New York Amsterdam News June 5-11, 2025

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A Son of Harlem: Congressman Charles B. Rangel (1930

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Public Advocate rolls out mayor and comptroller endorsements

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the second-highest ranking elected official in the city, rolled out his endorsements for the mayoral and comptroller races last week.

“I’m very concerned for a Cuomo mayoralty — bringing back something that didn’t work the first time and had to leave to replace something that’s not working now,” said Williams. “It’s not what we need to be doing, and we have amazing leaders in this city who never left. They’ve been doing the work, on the ground. They are what New York needs.”

With the city’s ranked choice voting (RCV) system, voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference. If no candidate secures more than 50% of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and those votes are redistributed based on voters’ next preferences. This process continues until a winner is declared.

Williams announced that his strategy is to rank his long-time friend Comptroller Brad Lander and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams as his top choices in this year’s mayoral bid to replace incumbent Mayor Eric Adams. Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani would be his third choice, followed by State Senator Zellnor Myrie and former Comptroller Scott Stringer as fourth and fifth choic-

es. There are 11 candidates officially on the ballot for the primary on June 24.

“As the top two picks, Brad Lander and Adrienne Adams represent the strongest leadership New Yorkers can rally behind. Both have governed with vision, transparency, and deep compassion for working families across the five boroughs,” said Williams. Lander and Williams are known to be longtime friends and colleagues in government

since their days on the City Council together, going back to 2009. They co-wrote the Community Safety Act, aiming to end discriminatory stop-and-frisk policies; established an inspector general for the NYPD; and worked to end solitary confinement in jails, among other things.

“For years, Jumaane and I have fought alongside each other to deliver criminal

Queens community packs District 28 City Council forum

City Council District 28 candidates (left to right) Japneet Singh, Ty Hankerson, Latoya Legrand, Romeo Hitlall, and Ruben Wills join APA Voice and Caribbean Equality Project (CEP) forum on Thursday, May 22, in Queens. (Ariama C. Long photo)

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff

District 28 encompasses the neighborhoods of Jamaica, Richmond Hill, Rochdale Village, and South Ozone Park.

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More than 250 community members packed Liberty Palace Banquet Hall in Richmond Hill on Thursday, May 22, eager to hear from five City Council candidates in the Queens District 28 race. The forum was a mixture of intensity and levity, but above all, it showcased the commitment of the candidates and attendees to their community.

New York City Council Speaker Adrienne E. Adams is the first Black woman to serve in that position. She is term-limited and currently running for mayor. Her council seat in

The candidates vying to replace Adams include her chief of staff Tyrell D. Hankerson; the exonerated former Councilmember Ruben Wills; Japneet Singh, a young Sikh community leader; Latoya LeGrand, an aide to Assemblymember Vivian Cook; and real estate broker Romeo Hitlall.

District 28

This district is spotlighted, not only because of Adams, but because it is a culturally diverse Black and Brown (meaning

South Asian and Indo-Caribbean as well as Hispanic) immigrant community that’s split up among numerous city council districts due to redistricting. It’s also bifurcated by the Van Dyck Expressway, said attendees, with mostly Little Guyana on the left and South Jamaica’s Black community on the right. This feeling of segregation was highlighted in the forum numerous times, especially considering that the Liberty Palace venue, where the forum was held, was redistricted out of District 28. It now technically lies on the border of District 29 on Liberty Avenue.

(L-R) Comptroller Brad Lander (left), Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (center), and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (right) at endorsement conference on May 27, 2025. (Ariama C. Long photo)

Mayor Adams rolls out youth summer program funding to bolster public safety

By TANDY LAU Amsterdam News staff reporter

Mayor Eric Adams kicked off summer by announcing $13 million in community-based safety initiatives to keep the kids busy during the hottest — and most violent — months.

“In order to make our city a place of peace and the best place to raise a family during the summer months, we need to reach our young people before they fall into the rivers of violence,” said Mayor Adams in a statement. “This summer, we are going to make sure our young people have fun and stay safe by investing in upstream solutions that provide them with things to do. As part of our ‘Best Budget Ever,’ we are announcing $13 million in funding to support atrisk youth, justice-involved New Yorkers, as well as people living in neighborhoods with high rates of violence.

“Summer in our city should always be a time of joy and fun for our young people, so we’re going to use every one of the tools we have to ensure we’re keeping every New Yorker safe.”

Half the money goes toward a restorative justice program in collaboration with CUNY which is open to all New Yorkers affected “by a conflict to develop a shared understanding of its root causes and its impact on those harmed, while encouraging those responsible to take accountability.”

$4.5 million will go to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ), which the

agency’s director Deanna Logan characterizes as the city’s “solution-oriented arm of the public safety portfolio.”

Most of MOCJ’s funding ($4 million) will go towards its Project Reset diversion program, which allows young people to resolve low-level criminal cases without going to court in exchange for attending educational sessions. Participants found eligible by their prosecuting district attorney’s office will get their charges dropped and their arrest record sealed upon completion to prevent justice involvement from impacting their schooling, housing, and employment.

According to the Center for Justice Innovation, Project Reset helped more than 10,000 people avoid a criminal record since starting as a pilot for teenagers in Harlem and Brownsville a decade ago.

Another $500,000 will go towards MOCJ’s Flip the Script, a paid filmmaking apprenticeship for Brownsville youngsters ages 18-24. The four-month program connects participants to mentorship in making their own short film, which could be screened at events like the Tribeca Film Festival.

“Brownsville is a neighborhood that’s just teeming with individuals that have culture and arts, pulsing through them,” said Logan over the phone. “There’s so much creativity, and there wasn’t an outlet for that creativity … sometimes when you think about the activities [like] how did this age find a gun here and all of the things that that creativity that gets them to put into [the] neg-

ative, how do we take all of that creativity and put it into something so powerful [and] so meaningful that they can step back and they can be proud.”

Lastly, $2 million goes toward expanding Department of Youth & Community Development (DYCD) programming including Saturday Night Lights, which sprung from local Harlem gym closures during the 2010s and now provides drop-in sports activities across roughly 140 locations in the city

through nonprofits like the Police Athletic League and the YMCA of Greater New York.

“With select community locations open seven days a week, until 11 PM — focused on programs in neighborhoods with the highest incidents of gun violence — every day, this summer, the city is connecting young people and other New Yorkers to safe places so they can play, learn, and stay engaged,” said DYCD commissioner Keith Howard.

Primary Care: Democratic mayoral hopefuls talk civil rights at Cooper Union

By TANDY LAU Amsterdam News Staff

Eight mayoral candidates in the upcoming democratic primary took the stage at Cooper Union for a forum on how they would protect civil rights hosted by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP New York State Conference on Monday, June 2.

“The approaching mayoral election will be a pivotal moment for the city of New York, offering voters an opportunity to shape this great city into a more inclusive and representative home for all,” said NAACP New York State Conference president L. Joy Williams in a statement. “Marking the second election in which voters are ranking candidates, ranked choice voting empowers New Yorkers to express their true voice, ensuring that the elected mayor has broad support across our communities.

“At NAACPNYS, we are focused on educating Black New Yorkers on this new system, ensuring that they are voting for the vision they have for New York City.”

Frontrunner Andrew Cuomo did not show, but his main competition overwhelmingly attended and agreed on supporting gender-affirming care at NYC Health + Hospital facilities, standing up to

President Donald Trump and fighting federal immigration enforcement in the city. All candidates on the ballot were invited.

Veteran reporter Ben Max moderated the event, replacing the AmNews’ own Christina Greer after the event was rescheduled from last month.

Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, NYC

Comptroller Brad Lander, and ex-Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer all participated. They are ranked second, third, and fourth, respectively, after the ex-New York Governor Cuomo in Emerson College’s recent democratic primary poll. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, state senators Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, Dr. Selma Bartholomew, and ex-Democratic National Committee vice chair Michael Blake rounded out the field.

Whether due to propriety or ranked choice voting, the candidates did not take shots at each other and were in general agreement across issues.

Some of the candidates told the AmNews that a conversation on civil rights is particularly pressing under the Trump administration, and as the city faces public safety concerns despite reductions in crime and gun violence.

“People are terrified in this moment,” said Myrie after the event. “New York City resi-

dents are watching a federal administration that has zero respect for the Constitution [and] has used New York City as a stage to execute some of its worst instincts. And as we’re discussing civil rights, I think it is paramount. But if you’re going to ask people for your vote, you’re going to tell them what

you’re going to do.”

“We can have public safety, but we can also have civil liberties,” said Stringer.

“Police are about protecting everybody, no matter what your background is.”

Voters must register by June 14 to vote in the 2025 primary.

Mayor Eric Adams smiles when asked a question during a press conference at City Hall in New York, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Peter K. Afriyie)

Mayoral forum at Cooper Union on June 2. (Tandy Lau photo)

City Council approves Atlantic Avenue facelift

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff

New York City Council approved a major rezoning and housing plan last week that develops a part of the Atlantic Avenue corridor near Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. Councilmembers Crystal Hudson and Chi Ossé hailed the plan as “community-led.”

“This process has shown what’s possible when planning is driven by community: we build more affordable housing and deliver real, lasting benefits to our neighborhoods,” said Hudson in a statement. “I hope [this] is just the beginning — and that more communities across the city begin the deep, consensus-building work needed to create safer streets, better parks, and stronger, more affordable neighborhoods.”

The Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP) revamps the blocks and commercial spaces between Vanderbilt and Nostrand Avenues, along where the regional Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) runs.

Starting all the way back in 2013, surrounding community boards (CBs) said they envisioned more deeply affordable housing, mixed-use development to encourage job growth, a street redesign to improve safety, more green spaces, more Black-owned and Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises (M/WBE) businesses, and broader uses of the Bedford Atlantic Armory on Atlantic Avenue.

After a lengthy public review process, the city compiled its suggestions in a 2023 community priority report — which builds upon CB 8’s M-CROWN (Manufacturing, Commercial, Residential Opportunities for a Working Neighborhood) study.

The AAMUP includes 4,600 new units of housing, approximately 1,900 of which will be permanently affordable, and over $235 million in funding for community investments and infrastructure. It promises to make improvements to Lowry Triangle, Underhill Plaza, several neighborhood playgrounds and school yards, Lefferts Place Community Garden, as well as install raised curb extensions, bike corrals, and a new bike lane on Bedford Avenue.

AAMUP is supposed to beautify the Franklin Avenue subway station with a new paint job, a public art installation, and general sanitary improvements. There’s also at least $500,000 dedicated to studying the Bedford Atlantic Armory for new potential uses while it continues to serve its current function as a men’s shelter.

This will be the largest comprehensive rezoning in the area since 1961, which according to the Department of City Planning (DCP), stems from historic land use patterns in the 1800s. At that time, Atlantic Avenue had a freight line that carried goods between Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront and Long Island. It was discontinued in the early 1900s when the railway moved underground, and was replaced with a passenger rail. Around the same time, more people were buying cars. Eventually, the avenue became car central with busi-

nesses dedicated to garages, repair shops, and gas stations. By the 1960s, the M1-1 zoning district instituted a “suburban-style” residential area that prohibited industrial uses, kept houses low-rise, and required off-street parking, said DCP.

“AAMUP is a win for our community, district and the broader fight against displacement,” said Ossé. “Tens of thousands of families are being driven out of our neighborhood and city by an affordability crisis caused by housing scarcity. We are taking on that challenge.”

“We are especially proud that the plan includes nearly 2000 units of income-restricted housing, much of which will be deeply affordable, for those most in need,” he continued.

“We are also proud to have secured millions of dollars in investments into our parks and infrastructure, so that the plan will bring not only new housing that is desperately needed, but also material improvements for the longtime residents of the community.”

The Black population has declined in Council District 35 and District 36, accompanied by a sharp rise in white and Asian populations, which fuels broader issues of gentrification, said DCP, adding that many opine that a supply of more affordable housing stock could help alleviate the problem.

The AAMUP attempts to mitigate anticipated displacement in the neighborhood by including $1.2 million in expense funding to increase tenant and legal assistance services in Hudson’s and Ossé’s district offices for the next four years, more support for tenant organizing efforts, more support for local homeowners, and $7.6 million funding for an anti-harassment tenant program.

The Atlantic Avenue revamp is supported by Mayor Eric Adams, since it aligns nicely with his City of Yes housing production vision. “By advancing this plan, we’re not just creating homes — we’re investing in jobs, streets, and parks that strengthen our city,” said Adams in a statement.

“This is what the ‘City of Yes for Housing Opportunity’ is all about: bold, forward-looking action that meets the needs of New Yorkers, today and

for generations to come.”

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams also

spoke positively about the plan’s community investments and affordable housing units.

The newly adopted zoning map in the Atlantic Ave Mixed-Use Plan project area. (Images courtesy of the NYC Department of City Planning (DCP))

The Atlantic Avenue plan includes pedestrian walks and expands green space in the neighborhood.

Atlantic Avenue (IRT Eastern Parkway Line). 2010. (Gryffindor, C BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Nurse Elaine Gillard and her lifelong calling for caring

In response to the lack of access to essential health services within the Black American population, Gillard has found her life’s calling in serving patients from her community

By LEYRIAN COLÓN SANTIAGO Special to the AmNews

Treating patients with dignity and with an awareness of the disparities that Black people face in accessing health care were the two main reasons Elaine Gillard decided to become a nurse 14 years ago.

“I felt a deep calling for caring for people. Just seeing all the disparities in health care, particularly in marginalized communities — it kind of fueled my desire to make a difference,” said Gillard, describing the moment she realized that nursing was her life’s calling.

According to a 2024 analysis, Black American New Yorkers experienced the lowest health system performance in the state compared to white individuals.

For Gillard, a 41-year-old native of Staten Island and a nurse at VNS Health Care, the disparities affecting the Black American population were what inspired her to focus her nursing career on hospice care.

“I feel like healthcare disparities, unfortunately, affect Black communities, leading to worse healthcare outcomes. Having a Black nurse in these spaces helps bridge the gap in trust, communication, and cultural understanding,” said Gillard, reflecting on how, over the past eight years of working in hospice care, she has witnessed the benefits of treating patients with dignity and being

conscious of the racial implications in essential services like access to health care.

Gillard believes that being a Black nurse and caring for patients from Black-American communities helps foster greater trust in the health care system.

“Many Black patients have experienced discrimination or neglect in the medical space, so it makes them hesitant to seek care. When they see someone who shares their background, understands their experience, and treats them with dignity, it can ease anxiety and improve their overall health outcomes.”

Gillard, who studied Nursing at St. Paul’s School of Nursing and Chamberlain University, acknowledges that she would not have become the nurse she is today without the inspiration of pioneers like Jesse Sleet Scales, the first African American woman to work as a public health nurse in the United States.

“She just reminds me that this work we’re doing is bigger than me and bigger than anyone,” explained Gillard, speaking on how Sleet Scales has inspired her throughout her nursing career.

In the eight years she has served as a hospice nurse, Gillard believes her main mission has always been to provide the best care possible through mutual respect and patience.

“Representation in health care builds trust. Just having a Black nurse builds trust,” said Gillard.

THE URBAN AGENDA

By David R. Jones, Esq

A Son of Harlem: Congressman Charles B. Rangel (1930 – 2025)

In the heart of Harlem, where culture, resilience, and history converge, Congressman Charles “Charlie” B. Rangel stood as a beacon of unwavering dedication and transformative leadership.

With the passing of this legendary statesman, we remember not just a political figure, but a warrior for justice, a voice for the voiceless, and a son of Harlem who never forgot where he came from.

Charlie Rangel’s journey from the battlefields of the Korean War—where he earned a Purple Heart and Bronze Star—to the halls of Congress is a testament to his indomitable spirit. My father, the late Judge Thomas R. Jones, knew Charlie at the very beginning of his career, urging him to go to law school, which he did, receiving his degree in 1960 from St. John’s University School of Law.

He became an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and served in the State Legislature before running for Congress in 1970. After defeating the iconic Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Rangel went on to serve 23 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming one of the longest-serving members in history.

As a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the first Black chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, Rangel broke barriers and built bridges. He was instrumental in shaping tax policy, expanding healthcare access, and advocating for economic justice. His legislative prowess earned him the reputation of being one of the most effective lawmakers in Congress.

“The Lion of Lenox Avenue”

But beyond the legislation and accolades, Charlie’s heart remained in Harlem.

He was affectionately known as “The Lion of Lenox Avenue,” a title that reflected both his fierce advocacy and deep love for his community. Whether fighting for equal opportunity, civil rights or affordable housing, Charlie carried Harlem with him into every chamber, every vote, and every speech.

With his support, my organization, the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), launched a series of monthly policy forums starting in May 2007 and running through April 2011 called, “Working for Change.” One of its primary goals was to create a consensus around an economic mobility agenda for the working poor. The forums, which took place at the United States Capitol in conference room space provided by the congressman, brought together advocates, practitioners, philanthropists and

public officials acting in concert on some of the most pressing economic and social challenges facing our communities.

Charlie’s passion for Harlem and its residents was immeasurable. Even at age 93, and some eight years removed from political life, he still brought the same passion and vigor that had defined his career to the causes he cared about. Case in point: Last year, when Harlem community groups and local elected officials mobilized to protest Columbia University’s campus expansion into West Harlem, which had already displaced many businesses and low-income people of color as areas became gentrified, they turned to Charlie for counsel.

Three decades prior, he authored federal legislation designating Upper Manhattan as an urban empowerment zone, which led to the creation of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation in 1995. Harlem’s economic revitalization was something Charlie cared deeply about. So, it was fitting that he would lend his voice to the Black community’s demand that Columbia honor its pledge to invest in affordable housing, local infrastructure and community enrichment initiatives in exchange for expanding its institutional footprint into Harlem.

According to an analysis CSS did of demographic changes in West Harlem since Columbia’s decades long expansion, the community lost about 14 percent of its Black population (3,800 residents) and 10 percent of its Latinx population (4,500 residents) between the 2010 and 2020 censuses. The exodus was followed by an influx of Asian and White residents with incomes above $200,000 moving into the area.

In addition, there was a nearly 6,000-unit decline in rent-controlled apartments in 2022 and high eviction rates in 2017 in the part of Harlem near the campus expansion. Charlie saw this as an opportunity not only to win community benefits that Columbia had promised, but to support the next generation of progressive leadership fighting for his beloved Harlem community.

After retiring from Congress in 2017, Charlie continued to inspire future generations through the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at The City College of New York. His legacy lives on in the countless lives he touched, the policies he shaped, and the community he uplifted.

As we bid farewell to Congressman Rangel, we honor a life devoted to public service, equal justice, and the enduring spirit of Harlem. May his memory be a blessing, and may his example guide future generations of New York City political leaders who dare to lead with courage and compassion.

(VNS Health Care)

Chinatown residents propose new location for Manhattan jail in Rikers’ closure plan

By TANDY LAU Amsterdam News staff reporter

Manhattan Chinatown advocates seek a middle ground on 124-25 White Street before machinery breaks literal ground.

Residents have long protested against the borough-based jail planned in the neighborhood but now propose moving construction to a nearby location and repurposing the two-acre plot for affordable housing and green space.

On Monday, June 2, the advocates revealed their proposal outside the 124-25 White Street construction site, which currently sits at ground zero next to the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse after an extensive demolition process.

“We’re not here just to protest,” said Jan Lee, co-founder of Neighbors United Below Canal. “We’re here to offer an alternative: a vision that puts housing first on that spot, a vision that supports a livable Chinatown, [and] a vision that recognizes the need for a court-adjacent detention but not at the cost of destroying a neighborhood to get there.”

Lee, arguably the Chinatown jail’s fiercest opponent, pointed to a new location: the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), which currently sits empty just a short walk from 124-25 White Street. The federal jail closed in 2021 due to disrepair. The advocates’ proposal would refurbish the MCC

instead of building a new jail in Chinatown.

However, the correctional facility falls under the federal Bureau of Prisons, so it would require extensive congressional backing for the city to obtain it. Lee said proponents had already reached out to Senator Chuck Schumer for assistance. The senator did not respond to requests for comment.

Four borough-based jails will house the remaining population detained by the NYC Department of Corrections (DOC) after Rikers Island’s mandated closure by 2027. However, construction will run far past the deadline, with Chinatown’s facility tabbed for completion in 2032.

The new jails — one for each borough except Staten Island — boast a “more humane” approach than at Rikers Island, which remains marred with violence and disrepair. A key factor is proximity to the criminal courts to speed up case times, since the current city jail population is overwhelmingly held on pretrial detention. The borough-based approach would also allow families and lawyers to visit more frequently — the remote Rikers Island is only reachable by one MTA line, the Q100.

Transport to the city’s criminal courts across the five boroughs costs more than $30 million a year and violence often stems from those trips, which start before dawn. While the current White Street location is right next door to the Manhattan Criminal See CHINATOWN JAIL on page 45

Chinatown resident supports plan to move borough-based jail to Metropolitan Correctional Center at event on June 2.

(Tandy Lau photo)

Concept art for community space and affordable housing proposal at 124-25 White Street.

Program builds economic empowerment for domestic violence shelter residents

By TANDY LAU Amsterdam News staff reporter

Can the country’s biggest domestic violence transitional housing provider, Urban Resource Institute (URI), create a shelterto-workforce pipeline in New York City?

The organization rolled out an Economic Empowerment Program (EEP) in the Big Apple in 2018, which now serves 24 shelters. More than 90% of participants are Black and Brown women. Olga Loaiza, who directs career exploration in the program, says helping shelter residents find employment often starts at the ground level with addressing résume gaps and running credit checks. Many also need childcare to begin or return to work.

“In my department, our goal is to not only provide [safe] shelter placement for our clients, but also to provide empowerment,” said Loaiza. “We want the participant that comes to EEP to feel empowered so we can help reduce the barriers that they have (and) move ahead. We want them to be stable. We want them to have the financial freedom that they need, and also to be safe.”

The program pairs participating shelter

residents with a financial specialist who helps them chart their short- and longterm career goals. The eight-week workshops go over writing cover letters, crafting résumes, and conflict resolution. Then, participants are placed in paid internships with one of the more than 65 employers that the program has partnered with, for at least $20 an hour for up to 15 hours a week.

A wide range of backgrounds means different needs. Most participants have a high school diploma but some have graduate degrees. Domestic violence “doesn’t have a face, homelessness doesn’t have a face, so that’s a myth,” said Loaiza. “Most of our clients that come into our programs, they want better in life. They want stability. They want freedom. They want independence.”

A current participant, whose identity was kept anonymous due to shelter privacy policies, provided a quote about their time in the program: “This program did help me,” they said. “It helped me build confidence to speak out. And as I always say, ‘closed mouths don’t get fed.’ I want to say thank you to these beautiful ladies that I’m seeing here today. Your next step, your next journey — do not forget the beginning and enjoy every step of it.”

"Our goal is to not only provide [safe] shelter placement for our clients, but also to provide empowerment.” - Olga Loaiza, Urban Resource Institute

(Center) Olga Loaiza, Program Director, EEP (left) Daniela Perez, Children’s Rescue Fund (right) Alex Ansah-Arkorful, Bronx Education Center. (Photo courtesy of URI)

Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter Tour’ storms into MetLife

By SIDDEEQ FORTNER

Special to the AmNews

Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter Tour” pulled into MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on May 22 and wrapped up on May 29. The tour previously played in LA and Chicago and will be making stops in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and London.

The tour is in support of Beyoncé’s 2024 country album Cowboy Carter, which won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Country Album. Thousands of fans, dressed in their best cowboy attire, converged at the venue. Beyoncé kicked off the show singing “American Requiem” while dancers, including her oldest daughter Blue Ivy, performed

alongside her on stage. Beyoncé sang most of the songs from her platinum country album, including “Protector,” where her youngest daughter, Rumi, made a cameo. Performing five shows during her stop in the tri-state area, two of which were rained out, but didn’t stop the show or fans from getting entertained. The concert featured references to Americana

and Black country artists. Beyoncé also took flight over the stadium in a red classic car while singing her hit song “16 Carriages.” She also invited fans back to her previous “Renaissance World Tour,” performing a medley from her 2022 album. Fans were left screaming for more, proving why she’s regarded as one of today’s top performers.

Union Matters Jobs With Justice’s Erica Smiley among Women’s Media Center honorees

By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO Amsterdam News Staff

Years ago, Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs With Justice, took part in a media training session at the Women’s Media Center (WMC).

Smiley remembers the nearly week-long class at the feminist racial and gender media advocacy organization as fantastic. A select group of women from diverse backgrounds had come together to learn the best ways to engage with the media. They were small business owners, academics, women who worked for or were starting progressive organizations.

Each participant was there to explore the full range of ways they could share stories about their work with the public.

The class training emphasized the importance of thinking about and developing strategies for telling a story and identifying the right audiences to share it with. Understanding the focus of different media sources served as an organizing tool, Smiley said.. In some ways, it helped her learn how to develop different campaign tactics. Being able to present yourself as a leader and explain the work you do to the media is not easy, but that’s why WMC offers training that helps women learn to be spokespeople for a cause.

Julie Burton, president & CEO of the WMC, said in a statement that “The Women’s Media Center’s call to action is simple: We want to see more diverse women, hear more diverse women, and read articles from more diverse women across all media platforms. Our Women’s Media Awards honor champions for women who set the standard for what media should look like when it gives voice to the female half of the country. They are role models, historymakers, and inspiring leaders.”

Smiley is one of five honorees at WMC’s 20th Anniversary Women’s Media Awards at the JW Marriott Essex House Hotel held on Thursday, June 5. The event will also recognize Geralyn White Dreyfous, co-founder of JOLT and Impact Partners; S. Mitra Kalita, co-founder and CEO of URL Media and Epicenter NYC; Harvard-based interdisciplinary scholar and author Imani Perry; and Jessica Valenti, the writer/activist who created the “Abortion, Every Day” blog.

Building democracy in our economic lives

Smiley told the AmNews she’s flattered and honored to be named a WMC awardee. Originally from North Carolina, Smiley, began her career as a campaign organiz-

er and now leads the grassroots Jobs With Justice network. She acknowledges that she had been unaware of the role and significance of labor unions for most of her life. North Carolina, her home state, has one of the lowest rates of union membership in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Smiley said, “A majority of Black people in this country, we still live in the southern United States, and we haven’t necessarily had access to traditional organizing and collective bargaining. So, when I’m door knocking back home in my home state of North Carolina, I don’t tell people, ‘You have the right to elect a senator.’ I say, ‘You have the right to vote.’ And I think the same is true for organizing and collective bargaining: You don’t say, ‘You have the right to form a union.’ You say, ‘You have the right to organize

and collectively negotiate standards at your workplace.’”

Smiley insists that organizing and collective bargaining are pathways to building democracy in our economic lives. “As a southerner, I feel like we can’t actually win a full multiracial democracy in this country unless we prioritize democratizing or prioritize the majority of people in any given workplace making decisions democratically, in civic life and political life. Majority decision-making is actually the key to democracy and that has to happen everywhere. I’m at Jobs With Justice because we are a national network of community labor coalitions that seek to expand the number of people who can organize and collectively negotiate standards for their economic lives –– where the bulk of us spend the majority of our time, at work.

We believe that to do that, we have to do it in a way that addresses working people as whole people. So, we center issues of confronting white supremacy and gender inequities. Not just because it’s morally right, but because not doing so will be the key to our defeat.

“For us, we’re not just a workers rights organization, we’re a democracy organization. We believe that organizing and collective bargaining power is the key to building a healthy democracy and part of why we’re in the situation we are today is because we have not spent enough time focusing on majority decision making in our economic lives.”

For tickets to Women’s Media Center’s 20th Anniversary Women’s Media Awards, go to: https://act.womensmediacenter. com/a/2025-womens-media-awards

Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs With Justice, is among the honorees at this year’s Women’s Media Center awards (Jobs With Justice photo)

Opinion

Reparations gets another boost

We are elated to learn that Monroe Nichols, Tulsa, Oklahoma’s first Black mayor, is planning to honor his promise to award the city $105m to address the destruction in the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921. The award comes with two caveats: none of the remuneration is set aside for the two surviving members of the massacre and the city is not explicitly calling it reparations, but rather a “road to repair.” The announcement was made on Sunday, the city’s first official Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day.

This is a meaningful step, no matter the terminology, and it is our hope that it spurs other reparations initiatives that have long been on the agenda, most notably since the late Rep. John Conyers of Michigan introduced HR40 in 1989, and each year thereafter. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died last year, reintroduced the bill that was sponsored again recently by Rep. Ayanna Pressley.

Even if Lessie Benningfield “Mother” Randle, 110, will not be receiving any

money, she expressed joy upon hearing the announcement. “It is our rightful inheritance that was literally taken from us,” one Tulsa resident said, standing in the shadow of the Greenwood Cultural Center, where the legendary Black Wall Street once stood.

There is no way to determine how far this measure will ramify. Other significant reparation movements in Evanston, Illinois; Asheville, North Carolina; and in California aroused hopes but are still dormant on the docket — sometimes stalled because of debates on how to proceed.

Reparations advocates are sure to pay close attention to how the money will be allocated and spent, and Mayor Nichols has said that the trust would be used to provide scholarships and housing to the descendants of those impacted by the massacre, which may not be an easy process.

Each step of the way toward remedying the past, particularly one so fraught with the loss of some 300 Black lives, is a challenging endeavor. But at least this task is a new one and perhaps a more enriching one.

It’s time to abolish qualified immunity in New York

By TAIQUAN L. COLEMAN

Messiah Nantwi was not perfect, but he was a son, a nephew, a Bronxite, and unfortunately, the seventh incarcerated New Yorker to die in custody since 17 February 2025. While we may never truly know what led to his death, it is clear that were it not for the correction officers’ depraved indifference to human life, he would still be alive today. And until the judicial doctrine known as qualified immunity is abolished, the officers may never be held accountable for their actions.

Created in 1967 by the Warren Court to protect police officers from personal liability when acting in “good faith,” qualified immunity is a perversion of the federal civil rights statute 42 US § 1983, which was passed by the Reconstructionist-Era Congress in 1871 to protect African Americans from the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations.

District Judge Reeves put it best when he stated in his recent Green v. Thomas (2024) opinion, “The Justices took a law meant to protect freed people exercising their federal rights in Southern states after the Civil War, then flipped its meaning. In creating qualified immunity, the high court protected the Southern officials still violating those federal rights 100 years after the war ended. Southern trees bear strange fruit, indeed.”

Now one would assume that beating an unarmed person would be deemed unreasonable, however over the last 60 years, both the Supreme Court and lower courts have overly relied on qualified immunity and shirked their responsibility to interpret statutes by holding that unless an officer had violated a “clearly established” right or the plaintiff had found a case with factual similarity where it was denied, the officer was entitled to immunity.

It is time to reconsider and ultimately abolish qualified immunity in our state courts. States like Colorado, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico have already taken steps in this direction by ending the doctrine in their courts, and New York should follow suit.

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The Supreme Court must revisit its decision in Harlow (1982), which has essentially given officers absolute immunity because, as Michael Silverstein notes, “the narrower the right, the more difficult it is to find factually similar precedent.” In other words, a right will never be clearly established, until it is clearly established, thus creating a catch-22 and putting the burden on the plaintiff. The Court must also revisit Graham (1989) and end the myth of the “reasonable officer” upon which the doctrine rests.

Now, some claim that reforming the doctrine would negatively impact officer retention and open officers up to personal liability. The former has yet to be proven but remains

a talking point; while the latter has been debunked by UCLA law Professor Joanna Schwartz, who found that “governments paid 99.98% of the dollars that plaintiffs recovered in lawsuits alleging civil rights violations by law enforcement.”

Lastly, to echo Stan German of the New York County Defender Services, “True. [Nantwi] was incarcerated, but he was still entitled, like all of us, to basic human dignity and safety.” Therefore, it is clear that qualified immunity must be reevaluated and abolished, whether through judicial action by the Court or legislative intervention. Messiah Nantwi deserved better. Robert Brooks deserved better. We all do.

Taiquan L. Coleman is a third-generation Brooklynite who has served Black and Brown communities across three of the five boroughs, in various roles, in the New York State Assembly, New York State Senate, and New York City Council.

Taiquan L. Coleman

Hoorah for Ras!

By HERB BOYD

If you missed my reports on the pilgrimage to Grenada to honor the life and legacy of Malcolm X’s mother, Louise Langdon Little, and to make it back in time for the celebration of Malcolm’s centennial birthday at the Shabazz Center, let me say again how thrilled I was to witness these two events.

However, I was disappointed that not much attention was given to African Liberation Day, although several groups gave it some mention and attendance. With the announcement that June 1 will now be the Tulsa Race Massacre Observance Day, we have another moment in preparation for Juneteenth. Folks, we had better celebrate them while we can, because if Trump has his malicious way, they will be but a memory. No doubt, he will give little attention to the two days in August, marked as Barack Obama Day, and it’s a good thing our fes-

tive Harlem Week cannot be touched by his sweeping erasures.

Speaking of malicious intent, Mayor Ras Baraka is suing a top Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, and filing a federal lawsuit for his arrest outside an immigrant detention center on May 9. While Habba, appointed the state’s top federal prosecutor, has since dropped the charges, a federal judge has publicly denounced the arrest in the first place. “Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas,” said Judge Andre M. Espinosa.

It was a scathing rebuke of what Baraka had claimed was an uncalled-for act. “To handcuff me, to drag me away, to take my fingerprints and mugshot for a misdemeanor was egregious and malicious,” Baraka said.

Along with my cheer for Tulsa’s “Road to Repair,” let me give a resounding shout-out to Espinosa, but like Baraka, he’d better watch his back.

Silenced Arts: What the NEA’s rejection of Classical Theatre of Harlem reveals about our democracy

By TY JONES

After over 25 years of national recognition, artistic excellence, and community impact, The Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH) has been unexpectedly excluded from this year’s National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding list. This decision didn’t come with a conversation — just a cold, bureaucratic letter terminating our grant and stating that our work no longer aligns with “new policy priorities.”

Let me be clear: this is more than a change in funding. It’s a cultural and political signal that threatens CTH and the very idea of who gets counted as part of this country’s rich artistic heritage.

Since 1999, CTH has told global stories through the lens of the African diaspora. Our work spans from Shakespeare to August Wilson, from Euripides to new emerging playwrights of color. For over a decade, the NEA supported this mission, recognizing our innovative productions, youth programs, and deep roots in the community. Our summer program, Uptown Shakespeare in the Park (USP), has become a beloved New York tradition: free, high-caliber performances in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park that reach tens of thousands yearly.

This summer, we planned to stage MEMNON, written by Will Power and directed by Carl Cofield — a powerful retelling of the African warrior from Homer’s Iliad, made for our Harlem audience and open to all with no barriers to access. However, the NEA has now determined that this work “does not align” with their updated priorities.

It’s hard not to see the irony: Memnon is rooted in ancient storytelling, part of the very classical tradition the NEA is meant to uplift. I believe deeply — and unapologetically — that what we’re doing is squarely part of this nation’s rich artistic heritage.

I’d argue that CTH is one of the best examples of this.

We are not alone in this exclusion. Nearly 500 organizations across the US have been cut, and as evidenced by those whose funding was terminated, it is clear: this administration is bent on silencing certain voices; this administration is employing cultural erasure.

Though these cuts threaten to derail CTH’s summer performances in conjunction with the $650,000+ in economic activity generated during the run in July, it is paramount to remember that in times of crisis, you and those whom you lead can never panic. Rather, you organize, strategize, and mobilize. You identify your prob-

Happy Pride Month

CHRISTINA GREER, PH.D.

Happy Pride Month to all! I am so thankful we have a month dedicated to celebrating LGBTQ+/SGL pioneers. For me, June Pride Month is an opportunity for me to learn about some of the brave gay, lesbian, and transgender folks who have paved the way for a more inclusive and educated society. Many people gave their lives and livelihoods, literally, to make sure a future generation of LGBTQ+/SGL people had the opportunity to live the lives they deserve –– one with dignity, respect, and equity.

sity Press, 2023) is a mustread for anyone who cares about inclusion, citizenship, and identity. Many of the themes in Murib’s book made me think deeply about my work on Black Americans as well as ways I could build more concrete coalitions with varying groups.

lem, build a coalition, come to a consensus, and execute. Wash, rinse, and repeat. As my grandmother (we called her Big Mama) used to say, “No weapon formed against us shall prosper.”

The measure of a society is how well it treats those most in need. That’s what nonprofits do. We fill in gaps where the government and for-profit markets fall short –– and this administration chose to go after the most vulnerable. Not the Pentagon, where there is unified support on auditing its books, but rather social security or a nonprofit that helps children with stuttering challenges. So let me state this clearly: adversity is not new to nonprofit arts organizations. We all know how to punch above our weight, and sometimes you have to punch a bully in the mouth.

CTH will not be silenced. We will be mindful, measured, and mission-driven with each key performance indicator related to culture, commerce, and community. We will keep singing, dancing, and acting with the hope of earning your support so we can all one day sing from the same sheet of music.

The power of the people is always stronger than the people in power.

Ty Jones is an OBIE Award and NAACP Award winner and the producing artistic director of the Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH).

Whenever I want to learn more I look to the work of Dr. David J. Johns, the chief executive officer and executive director of the National Black Justice Collective (NBJC), a civil rights organization dedicated to the empowerment of Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer+, and same-gender loving (LGBTQ+/SGL) people, including people living with HIV/AIDS. His clarity and laser-sharp vision help demystify so many misperceptions and misinformation that still permeate much of the conversation. His podcast “Teach the Babies” also provides a series of informative conversations with changemakers from diverse sectors who are shaping education and democracy in profoundly consequential ways.

My Fordham colleague, Dr Zein Murib, is a scholar I follow to learn more about transgender politics and policy. Their op-eds have served as an important source of historical context for some of the vitriol and exclusionary practices we are currently witnessing. Their book “Terms of Exclusion: Rightful Citizenship Claims and the Construction of LGBT Political Identity” (Oxford Univer-

Pride Month is also a time to celebrate. I consider myself an ally and always want my LGBTQ+/SGL friends and family to know I support them. When I was younger, going to parades was definitely one of our mandatory June activities. We’ve aged out of partying in the hot sun, but I now use June as a time to research and support LGBTQ+ organizations that are doing the work to support the young, old, and everyone in between. Some great organizations to look into supporting are the Griot Circle, FIERCE, NBJC, Center for Black Equity, and The Okra Project, to name just a few.

Now more than ever, nonprofits need donations since so many federal grants that promote inclusion are being dismantled. It is incumbent upon us to support all of the members of our community to make sure they have the opportunities to thrive and live abundant and fulfilled lives. This June, take a little time to research ways you can do more to support LGBTQ+/ SGL communities.

Christina Greer, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Fordham University; author of the book “How to Build a Democracy: From Fannie Lou Hamer and Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams” and “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream” and is co-host of the podcast FAQ-NYC.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka speaks at press conference regarding his May 9 arrest at Delaney Hall, outside U.S. District Court for District of New Jersey in Newark. (AP Photo/Kena Betancur)

Caribbean Update

Parties come together to shut out Surinamese government

By BERT WILKINSON Special to the AmNews

An interesting phenomenon has taken root in the Caribbean Community nation of Suriname, as six political parties of varying and even contrary political ideologies have come together to shut out the main player in a multiparty coalition that had run the country for the past five years.

On May 25, general elections were held in the Dutch-speaking republic and despite allegations of attempted rigging and some administrative missteps, the Hindustani-dominated VHP party quickly found itself in opposition as the six others that won parliamentary seats came together to confine it to the opposition benches — perhaps until the next election cycle.

Interestingly, three of the six comprising the Creole-dominated National Party of Suriname (NPS); ABOP, largely supported by Maroons; and Pertjajah Luhur (PL) supported by Surinamese of Javanese extraction, were originally in the VHP-led coalition. This time, however, they chose to turn their backs on the party, citing issues like runaway corruption, nepotism through the sharing of the national pie mostly among friends and family, and economic hardships caused by a tough IMF austerity program that had been designed to correct serious economic abnormalities from

the previous government.

Together, the six, led by the multiracial National Democratic Party (NDP), founded in the late ‘80s by ex-military strongman and two-time coup maker Desi Bouterse, can now muster a two-thirds majority, or 34 of the 51 seats, to directly elect NDP Chairperson Jennifer Simons as the country’s first female president. If and when this occurs, the former assembly speaker will be the fourth female head of government in the extended Caricom bloc that includes its associate members like Anguilla. Earlier this year, the tourism-dependent British colony had elected its first female head of government via attorney Cora RichardsonHodge. Trinidad and Barbados also have female prime ministers. These four, with a new Surinamese president, will work along with a slew of female governors spread across the region, making for a historic period for woman power in Caricom.

As preparations for the change of government are stepped up, voters are reminding themselves about what was at stake on May 25 in Suriname because of the prospects of a mighty annual bounty of revenues from oil and gas production. Production is scheduled to commence in 2028 and none of the six wanted the VHP to be in charge, as leaders had made it clear on the campaign trail judging from its political approach in the past five years.

“The Almighty has arranged it in such a way that 34 seats are on one side,” said ABOP leader and outgoing Vice President

Ronnie Brunswijk, who has been allocated as the parliamentary vice speaker. “We are going for the development of our beloved Suriname. The only thing that is important is that the country of Suriname must move forward. Wherever I go, I will support,” he vowed. “This coalition will also last five years. And I am happy that Suriname can finally be led by a woman. Mrs. Simons has my full support. I am not going anywhere.”

As the situation stands, the VHP, with 17 of the 51 seats compared to 18 of the NDP, now finds itself alone on the opposition benches, but several party leaders have said that outgoing President Chan Santokhi had reached out to them and had made offers to remain in power, even offering the presidency to a political rival. “No” was the answer as the six walked into the arms of the current grouping. All six have also held party conventions this weekend to secure mandates to join the coalition.

Parliamentary sittings to elect the president will be held in the coming days, even as campaigning in neighboring Guyana is being stepped up ahead of general elections on September 1. Authorities announced the date a week ago. Other elections expected this year include Jamaica by the last quarter and St. Vincent to go along with others held so far in Trinidad, Cayman Islands, Belize, Curaçao, Trinidad, and Suriname.

A Caribbean American Heritage Month full of disses?

June t marks the beginning of National Caribbean American Heritage Month — a time that, under normal circumstances, should be filled with celebration, pride, and acknowledgment, especially for the millions of Caribbean immigrants who have enriched the fabric of the United States. As the late Guyanese poet Martin Carter once wrote, though: “This is the dark time, my love. It is the season of oppression, dark metal, and tears ... Everywhere the faces of men are strained and anxious.”

Now, 20 years after President George W. Bush formally recognized this month, the current White House has met it with silence. No proclamation. No message. No gesture. In a political climate where diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts are being systematically dismantled, this omission speaks volumes. The silence is not just a slight — it’s a statement.

And the affront didn’t stop there.

Just days before the month began, the U.S. Supreme Court — now unmistakably shaped by the Trump era — delivered a harsh blow to more than 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. In a 7-2 decision, the court sided with the Trump administration’s push to terminate humanitarian parole for these migrants. Many of them followed every legal requirement, built stable lives, paid taxes, and raised families in this country. Now, they face the threat of deportation and loss of their legal status.

Let’s call this what it is: a humanitarian betrayal — an attack on justice, compassion, and the very values America claims to uphold.

For Haitians and Cubans living in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status (TPS), the threat is real and immediate. By August 3, 2025, many could be forced to leave — even though no country is more in crisis than Haiti. Since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, the nation has spiraled into chaos, with gangs seizing

control and violence escalating daily. Now, with foreign mercenary Erik Prince reportedly advising the government and the U.S. State Department issuing travel warnings, how can anyone justify deporting people to such turmoil?

For Cuban nationals, TPS is expected to expire in September, creating yet another layer of fear and uncertainty.

Still, amid the darkness, a glimmer of justice has emerged.

On May 30, a federal court in Miami ruled in favor of Peter Sean Brown, a U.S.-born citizen wrongfully detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after being misidentified as a Jamaican immigrant. The court found that Monroe County violated his Fourth Amendment rights and condemned ICE’s baseless detainer. This ruling not only vindicates Brown but highlights a critical truth: ICE’s detainer system is deeply flawed and dangerous.

According to the Deportation Research Clinic at Northwestern University, more than 250 U.S. citizens have been wrongfully detained by ICE in recent years. These

are not isolated incidents — they’re systemic failures.

As we observe Caribbean American Heritage Month, let’s remember that our community is not just vibrant in culture and legacy — we are also on the frontlines of the fight for immigration justice in America.

Peter Sean Brown’s case is a reminder that constitutional rights are supposed to apply to everyone, regardless of their skin color or ancestral home, but the Supreme Court’s ruling is a sobering signal that those rights are not guaranteed for all. We must continue to speak out, stand firm, and fight back. This Caribbean American Heritage Month, let us remain vigilant and united. Let us ensure that our voices rise above silence, and that our decades of contributions are not just remembered, but respected.

Felicia J. Persaud is the publisher of NewsAmericasNow.com, a daily news outlet focused on positive news about Black immigrant communities from the Caribbean and Latin America.

Surinamese politician Jennifer GeerlingsSimons. (Public domain photo)

No safe haven: Venezuelan migrants caught between Maduro’s brutal regime and Trump’s immigration crackdown.

BY RAYMOND FERNÁNDEZ Special to the AmNews

For Hiowanka Avila Rivas, the torture her brother experienced at the hands of Venezuelan authorities is proof of the danger that Venezuelans face if deported from the United States.

“My brother had to record a video — a forced video — and once the video was done, the torture at the Helicoide began. They pulled out his toenails. He was subjected to electric shocks, beaten, ” said Avila in Spanish, speaking over the phone from Caracas, Venezuela, where she lives and continues to advocate for his release, and of those whom she asserts have been unfairly imprisoned.

“They tied him up, hung him up, put a bag over his face, and sprayed insecticide into it,” she added about Henryberth Rivas’ torture.

In the U.S., Venezuelan migrants have become prime targets of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Despite multiple court orders attempting to halt removals, deportation efforts continue — eroding their protections and raising fears of being sent back to Venezuela or even El Salvador.

“My brother didn’t belong to any political party.” His crime, Avila said, was to attend the 2017 protests and express what Venezuelans felt at the time, “disagreement with the hunger in the country, the food shortages, and the poor quality of life.”

Avila’s testimony illustrates the harsh reality political prisoners face in the country, with reports from the United Nations’ Human Rights Office describing conditions in Venezuela’s prisons as “beyond monstrous,” the same year Henryberth Rivas was detained.

He was apprehended by the regime’s torturous intelligence forces on Aug. 5, 2018. Avila said, before his arrest, he was “tied to the patrol car and dragged for three blocks,” and tortured for 48 days before being “wrongfully” charged with magnicide. Avila’s family hasn’t been the same, she explains.

Henryberth’s story illustrates the dangers Venezuelans face if deported to a country where dissent often leads to prison, torture, or even death. Human Rights Watch reports that since 2014, “more than 15,800 people have been subjected to politically motivated arrests,” and more than 270 political prisoners remain behind bars.

Out of 28 Venezuelans living in the U.S. under various immigration statuses surveyed for this project, all participants stated they would not feel safe returning to Venezuela as long as Nicolas Maduro remains president.

This sentiment of fear extends beyond individual testimony. Countless NGOs, journalists, and scholars were approached to contribute to this project, but none of the NGOs responded, and many journalists declined to participate. Their reluctance stemmed from a very real fear of political retribution by Maduro’s regime, highlight-

ing the pervasive climate of censorship and persecution in Venezuela.

In addition to the political repression, Venezuela is in the grip of a profound humanitarian crisis. According to Human Rights Watch, 19 million people — more than half the population — are in desperate need of assistance, unable to access adequate healthcare, nutrition, or basic services.

In this context, the peril of returning to Venezuela is not just about political oppression but about survival itself.

According to the Migration Policy Institute’s latest statistics, as of 2023, approximately 770,000 Venezuelan immigrants lived in the U.S., making up just under 2% of the country’s 47.8 million immigrants.

The same report highlights that nearly half a million Venezuelans are undocumented and vulnerable to deportation, with another 600,000 relying on Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

Colleen Putzel, associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, began by explaining MPI’s view on TPS and Humanitarian Parole statuses, which the organization calls “liminal statuses” because these individuals are protected from deportation unless they commit a crime.

Putzel stressed, “They’re not unauthorized, but they also don’t have permanent status.”

In February, the Trump administration revoked TPS for at least 350,000 Venezuelan nationals. However, Federal Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California blocked this move, ruling that the “action threatens to inflict irreparable harm on hun-

dreds of thousands of persons, … cost the United States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the U.S.”

MPI’s report on Venezuelan immigrants shows that 75% of Venezuelans ages 16 and older were in the civilian labor force in 2023, with many working in production, transportation, and material-moving roles — more than other immigrant groups.

Putzel addressed Judge Chen’s ruling to block the early termination of TPS for Venezuelans who applied in 2021 and 2023 under the Biden administration. “The contributions of these migrants to the U.S. workforce were crucial, especially as we emerged from the pandemic,” she noted. “The U.S. recovered quickly after COVID-19, largely due to the influx of people filling jobs.”

She also pointed out broader issues with the U.S. immigration system, especially under the Trump administration, which challenged both unauthorized migration and legal pathways to entry.

“Under Biden, we saw the creation of more pathways, but simply calling them ‘pathways’ doesn’t capture the full picture. While there was an emphasis on orderly entry, the system lacked focus on what happens once people arrive,” she explained.

Putzel argued that the Trump administration’s broader goal was to execute a “mass deportation campaign” targeting over 1 million people per year. By ending the statuses of certain groups, the administration would increase the unauthorized population and gather more data on them, such as names, ad-

dresses, and biometric information. In this sense, her analysis exemplifies how Venezuelans became the latest victims of a broken immigration system. Under the Trump administration, the legal landscape has become more hostile, as the government invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify expedited deportations of Venezuelan migrants accused of gang ties, specifically connections to the Tren de Aragua criminal network.

For Venezuelan’s there is no safe haven; remaining in Trump’s America may now also mean prison, torture, and death.

Beakers Carreyo (28), also from Caracas, Venezuela, entered the U.S. in 2023 under Biden’s CHNV Humanitarian Parole Program. Humanitarian parole is a temporary immigration status granted by the U.S. government to individuals facing urgent humanitarian circumstances. It allows recipients to live and work in the U.S. legally for a limited period, typically one to two years. Under the Biden administration, the CHNV program extended this relief to nationals fleeing from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Before arriving in the U.S., he spent a year in Colombia but explained, “Unfortunately, things didn’t go well for me … I ended up returning to Venezuela.”

Born with Spina Bifida, a birth defect caused by the improper formation of the spine and spinal cord, Carreyo faced numerous challenges. Between 2021 and 2023, he underwent four surgeries, one of which resulted in a severe infection that almost cost him his life.

See NO SAFE HAVEN on page 51

Venezuelans protest the arbitrary detention of citizens by Maduro’s regime, holding signs signaling the days the now political prisoners have spent in torture centers across Venezuela. Hiowanka Avila Rivas, Henryberth’s sister, holds a sign that reads, “We demand the immediate release of Henryberth Rivas.” (Photo provided by Hiowanka Avila Rivas)

Education

After crossing the border for better schools, some parents are pulling their kids and leaving the US

By BIANCA VÁZQUEZ TONESS

The Associated Press NEAL MORTON and ARIEL GILREATH

The Hechinger Report

and SARAH WHITES-KODITSCHEK and REBECCA GRIESBACH

AL.com

For the last two months of their life in the United States, José Alberto González and his family spent nearly all their time in their one-bedroom Denver apartment. They didn’t speak to anyone except their roommates, another family from Venezuela.

They consulted WhatsApp messages for warnings of immigration agents in the area before leaving for the rare landscaping job or to buy groceries.

But most days at 7:20 a.m., González’s wife took their children to school.

The appeal of their children learning English in American schools, and the desire to make money, had compelled González and his wife to bring their 6- and 3-year-olds on the monthslong journey to the United States.

Speeding ruins lives. Slow down.

They arrived two years ago, planning to stay for a decade. But on Feb. 28, González and his family boarded a bus from Denver to El Paso, where they would walk across the border and start the trip back to Venezuela.

Even as immigrants in the U.S. avoid going out in public, terrified of encountering immigration authorities, families across the country are mostly sending their children to school.

That’s not to say they feel safe. In some cases, families are telling their children’s schools that they’re leaving.

Already, thousands of immigrants have notified federal authorities they plan to “self-deport,” according to the Department of Homeland Security. President Donald Trump has encouraged more families to leave by stoking fears of imprisonment, ramping up government surveillance, and offering people $1,000 and transportation out of the country.

And on Monday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to strip legal protections from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants, potentially exposing them to deportation. Without Temporary Protective Status, even more families will weigh whether to leave the U.S., advocates say.

“The amount of fear and uncertainty that is going through parents’ heads, who could blame somebody for making a choice to leave?” said Andrea Rentería, principal of a Denver elementary school serving immigrant students.

Rumors of immigration raids on schools became a turning point

When Trump was elected in November after promising to deport immigrants and depicting Venezuelans, in particular, as gang members, González knew it was time to go. He was willing to accept the tradeoff of earning just $50 weekly in his home country, where public schools operate a few hours a day.

“I don’t want to be treated like a delinquent,” González said in Spanish. “I’m from Venezuela and have tattoos. For him, that means I’m a criminal.”

It took González months to save up the more than $3,000 he needed to get his family to Venezuela on a series of buses and on foot.

They sent their children to their Denver school regularly until late February, when González’s phone lit up with messages claiming immigration agents were planning raids inside schools. That week, they kept their son home.

“Honestly, we were really scared for our boy,” González said.

In the months following Trump’s inauguration, Denver Public School attendance suffered, according to district data. Attendance districtwide fell by 3% in February compared with the same period last year, with even steeper declines of up to 4.7% at schools primarily serving immigrant newcomer students.

Data obtained from 15 districts across eight additional states, including Texas, Alabama, Idaho and Massachusetts, showed

A staff member walks past a message to students that hangs on the wall at Place Bridge Academy in Denver. (AP Photo/Rebecca Slezak)

CM Williams passes groundwater flooding infrastructure bill

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff

Many of New York City’s Black and Brown neighborhoods are at high risk of coastal and stormwater flooding. Queens Councilmember Dr. Nantasha Williams passed a bill last week to address this long-overdue issue in Southeast Queens.

“In Southeast Queens, residents have been sounding the alarm about groundwater flooding for years, asking for real recognition and coordinated action,” said Williams in a statement. “This legislation marks a turning point… the first meaningful city response to this issue in over 40 years.”

The city’s been at the mercy of a rising sea level, harsher storms, and higher tides, mostly because of the effects of climate change. In 2021, heavy rain from Hurricane Ida killed more than a dozen New Yorkers, mostly in Queens.

By the 2040s, the city is expected to see 60–85 days of tidal floods, according to the New York State Climate Impacts Assessment. As the tides rise, low-lying neighborhoods in southeast Queens, the Rockaways, and others near Jamaica Bay, some of which are at sea level, are at risk of even more flooding.

The groundwater flooding issue stems from this overarching climate crisis as well as local closures of wells and shifts in land use over time. Water steadily impacts people’s homes as it creeps slowly into their

basements, boilers, and foundations. The damages eventually cost families hundreds or thousands in repairs.

“It moves us beyond inaction and toward real solutions, centering the voices of those impacted and demanding accountability from city agencies. This effort ensures Southeast Queens will no longer be overlooked, and that our communities receive the sustained attention and investment necessary to protect their homes and futures,” said Williams.

Williams’ bill (Intro 1067-B) builds on years of advocacy from Southeast Queens residents. It aims to coordinate community-based organizations (CBOs) with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to identify homes impacted by groundwater flooding and connect residents with available retrofit programs and resourcing. It also establishes a five-year interagency task force to study longterm adaptation strategies to the area’s ongoing groundwater problem, and a citywide data report on groundwater flooding trends.

“The Council is also proud to pass legislation to establish a Southeast Queens Flooding Adaptation Task Force, which is urgently needed as residents of Southeast Queens disproportionately suffer from groundwater and stormwater flooding,” added City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams in a statement. “As climate disasters continue to increase in frequency, it’s critical that we prepare in advance to ensure the safety of all New Yorkers and our communities.”

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The New York City Council Stated Meeting, Councilmember Nantasha Williams - May 28, 2025. (Emil Cohen/NYC Council Media Unit)

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Fri, Jun 20 @ 8PM

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Arts & Entertainment

Kara Young on ‘Purpose,’ Harlem, and Broadway history

By DERRICK A. HEMPHILL Special to the AmNews

With the Tony Awards just days away, this Sunday, June 8, at Radio City Music Hall, one Harlem daughter is poised to make theater history again.

As Kara Young moves through Harlem with purpose, she evokes the timeless, syncopated jazz anthem, “Take the A Train,” from a bygone era. Unlike the uptown train that Duke Ellington made famous, the Tony Award-winning actress takes the 2, 3, B, or C trains for her daily commute to Broadway. Young moves graciously through the streets that shaped her, greeting the same neighbors, grabbing a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee for a member of the community, and buying a “loosey” as a kind gesture. This is her Harlem: the west side where she was born and raised, and the neighborhood her character Aziza Houston in Branden Jacobs Jenkins’ “Purpose” is also native to.

“I take the train every day. I’m in these streets,” Young said, her voice carrying the pride of someone who has never forgotten where she comes from. “I was born and raised in Harlem. I’m still here, and I walk down the same streets every single day.”

Cynthia Erivo will host the Tony Awards ceremony this Sunday, recognizing excellence in Broadway productions from the 2024-2025 season. Young will make an unprecedented mark on theater history. She is the first Black performer, and only the second performer ever, to receive Tony nominations in four consec -

utive years. From her 2022 nomination for “Clyde’s,” 2023 nomination for “Cost of Living,” 2024 Tony win for “Purlie Victorious,” and her 2025 nomination for “Purpose,” Young has proven herself an undeniable force — a testament to the talent she refuses to contain.

But her journey from the west side of Harlem to the Helen Hayes Theatre is more than individual triumph — it’s a story of purpose that echoes through generations, connecting the civil rights legacy her character Aziza reveres to the contemporary struggles for Black recognition and humanity.

Young’s family came from Belize, embodying the quintessential American dream as they sought better opportunities for their children. Her father, Klay Young, built a distinguished career in hospitality spanning more than 30 years (Young admits this is why she’s a good tipper). As the family adapted to life in New York City, Young’s education spanned across Manhattan; she attended elementary and high school in Spanish Harlem while still living on Harlem’s west side.

Adding another crucial layer to Young’s foundation is her family’s matriarchs, particularly her great-grandmother Hazel Baptiste, whom she affectionately called “granny.” This remarkable woman lived independently until 105, even seeing her incredibly talented granddaughter perform in “Purlie Victorious” just two weeks before passing. “She was sharp. She never missed a beat,” Young said. “Her sacrifice, like all the women in my life, was monumental.” These caretakers, includ -

ing nannies and domestic workers, built families and communities. That legacy lives on in Young’s role as Aziza Houston, a social worker dedicated to centering Black life.

It was during her time in “Purlie Victorious” that Young aligned her artistry with the Black theater legacy. She transformed her dressing room into a vibrant shrine to Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, adorning it with beautiful fabrics from the Malcolm Shabazz Harlem Market on 116th Street and pictures of the legendary couple, some of which were so rare the couple’s daughter, Dr. Hasna Muhammad, had never seen them. “I took the time to do that,” she quipped, recalling the inspiration from Leslie Odom Jr.’s “decked out” dressing room. She added, “I was collecting a lot of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee memorabilia of pivotal times in their lives, and I would listen to Ossie recite a poem, or Ruby recite a poem on one of those LPs.”

“Purpose,” which recently won the Pulitzer Prize, centers on the influential Jasper family, pillars of Black American politics filled with civil rights leaders, pastors, and politicians. When the youngest son, Nazareth ‘Naz’ Jasper, returns home to Chicago with an uninvited friend, Aziza Houston, they confront the family with a reckoning involving collective identity, faith, and the heavy legacies of Black radicalism and political power.

Like Young, Aziza Houston carries the weight and wisdom of strong women who sacrificed for future generations. Aziza, however, also embodies a specific moment in Black American conscious -

ness: the period following the Black Lives Matter protests, when valuing Black life was a political statement.

“Aziza’s purpose in life is to bring life into the world because she has to show how much life matters to her,” Young explained. “Through all the Black Lives Matter protests and rallies and marches and a cry, a cry to the world to see us, to recognize that we are human, to recognize our humanity, I have to bring life into the world, and I have to bring Black life into the world.”

Young developed an extensive backstory for Aziza, drawing from Jacobs Jenkins’ rich dramaturgy. This character development process reflects her broader approach to theater. She shares her character-building strategy: “In my head, I’ll still be building.” She continued,“I’m still thinking about Letitia [‘Clyde’s’]. I’m still thinking about Jess in ‘Cost of Living.’ I’m still thinking about Lutiebelle [‘Purlie Victorious’].” From a single line in the script, Aziza tells Solomon Jasper, “Sir, you don’t get it. I have actual childhood memories of sitting on my daddy’s shoulders, watching you talk at some rally, maybe. We was always at some rally,” Young said, using her Harlem upbringing as a lens through which to construct a whole world for her character.

Jacobs Jenkins’ script resonates deeply with Young, who describes his writing as “meticulous” and “surgical-like.” She noted the playwright creates “threads that connect the veins to make a heart pump.” Working with two-time Tony

See KARA YOUNG on page 20

Kara Young getting ready in make-up. (Marc J. Franklin photos)

(L-R): Jon Michael Hill (Naz), Kara Young (Aziza), and Harry Lennix (Solomon) in “Purpose.”

Kara Young

winner Phylicia Rashad as director has deepened Young’s understanding of how theater serves community. Young reveres Rashad immensely and said, “I praise her gift. And she’s so anointed as an actor.”

“The conversation that is really brought up [is about] the intergenerational ideologies that actually can be in relation to each other if we just seek out to understand,” Young explained. She finds particular beauty in the Aziza and Solomon dynamic, noting the reverence for the legacy that playwright Jacobs Jenkins laid as a foundation for Black people to be free. Aziza said, “I live free in a world you helped to make. So you’re a huge deal, right? All y’all are actually, which means that the legacy that you leave behind is also — y’all are all a big deal.”

This profound legacy is also vividly expressed throughout the Jasper home, meticulously designed by Todd Rosenthal. The set is an exquisitely curated museum of Black pride, adorned with historical photos, rich African textiles, and striking sculptural pieces like elegant West African bronzes (reminiscent of the renowned Benin Bronzes). Ellis Wilson’s “Funeral Procession” and a prominent Martin Luther King Jr. painting preside over the space.

For Young, this design creates a moment that pays “homage to the kids of Malcolm X, to the homage of the children of Dr. Martin Luther King. I am paying respect to the children of these legacies in that moment.” The conversation between Aziza and Solomon becomes a recognition of how each generation builds upon the sacrifices of those who came before.

In one of the play’s most powerful scenes, Solomon tells Aziza he didn’t believe everything she said, “but she made me think, particularly when she spoke of the spec-

trum of sexuality.” She finds deep meaning in serving as a “catalyst of thought in the entire space,” noting how Jacobs Jenkins creates space for characters to challenge and transform each other.

The “Purpose” cast, mostly veterans from the original Steppenwolf Theatre production in Chicago, welcomed Young and LaTanya Richardson Jackson as the “newbies” with open arms and warmth. They forged a true artistic family, praying

daily before performances and cultivating a shared understanding of theater as a sacred space. Young emphasizes the collective spirit of the company, stating, “A recognition for one person is a recognition for the entire company.”

Young’s current Tony nomination feels uniquely different because she’s actively performing eight shows a week throughout awards season. “This is the first time that I have been in production while also

doing the Tony season,” she explained, referencing the constant demands of galas, events, and press amidst her nightly performances.

Despite the packed schedule, each night brings discoveries on stage. “The show is always so alive and so electric,” she said, adding that every audience is different. This dynamic means “no show is the same in the sense of what people are going to respond to. Sometimes, there’s silence in moments where the night before there was laughter.”

As the 2025 Tony Awards countdown approaches, Young continues her daily routine, taking the subway and immersing herself in the neighborhood. She keeps her Tony Award at her parents’ house and doesn’t consider herself “famous,” a groundedness that allows her to seamlessly serve as both an artist and community member. She carries forward the legacy of those who came before, reflecting on a profound inheritance from her greatgrandmother Hazel and other matriarchs who shaped her: “I feel so honored to have been able to witness what it means to get older. It’s a deep, deep blessing.”

In “Purpose,” Young has found her perfect artistic vehicle. The play honors the civil rights generation while demanding space for contemporary Black voices. It features a character who shares her Harlem roots and embodies the profound significance of Black life in the modern world. As a nominee continuing her unprecedented streak for a second Tony Award this Sunday, Young has already achieved something profound: she has found her purpose and, in doing so, helped a community find its voice on Broadway’s biggest stages.

Young’s journey from Harlem’s west side to the Helen Hayes Theatre proves American theater’s highest calling: a space where past and present collide, love demands recognition, and purpose becomes resistance.

Kara Young (Photo courtesy of Polk & Co.)

Kara Young as Aziza in “Purpose.”

(L-R): LaTanya Richardson Jackson (Claudine), Glenn Davis (Junior), Kara Young (Aziza), and Jon Michael Hill (Naz) in “Purpose” (Marc J. Franklin photos)

Lenny Kravitz, Maxwell, Tems, Miguel highlight 17th Annual Roots Picnic

By DERREL JOHNSON Special to the AmNews

Imagine seeing Lenny Kravitz, Maxwell, Tems, Miguel, Jagged Edge, Total, and others on one stage over a single weekend. Tens of thousands of fans who attended the 17th Annual Roots Picnic, the annual Philadelphia festival created by the hip-hop collective The Roots, were able to do just that over the weekend.

Four-time Grammy Award winner Lenny Kravitz showcased not only his superb vocals, which have created hits for decades, but also his guitar-playing skills. Wearing a black leather jacket, blue jeans, and a seethrough red shirt, he performed uptempo, mid-tempo, and ballads, including “Again,” “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” “American Woman,” “Fly Away,” “It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over,” “I Belong to You,” and “Honey” during day two of the Roots Picnic. Brooklyn native Maxwell shared that it was his first time performing at the Roots Picnic. He skillfully performed some of his biggest hits, including “Get to Know Ya,” “Lake By the Ocean,” “Sumthin Sumthin,” “Bad Habits,” “Lifetime,” “Fortunate,” and “Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder).”

Coming from Lagos, Nigeria, Tems performed “Essence” by Wizkid, which features her vocals on the ubiquitous hook, “You don’t need no other body.” She also performed her 2020 hit “Free Mind,” “Interference,” and last year’s “Burning.” Award-winning musician, music director, songwriter, and singer Adam Blackstone played some jazz, performed the Bill Withers classic “Lovely Day,” and was joined by Jagged Edge, who performed “Let’s Get Married,” “Where the Party At,” “Promise,” and “Gotta Be.” Total also performed “Kissing You” and “Can’t You See” with Blackstone.

Miguel gave a powerful performance of his Grammy Award-winning “Adorn” while also performing his classics “How Many Drinks,” during which the crowd aided him in rapping Kendrick Lamar’s verse, “Sure Thing,” and “Do You…”

There were dozens of highlights during the Roots Picnic, including singer Musiq Soulchild celebrating the 25th anniversary of his debut, “Aijuswanaseing,” with a performance which featured hits “Just Friends,” “Girl Next Door,” and the

See ROOTS PICNIC on page 22

Tems performs at the Roots Picnic. (Derrel Johnson photos)

A family watching performances at the Roots Picnic.

Roots Picnic

Continued from page 21

timeless ballad “Love.”

The festival’s creators, The Roots, celebrated the 30th anniversary of their second album “Do You Want More?!!!??!” and performed “Proceed,” “Distortion to Static,” and “Silent Treatment.” They were also joined by spoken word artist Ursula Rucker, who performed “The Unlocking” with the group.

Other notable singers who performed included CeCe Peniston, Crystal Waters, Raheem DeVaughn, and CeeLo Green.

Numerous top hip-hop artists also performed, including Atlanta’s Latto, Jeezy, and 2Chainz; GloRilla, who hails from Memphis;

and Philadelphia native Meek Mill, who closed out the second day of the festival.

Perhaps no one summed up the Roots Picnic more than iconic comedian Dave Chappelle, who shared with the crowd that he met Maxwell when he worked at a New York City restaurant.

“This is outstanding,” he said. “From the front to the back, all I see is beautiful Black people. I don’t see no violence. I don’t see no hatred. I just see love from community. I flew all the way from Ohio. Shout out to the legendary Roots crew from Philadelphia that put this whole weekend together and shout out to my good brother Maxwell. It’s beautiful to see what Maxwell’s doing. I’m gonna enjoy the show. Goodnight.”

Maxwell performs during the Roots Picnic. (Taylor Hill/Getty Images for Live Nation Urban photos)

Lenny Kravitz performs during the Roots Picnic.

Stories that inspire and motivate, as well as entertain

By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews

“Multicultural voices have always been important,” said Krishan Trotman, vice president and publisher of Legacy Lit, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group. Throughout her career in publishing, Trotman has worked to publish books by multicultural voices and about social justice. At a time when people are feeling unseen, fatigued, and unappreciated, these books can be entertainment, inspiration, or a source of strength and motivation.

“They are uplifting and sharing the stories and experiences of BIPOC people that have been underserved, and the authors are doing it in compelling ways of storytelling,” said Trotman, “whether it’s using personal story, providing a glimpse into history, or creating universes.”

Summer is a time to escape, and there are few better ways to escape than reading a well-written book. Whether you’re a novel or a book about history, these books are page-turners.

“The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” by Clarence A. Haynes

This novel is a fast-paced, sexy, ghostly adventure about a powerful publicist who has a legion of long-buried mystical secrets.

“Clarence is able to marry so many different genres into one,” said Trotman. “The book encompasses urban fantasy, horror, some romance, and it’s sexy. It does it fluidly and creates an enjoyable read that sometimes will make you laugh; other times, will resonate in a soulful, deeper way. It’s an elevated experience.”

“Sir Lewis” by Michael Sawyer

This is a definitive biography of Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton.

“I learned about Lewis Hamilton and all the great work that he was doing as an advocate and how his reach had gotten even broader through fashion,” said Trotman.

“This book merges different spaces and ideas, and brings them together. That’s what Lewis Hamilton’s legacy does. It’s showing sport, activism, and art.”

“The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic” by Lindsey Stewart

Coming in July, this book tells the history of conjure women, who, although enslaved, brought their ancestral spiritual beliefs from West Africa and combined them with herbal rituals and therapeutic remedies to create a secret well of health and hidden power.

Trotman noted that the character of Annie in Michael B. Jordan’s hit film “Sinners” is a conjure woman. “Her character really has an impact on people and showed the power of Black women,” she said. “This book is looking at 400 years of that Black girl magic … It’s a blend of magical realism with real-world happenings.”

“Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” by Khadijah Queen

This memoir is by a U.S. Navy veteran who endured a grueling experience during her military service.

“I am excited about giving voice to Black women as veterans and doing it in a way that acknowledges the truth about many of their experiences,” said Trotman. “Khadijah is a poet and a truth teller, and she does not hold back.”

“Iron Will: An Amputee’s Journey to Athletic Excellence” by Roderick Sewell

This is the remarkable true story of Paralympian Roderick Sewell, the first bilateral above-the-knee amputee to finish the Ironman World Championship.

“The relationship with Roderick and his mom — they went through a lot — wasn’t always due to his physicality, but also the financial struggles,” Trotman said. “She helped him maintain his dream and get to where he is today, not only in his athleticism, but in his self-determination.”

‘Joy Goddess, A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance’ — a review

By MICHAEL HENRY ADAMS Special to the AmNews

As described by the publisher, “Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance” is indeed a very fine book, a “vibrant, deeply researched biography” of the only daughter of Madam C.J. Walker, written by A’Lelia Bundles, her greatgranddaughter. A dramatically engrossing tale, Bundles’ saga of A’Lelia Walker (née Lelia McWilliams, later, after three marriages, Robinson, Wilson, and Kennedy; later dubbed the “Joy Goddess of Harlem” by Langston Hughes) is related with the assurance of the consummate storyteller.

Following a childhood mired in poverty and deprivation, A’Lelia Walker deftly pivoted. As if to the manor born, she assumed the rarefied role of Harlem’s leading arts patron, showcasing such promising Black prodigies as concert pianist Justin Sandridge and artist Richmond Barthé. Equally important, Bundles tells how ultimately she transformed her showplace home into public venues, The Dark Tower and The Walker Studios — venues for events that not only promoted Black culture, but were spaces convening Blacks and whites, writers, artists, and patrons together in the common cause of social progress and partying.

(Of note: Their Harlem home was redesigned and renovated by Vertner Woodson Tandy, one of the first Black registered architects in New York State, who successfully adapted two narrow Queen Anne Style brownstone row houses, located at 108 and 110 W 136th Street, into the Walkers’ stately Neo-Federal Style Harlem residence. The Walkers’ business premises were located on the ground floor.)

Ms. Walker’s Black uplift, motherdaughter struggles, and love intrigues, set against the backdrop of a rags-to-riches romp, from hard knocks and dreamland to the real world, are better able to hold one transfixed than any novel ever could. In accessing the story and creating a picture of her larger-than-life relation, Bundles has made a solid start. Hers is not a perfunctory or sensationalized account, as a People magazine essay might have conveyed. But then, neither is it as in-depth or profound a treatment, told over 1,000 pages or in two volumes, as one might expect to read about in the Atlantic, Forbes, or the New York Review of Books. To a few, it might be said to lack the excitement frequently derived from the best features of Vanity Fair. Nonetheless, admirers of The Root, Vogue, or smaller profiles in The New Yorker are certain to find highly admirable its easy accessibility and emphasis upon themes of universal appeal.

Bundles, by no means, intended to write merely a picture book destined to ornament coffee tables, unread. It’s been 23 years since A’Lelia Bundles’ well-received

Madame C. J. Walker biography, “On Her Own Ground” (which inspired the Netflix 2020 series “Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker”), appeared in 2001. Thanks to her additional research that followed, innumerable previously unknown Walker-related photographs have been uncovered. How splendidly they depict A’Lelia Walker’s houses and her unprecedented treasures: her Louis XV clock; a silver nef from the Renaissance; a bust of Booker T. Washington; a reduction of Hiram Power’s iconic white marble statue, “The Greek Slave;” her shining limousine, with a chauffeur at the wheel; all are

shown. In-situ, they await their devastating dispersal, at a packed auction, forced by the Great Depression in 1930. What an enhancement they might have made. Color pictures of some of what survives — silver flatware, porcelain plates, and damask tablecloths, augmented by pictures of A’Lelia Walker’s high fashion finery — would have delighted readers as well. Certainly Bundles is never better than when describing posh places with elegant interiors, or distingué gowns from the best Paris haute couture houses. But even her gifts are taxed, having illustrated such images to readers mostly unaware of the

glories of a past that’s dead and gone. For a months-long sojourn abroad to Europe and the Levant, in 1922, Walker booked a first-class stateroom on the SS Paris. Absent an image, the grandeur A’Lelia Walker must have experienced, descending the grand staircase, must be hard for many to envision. Spotlighted beneath Rene Lalique’s dazzling glass dome, how regal she must have felt and looked.

What “Joy Goddess” lacks most is something value of which Madame Walker and her daughter were all too aware of and alert to: How astutely they utilized carefully staged and strategically placed advertisements. In Stanley Nelson’s excellent and poignant film about the Walkers, “Two Dollars and a Dream,” Peg Fisher, the Walker Co.’s secretary, said, “She taught us how to be beautiful…” Fame and fortune brought them continual publicity. With the luxury of their lifestyle and the possibility of their success, they put the world on blast. Well before Martha Stewart was born, with every fifty-cent tin of their “Miracle Hair Grower,” the Walkers sold America’s most put-upon and disrespected women a wish to build a dream on, replete with aspirations of loveliness, and hope of better times.

Was Harlem’s Joy Goddess queer? She made a home with Mayme White, née Mary Adelyne, the daughter of a congressman George Henry White. (At the close of the Cong. White’s second term in 1901, another African American would not serve as a US representative until 1929). The onebedroom walk-up apartment these singular women shared was on the second floor at 80 Edgecombe Avenue. Regarding the pair, Bundles offers,“...because Mayme moved into A’Lelia’s apartment, there has long been speculation about the nature of their relationship … Given the intense homophobia of the time, there would have been incentive to hide a romantic relationship…” she said, to then note the lack of evidence of a romance. Bundles mused whether, along with being overshadowed by famous parents, a shared vantage point had made them “soulmates who became lovers?” But in the end, she determines, “A century later, without personal journals, contemporaneous correspondence, or confessions, what happened in A’Lelia’s bedroom … is unknown.”

This leaves plenty of room to explore further what many in their sophisticated circle thought. According to acclaimed Harlem photographer Marvin Smith (who, with his twin Morgan Smith worked for the AmNews) and Raoul Abdul (Langston Hughes’ secretary and long-time AmNews classical music columnist), some of White’s and Walker’s friends — including Caska Bonds (an eminent music teacher and coach) and Edna Lewis Thomas (a stage star) — were emphatic about the pair being a couple. Even though Smith was briefly married and See ‘JOY GODDESS’ on page 28

A Q & A with A’Lelia Bundles, author of ‘Joy Goddess’

By MICHAEL HENRY ADAMS Special to the AmNews

In a short twenty-year span, A’Lelia Bundles has written four biographies that document her larger-than-life, from ragsto-riches ancestors. These exceptional forebears were Madam C. J. Walker, the Black hair and beauty care pioneer, her fun-loving philanthropic daughter, A’Lelia Walker, and their daughter and granddaughter, Mae Robinson Perry, nèe Fairy Mae Bryant, who perpetuated their luminous legacy. Thoroughly and thoughtfully, each are chronicled in “Madam C. J. Walker: Entrepreneur” (Chelsea House 1991); “All about Madam C. J. Walker” (Walker/Cardin Publishing, 2017); “On Her own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker” (Scribner, 2001): and “Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance” (Simon and Schuster 2025).

Acclaimed as a journalist, news producer, and author, recipient of numerous awards and honors, a fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vice chair emerita of Columbia University’s Board of Trustees, and chair emerita of the board of the National Archives Foundation, now it is Ms. Bundles turn to shine. In anticipation of her newest understanding, “Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance,” we at the AmNews had a few questions.

AmNews: You have expressed disappointment with “Self Made,” the 2020 Netflix/ Warner Bros. series adapted from your biography, “On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker.” What most troubled you about the series?

AB: I’ve spoken and written often about my impressions, especially in Andscape. com (formerly TheUndefeated.com), in “Netflix’s ‘Self Made’ Suffers from Self Inflicted Wounds,” — and for Variety. I want to be clear that I think Octavia Spencer did an excellent job of embodying Madam C. J. Walker’s persona whenever she appeared on screen. I also very much appreciate the makeup artists, hair stylists, set and costume designers, and many members of the cast who worked so hard on the series. But I was not happy that key aspects of Madam Walker’s life were distorted. I was disappointed that the showrunners and scriptwriters chose — despite my objections during the scripting process — to lean into stale tropes about Black women “catfighting” with one another and racial stereotypes that cast Black men as shady criminals. I really was hoping for an inspirational story more along the lines of the movie “Hidden Figures.” Unfortunately, I think the script too often veered toward “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.”

AmNews: As now, looking from the outside in, the lives led by the great can seem idyllic. Both in her lifetime and today, what do you consider to be the greatest misconceptions about A’Lelia Walker’s lifestyle?

AB: Some Harlem Renaissance historians and biographers have caricatured A’Lelia Walker and reduced her to a dilettantish party girl. One historian inexplicably claimed that she spent the 1920s “playing bridge.” While A’Lelia Walker did enjoy a good game of bridge as well as a good round of poker, she was also very much involved in

ed and unchallenged in dozens of books and articles. I do hope that “ Joy Goddess” will provide a fresh perspective and allow readers to move past the myths because I think they’ll discover an interesting, complex person who helped shape the social and cultural scene of the Harlem Renaissance.

promoting artists and the arts and in raising money for a range of causes, from an ambulance for Black soldiers during World War I to a community center for Harlem children. Because of her inheritance and her three homes, she had the means and the venues to serve in the role of convener by bringing together people from uptown and downtown, from Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and America, from the arts and fashion, from business and politics.

After reading hundreds of pages of her letters and having interviewed a dozen of her close friends during the 1980s, I was puzzled by the gratuitous portrayal some authors have offered. Unfortunately, those inaccurate narratives have become entrenched after being repeat -

AmNews: Your description of the unusual circumstances and commonality about the life experience of A’Lelia Walker and her companion Mayme White was both touching and poignant. When your greatgrandmother died, Ms. White sought a few hundred dollars in assistance from her attorney, and he refused. This led to a lawsuit and an appeal, won by the Walker estate. Do you think that A’Lelia Walker did intend to remember White? And, even if she did not, might it not have been better for all involved to have a settlement?

AB: I think you’re asking me to speculate on what might have been. I am not a fan of what is called “critical fabulation,” where writers project their personal expectations and impose their desired or imagined out-

come onto a situation. What I do know from A’Lelia Walker’s letters is that she was very intentional and specific about who was mentioned in her will and what she wished to bequeath and to whom.

AmNews: Adhering strictly to fact, you assert that there is no known evidence to support a romantic relationship between Walker and White. But you’ve seen the one-bedroom apartment they shared at 80 Edgecombe Avenue. And, you are also familiar with John Claude Baker’s assertion in “Josephine Baker: The Hungry Heart,” his biography of his guardian, Josephine Baker. He said that many Black women during the Harlem Renaissance found themselves so badly treated by husbands and boyfriends that intimacy with each other was often a kind of emotional consolation and therapy. Despite the lack of corroborating letters or diaries discovered during your exhaustive research, do you think any might be discovered to bolster reminiscences related to me from Bobby Short and Marvin Smith?

AB: Again, I think you’re asking me to speculate and to engage in “critical fabulation” where no reliable evidence or documentation exists. As a biographer who writes nonfiction, I rely on primary source research, which in this case included interviews with A’Lelia Walker’s friends, hundreds of pages of her letters, and thousands of newspaper articles, as well as legal documents, transcripts, and depositions. During my career as a television news producer, I learned to follow leads and to take the extra step of corroborating stories to avoid repeating rumors and myths. I kept an open mind throughout my many years of research as I explored A’Lelia Walker’s marriages to John Robinson, Dr. Wiley Wilson, and Dr. James Arthur Kennedy, as well as her friendships with Mayme White, Edna Lewis Thomas, Geraldyn Dismond (Gerri Major), Bessye Bearden, and Lucille Green Randolph.

AmNews: For me, the most fascinating discovery you brought to light was the seriousness of A’Lelia Walker’s stroke and how early it was, long before she died. What, for you, was the most unexpected thing you uncovered?

AB: Certainly, A’Lelia Walker’s stroke in 1924 and her ongoing health issues played a role in how she navigated her personal life and business obligations during the last seven years of her life. I don’t know that I would say it was “unexpected,” but I found much more evidence of her support of artists, writers, musicians, and actors than is commonly known. I was glad to be able to discover granular details about her inspiration for creating the Dark Tower, the cultural salon she opened in October 1927, and the role it played in the life of Harlemites. Having her travel diary from

Author A’Lelia Bundles (Jimell Green photo)

‘So Drunk a Tooth’s Gotta Go’

Writer Joy Alicia shares a humorous take on life, love, and the gig economy

By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews

San Diego-born and raised comedic writer Joy Alicia’s collection of essays hits bookshelves on June 10. For those who will want to have this upcoming humorous take on modern dating, societal expectations, and navigating life’s chaos on the go, the e-edition of “So Drunk a Tooth’s Gotta Go” is also available.

The podcast host and sometime stand-up comedian, whose essays have been published in outlets like Newsweek and The Daily Mail , acknowl -

A’Lelia Bundles

Continued from page 25

her trip to Paris, London, Monte Carlo, Nice, Rome, Cairo, Palestine, and Addis Ababa in 1921 and 1922 gave me a much clearer sense of her international travels and friendships.

AmNews: The Walker Women fared rather better in their efforts at dynasty building than W. E. B. DuBois. Were they around

edged that, despite extensive writing experience, putting together a book is extremely difficult. But she felt compelled to share her stories.

“Some important topics go unmentioned and useful advice isn’t always disseminated in an entertaining way, so I merged my love of comedy with my love for writing to cover topics that are light-hearted or heavy, writing essays that will spark interest and hold people’s attention,” said Alicia. “So Drunk a Tooth’s Gotta Go” is not boring. The title kind of suggests that it shouldn’t be. It’s laugh-out-loud funny.”

The 19 essays cover everything from

today, what do you imagine they would do differently? Was their greatest impact the unique way they helped to motivate and empower Black women? What do you hope will be their legacy in times to come?

AB: I do think that Madam Walker had a great impact during her lifetime of empowering women to be financially independent, politically aware community leaders. I’m really pleased that her story still inspires entrepreneurs and sets an example for philanthropists and social justice activists. I

binge drinking to weight loss, being single to breakups, international travel, racism, the gig economy, toxic friends, heartbreak, confidence, and more. She feels her essays are relatable, confessional, and important. It’s a raw, real, and kind of irreverent self-help guide.

“I want to be a voice for the people who currently work in the gig economy or have worked in the gig economy and haven’t spoken out about how the system is rigged,” Alicia said. “People who work in the gig economy are overworked and underpaid. It’s a vicious, never-ending cycle that robs workers of a healthy work-life balance.”

love that she has become such an icon that a Madam Walker Barbie doll was created a few years ago.

I really see A’Lelia Walker’s legacy as that of a social impresario whose charisma and gift as a convener allowed her to create welcoming spaces for a wide range of people. I love that her Dark Tower is an essential part of any account of the Harlem Renaissance.

For these forthright and informative responses, I want to extend a personal

“Humor writing is incredibly difficult because you can’t gauge the audience,” Alicia said. There isn’t the gratification of audience feedback that a standup comic would get, but on the upside, there’s no heckling … at least no live heckling. Social media is another story. She is also passionate about women remaining safe while dating online, and using dating apps more efficiently so they can have fun first dates. Talking about bad dates felt obligatory, but she also makes it clear that those happened prior to her figuring out how to optimize her time and only have good first dates.

“I had bad dates whenever I didn’t follow my own advice,” Alicia said. “Bad first dates can and will happen when people don’t implement the strategies in my dating hacks chapter.”

In general, she noted, people match on dating apps based on physical attraction, which is why so many first dates are awkward and unpleasant.

“Every time I hear someone say they had a bad first date, I cringe,” she said. “One of the best ways for both women and men to remain safe while online dating, and stop wasting time meeting people they’re incompatible with, is to vet their matches first. Speaking to matches on the phone before meeting and asking the right important questions that help you determine whether someone’s worth a first date is outlined in my dating hacks chapter.”

She covers pretty much everything in the dating hacks chapter, including how to avoid getting ghosted. As for losing the tooth? You have to read the book.

Alicia described the book as escapist art and self-care, noting we can choose laughter instead of tears when facing life’s challenges.

“Summer reads are supposed to be fun,” said Alicia. “‘So Drunk a Tooth’s Gotta Go’ is a fun book filled with punchlines and jokes. … You don’t want to get on a plane, go to the beach, or lay out by the pool without a book that will help you enjoy your time.”

thank you to A’Lelia Bundles. To discover more about her remarkable family, past work, and forthcoming projects, be sure to visit her website at aleliabundles.com and follow her at @aleliabundles. Coming up on June 9, the century-old Schomburg Center will be hosting the talk and booksigning “Joy Goddess: A Book Launch and Conversation” where all will be afforded the chance to meet Ms. Bundles in person and have her inscribe her books. To register, visit eventbrite.com.

Author Joy Alicia (Contributed photo)

So you want to learn about Harlem? Books on Harlem’s real and fictional histories

By MICHAEL HENRY ADAMS Special to the AmNews

Some might imagine that one book can tell all there is to know concerning Harlem. Impossible! Because, though often long forgotten, before it was Black, or even gentrifying, the storied neighborhood involved myriad inhabitants of varied backgrounds, occupying the same place, bearing that name across time — that history is all Harlem too. The Lenape’s summer waterfront resort and planting ground gave way, after a shaky start, to the town Dutch imperialists christened Nieuw Haarlem. Its chief function was to grow food to feed residents of the more important commercial port of Nieuw Amsterdam. Ten miles apart, the settlements had the same sort of geographic relationship as their namesakes in the Netherlands.

Sometime later, like folks out East in the Hamptons of today, Harlem was mostly home to a few rich people who spent the cold months downtown but came here when it got hot. Enslaved Africans made life pleasant. These stately mansions of the elite on landscaped estates were easy to get away to.

Not long before African Americans claimed Harlem, circa 1920, there were sections that were German and Jewish, Irish and Catholic, and Italian and Roman Catholic.

Elegant or rustic, a tangible, specific, and concrete Harlem can be explored in the book, “Harlem Lost and Found: An Architectural and Social History, 1795-1915” by yours truly, Michael Henry Adams (New York: Monacelli Press, 2002).

But, there’s another amorphous, more spiritual, sometimes imaginary Harlem as well. It can better be encountered in “Harlem Is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America” by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011).

Celebrated for a 100 years as the African American Cultural Capital, it once seemed, until quite recently, as if Harlem was the spot — the special, thriving Black center of cultural achievement and political ambition — and might continue to go on from strength to strength, forever. Yet, even when I moved here in 1985 to attend graduate school at Columbia, that place seemed to have already begun to morph, from lived experience, into a wounded by wonderful myth.

Since Ms. Rhodes-Pitts‘ elegiac meditation was published fourteen years ago, a pivotal moment in Harlem’s history has passed. Far beyond mere encroachment, gentrification has actually dislodged some guardians of Black heritage. Stalwart residents like Rhodes-Pitts, one had thought to be ‘forever Harlemites,’ have vanished. Far

beyond her quietly decamping for Brooklyn, so many of the representative idiosyncratic characters Rhodes-Pitts vividly chronicles have also left, some to become ‘dearly departed.’ So it’s clear that there’s been an elemental change.

What remains? It is a place, a Harlem, more fabled and mythic, more a realm of the imagination, than ever. Therein lies this slight volume’s enormous value — its record of a place that’s more nowhere than ever. One, that some say, has ceased to exist. Going or gone, reviving or resurrecting?

The only constant of Harlem is a momentous, calamitous, and always revivifying history. It generates ever-new scholarship, which also inspires new fictional adaptations. Here are some of the best.

Only take note: these selections, whether novels or nonfiction, are all excellent, even those without commentary only lacked additional space. Each is highly recommended.

“The New Negro: An Interpretation” by Alain Leroy Locke (New York: Atheneum, 1925)

Edited by America’s first and last Rhodes scholar for fifty years. Before being published in book form, this monumental anthology first appeared as an issue of the

journal, Survey Graphic. A compilation of fiction, poetry, and essays about African and African American heritage and advancement, some scholars contend that it officially launched the Harlem Renaissance, with Locke, who headed the philosophy department at Howard University, acting as the movement’s godfather.

It showcases aesthetic and academic creativity emergent from an ascendant Black community. Besides Locke’s introductory analysis, it includes contributions from towering figures, including Zora Neal Hurston, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay.

Reading it today, discovering so many leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance were queer, one is impressed by the diversity and inclusiveness of Harlem’s intellectual life a century ago. One is also both reassured of the vitality of Black greatness, and actually astonished that so high a level of accomplishment should be attained by so many, following 300 years of enforced illiteracy, such a short time after slavery’s end.

“Black Manhattan” by James Weldon Johnson (Alfred A. Knopf: NY, 1930)

This essential text compellingly traces the

evolving demographic and experience of African Americans in New York City’s most affluent borough. From a pre-Revolutionary War Black community at Chatham Square, it moves to the “Little Africa” section of Greenwich Village. Shifting ever northward, it travels from Midtown-West’s “Tenderloin”, to what’s now the location of Lincoln Center — once a neighborhood Black residents shared contentiously with European immigrants, known as “San Juan Hill.

Black Manhattan is the work of accomplished writer, poet, lyricist, lawyer, educator, diplomat, NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson. Like his brother, musicologist J. Rosamond Johnson, today he’s best remembered for creating Lift Every Voice and Sing, the Black National anthem.

The book concludes in 1920s Harlem, then the “World’s Black Mecca”. Contextualizing where and how Black New Yorkers have lived, it still raises searing questions about how this particular place is bound up by issues of our culture, identity, and struggle. Most poignantly, Johnson wonders about Harlem’s ”promised land,” becoming overcrowded and unaffordable due to rising property values. Will an African See HARLEM BOOKS on page 32

‘Joy Goddess’

Continued from page 24

Thomas wed twice, each of these notable Harlem personalities was what is today called queer. Though known, none were “out.” (Prior to 1969, almost no one was. Identifying each other to straight people, even after they were long dead, was regarded as betrayal and unpardonable. Among themselves, it was different. Most of Harlem’s prominent gays and lesbians knew, or knew of, each other, and in detail.)

Bundles’ handling of the subject of her grandmoth -

er’s adoption is as sensitive as it is forthcoming. A’Lelia Walker and her mother were both much taken by the good looks, good sense, and conscientiousness of the fatherless granddaughter of a family friend from church. Fairy Mae Bryant was adopted by A’Lelia Walker (then Lelia Robinson) in 1912. Bundles said, “[L] ong braids made her an ideal model for Madame Walker to demonstrate her hair care products.” Bundles shows that the Walker women’s’ wish to leave a long, loving legacy was as powerful a motivator as the exploitative explanation some

people imagined. But for neither A’Lelia Walker nor for Madame Walker did affection and wanting the best for one’s children always coincide with understanding. Following her debut and graduation from Spelman College, grateful for all she’d been given, Miss Mae Robinson was wed to a husband of her mother’s choosing, the socially eminent, seemingly decorous Dr. Gordon Henry Jackson. While the wedding and the divorce had cost a fortune — and great heartache besides — the marriage lasted only a few years.

See ‘JOY GODDESS’ continued on page 32

The first-class dining room of the SS Paris, the ship on which, in 1922, A’Lelia Walker booked first-class passage on a months-long trip to Europe. (Public domain photo)

A’Lelia Walker was covered extensively in the AmNews throughout the years.

Supernatural stories coming out this summer

By MARK WINSTON GRIFFITH Special to the AmNews

Now that you’ve seen “Sinners,” surely you’re hankering for some more playtime with the otherworldly, the un/ dead, and all things fantastically Black. If so, this is your lucky summer. Three novels by Black authors that are on sale in the coming weeks delve, in their own distinct ways, into supernatural realms that feature adventures in Black culture, family, and community.

“Family Spirit,” by the Philly-based author Diane McKinney-Whetstone, brings us the clairvoyant Mace family, whose apparently XX chromosome-specific “Knowing” gene has been inherited by our heroine Ayana, a struggling college senior. Ayana is keeping her gift on the DL, lest she be branded “weird” by her mother, but that doesn’t stop Ayana from participating in rituals, seeing

Inspires and entertain

Continued from page 23

“Bet on Black” by Eboni K. Williams (paperback edition)

Available in July, the paperback edition of Eboni K. Williams’ 2023 book is a call to action for Black people all over the world to adopt a fresh, highly informed mind -

into the future, and teaming up with her outcast aunt to reconcile an unsettling premonition. Described as “Alice Hoffman’s beloved ‘Magic’ series meets Gloria Naylor’s classic supernatural novel ‘Mama Day,’” “Family Spirit” will be available August 12.

McKinney-Whetstone’s eight novels include “Tumbling: A Novel.” She was awarded the American Library Association Black Caucus Literary Award for Fiction twice, received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant, and is a past lecturer in the writing program at the University of Pennsylvania.

“The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery,” by New York-based, Panamanian-American author Clarence A. Haynes, goes on sale June 17. In my interview with Haynes, he summarized “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery ” as an “urban fantasy,” “glam horror novel,” and “genre mashup” that fea -

set centered on resilience, excellence, beauty, style, and brilliance.

“The paperback release is exciting because this is a great time as Black culture is impacted in politics,” said Trotman.

“This book provides the good news about being Black in America. Anyone reading it will finish feeling like they do have power in the world, and they will

tures “a high-powered publicist who has a secret mystical past” and a special connection to an Afro-Latine medium. Haynes goes on to describe “Ghosts ” as a “sensual, but also spooky, disturbing, and disconcerting” novel that pays homage to his native New York and Afro-Latine heritage.

Haynes wrote the middle-grade nonfiction “The Legacy of Jim Crow” and collaborated with actor/producer Omar Epps to co-author the teen fiction companion works “Nubia: The Awakening” and “Nubia: The Reckoning.” As an editor, he’s worked for publishers that include Penguin Random House, Amazon Publishing, and Legacy Lit, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group.

“Meet Me at the Crossroads,” by Megan Giddings, available on June 3, tells the story of seven mysterious doors that serve as portals to another world; midwestern twin teens, Ayanna and

love their Blackness even more.”

“I Wasn’t Supposed to Be Here” by Jonathan Conyers (paperback edition)

In the paperback edition of his 2023 book, Jonathan Conyers introduces us to the teachers, debate coach, and a boy named Diego who changed his life.

“I hope this book inspires readers to

Olivia; and what happens when one of the sisters goes missing. Lorraine Berry of the LA Times observes that “Meet Me at the Crossroads” “ interrogates the meaning of faith in a heady novel about love and family. ” Giddings’ third novel has gotten considerable buzz thus far, making it onto the New York Times , LA Times , NPR, and The Root summer reading lists.

Giddings is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Her debut novel, “Lakewood,” was named one of the best books of the year by New York Magazine and NPR, and was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and an LA Times Book Prize. Her second novel, “The Women Could Fly,” was recognized by the Washington Post, Vulture, and the New York Times as one of the best fantasy novels of the year. She looks to publish a short story collection, “Black Arts,” in 2026.

become a part of other people’s villages and invite people to be in their village, because that is what it takes,” Trotman said.

“[Jonathan Conyers] went through a really hard circumstance with his family growing up, and it was his teachers, mentors, and the people around him who were able to uplift him. That’s why he’s such a substantial member of his community today.”

Author Megan Giddings(JonCameronp hoto)

A conversation with ‘The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery’ author Clarence A. Haynes

By MARK WINSTON GRIFFITH Special to the AmNews

Clarence A. Haynes knows books. Which is to say that he doesn’t just write them, but actively cultivates them. He’s established himself in middle-grade nonfiction with his 2022 authoring of “The Legacy of Jim Crow,” and has made his mark in science fiction by collaborating with actor/producer Omar Epps to co-author the teen fiction companion works “Nubia: The Awakening” and “Nubia: The Reckoning.” Meanwhile, as a freelance editor, he regularly burnishes the offerings of fellow writers.

“The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” is Haynes’ debut as an adult fiction author, and at a time when “Sinners” has trained our imaginations on the artistry of Black-genre fiction film, along with some fresh worldbuilding steeped in the supernatural, it couldn’t be splashier. I Zoomed with Haynes recently to celebrate the official June 2025 release of “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” and explore his process and passions in this cultural moment.

AmNews: Let’s imagine that you’ve written “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery,” but you haven’t sold it yet. You find yourself in an elevator with a publisher, and you suddenly have an opportunity to pitch the manuscript. What would you say? Go!

Clarence A. Haynes (CAH): I would say I’ve written urban fantasy, and what I’m also coining is a glam horror novel that focuses on a high-powered publicist who has a secret mystical past. She has a connection to an Afro-Latine medium in the South Bronx who runs a botanica, who’s queer, and who’s having, I guess you can say, intimacies with a ghost. The book goes into what their mysterious connection is about. The big core conflict of the book is that the realm between humans and ghosts — the barrier — is failing, so ghosts are finding it easier to create havoc in our world. It’s very sensual, but also spooky, disturbing, disconcerting, a fusion of things, a genre mashup in some way, but also a fusion of sensibilities.

I’m also paying homage to my home city, New York. I’m originally from the Bronx. Paying homage to the African diaspora. Paying homage to Latinidad. My family’s from Panama. Paying homage to my roots and paying homage to powerful Black and Brown women with this particular type of protagonist.

AmNews: I would have bought it right there on the spot [laughter].

I know you’re a freelance editor and veteran of the publishing industry, right? So how much of your experience in the industry is actually reflected in “The Ghosts of Gwen-

dolyn Montgomery”? You said that the protagonist is a publicist, which intersects with the publishing world. How much of your experience in the industry is the narrative infused with?

CAH: The title character, Gwendolyn, works with creatives in a variety of contexts. She works with actors, musicians, fashion people. Not necessarily the book publishing world, but ,,, my experience as an editor and my experience and my years in the industry … helped me understand how to balance honoring my ideas, the core ideas of the story, with what I know would need to be there for readers.

I do think authors, once we know that our book will reach general audiences, have to take into account what those audiences, what their experience will be, as they’re immersing themselves in our worlds. I think that approach and that perspective comes from being an editor for so many years, because as an editor, we’re sort of the front lines, we’re meant to represent future readers. That’s something that I feel really informed my writing, that awareness.

AmNews: Is there anything about the publishing industry written into the plot? Are there any industry insights or dirt?

CAH: No, I didn’t really do too much with the publishing world, because it just didn’t feel like that’s what the story was. Certainly, some of the characters, like Fonzie, the medium who runs the botanica, are very literary and books are his world, but he’s not someone who has insider knowledge of the publishing industry.

AmNews: You’ve co-authored “Nubia: The Awakening” and “Nubia: The Reckoning” with Omar Epps. Would it be fair to say that you have some kind of attraction to stories that are not of this earth?

CAH: Absolutely. In terms of what I’m interested in, as far as my career, I want to do what we call — the big umbrella term — speculative fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, mythology, or things that dabble in that a bit. That’s where my heart lies. In terms of my publishing career, I’ve been able to edit a wide variety of genres, but in terms of my personal interests, I always feel the most at home with what I call the fantastic.

With “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery,” one of the things my publisher and editor Krishan Trotman and I were aware of was, can I create a bridge to readers who don’t necessarily think of themselves as fantasy or horror people? What are ways that I can shape the narrative so that someone who might be a big Tia Williams reader, for instance, would say, “Oh, there are Tia Williams elements here, but then there are also fantastic horror, weird, spooky things as well.”

See CLARENCE A. HAYNES continued on next page

Clarence A. Haynes (Erin Patrice O’Brien photo)

AmNews: Where would you say that impulse comes from to write speculative fiction? What’s the backstory, what’s the inspiration for that? And what does speculative fiction allow you to do that perhaps other genres or devices do not?

CAH: That’s a great question. I was a voracious reader from when I was very young. I started with comics, and comics incorporate so much superhero stuff. It’s all about the fantastic and otherworldly on the regular. Even when, for many years, I wasn’t into comics — I’ve been back into them more recently. The prose novels I’ve read, and the film, and TV projects I like to watch that give me the most joy are the ones that always seem to fall under the speculative fiction umbrella.

I just think that in speculative fiction, you can explore ideas and ways of life, and modes of being and philosophies. If you are strictly only dealing with the “real” world, there are limitations. [With speculative fiction], you can really just play with all sorts of stuff, things that can serve as a metaphor for a lot of what we’re dealing with in the real world. I think that’s what makes it so compelling for so many people: I can go out there and present ideas and narratives that just feel really fresh and new to me.

AmNews: How compelled were you to create allegories and metaphors?

CAH: I don’t want to give any spoilers, but the mystical system that I created, in some ways, references real-world spiritual traditions — West African beliefs, the orishas, and particular types of practices. I wanted to draw upon that, but I would say more primarily, the book is an exploration of how a character who is traumatized by the past is forced to confront that past, so the mystical systems, the supernatural systems, based on real-world spiritual traditions, were constructed in ways that force the characters to confront these things, both for Gwendolyn and Fonzie. It was a process to do that — to do worldbuilding that allows characters to explore painful parts of their history and parts of real-world history that we know have been quite dramatic and destructive. It was also something I wanted to use to honor my roots and my heritage and how I grew up.

AmNews: You talked a little bit about comic books and other inspirations. Are there any other ideas or writers you find sitting in the back of your head as you write?

CAH: There are a lot of them, actually, but the two who are probably most prominent are Octavia Butler — trailblazing writer in terms of sci fi, speculative fiction, Afrofuturism — and Toni Morrison, just in terms of her attention to the exquisiteness of her language. I’m realizing when I revisit her work, how she doesn’t waste time. She’s not particularly repetitious or unnecessarily meditative. She says what she needs to

say and moves on. I don’t know if I caught that when I was first reading her work. As we’ve been getting the word out about the book, I also realized that a lot of people may not know that a lot of the book is connected, or at least portions of it are directly connected, to real-world Panamanian history. For instance, the 1989 invasion of El Chorrillo to oust Manuel Noriega from power,. [My] immigrated way before that happened, but in terms of my roots in that area, I wanted to pay respect to that.

AmNews: How do you feel about the idea that the popularity of “Sinners” gives you an opportunity to market “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” at a time when people are now perhaps more primed for the Black supernatural? Do you feel like that’s mad annoying, or are you not mad at that at all?

CAH: I’m not mad at it at all. I mean, it’s advantageous for “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” because I think someone can easily just say, “Hey, it’s an Afro-Latine ‘Sinners!’” [laughter]

AmNews: There are worse things to call it, right [laughter]?

CAH: Or an Afro-Latina Contemporary “Sinners,” right? I’m appreciative of that opportunity, but what I’m most happy about when it comes to “Sinners” is just what it means for “Sinners” itself. I’m so happy for [Ryan] Coogler and his team, and just what it means for this type of film. I’ve never quite seen anything like it, for this type of film to do so well, and then what that means for his career, and how he can get certain things greenlit now. In terms of our overall community for Black folks, then, what that means is that we can do a bit less explaining. We can just be like, “You saw how that thing worked really well over there?” And people are like, “Right, okay.”

AmNews: Do you feel like that’s the case with “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” as well? That “Sinners” puts you in a position to have to do less explaining?

CAH: We’ll see. I don’t know yet, Mark. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be connecting with readers. Based on some of the conversations I’ve had with early reviewers and readers, it does seem like it’s getting that sort of spark where people are like, “Oh, I’ve never quite read anything like this,” or “Oh, wow, he actually put this and this in what’s supposed to be an urban fantasy novel. He put in all of this stuff about our community, about Black folks and Latine folks, that I’ve never quite seen presented in this way.”

I’m realizing the similarity that “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” has with “Sinners” is they’re both genre mashups and they are both stories that at some point switch. “Sinners” starts with being very character-driven, very much about the history of place, geography, the brothers, their relationships, their journeys. It doesn’t really become about the vampires

and how the vampires connect to the overall story until the second half.

“The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” is similar. The mythical stuff, the scary stuff — it’s there, it’s coming, but the first half is far more about the characters and their backstories and how they’re dealing with what might feel like more familiar issues and problems.

Then the sort of mystical drama and the action really hit in the second half, so I think, I’m hoping, readers will be a bit more prepared for that.

AmNews: “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” is set in New York, right? Brooklyn in particular?

CAH: Actually, it’s set throughout New York, but the two main characters, Gwendolyn and Fonzie, live in Harlem and the Bronx, but things happen in Brooklyn and Queens as well.

AmNews: There’s something in there about the Brooklyn Museum, right?

CAH: Yeah, exactly, exactly. I live close to the Brooklyn Museum and I kind of wanted to do something where the New York I know and love, and sometimes struggle with, is front and center. One of my publishing colleagues noted that New York itself is a character in the book, and that was important to me.

AmNews: Is there anything beyond that that makes New York, in your estimation, a compelling character in its own right?

CAH: So many things. One of my favorite things about New York is that there are people from all over the world here. Even though I would argue that there are so many communities, and still so much separation, segregation, but once you get folks who are mixing it up in terms of where they work, having to take public transportation, where they shop, where they go to be entertained, I just think it creates something that’s quite unique and beautiful. For the novel, the New York that I really wanted to pay attention to was this New York that was created by Black folks, whether they’re Black folks who have had roots in America for generations from the South, to Black and Brown immigrants or the children of immigrants, which is where I come in. The lens through which I view New York is what I wanted to present on the page, so it’s a particular type of sensibility when it comes to everything, from how you move through the streets, to fashion, to food, to language, to humor. That’s what I

wanted to get in there, so, yeah, it’s a particular lens. Sometimes it’s a lens with the changing demographic of New York in which I remember these things just being in the ether and now sometimes I feel like I need to search a little bit for them.

AmNews: To what extent are you sort of sitting in front of your computer and these images and these characters are coming to you, and to what extent are you trolling the streets of New York and you’re seeing stuff happen and that’s giving you ideas?

CAH: Thank you for the question. It’s both. Some of it’s in my head, some of it’s in my heart, and my memories that I’m drawing from.

Some of it is exactly what you said, like being on the street and then paying attention to what feels the most compelling. Sometimes, the most compelling can be the most repulsive, like the vermin problem in this city, so the main character, whenever she has a big event, she absolutely refuses to take the subway because she can’t deal with the rats. That’s inspired by what I deal with every time I get on the subway …

AmNews: That’s real!

CAH: Yeah! Also, paying attention to styles of dress. The main character — how she presents herself to the world, it’s really important to her, so I think, initially, there’ll be an assumption that, Ah, this is someone who is glamorous, and perhaps there’s

‘Joy Goddess’

Continued from page 28

Bundles describes how, later, Dr. Jackson met with a sad fate. Still hopelessly alcoholic, married and divorced twice more for writing illegal prescriptions and peddling morphine tablets, he wound up imprisoned at Leavenworth. He died in 1945 in a psychiatric ward for federal felons.

Going through the book, be sure not to miss either the end notes or another Bundles’ coda, titled, “What Became of the People Who Were Closest to A’Lelia Walker?” Both sections are packed with golden nuggets of information, like

Dr. Gordon’s demise, hidden in the back. How one wishes some of these arresting details had been fitted in earlier, better explaining what was going on. Overall, “Joy Goddess, A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance” is just the kind of record of African American exceptionalism that’s needed most now. Together, over the span of a century and a half and more, Bundles and all the other Walker women, have acted to explode the white supremacist lie: that in America, Black-white wealth disparity is solely due to a lack of trying. Bundles’ commendable “Joy Goddess” indicates that even working longer and harder, African Americans still always earn less.

Harlem books

Continued from page 27

American presence even be possible to maintain?

Optimistically, he posits that because of Black institutions, like the Schomburg, a Black historical imprint will endure. Perhaps underestimating commercial and political manipulation, he hopes that because of Black ownership of Harlem property, resources will enable Blacks to enrich wherever we might move on to in the future.

“Harlem Shuffle” by Colson Whitehead (New York: Doubleday, 2021) and “Crook Manifesto” by Colson Whitehead (New

only one way to know. What most makes it worth learning is that this narrative is our story too.

“The Street” by Ann Petry (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1946)

Seeking greater understanding about how things were in post-WWII Harlem? Heroin addicts nodding in hopelessness, good girls dreaming, landlords scheming, misogyny, racism, elitism, and betrayal, are all to be found in this novel set on 116th Street; the first work of fiction by a Black woman to sell over a million copies.

“When Harlem Was in Vogue” by David Levering Lewis (New York: Knopf, 1981)

like sexuality in an unsensational way, he deemed them to be okay. Most of all, a great deal about Harlem’s creativity and continuity can be found here.

Mercy of a Rude Stream. Volume 2: A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park by Henry Roth (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994)

(New York: Columbia University Press, 2015)

York: Doubleday 2023)

The first two books of Colson Whitehead’s projected Harlem Trilogy. Disguised as a thrilling romp, what Whitehead actually presents, an existential examination of how race and resources can profoundly impact society’s power dynamic. Set as Harlem is succumbing to indifference, it falls apart between 1959 and 1964 and then into the 1970s. This family’s saga, with one honest man’s desire for prosperity and community regard, leads to an all-out battle between temptation and propriety.

How will it all turn out? There’s

A fascinating account of the irony of unintended consequences. The same racism designating Harlem as the destination of Great Migration refugees, fleeing alike from Southern tyranny and Caribbean economic decline, fostered artistic and intellectual creativity as well. So vast a quantity of new residents assured a large number who were exceedingly talented. Drawn out from former isolation, concentrated strategically to form relationships enriching to the New Negro Movement, as never before African Americans advanced to our nation’s cultural and social vanguard. With Jarvis Anderson and others, Lewis was not only among the first to reveal that cultural catalysts like Langston Hughes, Edna Thomas, Wallace Thurman, and Ethel Waters were gay, but by treating issues

Part of Roth’s masterpiece trilogy, this story began during the Great Depression. Because of writer’s block, neither it nor the final book was completed for another forty years. Fictionalized autobiography, no other source better portrays an extraordinary era, when Harlem was made up of four competitive communities of different ethnicities: Jewish, white Christian, Italian, and African American. Each enclave had its own distinct character and customs. There were separate Y’s, houses of worship, and shopping thoroughfares in each section. But with dreams of self-improvement offered by City College as common ground, intimidation and cooperation assured for, a more peaceful, coexistence.

“Epic Harlem: A Narrative History by Herb Boyd” (New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming)

Get the perspective of life-long, long-term journalist and Harlem observer, Boyd and find out what he thinks it is that makes Harlem tick, and if it will be the same without Black cultural continuity.

“Race and Real Estate: Conflict and Cooperation in Harlem, 1890-1920” by Kevin McGruder

Due to property owners not paying the water rates or property tax they owed, as of 1990, the city of New York had come to own fully two-thirds of all of Harlem’s housing. Would it surprise you then, to learn, how less than a century prior, the same sort of dialectic of racism, redlining, and greed, were what caused Harlem to change from white to Black, almost overnight? There is no finer or more thorough explanation about how it all happened than this.

“Manchild in the Promised Land” by Claude Brown (New York: Macmillan, 1965) A dramatized autobiographical account of life on Harlem’s meanest street, 145th Street in the Valley.

Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes (1965)

A wild comic tale of dope deals and double-cross.

“Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto, Negro New York, 1890-1930” by Gilbert Osofsky (New York: Harper and Row, 1966) Harlem from white to Black and rich to poor, when and why.

“Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 19001968” by Allon Schoener (New York: Random House, 1968) Harlem in pictures and Amsterdam News clips. The pictures of beautifully dressed, proud Black Harlemites by James Van Der Zee changed the life of a 13-year-old me in Akron, Ohio.

Third annual Black Authors Festival celebrates ‘Power of Literacy’

By MARIELLE ARGUEZA Special to the AmNews

Darlene Williams is no stranger to the world of authorship. Williams has been a published author several times over, most notably with her 2021 publication of “The Higher Level Method,” in which she collected stories of successful women and gleaned pieces of wisdom from their wins. But her success in writing and publishing would mean nothing if she couldn’t uplift others in the process. “I wanted to do something bigger than myself.”

Inspired by conversations with her husband, Maurice Williams — a system-involved youth who taught himself to read — and immersing herself in the statistics of youth literacy amongst Black children, she found her calling. “But in particular, Black boys. So when we talk about the importance of literacy, we’re talking about the futures of Black boys who become Black men,” said Williams.

Since its inception, the Black Authors Festival has grown from a modest gathering to a weekendlong celebration of Black literature, culture, and community empowerment. “It started really small, just a few authors and a handful of people. Now, it’s become a full weekend of events with workshops, panels, and community givebacks,” Williams shared.

This year’s festival continues that growth and has a theme of “the Power of Literacy,” and for the first time, it will raise money for Maurice’s nonprofit, A Father’s Love, which supports formerly incarcerated fathers reintegrating into their communities. The festival will also partner with the Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center to support literacy and enrichment programs for local youth.

The 2025 Black Authors Festival will honor an impressive group of

advocates and trailblazers. Honorees include Don Lemon, Sunny Hostin, Marc H. Morial, Alton White Fitzgerald, Harriette Cole, Kendis Gibson, Pamela McBride, Attika J. Torrence, and Cheryl Wills. The festival will also recognize the work of its first youth honoree, Amaryllis Greene, who has made a significant impact in promoting literacy among her peers.

The award ceremony will be hosted by Arrianee LeBeau, familiar to many as the anchor for PIX11’s weekday early evening newscasts.

“Having someone like Arrianee to

Clarence A. Haynes

Continued from page 31

going to be a judgment that she’s on the shallow side, but the more you find out her history, then you begin to understand why certain styles of dress, why presentation is so important to her. For me to make that work, I pay attention to what folks are wearing, I pay attention to attire I find to be elegant and alluring and beautiful. It’s really a mixture of walking around and absorbing things and what’s in my heart and what pops up in my memory and shines.

host really brings a sense of community and visibility to the festival,” said Williams.

Williams is adamant about the importance of literacy as a tool of empowerment, especially in the face of increasing book bans that disproportionately affect stories by and about Black people. “When you start banning books, you’re not just limiting stories. You’re limiting futures,” Williams explained. “Literacy is freedom. It’s the key that unlocks potential and opportunity, especially for Black boys who need to see themselves reflected in the sto-

AmNews: Is there anything else for the uninitiated? Most people reading this interview will not have had a chance to read the book yet. Is there anything else you want to signpost — something that they should look out for without giving away what happens?

CAH: Yes. Two things: One is, pay attention to details. Details

ries they read

The Black Authors Festival stands as a direct response to these challenges, using literature to inspire, educate, and resist censorship.

“This festival is about more than books,” Williams said. “It’s about community, culture, and creating space where Black voices can be celebrated, heard, and preserved.”

Looking ahead, Williams sees the Black Authors Festival as a continuing force for change and community empowerment. “Our goal is to keep expanding — more voices, more stories, more resources —

matter. Sometimes it may seem like I’m presenting what I hope will be perceived as a rich scenery to help the reader immerse themselves in the world. With some descriptions. I’ll eventually reveal why certain details are specifically important. Then, there is a lot of desire. I think one thing that’s important to me as a writer, and then

so that the next generation understands the importance of literacy not just as a skill, but as a tool for self-expression and social justice.” She stressed the festival’s role in creating a safe space where Black authors and readers can connect without fear of censorship or marginalization. “You can tell my story, I can tell your story. But it’s important we learn and teach kids how to tell our own stories in our own words,” she said.

For more info on the Black Authors Festival, visit blackauthorsfestival.com.

what is coming through from some early readers, is that it’s a sensual text. Even though it’s spooky and there are things that definitely would be considered part of the horror genre, It’s also pretty sexy. I wanted to explore how characters navigate their sensuality and their desire if they have stuff that’s unresolved from their past.

Darlene Williams with ABC7’s Shirleen Allicot (Contributed photos) Darlene Williams, President, Black Authors Festival

A selection of summer self-help books to savor

By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews

In her career, Nana K. Twumasi, vice president and publisher of Balance, part of the Hachette Book Group, has found great satisfaction in exploring issues of health and wellness. She seeks out a diverse range of authors whose work is steeped in research, education, and innovation. Balance books cover a range of practical nonfiction topics, and in moments of reflection this summer, readers may find inspiration, information, and motivation from them.

“There are people who are really looking to solve actual problems in their lives, whether that’s mental or physical or relationship or whatever, and I wanted to be able to improve on the information that people had access to,” said Twumasi.

Balance books address a diverse range of readers, but they also account for different cultural and life experiences. Some are specifically designed for Black audiences. Twumasi has a genuine connection with wanting to provide resources for people often left out from conversations about these topics.

“The more you know, the better informed you are, the better choices you can make for yourself,” said Twumasi of how these reads may be enlightening. “Reading is important. Reading is how you learn. It’s why I do what I do. I love books; I love language. Books are not going anywhere. It’s important that we continue to understand that and to engage with them.”

Here are some must-see titles for the season.

“Black Girls Breathing” by Jasmine Marie

This is a guide to harnessing the power of breathwork, moving toward healing and rebuilding a sense of self.

“The compounding stress leads to poor health outcomes, which, as is common knowledge, tend to affect Black women the most — like chronic fatigue, high blood pressure, and heart disease,” said Twumasi. “This book is the permission to breathe. It’s OK to take care of yourself, and with consistency and practice, doing so will feel less indulgent and more like a well-deserved respite.”

“Consumed” by Aja Barber

“Consumed” examines how and why we buy what we buy, how it’s created, who benefits, and how we can solve the problems created by a wasteful system.

“The most important takeaway from this book is that the system responds to us,” said Twumasi. “Our actions as consumers have a direct effect on economics and the environment, and it’s not as difficult as we

think to make small changes in our habits that lead to collective change.”

“Living in Wisdom” by Devi Brown

Sometimes trauma can keep people from seeing and embracing the good in life and celebrating successes, achievements, and positive relationships. This is a guide to getting unstuck, relieving internal suffering, and harnessing your power for true personal growth.

“Those who are interested in spiritual practices like yoga and mudras to enhance meditation will find this [book] appealing,” said Twumasi. “It offers techniques like breathwork, self-massage, journaling, and recapitulation. The goal is to heal your life while living it and learn from life while enjoying it.”

“Playing a New Game: A Black Woman’s Guide to Being Well and Thriving in the Workplace” by Dr. Tammy Lewis Wilborn

Drawing on first-hand clinical insight and scientific research, this book offers advice about how women of color can achieve their professional goals without sacrificing physical, mental, and emotional wellness.

“Continually proving our worth in the workplace can be exhausting and ultimately detrimental to our health,” said Twumasi. “Dr. Wilborn offers strategies for the ambitious Black woman who strives to get ahead with a roadmap to success while also preserving their well-being.”

“How to Find True Love” by Francesca Hogi

An award-winning dating coach and matchmaker presents a practical guide for those searching for true love who are willing to empower themselves to find it.

“Francesca Hogi’s key message is that your mindset matters; thinking bigger about love and expanding your definition of true love makes finding it that much easier, and this certainly extends to platonic relationships,” Twumasi said. “The world is too hard a place for us to exist in it alone.”

“The Empowered Hysterectomy: Your Complete Guide to Diagnosis, Decision, and Treatment” by Dr. Kameelah Phillips

This is a comprehensive, inclusive, and accessible guide to uterine health and, if necessary, a hysterectomy.

“Over half a million women in the U.S. undergo surgery for hysterectomy each year,” Twumasi said. “This is almost doubly important for Black women, whose pain is most often dismissed by the medical establishment, even though they are more likely to suffer from fibroids [in addition to other uterine conditions] … The more knowledge you have, the better able you are to ask questions to better understand your options and make an informed decision.”

A Spirited Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre returns to the Brooklyn Academy Of Music June 5-8

By ZITA ALLEN Special to the AmNews

This summer, June 5-8, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (AAADT) returns to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) with a program that includes a world premiere from renowned choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar in collaboration with two outstanding Ailey dancers, Samantha Figgins and Chalvar Monteiro. The program also features Elisa Monte’s “Treading,” a mesmerizing duet set to music by Steve Reich, Ronald K. Brown’s “Grace,” a spellbinding dance journey to the promised land, and Alvin Ailey’s timeless masterpiece “Revelations.” The AAADT’s long-standing relationship with BAM dates back to 1969 when the trailblazing choreographer established The Ailey School in Brooklyn and presented his company’s first BAM performances.

The summer program is part of the AAADT’s 2024-2025 season celebrating the life and legacy of Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison, and includes works that highlight both Ailey’s and Jamison’s genius and generosity. For instance, Zollar, who recently completed 40 years at the helm of Urban Bush Women and is Ailey’s 2025 Artist-in-Residence, was first introduced to Ailey audiences during the company’s 1992 season when Jamison asked her to stage “Shelter,” her outstanding and poignant dance about the homeless. Since then, Zollar has had other works mounted on the Ailey company, and this year is creating “The Holy Blues” in collaboration with two brilliant longtime AAADT dancers Figgins and Monteiro.

“The Holy Blues” is inspired by the Ring Shout (the circular dance originating from Central and West Africa) and The Door of No Return (the final point of departure of enslaved Africans kidnapped and transported across what scholar Paul Gilroy calls the Black Atlantic), which serve as both metaphors and memories of the lived experience of past generations. Zollar points to Dionne Brand’s book ”A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging,” which states, “This door is not mere physicality. It is a spiritual location. It is also perhaps a psychic destination. Since leaving was never voluntary, return was, and still may be, an intention, however deeply buried. There is, as it says, no way in; no return.”

In a recent interview with the AmNews, Zollar discussed the new work for Ailey, saying, “The title ‘The Holy Blues’ came from the Ailey exhibit at the Whitney Museum. There was a quote in one of Mr. Ailey’s journals where he talked about influences from the South and used this term ‘Holy Blues.’ I was intriguesd and looked it up and learned that there was this genre of music that was the bringing together of the sacred and the secular with the secular blues reentering through gospel music.

In African American culture the sacred and the secular are intertwined. Then, there is also the idea of the rupture, the kidnapping of a people and the door of no return, which I have seen in Senegal. You understand that something happened, something powerful — the rupture that resulted in our creation or re-creation trying to find wholeness,” a healing. The Ring Shout, and the Holy Blues opened a door.

Zollar says that while her most recent works have been evening-length dances or performances pieces, she welcomed the opportunity to work with Samantha and Chalvar using her collaborative teamwork process to create a work for the Ailey rep. The team includes a dramaturge (Cheri Stokes) and Vincent Thomas, who is her assistant director. “I decided to look at my role as director, working with Chalvar and Samantha. They’re so talented,” Zollar says, adding that the two Ailey dancers have thrown themselves into her demanding creative process which includes research, discussion, experimentation, as well as storyboarding. “It’s the way I work now,” Zollar says. Together, this team explored ideas re-

volving around the Ring Shout, praise dancing, and the Holy Blues. Citing movement as a form of prayer, Zollar shared, “I’ve been interested in these different prayer states for a very long time …. Falling prayer is like you’re falling, you’re looking for direction. The fervent prayer state is when you’re pleading, asking over and over, ‘Lord, please help me, help me, please.’ Then you have what I call the Hallelujah, or the Holy Ghost prayer. It’s like you’re in the spirit.” At the heart of all of these forms of prayer is a powerful sense of community. “It’s the foundation of our recovery, our processing the initial rupture, that experience of being stolen,” Zollar says, explaining that the shouting in the Ring Shout is a form of testimony. “When I talk about testimony, it’s bearing witness to someone’s truth.”

The fact that Zollar can mount this type of work on the AAADT, she feels, is a testament to the beauty of the company that Alvin Ailey created and Judith Jamison sustained. “Mr. Ailey’s vision [was] that people could go from the dances found in the blues clubs to ballet, from Rennie Harris to Ron Brown to Wayne McGregor, and we

know that companies like Philadanco and others are modeled on that same idea. I think the Ailey company is really special, and Mr. Ailey’s understanding that the dancing experience needed to be broad, big, and beautiful. For me, doing a work on the AAADT is like coming home. And in July, I start an Artist-in-Residence at Ailey.” That breadth is reflected in a BAM program which, in addition to Zollar’s “Holy Blues,” includes Elisa Monte’s “Treading,” a sculptural, mesmerizing duet first performed at New York City Center in 1981, which the New York Times declared “gives lovers of fine dancing much to marvel at.” It is also brilliantly evident in Ronald K. Brown’s spellbinding “Grace,” the fervent tour-de-force depicting individuals on a journey to the promised land. As in many of Brown’s works, the movement alternates fluidly between extremes, with eruptions of power coupled with lightness. A serene solo for an angel-like figure in white gives way to fireball intensity, as 12 dancers resembling contemporary warriors who execute Brown’s whirling, pounding choreography — arms and legs slicing the air and fingers pointing to the sky. Brown’s varied music choices closely reflect the heart of the work, with the spiritual grounding of Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday,” the contemporary yet timeless house music vibe of Peven Everett’s “Gabriel,” and the West African and African American traditions of Fela Kuti’s Afropop beats. And, what would an AAADT program be without “Revelations.” Performed to spirituals, song-sermons, gospel songs, and holy blues, Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations” fervently explores the places of deepest grief and holiest joy in the soul. More than just a popular dance work, it has become a cultural treasure, beloved by generations of fans. Seeing “Revelations” for the first time or the hundredth can be a transcendent experience, with audiences cheering, singing along, and dancing in their seats from the opening notes of the plaintive “I Been ’Buked” to the rousing “Wade in the Water” and the triumphant finale, “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham.”

Mr. Ailey said that one of America’s richest treasures was the African American cultural heritage — “sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant, but always hopeful.” This enduring classic is a tribute to that tradition, born out of the choreographer’s “blood memories” of his childhood in rural Texas and the Baptist Church. Since its premiere in 1960, the ballet has been performed continuously around the globe, transcending barriers of faith and nationality, and appealing to universal emotions, making it the most widely seen modern dance work in the world. This summer’s BAM program will take audiences on a rich spiritual journey. For more info, visit ailey. org and bam.org/ailey.

AAADT’s Chalvar Monteiro in Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations.” (Paul Kolnik photo)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Ronald K. Brown’s “Grace.” (Danica Paulos photo)

By CHARMAINE PATRICIA WARREN

Special

to the AmNews

The Tabula Rasa Dance Theater tops this month’s dance calendar with an evening titled “Sin Fronteras – No Borders,” “…a bold contemporary dance program inspired by the heritage and lived experiences of Mexicans in both their homeland and across borders. Featured will be ‘Border of Lights’ and the world premiere of ‘Escaramuza.’ ‘Sin Fronteras – No Borders’ proposes that Mexicans, wherever they go, carry no borders. Through movement, music, costume, lighting, and the body, this production explores how cultural identity transcends geographical boundaries while drawing on the collective and individual memories that shape and enrich the immigrant experience,” according to the release. Performances will run June 20–22 at El Museo del Barrio.

For more information, visit tabularasadancetheater.com.

Also this month

June 5–8: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to BAM with a program that includes “Holy Blues,” the world premiere by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar in collaboration with Samantha Figgins and Chalvar Mon-

teiro, Elisa Monte’s “Treading,” Ronald K. Brown’s “Grace,” and Ailey’s iconic “Revelations.” This program is part of the Company’s 2024–2025 season celebrating the life and legacy of Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison.

For more information, visitbam.org.

June 9: Danspace Project’s Platform series continues with a conversation, part of the year-long celebration of their 50th anniversary. The conversation will feature Judy Hussie-Taylor, Danspace Program director, and associate curator Seta Morton, plus some of the artists who have curated the series in recent years, including Okwui Okpokwasili, Eiko Otake, and Reggie Wilson.

For more information, visitdanspaceproject.org/.

June 12: Artist and engineer Johann Diedrick organized “If the stars align ...,” an OPEN STUDIOS program inspired by Samuel L. Delany’s novel “Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.” Diedrick invited artists with works in development, including Rena Anakwe, Sonic Liberation Devices, and Femi Shonuga-Fleming.

For more information, visit cprnyc.org.

June 13–14: The Chocolate Factory Theater concludes its spring 2025 season with the

premiere of “Tacos de Lengua,” a new, evening-length performance by Martita Abril, “...in an exploration of her — and our — relationship to border life, and its distortions, contradictions, oppressions, and deep emotional resonance,” according to the release.

For more information, visit chocolatefactorytheater.org/.

June 13–14: Eiko Otake and DonChristian Jones will premiere “SOAK,” a place-specific work created at Harlem Stage that is part of Otake’s ongoing Duet Project: Distance is Malleable, an evolving series of experiments in collaboration. In “ SOAK,” they explore water as a shared origin, and the body as rivers of memories.

For more information, visit harlemstage.org.

June 18: At Baryshnikov Arts, artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov continues the 20th anniversary year of “IN CONVERSATION WITH MERCE: New Arrangements,” with choreography by Merce Cunningham, one on film and three performed live, offering an opportunity to revisit and reimagine work spanning five decades.

For more information, visit baryshnikovarts.org.

June 20–21: Miro Magloire’s New Chamber Ballet will present two world pre -

— “I Wonder” and “In Between” — plus repertory works, at the Mark Morris Dance Center.

For more information, visit newchamberballet.com.

June 26: At Abrons Arts Center, IV Castellanos is part of the Kinstillatory Mappings in Light and Dark Matter series by Emily Johnson and Kai Recollet. Castellanos’s “… practice prioritizes skill sharing and creating space for queer, trans, and diasporic Indigenous communities and people of color,” said the release.

For more information, visit abronsartscenter.org.

June 26–29: WHITE WAVE Dance will present the 24th season of the DUMBO Dance Festival, showcasing 45 dance companies combining over 400 artists nationally and internationally at the Mark O’Donnell Theater.

For more information, visit whitewavedance.org.

June 27–28: The Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center will present “A Ramp to Paradise,” a dance narrative paying tribute to Paradise Garage, the underground Black gay dance club that revolutionized nightlife and music culture, at the Ailey Citigroup Theater.

For more information, visit thelmahill.org.

mieres

Tabula Rasa Dance Theater in “Border of Lights.” (Paula Lobo photo)

Beyoncé blends genres on ‘Cowboy Carter’ tour

By BRENIKA BANKS Special to the AmNews

Music genres seemingly blend to Beyoncé’s will during the “Cowboy Carter” tour. The singer already informed the world that “this ain’t a country album, this is a ‘Beyoncé’ album” before its March 2024 release. Now, “this ain’t a country tour, it’s a Beyoncé tour” is printed on official Cowboy Carter tour merchandise. Another shirt declares the tour a “RODEO CHITLIN’ CIRCUIT TOUR.”

The global star finished her shows at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey last week. MetLife Stadium confirmed on their official Facebook page that Beyoncé sold out all five shows, becoming the stadium’s number-one selling artist in history. Additional reports said her highest box office numbers are over $70 million from the performances.

This Beyoncé tour delves into the history and complexities of country music. Right before the release of the “Cowboy Carter” album, she said on Instagram that this project was five years in the making. “It was born out of an experience that I had years ago where I did not feel welcomed … and it was very clear that I wasn’t,” Beyoncé posted.

Her fans, the “BeyHive,” have suspected Beyoncé’s negative experience came after performing “Daddy Lessons” with the Chicks at the 2016 CMA Awards. Beyoncé received criticism from social media users, and her performance was not uploaded to CMA’s website. Beyoncé also said on IG that she had been deeply studying the history of country music while unpacking its “rich” archive.

“Genres are a funny little concept, aren’t they?” asked Linda Martell, one of the first commercially successful Black females in country music. “In theory, they have a simple definition that’s easy to understand, but in practice, well, some may feel con-

fined.” Martell is described as a “pioneering force” and acclaimed as the “unsung hero” of country music. Her thoughts were conveyed on “SPAGHETTII,” a track from “Cowboy Carter.”

“I ain’t no regular singer, now come get everythin’ you came for,” Beyoncé sings on “SPAGHETTII.” “The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me,” she said via IG during the album release statement. “Act II is a result of challenging myself and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.”

The tour features Beyoncé and her crew blending country with hip hop, R&B, soul, funk, gospel, and more. The headliner opened her show with “AMERIICAN REQUIEM,” where she sang, “They used to say I spoke too country/Then the rejection came, said I wasn’t country ’nough.”

Digital Creator Tierra Daubon, who was present during the night four New Jersey show, called Beyoncé’s genre blending “revolutionary and necessary.” “Beyoncé is reclaiming what’s always belonged to us,” said Daubon. “Country music, rock music — all of it has Black roots — she’s reminding the world of that and doing it on her terms.”

The “Cowboy Carter” show continued with Beyoncé’s version of “BLACKBIIRD,” originally a Beatles song performed by Paul McCartney. McCartney told Today.com that he wrote the song particularly about young Black women during the Civil Rights Movement. “Take these broken wings and learn to fly,” Beyoncé sings. Her rock version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” accompanied by the American flag, sends a powerful statement from Black enslaved descendants reclaiming what’s theirs — country music and their power.

Beyoncé’s team smartly paced the entertainer for a two-hour and 45-minute show,

assembled in different sections. These breaks provided opportunities for videos of Black American poets and musicians, and of Black experiences in the U.S., to be displayed. Other video breaks included Beyoncé depicting various characters, notably a strip tease where she is the woman

performing and the “man” enjoying it. Night four of the “Cowboy Carter” tour co-starred rain, although it made for a dramatic, cinematic effect. The light rain complemented “FLAMENCO” as the singer

See COWBOY CARTER on page 46

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Beyoncé and her daughters Blue Ivy and Rumi Carter performing “PROTECTOR” on Wed. May 28. (Brenika Banks photos)

Beyoncé on stage at the MetLife Stadium during Night Four on Wed. May 28.

Vision Festival, Ahmed Abdullah, Rene Mclean

As we celebrate the month of June as Black Music Month, it’s pertinent to acknowledge that Black music, since its first note, has been a voice of the people, a drum of awareness, the in-the-moment soundtrack of America’s stained society of deceitful rhetoric.

Black musicians composed and played inventive music that freed their minds and spirits, and enchanted American audiences. In the midst of such creativity and musical contributions, they were obligated to use the rear entrances of performance venues, were unable to socialize in these venues, had to eat in the kitchen or on the bus, and the possibility of being lynched was a lingering reality. Black music is revolutionary not because of its creative magic but in spite of it. Black musicians have created a form of music or categorical genres that have influenced the world.

Their creativity came during the most precarious periods of their lives. They dared to create and perform music they loved that is revolutionary. Their inventive sounds, rhythms, lyrics, and melodies are the moving, dancing, singing, clapping, crying, shouting realities of Black life in America. It’s a continuous [long-playing] always-live soundtrack that has played through call and response, race music, gospel, blues, doo wop, R&B, negro spirituals, bebop, hard bop, hip hop, avant garde, jazz, swing big bands, and everything in between.

Now, in this 21st century, an evil caricature known as the Red Baron, an overambitious authoritarian demagogue, sits in the White House. His sick desire is to obliterate American democracy. He uses his pen daily as a demolition tool (signing numerous executive orders) to annihilate Black institutions and extinguish any resources that reflect the immense historical and current contributions Black American people have made to this country.

As the Red Baron invades, people must band together to speak out, or, as we celebrate Black Music Month, refer to the Sly & the Family Stone album’s title song “Stand”

(Epic Records, 1969): “Stand for the things you know are right / It’s the truth that the truth makes them so uptight / Stand, all the things you want are real / You have you to complete and there is no deal.”

As it relates to the attempted demise of Black history, there is Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise”: “You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”

The only propelled journey into uncharted territory is the annual Vision Festival (June 2–7), now in its 29th year. It is perhaps the only jazz festival that actively confronts America’s societal injustices while celebrating Black multicultural, improvised creative arts. It showcases experimental music, dance, poetry, and visual arts with a heavy emphasis on improvisation.

On June 2, Vision 2025’s “heART to RESIST” will open with a celebration of the Lifetime of Achievement honoree Roscoe Mitchell.

The native of Chicago is one of the city’s most inventive musicians and a founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). In more than 60 years of performing, composing, and improvising,

this creative genius continues to push his own artistic boundaries in music and as a visual artist.

More than 100 all-star artists will take audiences on a stratospheric journey where music swings beyond the stars. Some of those artists will include Roscoe Mitchell, Nicole Mitchell, Hamid Drake, Olive Lake, William Parker, Matthew Shipp, Mary Halvorson, Marilyn Crispell, DoYeon Kim, Miriam Parker, and Pheeroan.

The festival will close June 7 with bassist and composer William Parker’s Healing Message from Time & Space, featuring an all-star band.

“In this time of real fear that the freedoms and security that we took for granted are being stolen, all Americans need to have the ‘Heart to Resist,’” said Vision founder/director Patricia Nicholson. “Holding onto the legacy of freedom and its struggle, we the organizers and the artists aim to inspire and empower resistance. We will bring the Healing Force of the Universe and the creative spirit of this incredible lineup of exceptional artists, to lend our strength and stand up to those who would destroy what was good in America.”

For a complete schedule and tickets, visit artsforart.org or roulette. org. All events take place at Roulette

Spirit of Ra) concert, as the name implies, will feature music of Sun Ra and of the African Diaspora.

For this special performance, there will also be a celebration of Malcolm X and Medgar Evers, both of whose centennials are this year.

The concert will take place at the Soapbox Gallery (636 Dean Street in Brooklyn). For more info, visit onebreathrising.org.

Multi-reed instrumentalist and flutist Rene McLean has been absent from the performance stage for two years due to health issues. His recent triumphant performance at his favorite jazz spot, Sistas’ Place in Brooklyn, electrified the audience. The fiery sparks were a group effort with his longstanding ensemble: trumpeter Josh Evans, drummer Winard Harper, pianist Hubert Eaves III, saxophonist Antoine Roney, and bassist Matt Dwonsyzk.

Intermedium (507 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn).

Trumpeter, composer, and author Ahmed Abdullah is an acclaimed bandleader and composer who played a major role in the jazz loft scene on in lower Manhattan during the 1960s–’70s (a community collaborative of primary Black musicians who created their own destiny through establishing their music venues [lofts] and creating other outlets to share their music).

However, his reputation will hinge on his significant role as a musician with the innovative galaxy bandleader Sun Ra Arkestra. He performed intermittently with Sun Ra from 1975 until Sun Ra’s transition in 1993. He continued working with the Arkestra under the leadership of John Gilmore and later Marshall Allen.

On June 8, Abdullah’s One Breath Rising will begin the celebration of its 10th year of existence with Ahmed Abdullah’s Diaspora, which will feature vocalist/poet Monique Ngozi Nri, saxophonist Don Rodney Chapman, pianist D.D. Jackson, bassist Norbert Marius, multi-percussionist Warren Trae Crudup, and Abdullah on trumpet, flugelhorn, and vocals.

The Diaspora (Dispersions of the

After approaching the stage to a standing ovation, McLean introduced the band and allowed them to share reflections about his influential father, alto saxophonist, composer, and educator Jackie McLean. After a few Jackie/Rene tidbits, the sextet jumped into the evening’s celebration of Jackie’s birthday and his legacy.

Rene kicked off the opening tune, a John Coltrane jewel: “Resolution.” His distinctive warm tone, understated riffs, and timing were all there, not as powerful, but permeating the room. The Sistas’ audience response of shouts and hollas let him and the band know, “I feel you, I feel the music, it’s burning.”

Sailing on the groove, Rene counted off “Little Melonae,” a fast-paced hard bop original by his dad. Rene put it in the pocket with his spirited flavor of Lower East Side swing. The song appears on “Jackie McLean and Donald Byrd: The Ultimate Jazz Archives 32 (3 of 4).”

Rene is back on the scene, swingin’ hard and getting better each day; that’s what music warriors do — they keep rising, playing music for the soul! He has more gigs coming up, so stay tuned.

For Black Music Month, we will be suggesting various genres of Black music for you to experience. This week, try listening to the classic title track “Message in the Music,” by The O’Jays (Philadelphia International Records, 1976), which, through its lyrics, is “trying to make you understand why you do the boogie.”

Roscoe Mitchell (Eva Kapanadze photo)

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ARIAMA C. LONG, AMSTERDAM NEWS POLITICAL REPORTER

In Uganda, an affordable alternative to dirt floors is a big boost to

By DIANA TAREMWA KARAKIRE Associated Press

JINJA, Uganda — Simon Tigawalana dreamed for years of doing something about the dirt floors in his small house, blaming them for making his family sick. But in a rural area in one of the world’s poorest countries, making them over with concrete was simply out of reach.

Then a company called EarthEnable approached him to offer an alternative: a claybased earthen floor that could give him a durable, sealed floor for less than half the cost of concrete. Tigawalana now has the new floor in two rooms and hopes to add it soon in the last room.

“I’m happy that we now have a decent home and can also comfortably host visitors,” said Tigawalana, a 56-year-old father of 16. “Ever since we got a clay floor my kids no longer get cough and flu that used to come from the dust raised while sweeping the dirt floors.”

EarthEnable, which seeks to upgrade housing across Africa, has been promoting and installing the clay-based floors in Uganda since 2017. Besides eliminating dust that can irritate breathing, they’re credited

human health

with reducing infestations of jiggers — a parasitic flea that can burrow into the skin and lead to pain, itching and infection. Uganda’s health ministry says poor hygiene due to dirt floors contributes to such infestations.

“Our floors help to prevent pathogens and other illnesses linked to dust floors, since most of these families can’t afford hospital care,” said Noeline Mutesi, a sales and marketing manager for EarthEnable.

How the floors are built

The first step in building the floor is digging and leveling the surface. Then murram — local red soil rich in iron and aluminum oxides — is mixed with sand and water and then compacted. After two weeks of drying time, masons use wooden floats to smooth and further compact the surface. Next is pasting: applying a fine clay screed to further smooth the surface and prepare it for a final sealant, a flaxseed-based varnish that hardens into a durable plastic-like resin. A typical floor costs around 240,000 Uganda shillings (about $65), which Earth Enable says is about 70% cheaper than concrete. Buyers can pay in installments. EarthEnable, a U.S.-based nonprofit, op-

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Simon Tigawalana shows dirt that used to make up his home’s floor, before getting a claybased earthen floor by a company called EarthEnable in Jinja, Uganda. (AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda)

erates for-profit subsidiaries in Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya, and says any profits are invested into startup costs in new markets as well as research and development.

EarthEnable said it’s installed about 5,000 floors in Uganda, more than 39,000 in Rwanda and more than 100 in Kenya. The company also does wall plastering to help reduce dust, moisture and insect infestations common in mud homes.

In Jinja, the company’s program employs more than 100 masons from within the community. Many are disadvantaged boys who have dropped out of school because they can’t afford fees, said Alex Wanda, a construction officer at the company.

“We focus on employing these young village boys that we train in skills to build these earthen floors, thus creating for them employment opportunities,” Wanda said in an interview.

About 42% of Ugandans live in extreme poverty. Its Bureau of Statistics says the country has a housing deficit of 2.6 million units, and it’s growing. The country needs to add 300,000 housing units per year to make up the deficit, mainly in rural areas, where many Ugandans live and where housing quality and availability remain pressing concerns.

A more sustainable floor than concrete

The company also touts the clay floors as a more sustainable alternative to concrete,

which besides being more expensive generates major carbon emissions in production.

The cement industry is one of Uganda’s biggest contributors to carbon emissions, accounting for about 628,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2023, its highest recorded level. More broadly, building and construction accounts for 37% of global emissions, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Uganda, like much of the rest of the world, has seen a rise in extreme weather events made more likely by climate change, including flooding and prolonged drought.

“Initiatives like this are crucial in the global effort to decarbonize the construction sector,” said Penina Atwine, a program officer at the Uganda-based organization Environmental Alert. “Such innovative local solutions that address both climate change and social needs like EarthEnable’s model could inspire similar approaches across the globe.”

‘Living a better life’ with a cleaner floor

In the village of Budima, Rehema Namukose spent most of her family’s savings to build a house. She couldn’t afford a cleaner floor until she worked through EarthEnable to pay for a clay floor in installments. She lives there with her three children and credits the new floor for improving the health of a sickly daughter.

“This is affordable for my family and will help us maintain hygiene,” she says “We are now living a better life.”

Education

Continued from page 16

a similar decline in school attendance after the inauguration for a few weeks. In most places, attendance rebounded sooner than in Denver.

Nationwide, schools are still reporting drops in daily attendance during weeks when there is immigration enforcement — or even rumors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids — in their communities, said Hedy Chang of the nonprofit Attendance Works, which helps schools address absenteeism.

In late February, González and his wife withdrew their children from school and told administrators they were returning to Venezuela. He posted a goodbye message on a Facebook group for Denver volunteers he used to find work and other help. “Thank you for everything, friends,” he posted.

Immigrant families are gathering documents they need to return home

Countries with large populations living in the United States are seeing signs of more people wanting to return home.

Applications for Brazilian passports from consulates in the U.S. increased 36% in March, compared to the previous year, according to data from the Brazilian Foreign Ministry. Guatemala reports a 5% increase over last year for passports from its nation-

als living in the United States.

Last month, Melvin Josué, his wife and another couple drove four hours from New Jersey to Boston to get Honduran passports for their American-born children.

It’s a step that’s taken on urgency in case these families decide life in the United States is untenable. Melvin Josué worries about what might happen if he or his wife is detained, but lately he’s more concerned with the difficulty of finding work.

Demand for his drywall crew immediately stopped amid the economic uncertainty caused by tariffs. There’s also more reluctance, he said, to hire workers here illegally.

(The Associated Press agreed to use only his first and middle name because he’s in the country illegally and fears being separated from his family.)

“I don’t know what we’ll do, but we may have to go back to Honduras,” he said. “We want to be ready.”

Trump’s offer to pay immigrants to leave and help them with transportation could hasten the departures.

González, now back in Venezuela, says he wouldn’t have accepted the money, because it would have meant registering with the U.S. government, which he no longer trusts. And that’s what he’s telling the dozens of migrants in the U.S. who contact him each week asking the best way home. Go on your own, he tells them. Once you have the cash, it’s much easier going south than it was getting to the U.S. in the first place.

A Message from Manha an Borough President Mark Levine KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

These are terrifying times. My office is here to help. These cut-and-fold cards explain your rights. Cut them out. Carry them. Share them. Be ready if federal agents approach. Call my office if you need help (cards also available on our website including different languages).

Un message du président de l’arrondissement de Manha an Mark Levine CONNAISSEZ VOS DROITS

Ce sont des temps effrayants. Mon bureau est là pour vous aider. Ces cartes decoupables expliquent vos droits. Découpez-les. Apportez-les. Partagezles. Soyez préparé si des agents fédéraux vous approchent. Appelez mon bureau si vous avez besoin d’aide (cartes également disponibles sur notre site Web dans différents langues).

manha anbp.nyc.gov

(212) 531-1609

• Vous avez le droit de ne pas ouvrir la porte si un agent d’immigration arrive.

• You do not have to open the door if an immigration agent knocks on your door.

• Vous avez le droit de garder le silence avant de parler avec un avocat.

• You have the right to remain silent. You do not have to answer any questions from an immigration agent.

• Vous avez le droit de ne pas signer des documents avant de parler avec un avocat.

• You have the right not to sign documents or speak with immigration agents without first speaking with a lawyer

Vous pouvez montrer ce e carte à l’agent d’immigration.

Si vous êtes à l’intérieur de votre domicile, vous pouvez montrer la carte par la fenêtre ou sous la porte.

Les informations fournies ici le sont à titre informatif uniquement et ne constituent pas un avis juridique.

1. I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any document.

• Je ne souhaite pas vous parler, répondre à vos questions, ni signer ou vous reme re aucun document.

2. I do not give you permission to enter my home unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it.

• Je ne vous autorise pas à rentrer dans mon domicile sans mandat d’entrée, signée par un juge ou un magistrat portant mon nom.

3. I do not give you permission to search any of my belongings. • Je ne vous autorise pas à fouiller

VOUS AVEZ DES DROITS CONSTITUTIONNELS! YOU HAVE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS! The information

Religion & Spirituality

Fire at historic Black church in Memphis was intentionally set, investigators say

By ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Press

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A fire that severely damaged a historic Black church that served as the headquarters for a 1968 sanitation workers’ strike, which brought the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, was intentionally set, investigators said Wednesday.

The fire at Clayborn Temple, which was undergoing a years-long renovation, was set in the interior of the church, the Memphis Fire Department said in a statement. Investigators are searching for a person suspected of being involved with the blaze.

Flames engulfed the downtown church in the early hours of April 28. Later that day Memphis Fire Chief Gina Sweat said the inside of the building was a total loss, but there was still hope that some of the facade could be salvaged.

The fire department said May 14 that the building had been stabilized and investigators would use specialized equipment to study the fire’s cause.

“Clayborn Temple is sacred ground — home to generations of struggle, resilience and creativity,” Anasa Troutman, executive director of Historic Clayborn Temple, said Wednesday. “This act of violence is painful, but it will not break our spirit.”

Located just south of the iconic Beale Street, Clayborn Temple was built in 1892 as the Second Presbyterian Church and originally served an all-white congregation. In 1949 the building was sold to an

African Methodist Episcopal congregation and given its current name.

Before the fire, it was in the midst of a $25 million restoration project that aims to preserve the architectural and historical integrity of the Romanesque revival

church, including the revival of a 3,000pipe grand organ. The project also seeks to help revitalize the neighborhood with a museum, cultural programming, and community outreach.

King was drawn to Memphis in 1968 to support some 1,300 predominantly Black sanitation workers who went on strike to protest inhumane treatment. Two workers had been crushed in a garbage compactor in 1964, but the faulty equipment had not been replaced.

On Feb. 1 of that year, two more men, Echol Cole, 36, and Robert Walker, 30, were crushed in a garbage truck compactor. The two were contract workers, so they did not qualify for workers’ compensation, and had no life insurance.

Workers then went on strike seeking to unionize and fighting for higher pay and safer working conditions. City officials declared the stoppage illegal and arrested scores of strikers and protesters.

Clayborn Temple hosted nightly meetings during the strike, and the movement’s iconic “I AM A MAN” posters were made in its basement. The temple was also a staging point for marches to City Hall, including one on March 28, 1968, that was led by King and turned violent when police and protesters clashed on Beale Street. One person was killed.

When marchers retreated to the temple, police fired tear gas inside, and people broke some of the stained-glass windows

to escape. King promised to lead a second, peaceful march in Memphis, but he was shot by a sniper while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel on April 4.

After King was assassinated and the strike ended with the workers securing a pay raise, the church’s influence waned. It fell into disrepair and was vacant for years before the renovation effort, which took off in 2017 thanks to a $400,000 grant from the National Park Service.

Clayborn Temple was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. A memorial to the sanitation workers, named “I AM A MAN Plaza,” opened on church grounds in 2018.

About $8 million had been spent on the renovations before the fire, and the exterior had been fully restored, Troutman said. She said in a recent interview that two chimneys had to be demolished before investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could safely work on the property, but the church organ had been removed before the fire.

As the fire was burning, she said, people went to the “I AM A MAN” memorial and stood at a wall where the names of the striking sanitation workers are listed.

“I watched that wall turn into the Wailing Wall, because people were literally getting out of their cars, walking up to that wall and wailing, staring at the building on fire,” she said.

Firefighters douse the historic Clayborn Temple, a landmark from the Civil Rights Movement with ties to Martin Luther King Jr., with water after it caught fire, April 28, 2025, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Karen Pulfer Focht, File)

A LETTER FROM BLACK CLERGY

COMMUNITY LEADERS ACROSS NYC

We represent a diverse coalition of faith leaders from across New York City who have joined together to express support for the proposed Freedom Plaza development. One of our most important responsibilities as faith leaders is to look after our congregations and community. This transformative project will help revitalize our community, address critical needs, and create a brighter future for all residents and small businesses in the area.

We come from a variety of faith traditions and congregations, and we are united in our belief that Freedom Plaza aligns with our shared value opportunity for New York. This development offers a unique opportunity to address two pressing issues facing our community: the need for economic revitalization and the critical shortage of affordable housing.

Freedom Plaza is poised to boost the New York economy, a prospect that has earned the support of 26 leading labor organizations. As people of faith, we are called to advocate for justice and opportunity for all, especially those struggling to make ends meet. Thus, we strongly align with the project’s anticipated creation of 17,000 full- and part-time union jobs and permanent positions along with generating billions of dollars in economic activity across the region.

We are very pleased with the proposed Community Reinvestment Fund, a cornerstone of the Freedom Plaza project, which is projected to inject over $250 million into our community over the next 20+ years. We understand that these funds will be strategically invested by the community in vital programs and initiatives that would support education, job training, small business development, and community health. Faith teaches us to uplift our communities, and this investment represents a significant commitment to creating pathways to prosperity for all.

Importantly, Freedom Plaza will significantly increase the availability of housing units that families can afford. Safe, stable, and affordable housing is a fundamental right, and too many families in our community struggle to find housing they can afford. This development will create over 1,000 units of new housing, including more than 500 units of affordable housing, providing much-needed relief and offer families the stability they need to thrive.

Freedom Plaza is more than just bricks and mortar; it is an investment in the future of our community. It is a testament to the power of collaboration and a symbol of hope for a brighter tomorrow. We encourage everyone to learn more about this important project and to join us in supporting this thoughtful and meaningful development.

Thank you,

Rev. Walter P. Alston Jr., Senior Pastor, Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church

Rev. Dr. Lisa Jenkins Brown, Senior Pastor, St. Matthews Baptist Church

Rev. Earl B. Chester, Senior Pastor, Greater New Beginning Baptist Church

Ambassador Suzan Johnson Cook, Former United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom

Rev. James Duckett, Senior Pastor, Fort Mott Baptist Church

Rev. Dr. Roger L. Hambrick, Senior Pastor, Green Pasture Baptist Church

Rev. Dr. Frankco J. Harris,Senior Pastor, Mt. Olivet Baptist Church of Hollis

Rev. Adrian Hines, Senior Pastor, Temple of New Beginnings Baptist Church

Rev. Joseph J. Jones, Senior Pastor, Mt. Hermon Baptist Church

Rev. Carl Leach, Senior Pastor,Senior Pastor, Mt. Zion Baptist Church

Rev. Robert Linden, Senior Pastor, Bethelite Institutional Baptist Church

Rev. John Marshall, Senior Pastor, New Life Baptist Church, Brooklyn

Rev. Lindon McKenzie, Senior Pastor, Grace Baptist Church of Chris

Rev. Dr. Lemuel Mobley, Senior Pastor, Living Stone Baptist Church

Rev. C. Ramónt Morris, Senior Pastor, Bethel Baptist Church

Rev. Wesley Payne Jr., Senior Pastor, Old Mt. Zion Baptist Church

Rev. Akin O. Royall, President, New York Progressive Baptist State Convention, Inc.

Rev. Brian D. Scott, Senior Pastor, Union Baptist Church

Rev. Dr. Gary V. Simpson, Senior Pastor, Concord Baptist Church of Christ

Rev. Dr. Randy Ware,Senior Pastor, Greater Mount Pleasant Baptist Church

Rev. Dr. Jesse T. Williams, Jr., Senior Pastor, Convent Avenue Baptist Church

Rev. Kevin Williams, Senior Pastor, Peoples Baptist Church

Mayoral candidate AM Mamdani announces plan to create an Office of Deed Theft Prevention

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff

Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani has gained quite a bit of ground in the mayoral race. This week he combined forces with Brooklyn electeds to tackle deed theft — a prevalent issue among Black, Brown, and immigrant homeowners.

“Homeowners are being crushed by rising costs and an unfair property tax system, and Black and Brown homeowners in particular have been targeted by rampant deed theft and other predatory scams,” said Mamdani in a statement.

According to Attorney General (AG) Letitia James’ office, there were about 3,500 complaints of deed theft in the city from 2014 to 2023, primarily in Brooklyn and Queens. Deed theft is usually achieved through fraud, where homeowners are tricked into unknowingly signing over their homes to a scammer, or forgery, which is when someone creates a fake of the real homeowner’s signature on a deed and files it with the county clerk’s office. The fabricated documents are then used to evict the homeowner and sell the property for profit.

The AG’s office, in partnership with electeds like State Senator Zellnor Myrie (who sponsored Bill S6569) finally made deed theft a crime and strengthened laws to protect homeowners in 2023.

As part of his mayoral platform, Mamdani

wants to build on that momentum by creating an Office of Deed Theft Prevention. The office would come up with property tax solutions, help property owners comply with Local Law 97, abolish the tax lien sale, support co-ops and community land trusts as well as firsttime homeowners, and pass Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) legislation.

“My proposal will comprehensively address these issues, protecting generational wealth for New Yorkers while providing new opportunities for first-time buyers,” he continued.

“As mayor, I will work for renters and homeowners alike and my policy proposals — from a rent freeze for all rent-stabilized tenants to a new Office of Deed Theft Prevention — reflect this commitment to all that call our city home. Everyone deserves a safe, stable and affordable home.”

Prior to getting elected to the state assembly,

Mamdani served as a foreclosure prevention housing counselor at Chhaya Community Development Corporation (CDC). He says he witnessed firsthand the inequities in the city’s property tax system and tax lien sale process, deed theft displacing entire communities, and slumlords. He’s also a full supporter of a rent freeze for rent stabilized tenants across the city.

Mamdani plans to allocate at least $10 million in funding to the office to coordinate with city police, and utilize the 2023 state laws to investigate deed theft cases. He also promises to hire investigators, forensic accountants, and attorneys to assist victims of fraud in foreclosure proceedings in court; hire outreach staff help homeowners to sign up for the city’s Automated City Register Information System (ACRIS) alerts to notify them of changes to their deed or property status; push for a

One overDose can take a life. One frienD can save it.

NO ONE SHOULD DIE OF AN OVERDOSE.

Most fatal overdoses happen at home. What you know can save a life. Help keep our communities safe by learning about overdose prevention and reaching out to those at risk. For emotional support or substance use services, call or text 988 or visit nyc.gov/988

To learn more about services in NYC, visit nyc.gov/alcoholanddrugs.

one-year suspension on the statute of limitations for deed theft cases and fair compensation for victims; and work to relieve “tangled titles,” where someone lives in a home they believe to be theirs but their name is actually not on the deed.

“Supporting deed theft is about political will .... homeownership opportunities for moderate to low income families, is about political will … and it seems like we don’t have any elected officials at the level of mayor, that want to actually address these issues,” said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who has been rallying against the rise of deed thefts in his borough.

“To hear that Zohran Mamdani is putting forth not only an office to address this issue, but also looking to add $20M to that fund really speaks to the political will that we are asking New Yorkers to pay attention to when they go to the polls,” he added.

In the meantime, Jamael Romans, a loan officer at United Mortgage Corp in Woodbury, Long Island, said that when purchasing a home it’s highly recommended that a person ask for a title specialist. This is a person or team provided by the mortgage company that researches if the house being bought has any liens, violations, or bankruptcies. The specialist will review all title and deed documents for the property, contact vendors, check state regulations, track any conflicts or applications, and then create a title policy that ideally protects against deed theft.

Photo of Councilmember Chi Osse (far left), Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (center), and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso (right). (Contributed by Mamdani’s campaign)

Chinatown jail

Continued from page 6

Courthouse on 100 Centre Street, the Civic Center-based MCC would remain in close proximity.

The initial site for the Manhattan jail was slated for the former Civic Center bordering Chinatown at 80 Centre Street, but the city later pivoted to 124-25 White Street where another jail stood — the Manhattan Detention Complex, a.k.a the Tombs.

While borough-based jails will hold fewer people than a Rikers Island jail, they require significant space for programming and medical facilities (more than half the current Rikers population receives mental health services). The Chinatown jail’s design specifically faced community backlash from the likes of Lee due to the near 300-foot height, which advocates say will consume the neighborhood, particularly the nearby Columbus Park.

Initially, the White Street jail was slated to stand at 450 feet, but the local pushback led to a reduction to 295 feet. Meanwhile, the Adams administration increased the number of beds in all four borough-based jails to ensure enough space for the growing Rikers Island population.

Such adjustments reduced valuable space for planned mental health services — Rikers is, by most metrics, the country’s second-largest psychiatric facility (Los Angeles County Jail being the first). The new jails would also offer rehabilitative programming, from cooking to job training, all aimed at preventing recidivism and encouraging economic empowerment.

Chinatown advocates like Lee and Evelyn Yang, the wife of ex-presidential and mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, campaigned against the jail’s placement in an already-underinvested neighborhood hit hard by 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, and COVID-19.

“What Chinatown actually desperately needs is affordable housing, and we can build it here on this site for a fraction [of the jail’s cost],” said Yang. “We have a great opportunity now to right a wrong [by] finally [starting] to listen to people who live here.”

The Chinatown advocates’ proposal to move the borough-based jail to another location would open up the already-demolished lot at 124-25 White Street to build affordable housing. Their mock-up suggests the space could fit roughly 1,000 units and would reach a maximum height of 235 feet. A 25,200-square-foot open public area between the courthouse and the structure would create a wide east-west path across Chinatown and provide green space for arguably Manhattan’s last working-class community of color south of Central Park. Since the property would be on public land, the city could designate every unit as affordable housing. Chung Pak, a neighboring senior center built in the 1980s, was the city’s last meaningful affordable housing investment in Chinatown and ironically came as a concession for building a previous jail. 124-25 White Street currently remains vacant after the city demolished the Tombs

jail. Heavy equipment, including an excavator and a payloader truck, will be removed from the site this week. Lee said the proposal will race against time and needs momentum before contractors begin working on the jail’s foundation.

Dana Kaplan, senior adviser to the Independent Rikers Commission, said the proposal will have to address the location’s viability and general timeline. The question remains of whether a refurbished MCC could hold 1,040 beds and provide adequate services as detailed in the borough-based jail plan.

“The planned approval process happened in 2018, so this has been a process that has been happening for years,” said Kaplan. “To begin again with a new site that is not cityowned property will certainly have significant implications for the timeline.”

The urgency stems from the need to shutter Rikers Island as soon as possible to prevent subjecting more people to the facility’s dangerous conditions. Allegations of rampant, excessive, and unconstitutional use of force by staff led to a class-action settlement nearly a decade ago and subsequent mandated reforms. The city’s noncompliance with meaningfully improving conditions since then led to a federal judge greenlighting an independent receiver to take over the jails from the DOC last month.

Councilmember Christopher Marte, who represents Chinatown and fought the jail construction for years, called the MCC proposal a “win-win-win.” He said refurbishing an existing facility could be faster than building the White Street jail and would save the city money — the Manhattan borough-based jail’s price tag has ballooned to $3.8 billion.

Described as the “Guantánamo of New York,” the MCC was not built with humane conditions as a priority, but Marte believes the facility can be renovated toward the borough-based jail standards. He adds preliminary conversations with engineers indicate additional levels can be built to incorporate more beds and recreational space needed to fulfill the plan for more humane detention. However, Chinatown proponents cannot pin down an exact timeline. Marte said “things aren’t working normally under the Trump administration,” but the White House’s volatility includes recent rumblings of a federal building fire sale (including the FBI headquarters), a potential opportunity for the city to obtain the MCC.

The MCC is also 130 feet away from the nearest Chinatown residential building, according to Marte, which will reduce the noise and environmental impact that plagued his constituents during the Tombs demolition, particularly in neighboring buildings like Chung Pak.

“One thing we’re advocating for is to not only build affordable housing here, but help our local economy, because it’ll bring a lot more foot traffic — it will bring in a lot more consumers right in the center of, in the heart of, Chinatown,” said Marte. “Also it’s going to help with housing in the whole neighborhood. We have a lot of seniors who are living in five-floor walkups. If they can move into a

modern, affordable housing unit, then they will be able to age in place with dignity.”

Amy Chin, board president of the nonprofit ThinkChinatown, said the existing plan to build a jail on White Street could create a barrier along the Western edge of Chinatown.

“This site is directly across a very narrow street from where people live, and where businesses are,” said Chin. “That other site is well isolated. It has already been a jail and the construction there is going to be far less disruptive than here.”

Councilwoman Gale Brewer, who served as Manhattan borough president when the Rikers’ closure plan passed, said she would be open to an alternative site if it remained close to the courthouse, but that she firmly believes in the Independent Rikers Commission’s due diligence.

“But if everything was no before, I don’t know why it would be yes now, in terms of sites,” said Brewer. “We need a place for people to go. Rikers has to close. I’m there quite a bit and it’s horrific.”

Darren Mack, co-director of Freedom Agenda, needs more assurance about Rikers’ closure. The borough-based jail advocate pointed to the 38 people who died in or immediately after DOC custody over the past three years, almost all of whom were held on Rikers Island.

“Last ditch efforts to halt or rework the plan to close them show a callous disregard for the lives and human rights of people who would inevitably suffer by

keeping those decrepit jails open any longer,” Mack said by text message.

While the borough-based jail construction delays stem from the pandemic, the growing incarcerated population also complicates the timeline to close Rikers. The city jail population topped 7,000 this year, although the number was somewhat inflated by the recent prison strikes preventing transport of already-convicted detainees to state facilities. Still, the borough-based jails can only hold a combined 4,160 beds.

To be clear, the plan is not to close Rikers Island cold turkey at the end of August 2027. Reducing the jail population allows the city to shutter current facilities one-by-one, like the Anna M. Kross Center, Rikers’ biggest jail, which closed two years ago. However, arrests are increasing under the Adams administration and delayed criminal case processing times are exacerbating the city’s problem with reducing jail populations.

“We should not accept the current timeline as the fastest possible timeline to close Rikers Island,” said Kaplan. “The incoming mayor needs to dedicate a level of leadership at the highest level of City Hall to focus on expediting the plan to close Rikers Island. That includes not just ensuring that the buildings are built on a faster timeline, but also that there is a more aggressive focus on performing and improving the criminal justice systems, including working with other players and the system across New York City to safely reduce the jail population, which we know is possible.”

Cowboy Carter

performed in a denim dress, unbothered by the weather. “I love you through the rain and shine,” she proclaimed to the crowd.

Daubon said the weather transformed the concert into a “magical” experience. “It was my first time seeing her in the rain — the difference was undeniable,” she said.

“[Beyoncé] doesn’t just perform through the rain; she performs with it.”

Beyoncé thanked her fans for participating in the Cowboy themes of the tour through the storm, and was joined on stage by daughters Blue Ivy and Rumi Carter as she performed “PROTECTOR.” Blue Ivy spent more time on stage, with two solo dance routines.

As for branding, Beyoncé’s products, Sir Davis and Cécred, were strategically pro-

moted. Nostalgic moments included her older country-inspired songs, “Irreplaceable” (2006) and “If I Were a Boy” (2008).

“What captivates me most about Beyoncé is her resilience,” said Daubon. “She’s been an artist for nearly as long as I’ve been alive — there’s never been a long ‘down time’ in her career.”

In addition to many memorable moments, like performing her rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” while soaring above

the crowd on a custom-made horseshoe, Beyoncé’ did a gender reveal. At the end of the show, as promised, Beyoncé circled back to a couple expecting their first child together. She opened the sealed results and revealed they’ll be expecting a “Cowboy.”

“God bless you, congratulations!” the singer exclaimed. “Thank you so much for letting me be a part of it.”

The “Cowboy Carter” tour is in London, UK, until June 16.

“BeyHive” member posing before the start of Night Four at MetLife Stadium in all pink “Cowboy Carter” attire. (Brenika Banks photos) Beyoncé performing on stage as videos flash to Black Americans in a school setting play.

Digital Creator and “BeyHive” member Tierra Daubon posing before the start of Night Four at MetLife Stadium.

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In Case

Forty Whiskers LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 04/07/2025. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 223 W38TH ST, BOX 493, New York, NY, 10018. Purpose: Any lawful act.

HFBFD LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 12/28/2021 Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 156A East 83rd Street, New York, NY 10028 Purpose: Any lawful act.

GTM ADVISORS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/12/05. Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 235 East 87th St, Apt 12L, New York, NY 10128. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Stoller & Pileggi LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/05/2025. Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 407 E. 91st St., Apt. 5E, New York, NY 10128. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Royvolution LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 4/17/2025. Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 34th Ave. #977, Anchorage, Ak 99503. Purpose: Any lawful act.

DAR REALTY COLLECTIVE

LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 03/25/2025. Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 1 West End Avenue, Unit 21F, New York, NY 10023. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Votes Of Confidence LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 4/7/2025. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 228 PARK AVE S #348233, NY, 10003. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Archie's Handy Works LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on Feb. 28, 2025. Office location: Manhattan County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 228 Park AVE S #608669, NY, NY. Purpose: Any lawful act.

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF New York , Piermont Bank , Plaintiff, vs . 315 Manhattan Properties LLC , ET AL., Defendant(s). Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale and Decision + Order on Motion duly entered on January 31, 2025 , I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street, New York, NY 10007 on July 9, 2025 at 2:15 p.m., premises known as 315 West 121st Street, New York, NY 10027. All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, Block 1948 and Lot 22. Approximate amount of judgment is $3,640,907.48 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index #850023/2024.

Mark McKew, Esq., Referee Certilman Balin Adler & Hyman, LLP, 100 Motor Parkway, Suite 560, Hauppauge, New York 11788, Attorneys for Plaintiff

Notice of qualification of EC A2 SLIHC Taxpayer LLC (“LLC”). Application for Authority filed with the Secy. of State of New York (“SSNY”) on March 13, 2025. Office location: New York County. Principal business location: 505 Eighth Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, New York 10018. LLC formed in Delaware (“DE”) on February 28, 2025. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: EC A2 SLIHC Taxpayer LLC, c/o Common Ground Management Corporation d/b/a Breaking Ground Management, 505 Eighth Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, New York 10018. DE address of LLC: EC A2 SLIHC Taxpayer LLC, c/o The Corporation Trust Company, Corporation Trust Center, 1209 Orange Street, Wilmington, Delaware 19801. Cert. of Formation filed with DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Building, 401 Federal Street, Suite 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Clay Bridges LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 4/17/25. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 601 W 149th St 67, NY, NY 10031 Purpose: Any lawful act.

VESSEL GLOBAL CAPITAL

LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 01/3/2025. Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 31 Hudson Yards, Office 51, New York, NY 10001. Purpose: Any lawful act.

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Index No.4264-2024 Date Summons

Filed:

Plaintiff designates Bronx as the place of trial. The basis of venue is CPLR 509.

Summons with Notice Plaintiff resides at 593 Riverside Drive 4A New York, NY 10031 County of Manhattan.

Nina Kakiashvili, Plaintiff against Felix Anguyo, Defendant Action for Divorce

To the above named Defendant YOU ARE HERE BY SUMMONED to serve a notice of appearance on the Plaintiff within twenty(20) days after the service of this summons exclusive of the day of service (or, within thirty (30) days after the service is complete if this summons is not personally delivered to you within the State of New York); and in case of your failure to appear, judgment will be taken against you by default for the relief demanded in the notice set forth below.

Dated May 15, 2025

Plaintiff Pro Se Signature: Nina Kakiashvili Phone number 631-774-7859

Notice: The nature of this action is to dissolve the marriage between the parties, on the grounds: DRL Section 170 subd. (2)-the abandonment of the Plaintiff by the Defendant for the period of more than one year.

The relief sought is a judgment of absolute divorce in favor of the Plaintiff dissolving the marriage action. The nature of any ancillary or additional relief demanded is:

That and the Family Court of Bronx County shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the Supreme Court with respect to any future issues of maintenance and support.

That either party may resume the use of a prior surname. That the Plaintiff may resume her maiden name.

That the Court grant such other and further relief as the court may deem just and proper. The parties have divided the marital property and no clain will be made by either party under equitable distribution.

Notice Under DRL Section 177: The Defendant is advised that he may no longer be covered by the Plaintiff's health insurance plan upon the entry of a judgment of divorce and that the Defendant may be responsible for own health insurance coverage.

RESILIENT SUSTAINABLE HABITABLE PROGRESSIVE ARCHITECTURE PLLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 03/31/2025. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: Tower 45, 120 W 45TH St, STE 2801, New York, NY 10036 Purpose: Any lawful act.

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT NEW YORK COUNTY

JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff against

NERA PROPERTY HOLDING LLC, et al Defendant(s)

Attorney for Plaintiff(s) Parker Ibrahim & Berg LLP, 5 Penn Plaza, Suite 2371, New York, NY 10001.

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered June 3, 2022, and Amended on June 30, 2022 I will sell at public auction to the highest bidder at Room 130 at the Supreme Court, New York County, 60 Centre Street, New York, New York on June 25, 2025 at 2:15 PM. Premises known as 531 West 162nd Street, New York, NY 10032.

Block 2122 Lot 13. All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York.

Approximate Amount of Judgment is $829,409.72 plus interest, fees, and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index No 850232/2018.

The foreclosure sale will be conducted in accordance with 1st Judicial District's Covid-19 Policies and foreclosure auction rules. The Referee shall enforce any rules in

place regarding facial coverings and social distancing. Referee will only accept a certified bank check made payable to the referee.

Elaine Shay, Esq., Referee File # 850232/2018

MAKEUP BY T LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 03/14/2025. Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 105 W 13 Street Apt 4E, New York, NY 10011. Purpose: Any lawful act.

JABGRS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 3/28/25 Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 382 CPW #17, NY, NY,10025. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Greater Harlem Chamber SPV1, LLC LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 5/8/25 Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 200A W136th Street, New York, NY 10030. Purpose: Any lawful act.

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT - COUNTY OF NEW YORK. 57TH ST. VACATION OWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC., BY AND THROUGH ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS, Plaintiff -againstKIM BRAUN BARDONESCHI, et al Defendant(s). Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale dated October 9, 2024, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction in Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street New York, NY on June 18, 2025 at 2:15 p.m. premises situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, being an undivided ownership interest as tenantin-common with other owners in the Timeshare Unit in the building located at 102 West 57th Street, New York, NY. Together with an appurtenant undivided .009864% common interest percentage. This is a foreclosure on ownership interest in a timeshare unit, a studio penthouse on a floating use basis every year, in accordance with and subject to declarations. Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions dated October 10, 2008 and October 31, 2008 as CFRN # 2008000426142 as recorded in the Office of the City Register, County, City and State of New York. The Timeshare Unit is also designated as Block 1009 and Lot 37. Said premises known as 102 WEST 57TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10019

Approximate amount of lien $22,959.33 plus interest & costs.

Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and Terms of Sale. Index Number 850310/2023.

SCOTT SILLER, ESQ., Referee DRUCKMAN LAW GROUP PLLC

Attorney(s) for Plaintiff 242 Drexel Avenue, Westbury, NY 11590 DLG# 39337 {* AMSTERDAM*}

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK: COUNTY OF NEW YORK. HANOVER BANK. Pltf v. STOCKBRIDGE EQUITIES CORP , et al., Defts. Index No. 850003/2023 pursuant to the Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale dated March 5, 2025 and entered on March 6, 2025, I will sell at public auction at the New York County Courthouse, at the Courthouse located at 60 Centre Street, New York, New York, room 130 on July 2, 2025 at 2:15 p.m., prem. k/a 5 East 124th Street, New York, New York (Block 1749, Lot 6). Approx. amt of judgment is $ 3,017,025.15, plus costs, attorneys’ fees in the amount of $75,000 and interest. Sold subject to terms and conditions of filed judgment and terms of sale. George Papazis Esq., Referee. Jacobowitz Newman Tversky LLP, Attys. for Plaintiff’s assignee, Uncle A LLC, 377 Pearsall Ave., Ste C, Cedarhurst, NY.

NOTICE OF SALE

SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF NEW YORK

CHANG HWA COMMERCIAL

BANK, LTD., in its capacity as the administrative agent for Hua Nan Commercial Bank, Ltd. and itself, the syndicated lenders (Plaintiff) AGAINST

WATERSCAPE RESORT II, LLC , et al., (Defendants), Index No. 850050/2021

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale and Decision and Order on Motion dated February 14, 2025 and entered February 18, 2025 (the “Judgment”), and such Judgment entered by the New York County Clerk’s Office on May 20, 2025, I, Jeffrey R. Miller, Esq., the undersigned Referee, duly appointed in this action for such purpose, will sell at public auction at the New York County Supreme Court, located at 60 Centre Street, New York, on July 9, 2025 at 2:15 p.m. , on that date, the premises directed to be sold by said Judgment, commonly known as Hotel Unit 1, Hotel Unit 2, and Commercial Unit 3 in the Condominium known as the “Cassa NY Condominium” located at 66-70 West 45th Street, New York, New York 10036 (Block 1260, Lots 1101, 1102 and 1103). The approximate amount due as per the Judgment is $98,961,016.28, plus interest, fees, and costs. The premises shall be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and the terms of sale.

Jeffrey R. Miller, Esq., Referee THOMPSON COBURN LLP

Mark T. Power Brigitte R. Rose Attorneys for Plaintiff

488 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10022 Tel: (212) 478-7200

SUPREME COURT - COUNTY OF NEW YORK

THE BOARD OF MANAGERS OF 435 EAST 117TH STREET CONDOMINIUM, Plaintiff -against- CHRISTINE HEALEY, et al Defendant(s). Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale dated June 29, 2023 and entered on July 3, 2023, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at the New York County Courthouse located in Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street New York, NY on July 2, 2025 at 2:15 p.m. premises situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, City, State and County of New York, known and designated as Section 6 Block 1711 and Lot 1203.

Said premises known as 435 EAST 117TH STREET, UNIT NO. 3, NEW YORK, NY

Approximate amount of lien $57,680.99 plus interest & costs.

Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and Terms of Sale.

Index Number 152950/2022.

GEORGIA PAPAZIS, ESQ., Referee

Mitofsky Shapiro Neville & Hazen, LLP

Attorney(s) for Plaintiff

152 MADISON AVENUE, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10016

NOTICE OF SALE

In pursuance and by virtue of a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale duly granted and entered in an action entitled NYCTL 1998-2 Trust and The Bank of New York Mellon as Collateral Agent and Custodian for the NYCTL 1998-2 Trust v. 249 West 131 Street Associates LLC, et al., bearing Index No. 153894/2017 on or about April 2, 2025, by the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, I, the Referee, duly appointed in this action for such purpose, will expose for sale and sell at public auction to the highest bidder on June 25, 2025 at 2:15 p.m., at the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street, Room 130, New York, New York 10007, the liened premises designated as Block 1937, Lot 12, in the City of New York, County of New York and Borough of Manhattan, State of New York and known as 249 West 131 st Street, New York, New York 10027 , directed in and by said judgment to be sold. The sale will be conducted pursuant to the Court’s Auction Rules and any COVID Restrictions.

The approximate amount of the judgment is $17,625.04 plus interest and other charges, and the property is being sold subject to the terms and conditions stated in the judgment, any prior encumbrances and the terms of sale which shall be available at the time of sale.

Dated: May 22, 2025 New York, New York Elaine Shay, Esq. Referee 800 Third Avenue Suite 2800 New York, New York 10022 (212) 520-2690

David P. Stich, Esq. Attorney for Plaintiff 521 Fifth Avenue, 17th Floor New York, New York 10175 (646) 554-4421

NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR AUTHORITY OF FOREIGN LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY

The Malin Chelsea LLC App. for Authority filed with Secretary of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/10/2025. LLC formed in DE on 04/09/2025. Office location: New York County. SSNY desig. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to 32 Mercer Street, 3 rd Floor, New York, New York 10013. The address of the office required to be maintained in the jurisdiction of its organization by the laws of that jurisdiction is 300 Creek View Road, Suite 209, Newark, Delaware 19711. Cert. of Form. on file: DE SOS, Div. of Corporations, P.O. Box 898, Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: any lawful business.

Notice of Qualification of 1580 NOSTRAND AVE OWNER LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/08/25. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 03/12/25. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

NOTICE OF SALE

SUPREME COURT - COUNTY OF NEW YORK

U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS TRUSTEE FOR THE CERTIFICATE HOLDERS OF BANC OF AMERICA FUNDING CORPORATION, MORTGAGE PASS-THROUGH CERTIFICATES, SERIES 20076, Plaintiff, Against GREGORY STEPHENSON AS HEIR AT LAW AND NEXT OF KIN OF DEBORAH A. STEPHENSON; VINCENT STEPHENSON AS HEIR AT LAW AND NEXT OF KIN OF DEBORAH A. STEPHENSON; DWIGHT STEPHENSON, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS HEIR AT LAW AND NEXT OF KIN OF DEBORAH A. STEPHENSON, et al,

Defendant(s)

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale, duly entered 01/15/2025, I, the undersigned Referee, will sell at public auction, in Room 130 of the New York County Supreme Courthouse, at 60 Centre Street, New York, NY 10007on 6/18/2025 at 2:15PM, premises known as 158 West 130th Street, New York, NY 10027, and described as follows:

ALL that certain plot piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County, City and State of New York.

Block 1914 Lot 55

The approximate amount of the current Judgment lien is $3,768,746.12 plus interest and costs. The Premises will be sold subject to provisions of the aforesaid Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale; Index # 103164/2008

Paul R. Sklar, Esq., Referee.

MCCABE, WEISBERG & CONWAY, LLC, 10 MIDLAND AVENUE, SUITE 205, PORT CHESTER, NY 10573

Dated: 4/10/2025 File Number: 19-300697 CA

Notice of formation of Limited Liability Company (“LLC”). Name: Kingsboro SHOP 1 GP LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of the State of New York (“SSNY”) on April 24, 2025. N.Y. office location: New York County. The SSNY has been designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. The SSNY shall mail a copy of any process to Kingsboro SHOP 1 GP LLC, c/o Breaking Ground II Housing Development Fund Corporation, 505 Eighth Avenue, 5 th Floor, New York, New York 10018.

Notice of Qualification of P. DREAMS 8805 LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/29/25. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/03/25. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 3, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT - COUNTY OF NEW YORK. 57TH ST. VACATION OWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC, BY AND THROUGH ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS, Plaintiff -againstMELISSA B. GILSON, et al Defendant(s). Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale dated October 1, 2024, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction in Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street New York, NY on June 18, 2025 at 2:15 p.m. premises situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, being an undivided ownership interest as tenant-in-common with other owners in the Timeshare Unit in the building located at 102 West 57th Street, New York, NY. Together with an appurtenant undivided .009864% common interest percentage. This is a foreclosure on ownership interest in a timeshare unit, a studio penthouse on a floating use basis every year, in accordance with and subject to declarations. Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions dated October 10, 2008 and October 31, 2008 as CFRN # 2008000426142 as recorded in the Office of the City Register, County, City and State of New York. The Timeshare Unit is also designated as Block 1009 and Lot 37.

Said premises known as 102 WEST 57TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10019

Approximate amount of lien $16,139.99 plus interest & costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and Terms of Sale. Index Number 850138/2023.

GEORGIA PAPAZIS, ESQ., Referee

DRUCKMAN LAW GROUP PLLC

Attorney(s) for Plaintiff 242 Drexel Avenue, Westbury, NY 11590

DLG# 39157 {* AMSTERDAM*}

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF NEW YORK PHH MORTGAGE CORPORATION, Plaintiff AGAINST BONNIE WIENER AS HEIR TO THE ESTATE OF LINDA ORLIN, UNKNOWN HEIRS OF LINDA ORLIN IF LIVING, AND IF HE/SHE BE DEAD, ANY AND ALL PERSONS UNKNOWN TO PLAINTIFF, CLAIMING, OR WHO MAY CLAIM TO HAVE AN INTEREST IN, OR GENERAL OR SPECIFIC LIEN UPON THE REAL PROPERTY DESCRIBED IN THIS ACTION; ET AL., Defendant(s) Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale duly entered January 23, 2025, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at the New York County Courthouse in Room 130, located at 60 Centre Street, New York, NY on June 25, 2025 at 2:15PM, premises known as 220 East 60th Street, Unit 5M, New York, NY 10022. All that certain plot piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, City, County and State of New York, Section 5, Block 1414, Lot 1055. Approximate amount of judgment $591,441.70 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index #850197/2022. Christy M. Demelfi, Esq., Referee Gross Polowy, LLC 1775 Wehrle Drive Williamsville, NY 14221 20001018 84608

NOTICE OF SALE

SUPREME COURT - COUNTY OF NEW YORK. 57TH ST. VACATION OWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC., BY AND THROUGH ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS, Plaintiff -againstJACQUELINE LEE ABRAMS, et al Defendant(s). Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale dated November 12, 2024, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction in Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street New York, NY on July 9, 2025 at 2:15p.m. premises situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, being an undivided ownership interest as tenantin-common with other owners in the Timeshare Unit in the building located at 102 West 57th Street, New York, NY. Together with an appurtenant undivided 0.01972800000% common interest percentage. This is a foreclosure on ownership interest in a timeshare unit, a studio penthouse on a floating use basis every year, in accordance with and subject to declarations. Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions dated October 10, 2008 and October 31, 2008 as CFRN # 2008000426142 as recorded in the Office of the City Register, County, City and State of New York. The Timeshare Unit is also designated as Block 1009 and Lot 37.

Said premises known as 102 WEST 57TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10019

Approximate amount of lien $36,377.42 plus interest & costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and Terms of Sale. Index Number 850307/2023.

RONALD ZEZIMA, ESQ., Referee

DRUCKMAN LAW GROUP

PLLC

Attorney(s) for Plaintiff 242 Drexel Avenue, Westbury, NY 11590 DLG# 39332 {* AMSTERDAM*}

Notice of Qualification of SQUARE NINE CAPITAL, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/06/25. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 10/23/24. Princ. office of LLC: 292 Madison Ave., 22nd Fl., NY, NY 10017. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: c/o The Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of the State of DE, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 3, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of THE GRESHAM GOLD FUND, L.L.C. Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/16/25. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/10/25. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Gresham Investment Management LLC, 19 Union Sq. West, 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of DE, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT - COUNTY OF NEW YORK. 57TH ST. VACATION OWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC., BY AND THROUGH ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS, Plaintiff -againstMADAPPALLIL GEORGE, et al Defendant(s). Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale dated October 9, 2024, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction in Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street New York, NY on July 2, 2025 at 2:15 p.m. premises situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, being an undivided ownership interest as tenantin-common with other owners in the Timeshare Unit in the building located at 102 West 57th Street, New York, NY. Together with an appurtenant undivided .009864% common interest percentage. This is a foreclosure on ownership interest in a timeshare unit, a studio penthouse on a floating use basis every year, in accordance with and subject to declarations. Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions dated October 10, 2008 and October 31, 2008 as CFRN # 2008000426142 as recorded in the Office of the City Register, County, City and State of New York. The Timeshare Unit is also designated as Block 1009 and Lot 37.

Said premises known as 102 WEST 57TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10019

Approximate amount of lien $13,410.42 plus interest & costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and Terms of Sale. Index Number 850276/2023.

DORON LEIBY, ESQ., Referee DRUCKMAN LAW GROUP PLLC

Attorney(s) for Plaintiff 242 Drexel Avenue, Westbury, NY 11590

DLG# 39169 {* AMSTERDAM*}

Notice of Formation of WHITE PLAINS 701 WESTCHESTER LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/21/25. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 1315 W. 54th St., 1st Fl., NY, NY 10019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of WHITE PLAINS 777 WESTCHESTER LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/21/25. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 1315 W. 54th St., 1st Fl., NY, NY 10019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of WHITE PLAINS 711 WESTCHESTER LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/21/25. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 1315 W. 54th St., 1st Fl., NY, NY 10019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

State of Now York

Unified Court System

SURROGATE'S COURT OF THE COUNTY OF NEW YORK

31 CHAMBERS STREET NEW YORK, NY 10007 (646) 386-5800

NOTICE TO CITED PARTIES

You have been served with a citation for a matter that is scheduled to be heard at a New York County Surrogate's Court calendar. The citation that you have received contains a return date. Please do not appear in the courthouse on that date. The following choices are available to you:

If you do not object to the relief requested, you do not need to contact the court or do anything else. If you do object to the relief sought on the citation, you or your lawyer must send a document to the court signed by you or your lawyer indicating that: 1. You object to the relief or you are requesting discovery; OR 2. You are requesting the opportunity to appear in person or by using Skype for Business or by telephone conference; OR 3. You are requesting an adjournment to consult with or retain counsel. Your written response must be received by the court three (3) business days before the return date and must include either an email address or telephone number, or both, where you or your lawyer can be reached during business hours. Your communication to the court may be sent by email to: Probate General@nycourts.gov or by mail addressed to the Probate Department of this court at the address listed above or you may bring it in person to the court. The attorney for the petitioner must be copied in your communication. If your written communication to the court indicates that you would like to proceed as described in choice number 1 above, your case may be referred to a court attorney-referee for a conference. The case will be adjourned to a future date, if you request the opportunity to appear in person or by electronic means or to consult or retain counsel (choices number 2 and 3).

If you do not contact the court by the date on the citation, the record will reflect that you do not object to the relief requested. If an attorney plans to appear on your behalf, he or she must file a Notice of Appearance. This Notice may be filed by delivering it in person to the Probate Department of this court or mailing it addressed to the Probate Department at the address listed above or through the e-filing system (NYSCEF), at www.nycourts.gov/efile.

If you have questions about responding to the citation, you may contact the Probate Department at Probate General@nycourts.gov. Please note that court staff are prohibited from giving legal advice but they are available to answer any question about procedure. The Probate Department of the New York County Surrogate's Court PROBATE CITATION

File No.

2024-2532/A SURROGATE'S COURTNEW YORK COUNTY CITATION

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, TO TIFFANY C. GRAVES, if living and if dead, to her heirs at law, next of kin and distributees whose names and places of residence are unknown and if she died subsequent to the decedent herein, to her executors, administrators, legatees, devisees, assignees and successors in interest whose names and places of residence are unknown and to all other heirs at law, next of kin and distributees of GREGORY GRAVES, the decedent herein, whose names and places of residence are unknown and cannot, after diligent inquiry, be ascertained.

A petition having been duly filed by Daryl K. Harris who is domiciled at 322 Millies Road, Hopkins, South Carolina 29061

YOU ARE HEREBY CITED TO SHOW CAUSE before the Surrogate's Court, NEW YORK COUNTY at 31 Chambers Street, New York, on June 16, 2025 at 9:30 o'clock in the FOREnoon of that day why a decree should not be made in the estate of GREGORY GRAVES lately domiciled at 15 West 127th Street, New York, NY 10027 November 10, 2007

(Codicil(s) dated _________,

GREGORY GRAVES

admitting to probate a Will dated. copy of which is attached, as the Will of_ Gregory Graves deceased, relating to real and personal property, and directing that [X]

Letters Testamentary issue to:_

[ ] Letters of Trusteeship issue to:_

[ ] Letters of Administration c.t.a. issue to (State any further relief requested)

DARYL K. HARRIS

*To all Parties: No in person appearances shall be made at the return date. If you wish to object to this matter, you may do so in writing in accordance with the annexed New York County Surrogate's Court Notice to the Cited Parties May 5th 2025

HON.

Rita Mella

Surrogate

Diane Sinebria

Chief Clerk

Dated, Attested and Sealed

Christopher J. Donadio, Esq., Gair, Gair, Conason, et Attorney for Petitioner

80 Pine Street, New York, NY 10005

Address of Attorney

212-943-1090 Telephone Number cdonadio@gairgair.com E-mail Address of Attorney

[NOTE: This citation is served upon you as required by law. You are not required to appear. If you fail to appear it will be assumed you do not object to the relief requested. You have a right to have an attorney appear for you.] P-5 (10/96)

Notice of Formation of BLACKSMITH LANE LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/04/25. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Jonathan Barzilay, 670 West End Ave. (8A), NY, NY 10025. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

This is to announce that the next open meeting of the Harlem Children's Zone Promise Academy I Charter School Board of Trustees will be held on Tuesday, June 24th, 2025, at 4:30 pm. The meeting will take place at 245 West 129th St, NY, NY.

DEEPAK CHOPRA, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 04/25/25. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 41 East 11th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10003. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

315 WEST 92ND STREET LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/06/25. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, c/o BDO, 200 Park Avenue, 38th Floor, New York, NY 10166. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of DETOX BY REBECCA NYC LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/28/25. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

This is to announce that the next open meeting of the Harlem Children's Zone Promise Academy II Charter School Board of Trustees will be held on Tuesday, June 24th, 2025, at 4:30 pm. The meeting will take place at 245 West 129th St, NY, NY.

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT - COUNTY OF NEW YORK. 57TH ST. VACATION OWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC., BY AND THROUGH ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS, Plaintiff -againstAMOS LINENBERG, GAIL P. BARTHOLOMEW-LINENBERG, et al Defendant(s). Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale dated September 11, 2024, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction in Room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street New York, NY on July 2, 2025 at 2:15 p.m. premises situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, being an undivided ownership interest as tenant-in-common with other owners in the Timeshare Unit in the building located at 102 West 57th Street, New York, NY. Together with an appurtenant undivided .009864% common interest percentage. This is a foreclosure on ownership interest in a timeshare unit, a studio penthouse on a floating use basis every year, in accordance with and subject to declarations. Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions dated October 10, 2008 and October 31, 2008 as CFRN # 2008000426142 as recorded in the Office of the City Register, County, City and State of New York. The Timeshare Unit is also designated as Block 1009 and Lot 37.

Said premises known as 102 WEST 57TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10019

Approximate amount of lien $16,937.46 plus interest & costs.

Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment and Terms of Sale.

Index Number 850257/2023.

DORON LEIBY, ESQ., Referee DRUCKMAN LAW GROUP PLLC

Attorney(s) for Plaintiff 242 Drexel Avenue, Westbury, NY 11590 DLG# 39115 {* AMSTERDAM*}

NOTICE OF SALE SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF NEW YORK NewRez LLC d/b/a Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing, Plaintiff AGAINST The Estate of Carl Arak a/k/a Carl J. Arak, et al., Defendant(s) Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale duly entered February 4, 2025, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at the New York County Courthouse in Room 130, located at 60 Centre Street, New York, NY on July 2, 2025 at 2:15PM, premises known as 301 Cathedral Parkway, Apt. 6W, New York, NY 10026. All that certain plot piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, City, County and State of New York, Block: 1846, Lot: 1119. Approximate amount of judgment $179,740.69 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index #850211/2024. For sale information, please visit Auction.com at www.Auction. com or call (800) 280-2832. Tom Kleinberger, Esq., Referee Frenkel Lambert Weiss Weisman & Gordon, LLP 53 Gibson Street Bay Shore, NY 11706 01-100355-F00 84632

223 W 29TH OWNER LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 04/25/25. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 431 W 37th Street, #2A, New York, NY 10018. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

LYYNC MEDIA LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 02/28/25. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, c/o Liu, Yiyi, 4357 Union Street, Unit 5C, Flushing, NY 11355. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qualification of SIDEROFSKY LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/21/25. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/11/22. Princ. office of LLC: 45 E. 82nd St. - Apt. 3W, NY, NY 10028. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of HERMETIC HOLDINGS LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/22/25. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/15/25. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of the State of DE, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of VELOCITY ELEVATE LP Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/23/25. Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 10/23/24. Princ. office of LP: 1 Penn Plaza, Ste. 4420, NY, NY 10119. NYS fictitious name: VELOCITY ELEVATE L.P. Duration of LP is Perpetual. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LP at the princ. office of the LP. Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. DE addr. of LP: c/o Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP filed with Secy. of State of DE, Dept. of State, Div. of Corps., John Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of THE CURATED BREAST LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/19/25. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 515 Marin Blvd., Jersey City, NJ 07302. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Wanyeki Technologies LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/25/2025. Office location: New York County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 222 E 34th Street APT 2325, New York, New York, 10016 Purpose: Any lawful act.

CRG CAPITAL GROUP LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/08/2025. Office location: NY County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 134 West 29th Street, 4th Fl, New York, NY 10001. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Notice of Qualification of 154 PARTNERS INVESTMENT

MANAGEMENT LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/01/25. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 08/15/24. Princ. office of LLC: 34 E 51st St., NY, NY 10022. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to CT Corporation System, 28 Liberty St., NY, NY 10005. DE addr. of LLC: 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of 240 WILLOUGHBY GL, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/29/25. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/15/25. Princ. office of LLC: c/o Maritime Management, LLC, One Maritime Plaza, Ste. 2100, San Francisco, CA 94111. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of the State of DE, PO Box 898, Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: Purchase of real property.

NOTICE OF SALE

Notice of Qualification of JCP CONGAREE CREDIT FUND

LP Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/29/25. Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/16/25. Princ. office of LP: 520 Madison Ave., 12th Fl., NY, NY 10022. NYS fictitious name: JCP CONGAREE CREDIT FUND L.P. Duration of LP is Perpetual. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o The Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. DE addr. of LP: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP filed with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of PRIVATE EQUITY VII (E&F) GP

LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/15/25. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/06/25. Princ. office of LLC: 9 W. 57th St., 18th Fl., NY, NY 10019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Summit Rock Advisors, LP at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: c/o Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Investments.

NOTICE OF SALE

SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF NEW YORK, U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, NOT IN ITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY BUT SOLELY IN ITS CAPACITY AS INDENTURE TRUSTEE OF CIM TRUST 2020-R5, Plaintiff, vs. JOHN ANDREW LUMPKIN, ET AL., Defendant(s).

Notice of Qualification of BASKIR FIRST PROPERTIES

LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/06/25. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/04/25. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: All legal activities especially property investment.

SUPREME COURT COUNTY OF NEW YORK , mary djurasevic , Plaintiff, vs . marcy ellin boucher, a/k/a marcy ellen boucher, a/k/a marcy e. boucher a/k/a marcy boucher ET AL. , Defendant(s).

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale duly filed on February 6, 2025, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at the New York County Supreme Court, Room 130, 60 Centre Street, New York, NY on June 25, 2025 at 2:15 p.m., premises known as 406 West 25 th Street, New York, N.Y. All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of New York, County of New York, City and State of New York, Block 722 and Lot 45. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index # 850003/2024.

Jeffrey R. Miller, Esq., Referee Law Offices of Morrison Cohen LLP, Joaquin Ezcurra, Esq., 909 Third Avenue, 27 th Floor, New York, NY 10022-4784, (212) 735-8600

FIVE IRON GOLF MINNEAPOLIS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 10/03/2024. Office location: NEW YORK County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 883 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS FL 3, NEW YORK, NY 10001. Purpose: Any lawful act.

FIVE IRON GOLF APP LLC

Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 09/11/2024. Office location: NEW YORK County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 883 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS FL 3, NEW YORK, NY 10001. Purpose: Any lawful act.

HOMEWRIGHTS DEVELOPMENT, LLC filed Arts. of Org. with the Sect'y of State of NY (SSNY) on 3/24/2025. Office: New York County. SSNY has been designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: The LLC, 380 Riverside Dr, Apt 7J, NY, NY 10025. Purpose: any lawful act.

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale and Decision + Order on Motion duly entered on February 6, 2025, I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at the New York County Courthouse, room 130, 60 Centre Street, New York, NY 10007 on June 25, 2025 at 2:15 p.m., premises known as 92 Perry Street a/k/a 382-384 Bleecker Street, Unit 20, New York, NY 10014. All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County, City and State of New York, Block 621 and Lot 1120 together with an undivided 3.6214 percent interest in the Common Elements. Approximate amount of judgment is $636,042.05 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index #850416/2023.

Jeffrey R. Miller, Esq., Referee

Friedman Vartolo LLP, 85 Broad Street, Suite 501, New York, New York 10004, Attorneys for Plaintiff. Firm File No.: 223771-1

NOTICE OF SALE

SUPREME COURT COUNTY

OF New York , Wilmington Savings Fund Society, FSB, not in its individual capacity, but solely as owner trustee for CSMC 2018-RPL6 Trust , Plaintiff, vs . Jose N. Ramos , ET AL., Defendant(s).

Pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale and Decision and Order on Motion duly entered on February 6, 2025 , I, the undersigned Referee will sell at public auction at room 130 of the New York County Courthouse, 60 Centre Street, New York, NY 10007 on July 9, 2025 at 2:15 p.m., premises known as 526 West 175th Street, New York, NY 10033. All that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon erected, situate, lying and being in the Borough of Manhattan, County of New York, City and State of New York, Block 2131 and Lot 37. Approximate amount of judgment is $414,581.31 plus interest and costs. Premises will be sold subject to provisions of filed Judgment Index #850008/2024.

Mark McKew, Esq., Referee

Friedman Vartolo LLP, 85 Broad Street, Suite 501, New York, New York 10004, Attorneys for Plaintiff. Firm File No.: 232895-1

ANGEL GLOW GROUP LLC Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 04/11/2025. Office location: NEW YORK County. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served & shall mail to: 700 W 178TH ST APT22, NEW YORK, NY,10033. Purpose: Any lawful act.

Notice is hereby given that Application ID number NA-034024-119901 for a On-Premises Restaurant liquor license has been applied for by the undersigned to permit the sale of beer, wine and liquor at retail in a Restaurant under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at The Yacht and Level 10 located at 601 West 26 th Street, 10 th and 11 th Floor, Outdoor Terrace, New York in New York County for on-premises consumption. RXR SL TRS Sub LLC, SL F&B Management, LLC, and RXR SL TRS Sub Conference Center LLC601 West 26 th Street, 10 th and 11 th Fl, Outdoor Terrace, New York, NY 10001.

1 • February 20, 2025 - February 26, 2025

Notice is hereby given that a license, serial #NA-0340-25103028 for beer, wine & liquor has been applied for by the undersigned to sell beer, wine & liquor at retail in a restaurant under the ABC Law at 994 Columbus Ave., New York, NY 10025 for on-premises consumption; Limone LLC

Notice of Qualification of ELATEC GmbH Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/21/25. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Germany on 09/30/88. NYS fictitious name: ELATEC GmbH LLC. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543. Germany addr. of LLC: Zeppelinstr., 1 82178 Puchheim, Germany. Cert. of Form. filed with Deutscher and Industrie Und Handelstag, Breite Str. 29, 10178, Berlin, Germany. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of formation of Limited Partnership (“L.P”). Name: Kingsboro SHOP 1 L.P. Certificate of Limited Partnership filed with the Secretary of State of the State of New York (“SSNY”) on April 24, 2025. N.Y. office location: New York County. The SSNY has been designated as agent of the L.P. upon whom process against it may be served. The SSNY shall mail a copy of any process to Kingsboro SHOP 1 L.P., c/o Breaking Ground II Housing De velopment Fund Corporation, 505 Eighth Avenue, 5 th Floor, New York, New York 10018. The latest date upon which the L.P. shall dissolve is December 31, 2135 unless sooner dissolved by mutual consent of the part ners or by operation of the law. Name/address of each general partner available from SSNY. Purpose: any lawful activity.

NOTICE is hereby given that a license, number NA-0370-24135212 for liquor, wine, beer & cider has been applied for by the undersigned to sell liquor, wine, beer & cider at retail in a bar/tavern under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at 4371 3rd Ave; Bronx, NY 10457 in Bronx County for on premises consumption. Zion Restaurant and Lounge Corp d/b/a Zion Restaurant and Lounge

Notice of Qualification of NUVEEN STRATEGIC RETAIL INVESTORS LP Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/18/25. Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 03/12/25. Princ. office of LP: 730 Third Ave., NY, NY 10017. NYS fictitious name: NUVEEN STRATEGIC RETAIL INVESTORS

Notice of Qualification of AP CREDIT SOLUTIONS HOLDINGS (AIV) II, L.P. Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/08/25. Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/26/24. Princ. office of LP: Attn: General Counsel, 9 W. 57th St., 43rd Fl., NY, NY 10019. Duration of LP is Perpetual. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the Partnership at the princ. office of the LP. Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. DE addr. of LP: c/o Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP filed with The Secy. of State of the State of DE, Dept. of State, Div. of Corps., John Townsend Bldg., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of NUVEEN STRATEGIC RETAIL AGGREGATOR LP Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/18/25. Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/11/25. Princ. office of LP: 730 Third Ave., NY, NY 10017. NYS fictitious name: NUVEEN STRATEGIC RETAIL AGGREGATOR L.P. Duration of LP is Perpetual. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the Partnership at the princ. office of the LP. Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. DE addr. of LP: Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

LE Occupational ority Care Bronx. hour) Evaluate conditions; implement Demonstrate help relieve Evaluate ress of occupational on patients; givers and of clients otjobs@prioritycarestaffing. com.

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Continued from page 2

justice, living wages, safer streets, and public transit for all,” said Lander in a statement. “I’m honored to have his support for mayor, which adds to our strong, wide coalition of supporters from every corner of the city who want honest, effective leadership back in City Hall.”

Meanwhile, according to the latest round of matching funds from the New York City Campaign Finance Board (NYCCFB) on May 30, Speaker Adams scored a major payout of about $2 million ($2,004,819). Williams considers her a worthy candidate.

“The support of New Yorkers in such a short window is a clear sign of the energy and enthusiasm behind Adrienne’s campaign,” said her spokesperson Lupe Todd-Medina in a statement. “Adrienne is in it for us.”

Looking strictly at numbers, 35% of voters still support former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the first round of the ballot while 23% support Mamdani for mayor, according to May polling from Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill. Cuomo’s strongest support still comes from Black voters, those over 50 years old, and women. Mamdani holds an edge among white voters, those under 50 years old, and college-educated voters.

“Cuomo has led in the polls since early 2025, but Mamdani has surged, gaining 23 points and winning second-choice votes nearly 2-to-1, cutting Cuomo’s ranked-choice lead from 12 points to 9 points,” said Emerson’s executive director Spencer Kimball in a statement. “With four weeks to go, the question is whether Cuomo can run out the clock, or if he needs to win over second-choice voters to hold off Mamdani’s momentum.”

About 11% support Lander, 9% Stringer, 8% Speaker Adams, and 5% Myrie, said Emerson.

Even though Mamdani continues to hold his place as a strong second contender in the race, just behind Cuomo, Williams explained that “by ranking Brad Lander, Adrienne Adams, Zohran Mamdani, Zellnor Myrie, and Scott Stringer across all five available slots, voters can ensure their ballots continue to count toward a progressive candidate even if their top choice is eliminated.”

Williams said in a statement that “Leaving Andrew Cuomo off the ballot entirely means

No safe haven

Continued from page 15

Reflecting on his time in Venezuela, he said, “You’d go to a hospital, and there weren’t even gloves for them to treat you.”

The lack of basic medical resources left him vulnerable and made it nearly impossible to manage his condition effectively.

His journey to the U.S. was not just about escaping the physical dangers of a failing healthcare system, but about finding a place where he could receive the care he desperately needed.

Carreyo is grateful for the opportunities to work and receive proper care, something that was impossible in Venezuela. However, his

How To Manage The High Costs Of Leasing or Buying a Vehicle

By Renee Horne, Chief Marketing & Customer Experience Officer for Chase Auto at JPMorganChase Sponsored content by JPMorganChase

he cannot receive a vote from that ballot in any round, making it less likely he advances as other candidates are eliminated.”

Cuomo was recently denied another $675,000 in public matching funds by NYCCFB because of a belief that his mayoral campaign had illicitly coordinated with a super political action committee (PAC), reported the New York Times. He was also fined $622,056 two weeks ago over a commercial the PAC aired on his behalf.

Williams also endorsed City Councilmember Justin Brannan in this year’s comptroller race, citing Brannan’s leadership in standing up to Mayor Adams’s budget cuts as one of the reasons for his support.

“Justin knows how to fight and win against the powerful and corrupt, and has led the charge against Mayor Adams and his austerity budgets by protecting afterschool programs, early childhood education, our parks, and libraries,” said Williams. “Justin has always taken bold positions in a district where it would’ve been much easier to run from them. With democracy on the line in Washington, Justin is the comptroller we need who will stand up and fight back for New York City.”

There are four people on the ballot for comptroller.

legal status now stands at the heart of a national immigration battle.

As one of over half a million migrants admitted through the CHNV Humanitarian Parole program, his future hangs in the balance after the Trump administration moved to dismantle the initiative — a move the Supreme Court allowed to proceed on May 30, effectively ending the program while legal challenges continue.

As the legal ground beneath Venezuelan migrants continues to shift, hundreds of thousands are now vulnerable to deportation. With no guarantee of protection in the U.S. and no possibility of returning to a country plagued by repression and collapse, the Venezuelan migrant community in the U.S. awaits its fate.

Car prices may be volatile in 2025, so many consumers will have to be even smarter with their money. Whether you’re looking for a way to commute to work or school on your own time, or you’ve been saving up for your own set of wheels to go on countless adventures, in today’s financial climate, managing your vehicle loans efficiently is key. It could help you save money and limit potential headaches down the road. Here are some helpful strategies to manage your vehicle payments:

1) Budget wisely. Before signing on the dotted line, make sure that your monthly payments align with your financial goals. Don’t stretch your budget too thin. It’s better to set your car budget first and then find a vehicle that fits that budget, rather than finding a car and potentially being disappointed if it’s more than you can afford. Using a car payment calculator can help estimate your monthly car payment for different scenarios, by inputting the ballpark amount you’d like to finance along with some other basic info.

2) Automate your payments. Some lenders offer the option to automate your monthly payments. This can be an extremely useful tool as it helps you avoid missing your payment and a potential late fees.

3) Make biweekly payments. Instead of monthly payments, consider paying half of your monthly amount every two weeks. By making biweekly payments, you end up making a total of 26 payments in a year, the equivalent of 13 monthly payments rather than 12—helping you pay off the loan a little earlier. Make sure you contact your lender to confirm this is an option.

4) Consider shorter loan terms. Though longer loans often mean smaller monthly payments, they usually come with higher interest rates, which typically ends up costing you more over time. If available, opt for a shorter loan term to save on interest.

Looking for ways to better plan for or even reduce insurance, gas, and maintenance costs?

Though these costs are generally unavoidable, there are a few simple ways that you can minimize the impact on your wallet, including:

1) Shopping around for insurance. Shopping around for rates can help you compare different insurers, as rates can vary widely between providers. This way, you have a better chance of finding a policy to suit your needs at a price that won’t break the bank.

2) Fuel-efficient driving. Perhaps an unexpected way to use less gas is through your driving habits. Avoid making hard stops and starts. For long stretches of uninterrupted miles, cruise control will help your car use less gas by maintaining a steady speed.

3) Maintaining your car regularly. Routine check-ups can also help you save money on gas but also help prevent expensive repairs in the future. Changing the oil regularly, checking tire pressure, and following the manufacturer’s maintenance schedule are great ways to keep your car and wallet happy.

How should someone approach the true cost of car ownership before buying a car?

The total or true cost of car ownership typically goes beyond just the sticker price—although the sticker price is typically the largest of all the expenses associated with buying a car. Other expenses that usually get bundled into the total cost include sales taxes, vehicle registration fees, maintenance and running costs, car insurance and financing.

Be sure to do your homework before stepping on the lot. There are many tools available that can help you plan for additional costs, such as sales taxes, registration fees, and insurance— which can vary depending on the car make, model and even the color.

For informational/educational purposes only: Views and strategies described in this article or provided via links may not be appropriate for everyone and are not intended as specific advice/recommendation for any business. Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but JPMorgan Chase & Co. or its affiliates and/or subsidiaries do not warrant its completeness or accuracy. The material is not intended to provide legal, tax, or financial advice or to indicate the availability or suitability of any JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. product or service. You should carefully consider your needs and objectives before making any decisions and consult the appropriate professional(s). Outlooks and past performance are not guarantees of future results. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates are not responsible for, and do not provide or endorse third party products, services, or other content.

Renee Horne

Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (at podium) and City Councilmember Justin Brannan (left) at conference on Wednesday, May 28. (Ariama C. Long photo)

District 28

Continued from page 2

Regardless of being split up, District 28 is a voting stronghold. Approximately 74% of roughly 90,755 registered voters in the district identify as Democrats, 5% as Republicans, and 18% are unaffiliated with any party at all, said APA VOICE.

The forum was organized by a host of community organizations under the umbrella of APA VOICE, including Caribbean Equality Project (CEP), South Queens Women’s March, Jahajee, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)–Jamaica Chapter, DRUM: Desis Rising Up & Moving, MinKwon Center for Community Action, and the Chhaya Community Development Corporation (CDC). Additional cosponsors included Sadhana Coalition of Progressive Hindus, South Asian Youth Action (SAYA), Kaurageous Love, Persaud Community Affairs Pantry, Guyanese American Workers United, and New American Voters Association.

“This race is really important and people are invested,” said Shivana Jorawar, co-executive director of Jahajee. “People may hold different beliefs, but it’s important to hear from the candidates. The person who wins the election will have the power to make laws that impact the lives of everyone in our city, and will have the great responsibility to fight with everything that they have for the residents of District 28.”

The forum was moderated by Candace Prince-Modeste, president of the NAACP Jamaica Branch, and Mohamed Q. Amin, founder and executive director of CEP. Their questions focused on topics such as immigration; public safety; gender-based violence; quality of life; small businesses; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and more (LGBTQ+) rights and discrimination; gun violence; mental health funding distribution; legalizing basement apartments; street vendors; and education. Moderators also had a rapid-fire session of quick shortanswer questions.

Candidates and their platforms

Many of the candidates stressed having a sense of unity and the need to work together across perceived racial lines. They addressed the deportation-induced trauma rampant in the community under the current federal administration and President Donald Trump.

Hankerson draws on his experience from working with Speaker Adams. He supports legalizing basement apartments safely, educating street vendors, introducing an Indo-Caribbean–based curriculum in schools, protecting the city’s status as a sanctuary city, passing the New York for All Act; and introducing more cultural sensitivity training in the NYPD, especially when it comes to interactions with transgender New Yorkers.

“If you look around, this is what District 28 looks like, it’s a beautiful mosaic of different cultures ultimately achieving one goal,” he said. “This is the community that raised me.”

In the lightning round, Hankerson said that Adams will be opening a second office in Richmond Hill on June 1. Many audience members shouted criticisms about why that initiative took so long for her to get done. Because of changes in rules regarding city council funding allocations, Hankerson said, it took longer than expected.

Wills draws on his experience as the former council member for District 28 from 2010 to 2017. He didn’t support legalizing basements, but instead advocated for better flood infrastructure and building more affordable housing. He said he’d rather see the abandoned properties along Liberty Avenue subsidized to house street vendor businesses and educate them about proper licensing. He felt that there was a lot of “fear mongering” in immigrant communities in regard to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in city schools. He supports LGBTQ+ rights.

“I’m running on a record that I’m proud of,” said Wills. “I’m proud to be here tonight and stand before you, once again asking for your vote.”

Singh emphasized transparency and community engagement. He supports legalizing basements safely, local busi-

nesses, and street vendors. He criticized Speaker Adams and Hankerson about allocating budgeting and resources properly for the district. He believes strongly in fighting back against anti-immigrant rhetoric and Sikh hate crimes in the district and the city. He supports LGBTQ+ rights.

“We’re up against a system that has divided our communities for far too long. The faces change, but the system remains,” said Singh.

LeGrand is an on-the-ground mental health and domestic violence survivor advocate. She supports economic development for street vendors and educational town halls; smaller classroom sizes under state law; and making sure mental health resources are easily accessible for those in need, especially for women and domestic violence survivors in shelters. She supports LGBTQ+ rights.

“Working in government, working as a nonprofit founder, and working on a community board as an executive leader, making decisions for this district–part of it is seeing the challenges. I want to make sure I am that bridge to [the] government and the people,” said Legrand.

Hitlall, a real estate broker and active com-

munity member, said he supports legalizing basement apartments, street vendors, and more space in schools. As a formerly undocumented immigrant, he is passionate about protecting the district’s undocumented population and getting them legal status.

“I’ve seen where this community came from and where it is today. We have a problem. We have a major problem,” said Hitlall. “We have members of City Council who promise us everything. Most of us knows that. They come to us, they promise us the world, and we support them. You have one of your own today.”

On the topic of LGBTQ+ rights, Hitlall said he is an ally and has taken steps to support the community as the annual Phagwah Parade chair. In 2016, CEP made history as the first Caribbean-oriented LGBTQ organization allowed to march and wave the rainbow flag in the 28th Annual Phagwah Parade, a traditionally Hindu and fairly conservative celebration. Amin confirmed that he met with Hitlall privately at Atlantic Diner about access to the parade. However, Amin noted that those meetings had “very dehumanizing questions” about how the group would participate in the parade and dress, and whether they would be “holding hands” or “kissing.” Amin said every year since 2016 has involved multiple rounds of questioning before they receive approval to participate in the parade. Hitlall disagreed about the nature of these conversations with Amin.

“[Systemic] oppression is when we have to have a sit down conversation with somebody before we even get approved to participate,” said Amin.

With the primary election set for June 24 and the curveball of ranked choice voting, voters in District 28 voters certainly have a lot to consider in the coming month.

City Council District 28 candidates

1. Tyrell Hankerson

2. Japneet Singh

3. Romeo Hitlall

4. Ruben Wills

5. Latoya Legrand (Ariama C. Long photos)

With Weaver down, Devin Williams gets another chance as Yankees’ closer

By RUDY ROBINSON

Special to the AmNews

Devin Williams is back where he began this season for the American League Eastleading Yankees.

Opening as the Yankees’ closer, the reliever lost the job on April 27 after being hit hard in his first 10 games in pinstripes, including giving up 10 earned runs in eight innings. Williams had an 11.25 ERA, and opposing batters posted a .462 average against him.

The Yankees, which were 37-22 prior to hosting the Cleveland Guardians last night in Game 2 of a three-game series in the Bronx, acquired the 30-year-old righty in a trade with the Milwaukee Brewers last December.

“Being a closer is a position you have to earn and you have to keep earning it. Lately, I haven’t been doing that,” Williams said in late April at the time of his demotion.

He was replaced by Luke Weaver, who was the Yankees’ closer to end the 2024 regular season and playoffs. But on Tuesday the Yankees announced that Weaver had been placed on the 15-day injured list with a strained left hamstring and could be out four-to-six weeks.

So now Williams gets another chance. Becoming the setup man for Weaver provided some relief (no pun again) for him. Williams’ ERA in May improved to 4.22,

still poor but evidence of progress nonetheless. His pitching approach of throwing more off-speed pitches than power pitches better served him during that period. Those pitches must be set up by throwing fastballs which create a variation of speed, disrupting timing for hitters. It’s less stressful to do this in the eighth inning than in

there’s typically less margin for error.

Williams, one of the best closers in baseball over the past several seasons before his tough month of April, is nicknamed “Airbender,” coming from his knee-buckling changeup with a high spin rate and deceptive movement. He pitched only 22 games

last season with the Brewers due to a back injury and gave up a game-winning, threerun homer to Mets first baseman Pete Alonso in the ninth inning of a National League Wild Card Game with the Mets down 2-0. It ended the Brewers’ season and the Mets moved on to the NLDS. The crushing outing seemingly carried over for Williams at the outset of this season.

Taking the mound on Tuesday, Williams was unsteady, allowing a one-out double by Guardians first baseman Carlos Santana and a pinch-hit RBI single by Daniel Schneemann before getting catcher Bo Naylor to fly out. Heading into last night, Williams was 2-2 with six saves, seven holds and one blown save in 26 appearances. In 22.2 innings pitched, he had 29 strikeouts and 12 walks and surrendered 16 earned runs.

Tuesday saw the return of Yankees starting third baseman Jazz Chisholm, who had missed 28 games with a strained right oblique. He had a positive comeback, hitting a tie-breaking solo homer in the seventh to put the Yankees up 2-1, helping starter Carlos Rodon (8-3) to his seventhstraight win.

The Yankees will play the Boston Red Sox at home tomorrow through Sunday and then face the Kansas City Royals on the road next Tuesday through Thursday.

Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello continues to push her dominant squad

By DERREL JOHNSON Special to the AmNews

The New York Liberty look unstoppable early in the WNBA season and now sit at a perfect 7-0 after a 100-52, the second-largest victory in league history, matching a franchise record by nailing 19 three-pointers in a win over the Connecticut Sun at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The team has won those seven games by a combined 144 points.

The addition of veteran guard Natasha Cloud, who the Liberty acquired in the offseason for first-round picks in April’s WNBA Draft and the 2026 draft, has been seamless. Cloud even won WNBA Eastern Conference Player of the Week for games played from Friday, May 16, to Sunday, May 25, averaging 18.7 points, 7.7 assists, 5.7 rebounds, and 2.7 steals in her first three regular-season games with the team.

The balance of the Liberty last season earned the franchise its first championship, and the team looks even stronger this season. Forward Breanna Stewart leads the team, scoring 18.1 points per game, while guard Sabrina Ionescu is close behind, averaging 17.9. The 2024 WNBA Finals MVP center Jonquel Jones is averaging a doubledouble early, pulling down 11.3 rebounds per contest and adding 15.7 points. Cloud leads the team in assists with 6.9 per game. Despite the team’s undefeated record, Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello respond-

ed “Everything” when asked what the team needs to improve on after last week’s 82-77 win over the Golden State Valkyries, to which the media members laughed before

she provided more specific details. “Never satisfied, only because I know the potential that this team has had, and I think they see it, too,” she said. “We can be so

much better at putting together more consistency throughout the game. We’ve had bad third quarters; that hasn’t been great for us. Defensively, I think that’s an area where you’re still trying to get a feel for that and how to do that better.

“Rebounding — that’s a big one for us at the moment,” continued Brondello, who is in her third season with the Liberty after leading the Phoenix Mercury for eight. “We’re not offensive rebounding, either, so we have to do better. Teams are getting more offensive rebounds against us. We don’t want that. We’re giving up too many threes, too, so our scramble defense isn’t quite where it needs to be.”

Saying “that’s a lot about defense,” Brondello added, “We were a great defensive team in the playoffs, and that’s why we won against Minnesota (in last year’s finals), because against the tough teams, you have to find a way to get a stop, because sometimes the basket dries up a little bit and certainly did in that series.”

Brondello is right, and in the most challenging game of the season thus far, a twopoint road win against Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever on May 24, Cloud was able to prevent Clark from getting a shot off as time expired.

The Liberty face the Washington Mystics tonight on the road and return to the Barclays Center to host Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky on Tuesday.

the ninth when

Yankees reliever Devin Williams has moved back to the team’s closer role.  (AP Photo/ Seth Wenig)

Liberty head coach Sandy Brondello (center) has 2024 WNBA champions off to a strong start. (AP Photo/Vera Nieuwenhuis)

Brooklyn’s Richardson Hitchins headlines boxing card at MSG

By DERREL JOHNSON

Special to the AmNews

Undefeated IBF World Junior Welterweight champion and Brooklyn native Richardson Hitchins (19-0, 7 KOs) will face former unified champion George Kambosos Jr. (22-3-0, 10 KOs) next Saturday at the Theater at Madison Square Garden.

“It means everything to me to headline my first big world championship fight in New York City, and this is the first of many,” the 27-year-old Hitchins told the AmNews of defending the title he won last December in Puerto Rico with a victory over Liam Paro. “I think that I’m going to be bringing back boxing for years to come. I’m going to be one of the guys to (represent) New York City like no one has ever seen before.”

The confident fighter, who represented Haiti at the 2016 Olympics, also said his goal is to become one of the fight game’s signature figures. “I think that I’m going to be one of the fighters to take over the sport,” he said. “It’s not a race, it’s a marathon, so the world will see.”

The Crown Heights product characterized the 31-year-old Kambosos as a dangerous opponent. Kambosos is from Sydney, Australia, and defeated Teofimo Lopez Jr. in November 2021 to become the unified lightweight champion before losing that title to Devin Haney in June.

New York teen Julian Morgan Lynch is aiming high in the pole vault

By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews

As his junior year of high school at Fordham Prep winds down, track and field athlete Julian Morgan Lynch reflects on a year that has brought both challenges and successes. He overcame injury and led his men’s varsity team to victory at the Catholic High School Athletic Association New York State Intersectional Championship, claiming first place in pole vault and sixth in long jump.

“It’s a really important meet for my school and my team because it’s our league championship,” said Lynch. “We pride ourselves on being able to win and dominate against all the other schools in our league.”

When Lynch started high school, he wanted to run track to work on his

Knicks

Continued from page 56

follows Thibs must at minimum exceed his accomplishments to justify his jarring yet foreseeable ending with the team. Three weeks ago, on a comfortably warm spring night in Midtown Manhattan, the atmosphere outside Madison Square Garden was simultaneously euphoric, chaotic, contrived and reckless.

speed for baseball. He tried pole vaulting because all the freshmen were required to go to the first practice. After a couple of drills, the coach said he was going to be a pole vaulter.

“I started doing it and I was pretty good right off the bat,” he said. “As I’ve continued to do it, I’ve had more and more fun.”

Both the pole vault and long jump give a sense of flying. “I absolutely love it,” said Lynch, who last weekend placed second in the pole vault at the Eastern States Championships. An injury at the end of the indoor season curtailed his long jump practice, but he’s easing back into it.

Lynch’s mother, filmmaker and artist Shola Lynch, was a gifted middle-distance runner well known in the New York City track community, who com -

The sidewalks and streets directly surrounding MSG were flooded with fans outfitted in New York Knicks apparel. Revelers occupying Seventh and Eighth Avenues shouted and chanted. Some climbing up poles and standing on automobiles that had come to a virtual standstill as horns and music emanating from the vehicles blared loudly. Reverberations of

“Let’s go Knicks” were deafening. The celebration was a result of the team’s 119-81 thumping of the Boston Celtics in Game 6 of their best-of-seven Eastern

Hitchins began boxing at the Dr. Atlas Foundation and Cops and Kids Gym on Staten Island, founded by legendary boxing trainer Teddy Atlas. “It was a gritty gym and one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life, period,” Hitchins said. “I started in that boxing gym, and it took me to places that I never thought I would see.”

UFC 316 takes place on Saturday at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. The main event features reigning UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili, defending his title against Sean O’Malley, whom he defeated for the title back in September in a decisive 49-46, 48-47, and 48-47 victory.

Dvalishvili (19-4, fighting out of Long Island, N.Y. by way of Tbilisi, Georgia) is currently on an 11-fight winning streak — the longest in UFC bantamweight history — but must be cautious of the powerful striking of O’Malley (18-2), which he demonstrated superbly to win the title last September at UFC 306 in Las Vegas.

“He has the will to win, and that gives for a huge fight,” Hitchins said. “I just have to be sharp and be who I am, and that’s Richardson Hitchins. Once I’m that, we’ll get the job done … I believe in my talent, and I believe that I’m on a whole different level. I believe I’m on a level that he hasn’t seen yet. I think that he doesn’t even know who he’s about to be in the ring with. He’ll realize soon enough.”

peted at the Division I collegiate level. His father, Vincent Morgan, credits her for their son’s athletic ability.

“It was kind of cool to, in a way, follow in her footsteps, even though we’re not doing the same events, which I think kind of helps,” Lynch said. “I’m doing my own thing, but she knows enough about my events that she can listen to me nerd out about it.”

He plans to compete in pole vault quite a bit this summer, as well as prepare for his senior year of high school. As of now, his goal is to attend an Ivy League institution, so he’s staying motivated to excel both in the classroom and as an athlete.

“I want to do engineering,” Lynch said. “Of course, I have the dream of one day continuing track and field past college, but that’s not guaranteed.”

Conference semifinals series, earning the Knicks 4-2 win and their first appearance in the conference finals since 2000. Right now, that May 16 evening seems so long ago after palpable optimism and justified hope among millions of ardent fans that the Knicks would be playing in the NBA Finals which begins tonight (Thursday).

It dissipated with a 4-2 series loss in the Indiana Pacers in the conference finals last Saturday. Now uncertainty hovers over the Knicks again.

NBA Finals

Continued from page 56 or methodically, can match any system or tactic employed against them. They dismissed the Minnesota Timberwolves 4-1 in the West finals.

The best-of-seven series could emerge as one of the most entertaining in Finals history with the pick here the Thunder, holding home court advantage, winning in seven.

Brooklyn native Richardson Hitchins (right), IBF World Junior Welterweight champion, battling Liam Paro last December in title matchup, will defend his belt against George Kambosos Jr. next Saturday at Madison Square Garden. (Melina Pizano/ Matchroom photo)

Fordham Prep junior Julian Morgan Lynch is one of the country’s rising prep track and field athletes. (Gerard J Byrne Photography)

Temple University scholar authors books about Black male student-athletes

By LOIS ELFMAN

Special to the AmNews

The recently published “Playing the Game, Self-Presentation, and Black Male College Athletes: A Critical Understanding of the Holistic Experience” outlines how Black male student-athletes often feel compelled to alter their self-presentation.

The author, Dr. Jonathan E. Howe, an assistant professor in Temple University’s School of Sport, Tourism, and Hospitality Management, said the subject is personal to him: Although he was not a collegiate student-athlete, he worked with the University of Texas at Austin football team when he was an undergraduate.

“When I would hang out with the players and we would do stuff after practice, I would see not only how they were treated …but how they wanted to express themselves,” said Howe. “The weight of being an athlete, specifically at a big-time institution, constrained how they thought that they could present themselves and show up, and they questioned if they could be authentic.”

The book combines research he did for his doctoral dissertation, a 2023 study he did on the subject, and additional research. It speaks to his research interest in understanding the experiences of Black studentathletes in predominantly white Division I college athletics.

“There’s this push-and-pull and conflict — how they decide to present themselves versus what they consider to be a complete or authentic form of themselves,” said Howe, who recently presented at the Black Student-Athlete Summit. “For me, the important part about this book is that while college athletics has changed and the landscape has changed, the experiences are remaining the same.”

Howe added that “I don’t want to say that everyone’s experience is the same. There may be more power of the athlete right now when it comes to speaking up and getting revenue, but they’re still experiencing the reality of being Black men on campuses — many campuses where they are 4% or less of the population. There’s still a plethora of things they have to navigate.”

Howe chose to focus on Black male student-athletes but acknowledges that Black female student-athletes have to conform in ways both similar and different. Notably, women must navigate both racial and gender stereotypes. He praises women for organizing student-athletes to have a greater voice.

The book has a commercial publisher, so Howe hopes it will reach both an academic and general audience. “I can be a conduit to share these stories,” he said. “The Black athlete experience, male or female, is so unique.”

To sustain long term growth, women’s sports needs a thoughtful path forward

By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews

The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) had just closed its second season with the Minnesota Frost back-to-back Walter Cup Champions when talk turned to imminent expansion. After playing its first two seasons with six teams, the PWHL will expand to eight teams for 2026.

This year’s WNBA season has 13 teams thanks to the Golden State Valkyries, and next year will bring teams in Portland and Toronto. With attendance surging and viewership rising, now is a ripe time for women’s hoops. It is no longer a novelty for a WNBA player to have a signature shoe, quite different from when Sheryl Swoopes’ Nike Air Swoopes debuted in 1995.

Reebok is scheduled to release Angel Reese’s first shoe in 2026 and a cool signature logo has already been revealed. Nike makes Sabrina Ionescu shoes for men, women and kids. The Breanna Stewart Collection for PUMA is popping. A’ja Wilson has the Nike A’One, and Caitlin Clark’s Nike shoe is set to release.

Don’t be fooled by sellout crowds; women are a long way from equality. Although WNBA salaries have certainly increased, the average NBA individual salary is roughly what an entire roster earns in the W. That said, things are definitely on the upswing. While some players still choose to

go overseas in the WNBA off-season, viable options have picked up stateside with Unrivaled and Athletes Unlimited.

Candace Parker, the only person to win WNBA titles with three different teams (Sparks, Sky and Aces), has recently released her first book, ”The Can-Do Mindset: How to Cultivate Resilience, Follow Your Heart, and Fight for Your Passions.” CAN-DO is an acronym for leaning on your Community, showing up Authentically, realizing Negativity is part of life, embracing the everyday Dash and fighting for Opportunity for yourself and others. Parker’s insights apply perfectly to women’s sports and serve as a reminder that athletes and fans need to keep up the hustle and cultivate community. That can start with more solid collaboration and less jumping on the bandwagon. There are currently three professional women’s volleyball leagues and a fourth set to debut in 2026. While opportunities for players are great, four leagues are likely not sustainable.

It’s also not sustainable to attribute a league’s success to a single player. Caitlin Clark is fantastic, but pressing a panic button because she has an injury undermines the overall value of the WNBA. Sometimes athletes sustain injuries. Take a moment to appreciate all the talent the league has to offer. Here’s my suggestion: Watch how Clark’s teammates step up in her absence. Aliyah Boston and DeWanna Bonner have some fierce moves!

Dr. Jonathan Howe, professor at Temple University, examines the dynamics Black student-athletes navigate in his new book. (Photo courtesy of Jonathan Howe)

Candace Parker’s first book, “The Can-Do Mindset,” dispenses firsthand lessons on how to live life with a purpose. (Ramona Rosales photo)

After firing Tom Thibodeau as their head coach, what’s next for the Knicks?

By JAIME C. HARRIS

AmNews Sports Editor

Tom Thibodeau is gone, fired by the Knicks’ executive leadership team on Tuesday after a five-year tenure as their head coach.

The 67-year-old, who ended this season as the NBA’s oldest head coach when the San Antonio Spurs’ 76-year-old, five-time league champion Gregg Popovich officially retired in May due to health issues, grew up in New Britain, Connecticut, as an avid Knicks fan. Thibodeau, a Knicks assistant coach from 1996 to 2003, was instrumental in reinventing the franchise when he was hired as their head coach in July 2020, from a dysfunctional source of frustration for its ardent supporters to a perennial playoff contender that ascended to the upper tier of the league.

Under the man commonly known as Thibs, the Knicks made the playoffs four of his five seasons with them, including the last three. He guided the Knicks to the third-most postseason wins in the league over the past three seasons (23), trailing only the Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets during that span. His 24 playoff wins (24-23 overall) are 17 more than the Knicks’ previous 13 coaches combined.

But that wasn’t enough for team owner James Dolan and Knicks president of basketball operations Leon Rose to bring Thibodeau back for a sixth season. As was put forth on the pages of this publication by this writer before the Knicks opened the playoffs versus the Detroit Pistons on April 19, there was chatter among credible sources that Thibodeau was aware the Knicks’ higher-ups were considering

The Thunder and Pacers bring a new paradigm of the NBA to the Finals

By JAIME C. HARRIS AmNews Sports Editor

On the surface, the personalities of Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Shai GilgeousAlexander and his counterpart, the Indiana Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton, may be dissimilar, yet they have much in common in uplifting their respective teams to the NBA Finals. Both are part of Generation Z (Gen Z). Their ages are separated by 18 months. The older star, Gilgeous-Alexander, often referred to by the acronym SGA, is 26 and will turn 27 in July. He is native of the Canadian province of Hamilton, located in Ontario, just outside of Toronto and played his final years of high school basketball at Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He is thoughtful, speaks in a measured manner and presents as a wise soul.

The 25-year-old Haliburton, raised in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, gregarious, bright and often reactionary, is a master troller, often clapping back against his critics with explicit or comically nuanced responses. He won’t turn 26 until February.

Employing naturally different approach-

es that have yielded comparable outcomes, SGA and Haliburton are respected young leaders at the dawn of the primes who represent small-market franchises that are emblematic of a new paradigm expected to be modeled by most teams in the years ahead: moving away from having a top heavy roster with a so-called “big three” of established megastars in favor of constructing a collective with two elite performers and impactful depth with multiple two-way players.

Alexander, this season’s league MVP, and 24-year-old All-Star forward Jalen Williams, anchor the Thunder, the Western Conference champion which had the NBA’s best regular season record at 68-14 and are the favorite to win the title. Haliburton and 31-year-old frontcourt body snatcher Pascal Siakam, a three-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA selection, form the nucleus of the Pacers. These duos are surrounded by a mix of young and veteran players who possess skill sets that complement them.

The Thunder’s head coach, 40-year-old Mark Daigneault, a UConn alum, and rising young sideline general, and the Pacers’ certified championship commander, Rick Car-

moving on from him.

Logically, it wasn’t so much his aforementioned results but philosophical differences with members of the Knicks’ front office, namely Rose and William Wesley, the latter the team’s executive vice president - senior basketball advisor, when it came to issues including player usage, player development, lineups, and system structure. Rose and Wesley, who deserve effu-

sive praise for raising the Knicks from the depths of the standings when they were hired by Dolan in March 2020 to replace former team president Steve Mills, are near mute in speaking with the media and merely released a statement upon terminating Thibodeau, which in part read:

“Our organization is singularly focused on winning a championship for our fans. This pursuit led us to the difficult decision to inform Tom Thibodeau that we’ve decided to move in another direction.”

It might be a long time before Rose or Thibodeau publicly discuss the granular details of why a coaching change was made. That public discussion may never be had. Because of Rose’s CIA operative-like silence, maddening to many members of the press, names being mentioned on sports talk shows, in print and on social media as candidates to be the Knicks’ new head coach are just speculation and agents lobbying for their clients. What is a fact is that Thibodeau was the right man at the right time for the Knicks. The success and shortcomings of the team are equally shared by him, Rose and the players who did not deliver when the opportunities presented themselves. And whoever

lisle, who guided the Dallas Mavericks to the 2011 NBA title over LeBron James and the Miami Heat, have masterfully maximized their rosters. The Pacers play fast and uptempo, pushing the ball on offense and pressing and trapping on defense, using a style unique to today’s NBA game to vanquish the Knicks 4-2 in the conference finals.

The Thunder, the league’s best defensive team that can play big, small, rapidly

See KNICKS on page 54 See NBA FINALS on page 54

Tom Thibodeau was fired by the Knicks’ leadership on Tuesday after five seasons as the franchise’s head coach. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (right) and Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, going head-to-head in a regular season game in March, are resuming their battle in this year’s NBA Finals. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)