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All Politics, All The TTime ime PAGE 5
45th Annual NAACP Why Do Republicans Image A war ds Kept Awar wards Want TTo o Destr oy Destroy Us "Happy" President Obama? PAGE 9 PAGE 11
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Save our school By Starla Vaughns Cherin Lately, there are six to 10 children attending Susie C. Holley Cradle Nursery. Although its capacity is 110, the historic 55-year-old childcare center faces continual decline. Not in the immense caring and nurturing from teachers like Ms. Anna Francis, who this year celebrates 30 years teaching Founded by the First Baptist Church Piney Grove, Cradle continues to maintain the clean, wholesome learning and growing environment where children learn numbers, colors and how to follow directions when they paint by number in Ms. Francis’s class. They are surrounded by fun interactive toys, signs showing them how to wash their hands and faces that smile at them. The proof is in the success of Cradle’s alumni like Roland Faulks, Attorney Karen Black Baron, former Cradle director Evelyn Grooms, Westside Gazette Publisher Bobby Henry and its Editor Pamela Henry. Yet, parents have stopped bringing their children and Cradle’s employees are a month behind in pay. Some bear the delay in payment because they know funds are also needed for
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payment of trash removal and electricity. Keeping open Johnson, the director from 2008 to 2010, returned in 2013 when she heard the nursery was about to shut its doors. “It’s a community treasure. So much good has come from here; I couldn’t just let it close,” Johnson says. When she returned she found the nursery’s van sold, a dwindled enrollment and no support to attract students. Previously, Cradle received support from the community and organizations like Childnet, Workforce One and Mount Bethel, where parents choose from a list of child care centers. Johnson kept the enrollment up during the summer enough to continue VPK funding and they currently receive funding from Family Central which is based on a series of parental involvement steps and income. In 2009 Frito Lay’s national sales team, in Fort Lauderdale for its annual sales meeting, sent 130 of its associates from 26 sales regions across the country to refurbish the nursery. Outdoor renovations included building a mulch-covered playground with a sandbox and new
equipment on the lot facing Northwest Sixth Court, the repairing of windows and new tables and chairs used on the back lawn. Interior renovations included painting, restoration of shelving, the replacement of ceiling tiles, cleaning the existing furnishings, new carpet and furniture, and updating the bathroom facilities. Then Johnson and Francis, caring for 70 children, acknowledged the repairs were long overdue and hoped enrollment would increase. Alumni Evelyn Grooms became the director in 2005 until 2007 when she cared for 98 children. A former daycare
owner and certified in the Montessori Method of Preschool Education, Grooms studied under Dr. Elizabeth Caspari who was said to be the last living student of Dr. Maria Montessori. She employed 12 teachers and had many paying families. “I realize the demographics have changed and often childcare has to be subsidized. Word of mouth is still the best marketing tool to get children into your daycare. We also cultivated volunteers among high school students who needed community service hours,” Grooms says. (Cont'd on Page 5)
Black Americans remain tormented by lack of sickle cell funding By Derek Joy Black History Month has come and gone again without much focus on the research funding gap between sickle cell anemia/trait and other debilitating diseases. The battle to find improved methods of treatment, medication and a cure for sickle cell anemia/trait is an uphill one. Securing funding for that research is an equally daunting task. Dr. Lanetta Jordan, a trained and board certified psychiatrist and professor of public health at the University of Miami School of Medicine, is
DR. JORDAN
waging that battle in relative obscurity. “Sickle Cell falls under public health,” said Jordan, who was born in Creedmoor, N.C., and grew up in nearby Raleigh. “It’s prevalent among African Americans. But it has been diagnosed in some Hispanics, in India and Saudia Arabia. The disease came about from malaria. It was identified in America 100 years ago.” The disease, according to Jordan, causes red blood cells to lose their round shapes and form the shape of a sickle instead. Typical blood cells live for about 120 days, while sickle cells
live only 12 to 15 days. Most sickle cells don’t carry oxygen very well, don’t bind oxygen. As a result, a lot of organs suffer damage. There is constant pain and a shortened lifespan for those who have sickle cell anemia. With some forms of the disease the life expectancy for males ranges from early to 40’s, while females have a life expectancy from the early 40’s to mid 60’s. “There are a lot of psycho social challenges. Treatment has come a long way. All babies are screened at birth for newborn diseases,” said Jordan, who earned her undergraduate, graduate and medical degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Cont'd on Page 3)
Martin Dyckman: Scott is trying to pack the courts with compliant judges The Florida Bar is all but begging lawyers to apply for once-coveted memberships on the panels that nominate judges for the governor to appoint. With too few applications on hand for 12 of the 20 judicial circuits and one of the five district courts of appeal, the Bar has extended the deadline from Feb. 11 to March 21. It’s no wonder. Unlike his predecessors, Gov. Rick Scott apparently wants every member of every commission to see the justice system through his eyes. That means no Democrats. No trial lawyers. No one who might take a citizen’s side against a corporation or the state. Lawyers know that. The dearth concerns two vacancies on each of the 26 judicial
GOV. SCOTT
Pleading Our Own Cause
nominating commissions. The law requires the Bar to submit three names for each, 156 in all, to Scott. He can reject entire lists without explanation and demand more. He’s done it 16 times. Only 231 applications are in, with interest concentrated on the Supreme Court, four district courts of appeal, and the trial circuits comprising Broward, Dade, Hillsborough and Palm Beach counties. Circuits with fewer than six applicants include those serving Tallahassee and most of the Panhandle, Jacksonville, Ocala, Pinellas and Pasco counties, Gainesville, Orlando and Key West. As recently as 2011, Scott’s first year, there were 340 ap-
plications for 26 JNC mem-berships. That was before his agenda became obvious. The Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald reported four months ago how Scott has rejected the 16 lists. He’s the first governor to do so since the law was changed in 2001 to deprive the Bar of direct appointments. Under Gov. Reubin Askew, who created the nominating commissions, and successors Bob Graham, Bob Martinez, and Lawton Chiles, the governors named three to each panel. The Bar chose three. Those six then appointed three more members from the lay public. (Cont'd on Page 9)
Florida NAACP announces Moral Monday Florida social justice campaign
Rev. Barber, leading Moral Monday demonstrations in Raleigh, N.C. Posted by Mitch Perry Last year progressive activists in North Carolina began congregating every Monday in their state capital, holding major rallies in response to several actions by Governor Pat McCrory and his GOP-led Legislature that they opposed — many of which are similar to what has happened in Florida in recent years. They were called “Moral Mondays,” and a coalition of progressive groups in Florida announced recently that they intend to hold such events in Tallahassee this year, beginning on the eve of this year’s regular legislative session, next Monday, March 3. “This is an election year, and we want to make sure our views are clearly heard by this year’s legislative body as well as the
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Governor,” said Adora Obi Nweze, head of the Florida NAACP. “And that we bring as many Floridians as possible ... so as we begin to speak with one voice.” She said the drive was for voter education, voter registration and getting people out to vote. Obi Nweze said the fact that the state has never been in a situation where the Legislature rejected $51 billion from the federal government is cause enough to revolt (that’s the total of money the feds would provide Florida over the next decade if the Legislature agrees to expand Medicaid services). “Your silence on Medicaid is deadly,” added Tobias Packer, Senior Communications Coordinator with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Florida on a conference call with reporters on Monday. (Cont'd on Page 9) MEMBER: National Newspaper Publishers Association ( NNPA), and Southeastern African-American Publishers Association (SAAPA) Florida Association of Black Owned Media (FABOM),