NJG | Vol. 123, No. 10 - March 9 - 15, 2023

NEWEWJOURNAL OURNAL & GUIDE UIDE NEW EW JOURNAL OURNAL & GUIDE UIDE

WELCOME MEAC FANS! AN INTERVIEW WITH MEAC’S COMMISSIONER SONJA O. STILLS

By Leonard E. Colvin Chief Reporter New Journal and Guide

A decade after it arrived in Norfolk, this year’s MidEastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Basketball Tourney got underway on March 8 in the Norfolk Scope Arena, climaxing with the men’s and women’s championship games broadcast on March 11.

The tournament winner receives an automatic invitation to represent the MEAC in the 2023 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament.

Headquartered in Norfolk, Va., the MEAC is made up of eight Historically Black institutions across the MidEastern Atlantic coastline: Coppin State University, Delaware State University,

Howard University,

University of Maryland

Eastern Shore, Morgan State University, Norfolk State University, North Carolina Central University, and South Carolina State University.

Each year, the MEAC Basketball tournament gives the organization a chance to showcase the talent of its HBCUs’ basketball male and

female basketball teams.

This is the 52nd annual tourney and the 22nd that Sonja O. Stills has experienced.

But it is the second one Stills has overseen as the Conference Commissioner, having ascended to that position early last year, after a long time as the organization’s CFO. She is the Conference’s first woman commissioner.

Commissioner Stills proclaims the state of the MEAC union is strong, despite the unique challenges facing all college sports leagues.

“It is a time to show off

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

Black Female Scientist Helped To Develop COVID-19 Vaccine

By Rosaland Tyler Associate Editor New Journal and Guide

the commitment of the Chancellors and Presidents of those eight institutions to our conference,” said Stills.

“It is a big commitment that has allowed it to show its strength and our long strategy to provide resources for our student-athletes not only for their experiences in sports but academically. We are also providing resources to insure their personal and emotional well-being.” Stills said that one of the challenges the MEAC leadership faces is questions about the size of the conference and its sustainability. see MEAC, page 3A

Hampton University Proton Center Continues Cutting Edge Advancement

HAMPTON

Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute (HUPTI) has entered into a unique partnership with Leo Cancer Care to help advance research into Proton Arc Therapy (PAT).

The partnership will see HUPTI –based in Hampton, Virginia – engage Leo Cancer Care to repurpose an existing fixed-beam proton therapy treatment room by installing its advanced upright patient positioning system and CT scanner.

Proton beam therapy (PBT) is acknowledged as a viable and effective method of non-invasively treating many forms of cancer by more precisely targeting tumors and sparing healthy tissue from unnecessary radiation.

Current PBT delivers radiation from a selected number of angles around

the patient, which limits the options to conform the treatment to the tumor best.

Because PAT delivers dosing from a multiplicity of angles, it permits better conformity, thus the most biologically effective dose to the tumor, which improves the prognosis of the treatment.

Current gantry-based delivery treatment methods pose incredible challenges for delivering PAT with sufficient precision. Upright imaging and positioning technologies remove the need for a gantry because it uses patient rotation for treatment delivery.

This could prove more conducive to the PAT approach. HUPTI will analyze and assess the Leo system’s effectiveness.

Dr. Alejandro Carabe, the chief medical physicist at HUPTI, said, “The development of an upright proton arc therapy treatment technique represents a paradigm shift in the field that will combine technological and therapeutical advances, which will make our Center a unique Institution capable of delivering the most advanced proton delivery mode in the world.”

see HUPTI, page 4A

NEW STUDIES INDICATE NORCOM’S BEGINNINGS GO BACK 145 YEARS!

By Leonard E. Colvin Chief Reporter New Journal and Guide

From September 29 to October 1 of this year thousands of graduates of the historic I.C. Norcom High School will be participating in events observing the school’s anniversary.

But instead of celebrating a 110-year-old legacy of the school which served Portsmouth’s Black community during Jim Crow segregation, it will be the 145th.

Many pieces of the historic puzzle have been pieced together to get a clear picture of the school’s history.

Sleuthing for historic connections by members of the Norcom Alumni Association in collaboration with the Portsmouth African-American Historical Association, and the

Virginia Public Schools & The Library of Virginia, reveals that I.C. Norcom is much older than has been thought and perhaps is the second oldest in the United States behind

Dunbar High in Washington, D.C.

On February 23, with members of the Norcom Alumni Association on hand, the Portsmouth School Board

Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett’s success story began long before she helped develop the COVID-19 vaccine for Moderna.

Corbett is a University of North Carolina graduate and an NIH postdoctoral fellowship recipient who now works at Harvard. She not only symbolizes this year’s Women’s History Month theme: “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories,” she represents a small but growing community of Black female scientists, who do not plan to remain in the shadows like the three Black female scientists who starred in the 2016 film, “Hidden Figures.”

Specifically, Corbett, 37, was the lead scientist for coronavirus vaccine research at the National Institutes of Health when her team developed and evaluated the COVID-19 vaccine for Moderna, the pharmaceutical company that developed one of the two mRNA vaccines that have shown to be more than 90 percent effective.

“I know that I’ve invented a vaccine, but I definitely come from a place where that probably was not supposed to happen,” Corbett told USA Today when she was selected Woman of the Year in 2022.

“In so many aspects, the

odds were stacked against me. And so it was a proud moment, especially because I am a first-generation, fouryear college graduate. I’ll hold on to that one for a long time.”

Corbett earned her doctoral degree in microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina. She is a firstgeneration, four-year college graduate. As a student, she was selected to participate in Project SEED, a program for gifted minority students. see Scientist, page 8A

FIRST NORFOLK BLACK LAW FIRM FOUNDED BY 2 WOMEN IN 1949

By Leonard E. Colvin Chief Reporter New Journal and Guide

put it in writing.

It approved and issued a proclamation acknowledging the beginning of the institution known as Israel Charles Norcom High School, as being established in 1878 from its origins: the Chestnut Street Colored School.

I.C. Norcom High School has long been considered a major pipeline to the Portsmouth community through a rich legacy of leaders and educators. After extensive research of proven historical facts and data going back to 1878 with the Virginia Public Schools & The Library of Virginia, it has been confirmed that the genesis of I.C. Norcom High is the 1878 Chestnut Street School that started as the “Chestnut Street School for the Colored” which educated elementary students and this same school graduated students from high school. see Norcom, page 7A

In 2008, the late Attorney W.T. Mason participated in an Oral History course conducted by Historian Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander of Norfolk State University.

At that time Mason revealed some information about a significant chapter on the history of Black women in Hampton Roads.

Attorney Mason, whose life and legacy were featured in the February 9-15, 2023 edition of the GUIDE, recalled in the 2008 interview his career, historic events, and people leading up to that point in his life.

In the early 1950s, Mason, after graduating from Howard University Law School, and passing the bar examination, felt obligated to return home to Norfolk to practice law to provide a service much needed for his people.

White law firms were not accepting Black lawyers regardless of their skill or reputation, he said. Many Black male lawyers worked alone.

Bertha Douglass was actually the first woman in Norfolk to be certified as a female lawyer.

He said there was only one Black-owned law firm – Diggs and Douglass – and it was run by two women, Bertha Douglass and T. (Thelma) I. Diggs, formed in 1949. (Publisher’s Note: The GUIDE stories spelled “Douglass” with one “s”: “Douglas.”)

Both were pioneers. Douglass was actually the first woman in Norfolk to be certified as a female lawyer after passing the bar examination in 1926.

The two were not only very busy and highly respected lawyers, but the duo also worked many cases where they outwitted their white adversaries and impressed white judges who dominated the judicial system until Blacks got appointments in the 1970s.

see Lawyers, page 6A

Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett

Specifically, Dr. Corbett, 37, is a first-generation, four-year college graduate.

New partnership will make HU Proton Therapy Center capable of “the most advanced proton delivery mode in the world.”

(L-R) Dr. Elie Bracy III, Portsmouth Superintendent; Leah D. Stith, Pres. Norcom Alumni Assn.; Roderick S. Hawthorne II, P.R. Director, Norcom Alumni Assn.; Dr. Laguna Foster, Norcom Principal.

Photo: CourtesyofAlumni Association

Commissioner Stills proclaims the state of the MEAC union is strong, despite the unique challenges facing all college sports leagues.

Commissioner Sonja O. Stills

TULSA RACE MASSACRE SURVIVORS RECEIVE GHANAIAN CITIZENSHIP AT D.C. CEREMONY

By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia

Viola Fletcher, the 108-yearold survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, and her 101-yearold brother, Van Ellis, acquired Ghanaian citizenship during a ceremony at Ghana’s embassy in Washington on Tuesday, Feb. 28.

In 2021, Fletcher, called “Mother Fletcher,” and Ellis, often called “Uncle Red,” traveled to Ghana for the first time.

The visit was part of Ghana’s Remembrance Day.

For Fletcher and Ellis, it also counted as a time of reflection on the Tulsa massacre, which left about 300 dead, hundreds more injured, and 10,000 African-Americans homeless.

The pair returned to Ghana this February 2023.

The citizenship ceremony in D.C. was organized by the Ghana Tourism Authority, members of the government, and H.E. Dr. Erieka Bennett, the founder, and head of mission at the Diaspora African

Forum.

“The family is honored to be receiving Ghanian citizenship for our priceless Black icons,” Ike Howard, Mother Fletcher’s grandson, told NNPA Newswire from Africa.

“Mother Fletcher wanted to visit the Motherland before she caught her wings,” Howard stated. “Now she has the option to live in the Motherland.”

In 2021, the Ghana Tourism Authority, Diaspora Africa Forum, and Osu Traditional Council honored the Fletcher and Ellis in Accra with a naming ceremony.

Fletcher received the name Naa Lameley.

– Mark Okraku Mantey, Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, and Tourism

Ellis was given the name Bio Lantey. Both received certificates with their new African names.

“The naming ceremony is for our brothers and sisters to reconnect with them and welcome them back home, and also to review their identities as Africans and Ghanaians, to be precise,” Deputy Minister of Arts, Culture, and Tourism Mark Okraku Mantey said.

“Ghana is a hospitable country, and I am sure you have seen places, worn Ghana, eaten Ghana, and heard Ghanaian music. Share the word that Ghanaians love people, especially Black people,” he declared.

Ghana’s President Confirmed Speaker

At Black World Conference, April 19-23

BALTIMORE, MD

Dr. Ron Daniels, President of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW), announced that His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa AkufoAddo of Ghana has confirmed his attendance at the upcoming State of the Black World Conference in Baltimore, MD, which convenes from April 19-23. President Addo is slated to deliver a keynote address on the theme of the conference, ‘Global Africans Rising: Empowerment, Reparations and Healing,’”

In addition, President Akufo-Addo will receive IBW’s Pan-African Legacy Award. Also expected to participate in this historic gathering are Prime Minister of Barbados, Her Excellency Mia Mottley; Prime Minister of Grenada,

His Excellency Dickon Mitchell; Vice President of Colombia, Her Excellency Francia Marquez; Hon. P. J. Patterson, the former leader of Jamaica and the longest-serving Prime Minister in the Caribbean. Dr. Julius Garvey, son of the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey and a global Pan-African icon in his own right, is the Honorary Chairman of the Conference.

The Conference will begin on April 19th with a Pan African Institute, chaired by the renowned actor/ activist Danny Glover, U.N. Ambassador for the Decade for People of African Descent, where Hon. P. J. Patterson will deliver framing remarks on The State of Democracy and Development in the Caribbean and Africa.

For registration, full agenda and more detailed information: IBW21.org. or call 1-888.774.2921.

From The Guide’s Archives

– Mary McLeod Bethune

March 11, 1967

of the Guide Thurgood Marshall Mentioned For Supreme Court Seat WASHINGTON, D.C. U.S. Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall, a former U.S. District Court judge and a recognized authority on constitutional law, has been mentioned along with four others for a possible seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Former chief counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Marshall guided the suit which resulted in the historic 1954 decision outlawing racial segregation in public schools.

Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark has announced intentions to retire soon, providing an opening for President Lyndon B. Johnson to fill that vacancy. If appointed Marshall would become the first Negro to sit on the Supreme Court.

Brenda H. Andrews

CHIEF REPORTER:

Leonard E. Colvin

ASSISTANT TO THE PUBLISHER:

Desmond Perkins ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Rosaland Tyler

PRODUCTION: Tony Holobyte

Peninsula Tragedy At Midnight

NEWPORT NEWS

Police said Monday six children had burned to death in a house fire in the Newsome Park housing development. The fire which occurred shortly before midnight claimed the lives of five boys and a girl aged three to 10; the children of Selmon E. Watford. Police identified the victims as Carrie Delores, 10; Albert Ray, 9; Wallace Lee, 6; Horace Edward, 5; Selmon Jr., 4; and William Coefield, 3. Graveside rites for the children were scheduled for Friday in North Carolina,

according to a local funeral home where the bodies were taken.

Fire Chief C.L. Kegley called it the “worse fire of its kind in the memory of the city.”

Powell Attorneys

“Optimistic” Over His Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Adam Clayton Powell’s lawyers were “very optimistic” about the outcome of a suit in federal court here to force the House to take the Harlem Democrat back as a member.

Powell was at his vacation hideaway on Bimini, the Bahamas, Monday, but one of his attorneys, Frank Reeves, a Howard University law professor, said he would participate actively in his case.

“He is not just going to sit in Bimini,” he added.

Powell was seeking to have the court set aside as unconstitutional last week’s House action in denying him his seat in the 90th Congress for alleged payroll padding and misuse of public funds.

He and his lawyers argued that he meets the three constitutional requirements for House Membership –25-years-old, a U.S. citizen for seven years and an inhabitant of the state in which elected, and the House has no right to exclude him on any other grounds.

Powell also said he will run for re-election when New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller calls for a special election to fill his seat.

Carmichael To Speak

Sunday In Lynchburg

LYNCHBURG

Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Student

Non-violent Coordinating Committee, (SNCC) will be the main speaker March 12 at Court Street Baptist Church at 7:30 p.m. Carmichael, who is nationally known and definer of “Black Power,” will speak for a program for the benefit of the Thomas C. Wansley Defense Fund. The fund was organized for the defense of Thomas C. Wansley, a Negro, accused of the rape of two local white women. He has been in jail without bond since December of 1962. George F. Jackson is chairman of the fund.

EDITORIAL: Norfolk State College’s Needs

NORFOLK Norfolk State College’s request for $13 million in state funds during the 1966-70 biennium became known about the same time it was disclosed that they federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has approved the merger of North Brambleton, and the statesupported HBCU college’s redevelopment project into a single all-encompassing program, now designated the Educational Center Redevelopment. The consolidation of the two contiguous redevelopment areas have many advantages, some of which are self-evident. City, redevelopment college and community leaders joined in requesting the merger. The promptness with which HUD responded attests to the validity of the arguments in favor of the action.

For the city, it means that neither of these essential development programs will be postponed or

rejected while the other proceeds. New land acquisitions and clearing for both the new (Booker T. Washington) high school and the expanded college campus will be undertaken as a combined operation.

The college has asked for $10.4 million from the state’s general fund for capital improvements during the two-year fiscal period beginning July 1, 1969. It also asked that $2.6 million in bonds be sold to finance two dormitories.

By all the standards gauged in prior years, Norfolk State’s request is ambitious. But so are the needs for the services supplied by the college and are the opportunities for meeting them to which the college’s administration is addressing itself. The Governor’s Regional Conference on Education reported that college enrollment in Virginia will double by 1980.

Current enrollment at Norfolk State is 3,000 day students with another 2,700 taking courses in the evening. Officials estimate that more that 12,000 students will be enrolled by 1972.

At present the school has no dormitories. Many students commute daily from homes as far as 25 miles away. The two new dormitories will supplement two others for which money already has been appropriated.

They will accommodate 1,200 students, barely 10 percent of the expected enrollment six years hence.

Norfolk State’s growth has been phenomenal. It is serving a broad segment of Virginia and deserves more support than in prior years.

First Negro Fireman Begins Work

NORFOLK

The first Negro fireman to be employed by the Norfolk Fire Division was sworn in on Wednesday and went on duty Thursday. He is Lyman Snead Jr., 25, of the 400 Block of Kempsville Road.

Mr. Snead took the examination for the Fire Division on January 21 and was scheduled to fill the March vacancy. According to Fire Chief R.W. Boggs, Snead has been assigned to duty at Fire Station No. 7 on 44th Street.

Although other Negroes have taken the Fire Division test, Snead is the first to pass it.

Terror Attacks On Hopewell Pastor’s Home

HOPEWELL

The Rev. Curtis W. Harris of Hopewell, civil rights leader, was assured protection from violence by Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr. and the U.S. Justice Department.

Both the Virginia Governor and the Justice Department were responding to telegrams from the minister after two attacks on his home. Two of the attacks came during the weekend. On Saturday night what appeared to be a bottle or jar of paint crashed through the living room of the Harris’s home

The family became disturbed on the previous night when two jars, one painted with a swastika were thrown at a snack bar the minister operates next to his home. Neither of the homemade firebombs exploded.

“If something is not done to protect my family, and my home,” Harris said in a telegram, “we may end up with a tragedy in Hopewell.”

The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood.”

Ghana is a hospitable country, and I am sure you have seen places, worn Ghana, eaten Ghana, and heard Ghanaian music. Share the word that Ghanaians love people, especially Black people.”

Joint Center Praises Sen. Warner’s Choice For Legislative Director

WASHINGTON

In response to U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) recent hiring Lot Kwarteng as legislative director in his Capitol Hill office, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies issued the following statement:

“We commend U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner for hiring Lot Kwarteng as legislative director in his Capitol Hill office. Sen. Warner has shown a commitment to diverse top staff in hiring Mr. Kwarteng. Having Mr. Kwarteng in this top role will better position Sen. Warner to center the needs of people of color in policy and legislation,” said Dr. LaShonda Brenson, senior researcher at the Joint Center.

Recently The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington D.C. think tank for Black-elected officials, issued a public complaint about the low numbers of people of color hired for top staff positions in Congress. The Center’s research indicated that only 5.1 percent of Blacks and 17.9 percent of people of color had been hired for the nation’s top jobs in the 118th Congress, which began meeting January 3, 2023.

Top staff positions include chiefs of staff, legislative directors, and communication directors.

“These low numbers are concerning because people of color account for 40 percent of the U.S. population, and Blacks account for 12.4 percent of the population,” the Joint wrote in “Update of Racial Diversity of the Top Staff Hires in 118th Congress.”

Continued from page 1A

“There is this disinformation that the conference should fold because it only has eight schools,” Stills said during a recent pre-conference interview with the GUIDE. “But they do not understand that we are a conference of eight elite schools.”

She asserted, “Just like the Ivy League, we have eight elite schools. Are they asking the Ivy League to fold? No.”

Stills said that the MEAC, which used to have 12 schools, has had to realign recently because schools such as Hampton have left for other conferences.

She said the conference is looking at adding members.

But she said if any school applies, “and there will be,” they must be able to sustain themselves “financially and meet other academic and infrastructural standards.”

She said the fact that the MEAC only has eight schools “makes us stronger, provides more revenue for its current members to share, makes us nimble, and travel and other operational costs are lower.”

Before she became Commissioner, Stills was a respected well-known professional executive in the MEAC operation for the past 20-plus years. She is the first female Commissioner in the conference’s history, as well as the first female Commissioner of a Division I HBCU conference.

She officially began her tenure as the Commissioner in October 2022.

In January 2021, she was promoted to Chief of Staff/ Chief Operating Officer of the MEAC. In that role, she ensured the Commissioner at that time, Dr. Dennis E. Thompson, was carrying out the strategic objectives of the Council of Chief Executive Officers and the Delegate Assembly. Stills was the lead on all

Lot Kwarteng

The Joint Center’s midterm hiring campaign microsite, which went live on November 2022, features several interactive tools monitoring staff of all new and returning members. More than 93.6 percent of the top positions – 1,499 of 1,602 – had already been filled as of February 17, 2023.

According to the Center, of the 1,011 top staff positions filled by returning House members, this number also lags behind the national population.

Returning Senate members’ counties also lag behind the diversity of the national population.

The 205 newly elected House members, continue to be behind the national population of 40.0 percent for people of color and Blacks.

Of the newly elected Senators, only diverse top staffers accounted for 8.3 percent, which is lower than the U.S. population.

According to Joint Center research, with this hiring, Kwarteng becomes one of five Black legislative directors in the U.S. Senate.

“Mr. Kwarteng, who has worked his way from an internship in Sen. Sherrod

The Center’s research indicated that only 5.1 percent of Blacks and 17.9 percent of people of color had been hired for the nation’s top jobs in the 118th Congress, which began meeting Jan. 3.

Brown’s (D-OH) office more than a decade ago to most recently serving as the senior policy advisor for U.S. Sen. Deborah Stabenow (D-MI), will bring a valuable skill set to the role, and more importantly, will offer a critical inclusive lens to Sen. Warner’s legislative agenda.”

In making the announcement, Sen. Warner said, “I am thrilled to announce that Lot Kwarteng will serve as my next Legislative Director. Lot comes with extensive policy experience, a focus on collaboration, and an outcome-based attention to detail.

“I trust that his knowledge and background will serve him in successfully guiding the policy team as we work to see through the implementation of the landmark reforms enacted last Congress, and continue to seek out opportunities for bipartisan progress in the 118th Congress.”

hiring, strategic and longrange planning, re-branding, and marketing.

The conference even adopted the NCAA “Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL)” that allows student-athletes to earn revenue for the three.

The conference budget, the renewal of the MEAC Basketball Tournament with the City of Norfolk, and all special events and activities were part of her portfolio.

“Being Commissioner has been a very humbling experience,” Stills said. “It is very positive to provide opportunities for others to shine and to have a seat at the

table ... and to be in a place to make things happen for the conference.”

Stills has an undergraduate degree in Human Services Counseling from ODU and a master’s in counseling from Hampton University, bringing an empathic and inclusive leadership style to her role as MEAC leader, she said.

“I am a bit more touchyfeely. I observe before I speak,” she said. “I also let others speak. I think it’s important to be empathetic and understanding as a leader and to balance work and life. see MEAC, page 5A

NSU President Dr. Javaune Adams-Gaston and Commissioner Stills at NSU-HU football game.

Photos: RandySingleton

(L-R) Sonja Stills, MEAC Commissioner, Destiny Howell, 2022 WBB Tournament Outstanding Performer Ingrid Wicker McCree, Former NCCU Athletic Director

HEARING THE RIGHT THINGS ACROSS THE COUNTRY

By Ben Jealous (TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM)

PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF SOCIOLOGY VIRGINIA TECH

WHAT THE TEA PARTY BROUGHT US

By Wornie Reed, Ph.D.

There are several ways to look at the developments that got us to the present situation with RightWing politics. One way is through the actions of the Tea Party. Such a look suggests that those of us who saw some of the activities up close should have provided our friends in other places with better warnings.

The Tea Party showed itself in 2010, provoked by the election of Barack Obama as president. Many Americans thought we were advancing toward a more enlightened racial time. How wrong that was. With this Black man as president, racism came out of the woodwork with a vengeance.

Barack Obama was inaugurated in January of 2009, and organizers of the so-called “taxpayers’ march” began planning a few weeks later for a march in Washington that September. Thousands attended this Tea Party march protesting “big government,” “the socalled dismantling of free market capitalism,” and Obama’s health care reform and federal spending proposals.

On their way to leading the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the fall of 2010, the Tea Party activists disrupted town hall meetings across the country protesting Obama’s health insurance plan. However, these demonstrations were not spontaneous as they were purported to be. Instead, they were carefully orchestrated by organizations of the Koch brothers, who were provoking disorder to achieve their economic objectives by manipulating politics, which has continued since then.

We in Southwest Virginia witnessed the expression of some other wild ideas the Tea

HUPTI

Continued from page 1A

Stephen Towe, Leo Cancer Care’s chief executive officer, said the installation will take place in phases – beginning with the patient positioning system and the diagnostic quality upright CT scanner – on an experimental nonclinical basis and not requiring FDA clearance or integration with the existing proton therapy system. The Leo Cancer Care technology is not commercially available and will not treat patients until regulatory approval is achieved.

“This phased implementation will allow the centre to accelerate world-class research into the benefits of Proton Arc Therapy and proton imaging. Research will begin very soon on ‘phantom’ patients yielding initial results much faster than full clinical implementation,” said Towe.

Leo’s patient positioner precisely and reproducibly positions the patient in a seated position for

Party movement pushed. One was the antigovernment conspiracy theory, perhaps best classified under the New World Order (NWO) conspiracy. The NWO conspiracy theory says that many elites are working behind the scenes to create events to enslave the global population. Adherents argue that most world leaders are part of this plot, and they manufacture events like the coronavirus pandemic and mass shootings to create social unrest.

In New River Valley in Southwest Virginia, the Livability Initiative received a $1 million federal grant to develop plans for housing, energy use, cultural heritage, and economic and job development across a four-county area. However, hundreds of protesters showed up at community meetings held by local governments to discuss the Initiative. The protesters claimed it was part of the United Nations Agenda 21 and the New World Order conspiracy.

The U.N. Agenda 21 has admirable goals: end all poverty and hunger, ensure healthy lives, ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, achieve gender equality, and empower all women and girls. Yet the Tea Party people argued that the proposed planning was part of the NWO conspiracy which would take their property. So they held things up for a while by disrupting government meetings.

The Tea Party/NWO

conspiracy adherents flexed their muscle again in 2013, blocking the likely establishment of the Crooked Road Music Heritage Trail as a National Heritage Area, managed by the National Park Service, and bringing billions of dollars to the region.

The Crooked Road Trail is a statedesignated highway trail stretching 330 miles and looping through 19 counties in Southwest Virginia, marking the birthplace of country music. Country music’s “big bang” is considered to have started with the Carter family going into the studio in Bristol, Tennessee (the bottom of the loop) in 1927 and recording six songs.

The original Carter family, the first of many stars from the Southwest Virginia region, consisted of A.P. Carter, his wife Sara, and Maybelle Carter. With the help of an African-American guitarist, Lesley Riddle, they popularized country music. Riddle traveled with A.P. Carter to collect songs from folk in the region. He taught Maybelle Carter a guitar technique she developed into the so-called “Carter Scratch,” which revolutionized guitar playing.

Nevertheless, The Tea Party/NWO people, playing to the property owner obsession in the region, effectively blocked the NHA project by having five counties vote against it. Thus, Southwest Virginia residents had early warnings of some of the lunacy that has now arrived.

The Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute (HUPTI) in Hampton, Virginia, was established in 2010 and is the largest standalone proton treatment center in the United States, treating several types of cancer.

irradiation of target tumors. The CT scanner, specially developed to image the patient in the upright position, comprises a CT scanner ring mounted on a gantry structure with support arms that tilt about a horizontal axis while allowing the CT ring to be translated along the arms using precision slide rails.

Niek Schreuder, Leo Cancer Care’s Chief Scientific Officer, said the HUPTI facility would reap numerous benefits from upgrading the fixed beam room with upright imaging and positioning. He said the Leo system is “perfectly suited” to advancing research and the clinical development of PAT at HUPTI.

“More importantly,” he added, “HUPTI will be able to deliver the best

As a lifelong organizer, I know that you grow movements by listening first, so that’s how I’ve spent the last month. As I started a new job as executive director of the Sierra Club. I’ve traveled more than 15,000 miles, crisscrossing the country from the Deep South to New England to the Pacific Northwest to listen.

Our organization is the oldest and most influential grassroots environmental group in the country with chapters in every state and more than 1 million members and supporters. We believe in building coalitions, for example to shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants that pollute the air and neighborhoods where 11 million Americans, most of them Black and Brown and poor, live and raise families. What I’ve seen in the last month is that during a time of great peril for our country, Americans still believe that we have things in common worth fighting for. Poor or rich, Black or White, I met with activists who want nothing more than to come together and work side by side even as the voices promoting division seem to be the loudest.

In New York City, I met two women who with three others on their team have written more than 300 letters to the editor in the last year on issues from buildings’ electrification to cleaner public transportation. In Mobile, I met with descendants of 32 West Africans thought to be the last shipment of enslaved people brought to the United States who with other leaders are fighting to save the Africatown community founded by their ancestors. They are waging a lopsided

By Svante Myrick (TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM)

Black history is the undeniable history of this country, its people, actions, triumphs, and atrocities. Yet, Black history is deemed “controversial” by people like Governor Ron DeSantis, institutions like the College Board that attempt to water down curricula, and those that press for outright bans on teaching about the contributions and experiences of African-Americans in public schools. A battle is raging right now against words like “intersectional” and “systemic marginalization.” Meanwhile, the freedom to learn, the future of education, and the brilliance of our children are caught in the crosshairs.

Ben Jealous

battle against special interests who are displacing residents to build plants that dirty the air and water. Descendants of those who enslaved Africans own many companies involved.

These activists understand that, as in the civil rights movement, change always comes from the bottom up, that it is not the politicians who launch change. On the toughest challenges, people lead and politicians follow. The people I met want to grow movements, whether by fundraising, legislative advocacy or lawsuits.

We need this kind of enthusiasm and commitment right now across many issues, and I believe it is there. The struggles over everything from women’s health to voting rights to environmental protection are all intertwined and will play out state by state. We need activists and advocates in every single one.

An example is the oncein-a-generation investment this nation will make over the next decade to improve infrastructure and create jobs in ways that have environmental repair and renewal at their core. We will spend more than $700 billion, more than double what we spent to make good on President Kennedy’s pledge to send a man to the

moon. While President Biden and Congress have committed that money, the decisions on exactly how it will be spent will happen in cities, counties and states. We need to ensure the money is spent effectively and not hijacked by special interests. We need to be watchful to win.

The hard truth is that all the self-interested need to do to win is to drive a wedge between us. That’s a much easier task to accomplish than the unity I’ve seen. It just takes a little disinformation mixed with some concocted grievance.

The folks I met show that we’re smarter and stronger than that. We can’t let special interests make us appear more divided than we really are, putting our republic and our planet at even greater risk.

Based on what I’ve heard, I’m convinced that many of us are ready to stay vigilant and to oppose those who want nothing more than to profit from dividing us, whether it’s politically or financially.

Ben Jealous is executive director of the Sierra Club. He is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free,” published in January.

possible proton therapy to future patients.”

MaryBeth Sullivan, HUPTI’s executive director, said, “We are so excited to be collaborating with Leo Cancer Care. Seated treatments will make patients’ treatment much easier, especially for those unable to lie flat for treatments. HUPTI will be the first on the East Coast to have this ability to deliver proton therapy.”

The Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute (HUPTI) in Hampton, Virginia, was established in 2010 and is the largest standalone proton treatment center in the United States, treating several types of cancer, including breast, lung, prostate, head and neck, ocular, brain and spine, gastrointestinal and pediatric tumors.

The context of historical events, and things many of us have directly experienced, are being called concepts too complex or challenging for high school students to appreciate. First, this is an obvious smokescreen. But to these critics, the response should be clear: How can the lived and daily experiences of millions of people be too controversial to teach in school? The answer: They can’t, and it’s our moral duty to ensure our children understand that.

Attempts to Ban History Are Inherently Malicious

When I say Black history is American history, I know it’s true, you know it’s true, and the people who think Black history shouldn’t be taught in schools know it’s true. That’s why they want it banned. Hiding our history is an attempt to rob us of our historic voice, erase our contributions, and make our justified outrage look unreasonable. The attacks are also designed to further divide us as a nation. When Black history is taught prominently in schools, students learn to see

Blackness and Americanness as one and the same. That’s precisely what opponents don’t want.

If You’re Banning History, You’re on the Wrong Side of It

Throughout all of world history, the people attempting to limit, rewrite, or ban history have had one thing in common: they were the bad guys. We’ve seen the tactic used to oppress any number of groups around the globe, the most obvious of which was Nazi Germany banning and burning books on everything from Judaism to human sexuality. With such abundant historical evidence that banning the teaching of history is morally abhorrent, it’s even more shocking that we’re still having to defend against it today.

Attacks on Education Are Attacks on the Past, Present, and Future

History deserves to be taught authentically, even when that history is unpleasant. We owe it to the people who got us to this point to portray their lives and their lessons correctly. When we deny any student the truth, we hinder their ability to grow into empathetic adults who will continue driving society forward. We are shooting ourselves in both feet if we think society can progress without an honest view of history as a guiding light.

For people who want to ban Black history, denialism and regression are the whole point.

Those Who Oppose Black History Are Destined To Fail

Labeling a topic as “controversial” won’t make it go away, nor will removing it from school curricula, especially in a day and age when kids can access virtually unlimited information with the swipe of their fingers. We will fight back against the banning of Black history, just as we’ve done every time our lived experiences have been disregarded and called “controversial” or worse. And we will win, because the truth cannot be silenced. Black history is at the heart of America’s origins, how it has endured, and how it will survive future challenges. Instead of trying to ban it, the people who consider it so controversial should try actually reading it. They might learn something.

Svante Myrick is President of People For the American Way. Previously, he served as executive director of People For and led campaigns focused on transforming public safety, racial equity, voting rights, and empowering young elected officials. Myrick garnered national attention as the youngest-ever mayor in New York State history.

Svante Myrick

We can’t let special interests make us appear more divided than we really are, putting our republic and our planet at even greater risk.

Hiding our history is an attempt to rob us of our historic voice, erase our contributions, and make our justified outrage look unreasonable.

The Tea Party showed itself in 2010, provoked by the election of Barack Obama as president. Many Americans thought we were advancing toward a more enlightened racial time. How wrong that was.

BLACK HISTORY ISN’T ‘CONTROVERSIAL,’ IT’S REAL LIFE

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

MARY MCLEOD BETHUNE: EDUCATOR, VISIONARY, DIPLOMAT

By Jaelyn Scott Winter Intern New Journal and Guide

Mary McLeod Bethune was born on July 10, 1875, in Maysville, South Carolina. Being the daughter of formerly enslaved people, she was one of the last of Samuel and Patsy McLeod’s 17 children. After the Civil War ended, her mother worked for her former master until she bought the land her family grew cotton on. Because of this, by age nine, Bethune could pick up to 250 pounds of cotton a day.

The beginning of her educational career would begin in 1893, after she graduated from BarberScotia College, formerly known as the Scotia Seminary. Two years later, she would go on to graduate from another college, the Moody Bible Institute, in 1895. However, with no church willing to sponsor her so she could become a missionary, she decided to shift her focus and become an educator instead.

During her years as an educator, she married Albertus L. Bethune, in 1898, and they would remain married until 1907. As an educator, she taught

in several small southern schools until 1903, when a year later she and her family would decide to move to the East Coast of Florida, where a large population of AfricanAmericans had stayed and lived at the time because of the construction of the Florida East Coast Railway.

October 3, 1904 was the day Bethune made history, and she opened her own school in Daytona Beach, Florida. The school was called the Daytona Literary and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls, and at the time of it opening, she only had six students; five little African-American girls and her own son, Albert Jr.

During the time, she also founded the Mary Mcleod Hospital and training school

for nurses, which at the time was the only school of its kind that served AfricanAmerican women on the East Coast. She worked hard for her school; crafting her own supplies, building the schoolhouse, and making a good name for herself from both the African-American and white communities of Daytona Beach. And her hard work paid off, because in less than two years, the small population of six students quickly grew to a population of 250.

The school just kept growing and growing, because in 1923, the school merged with the Cookman institute for Men, which was in Jacksonville, Florida, and together they formed the Bethune-Cookman College in 1929, which became a four-year institution in 1942, and in 2007, it official became what we know

now as Bethune-Cookman University, a Historically Black College that is still located in Daytona Beach, Florida today.

Bethune would remain the president of the University until 1942 and would return as the president from 19461947. Bethune-Cookman college would eventually win full accreditation, and as of

MEAC

Continued from page 3A

I give (MEAC employees) permission to go home and be sick and take care of yourself and your family.” Stills also created the MEAC’s Esports program, an initiative that began in the summer of 2020, as the conference and the world were dealing with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic. She took charge as the Director of Esports, which is a revenue-generating operation. Her goal has been to enhance awareness of the MEAC’s esports initiative by working with industry business leaders to encourage growth.

Before arriving at the MEAC, Stills served as Hampton University’s Coordinator of Athletic Academic Support for four years, and for three of those years, she was appointed Senior Woman Administrator.

Apart from the actions on

2023, they have grown to an enrollment of 3773 students. Bethune would do more for the community every day to enhance and fight for the betterment of Black education for men and women and would go on to be placed in positions that would assist her with her goals.

In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Bethune as an administrative assistant for the Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration, and she would hold that position until 1944.

During her time in this role, she was the only female member of President Roosevelt’s influential “Black Cabinet,” a group of African-

the basketball court at Scope, Stills said that there are opportunities for students who are not athletic to shine. One is that four students from each of the campuses participate in a forum exhibiting their leadership skills on various issues.

According to Stills, MEAC football and basketball teams are still the most watched and highest revenue-generating sports for any conference. She said the MEAC sports events have been featured on ESPN and ABC networks such as the Celebration Bowl in early December which features the elite football teams.

Along with the expanded TV and cable exposure, the eight campuses have been able to showcase their respective sports programs and bands, as in the case of NSU’s band during the national 2023 Annual Tournament of Roses Parade.

The conference members can also reveal the quality of their academic programs and facilities.

She said that although the COVID Pandemic period

Americans who served as public policy advisors during his term. She had a close friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and she with that friendship she lobbied for the integration of the Civilian Pilot Training Program and brought the program to the campuses of HBCUs, which led to the graduation of some of the first Black pilots of the country. She would go on to make more opportunities for African-Americans until her death on May 18, 1955 in Daytona Beach, Florida. She would be honored as the first African-American to represent a state (Florida) in the National Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol in 2021.

resulted in the MEAC Basketball Tournament operating without the usual fans in the stands, postpandemic interest, revenue, and benefits for the city continue to resume and improve as things move forward.

This year’s conference evidenced a return of more traditional fans in the stands, supporting the MEAC teams. Stills said the NBA, the WBNA, and NFL are showing increasing interest in talent being produced by the MEAC programs. Looking forward, in the coming years, the conference will be developing a platform to assure that more of its member schools are able to provide baseball with adequate facilities.

“Norfolk is our home,” said Stills. “Norfolk is just four hours from all of our schools. We hope this will attribute to the continued post-Pandemic enjoyment and growth of the student-athletes, those students who are not athletes, this city, and our Tournament this week.”

Bethune was the only female member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s influential “Black Cabinet,” a group of AfricanAmericans who served as public policy advisors during his term.

Mary McLeod Bethune

Bethune-Cookman College

Photo: Courtesy

Continued from page

The Diggs-Douglass firm showed up in many articles in the Norfolk Journal and Guide illustrating their activism in civic, business, church, and political affairs in the Black community.

According to the GUIDE story announcing her death, Lawyer T. (Thelma)

Ione Diggs lived in the Lindenwood neighborhood in the 800 block of Hayes Street where her home still stands.

She was the niece of noted Black Norfolk Attorney J. Eugene Diggs.

She was practicing law and was active until the day she died on January 14, 1973, according to the article. Before she became a lawyer, she taught at Martinsville High School for four years and returned home to become supervisor of the Venereal Disease Control programs in Norfolk.

After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School, she earned an Associated Bachelor’s Degree from Virginia State College and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Howard University Law School.

Attorney Diggs was a member of the Twin City Bar Association; NorfolkPortsmouth Bar Association; Virginia Trial Lawyers Association; Virginia Old Dominion and National Bar Association; and the American Judicature Society.

She was a member of the Women for Political Action, the Board of Directors of the Norfolk Committee for the Improvement of Education, Inc., Norfolk Chamber of Commerce, and Mt. Olive Baptist Church.

Miss Bertha Louise Douglass, her law partner, was recorded as “Norfolk’s First Colored Woman Lawyer,” according to the December 25, 1926, edition of the GUIDE.

Douglass, born in 1895 in Norfolk, was the daughter of John H. Douglas, a waiter and porter, and Margaret Anne Cornick Douglass, a laundress.

She graduated in 1915 from Norfolk Mission College, a private school that educated many of the children of the city’s Black elite.

Douglass began working in 1917 as a stenographer for John Eugene Diggs, a prominent member of Norfolk’s small number of Black lawyers.

She was also a notary public in 1919 and three years later enrolled in the American Correspondence School of Law, located in Chicago. After five attempts beginning in June 1924, Douglass passed the bar examination in December 1926, only six years after Virginia first allowed women to practice law, and joined Diggs’ law firm. She was the second African-American woman admitted to practice in the state.

Lavinia Marian Fleming

Poe, born in 1890 in Warwick County, Virginia, was the first, and in 1928, Inez Catherine Fields (later Scott), then living in Hampton, became

the third after Douglass. During the 1930s, the Black attorneys in Norfolk and Portsmouth elected Douglass president of the Norfolk County Bar Association. She served two terms (1940-1941 and 1941-1942) as Virginia vice president of the National Association of Women Lawyers and in 1946 sat on the executive committee of the Old Dominion Bar Association.

In 1941, Douglass was one of only about 55 AfricanAmerican women practicing law in the United States. She specialized in civil law, handled federal pension cases, and concentrated on her favorite branches of the law: real property, administration, and wills.

She and other Black attorneys before the 1960s practiced in chancery court where a judge rather than a jury decided cases because in the South, Blacks could not serve on juries.

Douglass and Diggs gained notoriety when they successfully represented a woman in a contentious divorce case that garnered local attention because two prominent white men represented the husband.

In 1952 they prevailed in an estate case against a respected white attorney who appealed the ruling to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Douglass and Diggs

represented their client on appeal and won a unanimous opinion from the court on his behalf.

Douglass also ventured into real estate as a broker. She operated the Eureka Public Service Real Estate Company until at least 1974, sometimes by herself but usually in partnership. In 1949 Douglass became general counsel for the Norfolk Association of Real Estate Brokers, an organization promoting Black homeownership.

She joined the Clerical Women’s Club of Norfolk, a group of 21 women who organized in 1922 to develop a professional women’s network.

Douglass was active in the local Phyllis Wheatley branch of the Young Women’s Christian Association.

Also, she was an active member of Saint John’s African Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1952, the interests of the two women were at odds. Douglass supported P.B., Young Jr., and Diggs supported Vivian Carter Mason, to become the first Black for a seat on Norfolk City Council. Neither candidate won.

In 1961 she and Diggs helped organize and supported sit-ins at three major department stores, paving the way for the peaceful desegregation of the stores’ tearooms.

Douglass retired from practicing law late in the 1970s and died on February 29, 1980 in Norfolk.

Bertha Louise Douglass was recorded as “Norfolk’s First Colored Woman Lawyer,” in the Dec. 25, 1926, edition of the GUIDE.

Lavinia Marian Fleming Poe was Virginia’s first Black women lawyer.

Photo: NJGDigitalFiles

Photo: Courtesy

RECENT REPORT REVEALS NEARLY 50% OF BLACKS HAVE OBESITY

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia

Obesity Care Week

2023 (OCW) kicked off on Monday, Feb. 27, with a focus on the disproportionate impact of obesity on communities of color.

Health officials responsible for OCW said racial and ethnic minorities have a higher rate of chronic diseases. AfricanAmericans have the highest rate of chronic diseases.

According to recent data, almost 50 percent of African-Americans have obesity, and approximately 4 out of 5 Black women have overweight or obesity.

The causes of obesity are complex, and a person’s access to healthy food, safe places to exercise and play, stable and affordable housing, access to quality health care, and social attitudes about body weight all play a role in whether a person will have obesity.

However, communities of color face unique challenges in each of these areas, health officials stated.

For example, in the United States, only 8 percent of AfricanAmericans live in a census tract with a supermarket, while 31 percent of white Americans have one.

This means that minorities more often shop in small stores or bodegas or eat at fast food restaurants. These places usually have less fresh food and more processed food.

Cultural attitudes about body weight also play a role, with non-Hispanic white women more satisfied with their body size than nonHispanic Black women,

and Hispanic women more interested in losing weight and eating healthy.

Evidence shows that the African-American population has less of an impact on existing weight loss interventions, with Black men and women achieving smaller weight losses.

Health officials noted that this suggests that intensive behavioral programs result in lower levels of adherence in Black people than whites.

Founded in 2015, Obesity Care Week has a global vision for a society that values science and clinically based care and understands, respects, and accepts the complexities of obesity.

Organizers have focused on changing the way society cares about obesity and have worked to empower individuals by providing affordable and comprehensive care and prevention programs, increasing awareness of weight bias, and working to eliminate obesity.

Researchers said obesity not only affects overall health, but it also increases the risk of complications from COVID-19.

According to a recent study of hospitalized patients in the US, obesity may also predispose patients to getting the virus and is the strongest predictor for COVID-19 complications.

Norcom

Unfortunately, AfricanAmericans are also disproportionately affected by COVID-19. According to the CDC, 33 percent of those hospitalized with the virus were AfricanAmericans, compared to 13 percent of the US population.

Inequities in access to and quality of care result in poor overall health and many chronic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes.

This can affect individuals’ chances of getting COVID-19.

The communities in which African-Americans live may place them at greater risk for developing chronic illnesses. For example, they may not have access to healthy foods or safe places to play or exercise.

For people who try to eat healthy, living in a food desert means that they must go to a grocery store.

They often must do this by public transportation.

These disparities need to be addressed so that all communities have the resources and support they need to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

“Obesity Care Week 2023 highlights the need for comprehensive and inclusive approaches to obesity care that consider the unique challenges faced by communities of color,” organizers stated.

Continued from page 1A

The proclamation reads: “This time of Black History Month is a time like no other, to recognize and acknowledge the full legacy of this Historically Black High School. The I.C. Norcom Alumni Association is proud to join the Portsmouth City School Board, and the city, to celebrate 145 years of our historic, I.C. Norcom High School as we also celebrate our 8th Grand Reunion.”

The resetting of this historical fact confirms that I. C. Norcom is one of the oldest Historically Black High Schools (HBHS) in the nation, second only to Dunbar High School in Washington, D..C, which was established in 1870.

The I.C. Norcom High School Alumni Association, Inc. is a non-profit organization established to promote and assist in activities that best support the interest of I.C. Norcom High School.

Roderick Hawthorne II is a 2008 graduate of Norcom and is currently the Director of Public Relations for the Alumni Association.

He is among the leaders of the group’s planning team organizing the 8th grand reunion in late September of this year.

Hawthorne, while planning

According to

for the event, said he was searching through various documents related to the famous Black educator I.C. Norcom, city schools records, yearbooks, memories of alumni, and cross-checking with historic data.

According to Hawthorne and Leah Stith, the new President of the Alumni Association, Chestnut was the only school in 1878 and years afterward. It provided not only elementary but high school training for Blacks.

The two cite a narrative of a former female slave, Mary Jane Wilson, recorded in April 1937. According to the narrative document, she was living out the remainder of her years in the Old Folks Home for Colored Teachers at the time.

Wilson was born into slavery. Her parents were owned by two separate families but were allowed to stay together after she was born.

At one point the man who owned her father separated her parents, putting her father in a slave jail in Norfolk, with the intent to sell him.

Wilson said the white

woman who owned her mother bought her father so her parents could live together.

Hawthorne said the woman recalled standing with her mother watching union troops marching through the city. He said Wison recalled her mother could not tell her why the soldiers were marching, but shortly afterward she was told that her family was free.

After the Civil War, her father secured work at the shipyard, bought land, built a home, and worked on a farm on it in Portsmouth.

Wilson said she was enrolled in a school near that period.

In her narrative, Mary Jane Wilson said she was enrolled in a school situated in a church which she referred to the “Chestnut Academy.”

Wilson said she then enrolled at Hampton Institute for Industrial Education shortly after it was founded in 1868. She graduated six years after the school opened in 1874.

This was four years before Chestnut School, which was the forerunner of I.C. Norcom High School, was formally opened. see Norcom , page 8A

Hawthorne and Leah Stith, the new President of the Alumni Association, Chestnut was the only school in 1878 and years afterward.

Founded in 2015, Obesity Care Week has a global vision for a society that values science and clinically based care and understands, respects, and accepts the complexities of obesity.

I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth

Photo:Wikipedia

Women’s Empowerment Brunch To Benefit Transitional Housing

By Jaelyn Scott Winter Intern New Journal and Guide

The Firm Foundation of Virginia is sponsoring a fundraising event called the Women’s Empowerment Tea/Brunch on March 25, 2023, in Portsmouth, VA.

The Foundation is a nonprofit organization that provides short-term transition housing to homeless pregnant and single mothers with small children. It was formed in September 2011, with a mission to “Establish mothers as change agents in their lives and the lives of their children by investing in them socially, emotionally, spiritually, and financially.” Every year, the foundation’s fundraising committee hosts several events, but this will be their first time hosting a tea and brunch like this.

According to Melissa Peele, the organization’s founder and executive director, the event will include a panel of four women, Sebrina Brown, Karen Nurse, Geisha Sample, and Rosalind Starley.

“The ladies on the panel, combined, they’re authors, talk show hosts, inspirational speakers, entrepreneurs, and ministers, and they currently empower women in their own areas of expertise as well,” she said. “We want the women when they leave to be empowered, encouraged, and strengthened.”

Along with empowering women who may be in a broken place, the group

also aims to celebrate and encourage women in the spirit of Women’s History Month.

The theme for the event is “Walking Out of Brokenness.” When asked about the theme and what it means to the foundation, spokesperson Deborah Williams mentioned that in our lives, things tend to happen. Whether it is a tough situation, a disorder, health issues, as we live our lives, we tend to be in these broken situations.

“In our lives, life happens. So, if we go from day to day as were growing up in this society, there may be things that have set us back here and there ... and so walking out of that is like having someone to kind of help you out, to encourage you, to give you resources and a helping hand. Just continue to move forward and to walk with you through your process to help you go forward,” said Williams. “Walking out of Brokenness is all about helping others who can’t help themselves right now.”

All proceeds from the event will be going towards the Firm Foundation of Virginia, according to Williams.

“We want to be able to provide all the resources we need to keep this house going and continue to help these women who are facing homelessness with children.”

Peele follows up by saying that their goal is to “break that cycle of homelessness and break that generational curse of poverty in their lives.”

As an organization that

Norcom

Continued from page 7A

assists with housing for homeless pregnant and single mothers, your attendance will also assist the foundation with receiving and providing resources and housing for these ladies.

“We want to encourage the women in the room as they move forward and interact with other women that they can help someone else.”

The event will take place on March 25, 2023, from 11 a.m.- 2 p.m. It will be at the Niche Venue at 3981 Twin Peaks Road in Portsmouth, Virginia. Early bird tickets are currently available at $35 until March 11, after which the tickets will be $45.

You can purchase the tickets at eventbrite.com, through check, or with their cash app, $firmfva. The tea and brunch are included in the ticket cost, and you will also be able to win door prizes and see different vendors from women who are growing their business, as well as random giveaways and a pretty hat contest.

Takeela McDonald and Shawndell Winfield will also be at the event as a guest psalmist and mistress of the Ceremony. This will be a time where you will be able to be in a place of encouragement and empowerment, as well as have fun and relax at a nice social event.

Come down and enjoy a day of delicious tea and delicious food and enjoy yourself this women’s history month.

For more information, you can visit their website at firmfoundationva.org.

The Mary Jane Wilson narrative inspires the idea that the Chestnut School in some form existed before 1878. And, it adds more time to the Chestnut Street School – I.C. Norcom timeline.

Israel Charles Norcom became the director, principal, and teacher at the school in 1880.

Before he arrived in Portsmouth, he was born in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1856. He attended the Andover School at Yale University Preparatory School and Hampton Institute.

The school was moved

Scientist

Continued from page 1A

Project SEED allowed her to study chemistry in UNC labs. She eventually landed a full scholarship the University of Maryland Baltimore County, according to The Washington Post. “The reason that I started to work in coronavirus was not to ever develop a vaccine, but really to have such a strong understanding in vaccine immune responses that we could potentially develop one,” Corbett explained in a December 2020 ABC News interview. Corbett first made headlines in March 2020 as part of a team of scientists who spoke with President Donald Trump at the NIH. At the time, COVID-19’s global impact had yet to be

to High Street in 1913 with Principal Norcom still in charge.

After he died in 1916, the Black community named the high school in his honor.

The school was relocated in 1937 to Chestnut and South Street. By then it was a full high school

Then it was moved to Turnpike Boulevard in 1953.

The school moved to its current site in 1998, overcoming efforts to repurpose the school away from its role as a high school.

I.C. Norcom students and alumni erupted into protests and walked out of the school when, after the desegregation of the city’s schools, Norcom was targeted to be converted to a vocational school.

Today Portsmouth’s I.C.

Norcom and Norfolk’s Booker T. Washington High School are the two remaining predesegregation high schools to retain their original roles in Hampton Roads.

Hawthorne told the local public radio station that Norcom’s story is bigger than just Portsmouth.

“We have been seeing as a nation here lately how a lot of people have been trying to erase Black history from being taught in schools,” he said.

Hawthorne said it is essential to realize Black history is American history.

“This honor is basically a massive love letter, you know, to Norcom and acknowledging the history of Norcom,” he said. “And what it means not only to the community but for the nation at large.”

felt in America. But Dr. Anthony Fauci seemed to sense the new vaccine’s impact.

“The vaccine you are going to be taking was developed by an AfricanAmerican woman and that is just a fact,” Fauci said, during the vaccine’s rollout. “Kizzy is an African-American scientist who is right at the forefront of the development of the vaccine.”

Corbett told ABC News she attributes her success to being a partner on Fauci’s

team. Her work with pathogens began when she joined the NIH’s Vaccine Research Center as a postdoctoral fellow in 2014. She spent her summers at laboratories and earned a summer internship at the NIH, the very place where she would be instrumental in developing a vaccine for the coronavirus. Corbett is currently an assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The reason that I started to work in coronavirus was not to ever develop a vaccine, but really to have such a strong understanding in vaccine immune responses that we could potentially develop one.”

– Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett

$800,000+

PORTSMOUTH

Congressman Bobby Scott recently awarded more than $800,000 to the Hampton Roads Community Health Center (HRCHC) for its dental center as part the FY 2023 Community Project Funding program.

The funds will be used to replace a mobile dental van designed to reach the region’s most vulnerable populations. In 2000, HRCHC launched its Healthy Smiles Dental Center. The mobile dental program provides dental care for the unhoused and unsheltered, as well as children in more than 30 public schools in the cities of Portsmouth, Norfolk and Suffolk. HRCHC has been in the Hampton Roads area for 27 years, forming on May 14, 1995, as the Portsmouth Community Health Center.

Today, HRCHC has seven

Awarded For Mobile Dental Center

locations in Portsmouth and Norfolk to handle a variety of medical treatments including, but not limited to: Pediatrics, Dental, OB/GYN, Behavioral Health, Internal Medicine, and more.

On January 27, 2023,

HRCHC held a grand opening of their new Portsmouth building, the Barbara L. Willis Wellness Center, named after CEO, Barbara L. Willis, since 2003.

Congressman Scott is a strong supporter of

equitable healthcare and critical healthcare programs. He represents Virginia’s third Congressional district – which includes parts of Portsmouth, Norfolk, Virginia Beach and the Peninsula.

MEAC KICKS OFF TOURNEY WITH YOUTH CAMP

NORFOLK

The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) kicked off the 2023 MEAC Basketball Tournament by bringing back the annual Youth Clinic at the Salvation Army Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Center on Saturday, March 4.

In its ninth year, the clinic was revived for the first time since 2020 following the effects of COVID-19. The conference’s head men’s and women’s coaches

were on hand to give the children an opportunity to have fun and learn the sport to which they dedicate their lives.

Kids practiced their skills on the court through different basketball drills that focused on their dribbling, shooting, and speed. Some of the youth used the knowledge of the sport they recently acquired in head-to-head competitions against each other and the coaches.

The day concluded with a relay race dividing the children into two teams.

After each kid crossed the finish line, they met in the middle as a team. iHeart Media was on site to provide music and entertainment. Participants were given gift packs to take home courtesy of Coca-Cola and R&R Productions, and each member got to take home their own game ball.

For more on the 2023 MEAC Basketball Tournament, please visit www.MEACHoops.com.

(L-R) Councilman Bill Moody, Jr.; (unidentified); Councilman Mark Hugel;Va. Sen. Louise Lucas; Congressman Bobby Scott; Barbara Willis

Photo: Courtesy

Chesapeake Men’s Black History Month Program Highlights Black Resistance

By Dr. George F. Reed

The New Chesapeake Men for Progress sponsored its Black History Month Program February 18, 2023, in the Buffalow Family and Friends Multipurpose Center, Chesapeake, Virginia. The program was billed as a “must see and hear” based on the historians that would speak.

Featured speakers included Calvin Pearson, Founder and President of Hampton’s Project 1619; Audrey Landell Perry Williams, President, Hampton Roads Branch, Association for the Study of African-American Life and History; Dr. Ella P. Ward, President of Cornland School Foundation and Chesapeake City Councilwoman; and Ms. Brenda H. Andrews, Owner and Chief Editor of the New Journal and Guide.

The Program was moderated by Dr. George F. Reed, member of the Black History Month Planning Committee, who briefly commented on why we celebrate Black History Month. He explained three major ways enslaved Blacks resisted their enslavement to include rebelling against their enslavers; running away; and performing small, daily acts of resistance, such as slowing down work. Edward R. Hicks, New Chesapeake Men for Progress, provided the invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by James Young, secretary, New Chesapeake Men for Progress. Captain Michael Malone and his wife Delphin Malone led the singing of the Negro National Anthem.

Clifton Randolph, President, New Chesapeake Men for Progress, introduced the Honorable Richard West, Mayor, City of Chesapeake, who welcomed guests to the event followed by welcomes from Randolph and David K. Hamilton, Vice Chairman, The New Chesapeake Men for Progress Education Foundation, Inc. Herman L. Ward, Director and Chairman of the Black History Month Planning Committee, explained the occasion for this event and welcomed all guests.

Speaker:

Mr. Calvin Pearson

Mr. Pearson began his speech by clarifying the difference between his Hampton Project 1619 which was founded in 1994, and the Pulitzer Prize winning author Nichole Hannah Jones’ New York Times “The Project 2019” created 25 years later. His project, he noted, was and is the original Project 1619 which he created to tell and commemorate AfricanAmerican history. In his speech, Pearson noted several inaccurate accounts of history as told by others.

He said that most history books and Jamestown organizers list Jamestown as the entry point of slaves in Virginia. Most people who visit the Jamestown tourist site with that understanding.

Factually, Fort Comfort, now Fort Monroe, was the site the first 20 Africans landed in Virginia.

Pearson said that Jamestown historians literally deleted Point Comfort, but through research that disproved their narrative, they have changed their information to now reflect Point Comfort as the site where the first Africans landed in Virginia.

In his speech, Mr. Pearson dispelled the notion that Africans were heathens. In fact, he said, those brought to America were the “best Africans” who were skilled farmers, Blacksmiths, craftsmen, and herders. Many of the Europeans were men liberated from jails, shelters, and off the streets and sent to America. Without the help of Native Americans, they would have perished. In fact, they were about to pick up and go back to Europe.

Further, he said, the first Africans were probably not slaves, but were likely indentured servants who could purchase their freedom.

Records indicated that the captured Africans were traded for food, thus, indicating they

were seen as property. It is questionable whether they entered into an already unfree laboring system of indentured servitude or into a slave system already established.

Accordingly, slavery did not exist in Virginia until 1619. Chattel slavery began in Virginia in 1640 when a Virginia court sentenced a Black runaway servant to serve his master for the time of his natural life. Later in 1660, Virginia Law was enacted that any English Servant who ran away in the company of a Negro would be punished.

With respect to the history of Black people in America, it was written by their enslavers, as Blacks were not allowed to read and write. The first African-American to publish a book of poetry on various religious and morals against slavery was an enslaved Phyllis Wheatley, who at the age of 20, published her book in 1773. She was emancipated shortly thereafter by her enslaver.

Mr. Pearson encouraged reading the book titled “Before the Mayflower” which tells the history of Black America beginning in Ancient Egypt and flourishing in subSaharan African Kingdoms while Europe languished in the Middle Ages. The story continues with the first Africans to arrive in the future United States.

Speaker: Mrs. Audrey L. Perry Williams

Mrs. Williams explained the resistance of enslaved Blacks to slavery through the songs they sang and their poetry. The songs she chose were:

“Hush, Hush, Somebody Calling Your Name;” “Wade in the Water;” and “Swing, Sweet Chariot.” More recent songs of resistance by Blacks she mentioned were “Strange Fruit” and “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” Songs served as a way for enslaved Blacks to communicate what village they were from, find family members and relatives, as well as issue codes that disguised their actions from their enslavers.

For example, the song “Hush, Hush, Somebody Calling My Name,” was code that somebody was going to run away and slaves were asked to be quiet. The song also represented death in the sense that the enslaved person was signaling that he’d rather be dead than to be a slave.

The “Swing Low – Sweet Chariot” melody signaled that the time to escape had arrived. The sweet chariot represented the Underground Railroad to

carry them to the North.

“Strange Fruit,” popularized by Billie Holliday, was originally written as a poem after Abel Meeropol, a Jewish high school teacher and civil rights activist, saw a photo of two Black men who had been lynched in Indiana. The lyrics never call out lynching explicitly, but use a painful metaphor to describe the horrible terror that ravaged Black communities in the South. see History, page 3B

CHESAPEAKE

After a few years of COVID, Ernest Lowery has been slowly putting together a comprehensive collection of eye opening artwork. The NOUN PROJECT represents a collection of people, places and things taken in a click of a photographer’s eye. Ernest believes that a picture can represent a thousand words, yet his work stands on the simplicity of common ground. Come ... create your story that hangs before your eyes – it’s the NOUN PROJECT that shares secrets of photography, and a thousand words!

10-Wk. Free Course Will Instruct On Business Start-Ups

HAMPTON ROADS

Educational Services of Hampton Roads, Inc. in conjunction with Dollar Bank and Tidewater Community College’s Workforce Job Skills Training Program will host a free 10-week Business Plan 101 course, MARCH 30.

The course is designed to teach an individual how to write an effective business plan and how to start a small business in the City of Norfolk and surrounding communities. The course will also include business mentoring, an opportunity

to pitch their business to a group of local business people and win $1,000. In addition, Dollar Bank will offer all graduates a Free Business Checking Account. The course begins on Thursday, March 30, 2023, from 6-7:30 p.m. on the Norfolk campus of Tidewater Community College, 350 Granby Street., in the Stanley Walker Building , room 3415 on the corner of Freemason and Granby Street. For additional information, please contact Dr. Tyrone Davis, (Project Coordinator) at (757) 409-9044.

CHESAPEAKE RESIDENT FEATURED DURING WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH PROGRAM

CHESAPEAKE

In observance of Women’s History Month, Chesapeake resident and Senegal Women’s Museum Director, Madam Marie Pierre Myrick, spoke March 2 at Morgan State University in Baltimore. As guest presenter Madam Myrick spoke on issues that relate uniquely to women. She also briefed the audience on community services offered by the oneof-a-kind Women’s museum – located in Dakar, Senegal.

The museum was founded by her mother, the iconic

Madam Annette Mbaye d’Erneville, Senegal’s first professional journalist.

Dr. Ella P. Ward

Calvin Pearson Audrey Williams

A full-house

Photos: ErnestLowery

... answers to this week’s puzzle from page 6B.

Madam Marie Pierre Myrick

LOWERY PHOTO EXHIBITION TO OPEN

25TH ANNUAL ELLA FITZGERALD MUSIC FESTIVAL, APRIL 20-22

NEWPORT NEWS

The 25th Annual Ella Fitzgerald Music Festival will be held April 20-22, at the Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center, located at 2410 Wickham Ave. in Newport News. It honors Ella Fitzgerald, a native of Newport News, who grew up in a troubled home but went on to debut at the Apollo Theater and grow into fame as a jazz singer.

Performers include Grammy winner Samara Joy, who is headlining the event. Other performers include singers from Heritage High School, the Christopher Newport University Jazz Ensemble, Good Shot Judy and more.

Fitzgerald was sometimes referred to as the “First Lady of Song,” “Queen of Jazz,” and “Lady Ella.” She won 13 Grammys, and sold more than 40 million albums before she died at age 79 from a stroke in her Beverly Hills home on June 15, 1996.

Although Fitzgerald underwent heart surgery in 1986 and survived a diabetes diagnosis – which resulted in the amputation of both her legs below the knees – Fitzgerald continued to perform.

is April 20-22

Fitzgerald sang when she received the 1984 NAACP’s Image Award. She was wheeled onstage at her last performance in 1991, at the George Wein’s JVC Jazz Festival, which was held at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1991, five years before her death. Samara Joy will perform on April 21, the night the festival will feature a reception at 6:30 p.m. For more information and tickets, visit www. downinggross.org or call (757) 247-8950.

MARCH 14

LOCAL VOICES

YOUR LIFE IS NOT IN YOUR PHONE

By Sean C. Bowers

The real world is all around you. Engage in that reality your phone can never provide or become.

A critical part of human interactive growth is the face-to-face in-person part. That means there exists the following people-skills, of being able to hold a simple conversation, having manners, dressing appropriately, being early or at least on-time, and being willing to face-themusic, good or bad, of having tried to put yourself out there. Each attempt is a shade of the accumulative life-learning-experience of our life’s mosaic collage.

This same skills set also grades highly in school, having a skill, earning a scholarship, graduating from college, establishing and keeping a job, meeting a life partner, building a career, finding our purpose, and retiring with enough life lived to have built a lasting positive legacy.

The total weekly screentime (on the phone) is where our digital consumers-tobe generation mistakenly all think they are “social influencers.” Because a few have mastered harvesting-the-minds of

Chesapeake Economic Development Hosting Small Business Symposium

CHESAPEAKE

The Chesapeake Economic Development is hosting its 2023 Small Business Symposium, a free half-day of educational sessions for local small businesses, on Tuesday, March 14, 2023.

“This symposium is designed to instruct, inspire, empower, and excite small business owners, while offering free resources and educational sessions on how to thrive when doing business in Chesapeake,” said Steven Wright, Director of Chesapeake Economic Development. “Come join

other passionate Virginia business owners and learn how to increase revenue and grow your business.”

Session topics include SWaM; Financing Options for Your Business; Selling to Chesapeake and the Commonwealth; and much more

“I am honored to be among the many speakers attending the 2023 Chesapeake Small Business Symposium,” said Chesapeake Mayor Rick West. “This event helps small business owners, start-ups, and entrepreneurs take their business to the next level, offering invaluable

insights and exclusive networking opportunities with top industry experts.”

The 2023 Chesapeake Small Business Symposium will take place at the Chesapeake Conference Center, Tuesday, March 14, 2023, from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. Checkin begins at 8:30 a.m. Lunch will be provided. For additional information, please contact CED’s Business Development Manager Kerstin Plarr at (757) 382-8040 or kplarr@ cityofchesapeake.net.

History

Continued from page 2B

Mrs. Williams proceeded to cite a poem by Ronald Duncan titled, “They See What We Do, They See What We Have, and Then They Kill Us.” The poem reflects on the cruelties, atrocities and inhumane treatment of enslaved Blacks by their enslavers.

Mrs. Williams challenged the audience to acquire a new perspective on what is history. She indicated that history represents past events, and contemporary events that we complete each hour and day. Each one of us makes history every day and these important events involve each one of us.

Speaker: Dr. Ella Ward

Dr. Ward spoke on Black Resistance in education from a personal point of view. She chronicled her life’s journey from Hertford County, N.C., where she was born. She moved at the age of three to Nansemond County, Va., to live with her aunt, who along with other relatives and friends had high expectations for her to excel in life.

An exceptionally bright student, she graduated with honors and was valedictorian for her high school. She went on to earn five college degrees, up to her Doctoral Degree from Virginia Tech, as she lived out her lifetime goal to teach. She completed 35 years as an educator before her retirement.

Today, her educationdriven charge continues in

others doesn’t mean that others can do the same, or even at all.

The “living” in making-a-living is the social interactive part with real “live people,” at work, in school, on teams, at networking affairs, during traveling, while at tradeshows and presentations.

Sure, some things can now be done more costeffectively at scalable volume digitally, via Zoom and such connective products. Eventually people buy things and conduct business with other people they identify with, and respect, over the non-in-person choice.

People are the business world’s first line of contact, follow-up, and networking. The more screen-time we spend on digital devices equals less time is spent for the real world we live in collectively.

Parents are in danger of farming out the raising of their children to their devices, phones, computers televisions, and streaming services, all of which are designed to consume the end user’s harvested data.

In the old days, we had a “stick” to play with and its magic was all in our imagination’s limitless abilities to conjure new ways to wave our magic wand (stick) changing the game, activity, and impacting our mind’s mental creative history, forever. These digital devices of today are simply “sticks” in the overall mud of the digital universe, of the, perverse. To get

clean of it, we either turn it off, walk away, or quit giving time to the mental brain-drain of Ponzi forprofit Flim-Flam-shamscams. We are actively doing more harm to young today, crippling their own internal creativity by replacing it with a babysitting replicant.

While phones, computers, hardware and software have made our lives better and easier, they have also nurtured some of our more negative human characteristics such as racism, sexism, and classism, under the cover of anonymity.

The fact that any kid is looking into a judgmental “device” for approval, validation, or self-worth is both preventable and lamentable. No device can ever validate or invalidate anyone, unless we allow it, by relinquishing that power. We are on a path we have over-saturated with too many tree-menued options, futures, and cluster-sets of choices.

Society is our human interaction, our “live” life content being lived! Maybe it is filmed and perhaps broadcast to the internet world and shared, by others.

Instead of spending a second in the Facebook, Instagram, TikTok staged world of the façade, looking at others’ food they supposedly ate for breakfast, why not try a TV cooking type show to learn how to make a meal, and teach yourselves a new

life-skill or recipe. Like one who learns to fish, they can use their new skill for life, paying it forward to others’ evolutionary progress and process.

The digital world is not a replacement, a medication, a baby-sitter, or a “parental-figure” for this “real world.” It is a tool to be used and to be weary of, misusing, overusing and abusing. It is not a necessity, nor will it ever replace human interactivity, decency, kindness, empathy and love.

Gazing into that looking glass for mechanical inventions to do more than the user is an “A.I./ Artificial Intelligence,” we don’t want and can’t afford, if we intend to keep our sanity and our humanity.

Sean C. Bowers has written the last 25 years, as a White Quaker Southern man, for the nation’s third oldest Black Newspaper, The New Journal and Guide, of Norfolk, Virginia, about overcoming racism, sexism, classism, and religious persecution. Some of his latest NJ&G articles detailing the issues can found by searching “Sean C. Bowers” on the NJ&G website. Contact him directly on social media at Linkedin.com or by email V1ZUAL1ZE@ aol.com NNPA 2019 Publisher of the Year, Brenda H. Andrews (NJ&G 35 years) has always been his publisher.

Americans. It is worthy to note, that before the end of Reconstruction in Virginia, African-Americans took a leading role in creating the states’ first system of free public schools.

her leadership to restore a historic one-room Black school in Chesapeake named the Cornland School. She led the effort in establishing Cornland School Foundation in 2011, raising funds, and assembling a full board of directors. The Foundation raised approximately $100,000 to make initial repairs, treat for termites and secure the building from further deterioration.

In 2021, the City of Chesapeake appropriated funds to move the school to a permanent location.

Additional funding came from the Virginia General Assembly, and from the U.S. Congress through a bill introduced by the late Congressman Donald McEachin. Other donations have provided vital support. The multi-million dollar School House Museum will be the focal point of a Historic Village and Tourist Center and the site will feature Cornland School Museum; Dismal Swamp Superintendent House, Outdoor Classroom, Trade and Commerce Exhibit; Underground Railroad Exhibit; Dismal Swamp Maroon communities Exhibit; and Native People Exhibit. Dr. Ward noted that there

were 51 schools in the country and 31 in Virginia after the Civil War and during the Reconstruction Period from 1865 to 1869. Prior to the Civil War, Virginia outlawed the education of enslaved African-Americans, and passed oppressive legislation to that effect.

Enslaversbelievedthateducating Blacks might cause them to embrace the expectation of human equality, dispel the notion of Blacks’ presumed intellectual incapacity, and it was necessary to protect Whites as the superior race.

Blacks resisted these oppressive laws and practices and secretly operated clandestine schools in homes and churches in defiance of Virginia laws passed 1804, 1805, and 1831. After the Civil War, AfricanAmericans, themselves, established the first freely accessible schools for African-Americans.

Following the Civil War, Dr. Ward indicated four known Black schools in Norfolk County: Cornland, Gilmerton, Deep Creek, and Bells Mill. John T. West School was the first public African-American school in the city of Norfolk to have high school classes for African-

Dr. Ward indicated that she and the board of directors have labored passionately to make the one-room Cornland School a Museum so that current and future generations can get a better understanding of the challenges faced by African-Americans. She encouraged and invited members in the audience to support the project, and noted that donations can be made on the Foundation website.

Speaker:

Ms. Brenda H. Andrews

Ms. Andrews provided remarks and comments on the Black Press which was created in 1827 with the mission of telling our stories from a Black perspective. No longer did we have to rely on the narratives of who we are, and what we are from the narratives in the white press. She noted that in 1827, Enslaved Black and free Blacks were forbidden to learn to read or write.

The New Journal and Guide has being telling Black resistance stories for 123 years. She said, if you want to do something good, subscribe to the New Journal and Guide to learn about Black challenges, resistance, and accomplishments.

She further indicated that the New Journal and Guide has developed a Black History tabletop calendar for sale, and encouraged the audience to subscribe to the New Journal and Guide.

The digital world is not a replacement, a medication, a babysitter, or a “parental-figure” for this “real world.” It is a tool to be used and to be weary of, misusing, over-using and abusing. It is not a necessity, nor will it ever replace human interactivity, decency, kindness, empathy and love.

Sean C. Bowers

Ella Fitzgerald

The 25th Annual Ella Fitzgerald Music Festival

Brenda H. Andrews

NOTE TO OUR READERS:We wish to inform you of the recent transition of Mrs. Gladys McElmore. We will continue to carry her column in her memory until further notice. Thank you.

– Publisher Brenda H. Andrews

Jesus declared that her sins were many, but forgiven because of the love she shared and her faith. When other guests questioned the forgiveness of her sins, Jesus pronounced this woman is sinfree because of her faith and asked her to go in peace. He used her story to demonstrate love in unforgettable ways.

THE LORD’S SUPPER Holy Communion, The Holy Eucharist

“The Christian Sacrament in which consecrated bread and wine are partaken of in celebration of Jesus Christ’s Last Supper.’’ (American Heritage Dictionary)

direct access to God. That is, we do not need clergy to go to God for us. We can go directly to God equally through Jesus Christ Who is our High Priest.

(1 Peter 2:9)

The women listed in these Scriptures were strong spiritually, active and powerfully faithful to Jesus Christ. These women definitely made a difference in our biblical records. God does not denigrate women or their importance to the spread of the gospel. Most importantly, women are honored and blessed for their faithfulness to God. How can we learn more about Jesus’ relationship to women? As we read New Testament Scriptures, we learn how resourceful, important and inspiring their examples have been to other women. Hopefully, with much reading, we will be encouraged to live faithfully to the teachings of Jesus in our world?

When Jesus was invited to eat with the Pharisees, a

sinful city woman joined them with an alabaster flask of fragrant oil. She stood at His feet weeping behind Him. Immediately she began washing His feet with her tears and later drying them with her own hair. She kissed His feet and anointed them with precious oil. After assessing the present activity, the Pharisee mumbled that “If this man were a prophet, would He not have known who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner!” Jesus abruptly admonished the Pharisee to appreciate the love shown by this unnamed believer. Her love brought more joy than the elaborate lunch furnished by the Pharisee that came with no love! The lunch was served with no water for His feet, no affection and no anointing oil.

In Luke 8:1-3 we can read that many women ministered to Jesus as He journeyed from city to village preaching and teaching about the Kingdom of God. There was Mary Magdalene who was healed of seven demons, Joanna, Susanna and others who provided for Him from their own wealth and resources. Also in chapter 8, a girl is restored to life while a woman is healed after twelve years suffering and spending large sums of money fell down before Jesus and worshipped Him for her immediate healing! In chapter 21, we learn about the widow’s two mites being received as more than what was contributed by wealthy givers. Out of poverty she made a sacrifice. Jesus expected nothing other than faith from those women years ago and gives us the same respect today.

After much reading of Scriptures and commentaries we find that many women past and present show great differences worldwide. Each biblical woman inspires, warns or leads us as we are drawn closer to God DAY by DAY and learn what it means to be a FAITHFUL CHRISTIAN.

Communion is an act or instance of Believers sharing thoughts and feelings of Jesus in His passion (suffering and death on the cross for our sin)

There are three views or doctrines of The Lord’s Supper: Transubstantiation, the Catholic Doctrine that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are transformed into the true presence of Jesus Christ’s body and blood although the appearance of the two elements remains the same. That is, the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus. This means the Priest has the actual power to recreate the crucifixion at the Eucharist.

Consubstantiation, the Lutheran Doctrine that the body and blood of Jesus Christ coexist with the elements of bread and wine during the Eucharist.

Memorial, the remembrance of a person or event. Jesus said “this do in remembrance of Me.” (1 Cor. 11:24,25) and all accounts of the Gospels.

Jesus is simple. He simply says Remember Him. He doesn’t say what happens to the bread and wine. Man added this. Beware! Most Protestant Churches protesting Catholicism or the Lutheran view hold that the bread and wine are

symbolic of Spiritual Sharing or Communion with the thoughts and feelings of Jesus in His Passion and Death on the cross for our sin. ‘What is Communion on another level? It is the simple act of eating and drinking. Eating got us into this mess (the first Adam’s disobedience) and eating and drinking the sacrificial cup of obedience by Jesus the Last Adam got us out.

Communion at the Lord’s Table is a Blessing. “The Cup of Blessing which we bless, is it not the Communion of the blood of Clnist? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Jesus Christ?” (1 Corinthians 11:23-34)

Believers may celebrate Holy Communion every morning or evening at home or elsewhere by first examining themselves and consecrating or praying over the bread and wine.

For every Believer is a “Believer-Priest” and has

CHURCH ADs & DIRECTORY

To commune oneself: Sit, stand, recline or kneel. Then recite – the same night in which He was betrayed, Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, brake it, and said, “Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.” Then Beloved you may simply say, I (your name) take the bread, cracker or wafer symbolic of the body of Jesus broken for me I eat and in my heart I am thankful.

(1 Cor. 11:24)

Next, follow with verse 25. After supper Jesus took the cup and said, “ This is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.” Now Beloved, you may say, I (your name) take the cup of wine or water symbolic of the blood of Jesus shed for me I drink and in my heart I am thankful. The Bible states in v. 26 “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew (proclaim, declare, preach to yourself) the Lord’s death till He come.

I have communed myself at home for years, as well as partaking of the elements in church. With this reinforcement of intimacy with Jesus Christ, He becomes clearer and more personable as the years pass by. Blessings and Shalom

Rev. Dr. Rebecca R. Rivka

CHRIS ROCK FINALLY ADDRESSES OSCARS

SLAP AT BALTIMORE’S HIPPODROME THEATER FOR LIVE NETFLIX SPECIAL

By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

One year after Will Smith stunned a live audience and millions watching the Oscars on television when he slapped Chris Rock, the comedian on the receiving end of the attack will finally address the incident.

On Saturday, March 4, Netflix debuted “Chris Rock: Selective Outrage,” a live comedy special from Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theater.

“The thing people wanna know … did it hurt? Hell, yeah it hurt,” Rock said during the special which aired at 10 p.m. EST.

“[Smith] played Muhammad Ali! I played Pookie (in ‘New Jack City’). Even in animated movies I’m a zebra, he’s a [bleeping] shark. I got hit so hard, I heard ‘Summertime’ ringing in my ears.”

In another line, Rock talked about how much bigger Smith is than him.

“Will Smith is a big dude. I am not,” Rock said.

“Will Smith is shirtless in his movies. If you see me in a movie getting open heart surgery, I’m gonna have a sweater on.”

The Academy Awards banned Smith for 10 years following the incident, and while Rock has mostly maintained his silence, Smith has publicly apologized.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air legend said he “fogged out”

during the infamous March 27 Oscars.

“It’s all fuzzy,” Smith said in an Instagram video posted last summer. “I’ve reached out to Chris and the message that came back is that he’s not ready to talk. And when he is, he will reach out.”

While Rock presented the Oscar for best documentary at the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony, Smith took exception to the comedian’s comments about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head.

Pinkett Smith had revealed she has alopecia. After some uncomfortable laughter, Smith emerged from his seat, approached Rock during the live telecast, and slapped the star.

“Keep my wife’s name out of your [bleeping] mouth,” Smith yelled out at Rock.

The only time Rock had addressed the incident was during a standup performance, which he only briefly mentioned the Oscars.

“Anyone who says words hurt has never been punched in the face,” Rock said during a stand-up a day before Smith’s Instagram video surfaced.

“I’m not a victim. Yeah, that s– hurt,” Rock remarked. “But I shook that s– off and went to work the next day. I don’t go to the hospital for a paper cut.”

In Smith’s new video, he also apologized to Rock’s mother and brother Tony Rock. “That was one of the things about the moment. I just didn’t realize,” Smith recounted. “I was thinking but how

many people got hurt in that moment. I want to apologize to Chris’ mother,” he continued.

“I want to apologize to Chris’ family, specifically Tony Rock. We had a great relationship. You know, Tony Rock was my man, and this is probably irreparable.”

Smith also refused to lay any blame on his wife. “I made a choice on my own, from my own experiences from my history with Chris,” Smith stated.

“Jada had nothing to do [with it].”

He also noted how his actions detracted from his best actor win and other nominees and winners.

“It really breaks my heart to have stolen and tarnished your moment,” Smith asserted. “Sorry isn’t really sufficient. But I promise you, I am deeply devoted and committed to putting light and love and joy into the world.”

John Jurgensen of the Wall

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Hampton Redevelopment and Housing Authority is accepting Proposals for Public Housing and Section 8 Consulting Services from qualified firms. The deadline for submission of proposals is by 12 p.m. on Thursday March 30, 2023. Go to www.hamptonrha.com for a copy of the RFP.

CITY OF SUFFOLK REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL ENGINEERING SERVICES

GEOTECHNICAL

IFB # 22078-JS

Street Journal said Rock, by saving his ammunition for Netflix, has set up a rare thing: a stand-up special with a timely hook.

How it lands might determine whether he can reframe the incident that, in an instant, revised the story of his four-decade career.

Preparing for the special may have also served another purpose for Rock himself, Jurgenson said in quoting fellow stand-up George Wallace.

“You ain’t never going to forget that somebody slapped the [mess] out of you. But laughter is healing for the soul, and that’s what he’s getting up there ... and in the long run, he’s also getting paid for it,” said Wallace, who has a bit about how the slap turned him against all Smiths (Granny Smiths, locksmiths, Blacksmiths, Smith Brothers Cough Drops and whatnot).

City of Suffolk, VA, will accept proposals until 3 p.m., March 23, 2023 from VDOT pre-qualified bidders for Annual Contract Engineering Services – Geotechnical Services. Proposals are to be to emailed to proposals@suffolkva.us

This contract may be funded with federal and state monies and is subject to all related requirements, policies and procedures.

Questions concerning this project and the related documents should be directed to Jay Smigielski, Purchasing Agent, (757) 5147523; jsmigielski@suffolkva.us

CITY OF SUFFOLK REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL ENGINEERING SERVICES

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

IFB # 22079-JS

City of Suffolk, VA, will accept proposals until 3 p.m., April 5, 2023 from qualified firms for Annual Contract Engineering Services – Project Management. Proposals are to be to emailed to proposals@suffolkva.us

This contract may be funded with federal and state monies and is subject to all related requirements, policies and procedures.

Questions concerning this project and the related documents should be directed to Jay Smigielski, Purchasing Agent, (757) 5147523; jsmigielski@suffolkva.us

INVITATION FOR BID

CITY OF SUFFOLK INVITATION FOR BID LONGSTREET LANE BRIDGE REPLACEMENT

IFB # 23040-JS

City of Suffolk, VA, will accept bids until 3 p.m., April 4, 2023 from qualified firms for the Longstreet Lane Bridge Replacement. Sealed Bids are to be delivered to Purchasing Office, Suffolk City Hall, 442 W. Washington St., Suffolk, VA 23434.

This contract may be funded with federal and state monies and is subject to all related requirements, policies and procedures.

Questions concerning this project and the related documents should be directed to Jay Smigielski, Purchasing Agent, (757) 5147523; jsmigielski@suffolkva.us

INVITATION FOR BIDS

PR1989-989-23

The Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority will receive bids for the “NRHA Tidewater Garden Demolition Phases 2D,3A,3B, &4B”

The scope of work includes all supervision, labor, material, and equipment necessary for the final demolition phase at NRHA Tidewater Garden, 450 Walker Street, Norfolk VA 23510. The work for this project includes but not limited to 25 apartment buildings, one rental office, maintenance warehouse, and removal of private utilities and the full scope of work is described in the Contract Documents.

A pre-bid meeting will be conducted on Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 10 A.M. outside of 450 Walker Street, Norfolk VA 23510 (Tidewater Garden Rental Office). All prospective bidders are strongly encouraged to attend.

Please contact Randy Hill – Senior Construction Project Manager (rhill@nrha.us) for any related questions. All questions must be received by 11 A.M. Thursday, March 30, 2023.

Sealed Bids will be received, publicly opened and read aloud on Friday, April 7, 2023 at 11 A.M. local prevailing time at the office of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, 910 Ballentine Boulevard, Norfolk, Virginia.

Contract documents will be available for review by appointment only at the NRHA Office of Economic Opportunities, Calvert Square Envision Center, 975 Bagnall Road, Norfolk, VA (please call (757) 314-2026 to schedule); Builders and Contractors Exchange, Norfolk, VA; and on the Virginia Procurement Website (www.eva.virginia.gov). A thumb drive will be available from NRHA, 910 Ballentine Blvd., Norfolk, VA for the non-refundable price of twelve dollars (Company Check Only).

NRHA does not discriminate against individuals on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, elderliness, familial status, disability, source of funds, sexual orientation, gender identity or veteran status in the admission, access to or operations of programs, services or activities. Small businesses and businesses owned by women and minorities and Section 3 certified businesses are encouraged to respond.

Chris Rock

Photo: Courtesy