May 21st, 2020 Edition

St. LouiS AmericAn

“When you look at the need, it’s so incredibly overwhelming.”

– Michael P. McMillan, Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis

League of

ed boxes of food and necessities

city’s Fountain Park neighborhood.

Saturday, May 9 at the agency’s

Urban League nears $1M in COVID survival needs

County Prosecutor Wesley Bell: ‘This is just another example of leadership’

By

By the end of May, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis will have distributed $1 million in free food, necessities and safety supplies since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region.

“When you look at the need, it’s so incredibly overwhelming,” said Michael P. McMillan, president and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis. “And 75% of these families tell us they have never, ever been in a food line in their entire life.”

Along with a host of private, non-profit and government partners, the Urban League is serving the community in a weekly series of drive-through outreach events. Cars line up hours before the events are scheduled to begin. Police are needed to direct traffic as cars come from every direction. “Their process would rival any high-performance assembly plant,” as Kenya Vaughn reported here. At the first event at the Urban League site in Jennings on April 2, staff and volunteers served 1,075 families. At the most recent event at the site of the former Jamestown

‘The virus is still out there’

Region risks worse COVID-19 spike in June if precautions are abandoned

By Rebecca Rivas

American

Louis

Of The St.

Many have watched the footage of people crowding into bars in Wisconsin after stay-at-home orders were lifted, said Dr. Alexander Garza, incident commander of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force

“That’s absolutely the wrong thing to do,” said Garza, who is chief medical officer for SSM Health. “That is a surefire way for transmission to get kicked up and for us to be right back where we started from.”

During his Friday, May 15 briefing, Garza said that his major concern with the shelter-in-place orders easing in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County on May 18 is that people will equate relaxing the public-health restrictions with the virus being gone.

“That’s not equal,” Garza said. “The virus is still out

Police brutalized mother, son according to suit

Des Peres police claim Derek Gray resisted arrest

By Ashley Jones For The St. Louis American

A 68-year-old mother is suing the City of Des Peres and four of its police officers for what she describes as a brutal assault and battery that occurred on March 23 following a false charge of stealing a television set.

“We are demanding accountability,” attorneys Andrew M. Stroth and William E. Dailey said. “We are demanding justice.” According to the lawsuit, Derek Gray suffered three shattered front teeth, a head injury requiring 12 stitches and seven staples, a cut above his right eye that required seven stitches, along with severe neck and back pain. Marvia Gray, 68, suffered severe injuries to her tailbone, back, rotator cuff, knees and arms, among other injuries, according to the suit. They claim four Des Peres police officers brutalized them when they returned a TV to Sam’s Club on Manchester Road in Des Peres, “throwing them to the floor, beating them, handcuffing them, then arresting them,” according to the suit.

“I’m looking at these police just beating him and kicking him and all of this, and I said, ‘They’re going to kill him,’” Marvia Gray said. “I could see my son die before my eyes.” The city attorney for the City of Des Peres said the city does not comment on pending litigation. On March 25, Des Peres’ director of Public Safety responded to social media posts about the incident in a release. It stated that Derek Gray

Lamonte’ Richardson, 23, practiced public safety precautions for COVID-19 along with his jump shop in Fairgrounds Park on Tuesday, May 19.

Agency needs help from corporate community to continue services

By Rebecca Rivas Of The St. Louis American

When the 110th annual Annie Malone May Day Parade was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, agency leaders worried about the loss of $100,000 in anticipated parade fundraising. However, the St. Louis community stepped up to support Annie Malone Children and Family Services — and raised nearly $80,000 during the agency’s virtual May Day parade on Sunday, May 17. “These were donations that averaged $25,” said Sara Lahman, Annie Malone CEO. “There were a few companies that stepped up, but for the most part this was an individual-donor, community-led effort. The number of first-time donors was staggering, especially among those 25 to 35.” St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura O. Jones served as grand marshall, following in the footsteps of Annie Malone raises $80K with virtual May Day parade

Urban

Metropolitan St. Louis President and CEO Michael P. McMillan and state Senator Jamilah Nasheed load-

into the trunk of a car on

Aubert Avenue location in the

Photo by Wiley Price

Marvia Gray

Chris King Of The St. Louis American

Photo by Wiley Price

Derek Gray

Body of Shad Gaspard found after he and son were swept away by waves

Three days after Former WWE wrestler Shad Gaspard urged a lifeguard to save his young son and pushed him toward the rescuer as he was swept out to sea, his body washed ashore. He was 39.

Los Angeles County lifeguards said a body discovered early Wednesday on Venice Beach matched the description of the ex-pro wrestler, who disappeared on Sunday after his heroic final actions helped save his son. Los Angeles ABC Affiliate KABC reported that Los Angeles police confirmed the body was Gaspard’s.

News. “But the father, in his last few words, said, ‘Save my son.’”

Gaspard then pushed his son to the lifeguard and disappeared.

Gaspard gained popularity in the WWE with partner JTG in tagteam Cryme Time before retiring in 2010. Gaspard has appeared in small roles on TV and the big screen, including 2018’s “The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time” and the 2015 Kevin Hart comedy “Get Hard.”

which led to her being put on a three-week break to focus on both the disease and her hyperthyroidism.

Wendy Williams going on hiatus from show for health reasons

‘Twilight’ co-star and girlfriend found dead Actor Gregory his girlfriend found dead by police in a Las Vegas condominium last Wednesday (May 13). He was 30 years old. Boyce was best known for his role as Tyler Crowley screen adaptation of “Twilight,” which also starred Robert Pattinson.

Wendy Williams is stepping back from her talk show because of her Graves’ disease. The 55-year-old star has still been working from home on new episodes, but it was confirmed on Tuesday that “The Wendy Williams Show” will go on hiatus due to health issues related to the autoimmune disease, which she was

Gaspard’s 10-year-old son, Aryeh, was rescued during Sunday’s drama. On Tuesday, the Coast Guard called off a massive search for the former wrestler and actor.

Gaspard and his son were pulled away from the shore by a powerful riptide. A lifeguard saw them struggling and raced into the water.

“He was going to try to rescue both,” lifeguard section Chief Ken Haskett told NBC

A public information officer for the Las Vegas Police Department told CNN in an email that the deaths were “not a criminal inci dent” and referred any inquiry to the coroner’s office.

It will take six to eight weeks for a cause of death to be determined, according to the coro ner’s office.

In Facebook posts Sunday, Boyce’s mother, Lisa Wayne, paid tribute to both her son and

dealing with symptoms from her Graves” disease which is causing

COVID-19 postpones Rihanna’s court date with dad

The trial stemming from a lawsuit involving Rihanna and her father has been pushed back because of COVID-19.

Last year she sued her father, Ronald Fenty, after he set up Fenty Entertainment and allegedly booked her on a South American concert tour without her knowledge or consent. Celebrity legal news site The Blast says that coronavirus pandemic means that the case will be postponed until the fall.

“The trial was scheduled to begin on June 23, 2020. However, due to the current situation, they agreed to push it to at least September 22,” The Blast said. “Rihanna says she is currently living in the United Kingdom, which would make a Los Angeles trial a bit difficult. The judge signed off on the request pushing back the court date.”

Adepoju.

Democracy for America endorses Tishaura O. Jones for St. Louis treasurer

By Chris King Of The St. Louis American

Democracy for America

(DFA) endorsed Tishaura O. Jones in her race for reelection as treasurer of the City of St. Louis. The grassroots progressive political action committee said it has 5,696 members in St. Louis.

“Over her first two terms, she has proven herself to be an unyielding champion for reform, a fierce advocate for the city she serves, and a leading light in municipal government for the progressive movement,” DFA CEO Yvette Simpson said in a release.

True to progressive form, when the DFA endorsement was announced on May 14, Jones was riding through the city in an Essential Worker Caravan, along with local janitors, fast food workers and healthcare workers. They were calling attention to the next federal COVID-19 relief bill, the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act, and demanding that U.S. senators Josh Hawley and Roy Blunt support the bill.

A Democrat, Jones was first elected treasurer in 2012 after serving two terms in the Missouri House of Representatives, where she also was the first black woman to serve as the House assistant minority floor leader. DFA also endorsed her unsuccessful 2017 bid for St. Louis mayor.

As treasurer, she removed from employee applications a question asking whether the candidate was a convicted felon, raised the minimum wage to $15/hour in the city departments she oversees, and launched the nation’s second-

Photo by Wiley Price

largest children’s savings program, College Kids, which now has over 16,000 children with over $1.1 million in total savings.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she instituted public health protections before any other elected official in the region, directing her staff in the Parking Division to stop

enforcing traffic laws, as she stated, “to limit the spread of COVID-19.” She did so on March 16, a full week before St. Louis city and county’s stay-at-home orders went into effect. For that, she was chastised by the St. Louis PostDispatch in an editorial stating “the coronavirus outbreak is not a license for officials to do as

they please.”

“From banning the checkbox that prevented so many with a criminal record from getting a job with city departments she runs, to making sure that every employee she manages received a living wage of at least $15/ hour, Tishaura Jones’ has put our shared progressive values in action, delivered for the City of St. Louis,” Simpson stated, “and we know she’s just getting started.”

Jones has one opponent in the August 4 Democratic Primary, Alderman Jeffrey L. Boyd. Though Jones was unopposed in the 2016 Democratic Primary, Boyd also filed in the 2012 Democratic Primary, when the seat was open. Jones won that primary with 13,876 votes (34.95%); Boyd finished third in a field of four with 10,435 votes (26.28%). The difference in their vote totals was 3,441.

Jones and Boyd also ran for mayor in the 2017 Democratic Primary. Though both lost to Lyda Krewson in a crowded field, Jones’ margin over Boyd was far greater than in the 2012 primary for treasurer. Jones received 16,374 votes (30.4%) while Boyd received 1,439 votes (2.67%), a difference of 11,494 votes.

Donald E. De Vivo also filed in the Green Party Primary on August 4. In 2016, he lost the Green Party Primary with 15 out of the 57 votes cast.

Absentee voting for the August 4 primary begins on June 23. The last day to register for this election is July 8. The last day to request an absentee ballot is July 22. The last day to vote absentee in person is August 3.

Dwayne Smith leaving Harris-Stowe for CEO of Housatonic Community College

American staff

Dwayne Smith will join Housatonic Community College as chief executive officer. He is leaving Harris-Stowe State University, where he has served as interim president.

Housatonic Community College, located in Bridgeport, Connecticut, is part of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system. It enrolls more than 5,000 students annually and offers more than 70 degree and certificate programs. The system includes 17 institutions — 12 community colleges, four state universities and one on-line state college.

Its Board of Regents plans to merge the 12 independent community colleges into a single accredited institution by 2023. A regionalized leadership team, including campus CEOs, will administer the new institution.

“Everyone who had the chance to interact with Dr. Smith was impressed with his professional background, commitment to student success, and his family-focused life story,” said Thomas Coley, regional president, Shoreline-West, who chaired the search.

“His dedication to working with students, faculty and staff will be welcomed at Housatonic Community College. He has done great things at Harris-Stowe and other colleges that will transfer immediately to the great things we want to achieve here. I believe he will bring the leadership energy expected on our campus and in our community.”

At Harris-Stowe, Smith also served as provost and vice president for Academic Affairs. Under his leadership,

Harris-Stowe was designated a Statewide Mission in STEM for underrepresented and underserved students. He procured more than $12 million in external funding, including a $5 million National Science Foundation grant. Smith has more than 30 years of higher education leadership and teaching experience. Smith serves as chair of the Board of the Higher Education Consortium, was appointed by the Missouri Commissioner of Higher Education to the President’s Advisory Council and was named to the U.S. Department of State Fulbright Specialist Program.

“I am excited and honored to serve as campus CEO of Housatonic Community College and lead the institution during this unprecedented time period,” said Smith. “My vision for education is about access and opportunity, and I believe that HCC is the perfect institution for this to occur.”

St. Louis Tishaura O. Jones conducting a meeting in 2017.

Dwayne Smith

Editorial /CommEntary

Health, wealth politics and the pandemic

We have not endorsed the Health Before Wealth call to extend the public health stayat-home orders in St. Louis County and city. While the demands made — including on-demand COVID-19 testing, adequate protective equipment and expanded workplace precautions — are fair and just, there are political and economic realities that must be taken in account in regards to the stayat-home orders.

Regional leaders could have done much better to prepare for the racial disparities in COVID-19 outcomes that should have been predicted from preexisting racial disparities. However, both St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page and St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson acted reasonably swiftly and forcefully to put stay-at-home orders in place on March 23. Of regional public officials, only St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura O. Jones was more proactive, putting similar protections in place for her office and suspending parking enforcement a week earlier. When Page and Krewson began to lift the county’s and city’s public health orders on May 18, their protections had been in place for nearly two months. That is a long time for public officials in the United States — and this struggling region in particular— to prioritize public health over private economic interests.

We agree with Dr. Will Ross, who chairs the city’s Health and Hospital Board, that the public health data suggests that easing public health restrictions now risks worsening a second wave of the pandemic. But Dr. Ross does not hold a policy-making position. The only way to make public policy is to hold public office. Krewson is not on the ballot in 2020, but Page is in the difficult position of campaigning for the August 4 Democratic

On Thursday, May 14, Keith Shackleford prepared to open Shack’s Barber Shop, 1724 Olive St., on May 18 when the mayor’s stay-at-home order was lifted

Primary while responding to a pandemic that is putting unprecedented strains on our health and wealth. Notice the utter lack of outcry from any of his challengers that he is lifting his public health order too soon. Notice that no rival candidate is going before the public to say that Page is making a mistake. While we have no reason to believe that his challengers would handle this unprecedented crisis as well as Page, their silence right now is telling voters that they would do no more to protect public health over private wealth than Page is doing. Indeed, we believe Page’s leadership has been largely commendable. As for Krewson, if she seeks re-election next year, she knows she will have to defeat more progressive challengers. Her only hope for re-election is to bolster her support from status quo economic and political interests. It is a wonder that she resisted vested economic interests to uphold her stay-athome order as long as she has. So, when it comes to extending

the stay-at-home orders, we believe pressuring Krewson is pointless and pressuring Page is counter-productive, given that it can only bolster a candidate who will do no better than he is doing to protect public health and may do much worse. That said, everything else the Health Before Wealth movement is demanding is crucial. Page and Krewson must extend all of the powers of their offices to bring on-demand COVID-19 testing, adequate protective equipment and expanded workplace precautions to this region. Front-line workers need paid sick leave and hazard pay. The city should close the Workhouse and reinvest the public money used to keep it open in public health. And everyone in this region must do everything in our individual and collective powers to address the inequities in healthcare access and socioeconomic conditions that contribute to the chronic health disparities that are resulting in so much preventable illness and death in the black community right now.

‘We’ve got to strengthen black institutions’

By Dr. Adam J Milam For The St. Louis American

The racial disparities in COVID-19 cases and fatalities are devastating, but not surprising. The explanations put forward include the usual suspects, such as poor access to care, lack of quality healthcare, poor housing conditions, poverty. Even worse, leaders often point to the higher rates of hypertension and diabetes among Africans Americans, cleverly pointing the blame back to the people who have been the beneficiary of inequitable treatment for decades. The less popular explanations for African-American health disparities include physicians who are culturally unequipped in effective and contextually relevant communication with African-American patients and the unconscious biases of clinicians who disproportionately marginalize African Americans.

I am an African-American male physician, with two advanced degrees. Accepting this reality, I oscillate between heartbreak and outrage. What can I do?

I frequently listen to my favorite speech, the last speech given by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I’m often soothed to simply hear his opening words: “I’m delighted to see each of you here tonight, in spite of a storm warning.” I often feel like I am in a storm, but his words and his voice comfort and encourage me. The last time I listened to this speech, I heard something as if for the first time. He said, “We’ve got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit

your money in Tri-State Bank. We want a ‘bank-in’ movement in Memphis … Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies here in the city of Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an ‘insurance-in.’” In that moment, I knew not only what I could do, but what I must do. I have the luxury of standing on the shoulders of giants, the African American physicians that came before me. America’s first black physician, James McCune Smith, had to leave America to obtain his medical degree in 1836. At that time the American Medical Association (AMA), founded in 1847, did not accept black physicians. It would be nearly another 60 years in 1895 when a group of AfricanAmerican physicians would cofound the National Medical Association.

I recognize that, despite the challenges that I face as an African-American physician, I am a doctor because of those that came before me. Yet, here I am, in the middle of a pandemic, and I am completely disconnected from the organizations that supported and advocated for black doctors in America – the organizations that continue to fortify and fight for equity not just for black medical doctors but for all black people.

The large national organizations supporting African Americans – like the NAACP,

My commitment to you knows no end

By state Senator Jamilah Nasheed For The St. Louis American In 2007, the voters of St. Louis bestowed upon me the honor of being their representative in the Missouri General Assembly. For the past 13 years, in both the Missouri House and Senate, I’ve stood alongside parents and teachers to work for better schools and safer streets. I’ve brought millions of state dollars back home to St. Louis to lift up our communities. Strengthened by your support, your prayers, and your kind words, I spoke truth to power – and gave a voice to the voiceless.

Now, as the final session of my legislative career draws to a close, I look back upon our many achievements together, and I am once again humbled by this incredible journey you set me on all those years ago. Together, we fought blight and cleaned up neighborhoods. We brought tens of millions of additional dollars home to Harris-Stowe State and Lincoln universities. We expanded the A+ scholarship program to include vocational and technical schools. We brought awareness to, and helped fight the spread of, sex trafficking. We “Banned the Box” and expanded expungement opportunities to help reformed Missourians find a job. We passed historic criminal justice reform. We secured hundreds of millions of dollars for programs throughout the City of St. Louis to help our most vulnerable citizens get healthcare and find work.

This year, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the St. Louis region – especially its black citizens – especially hard. The

first confirmed COVID-19 death in Missouri was a black woman from our area. By May, nearly 70 percent of St. Louis’ COVID-19 fatalities and cases were black, despite black St. Louisans making up less than 50 percent of the city’s population. Clearly, this terrible virus is disproportionally impacting clack families due to the historic disparity in healthcare access.

That is why, as a member of the Senate Budget Committee, I made sure that $35 million in federal funding would be invested in the City of St. Louis to help first responders, medical professionals, and everyone on the frontlines. By strengthening the fight against COVID-19 on all fronts and focusing on underserved communities, we can save black lives.

This global pandemic has made my final legislative session a challenge like no other.

But like every session before it, I cherished the time my constituents gave me to serve. Hopefully, along the way, I shouldered the burdens of my constituents to the best of my ability as the pandemic increased demand for healthcare, unemployment benefits, and food assistance.

Helping me meet these needs was a talented staff, led by the unflappable Jason Groce, a man with an incredible depth of talent and an even deeper faith. Over the years, the women and men who have served in

Letters to the editor

Mum on Cure Violence

throughout all parts of the city.

my office have helped countless citizens navigate the gears of government. Groce, Jay Nelson, Blake Lawrence, and my dearly departed friend, the late Eric Vickers, I could not have done it without you, and I am so very grateful for your service.

These final days of my legislative career dovetail with the conclusion of another long journey which my family has traveled for 29 years.

We have just welcomed home my twin brother from the Department of Corrections. He and I were born into chaos and struggled with the challenges and hardships that came with growing up, without parents, on the streets of 1980s St. Louis. Thankfully, we survived. I have missed having my brother at my side for nearly three decades, and I will cherish every day we have together now. His is a story of redemption and salvation. His strength and achievements inspire me. He demonstrates what is possible when we choose to rise up from the ashes and demand something better for our future. I hope, that through my service in the state Legislature, we have spared other families from these hardships. Serving as your state senator has been the honor of a lifetime. I thank you with all of my heart for this rare and precious opportunity. Although my days in the Legislature may soon be over, please know that my commitment to you knows no end.

State Senator Jamilah Nasheed (D-St. Louis) represents Missouri’s 5th Senate District.

All letters are edited for length and style.

the Rainbow Push Coalition, and the National Medical Association – have been at the forefront of health equity and social justice for black people since their inception. Without them, there would be no us.

These organizations brought attention to disparities in maternal and infant mortality in African-American communities, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the gross underrepresentation of African Americans in medical school. These organizations galvanize the collective power of black people to secure funding for our communities, enact legislation to promote equity, and implement policies that address disparities. These organizations force change.

I found my answer to what can I do. I was exhausted, working at the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic and bearing witness to the preventable death of so many people, so many African-American people, my people. I heeded Dr. King’s call to invest in our institutions and our organizations, and I joined the National Medical Association and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. A week later, I joined the NAACP. Without them, there is no me.

Dr. Adam J Milam is a fourth-year Anesthesiology Resident at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He has part-time faculty appointments at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. Following residency, he will be pursuing a fellowship in Adult Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology at Cleveland Clinic. Twitter @ajmilammdphd.

As of May 13, there were 95 COVID-19 deaths in the City of St. Louis. As of May 11, there were 52 homicides and 47 of the victims were black, per the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. If you count those shot and wounded, the number affected by gun violence would be much higher.

Basking in the limelight of COVID coverage, Mayor Krewson has been on Twitter, Facebook, radio, cable TV, podcasts, etc. Yet she has been mum on Cure Violence, a program to reduce gun violence, crime, and homicides, even though she pledged to make crime reduction a top priority.

St. Louis has been cited as the most dangerous City in America. Our murder rate has at times been 10 times the national homicide rate. In fact, the murder rate in North City has rivaled the murder rate in El Salvador, which has the highest murder rate in the world.

Gunfire is routinely heard

The health care crisis of homicides, shootings, gunfire, and crime also need attention and action

James Sahaida, St. Louis

Trump clearly and dismally failed

Born in the first years of the Boomer generation, I have witnessed a number of presidents and cannot remember one who abdicated responsibility as Trump has while thousands of Americans died each day.

Calling himself a “wartime president,” Trump has explicitly refused to use his federal powers to compel manufacture of, for example, personal protective equipment desperately needed by health care workers and first responders for their safety while they tend to sick and dying.

The inevitable result of Trump’s abdication of responsibility created a seller’s market, driving up the price of for-

merly inexpensive masks and gowns to stratospheric levels as states bid against one another and the federal government. Bottom line: taxpayers will pay far more than they otherwise would have for life-preserving essentials, only because Trump refused to take responsibility – in essence, refused to do his job. No other president in recent history has failed to take responsibility for Americans’ lives, health and economic welfare as Trump has. George W. Bush’s Katrina failure was epic. But, tragic as it was, Katrina was a more localized failure that did not involve anywhere near the continuing fatalities and economic loss as COVID-19. In my view, there is no rational way a voter could choose a president who has so clearly and dismally failed – at such great cost of American lives and taxpayer funds – to do his job as Trump.

Arthur Hoffman, St. Louis

As I See It - A Forum for Community Issues

As I See It - A Forum for Community Issues

Columnist Jamilah Nasheed

Photo by Wiley Price

Bringing a gun to a dog fight

Pattonville now giving a week of meals only on Wednesday

As of May 20, the Pattonville School District will distribute free meals only from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Wednesday at Pattonville High School and the Pattonville Learning Center. Each distribution will include five breakfasts and five lunches for students. Meals distributed at the high school will include one hot meal. The meal service is open to all children 18 years of age and under. No ID or paperwork is required to participate. When arriving by car, write the number of children you are picking up meals for on a large sheet of paper and place it on your dashboard. Stay inside your vehicle and open your trunk to allow volunteers to place the bags directly inside. If opening your trunk is not possible and there is no other unoccupied space in your vehicle, you will need to get out of your vehicle and pick up the meals from a curbside table while maintaining six feet distance from others. If you walk to one of the sites, volunteers will help you while maintaining the six-foot social distancing requirement. Families will not be able to enter the school, and meals should not be consumed on site. Meals picked up should be eating or refrigerated after receiving.

Republicans trying to capitalize on disaster

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed shameful corruption while most of us are fighting to defend ourselves from the deadly virus and maintain our households. We are seeing untold corporate and government power-grabbing. The theft of our tax dollars under the guise of support for working families and small businesses has proven to be a farce. With one week left in the Missouri legislature, the conservation forces are slashing and burning anything that doesn’t jibe with their agenda.

This is why we must keep both eyes wide open—one on our personal situation and the other on their politricking. There’s still work to be done even as we shelter in place.

Congress has passed three separate coronavirus-relief packages at a total cost of more than $2 trillion. The CARES Act was supposed to pump $1.8 trillion into the economy by giving directly to individuals and small businesses. It was touted as the largest stimulus package in U.S. history. The first round of stimulus was the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP). Billions were sucked up by big corporations such as Shake Shack and the Los Angeles Lakers. Shake Shack was shamed into returning its $10 million.

How these giants got their grubby hands on money targeted for small businesses demands an answer. This most immediate one is that Congress is taking care of its buddies. Small businesses are still struggling, and some will not survive the pandemic.

The Republican agenda has attacked social programs, reproductive rights, worker protections, small farmer security and political empowerment. It has divested our tax dollars from these programs to investment in corporate welfare in the form of abatements, subsidies, and other benefits at our expense.

If it was muddled before COVID-19, we can now see the advantages of having economic and social safety nets in place. Food stamps have been a Republican favorite for reduction of funds and an increase in restrictive eligibility requirements. Families desperately need this benefit now.

Medicaid supporters recently turned in over 350,000 signatures to get Medicaid Expansion on the November ballot. It would’ve been a great help right about now for many Missouri families in dealing with medical needs. In the last decade, Missouri has lost four of its five abortion clinics due to conservatives’ desire to control women’s bodies. Their plan is to drive all such clinics out of the state despite the fact the access to safe abortions is a law. They’re on a roll if we don’t stop them now.

The most sickening attempt of the Missouri Legislature comes in the form of destroying Amendment 1, a ballot initiative passed overwhelming by voters in 2018 to ensure fairness in the redistricting process and transparency in lobbying efforts.

Somehow, some way the people of Missouri must rise up and challenge the unjust, unethical and unfair measures that are being pushed through while we are pre-occupied with COVID-19. The Republicans don’t shame easily so we must be bold and creative in our collective responses to them.

What we must avoid at all costs facing a new world rife with restrictions on every aspect of our lives once the dust settles from the virus. This will not be the first time Republicans have re-arranged society during a disaster. We must be equally as savvy to maintain our ground and to advance an agenda that takes care of citizens in sickness and in health. This is our social contract as a civilized society.

A St. Louis Police officer drew his weapon on a dog after it charged his K-9 partner during the aftermath of a shooting at North Florissant Avenue and N. 20th Street on Saturday, May 9. The dog was not injured.

Photo by Wiley Price

Jamala Rogers

Urban League

Mall on May 16, 3,300 families were served.

“It’s a sight to behold,” said St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, who volunteered at Jamestown Mall.

To date, the Urban League has distributed nearly $800,000 worth of food, toiletries, and personal protective equipment to over 17,000 families in St. Louis, St. Louis County, East St. Louis and Alton, Illinois. They will serve another 3,000 families this Saturday, May 23 starting at noon at the North Side Community Empowerment Center, 1330 Aubert Ave.

“We continue to receive requests every day from the community throughout the entire region for all items,” McMillan said.

They will continue to serve the community through largescale distribution events every week until August, when these efforts will culminate with what would have been its Urban Expo touch event. With social-distancing protocols in place, this will instead be a network of drive-through events in the city, county and East St. Louis. In addition to the usual supplies, the Urban League will give away bookbags, school supplies, information and resources for students going back to school – whatever that means this fall.

McMillan’s vast personal

Police

Continued from A1

Continued from A1 resisted arrest for suspected larceny, which led to him and the arresting officer crashing into a wall. It claimed that Gray tried to remove a fire extinguisher from the wall, “but it was dislodged from him as he was wrestled to the ground.”

In a surveillance video released on May 19, Gray yanks his hand away as an

and professional networks and his reservoir of credibility and good will have been essential to growing this movement, week by week.

“Prior to my being sworn in as county prosecutor, as a councilman in Ferguson and just a member of our community, I have always found the Urban League to be a great community partner to work with,” Bell said. “Anything I have ever needed – and I know this is true of other officials and leaders – the Urban League and Mike McMillan were

officer tries to handcuff him and then moves toward the exit. It’s the officer’s pursuit of Gray that slams them both against the wall where the fire extinguisher is holstered. It’s not clear that it was Gray’s intention to weaponize the fire extinguisher. Gray never has control of the object, and when it falls to the ground no police officer removes it from reach, as police are trained to do with a weapon taken from a suspect.

The surveillance video, which has no sound, shows a

always there to help in any way. This is just another example of leadership.”

Community members who know their public officials must have balked, at times, to see who was putting groceries and sanitizers into their trunk.

St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page and state Senator Jamilah Nasheed also have served with the Urban League on the front lines.

“I have great respect for what the Urban League has done and is doing and wanted to be a part of the progress that

large police officer roughly handling tiny Marvia Gray, age 68. A bystander video reveals Derek Gray howling over the rough handling of his mother while he is being restrained by the other officers.

The Grays said they purchased the 65-inch TV earlier that day, but could not fit it into their SUV and were returning it. At that point, they claimed, Police Officer Michael Clayborne followed Derek Gray, suspecting him of stealing the TV.

Volunteers loaded boxes of food and necessities into cars during the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis’ largescale distribution event at Jamestown Mall on Saturday, May 16.

diapers, baby formula – as he said, “basic survival needs.” Bell could feel that, helping to provide for those basic survival needs at Jamestown Mall, a hangout of his youth.

“It was heartwarming, but it was bittersweet,” Bell said. “It was wonderful to see people come together. On the bitter side, it’s hard to see so many people in need. But I was happy to work with people to help meet that need.” McMillan foresees just as many people with needs to meet in the future, though those needs will evolve beyond bare subsistence.

the Urban League promotes. It’s amazing to see so many people working for the betterment of the disenfranchised,” Nasheed said.

“Mike McMillan has such great charisma and really cares about people and truly understands the plight of the most vulnerable. There is nothing I would not do to support or serve Mike McMillan in whatever position he might be in.” Nasheed is more accustomed to serving the Urban League by fighting for state funding for its programs. In

The other officers named in the suit are Brandley Summers, Ryan Righesisen and Bill Maull.

The Grays claim that Clayborne called for emergency back-up even after a store employee told him that the Grays had purchased the item earlier.

The Grays and their attorneys told their story in a virtual press conference organized with the St. Louis County NAACP and its President John Bowman.

the last two years, she secured a total of $1 million in state funds for its Save Our Sons program that McMillan founded during the height of the Ferguson unrest.

“That money was well worth it,” Nasheed said. “We are transforming lives.” McMillan himself looks forward to the day when the Urban League can return to its proactive mission of transforming lives and not spend so much time and resources on providing food, toiletries, emergency financial assistance,

“We will not tolerate Jim Crow policing, Jim Crowstyle attacks,” Bowman said. “NAACP St Louis County stands firmly with the Gray family.”

In addition to the 2014 Ferguson Police killing of Michael Brown, the attorneys and NAACP referenced the recent vigilante killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.

“We know that in all these jurisdictions across the country everyone’s dealing with the COVID pandemic,” Stroth said.

“I am incredibly concerned about the future of our economy,” McMillan said. “As people go back to work, they will need job training for other industries. And what will our social safety net look like? How long will this last? How long will it take to get us back to where we used to be?” As more basic needs are met, new problems will emerge.

“After the economy starts to stabilize, our focus can return to empowerment and helping people get jobs so they can take care of themselves, open their own business, be independent,” McMillan said. “That is the real goal of this agency – economic independence – not keeping people in the constant state of being a client of the Urban League.”

For more information, visit https://www.ulstl.com/ or call 314-615-3600.

“But, as Mr. Bowman referenced, we have another pandemic in the black community, and that’s the unjustified use of force against black and brown individuals across the country.” Marvia Gray is suing for compensatory and punitive damages. The family also is seeking an independent investigation into the incident. St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell told The American that he has initiated a “thorough investigation of the incident.”

Photo by Wiley Price

Annie Malone

her father, Virvus Jones, who served in the same role 30 years before in 1990. She challenged the public to match her gifts throughout the day.

Much has changed for Annie Malone since its founding as the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home in 1888. The center has preserved its home base at 2612 Annie Malone Dr. in the historic Ville Neighborhood since 1922. When other ethnic orphanages closed in the 1950s, Annie Malone continued to provide residential care and emergency shelter. Today, the agency is an essential source for crisis intervention and preventing child abuse and neglect through a variety of services. Lahman anticipates that the abuse and neglect calls are going to increase dramatically, as families become further impacted by the pandemic.

“We are very concerned about another round of infection during the flu season,” Lahman said. “The recovery for our families will take longer, so to throw another round of COVID-19 in the mix means we will absolutely see an increased need for our services, and we will need help meeting that need.”

Since the onset of the pandemic, Annie Malone has been hit hard because of the increased costs to serve families and simply to run the agency — given the added costs of sanitization supplies, gloves, masks, temperature scanners and other needed health and safety equipment.

n “We will absolutely see an increased need for our services, and we will need help meeting that need.”

— Sara Lahman, Annie Malone CEO

“We will see an increase in requests for emergency placements due to suspected abuse and neglect situations,” she said. “We need to be prepared for that. The longer this pandemic isolates children, the more likely the opportunity for abuse and neglect.”

As “phenomenal” as the virtual parade effort was, Lahman said the agency still needs help from the corporate community to continue providing services to those families that will come to them in the next few months.

Virus

Continued from A1

Continued from A1 there. It’s still circulating in the community. There’s still a significant proportion of the population that’s susceptible to the virus.”

The only way the St. Louis region can safely ease stay-athome orders is if everyone continues to practice the preventative measures that have helped decrease the spread of the virus, he said. Those practices include keeping gatherings to fewer than 10 people, wearing protective masks, staying six feet apart from each other, washing hands and staying home as much as possible.

Garza showed a model of what could happen if people do not continue to follow the guidelines after May 18. It could lead to a second peak in hospitalizations — around 663 inpatients — as early as June 24, the model shows. That would be slightly higher than the peak we experienced in late April, with 621 inpatients. Hospitalizations wouldn’t drop back to current levels until July 2020 without additional measures to contain the virus, the model states.

“Our families are African Americans living in the city ZIP codes most disproportionately impacted by this virus,” Lahman said. “We needed to stabilize them with emergency food, cleaning supplies, medical co-payments, emergency rent vouchers, utility payments, and other relief. We had no budget for that.”

The agency also had a drop in revenue coming from its education program at Emerson Academy because it primarily serves Saint Louis Public Schools (SLPS) students.

“When SLPS closed school and went to a virtual learning environment, that impacted our bottom line,” she said. “We had to furlough teaching staff and other direct-care staff. Our executive team also took pay cuts,

Mercy, SSM Health and St. Luke’s Hospital. Garza is confident that the region can continue to follow this trend with proper public-health guidelines in place, he said.

On May 19, the task force reported that there are 455 people currently in the hospital who have either tested positive for COVID-19 or are awaiting test results. The number of patients in the intensive care units is 98, and the number of people on ventilators is 70. The number of new hospital admissions was 25. (All the reported data lags by two days.)

On May 18, Garza also showed a series of trend lines in hospital data. The seven-day rolling average for new hospital admissions shows a steady decline since early April, he said. This number is currently at 28, which is down from 59 on April 9.

n “It’s still important to remember that the virus is still here; it’s still contagious and it’s still very dangerous.”

“This is a really important trend, and it’s an indicator of the level of suppression that we have of the virus in the community,” Garza said. “We know it will never reach zero until we have a vaccine, but we would like to see it continue to come down.”

— Dr. Alexander Garza

“These are probabilities,” Garza said. “This doesn’t have to be our reality.”

One way to measure transmission of the virus in the community is to look at the reproduction number, which is currently 0.8, the model shows. That means that each person who contracts the virus will likely infect fewer than one other person. That’s a good indicator that the region has been successful in suppressing transmission, Garza said. When the task force started collecting hospitalization data of COVID19 patients in late March, the number was 5.0 — meaning each new case would likely produce another five cases. If people don’t follow the guidelines, then the reproduction number could jump up to 1.5, which could cause the second wave of hospitalizations.

However, Garza also presented a slide of hospital inpatient numbers since mid-March, and it shows the beginning of a downward curve. The data represents hospital patients who tested positive for COVID-19 within the task force’s hospital systems: BJC HealthCare,

and we began looking at every area to find savings.”

Some staff members have returned because the agency was successful in getting federal loans to cover those costs, but that funding doesn’t help with programs — just payroll and administrative costs.

“Our staff has been tremendous through all of this,” Lahman said. “They have been creative in keeping kids calm and entertained. They have gone above and beyond to make sure our families’ needs are met in terms of delivering supplies and emergency food. They have worked extra hours and supported each other. It’s been great to watch them work as a team to take care of our families.”

To donate to Annie Malone, visit the website or call 314531-0120.

said. “But it’s still important to remember that the virus is still here; it’s still contagious and it’s still very dangerous.”

Racial disparities persist

Racial disparities in the impact of COVID-19 persist in the region. As of May 20 in St. Louis County, 141 of the 350 deaths from the disease were black, and 1,863 of the 4,410 cases were black. That’s 40.3% of the deaths and 42.2% of the cases, when blacks form only 24.9% of the county’s population, As of May 19 in the City of St. Louis, 65 of the 108 deaths and 1,096 of the 1,705 cases were black. That’s 60.2% of the deaths and 64.2% of the cases, when blacks form 45.9% of the city’s population.

The seven-day moving average of the total number of COVID-19 patients in the hospitals was also the lowest it’s been at 476.

“As this number continues to come down, it helps us be confident that the steps we’re taking are working,” Garza has said, “and the hospital systems are going to be ready and able to take care of COVID patients without becoming overwhelmed.”

Across the system hospitals, 32 COVID-19 patients were discharged, bringing the cumulative number of patients discharged to 1,924, as of May 19.

Looking at the trend of new hospital admissions is the best way we can currently evaluate the spread of the new coronavirus in the St. Louis community, Garza said.

Now that the stay-at-home orders have been lifted in the city and county, this is the trend line that the task force will be tracking to make sure the region doesn’t experience a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, he said.

“The relaxing of social distancing orders is an important time and a sign of progress this region has made in stopping the spread of the virus,” Garza

St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura Jones served as grand marshall for the Annie Malone’s virtual 2020 May Day Parade.

THE URBAN LEAGUE

SERVES OVER 3,300 FAMILIES DURING THE 7TH FOOD, TOILETRIES AND PPE MATERIALS GIVEAWAY AT JAMESTOWN MALL

Last Saturday, May 16, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis served over 3,300 families with more than $200,000 in food, toiletries, and personal protective equipment at the Old Jamestown Mall site in Florissant, Missouri. For the past seven weeks, the League has hosted Food & Toiletries Giveaways throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area, including St. Louis City and County, East St. Louis, and Madison County, Illinois.

“We are so grateful for the opportunity to help more than 17,000 families to receive nearly $800,000 worth of food, toiletries, and other necessities this Spring. Many thanks to our sponsors and volunteers who have greatly assisted in this effort. At the Urban League, we are very dedicated to empowering communities and changing lives throughout this time of crisis,” said Michael P. McMillan, President & CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, Inc.

For information please visit www.ULSTL.com

‘We should be seeking an eternal return on investment’

David L. Steward recommends

‘Biblical Business Training’ in a new book with Brandon K. Mann

By Chris King Of The St. Louis American

David L. Steward – chairman and founder of World Wide Technology (WWT) – is promoting a new book. Leadership by the Good Book is co-authored by Brandon K. Mann, managing partner and CEO of Kingdom Capital, a private equity and stewardship firm based on Christian principles. Mann also founded Biblical Business Training, and the book points towards that training in business leadership.

The basic argument of the book is simple. As Steward told The American, business leaders who focus on the bottom line, rather than a higher power, won’t get very far in material or spiritual pursuits. “We should be seeking an eternal return on investment,” he said.

As chairman and founder of one of the nation’s largest African Americanowned businesses, a systems integrator and supply chain solutions provider with revenue exceeding $10 billion in 2017, this man might know something about success. Clearly, that success reflects consummate skills in making deals, marketing, integrating systems and providing supply chain solutions, but those skills are not what Steward wants to talk or write about. He wants to talk and write about where he turns in times of despair, and it’s always to the same place.

n “This pandemic magnifies this need for light. In this darkness, people are looking for answers.”

– David L. Steward

“In 1993, my car had been repossessed. I was in despair. The banks had shut us down. Our creditors were all over us. Some people in our organization had reallocated some of our money into their own pocket, and we had fired the person who did that. It was a dark, dark day,” he remembered.

“Literally, it was a dark, cloudy day. The electricity had gone off in the office. I was in a completely dark place. I received a phone call in that darkness. It was my mother in law reminding me of my faith.” Dorothy Willis, his mother in law, read him Psalms 91, which knows something about darkness: “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night.” Then she prayed for him.

David

L. Steward and Brandon K. Mann are coauthors of Leadership by the Good Book

“My mother in love called me on that day, praying for me,” Steward said. “My mother in love called me to remind me to never, ever forget that this Book is a light to world that will hopefully lead you back to the word of God to receive it in a way you never have before and renew your faith.”

He wants his and Mann’s book to do for others what that phone call from his “mother in love” did for him. “You can even bring this light into a work place,” he said, “and revive the spirit of your organization.”

Steward and Mann planned and wrote their

American staff

The University of Missouri – St. Louis (UMSL) will conduct its summer paid internship program, virtually, with study and research targeted on COVID-19 and the African-American community. UMSL research mentors include 10 professors from Biology, Chemistry, Math and Computer Science, Communication, and Education.

n “I wanted to help provide the same kinds of high-quality experiences that students from more affluent districts have.”

– Patricia Parker

The Collaborative Laboratory Internships and Mentoring Blueprint (CLIMB) developed a virtual curriculum for the summer to continue to support high school students in disadvantaged communities. CLIMB is a partnership between the University of Missouri–St. Louis and the Jennings and University City school districts.

Structured weekly activities engage the 2020 CLIMB interns to think like a scientist until they are scheduled to enter campus in fall 2020 for hands-on laboratory experience. In the exercises planned, the high school students will learn about epidemiology, discuss the biology of what is happening in our

See UMSL, A10

book in better times, and they know that they are promoting it at a moment of widespread grief, uncertainty and social distancing that is taking their toll globally. This crisis is deeply personal to Steward in connection to his own mother, Dorothy Steward.

“My dear mother just turned 92, and she has health issues,” Steward said. “With prayer, she is still with us. She has been in hospice the last two months. Putting her in hospice was the most difficult thing to do. We thought she only had a

See

Cousins donates $50K to (FON) School District

American staff

Steven Cousins, president and CEO of Cousins Allied Strategic Advisors and an alumnus of Normandy High School, has contributed a $50,000 endowment to the Friends of Normandy (FON) School District.

FON is an independent, nonprofit foundation whose mission is to fund scholarships for Normandy seniors.

The scholarships can be used at any 2-year, 4-year or vocational/technical post-secondary institution.

“A college education is a passport to success,” said Cousins, who also served as vice president of his 1973 senior class. “It opens up doors of opportunities and corridors of power that are otherwise closed or most difficult to access.” Cousins founded his own firm after a distinguished career at Armstrong Teasdale LLP, a law firm with more than 550 attorneys and staff in offices across the country, where he was the first African-American partner and executive committee member.

But he came from humble beginnings, working part-time as a busboy and dishwasher at Host International’s restaurants at the St. Louis airport while a student at Normandy High School. He studied at the University of Missouri-St. Louis for two years before leaving for Yale University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. He then went to the University of Pennsylvania to study law and business.

“There’s no better investment than our youth and their education,” Cousins said. “As Martin Luther King said, albeit in a different context, ‘I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.’ To me, it’s our youth. They represent our future.”

The Missouri Department of

&

Development is hiring up to

positions with an $1.33 million grant for COVID-19 Disaster Recovery from the U.S. Department of Labor. Up to 30 of the employment opportunities will involve humanitarian work, such as delivery of groceries and medicine, health care jobs and contract tracing. The remaining available jobs will aid Missouri’s economic recovery efforts and include temporary employment, job center services, and training opportunities. Funds will be awarded on June 1 and will be available to the local workforce development boards within 45 days. Visit https://jobs.mo.gov or call a local Missouri Job Center at 314-589-8000 (St. Louis) or 314615-6010 or 314-475-7900 (St. Louis County).

Jennings students from UMSL’s 2017 cohort of CLIMB interns with program director Patricia Parker in the Parker lab at UMSL.

STEWARD, A10

Steven Cousins

David L. Steward

Photo by August Jennewein

See COUSINS, A10

Continued from A9

lives at this historic moment, explain how this pandemic impacts minorities and understand the role of equity in diseases, and develop presentation skills.

The spring/summer program will be administered as an UMSL Advance Credit course for one hour of college credit at no expense to the students. For the scheduled hands-on internship, they will be hired as part-time temporary UMSL employees.

The program was developed through a close partnership established between Patricia Parker (interim director of the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center and E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Zoological Studies in the UMSL Department of Biology) and her partners in Jennings Schools, Rhonda Key (assistant superintendent of Jennings School District) and Miranda Ming (principal, Jennings Senior High School).

“I wanted to help provide the same kinds of high-quality experiences that students from more affluent districts have,” Parker said in 2017. “These students are truly gifted and mature beyond their years. They can focus and master highly technical skills. They have tenacity, curiosity and grit, on top of their innate talents.”

For more information, contact Parker at pparker@umsl.edu.

ESL senior earns Hospitality and Tourism Management certificate

Arielle Bell earned a college-level certification in Hospitality and Tourism Management before graduating from high school.

Part of the East St. Louis Senior High School Class of 2020, she has been interested in hotel management for over four years. Her mentor, Teresa Williams, connected her to a free certification program that was being offered through the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was the only high school student to participate in the program designed for college-level students.

“Arielle is a scholar and is self-motivated to expand her knowledge and skills,” said Williams, director of Federal Programs at the East St. Louis School District. “She is always striving to prepare for college and her career.”

Bell has been an active high school student with extra-cur-

n Arielle Bell was the only high school student to participate in the program designed for college-level students.

ricular activities like band and Beta Club. Once school closure and social distancing began due to COVID-19, she was concerned about how to spend her free time but decided to use it to earn a certificate in Hospitality and Tourism Management.

During March and April, she successfully juggled the online certification program in addition to her remote learning high school courses and maintaining a strong GPA. In the fall, Arielle plans to attend Lincoln University where she will major in Business Management.

Todd Yancy, Kem Smith honored by Walgreens

Todd Yancy, an Art teacher at University City High School, and Kem Smith, an English teacher at McCluer North High School, were among the area teachers honored by Walgreens for “going above and beyond their ordinary duties to encourage students to creatively express themselves through art, spoken word and videos on very real topics to make a difference in their schools and community.” They encouraged student

participation in the Walgreens Expressions Challenge, a peerto-peer based “healthy choice” awareness initiative for high school teens age 14-18. The challenge motivates participants to voice their opinion on critical life issues they face daily through creative writing, visual arts, and media arts. To learn more about the challenge and to view the student submissions, visit www. ExpressionsChallenge.com.

Cousins

Friends of Normandy (FON) School District, which was founded in 2005, has raised more than $300,000 for college scholarships through its annual black-tie gala, which was canceled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

n Even though this year’s Friends of Normandy Gala was cancelled, the community can still support graduating seniors with scholarships.

Continued from A9 philanthropy, which is based upon the concept that education

“Mr. Cousins’ donation reflects our philosophy of

Continued from A9

few hours to live. She has eight children, and we all prayed. She is still with us.”

One of the wealthiest people in the world sounds like any trembling soul when talking about praying over his mother near the end of her long life. The image of darkness occurred to him again.

“It’s a dark, difficult time,”

can be endowed by community support,” said Beverley Thompson, FON founding director. “We are thankful for his generous donation and inspired by his irrevocable belief in the academic excellence of our students.” Even though this year’s FON Gala was cancelled, the community can still support graduating seniors with scholarships. To contribute, visit www.normandysc.org/ friends.

Steward said. “She is now in isolation in Kansas City, and I am here. Her eight children aren’t able to be around her. I can’t be there with her. But our connection will always be with me. It’s embedded in me, the love she shared with me. A hug would be nice, but the love of a mother and son over the years is so deeply embedded, it doesn’t matter. We can use any media and I can see her face, and it still shines through.”

So, yes, David Steward knows something about this COVID-19 pandemic.

“This pandemic magnifies this need for light,” he said. “In this darkness, people are looking for answers. In this darkness, the light can be the light of the word of God. If anybody is looking for a way through this and sees a pathway of light through this book to reconnect to their faith in a way they had not done before, then mission accomplished.”

For more information on Leadership by the Good Book, visit https://b-b-t.org/ leadershipbythegoodbook. For more information on Biblical Business Training, visit https:// www.b-b-t.org/.

East St. Louis senior Arielle Bell

Kem Smith

Todd Yancy

Missouri State Parks reopening campgrounds and beaches

Edward “Ted” and Pat Jones- Confluence Point State Park in West Alton, Missouri in North St. Louis County

‘We hope

our

visitors will practice social distancing and avoid crowded areas’

American staff

Missouri State Parks campgrounds reopened to accommodate existing campground reservations at 3 p.m., Monday, May 18. In addition, new reservations were accepted on Monday, May 18, for arrival dates beginning Tuesday, May 26. Missouri State Park beaches will open to the public on Thursday, May 21, with visitors expected to practice social distancing.

Missouri State Parks will also be instituting a number of changes related to campground operations to better facilitate appropriate social distancing and improve the safety of operations for guests and staff. Reservations will be required prior to arrival. Campground occupancy will be limited at some parks and sites. Shower houses and restrooms and will be cleaned more frequently. Campers will use a new contactless, self-check-in feature. There will be occupancy restrictions in shower houses and restrooms. Only accept credit and debit cards will be accepted.

“We hope all of our visitors will continue to be respectful of others, practice social distancing, avoid crowded areas, and do their part to help keep our parks and historic sites safe and clean,” stated Carol Comer, director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

Comer pointed to other public health precautions recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Keep a minimum distance of six feet between you and others. Avoid crowded areas and groups of people. Stay close-to-home and travel with only those from your household. Wash your hands often. Come prepared and carry hand sanitizers, soaps, wipes and water. Avoid handshakes, hugs and touching your face. Cover your mouth and nose with your elbow when you cough or sneeze. Most importantly, stay home if you are sick.

Reservations will now be required at most campgrounds and park-run lodging prior to arrival, and can be made up until 7 p.m. CST the day before arrival. First-come, first-served camping will no longer be available at most state park campgrounds.

National Leaders in Cancer,

As part of our ongoing commitment to you, and the region, Siteman Cancer Center is providing greater access to its nationally recognized cancer services, at six regional treatment facilities.

To address the unique needs of cancer patients, our specialized team of Washington University physicians, nurses, and other specialists works together to provide individualized, multidisciplinary patient care, including innovative clinical trials and treatments not available elsewhere in the area.

Our six Siteman Cancer Center locations provide the most advanced and specialized cancer care available in the region. For a list of locations or more information visit, Siteman.wustl.edu or call 800-600-3606

New reservations began Monday, May 18, for arrival dates on Tuesday, May 26, and beyond, by visiting mostateparks.com.

“I have never seen anything like it.”

That is state Senator Jamilah Nasheed (D-St. Louis) talking about the legislative session that just ended in Jefferson City. That is really saying something, given that she has served in the state Legislature since 2007. She is now, finally, finished in the capitol, termlimited as a state senator after serving as a state representative from 20017-2013.

It’s not only that she finished this session wearing a protective mask during a pandemic, though there is that. Working alongside out-state Republicans has challenged the mental health of black state legislators since state Rep. Walthall M. Moore Sr. became the first black elected to the Missouri Legislature in 1921. It might be useful perspective to consider that there was legal slavery in Missouri for 145 years, from 1720-1865, though blacks have been voting – in the superminority – to enact state laws for less than 100 years.

This legislative session, however, the health risks were not only to one’s mental health.

“Most of the Republicans did not believe if you had on a mask it would protect you or protect others,” Nasheed said. “To be in a building with people who were not protecting themselves or others, I would not be surprised if individuals get sick with COVID-19 as a result of being in that building. They put a lot of lives in jeopardy.”

The Republican leadership rightly claimed that they needed to pass a state budget before

the new fiscal year begins on July 1, and they did accomplish that – though with so many uncertainties about state revenue, given the economic havoc wrought by the pandemic, that no one believes this budget will be final. But they did a lot of other dangerous work besides – and almost none of the work expected of public servants in the midst of a pandemic.

“During a pandemic, we should have been making sure our healthcare workers have protective equipment, that Missourians who are unemployed are receiving benefits, that we are providing resources to help our citizens,” said state Rep. Steven Roberts (D-St. Louis), one of several Democrats vying for the seat Nasheed is vacating. “Instead, they just kept ramming through Republican priorities that hurt the everyday people we are all elected to serve.” Roberts mentioned Senate Bill 591, which hurts all Missourians at the expense of the corporate interests served by the Republican Party. “It raises the burden of proof for seeking punitive damages for bad merchandising practices,” Roberts said. “To do that in the midst of a pandemic – to raise the bar so high it could be more costeffective, say, to keep making a faulty part because you know you’re less likely to pay damages – when the point is to deter a bad actor from doing something horrible.”

Republican leadership failed yet again to pass a statewide prescription drug monitoring program, leaving Missouri the only state in the nation without this common-sense safeguard against drug abuse. “The Senate’s Conservative Caucus thinks it infringes on people’s liberty,” Nasheed said.

Yet they did pass House Bill 1896, which makes anyone caught with even a trace amount of fentanyl – a synthetic opioid pain reliever, precisely the sort of drug whose legal sales the state should be monitoring – liable for prosecution as a drug trafficker.

“Your average drug user is not a chemist and does not know what they are buying, but now we have this enhancement for a trace amount of fentanyl where we will treat like a trafficker someone who could be an addict and have a problem,” Roberts said. “So, we’ll have these harsh sentences, but we’re still the only state in the nation that can’t identify when someone is pill shopping or a doctor is over-prescribing any of these drugs.”

In other equal-opportunity damage to public wellbeing, the

As bad as all Missourians have it, thanks to this legislative session, Nasheed and Roberts both see the black community suffering disparate impact from the rushed enact-

ment of Republican priorities. Both focused on Senate Bill 600, one of several mammoth omnibus bills put before legislators with scarcely any time to even read their many provisions.

“The legislative impact on the quality of life for African Americans for Senate Bill 600 is to turn back all of the criminal justice reforms we have achieved,” Nasheed said. “We fought as Democrats, but the Republicans are in the supermajority and kept doing PQ” – that is, calling for the previous question, a parliamentarian ploy to cut off debate on a bill.

Roberts said that SB 600 adds new criminal enhancements “with the effect that people in our community will stay in prison longer than they should.”

One provision takes judicial discretion away from judges to order that time for multiple convictions be served concurrently versus consecutively on certain dangerous felonies; when serving sentences concurrently, your maximum time is the longest sentence imposed, rather than all of the time sentenced added together. Another provision adds a new offense of vehicle hijacking, “which is unnecessary,” Roberts said, “because prosecutors already have the tools to charge these crimes.” Another provision makes use of a toy gun or replica in the commission of a crime just as incriminating as the use of a gun. Another adds a street gang sentencing enhancement

House Speaker Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, and Majority Floor Leader Rob Vescovo, R-Arnold,

that, Roberts said, “could be used against a group of kids hanging out together when one of them does something you shouldn’t do.”

It’s the tough-but-stupid on crime strategy that has failed for half of a century.

“We need diversion programs and programs that deal with the underlying issues,” Roberts said. “Instead, we get these bad bills carried by reps who don’t live in the city yet want to legislate what we do.”

Senate Bill 600 was sponsored by state Senator David Sater who represents District 29 at the far southwestern corner of the state. He is a native of Barry County, which is 94% white and less than 1% black, according to the U.S. Census.

One thing Sater and his Republican colleagues who represent almost zero black people were prevented from doing was making an unprecedented legislative power grab at the expense of St. Louis’ first elected black chief prosecutor, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner. Senate Bill 889 would have given the state attorney general power to prosecute cases in certain jurisdictions that boil down to the City of St. Louis if the elected prosecutor declines to prosecute.

“We got that Kim Gardner language out,” Nasheed said. “The powers that be are looking to go after her, but we got it out. [State Senator] Karla May and I protected her.”

How do Republicans continue to get away with this legisla-

tive malpractice? Enough people believe that gerrymandering of legislative districts plays a key role that they got passed a constitutional amendment, known as Clean Missouri, that puts in place a more non-partisan process for redistricting the state following a Census. It passed on the November 2018 ballot with 62% statewide voter support. That did not stop the Republican super-majority in the Legislature from passing a resolution that will send the measure back to the voters. State Sen. Dan Hegeman’s resolution eliminates the nonpartisan demographer and has bipartisan commissions or appellate judges drawing House and Senate maps. Hegeman represents the 12th Senate District in the state’s northwestern corner. He is a farmer from Andrew County. According to the U.S. Census, Andrew County is 96.4% white and 1.1% black. Like the state’s criminal justice policy, the strategy for dividing the state into legislative districts is being led by a white man who represents and was elected by almost zero black people.

“This is an effort to undo what voters overwhelmingly support,” Roberts said. However, at least one Republican thinks this new measure – which the Democrats call “Dirty Missouri” – will fail by as wide of a margin as Clean Missouri passed. The Columbia Tribune reported that state Rep. Rocky Miller, R-Lake Ozark, said he thought the plan would “go down in flames if it makes it to the ballot.” The Clean Missouri campaign is organizing to defeat it, and a group of citizens aligned with the campaign has filed a lawsuit claiming its ballot language is deceptive. If it makes it to the ballot, Gov. Mike Parson will decide when to schedule the vote. By the way, Parson is a former cow rancher and sheriff of Polk County. According to the U.S. Census, Polk County is 95.7% white and 1% black.

“I’m glad this session is over,” Nasheed said. “I don’t even know how these people think of all these other things, with what is happening in our state right now. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Photo by Tim Bommell / Missouri House Communications

STL County provides $2.6M in federal COVID-19 funds for food outreach

Operation Food Search says 41 percent of regional families are food-insecure

By Rebecca Rivas Of The St. Louis American

St. Louis County will provide $2.6 million in CARES

Act funding to five organizations to address food insecurity, St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page announced on May 13.

“This pandemic has taken its toll on many families,” Page said during his Wednesday morning press briefing. “I’ve been to some of these food giveaways in our communities, and cars are lined up around the block. Families will wait in line for hours, and some of them have small children in tow.”

Operation Food Search will receive the largest grant of $1,312,320. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Operation Food Search has provided food to 200 agencies, feeding about 200,000 people every month. They work with nonprofits such as Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis and Beyond Housing to host drive-through food and toiletry giveaways. Before March, the rate of food insecurity in Missouri was 14 percent, said Kristen Wild, executive director of Operation Food Search.

“It currently sits at 41 percent,” Wild said. “There are many people who are going to bed hungry or not knowing where they will get their next

meal or how they will feed their children.”

Many of these families have never experienced food insecurity in their lives, she said.

The grant will allow the group to offer free meals weekly at distribution sites at 10 public schools and 10 libraries within St. Louis County, between June 1 and the start of school in late August.

The St. Louis Area Foodbank will receive a $655,750 grant. In May alone, the foodbank has 58 drivethrough events scheduled. The grant will allow them to distribute an additional 40,000 to 60,000 meals per week through events in St. Louis County. An additional 45,000 meals per week will be distributed through a network of 80 partner agencies and community programs.

The Urban League will receive $500,000 to hold seven food service events at the Old Jamestown Mall in May through August to distribute food and household goods to needy families. They will also distribute food and toiletries to seniors and the disabled community weekly through the end of December.

Already, the Urban League has given 13,000 individuals $600,000 in food and supplies.

“About 75 percent said they have never been in a food line in their entire lives,” said

by

Michael P. McMillan, president and CEO of the Urban League.

Link Market will receive $110,000 and will set up four pop-up weekly grocery markets within St. Louis County that will offer access to healthy, affordable food in food deserts between May and December. The funding will also sponsor

400 vouchers of $25 each and a 50%-off discount for customers using SNAP.

PotBangerz will receive a $27,032 grant. Over 12 weeks, PotBangerz will serve over 1,650 well-balanced meals to unhoused families and will deliver two weeks’ worth of groceries and other essentials to approximately four families per week.

Page said the region is fortunate to have so many organizations that do great, effective work in addressing this growing need.

“Before this epidemic, food insecurity was a real issue, but it’s never been like it has been today,” Page said. “We are going to help them with their mission through their networks to make sure that families who need it most will have access to food. No child should go hungry. A child who is hungry doesn’t do well in school, and their growth is stifled.”

Photo

Wiley Price

Kileia Wise with Better Family Life’s Neighborhood Outreach program helped with the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis’ food distribution event at the agency’s Jennings location on April 2.

“TakingCareofYou”

Nursing home workers protest working conditions

testing, paid sick time for quarantine, hazard pay

By Carrie Zhang

For The St.

Workers from several area nursing homes that are both battling coronavirus outbreaks are demanding access to adequate protective equipment, free COVID-19 testing, paid sick time for those who have to quarantine, and hazard pay during the pandemic.

The protests, in collaboration with SEIU Healthcare, started after a coworker at one of the sites died from COVID-19. The workforce is predominantly African American.

“There’s such a high degree of contagion from this virus due to asymptomatic people that the only way we’re going to get on top of it is to have workplaces fully tested,” said Lenny Jones, SEIU Healthcare Missouri state director

n “This is a moment when healthcare workers are really not only in high demand but are also showing the importance of their work to the community. They need to be rewarded.”

– Lenny Jones, SEIU Healthcare Missouri

It is time to re-think

13 advocacy groups call for changes in St. Louis’ budgetary priorities

This call to action is authored by the undersigned 13 groups. We’ve learned from the coronavirus that societal systems that keep us safe and healthy --medical assistance, food distribution, delivery of necessary products – depend alike on those valued and those most often undervalued. We should never again stray from the maxim that no one is safe unless everyone is safe.

n What can the St. Louis Health Department do when its staff has been reduced by half in the last 10 years?

We have not heeded this lesson in the past. Nationally, our huge military expenditures were toothless against viral attack. No border walls isolated us from disease. In the City of St. Louis, we have poured more than half our General Fund into police, courts and jails while providing the Health and Human Services Departments with less than 1% of that budget. We are less safe as a result: with violent crime high and too few resources to support us through this health emergency. What can the Health Department do when its staff has been reduced by half in the last 10 years?

It is time to re-think our notions of public safety, setting very different priorities moving forward.

and vice president. Workers at Northview Village and Grand Manor nursing homes claim they lack proper personal protective equipment

(PPE), which includes face masks, gowns, shields, gloves, and sanitizers. While adequate PPE differs for different workers, depending on whether they work on COVID19 floors or around potentially impacted people, they claim all workers lack proper protection. Shipments for PPE arrived late and only after workers had died, administrators only issued one mask per shift, and some were even asked to reuse masks, they claim.

“These administrators knew this was coming and should have been better prepared and should not be putting profits of their facilities ahead of investing in the proper equipment,” said Jones.

When workers are quarantined after expoDemand PPE, free COVID-19

See PROTEST, A15

The city budget is taking a huge hit from the loss of sales and earnings taxes; the Budget director predicts revenues reduced by $34 million or more. We are, however, hearing arguments that austerity budgets should hold the line on old solutions. The Post-Dispatch frets about increases in property crime. The City Operating Plan has only a 1% decrease in police spending.

But we must not double down on failed systems. Any social disruptions, if that is your concern, will likely come from workers protesting inadequate pay and health protections or from those rightly protesting disparities in health outcomes. Those disparities, writ large in St. Louis since the “For The Sake of All” (2013) and Ferguson Commission (2015) reports, are still evident

Masks required to enter area hospitals

Bring your own, but if you don’t, they will provide them

By Sandra Jordan

Of The St. Louis American

As some COVID-19 restrictions were lifted on May 18 despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, area hospitals are implementing new safety protocols that require masks to be worn by anyone entering medical facilities as they resume non-emergency services and elective surgeries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, especially in areas of significant community-based transmission of the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Barnes-Jewish Hospital and other BJC HealthCare facilities implemented universal masking.

“All of our employees and patients that are

n “Its primary role is to protect other people from you if you become sick or infected, but it does protect you from others.”

– Hilary Babcock, M.D., BJC HealthCare

coming into our facilities, and any visitors who are allowed, will all be expected to be wearing a mask,” said Hilary Babcock, M.D., who is director of infection prevention at BJC HealthCare. “People who show up in a cloth mask, that’s great. If for some reason, someone does not have a mask, or shows up without their mask, we will pro-

Hospitals and medical facilities in the St. Louis area are requiring face masks for employees and anyone entering their locations as public health restrictions are eased while the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

Photo: Healthcare for Missouri

Myzonia Parker (left), Nedra Jones (center), and Delores Gilliam (right) protested worker conditions at Blue Circle Rehab and Nursing on May 13.

Photo courtesy of SEIU Healthcare

Photo by Wiley Price

“TakingCareofYou”

Safety

Continued from A14 in the rates of coronavirus infection and death in our black community. Those problems are our genuine public safety priorities.

Traditional austerity budgets will only make things worse. To this end, we need major shifts in 2021 St. Louis city budget spending. We should close the Workhouse, which now holds barely more than 100 prisoners. The Justice Center is adequate for our needs. Despite planned cuts, almost $9 million more could be redirected to meet real public safety obligations.

The police budget has been a sacred cow, but is another opportunity to disinvest from the carceral state and invest in real, community-oriented safety. Weeding out failed practices could reduce the police budget by 5%, saving $10 million. We need to look at overtime pay and the high proportion of white shirts in the police department. Are the millions spent on the bells and whistles of the Real Time Crime Center actually yielding results? What about Shot Spotter, the efficacy of which has been questioned nationally? We grossly overspend on SWAT – only .5% of its deployments are for hostage situations or barricaded or active shooter, the high-profile situations which are its purported justifications.

Money saved from the Workhouse and policing should

Protest

Continued from A14

sure to the virus without sick pay, the decision to stay home or return to work means choosing between staying home without a paycheck or supporting their families financially.

As for hazard pay, Jones said, “This is a moment when healthcare workers are really not only in high demand but are also showing the importance of their work to the community. They need to be rewarded for that service.”

go directly to our Health and Human Services departments. In the coming recession, there will be all the more need to focus on job training, affordable housing (being reduced by $1 million in the budget), the unhoused, and full three-year

funding for Cure Violence. A 2% set-aside for early education would be an investment in our people and in future public safety. We need greater transparency and community involvement in making these decisions.

More choices should be made through participatory budgeting, and the city should create a Community Advisory Board to study and recommend budget reallocations.

This is a new era. We need to approach it with creativity

Northview Village and Grand Manor declined to comment on these claims to The St. Louis American Nedra Jones, a nursing home worker at Blue Circle Rehab and Nursing, who is now staying at home to care for her mother and grandchildren, shared similar concerns. She said she made the decision to stay home two weeks ago because Blue Circle did not provide any PPE nor testing. Lenny Jones, who receives daily updates from the nursing home, added that workers have limited PPE now and still no testing. Administrator Rochelle

Masks

Continued from A14

vide a mask for them.” SSM Health has implemented the same mask policy.

“All employees, patients and visitors will be required to wear masks or other face coverings when they enter our facilities,” SSM Health stated.

“Visitors are encouraged to bring their own cloth face coverings with them to an SSM Health facility. If they do not, we will offer a cloth face covering to them as supplies allow. We will supply a mask on their first visit and ask that they launder and reuse it on future visits.”

With this new policy, SSM Health said the need for additional masks is even greater. To donate, visit https://tinyurl. com/SSM-masks.

Masks also are required for everyone entering St. Luke’s Hospital, whether a health team member, patient, visitor.

“If someone does not have a mask, St. Luke’s will provide the individual with one upon

As a

change,

arrival,” a spokesperson said.

“St. Luke’s also has screening protocols in place at its entry points to protect the health and safety of everyone.”

Visitor restrictions remain in place.

“We do not allow visitors on the inpatient areas unless the patient meets designated exceptions in pediatrics, obstetrics and compassionate care,” the St. Luke’s spokesperson said.

“These guidelines are also in place for the emergency departments on both hospital campuses. Essential surgery patients are allowed one designated visitor/caregiver to accompany them for their needs.” At Mercy Hospital, mask coverings are required for everyone entering any Mercy facility.

“While masks will be provided if someone arrives without one, we strongly encourage everyone to bring their own (cloth is fine) so we can maintain our supply of PPE for our caregivers in the event of another surge,” a Mercy spokesperson said. For doctor visits, Kelly McVicar, of Mercy’s COVID-

Thurmond from Blue Circle stated that “the facility has an ample supply of PPE, including face shields, masks, N-95

19 Core Team said, “We recommend reaching out directly to your doctor’s office to inquire about getting a mask for any in-person appointments.”

Visitor restrictions remain in place, and Mercy will post any updates on its website.

How – and why –to wear a mask

Cloth face masks or coverings should fit snug but comfortably against the side of the face. They should cover the nose and mouth, be secured with ties or ear loops, and include multiple layers of fabric.

Masks should allow for breathing without restriction and should be cleaned. Masks should be able to be laundered and machine dried without damage or change to its shape.

Cloth masks should be washed and cleaned regularly, depending on frequency of use.

“If you really wear it for the whole day, try to have a couple, so that you can launder them at the end of the day and wear a clean one starting each

masks, disposable isolation gowns, gloves, and hand sanitizer for our staff to use that is available 24/7.” Thurmond said

day,” Babcock said. “If you’re mostly at home, and you only wear it out to the store for 30 minutes once a day, you can probably wear it longer.”

Health experts recommend laundering or handwashing masks with warm water, detergent or dishwashing liquid and hanging dry if you don’t have a washing machine.

Also, when taking off masks, individuals should be careful not to touch their eyes, nose, and mouth and the wash hands immediately after removing.

Babcock said a protective mask needs two or three layers to be effective in two ways.

“Its primary role is to protect other people from you if you become sick or infected, but it does protect you from others,” Babcock said. “If people are coughing or sneezing around you, it’s great to have that barrier, so none of those droplets get onto your nose or mouth.”

Masks and kids

St. Louis County issued guidance for children and

St. Louis Health Department workers and other City

interviewed people as

and boldness to meet our challenges –for the sake of all. By ACLU of Missouri, Action St. Louis, ArchCity Defenders, Close the Workhouse, Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression, Deaconess Foundation,

that only workers placed in the COVID-19 isolation unit needed to wear gowns.

Megan Harper, an administrator at Blue Circle, said, “All staff members accumulate sick and vacation time and depending upon whatever a sick staff member has accumulated paid time off that would determine if we can apply it for their pay checks.”

Protesting against management raises other concerns for workers. Nedra Jones stated, “Employees are afraid to speak up. They are afraid for their jobs because that’s all you have. You do this, you do that, you’re going to be terminated.”

Empower Missouri, Forward Through Ferguson, Metropolitan Congregations United, Organization for Black Struggle, Peace Economy Project, United Congregation of Metro East, WEPOWER.

Lenny Jones said these workers were underappreciated and underpaid even before the outbreak.

n “Once we get through this, we’ve got to remember that these are the workers who were called upon to put themselves at risk to care for our family members.”

– Lenny Jones, SEIU Healthcare Missouri

For Nedra Jones, her work is more than just a job. She said, “I’m on the phone every day calling to check on them. Half of them don’t have family to come and see them. We are their family. To me, I am.”

masks as businesses and other functions in St. Louis County reopens. The mask requirement does include children, especially in places where they may not be able to avoid staying six feet away from others.

However, children under the age of 2 years should not wear cloth face coverings, because they are possible choking or strangulation hazards. Also, wearing the cloth face covering causes young children to touch their face more frequently than not wearing it.

“Staying home and physical distancing is still the best way to protect your family from COVID-19. Especially for younger children who may not understand why they can’t run up toward other people or touch things they shouldn’t, it’s best to keep them home,” the St. Louis County Dept. of Public Health stated.

“Children who are sick (fever, cough, congestion, runny nose, diarrhea, or vomiting) should not leave home.”

“These workers are the last to be prioritized, so they get the crumbs when it comes to money that is in healthcare budgets to pay for wages,” Lenny Jones said. “Once we get through this, we’ve got to remember that these are the workers who were called upon to put themselves at risk to care for our family members. When we go back to the way things you used to be, they cannot be allowed to drop back down as low-paid, underappreciated workers.”

SEIU Healthcare said the public can support these workers by making phone calls to nursing homes to urge management to take care of their workers.

‘The number of cases will go up’ As a Washington University infectious disease specialist, Hilary Babcock, M.D., said that lifting of stayat-home restrictions is “a little concerning.”

“There are still a lot of cases in our area, and we can anticipate as social-distancing regulations are relaxed and more people come out and about in more spaces and businesses open, there will be more contact between people and more opportunities for the virus to spread,” Babcock said. “And I think we can anticipate that the number of cases will go up.” She is hopeful, however, that even with public health rules relaxed in this ongoing pandemic people will still be mindful about people around them and follow the golden rules: “to stay home if they are sick, wear masks when they are in public, avoid large groups and public areas as much as possible, and keep doing good hand washing and hand hygiene.”

Annie Burgess (left) and Rockia Hickman (right) protested worker conditions at Northview Village Nursing Home on May 4.

Photo courtesy of SEIU Healthcare

of St. Louis staff

the city dispersed an encampment downtown on May 1.

Photo by Wiley Price

If I could do one thing, I’d have a daycare closer to work.

If you could do one thing for your community, what would it be? More daycare centers? More funding for Head Start? Completing the 2020 Census is a safe and easy way to inform how billions of dollars in funding flow into your community for hundreds of services. Respond online, by phone, or by mail.

Living It

Chance for education

St. Louis native among educators honored by Grammy Award winning rapper

By Kenya Vaughn

Of The St. Louis American

Hip-hop star Chance The Rapper put his money where his mouth is as a supporter of education early in his career. While the stereotype is that rappers spend big money on mansions, jewelry and Jordans to symbolize their success, Chance donated a million dollars to Chicago Public Schools back in 2017. At the time, he was only five years into his career, and his third mixtape, 2016’s “Coloring Book” had recently catapulted him into rap superstar territory with sold-out shows and multiple Grammy wins. The huge gift to the school system that shaped him made it clear that he has a heart for teachers. “I kept thinking, why do I have all of these awards for my silly little singing,” Chance said. “I’m not out here raising the next generation.” Even after giving a million dollars, Chance wanted to do more. He met up with General Mills and Box Tops for Education – who have given more than $1B to education. They agreed to assist him in putting on his inaugural Twilight Awards for 2020 on May 8. Because of COVID-19, The Twilight Awards had to go virtual. Chance sat in a tuxedo on his living room couch on IG Live and connected with the 10 honorees via FaceTime on an iPad that he held up for viewers to see each honoree. He broadcast the award

See Chance, B2

Arts United STL to feed artists starved by COVID-19

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis spearheads virtual benefit initiative with RAC

By American staff

Together with 14 other arts organizations and the Regional Arts Commission (RAC), Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL) will present “Arts United STL” on Sunday, May 31. The free virtual benefit will take place in support of RAC’s Artist Relief Fund, which provides critical aid to St. Louis working artists whose livelihoods have been critically interrupted by the pandemic. Produced by OTSL in partnership with the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, this benefit will present performances from local arts organiza-

tions, including The Big Muddy Dance Company, The Black Rep, Circus Flora, COCA, Jazz St. Louis, The Muny, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, St. Louis Ballet, St. Louis Children’s Choirs, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, The Sheldon, STAGES St. Louis, the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis and more.

Arts United STL was first envisioned by OTSL General Director Andrew Jorgensen as a way for St. Louis’ established arts institu-

A rapper and a rocket scientist

St. Louis native NASA engineer uses hip-hop to boost

By Laura Hamdan Of St. Louis Public Radio

Dajae Williams boasts that she’s “the dopest person to ever work at NASA.”

A quality engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Los Angeles, Williams is also one of the youngest people to work at the research facility. The St. Louis native started her career at NASA at such a young age through the company’s Early Career Initiative

She said the program allows engineers to kick off their profession without the pressure of being “geniuses” already. Not only is she one of the youngest people there, but she’s one of the few women of color. That sets her apart in some big ways.

“Look, there are some pretty dope people that I work with across all of the NASA campuses, but I’m pretty sure that I’m the dopest,” Williams said. At 26, the rocket scientist has also garnered the attention of teachers across the country. Why? Williams turns daunting math and

science theories and formulas into hip-hop songs. And her verses might be the most useful earworms ever.

For example, in her latest track “Unit Conversions,” she combines some friendly boasting with units of measurements. Some of her favorite lyrics are: “2 pints, 1 quart; Imma genius, I can do way more than dribble down a court. Learning is my sport. 100 is my score. Don’t forget one gallon equals four quarts.”

STL on Verzuz

Nelly and Ludacris battle draws nearly 450K to IG

Live

By Kenya Vaughn Of The St. Louis American

On Saturday night, St. Louis had a stake in the latest Verzuz battle. The May 16 installment of a friendly competition concept curated by super producers Swizz Beatz and Timbaland to keep music lovers engaged from home in the wake of COVID-19 featured Nelly going head-to-head against ATL’s Ludacris.

Thunderstorms in the area that impeded Nelly’s internet service nearly resulted in a reschedule, but both artists seemed committed to see the experience through.

Ludacris was patient and Nelly was determined –and for three hours they took hip-hop fans through their respective catalogs. Audiences engaged with the battle for three hours with more than 400,000 consistently on deck – and at the height of viewership came close to cresting at a half-million. Swizz Beatz announced the next day that the battle brought in 1.1 billion impressions. With the viewership, the rap veterans proved their staying power.

Both artists broke into the mainstream hip-hop scene at the turn of the millennium. And both came out swinging in the name of their hometowns.

St. Louis native Dajae Williams, a quality engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Los Angeles, turns daunting math and science theories and formulas into catchy hip-hop songs.

St. Louis on the Air, producer Lara Hamdan talked with Williams about how she’s educating kids by building a bridge between science, technology, engineering, math – and hip-hop.

Williams’ colleagues have embraced her artistic expression. When she makes national headlines via outlets such as CNN or NPR, they’ll share it across the company.

But growing up, NASA wasn’t on Williams’ radar. It was not until her sophomore year at Kirkwood High School that she gained a knack for math. Even then, music helped.

“If I needed to remember a word, I would sing it in a certain way so that when I’m in a test, I think of that jingle, and boom, I have the answer,” she explained.

That assignment laid the groundwork for more polished songs in college. She studied engineering management with an emphasis in industrial engineering at the Missouri

See Rapper, B2

Nelly’s “Country Grammar” went on to sell 10 million copies and earned the extremely rare distinction of being a diamond selling album. Ludacris’ major studio debut “Back For The First Time” was the first of three platinum-plus selling albums in a row. Each has an arsenal of hits that still have staying power – proven true by the battle – and each has major love for their hometown.

It was clear from the beginning that it would be a friendly competition.

As Ludacris was waiting for the technical difficulties on Nelly’s end to subside, he played St. Louis native Chingy’s “Holidae Inn,” a song Chingy recorded when he was a part of Ludacris’ Disturbing Tha Peace record label.

As the battle kicked off, Ludacris heaped praise on Nelly’s contribution to hip-hop. “You put your whole city on in a major way,” Ludacris said.

Nelly returned the compliments – expressing Ludacris’ ability to hold his own in a city loaded with talent and maintain relevance in the everchanging genre of hip-hop.

“Your staying power is legendary,” Nelly told Ludacris.

Each track was prefaced with compliments for the other artist and their own grind in the hip-hop game.

Ludacris got things started with “Welcome To Atlanta.” Nelly responded with “Na-NanaNa.” Ludacris followed up with “[Expletive] Poppin’.” Nelly met him with “Tip Drill.” They

See Verzuz, B2

Photo by Eric Woolsey

Karen Slack as Billie and Michael Redding as Uncle Paul with the young Blow brothers (L to R: Jayden Denis, Nathaniel Mahone, Najee Coleman, Rhadi Smith, and Jeremy Denis) in the world premiere of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis last summer.

See Artists, B2

Chance

tions to help support the community’s vibrant arts ecosystem. After an initial consultation between OTSL, RAC, and the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, a consortium of 15 organizations was invited across an array of arts mediums.

“We are thrilled to be collaborating with so many other arts organizations to help local artists, whose work makes St. Louis an immeasurably vibrant, special place,” said OTSL General Director Andrew Jorgensen.

“OTSL couldn’t be happier to produce this concert in support of artists during these difficult times. This benefit will highlight a fantastic array of art from different genres that reflect the artistic diversity and traditions of this community. I am so grateful to all my many colleagues who are uniting in this remarkable way to support one another and our entire arts ecosystem.”

In the coming days, RAC will also encourage open submissions from independent artists and other arts organizations to further highlight the artistic diversity of the city.

The arts and culture sector is an important driver for

Verzuz

Continued from B1

gave shoutouts to Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, the artists both rappers had collaborated with over the years – Ciara, Kelly Rowland, Sean “Diddy” Combs, DJ Khaled, Shawna, Notorious B.I.G., Rick Ross and more.

Some of the biggest names in music and entertainment chimed in over the course of the battle.

The connection was spotty,

the St. Louis economy. According to the 2015 Americans for the Arts Economic Prosperity 5 study commissioned by RAC, the nonprofit arts and culture sector generated $590.9 million and 19,129 full-time equivalent jobs for the greater St. Louis area during that same year. Since the start of the pandemic, based on research conducted by Americans for the Arts, 89% of St. Louis City and County arts institutions have canceled events that would have reached more than 285,000 individuals.

“This benefit represents an exciting and collaborative effort to respond to the global crisis affecting the arts and culture sector in our region,” said Mont Levy, chair of the board of commissioners at RAC. “As the major public funder of arts in the region with a mandate to support individual artists, we know it is RAC’s responsibility to provide emergency support during this time of great need. We could not be more grateful to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis for spearheading this event, or to the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival and every participating organization for their work to highlight the rich cultural tapestry of our region and support their fellow artists.”

The Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis is the largest annual funder of non-profit arts in the region, providing

but the battle continued. “Your wi-fi needs some milk,” Ludacris joked. As with the first attempt of the Verzuz battle between 90s R&B greats Babyface and Teddy Riley, the connection woes made for social media comedy gold on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Nelly and Ludacris’ battle set a new precedent in the creation of a Verzuz scorecard in which fans and listeners ranked the battle set list track by track. Most scorecards saw Ludacris as the victor in the battle. Ludacris’ early days as a DJ were apparent by the

grants to individual artists, arts and culture organizations, and other programs since 1985. RAC established the Artist Relief Fund through the St. Louis Community Foundation on April 1 to help working artists who have lost income due to the pandemic. So far, the fun has distributed $500 and $1,000 grants to more than 130 artists and will resume accepting new relief applications once additional funds have been secured.

Viewers will be encouraged to donate to the RAC Artist Relief Fund during the concert. To date, the Artist Relief Fund has distributed $136,500 in direct support to individual artists. The goal of Arts United STL is to raise an additional $250,000 through 1,000 individual donations and sponsorships.

More information about Arts United STL can be found on Opera Theatre’s website at ExperienceOpera.org/ ArtsUnited, which will also host the live video stream at 7 p.m. on Sunday, May 31. In addition, viewers may watch the livestream via YouTube on Opera Theatre’s channel. Supporters may donate to the Artist Relief Fund at ExperienceOpera.org/ArtsUnited at any time before, during, or after the live event.

pristinely curated battle track list.

The highlight of the night was when Ludacris let the hiphop world in on the secret that his hit “Money Maker” was originally supposed to feature Nelly instead of Pharrell by playing the original track with Nelly on the hook.

“Yo, you gonna have to send me that,” Nelly said with the excitement that Ludacris pulled the track out of his hat for the battle. The camaraderie was so strong that the pair agreed to take their show on the road with a tour.

Chance

Continued from B1

on his social channel over three days and in partnership with Box Tops For Education awarded $300,000 –$15,000 went directly to the teacher and another $15,000 was gifted to the school.

“Honestly, this is me talking – I’m not trying to speak for my sponsors – but these teachers are grossly and criminally underpaid,” Chance said. “They take care of our children. And I’m not trying to take shots at capitalism or anything or our government, but let’s appreciate them and let’s honor them.”

Among the teachers from across the nation celebrated for making a difference in the lives of their students was St. Louis’ own Darrion “DC” Cockrell. He teaches physical education at Crestwood Elementary School within the Lindbergh School District.

“He goes by DC, so you already know that he’s one of the cool teachers,” Chance said as he introduced Cockrell on IG Live after shouting out St. Louis and East St. Louis as a “cousin” of his native Chicago.

Chance and Cockrell, who has been a PE teacher at Crestwood Elementary for five years, chatted with the natural chemistry of cousins – or at least close friends – as Chance conducted an impromptu interview with Cockrell over Instagram.

Two days after, Cockrell was still floating.

“I still can’t believe it. It was crazy,” Cockrell said. “When he said the $15,000 for me and $15,000 for the school, I was like, ‘This stuff doesn’t happen to people like me. It still

Rapper

Continued from B1

University of Science and Technology in Rolla.

There, she created a rap song set to the beat of Soulja Boy Tell’em’s popular “Crank That” dance craze. But instead of lyrics about cranking wrists and lunging into a superman pose, Williams’ song is about the equation it takes to solve the quadratic formula.

Williams said spending time at the St. Louis Science Center in her younger years also helped mold her path and inspired her to develop ways to attract young people to complex material.

“It played a huge role … they exposed me to a lot of robotics and chemistry, and things of that sort, so I wasn’t necessarily afraid of those topics when I was learning them in school, whereas some of my peers were learning these things for the first time,” she said.

“And they also gave us an opportunity to teach these topics. So it gave me not only science experience but also public speaking and learning how to relay messages, which

doesn’t feel real.”

Earlier this year Cockrell was named the Lindbergh School District’s 2020 Teacher of the Year for his efforts to engage with his students both inside the school and beyond.

Cockrell and Chance discussed the importance of young black boys having teachers who look like them as they navigate through their education experience.

Chance admitted that he only three black male teachers over the course of his entire primary and secondary education – but those teachers left such an impact on his life that he could still remember all their names and how they impacted his life. And their positive influence plays a role in his heart for educators.

“People talking about representation on screen,” Chance said. “But when you get it in your classroom – and they have this wisdom and are a reflection of you – it’s invaluable.”

Cockrell shared a story of an exchange with a student that added weight to Chance’s words.

“One day I was teaching with one of my kindergarteners – he’s actually adopted and has white parents,” Cockrell said. “He said, ‘Mr. DC, you’re my color.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean? ‘And he was like, ‘You’re black like me.’ And I was like “Yes – and black is beautiful.”

Cockrell also pointed out that a great teacher transcends race and that educators of all colors were critical as he matriculated through the Parkway School District. They helped him see beyond the challenging surroundings of his Fountain Park neighborhood – and that experience is something he seeks to pass on every day.

is huge in the engineering world, because you have to communicate your ideas thoroughly to make something happen or make sure that things work.”

Eventually, Williams realized her passion for music was the way she could share the math and science she uses at NASA. In California, she met producer “Just Dre.” He wasn’t used to working with engineers, but he gave Williams a shot.

“He was a little bit thrown off, but I came in there with good vibes and I let him hear some old music, and it made him a little bit more comfortable with producing this type of music. And also, every time I tell someone [about] this, they’re like, ‘Oh, my god, I wish I had this when I was younger,’” Williams said. “So he was, I guess, looking at his younger self saying, ‘I know this is something that would’ve helped me, so I’m willing to be a part of it.’”

Williams said working with students demonstrates the positive impact music can have on student morale.

“Sometimes education can be, at least in math and science, it can be a very traumatic experience – especially for kids of color. We’re not necessarily taught in the language that

“I was able to have teachers that love you and care about you, and they care about your well-being and want to make sure you are successful,” Cockrell said. “And I said, ‘I want to be able to give that to kids – especially kids that came through stuff like me.’ I want to make sure that I’m that support, that I’m that guiding light that’s trying to give them the tools to be successful in life.” That support has taken him to football games, karate matches, spelling bees and more.

“I want them to always feel like someone is there cheering them on,” Cockrell said. “Even after they leave Crestwood, if they ever need anyone to talk to, I want them to feel like I’m that guy.”

Educating during COVID19 presented challenges and opportunities for Cockrell. With his 3-year-old son Dawson by his side, Cockrell has created exercise videos to keep his students active as they practice at home learning.

“I feel like they might be a little bit more engaged, because their family and their friends and everybody can do it together,” Cockrell said.

In addition to being recognized by his district, Cockrell is over the moon at getting a national spotlight for the work that he does to help his students to keep fitness a priority in their lives.

“Putting my school on a platform like that was absolutely amazing,” Cockrell said.

“And being able to brighten the day of my school, my PTO, my students and my family and just letting them see how hard I work, how much I love what I’m doing and the passion that I have is something that I will never forget.”

we learned growing up,” she explained. “Your teachers don’t look like you, they don’t understand where you’re coming from. So I’ve seen some pretty traumatic things, and I also have experienced some trauma myself in education, so to see the kids dancing and laughing when it comes to education — that is honestly what brings me joy.” Williams said she hopes to go on tour to universities, where students from elementary school to high school can enjoy her performances and have a different kind of college campus experience. She has a surprising fan base already.

“A lot of people at my job, they know that I write this music. So they always ask me to come perform at the talent show – and the crowd goes crazy. Like, they’re even more excited than the kids. Because [these are] people that are in love with science and math, they have dedicated their lives to it. So to see it in a form of music, they are just so impressed,” Williams said.

Printed with permission of St. Louis Public Radio: https:// news.stlpublicradio.org/post/ st-louis-nasa-engineer-useship-hop-get-people-interestedmath-and-science.

Greater Success Through Professional Development Pathways to Success

Are you a recent graduate hoping to build your career? Or maybe a student that’s looking to expand your network ahead of graduation?

Getting a head start on professional development offers you a chance to develop your specialty and meet like-minded people who share your passion.

While your academic studies equip you with a wealth of knowledge, preparing for graduation is extremely vital in your future career success. One of the ways to do so is by joining professional organizations or associations. Whether you’re looking for a national, local, diversity-focused or specialty group, there are many options to consider that won’t break the bank.

National Organizations

These professional organizations serve members across the country and sometimes have regional or on-campus chapters for you to join.

Local & Regional Organizations

Joining local or regional professional associations allows you to connect with fellow industry professionals in your area while also affording benefits such as area-specific news or resources.

Diversity Organizations

A number of professional organizations are committed to serving specific communities and promoting diversity and opportunity for underserved or underrepresented groups.

Specialty Organizations

Interested in developing a specialty? You may consider an organization connected to your area of practice or unique role, providing highly specialized support while also allowing you to explore an area of interest to you.

The focus of many professional associations is on preparing students and graduates for their upcoming careers and as future leaders in their fields. This support can be in the form of mentorship, training, online learning courses, networking, events and conferences, access to resources and other professional and educational benefits. Some even offer grant and scholarship opportunities to aid in current academic studies or in furthering education.

If you’re interested in joining a professional organization, first check with your school. They may connect you with student and professional associations that can help enhance your education, get you involved in outreach and meet new people. Some schools even cover the cost of new students’ memberships in an effort to encourage involvement. If you’ve graduated, don’t forget about your alumni association. An alumni association can be a vital part of building your career and network of fellow professionals, helping you stay connected and supported in the years beyond graduation.

Goldfarb School of Nursing at BarnesJewish College provides access to a wide array of professional organizations, including free membership to the National Student Nurses’ Association and an active alumni association, to help students and graduates expand their knowledge and network and set them up for success in their nursing careers.

ALL CAUSES HAVE ADVOCATES. BUT IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HIV ONLY A CHAMPION WILL DO.

Introducing Vivent Health, founded on the combined expertise of AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, Rocky Mountain CARES and St. Louis Effort for AIDS. And steadfastly dedicated to serving anyone and everyone affected by HIV through our comprehensive prevention, care and treatment programs. Learn more at ViventHealth.org

Local Chinese groups donate protective masks to black clergy

Most given to St. Louis Transitional Hope House to protect the unhoused

By Carrie Zhang For The St. Louis American

The St. Louis Chinese Education & Cultural Center, Chinese Service Center in St. Louis, and the Olive Market recently donated 1,500 face masks to the Ecumenical Leadership Council of Mo-St. Louis Chapter. The masks, which were made in China, will provide protection for those seeking to avoid contagion through the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus.

“The Ecumenical Leadership Council is honored to be chosen by representatives of the St. Louis Chinese community to receive badly needed face masks,” said Rev. Rodrick Burton, vice president of the council. Burton said his group delivered the bulk of the masks to St. Louis Transitional Hope House because they realize that the unhoused population served by Hope House is the most vulnerable population in the area.

“We were surprised and pleased to be able to provide all residents, and staff, with an adequate supply of face masks,” said Bonnie Reece, executive director of St. Louis Transitional Hope House. “We are grateful to the Chinese community, the Olive Market, and the Ecumenical Leadership Council for selecting our agency to receive the masks.” In addition to delivering masks to Hope House, the council passed out masks to individuals on the corner of Hodiamont and Dr. Martin Luther King.

“These masks will be helpful in preventing the spread of the virus as well as saving lives, many of which are black lives,” Burton said. “So, we are deeply grateful and thankful for this life-saving donation from representatives of the St. Louis Chinese community for making such a generous donation.”

The St. Louis Chinese Education & Cultural Center, also known as the

St. Louis Modern Chinese School, has been donating supplies since the outbreak started in China last year.

Initially, the board of the St. Louis Modern Chinese School started buying ventilators to send to the hospitals in China and simultaneously built connections with medical supply companies. The board started to reach out to other Chinese communities in the U.S. to find and fund ventilators to

more information, contact Lois Ingrum or Edward Crim. 314.395.3906 • Art.media.coop@gmail.com • www.artmediacoop.com For an additional $15...your grad can be in the newspaper ......we can place your

Rev. Rodrick Burton, vice president of the Ecumenical Leadership Council of Mo-St. Louis Chapter, and Clarence Jackson recently delivered face masks donated by local Chinese groups to St. Louis Transitional Hope House.

facilities. The board also helped hospital systems including Mercy, St. Luke’s and BJC Healthcare connect to suppliers.

Masks became harder to acquire with increased passenger and commercial transportation regulations, especially in April.

“We started talking to hospitals and realized what might be good is sending food and love to the frontline workers,” said Dierberg. The board started sending meals to hospitals, police stations, firefighters, and volunteers working with the homeless.

At the start of May, which is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, the board decided to launch a new campaign that partnered with more Asian organizations, not just Chinese ones. Thirteen restaurants have joined the campaign to donate meals; these meals are given at a discounted price.

On May 1, the first day of the campaign, 750 meals were donated. The campaign continues to donate more and more meals each day.

The St. Louis Asian American community started preparing for the virus months ago.

donate to hospitals.

On March 20, the Chinese School decided to switch gears and started the campaign United, We Are Strong! St. Louis. The campaign raises money to buy protective masks. JiaMin Dierberg, a board member of the St. Louis Modern Chinese School, said they knew there would be a shortage of masks in the U.S. because of the shortage in China.

“We had an understanding that there was a huge shortage of masks and that was about to repeat in the U.S.,” said fellow board member Ruth Miller.

Because of the school’s connection with medical supply companies, they were able to receive small percentages of large orders of masks. Masks were first sent to Mercy Hospital for a quality check and then were later donated to hospitals with little buying power, nursing homes, and other healthcare

“Everybody has family and relatives in China,” Dierberg said. “Everybody realized how difficult this virus was to contain and what it takes – more so than other Americans.”

To help support the United, We Are Strong! St. Louis campaign, Miller advises people to reach out to their family members and friends, share links to their donation page. For more information, visit https://slmcs. org/donations.asp.

The St. Louis Chinese Education & Cultural Center and the Chinese Service Center in St. Louis are located at 6710 Clayton Rd. in Richmond Heights. St. Louis Transitional Hope House, now known as Hope House STL, is located at 1611 Hodiamont Ave. Visit www.hopehousestl.org.

Carrie Zhang is doing her May Project as a graduating senior at John Burroughs School with The St. Louis American.

Sports

SportS EyE

With Alvin A. Reid

NFL resorts to bribery to entice owners to hire black GMs, head coaches

The National Football League has given up on the idea that a significant number of owners will hire a minority head coach and/or general manager. It might now resort to a true American business strategy – bribery. In fairness, in business it’s called an “incentive.” Multibillion-dollar corporations can afford to expand anywhere in the nation they want. But desperate communities offer “incentives” to these businesses with tax breaks, free real estate and other enticements. After no black coaches were hired following the 2019 season, Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL hierarchy decided that drastic action is needed to spur minority hiring in respective franchises’ front offices. The 32 owners on Tuesday tabled proposals that could lead to more minority hiring – or not.

Former Tampa Bay and Indianapolis head coach, Hall of Famer Tony Dungy, told ProFootballTalk that the measures could have unintended consequences.

“In my mind, this is drastic,” Dungy said on Monday.

“I don’t think personally it’s the right thing to do, but I think it should spur some consideration and some communication and conversation and people say, ‘OK, this might not be it, but maybe we can do that [instead].’

“I just have never been in favor of rewarding people for doing the right thing. And so I think there’s going to be some unintended consequences. Yeah, we need to do something. I don’t know if this is exactly it. We need to keep working until we find out what that best thing is to do.”

If a team hires a black/minority head coach, its third-round draft choice would improve by six positions. Should a team hire a minority GM, a 10-spot improvement in the third round is the “incentive.” Should the team hire both in the same year, its draft selection in the third round could improve a whopping 16 positions.

Being that unsuccessful teams are usually the ones seeking new coaches and GMs, the improvement in draft position could take some teams from the third round into the second. This would be a major carrot-on-a-stick for owners who shiver at the thought of a black man running their on-field operation.

Of the NFL’s 32 owners, 24 would have to vote in favor of the proposals for passage.

I didn’t see that happening. While the proposals weren’t rejected, they are now on hold. My guess is for at least a year.

Media critics of the proposals were already howling, and some conservative owners certainly tossed around terms like “quotas” and “affirmative action.”

You can just imagine what many so-called NFL fans are saying. Here’s one thought. “The NFL should mandate that every team should have at least one white cornerback on the roster.”

Dungy said he has discussed the proposals with several black coaches who worry that it would undermine relationships with other (white) NFL coaches. He added that there are fears a minority coach could be hired solely to improve a draft selection spot –and then be fired sooner rather than later if instant success does not follow.

League owners did pass other resolutions that could help minority candidates.

Anti-tampering rules that forbid teams from interviewing coaches while their respective teams are still in the playoffs have been relaxed.

Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy and San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh were both candidates for head coaching positions when the 2019 regular season ended. However, both reached the Super Bowl and were unavailable to meet with team owners and GMs until all but one of the open jobs (Cleveland) was filled.

Cleveland Browns GM Andrew Berry is one of two black GMs in the NFL. The other is Chris Grier of the Miami Dolphins. The NFL’s three black head coaches are Brian Flores in Miami, Anthony Lynn with the L.A. Chargers and Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh. Ron Rivera, a Latino, was hired by the Washington Redskins after

his mid-season firing by the Carolina Panthers.

Other proposals that received votes include:

Teams will now be required to interview at least two candidates from outside their organization for any vacant head-coaching job and at least one minority candidate from outside their organization for any vacant offensive, defensive or special-teams coordinator job. Previously, a team did not have to interview a minority candidate for a GM job.

Teams and the league office are now required to interview “minorities and/or female applicants” for positions such as team president and “senior executives in communications, finance, human resources, legal, football operations, sales, marketing, sponsorship, information technology and security positions.”

All teams must establish a minority coaching fellowship program. The coaching fellowships are to be full-time

positions, one or two years in length, to “provide NFL Legends, minority and female participants...”

Goodell said the draft pick compensation proposals “received a great deal of support.”

“But there were also some suggestions, amendments and thoughts that we may want to go back and talk to others, including the Fritz Pollard Alliance, and try to strengthen it and try to make sure it does what we were originally intending, which is to reward teams and coaches for developing minority coaches that can go on to be head coaches in this league.”

The Pollard Alliance “exists to champion diversity in the NFL through education and providing its membership with resources that will help them succeed at every level of the game,” according to its mission statement.

Jarrett Bell, a black sportswriter who has covered the

Former NFL head coach Tony Dungy said he has discussed the new proposals with several black coaches who worry that it would undermine relationships with other (white) NFL coaches.

NFL for USA TODAY for

decades, called the tabled proposals, “a Hail Mary.”

“As creative of a proposal as it is, it’s pretty much like a Hail Mary pass. Throw it up and see whether it strikes pay dirt,” he wrote.

“I get it. Draft picks in the NFL can be as valued as the Holy Grail. I’m doubting that there are 24 team owners who will sign up for this latest plan to shake up the hiring process — when all that’s really needed is a level playing field.”

Since NFL owners refuse to do the right thing when it comes to minority hiring, Goodell and the NFL have decided they have to do something to change the status quo.

If the draft pick proposals don’t pass, it will be the owners that look bad, not the NFL.

In case you wondered, 70 percent of the players in the NFL are black, while about 9.4 percent of head coaches (3) and 6.2 percent of GMs (2) are too. You do the math.

The Reid Roundup

UCLA has hired Martin Jarmond as its athletic director, making him the first black person to hold that title in the 101-year history of the school… Andrew Berry, Browns GM, has hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah as vice president of football operations. They have more than skin color in common. Both are Ivy League graduates. Berry is a Harvard grad and Adofo-Mensah holds degrees from Princeton and Stanford… Former Mizzou standout Aldon Smith, who has not appeared in an NFL game since 2015 because of multiple suspensions for violating the substance abuse and personal conduct policies, met with Commissioner Roger Goodell last week. The Dallas Cowboys signed him to a one-year deal… In a virtual commencement address for 2020 high school and college graduates, President Barack Obama said, “Doing what feels good, what’s convenient, what’s easy, that’s how little kids think. Unfortunately, a lot of so-called grownups, including some with fancy titles, important jobs, still think that way, which is why things are so screwed up.”... Coach Doc Rivers Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan share their thoughts on playing for former L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling, a proven racist, in a newly released documentary entitled “Blackballed.” Paul says his team nearly boycotted an NBA Playoff game in 2014 because of Sterling’s racist comments… The lack of personal workouts with NFL teams was probably costly to several former HBCU football players. Lachavious Simmons of Tennessee State University was the lone HBCU player selected in the 2020 NFL Draft… David West, a former honor student and AP Player of the Year as a center at Xavier, plans to launch the Professional Collegiate League during the summer of 2021. Salaries could range from $50,000 to $150,000 and PCL players can profit off their personal brands while still remaining eligible for their respective college teams.

Alvin A. Reid can be reached at @aareid1.

St. Louis American’s Prep Players of the Year

By Earl Austin Jr.

Of the St. Louis American

The high school sports season in the St. Louis area was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it was still a great season with many great individual performers. Here is a look at the 2020 St. Louis American Players of the Year in their respective sports.

Football (Offense): Tyler Macon (East St. Louis) – The junior quarterback led the Flyers to a 14-0 record and the Illinois Class 6 state championship. Macon passed for 4,241 yards and 37 touchdowns while rushing for 17 touchdowns. His 56 total touchdowns set a new state record.

Football (Defense): Antonio Doyle (Lutheran North) –The 6’4” 235-pound Doyle was

a force in leading the Crusaders to the Class 2 state championship. He had 73 total tackles and three sacks in leading a talented Lutheran North defense. He is headed to Texas A&M.

Boys Cross Country: Malik Stewart (Maplewood) – The talented senior distance runner was the state runner-up at the Class 2 state championships with a personal best of 16 minutes, 01 second. He was also the Class 3 state champion in the 800-meter run in track and field as a junior.

Girls Cross Country: Lucy Ndungu (Pattonville) – The junior standout was an AllState performer after finishing seventh at the Class 4 state championships. She won two individual events, including a district championship.

Girls Volleyball: Erionna Coleman (O’Fallon) – An athletic and powerful junior outside hitter who recorded a team-high 303 kills to lead the Panthers to a 26-11 record and a runner-up finish in the IHSA regional tournament.

Boys Soccer: John Gates (John Burroughs): The junior forward led the Bombers to a thirdplace finish in the Class 2 state tournament. He scored a team-high 25 goals to go along with his 18 assists. He also recorded seven game-winning goals.

ing it two consecutive years that she finished in the top five at the state championships. She was the medalist at the district and sectional tournament during the fall.

Earl Austin Jr.

Girls Golf: Parker Perry (MICDS) – The senior standout finished in fifth place at the Class 1 state tournament, mak-

Girls Tennis: Journee White (MICDS) – The sophomore standout was a district champion in singles and was part of one of the top doubles teams in the state with teammate Nia Cooper. They finished fourth in the Class 1 state tournament in doubles.

Girls Softball: Marissa Peak (Holt) – The senior catcher led the Indians to a 27-4 record and a Class 4 district championship. Peak hit .477 with 10 doubles, nine home runs and 42 runs batted in with a slugging

percentage of .907. She has signed to play at the University of Iowa.

Boys Basketball: Caleb Love (CBC) – The star shooting guard averaged 27 points a game to lead the Cadets to the Final Four of the Class 5 state tournament. The 6’4” Love was selected to the McDonald’s All-American Game, the Jordan Brand Classic and the Nike Hoops Summit. The multi-talented guard has signed with North Carolina.

Girls Basketball: Jasmine Manuel (Summit) – The 6’3” senior forward was a dominant force inside for the Falcons in leading them to the Class 4 state quarterfinals. As a senior, she averaged 17.1 points and 12.6 rebounds in leading Summit to a 26-4 record.

Boys Wrestling: Jacobi Jackson (DeSmet) – The junior heavyweight was the Class 4 state champion at 285-pounds. Jackson defeated Ryan Skillington of Francis Howell in the state championship match in a rematch of last year’s state final when Jackson was the runner-up. He finished the season with a 31-3 record.

Girls Wrestling: Josette Partney (Lafayette) – The junior standout finished with a 33-5 record and a third-place finish at the state championships at 187 pounds. She won four individual tournaments during the season.

Maria Slaughter (Holt) – The talented freshman recorded a 29-5 record and finished second in the state at the state championships at 125 pounds.

Alvin A. Reid

SYSTEMS ENGINEER I

Demonstrates an understanding of Mobility Infrastructure including AirWatch mobile device management and Citrix Xenapp/ Xendesktop in a Microsoft Windows environment. Working knowledge of Cisco UCS, NetApp OnTAP, VMware vSphere helpful. To apply, please visit: https://www.safetynational.com/ careers-page/

BUSINESS SYSTEMS ANALYST

Responsibility for the collection, preparation, documentation and communication of IS requirements, both business and technical.

Demonstrates clear and working knowledge and concepts of Business Analysis and Information Technology. Capable of working independently, but may be assigned to work under the guidance of a Senior Business Systems Analyst when engaged in larger, more complex projects. To apply, please visit: https://www. safetynational.com/careers-page/

LIABILITY CLAIMS MANAGER

Responsible for handling assigned claims from initial assignment to closure, as well as provide assistance in various administrative functions associated with the large casualty lines of business.

To apply, please visit: https://www.safetynational.com/ careers-page/

Public Notice of Single Source

Procurement

Notice is hereby given that the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District is proposing to procure: MEMBERSHIP DUES: ASSOCIATION OF MISSOURI CLEANWATER AGENCIES was used for this service. Any inquiries should be sent to gjamison@stlmsd.com. Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

CASUALTY WORKER’S COMPENSATION CLAIMS MANAGER

Responsible for handling assigned claims from initial assignment to closure, as well as provide assistance in various administrative functions associated with the primary WC LOB. To apply, please visit: https://www.safetynational.com/ careers-page/

DIRECTOR, SUPPORT SERVICES

This position is responsible for overall development, coordination and oversight of the delivery of Covenant House Missouri Support Services that include, but are not limited to, wellness services, outreach, employment, education and all other services needed to ensure youth can achieve the goal of living independently in the community. To apply, visit our website at www.covenanthousemo.org

To Advertise please email Angelita at ahouston@stlamerican.com

BUSINESS ASSISTANCE SPECIALIST

St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC) has opening for a Business Assistance Specialist. SLDC is looking for candidates with St Louis City government experience in the areas of business assistance, licensing, zoning, or BPS. To apply online and see a full job description go to: http://www.stlouis-mo.gov/sldc/ and click on “Careers at SLDC.” SLDC is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity.

BIDS & NOTICES

SEALED BIDS

Bids for Castlewood State Park Streambank Restoration Phase I, Ballwin, Missouri, Project No. X2002-01 will be received by FMDC, State of MO, UNTIL 1 : 3 0 P M , 6/4/2020 via MissouriBUYS. Bidders must be registered t

b i d . F o r specific project information and ordering plans, go to: http:// oa.mo.gov/ facilities

Solicitation For Bids (SFB) for Oxygen Inhalators Equipment and Services

Bids Wanted

contract-opportunites.

Robert Salarano Airport Properties Division Manager

NOTICE TO BIDDERS

Seeking proposals from subs, suppliers, Sect. 3 businesses & qualified MBE & WBE firms for all constr. div. of Riverbend Estates II, a new 3-story, 42 unit apt. dev. in Washington, MO. This project has Section 3 opportunities under the HUD act of 1968 as well as minority participation goals. Interested firms should contact Fairway Constr. for a link to access plans and specifications.

Proposal Due: May 28, 2020 @ 4 PM CDT Direct inquiries to: proposals@fairwayconstruction.net. Fairway Constr., 206 Peach Way, Columbia, MO 65203, 573-3033765. Fairway Constr. reserves all rights to waive any bid informalities and is an AA/EOE employer.

URBAN LEAGUE OF METRO. STL

INVITATION FOR BID FOR HVAC CONTRACTORS

Join the Movement through our Weatherization Program

The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, Inc. Weatherization Program (ULMSLWP) is soliciting sealed bids for the completion of Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Work (HVAC)/a separate sealed bid for boilers

To be completed in the city of St. Louis, MO. Contracts to provide weatherization work for residential properties (approximately 10-15 per month) (boilers approximately 5-10 annually) from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 with a first year renewal option of up to two additional years.

For Bid Specifications:

Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, Inc. 3701 Grandel Square St. Louis, MO 63108 (314) 615-3608

lmiller@urbanleague-stl.org

Pre-Bid Virtual Conferences: June 5, 2020 at 4:00 PM Call 314 615-3628 for Log In Access

Bid Due Date: June 12, 2020 at Noon Bid Opening: June 12, 2020 at 2:00 PM

Proficient in Accounts Payable & Excel Spreadsheets. Working knowledge of Accounts Receivable. Understands General Ledger and Financial Reports. Experience in Quick Books preferred. Professional phone etiquette & customer service skills. Send resume with qualifications and work experience to: St. Louis American Newspaper Accounting Assistance 2315 Pine Street, St. Louis, MO 63103 NO PHONE CALLS

NOTICE TO CONTRACTORS

Notice is hereby given that The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (District), the Owner, will receive sealed bids for Valley Public I/I Reduction (Clarkson Rd and Kehrs Mill Rd) under Letting No. 12507-015.1, at its office, 2350 Market Street, St. Louis, Missouri 63103, until 2:00 PM, local time, on Tuesday, June 23, 2020. All bids are to be deposited in the bid box located on the first floor of the District’s Headquarters prior to the 2:00 p.m. deadline. Bids may, however, be withdrawn prior to the opening of the first bid. BIDS WILL BE PUBLICLY OPENED AND READ IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE BID DUE DATE/TIME AT 2350 MARKET STREET, AT A PLACE DESIGNATED.

The Work to be performed under these Contract Documents consists of: The work to be done under this contract consists of the rehabilitation of approximately 34,793 lineal feet of sanitary sewers, varying in size from 8-inch to 10-inch in diameter, using cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) methods, 56 manholes, 286 service connections, and 10 point repairs. The project is with in the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District Boundaries, inside the city(ies) of Ballwin, Chesterfield, Clarkson Valley, and Ellisville in the State of Missouri. The work will be performed in various quantities at various sites.

All prospective bidders must prequalify in the Cured-In-Place Pipe (CIPP) category, and be certified prior to the Bid Opening. Prequalification forms for obtaining said certification may be obtained from the Owner at the above mentioned address. All bidders must obtain drawings and specifications in the name of the entity submitting the bid.

This project will be financed through the Missouri State Revolving Fund, established by the sale of Missouri Water Pollution Control bonds and Federal Capitalization Grants to Missouri. Neither the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, its divisions, nor its employees will be party to the contract at any tier. Any Bidder whose firm or affiliate is listed on the GSA publication titled “List of Parties Excluded from Federal Procurement or Non-Procurement Programs” is prohibited from the bidding process; bids received from a listed party will be deemed non-responsive. Refer to Instructions to Bidders B-27 for more information regarding debarment and suspension.

Nondiscrimination in Employment: Bidders on this work will be required to comply with the President’s Executive Order 11246. Requirements for bidders and contractors under this order are explained in the specifications.

Plans and Specifications are available from free electronic download. Please go to MSD’s website and look for a link to “ELECTRONIC PLANROOM.” Plans and Specifications are also available for viewing or purchase at Cross Rhodes Reprographics located at 2731 S.

SEALED BIDS

SEALED BIDS

ST. LOUIS COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Public Notice

NOTICE TO CONTRACTORS

and ordering plans, go to: http://oa.mo. gov/facilities

BIDS

The City of Crestwood is seeking bids for the 2020 CDBG ADA Compliant Picnic Table project. This project is funded in whole or in part with Community Development Block Grant funds pursuant to Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, as amended. All applicable federal regulations shall be in full force and effect. Qualified contractors may obtain a Project Manual online at www.cityofcrestwood.org or in person at the City of Crestwood Public Works Department in the Government Center located at #1 Detjen Dr. St. Louis, MO 63126. Bids are due by 10:00 A.M., on Thursday, June 11, 2020. Please call (314)729-4720 for more information.

Bids for REBID – Repair Parking Lots and Driveways Troop C Headquarters Weldon Springs, St. Charles County, Missouri Project No. R1905-01 will be received by FMDC, State of MO, UNTIL 1:30 PM, 6/11/2020 via MissouriBUYS. Bidders must be registered to bid. For specific project information and ordering plans, go to: http://oa.mo. gov/facilities

St. Louis Community College will receive separate sealed bids for Contract No. F 20 504, Roof Replacement at the CWI Building, St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley, until 2:00 p.m. local time, Thursday, May 28, 2020. Bids can be dropped in the mail slot at the front door of Engineering and Design, 5464 Highland Park Drive. Bids will be opened and read by the Manager of Engineering and Design (Ken Kempf), 5464 Highland Park Drive (Plan Room). Specifications and bid forms may be obtained by emailing Angie James at ajames84@stlcc.edu

PREBID Meeting: May 13, 2020 at 10:00 am at CWI Building 3344 Pershall Road, Ferguson, MO 63135

An Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer

CITY OF ST. LOUIS ST. LOUIS LAMBERT INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Solicitation For Bids (SFB) for Snow Removal Services Bids Wanted Bid documents may be obtained at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, Airport Properties Division, Monday through Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., or by calling (314) 890-1802. This SFB may also be obtained by visiting our website at www.flystl.com/business/ contract-opportunites.

Robert Salarano Airport Properties Division Manager

Super / Dibco, Joint Venture is requesting quotes from qualified MBE and WBE Subcontractors & Suppliers for the following project: Lower Meramec River System Improvements, Baumgartner to Fenton WWTF Tunnel Contract Letting No. 11746-015.1, Bidding on July 8, 2020 @ 2:00PM with the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District Super / Dibco, Joint Venture is hosting a virtual (Zoom) Pre-Bid

System Improvements Baumgartner to Fenton

The

Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 1:00pm

of the meeting is to provide an opportunity for Certified MBE subcontractors, suppliers, or manufacturers to meet and discuss specific opportunities available on this project. We encourage all interested WMBEs to attend. Access the Meeting With the following link: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/79166110318?pwd=MTVjUzdDRENUWjM1YlkxcWFMMHUxZz09 Meeting ID: 791 6611 0318 / Password: tunnel

Please RSVP to monique@superexcavators.com

In general, the scope of work for this project includes: mining approximately 35,849 feet of minimum 11-foot excavated diameter Lower Meramec Tunnel through rock utilizing a

boring machine; providing 35,961 feet of an 8-foot inside

the Fenton

The Assessment Books or Records, containing the assessments of taxable property within the City of St. Louis for the year 2020, are now open for inspection in the Office of the Assessor, Real Estate Records Section, Room 114, City Hall. The 2020 values can also be viewed at https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/data/ address-search/.

The Board of Equalization will meet beginning on July 6, 2020, during regular business hours, and will remain in session pursuant to State Law. Any person may appeal the assessment of their property by emailing zasr@stlouis-mo.gov or writing to the Board of Equalization, 1200 Market St., Room 120, St. Louis, MO 63103. Any appeal to the Board of Equalization is required to be filed in the Office of the Assessor on or before July 13, 2020. Michael R. Dauphin City of St. Louis Assessor Room 114-120, City Hall https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/ departments/assessor/index.cfm

METROPOLITAN ST. LOUIS SEWER DISTRICT

Notice is hereby given that the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District is accepting proposals in the Purchasing Division, 2350 Market Street, St. Louis, Missouri 63103-2555 until 10:00 a.m. on June 22nd, 2020 to contract with a company for: Bucket Truck Certification & Training Services.

Specifications and bid forms may be obtained from www.msdprojectclear.org, click on the “DOING BUSINESS WITH US” link, (View Non-Capital Bids (Goods & Services). The bid document will be identified as 10383 RFP. If you do not have access to the internet, call 314.768.2735 to request a copy of this bid. Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Soliciting minority bids May 28, 2020, 10:00 a.m., on UMC Center for Diabetes & Cardiovascular Research – Renovation, Columbia, MO. Contact Reinhardt Construction, Phone 573-682-5505, Fax 573-682-3322.

SEALED BIDS

Bids for Install Solar Array and FMS Battery Storage, Camp Crowder Training Site, Neosho, MO, Project No. T1922-01 will be received by FMDC, State of MO, UNTIL 1:30PM, 6/4/2020 via MissouriBUYS. Bidders must be registered to bid. For specific project information and ordering plans, go to: http://oa.mo. gov/facilities

Paric Corporation is seeking proposals for the following project: Center for Diabetes & Cardiovascular Research Renovation for the University of Missouri.

This is an approximately 8,500 sf renovation of exam and office space.

The scope of work includes but is not limited to demo, carpentry, casework, doors/frames/ hardware, drywall, tile, ACT, flooring, painting, operable partitions, specialties fire protection, plumbing, HVAC and electrical..

This project has a diversity participation goal of 10% MBE and 10% combined WBE, DBE, Veteran Owned Business and 3% SDVE.

Bids for this project are due on May 27th, at 12:00 p.m. For any questions or would like to find out more detailed information on this opportunity, please contact Evan Chiles at 816-878-6003 or emchiles@paric.com.

All bids should be delivered to Paric via e-mail (bids@paric.com) or fax (816-878-6249).

PARIC CORPORATION IS AN EQUAL

OPPORTUNITY

EMPLOYER

SEALED BIDS

Bids for Westminster R e c l a m a t i o n Project, Callaway County, Missouri, Project No. Y2002-01 will be received by FMDC, State of MO, UNTIL 1:30 PM, 5/28/2020 via MissouriBUYS. Bidders must be registered to bid. For specific project information and ordering plans, go to: http://oa.mo. gov/ facilities

US” link, (View Non-Capital Bids (Goods & Services). The bid document will be identified as 10379 RFQ. If you do not have access to the internet, call 314.768.6314 to request a copy of this bid. Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District is an Equal Opportunity Employer. CITY OF ST LOUIS DEPARTMENT OF

Opportunities Center (BHOC) are available at: https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/ government/procurement/ or by contacting BickfordA@stlouis-mo.gov

The deadline for submitting proposals is 4:00 p.m., June 17, 2020.

Chance The Rapper and Crestwood Elementary School PE Teacher Darrion

“DC” Cockrell chatted over Instagram Live as Chance recognized Cockrell for his work as an educator at the inaugural Twilight Awards presented by Chance and Box Tops for Education on Friday, May 8.

as

used a throwback photo to remind us all of the days before social distancing on Facebook

Swag Snap of the Week

Luda won the battle, but Nelly wins the war. So here’s the thing. By now the whole world has had a cackle at the expense of Nelly’s internet woes. I think my favorite was the one that took his frozen screen and made abstract art from it. It wasn’t his fault. In the words of the musical false prophets Milli Vanilli, “blame it on the rain.” Ultimately, it was the song choices that ended up giving Ludacris the victory for the latest Verzuz battle that has helped us tremendously in passing the time as we stay perched because of The Rona. To make it St. Louis plain, on my mama Nelly has the better playlist between him and Ludacris. It wasn’t just because I’m ALWAYS rooting for the home team. Ludacris had an unfair advantage in that his early work as a DJ clearly taught him how to curate a playlist. I will accept that with the exception of “Tip Drill,” Nelly chose the wrong songs to pit against Ludacris. It was like a game of spades gone wrong. People always talk about the player who wastes spades by cutting hearts, but this was an example of what happens when you hoard your Ace of Spades and jokers until the opposition is already up by six books. That being said, I was happy to see Ludacris be so determined to see the battle through even if the thunderstorms were set tripping all over Mo’s Wifi. And I give double points to Luda for giving Chingy a moment while the service was spotty – and triple points for being so graceful when he talked about Nelly’s contribution to hip-hop and repping for St. Louis. They both deserve props for how gracious they were over the course of the three-hour event. They were a bit too chatty… okay, more than a bit. But the bottom line is this. Luda ruled the battle and showed the power of a perfectly arranged playlist. But Nelly is the boss of the hits. If you were looking for more shade, or any sort of admission for me, I’m sorry to have disappointed. I will say that I got a good kee-kee from Luda shouting out Ali, as an “I see you, but I’m not going to bother addressing your accusations.” Oh, and before I go, let me just say that Spice Adams and Affion Crockett are the lowest of the low for their reenblactment of the whole doggone battle. I’m not going to sit here and say I didn’t cackle, but they were still low down, dead wrong and quietly dead on. Does anybody remember if Spice was holding a Raising Cane’s cup during his Nelly portrayal?

STL on MTV. Since I’m already talking about our city having a major national platform, I might as well mention what happened Monday night on MTV. Actually, it was MTV, MTV2 and VH1 at the same doggone time. After cleaning up awards during film festival season and being nominated for an Academy Award, the world finally had the chance to see what the buzz was about when “St. Louis Superman” made its way to television. The cameras followed Bruce Franks Jr. as he battled rappers and introduced legislation in the fight against gun violence in honor of his big brother, who was tragically killed at the tender age of 9. The film gave insight into why he fights so hard for the community he loves and how he was activated to make a difference through politics. I must say that I had a feeling when he was strictly known as “Oops in the Building” that he might make it to MTV. This was not how I imagined it to go down, but it was beyond what I could have imagined or expected. The documentary was a great look and I hope it inspires others to get busy about being the change they feel like they need to see. Shout out to Bruce for being so transparent. I’m sure that you have saved lives by inspiring others to put their mental health and wellbeing first – and understanding the power and importance of making self-care a priority while pursuing passions and purpose.

Virtual Mayday parade’s $80K payoff. Thanks to The Rona, for the first time ever in my whole entire life I did not spend my third Sunday in May assuming that everyone was jealous of me as I showcased my drip up and down the May Day parade route. I was a nervous wreck that because the parade was cancelled, that Annie Malone Children and Family Services Center would suffer tremendously from a financial standpoint. We tend to forget as we get a chance to get dressed up and fanatically root for our alma mater as they bop down the block in that hot band gear – Normandy, Sumner, Riverview Gardens and U. City, I’m talking about you – that the parade is the biggest source of fundraising revenue for the center. They were bracing for a $100K deficit. But Bold Moves team of Koran Bolden and Vanessa Townsend (and a whole heap of folks giving and helping out on their behalf) worked with Annie Malone to make sure that didn’t happen. Folks from all across the city, county and country came through in the clutch for the first-ever virtual parade on Sunday. It almost felt like the regular parade when William C. Harris and their white limos kicked things off with their motorcade. But when Pat Washington did her own personal remix of “Bag Back (Gimme 50 Feet) for the sake of social distancing, I knew things were going to be different. But the virtual parade, with City Treasurer Tishaura Jones as its Grand Marshal, made lemonade out of lemons when it came to the coins. I was so proud of my city standing up – over 2,000 folks came through with the kind of money that folds – $80K to be exact. Shout out to all the folks who contributed with their talent and time – like Rhoda G., D.J. Climate and other folks – to make the virtual parade worth watching. Oh, and a special shout out to Fox 2’s Elliot Davis for his initial $5,000 donation. And I would be foolish if I didn’t bow my quarantine foam roller bangs to all the people at the organization who serve children and families in need – which is more than likely made greater by The Rona. Does anybody else already have their parade outfit in mind for 2021? I have a feeling I will be so hype after my first absence that I might just get a plus-size dance team uniform custom made and shamelessly insert myself by marching behind my favorite performers. The techniques I observed from Baton Bob all those years ago while almost running somebody off the road every time he tooted and high kicked down Kingshighway might finally come in handy.

Tyrani was a vision in white

she

Mousie and MC kicking it at the late great Black Label ten years ago this week

Koran and Melanie celebrating the success of the funds that poured in for Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center during the virtual May Day Parade on Sunday

Brittany and Roy Robinson on a date night a decade ago this week, back before they became husband and wife

This crew of young musicians served as the official band of the Annie Malone May Day Virtual Parade on Sunday

Nicole (right) used a throwback cutout of herself and her cousin Jami from the Partyline as she celebrated her b-day 10 years ago @EXO

DJ Climate kept the party rocking during the pauses for the cause @ Annie Malone May Day Virtual Parade

Tammie Holland used a throwback pic of herself at The Annie Malone May Day Parade as she gave herself a birthday shoutout on Facebook

Tierha serving face and filter for her car selfie from Facebook

Mario hasn’t let the quarantine stop him from keeping it cute