www.afro.com
Volume 122 No. 8
$1.00
SEPTEMBER 28, 2013 - OCTOBER 4, 2013
Black Media Slighted as Spending Power Exceeds $1Trillion By George E. Curry NNPA Editor-in-Chief
Food Stamp Cuts DMV Poor Bleed
By Courtney Jacobs AFRO Staff Writer A vote in the U.S. House of Representatives Sept. 19 to cut funding for federal food stamps by almost $40 billion a year, or five percent, for the next 10 years has triggered concern among food stamp users and low-income advocates. The House bill would have to clear the Senate, where only light cuts are contemplated, and gain approval from President Obama. But the Senate action on the House scale is
Although annual Black spending is projected to rise from its current $1 trillion to $1.3 trillion by 2017, advertisers allot only 3 percent of their $2.2 billion yearly budget to media aimed at Black audiences, a new Nielsen report has found.
“…advertisers allot only 3 percent of their $2.2 billion yearly budget to media aimed at Black audiences…” The study, “Resilient, Receptive and Relevant: The African-American Consumer 2013 Report,” was released at a news conference Sept. 19 at the Congressional Black Caucus Legislative Weekend by Nielsen and the National Newspaper Continued on A4
A vote to cut funding for federal food stamps by almost $40 billion a year has triggered concern among food stamp users and low-income advocates.
Street Violence and Navy Yard Slayings Bring Total Killings to 22 By Courtney Jacobs AFRO Staff Writer
A4
HistoryMakers Places Black Dignitaries in D.C. Classrooms
A9
CBC Event Photos INSERT • Walmart
The month of September is stacking up to be the bloodiest month of the year, with 22 homicides reported through Sept. 21. The killings included the deaths of a dozen people at the Navy Yard at the hands of a sniper. Others include the killing of a man who died a month after he allegedly intervened in violence taking place in an Adams Morgan bar where he was playing in a band and the fatal attack on a man who had bricks thrown at him on a street in the Brightwood neighborhood of Northwest. Awele Olisameka, 24, a popular Nigerian-born father of a 3-year-old son who had won a scholarship to attend Delaware State University, died Sept. 16, three days after he was chased and attacked by unknown assailants. Loved ones said he was beaten by bricks so badly that he lost consciousness from
Awele Olisameka attended Del. State University and recently gained his U.S. citizenship
multiple skull fractures. “He was an intelligent young adult with a promising future,” said a Facebook memorial page, which features pictures of Olisameka with friends and family. There is a picture of Olisameka flashing peace signs sitting next to his friend Sam Okunubi, a buddy since his Del. State Days. There’s another of him wearing traditional Nigerian garb standing next to a young woman. A third shows him posing with a group of friends at school, each of who has gone on to a successful career. “Awele was a great friend,” Okunubi said. “[After] I met him at Delaware State I took him in as a younger brother. He was the kind of person who would always stand up for his friends. A friend with so much potential is gone forever in such a tragic way.” The month’s violence started with a 23-year-old man being fatally shot on the1300 block of Columbia Road, NW. About Continued on A3
Shutdown Devastation Major Capitol Hill Concern By Zenitha Prince AFRO Contributing Writer
afro.com
Your History • Your Community • Your News
Hear the AFRO on The Daily Drum, Wednesday at 7 p.m.
The extreme partisanship that has plagued Washington, D.C., for the past four years is dragging America to the brink of disaster—again. Republicans and Democrats currently are engaged in high-stakes negotiations over the 2014 budget, and if they don’t agree on how the U.S. will pay its bills over the next week, the federal government will shut down come Dec. 16. With the U.S. economy taking its first tentative steps toward recovery,
a shutdown could be devastating. According to the Congressional Research Service, the last two shutdowns, in late 1995 and early 1996, cost about $1.4 billion. “This is no way to run a government,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). “When you think about the main role the federal government plays in this country—paying for air traffic controllers, water security, overseeing national parks and more—everyone in America will feel it if the government goes into shutdown.”
At issue in this year’s budget talks is the Affordable Care Act, the premier legacy of President Obama’s administration. The fiscal year ends Sept. 30, but a shortterm continuing resolution was passed to maintain funding until Dec. 15. However, House Republicans inserted a provision to defund the health care law and Democrats and the President say that’s just not going to happen. “In the 113th Congress, Republicans choose continuously to ignore the Continued on A4
Photo by Marvin Joseph/Courtesy of The Washington Post
Pastor of the District’s Peoples Congregational Church
By Milton Coleman Special to the AFRO
2
Join the AFRO on Twitter and Facebook
Rev. Dr. A. Knighton Stanley
Rev. A. Knighton Stanley Dies at 76
14
47105 21847
Continued on A4
September Bloody Month in D.C.
INSIDE
7
AP Photo
Photo by Vinoth Chandar/Wikimedia Commons
Republicans and Democrats currently are engaged in high-stakes negotiations over the 2014 budget.
The Rev. Dr. A. Knighton Stanley, the longest serving pastor of one of Washington’s most historic Black congregations, died of heart failure Sept. 21 in Atlanta. He was 76. Alfred Knighton Stanley arrived in Washington in February 1968, two months before the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spawned riots along the city’s 7th, 14th and H street corridors. He bore a family legacy of involvement in the Congregational church, the denomination that founded
Copyright © 2013 by the Afro-American Company
Continued on A7