Npcourier7 8 15o

America’s best weekly Generation NEXT…Leah Baker, baker

Publication changes hands, continues its commitment to Black businesses

Mary Lou Williams documentary sheds light on trendsetting pianist

People B3

Business C1

Entertainer B4

www.newpittsburghcourier.com

Pittsburgh Courier NEW

VOL. 106, NO. 27

Published Weekly

Three Sections

$1.00

JULY 8-14, 2015

BILL COSBY

Cosby said he got drugs to give women for sex

by Maryclaire Dale Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA (AP)—Bill Cosby admitted in 2005 that he got quaaludes with the intent of giving them to young women he wanted to have sex with, and that he gave the sedative to at least one woman and “other people,” according to documents obtained July 6 by The Associated Press.

That woman and a second woman testified in the same case that they knowingly took quaaludes from him, according to the unsealed documents.

The AP had gone to court to compel the release of the documents from the deposition in a sexual abuse lawsuit filed by former Temple University employee Andrea Constand—the first of a cascade of sexual abuse lawsuits against him. Cosby’s lawyers had objected on the grounds that it would embarrass their client.

Cosby settled that lawsuit under confidential terms in 2006. His lawyers in the Philadelphia case did not immediately return phone calls Monday. Constand con-

to celebrate release at official unveiling

by Christian Morrow Courier Staff Writer

In one week, Who’s Who Publishing will unveil the inaugural edition of Who’s Who in Black Pittsburgh with a celebration at the Herberman Conference Center at UPMC Cancer Center Pavilion, in Shadyside, on July 16.

Candi Castleberry Singleton, UPMC chief diversity and inclusion officer, wrote the forward for the publication, and said she was honored to do so.

“I think it’s critically important for the Pittsburgh area.

I’ve been to Who’s Who events, and worked with them in Chicago when I was at Motorola,” she said. “It’s a testament about the city. It shows that there are remarkably talented people of color here

SINGLETON

JACKSON

by Christian Morrow Courier Staff Writer

by Michael B. Rose For New Pittsburgh Courier

Thursday June 25, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to uphold the Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare, which creates the question of how will it continue to affect African Americans today and in the future?

As of April 19, 2014, there were approximately 318,077 Pennsylvanians receiving healthcare coverage through the exchange marketplace of the ACA. According to fedSEE ACA A4

As a Californian who will tell you she’s “straight out of South Central,” Candi Castleberry Singleton isn’t averse to using another musical metaphor when describing her rise to become one of the most celebrated executive diversity and inclusion officers in the country—“What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

Now that trip continues, after announcing on her Facebook page at the end of June that she will be leaving

Senseless violence robbing many children of fathers

by Ashley Johnson Courier Staff Writer

With the year halfway over, Allegheny County has already had a total of 44 homicides, 37 of them Black men and women.

This year’s total of 44 is only two more than last year’s total of 42.

Of the eight killed in June, one was a toddler and six were Black

HAYES-FREELAND

working in a variety of fields.

“It’s important that people be reminded of that.”

The directory contains biographical entries on more than 200 prominent Pittsburgh African Americans working across a variety of fields including law, government, education, the arts and entertainment, science, nonprofits, sports and business.

KDKA-TV reporter Lynne Hayes-Freeland, who will serve as emcee for the publication release event, said she is excited about the directory.

“I am thrilled ‘Who’s Who in Black Pittsburgh’ has finally arrived in town. We have so much talent, intellect and potential here in our backyard, it

UPMC in the fall to take the Dignity & Respect campaign she created there to the national level.

“I’m excited,” she said. “The timing couldn’t be better. Most people don’t know about the consulting aspect of this, and I really love doing it. So this is the best of both worlds, I don’t have to start from scratch and don’t have to leave town.”

After establishing an exceptional record of coaching senior executives to build sustainable inclusion practices for the workplace, marketplace, and workforce at Motorola, Sun Mi-

crosystems and Xerox, Singleton joined UPMC in 2008.

She immediately began implementing her Integrated Inclusion Model, a systems integration model she developed to move companies from traditional “bolt-on” diversity processes led by human resources to an integrated process that shifts responsibility for achieving an inclusive culture to every employee.

During the 2014 Corporate Equity and Inclusion Roundtable, UPMC Executive

How will ACA Singleton leaving UPMC court decision Taking Diversity & Respect campaign national affect Blacks?

SEE COSBY A4

37 of 44 homicides Black lives

SEE WHO A4

men, all of those men under the age of 40.

June has been designated as the month that fathers are celebrated, but unfortunately, far too many of our young Black fathers are being taken away. Fathers like Jerit Love, who was killed in his Wilkins Township home while his five children were in the house, or 34-year-old Mark Williams, a father of four, who was shot and killed on a North Side street outside his grandmother’s house. That’s nine children now left without fathers, and there are many, many more like them.

Everyday children are being robbed of their fathers because of the senseless violence running through our Black communities.

There have been numerous studies that have cited the many emotional and psychological effects of growing up without a father— children are more likely to grow up aggressive, to be emotionally depressed, to have a lower self-esteem and to use drugs, to do poor in school and are twice as likely to be incarcerated (“Psychological Effects of Growing Up Without a Father” by Michael Kismet, May 2015, www.hubpages.com). Don’t our Black children already have enough obstacles to overcome?

SEE SINGLETON A4

SEE HOMICIDES A6

10 leaders inducted into BMe community

by Renee P. Aldrich For New Pittsburgh Courier

AWARDEES—Nine of the 10 honorees from left: Evan Frazier, Lee Davis, Brian Burley, Thomas Jamison, Rev. Glenn Grayson, Joshua Pollard, Kevin McNair, Andre Samuel and Jasiri X. (Photo by J.L. Martello)

Pittsburgh Courier NEW

To subscribe, call 412-481-8302 ext. 134 or FAX 412-481-1360

“He’s getting fame, but really, what does it all mean?

She’s getting fame, but really, what does it all mean?

We’re getting fame, but really, what does it all mean when every time I hit the hood all I see is a dark dream? Until we proceed forward with unity, we will always be in a critical condition,” Ezra Smith.

Critical Condition, is how

Ulish Carter says

We need jobs. Where are they?

Opinion A6

the state of the image of the African American male in this country has been for so long now that an organization named BMe was created for the sole purpose of redesigning that image.

Harry Johnson II, BMe community manager in Pittsburgh, said BMe started out as a storytelling project of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Detroit.

SEE LEADERS A4

A2

This Week In Black History

JULY 8-14, 2015

INTERNATIONAL

Women talk everyday sexism with #BeingFemaleInNigeria hashtag TWO GIRLFRIENDS STANDING NEXT TO A FENCE (Source: Kevin Russ /Getty)

by Monique John

For New Pittsburgh Courier

(hellobeautiful.com)— Women (and men) all over Twitter have been speaking out on gendered discrimination with the #BeingFemaleInNigeria hashtag.

The conversation has long been at the forefront of conversations surrounding issues in Nigeria after Boko Haram has continuously kidnapped and raped thousands of girls while terrorizing villages in the country’s northern regions.

Nigeria also made international news recently when the government banned female genital mutilation— an issue that has impacted 41 percent of Nigerian women.Boko Haram, geni-

tal mutilation and abortion rights are just some of the major problems women face in the country but this hashtag has given women the license to speak truth to power on some of the biggest and smallest microaggressions impacting them day to day. The hashtag was conceived by the Warmate Book Club, a Nigerian group that had been discussing Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “We Should All Be Feminists” TedTalk. The hashtag went out on Tuesday morning and became one of the top trending conversations in Nigeria and the UK. Women have been talking about a range of issues including being pressured to stay in abusive relation-

ships to get married and have children as well as housing discrimination, slut-shaming, double standards for men and women and finally, the common notion that women are mentally and physically inferior to men.

In a Huffington Post interview with book club member Tinu Akinwande, she said: “What we are trying to do is open people’s minds to what some people in the society has termed as the norm. We are happy the hashtag has gone worldwide. We never expected all the buzz. This conversation is never ending. And until we speak and create awareness about it this attitude will not change.”

don’t know what to say. In the midst of our 4th of July celebrations—where we celebrate independence and freedom, it is easy to forget that these two things are

not available to everyone, everywhere. However much progress we need to go through to realize those ideals in our country—and we do—we are sometimes reminded that there is much strife elsewhere that we should give our attention to as well.

In this latest heartbreaking news that is currently circulating, men on a motorcycle in Kabul, Afghanistan attacked three teenage girls by throwing acid in their face. The girls were on their way to school in the country’s Herat province this morning, local time. The three girls were immediately admitted to a nearby hospital in Hera city but were then taken to different locations by their parents. Two of the girls are reportedly in critical condition. According to the hospital head, the girls were told, “This is the punishment for going to school.”

It is shameful that we live in a world where the punishment that a girl might face for going to school is acid in her face. It is a crime against women and a crime against humanity. Girls around the world need a solution because this is unacceptable./

Afghan girls attacked with acid

Kovie Biakolo

For New Pittsburgh Courier

(hellobeautiful.com)— This is one of those stories you hear about and you just

FEARFUL (Photo: AFP / Getty)

Elaine Effort

Pittsburgh Profiles with KQV’s Elaine Effort sponsored in part by the New Pittsburgh Courier

Pittsburgh Profiles with Elaine Effort heard exclusively on Pittsburgh’s all news radio station for 30 years

KQV 1410 AM and at WWW.KQV.COM

THE NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER PUBLISHING COMPANY

Publication No.: USPS 381940 315 East Carson Street Pittsburgh, PA 15219 Phone 412-481-8302 Fax: 412-481-1360 The New Pittsburgh Courier is published weekly periodicals paid at Pittsburgh, Pa. PRICE $1.00 (Payable in advance) Months...........$25 66Months...........$25.00 Year.................$45 11Year.................$45.00 22Years...............$85.00 Years...............$85 9 Month School Rate $35

Friday, July 10 at 7:30 P.M. Saturday, July 11 at 6:30 A.M. Sunday, July 12 at 1:30 P.M.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to:

New Pittsburgh Courier 315 East Carson Street Pittsburgh, PA 15219

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

For the week of July 8-14 July 8 1805—On this day in 1805, Bill Richmond becomes the first African-American to gain international fame as a boxer when he defeated Jack Holmes in a 26-round bout in England. The son of escaped slaves from Georgia, Richmond was born in New York City in 1763. He did most of his fighting in Europe. Near the end of his boxing career, he married a rich woman and retired. He died in London in December 1829.

1914—Jazz great Billy Eckstine is born in Pittsburgh, Pa. He was raised in Washington, D.C., where he began entering talent competitions at the age of 7. Eckstine would become one of the dominant Jazz singers during the era of the big bands. He has been described as “an exceptional singer who never failed to impress.” Eckstine died of a BILLY ECKSTINE heart attack in 1993.

July 9 1863—Eight Black regiments play a major role as Union troops capture Port Hudson in Louisiana. They had laid siege to the Confederate fortress since May 23.

The victory, along with the July 4 capture of Vicksburg, Miss., gave U.S. forces control of the Mississippi River, cut the Confederate army in half and laid the foundation for ending the Civil War. The Civil War would drag on for another two years but the Confederate troops fighting to maintain slavery were never able to recover from the loss of Port Hudson.

1893—Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the first successful open heart surgery in American history. He repaired a knife wound to the heart of one James Cornish. Cornish would go on to live for another 20 years. Williams established himself as one of the foremost African-American surgeons in the history of this nation. In addition to the surgery, his achievements were many. Born in 1856 in Hollidaysburg, Pa., he was appointed surgeon general of Freedman’s (now Howard University) Hospital in Washington, D.C. He taught at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. He was a surgeon at Cook County Hospital in Chicago and he founded DANIEL HALE WILLIAMS Provident Hospital in Chicago where he trained many of the nation’s early Black doctors and nurses. Williams also co-founded the predominantly Black National Medical Association.

2009—Reports first emerge suggesting that Haiti was beginning to conquer its HIV/AIDS epidemic. According to UNAIDS, the official AIDS infection rate on the poverty-ridden Caribbean island for people ages 15-49 was 2.2 percent—down from a high of nearly 8 percent in the 1980s. The decline was attributed to the closing of blood banks, where the poor sold their blood for money; the work of the Boston-based Partners in Health; and Haiti’s own GHESKIO clinic.

July 10 1775—Shortly after taking command of the troops fighting for American independence from Britain, Gen. George Washington (the nation’s first president) has his adjutant general issue an order barring any further Blacks from joining the Continental Army. The decision would be confirmed by the Continental Congress in November of 1775. The fear was that Blacks who fought for America’s independence would be justified in demanding an end to slavery. And slave owners, including Washington, did not want that.

1927—David Dinkins, the first Black man elected mayor of New York City, is born on this day in 1927. He was born in Trenton, N.J., and served as New York City mayor from 1989 to 1993.

1943—Tennis sensation Arthur Ashe was born on this GEORGE WASHINGTON day in Richmond, Va. He would become the first Black male to win the Wimbledon men’s singles championship by defeating Jimmy Connors in 1975. Ashe would receive a contaminated blood transfusion and die of AIDS in February 1993.

1972—The Democratic Party holds its presidential convention in Miami, Fla. New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first Black person to actively seek the party’s presidential nomination, received 151.95 votes on the first ballot. Senator George McGovern would eventually be nominated. Chisholm had been the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress, achieving the distinction in 1968. She was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., to a Barbadian mother and a Guyanese father. Chisholm’s signature phrase was “Un-bought and un-bossed.” She died in January 2005.

July 11 1905—The Niagara Movement (forerunner of the NAACP) is founded during a meeting near Niagara Falls, N.Y. Among the most prominent Blacks at the meeting were intellectual and activist W.E.B. DuBois and newspaper publishers William Monroe Trotter and Ida B. Wells Barnett.

1915—Mifflin Wistar Gibbs dies. Gibbs had worked on the Underground Railroad helping Blacks escape from slavery along with Frederick SHIRLEY CHISOLM Douglas. He would later become publisher of Mirror of the Times—the first Black newspaper in California. He was also the first African-American elected to a municipal judgeship in the state.

2010—Gospel legend Bishop Walter Hawkins dies. The Grammy award-winning Hawkins died at his home in Ripon, Calif. Hawkins was part of the influential Hawkins family. His brother was Edwin Hawkins and for a while he was married to gospel great Tramaine Hawkins.

July 12 1887—Mound Bayou, Miss., perhaps the nation’s best known historically all-Black town, is founded by ex-slave Isaiah Montgomery and his cousin Benjamin T. Green. It was built as a sanctuary for former slaves during a period when Jim Crow racism and terrorism by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan were on the rise. It is considered the oldest surviving all-Black town in America. According to the 2000 Census, the town had 2,100 residents.

1937—Actor, comedian and political activist William “Bill” Cosby is born on this day in Philadelphia, Pa. Cosby would rise from nightclub comedian, to actor in several of the socalled Black exploitation movies of the 1970s, to star of the hit NBC television series “The Cosby Show” from 1984 to 1992.

The show won numerous awards and praise for its portrayal BILL COSBY of a middle-class African-American family. Cosby has also been active in a wide-range of civil rights and social causes.

1949—Although he is seldom mentioned today, Frederick M. Jones was one of Black America’s most productive inventors. There are at least 60 patents to his credit. However, Jones is best known for the invention of an air conditioning unit. Specifically, he designed an automatic refrigeration system for long-haul trucks and trains which he patented on this day in 1949. Jones was born in 1893 in Covington, Ky., near Cincinnati. He died in 1961.

July 13 1863—One of the bloodiest race (or perhaps more appropriately “racist”) riots in America history begins. The event, known historically as New York City Draft Riots, was sparked by angry opposition to the congressionally passed Enrollment Act—a mandatory draft requiring White men to fight in the Civil War. Many Whites went on a rampage out of opposition to the draft and fear of freed Blacks competing with them for jobs. The rioting lasted from July 13 to July 16 before it was finally put down with the aid of Federal troops. But before it was over, an estimated 100 people had been killed and 300 wounded—most of them Blacks. The mandatory draft also reflected a fact commonly omitted from standard American history texts: the class nature of much legislation. In this instance, the draft only applied to poor and working class Whites. Wealthy Whites were officially exempted from the draft by paying a fee.

1868—Oscar J. Dunn, a former slave, is installed as Louisiana’s lieutenant governor.

At the time, it was the highest elective state position ever achieved by any African-American. Another Black, Antoine Dubuclet, was installed as state treasurer. However, virtually all the Black political gains after the Civil War would be wiped out by the HayesTilden Compromise of 1872 and the subsequent anti-Black Jim Crow laws. It would take nearly 100 years (during the 1960s) before Blacks would once again begin to match the political gains they had made during the post-Civil War period.

July 14 1891—Renowned Black inventor John Standard receives a patent for inventing what became the foundation for the modern refrigerator. Contrary to some history, Standard did not actually invent the first refrigerator. That appears to have been done in 1805 by American Oliver Evans. Standard once described his accomplishment this way: “This invention relates to improvements in refrigerators and consists of novel arrangements and combination of parts.” However, Standards’ “improvements” are generally credited with laying the foundation for the modern or “standard” refrigerator.

Forgiveness of Charleston church shooter prompts discussion

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

NATIONAL

by Jesse J. Holland Associated Press Wri

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP)—Under an outdoor tent a few blocks from Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Sharon Simmons paused while cleaning up from the previous night’s revival to ponder the idea of forgiving the White man accused of killing nine of the historic Black church’s members, including the pastor.

A churchgoer herself, Simmons admits feeling torn between her anger and her Christian inclination to forgive. She also adds that she’s a firm believer in capital punishment. “Too many lives are gone,” the 57-year-old former New Yorker says.

Many African Americans are struggling with those same feelings as the nation begins to move past the tragedy in Charleston. Although many say their religious faith requires them to forgive, there is a question of whether a public narrative of quick forgiveness actually provides cover for Whites to avoid facing racism.

“It’s almost like White America is telling us, ‘Help us to forget the past by telling us that you forgive us,”’ said Raymond Winbush, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

Just one day after the June 17 massacre at Emanuel, Chris Singleton, the college student son of victim Sharonda ColemanSingleton, said he forgave his mother’s killer. The following day, family members of the dead joined the first court hearing for the suspected killer, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, and told him via video conference that they, too, forgave him—even as some acknowledged also feeling angry and hurt.

“Everyone’s plea for your soul is proof that they lived in love, and their legacies will live in love. So hate won’t win,” said Alana Simmons, granddaughter of Emanuel victim the Rev. Daniel Simmons.

Similarly, forgiveness was extended in recent days after several Southern Black churches burned down in a spate of fires, some of which were deemed suspicious.

“We’ve already forgiven them, and we want to move forward,” Rev. Mannix Kinsey, pastor of Briar Creek Road Baptist

MEMORIAL—A note on the sidewalk includes photos of the nine who were killed at a memorial in front of the Emanuel AME Church on Friday, June 19, in Charleston, S.C. ( Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Church in Charlotte, N.C., told WBTV. “And we are hoping this is an opportunity for Christ to show himself in their hearts.”

Those who extend forgiveness say they are not naive in doing so. Some say they are still a working at it, and they make clear that forgiveness is not the only emotion they have about the racial events that are unfolding.

“It makes us angry. It makes some of us want to explode,” Rev. Jonathan V. Newton said July 1 during midweek services at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, which has increased security at its historic sanctuary since the Charleston killings. But forgiveness is “not about that person, it’s about you,” Newton said. “In order for you to be free, you’ve got to let it out.”

One factor at play is that forgiveness is a strong Christian tradition, and African Americans identify as Christians more than any other group in the United States. According to the Pew Research

Center, nearly 80 percent of Blacks identified as Christian in 2014, compared with 77 percent of Hispanics and 70 percent of non-Hispanic Whites. A smaller number of Blacks, 18 percent, identified as agnostic, atheist or “nothing in particular,” compared with 24 percent of Whites and 20 percent of Hispanics.

Beyond religious purposes, experts say, immediate forgiveness probably helped to forestall reactionary violence in Charleston, denying Roof the race war that police said he told them he wanted to start. Charleston remained peaceful after the killings at Emanuel, a stark contrast to the violence that broke out in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore after the deaths of Black men in encounters with police.

Reverend Norvel Goff, interim pastor succeeding the late Rev. Clementa Pinckney at Emanuel, said self-preservation is also a motive— forgiving does more for the person who is hurting than the one

JULY 8-14, 2015

who caused the pain.

“We’re not in control of those who may commit evil acts, but we are in control of how we respond to it,” Goff said.

Such was the sentiment of Martin Luther King Jr.’s father and sister as they forgave King’s killer James Earl Ray, and Marcus Chenault, who shot and killed King’s mother, Alberta Williams King, in 1974 as she played the organ during Sunday services at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church.

“Hate won’t bring my mother or brother back. It would only destroy me,” Christine King Farris told JET magazine in 1984.

Myrlie Evers-Williams, former NAACP national chairwoman, said she was moved to tears to see the Emanuel families speak immediately of forgiveness. She said forgiveness was a lengthy process for her. Harboring thoughts of vengeance for the 1963 murder of her husband, NAACP leader Medgar Evers, motivated her activism, but for her own peace she eventually let it go.

“The hatred has ended up as a motivational tool, and the forgiveness has been a salvation for me,” said Evers-Williams.

Historically, Winbush said, African Americans have been expected to forgive for slavery, discrimination, Jim Crow segregation, attacks by the Ku Klux Klan and police violence. By meeting that expectation, he said, “in one sense we aid and abet those who would commit those crimes.”

Ansley M. LaMar, a professor at New Jersey City University, pointed out that the civil rights movement was born out of anger, but the nonviolence and forgiveness it espoused is what people remember about it most.

“There was an understanding that there was a community of black people who were not going to take it if it kept on happening,” LaMar said. “So being forgiving doesn’t mean being a wimp. It doesn’t mean, white folks, you can walk all over me. It means I forgive you, but I’m not going to let this happen again.”

(Associated Press writer Glynn A. Hill in Washington contributed to this report.)

(Jesse J. Holland covers race, ethnicity and demographics for The Associated Press. Contact him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jessejholland)

Gay rights activists mark landmark 1965 demonstration

by Natalie Pomilio Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA (AP)—Gay rights activists gathered in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July to mark the progress of their movement and pay tribute to those who launched it a half-century ago—but also made it clear that the fight for equality was far from over.

“In too many communities, you can still get married on Sunday and then fired on Monday. Marriage equality was a critical milestone but not the final destination,” said activist Aisha Moodie-Mills, referring to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriages nationwide.

“If history has taught us anything, it’s that no community’s rights are one and done with a simple piece of legislation. .

Equality is not set in stone,” Moodie-Mills said.

The event was part of a weekend-long celebration of some of the earliest gay rights marches, including a gathering of about 40 protesters calling for equality at the same location on July 5, 1965.

Organizers called that demonstration an incredibly bold and courageous move by the standards of the day, when homosexu-

als were legally barred from government jobs and could be arrested for engaging in consensual intimate acts even in the privacy of their own homes. The American Psychiatric Association classified being gay as a disease that could be treated with chemical castration or lobotomy.

“Fifty years ago, America perceived us as degenerates,” said Malcolm Lazin, who organized the anniversary events. “One of the many goals of the gay pioneers was to demonstrate that we are first class Amer- PAYING TRIBUTE—Wanda Sykes speaks during the National ican citizens.”

LGBT 50th Anniversary Ceremony, Saturday, July 4, in front of InOne way they did that in dependence Hall in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) 1965 was with a dress code for the picketers: suits for men, dresses and The event also took time to pay special pantyhose for women. The marchers were tribute to the “mother and father of the gay silent, holding hand-lettered signs calling rights movement,” as Lazin described for fair treatment. During Saturday’s cere- them: activists Barbara Gittings and mony, a group of 40 people recreated that Frank Kameny. march, walking in a circle on the cobbleOther notables included Edie Windsor, stone street in front of the building where the plaintiff in the 2013 Supreme Court both the Declaration of Independence and case that struck down parts of the Defense the Constitution were signed. of Marriage Act; Judy and Dennis Shepard,

A3

whose son Matthew was killed in 1998 because of his sexual orientation; Rev. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay priest in the Episcopal Church; and Walter Naegle, long-time partner of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, a confidante of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Entertainer Wanda Sykes, who hosted the event, joked that she was now “a happily married woman in all 50 states, but I’m not sure I’m going to go test the water in all 50 states. I’ll let them get a little bit used to it first.”

Jim Obergefell, who was listed as the lead plaintiff in the successful lawsuit that led the Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage, was stopped after his remarks

by South Jersey resident Jim Mancinelli, 64, and his partner of 15 years, Dave Helgeson, 52.

“Thank you so much. I really appreciate what you did for all of us, the strength you showed for all of us, the courage you showed for all of us,” Mancinelli said, gesturing between himself and Helgeson as his eyes filled with tears.

Obergefell, too, was emotional as he replied, “I loved my husband,” who died in 2013.

“It was the easiest thing in the world to do.”

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

JULY 8-14, 2015

METRO

A5

Can Wilkinsburg become the next Harlem Renaissance?

by Michael Rose For New Pittsburgh Courier

Arts, Culture & Community was the fourth event of the Wilkinsburg Community Conversations Series, an initiative that Councilwoman Marita Garrett founded to connect and empower residents to improve Wilkinsburg neighborhoods.

The Harlem Renaissance came about because of the great migration of former slaves to urban northern cities for what they hoped would be better jobs, living conditions and less racism.

Out of this migration to a new setting, new ideas from different regions melded together to form a different culture and new identity.

Wilkinsburg resident are hoping the same is true for their community.

Previous conversations have included, “Economic Development through Entrepreneurship,” “Building Better Communities through Code Enforcement” and “Know Your Local Government.”

Following the success of the first three events, which drew nearly 100 community members each meeting, Garrett was inspired to continue the series that highlights different aspects of the Wilkinsburg community.

“The incredible turnout demonstrated that there is a real need for this type of forum for our residents,” said Garrett. “Wilkinsburg is facing a lot of challenges, but there are also so many incredible initiatives going on here that deserve to be featured. Through Community Conversations we are engaging residents and highlighting the great progress that has been made.”

Garrett brought Erika Turner and Jason McKoy together as well as Arts Inc.’s Michelle Barabas, the Wilkinsburg H.S. Student Union and Youth and a bevy of other Wilkinsburg artists on for her fourth

WILKINSBURG RESIDENTS GATHERS TO IMPROVE THEIR COMMUNITY (Photo by Jackie McDonald) Wilkinsburg Community Conversation in just her second year in office.

What makes Wilkinsburg special is that it is not connected to Pittsburgh but is autonomous to decide its own destiny. Change is happening, but it is happening on their terms.

These terms are leading to new residents bringing new ideas, and optimism for the community, but also new opportunity to its residents.

When asked about a reverse demographic renaissance possibly taking place in Wilkinsburg, in which the Black demographic population decreases as creativity and artistic expression increases, Garrett gave her thoughts.

“I think we are attracting different populations and demographics that is adding to our diversity and inclusivity. Wilkinsburg is attracting a different population but we still have our main population that has been there. What I really love about Wilkinsburg is that you have residents that have been here since the 30s and 40s, and their grandparents were living here,” she said.

Community Calendar Summer Blood Drive JULY 8—MINI of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Central Blood Bank will host a Summer Blood Drive from 12-5 p.m. at MINI of Pittsburgh, 4900 Baum Blvd., Shadyside. In an effort to help the local community, the dealership will join with the Blood Bank to collect donations that will be used to provide potentially lifesaving aid for people in the local area. Walk-ins are welcome, but appointments are strongly encouraged. This is open to the public. For more information, call Jason Karpa at 412-682-0788 ext. 258 or email Jason.Karpa@miniof pittsburgh.com.

Media Forum JULY 8—The Pittsburgh Black Media Federation will host a Media Forum from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh East Liberty Branch, 130 South Whitfield St., East Liberty. The topic is “From Ferguson to Baltimore: How Facts, Fairness and Firsts Can Collide in Storytelling.” Journalists, community leaders, residents and others will gather for a panel discussion that will address biases and fairness in coverage, conflicts that arise in the race to break news, how images are selected, and more. There will be a question-and-answer period. For more information, email info@pbmf.org.

Heritage Sports Luncheon JULY 10—The Pittsburgh Pirates will host the 2015 African American Heritage Sports Luncheon at 11:30 a.m. at PNC Park’s Lexus Club, 200 W. General Robinson St., North Shore.

McKeesport native and WNBA Player Swin Cash will be the keynote speaker. Reservations are required. For more information, call Chaz Kellem at 412325-4731 or email chaz.kellem@pirates.com.

Book Signing JULY 10—EX3 Books will host a Book Signing Celebration for authors Nicole Narvaez Manns and Chuck Brown from 6-9 p.m. at the Comfort Inn Conference Center, 699 Rodi Road, Penn Hills. Manns will autograph copies of her book, “Here’s Your Script! Keep Your Foot Out of Your Mouth and Your Butt Employed,” and Brown will sign

copies of his book, “Shift Happens Then You Live: Take Control of Your Life and Win.” For more information, visit www.ex3ent.com.

Sisters Place Fundraiser JULY 10—The Sisters Place Friends Board will host the 2nd annual Friends at the Tables fundraiser from 7-10 p.m. at Hotel Monaco Pittsburgh, Sheffield Ballroom, 620 William Penn Place, Downtown. The theme is “Masquerade at the Monaco.” Guests will garner a mask while enjoying casino games, live entertainment, cocktails and light hors d’oeuvres.

Reservations are required. For more information, visit www.sistersplace.org.

Walk 4 Life JULY 11—The Kierra Keeps Caring Foundation along with Purpose of Life Home Healthcare and Posh Nail Boutique will host the 6th Annual Walk 4 Life at 10 a.m. at Schenley Park Trails, near Anderson Grove. This fundraising event will include a walk, a celebration cookout and more. KKCF was established in memory of Sha’Vaughn Kierra Wallace who lost her life in 2009 due to senseless gun violence.

For more information, call Carla Gaines-Robinson at 1-866-5615523 ext. 01 or visit www.kierrakeepscaring.com.

Guild Centennial Celebration JULY 17—The Harriet Tubman Guild Inc. will host its Centennial Celebration Black Tie Event at 5 p.m. at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel, 101 Mall Bvld., Monroeville. This celebration dinner and dance event will honor 12 members who represent the spirit of the Guild’s original 12 members. There will also be an Open House on July 18 at the Harriet Tubman Terrace, 550 Negley Run Blvd., and a Worship Service on July 19 at Mt. Ararat Baptist Church. For more information, call 412-3638422 or visit www.harriettubmanguildinc.org.

(To have items listed on Community Calendar, send information at least two weeks in advance to: 315 E. Carson St., Pittsburgh, PA 15219; Fax: 412-481-1360 or email: newsroom@newpittsburghcourier.com.)

“It’s great to have the history of people who live in Wilkinsburg that are really rooting for the neighborhood and borough to be back to where it was and appreciating the renaissance period that we are in, but what is nice is people who live outside of Wilkinsburg that have a connection are seeing the change and trying to move in. I don’t see Wilkinsburg becoming one place like Hipsterville or a Black neighborhood or just White, but it will continue to be a community for all demographics and orientations that everyone can feel a part of and connected to.

Asked to describe her vision for the future of Wilkinsburg in one word, she said, “Thriving.”

For example, McKoy of McKoy Creatives is a graphic artist. As a teenager, McKoy could be found illegally tagging local buildings with graffiti street art. Although he knew he had a gift and love for art, he knew it would be smarter to not to go to jail for it.

“I wouldn’t say I come from a privileged community but I wouldn’t say it was absolutely the worst. I did do street art for a while and I was like I want to actually make money off of my creativity and my talent. That’s why I decided around college that I wanted to do something positive and that could get

my work in front of a large group of people and that’s why I went into graphic art and graphic design,” he said.

Enter the new Wilkinsburg Chamber of Commerce who was looking for a way to spruce things up to make the borough more attractive.

They noticed my work and they were like hey, do you want to be a part of this?

And I was like yeah, sure.

The first order of business was the farmers market, which is now Wilkinsburg Thursday Open Market. We have totally rebranded it and started including artists as well as craft people as part of the market to really reinvigorate the spirit and creativity in Wilkinsburg and what’s happening now.”

The Wilkinsburg Chamber of Commerce has also allowed McKoy to take on an intern to help with the work. “We have taken on an intern through the YES (Youth Enrichment Services) organization. Wherever we can, we try to take the youth and involve them so they can see what’s going on in their community and personally, I think it’s important because as a Black man myself I see the youth in the area, (and) I think it’s important for them to see someone like me who is actually in the community doing things also. One of the initiatives of this is community engagement and outreach.

We are going to start doing creative or decorative crosswalks. Basically we are doing murals on the street.”

Turner, another Wilkinsburg resident, owns Wine and Words Pittsburgh, an organization focused on promoting creative arts and literature while also bringing attention to the local wineries in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas. Recently she celebrated two years in business. Wilkinsburg recently overturned its 140-year alcohol ban in May and Turner said if she ever decides to expand to another location, it helps her from a business projection standpoint. Her true love however is the Harambee Ujima Arts & Culture Association’s Black Arts Festival where she serves as committee chair for the Legacy Art Gallery.

“Harambee is a legacy to my family, my grandfather drummed in it, my grandmother participated in it, my older cousin danced in it so it is a big thing for me.

This year I wanted to give the artists that participate a wider range of exposure not just two days so I plan to do a thirty day pop up gallery,” she said.

“We are going to run that

from July 17 to August 16 with seven to 10 different artists.” Turner said the art festival is July 18-19 from 11 a.m.-8 p.m. and that there will be vendors, a children’s village, workshops, musical performers, maybe a live painter in the gallery.

This is the third year for the festival.

Arts, Culture & Community featured: Councilwoman Eugenia Moore, Wilkinsburg Beautiful-Living Wall Design; Michelle Barabas, founder & CEO, Arts Inc.; Youth Entrepreneurial Education through the Arts; Wilkinsburg High School Student Union—Musical Performances & Youth Reporters; Erika Turner, founder, Wine & Words Pittsburgh– Art Creations and Good Libations; Marlee Gallagher, Wilkinsburg Community Development Corporation Upcoming House & Garden Tour; Mike Hiller & Jerry Gaudi, Wilkinsburg Chamber of Commerce; New Wilkinsburg Thursday Open Market Arts and Design; and Athena’s Fire, Women’s Community Singing Ensemble.

Additional sponsors include Community Life, Maser Galleries, and Village at Pennwood.

Mother charged in toddler’s death The mother of a Wilkinsburg toddler who was found in a shallow ravine in Swissvale has been charged with her daughter’s death.

On July 7, authorities arrested Adriene Williams for the death of her 3year-old daughter, Adrionna Williams, and charged her with criminal homicide, endangering the welfare of children, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse.

It was determined that Adrionna died of asphyxiation. A release by the Office of the Medical Examiner of Allegheny County stated “the determination was the result of a lengthy and in-depth collaboration between morgue services

and several sections of the Crime Labs of OMEAC, with investigators of the County Police and the Office of the District Attorney.” No further details have been made available.

It was on June 14 that Adrionna’s body was found, a few miles from her home, by a person walking their dog. She had been reported missing to Wilkinsburg Police less than an hour before the discovery. Since then, Allegheny County Police had been treating the investigation of the girl’s death as a homicide.

Since the toddler’s death, many in the community have held marches and vigils demanding justice for the little girl.

A6

JULY 8-14, 2015

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

METRO

City Council gets paid sick leave legislation

by Christian Morrow Courier Staff Writer

With supporters from the Service Employees International Union, Pittsburgh United, the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network and several other groups crowding city council chambers, Councilman Corey O’Connor introduced legislation that would require every businesses in the city to allow workers to earn sick days based on how many hours they work.

A post-agenda hearing will now be scheduled before council votes.

Per the legislation, 30 hours of work would earn one hour of sick time, the legislation would further prohibit employees from accruing more than 72 hours per year.

Businesses with 15 or fewer employees could limit sick leave to 40 hours per year.

No employees would be eligible for paid leave until they had worked for 90 days.

“It will produce benefits for wokers, benefits for businesses and benefits for the public health of the region,” he said.

O’Connor said the ordinance would save hourly workers from having to choose between losing a day’s pay or coming to work sick, or caring for an ailing child or other relative. According to figures in the legislation, about 40 percent of Pittsburgh’s private sector workers and 77 percent of ser-

vice workers have no paid sick time. A press release announcing the legislation said that translates into 50,000 Pittsburgh workers without paid sick leave.

Mayor Bill Peduto, who also supports the legislation, said in a statement it’s the right thing to do.

“Many of us don’t think twice about taking a sick day to rest up from a cold, or take care of a loved one,” he said. “But for thousands of our neighbors it’s a decision that can put their jobs at risk, that isn’t right. ” Pittsburgh United Executive Director Bernie Oursler, said the legislation is based on the best of similar legislation pushed in cities like Philadelphia, Seattle and Tacoma, Wash. He said 25 local organizations are now backing the legislation.

“This is opportunity for city to join a movement,” he told council. “ This ordinance is reasonable and smart, and it affects the public heart. It is important to workers who face firing for taking time off.”

Whether the ordinance is enforceable or not may be a matter for the courts, which previously ruled against the city when it passed similar legislation in the past, specifically one requiring new janitorial contractors to retain janitors employed by a previous vender for six months.

The Supreme Courts noted that home rule law prohibits the City of Pittsburgh from

regulating businesses by determining their “duties, responsibilities or requirements.”

O’Connor said he believe this bill will withstand a legal challenge because it bears on a public health issues, which council can regulate.

Pittsburgh United said that in the 18

other cities—and most recently Montgomery County Maryland—that have adopted paid sick day laws have shown that implementation resulted in job growth in various job sectors.

(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)

PITTSBURGH CELEBRATES JULY 4 (Photos by J.L. Martello)

37 of 44 homicides Black lives—Senseless violence robbing children of fathers CONTINUED FROM A1

granddaughter, Tionna Banks, was also found dead.

Authorities found the two while conducting a wellness check that was requested after Banks did not report to a social service appointment. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing. (Identified as Valorie Crumpton by the Allegheny County Office of the Medical Examiner.)

MAY 7—Tionna Banks, a 19-year-old from East Hills, was found beaten to death, along with her grandmother, Valerie Crumpton, in Crumpton’s Karl Street home in East Hills. The two were found when authorities conducted a wellness check after receiving reports that Banks did not show up for a social service appointment. Banks had recently been threatened by her estranged boyfriend, the father of her then-2month-old child. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

MAY 10—Jamar Thomas, a 20-year-old Black male from Hazelwood, was fatally shot outside an apartment building, in the 500 block of Collins Avenue in East Liberty, where he had been visiting. He reportedly had gotten into an altercation with Brett Terry prior to the shooting. Terry is charged with criminal homicide along with other charges. He is awaiting trial.

MAY 13—Christopher Katchur, a 52-year-old White male from McKeesport, was fatally shot in the back in his McKeesport home in the 3100 block of Orchard Street. He reportedly had just obtained an emergency protection from abuse order against his wife, Patricia Katchur. She allegedly had entered the home through a window, fell asleep, woke up when her husband came home and got into a dispute. Patricia Katchur is charged with criminal homicide.

She is awaiting trial.

MAY 15—Mikal Francis, a 32-year-old Black male from New Jersey, was found shot multiple times in the 7100 block of Idlewild Street in Homewood. He was taken to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital where he later died. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

MAY 16—Darius Williams, a 40-year-old Black male from Jefferson Hills, was fatally shot in his Roberts Drive home, in Jefferson Hills, during a dispute with the man his female live-in companion had brought home. The woman reportedly picked up Trenton Knight, brought him to the home, and an altercation ensued when Williams returned home. Knight had allegedly been hiding in a bedroom and fired shots when Williams opened the door. Knight is charged with criminal homicide and firearm violation.

MAY 16—Deontay Hamilton, a 34-year-old Black male from Braddock, was fatally stabbed at a home in the 500 block of Pine Way in Braddock during a domestic dispute with his girlfriend. Hamilton was taken to UPMC Mercy Hospital where he later died. It is unknown if the woman has been charged.

MAY 17—Kelvin Lovelace, a 14-year-old Black male from Wilkinsburg, was fatally shot while attending a party in the East Hills Housing Complex on East Hills Drive. Reportedly, a group of hundreds were standing outside when a car drove up and fired shots into the crowd. Lovelace was taken to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital where he later died. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing. (Identified as Kevin Lovelace by the Allegheny County Office of the Medical Examiner.)

MAY 20—Jaymon Gandy, a 21-year-old Black male from Homestead, was shot to death while walking down Mifflin Street in Homestead. He reportedly had been walking when a car drove up and several individuals got out of the car and fired multiple shots. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

MAY 20—Harrison Shaffer, a 68-year-old White male from Forward Township, was fatally shot in his home on Pine Avenue in Forward Township. His nephew, Billy Joe Richter, had allegedly entered his home looking for money. Shaffer called the police.

Richter was arrested after a standoff that lasted for hours ended. Richter is charged with homicide, burglary, aggravated assault and more. He is awaiting trial.

April Homicides (8) APRIL 4—Isaac Cameron, a 23-year-old Black male from West Mifflin, was shot multiple times during a home invasion on Maple Avenue in West Mifflin. Cameron, who lived at the residence with his mother, died at the scene. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

APRIL 5—Christopher Richardson, a 20-year-old Black male from West Oakland, was shot in the torso while driving a vehicle with two other passengers on Dinwiddie Street in the Hill District. He was found near the scene, in an alley. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No one has been May Homicides (10) charged; the investigation is ongoing.

MAY 7—Valerie Crumpton, a 72-year-old Black feAPRIL 12—John Stefano, a 23-year-old from Turtle male from East Hills, was found beaten to death in her Creek, was fatally shot in an apartment in the Northern home in the 500 block of Karl Street in East Hills. Her Pike Garden Apartment complex located in the 3900

We need to end the senseless violence for our children’s sake.

As part of an ongoing effort to heighten awareness about the effects of murder in Black communities, the New Pittsburgh Courier will compile a list of homicides in the County each month. It is our hope that as the list of victims grows, so will a true understanding of how these lost lives affect the mental health, economic well being and self-images of the region’s Black neighborhoods.

Out of the 44 murders, thus far, in 2015— 37 were Black and 33 were Black men.

JUNE 2—Shaquan Johnson, a 20-yearold Black male from Homewood, was found with multiple gunshot wounds by Pittsburgh Police who responded to a call of a shooting in the 7900 block of Inglenook Place in Homewood. He was taken to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital where he died hours later. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

JUNE 9—Desmond Nowlin, a 21-yearold Black male from Rankin, was fatally shot in the abdomen during a drive-by shooting near the intersection of Jones and Baldridge Avenues in North Braddock. He was taken to UPMC Mercy where he later died. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

JUNE 10—Seneca Byrd, a 38-year-old Black male from McKeesport, was fatally shot outside of Tube City Café on Fifth Avenue in McKeesport after an altercation inside the bar. Byrd and alleged shooter Rahman Shaw reportedly continued their argument outside when shots were fired. Shaw is charged with criminal homicide and is currently awaiting trial.

JUNE 14—Adrionna Williams, a 3year-old Black female from Wilkinsburg, was found dead in a shallow ravine near Chalmers Way, in Swissvale. The girl was reported missing to Wilkinsburg police and found by a person walking a dog, less than an hour later. Her cause of death was asphyxiation. Adriene Williams, the toddler’s mother, has been charged with criminal homicide, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence and more. She is currently awaiting trial.

JUNE 15—Jerit Love, a 32-year-old Black male from Wilkins Township, was shot and killed in his Wilkins Township home, in the 600 block of Highland Avenue, all while his children were in the house. It has been reported that Love had gone to another part of the house with one of two men who were visiting and was shot. Love was able to make it to another part of the home before he collapsed and died. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

JUNE 16—Thomas Nicholson, an 81year-old White male from Kennedy Township, was found dead and bound at his hands and feet in the bedroom of his home on Fairhaven Road in Kennedy Township.

He reportedly died from injuries he suffered during a home invasion. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

JUNE 22—Tyrone Harris Jr., a 20year-old Black male from the South Side, was fatally shot by a police officer during a crime spree that allegedly included firing a gun at civilians in the area of Jucunda Street in Knoxville, carjacking a vehicle, a police chase along Route 51 and an exchange of gun fire with police. Harris was hit when officers returned gunfire. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident is being investigated. The officer was placed on leave, which is protocol.

(The Allegheny County Office of the Medical Examiner records identify Harris as Tyrone Harris.)

JUNE 23—Mark Williams, a 34-yearold Black male from the North Side, was fatally shot multiple times in the 2100 block of Koerner Avenue in the Perry South area of the North Side. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

block of Monroeville Boulevard. He was taken to Forbes Regional Hospital; where he later died. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

APRIL 21—Trula Dobbins, a 35-year-old Black male from Hill District, was shot in the chest and torso while at a bar in the 2400 block of Webster Avenue, in the Hill District, after an argument erupted. He was taken to UPMC Mercy Hospital where he later died. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

APRIL 23—Dion Turner, a 21-year-old Black male from Swissvale, was found fatally shot on the sidewalk in the 3000 block of Ward Street in South Oakland. Another man was also injured. Turner was pronounced dead at the scene. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

APRIL 24—Derrick Owens, a 30-year-old Black male from Pittsburgh, was fatally shot in the 1300 block of Columbus Avenue, in Manchester, while standing outside of his vehicle talking to passengers inside when a man walked up, shot him and continued on. Owens reportedly got back into the vehicle where he was found by authorities. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Rayshawn Austin is charged with homicide and gun violations. He is awaiting trial.

APRIL 25—Justin Ballard, a 26-year-old White male from McKees Rocks, was fatally shot in the back while in the Third Street Park near Third and Amelia Streets in McKees Rocks. He was taken to Allegheny Hospital where he died hours later. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

APRIL 26—Robert Sellmon II, a 63-year-old Black male from Braddock Hills, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in the bedroom of his home on Illinois Avenue in Braddock Hills. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Sellmon was allegedly stabbed by Darrell Carter, his cousin’s ex-lover who was reportedly upset that his ex had left him and moved in with Sellmon. Other reports state that authorities found Carter nearby with bloody clothes and knife in his pocket. Carter is charged with homicide, burglary and more. He is currently in Allegheny County Jail awaiting his trial.

March Homicides MARCH 3—John Scaine, a 23-year-old Black male from Braddock, was shot multiple times, including in the head, while walking near the intersection of Upland Street and North Lang Avenue in Homewood. He was taken to a local hospital where he later died. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

MARCH 5—Garrick Marshman, a 19-year-old Black male from North Braddock, was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds in the backseat of a vehicle in the 3200 block of Mt. Lebanon Church Road in West Mifflin. He had been riding with three other individuals.

Deandre Smith, one of the passengers, allegedly shot Marshman and is charged with homicide and weapons violations. He is awaiting trial.

MARCH 21—Jacquelyn Bush, a 25-year-old Black female from Bellevue, was found dead in the basement of a home she was visiting on Courtright Street in Marshall-Shadeland. She had a gunshot wound to the buttocks. Charles Miles is charged with homicide. He is awaiting trial.

MARCH 23—Justin Clark, a 16-year-old Black male from Penn Hills, was fatally shot on Trefoil Court in Monroeville. He was taken to Forbes Hospital where he later died. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

MARCH 26—Isaiah Coleman, a 19-year-old Black male from Wilmerding, was fatally shot in the chest while at a home on Airbrake Avenue in Wilmerding. Coleman was at the home when he got into an altercation with Chaz White. He was pronounced dead at the scene. White allegedly shot Coleman and is charged with criminal homicide and carrying a firearm without a license. Another man is charged with weapons violation and tampering with evidence in connection with Coleman’s death. They are both awaiting their trial.

February Homicides FEB. 7—William Jeffries, a 50-year-old Black male from Penn Hills, was found dead with multiple gunshot wounds in his Frankstown Road home in Penn Hills. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

FEB. 17—Deion Nesbitt, a 24-year-old Black male from East Liberty, was fatally shot during an altercation at the Rendezvous Phase III bar, located at 7232 Hamilton Ave., in Homewood. Nesbitt had been working as a security guard when he got into an altercation with a patron who had a gun. Three other individuals got involved and Nesbitt was shot.

An unknown female security guard was shot as well. Nesbitt died upon arriving at a local hospital.

Harvey Scott Jr., the alleged shooter, along with

Tiqwan Green, Eric McGuire and Kevin Ford are charged with criminal homicide and a host of other charges.

FEB. 20—Brandon Barley, a 60-year-old Black male from McKeesport, was found dead with a gunshot wound to the trunk in an alley near the 3900 block of Jennylind Street in McKeesport. Two people were seen leaving the scene. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

January Homicides JAN. 2—Davonte Stevenson, a 19-year-old Black male from the North Side, was found lying in the street near the intersection of Manhattan Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, in Manchester, with a gunshot wound to the chest. Stevenson had been walking when a vehicle pulled up and shots rang out. He was taken to Allegheny General Hospital where he later died. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

JAN. 4—Joseph Adu-Marfo, a 22-year-old Black male from McKees Rocks, died from a fatal shot to the lower extremities after being shot in the 3100 block of McClure Street in the North Side. He had shown up at Allegheny General Hospital where he later died. No one has been charged, the investigation is ongoing.

JAN. 6—Leslie Sapp, a 47-year-old Black male from Knoxville, was fatally shot by officers who were at his Redlyn Street home in Knoxville, to arrest him on charges of rape, Statutory sex, and more. He allegedly confronted officers with an air gun that looked real upon their entry. It has been reported that officers did not know the gun was not real. No charges have been filed.

JAN. 13—Nicholas Grant, a 16-year-old White male from Carrick, died days after being choked and beaten with a vacuum during a fight at Circle C Youth and Family Services group home on Noblestown Road in Carrick. On Jan 10, teens Yusuf Shepard and Malik Crosby allegedly put Grant in a chokehold while the other beat him with the vacuum. Grant was taken to UPMC Mercy Hospital where he died days later. The two were charged as adults with homicide and aggravated assault, among other things. They are awaiting trial.

JAN. 20—-Thomas McClelland, a 56-year-old Black male from East Liberty, was fatally shot multiple times outside of Shuman Market near Frankstown and North Homewood Avenues in Homewood. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

JAN. 20—William Doyle, a 24-year-old White male from McKeesport, was found dead after a shooting on Brownlee Street in the Crawford Village Housing Complex in McKeesport. Doyle was chased by two men who opened fire on him. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities have charged Jonathan Coles and Roman Jones with homicide, attempted homicide, aggravated assault and more. Jones is awaiting trial and Coles is still at large.

JAN. 23—Edwin Hammond, a 33-year-old Black male from Penn Hills was found fatally shot multiple times inside his home on Joan Drive in Penn Hills.

He was taken to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital where he later died. No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

JAN. 27—Anthony Garland, a 31-year-old Black male from Wilkinsburg, was shot to death and robbed in his Wilkinsburg Apartment on Kelly Avenue. Two males reportedly told Garland they were there to purchase marijuana, but actually intended to rob him. They allegedly shot him, took the drugs and a gaming console. Troy Miller and James Meek, who lives in Garland’s building, have been charged with homicide, robbery, conspiracy and more. They are awaiting trial.

JAN. 29—Stephon Reed, a 29-year-old Black male from East Liberty, was found shot to death in the backseat of a vehicle near Route 51. Reed and four other individuals had been in the vehicle when someone began firing shots into it. Authorities reportedly were answering a call to shots fired when they saw the vehicle with Reed speeding away and began to chase it. When the vehicle stopped that’s when officers found Reed. It’s believed the individuals were trying to take him to a nearby hospital.

No one has been charged; the investigation is ongoing.

JAN. 29—Chalaiai Chaihirunkarn, a 26-year-old Asian female from North Oakland, was found shot to death in the bedroom of her North Oakland apartment at 230 N. Craig Street. She had multiple gunshot wounds to her head and chest and was found by authorities that were conducting a well-being check. It’s believed her boyfriend, Bryan Springer, killed her and then himself. He was also found dead in the apartment. The incident has been ruled a murder-suicide.

Obama set to address NAACP convention July 14 in Philly

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

President Barack Obama will deliver the keynote address on July 14 during the NAACP’s 106th annual convention in Philadelphia.

This marks the second time Obama will address the convention as president of the United States.

The NAACP’s convention will be held July 11-15 under the theme “Pursing Liberty in the Face of Injustice.”

“We are honored to welcome President Obama back to our NAACP national convention,” said NAACP Chairman Roslyn M. Brock. “Our members are looking forward to President Obama delivering a powerful message that reinforces our commitment to being champions for civil and human rights in the 21st century.”

NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks said the convention comes as America faces profound racial and social justice challenges.

“It’s a critical moment to be in Philadelphia,” Brooks said during an interview this week with The Philadelphia Tribune.

“Only a few days ago, we mourned with the first America’s first AfricanAmerican president in an AME church gathering and in a few days hence we will go to Philadelphia as the birthplace of African Methodists; that’s a poignant moment.

“We go to Philadelphia where the Liberty Bell stands as monument and a testament to America’s quest for freedom, at a moment in which freedoms of Americans are challenged in places like Ferguson, Staten Island, Charleston and Cleveland.”

Brooks said American freedom is being challenged across the country due to racial profiling, racialized terrorism and voter ID laws that have left African American, Latino and rural voters disenfranchised.

The organization will focus on building a broad based agenda around voting rights, criminal justice reform, health equity, economic opportunity and education equality during the convention.

“The timing of this conversation, the timing of

NEW YORK (AP)— Google is apologizing after reports surfaced that an automatic image-recognition feature in its Photos application was identifying images of some Black people as “gorillas.”A New York man posted a picture of himself and a female friend on Twitter earlier this week, showing that the Google image software had tagged both of them as “gorillas,” which is sometimes used as a racial slur.

Google says it’s “appalled and genuinely sorry” for

by recent police killings of Blacks and last month’s murder of nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C. Google’s error underscores the pitfalls of relying on machines to handle tedious tasks that people have typically handled in the past. In this case, the Google Photo app released in late May uses recognition software to analyze images in pictures to sort them into a variety of categories, including places, names, activities and animals.

When the app came out, Google executives warned it probably wouldn’t get everything right—a point that has now been ham-

Google apologizes after app tagged Black people ‘gorillas’

“We’re appalled and genuinely sorry that this happened. We are taking immediate action to prevent this type of result from appearing.”

GOOGLE SPOKESWOMAN KATIE WATSON what happened with the image-recognition feature.

It says it’s taking immediate action to stop those kinds of results from appearing again.

The blunder surfaced in a smartphone screen shot posted online Sunday by a New York man on his Twitter account, (at)jackyalcine.

The images showed the recently released Google Photos app had sorted a picture of two Black people into a category labeled as “gorillas.”

The accountholder used a profanity while expressing his dismay about the app likening his friend to an ape, a comparison widely regarded as a racial slur when applied to a Black person.

“We’re appalled and genuinely sorry that this happened,” Google spokeswoman Katie Watson said.

“We are taking immediate action to prevent this type of result from appearing.”

A tweet to @jackyalcine requesting an interview hadn’t received a response several hours after it was sent Thursday.

Despite Google’s apology, the gaffe threatens to cast the Internet company in an unflattering light at a time when it and its Silicon Valley peers have already been fending off accusations of discriminatory hiring practices. Those perceptions have been fed by the composition of most technology companies’ workforces, which mostly consist of whites and Asians with a paltry few Blacks and Hispanics sprinkled in.

The mix-up also surfaced amid rising U.S. racial tensions that have been fueled

JULY 8-14, 2015

NATIONAL

mered home. Besides mistaking humans for gorillas, the app also has been mocked for labeling some people as seals and some dogs as horses.

“There is still clearly a lot of work to do with automatic image labeling,” Watson conceded.

Some commentators in social media, though, wondered if the flaws in Google’s automatic-recognition software may have stemmed on its reliance on White and Asian engineers who might not be sensitive to labels that would offend Black people. About 94 percent of Google’s technology workers are White or Asian and just 1 percent are Black, according to the company’s latest diversity disclosures.

Google isn’t the only company still trying to work out the bugs in its image-recognition technology.

Shortly after Yahoo’s Flickr introduced an automated service for tagging photos in May, it fielded complaints about identifying Black people as “apes” and “animals.” Flickr also mistakenly identified a Nazi concentration camp as a “jungle gym.”

Google reacted swiftly to the mess created by its machines, long before the media began writing about it.

Less than two hours after @jackyalcine posted his outrage over the gorilla label, one of Google’s top engineers had posted a response seeking access to his account to determine what went wrong.

Yonatan Zunger, chief architect of Google’s social products, later tweeted: “Sheesh.

High on my list of bugs you never want to see happen.

Shudder.”

MUCH WORK AHEAD—At CBC dinner, Obama said much work is ahead. (Photo by Roy Lewis/NNPA) this convention could not be more poignant and more propitious,” Brooks said.

The convention will have an estimated economic impact of $11 million and is expected to draw upward

of 8,000 dignitaries, civic and corporate leaders, according to the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The Commerce and Industry Show is one of the

highlighted events. The commerce and industry show officially opens on July 11 at 11 a.m. at Exhibit Hall B, Pennsylvania Convention Center, 1101 Arch St. The show will be

A7

open from July 11 to 14 and will feature exhibits and booths from industry and emerging businesses leaders, a health fair and an author pavilion. It is open to the public.

This year’s show will also feature an open casting call for the show “Shark Tank” and the ACT–SO culinary arts competition.

ACT–SO is the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics, a yearlong achievement program designed to recruit, stimulate, and encourage high academic and cultural achievement among African American high school students.

The NAACP will also host a diversity career fair on July 14 from 12 to 6 p.m. at the convention center. Hiring managers will be on hand to answer questions about opportunities in hospitality, food service, government, technology, banking, finance, sales, customer service, energy and retail. (ajones@phillytrib.com)

A8

JULY 8-14, 2015

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

OPINION

We need jobs. Where are they?

Guest Editorial

Patience urged during church fires inquiry As officials investigate church fires including the blaze that destroyed a rural Black church targeted by the Ku Klux Klan 20 years ago, some are questioning whether the fires are from usual causes or the result of efforts to terrorize Black churches.

As a sign of the times, the question is even spreading through social media with the hash tag: #WhoIsBurningBlackChurches?

But according to analysts studying the incidents reported by fire departments nationwide, the answers could likely be no different than what causes other buildings to burn.

For instance, the pastor suspects lightning may be to blame for destroying the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Greeleyville, S.C., which is about 50 miles north of the “Mother Emanuel” church in Charleston, S.C., where nine people were killed on June 17. The investigation continues, but a federal official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to speak publicly early indications suggest arson was not involved.

According to estimates by the National Fire Protection Association, more than half of fires at houses of worship from 2007 to 2011 were blamed on cooking equipment and heating and electrical systems. The association based its estimate on data collected by the U.S. Fire Administration and supplemented with survey results. An estimated 16 percent were intentionally set, and some fractions of those were later deemed hate crimes. Those figures on fires at religious structures include a small number of funeral homes.

The estimated number of intentionally set fires at houses of worship and funeral homes has trended downward, falling 71 percent from 1,320 in 1980 to 380 in 1998, according to an NFPA analysis. That coincides with a general decrease in all fires at those structures.

While church fires have declined significantly in recent decades, they are not infrequent: Blazes at houses of worship happened, on average, 31 times a week across the nation, according to the data collected during the fiveyear period ending in 2011. If those trends still hold today, an average of five church fires could be intentionally set each week.

“Perception matters,” said Marty Ahrens, an analyst for the fire protection association. “We don’t know all the causes of all the fires that have gone on this week. But if the church arsons had not happened so soon after the tragedy in Charleston, that horrible incident, would it have gotten the same level of attention?”

By comparison, since the shootings in Charleston, authorities have investigated roughly a half-dozen fires at predominantly Black churches in the Southeast, only three of which appear to be arson.

It’s difficult to determine whether historically Black churches burn more frequently than other churches. The best available government data doesn’t distinguish churches by the predominant race of their congregations.

The concerns over the recent fires at Black churches are understandable.

White supremacists in the South have burned Black churches over the years as a political terrorism tactic.

But some attacks on Black congregations defy simple racial motives. For example, the task force formed by President Bill Clinton found 37 percent of the people arrested for bombing or burning Black churches in the 1990s were Black themselves.

The same task force reported many arsonists appeared to have non-racial motives, such as covering up other crimes, pyromania and other mental illness.

Still, the recent fires should be thoroughly investigated without a rush to judgment.

(Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune)

Pittsburgh Courier NEW

Founded 1910

Rod Doss

Editor & Publisher Stephan A. Broadus Assistant to the Publisher

Allison Palm

Eric Gaines

Office Manager

Advertising Manager

Ulish Carter

Ashley Johnson Associate Editor

Managing Editor

Jeff Marion Circulation Consultant

John H. Sengstacke Editor & Publisher Emeritus (1912-1997)

In an article last week Dean Larry Davis, from the University of Pittsburgh hit the nail on the head when he said that the bottom line for Black progress in this country is that “We really have to get jobs.”

We’ve known this for years but now that more doors are suppose to be open, how do we get these jobs? Do we march, rally, pray, find them or create them?

Many have said this but few have ventured to let us know as to how we get these jobs when there is a major force called racism blocking us. But a big part of this force blocking us from jobs is us.

The country was built on racism.

Slavery was a major economic force that benefited the entire country and the world not just the South. But for some reason we have a large group of Black people who feel there’s no racism, and a larger segment who don’t believe there’s anything anyone can do about it, while there’s another segment who believe everything is the White man’s fault so there’s nothing Blacks can do to remedy the problem.

Since jobs are the major problem let’s talk about how we can get more jobs for Blacks. First we must look at education. The more education the better jobs. But I’m not just talking about education for the sake of education. True education should be geared toward a job upon graduation.

Job training is only good if the person has some clue what he or she wants to do for the rest of their lives. How many of us knew when we graduated from high school what we wanted to spend the rest of lives doing? Which means that if we are going to help more Blacks get jobs we must first create an interest within them for more than just being teachers, lawyers, and doctors.

I’m not knocking those careers but there’s money to be made as policemen, firemen, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, auto mechanics, the health care industry, retail managers and thousands more that we, including

Ulish Carter

Just Sayin’

ate for ourselves, if we start thinking outside of the box.

But going back to the White owned and operated jobs, and careers, our mentoring programs, books, newspapers, Social Media, etc., must start educating our people both young and old as to what is available, what qualifications are needed, and how much is being paid. You will be surprised at how many of these jobs don’t need college degrees. That most of these people receive on the job training, and if these people have degrees, many times they aren’t in the field they are employed in.

How many of us can name 10 areas of employment once we get past police, doctor, nurse, teacher, fireman, lawyer, TV personality, entertainment, athletes. There are thousands of careers out there we don’t know about.

When you go to a hospital or health care center for every doctor you see how many other people are working.

How many people work at a record company or sports franchise compared to the artists or athletes? And this is true of just about every major business. Look around; these people are not rocket scientists.

Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with being a rocket scientist but we all are not cut out to be one and even more of us don’t want to be. Most of us simply want a good paying job so we can be independent of our parents while putting a roof over our heads, food on the table, cloths on or backs, take care of our kids, and from time to time a small luxury.

Marches, rallies, protests are great but maybe what we need to do first is find out what jobs are available even if it means going from business to business, non-profit to non-profit, and just look around. Oh, for those of you who enjoy suburban shopping make note of how many Black employees you see, then decide if you should continue to spend your money there.

myself, don’t have a clue are out there.

Suit and tie jobs are great but look around you. Look at all the trucks, and other offices loaded with White people working, with zero Blacks or one or two of us.

We also have to make an effort to support Black businesses. For example, we at the Courier have to pay photographers, and writers to cover the many events we cover. So when we cover an event, sometimes devoting an entire page to a church, social group, business, community group, political event, whoever, without charge, you would think that they would show their appreciation by buying several papers, but some of these people, then ask for free papers.

It’s not like the Courier cost a lot. It costs ONE DOLLAR. Every little bit helps when you are a small business.

Another problem is that we complain about the lack of jobs but don’t do anything to create jobs. For example, every summer there’s a need for people to cut grass. Why aren’t there more Black men going door to door in their own neighborhood thus providing a service while getting paid for it. One or two yards can pay for the lawn mower.

What I’m saying is that we need to identify in our communities what is needed, what people will pay for and thus provide that service. That way we don’t have to depend solely on the White man. But that goes two ways, it means Blacks have to support Black businesses.

Yes, I know that most of us are going (Ulish Carter is the managing editor of the to have to work for the White man, but there are hundreds of jobs we can cre- New Pittsburgh Courier.)

Church burnings should ignite more protests (NNPA)—It’s possible that lightening may have caused one of the fires. Another may be the result of faulty electricity. Still, in the past couple of weeks, there were fires at churches in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ohio and Tennessee. At least two have been ruled arson by local fire departments. Several are still being investigated. Is it a coincidence that churches are burning in the days since the massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C.?

President Obama spoke to the historical importance of Black churches when he eulogized Rev. Clementa Pinckney. The church, he said, “is and always has been the center of African American life.” He went on to describe Black churches as “hush harbors” for enslaved people, “praise houses where their free descendants could gather and shout hallelujah, rest stops for the weary along the Underground Railroad, bunkers for the foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement.”

To set fire to a Black church, to kill people in a Black church, to bomb a church strikes at the very heart of our community. These acts of terrorism are meant to intimidate, to send a message. That these recent fires have happened in the wake of protests against the vile Confederate flag suggests that these fires may be pushback from the protests, a continuation of work of the man who murdered nine people in Emanuel AME Church.

Whoever is burning churches, though, forgets that it is not 1815, but 2015.

The intimidation tactics that worked during slavery won’t work now.

These church burnings fire me up.

They ought to fire us all up.The burnings ought to spark a resistance to racism unlike any we have seen in the past.

These church fires ought to infuse us

Julianne Malveaux

Commentary

to symbolize the energy needed for change.

In the wake of these church burnings, the righteous need to be fired up and ready to go in dismantling the racism that has plagued our nation since its founding.

We need to collectively debunk the myth that the Confederate flag is about history and heritage—it is simply about White supremacy. We need to go to school boards, especially in the South, to demand curriculum revisions when young people are force-fed inaccurate history about the Civil War. We need to put those employers “on blast” when they can’t “find” any African Americans to hire. We ought to encourage the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to ensure that those who get federal contracts comply with the law—that those who get federal contracts do affirmative action hiring.

The Mother Emanuel massacre demonstrates that racism is alive and well in these United States. We experience it everywhere we turn, from our national statues (fewer than 10 Black women are commemorated in public statues) to persistent housing segregation. Too many of us have accepted this racism, or feel powerless to fight it. Thus, it persists.

It was gratifying to see the multiracial crowds that mobilized in solidarity with the Mother Emanuel Nine. It would be interesting to see how many of those mobilized are willing to be involved in anti-racist work. All of us need to be “fired up, ready to go” to persistently and consistently dismantle the racism that is woven into the very fabric of our national consciousness. President Obama, are you in?

with the passion of Bree Newsome, the African American woman who climbed up a pole and snatched the Confederate flag from a pole outside the South Carolina statehouse. She didn’t wait for Gov. Nikki Haley to take the Confederate flag down; she was too fired up to wait. After all, Haley’s post-massacre announcement that the flag should not fly on statehouse grounds is symbolic until the South Carolina legislature votes to take the flag down.

Meanwhile, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, not needing legislative approval, ordered four Confederate flags to be taken down from the capitol grounds that served as the first headquarters of the Confederacy.

A South Carolina woman, Edith S. Childs, came up with a slogan when candidate Obama visited Greenwood (population about 23,000) for an event that drew a scant 20 people.

To energize the small crowd, Childs walked through the crowd attempting to fire them up. The call and response phrase, “fired up, ready to go” not only galvanized the small gathering, but became a central chant of Obama’s 2008 campaign. Used everywhere from civil rights gatherings to country clubs, “fired up” captured the energy of the first Obama campaign. Indeed, or(Julianne Malveaux is a Washington, D.C.ganizations used the “fired up” slogan to get people out to vote, to work on is- based author and economist. She can be sues other than the Obama campaign, reached at www.juliannemalveaux.com)

Israel feels entitled to ignore international law (NNPA)—Each time that I hear about the negotiations regarding the future of Iran’s nuclear program I am struck by what is almost never mentioned. The Iranians are signatories to the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty and there is no proof that the Iranians intend to develop nuclear weapons. On the other hand, there is proof that the Israelis—secretly—developed a nuclear weapons program in the 1960s and are the only nuclear weapons power in the Middle East We have to ask ourselves some very difficult questions. Why is it that the discussions regarding Iran are entirely speculative, whereas there is no discussion of Israel’s nuclear weapons program?

There is a built-in assumption in the mainstream U.S. media that Israel cannot be and should not be constrained by international law. One can only assume that this is the result of at least two factors, both of which exist in combination. First, that Israel was settled largely by Europeans, and as a result has an analogous relationship to the indigenous population of the original Palestinian territories as those of us living in the U.S. and our relationship with Native Americans.

This makes Israel more “comfortable” for many people in the U.S. who look

Bill Fletcher Jr.

Commentary at the rise of Israel as not dissimilar from that of America and its expansion Westward and its elimination of its native population.

The second factor, one must assume, is the Holocaust. Specifically, that in light of the Nazi murder of more than 6 million Jews, the state of Israel is somehow entitled to ignore international law and precedent. In the case of nuclear weapons, for instance, no actions were taken against Israel for its secret nuclear weapons program nor its collaboration with apartheid South Africa in the development of weapons of mass destruction. If this is or was the determining factor, it is, at best, curious in light of the fact that massive genocides—holocausts— have been committed against various peoples on this planet in addition to what was carried out by the Nazis in

the 1930s and 1940s. If genocide excuses countries from international law and precedent, then vast portions of this planet should be permitted to develop nuclear weapons.

For these reasons, discussions about Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions are, at best, disingenuous. To the extent that such suggestions go beyond speculation and are translated into policy, we face the on-going possibility of regional war, which seems to be the objective of the Israeli government and many Republicans in the U.S. Congress.

It is about time that people of conscience in the U.S. demand that the entire Middle East become a nuclear free zone. There are no rationales for any one country to hold nuclear domination, let alone permitting a situation where there could be a chaotic nuclear arms race. If one wishes peace, then this must come about through mutual respect and agreement rather than the peace that emerges when one side holds a gun pointed at the head of the other.

(Bill Fletcher Jr. is the host of The Global African on Telesur-English. He is a racial justice, labor and global justice writer and activist. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and at www.billfletcherjr.com.)

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

Confederate traitors don’t Mayor cheers Black Steeler, deserve to be honored disrespects same as businessman (NNPA)—Can you image waving a flag that honors Benedict Arnold, a name synonymous with treason?

How about traveling to work and back on Aldrich Ames Boulevard, a tribute to the CIA mole who secretly worked for the Russians?

Should we erect a statute of Robert Hanssen, the FBI computer and wiretapping expert who spent most of his career spying for the Soviet Union and Russia, in the hallway of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.?

Do you favor naming public schools attended mostly by Jews after Fritz Kuhn to honor the German who lived in the U.S. and was in charge of the famous U.S. Nazi group, the German-American Bund?

If you are repulsed by the thought of honoring those traitors, you should be equally indignant at the thought of erecting statues and naming streets and schools after Confederate traitors.

Make no mistake about it: Those who declared war on the Union were traitors, defined as “a person who is not loyal to his or her own country, friends, etc.”

Eleven Southern states broke from the Union for the same reason.

Writing in his book, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism: Ideology and identity in the Civil War South, Drew Gilpin Faust observed, “leaders of the secession movement across the South cited slavery as the most compelling reason for southern independence.”

Alexander Stephens, in what became known as the Cornerstone Speech, said on March 21, 1861 in Savannah, Ga., “The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar

George E. Curry

Commentary institution—African slavery as it exists amongst us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.”

He explained, “[The Confederate] “its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition.

This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Theses historical facts notwithstanding, a majority of Americans—57 percent—view the Confederate flag as a symbol of Southern pride rather than racism, according to a recent CNN poll.

It gets more interesting when the numbers are broken down by race. Of Whites polled, only 25 percent view the Confederate flag as a symbol of racism. However, 72 percent of Blacks associate the flag with racism.

It is time to bring down the Confederate flag of hate, but we shouldn’t stop there. We should remove the monuments and tributes to the Civil War traitors from public buildings and streets. If Robert J. Bentley, the Republican governor of Alabama, can voluntarily remove four Confederate flags from the Capitol grounds in Montgomery and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can recommend that a statue of Kentucky-born Jefferson Davis be removed from the state Capitol, it is time to remove the tributes to Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol.

Visitors to the Capitol are greeted by towering statues of 11 former Confederate leaders, including Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Vice President Alexander H. Stephens and Gen. Robert E. Lee. Representative John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights icon, said it’s time for the statues to be removed.

He told the Associated Press, “Young children, school children, walk by these statues, and those of us who serve in the Congress, we have to get our own house in order...We have to have a cleansing in this place.”

There is still cleansing to be done at the state level.

Despite the removal the Confederate flags from the Capitol grounds in Alabama, for example, the state annually celebrates Confederate Memorial Day, Jefferson Davis’ birthday, and honors Robert E. Lee on the same day it observes Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

A large statue of Jefferson Davis on the Capitol grounds overlooks Dexter Avenue, where Dr. King pastored his first church.

The Confederate Monument is still on the grounds and a star still marks the spot where Jefferson Davis took the oath as president of the Confederate states.

Mississippi also combines the birthdays of Dr. King and Robert E. Lee, observes Confederate Memorial Day on the last Monday of April and combines national observance of Memorial Day with Jefferson Davis’ birthday as a state holiday.

In addition to Alabama and Mississippi, Confederate Memorial Day is also observed as a state holiday in Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Let the cleansing begin. Like Maj. General William T. Sherman, let’s march though Dixie and the rest of the nation until we rid the United States of tributes to traitors.

(George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the NNPA and BlackPressUSA.com. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com.)

JULY 8-14, 2015

FORUM

This was an unsix years. Mr. usual week, beOkobi made a Louis ‘Hop’ Kendrick cause I knew just substantial inwhat this week’s vestment in a column would property in focus on. July 4th Shadyside and is one of the naupon securing tion’s most celefrom the City of brated holidays Pittsburgh the but also has been necessary license, a day of opened a bed, hypocrisy. It is a day where alleged in- breakfast and wedding location. I made dependence is cheered and celebrated. a visit to the Shadyside Mansion and it Up South Pittsburgh is a perfect exam- is absolutely secluded and gorgeous. ple of the double standard that untold There were a couple of national maganumbers of Black veterans and nonzines in the waiting room and they had veterans have encountered. layouts describing the mansion and its My columns have frequently reoperation. But before I was able to conminded the readers of the blatant acts gratulate him he said, “I have encounof discrimination that occurred in tered some serious opposition to my rePittsburgh. Allegheny County and maining in business.” He showed sevPittsburgh would not hire Black police eral letters that I thought were officers—as federal court order corfrivolous, but I know the history of the rected it for a while. Department stores city and the politicians and how dirty would not hire Black sales persons, ele- and devastating they can be. As I convator operators, and truck drivers. tinued to read some of the complaints I NAACP demonstrations addressed was prompted to write my opening in most of those issues. We were denied this column. It’s 2015, much has the right to eat in restaurants and stay changed and much remains the same. in Downtown hotels. Hospitals and After discussing his situation for over cemeteries—one dealing in life and the two hours I said, “You and your lawyer other in death, but both practiced disneed to call Mayor Peduto and request crimination. Have you forgotten that an appointment.” His response did not local police departments with a sancshock me, but I was a little surprised, tion from the controlling political party but then I remembered a name that allowed red light districts? The lower was mentioned in one of the letters Hill District and McKeesport were per- and he is an extremely well connected fect examples. sixty-year Democrat. I then said, “I Someone wrote if you ignore the have to do, but if I were you I would problems of the past you are subject file a suit in federal court.” Acts of to repeat them. I have often written racism are illegal. and spoke about double standards As I am writing this column I rememwith the City of Pittsburgh as it reber a column in today’s daily paper and lates to a non-existing MBE program, it stated that Mayor Bill Peduto was thereby minimizing opportunities for starting a program to welcome immiBlacks to be afforded business opporgrants to Pittsburgh. It is the epitome tunities. of racism soliciting immigrants and reI want to focus on what I perceive to fusing to meet with a Black businessbe a perfect example of a Black being man born and raised in Pittsburgh. denied a legitimate opportunity to I was impressed with the thoroughbuild a successful business. The owner ness and articulation of Chukky Okobi of the business is a young Black man, as he explained his deplorable situaChukky Okobi, who was born and tion. The only difference between the raised in this City of Pittsburgh. He way Blacks are treated in Pittsburgh was awarded a full scholarship to Pur- and South Carolina is the absence of due University and upon graduating the Confederate Flag.

(Louis “Hop” Kendrick is a weekly contributor was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers to the Forum Page.) and remained a Pittsburgh Steeler for

To Tell The Truth

The M-word and The Mediterranean Risk “Mistanenim”—is HeJ. Pharoah Doss brew for infiltrators (Illegal border crossers from Africa into Israel). The analogous Mword in America is Mexican, and according to former Mexican President Vicente Fox they do jobs American N-words don’t want. (Fox said Blacks and his remark was considered racist.) A recent headline echoed Fox: Israel looking to expel Africans despite demand for their labor. (45,000 asylum seekers compared to 3,000 ten years ago.)

Is this headline an indirect attempt to solicit a similar racial reaction that chastised Fox? Israel has a problem. They call it infiltration. (A highly criticized term, but the language illustrates high prioritized national security.) In the United States the same problem is harmlessly referred to as illegal immigration.

In fairness the headline could have read: Israel aims to deter influx of asylum seekers. But it said—Israel looks to expel—as if they are manufacturing unjustified reasons—Africans—the majority of asylum seekers come from two countries (Sudan and Eritrea) not the whole continent—despite demand for their labor—but what does labor demand qualify?

The Israeli government responded to humanitarian crises by offering temporary refuge for Sudanese fleeing ethnic cleansing and Eritreans escaping openended conscription (involuntary servitude disguised as military service.), but now Israeli authorities state most asylum seekers are not refugees but labor migrants. (Refugees flee political persecution and reprisal. Labor migrants seek to escape poverty.)

The United States has made similar distinctions. Cubans were political refugees fleeing an oppressive government but Haitians were classified as economic refugees. In 1991-92, after a coup d’etat establishing military rule, 40,000 Haitians took to the ocean to flee the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted survivors of this exodus and placed them in Guantanamo bay.

There they were interviewed, most qualified for asylum, but Guantanamo couldn’t handle the rapid increase of asylum seekers. President George H. W. Bush ordered the Coast Guard to return them all back to Haiti regardless of status. Critics accused Bush of violating the Geneva Convention on Refugees, which was

Commentary

written to rectify the refusal of other nations to grant Jews asylum that fled from the Nazis.

President Clinton continued Bush’s policy under the rationale that prohibiting immigration would prevent Haitians from drowning.

Israeli authorities sounded Clintonesque when they stated: Only tough legislation that reduces the motivation to reach here will discourage Africans from entering. But most importantly authorities said, “The state of Israel will not be the solution to the social ills of Africa.”

Notice Israeli authorities didn’t say the social ills of Sudan and Eritrea they said the entire continent. Israel is preventing their country from being the destination of future refugees from the next humanitarian crisis that could breakout anytime and anywhere on the African continent. Is this inhumane, racist, or is it a matter of overpopulation and security? Or is it xenophobia from those that use the word “Mistanenim” and feel their country is losing its Jewish identity?

But what about the M-words or migrant workers? The Israeli government sent letters to some giving them 30 days to choose between “voluntary” departure to a third African country with a $3,500 grant or indefinite detention near the Egyptian border.

The real tragedy is that most don’t want to return to the African continent—anywhere. And if they can’t stay in Israel they will risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe. Clinton’s policy was stated to prevent Haitians from drowning in the ocean. Israel’s policy encouraged one Eritrean that arrived in South Sudan after six years in Israel to say, “I’m not scared of drowning in the Mediterranean. God decides my fate.”

The International organization for Migration estimates close to 30,000 people from the African continent could drown this year in the Mediterranean Sea unless the European Union establishes an effective search and rescue service, and if more than 30,000 people drown will the European Union be indirectly accused of humanitarian neglect or will critics finally ask why were these people neglected on the entire continent of Africa?

(J. Pharoah Doss is a contributor to the New Pittsburgh Courier. He blogs at jpharoahdoss.blogspot.com)

A9

Jesse Jackson Sr.

Commentary

President Obama is on a winning streak (NNPA)—The presidency is a bit like a baseball season. Players go through streaks and slumps, good days and bad days. Teams rack up wins and losses. It is only over the course of the long season that champions emerge, their record of accomplishment finally coming clear.

As President Obama’s eight years heads into its final stretch, his accomplishments are becoming clear, rising above the daily skirmishes, wins and losses. As the first African American president, Obama was always going to be an historic figure. But increasingly, it is becoming clear that he will be remembered as a significant president not simply for winning office, but for what he accomplished while holding it. The first inklings of the results are reflected in recent polls showing that 50 percent of Americans now think the Obama presidency has been a success—an impressive number given the bitter partisan divides of our politics.

Economically, the president inherited an economy that was in free fall, losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month.

Now he presides over an economy that has created 12 million jobs, witnessed the fastest economic growth in a decade, and sets a record each month for the longest consecutive months of jobs growth. And the U.S. recovery has far outstripped that of Europe. And this was accomplished despite the unrelenting obstruction of the Republican opposition that committed itself from day one to opposing every thing Obama attempted.

Health care reform—with the Affordable Care Act reaffirmed once more in the Supreme Court—has provided a big step forward. Some 15 million Americans have gained insurance, even as health care costs have risen at the lowest levels this century. And that despite the fact that partisan opposition led about half of the states to oppose expansion of Medicaid, denying millions from protection.

On the environment, the president is the most important leader since…well, since Nixon. His stimulus plan provided a major boost to renewable energy. He used regulation and executive order— particularly the gas mileage standards and the soon to come carbon emission standards—to boost energy conservation and limit carbon emissions. He will carry a strong hand into the round of climate negotiations in Paris.

On immigration, the Congress has stymied comprehensive reform. But by executive order, the president has provided some hope for the millions left in the margins.

On social issues, the president has been more observer than actor. Yet on his watch, the Supreme Court has ratified gay marriage. After the publicity about police shootings garnered attention, a bipartisan turn against mass incarceration has gained momentum with the Justice Department weighing in.

On economic inequality, President Obama used his bully pulpit to put the issue in the front of the American people. In the budgetary wars, he has succeeded in raising taxes on the rich. He sought, with little success, to increase investment in the most vulnerable. Inequality has grown more extreme on his watch, but any hopes of redressing it were blocked by Republican opposition to any and all efforts to take on the rigged rules that feed the inequality.

On foreign policy, the president’s effort to extricate us from the sectarian wars in the Persian Gulf have been largely frustrated. Troops are going back into Iraq, now to take on the threat posed by ISIS. He has emerged as a defender of presidential prerogatives in national security. His administration has continued to police the world, while deploying drones across the Middle East. By opening relations with Cuba, the president has created the basis for a new start with our neighbors in this hemisphere.

Much, of course, remains to be done.

The president remains wedded to the failed trade policies of the past decades.

There has been no clear policy for urban development or for targeting the most vulnerable communities. Government has grown more corrupted, not less. Big money dominates our politics more than ever before. The president’s education policy with its emphasis on high stakes testing has been a disappointment.

But this president has faced unprecedented obstruction, insult and venomous hatreds. He has more than survived; he has a record of accomplishment to be proud of. And has forged a potential majority political coalition that could insure—if its members show up at the voting booth—that reform accelerates rather than retreats.

(Jesse L. Jackson Sr. is founder and president of the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

You can keep up with his work at www.rainbowpush.org)

A10

JULY 8-14, 2015

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

Who’s Who celebrates Black Pittsburgh release A4

JULY 8-14, 2015

CONTINUED FROM A1

is exciting to see a publication that will recognize so many,” she said. “Each year the New Pittsburgh Courier does an amazing job of recognizing Pittsburghers through its Men and Women of Excellence Awards, along with the Fab 40, now the city will have a publication that salutes so many who are doing so much.”

Since beginning in 1989 with a single publication, Who’s Who Publishing now produces annual directories of African American achievers in 25 cities, with Pittsburgh being the latest edition. Who’s Who has recently branched out to publish a Latino directory and a LGBT directory. It has also produced custom publications, such as “Driven,” about Black achievement in the auto industry, and “Vital Signs,” which cele-

brates African Americans in health-related fields.

Hiram Jackson, CEO of Real Times Media, said a directory celebrating the achievements of Black Pittsburghers to African American culture will be a gift to the rest of the country as well.

“I’m surprised it took us so long because Pittsburgh has made so many great contributions—whether in jazz, athletics, or politics,” he said. “If you look at Pittsburgh in terms of the quality of the Black professional market, it’s astounding.”

The July 16 event will begin at 6 p.m. at the conference center, 5150 Centre Avenue, with a networking reception featuring Hors d’oeuvres and entertainment by the James Johnson Trio.

The presentation program begins at 7 p.m. and will

feature remarks by Jackson; Singleton; New Pittsburgh Courier Publisher and Who’s Who in Black Pittsburgh Associate Publisher Rod Doss; Urban Lending Solutions CEO Chuck Sanders, who wrote the introduction; state Rep. Jake Wheatley, D-Hill; Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald; and City of Pittsburgh Chief Urban Affairs Officer Valerie McDonald Roberts.

In addition to UPMC, event sponsors include PNC, the University of Pittsburgh, Urban Lending Solutions, Huntington Bank and Highmark Health.

Tickets are $50 and include a copy of the directory (valued at $39.95), and may be purchased in advance by calling 614-481-7300 ext.

2234.

How will Affordable Care Act court decision affect Blacks?

CONTINUED FROM A1

eral numbers extrapolated from surveys, 28,965 were African American or roughly 11 percent. The nationwide number for African Americans was 789,498 and about 14 percent of the national number, on par with the 13 percent of the population that is African American.

When the law went into effect in January 2014, then Gov. Tom Corbett refused to create a state exchange for subsidies. Had the SCOTUS voted down the subsidies provision, Press Secretary for Governor Tom Wolf, Jeff Sheridan, was ready with a plan B. “The governor had put into place a contingency plan in the event the Supreme Court ruled that people are not eligible for subsidies so that the state would set up its own marketplace,” said Sheridan.

“The parties that brought the lawsuit were trying to say that the law explicitly states that you can only receive subsidies through a state based marketplace but people receiving subsidies through the federal marketplace were also receiving subsidies.”

According to the National Cancer Institute, African Americans have the highest mortality rate of any racial and ethnic group for cancer.

If that wasn’t dire enough, if you are a Black woman, even though you are actually 10 percent less likely to develop cancer, you are 40 percent more likely to die from the disease. Likewise, although African American adults are 40 percent more likely to have high blood pressure, they are 18 percent less likely than their non-Hispanic White counterparts to have their blood pressure under control. And according to the CDC, African Americans are twice as likely to be diagnosed with diabetes.

Sixty-two percent of uninsured African Americans have incomes at or below the Medicaid expansion limit of 138 percent of federal poverty level. However, nearly six in 10 uninsured African Americans with incomes below the Medicaid expansion limit reside in red states whose governors have no plans to expand Medicaid. Consequently, African-Americans are 55 percent more likely to be uninsured than White Americans. In 2013, the proportion of African Americans who were uninsured was 17 percent according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, 7.8 million African Americans with private insurance now have access to expanded preventive services with no cost-sharing.

An estimated 5.1 million African American women with private health insurance now have guaranteed access to women’s preventive services without costsharing. These services in-

clude, HPV testing, counseling, mammograms, screenings for cervical cancer, prenatal care, well-woman visits and other services.

About 10.4 million African Americans, including 3.9 million adult African American women, no longer have lifetime or annual limits on their health insurance coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act. No one from the Gateway Medical Society, Pittsburgh’s leading non-profit for fighting African American medical disparities, was available for comment. The New Pittsburgh Courier was told by a source who wished to stay anonymous because many doctors work for hospitals, they were reluctant to give their opinion. The NMA (National Medical Association) is the largest and oldest national organization representing African American physicians and their patients in the United States. NMA President Dr. Lawrence L. Sanders Jr. released a statement saying in part: “The Supreme Court’s ruling in King v. Burwell decision today to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act is a major victory for millions of Amer-

icans who will continue to benefit from this historic legislation.”

It seems the biggest winners in the ACA decision could well be African American doctors. The health care workforce is more diverse due to a more than doubling of the National Health Service Corps. African American physicians make up about 18 percent of Corps. physicians, a percentage that greatly exceeds their 6 percent share of the national physician workforce.

On the plus side for the African American patient, nearly one of every four patients at a health center is African American and $11 billion in the Affordable Care Act for the nearly 1,300 community health centers has increased the number of patients served by nearly 5 million.

UPMC Health Plan as well as Highmark gave an approving nod to the SCOTUS decision saying that the decision will go a long way toward ensuring that access to affordable coverage continues for all Pennsylvanians and for other individuals and families purchasing products through a federally facilitated marketplace.

Cosby said he gave drugs to women for sex CONTINUED FROM A1

sented to be identified but did not want to comment, her lawyer said Monday.

Cosby, 77, has been accused by more than two dozen women of sexual misconduct, including allegations by many that he drugged and raped them in incidents dating back more than four decades. Cosby has never been criminally charged, and most of the accusations are barred by statutes of limitations.

Cosby, giving sworn testimony in the lawsuit accusing him of sexual assaulting Constand at his home in Pennsylvania in 2005, said he got seven quaalude prescriptions in the 1970s. The lawyer for Constand asked if he had kept the sedatives through the 1990s—after they were banned—but was frustrated by objections from Cosby’s lawyer.

“When you got the quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?” lawyer Dolores M. Troiani asked.

“Yes,” Cosby answered on Sept. 29, 2005.

“Did you ever give any of these young women the quaaludes without their knowledge?”

Cosby’s lawyer again objected, leading Troiani to petition the federal judge to force Cosby to cooperate.

Cosby later said he gave Constand three half-pills of

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

METRO

Benadryl, although Troiani in the documents voices doubt that was the drug involved. The two other women who testified on Constand’s behalf said they had knowingly been given quaaludes.

Three of the women accusing Cosby of sexually assaulting them have a defamation lawsuit pending against him in Massachusetts. They allege that he defamed them when his agents said their accusations were untrue. Cosby is trying to get their case thrown out before discovery.

Cosby had fought the AP’s efforts to unseal the testimony, with his lawyer arguing the deposition could reveal details of Cosby’s marriage, sex life and prescription drug use.

“It would be terribly embarrassing for this material to come out,” lawyer George M. Gowen III argued in June.

He said the public should not have access to what Cosby was forced to say as he answered questions under oath from the accuser’s lawyer nearly a decade ago.

“Frankly...it would embarrass him, (and) it would also prejudice him in eyes of the jury pool in Massachusetts,” Gowen said.

U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno asked last month why Cosby was fighting the release of his sworn testimony, given that the accusations in the Temple woman’s lawsuit were already in the public eye.

10 leaders inducted into BMe community CONTINUED FROM A1

“The project collected more than 2,000 videos from Black Men in Detroit and Philadelphia who shared their stories about the big and small things they were doing to strengthen communities,” he said. “The video project, initially a part of the Knight Foundation, became it’s own organization by mid 2012; and former Knight Foundation V.P. of Communities Trabian Shorter was slated as the CEO. In 2013 Heinz Endowments began a BMe pilot program in Pittsburgh.”

Johnson, has been at the helm of several initiatives to lay the ground work and drive the mission of the organization here in Pittsburgh. Several months ago they held a competition to identify their first 10 BMe leaders who would receive $10,000 to aid them in their particular program.

The culmination of the competition came in a reception and formal 2015 BMe induction ceremony where the winners were presented to the public at the 21st Century Club in Oakland.

Moderated by Benjamin Evans III, BMe national managing director and second in command to Shorter, the program was comprised of a reception where local actors performed the poem “Critical Condition” and was followed by a panel conversation between four dads who shared with the audience their most memorable moments as a fathers.

The panelists were Trabian Shorter, CEO of BMe; Majestic Lane, director of Strategy and Community Engagement at A+ Schools; John Wetzel, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Department of Corrections; and Malcolm Thomas, director of Reaching Back—Rites of Passage Program. Thomas shared this “my most memorable moment is right now, what an honor to being held in such regard as a father to be selected to serve on a panel such as this.”

The 10 BMe inductees were announced as follows; Brian Burley, Youth Development and Education, Black Male Achievement; Lee Davis, Economic Opportunity, Youth Development and Re-entry; Leon Ford, Community and Youth Development; Evan Frazier, Community Development and CoFounder of the National Society of Minorities in Hospitality; Rev. Glenn Grayson, Economic Development, Youth Development and Violence Prevention; Thomas Jamison, Philanthropy, Community Development and Social Enterprise; Kevin McNair, Black Male Achievement and Youth Development; Joshua Pollard, Economic Opportunity, Capacity Building and Real-Estate; Andre Samuel, Education, STEM, Technology and Mentoring; and Jasiri X Youth Development, Media & Entertainment.

Samuel said of this opportunity, “It is a great

HARRY JOHNSON II BMe Community Manager

TRABIAN SHORTER Founder & CEO of BMe honor to have an organization like BMe recognize the work that is being done. Many times we don’t get validation that or recognition on this level.

And the award money to continue my work is a tremendous bonus. I’m very honored.”

He also shared, “I am also looking forward to a plan we are working on with BMe to host a STEM-Street and Block festival for the Hill District. It is important to be pro-active in exposing young people to careers in these fields, they have got to see they are viable opportunities for careers. This kind of event can provide that type of exposure.”

During its national conference held, in Washington, D.C., two weeks ago, BMe recognized 10 leaders, from five cities—Pittsburgh, Detroit, Philadelphia, Akron and Baltimore—distributing $400,000 to promote the individual efforts of the awardees to keep doing good work in their communities.

Immediately following the presentation of awards, state Rep. Ed Gainey issued an official “Call to Action” to the participants. Keeping with the Father’s Day theme, he charged all the participating men to recognize the hierarchy of their roles, that is to be, first, fathers within their homes, and then community fathers.

“Lifting each other is our ultimate charge as men,” he said. “If we lift one another, this could go a long way in dealing with some of the issues around crime our communities face.

“The timing is right for this BMe initiative, the climate is ripe for something different, and I feel it is essential to move towards more visibility with this message.

“At youth activities, on billboards, in conjunction with other organizations are places where Black men can be found doing positive things.”

In his closing remarks, Shorter said, “The need for us to uplift our communities by telling the truth of who we are—Black Men doing great things in our community is overwhelmi n g . ” Additionally, he reminded the audience that an ongoing goal of BMe is to partner with other organizations in their effort make a positive difference.

You can be a part of the “next steps” of Pittsburgh’s BMe efforts by joining the network; log on at www.BMecommunity.org or text the word “BROTHER” in all caps to 96,000.

“We want to partner with any organization to help push their agenda’s around education, mentoring, entrepreneurship, STEAM initiatives and other important causes in and around Pittsburgh,” Johnson said.

SingletontakingDignity&Respectnational CONTINUED FROM A1

Vice President and CFO Robert DeMichiei credited Singleton with all the strides the company had made toward increasing diversity.

In a prepared statement, UPMC Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer Greg Peaslee said her departure was bittersweet.

“Although her departure will be difficult for UPMC, we recognize that expanding the Campaign is important at a time when our country can benefit from the lessons and understanding that Dignity & Respect fosters across communities,” he said. “We look forward to helping Candi in this noble endeavor, which has its roots at UPMC.” Her Dignity & Respect campaign is designed to encourage individuals, organizations, communities, schools, youth programs, and sports teams to treat others with dignity and respect and to “create environments for all to work, live, learn, and play—with all of our differences.”

Though not specifically a diversity initiative, Singleton said the campaign can act as a prerequisite.

“It precedes and enables diversity and Inclusion,” she said. “A Dignity & Respect initiative can definitely complement an existing inclusion effort.”

Singleton, who serves on several local boards including, the Urban League, the Pittsburgh Promise, the Hill House, NEED and East End Cooperative Ministries, said she will remain in Pittsburgh as she puts together the organizational structure to expand the campaign’s reach, though it has already been established in more than 100 organizations, schools and communities.

Singleton said she hopes have a physical office space from which to operate at Market Square—with luck, by the end of the week. And even though it will no longer be housed at UPMC, the healthcare giant will continue to sponsor the campaign.

She also said she will continue to work with established partners like Charlie Batch, who heads the campaign’s sportsmanship component.

For more information on the campaign, visit www.digintyandrespect.org.

(Send comments to row@newpittsburghcourier.com.)

cmor-

New Pittsburgh Courier

headline Pgh. Blues Festival B5

Guy, Rush

LIFESTYLES

installed as pastor B2

Rev. Conti

JULY 8-14, 2015

www.newpittsburghcourier.com

B

Debbie Norrell

Lifestyles Report I saw it in the Courier Perhaps the title of this column should be, “When is my story or picture going to be in the New Pittsburgh Courier?”

That is the big question I am asked when I come out to cover stories. That question always leads me to a question. Don’t you just hate when someone answers a question with another question? I bet you do because I do. So here it goes, “how do you get your Courier?” Crickets… now if you don’t get what crickets means, how about a blank stare, with total silence?

Often, I am told that they don’t know where to get one and “I don’t buy the Courier.” Then I ask them where they live and I ask if they have ever been to a Giant Eagle? Most often the answer to that question is yes. This is “real talk,” then they tell me “well I don’t buy newspapers.” “You’re killing me.” As I maintain my cool I explain where the paper can be purchased and that we offer subscriptions. I used to carry subscription forms with me. The first thing I am going to do when I complete this column is make more forms, and load them into my camera case and in my wallet.

As a 14-year employee of the New Pittsburgh Courier I still look forward to getting my paper each week and as an employee I am entitled to one free copy, but I go out and buy several copies and give them to friends. The cost is one dollar and I feel that is a dollar well spent for a historic paper that has been in existence for over 100 years. I am so proud to be a part of this publication. I just beam when the Pittsburgh Courier is mentioned in movies or history lessons.

Last week, I was included in a large group shot for a staged reading that I did at the Homewood Library in June. It was called “Tambourines to Glory” by Langston Hughes. When I found out via social media that our pictures were in the paper I ran to the newsstand and picked up two copies, one for me and one for my sister who I was getting ready to go and visit. She has a subscription, but I knew I would get this to her faster than the mailman.

Speaking of social media, the New Pittsburgh Courier is available online at www.newpittsburghcouri er.com as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

Back to the issue at hand, those same people who ask where to buy it next want to know how they can get coverage for something they have coming up. It is easy, send me an email when you have established when and where your event is going to be and put request for coverage in the subject line. If I’m free I’ll be there. If I can’t come I may be able to send a photographer.

(Email the columnist at debbienorrell@aol.com)

ENJOYING THE PRESENTATION—Phyllis Comer, Eunice Carl, Stoop n’ Bend member, and Maya Wilkerson.

STOOP N’ BEND MEMBERS—Barbara Allen and Barbara Murphy

Stoop n’ Bend Garden Club celebrates 75 Years

by Debbie Norrell Courier Staff Writer

HONOREE—Harriet Thomas, club chaplain

On June 6, at the Grand View Golf Club, the Stoop n’ Bend Garden Club celebrated 75 years. On this beautiful afternoon, President Agnes Curry welcomed the group, made presentations to outstanding mem-

bers Harriet Thomas and Jacqueline Dorsey, who is a descendant of Charles Waters, one of the Stoop n’ Bend founders, while Lynne Hayes-Freeland (KDKATV) shared memories of her late mother’s garden. Her mother was also a member of Stoop n’ Bend Garden Club.

STOOP N’ BEND MEMBERS—Agnes Curry, president, Carolyn Collier, Stoop n’ Bend plant doctor, Janice Loughrey, corresponding secretary and Ruth Ann Still, parliamentarian.

STOOP N’ BEND OFFICERS—Clarrisa Holland, vice president, Elnedia Barrow, treasurer, Agnes Curry, president, Margie Walker, recording secretary and Jacqueline Dorsey, financial secretary.

PAST PRESIDENTS—Carole Watson, Debbie Gray and Parthenia Brown (Photos by Debbie Norrell)

SHARING MEMORIES—Lynne Hayes-Freeland Hayes-Freeland said she likes to promote the idea of gardening and is glad she was exposed to working in the yard. As a result, she now encourages her son to do some gardening at his home in Atlanta. She said, “after all you are a descendent of the Stoop n’ Bend Garden Club.”

Sam Black of the John Heinz History Center was the guest speaker and shared that slaves depended on botanical knowledge for survival and as Blacks began to show an increase in major urban cities in the 1950s they continued to have gardens. The program also included a horticulture presentation by Karen Yee. This presentation explained the placement of plants in centerpieces and arrangements, and how you can incorporate outdoor plants in to indoor arrangements.

The Stoop n’ Bend Garden Club was organized on July 20, 1940 and founded by Mrs. Charles J. Waters Jr. at the Phipps Garden Center formerly the Pittsburgh Civic Garden Center in Pittsburgh.

Rodney Pryor, the husband of one of the members, honored the group by naming the club.

He said whenever his wife worked in her garden she was always stooping and bending over her plants.

Stoop n’ Bend, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, and the fathers and children of Lincoln Elementary School sponsor the garden located at Frankstown and Lincoln Avenues.

LOOK WHAT YOU CAN DO

B2

JULY 8-14, 2015

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

RELIGION

Praise & Worship

Church Circuit Fashion Show

HILLCREST SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH

JULY 11—New Beginnings Ministries, 705 Shaw Ave., McKeesport, will host a Fashion Show from 12-3 p.m. This event is a fundraiser to help the church’s pastor during his run for bishop. For more information, call 412-672-8883.

2340 Wylie Ave., Pgh., PA 15219 412-391-4334 412-566-8757

“Be Encouraged”

Elder Christopher C. Thompson Power Hour Sabbath..............8:15 A.M. Sabbath School.......................9:00 A.M. Divine Worship.....................11:00 A.M. AYS One Hour Before Sunset Prayer Meeting Wednesday....7:30 P.M.

Community Outreach Day JULY 11—Lost But Not Forgotten Outreach will host a Community Outreach Day from 1-4 p.m. at Christian Chapel AME Church, 7311 Ridgeview Ave., Penn Hills. The event will feature a preached word from Miracle Reed along with fun, food and more. For more information, call Dorothy Stubbs at 412-969-8423.

ST. BENEDICT THE MOOR CATHOLIC CHURCH Crawford & Centre Ave. Pgh., PA 15219 412-281-3141 Mass Sunday 9:00 A.M. & 11 A.M. Sunday (Gospel Choir Mass) 11:00 A.M. www.stbtmchurch.org

Fashion Show

METROPOLITAN BAPTIST CHURCH 22 Sampsonia Street, Northside Pittsburgh., PA 15212 412-231-2554 FAX 412-231-6395 Rev. Lacy F. Richardson, Ph.D., Pastor Church School.....................................9:30 A.M. Worship Service.....................8:00 & 10:45 A.M. Bible Study/ Prayer Wednesday.......................6:30/7:30 P.M.

BLESSED INSTALLMENT—Rev. Dr. Christopher T. Conti and Dr. Tracy Conti

Rev. Conti installed as Emmanuel Baptist Church’s pastor

www.metropolitanbaptistchurchpgh.com metropolitanbaptist2224@gmail.com

JULY 11—Morningside COGIC, 5173 Dearborn St., Garfield, will host a Unique By Design Fashion Show at 5 p.m. at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Homewood Branch, 7101 Hamilton Ave., Homewood. There will be entertainment and refreshments. Reservations are required. For more information, call 412-897-7839.

Choir Rehearsal JULY 11—The Allegheny Union Baptist Association Women’s Choir will host a Choir Rehearsal at 6 p.m. at Calvary Baptist Church, 2629 Wylie Ave., Hill District. For more information, call Rev. Cathy Brundage at 412-418-3483.

SIXTH MOUNT ZION BAPTIST CHURCH 6556 Shetland Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15206 (412) 441-7839

Church Anniversary JULY 11—Triedstone Baptist Church, 18 Harriet St., Rankin, will host its 69th Church Anniversary at 11 a.m. The theme is “The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy.” The guest preacher will be Rev. Mary Buckley of Mt. Ararat Baptist Church.

There will also be a 3:30 p.m. service with guest preacher Rev. Robert Tedder of Union Baptist Church in Swissvale.

His chorus, mime ministry and congregation will accompany him. For more information, call 412-271-3000.

Church School 9:00 a.m.

Worship Service 10:15 a.m.

Wednesday Night Bible Study 6:00 p.m.

East Liberty PresbyterianChurch Rev. Dr. Randy Bush, Senior Pastor 412-441-3800 116 S. Highland Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15206 www.cathedralofhope.org

Sanctuary Worship.........10 a.m.

Gospel Musical

Join our growing Praise and Worship Church Community

ACCEPTING LEADERSHIP—Emmanuel Baptist Church, located at 245 3rd Avenue in Rankin, celebrated the installment of their new pastor, Rev. Dr. Christopher T. Conti on June 14. Since it’s inception, Emmanuel has been a recognized resource for spiritual leadership and social advocacy for the citizens of the Greater Pittsburgh area. Reverend Conti vowed to continue that great tradition. Above, Rev. Dr. Christopher T. Conti, the newly installed pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church, gives the benediction.

JULY 12—Morningside COGIC, 5173 Dearborn St., Garfield, will host an Old Time Gospel Musical at 3:30 p.m. All proceeds will go to the Women Christian Council and the Community Day Special Project.

Dinners will be sold downstairs in the Fellowship Hall. For more information, call 412-897-7839.

Church Anniversary JULY 12—Hopewell Baptist Church, 436 Chestnut St., Jeanette, will host its 105th Church Anniversary. The church will celebrate 105 years of service to the community. For more information, call Veronica Jones at 724-261-9113.

Holy Spirit Seminar

For rate information, call 412481-8302, ext 40.

We are looking to

CALL TO WORSHIP—Bishop Linwood Lewis, senior pastor, Solid Rock Foundation Ministries, in Carnegie.

WORDS OF PRAISE—Pastor Denise E. Lewis

WORSHIP LEADER—Rev. Katrina Organ

REMARKS—Rev. Robert Tedder, pastor, Union Baptist Church.

JULY 13—Greater Works Outreach, 301 College Park Dr., Monroeville, will host its Holy Spirit Seminar at 10 a.m.

Through July 18, the church will feature three-daily sessions of worship, teaching and ministry. Guest speakers will be Pastor Darlene Bishop, Pastor Matthew Brown, Bishop Joseph Garlington, Dr. Larry Huch and Prophet Ron Campbell. The seminar will also be held at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. There will also be a daily Vacation Bible School and Youth Conference. Registration for the school and conference are requested. For more information, call 724327-6500 or visit www.garymitrik.com.

Vacation Bible School JULY 13—First Baptist Church, 141 N. McDonald St., McDonald, Pa., will host its Blast to the Past Vacation Bible School from 5:45-8:45 p.m.

Through July 17, First Baptist welcomes families and individuals to experience an exciting week of time-travel adventure to discover God’s everlasting love. This event is free and registration is required. For more information, call 724-926-4216.

feature our positive youth in the church communities. You can e-mail, fax or mail their bios and photo to:

Kennywood Ticket Sale JULY 13—The Rachel Randall Education Department of Pentecostal Temple COGIC, 6300 E. Liberty Blvd., E. Liberty, will host the selling of Ride All Day tickets for Kennywood Park.

Tickets will also be sold on July 13 & 29. Pentecostal Temple Family Day will be held July 29.

For more information, call 412371-6268 or email gzusislove@comcast.net.

New Pittsburgh Courier 315 E. Carson St. Pittsburgh, PA 15219 Fax: 412-481-1360 e-mail:

egaines@newpittsburghcourier.com

FAMILY THAT PRAYS TOGETHER—Rev. Dr. Christopher T. Conti and First Lady Dr. Tracy Conti joined by family and friends. (Photos by Rossano P. Stewart)

(To have items listed on the Church Circuit, send information at least two weeks in advance to: 315 E. Carson St., Pittsburgh, PA 15219; Fax: 412-481-1360 or e-mail: newsroom@newpittsburghcourier.com.)

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

JULY 8-14, 2015

PEOPLE

B3

Generation NEXT...Leah Baker, baker

by Renee P. Aldrich For New Pittsburgh Courier

Eleven-year-old Leah Baker stepped up to the podium as one of the morning speakers at a recent “Unstoppable Girls” workshop, and the Afro puff on top of her head helped raise her 4-foot-9 frame up above the mic. With poise, clarity, and grace that belied her tender age, she addressed the room of girls, most her age and younger, with only a handful any older. She spoke about being bold and going after their dreams, and told them to do it even though they might be afraid.

The irony of Leah being a “Baker,” as relates to her family name, lies in that she is a Baker twice. She is the owner and operator of a cupcake company—“Cupcake’s Most Wanted—It would be a crime not to eat ’em.”

“She is an extraordinary example of what young people can do when they are allowed to dream,” says Kate Dewey, president of the Forbes Fund, who met with Leah and her mom to discuss ways they might be able to assist in building the business. “Her vision of selling cupcakes and sharing the proceeds with kids with cancer speaks volumes of her abilities, her character, and of what someone can achieve at a young age when they are surrounded by people who tell them to dream.”

Taking after her mom and great-grandmother, who were bakers in their own right, she’s been in business for just over a year and a half.

“My sister actually inspired me to try this business,” Leah shares. “We were making a cake one day and it was pretty tasty, and then a few weeks later, my friend and I were baking red velvet cupcakes for a Valentine’s Day party at school when I thought to myself that I wanted to start a cupcake business.”

That was at the end of 2013.

By March 2014, she had her first customer —a man who purchased a dozen sweet potato cupcakes. It did not take long to outgrow her mother’s kitchen in their Hill Dis-

“She is an extraordinary example of what young people can do when they are allowed to dream. Her vision of selling cupcakes and sharing the proceeds with kids with cancer speaks volumes of her abilities, her character, and of what someone can achieve at a young age when they are surrounded by people who tell them to dream.”

KATE DEWEY President, Forbes Fund

LEAH BAKER, with her mother, Tia Baker, holds the first-place trophy she won for baking at the Taste O’ Da Burgh competition. (Photo by Jacquelyn McDonald)

trict home. Tia Baker, Leah’s proud “momager,” works behind the scenes making sure the business matters are handled. After looking into some commercial kitchen options, they secured space in LaDorita, a shared commercial kitchen in Sharpsburg.

The larger orders were increasing rapidly and she had gained a retail opportunity in the Ujamaa Collective Boutique on Centre Avenue, so acquiring the commercial kitchen space was a timely move.

When she is not filling orders or accepting speaking engagements, Leah indulges her other passions, dancing and playing the flute. She performs with a dance team called TCDC and has been dancing for about three years.

Her cupcake business is not just a hobby, she says.

“I see this going very far, going worldwide, traveling different places with the cupcakes, having my own store with a bakery on one side and a restaurant on the other, and, of course, creating cupcakes for kids with cancer.”

A fifth-grader at Liberty School in Shadyside, she is a great student, according to her mom.

“Leah came here ready to do big work in the world,” Tia Baker says. “I can only take some of the credit. From day one, she’s been self-driven. She would say, ‘Mommie, I want to do this’ and then do it. She’s committed to this business and is passionate about dancing. I’ve watched her on any given Saturday having to bake, perform, and go give a talk somewhere; and she would do it. I have, however, never stopped telling her she is a powerful human being, and what she thinks and says can happen in her life.”

Each month in the New Pittsburgh Courier, McAuley Ministries will sponsor an article highlighting the positive contributions of an African American youth— male or female. We welcome community members to suggest a young person to feature in this monthly column.

Criteria include: • Youth and young adults, ages 12-23 • Documented evidence of leadership or achievement in community service/volunteerism; leadership or achievement in their classroom/school; creativity as an artist, musician, dancer or filmmaker; success as an entrepreneur; leadership in advocating for social justice and equity; and/or achievement in corporate or nonprofit arenas • A resident of Allegheny County.

Readers who would like to suggest a youth for this feature should email GenNext@pmhs.org.

New Pittsburgh Courier

B4

ENTERTAINER MARY LOU WILLIAMS JULY 8-14, 2015

www.newpittsburghcourier.com

Cover To Cover

‘Twisted’

by Terri Schlichenmeyer For New Pittsburgh Courier

The path to something important is never straight.

You may take that first step forward…then backward, decide one way, then another, changing your mind like you change clothes. Knowing your desires will eventually get you there, yes, but you might flirt with the idea awhile before you take the leap.

For author Bert Ashe, a new look on his head sat in his head for years. In his new book “Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles,” he explains.

Who invented dreadlocks?

That question was on Bert Ashe’s mind when he pondered, once again, the idea of growing out his hair. Humans began adorning their bodies and shearing their hair some 5,000 years ago—so, he thought, maybe 1998 was the year to take the leap with a new ‘do.

Ashe had grown up in Los Angeles, on a street that was filled with residents of many

backgrounds. He never gave much thought to his own culture until he went away to school and realized that he’d been “cocooned.” He began to expand.

That was in the ’80s, and a Jamaican girlfriend talked him out of having dreadlocks. Since he wasn’t Rastafarian, she claimed, growing dreads was an insult so Ashe tabled that idea. Every now and again, he got the urge to try dreads but didn’t: the timing was wrong or his job was new or it just didn’t seem like a good idea. He never was all that into reggae—was that a prerequisite? Was it as easy as not combing his hair anymore?

Having cut his own hair for years, Ashe decided to quietly find out.

That was in early March of 1998 and, within days, his wife noticed that he was growing his hair. His children saw, too, and were less than thrilled. Even his parents were taken aback, but Ashe stayed the course.

Having dreads took time, he learned, and it wasn’t cheap; it wasn’t easy, either, since he could neither shampoo his hair nor touch his head for weeks, which became a challenge.

“I loved dreadlocks long before I wore them,” he says. And once he wore them, he was surprised to learn that he loved them even more.

In his introduction, author Bert Ashe says that this memoir of hair “is not linear, cannot be linear…”

That’s a pretty big understatement: for the first couple dozen pages, “Twisted” rambles quite a bit. Once you’re used to that, however, the stream-of-consciousness feel fades and Ashe’s thoughts eventually coalesce into somewhat of a meditation on Black history and Black hair. As his mane grows and twists, Ashe does likewise with his tales, with his thoughts, and, delightfully, with the process of the style, the reasons why he waited to grow his dreads, and why (at the time of the writing) he’s kept them. (“Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles” by Bert Ashe, c.2015, Agate, $15/higher in Canada, 250 pages.)

Documentary sheds light on trendsetting pianist

by Genea L. Webb For New Pittsburgh Courier

There are numerous world-renowned musicians who cut their musical teeth in Pittsburgh: Billy Eckstein, George Benson and…Jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams.

Williams, who was raised in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood, was one of 11 children. She taught herself how to play the piano and her first public performance was at age six. Soon after she began helping to support her family by playing at parties. She quickly made a name for herself being dubbed “the little piano girl of East Liberty.”

“The whole family loved music,” recalls Williams’ sister, Margaret Burley. “To me Mary was just a sister.

Mom used to clean the pews at a church and one day she took Mary because mom didn’t have anyone to watch her. She sat Mary on a stool and told her to play. Mary hit a chord and mom knew Mary had something special.”

To celebrate her musical genius a documentary titled “Mary Lou Williams the Woman Who Swings the Band” about Williams’ life and musical pursuits debuted during an invitation-only event held at the Savoy Restaurant as a kick off to the Pittsburgh Jazz Celebration, one of many events held during Jazz Appreciation Month.

“What attracted me to the story was that Mary Lou never stopped growing,” said Carol Bash, producer and director of the documentary. “She was never bound by anything. It took 12 long years to tell this story. I’m trying to tell a good story and I tried to honor Mary Lou’s spirit and her creativeness. I wanted to let people know about her importance and how she fits into jazz. I had to let young people see that they can follow their dreams.”

“Mary Lou the Woman who Swings the Band” was voiced by Academy Awardnominated actress Alfre Woodard and included appearances by fellow jazz pianist and University of Pittsburgh associate professor, Geri Allen. In addition to Allen, the film also featured musical appearances

by Terri Lyne Carrington and Esperanza Spaulding.

“She always loved to play the piano and she was a person who enjoyed me as crazy as I am,” said Geraldine Garnett another of Williams’ sisters. “The film was great and I think Mary Lou would be happy with it.”

The project was funded by Independent Television Service and was distributed

by American Public Television. Local public television station, WQED Multimedia, co-hosted the Savoy event.

“We just did a national documentary on August Wilson and we thought these were the kinds of Pittsburgh stories that need to be told. It’s amazing how many incredible artists come from Pittsburgh’s African American community,” said Darryl Ford Williams, vice president of content for WQED Multimedia.

Williams was one of Jazz’s greatest trendsetters as a composer and as a pianist.

In 1915 when the family moved to Pittsburgh and became a part of a vibrant musical culture. By age 12 she was traveling with the Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA). Her tenure on the Black vaudeville circuit lead to her marriage to saxophon-

MARY LOU WILLIAMS one of the greatest composers, and pianist ever is shown out front of the MLW Andy Kirkland Big Band. (Photo from the Frank Diggs Collection) ist John Williams and her becoming a member of T. Holder’s Colored Clouds of Joy (later called Andy Kirk’s Twelve Clouds of Joy) and prompted a move to Kansas City, Mo. During that time, Williams further mastered the boogie-woogie and stride piano traditions.

When the regular pianist for the Clouds of Joy could not make an audition date, Mary’s husband convinced Kirk to call his wife. Mary performed the audition date with the band, which led to a recording contract for the group. However, Kirk did not add Mary Lou Williams to the band’s lineup at first.

When the Clouds of Joy arrived in Chicago for their recording session without Williams, the recording company said they could not record if she wasn’t

playing so the band sent for her. Williams recorded her first two solo records in the Harlem stride tradition called “Nite Life” and “Drag ‘Em.” In 1930 Williams became an official member of Andy Kirk’s band serving both as pianist and eventually chief arranger. Her unique musical style became the cornerstone of the rhythm sections and arrangements like “Walkin’ and Swingin’.”

“Little Joe from Chicago,” and “Mary’s Idea.” These songs made the Clouds of Joy one of the most successful bands of that decade and made Williams one of the most highly sought after arrangers.

Williams was the first arranger to supersede the harmonic and rhythmic structure of boogie- woogie into a big band arrangement. To that vane, she ar-

ranged “Trumpets No End” for Duke Ellington, “Roll ‘Em” for Benny Goodman and “Caramel Hop” the theme song for Goodman’s radio show. By the early 1940s, almost every big band had a Mary Lou Williams arrangement in their repertoire, but she didn’t receive the same recognition or money that other arrangers received.

In 1942, Williams left Kirk’s band and after a short hiatus from the craft, returned to the art as a solo pianist at the famed New York nightclub Café Society.

Over the next 10 years Williams became a mainstay on the New York jazz scene. Nightly, jazz icons like Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughn and Tad Jones would gather at Williams’ apartment to listen to records or show off their

SISTERS—From left: Geraldine Garnett, Carol Bash , filmmaker; and Margaret Burley. These two sisters are Mary’s younger sisters.(Photo Chuck Ackins)

newest compositions. She became one of the biggest musical bonds between the previous generation of Jazz artists and the modernists.

In 1952, Williams went to Europe, although she received much fanfare while there, she returned to the United States two years later and took a break from Jazz for two years.

While on the second hiatus, Williams converted to Catholicism and devoted herself to the rehabilitation of Jazz musicians and children’s musical education.

In the 1960s, she was hired to teach music at Pittsburgh’s Seton High School, which was the beginning of jazz education in secondary education and the catholic school system.

This all led to her first jazz mass, 1964’s “The Pittsburgh Mass.” Over the next six years, Williams focused on writing music that would liven up the catholic liturgy. As a result, Williams’ masses helped Black Catholics identify more strongly with their faith.

In 1977 she was hired by Duke University to join the faculty as the first artist-inresidence. While there, she educated students on the historic and musical foundations of Jazz. Before her death in 1981 at age 71, she created the Mary Lou Williams Foundation, an organization that continues to support the next generation of jazz musicians.

Since 1996, the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival (founded by Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz Billy Taylor) puts on display the world’s most respected artists as well as the bright up and comers.

Williams’ nephew Darryl Cann is proud of his aunt’s numerous accomplishments.

“Being associated with this family and hearing all of the history has been a godsend,” said Cann who is an accomplished Jazz clarinetist in his own right.

“She was a gifted and talented person who was before her time. When God gives you a gift you just have to do it and that’s what she did.”

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

JULY 8-14, 2015

ARTS & CULTURE

B5

Guy, Rush headline Pittsburgh Blues Festival

by Christian Morrow Courier Staff Writer

In the mid-1960s, Eric Clapton said he was trying to figure out the structure of his next band when he went to see his idol Buddy Guy in London. Guy had a trio.

Soon afterwards, Clapton’s Cream began making its mark on Rock & Roll history as did another trio fronted by an ex-patriot American guitar master, Jimi Hendrix. Invariably, when Guy plays these days, he typically throws signature Clapton and Hendrix licks—if not whole songs into his playlist.

“I worry about the legacy of Muddy, (Howlin’) Wolf, and all the guys who created this stuff...so as long as I’m here, I’m going to do whatever I can to keep it alive,” he said.

Guy, who has epitomized Chicago electric guitar blues since moving there from Louisiana in 1957, will continue keeping it alive with his trademark polkadot Stratocaster when he headlines the second day of this year’s Pittsburgh Blues Festival on July 25 at Hartwood Acres.

But this year’s festival also includes two other headliners of legendary repute—Duke Robillard and festival closer Bobby Rush.

Not long after Robillard formed the seminal jump blues band Roomful of Blues in 1967, they were

BUDDY GUY backing up Big Joe Turner and Eddie “Clean Head” Vinson. He has also loaned his considerable composing, arranging and guitar playing talents to artists ranging from Dr. John and Bob Dylan to Jimmy Witherspoon and The Fabulous Thunderbirds. No wonder B.B. King called him “one of the great players.”

And when he takes the stage at 9 p.m. to wind up the “Free Friday” show, it may turn into one of the classic blues jam sessions of all time, as he will be

joined by local icons Billy Price and Norm Nardini.

And to cap off the threeday festival, who better than Rush, whose stage show is a high-energy experience, featuring hip-shaking dancers and blue humor, and his impeccable showmanship.

At 80, two years older than Guy, Rush still plays more than 200 shows a year, and still amazes audiences with his agility— including performing splits that would make young men cringe, all

BOBBY RUSH while playing the harmonica and guitar and singing.

He describes his sound as funk with a delta blues feel.

“James Brown was just two years older than me, and we both focused on that funk thing—driving that one chord beat,” he said on his website.

“But James put modern words to it. I was walking the funk walk and talking the countrified blues talk— with the kinds of stories and lyrics that people who grew up listening to John

July Thursday 9 Pittsburgh Improv Jam The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust presents its Pittsburgh Improv Jam at 10 p.m. at Cabaret at Theater Square, 655 Penn Ave., Cultural District. Every Thursday patrons can enjoy a night of spontaneous, comedic scenes inspired by audience suggestions and performed by experienced improvisers. This is a 21 and older event. For more information, call 412-456-6666 or visit www.trustarts.org.

Friday 10

www.freedomunspoken.com.

Art Brew Sweetwater Center for the Arts presents the second annual Merrill Lynch Art Brew from 6:30-10 p.m. at Bank Street in Sewickley.

This annual fundraiser for the Center features four of Pittsburgh’s favorite food trucks and beer options from approximately 20 craft breweries. There will also be entertainment from the Beagle Brothers and the Mavens.

This is a 21 and over event. No children will be admitted. For more information, call 412-7414405 or visit www.SweetwaterArtCenter.org.

Jazz at Andys

Riverview Jazz

Andys Wine Bar at the Fairmont Pittsburgh Hotel presents Jazz at Andys from 5-7:30 p.m. at 510 Market St., Downtown.

Every Friday night in July, DJ Malls will be spinning the vinyl.

There will also be a musical performance by Bronwyn Wyatt Higgins. It is open to the public.

For more information, visit www.andyswinebar.com.

Citiparks presents the Riverview Jazz Series from 78:30 p.m. at Riverview Park, North Side. Each Saturday, guests can beat the summer heat with the cool sounds of some of Pittsburgh’s best jazz musicians. The featured musician will be Brazilian vocalist Kenia. The concerts are free. For more information, call 412-2552493 or visit www.citiparks.net.

Saturday 11

Sunday 12

So You Think You Can Praise

Eddie Watkins Jr.

Freedom Unspoken Dance Ensemble presents “So You Think You Can Praise” at 6 p.m. at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater, 5941 Penn Ave., East Liberty. The show will feature more than a dozen local faith-based musicians, vocalists, dancers and poets of all walks of life. For more information, call Brittany Johnson at 724-747-2197 or visit

The Pittsburgh Center for Spiritual Living and The Unity Center of Pittsburgh present Eddie Watkins Jr. in Concert at 2 p.m. at the East End Cooperative Ministry, 6140 Station St., East Liberty. Motown musician Eddie Watkins Jr. has recorded with legends such as Marvin Gaye, Quincy Jones, Diana Ross, Patti Labelle and The Temptations, just to name a few. He has also

served as director of music ministries in Seattle and Las Vegas.

For more information, call Nancy Kandel at 412-738-8267 or email nancy.kandel@verizon.net.

Monday 13 Savoy Jazz Savoy Restaurant presents Savoy Jazz Mondays from 5-9 p.m. at 2623 Penn Ave., Strip District. Every Monday guests can enjoy live jazz in a sophisticated atmosphere. The evening will feature the Shawnee Lake with the Roger Humphries Trio.

The attire is business casual. For more information, call 412-281-

0660 or visit www.savoypgh.com.

Cure The Kids Melaiya Jones presents the “Cure The Kids: Talent and Art Showcase” at 7 p.m. at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater, 5941 Penn Ave., East Liberty. This is a family-friendly, fun-filled evening of music, dance, stunting, step, fashion and poetry performances in support of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. St. Jude will receive 75 percent of all proceeds to help their cause.

For more information, call Jones at 412-419-6963.

Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and bluesmen like that could relate to. And that’s been my trademark.”

But this year’s festival

isn’t just for the older generations, taking the stage July 25 is Mississippi’s Jarekus Singleton. At 29, Singleton infuses his blazing guitar blues with elements of the blues masters and of hip-hop culture in what he calls “blues for the 21st century.”

Floridian and slide virtuoso Selwyn Birchwood, also 29, takes a more traditional approach to his high-energy blues funk, playing scorching licks on his lap steel guitar.

Other acts include singers Dana Fuchs and Marcia Ball, as well as Dwayne Dopsie and The Zydeco Hellraisers. A full list of artists and performance times is available at www.pghblules.com.

As always, proceeds from the three-day festival benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.

Free Friday, July 24, sponsored by Giant Eagle and FOX53, allows free admission to anyone who brings a non-perishable food item.

(Send comments to cmorrow@newpittsburghcourier.com.)

B6

JULY 8-14, 2015

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

PEOPLE

Community Day celebrated throughout the Hill District

UNITED WE STAND—The historic Hill District celebrated a Community Day last month. As the Pittsburgh Arts Festival packed Downtown, many of the residents in the Hill participated in a Health Day at the Thelma Lovette YMCA, on Centre Avenue, and in the Bedford Hill community, families and friends enjoyed a walk down memory lane as there was something for all ages. Above photo happy Community Day residents from Bedford Hill.

HEALTHY AND HELPFUL VOLUNTEERS—Top photo: Executive Director Aaron Gibson, in black, with the many volunteers. The bottom photo shows pride in community. Left is Miss Black Pennsylvania U.S. Ambassador 2015. (Photos by Rossano P. Stewart)

BW4PC essay contest on stopping violence YESTER SQUARE OPEN HOUSE! Black Women for Positive Change (BW4PC), a national, volunteer civic organization recently sponsored the first “On 2nd Thought” Essay Contest at the Neighborhood Academy, in Pittsburgh. High school juniors and seniors wrote original essays to compete for prizes based on “On 2nd Thought,” a youth violence prevention film produced by BW4PC. The cash prizes and certificates were presented to Neighborhood Academy students by Diane Powell, essay contest chair, and Latara Jones, essay contest coordinator. Winners of the Essay Contest were: First

Place: Cydney J.C. Francis—$150 cash prize; Second Place: Brittany Williams—$100 cash prize; and Third Place: Derrick Clark—$50.

“Over the past two years, we have shown the ‘On 2nd Thought’ film to hundreds of youth in Pittsburgh to encourage discussion about violence prevention. We’re glad students at the Neighborhood Academy competed in the Essay Competition and shared their thoughts about the film’s message.

We appreciate the support of the Academy and their teacher, Jennifer Kane,” said Powell, Outreach Co-

Chair, BW4PC East Coast Region.

In a joint statement, BW4PC National CoChairs Stephanie Myers, PhD, and Virginia delegate Daun S. Hester said, “We believe it is important to help young people understand they should think twice and have ‘2nd Thoughts’ before engaging in violence. BW4PC is producing socially responsible media tools for schools, civic organizations and local governments to help youth learn how to weigh options before engaging in violence and ruining their lives, and the lives of others.”

Looking for Affordable Housing?

Please join us for an open house at the newly constructed Yester Square Apartments!

Where: Yester Square – Ohio & Brownlee Streets, McKeesport, PA 15132 When: Tuesday, July 14th, Wednesday, July 15th & Thursday, July 16th (10:00 AM – 11:00 AM and 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM) or by appointment.

Yester Square Apartments, Inc. offers 1, 2, and 3 bedroom units! 20 Fully Accessible Units are available! Rent is 30% of gross annual income! Central Air Conditioning, Refrigerator & Stove, On-Site Laundromat, On-Site Fitness Center, Pet Friendly!

Residents must meet all applicable income and screening requirements.

WINNERS & ORGANIZERS—Pictured are the Black Women for Positive Change Essay Contest winners and organizers. Front row, from left: Jennifer Kane, teacher; students Rachel Moody, Derrick Clark, Maya Janae, Brianna Williams, Cydney J.C. Francis; Diane Powell, Essay Contest chair, BW4PC; and Latara Jones, Essay Contest coordinator. Back row, from left: Alexis Jackson, Balijah Grant and Cheyne Francis. (Photo courtesy of Black Women for Political Change.)

For more information, please contact our management agent: Joan Trasp McKeesport Housing Authority 2901 Brownlee Avenue McKeesport PA 15132 Phone: 412-673-6942 Ext. 218 Fax: 412-673-1706 Email: jtrasp@mckha.org

New Pittsburgh Courier

C3

Inside Conditions

BUSINESS JULY 8-14, 2015

www.newpittsburghcourier.com

Find what you need from jobs to cars to housing C4-C5

Classifieds

C

Who’s teaching your kids about money?

If you take the time to teach your children about money, that’s fantastic. If you’re not, know that your children are learning money habits whether you’re teaching or not.

Savvy marketers are telling our kindergartners that they need a certain toy to be happy, and credit card companies are peddling instant gratification to our teens.

To help you teach your kids about money, the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants offers these suggestions as a basis to build good money habits.

Allowances teach financial literacy One tool to start teaching your kids about money is an allowance.

An allowance is an opportunity to place funds directly in a child’s hands, giving them experience in making choices, budgeting, and placing value on their desires.

Tips for making allowances work: •Start when your child is old enough to understand money. He or she should know that $1 equals four quarters, for example. This is typically around age six.

•In terms of amount, it’s generally a good idea to start small and expand it as the child gets older and his or her money-management skills grow.

•Consider creating an allowance structure with accounts, such as “share,” “save,” and “spend.” The amount you give per account is largely based on your values. If goal setting and patience are values, perhaps the save bucket gets the bulk of the allowance. Or if generosity is a value, the share account may encourage your child to give.

•Help them budget.

Young children are concrete thinkers, so jars labeled by account are easy to understand. Some good apps for the more abstract thinkers include Kids Money, Allowance Manager, iAllowance, Tykoon, and Envelopes. Websites such as ThreeJars, It’s My Life/Money on the PBS Kids portal, and LearnVest My Money Center offer great budgeting tools and tips.

•Whatever structure and budgeting tools you choose, the most important thing is to communicate with your child about money values, why you’ve structured and funded the accounts as you have, and what you hope they will learn. Think of al-

lowances as a communications tool. Keep the conversation going on a regular basis.

•Encourage your child to think of something they want to save for upfront.

This helps delay instant gratification and teaches them to save for what they truly want.

•Don’t dictate what your kids spend their “spend” bucks on. You may cringe when your daughter buys yet another stuffed animal, but that’s what an allowance is for. When it’s gone, it’s gone. They will eventually learn that they have to make choices with their money.

•Pay out on time. When you pay out allowances inconsistently, you are sending out a bad message about money management: That it’s OK to pay our bills late.

•Don’t take away allowance as a punishment. If a child breaks a window, have the child pay for the new window out of his or her allowance. Taking away allowance is merely a punishment, but having the child pay for a mistake is a lesson. Actually, it’s two lessons: we all have to take responsibility for our actions, and sometimes decisions we make end up costing money.

•Although it is important to talk to your child about money, it is more important for the child to see how you manage yours. Always remember that your child learns more from what you do than from what you say.

Online purchases The days of biking to the local record store to buy music are long gone. Here are some ways your children can spend their allowance money instead of yours when they are shopping online: •For Apple services, such as iTunes, the App Store, iBookstore, or Newsstand, its allowance feature enables you to pre-set a specific amount of money each month that your child can spend.

•The Tykoon app has its own Amazon.com store where kids can spend their allowance. They can also donate from their “share” account through Network for Good.

•Prefilled debit cards and gift cards are other options for providing a limited amount of funds.

Talk to a CPA Money management is not always easy. Talk to a certified public accountant for ideas to help with budgeting and money management.

New ownership

AN EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION—Author and entrepreneur, Sharise Hemby shares information with Michelle Jones, the new publisher of The Greater Pittsburgh Black Business Directory.

Publication changes hands, continues its commitment to Black businesses

by Diane I. Daniels For New Pittsburgh Courier

A life steeped in community development that takes into account nearly every system that impacts an individual’s life inclusive of education, housing, social service, recreation, politics and health is how Michelle A. Jones describes her professional career. After years of helping people and yearning to be an entrepreneur with a willingness to try new things, Jones has decided to follow her passion.

Earlier this year she purchased the Greater Pittsburgh Black Business Directory. The publication had been published for the last 30 years by Renaissance Publications owned and operated

by Constance (Connie) Portis.

“I had been searching for a while for the right business and opportunity,” said Jones. “When Connie announced last year that the 2014/15 issue was going to be her last that’s when I realized what my business should be. Knowing the energy and commitment Connie has put into this directory I did not want to see her energy and commitments go away.”

Enabling her to continue to utilize her community

UP FOR THE CHALLENGE—Michelle A. Jones of masj PUBLISHING, INC. the new publisher of The Greater Pittsburgh Black Business Directory relaxes before she networks to gain advertisers for her new venture. (Photos by Diane I. Daniels)

development and social service experience, Jones says the Black Business Directory will be her way to continuously help people.

“Over the years, the Black Directory has captured the essence of the region’s African-American community through the business, corporate, non-profit and church listings and through the stories we tell,” said Portis.

She describes the publication as a community resource for locating AfricanAmericans in business in the Greater Pittsburgh area and a means to showcase additional businesses, resources and services that are available to build and enhance opportunities in the community. She said the leveling of the playing field for African Americans in the marketplace and for majority-owned businesses to reach the African American market in a medium primarily targeted to them as the purpose of the Directory.

“The concept was designed to reach out to and list as many business owners and service providers as we could identify,” said Portis.

The Black Pages and Black Business Directories are published in print and SEE PUBLICATION C2

Supreme Court preserves key fair housing tool A long-awaited decision by the United States Supreme Court led to a June 25 ruling that preserves the usage of ‘disparate impact’, an important legal principle sometimes known as the discriminatory effects standard. The majority opinion held that housing discrimination under the nation’s 1968 Fair Housing Act occurs by effect—as well as by intent.

Writing the decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy concluded, “[S]ince the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968 and against the backdrop of disparate impact liability in nearly every jurisdiction, many cities have become more diverse… .The Court acknowledges the Fair Housing Act’s continued role in moving the Nation toward a more integrated society.”

Joining Justice Kennedy to form a 5-4 majority were Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor.

Although in 2013 the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development codified the use of disparate impact through its rule-making process, the case of Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., had its oral arguments on Jan. 21. The decision was awaited by consumer advocates and mortgage industry professionals alike.

Among civil rights and housing advocates, the decision was as widely applauded as the number of amicus or “friend of the court” briefs that were

filed. The lengthy list of briefs came Calhoun’s claims are strongly substanfrom diverse organitiated by the rezations including cently-released Charlene Crowell AARP, Hope Enter2015 State of the prise Corporation, Nation’s Housing Howard University from Harvard’s School of Law HousJoint Center for ing Clinic, Judicial Housing Studies.

Watch, Lawyers’ In part the report Committee for Civil states, “And deRights Under Law, spite the [housNAACP Legal Deing] rebound in fense and Education Fund, National much of the nation, a number of minority Black Law Students Association, the Na- and low-income neighborhoods remain tional Fair Housing Alliance and the severely distressed.”

Center for Responsible Lending.

The report’s data points further illus“When Americans are denied equal optrate the disproportionate problems faced portunity to housing, they are denied ac- by consumers of color: cess to good jobs, quality education, safe •As of 2014, the homeownership rate streets, transit, and a clean and healthy for minorities remains 25.5 percentage environment, all of which are critical to points lower than that of Whites; leading healthy and prosperous lives,” •More than 40 percent of Latino and said Wade Henderson, president and Black households with mortgages report CEO of The Leadership Conference on paying interest rates above 5 percent, Civil and Human Rights. compared to less than a third of white “We have observed, documented, and re- and Asian/other minority households; ported on disparate impact in mortgage •Housing wealth represents a much lending, auto lending, student lending, larger share of the net worth of the typiand a suite of other financial services,” cal Black or Hispanic homeowner - 58 said Mike Calhoun, CRL president. “We percent, than of the typical White homehave witnessed what happens when a owner - 37 percent; and single community cannot access such •Negative equity—borrowers owing credit—and we know that these consemore than their homes are actually quences are indicative of deeper, more worth—is highly-concentrated in minorsystemic, more troubling realities in ity and low-income neighborhoods. lending practices.”

Beyond this report and the Supreme

Commentary

Court’s decision, in late May, joint action by the Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau brought a $9 million settlement against Provident Funding Associates, a private mortgage lender, found to have discriminated against 14,000 Black and Latino borrows. Terms of the settlement include the appointment of an independent administrator who will contact affected consumers and distribute restitution payments.

The leaders of two federal agencies charged with enforcing the Fair Housing Act—added their voices and influence to the continuing fight for fair housing.

“Bolstered by this important ruling, the Department of Justice will continue to vigorously enforce the Fair Housing Act with every tool at its disposal—including challenges based on unfair and unacceptable discriminatory effects,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

“The Supreme Court has made it clear that HUD can continue to use this critical tool to eliminate the unfair barriers that have deferred and derailed too many dreams,” said HUD Secretary Julian Castro. “Working with our partners on the ground, we will continue to do all we can to build a housing market that treats all Americans with basic dignity and respect.”

(Charlene Crowell is a communications manager with the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at Charlene.crowell@responsiblelending.org)

C2 JULY 8-14, 2015

Bill Spriggs

Commentary

Tips for finding adjacent airline seats without paying extra

by Scott Mayerowitz AP Airlines Writer

What is the Federal Reserve doing?

Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its numbers for inflation and for real wage movements. The numbers reflected the weak numbers of the first quarter for economic growth: Zero inflation and zero real wage growth in the past three months. The economy is showing signs that it is fragile. It can be spoofed by international developments that raise the value of the dollar and slow U.S. export growth, or by bad weather-events, the Federal Reserve cannot control or easily predict.

So what is the Federal Reserve doing?

At its June Open Market Committee Meeting, where Federal Reserve policy is set, the Fed stayed put on interest rates. Yet, it gave indications that it was considering giving in to the stampede for the Fed to act sometime this year to raise interest rates in a deliberate move to slow the economy. A policy to slow the economy is based on beliefs, not on the hard data before us on wages or inflation. This is regrettable.

The deeper reality is that the Fed took unprecedented moves to build up huge reserves of U.S. Treasuries. What is really going on is more that the speculators on Wall Street are nervous. They are afraid that somehow, from some unknown source, inflationary pressures will rapidly appear and the Fed will quickly unwind its position with, for some of them, disastrous consequences on bets they have placed on bond prices.

They would prefer the certainty of having the Fed start to unwind its position now, slowly divesting itself of its bond reserves and easing the economy to higher interest rates. This has nothing to do with the economy, and everything to do with Wall Street speculation. Unfortunately, the press plays sycophant to these speculators, who are constantly quoted as giving “economic” advice when they state with certainty the need for the Fed to raise interest rates.

Sources of global instability abound.

The discussions over the Greek debt, the Eurozone bankers and the International Monetary Fund are far from a workable solution. In the meantime, the Swiss Franc is rising uncontrollably in response to that uncertainty. Iraq, Syria, Yemen and the ongoing conflict with ISL make the Mideast equally unpredictable. And, if snows were the issue in the first quarter, the California drought, the Texas floods and Midwest tornadoes so far this quarter should not make anyone confident that the current hurricane season is going to be a sleeper. Further incidents in Charleston and now Charlotte with violent attacks on African American churches and the constant stream of discontent with the ongoing and unresolved issue of police misconduct make the domestic situation equally volatile. With so many uncontrollable and unpredictable risk factors that could slow the economy, the fears of Wall Street speculators should and must take a back seat.

These risks are not all unrelated. A more robust U.S. economy will help the world economy and help reduce some risks associated with weak economic performance; especially in the Eurozone. And a more robust U.S. economy will hopefully speed job growth to reduce the economic tensions that overlay the raw social tensions domestically.

The Fed must expand its view of measures of full-employment. The Wall Street gamblers base their assumptions on full employment from a time gone by.

For instance, economists today still persist in viewing the high African American unemployment rate as a “structural” issue, since African American workers are assumed to be so lowskilled they cannot find jobs in a modern economy. So, they ignore the warning signs that job growth is frail when the African American unemployment stalls, as it has, at around 10%.

In May, the unemployment rate for adult African American workers (those older than 25) with associate degrees was 5.6%, which was higher or about the same as the unemployment rate for white, Asian and Hispanic high school graduates. Those numbers are inconsistent with full employment. They indicate a market where employers are very free to pick and choose which workers they want. A faster growing economy will force employers to be less choosy.

The slow economy cascaded higher educated workers down into jobs that require less education. If the economy does not speed up, that misallocation of productive capacity could become permanent, as employers may continue to seek only college graduates to serve coffee. This costs us in loss productivity growth. It is another sign of a labor market that is not at full employment.

Locking in high African American unemployment and college degree requirements for entry-level jobs is not in the economy’s interest. And covering Wall Street bets isn’t either.

(Follow Bill Spriggs on Twitter: @WSpriggs. )

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

BUSINESS

NEW YORK (AP)—On top of the bag fees and other charges, families traveling this summer may have to pay extra just to sit next to one another.

Airlines are reserving a growing number of seats for elite customers or those willing to shell out more money. These seats often— but not always—come with a little extra legroom. The catch: setting these seats aside leaves fewer places for other passengers to sit without paying extra.

That means mom might end up in row 20, dad in row 23 and junior sitting all the way back in row 30, regardless of age. Airlines say their gate agents try to help family members without adjacent seats sit together, especially people flying with small children. Yet there is no guarantee things will work out.

Often, the only way to ensure that the family sits together is to book well in advance, or pay $25 or more, per seat, each way.

Summer is an especially hard time to keep families together.

Last July, U.S. airlines sold a record 87.8 percent of seats on domestic flights, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statics. And that figure doesn’t in-

clude seats occupied by airline employees flying for free. In other words: virtually every seat was taken.

Airlines are predicting that even more passengers will step aboard planes this year: 222 million passengers between June 1 and Aug. 31. That’s 2.4 million passengers a day or 4.5 percent more than last summer.

But don’t fret. There are still a few things fliers can do between now and takeoff to snag seats together without paying extra: •Confirm your seat assignments online with the airline now. Sometimes plane types are switched between booking and departure—say from a 737 to a 757—meaning there’s a whole new seat layout. And if you booked through Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline or other third-party travel agents, your assignment might not have been recorded correctly with the airline.

•Set up alerts for seat openings. ExpertFlyer.com offers free notifications when a window or aisle seat becomes vacant for up to one flight at a time. For 99 cents, it sends an email if two adjacent seats become available.

The service is available for Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue Airways, United Airlines and Virgin America but

not for Delta Air Lines and some smaller carriers.

•Check your airline’s website five days before the trip. That’s when some elite fliers are upgraded to first class, freeing up their coach seats. Another wave of upgrades occurs every 24 to 48 hours.

•Check in 24 hours in advance when airlines start releasing more seats. If connecting, see if seats have opened up 24 hours before the second flight departs.

•Keep looking for new seats.

Even after checking in, seats can be changed at airport kiosks and on some airlines’ mobile applications.

•Ask at check-in. Agents can sometimes put families in seats held just prior to departure for disabled passengers. And ask more than once. Gate agents and flight attendants can sometimes seek volunteers to swap seats.

•If flying Southwest Airlines set an alarm for exactly 24 hours before departure and check in online. The airline lets passengers pick their own seat at boarding. The earlier you check-in, the quicker you board the plane.

•If all else fails, offer nearby passengers candy or a drink to switch seats. Seriously, bartering works.

(Scott Mayerowitz can be reached at http://twitter.com/GlobeTrotScott)

IRA early withdrawal exceptions Choosing to make an early withdrawal from your IRA can be a costly move, resulting in unfavorable consequences such as tax penalties and loss of future growth. To discourage the early collection of designated retirement money during taxpayers’ working years, the federal government imposes a 10 percent penalty in addition to any tax due on gains. A withdrawal made earlier than age 59 1/2 could qualify for such a penalty unless an available exemption criterion is met. Even then, not all exempted withdrawals will be free of additional tax expense. The Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants offers the following examples of instances when early withdrawals from an IRA may be less burdensome.

College tuition In most cases it is OK to make an early withdrawal to pay higher education costs for you, your spouse, your children, or your grandchildren. As long as the eligible student attends an accredited school, either private or public, you can use retirement money to pay for tuition and fees, books, equipment, and other class supplies. Distributions to pay for room and board are also exempt from the 10 percent

penalty, as long as the recipient is at least a half-time student.

These distributions, however, will be included in your taxable income and will be subject to regular tax. Since federal financial aid is based on your income situation, early draws on retirement funds could negatively affect a student’s chances of qualifying for financial aid or push the IRA holder into a higher tax bracket.

As such, you could end up paying more money than you anticipated.

First home purchase You can use $10,000 in retirement funds toward the purchase of your first home. If you are married, this amount becomes $20,000 since you may each pull $10,000 from your respective retirement accounts.

The early withdrawal can be used to meet down payment requirements, pay for groundbreaking costs on new construction, or even rebuild your whitepicket fence. The IRS’s interpretation of ”first-time homebuyer” doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be buying, building, or rebuilding an actual first-ever home; you would qualify for the exemption as long as you or your spouse did not own a home during the prior two-year period.

The timing of the early with-

drawal is important, since the IRS requires the funds to be used within 120 days of the distribution. During that timeframe, should you cancel or reschedule the purchase or construction project, the money can be returned to your IRA without penalty.

Doctor bills and insurance You can use IRA funds for medical expenses. The IRS will not penalize you should you need to pay for unreimbursed medical expenses that exceed 10 percent of your adjusted gross income. Timing is again important, as early withdrawal money for medical expenses must be used in the year the medical expenses are incurred.

Withdrawals to pay for health insurance for you, your spouse, or your dependents are acceptable if made following a period of unemployment.

Saving for retirement is an important long-term goal and taking a withdrawal for a more immediate need can be tempting. Tax implications should not be the only factor in determining how to fund current bills. Your local CPA can help you understand your money management issues. Be sure to contact him or her with all of your financial questions and concerns.

To find a CPA by location, visit www.ineedacpa.org.

Publication has new ownership CONTINUED FROM C1

online in over 55 cities nationwide and abroad representing more than 100,000 plus business.

Jones, a user and supporter of the Directory since its inception said her plan is to continue its purpose and the efforts and hard work Portis has committed throughout the last three decades.

“I concur that there is a need for the Black Directory to have a purpose to level the playing field for African Americans in the marketplace and for majority-owned businesses to reach the African American market in a medium primarily targeted to them.”

Concerned about the demise of some of the area’s long time agencies and organizations like the Neighborhood Centers Association and Addison Behavioral Care, Jones has plans for the directory to highlight the services and resources that countless area groups provide. “Many times people need resources but don’t know where to find what they need,” she said.

Contributing her strong concern and interest of the section to her social service back ground, her goal is to strengthen the Blue Pages section of the directory.

The section consists of agencies, organizations, educational and employment services. The section also includes the Black Church Directory. “We want to include associations, sororities and fraternities and groups like the Black Nurses, reading clubs, athletic associations and youth oriented groups.” She added that a community calendar section is also something she hopes to incorporate.

Another area Jones plans to focus on is building up the Directory’s social media presences.

“There will always be a need for paper copies of the directory. But

I have to develop ways to include and involve young and diverse populations of business owners and users. There has to be easy navigation, user friendliness and inclusion for everybody.”

According to Jones, the directory has an online presence and is available at www.pittsburghblackdirectory.com for usage and to advertise. She suggests for entrepreneurs to take advantage of the free listing offered on the website while planning to place at least a business card size ad in the paper copy. “To accommodate all size businesses we offer a two-tiered pricing structure; small business which includes small non-profits and a corporate rate.

With technology being the way of the world, Jones encourages businesses of all types to advertise and to be included in the 2015/16 issue.

“Our theme this year is Harnessing the Power of Diversity. Recognizing that the region is changing, it is a prime time for businesses and the directory to develop together,” she said. Her philosophy is that diversity covers many spectrums. “Diversity is not just color, age or gender, but consists of human attributes that are different from our own and from those of groups in which we belong. It is visible and invisible.”

Jones considers the Directory as a community resource that delivers a way to communicate and to provide additional businesses, resources and services to build and enhance opportunities in all communities. “Life is richer when you have a wide range of choices.”

A Manchester resident and lifetime Pittsburgher, Jones is a graduate of the former Allegheny High School with a Masters of Public Health in Health Services

Administration and a Masters of Social Work in Community Organization and Planning both from the University of Pittsburgh. She received her undergraduate degree from Tarkio College in Tarkio, Mo. She credits her work and experience at Bidwell Presbyterian Church in the early ‘60’s as the influence that provided the knowledge and interest in organizing people, petitioning, protesting, developing agendas and meetings that provided her base to work as an administrative professional in many different places.

Establishments that included the Mayor’s office, a state legislator, Healthy Start, Community Action agencies in Pittsburgh and Maryland, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh, Gateway Health Plan, Manchester Bidwell Corporation and many other community based organizations in the Manchester community.

Jones has served on many different boards, committees and task forces and is currently a trustee for Pittsburgh Child Guidance Foundation, Mattie Addis Scholarship Fund, and in active mode as an emeritus member of the Manchester Citizens Corporation and WQED. She is also a board member of the Pittsburgh Fiber Arts Guild.

Excited about the future of the Directory, Jones admits that she looks forward to developing and embracing relationship with small businesses within the region. “After observing my husband (Herman) who has operated a business, Urban Market Research for numerous years and now that I have developed a foundation for the Black Business Directory I understand what is unique about doing business in the Pittsburgh area.”

BUSINESS CALENDAR

Business Fraud Protection 101

JULY 9—The Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence will host its Business Fraud Protection 101 seminar from 11:30 a.m.1:30 p.m. at 50 McIntyre Square Dr., Pittsburgh. PNC will highlight some of the common threats of internal and external fraud, share actionable best practices to decrease the risk of financial loss, and provide an overview of available fraud mitigation solutions to protect one’s company. Registration is required. For more information, email Rachel LaMarco at rlamarco@innovation.pitt.edu.

Lunch and Learn Series JULY 9— The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh will host its Lunch & Learn Series at 12:15 p.m. at the Downtown & Business Branch, 612 Smithfield St., Downtown. The topic will be “Social Media Marketing for Business.” Thomas Coates, of Coates Web Solutions, will facilitate this seminar on how social media in one’s marketing campaign can increase the exposure of one’s business. Attendees will learn strategies and best practices of successfully utilizing social media to expand one’s market reach. For more information, call 412-281-7141 or visit www.carnegielibrary.org.

First Step JULY 10—The Small Business Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh will host its “The First Step: The Mechanics of Starting a Small Business” from 7:30-10 a.m. at the University of Pittsburgh, Mervis Hall, Roberto Clemente Drive, Oakland. This session is designed for new business startups and entrepreneurs. Attendees will learn about business structure and formation, insurance, government, procurement, financing options, major components of the business plan, taxation, requirements and more. Registration is required. For more information, call 412-648-1544 or visit www.entrepreneur.pitt.edu.

Special Breakfast Meeting JULY 17—The African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania will host a Special Breakfast Meeting at 8 a.m. at the Rivers Club, One Oxford Centre, 301 Grant St., Downtown. The breakfast will introduce Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay. He will update Chamber members on plans for law enforcement. The meeting was originally scheduled for July 10. Reservations are required. For more information, email call 412-392-0610 or email information@aaccwp.com.

Resume Assistance JULY 18— The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh will host its Resume Assistance from 12-2 p.m. at the Downtown & Business Branch, 612 Smithfield St., Downtown. Qualified volunteers and staff will be on hand to help individuals develop a strong resume to land an interview. Participants are asked to bring a copy or their resume. For more information, call 412-281-7141.

Business Institute Seminar JULY 22—The Business Institute of the African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania will host “How to do business with the Allegheny County Airport Authority” at 9 a.m. at the Koppers Building, 436 Seventh Ave., Downtown. Chamber members will be introduced to the Allegheny County Airport Authority’s procedures on doing business as well as their DBE/Outreach Manger and their procurement and construction teams to start the process of building relationships. This workshop is for Chamber Members only. Reservations are required. For more information, call 412-392-0610.

Members’ Orientation JULY 28—The African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania will host its Members’ Orientation from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the Koppers Building, 436 Seventh Ave., Downtown. This is a program for new and existing Chamber members. Individuals will learn the value of being a part of the Chamber’s organized body as well as get an overview of the Chamber and the Chamber Foundation. Reservations are required by July 24 and a box lunch is included. For more information, call 412-392-0610 or email information@aaccwp.com.

(To have information on Business Calendar, send information at least two weeks in advance to: 315 E. Carson St., Pittsburgh, PA 15219; Fax: 412-481-1360 or e-mail: newsroom@newpittsburghcourier.com.)

New Pittsburgh Courier

SPORTS

C3

JULY 8-14, 2015

www.newpittsburghcourier.com

Fanatic Depreciation Day

U.S. Women Soccer team gets revenge

by Aubrey Bruce For New Pittsburgh Courier

by Bill Neal For New Pittsburgh Courier

:10—The Women’s USA Soccer team put the force of a nation on the Japanese team with an impressive 5-2 route in the World Cup. Paying the Japanese back for the loss they suffered in 2011. That makes me right again. (Oh shut up!) :09—Do you and your son a big favor and Google Cliff Alexander and find out what happens when you’re a top five college recruit and you don’t get drafted as planned. Shocking story. Real eye-opener.

Can’t do it here, but worth your time I promise. (See Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sunday, July 5.) :08—No Pirates to start in the upcoming All-Star game. Say what?!?!

More later. : 0 7 — LaMarcus Aldridge told “Kobe” and the Lakers to take a hike on the ole L.A. Freeway and joined Tim BILL NEAL Duncan and the Spurs.

Can you say Six Rings for Tim Duncan?

Not so quick there’s the Cleveland Cavs! :06—Speaking of the Lakers, and I just was, if I can just get you people to pay at-

YOUNG AND OLD HIGHLIGHTED—The Josh Gibson Foundation presented the Josh Gibson All Stars playing the Anderson Monarchs on July 2, at Manchester Field. Featured were Ted Toles Jr., of The Negro Leagues and Little League World Series sensation, Mo’Ne Davis. Above Davis taps a single down the first base line. (Photos by Rossano P. Stewart)

LL sensation Davis at Manchester Field

Inside Conditions

Overtime tention…They, not we, but they managed to sign Roy Hibbert away from Indiana.

He’s no Aldridge, but he’ll have to do.

(Yeah, I’m still on the Lakers bus, but I am sitting way in the back. I just don’t know what to do. I’m lost I tell ya. I’m lost. Help me Lakers gods. Help me!) :05—“Now in the Locker Room” and it couldn’t happen to a better person, one of my many Donora mothers growing up in the home of champions, the divine Mrs. Pryor. It was great hearing from you and it was wonderful having you in my life. . .Oh, the good ole days! Thanks for reading. God Bless and my best to Terrell . . .your family. :04—Tiger’s old swing coach, Hank Haney, can’t understand his problems either. Look, if the guy that helped make you famous doesn’t get it, what does that tell ya? :03—Okay, here’s a two-fer. Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Gary Player have been commissioned to build a new golf course on Oakhurst Mountain near White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia…but that’s not the point at all. Hey Tiger, if I’m you, I’d hook up with the three greatest of all time and fix this problem. I’m just sayin!!! :02—Question? Whatever happened to Ola Ray, the girl from the Michael Jackson Thriller video. And while we’re at it, where’s the girl from the “The Way You Make Me Feel” video. These are things we need to clear up. :01—Final Call! “It’s Summer Madness Monday.”

ATTENTION…ATTENTION…ATTENTION” All City L e a g u e folks, players, coaches, teachers, the next Old School ParTay is coming up on M o n d a y, July 13, at the fabulous Blue Line Grille Uptown, VIP upper level amazing outside deck TIGER WOODS - the Old S c h o o l sounds of Dee-Jay Shock a/k/a “Shock Daddy” - free hors d’oeuvres early on cash bar - cash kitchen - 50/50 - prizes & surprises - valet parking - street and garage parking - line dancing with the line dance king Roland Ford - Bill Ford and the ballroom dancers - and a chance to kick it with old City League friends— get your tickets early, first come/first seat. Last month was standing room only.

For information, call 412-628-4856 or see the City League Legends for your ticket.

Chuck Franklin—412-901-8495,Vince Neal—412-352-5304 or Fred Lucas—412999-7664. Proceeds to benefit the Pittsburgh City League All-Sports Hall of Fame and Achieving Greatness Safe Summer Programs. Cost for the event is $10, $5 at the door after 9 p.m. ~ GAME OVER ~

On Sunday, July 5, there was a photo op day for the fans held at PNC Park.The fans were allowed to take selfies with the Pirates players separated only by a not so sturdy looking rope. I strolled out to the field when the event was about to conclude. I took a couple of shots just to remember the fans of 2015.

I did not want names, I just wanted faces, happy contented Bucco loving faces. But in the midst of it all my mind began to wander back to 20 years ago.

Let’s board the time machine and revisit the year 1985. The Pirates employed outfielders named Joe Orsulak, R.J. Reynolds, to patrol the outfield and an infielder named Bill “Mad Dog” Madlock though in the twilight of a stormy but successful career was still locking down 3rd base and attempting to torture NL pitchers. Although Madlock finished 1985 with a decent .251 batting average,that was still 54 AUBREY BRUCE points lower than his career average of .305.

The Pirates won-loss record in 1985 was 57-104, their attendance for that year was a whopping 735, 900 fans,

DEFENSE—Mo’Ne Davis showing that she’s not just offense with a great hand-eye put-out at third base.

FOND MEMORIES—Ted Toles Jr. sharing past glories with fans. Toles a Negro League great threw out the first pitch.

DIRECTOR WITH SPONSORS—From left: Bruce C. Willams, 21st Ward Chairman; Sean Gibson, director Josh Gibson Foundation; and Jamie Younger, Young Bros. Bar.

which came out to be approximately a tad less than 9100 attendees per game.

1985 was definitely a fan depreciation year. From 1990-92 Pittsburgh averaged over 96 wins per year and over 1.9 million fans but that was not enough because there was still no magic elixir to marketing and managing a team whose faces and attitudes seemed to be incompatible with the demographics, because just a few years later, in 1996, if not for McClatchy and his fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost.

No folks what I am trying to say is that if not for Kevin McClatchy and his investment group, the Pirates would have been unceremoniously shipped out of the Steel City to any number of unknown MLB baseball starved cities, post haste. All of the “blue collar” haters know who I am referring to. The ones that frequent the local watering hole ranting and raving about the perverted salaries that professional athletes command unlike the freebies that are received from the labor of high school and college athletes. Combine that with the fact that: “tax dollars were going to have to be squandered on a new stadium, which was not needed.” Many things have been written and said about Kevin McClatchy but one thing is certain, the Pittsburgh Pirates would have been the New Orleans, La. Pirates or the Charlotte, N.C. Pirates or even theoretically Tampa Bay, Fla. something or others.

What I am saying is that sometimes, the fans may enjoy the games but misunderstand the real games that transpire behind the curtains.

The performance of baseball players and the fans may be partially based on emotions. However, the motivations of most ownership groups is almost always solely based on economics. Years ago when I asked super scout Tommy Thompson if the Pirates could have been shipped to Tampa Bay during the tenuous times of the Pittsburgh franchise he said; “as far as MLB goes sometimes the question is not whether things are possible but if something may be probable.”

In 1985 the fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates just six years removed from a World Series victory appeared as if they were suffering from amnesia. That’s why the voting process for the selection of players to the MLB All-Star team. The public has been told that they may vote 35 times for one player. Wouldn’t it be grand if a United States citizen could vote for their chosen candidate 35 times?

Hell, in a lot of areas they don’t even want you to have the ability to vote once.

The voting process for the MLB All-Star game should have been changed, decades ago, especially in light of the fact that whoever wins the game gives their respective league home field advantage for the MLB World Series. What if all of the fans who voted 35 times came to 35 games. All of that small market talk could be put to bed. Wow, fan appreciation day what a novelty.

Aubrey Bruce can be reached at: abruce@newpittsburghcourier.com or 412-5836741. He is also a contributing columnist with urbanmediatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter@ultrascribe.)

New Pittsburgh Courier

CLASSIFIED

C4

JULY 8-14, 2015

SONNY BOY

www.newpittsburghcourier.com

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Help Wanted

Help Wanted

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE/ MEDIA SALES

WPXI-TV (Cox Media Group) seeks a motivated and energetic Account Executive who thrives on multi-platform sales and new business development. Prefer 1-3 years experience. Outstanding communication and presentation skills along with strong computer literacy. Outstanding compensation and benefits package. Please send cover letter and resume to: Bob Liga, Local Sales Manager: bliga@wpxi.com and apply at CoxMediaGroup.com/careers. EOE

DIRECTOR, VETERANʼS AFFAIRS

California University of PA is seeking a full-time, temporary Director of Veteranʼs Affairs. Position starts approximately August 10, 2015 and ends by May 9, 2016 (position may end sooner). This position is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the office and is recognized as the primary point of contact for all matters relating to military and veterans affairs. The Director handles all certifications for VA educational benefits, correspondence, and issues concerning veterans, reservists and other eligible persons receiving benefits under the various GI Bills. For a more detailed job description, position requirements, application deadline and instructions for application, visit www.cup.edu/employment.

Cal U is M/F/V/D/AA/EEO.

ROBERT MORRIS UNIVERSITY

Robert Morris University seeks applicants for several employment opportunities. Visit RMU.EDU/JOBS for details. Email resume to jobs@rmu.edu or mail to: Robert Morris University, Human Resources 6001 University Blvd., Moon Twp., PA 15108 or fax to 412-397-2555.

RMU believes institutional equity reflects our continued commitment to a community where everyone is both valued and respected. We are dedicated to developing a diverse population and strive to be an inclusive community that celebrates and embraces differences.

EOE

INSTRUCTOR OR ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

The University of Pittsburgh, School of Dental Medicine, with its Program in Dental Hygiene in the Department of Periodontics/Preventive Dentistry, announces the immediate availability of one fulltime (12-month) nontenure-track faculty position at the rank of Instructor or Assistant Professor, available August 1, 2015. Academic rank and salary are commensurate with education, teaching, and professional experience. A masterʼs degree in dental hygiene or a related discipline and a minimum of two years of successful teaching experience in didactic, clinical, and laboratory dental hygiene courses is expected. Teaching responsibilities will include serving as course director of the Research Analysis course, clinical, laboratory, and other didactic instruction for dental hygiene certificate and baccalaureate degreecompletion students. Additional responsibilities include committee assignments, assisting with preparation for the Commission on Dental Accreditation site visit, student advising, scholarly activities and research, participation in professional organizations, community service, participation in the faculty practice, and designated faculty assignments as identified by the program director.

The successful candidate must possess or be eligible for Pennsylvania dental hygiene licensure and dental hygiene local anesthesia permit. The School of Dental Medicine does require a successful background check for the selected candidate prior to the official offer of the position. The University of Pittsburgh was founded in 1787 and is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the United States The School of Dental Medicine has 320 first professional students, 40 residents and 70 dental hygiene students.

Please send curriculum vitae, a statement describing interest in the position, qualifications and experience, and the names and addresses of at least three references to: Angelina E. Riccelli, Associate Professor and Program Director, Dental Hygiene Program, B82 Salk Hall, School of Dental Medicine, 3501 Terrace Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15261. The search committee will begin reviewing applications upon receipt. Only applicants who appear best qualified will be invited for a personal interview. The University of Pittsburgh is an Equal Opportunity Affirmative Action Employer. Men and minorities are strongly encouraged to apply. The position will remain open until filled.

COURIER CLASSIFIEDS… THE ONLY WAY TO GO!

DRUG & ALCOHOL THERAPIST-POWER

POWER offers a full range of gender-responsive, trauma-informed treatment and support services just for women. We are seeking an experienced Therapist for our Outpatient department. Successful candidate will have an LCSW or Bachelorʼs degree with CAC. POWER values diversity and is an Equal Opportunity Employer and a Drug Free Workplace. Please visit our website power-recovery.com to apply. No phone calls, please.

VIRTUAL CONSTRUCTION & LEED SPECIALIST (P.J. Dick Incorporated/ Pittsburgh, PA)

This position is responsible for creating virtual designs/drawings and other modeling activities using building information modeling (BIM) software, CAD, and other advanced technical programs, with an emphasis on public and school facilities.

Requirements: Bachelorʼs degree in Architecture, Architectural Engineering, or Construction Management; two yearsʼ experience in the job offered or any related occupation within the commercial building construction industry; LEED AP BD & C certification; knowledge of sustainable design in public and school facilities; ability to monitor the LEED rating system; professional Certificate of Management-Building Information Modeling (CM-BIM) certification; and experience working with AutoCAD, Constructware, BIM Technology, Navisworks, Illustrator, and Job Cost Estimating Software. Applicants must also be willing to work at various unanticipated work locations throughout the U.S. Interested individuals must apply online at www.pjdick.com.

EOE–Minority/Female/Disabled/Veteran ANNOUNCEMENTS Public Notices

PUBLIC NOTICE OPENING OF THE SKYLINE TERRACE FOUR- (4) BEDROOM SITE BASED WAITING LIST

Effective Thursday, July 9, 2015, the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh (HACP) will re-open the Skyline Terrace four- (4) bedroom waiting list to households that require a four- (4) bedroom unit.

Not all households will be eligible for a four- (4) bedroom unit, as the age, gender and relationships of household members affect the number of bedrooms for which a household is eligible. Families of various sizes can qualify for four- (4) bedroom units, but some restrictions apply. Families may have no less than one- (1) person per bedroom and no more than two- (2) persons per bedroom. Children of the same sex, under the age of eighteen- (18), share a bedroom.

Children of opposite sex share a bedroom until the oldest child reaches the age of three- (3).

HACP will only be accepting pre-applications in person. Pre-applications can be made at the HACP Occupancy Department, 100 Ross Street, 4th Floor, Pittsburgh, PA, 15219.

Persons with disabilities requiring accommodation to submit a pre-application can contact the Disability Compliance office at 412-456-5282.

For information about obtaining a pre-application, please contact the Occupancy Department at 412-4565030 or visit our website at www.hacp.org. For those that are deaf or hard of hearing, you can also contact HACP at TDD: 412-2015384.

This event is for the new Skyline Terrace Community ONLY and is completely separate from the HACP Housing Choice Voucher and Low Income Public Housing Programs.

The Housing Authority of the City Of Pittsburgh Occupancy Department 100 Ross Street – 4th Floor Pittsburgh, PA 15219

LEGAL ADVERTISING Legal Notices

Estate Notices

Letters have been granted on the estate of each of the following decedents to the personal representative named who request all persons having claims against the estate of the decedent to make known the same in writing to him or his attorney, and all persons indebted to the decedent to make payment to him without delay:

Estate of MEYERS, TERRI L., deceased of Borough of Aspinwall, No.: 021503691, Landreneaux, Natalie Marie, Executrix, 3841 Ian Court, Eureka, CA 95503 or to R.M. Entwisle, III, Atty., 125 1st Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.

Estate of HALEY, DOLORES, deceased of Pittsburgh, PA, No. 021504065, Deborah Creek c/o Judith A. Lehnowsky, Atty., 820 Evergreen Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15209.

Estate of GROSICK, CHARLES R., deceased of Ohio Township, Allegheny County, No. 003828 of 2015, David Grosick, Executor, 7681 Brookstone Drive, West Chester, OH 45069 or to Witherel & Associates, 966 Perry Highway, Pittsburgh, PA 15237.

Estate of CARROLL, LAURA JEAN, deceased of Aleppo Twp., No. 021504011, Laura Jean Carroll Boyce, Executrix, 3227 North County Road 25 W, Brazil, Indiana 47834, or to R.M. Entwisle, III, Atty., 125 1st Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.

5

0

1

3

7

2

9

4

8

LEGAL ADVERTISING

LEGAL ADVERTISING

LEGAL ADVERTISING

Legal Notices

Legal Notices

Legal Notices

COUNTY OF ALLEGHENY PITTSBURGH, PA July 1, 2015

COUNTY OF ALLEGHENY, PA PITTSBURGH, PA June 19, 2015

The Office of the Director of the Department of Public Works for Allegheny County in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, is soliciting Statements of Interest through PennDOTs ECMS system for the following: ALLEGHENY COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS Preliminary Engineering, Final Design, and Construction Support Services For Rehabilitation of the Kenmawr Avenue Ramp and Talbot Avenue Ramp Bridges County Project No. MA07-KN04 and MA07-TL04 ECMS No. 93917 Local Agreement Number: L00033 This is a federal-aid project with PennDOT oversight. Statements of Interest are due no later than July 17, 2015 and are to be submitted through PennDOTs ECMS System, http://www.dot14.state.pa.us/ECMS The advertisement can be found under agreement number L00033. A copy of the published advertisement can also be found on the County Website: http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/bids Any inquiries into this Advertisement are to be directed to Mr. Richard Connors, Bridge Division Manager at 412-350-6671 or richard.connors@alleghenycounty.us The County will use the normal selection process and preselect or short-list at least three firms for consideration for this Project assignment on the following evaluation criteria: Experience, Quality Control and Quality Assurance, Performance on Past Projects, Use and Experience of Subconsultants, and Assurance of Project Milestones.

The Countyʼs Minority and Women disadvantaged goals for these Projects will be 13% of the total price for MBE participation and 2% of the total price for WBE participation.

Stephen G. Shanley, PE, Director Department of Public Works of Allegheny County

The office of the Director of the Department of Public Works of Allegheny County is accepting Letters of Interest with current SF 330 for engineering services until 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 16, 2015, for the following assignment: ALLEGHENY COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS Roadway and Traffic Engineering Services - As Needed County Project Number 7A04-OPEN The work and services which may be required under this Agreement encompass a wide range of design engineering efforts and operational studies with the possibility of several different types of projects with short completion schedules being assigned concurrently. The anticipated type of projects include, but are not limited to: 2R and 3R reconstruction projects, roadway planning and design, roadway safety studies, traffic operational analysis, traffic impact studies, transportation design and operational reviews, pedestrian and bicycle planning and design, and the preparation of bid documents associated with construction.

The County will use only SF 330ʼs responding with Letters of Interest to prequalify firms for consideration for these services. Allegheny County encourages responses from small firms, minority and women owned firms, and firms that have not previously worked for the County. Any questions should be referred to Michael Babusci, P.E., PTOE, Assistant Program Manager Roadway Division at 412-350-5792. A project profile is available upon request.

The County will preselect or short-list firms for consideration for this contract based on the following criteria: Experience, Record, Size, Workload, Related Work, and Past Performance.

Stephen G. Shanley, P.E., Director Allegheny County Department of Public Works

The Office of the Director of the Department of Public works for Allegheny County in Conjunction with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, is soliciting Statements of Interest through PennDOTs ECMS system for the following: ALLEGHENY COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS Design and Construction Support Services For Rehabilitation of the Armstrong Tunnels County Project No. AR01-0307 ECMS No. 93922 Local Agreement Number: L00087 This is a federal-aid project with PennDOT oversight. Statements of Interest are due no later than July 17, 2015and are to be submitted through PennDOTs ECMS System, http://www.dot14.state.pa.us/ECMS The advertisement can be found under agreement number L00087. A copy of the published advertisement can also be found on the County Website: http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/bids Any inquiries into this Advertisement are to be directed to Mr. Michael Burdelsky, Project Manager at 412-350-5914 or mburdelsky@alleghenycounty.us The County will use the normal selection process and preselect or short-list at least three firms for consideration for this Project assignment on the following evaluation criteria: Experience, Quality Control and Quality Assurance, Performance on Past Projects, Use and Experience of Subconsultants, and Assurance of Project Milestones. The Countyʼs Minority and Women disadvantaged goals for these Projects will be 13% of the total price for MBE participation and 2% of the total price for WBE participation.

Stephen G. Shanley, PE, Director Department of Public Works of Allegheny County

The Office of the Director of the Department of Public works for Allegheny County in Conjunction with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, is soliciting Statements of Interest through PennDOTs ECMS system for the following: ALLEGHENY COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS Construction Management and Construction Inspection For Rehabilitation of the Andy Warhol (7th Street) Bridge County Project No. AL03-0801 ECMS No. 88541 Local Agreement Number: L00086 This is a federal-aid project with PennDOT oversight. Statements of Interest are due no later than July 22, 2015 and are to be submitted through PennDOTs ECMS System, http://www.dot14.state.pa.us/ECMS The advertisement can be found under agreement number L00086. A copy of the published advertisement can also be found on the County Website: http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/ bids Any inquiries into this Advertisement are to be directed to Mr. Michael Dillon, P.E., Deputy Director of Engineering, at 412-350-5469 or mdillon@alleghenycounty.us The County will use the normal selection process and preselect or short-list at least three firms for consideration for this Project assignment on the following evaluation criteria: Past Performance, Quality Control and Quality Assurance, Inspection staff qualifications and capabilities, Use and Experience of Subconsultants, and Assurance of Project Milestones. The Countyʼs Minority and Women disadvantaged goals for these Projects will be 13% of the total price for MBE participation and 2% of the total price for WBE participation.

Stephen G. Shanley, PE, Director Department of Public Works of Allegheny County

COUNTY OF ALLEGHENY PITTSBURGH, PA June 29, 2015

COUNTY OF ALLEGHENY PITTSBURGH, PA June 19, 2015

To place an ad in the New Pittsburgh Courier Classifieds call 412-481-8302 ext. 140

June 30, 2015

LEGAL NOTICE

Allegheny County Department of Human Services and Juvenile Court Public Hearing on Childrenʼs Services Annual Plan and Budget On Monday, August 3, at 10 am, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services and Juvenile Court will hold a public hearing to obtain comments on the DRAFT of the 2016-2017 Office of Children, Youth and Families Needs-Based Plan that will be presented to the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.

The hearing will take place at One Smithfield Street, Lower level, in the Liberty Conference Room.

A draft of the plan will be available on the DHS website by July 24, at: http://www.alleghenycounty.us/dh s/plansbudgets.aspx#cyf.

Persons wishing to provide comments on the plan through written or oral testimony at the meeting are asked to call 412-350-3457 (TDD 412-350-5205) to be placed on the agenda.

The Department of Human Services makes reasonable efforts to accommodate persons with disabilities.

Please call 412-350-3439 by July 29 if you require special accommodations.

Marc Cherna, Director Allegheny County Department of Human Services LEGAL ADVERTISING Bids/Proposals

HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF PITTSBURGH INVITATION FOR BIDS (IFB) FOR FLEET VEHICLE REPAIRS FOR FORD VEHICLES IFB#300-20-15

The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh (HACP) hereby request proposals from qualified Firms or Individuals capable of providing the following service(s): FLEET VEHICLE REPAIRS FOR FORD VEHICLES IFB#300-20-15 The documents will be available no later than June 29, 2015 and signed, sealed bids will be accepted until 10:00 A.M., July 17, 2015 at which time they will be Time and Date Stamped at 100 Ross Street 2nd Floor, Suite 200, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, at which time they will be opened and read aloud.

Parties or individuals interested in responding may download a copy of the Invitation for Bid from the Business Opportunities page of www.HACP.org.

Questions or inquires should be directed to: Kim Detrick Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh Procurement Department 2nd Floor, Suite 200 100 Ross Street Pittsburgh, PA 15219 412-456-5116 Opt 1 A pre bid meeting will be held: Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh Procurement Dept.

100 Ross Street 2nd. Fl. Ste. 200 Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Thursday, July 9, 2015 10:00 A.M. The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh strongly encourages certified minority business enterprises and women business enterprises to respond to this solicitation.

HACPʼs has revised their website.

As part of those revisions, vendors must now register and login, in order to view and download IFB/RFPs documentation.

Caster D. Binion, Executive Director Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh HACP conducts business in accordance with all federal, state, and local civil rights laws, including but not limited to Title VII, the Fair Housing Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act, The PA Human Relations Act, etc. and does not discriminate against any individuals protected by these statutes.

COURIER CLASSIFIEDS GET RESULTS

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

CLASSIFIEDS

LEGAL ADVERTISING

LEGAL ADVERTISING

Bids/Proposals

Bids/Proposals

THE BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PITTSBURGH

Sealed bids will be received in the Office Of The Chief Operations Officer, Room 251, Administration Building, 341 South Bellefield Avenue until 11:00 A.M. prevailing time JULY 14, 2015 and will be opened at the same hour for the purchase of the following equipment and supplies: SWIMMING POOL WATER ANALYSIS CALCULATORS General Information regarding bids may be obtained at the Office of the Purchasing Agent, Service Center, 1305 Muriel Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203. The bid documents are available on the School Districtʼs Purchasing web site at: http://www.pghboe.net/pps/site/ default.asp Click on Bid Opportunities under Quick Links.

The Board of Public Education reserves the right to reject any and all bids, or select a single item from any bid.

Leon Webb Purchasing Agent We are an equal rights and opportunity school district

OFFICIAL ADVERTISEMENT THE BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION of the SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PITTSBURGH

Sealed proposals shall be deposited at the Administration Building, Room 251, 341 South Bellefield Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15213, on July 21, 2015, until 2:00 p.m., local prevailing time for: Pittsburgh Greenway Baseball Field Upgrades General Prime Pittsburgh Public Schools Service Center Rehabilitation of the Service Center Loading Dock General, Plumbing, Mechanical and Electrical Primes Project Manual and Drawings will be available for purchase on June 29, 2015 at Modern Reproductions (412488-7700) 127 McKean Street, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15219 between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. The cost of the Project Manual Documents is nonrefundable.Project details and dates are described in each project manual.

INVITATION FOR BIDS

The Washington County Housing Authority will receive separate sealed bids for one General Prime Contract with the Authority for Window Replacement at Highland Avenue Apartments, PA 17-14, 266 North Lincoln Street, Washington, PA. A certified check or bank draft, payable to the Washington County Housing Authority, U.S. Government Bonds, or a satisfactory Bid Bond executed by the bidder and acceptable sureties in the amount equal to ten percent (10%) of the bid shall be submitted with each bid.

Bids will be received no later than 10:00 A.M. prevailing time, Wednesday, August 5th, 2015 at the Washington County Housing Authority, 100 Crumrine Tower, Franklin St., Washington, PA. (TDD #724-2286083 & Telephone: 724-228-6060).

At that time the bids will be publicly opened and read aloud. Bids will be held by the Housing Authority for a period of not to exceed 60 days prior to contract award.

A non-mandatory Pre-Bid Meeting will be held in the Community Room at Lincoln Terrace (266 North Lincoln St., Washington, PA) adjacent to Highland Avenue Apartments on Wednesday, July 22nd at 10:00 A.M. prevailing time.

Proposal forms and a complete set of bid Construction Documents may be obtained by submitting a written request to, or personally visiting the offices of, Building Performance Architecture, 417 Gettysburg Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15206, 412-4411075. A non-refundable fee of ninety dollars ($90.00) includes the cost of printing, handling and postage. If overnight shipping is specifically requested, an additional non-refundable fee of $30.00 is required. Plans and specifications are also on file at: Builders Exchange of PIT 1813 N. Franklin St. Pittsburgh, PA. 15233 Ph: 412-922-4200 Fx: 412-928-9406 or on-line at McGraw-Hill Construction Dodge www.dodge.construction.com The work to be performed under this contract is a Section 3 Project under provisions of the Housing & Urban Development Act of 1968, as amended, and must, to the greatest extent feasible, provide opportunities for training and employment for lower-income residents of the project and contracts for work in connection with the project be awarded to business concerns which are located in, or owned by, Washington County residents. Particular attention is directed to requirements of Executive Order 11246, 11625 and 12138, as well as Section 3 requirements, as set forth in the Specifications.

The Washington County Housing Authority reserves the right to reject any or all bids or waive any informalities in the bidding.

STEPHEN K. HALL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

COURIER CLASSIFIEDS GET RESULTS

June 30, 2015

LEGAL AD REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Request for Proposals

SONNY BOY

JULY 8-14, 2015

C5

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) recently issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to provide Mental Health Advocacy, Training and Telephone Support and Management of the Allegheny County Jail Information and Referral Hotline. Proposals are due

by July 17, 2015.

For more details and submission information, visit http://www.alleghenycounty.us/ dhs/active-solicitations.aspx.

Marc Cherna, Director Allegheny County Department of Human Services

Pick up your Courier at these locations Pittsburgh Courier NEW

On Sale Wednesdays WESTERN AREA: GIANT EAGLE #02 1800 MCKEES ROCKS RD GIANT EAGLE #694 GREEN GARDEN PLAZA PLAZA NEWS 2142 SHEFFIELD ROAD STEVIES DAIRY MART 1230 SHEFFIELD ST NEIGHBORHOOD MARKET 1329 TYLER STREET GIANT EAGLE #37 QUAKER VALLEY SHOPPING CENTER CRAFTON BEVERAGE CRAFTON/INGRAM SHOPPING CENTER GIANT EAGLE CRAFTON/INGRAM SHOPPING CENTER SHEETZ #353 5400 CAMPBELL’S RUN RD SHOP N’ SAVE #1686 2103 NOBLESTOWN RD SAFRANS SUPER MKT 429 WALNUT ST GIANT EAGLE #47 100 SETTLERS RIDGE CTR. DR. GIANT EAGLE #74 PARKWAY CENTER MALL SOUTHERN AREA: KEN’S 216 BELTZHOOVER AVE NELSON’S 92 SYLVANIA AVE GIANT EAGLE #61 2021 WHARTON AVE COGO’S 2400 EAST CARSON ST COGO’S 925 EAST CARSON ST DAILY MART 1125 ARLINGTON AVE SHOP N SAVE CARRICK SOUTH EASTERN AREA: SUPER STOP 403 KENMAWR AVE CARL’S CAFE 337 FIFTH AVE COMET NEWS 540 BRADDOCK AVE PUFFS DISCOUNT TOBACCO 1722 GREENSBUR AVE A-PLUS SUNOCO 7403 WASHINGTON ST COGO’S 1050 BRINTON RD COGO’S 2003 S BRADDOCK AVE EDGEWOOD EXPRESS 253 EDGEWOOD AVE BRAD EXPRESS 1101 S BRADDOCK AVE GIANT EAGLE #619 1705 S. BRADDOCK AVE CVS 7406 CHURCH ST SHUMAN’S MARKET 1105 SWISSVALE AVE DUKE’S SUNOCO 825 DUQUESNE BLVD 7-11 KENNYWOOD BLVD GIANT EAGLE #6379 420 EAST WATERFRONT DR GIANT EAGLE—MCKEESPORT 3812 O’NEILL BLVD THE TORN PAGE 474 DONNER RD J & S FOOD MART

625 W GRANT AVE RITE AID PHARMACY 100 WILLIAM MARKS DR GIANT EAGLE 1356 HOFFMAN BLVD BP GAS STATION LYSLE & WALNUT DS FOODMART 929 UNION ST RITE AID PHARMACY 725 LYSLE BLVD EASTERN AREA: WATERWORKS GIANT EAGLE #72 1005 FREEPORT RD— PENN HILLS: DIVINE HAIR STUDIO 10 DUFF RD GIANT EAGLE 9001 FRANKSTOWN RD GIANT EAGLE #78 230 RODI RD SHELL GAS STATION 11835 FRANKSTOWN RD THE SPOT 11675 FRANKSTOWN RD MASH MINI MART 4341 OLD WM. PENN HWY GIANT EAGLE #60 4004 MONROEVILLE BLVD GIANT EAGLE #76 AMES PLAZA, ROUTE 22 GET IT QUICK 500 GARDEN CITY JT RIB SHACK 1 RAQUET LANE DESTINY’S HAIR SALON 408 RODI RD PUFF’S DISCOUNT TOBACCO 10991 FRANKSTOWN RD MIKE’S SPOT 815 UNIVERSAL RD CREAMY CREATIONS 144B JEFFERSON RD SHOP N SAVE 3335 WILLIAM PENN HWY SHEETZ 3457 WILLIAM PENN HWY GETGO 10525 FRANKSTOWN RD CVS PHARMACY 10600 FRANKSTOWN RD SHELL OIL 7619 BAUM BLVD KIWI SUNOCO FRANKSTOWN AVE WILLIAM PENN SMOKE SHOP II 132 NORTH HIGHLAND AVE MARATHON GAS 6680 FRANKSTOWN AVE PENN AIKEN DAIRY 5401 PENN AVE GIANT EAGLE #17 6320 SHAKESPEARE ST HOMEWOOD MARKET 7201 FRANKSTOWN AVE SALIK HARDWARE 607 NORTH HOMEWOOD AVE NEGLEY A PLUS 123 NORTH NEGLEY AVE BAKER’S 7203 HAMILTON & STERRETT AVES DORSEY’S RECORDS 7614 FRANKSTOWN AVE HOSPITAL CORNER 4201 PENN AVE PEOPLES GROCERY 5136 PENN AVE A&M MARKET 5224 PENN AVE A-PLUS MINI MART 7701 PENN AVE WOOD & PENN

902 WOOD ST AL’S FISH & CHICKEN 1000 PENN AVE SAVE A LOT 725 ROSS AVE CVS PHARMACY 520 PENN AVE GETGO 408 PENN AVE QUICK STOP LIBERTY 3349 LIBERTY AVE K-2 CONVENIENT STORE 4900 PENN AVE SHUR SAVE 4120 MAIN ST SHELL GAS 6701 FRANKSTOWN RD UNIMART 5724 ELLSWORTH AVE GIANT EAGLE #77 254 YOST BLVD PUFF’S DISCOUNT TOBACCO 234 YOST BLVD SPEEDY MART 2131 ARDMORE BLVD SQUIRREL HILL NEWS 5804 FORBES AVE MURRAY AVE. NEWS 2024 MURRAY AVE GIANT EAGLE MURRAY AVE & LORETTA ST DISCOUNT TOBACCO & NEWS 1929 MURRAY AVE OAK HILL MARKET 504 OAK HILL DR SULTAN BEY 4601 CENTRE AVE UNIVERSITY OF PGH BOOKSTORE 4000 5TH AVE CVS #4369 4610 CENTRE AVE CENTRAL AREA: RITE AID PHARMACY 100 WILLIAM MARKS DR FORBES TOBACCO 3801 FORBES AVE GET GO #64 4924 BAUM BLVD SCHWARTZ MARKET 1901 5TH AVE SMOKER FRIENDLY 906 5TH AVE HILL DISTRICT: WONG’S MARKET 2170 CENTRE AVE ANN’S MARKET 2316 WEBSTER AVE A-PLUS MINI MART 2350 CENTRE AVE UJAMMA BOUTIQUE 1901 CENTRE AVE K LEROY IRVIS TOWERS 715 MERCER ST SHOP & SAVE SUPERMARKET 1850 CENTRE AVE DOWNTOWN: KWIK-E-MART 204-10TH ST CHICKALOS SNACK BAR 300 LIBERTY AVE—STATE OFFICE BLDG 1ST FL LOBBY 7-11 #167 643 LIBERTY AVE 7-11 #165 SIXTH & PENN AVE 7-11 #170 429 WOOD ST LIBERTY NEWS 604 LIBERTY AVE FABER COE & GREGG HILTON HOTEL—COMMONWEALTH AVE ESTER’S SNAX FEDERAL BUILDING, 2ND FL SMITHFIELD NEWS 115 SMITHFIELD ST

CITY NEWS & ARCADE 422 WOOD ST FABER COE & GREGG 500 GRANT ST FABER COE & GREGG FIFTH AVE. PLACE FABER COE & GREGG 600 GRANT ST NIELSEN’S STORES #09 301 GRANT ST— ONE OXFORD CENTER NIELSEN’S STORES #13 437 SEVENTH AVE— KOPPERS BUILDING 9TH & PENN NEWS-NUMBERS 136 NINTH AVE EXTRA EXTRA NEWS 413 SEVENTH AVE NEAL NEWS 400 CHERRY WAY CVS PHARMACY #4120 610-612 WOOD ST NORTHERN AREA: W. N. GROCERY 1018 NORTH AVE. GIANT EAGLE #25 WEST VIEW PLAZA GIANT EAGLE #45—PINECREEK 9805 MCKNIGHT RD— PINECREEK CENTER GIANT EAGLE #52 132 BEN AVON HEIGHTS RD GIANT EAGLE #67 8050 MCKNIGHT RD NORTH SIDE BEER & BEVERAGE 1304 FEDERAL ST ALLEGHENY GIFT SHOP— AGH HOSPITAL 320 EAST NORTH AVE GIANT EAGLE #652 318 CEDAR AVE 7-11 #158 1001 WESTERN AVE RICHEY’S BARBER SHOP 1207 N. FRANKLIN ST QUIK-IT 820 PENNSYLVANIA AVE RITE AID #3459 802 PENNSYLVANIA AVE MARSHALL SHELL 1500 SPRING GARDEN AVE SWINKO’S MARKET 2535 PERYSVILLE AVE MERCY STREET EXPRESS 6 MERCY ST

Look for our red box WHOLE FOODS MARKET 5880 CENTRE AVE AMTRACK STATION LIBERTY AVE & GRANT ST CITY COUNTY BUILDING 420 GRANT ST CCAC—HOMEWOOD BRANCH HOMEWOOD & BRUSHTON AVE YMCA 11817 FRANKSTOWN RD EAST LIBERTY EBA EAST BUSWAY KINGSLEY ASSOCIATION 6435 FRANKSTOWN AVE. WILKINSBURG EBA EAST BUSWAY

C6

JULY 8-14, 2015

NEW PITTSBURGH COURIER

PEOPLE

NOTHING BUT LOVE—Parents reunited with BOLD graduates on stage at the conclusion of the recognition ceremony. Pictured above, two students embracing their family members. (Photos by J.L. Martello)

Third Annual BOLD award, recognition dinner

BOLD GRADUATES ON STAGE A special event was held at the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild to honor the student participants, mentors and community partners who have contributed to the success of the Building Our Leaders Daily (BOLD) program, which is part of Point Park University’s Urban Accounting Initiative (UAI).

The event marks the end of BOLD’s third year of creating awareness of careers in finance and accounting among urban middle school students throughout the region.

Dr. Herman L. Reid III, a gynecologist and da Vinci surgeon, was the keynote speaker. Herman Reid III, a Pittsburgh native and graduate of Carrick High School, runs his practice in Fort Branch, Ind., where he lives with his wife, Maria.

Longtime KDKA-TV reporter Harold Hayes was master of ceremonies for the event, which allowed attendees to see and feel the emotional impact of the mentoring experience.

The BOLD program boasts a number of prominent community leaders as mentors. Those who were honored included: Michael

Jasper, vice president, PNC Financial Services Group Inc.; Linwood J. Mitchell, vice president and marketing manager, PNC Financial Services Group Inc.; Anthony Henry, vice president and relationship manager, BNY Mellon; Eric Dickerson, vice president of treasury management, PNC Bank; David J. Hopkins, principal, Self-Capital Solutions for Community Reinvestment; Frederick A. Massey Jr., CEO, Familylinks Inc.; Terry O. Collier, CPA, Terry Collier & Associates P.C.; and Edward Scott, George Rowland White Endowed Professor in Accounting and Finance, Point Park University.

The BOLD program is part of Point Park’s Urban Accounting Initiative and was launched in August 2011 from a $1 million gift to the University’s School of Business from the late George and Kathleen White. In addition to the UAI, the White gift established Scott’s position as the George Rowland White Endowed Professor in Accounting and Finance.

JAHI JACKSON First student through BOLD

DORIAN BOYCE Valedictorian

T.O.L.A.T.R. Highland Park Preparatory Academy Now Accepting Fall Enrollment 2015-2016 School Year Nursery School Elementary and Secondary High Academic Standards Individualized Instruction Small Class Size Transportation Certified Teachers Financial Aid and Scholarships Available Early College experience for qualified students 412-361-7733

Herman L. Reid, Ed.D., director of Academic and Economic Development at Point Park, director of the BOLD program and father of the keynote speaker, said the mentoring and guidance from area professionals in accounting and finance, many with an urban background, is a unique motivational and inspirational feature of the BOLD program.

“They help students discover the many career pathways in the fields of accounting and finance,” Herman Reid said. “Using hands-on activities, the mentors expose participants to the values, skills and attitudes necessary for a successful career.”

HERMAN L. REID JR. BOLD Director

DR. HERMAN L. REID III Keynote Speaker

HAROLD HAYES Master of Ceremonies