climb, you grow deeper in the foundation, so it makes our foundation deeper.”

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06 , 2020

OP-ED:

The United States Postal Service Delivers Much More Than Mail

By Ray Curry, Secretary-Treasurer, UAW America’s Postal service has been an essential institution that has connected every one of us as Americans even before we were a nation independent of Great Britain.

The most American of traditions Benjamin Franklin was appointed our first Postmaster General in 1775. This democratic treasure, which has proven as reliable as it has self-sufficient, was a model for how government service should work. Its rich history is America’s history of adaptability, ingenuity and grit.

Franklin used the system to get mail from Congress to our armies during the Revolution. In 1823, the service started using waterways to deliver mail, then began using railroads and in 1847 saw the first issued stamps. The famous Pony Express took up the task in 1860. By 1896, the service began delivering to some rural addresses, so people did not have to go to the town post office for their mail anymore. By 1923, all houses were required to have a mail slot. And in 1963, zip codes were introduced.

Also very American, a 1970 strike by organized labor led to an even more efficient operation and the Postal Reorganization Act that established the United States Postal Service as we know it today.

And true to its roots, the revitalized United States Postal Service (USPS) knew how to make a buck. The reorganization legislation called for the phasing out of the post office’s direct government subsidies by 1983. The post office has been operating without any taxpayer money since then. In fact, as recent as the start of this century, from 2003-2006, and despite the advent of email and stiff competition from companies like UPS and FedEx, the post office reported a 9.3 billion profit.

I would say that is a pretty decent business model.

But then HR 6407 came along in 2007.

The act mandated that the post office calculate its retiree pension and healthcare costs for the next 75 years, including workers to come, and set aside enough over the next 10 years to cover them. An article appearing in Business Insider put the impact of the requirement this way: “To put this in perspective, that’d be like you only working from age 18 to 28 and then expecting to live on that income until you were 103 years old.”

What would Ben Franklin say?

Needless to say, the bill and its contents have proven devastating. The long and the short of it has meant that the USPS has had to contribute about $5.6 billion a year for people who had not yet retired, in addition to the amount for current retirees.

No business is forced to operate like this, and I dare to add that no business could operate like this.

Also, the new bill took away the ability for the post office to set prices. Firstclass mail, marketing mail, and other post office products have all been tied to the consumer price index, and therefore the post office could not increase rates for those products above the rate of inflation.

All told, the post office has incurred a loss of $78 billion from 2007 through 2019 and owes $55 billion related to its future pension and health benefit obligations.

Add in lost revenue related to COVID-19 and politically charged controversies over reductions in equipment and attendant slowdowns, the USPS is now in dire straits.

Shall we really allow this most American of institutions to fail through no fault of its own? It is unthinkable for it not to survive. It is unthinkable to rely solely on private companies for such critical services. It is truly a dagger in the heart of

our American heritage.

Of immediate consequence, consider the impact to mail recipients during this pandemic. The USPS handles 1.2 billion prescription drug deliveries each year.

The service also transports millions of lab tests and essential medical supply shipments. It ensures that checks and payments arrive to keep small businesses operating. It helps seniors receive household items, social security and Medicare checks. And communications from family and friends from far away have been delivered on time, through as they say “rain, sleet and snow.”

Since the emergence of COVID-19, USPS workers have been on the front lines, delivering millions of personal protective equipment and vital supplies to hospitals. They’ve made sure shelters, food banks, and businesses have the supplies they need. In addition, they’ve made deliveries to home-bound, highly susceptible individuals.

Needed now more than ever The notion to privatize the USPS is a truly un-American idea and could not come at a worse time. The recession we are experiencing due to the coronavirus is hitting Black Americans much harder than white Americans, with Blacks nearly three times more likely to be hospitalized for Covid-19 and their unemployment rate at 14.6% compared with 9.2% for whites.

The Postal Service provides the only service that guarantees delivery to every American, which makes it especially crucial for rural areas and small towns that are too costly for private companies like FedEx or UPS to deliver to. Privatizing the service would add to the expense of crucial deliveries at a time when we are more and more relying on deliveries to receive our daily needs.

Then think about the importance of the post office in ensuring that the people’s

will in our democracy will be accurately and duly noted. In November, the postal service will play a crucial role in allowing Americans across our land and in foreign countries to cast their vote in our upcoming Presidential election. So many of us will be turning to the USPS to deliver our ballots safely and securely.

And please also think of the USPS and those in its employ. The postal service has delivered a solid, secure, middle class lifestyle to a more than 600,000 workers and to an especially high number of Latino and African Americans.

In the case of African Americans, when Congress passed a law just after the Civil War that ended the whites only hiring practice for postal jobs, the postal service became a haven of good jobs offering secure wages, benefits, and civil service protections. Today, African Americans make up 27% of the Postal Service a rate more than double that of the national la Con’t on page 22

As 2020 Debate Schedule Released It’s Clear Harris Improved Enthusiasm Gap for Biden Campaign

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Contributor

Democrats are enthusiastic about getting rid of Donald Trump. But a nagging issue regarding the Biden campaign keeps finding its way on to panel discussions and into think pieces about the 2020 campaign: Whether Joe Biden can cause the type of excitement around his campaign that will get voters inspired enough for him to win.

Over the last few months, Biden has received impressive polling results.

More importantly, Biden has done well in polls in states he must win on the electoral map. By September 1, Biden’s polling was solid. Five polls released on September 2, demonstrated the following: Quinnipiac: Biden 52%, Trump

42% (+10), USAT/Suffolk: Biden 50%, Trump 43% (+7), Reuters/Ipsos: Biden 47%, Trump 40% (+7), Grinnell/Selzer: Biden 49%, Trump 41% (+8), Economist/YouGov: Biden 51%, Trump 40% (+11).

The question of enthusiasm has been a popular one since Barack Obama took the 2008 campaign by storm as an insurgent candidate who motivated young voters and took on the party establishment. As Biden and Trump move closer to Election Day, the topic of whether Trump will come up with another shocking win has worried some Democrats as outlier polls showing the race tightening occasionally pop up. But the selection of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) certainly drove excitement for base Democrats.

Democrats raised $26 million, including

from 150,000 first time contributors in the 24 hours after Harris was announced as Biden’s running mate. Black women are the most reliable voting block for the Democratic Party.

Biden himself could make a difference in the excitement differential during the three presidential debates. One will be held in late September and the last two will be held in October.

On Sepember 29, the first presidential debate will take place at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. Fox News anchor Chris Wallace will be the moderator.

October 7, the one and only vice presidential debate will be held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. USA Today’s Washington bureau chief Susan Page will moderate.

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On October 15, the second presidential debate will be held at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami. Steve Scully, senior executive producer and political editor of C-SPAN Networks, will moderate. On October 22, the last presidential debate will be held at Belmont University in Nashville.

Kristen Welker, co-anchor of “Weekend Today” and NBC News’ White House correspondent, will be the moderator.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent journalist for NNPA and the host of the podcast BURKEFILE. She is also a political strategist as Principal of Win Digital Media LLC. She may be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020

“Truth Be Told: The Policies That Impacted Black Lives” New Exhibition Now Open at Muhammad Ali Center. BlackNews.com

Ties Together the Past with the Present in an Unconventional Way

Louisville, KY — As the call for racial justice and equality in America is louder now than ever before, the Muhammad Ali Center has created an exhibition to educate and help others learn from the country’s past in order to foster a better future.

Truth Be Told: The Policies that Impacted Black Lives is an exploration of those policies that are linked to systematic racism in America, from the early 1600s, up to present day.

Truth Be Told offers visitors the opportunity to learn about the history of Black people in our country that is often left out of, misinterpreted, or even falsified in our history books. It is critical that the facts of our collective American history be told so that the negative outcomes that these policies produced can be understood, recognized, and amended.

The exhibition’s content will be posted on authentic plywood panels that were used on buildings in the Louisville protests and marches. These panels, originally used as barriers, will be repurposed as the platform on which we are sharing this important history. Truth Be Told also features a spray-painted mural created by Louisville artist Braylyn Resko Stewart.

Said Donald Lassere, President and CEO of the Muhammad Ali Center, “It important for everyone to understand that our

frustration, anger, and outrage stems not only from the disproportionate unjust killing of black folk but truth be told, we are frustrated from 400 plus years of policy upon policy that has rooted systemic racism into the fabric of this nation.”

Truth Be Told is sponsored by NASCAR and Block by Block.

“The work of the Ali Center in telling the stories of African Americans and their contributions to our culture is vitally important in building unity and bridging the racial divide in our country,” said Dawn Harris, NASCAR Managing Director, Diversity and Inclusion. “The scenes documented in the Ali Center’s powerful Truth Be Told exhibit should remind us all of the critical need to stand together in the fight against racism and racial injustice.”

“Block by Block is honored to support the Muhammad Ali Center as it visually shares the history of how persons of color have been unjustly treated for decades,” said Blair McBride, President of Block

By Block. “This is a powerful exhibit that hopefully will bring much-needed awareness to a world that needs more understanding, empathy, and love. We at Block

by Block are honored to have played a role in bringing this exhibit to life.”

The call to action for Truth Be Told is to Learn, Share, and Vote. Museum patrons will: LEARN the true history of the policies that have affected Black people; Be

encouraged to SHARE what they have learned with anyone who will listen, And hopefully, will be motivated to VOTE for the people on the ballot who will make the right decisions for all people in this country.

Truth Be Told is open now through Sunday, April 18th, 2021. Exhibit entry is included in the regular admission price. For more information on this exhibit and Ali

Center’s hours of operation, visit AliCenter.org.

About the Muhammad Ali Center The Muhammad Ali Center, a 501(c)3 corporation, was co-founded by Muhammad Ali and his wife Lonnie in their hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. The international cultural center promotes the Six Core Principles of Muhammad Ali (Confidence, Conviction, Dedication,

Giving, Respect, and Spirituality) in ways that inspire personal and global greatness and provides programming and events around the focus areas of education, gender equity, and global citizenship. The Center’s headquarters also contains an award-winning museum experience, and in 2020, became one of the newest stops on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. For more information, please visit AliCenter.org.

Officers in Breonna Taylor Case Escape Indictment

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire

after a late-night no-knock warrant led to gunfire inside of her apartment.

Taylor and Walker had watched a movie in bed and, not long after she drifted off to sleep, cops pounded on her door. Walker, according to police reports, yelled, “who is it?”

Licensed to carry a firearm and armed with Kentucky legislation that allowed him to stand his ground and fire his weapon in self-defense, Walker responded to the late-night break-in by shooting at the officers. He called 9-11 because he didn’t know that the men were law enforcement officers, only that they appeared as intruders who knocked the door off of its hinges.

Officers unleashed a flurry of bullets from several angles – one officer fired blindly from a window outside of the house – ultimately, striking Taylor five times and killing her.

Walker’s shot struck Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the thigh. Initially, Walker was charged with attempted murder, but those allegations were later dropped in part because he didn’t know the invaders were police officers and Kentucky’s statute essentially allows for a shoot-first-ask-

After 194 days, months of protests, and a $12 million civil settlement, the family of Breonna Taylor did not receive the justice they have desperately sought.

On Wednesday, Sept. 23, a Grand Jury failed to indict the officers for killing Taylor, while one officer was charged with shooting into an apartment – not Taylor’s.

“They didn’t want to charge anyone with the murder of Breonna Taylor,” said Steve Romines, the attorney for Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker.

Officer Brett Hankinson was indicted on three counts of wanton endangerment for his actions on the night of Taylor’s death.

Hankinson was charged with shooting blindly inside an apartment and a warrant was immediately placed for his arrest.

Judge Annie O’Connell set bail for Hankinson at just $15,000.

None of the six officers involved were charged with a crime.

On March 13, Taylor, 26, was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police officers

18

questions-later when there’s an imminent threat.

Judge Mary Shaw had signed off on five warrants based on flimsy statements provided by cops who claimed Taylor’s exboyfriend was a drug dealer and that they somehow suspected she was involved.

The Grand Jury decision came as little surprise giving the response this week by Louisville officials, who declared a state of emergency ahead of the reading of the decision.

Also, all off-duty police personnel was called to work while workers boarded up stores and buildings in downtown Louisville in preparation for the reading of the Grand Jury decision.

“We live in a racist society, to the extinct that we don’t even acknowledge that we fail in our ability to correct that,” said Sadiqa Reynolds, the president of the Louisville Urban League.

“To believe that there would be charges against white police officers against this Black woman in this city, this country, is wrong. We don’t have justice in America.

We don’t have justice in Louisville,” a tearful Reynolds stated.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06 , 2020 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - August 02, 2016

THE GLENDOWER GROUP NOTICE

Request for Proposals VALENTINA MACRI RENTAL HOUSING APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE Construction Manager at Risk PREfor McConaughy Terrace HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, The Glendower Group isfor currently proposals foratconstrucis accepting pre-applications studio andseeking one-bedroom apartments this develtion manager for McConaughy Terrace.

Aincome complete copyapof opment locatedatatrisk 108 Frank Street, New Haven.

Maximum limitations Pre-applications will be fromfrom 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday ColJu;y theply.requirement may beavailable obtained Glendower’s Vendor 25, 2016 andPortal ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have laboration https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems. been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon recom/gateway quest by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed prebeginning September at 3:00PM applications muston be Wednesday, returned to HOME INC’s offices2, at2020 171 Orange Street, .Third Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

Listing: Dispatcher

NOTICIA

Extremely fast paced petroleum company needs a full time (which inVALENTINA VIVIENDAScoverage) DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES cludes on callMACRI and weekend detail oriented experienced Dispatcher. A strong logistics background and a minimum of one year preHOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, está vious petroleum experience required.

Send deresume to: en HR aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos un dormitorio esteManager, desarrollo ubicado la calle 109 Frank New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos P.O. Box en 388, Guilford, CT.Street, 06437 máximos.

Las pre-solicitudes disponibles 09 a.m.-5Employer********** p.m. comenzando Martes 25 ********An Affirmativeestarán Action/Equal 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 Listing: HVAC llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 duranteTechnician esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 .

Fast paced Petroleum Company is hiring for a full time, CT (minimum S2 license) HVAC Technician. Applicant must have experience in oil, propane, natural gas and A/C. Send resume to: Attn: HR Manager, Confidential, PO Box 388, Guilford, CT 06437.

NEW HAVEN

**An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer**

242-258 Fairmont Ave 2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR,Assistant 1 level , 1BA Listing: Customer Retail

All new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 Petroleum Company has an immediate full &time opening.

Excellent customer highways, near bus stop shopping center service Pet skills a must.

Requirements include: billing questions, assistunder 40lb allowed.

Interested partiesanswering contact Maria @ 860-985-8258 ing in sales calls received, scheduling service calls as well as assisting in collections and account set ups. Previous petroleum experience and/or experience in a CT. Unified Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s to also perform administrative/ very busy Deacon’s office environment a plus.

Applicant Certificate Program. This is a 10 month program designed to assist in the intellectual formation of Candidates clerical tasks as assigned.

Please send resume to: H.R. Manager, Confidential, in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:303:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon J. Davis, M.S., PO Box 388, Guilford CTJoe 06437.

B.S.

(203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster

********An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer**********

St. New Haven, CT

Listing: HOUSING HVAC Technician SEYMOUR AUTHORITY

Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour Fast Company a full time, CTSmith (minimum untilpaced 3:00 Petroleum pm on Tuesday, Augustis hiring 2, 2016for at its office at 28 Street, S2 license) HVAC Technician. Applicant must have experience in oil, Seymour, CT 06483 for Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the propane, natural gas and A/C. Send resume to: Attn: HR Manager, Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

Confidential, PO Box 388, Guilford, CT 06437.

A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith **An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer** Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

Construction FT-Exp Bidding documentsAdministrative are available from the Office Seymour Position.

Housing Authority Ofrequired.EmailHherbert@ gwfabrication.com fice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.

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

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

DELIVERY PERSON

NEEDED

Invitation for Bids Robert T. Wolfe Building Upgrade Phase II The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Bids for Robert T. Wolfe Building Upgrade Phase II. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City Communities’ Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/ gateway beginning on

Part Time Delivery Needed One/Two Day a Week,

Must Have your Own Vehicle If Interested call

(203) 387-0354

QSR STEEL CORPORATION

APPLY NOW!

Steel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders Top pay for top performers. Health Benefits, 401K, Vacation Pay.

Wednesday, September 23, 2020 at 3:00PM.

Construction Administrative Office Position. FT-Exp required.Email- Hherbert@ gwfabrication.com CITY OF MILFORD

Seeking qualified condidates to fill numerous vacancies to include, Engineer Technician, Secretary and more. For information and detailed application instructions, visit www.ci.milford.ct.us Click on SERVICES, JOBS and JOB TITLE.

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

PUBLIC WORKS

HELP WANTED:

MAINTAINER II- Performs a variety of semi-skilled tasks in road and grounds main-

tenance. Must possess 2 years’ experience as laborer in construction work involving operation and care of trucks and other mechanical equipment used in construction OR two (2) years training in one of the skilled trades and one (1) year of experience in construction operations OR an equivalent combination of experience and training. Must possess and maintain a valid commercial driver’s license (CDL) Class B to operate equipment. (Provide a copy of your CDL license with your application) $22.42 - $26.27 Hourly. Applications can be printed from the Town’s Webpage. Once completed please mail or fax your application to: Human Resources Department 45 S. Main Street, Room 301, Wallingford CT 06492 Fax (203)-294-2084 Phone: (203)-294-2080. The closing date will be the date the 30th application or resume is received or September 30, 2020, Invitationwhichever to Bid: occurs first. EOE

Large CT guardrail company looking for Laborer/Driver with valid CT CDL Class A license and able to get a medical card.

Must be able to pass a drug test and physical. Compensation based on experience.

Email resume to dmastracchio@atlasoutdoor.com AA/EOE M-F

FENCE ERECTING SUBCONTRACTORS2

nd

Notice

Large CT. Fence Company SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Large CT Fence & Guardrail Contractor is looking for an individual for our is looking for experienced, responsible stock yard. Warehouse shipping and receiving and Forklift experience a must. commercial and residential fence erectors Old Saybrook, MustCT have a minimum of 3 years’ material handling experience. Must be able and installers on a subcontractor basis.

(4 Buildings, 17 Units) to read and write English, and read a tape measure. Duties will include: LoadEarn from $750 to $2,000 per day. Email ing and trucks, pulling orders for installation and retail counter sales, Tax Exempt & Not Prevailing Wageunloading Rate Project resume to rhauer@atlasoutdoor.com AA/ keeping the yard clean and organized at all times and inventory control. IndividEOE

ual will also make deliveries of fence panels and products, must be able to lift at

New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Castleast 70lbs. Required to pass a Physical and Drug test, have a valid CT. Driver’s LEGAL NOTICE of in-place Concrete, AsphaltLicense Shingles, Vinyl Siding, and be able to obtain a Drivers Medical Card. CDL B & A drivers a plus.

TOWN OF PORTLAND, CT Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Send resume to pboucher@atlasoutdoor.com AA/EOE/MF Town of Portland has amended its CitiMechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection. zen Participation Plan for the purpose of This contract is subject state set-aside and contract compliance requirements. informing the public abouttoits intent to

Coventry Housing Authority

apply for CDBG, Covid-19 funding. For a copy of the amendedBid Plan go to www. is accepting applications for low income Section 8 Elderly/DisExtended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 portlandct.org.

abled 15, housing.

Annual income limit is $21,600 (one person) Anticipated Start: August 2016 Project documents available via ftp link below: & $24,650 (two people). Also accepting applications for low http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage income State Elderly/Disabled housing. Annual income limit

DELIVERY PERSON

NEEDED

is $54,950 (one person) & $62,800 (two people). Interested

Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com an application at the Coventry Housing HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran,parties S/W/MBE &may Section 3pick Certifiedup Businesses Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 Authority, 1630 Main St., Coventry, CT, or have one mailed.

AA/EEO EMPLOYER Completed applications must be postmarked or hand delivered

Part Time Delivery Needed One/Two Day a Week,

Must Have your Own Vehicle If Interested call

(203) 387-0354 19

no later than October 31, 2020. For more information call 860742-5518.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 2016 - 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 and weekends. Previous experience required. Competitive training on equipment we operate. Location: Bloomfield CT 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.

ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

NOTICE

Phone: 243-2300 HOME INC, on behalf of860Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, ********An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer********** is accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this develEmail: tom.dunay@garrityasphalt.com opment& located at 108 Frank Street, Haven. Maximum Women Minority Applicants are New encouraged to apply income limitations apply.Affi Pre-applications willEqual be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y State of Connecticut rmative Action/ Opportunity Employer 25, 2016 and ending when sufficient pre-applications (approximately 100) have Office of Policy 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 pre- and Management Garrity Asphalt Reclaiming, Incoffices seeks: applications must be returned to HOME INC’s at 171 Orange Street, Third Reclaimer Operators and Milling Operators with current licensing Floor, New Haven, CT 06510. and clean driving record, be willing to travel throughout the NorthThe State of Connecticut, Office of east & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits Policy and Management is recruiting for

NOTICIA

Request for Proposals IT Outsourced Help Desk and Infrastructure The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Proposals for IT Outsourced Help Desk and Infrastructure. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City Communities’ Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway beginning on

Wednesday, September 16, 2020 at 3:00PM.

Town of Bloomfield Entry Level Police Officer & Certified Police Officer

a Lead Planning Analyst (target class Budget Analyst).

Contact: Rick Tousignant Phone: 860- 243-2300 VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES Email: rick.tou-

$71,957 annually Pre-employment drug testing For more details visit www.bloomfieldct.org AA/EOE

Further information regarding the duties, signant@garrityasphalt.com eligibility HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de la New Haven Housing Authority, estárequirements and application Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply instructions for this position is available aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer at: ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven. Se aplican limitaciones de ingresos

Union Company seeks:

máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 https://www.jobapscloud.com/ julio, 2016 hasta cuando se han recibido suficientes pre-solicitudes (aproximadamente 100) CT/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1= en lasTrailer oficinasDriver de HOME INC. & Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas petición Tractor for Heavy Highway Construction Equip- por correo a200922&R2=5989VR&R3=001 llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes deberán remitirse ment. Must have a CDL License, clean driving record, capable of . a las oficinas de equipment; HOME INCbe enwilling 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, 06510State operating heavy to travel throughout theNew Haven , CTThe of Connecticut is an equal Northeast & NY. We offer excellent hourly rate & excellent benefits opportunity/affirmative action employer and strongly encourages the applications of women, minorities, and persons Email: dana.briere@garrityasphalt.com with disabilities.

Contact Dana at 860-243-2300

Women & Minority Applicants are encouraged to apply

NEW HAVEN

242-258 Fairmont Ave Town of Bloomfield 2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA

Town of Bloomfield2

Notice

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE ELM CITY COMMUNITIES

Lead Building Maintainer - Facilities

Finance Director Full Time - Benefited

Old Saybrook, CT Full Time - Benefited Request for Proposals (4 $31.26 hourly Buildings, 17 Units) Development of Single-Family Homeownership Housing Taxdrug Exempt & Not Prevailing Wage Rate Project Pre-employment testing.

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

$96,755 - $149,345

Pre-employment testing.is pleased For more details, visit our website – www.bloomfieldct.org CT. Unified Deacon’sdrug Association 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

Real Estate Controller

St. New Haven, CT

Fusco Management is seeking a Real Estate Controller. Candidate should have leadership, communication and supervisory skills. Controller should have 6+ year’s hands on accounting experience and have a BS in Accounting.

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

Duties and Responsibilities: Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour Oversee the activities of the Accounting Department for the accurate and timely disuntil 3:00 on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at itsinternal office and at 28external Smith monthly Street, semination of pm financial management reports including Seymour, CT 06483 foraudits Concrete Sidewalk Repairs and Replacement at the financial statements, annual and annual budgets.

Smithfield Gardens Assisted Living Facility, 26 Smith Street Seymour.

Desired Skills and Experience Qualifi cations: A pre-bid conference will be held at the Housing Authority Office 28 Smith • Profi cient in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Timberscan, BNA, TValue.

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

• Discretion, good judgment and good communication skills.

• Strong general ledger, accounts payable and accounts receivable.

Bidding available from the Seymour Housing Authority • Real Estatedocuments experience are a plus.

CLERK TYPIST

Performs a wide variety of routine clerical duties requiring excellent computer and interpersonal skills. This position requires 1 year of office work experience of a responsible nature and a H.S., GED, or business diploma. Wages: $20.42 to $24.72 (Town) $19.23 - $24.94 (Board of Education) hourly plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Apply: Department of Human Resources, Town of Wallingford 45 South Main Street, Wallingford, CT 06492. Phone: (203) 2942080 Fax: (203) 294-2084. The closing date will be that date the 30th application Invitationform/resume to Bid: is received or September 30, 2020 whichever occurs first. EOE nd

Of-

fice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579.

Education and Experience Required: Bachelor's degreeAuthority in Accounting or Finance.

CPAtocertifi cation a plus.any Mustorhave 6+years The Housing reserves the right accept or reject all bids, to of reduce hands-on managerial Fusco Management offers a competitheaccounting scope of the project experience. to reflect available funding, and to waive any tive benefit package. Fusco is an Affirmative Action/ Equal Opportunity Employer informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the Housing Authority.

For more details, visit our website –

www.bloomfiWood eldct.org The Housing AuthoritySite-work, of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is New Construction, Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, CastProposals for Development of Single-Family Homeownership in-place Concrete, Asphaltcurrently Shingles,seeking Vinyl Siding, Housing.

A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City Flooring, Painting, Division 10 Specialties, Appliances, Residential Casework, Communities’ Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobbleMechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection.

Seeking qualified condidates to fill stonesystems.com/gateway beginning on This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements. numerous vacancies to include, Monday, August 10, 2020 at 3:00PM. Benefits & Pension Coordinator Bid Extended, Due Date: August 5, 2016 and more. For information and Construction Anticipated Start: August 15, 2016 Administrative Office Position. FT-Exp required. detailed application instructions, Email- Hherbert@ gwfabrication.com Project documents available via ftp link below: visit www.ci.milford.ct.us http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage Click on SERVICES, JOBS and ELM CITY COMMUNITIES JOB TITLE. Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com

CITY OF MILFORD

QSR

Request for Proposals Electronic File Management Services

HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 STEELHaynes CORPORATION AA/EEO EMPLOYER

APPLY NOW!

Steel Fabricators, Erectors & Welders Top pay for top performers. Health Benefits, 401K, Vacation Pay. Email Resume: Rose@qsrsteel.com Hartford, CT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

20

The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven d/b/a Elm City Communities is currently seeking Proposals for Electronic File Management Services. A complete copy of the requirement may be obtained from Elm City Communities’ Vendor Collaboration Portal https://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/ gateway beginning on

Monday, August 17, 2020 at 3:00PM.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September , 2020 - October 06 , 2020 INNER-CITY NEWS July 27, 30 2016 - August 02, 2016

THE GLENDOWER GROUP NOTICE Request for Proposals VALENTINA MACRIEngineering RENTAL HOUSING PREAPPLICATIONS AVAILABLE Architectural Services for McConaughy Terrace

LEGAL NOTICE Request for Proposals for Services The State of Connecticut, Office of Policy and Management, is seeking proposals to provide certain consultative services related to the framework for interagency data sharing. Connecticut’s State Data Plan recognizes that data is a valuable asset that the State must manage in the public trust on behalf of its residents.

Facilitating inter-agency data sharing in a safe, ethical and secure manner is a primary goal of the plan.

HOME INC, on behalf of Columbus House and the New Haven Housing Authority, Glendower Group is currently seeking proposals for architectural isThe accepting pre-applications for studio and one-bedroom apartments at this development located at 108 Frank Street, New Haven.

Maximum income limitations ap- copy of the reengineering services for McConaughy Terrace. A complete ply. Pre-applications will be available from 9AM TO 5PM beginning Monday Ju;y quirement may bewhen obtained Glendower’s Vendor Portal 25, 2016 and ending sufficientfrom pre-applications (approximately 100)Collaboration have been received at the offices of HOME INC. Applications will be mailied upon rehttps://newhavenhousing.cobblestonesystems.com/gateway quest by calling HOME INC at 203-562-4663 during those hours. Completed prebeginning on Wednesday, September 2, 2020 3:00PM. applications must be returned to HOME INC’s offices at 171 Orange Street,atThird Floor, New Haven, CT 06510.

The intent of the request is to identify individuals or firms with the necessary exper-tise in development and revision of agreements and capacity-building training to facil-itate interagency data sharing for state agencies in Connecticut within a stated timeframe.

The request for proposals is available online at https://biznet.ct.gov/SCP_ Search/default.aspx?Src=CISplash and https://portal.ct.gov/OPM/Root/RFP/ Request-For-Proposals or from Mildred Melendez, Office of Policy and Management, Legal Affairs Division, 450 Capitol Ave., MS#55SEC, Hartford, Connecticut 06106-1379. E-mail: Mildred.Melendez@ct.gov. Telephone (860) 418-6417, Fax (860) 418-6487. Deadline for response submission is 5:00 P.M., October 9, 2020.

The Town of East Haven is currently accepting applications NOTICIA to participate in the examination for VALENTINA MACRI VIVIENDAS DE ALQUILER PRE-SOLICITUDES DISPONIBLES

Secretary II, Grade Level 10 Account HOME INC, en nombre de la Columbus House y de Clerk-Payroll la New Haven Housing Authority, está

aceptando pre-solicitudes para estudios y apartamentos de un dormitorio en este desarrollo ubicado en la calle 109 Frank Street, New Haven.the Se aplican de ingresos The current vacancies are located Boardlimitaciones of Education and the starting máximos. Las pre-solicitudes estarán disponibles 09 a.m.-5 p.m. comenzando Martes 25 hourly is suficientes $19.93/hour, 37.5(aproximadamente hours per week. julio, 2016 hasta cuando se hanrate recibido pre-solicitudes 100) en las oficinas de HOME INC. Las pre-solicitudes serán enviadas por correo a petición llamando a HOME INC al 203-562-4663 durante esas horas.Pre-solicitudes Secretary II: Qualified candidates must possess adeberán Highremitirse School Diploma or a las oficinas de HOME INC en 171 Orange Street, tercer piso, New Haven , CT 06510 .

Construction

Seeking to employ experienced individuals in the labor, foreman, operator and teamster trades for a heavy outside work statewide. Reliable personal transportation and a valid drivers license required. To apply please call (860) 621-1720 or send resume to: Personnel Department, P.O. Box 368, Cheshire, CT06410.

Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/V Drug Free Workforce

equivalent and a minimum of 3 years secretarial experience. Prior experience in a school system or related work with children preferred.

The Housing Authority of the City of Bridgeport Request for Proposals (RFP) Integrated Pest Management Invitation to Bid: (Pest Control Services) 2nd Notice Solicitation Number: 145-AM-20-S

Account Clerk-Payroll: Qualified candidates must be knowledgeable of office procedures, principles of accounting, budgets, purchasing, inventory and payroll NEW HAVEN and must possess an 242-258 Associate’s Degree in Accounting or equivalent experience Fairmont Ave and three (3) years of experience with a working knowledge of payroll. Thor2BR Townhouse, 1.5 BA, 3BR, 1 level , 1BA ough All working knowledge of Microsoft Word and Excel and experience with new apartments, new appliances, new carpet, close to I-91 & I-95 ADP payroll system a plus. highways, near bus stop & shopping center

SAYEBROOKE VILLAGE

Old Authority Saybrook, CT The Housing of the City of Bridgeport d/b/a Park City Communities (PCC) is Buildings, 17 Units) from qualified contractors to provide Integrated Pest Managecurrently(4seeking proposal Pet under 40lb allowed. Interested parties contact Maria @ 860-985-8258 Taxment Exempt & Not Pest Prevailing WageServices Rate Project (IPM), Control Agency Wide. Solicitation package will be available on Applications are available online at September 28, 2020 to obtain a copy of the solicitation you must send your request to bids@ https://www.townofeasthavenct.org/civil-service-commission/pages/job-notices-and-tests CT. Unified Deacon’s Association is pleased to offer a Deacon’s New Construction, Wood Framed, Housing, Selective Demolition, Site-work, Cast- number and title on the subject line. parkcitycommunities.org, please reference solicitation or fromProgram. the Civil Office,designed at 250 Main Haven and must be returned Certificate This isService a 10 month program to assist in theStreet, intellectualEast formation of Candidates in-place Concrete, Asphalt Shingles,call Vinylwill Siding, A Pre-proposal conference be held on October 14, 2020, at 11:00 a.m. Although in response to the Church’s Ministry needs. The cost is $125. Classes start Saturday, August 20, 2016 1:30byB.S. October 23, 2020 3:30 Contact: Chairman, Deacon Joe J. Davis, M.S., Flooring, Painting,attendance Division 10 Specialties, Appliances,submitting Residential Casework, is not mandatory, a proposal without attending the pre-proposal (203) 996-4517 Host, General Bishop Elijah Davis, D.D. Pastor of Pitts Chapel U.F.W.B. Church 64 Brewster Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Fire Protection. conference may not be in the best interest of the Offeror. Additional questions should be St. New Haven, CT The Town of East Haven is committed to building a workforce of diverse individuals.

This contract is subject to state set-aside and contract compliance requirements. emailed only to bids@parkcitycommunities.org no later than October 21, 2020 @ 3:00 p.m.

Minorities, Females, Handicapped and Veterans are encouraged to apply.

Answers to all the questions will be posted on PCC’s Website: www.parkcitycommunities.

Bid Extended, Date: 5, 2016 org.

ProposalsDue shall beAugust mailed, or hand delivered by October 29, 2020 @ 3:00 p.m., to Ms. Anticipated Start: Director August 15,of 2016 Caroline Sanchez, Procurement, 150 Highland Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604, or Sealed bids are invited by the Housing Authority of the Town of Seymour Project documents available via ftp link below: via e-mail at bids@parkcitycommunitites.org.

Late proposals will not be accepted. until 3:00 pm on Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at its office at 28 Smith Street, http://ftp.cbtghosting.com/loginok.html?username=sayebrookevillage Chief Meterman – TheforTown of Wallingford Electricand Division is seeking a qualified individual Seymour, CT 06483 Concrete Sidewalk Repairs Replacement at the to Smithfield assign andGardens direct the work of a group of Meterman the diagnosing, requisiAssisted Living Facility, 26 SmithinStreet Seymour. repairing, and Fax or Email Questions & Bids to: Dawn Lang @ 203-881-8372 dawnlang@haynesconstruction.com

SEYMOUR HOUSING AUTHORITY

Electric

Electrician

tioning of all types of metering. Must have H.S. Diploma or trade/technical school with course HCC encourages the participation of all Veteran, S/W/MBE & Section 3 Certified Businesses of A study in an electricalwill fieldbeand of experience with at pre-bid conference heldsix at (6) the years Housing Authority Office 28least Smiththree (3) years of ex-Haynes Construction Company, 32 Progress Ave, Seymour, CT 06483 Skilled tradesman in all facets of alterations/renovations, maintenance and repair of electriperience as a Meterman in electric metering.

(1) year experience as a supervisor AA/EEO EMPLOYER Street Seymour, CT at 10:00 am, onutility Wednesday, July One 20, 2016. preferred. An equivalent combination of experience and training may substitute on a year for cal equipment for the Wallingford Public Schools. Applicants must be a High School or Trade School graduate plus seven years’ experience in the electrical trade equivalent to Journeyman year basis up to two (2) Bidding documents areyears. available from the Seymour Housing Authority OfMust possess and maintain a valid State of Connecticut Motor Vehicle Operator's License. Hour- Electrician. Must have a Class E-2 and/or possession of a Master Electrician License Class E-1. fice, 28 Smith Street, Seymour, CT 06483 (203) 888-4579. ly Rate $39.80 - $43.86 plus an excellent fringe benefit package. Applications can be printed from Wages: $30.01 - $36.71 hourly. Applications can be printed from the Town’s Webpage and mail or fax to: Department of Human Resources, 45 S. Main Street, Room 301, Wallingford CT 06492. the Town’s Webpage http://www.wallingford.ct.us/Content/Personnel_Department.asp The Housing Authority reserves the right to accept or reject any or all bids, to Fax (203)-294-2084. Phone: (203)-294-2080. The closing date will be October 27, 2020. Fax: (203)-294-2084 Phone: (203)-294-2080. The closing date will be the date the 25th applicareduce the scope of the project to reflect available funding, and to waive any EOE tion or resume is received or October 7, 2020, whichever occurs first. EOE.

informalities in the bidding, if such actions are in the best interest of the Housing Authority.

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020

Online Donations Help Sorority to Exceed Its Goal Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® Does It Again and Raises $1 Million in Support of HBCUs

CHICAGO, IL (Sept. 23, 2020) Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated® is proud to announce that for the third consecutive year, the sorority has successfully raised $1 million in 24 hours for the benefit of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The sorority’s annual HBCU Impact Day on September 21 exceeded its $1 million goal in online donations alone from local AKA chapters, private donors and corporate matching dollars from across the globe.

“We did it, we did it again!” Dr. Glenda Glover, AKA International President and Chief Executive Officer shared with excitement in a video message to sorority members. “The online receipts alone totaled more than $1.3 million. We can now continue to provide endowments to our treasured HBCUs.” HBCU Impact Day is one part of a fouryear $10 million fundraising goal set by Dr. Glover, who has challenged the women of AKA to lead the charge in helping to secure fiscal sustainability and success for accredited HBCUs around the country. The sorority was successfully able to reach the $1 million goal consecutively in 2018 and 2019, supporting the organization’s HBCU for Life: A Call to Action platform, which aims to promote HBCUs by encouraging students to attend and matriculate through these institutions.

Last year, AKA gifted $1.6 million to the first 32 of 96 HBCUs through the AKAHBCU Endowment Fund. Each HBCU received $50,000 in unrestricted endowment funds as part of a phased approach to help schools reduce student debt through scholarships, fund industry-specific research, recruit and retain top faculty, and other critical operations especially during this global pandemic.

On Sunday, September 20, the sorority held a virtual brunch to launch the next round of 32 HBCU endowment recipients.

Con’t from page 17

Much More Than Mail

bor force. Coupled with our government’s anti-discrimination policies, the USPS has made the American Dream possible, even when racial discrimination put up walls in other areas of work.

And privatization, I would argue, is unAmerican for another reason. It is yet another attempt at union busting. Both the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), which represents primarily nonrural letter carriers employed by USPS as well as the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), which represents postal clerks, mail processors and sorters, building and equipment maintenance, custodial workers, truck drivers and others employed by USPS, would be in serious jeopardy.

We must secure this most American of all American institutions.

Demand that we save the USPS

Four more recipients were announced: Delaware State University, Lane College, St. Phillips College, and Medgar Evers College. Four additional grants will be announced on Friday, September 25, the last day of HBCU Week. The sorority will then announce 24 more recipients — six schools every Thursday for the next four weeks.

“These institutions continue to make a powerful impact in our communities and throughout our country, graduating 22% of all African Americans with bachelor’s degrees, nearly 80% of all African-American judges and 50% of all black lawyers,” said Dr. Glover, who is also the president of Tennessee State University and an HBCU graduate. “It’s gratifying to know that funds raised will establish endowments, providing sustainability to our historically black colleges and universities.”

Dr. Glover thanks everyone who contributed to the success of the 2020 HBCU Impact Day and notes that the $1.3 million raised online does not include checks in

the mail and other contributions. Although HBCU Impact Day has passed, individuals or organizations interested in supporting the effort can still make contributions by texting AKAHBCU to 44321, giving by mail or online at http://aka1908.com/ hbcus/donate-hbcu.

For more information on the sorority’s commitment to HBCUs, visit http://www.

AKA1908.com.

About Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated® Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, is an international service organization that was founded on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1908.

It is the oldest Greek-letter organization established by African-American collegeeducated women dedicated to raising the status of African Americans, particularly girls and women. Through a robust international program of service, Alpha Kappa Alpha continues to institute groundbreak-

ing social initiatives and social service programs that transform communities for the better. Today, these include Target 1: HBCU for Life: A Call To Action; Target 2: Women’s Healthcare and Wellness; Target 3: Building Your Economic Legacy; Target 4: The Arts!; Target 5: Global Impact; and The Signature Program #CAPS. The sorority is comprised of over 300,000 members in more than 1000 graduate and undergraduate chapters in the United States and internationally. Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated is a 501 (c)(7) organization. As a tax-exempt organization, AKA does not directly or indirectly participate in, or intervene in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.

For more information on Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and its programs, log onto http://www.AKA1908.com.

The Inner-City News is a Member of NNPA/BlackPressWire

Educators Are Using BlackHistory.com to Teach Students What Textbooks Leave Out

Before She Was Whitewashed!

• There Was a Black Passenger on the Titanic When it Sank in 1912 — But He Did Not Survive!

• Black People Invented Memorial Day • The First 6 African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires • Black People Founded the City of Los Angeles • A Black Man Founded the City of Chicago Dante Lee, creator of the web site, says that the articles they publish are accurate and verified from credible sources. He comments, “It’s a free online tool for teachers and professors to use in addition to the books that are already being used in the classroom. Every educator around the world should implement our articles into their lesson plans.”

Researchers, historians, and authors can contribute content by submitting their articles for consideration to info@blackhistory. com Educators who are interested in using the content can print and/or share the articles electronically by visiting BlackHistory.com.

By BlackNews.com

Nationwide — Textbooks are failing public schools, community colleges, and universities when it comes to African American history. Therefore, many teachers and professors are teaching their students from credible web sites like BlackHistory.com that reveal littleknown facts about Black culture, inventions, and more.

The web site was launched more than two years ago and adds weekly content that surpasses the fundamentals that are covered in most schools across the country. Sadly, most curriculums for Black history are just basic lessons about the likes of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Malcolm X. Because of this, many students never really get to learn about the in-depth topics that accurately cover the facts about people of African descent.

Here are just a few topics that the web site covers: • The Real Betty Boop Was a Black Woman…

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Fortunately, there is a way forward. The Delivery for America Act (H.R. 8015) can help make this happen. This legislation will deliver urgently needed funds to the postal service and reverse detrimental policy changes that are currently restricting postal workers’ ability to deliver mail and packages on time.

The Act has passed the House of Representatives. The Senate must follow suit immediately. Across the nation, delivery of mail has slowed dramatically due to the Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s recent decisions. Eliminating overtime and cutting down on late trips has created massive mail backlogs, leading to late deliveries of critical prescription medications and threatening the integrity of the upcoming November election.

This bill would help address the backlog by remedying the impact of these policies and prohibiting “any change that would have the effect of delaying, deferring, or curtailing mail, allowing for the nondelivery of mail to a delivery route, or increasing the volume of undelivered mail.”

The Delivery for America Act appropriates the $25 billion that the USPS requested to sustain the level of service all Americans depend on. Efforts to shrink the postal service would disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minorities, women and veterans more than others. In addition, as of 2018, more than 100,000 military veterans are employed by the USPS. We MUST protect postal workers’ jobs.

And we MUST ensure a safe and secure election. In the coming weeks, voters across the country will prepare to exercise their civic duty to elect their government, and Congress must do everything in its power to ensure that voters will be able to do so safely.

For our citizens, for our democracy, for our livelihoods… We must support the USPS in every way we can.

THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06 , 2020

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THE INNER-CITY NEWS - September 30, 2020 - October 06, 2020

Stream the moment without skipping a beat.

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Offer requires enrollment in both automatic payments and paperless billing. Must enroll within 30 days of placing the order. Without enrollment, the monthly service charge automatically increases by $10. The automatic payment and paperless billing discount is for a period of 24 months and will appear on the bill within 30 days of enrolling. If either automatic payments or paperless billing are subsequently cancelled during the 24-month term, or services are reduced to Xfinity TV Limited Basic service only, the $10 monthly discount will be removed automatically. Offer ends 12/20/20. Restrictions apply. Not available in all areas. New residential customers only. Limited to Performance Internet. Equipment, installation, taxes and fees extra, and subject to change. After promo. period, regular rates apply. Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed. For factors affecting speed, visit xfinity.com/ networkmanagement. Xfinity xFi and xFi Advanced Security are available to Xfinity Internet customers with a compatible Xfinity Gateway. Call for restrictions and complete details.

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