20 Y EA RS
Your Community Connection since 1994
Including Inglewood Airport Area • Baldwin Hills • Crenshaw/LA • Ladera Heights VOL. 23, No. 22
May 29, 2014
Gray, Burke Hit the Streets in Final Days of Campaign Maya Angelou
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ith less than one week to go, the 62nd Assembly District race is definitely on! Front runners Gloria Gray and Autumn Burke are leading the pack, and one of them is likely to become the new Assemblymember in the 62nd District, replacing Steve Bradford who is termed out. Simona Farisse is also in the race. The District includes the cities of Inglewood, El Segundo, Gardena, Hawthorne, Lawndale, Lennox and Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles communities of Venice, Westmont and Marina del Rey. Gray was elected to the West Basin Municipal Water District (West Basin) Board of Directors in 2006 and is the first African-American woman elected to this Board in its 65 years. She previously served on the Inglewood School Board from 1995-2003, and has held positions with the Los Angeles County Departments of Health and Human Services. Economic development, jobs and justice are
On The Inside: • News • Community • Entertainment • Health • Real Estate • Business
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Dead at 86
By Veronica Mackey
Gloria Gray the focus of Gray’s campaign. Burke is the daughter of former Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, and an entrepreneur. Autumn currently owns Mandeville Group, LLC, a professional consulting firm that offers business development, community outreach and energy efficiency consulting services. She has a background
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in real estate. Burke wants to create better jobs, safe and affordable housing and quality schools. Gray and Burke are moving right along, focused on their goals. But this is a political race, and what would it be without some fireworks? The Gray camp spent Tuesday at a press conference in Westchester, defending statements made by
Autumn Burke Farisse, described as “misinformation.” According to a statement from a Gray aide, the Farrise campaign sent mailers out, saying Gray was “responsible for the 2012 emergency State take over (of the Inglewood School District). A completely false statement as Gray’s term actually ended over 10 years ago in 2003 and had nothing to do with (Continued on page 2)
Off to College They Go By Thomas Bunn
wanted to start off this week by highlighting a young man who we spoke of earlier in the year. The young man’s name is Jalyn Bell, a high school senior at Morningside High School, who at the time was participating in the Dr. Martin Luther King speech contest as the High School contest winner. Bell delivered a powerful (Continued on page 2)
Inglewood Today Proudly Serving Inglewood for 20 Years
don’t recall the exact year that I drove to UC Irvine to see Dr. Maya Angelou. I only knew this was a moment I did not want to miss. I didn’t invite anyone else, not wanting to risk someone making me late. The auditorium was packed, no doubt, with scores of writers like myself, hoping for words of wisdom, some magical advice to make them great and Pulitzer Prize-worthy. She came on stage like the royal queen she was. Strong, vibrant, full of life and laughter, greeting us
Maya Angelou in that voice that could not be mistaken for anyone else’s—a female-sounding James Earl Jones. She sang, told stories and soothed our souls with her poetry and prose. She spoke of many things: her challenging childhood, how she was raped as a child by her mother’s boyfriend, how when a mob beat him to death for the crime after she testified, she didn’t speak again for 6 years. Her advice to writers was straight, no chaser: “What you need to do,” she said, “is find yourself a mean (Continued on page 2)
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