Seasoned Saints Mrs. Valena York Henderson
104-year-old Valena York Henderson (above in her Atlanta home) spent decades as a community organizer in Old Fourth Ward and Mechanicsville. “I was for everybody. I tried to improve relations in order to bring people together,” she said. Photo by Kerri Phox/The Atlanta Voice
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Seasoned Saints: Dr. Alyce Martin Ware
‘Life’s a Puzzle,’ says 104-year-old Atlantan
BY DONNELL SUGGS
Upon entering the Mechanicsville home of Mrs. Valena York Henderson, one can’t help but notice how many family and personal framed photographs she has on the walls. Understanding full well that this isn't unusual for any home, the photos at Henderson’s home are a bit unique. Along with photos of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, the photos also have former United States President Bill Clinton, former United States Vice President Al Gore, and former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell in them. At 104 years old, Henderson has met plenty of people during her career as a community organizer. Her impact on several neighborhoods in her native Atlanta continues to be felt. A mother of seven children, six daughters and a son, and a 50-plus member of Wheat Street Baptist Church, Henderson has passed those traits of compassion, faith, patience, and patronage on to her family.
“She never met a stranger, and if she can help someone, she would,” said Edrick Henderson, 69, the youngest of Henderson’s children.
According to a Pew Research poll, in 2024, 101,000 people in the United States were living at the age of 100 or more. That number may seem like a lot of people, but in comparison to the more than 340 million Americans living in this country, according to United States Census data, it’s a tiny slice of our population.
Edrick may not be aware of those percentages, but he takes very seriously the uniqueness of his opportunity to see his mother still every day. He is among many family members who make sure to see Henderson during the week. For Henderson’s only son, the visits are just as much about pleasing his heart as it is his mother’s.
The Atlanta Voice spent time with Henderson at her home earlier this month as part of the Seasoned Saints series. Welcoming, warm, and funny, Henderson sat in her favorite chair near the kitchen and answered interview questions while an afternoon episode of Judge Judy played on the television.
A nice long life
Those photographs in Henderson’s home aren’t just on the wall. There are plenty of photo albums on a bookshelf in the living room. There are images of generations of children going back to the 1970’s. Some of the photos are of children just finishing college. Henderson believes family is the foundation of a well-lived, long life.
“In my day, family did everything together,” she said.
Asked about the fact that his mother has lived over 100 years, is approaching her 105th birthday on July 20, and remains able to continue to spend time with her family, Edrick said it was “nothing but the Lord” that has made that possible.
“It is something that God gave to us,” he said.
Born at home in 1920, she still remembers the name of the Black doctor who delivered her, Dr. Charles W. Womack- Henderson, who has always called Atlanta home. Black people weren’t allowed to have their babies born at Atlanta’s largest hospital, Grady Memorial Hospital, back then.
“And that was at 64 Mason Avenue in a community called Edgewood,” Henderson recalled. “When I was born it was nothing but Black people living in Edgewood.”
Today, Edgewood is one of many former Black neighborhoods in Atlanta that are full of white families and less and less Black
families. As a grassroots community organizer, Henderson worked to make sure the apartments in communities like Edgewood and Old Fourth Ward, for example, were up to standard and available for Black families in certain financial demographics. That’s how she met Clinton, Gore, and many other politicians during her career. She said what she loved most about working on behalf of her people was the connections she made.
“You come in contact with some of everybody, of all kinds. My job was to help them be able to mix with everybody in the community,” Henderson said.
That career includes working as the Neighborhood Planning Units (NPUs) chair for Old Fourth Ward for decades. Henderson also served on several Atlanta Housing Authority boards and was a founding member of the Historic District Development Corporation, which is located in the city’s historic Sweet Auburn District.
“I tried to improve relations in order to bring people together,” Henderson said.
Family Business
An independent woman, Henderson still has plenty of help from family members throughout the day. Many of her grandchildren, for example, drop by the house to help make sure she has what she needs. Edrick and his mother have a daily routine where he stops by the house on his way home to Lithonia from work in Atlanta.
“I got to put eyes on her,” he said about the times he sees his mother. “You never know if you miss one visit that it might be the last time you see her. For me to be able to go by there and see her every day is really special.”
The children of former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, a friend of Henderson during his Atlanta City Council days and her time working in the community, were some of the kids who called her granny. She shared stories of watching Campbell and his wife’s children while they were out campaigning for mayor.
“I helped raise Christina and Billy,” Henderson said of the Campbell children. They still call her Nanny Bunny.
Campbell remains a close friend and can be seen in many of the photo albums Henderson’s family members put together for her. One of those albums commemorates her 100th birthday
See HENDERSON on page 3
Valena York Henderson (above) raised all seven of her children (six girls and a boy) in Atlanta and served on several community boards and Neighborhood Planning Units (NPUs) during her career. Photo by Kerri Phox/The Atlanta Voice
Henderson, 104, stands next to one of the bookcases in her living room. A native of Atlanta, she became a first-time homeowner at the age of 85. Photo by Kerri Phox/The Atlanta Voice
HENDERSON
Continued from page 2
where Campbell was a guest at that party.
“I’m granny all over the city of Atlanta,” Henderson said about the many relationships she made during her community organizer days.
Some of her favorite things
Henderson, who became a homeowner in her late 80s, lists crab legs as one of her favorite foods. These days, she doesn’t cook as much as she once did as a mother of seven children, but she has fond memories of those days.
“When I was cooking, I cooked every day,” Henderson explained.
A naturally opinionated person, Henderson still has no problem sharing her thoughts on some issues, including the Black family, the importance of attending church, and turkey bacon. Yes, turkey bacon. She is famous within her family for asking where the bacon comes from on a turkey.
“Turkeys don’t have no hips,” she said with a hearty laugh.
Henderson said her favorite color is purple because of its connection to royalty.
The Bible remains a key source of information and enlightenment for Henderson. She reads the Good Book every day and also enjoys listening to old-school R&B music, accord-
ing to family members that The Atlanta Voice spoke to for this story.
She used the phrase “Gee Whiz” when asked who her favorite R&B artists are. She just enjoys soulful songs playing in the house.
Look at where I am at 104
It’s hard to miss the Bible verse in gold lettering on the living room wall of Henderson’s home. Psalm 98:4 reads, “Make a joyful noise
to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises.” It’s her favorite verse, and she can recite it at any time. During the interview, she did it twice.
“We think we are it, but we were made by God,” Henderson said. “We get beyond ourselves sometimes, but we should remember that it was He that made us, and not we.”
He, the good Lord, made Valena York Henderson, and at the age of 104, she remains an
Seasoned Saints is a series of stories on Atlanta seniors who have helped shape the way the city is seen through local media, community activism, and a national lens. These stories are representative of Black History Month and the people who helped make Black history every day. Some are well-known the world over, while others’ names might only ring a bell within their respective communities. Black history is all around us.
-D. Suggs
The Atlanta Voice
example of God’s grace. On the way out of the house, just before you approach the front door, is a framed portrait of the Ten Commandments.
Asked what the key to a long life is, Henderson used the phrase “Gee whiz” again before speaking. She said life is a puzzle that you start piecing together when you talk to God.
“You talk to God at night, and he’ll tell you exactly what to do,” Henderson said. “Look at where I am at 104. Look at me.”
A smile spread across her face.
“I’ve never been sad, the only time I have been sad is when I have had to deal with death,” Henderson said. “God is good.”
The Henderson family makes sure to keep plenty of photo albums around the house. The above album was full of photos from Valena Henderson’s career as a community organizer in Atlanta. Photo by Kerri Phox/The Atlanta Voice
“Your willingness to look at your darkness is what empowers you to change.” — Iyanla Vanzant
On Trayvon Martin’s 30th Birthday, Black Lives Still Matter
BY LIZ COURQUET-LESAULNIER
On a Sunday evening in late February 2012, I gathered around the TV with my family in Los Angeles to watch the NBA All-Star Game. I was all in for LeBron James and the Eastern Conference, while my two sons, born and raised in L.A., went for Kobe Bryant and the West.
In Sanford, Florida, a continent away, a teenage boy named Trayvon Martin was also getting ready to watch the game, and like most 17-year-olds, he wanted some snacks for the matchup. He put on a hoodie and headed to the convenience store for a pack of Skittles and a can of Arizona iced tea.
He never made it back home. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood vigilante, shot and killed him.
Trayvon Martin should be turning 30 on Feb. 5. He should be reminiscing with his crew about how Kevin Durant, suited up for the West and LeBron James, for the East, both dropped 36 points, and how Dwayne Wade broke Kobe Bryant’s nose. But he will forever remain 17 because he was a Black teenager — seen as a threat simply for existing — and gunned down by a man who decided Trayvon didn’t belong in his own neighborhood.
“Happy heavenly birthday, Trayvon,” his mother, Sybrina Fulton, posted on Instagram.
Fulton took her grief and used it to create Circle of Mothers, a nonprofit that works to heal and empower women who have lost children or family members due to gun violence.
It’s an organization she shouldn’t have had to create. But it’s still needed because America doesn’t want to admit the truth: Black people, particularly boys and men, are not safe — not in their neighborhoods, not in their schools, and certainly not in a country that too often sees their skin as a threat.
Maybe you saw the video of L.A. police beating Rodney King on your evening news in 1991. You might’ve seen my city burn after the officers who broke King’s body with their nightsticks walked free. Maybe you lived in New York City when cops murdered Amadou Diallo, or perhaps you frequented the Fruitvale BART train station in San Francisco, where a transit cop shot and killed Oscar Grant.
Maybe you had a “woke” history teacher who taught you about Eugene Williams — murdered by an angry white mob in Chicago, my hometown, during the Red Summer of 1919 for floating past an invisible line while swimming in the waters of Lake Michigan. Maybe you grew up listening to your parents or grandparents talking about what it was like to learn about the white men who tortured, beat, and shot Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy, then tried to hide their barbarity by tying his brutalized body to a cotton gin and throwing him into the Tallahatchie River.
His mother, Mamie Till, kept his casket open so no one could deny the truth or create alterna-
tive facts about his disfigured corpse. And that sparked the anger and action that fueled the civil rights movement.
Urana McCauley, Rosa Parks’ great-niece, told me in 2018 that her aunt usually avoided the driver of the bus she was arrested on.
But “That particular day,” McCauley said, “she wasn’t paying attention because she was thinking of Emmett Till, who had been murdered that summer.” Her aunt “didn’t stand up when the driver demanded that she stand up because she kept thinking of him being killed,” McCauley said. “She was that angry.”
In 2022, on the 10th anniversary of Trayvon’s killing, Charles Blow, a columnist for The New York Times, noted how “Jesse Jackson once called the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy brutally murdered in Mississippi, the Big Bang of the civil rights movement. In the same way, the killing of Trayvon Martin was the Big Bang of the new civil rights movement, Black Lives Matter.”
We got used to typing and saying and wearing T-shirts that proclaimed Black Lives Matter, all while hashtagging Black death on social media. We said their names: Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and more.
We marched, we demanded justice. Now, a two-block area of 16th Street NW in downtown Washington, D.C., is Black Lives Matter plaza. It’s a stone’s throw from the White House, where Donald J. Trump is now sitting in the Oval Office. Trump, the man who paid $85,000 to take out full-page ads in four papers, including The New York Times, demanding death sentences for the now-exonerated Central Park 5. Trump, the man
elected because millions of white Americans couldn’t stand the fact that a Black man, Barack Obama, had become president.
“You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son,” Obama said in 2013 as protesters took to the streets after Zimmerman’s acquittal in 2013. “Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”
Fox News used the words of the first Black president to stoke the flames of white racism. Conservative attacks on Trayvon, Blow wrote, “became a roundabout way of attacking and discrediting the president.”
Indeed, the whitelash to the calls for justice for Trayvon, for Obama’s remarks — for Obama’s very existence — put us where we are today. A nation where Trump’s attacks on DEI are designed to put Black America back in its place.
Economic violence, state-sanctioned violence, vigilante violence, and the psychological toll of living in a society that denies Black folks’ humanity and basic civil rights, time and time again — none of that is going away in 2025. But Trayvon Martin and all the other Black lives that matter didn’t die for us to give up now, even if the phrase Black Lives Matter has all but disappeared from our social feeds.
“I want my son to rest in power,” Sybrina Fulton wrote in an op-ed for USA Today in 2021. “I want his name and his spirit to rise, to change the world.”
Trayvon Martin’s life deserves to be honored not with empty gestures but with action — even when we’re tired and know we did not vote for the coup happening in plain sight. But his legacy is our fight, and whether we hashtag it or not, Black lives still matter.
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Trayvon will forever remain 17 because he was Black. But his legacy is our fight, and whether we hashtag it or not, Black lives still matter. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Spiritually Speaking: Substance Before Style W
BY JAMES A. WASHINGTON
The Atlanta Voice
ho is the man that other men should emulate? Who is the consummate role model for young men to model their lives after? For most of my life, I’ve heard how impressionable young men have only the flash and dash of cars, clothes, money, and women to give them hope for better days ahead. You know the drill: athletes and entertainers instead of doctors and lawyers because doctors and lawyers simply don’t come around the ‘hood’ much. Allow me to leave drug dealers and criminals out of this for the moment, although they do play a part in shaping the minds of young men, particularly in the inner city. Again, who is the best example of what real manhood is all about?
I recently heard a warden of a Louisiana prison say that Bishop T.D. Jakes of the Potter’s House, through his prison ministry, was
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.
having success in showing inmates that the best example of manhood, in its finest and highest state, was in Jesus Christ. Now, this should not have surprised me, but it did. The realization that many of the apostles were themselves incarcerated and much of the bible was written from jail gave me pause to think of Christ differently from my storybook view before I came to see Him as the key to eternal life.
If you think about it, Jesus was the embodiment of mercy and forgiveness, his integrity and value system, and His respect for persons and property. This was a man of class, conscience, vision, virtue, conviction, and character. Needless to say, these attributes
got him humiliated, hated, incarcerated, betrayed, and ultimately crucified. But in the face of a man’s absolute failure to embrace God’s word, He would not compromise His mission of bringing grace to the world. He wouldn’t abandon the fulfillment of the contract of the covenant for momentary comfort or fleeting convenience. He was a revolutionary of the highest order. He was uncompromising in His faith. It is not then a wonder to me that no one since has come close to the impact He had and has on the lives of all of us.
Upon closer inspection of His life (not what someone told me but what the bible says about Him), I
understand, agree with, and accept Jesus Christ as my personal role model. It’s a challenge I know I can never live up to, but one I willingly accept. The alternatives in this life pale significantly by comparison. There is no substitute for trying to be one with the Creator. The answer to life lies in the search for the subsequent honoring of God. The key is following a path already laid out for all of mankind.“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 2:4. May God bless and keep you always.
“YOUR VOICE”
Ellenwood
“What I think we can do to create generational wealth in our community is teach our children personal finance because that is not something I learned. Even though my mom would always say to make sure you keep your credit good and save money, she never taught me how to do those things. So now I'm older, I'm in my 40s. I'm taking classes on personal finance and learning all kinds of stuff that I did not know about, like budgeting, I knew about, budgeting and how to negotiate higher pay raises, what IRAs and all these different investment accounts are hiding your savings; I knew nothing about that until taking that class. So, I think that that's not our children that they need to do these things but give them the tools and teach them how to do it.”
Atlanta by way of Columbus
“What I think we should be doing to create generational wealth is getting our finances in order. Limit spending so we can conduct a plan to purchase properties in the future.”
Atlanta
“What do people need to help them facilitate more generational wealth? Mine would be just educating them. The biggest thing is ensuring people know how to finance and manage their money. One of the biggest issues in my life is understanding what I do need to buy and what I don't need to: buy needs versus wants. One of the things that comes with generational wealth is getting yourself right. If you want to build generational wealth for the generations to come, you need to make sure you're right. So, there are times when you need to make sacrifices. Things you're going to want that you don't need.”
This column is from James Washington’s Spiritually Speaking: Reflections for and from a New Christian. You can purchase this enlightening book on Amazon and start your journey toward spiritual enlightenment.
What’s one thing we should do to create generational wealth in our community?
Decatur
“My answer is that I believe we need to expand our knowledge in that we need more access to information on how to invest our wealth, how to save our wealth, how to use our taxes to our benefit, how to save our money that we are working so hard to get.”
Compiled by Vincent Christie
RODRICK ROGERS
LATOYA THURMAN
RISAIAH OSBORNE
KENZI ABLEMAN
Georgia lawmakers push for stricter gun storage laws
State of the County highlights the growth of Fulton County
BY DONNELL SUGGS
Fulton County’s annual State of the County address took place on a cool Tuesday morning.
This year’s State of the County took place at Flourish Atlanta by Legendary Events in Buckhead. The venue’s main ballroom was full of the city’s political and business leaders, including former United Nations Ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, current Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, and business owner Pinky Cole, to name a few.
Before Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts took to the stage to give his speech, the fourth of his career as chairman, several business and community leaders spoke about the growth of Georgia’s largest county.
Along with Develop Fulton Chairman and former Congressman Kwanza Hall, Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority CEO Jevon Gibson, Stormwater Planning Manager Katherine Atteberry, and Amazon Head of Community Affairs Atlanta Teretta Rodgers spoke about how Fulton County is growing in many ways. Rodgers, a graduate of Clark Atlanta University, spoke about the amount of support Fulton County leadership has given Amazon, which in turn has helped the global retail leader provide thousands of jobs within the county and throughout metro Atlanta.
Hall, a former Atlanta Mayoral candidate, talked about the half-billion-dollar residential and business real estate development projects taking place around Fulton County.
“We’re looking forward to more international projects as well,” Hall said.
Hall also mentioned several upcoming projects that will have major impacts in East Point and on the city’s Southside. Atlanta Beltline, Inc. President and CEO
Clyde Higgs took a moment to announce that 85% of the Atlanta Beltline will be complete by the time the FIFA World Cup comes to Atlanta in the summer of 2026.
“We can definitely say we can completely finish the Beltline by 2030 like we promised the community,” Higgs said.
Higgs credited the work of several Fulton County organizations for helping make the progress on the Beltline possible.
Pitts' address followed a brunch of chicken and waffles, and focused on how unique Fulton County is. During his speech, Pitts referred to Fulton County as, “the most vibrant, creative, and most thriving county not only in Georgia, not only in the Southeast, but in the United States of America.”
Job availability, opportunity, and growth were also mentioned during Pitts’ speech.
“We are ranked fourth in the nation for the number of Fortune 500 companies,” he said.
Transportation, education, healthcare, quality of life, and election integrity were topics of the address. A controversial topic, the Fulton County Jail, was also mentioned.
“The jail is the single costliest issue facing us at this time,” he said.
Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman will not run for re-election
BY STAFF REPORT
Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman announced his plans to step aside at the end of his term.
Shipman says medical issues in his family have forced him to step aside and not run for re-election.
“Recently my family has come to face significant medical challenges that will require me to focus time and effort on my most important responsibilities as a father, son, husband and brother,” Shipman said on his Instagram post. “While I will continue to vigorously fulfill my duties to the end of my current term, I cannot in good faith ask the voters of At-
lanta to elect me again. The City Council President role is a full one and my expectations and the expectations of the voters are ones I cannot fulfill for another four years. I will not be running for re-election.”
The entire Atlanta City Council, and Mayor Andre Dickens, are up for re-election this November.
In response, Dickens issued the following statement:
My heart goes out to City Council President Doug Shipman, his wife and two young children. I’m asking that the entire city join me in prayer for the Shipman family. We will do whatever we can to provide support to our friend and colleague as he navigates this difficult time.”
Shipman also added, “I appreciate the support of so many and I ask that my family be afforded respect for our privacy regarding the specifics of our situation. These unexpected life changes won’t change a few fundamental things- I will continue supporting those who are striving to help our city reach its full potential. I will always treasure the trust Atlantans have placed in me to serve.”
Shipman became Atlanta City Council President after securing a victory over Natalyn Mosby Archibong. He carried 54% of the vote in 2021. He was the former president and CEO of Woodruff Arts Center. Shipman was also the founding CEO of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.
Atlanta City Council President Doug Shipman delivers his inaugural speech at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Georgia Tech. Photo by Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice
This year’s State of the County address took place at Flourish Atlanta by Legendary Events in Buckhead. Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts, Develop Fulton Chairman and former Congressman Kwanza Hall (above), and others spoke about the continued growth and development the county saw in 2024. Photos by Donnell Suggs/The Atlanta Voice
Education
A Solo Journey to Cape Town: Embracing Adventure
Sorry, Your Kid Probably Doesn’t Read Proficiently
BY QUINTESSA WILLIAMS
As the decades-long debate over the best way to teach kids how to read — a phonics-based approach or a whole-word approach — rages on, one thing remains true: Most students still aren’t reading on grade level.
The National Center for Education Statistics recently released the Nation’s Report Card for 2024 and found that only 30% of all fourth graders and 29% of all eighth graders nationwide scored at or above proficient in reading.
However, the results are worse among Black students: Only 17% of Black fourth graders scored at or above proficiency — a percentage that hasn’t improved since 2022 and is worse than a decade ago. And Black eighth graders currently have a 14% proficiency rate — down from 15% in 2022.
Let that sink in: In 2024, when AI can write your essays and TikTok University can teach you practically anything, schools are still failing to ensure a majority of Black children learn one of the most fundamental skills.
“This data is alarming,” says Dr. Artika Tyner, founder of the Planting People Growing
Justice Institute, a Minnesota-based nonprofit dedicated to social change and promoting reading and diversity in literature. And with these results, Black students “are at a competitive disadvantage.” Reading, she
explains, is “a critical skill needed to excel not just in school but throughout their lives and future endeavors.”
A Chronic Issue
Tyner says students’ lack of reading proficiency isn’t a sudden crisis. “Reports and assessments may bring renewed relevance, but this issue is not new,” she says.
Instead, it’s more like a chronic condition that America is content to live with, especially when it comes to Black students.
In 1992, when the NAEP assessment was first administered, only 8% of Black fourth graders were proficient in reading. The early 2000s saw some improvements, but progress peaked with 18% of Black fourth graders scoring proficient or higher in 2015.
We’ve had decades of education reforms that were supposed to fix this, so what’s going on?
Dr. Aaron Pallas, professor of sociology and education and chair of the Department of Education Policy and Social Analysis at Teachers College, Columbia University, puts it plainly: “Black students are often in school districts that have concentrations of economic disadvantage or poverty. And those schools often lack the critical resources readily available in affluent ones.”
In 2021, 37% of Black students attended high-poverty schools, compared to just 7% of white students. And those high-poverty districts? They get about $800 less per student in state and local funding. That gap shows up in fewer resources, less experienced teachers, and limited access to advanced coursework.
As for the reforms — like No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds — “we’ve had an overemphasis on ineffective policy interventions and less prioritization of instructional strategies,” Pallas says.
That so many kids are still not proficient
“shows these interventions didn’t have much of an effect,” he explains. And “debates over the ‘science of reading,'” Pallas says, “have led to inconsistent literary instruction, especially in under-resourced schools.”
Read Well by Third Grade… or Else
And then there’s the third-grade factor.
“Students learn how to read until third grade, and then they begin reading to learn starting in fourth grade,” Tyner says.
Research from the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that kids who aren’t reading proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school.
“Falling behind in literacy at this critical stage creates barriers for Black students to academic achievement and perpetuates cycles of oppression,” Tyner says.
So,
What’s the Fix?
In decades past, Mississippi’s NAEP reading scores hovered near the bottom. This year, however, the state had the third-highest percentage of Black fourth graders scoring at or above proficiency. Experts chalk the improvements up to a state law passed in 2013 that mandated phonics instruction and mandatory retention for third graders who couldn’t read fluently.
Others, like Mississippi Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, pointed out that improving students’ reading had become a non-partisan issue in the state.
“Democrats and Republicans have pushed for more reading coaches to help students who had fallen behind and more career coaches,” Blount told the Mississippi Free Press. “We passed a new funding formula that increases funding with greater equity. We have been working together.”
It will take more than just throwing money at the problem (though let’s be clear — more funding for schools wouldn’t hurt.) And Pallas says the solution “isn’t just about policy changes but more about ensuring every child has access to high-quality literacy instruction.”
Tyner also advocates for recruiting more Black teachers, making federal investments in early childhood literacy, expanding teacher training around biases, and training educators in strategies to help support reading at home can also help.
“Literacy is something that gets acquired both in and out of school,” Pallas says. “Parents and families reading to their children and fostering a culture of literacy outside of school can make all the difference.”
And as Tyner asks, “Would you build a house without a foundation and expect it to stand?” She says literacy “provides a solid foundation for learning and critical thinking, and we need to create environments where learning happens everywhere — at home, in libraries, churches, and community centers.”
Waffle House is placing a surcharge on every egg it sells
Portrait Coffee: A Love Letter To The West End
BY NOAH WASHINGTON
Portrait Coffee, co-founded CEO Aaron Fender says the business aims to be more than just a caféit aims to be a community hub. Originally from Miramar, Florida, Fender moved to Metro Atlanta at the age of 12 and later earned a psychology degree from Kennesaw State University. Though he initially pursued mental health counseling, his experience as a barista revealed the need for a welcoming, restorative space where people could relax, recharge, or study. This insight fueled his vision for Portrait Coffee, Fender told The Atlanta Voice
“A lot of people just need a safe space, a third space, just to relax and recharge or study,” Fender said.
The idea for Portrait Coffee was conceived in 2016 and was co-founded by three families: John and Shawndra Onwuchekwa, Aaron and his wife Erin, and Marcus Hollinger. Fender, as CEO, manages day-to-day operations with a team of approximately fifteen employees spanning both the café and the roasting facility. Fender and his business partners spent years conceptualizing a coffee shop that would serve as both a gathering place and a tribute to the neighborhood’s rich cultural history.
“We all lived and worked in the neighborhood, and we just started having conversations about what it would look like to open a cafe in our neighborhood that actually reflected the history and culture of the neighborhood,” Fender explained.
In December 2019, the group launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to bring their vision to life.
“Most people aren’t aware that coffee can only be grown in places indigenous with peo-
ple of color, and so we’re trying to change that picture and show people what our supply chain actually looks like,” Fender said.
However, just as they signed the lease for their retail space in February 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted their plans. Rather than pausing their efforts, Fender and his team pivoted by creating a coffee club that delivered beans door-to-door in Atlanta.
“We had to pivot our business. And what we started was a coffee club here in the city of Atlanta, where we were doing door-to-door deliveries for coffee,” Fender recalled.
With the help of a friend at Peach Coffee Roasters, they continued roasting coffee and building their brand. This pivot not only sustained their business but also strengthened their community ties.
After months of navigating supply chain disruptions and skyrocketing construction costs, Portrait Coffee officially opened its doors in August 2023. The café roasts its coffee in-house, utilizing a rotating drum and propane heat to develop unique flavor profiles. Their menu features fifteen blends, with signature drinks like the "Aunt Viv" standing out as community favorites. Rather than viewing other coffee businesses as competition, Fender believes the real challenge is shifting consumers from gas station coffee to appreciating high-quality, ethically sourced coffee.
“All of our growth has always been attributed to the love and support of our community, so in that sense, it only made sense to go to our community to help build the future of Portrait,” Fender said.
Portrait Coffee is located at 1065 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd., SW, Suite A.
Visit their website at https://portrait.coffee/
Portrait Coffee (above) is located at 1065 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd., SW, Suite A. Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta Voice
Portrait Coffee, co-founder CEO Aaron Fender. Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta Voice