PASADENA NEWS: Sheldon Epps Leaves Position at Pasadena Playhouse
HEALTH: Special Olympics Young Athletes Kicks Off Season
SPORTS: Should High School Football Be Banned?
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pasadenaindependent.com
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Thursday, January 14, 2016 - January 20, 2016
Since 1996
COMPLIMENTARY COPY VOLUME 20, NO. 2
Celebrating a Dream and a Life of Nonviolence Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday Is Friday – Where Are We in Race Relations Today?
BY TERRY MILLER As we pause and reflect on the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Jan.15, 1929) one cannot help but wonder how far, in fact, we have come in the United States. During the less than 13 years of Dr. King’s leadership of the modern American civil rights movement, from December 1955 until April 4, 1968 when he was assassinated, African-Americans achieved more genuine progress toward racial equality in America than the previous 350 years had produced. Dr. King is widely regarded as America’s pre-eminent advocate of nonviolence and one of the greatest nonviolent leaders in world history. But how does 1960s philosophy translate in today’s modern world? Well, that depends on many factors and how you feel about socialism. Despite his fear of backlash - calling for both racial integration and the explicit overturning of capitalism was bound to make him too threatening or fringe - socialism remained important to him, and by the end of his career, it was an open and
inextricable part of his dream for a better America. Drawing inspiration from both his Christian faith and the peaceful teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King led a nonviolent movement in the late 1950s and ‘60s to achieve legal equality for African-Americans in the United States. While others were advocating for freedom by “any means necessary,” including violence, Dr. King used the power of words and acts of nonviolent resistance, such as protests, grassroots organizing, and civil disobedience to achieve seemingly-impossible goals. He went on to lead similar campaigns against poverty and international conflict, always maintaining fidelity to his principles that men and women everywhere, regardless of color or creed, are equal members of the human family. One of the seminal moments of the civil rights movement - and the one that made Dr. King a household name - was the 1963 March on Washington. Not everyone remembers that the march was “for jobs and freedom,” in that order. Among its demands were a national minimum wage and “a massive
Pasadena Mayor Tornek’s State of the City Event, Jan. 20
federal program to train and place all unemployed workers - Negro and white - on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages.” After President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, “King kept moving leftward, to confront the racial and economic injustice that had created and maintained the black ghettos of the north, and the national hubris that had led America into the quagmire of war in southeast Asia,” says Lee A. Daniels of the New Pittsburgh Courier. When he was killed, Dr. King had been planning to “stage a multiracial Poor Peoples March on Washington and involve himself in the bitter sanitation worker’s strike in Memphis,” Daniels adds. Those were hard years for Dr. King, his push for the working poor costing him the support of former allies, but they were “King’s finest hours,” Daniels says. In 1964, at 35 years old, SEE PAGE 7
Pasadena Department of Housing Recommends Ways to Create More Affordable Housing BY J. SHADÉ QUINTANILLA
The public is invited to attend Mayor Terry Tornek’s first State of the City Address Wednesday, Jan. 20, at the William McKinley TK-8 School gymnasium, 325 S. Oak Knoll Ave. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the formal program begins at 7 p.m. Mayor Tornek will deliver a budget message using illustrations that look at
the city’s finances, including an examination of funding sources and how the city spends its money. A brief Qand-A with the audience will follow. Vice Mayor Gene Masuda will serve as emcee for the evening, and students from the McKinley School SEE PAGE 19
- Courtesy Photo
There’s a lack of affordable housing in Pasadena, said Bill Huang, Director of the Pasadena Department of Housing. As rents have increased two to three times faster than wages since 2010, more and more residents are in need of home within their financial reach. These residents include no income-to-moderate income
individuals, seniors, special needs populations and families. On Monday, Huang led a city council workshop about affordable housing, pointing out that in particular, there is an increasing population of seniors--54 percent--who are unable to afford basic rents in Pasadena and Los Angeles County. Along with that, the amount of homeless in the city has gone up 30 percent within the last four
Wiiliam Huang.
- Courtesy Photo
years, with 442 chronically homeless adults living on city streets. “Across the board, according to the state, we need to produce 584 affordable units before the year 2022,” said Huang. While Pasadena has lost some state redevelopment funding and federal funding, Huang noted that there have been recent developments within LA CounSEE PAGE 19